The New Girl (Downside)

by S. L. Grey

  ‘What’s racist?’

  ‘Where people discriminate – I mean judge or treat badly – other people because of the colour of their skin.’

  Jane looks up at her through those grey, unreadable eyes. ‘And not because they’re depreciating? Mother says that the problem with browns is that they depreciate too quickly.’

  ‘Depreciate? What do you mean by that, Jane?’ The child shrugs. What kind of parents has this child got? It sounds like she’s being fed a steady diet of ignorance and casual racism. ‘Are you finding it okay in the school, Jane? The other children... Has anyone been mean to you or anything like that?’

  ‘Mean, miss?’

  ‘Cruel. You know...’ God, she thinks, she’s really making a pig’s ear of this. She must be getting rusty. ‘Teasing? Bullying? You can always speak to me about anything that’s worrying you, you know that, right?’

  ‘Are you my chum, miss? Like in the book?’

  ‘Yes. I suppose I am.’

  ‘Do you have a baby in your tum?’

  ‘What? What made you ask that?’

  ‘One of the halfpints told me. Is it factual, miss? He said they come out of here.’ Jane pulls up her shirt, and points to her belly button. Tara gasps. The girl’s stomach is sliced with scar-tissue.

  Jesus, Tara thinks. A car accident? ‘What happened to you, Jane?’

  ‘Happened, miss?’

  ‘Your stomach. The scars.’ Come to think of it, aren’t they more like burn scars? Tara’s not really sure. And there’s that limp. Tara can’t see any sign of a leg-brace, but perhaps that’s also an injury from some sort of accident.

  ‘Oh. Mother says I shouldn’t talk about my carcass. She says that browns won’t embrace that. Do you like television, miss?’

  Tara’s struggling to follow Jane’s train of thought. ‘Yes. I suppose I do. Don’t get to see much of it, though.’

  ‘I love television, miss. You sound like television.’ She drops her voice, puts on an American accent. ‘Motherfucka, I’m a gonna shoot a cap in ya ass.’ And then she laughs – it’s a shrill sound, but it makes Tara smile all the same.

  ‘That’s another word you shouldn’t really use, Jane.’

  ‘Which word, miss?’

  ‘That cuss word.’

  ‘Cuss?’

  ‘That... um... word beginning with “m”.’ She isn’t getting anywhere. ‘Come on. We’d better get going.’

  By the time she and Jane make it outside into the playground, the other children are already lined up in perfect, silent rows, Duvenhage pacing up and down in front of them like a sergeant major. She ushers Jane over to Ms du Preez’s line at the far side of the yard.

  Tara feels the weight of eyes on her back. She turns, sees the swarthy maintenance man next to the grounds staff and cleaners a few metres away, looking in their direction. She lifts her hand in acknowledgment, but he doesn’t respond. She’s about to dismiss this as more of that rude behaviour she encountered outside Sybil Fontein’s office, when it hits her that it’s not her he’s staring at, after all, it’s Jane. While Clara briskly does the head count, an exercise that takes several minutes, he doesn’t once lift his eyes from her; he doesn’t seem to notice Tara’s increasingly pointed glare. His intense expression is making her feel uneasy. It’s almost... hungry.

  She’s relieved when the children are dismissed and Jane follows her classmates safely back into the school. Tara thinks about confronting the maintenance man, asking him what the hell he thought he was doing staring at a child like that, but he’s already making his way to the groundskeepers’ shed and she’s not in the mood to make a scene. Besides, it’s almost break time, and Baby Tommy is waiting.

  She isn’t late to collect Martin this afternoon from Encounters, but it’s a close-run thing. It had been a real effort to drag herself away from Baby Tommy. She’s finding the work so... fulfilling somehow. And it’s not just the money. The feeling of bringing him to life is far more intense than when she Reborned her first baby, Baby Pooki; even stronger than when she created Baby Paul.

  She waves at Malika, who’s lounging against her black BMW convertible, waiting for her older daughter, Sienna, to slouch her way to the car. Tara isn’t a fan of Sienna, a twelve-year-old mini-Malika with highlighted hair and painted acrylic nails. Tara remembers meeting her at Martin’s birthday party last year. She seemed older than her years, spent most of the party huddled in a corner with a couple of mini-skirted pre-teens, and Tara had overheard them making bitchy comments about their classmates. She has a vague recollection that Sienna and her sidekicks were accused of picking on one of the outreach kids – something about creating a Facebook hate group.

