Rotten Peaches

by Lisa de Nikolits

  “What? What do you mean? About Betty and Rosie?”

  “You are dead to me. Don’t ever contact me again.” I want to add a childish, vicious remark like I hope she’ll get syphilis and go mad but I’m not sure if women get syphilis and I can also, on some level, understand her having fallen for Dirk. Hadn’t I? He cheated on me but then I was his cheat when he was with Chrizette. And so it went around. What had I expected?

  I end the call abruptly. I need to get drunk. All I can see is Betty’s sweet face, with her dark eyes, and her concerned look as she cocks her head to one side when she looks at me. Was her concern fake? We have been through so much together. I can’t believe I’ll never hug her again. But, come to think of it, she never hugged me. I always hugged her. I thought she liked it when I hugged her. Now I wonder if I have unwittingly forced myself on her my entire life. Had she, like Rosie, hated me all along? I can’t bear the thought.

  I go down to the bar and order a bottle of wine. I down the first glass and try to sip the second one more slowly. I need faster action to numb my pain and I order a shot of scotch on the side and I throw it back.

  “A beautiful woman such as yourself should never drink alone,” a British accent pronounces and I look up.

  “I drink alone by choice,” I retort. “And if you want to join me, best you don’t make stupid remarks like that.”

  The man laughs and sits down. He’s good-looking and well dressed, the kind of man who could be a lawyer or a serial killer. I look at him sharply. “What made you think that was an invitation? The next thing you say will determine whether you stay or go.”

  “My sister loved your last book,” the man says.

  “Only the last one? But not the previous ones hey?”

  “Whoa. You’re not exactly friendly, are you?” The man leaves and I make no move to stop him.

  The bartender grins at me and puts another shot of scotch in front of me.

  “On me,” he says and he goes back to texting on his phone while I admire his muscled forearms.

  I would have preferred to be hit on by him, a muscular young stud, but I’m too old for him. I sigh. No wonder Dirk couldn’t get it up with me, but he could with Theresa. Theresa is a simple person really. Saying that makes me sound like a bitch but it’s true. She would no doubt have tried to make him feel better, whereas I only ever worried about what I was feeling. I have always been too intense, too deeply mired in the darkness of my own thoughts. Selfish, that’s me.

  It’s all my fault. Even Betty said that. After I split with one of my many lovers, I told Betty that he had turned out to be boring. I said it wasn’t my fault, that I had to end it, that no one could be expected to stay with boring.

  Betty sniffed. “You. Even when you were a little girl, one day you wanted your friends to visit and the next day, no, you didn’t want them. Then boyfriends. One day you liked a boy, then no, he was boring. It is not the man, it is you.”

  I had no reply for Betty at first. I knew what she said was true.

  “I am who I am,” I finally said. “And if that makes me a bad person, so be it.”

  “Eish! I never said you were bad,” Betty scolded me. “But I am saying don’t blame the men.”

  I don’t want to think about Betty. I look at myself in the bar mirror and I see that the bartender is watching me.

  He leans on the bar. “You have a fascinating face. I just watched a thousand expressions move across it, none of them happy. What were you thinking about?”

  “Lost opportunities. But how can you regret losing something you never had?”

  “There’s always time to want something new,” he says and I notice that he has fantastic upper arms, strong and shapely, while his hands are elegant and his fingers are long and somewhat bony.

  “But is there?” I ask absently. “That’s the trouble with me. I constantly want something new. How long can that go on? I’ve never been happy.”

  “I’m always up for a new adventure,” the bartender says, missing my point. “I’m Keith. Would you like to go on an adventure with me, go on a jol?”

  “Where?”

  “A party. I know a guy.” He looks at his watch. “I’m knocking off in fifteen minutes. Come with me, you’ll have fun.”

  I nod. Ja well no fine, I will go with him. Maybe it isn’t too late to try something new.

