Rotten Peaches

by Lisa de Nikolits

  “If I said anything to you, you wouldn’t have listened.”

  “You are right. I never realized how pig-headed I am. I didn’t treat you well at all and I wanted to tell you how sorry I am. I should have got a proper bathroom for you in the back and done your rooms up properly. I should have made sure you got enough rest. I behaved like a spoiled child. Please know how sorry I am. I would do anything to make things right. But tell me about you, how are you? Are you enjoying your retirement?”

  Betty laughs, a beautiful sound I never thought I’d hear again and the iceberg of tension melts from my shoulders. “No, I am not. There are too many children running around making so much noise and needing attention and I don’t have any peace. Nobody is interested in my recipes; they want the same things every day or they want MacDonald’s. And I don’t like the weather here. The humidity is very unpleasant. Everything is sticky.”

  “So, come to the farm. Come and live in the house with me. You can have the main bedroom with the en suite bathroom or any room you like. Please come back, Betty. I miss you so much.”

  “Even after what Rosie did to you?”

  “Rosie was right to do what she did. What do you say? Will you come back? But first I have to go to Houston and fix something. I’ll be back in a week. Will you come in a week?”

  Betty hesitates. “Well, I have got some new recipe ideas. Can we do another book?”

  “Of course we can do another book!” I’m so excited I turn that awful purple colour but I don’t care. I want to jump up and down for joy. “And this time you will be called co-author. And we’ll republish the other books to say that too. Betty, what is your surname?”

  “Khumalo.”

  “Betty Khumalo. I never even knew that. Betty, can I ask you something?”

  There is a long pause. “Yes, what is it?”

  I clear my throat. It is hard for me to say the words, despite my conviction that I know the truth. “Who is Rosie’s father?”

  There is silence. Betty holds firm in not saying a word.

  “My father is Rosie’s father,” I say. “I noticed the other day, when she came with the papers, that something about her was familiar. She reminded me of someone and later I realized it was my father. I hadn’t noticed it before but she straightened her hair. And I looked through photographs at Deanna’s and that’s when I saw it for sure. Please tell me the truth, Betty.”

  Betty gives a great big sigh. “I promised I would never say.”

  “He’s dead, Betty. And if Rosie is his daughter, she’s entitled to half of the estate.”

  “You would give Rosie half of everything?”

  “I would keep the farm, she can have the Westcliffe house. And I don’t have much of Pa’s money left since I gave Dirk such a lot, but there’s still over a million left.”

  “Rosie hates you.”

  “With good reason, wouldn’t you say? Does she know who her father is?”

  “She always suspected but I never told her she was right. It used to make her very angry. She said why else would he pay for her schools? There were other children on the farm and he never paid for them. She hated him because he paid for her silence. That’s what she said. He never acknowledged her. But how could he? Nobody in his position would have said the truth. I told her that.”

  “I would have been angry too.” I pause. “So, um, did you and my father, um, see each other for a long time?”

  “We did. Until I went to Johannesburg with you.”

  “But I never saw you with him, like that. You were so formal with him. Why didn’t you get together after my mother died?”

  “Because I was the housekeeper. And things were very different then, between black and white people. It had to be a secret. Today nobody would care. But then they would have cared a lot. The whole town would have hated him. His friends would have spit on him. And you would have cared too. You maybe say you wouldn’t but you would have.”

  I am silent, trying to imagine it. “I don’t know what I would have said or done. But you’re right Betty, I can’t imagine I would have behaved well. This explains why Rosie hates me so much.”

  “Eish, yes, but Rosie hates everybody. I don’t know what her problem is.”

  “She was rejected by her father, that’s what her problem is. She was abandoned by him and, unlike me, she didn’t get an A-grade replacement. She had to watch me getting all his love and affection while really, he was her father. That’s a lot to deal with. And the racial injustices on top of that. Betty, we need to focus on parental rejection in the new book. I don’t mean we’ll make it about Rosie because she would kill us, but I bet there are a lot of adults out there who had a parent, or maybe both parents, who abandoned them emotionally or were cruel to them when they were growing up.”