  Martin picks up his bag and slinks into the car.

  ‘How are you feeling, Martin?’

  ‘Fine, thanks,’ he says, his polite tone surprising her.

  But he doesn’t look fine, Tara thinks. He looks exhausted, his face muscles slack, his shoulders drooping. ‘How was Encounters?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘The meeting?’

  ‘Fine, thanks.’

  ‘Have fun?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She follows Malika’s car up the driveway, is about to accelerate into the main road, when she spots a small, familiar figure standing among a cluster of commuters waiting for their taxi home. She’d recognise Jane’s odd-coloured hair anywhere. What is she doing here? She should have been home ages ago. Has she also been to Encounters?

  ‘You know that kid, Martin?’

  ‘Huh?’

  Tara gestures in Jane’s direction. ‘That girl. She in your Encounters group?’

  ‘No.’

  She makes a decision, shoots out into the traffic, switches on her hazard lights, brakes sharply and pulls over next to her.

  ‘What are you doing here, Jane?’ she calls out of the window, ignoring the furious blare of horns from the cars forced to stream around her.

  ‘I’m waiting, miss.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be out on the road, sweetie. It’s dangerous.’ It’s worse than dangerous, Tara thinks, remembering the predatory way that maintenance man stared at her. ‘How do you normally get home?’ She can’t walk, surely. That would be asking for trouble.

  ‘Danish.’

  ‘Danish?’

  ‘Danish takes me home.’

  ‘Who’s that? Your brother?’

  ‘No.’

  Maybe it’s her mother’s deadbeat boyfriend. Tara pictures a tattooed thug, breath stinking of booze, screeching up to the school gates in a muscle car with blacked-out windows. Her imagination is really running away with itself. ‘Isn’t he coming to fetch you today?’

  ‘No. I told him not to.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I wanted to exit with you. You’re my chum, miss.’

  ‘Oh, sweetheart,’ Tara says. Is the poor kid so lonely that she’s waited all this time on the off chance that she’ll turn up? Thinking about it, how did Jane know Tara would be back to fetch Martin? And if she didn’t go to Encounters, what has she been doing in the hours since school let out? ‘It’s not safe for you to be out here by yourself.’

  There’s another flurry of beeping horns, followed by, ‘Move, bitch!’ She’d better get going.

  ‘Get in, Jane. I’ll give you a lift.’

  Tara waits for Martin to protest, is surprised when all she hears is a muttered ‘Aw what?’

  The girl smiles and jumps into the front seat. Martin always sits in the back as if Tara’s his taxi driver; it’s pleasant to have a passenger next to her for once.

  ‘Put your seat belt on, sweetie.’

  ‘Belt?’

  Hasn’t the poor kid ever been in a car before? Maybe she only travels by minibus taxis – coffins on wheels, as Stephen calls them. Come to think of it, maybe those horrendous scars are the result of a car accident after all. Tara leans over her, pulls the belt across the child’s skinny body.

  ‘Can I have a hug?’ Jane asks, i
n the same gruff American accent she used before.

  Before Tara can answer, Jane throws her arms around her neck and Tara finds herself hugging her back. Jane’s frame is fragile, feels almost like it could snap under her embrace. She smells of dried leaves and strawberry essence.

  Tara feels her chest tighten. Shame, poor kid must be starved for affection. She gently disentangles the girl’s arms from around her neck, indicates and pulls the car up onto the pavement so that she isn’t blocking the traffic.

  ‘Martin, say hello to Jane.’

  ‘Whatever,’ he says, but so drowsily, it sounds like he’s about to fall asleep.

  ‘Hello,’ Jane says, turning round in her seat to wave at him. ‘How are you today I’m fine thanks kay bye.’ She pauses, stares at Martin for several intense seconds. ‘You’re a forespecial.’

  Martin shakes his head and curls up against the window.

  ‘Where do you live, sweetie?’ Tara asks.