  Half an hour later, I follow him to his car. It’s a skedonk of a thing, and the door makes a groaning noise when he opens it for me. The chassis is nearly on the ground and I want to run away, but I remind myself that this is an adventure. I’m thirty-six years old and I need to have some fun. This is fun, right?

  We drive away from the airport and I’m suddenly tired. Such a party animal, not. I would prefer to be in my hotel bed, with a glass of wine in one hand and the TV remote in the other.

  Keith glances at me as if he senses my discontent and he opens up the glove box and fumbles inside.

  We’re speeding down the highway and I want him to focus on the road, not on whatever’s inside the glove box. I distract myself by watching the city lights flash by. Johannesburg has a few tall buildings but they’re nothing like the skyscrapers of America where I do my book tours. Johannesburg is a small city, a broken city filled with desperate people scavenging like rats to survive.

  The smell of marijuana fills the air and I turn to Keith who holds the joint in my direction. I take it, inhale deeply and hold the smoke in my lungs.

  I’m immediately stoned. “Good dagga, hey?” Keith grins. “Durban Poison.”

  I nod as he veers off and takes the Parktown off-ramp.

  “Where are we going?” I ask and my voice comes from faraway and it sounds growly, belly-based.

  “Hyde Park.”

  Hyde Park is a good area. I’m relieved. For some reason I assumed we’d be going to some shady shebeen. But my peace of mind, such as it was, evaporates as soon as we pull up at the party and I feel lost and alone. Keith parks outside and presses a buzzer. An ornate steel gate swings open and the parklike grounds are filled with shadowy people. The place is spotlit like a stage set and I’m confused.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Film crew. Wrap party. I had a part in the movie. I played a security guard.” Keith laughs. “I got to say, ‘hey mister, let me see some ID.’ That was the extent of my role. I’m a model too. Men’s Health loves me.” He sounds proud and I nod.

  “How old are you?” I ask.

  “Thirty-two. Time I got my shit together, wouldn’t you say. But not tonight. Tonight we jol, do whatever we want, right hey?” We’re standing in the shadow of the high wall that runs the perimeter of the grounds and I nod and run my tongue over my lips. The gesture isn’t intended to be sexual, my lips are dry and chapped from the dagga, and I can’t be bothered to find my lipstick in my purse. But Keith misunderstands and he leans in and kisses me, tonguing me deeply and I’m instantly on fire. At last! A real fuck! I grab his neck and pull him close.

  “We do anything we want,” I agree breathlessly and I kneel down and I unzip his fly. I go down on him, nearly impaling myself on his cock and he groans. I’m so into it that he comes almost immediately and he apologizes, wiping himself off with his T-shirt.

  “I’ll satisfy you later,” he says. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come so fast but man, you had me so good. Come on, let’s go find some people that I know.”

  We cross the garden, and walk between oil drums with fires burning high and Keith stops to talk to some people passing a bong around. I take a deep hit, thinking for a moment that I’ve got no idea what I’m smoking but I don’t care. I want to punish myself and punish the world.

  “You look like Lauren Hutton,” a young girl says to me. “Not like she is now, of course. Like when she was young and beautiful and famous.”

  “Thank you,” I say and I would like to
kiss the girl but I have no idea if she will be agreeable and I decide that it’s best not to find out. I’ve never kissed a girl but my anger and hurt is making me want to act out, do crazy things.

  The girl hands me a joint. “Hash,” she says and I take it.

  I sit down on the grass, holding the joint and she joins me and we pass it back and forth.

  “I would love to kiss you,” I say. “But I’m too old, aren’t I?”

  The girl takes my face in her hands and she kisses me and it feels so different, her tongue is too soft and gentle and her face is delicate and smooth. I pull back and she smiles.

  “It’s okay,” she says. She passes me a bottle and I take a long drink. Tequila. I hate tequila.

  The pool is lit up like an aqua jewel and a woman jumps in. She’s naked. Around us, people follow her lead, stripping off their clothes and diving in. The spotlights make the blackness of the night more intense, and the Spanish-styled house glows white in the background, while palm trees blow back and forth, making rustling noises. A strong wind whips across the lawn as if a storm is on its way.

