by Roger Smith
Jesus, the place is a dump.
Dirty laundry strewn across the room. The stench of something rotting in the kitchen.
Louise checks her watch and sees that she has been asleep for five hours, poleaxed after arriving back from Paradise Park, falling face first onto the bed.
Now her body buzzes with manic energy, more energy than she’s felt in months and the next two hours are lost to a frenzy of cleaning: junk food wrappers and dirty clothes are removed, the bed is stripped and remade with clean linen, the moldy dishes are washed and stacked and the fridge cleared of rotting food.
Louise, bagging the trash, eyeballs the Sea Point Mr. Delivery menu dangling like a limpet from her fridge and realizes she’s ravenous. She has no idea when she last ate.
Ripping the menu free, she stares at the pictures: pizzas, peri-peri chicken, burgers and shawarmas, all lushly photographed.
Food porn.
And it works on her.
She calls in an order—way more than she can eat. The chirpy girl on the other end with her singsong Cape Flats accent tells Louise the food will be with her in an hour.
Suddenly out of distractions, Louise finds herself sitting at the kitchen counter scratching at her scars, flashing back to the tattooed man with eyes like broken glass talking about eating human hearts, so she powers up her laptop and goes on-line, skipping past the endless roll-call of South African crime statistics, losing herself in the comfortingly distant horrors of Guatemalan earthquakes and East African genocide and Korean death camps.
When the doorbell rings she buzzes in the driver from Mr. Delivery, a middle-aged white man with a depressed air, looking uncomfortable in his branded yellow T-shirt, a zip up bag hanging from his shoulder.
He dumps the bag on the counter beside the laptop and opens it, revealing a shame-making cornucopia of food. Louise pays and over tips, getting only a grunt in return.
Nibbling on a French fry, she drags her mouse to wake up the sleeping computer and gorges while she carries on mindlessly surfing, landing back at her home page, a South African news site.
Stuffed with food she sits staring blankly at the monitor, jazzy graphics trying to sell her a Playstation and car insurance and holidays in Zanzibar. Then the display changes and she glimpses a photograph of Christopher Lane sprinting down a sports field, rugby ball tucked under his arm, blond her flying.
This jabs her out of her stupor and she is about to click the page dead when she reads the headline: TRAGEDY FOR YOUNG RUGBY STAR.
She expands the link and reads about the leg injury and this morning’s amputation. Beverley Lane is quoted as saying, “It’s been a terrible shock but Chris is being unbelievably brave and we are very proud of him.”
Louise laughs. She can’t stop herself—it’s as if the universe has reached down and whispered in her ear. The Lanes have been punished. She sees Achmat Bruinders sitting on the bench in that horrible little park, talking about the greatest punishment for a parent: to hurt what they love.
Beverley, the architect of the deception that killed Lyndall, has been forced to endure the maiming and mutilation of the son she adores.
It’s delicious.
But what about Michael, Louise wonders? He and Chris aren’t close, so how has this affected him? She allows herself to travel over to the house in Newlands, the house that is still part of her, imprinted in her memory, and she sees Michael living a diminished life, with an embittered wife and a crippled son. A life that will narrow and darken until he is an old man filled with regrets.
Yes, Louise decides as she shuts down the computer, Michael Lane has been punished, too.
18
The shrill yelp of the cell phone wakes Lane to his first hangover in twenty years. As he sits up, reaching for the Nokia blinking at him in the dark, he feels a wave of dizziness and nausea and has to lie down again, listening to the phone trill itself dead, trying to piece together the mosaic of booze-tinted memories of the night before.
The recollection of the kiss outside Tracy’s apartment fills him equally with shame and desire and when the phone starts to ring again he reaches over and answers it, expecting to hear her voice.
“Michael?”
“Tracy?”
“Who the fuck’s Tracy? It’s me, man, Jade.”
