Sacrifices

by Roger Smith

  “Of course, Lou.”

  Giving her his back he crosses to the fridge, gets two blocks of ice from the freezer and drops them into a cut glass tumbler. Lifting a bottle of Lagavulin from the cupboard he pours a generous tot of single malt over the cubes, hearing them whisper and crackle. He takes a slug, letting it wash his mouth, feeling the peaty whiskey warm his gut.

  “What’s on your mind?” Lane asks, leaning against the kitchen counter.

  “Tell me what really happened last night.”

  He sips, trying to keep his face free of the anxiety that has hold of his entrails. “What do you mean? You know what happened.”

  Louise shakes her head, her eyes fixed on his, and he has a hard time holding her gaze. “There’s no way Lynnie did it, Michael.”

  “I know you don’t want to believe it, Louise. It’s a terrible thing.”

  She frees him from those eyes for a moment as she stares at her small hands with their unvarnished, pruned nails, fingertips stroking the wood of the table. Then she looks up at him again.

  “I’ve always trusted you, Michael.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” he says, hearing an echo of his dead father’s pomposity in his voice.

  “But Bev . . . not so much.” Louise holds up a hand. “Ja, I know you’re going to defend her. That’s your job, isn’t it?” She produces something vaguely resembling a smile. It quickly evaporates and she says, “Remember that day Chris grabbed me? In the pool house?”

  Lane nods, swirling the whiskey in the tumbler, the melting ice tolling softly against the glass.

  “He would have raped me, Michael, if you hadn’t come in when you did.”

  “Jesus, Lou, that’s taking it a bit far. He was just a stupid kid who let his hormones overwhelm him.”

  She shakes her head. “He would’ve. And I saw what Bev did, how she handled my mom and me. How she made it all go away, and even made me feel that it was my fault, somehow.”

  “Of course it wasn’t your fault.”

  “No. No, it wasn’t. And you should’ve done something then, with your son. Like you should’ve when Chris and his buddies nearly killed that black guy last year.”

  Lane buys himself time by taking a sip of Scotch, the alcohol suddenly bitter to his tongue. “What do you know about that?”

  Louise shrugs. “My mother’s jacked into the domestic worker grapevine, Michael, and you know how they gossip.”

  “You told that cop about it, didn’t you? Perils?”

  “Yes.” She fixes her gaze on him and he can feel a bead of sweat break free from his armpit and trace a cold trail down his ribs. “What I’m thinking is that you and Beverley are covering up for Chris again.”

  “Lou, where are you going with this?”

  “I believe Christopher killed that girl. Lyndall wasn’t anywhere near here. But Beverley came up with a plan, didn’t she, Michael? And you went along with it, just like before.”

  Lane puts his glass down and tries to speak with an authority he doesn’t feel. “Louise, God knows we’re all stretched to the limit, but what you’re saying is dangerous. I think you should go now.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Michael. Please, not you.”

  Her voice breaks and Lane remembers her as a child, sitting at this table in her dressing gown, starved for the scraps of affection he tossed her way, and seeing himself in her eyes Lane understands how far he has strayed from the man he once was, and wonders if he has traveled too far, now, to ever recover.

  He hears the rumble of Beverley’s Pajero as it pulls into the garage. The engine cuts and the driver’s door slaps shut.

  Her composure restored, Louise stands. “I’m not going to let this go, Michael. I’m not fourteen anymore.”

  She steps out the back door, closing it quietly. Her shadow passes the kitchen window and then she’s gone.

  “How many Scotches have you had?” his wife asks as she enters the kitchen, dressed in black tights, running shoes and a sweat top, a gym bag slung over her shoulder. Her hair is still damp from the shower at Virgin Active in Claremont.

  “This is my first,” Lane says, “and it’ll be my last.”

  “We’ve got to hold it together, Mike, okay?”

  He nods.

  “Be a darling and bring me a glass of wine,” Bev says, dumping her bag on the counter, heading for the living room.

  Lane swallows the dregs of his whiskey and finds an open Riesling in the fridge, removes the cork and sniffs the bottle. It smells drinkable so he pours a glass and takes it through.