  Jane digs in her backpack, pulls out a laminated pink card and hands it to Tara. The childish script on it reads: ‘If lost please restore to 67a Excelsior Avenue, Bedfordview.’ Jesus, Tara thinks, it’s like something you’d tie around a dog’s neck. The address doesn’t sound like a slum area, but as far as she can tell, in this country, names mean nothing. Tara taps it into her GPS, waits for the gadget to boot up. That’s odd, she thinks, the house is only a couple of kilometres from Crossley College. Tara’s used to Joburg’s messy and often contradictory layout – shanty towns sitting cheek-by-jowl with Tuscan-style mansions – but as far as she’s aware, the school’s surrounding area is resolutely upper class, peppered with Virgin Actives and delicatessens.

  Tara pulls out into the traffic, follows the GPS’s directions. Jane leans over and fiddles with the radio dials, filling the car with static interspersed with gabbling radio chatter. If Martin had done this, Tara would have stopped him immediately, but she doesn’t have the heart to spoil Jane’s fun. Poor little mite clearly has a hard enough life as it is.

  The GPS woman guides her through a complex warren of side streets, and within minutes Tara turns into Excelsior Avenue, an upmarket street lined with McMansions and gated complexes. She hadn’t expected this. Perhaps Jane isn’t one of the outreach kids after all.

  ‘You have reached your destination,’ the GPS voice says as Tara cruises past a property she’s noticed before – well, she could hardly forget it. Scores of statues, most of which look like they’ve been bought wholesale from a garden centre, are cemented into its towering stucco walls. A triple row of dryads, half-naked nymphs balancing water urns and cherubs with smiles so poorly rendered that they look like grimaces of pain, jostle for space either side of a rusting gold gate. Stephen had driven her down here a couple of months ago, slowing down so that they could gawp at the house. ‘Probably some Greek drug lord’s half-completed vanity mansion,’ he’d sneered. ‘More money than taste.’

  Assuming that the GPS must have made a mistake, she prepares to accelerate, then spots the gold curls of the number ‘67a’ mosaicked onto the bare breasts of a concrete nymph.

  Ensuring there are no cars behind her, she reverses, and swings the Pajero around onto the grass verge.

  ‘This is your house, Jane?’

  Jane nods.

  What now? She can’t just drop the kid off and run. What if no one’s home? Besides, she should probably have a word with Jane’s parents, tell them that their daughter was hanging around in the main road – a job she’s not relishing in the slightest. What if Stephen’s right and they are gangsters or drug dealers? But she doesn’t have much of a choice.

  She turns to Martin. ‘I won’t be long. Keep your door locked.’

  Martin shrugs and mumbles something she hopes is a ‘yes’.

  She helps Jane unclick her belt, and together they approach the gates. Tara searches for an intercom, but Jane steps forward and nudges the vast plate-metal slabs open. So much for security. The house itself is fronted by packed dirt peppered with weeds and pools of dried concrete – more like an abandoned building site than a front garden. Its partially completed facade, which appears to have been designed with the Parthenon (or a cheesy casino) in mind, is similarly adorned with statues. In among the generic cherubs and Michelangelo’s Davids, Tara makes out several likenesses of the Hindu goddess Kali, as well as mythological figures she doesn’t recognise. She recoils at a male figure with the head of what looks to be a squid, a woman with three breasts and a stump for a hand. Jesus. She’s almost sure that a couple of the cherubs’ heads are fused together like conjoined twins, but before she can look closer, Jane grabs her hand and tugs her towards the plain wooden front door, which, in comparison to the rest of the place, looks reassuringly benign. Used to entering South African houses by running the gauntlet of security guards, intercoms and Trellidors, Tara’s shocked when Jane pushes it open – she doesn’t even need to turn the handle.

  She’s expecting to walk into some kind of over-the-top reception area – after the house’s insane exterior, she’s imagining a pink marbled floor, maybe a statue of Venus – so she’s taken aback when they step straight into an unfurnished, double-height entrance hall that stinks of damp concrete. Work must have been halted mid-renovation, Tara assumes as she checks out the plastered walls and bare, screeded floor. To her right, a partially tiled staircase sweeps upwards, the top steps disappearing into darkness.