This gets him sitting upright. “What do you want?” He clicks on the lamp, turning the digital clock to face him. 5:40 a.m.
“Hang on,” Jade says, shouting over a sudden surge of loud music that cranks up the volume of Lane’s headache. He holds the phone away from his ear. A door slams, muffling the music, then she’s back. “Okay, can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Michael, listen, there’s a situation. I need another fifty grand.”
“What?”
“Tonight. I need it tonight, otherwise there’s gonna be big shit.”
“Jesus, Jade, we agreed—”
“Fuck, Michael, are you hearing me? I need the bucks. I don’t get it from you I’ll go to the media, sell my story.”
“They’ll never pay you that kind of money.”
“Michael, don’t fuck with me. Just get me the fifty.” He hears desperation in her voice. And fear. “Get it to me, or I’ll make your life a living fucken hell, I swear.”
“Okay, Jade, calm down. I’ll do it.”
“You’d better.”
“Relax. I will.”
“Then I’ll call you around five this afternoon. Ja?”
“Fine. Please don’t do anything crazy now.”
“Just get the money.”
She’s gone. Lane lays the phone beside the bed, his head throbbing, his stomach awash with acid.
As he stands he’s seized by dizziness. Bile rises in his throat and he almost spews. He breathes the vomit down, a cold sweat dappling his forehead.
Lane pulls on his robe and lurches through to the bathroom, hearing Beverley dressing for gym behind the closed bedroom door.
He drinks from the faucet until his stomach is distended, then he brushes his teeth and tongue. He’s combing his hair when the bedroom door opens. Lane steps out into the corridor to see his wife in her sweats, bag slung over her shoulder.
“Bev?” he says.
“Yes?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“I’m late for gym, Michael, and then I’m off to the hospital. We’ll catch up tonight.”
“No,” he says. “Now.”
She sees the look on his face and retreats into the bedroom. He follows her and closes the door; the first time he has been in this room in months. Lane sits down on the unmade bed and Beverley perches on the stool at her make-up mirror.
“What’s wrong?” his wife asks, shooting a glance at her silver Tag Heuer wristwatch—an anniversary gift from Lane.
The words come in a spurt as he tells her about Jade extorting one hundred thousand from him and tells her about this morning’s call.
Beverley shakes her head as he stumbles to a close.
“You fucking idiot, don’t you realize that by paying that little bitch you’ve admitted our guilt?”
“What else could I have done?”
“You could’ve told me, for a start.”
“You were so caught up with the whole Chris thing.”
“I would’ve handled it, Michael. Believe me.”
“How?”
She closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Okay, I want you to stay home today. Call that girl at the bookstore and tell her you’re sick.” She stares at him. “You hear me?”
“Why?”
“Because when we meet up with this blackmailing little bitch it’ll be on my terms. I don’t want her anywhere near you today.”
“We?”
“There’s no way I’m going to let you deal with this alone.”
“What about the money?”
“I’ll organize it, you just stay here. I’ll be back by five. If she calls before then let me know, alright?”
/> “Yes.”
She stands. “Can I rely on you, Michael?”
“Yes,” he says again.
She nods and leaves the room and Lane sinks back onto the bed and closes his eyes. He draws his legs into the fetal position and, clutching a pillow still warm from Beverley’s body—still redolent of her skin—he falls asleep.
19
Lane, shaved and dressed, sits in his chilly living room, gazing out at the black Northeaster driving in a storm off the Atlantic. Watching the water blur the windows Lane remembers an ocean voyage he took with his father when he was a boy, a trip on a mail ship from Cape Town to Durban. On the first day out the weather was foul, the boat tossed by squalls, the sky and the ocean merging in a yellow-gray smear.
The ship held only a handful of passengers and sea sickness drove them all to their cabins. Bernard Lane lay heaving on his bunk, the air thick with the stink of his vomit. When his father fell asleep eight-year-old Lane, entirely unaffected by the tempest, left the cabin and made his way onto the deck, marveling at the black waves breaking over the bow, feeling the spray on his face.