  Bev sits on the couch, in the buttery light of a table lamp, removing her Nikes and white socks, tucking her feet under her. She takes the glass of wine, sipping at it with a small grunt of appreciation.

  Lane crosses to the window and stands with his back to his wife, staring out at the mauve dusk, the Southeaster dancing the branches of the mountain cypresses that line the driveway.

  “That woman cop came to my office today.”

  He watches Beverley’s reflection in the window. She sets her glass down on a side table and plays with a strand of her short hair, the only tell that she is nervous.

  “What did she want?”

  “To ask me if I had anything to add about last night.”

  “And did you?”

  “No. I said we’d told her everything.” He turns to Bev. “She knew about that business with Chris last year.”

  Beverley laughs. A throaty chuckle, ribald and a little coarse, hinting at the carnality beneath her polished exterior.

  “God, how typical.”

  “Meaning?”

  “She’s on the bloody take, Mike, like they all are.” He crosses his arms, watching her. “Did you see the pantsuit she was wearing last night?” Lane shakes his head. “It was an Armani. Are you telling me a cop can afford one of those suits? That’s three months’ pay for her.”

  Lane tries to remember what the woman had worn to the bookstore, flashes on her legs crossing beneath fabric that shone like oil on water.

  “So?” he says.

  “So, she’s trying to soften you up, looking for an opportunity to put her hand in your pocket.” He stares at Beverley. “Don’t stress about her, Michael. Should there be a problem, which there won’t, a bit of money will smooth it away.”

  His wife’s philosophy in a nutshell, Lane thinks.

  “Just keep calm, Mike. This will all be behind us in a few days.”

  “Beverley, it’s not too late,” he says.

  “For what?”

  “To tell the truth.”

  “Michael . . .”

  “Jesus, Bev, what we’re doing to Lyndall is inhuman.”

  “We have no choice.”

  “Yes, we do have a choice. We can come clean and get Chris some shyster lawyer who’ll plea bargain this whole thing away.”

  “Michael, stop. You’re being naïve and you know it. Our son will be sent to prison.”

  “He killed that girl.”

  “So he should take his punishment? Is that what you’re saying?” Lane doesn’t answer. “Like you took yours?”

  “There’s no comparison, Beverley.”

  She flies off the couch and he thinks she going to strike him, but she just comes in so close that he can feel a fine spray of spittle on his face when she hisses, “We will never let anything happen to our son. Never. Are you understanding me, Michael?”

  A noise gets Lane turning and he sees Christopher standing in the hallway at the foot of the stairs, watching them.

  The boy crosses to the kitchen. The fridge door opens and slams shut, and he returns carrying a six-pack of beer, jogging up the stairs, the wood shuddering beneath his weight.

  Beverley grips Lane by the arm, hard enough to bruise his flesh. “Michael, you’re not going to do anything crazy, are you?”

  He says nothing, shaking his arm free.

  “Jesus, Mike, look at this bloody country: more murders a day than a war zone, politicians’ wives
running coke, every damned cop with his hand out. Why should we play by some outmoded rules?”

  “You’re trying to justify what we’re doing as some kind of political action?”

  “I’m saying that the straight and narrow isn’t there anymore, so why try to walk it, for Christ’s sake?” Beverley stares into his eyes. “There’s no turning back now, Michael. Understand?”

  He doesn’t reply and steps through the sliding doors, inhaling air thick with dust and pollen. Avoiding the pool, he wanders into the garden as a gaudy moon rises fat and yellow beyond the trees that grow dense near the perimeter wall.

  He’s not sure how long he stands in the gloom, his hair and clothes whipped by the Southeaster as if he’s on the deck of a ship, before he’s drawn toward the rectangle of light from the garage, the roller door still raised. Lane’s tempted to get into his car and drive into the night, but he dismisses the thought and presses a button on the garage wall, the door shuddering and clanking as it closes.

  When Lane turns to walk into the kitchen his son stands in the doorway, blocking his path, bare feet spread, thick thighs stretching the fabric of his shorts.