  “That is your side of things! But it is a good idea.”

  “I’m glad you like it. I’ll have to think of a good title. Maybe Bake Your Way to Healing Your Inner Child. No, that’s too long. We’ll see. So, I have to go to Houston. Don’t say anything to Rosie about any of this until I get back and we’ll do it together.”

  “I won’t say anything. I will be at the Pilanesburg train station in one week. I will see you next Friday. I will send a text to let you know the time.”

  I want to ask Betty if she loved my father and if he had loved her. I want to ask her how often they met. I want to say how sad it was that she had to watch him being buried and she couldn’t say a word. But I have to respect her privacy. Perhaps, one day, she will tell me of her own accord.

  “Wonderful. I love you, Betty.”

  “I love you too, Bernice.”

  And then Betty is gone and I stand there, crying because I am so blessed. And then I gather my resolve. It is time to fix this thing, once and for all.

  THE END OF THE WORLD

  43. LEONIE

  I AM NOT A KILLER. I just fell in love with the wrong man. And I went too far this time, there’s no going back. There’s no going anywhere, period.

  I was close to staying afloat but my luck ran out. Luck, that mystical mythical glue that holds the shards of despair together and makes life navigable. But fragmented despair, that’s what sinks you.

  I did what JayRay said. I left my room after the call from Ralph and maybe it was just a coincidence but as I walked away, a police car pulled up and the officers ran into the hotel.

  I darted around the corner, my heart hammering and my mouth dry. I found a cash machine and withdrew as much money as I could. I spotted a dollar store and I bought a floppy fishing hat with a wide brim. I bought cheap dark brown lipstick and a pair of reading glasses with the lowest prescription. I tied my hair in a bun and tucked it under the hat.

  I thought about what JayRay had said, that I should go to a hotel and I thought he was wrong. I needed to save the cash. But I was beyond tired. Besides, I couldn’t sit out in the open all day either. I needed to be hidden.

  I checked into the Magnolia Hotel, thinking what the fuck, at least I could spend the day in the lap of luxury. I paid cash and I gave my name as Marian Applewhite, using a driver’s license that I stole as a lark because I thought the girl looked like me only younger, and I got a kick out of that.

  I went up to my room and wondered what to do with myself. I didn’t feel anything except a gnawingly horrible awakeness. The world was too bright and everything hurt. I threw the reading glasses on the floor and I wiped off the lipstick and untied my hair. I fumbled for my meds and I put two tranqs under my tongue.

  I phoned JayRay before I forgot and his phone went straight to voicemail. I left him a message with my whereabouts and the room number and the name I had checked in with.

  I shed my clothes and left them in an untidy puddle at my feet.

  I pulled the bedding out from its military-style tuck and climbed under the covers. I added a sleeping pill to the
pharmaceuticals in my bloodstream and I sank down into the sheets and pillows. My meds soon kicked in but I was too fired up to sleep. All I could do was doze fitfully and be woken by nightmares of shame and terror. I dozed on and off and the sun was blinding and the ghost of a cat walked on my back. I forced myself up to take another tranq and my body felt like it had forgotten how to move and I couldn’t keep my eyes open although it was impossible to sleep.

  The day turned to night and the cat left me. It went to join God and luck and all the missing socks of my life and it joined the childhood assumption that life got easier when you get older, not harder, and that courage was rewarded and that fortune-cookie, guru-zen crapfests still made a modicum of sense.

  And finally, it is time, it is time. Game on.

  There’s a knock at the door and I want to answer it, I need to answer it but I can’t move, my body won’t move. I hear the door being opened and I am relieved. He’s come to get me.

  “Leo, baby,” a voice says and I blink.

  I want to move but I can’t. I can’t even tell him that I can’t move.