A man in a slicker appeared and took Lane up to the wheelhouse, the uniformed officers teasing him and complimenting him on his sea legs. The captain, a bearded Italian, let him take the wheel, Lane staring out at the massive swell, completely unafraid.
It is one of the happier memories of his childhood and Lane wonders what happened to that brave boy. The years have peeled him of his courage and he finds himself almost envying his ruthless little wife her resolve and fortitude.
The grandfather clock in the hallway—another ugly piece inherited from Beverley’s mother—chimes twelve times and Lane reaches for his phone, unable to delay any longer the call to the bookstore, feeling an adolescent nervousness as Tracy answers.
“Lane’s Books.”
“Tracy, it’s Michael.”
He hears a slight inhalation. She’s nervous, too. “Michael, how are you?”
“I’m fine. I won’t be coming in today.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Well, it’s this business with Chris. I need to be at the hospital.”
“Of course, I understand.”
“Tracy?”
“Yes?”
“I want to apologize, about last night, if I got carried away.”
She giggles and this reassures him. “Oh, no, please.”
“I really enjoyed myself.”
“Me too.”
“Then let’s do it again sometime, okay?”
“Yes. That’ll be nice.”
He ends the call, feeling slightly buoyed.
The low slung Brenda Passens appears with her screaming vacuum cleaner and drives him from the living room, the noise too much for his headache. Lane retreats upstairs and finds himself haunting Chris’s old bedroom. He clicks on the wall-mounted TV: a game of cricket coming live from Chennai, India playing Australia in a test match.
He loathes the game—dragged to endless matches by his father as a child, Bernard Lane in the pub afterward, joshing red faced men with boarding school nicknames—but the monotony soothes him and he falls asleep, waking when his wife’s car rumbles into the garage.
He walks downstairs to see Bev shrugging off her jacket in the kitchen. It’s nearly five, almost dark, the rain still lashing the house.
“Has she called?” Beverley says.
“No.”
“When she does, tell her you’ll meet her at the 7-Eleven in Kloofnek Road at seven. Don’t mention that I’ll be with you.”
“Why there?”
“I don’t want her anywhere near the bookstore. Let’s keep this as anonymous as we can.”
He nods and lifts the bottle of Scotch from the cupboard. “Want a drink?”
“No. And please don’t get drunk.”
“Christ, Beverley, it’s just one drink.”
As he finishes adding ice to the whiskey his phone rings. Private number.
“Yes?” he says.
It’s Jade. When he tells her to meet him at the convenience store she tries to question him, but he’s emphatic and she sounds hurried, spooked, and rings off after agreeing.
“Okay?” asks Bev.
“Yes.”
“I’m going to take a shower.”
“Where’s the money?”
“It’s in the car.”
Beverley leaves the room and he throws back his drink and pours another. A double.
20
Hard needles of rain slash down in the beams of Beverley’s Pajero. The demister roars but Lane has to wipe the fogged side window with his hand to see the girl sheltering in the doorway of the 7-Eleven, hugging herself, smoking.
“Stop,” he says. “That’s her.”
Beverley pulls over, hazards flashing. Lane lowers his window and the wind flings rain in at him.
“Jade!”
The girl doesn’t hear him, only looking up when Beverley taps the horn. Lane waves and Jade flicks away her cigarette and runs over to the car, splashing through the flooded gutter.
“What’s going on?” she says, blinking at Beverley, wet hair plastered to her head. She looks about twelve.
“Get in,” Lane says, reaching back and opening the rear door.
The girl slides aboard, bringing with her the smell of damp clothes, sweat and something chemical.
“Is this wifey?” she asks.
“Yes,” Lane says as Beverley accelerates into the traffic that flows up Kloofnek.
“Where the fuck are we going?”
“Somewhere private, where we can talk,” Beverley says, gloved hands on the wheel, eyes flicking to the rearview.