  “Move, Christopher,” Lane says.

  His son’s reply is to shove Lane in the chest, sending him sprawling against the side of Bev’s car. Christopher steps into the garage, muscles swelling beneath his tank vest, and Lane feels the scale of him, the sheer power. Smells the sourness of his sweat.

  When Lane pushes himself away from the car, his son lays a palm against his chest and shoves him again, hard, and Lane hits his head against the door of the high Pajero.

  “We’re not going to have a problem are we?” Chris says, crowding him.

  “Get the hell away from me,” Lane says, trying to dodge his son.

  Christopher laughs and before Lane has a chance to lift a hand in defense the boy reaches down and grabs him by the testicles, squeezing hard. An agonizing pain robs Lane of his wind and he gasps and folds.

  His son releases him and Lane slumps to the concrete in agony, the boy lifting a foot, ready to kick him in the ribs.

  “That’s enough, Chris.”

  Beverley stands in the doorway, looking down at Lane, her face expressionless.

  “Come,” she says to her son, and he nods and obeys and the two of them disappear into the house.

  When Lane can breathe again he manages to sit up, wiping snot from his nose, wiping tears of pain and humiliation from his face.

  He stands and hobbles into the kitchen, the TV chattering from the living room. Grabbing the bottle of Lagavulin and a glass, Lane limps to the stairs. His wife and son sit side by side on the couch, ignoring him, the tube flickering on their faces. Beverley’s right arm lies on the backrest, her fingers toying with the boy’s blond hair, so like her own.

  Lane goes up to the guest room and closes the door. He sags down onto the bed and pours himself a second drink for the first time in twenty years.

  14

  Louise sits at the counter in the kitchenette, an untouched bowl of cereal before her, staring at her mother who is slumped on the couch, lost in an Afrikaans soapie on TV. She searches for some trace of herself in the older woman’s dark face, with its high, wide cheekbones and broad nose, but—as always—can find none. Louise and Lyndall are thin and small-boned, with almost elfin features and light streaks in their wavy hair. Their mother is chunky, running to fat, her hair an unmanageable tangle of tight curls.

  Denise Solomons looks up. “What is it, Lou? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, Ma,” Louise says, emptying the food into the trash and rinsing the bowl at the sink.

  Another lie. She’s been lying to her mother since she came home. Told her she saw the cop, Perils, and that she’d promised to keep the investigation open. Told her that she spoke to Lynnie on the phone and that he’s fine, locked up with guys his age.

  Her mother knows enough about Pollsmoor to fear that her too-pretty son has been thrown in with a bunch of older predators, and Louise has said nothing about the terror in Lyndall’s voice, his garbled pleas to be buried Muslim.

  Louise crosses the room and sits on the arm of the couch, staring at the screen, but seeing the expression on Michael Lane’s face in the kitchen earlier, when she confronted him. The certainty that he lied to her, that he and his bitch wife are sacrificing Lyndall to protect their psycho son fills her with a rage so intense that she feels her fingers tearing at the worn fabric of the old couch, a hand-me-down from the Lanes.

  Soaring strings play over the rolling credits of the soap opera and Denise mutes the TV.

  “What time can you go and see Lynnie tomorrow?”

  “After lunch, I think. I need to call Pollsmoor in the morning.” Battling to keep her voice level.

  “How could he do this, Lou? Kill that girl and hurt Chris?”

  Louise almost shares her suspicions with her mother, but she bites back her words. Denise Solomons idolizes the Lanes, sees them as the saviors of her family. This is a burden Louise has to carry alone.

  “I’ll talk to him tomorrow, Ma. Then we’ll know more.”

  Denise nods, rubbing her eyes. Her skin has a gray tinge, like meat left too long in the sun, and she looks exhausted and unwell.

  “Why don’t you go lie down?” Louise says. “I’ll bring you some tea.”

  “No, let me stay up for a bit.” She smiles. “But a cup of tea would be nice.”