  He tells the manager that he’s got this, and the manager makes a few cursory protesting noises but he sounds happy to leave this mess for someone else to clean up.

  “Baby, we’ve got to be somewhere,” he says and his voice makes my groin hot and tight and I hate myself for my reaction, hate myself like I always do when I am around him.

  He helps me sit up and he props a pillow behind my back.

  He puts the coffee machine to work and he feeds me some water, a little at a time and the fog starts to clear.

  “What the fuck, JayRay?” I manage to ask. “What the fuck?”

  He looks at me.

  “It’s time to get our shit together,” he tells me. “It’s time, Leo, it’s time.”

  “Only if you tell me what’s going on, JayRay.”

  “Fine. But this plan’s going ahead, no matter what you say. Remember my half-sister, the bitch author? Well, I got an email from her so-called lover who she ditched.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “He doesn’t want to leave empty-handed either. After the TV show, Bernice told him that I told her I knew a big secret about her that would ruin her. She thought he wasn’t listening when she said it but he was, and later he checked out the email on her computer and wrote down my address. It must have been true love from the start, for him to be doing shit like that. Anyway, he said he’s got something big on her too. He said he can get her to come to here and then I lay my shit on her, he lays his, and we all split the money. Well, him and me, not you. I said yeah sure, but good luck with that getting her here, especially if she’s not into him anymore and he said he’s got a way, that he’ll meet me here tonight and she’ll be there too.”

  I sit up slowly. For some reason, every bone in my body feels beaten and bruised. “I don’t get why he needs you there. If he’s got something on her, why does he need you?”

  “I asked him that. He said it’s because he wants to bring her to her knees. He said he’s not only after the money, he wants her to be in the same position he is now, having lost everything. He said Bernice cost him his marriage and his kids and he wants payback for that. He started rambling about losing his folk and his language and his culture and he lost me there. He’s got a lot of anger, that boy.”

  “He told you all this in an email?”

  “No, he phoned me. Rambled on for hours. Wouldn’t give me details of what he’s got on her, but it must be big.”

  “And what do you have on her?”

  “I can’t say,” he says cagily and I’m about to slap him but he grabs my hand.

  “You fucked things up before by not trusting me. I’m not telling you, Leo. I am not going to make the same mistake again.”

  What choice do I have? I have nothing left. I nod.

  “I’m going to get you some strong coffee. We’ll come out winners, Leo. Trust me.”

  44. BERNICE

  I HAD NO CHOICE. I had to go. Dirk’s message was clear:

  You blew up the monument. Your money. It all traces back to you and the contract you signed. Come to Houston and I will give you the evidence and a way out.

  I had to go and fix this thing, once and for all. I needed to stand up for myself. He stole from me, this pathetic excuse for a man. I had to put an end to his nonsense and I wanted to be able to look him in the eye one more time and tell him what a loser he is.

  I phoned Deanna. “It’s me, Bernice,” I said when she answered the phone and she gave a deep groan.

  “Fok! My head is killing me! What a babbelas! Still, it was fun. What can I do you for?”

  “I have to go and deal with a situation. With Dirk. Can you look after SunnyBoy for me? I won’t be gone long. I’m sorry to have to ask.”

  “Ag for sure, bring him over.”

  I thanked her and loaded SunnyBoy into the car. Deanna was waiting for me in the front yard. She looked worse for wear and was guzzling water. “What are you going to do?” she asked me. “Set the cops on him?”

  “Worse than that. I’ll let you know as soon as I’m back.” I grinned at her. “Johan around?”

  “No, he’s up in the top field, fixing a tractor that broke down. Why, you want to see him? You can text him to come down.” She looks at me keenly and I blush.

  “Thought I’d say goodbye but I’ll see him when I get back,” I said. “Take care of my baby.” I gave SunnyBoy a last kiss on his nose. “See you soon.”

  I texted Johan to say I was going to deal with Dirk and that I’d be home soon.