  “I’m going for a swim,” the girl says and she strips bare. “Are you coming with?” She smiles at me and walks towards the pool.

  “Ja, sure, just now,” I say and I reach to pull my top off but I suddenly feel stupid and vulnerable. I don’t want people to see me naked. And what if someone steals my purse while I’m in the water? I hate myself for being mundane and practical while others are happily losing their minds and their inhibitions, but I can’t help myself. Oh god. I’m such a loser. No wonder everyone leaves me.

  I turn and walk away from the pool. I’ve lost Keith and I’ve got no idea how I’m going to get back to my hotel. I sit down on a lawn chair and start to cry.

  “Too many drugs?” a sympathetic voice asks me, and a boy with blond dreadlocks offers me a cigarette.

  I take it and light it from the match he offers. “Don’t you love matches?” he asks conversationally. “I love the way they smell.”

  “Ja, for sure. They smell decadent, poisonous.”

  The boy agrees and he lights another match and we watch it burn close to his fingers. “If you don’t mind my saying so,” the boy comments, “you look a bit out of place here.”

  “I am out of place. I fell down the rabbit hole, looking for adventure, and now I wish I hadn’t.” I blow smoke out of my nostrils. “And I don’t know how I’ll get home.”

  “Where is home?”

  “The hotel next to the airport.”

  “I’ll take you back. Come on. I don’t care. This party’s boring.”

  I follow him inside the house to the kitchen where he grabs a bunch of car keys off a hook.

  “Only the best for you,” he said and he led me to a low-slung black Porsche.

  “You weren’t joking,” I tell him and he grins.

  “My daddy’s the director of the movie. Married to mommy, the money. I couldn’t give a fuck about any of it, fame or money.”

  “Because you already have both,” I say and he laughs.

  “Maybe so.” He starts the car and I close my eyes.

  “The most perfect sound in the whole world,” I said, “Hey, I don’t even know your name.”

  “Kai. My mother’s Finnish.”

  “I’m Bernice.”

  “Cool. You want to fly, Bernice?”

  “Yes, please.”

  The boy obliges and we fly down the highway, with the city now on my left, and I lean back against the smooth leather and stroke my thighs, and when Kai lifts my skirt and thrusts his fingers inside me, I moan and come, not once but again and again, and I lift myself hard against his fingers.

  When I’m finished, he holds his fingers under my nose and presses them inside my mouth and I suck, thinking his fingers are rather thick for a slender young man.

  He pulls up outside my hotel lobby and I smooth down my skirt.

  “Well,” I say, “thank you. Stay interesting, young man.”

  He chuckles. “I’ll do my best.”

  I ease out of the car and walk into the reception area, and I don’t look back. The engine roars off into the night and I’m filled with equal parts exhilaration and loss.

  I take the elevator up to my hotel room and look at my phone. There are several texts and emails from Theresa. She is so very sorry. Blah blah blah.

  And another text from Dirk.

  Tomorrow is the day of reckoning.

  Whatever. The man isn’t capable of doing anything.

  I run a hot bath and luxuriate in it, reliving my time with Keith and Kai. Two K’s in one night. No actual sex. I want to laugh. What, am I like Dirk now? I was never inside you, you were never inside me…

  No, I wouldn’t lie to myself like Dirk did.

  I wonder again, if Betty’s right? Is there something wrong with me? What is it that makes me the eternally restless child that I am?

  Do I have abandonment issues stemming from the early departure of my biological father? But that doesn’t resonate. I have more anger at my mother, anger at her for being nothing more than a social butterfly, a butterfly resigned to being pinned down by life and headaches, and possessed by the need to flit from party to party, finding the meaning of life in the pages of a fashion magazine and a bolt of cloth and ignoring her daughter’s very existence. And not sharing any of her beauty. Now that was selfish. A mother should share.