  Louise crosses to the kitchen and boils the kettle, dropping a Rooibos teabag into a mug, adding hot water and the two heaped spoons of sugar that her mother demands, despite the advice of her doctor. She stirs the tea, the little vortex of liquid triggering an unwanted flashback of little Lou slipping through the looking-glass into Michael Lane’s promised land and Louise—the past a more defined, distinct place than the present—feels such intense dislocation that she has to grab hold of the kitchen counter to anchor herself, fighting the panic that threatens to overwhelm her.

  “Lou? Lou?”

  She blinks and looks across at her mother, who is staring at her.

  “You okay?”

  Louise manufactures a smile. “I’m fine, Ma. Just a bit tired is all.”

  She carries the mug of tea and places it on an embroidered doily on the table next to the couch.

  “Ma,” she says, “tell me about the farms.”

  Asking this, even though she knows she’s being selfish and cruel, that she’s forcing her mother to recycle old, stale lies. But she needs some soothing reassurance now, even if it comes from a threadbare fiction.

  Her mother clucks. “I tole you about them, Lou. A thousand blessed times.”

  “Please,” she says.

  Her mother sighs and shakes her head, but she smiles as she tells Louise about growing up on a vineyard a hundred miles up-country, generations of her family laborers on the wine farm. Denise gives the fairy tale version: the clean air, the beautiful mountains and the sharp scent of the grapes being pressed. Louise, as she has since she was old enough to read, can’t stop herself from filling in the blanks: the laborers paid a pittance in cash, the rest in liquor; the so-called tot system, keeping these people drunk and enslaved, producing babies misshapen by fetal alcohol syndrome.

  But she lets the truth go, for a moment, her mother’s sentimental evocation of another world a balm, soothing away the anxiety that gnaws at her.

  She closes her eyes, holding her mother’s hand, letting this simple woman’s guttural voice—a voice that so shamed her the very few times she brought a school friend home—carry her into a bucolic fantasy. She sees a horse and cart crossing a shallow stream, heading toward a thatched roof cottage that stands in the shade of big, green trees.

  The Hay Wain, of course. The painting of an English landscape by John Constable had so entranced her when, as a nine-year-old, she’d found it in a school library book that she’d done the unthinkable: torn the page out and smuggled it home in her satchel. She stuck it in the photo album she still keeps hid
den in her closet. Stuck it on the page beside a picture taken on Christmas day when she was six, Louise sitting on Michael Lane’s lap out on the front lawn, smiling a gap-toothed smile, gripping a giant pink bear that almost dwarfed her.

  “And Daddy?” Louise says, her eyes still closed. “Tell me about Daddy.”

  Denise sniffs and produces a tissue from the sleeve of her dress, dabbing her nose and eyes, lost now in the story she has told many, many times.

  A story Louise believes not one word of.

  “He was a wonderful man, your father.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “He was handsome, like Lynnie. But taller.” She blows her nose. “I tole you all this, Lou. Why you asking me again?”

  “Please, Ma. Please. Just tell me. It makes me happy. Tell me again how you met.”

  And her mother tells of a dance in a rural hall, in the colored part of the small town, a charming young teacher sweeping a farm girl off her feet as he whirled her around the floor to strident banjo and accordion music. Tells her of their romance and their marriage and the two small children that came in quick succession.

  Denise stops and Louise opens her eyes and sees her mother’s face, a mask of pain before she fakes a smile.

  “Make me another cup of tea, Lou. Please.”

  Louise nods and heads through into the kitchenette, clicking on the kettle. She doesn’t press her mother to continue. To tell her how happy they had been until one night a fire had raged through the valley, consuming a vineyard, jumping fire breaks until it reached the few small houses, whitewashed with thatched roofs and Dutch gables, that stood by the stream.

  How her father had saved his wife and children and run back into the house to rescue their belongings, never to emerge.

  A story lifted, of course, from one of her mother’s soap operas.

  Louise adds sugar to the tea and takes the cup across to Denise, who smiles her thanks.

  Louise says goodnight and walks into her bedroom, fetches her nightgown and PJs, then goes into the cramped bathroom and closes the door. She runs water into the tub and strips off her jeans, sitting down on the closed lid of the toilet.