  Be careful, he wrote back. Don’t forget about me.

  ***

  I check into La Quinta Inn & Suites, $69 a night. Dirk certainly wasn’t living large. A hotel whose big draw was free coffee and free wireless Internet. Still, the place is close to all the tourist attractions, should I desire. I do not desire.

  And now here I am, sitting across from Dirk at a table set for four in the Steak 48 restaurant in Houston. The place is fancy, with a polished interlocking marble floor patterned in black, chocolate brown, and cream, with rows of low-hanging ornate cacti chandeliers, and yellow and dark wood glass partitions that give the diners their privacy — the kind where it looks like the glass is melting or there’s a downpour outside. The bench seats are burnt caramel Nappa leather and the linen tablecloth is snow white with sharp, freshly-ironed creases.

  Dirk looks tired and unhealthy. His face is a red balloon that is starting to pinch and sag. His blood pressure is about to blow, he’s added a few jowls, and he’s lost a bunch of hair.

  “So,” I say as my opening greeting. “You and Theresa. And apparently your dick worked much better with her.”

  “You were a controlling bitch,” he shoots back. “Fucking your cunt was like fucking a barbed wire fence.”

  The waiter comes over and I order a lime and soda while Dirk orders a bottle of red wine. Macauley Reserve Cabernet. A hundred and fifty dollars a bottle. I guess he thinks I’m paying for this joyful reunion and plans to make the most of it.

  I have taken care with my appearance. My hair is in a chignon and I’m wearing a black cocktail dress, pearls, and high heels.

  “Get on with it, Dirk,” I tell him. “I’m here now, let’s get this party started.”

  “We’re waiting for company. And there they are.” He waves and I turn around to see Leonie and JayRay walking towards us.

  I don’t move. Not a twitch of a muscle, not even when they both sit down and JayRay pours himself and Leonie a glass of wine from Dirk’s bottle.

  I cross my arms and wait.

  Dirk begins. “We, each of us, me and your brother, both have evidence of your wrongdoing, evidence of the lies you have lived. We are going to show you this evidence and once we are done, you are going to give us each a million dollars. Not rand
but dollars. And then we, and you, can go our separate ways and pretend like we never knew each other.

  “I will go first,” he says and he pushes a stapled pile of pages at me. I make no move to look at them. I keep my arms folded and Dirk sighs.

  “Be like that. I will tell you then. The money you signed over to me, the money you thought was for a horse? You should have read the fine print better. The company was called VilliersVanColler PTY, but it was also called Die Vryheidsoorloë, The Wars of Liberation. And you will see that the contract says that this money will be used to further the cause of the currently oppressed Afrikaaner nation. By signing, you affirmed that you support this war in every guise that it might take.”

  He takes a large swallow of his wine. “I will send this to the police. They will know it was you and not me, who funded the blowing up of the monument and you will be arrested and put away for the rest of your life.”

  I laugh. “Right. You may have conned me into funding it by stealing my money, but there’s nothing to tie me to the bombing. You took credit for it with all that ridiculous rhetoric about volk and taal and the other rubbish. Plus, they have a man’s voice on the messages you left the newspapers, and they pinned the IP address to you for the emails you sent, and they traced the calls to where you were staying.”

  “Facts are facts,” he says and his face is ugly as he stabs his forefinger hard on the paper. “It’s all here. You did it. It was you. You signed along the dotted line. It all comes down to you.”

  “Hmmm. We will see.” I turn to JayRay. His partner-in-crime, Leonie, looks pale and distracted as if she isn’t really a part of what’s going on, but I don’t have time to think about her and I address JayRay.

  “And what do you have, cookie? What do you have in your little bundle of gifts for me? I must admit, I am not sure why you and Dirk thought you had to meet me together like this? Safety in numbers? Who called who? Before we go any further, I’d like to know how this meeting came to be. I deserve at least that much.”