“Just stop the fucken car. Now.”
“Do you want your money?” Bev says.
“Ja.”
“Then shut your mouth.”
Lane waits for a tirade in reply but the girl is silent, and he has a sudden flash of what and whom this kid has run away from. There’s the scratch of a matchstick as Jade lights a cigarette.
Beverley’s gloved hands tighten on the wheel. “Put that out.”
“Fuck you.”
Bev prods at the button that lowers Jade’s window and the rain teems in.
“Fucken bitch,” the girl says, but she tosses the cigarette and Beverley raises the window.
Kloofnek snakes up toward Table Mountain, the black bulk lost in the rain and low cloud. Beverley breaks from the stream of traffic, turning left onto the narrow road slung like a belt along the lower slopes of the mountain, leading to the cable car. On a summer’s night this scenic drive, offering a sprawling vista of the city and the ocean, would be filled with the cars of lovers and tourists, but tonight it is sodden and empty.
Beverley continues for about a minute, until busy Kloofnek is left behind, then she slows and stops at a view site, only a low stone wall separating them from a steep plunge down into the bush.
Beverley cuts the engine and there is a sudden quiet, the rain no longer hammering on the roof of the car, the wind dropping to a whisper, as if the storm is recharging itself.
“Now you can get out and have that cigarette,” Beverley says.
The girl climbs from the Pajero and fires up another smoke. Beverley cracks her door, slings her backpack over her shoulder and joins Jade, leaving Lane marooned in the high SUV.
He opens his door and steps down, his shoes sinking into the mud. The cold stings his face but there is no rain now, just moisture from the mist that clings to the lower reaches of the mountain, muffling the sound of the city far below.
Jade says, “Where’s my money?”
“Right here,” Bev says, unzipping the pack and dipping a hand inside.
But it’s not money she brings out, it is a can of mace, and she lets Jade have it in the eyes at close range.
“Fucken bitch,” Jade says, flailing.
Lane watches, frozen with shock, as Bev kicks the girl in the stomach, dropping her to the muddy ground. And he kno
ws his wife has this all planned when she reaches into the pack, producing a plastic bag with a drawstring top. Beverley pulls the bag over the girl’s head and yanks the string tight.
Jade grabs at the bag, fighting to free herself, writhing and bucking.
“Help me Michael, for fuck's sake,” Bev says, grappling with the girl, suffocating her.
Jade sinks an elbow into Bev’s gut, throws the older woman off her and springs to her feet, ripping the bag from her head, sucking air. As she sprints for the road Lane sees car headlights piercing the mist, heading toward them.
Jade screams, waving her arms.
Lane takes off after the girl and grabs her. Jade fights like a demon, kicking, scratching, biting, but he manages to drag her behind the Pajero, falling on top of her just as the car hisses by and disappears into the mist.
Lane loosens his grip for a moment, looking toward Beverley for guidance, his wife still winded, lifting herself from the mud.
He hears a familiar ratcheting sound and yelps as a blade slices his face. Lane lashes out with a fist and gets lucky, taking the girl on her chin, stunning her. Grabbing Jade’s wrist, easily enfolding it in his hand, he twists and the utility knife slips from her fingers.
A light rain starts to fall, splashing into the puddles around the prone girl. Tapping on the knife that lies in the mud, the blade a muted pearl.
His breath coming in torn rasps as he straddles Jade, Lane knows that what his wife has done has doomed them, that if this girl gets free she will be the engine of his destruction.
He stretches for the knife, feels the shape of molded plastic on his fingertips, feels the serrations of the locking mechanism under his thumb, hears that ratcheting sound as he extends the blade to its maximum.
Lane grabs Jade’s sodden thatch of hair, lifting her jaw, exposing her throat. A knee catches him in the balls and the girl, slick as a mud wrestler, slides out from under him, ripping the knife from his grasp.