  Jane skips towards an arched doorway to the left and leads Tara into a vast kitchen, which, in stunning contrast to the neglected entrance hall, looks like it’s been cut straight out of a model-home catalogue. It’s bright in here – too bright. Rows of strip lights range the ceiling, and it doesn’t take her long to realise they’re the only source of light in the room. The windows have been sealed shut with wood panels. Why would they do that? The room reeks of burnt coffee beans, and it’s not difficult to discover why. There’s an extensive collection of appliances arrayed on the kitchen counters, including three coffee machines burbling with black liquid.

  ‘Is your mother in, Jane?’

  ‘Mother’s always in, miss,’ Jane says, for once sounding animated, almost cheerful.

  ‘Could you fetch her for me?’

  ‘Yes, miss.’ Jane disappears through a green door at the far side of the kitchen, slamming it behind her.

  The minutes tick by, and Tara begins to get antsy. She can’t leave Martin alone in the car for much longer but she’s reluctant to follow Jane through that door. She paces up and down the room, pausing when she notices a cardboard box, the word ‘Research’ scrawled on its lid in amongst the jumble of appliances. She knows she shouldn’t pry, but she can’t resist peeking inside it. It’s full of DVD box sets: Jersey Shore, The Real Housewives of Orange County, Desperate Housewives Series 3, Rock of Love, 50 Classic Survivor Moments, The Wire, as well as several films – Independence Day, Pretty Woman, Lars and the Real Girl, Saw 7, Love Actually and Bringing Out the Dead. Eclectic taste, Tara muses. Shoved to the side of the box there’s a battered cookery book. Checking to make sure she’s not about to be disturbed, Tara hauls it out. It clearly dates from the sixties or seventies; there’s a grainy photograph of a shiny chicken on the cover beneath the words ‘Family Meals for Four’. She flicks through it, almost drops it as several photographs flutter out from its pages onto the floor.

  ‘Shit,’ she mutters, bending down to retrieve them. Most seem to be close-ups of plants and vegetables, then she comes across several snaps of a man and a woman posing next to a station wagon. Jane’s parents? Tara hopes not. The woman is skeletally thin, with brick-red hair and lips that are so puffed with silicone they look ready to split; the man’s skin is too smooth to be natural, and his nose looks far too small for his face – clearly the result of too much plastic surgery.

  ‘Good afternoon!’ a woman’s voice calls from behind her. Tara whirls around, sees the woman from the photograph slipping through the arched doorway. Tara tries not to gawp at her outlandish appearance, whi
ch is accentuated in the flesh. Her ballooning lips are smeared in orange lipstick, white scalp patches show through the red curls of her hair and she’s dressed in the same skin-tight lacy bodysuit she’s wearing in the photograph.

  ‘Hi,’ Tara manages. ‘Sorry to barge in like this, but—’

  The woman takes Tara’s hand in both of hers, flutters a series of air kisses around her head. ‘Welcome to home,’ she says, trying to smile, although those swollen lips make it near impossible. ‘It’s so pleasant of you to drop here like this.’

  Is she foreign? Tara can’t place her accent. It doesn’t have that clipped South Africanness about it, but nor does it sound Russian or European. ‘Um, I volunteer at the library – you know, at Crossley College. I drove Jane home. She let me in and I—’

  ‘You drove Jane home? That’s pleasant of you. Can I offer you a refreshment? Coffee? We have lots of coffee.’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks.’ Tara can’t keep her eyes off the woman’s neck, which is several shades darker than the smooth plastic of her face. The remnants of a disastrous fake tan, perhaps? ‘Look, Ms... I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.’

  The woman attempts to smile again. ‘That’s because I haven’t told you what it is.’

  Tara waits for her to give it, but the woman simply stares at her as if she’s waiting for her to continue the conversation. After several awkward seconds, Tara says, ‘I’m afraid Jane got it into her head that I would take her home.’ The woman still doesn’t respond. Is she drunk? Could this be the source of the neglect? ‘She was waiting outside on the main road. She said that someone called Danish usually fetches her.’

  ‘Oh that karking Danish!’ The woman laughs as if Tara’s just said something hilarious. She looks at the photographs Tara’s left littered on the counter top.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have been prying. Really, there’s no excuse—’

  ‘Do you like this?’ the woman asks, gesturing to a close-up of the man.

  ‘Um... very nice.’

  ‘Isn’t he scenic? He could be a mascot, couldn’t he?’