  “Ja, Ma, I think the blame is more with you than the sperm donor,” I say out loud. “But how pathetic, I’m nearly middle-aged and I still have mommy-issues. I’m quite sure you never wanted me.”

  I had leveled that accusation at my mother once.

  “You never wanted me,” I screamed and my mother looked at me, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, and she was about to answer but I ran out because I feared the answer. I feared that she would say, You’re right! I don’t like you! You’re unlikeable and plain and unlovable which is no fault of mine! So there, take that!

  I couldn’t bear to hear those words said out loud, so I left the room and went to fire my rifle with my father instead.

  I’m tired of thinking about the past and I’m getting sleepy. I climb out of the bath and pour another glass of wine. I get into bed and flick on the TV. I have a sudden vision of myself at that wild party, wishing I was in bed and I grin.

  “Ja, me. Not the world’s greatest adventurer, despite my best efforts. I like my creature comforts.”

  But I remember the feeling of Keith’s thick hot cock in my mouth, and Kai’s fingers deep inside me, and, at the end of the day, the evening hasn’t been a total loss, not by a long shot.

  37.

  I WAKE AT MIDDAY. It’s nearly checkout time. My head is aching and I down two painkillers with half a bottle of water. I turn on my phone and there are more text messages from Dirk. I can’t be bothered to read them and I throw the phone back into my purse.

  I missed the plane. Goddammit, I’m going to drive. I check out of the hotel and walk to the car rental booth and I sign out a BMW SUV.

  And if any of those mothers try to highjack me, I’ll show them what-for. I brought my little revolver with me and I lay it on the seat next to me, under a sweater, easy access. I’m in control at the wheel of this powerful car. I turn onto the highway off-ramp and I think of Kai, do you want to fly? Yes!

  I step on the gas and pull into the fast lane. I glide across the highway like a snake sloughing off an old skin. I leave my lying existence with Dirk on the tar road behind me. I am wild and free. I am my true self.

  Soon, the city is no more than a speck in my rearview mirror and I fly through the African veldt under a blue sky. I fly on a black tarmac strip of road that is lined with rubbish and detritus. How did this much garbage get here? Is there nowhere else for these people to take it? Apparently not, or maybe they don’t care.

/>   I keep my phone and my gun on the passenger seat next to me and I check my rearview mirror regularly. Pa trained me well.

  “You cannot live in Africa without being vigilant,” he said. “Always be prepared for the worst. It’s the only way to survive.”

  When I tire of the silence, I switch on the radio and flick through the channels, trying to find a music station, but all I get is frenzied reporting and babbling voices. Eventually I leave the channel where it is, to hear what’s going on. And I nearly swerve off the road when I hear the news.

  Dirk has blown up the Voortrekker Monument.

  What the fuck? And, how the fuck had he pulled it off?

  I turn up the news and try to make sense of what’s going on. Of course, no one knows Dirk is responsible but I know.

  I pull over for a moment and check the messages I had thus far ignored.

  Listen to the news!

  Watch TV!

  Now they will rally, as they should.

  What exactly had he hoped to achieve? By all accounts, the forty-metre-square granite monument had been laid flat. Experts estimated it would have taken nearly forty pounds of explosive and nearly as many detonators. It seems ironic to me that it had taken forty pounds of explosive to level the forty-metre-square structure. I wonder about the symbolism of the number forty. But forget about that, I must to concentrate on what matters. How had Dirk got his hands on the explosives?

  Oh my god. He used my money to fund it. I’m ice cold and I flick the seat warmer on even although it’s a hot day. Freezing sweat runs down my armpits.

  Should I call the police and tell them what I know? But would they consider me an accomplice? I wish I had looked more carefully at the papers Dirk asked me to sign. For that and nothing else, I deserve this. My stupidity has brought me to this. That, and my lust. There’s no other reason for it. I fooled myself into thinking that I loved Dirk when in reality, my ego couldn’t bear the thought of losing him and I would have done anything, even pay him a million rand, to keep him by my side.

  I listen to the newscaster who is reading a press release issued by the police.