by Lesley Lokko
Twenty minutes later, she looked up to see Carrick and his houseman, Harry Johnson, weave their way across the crowded room towards her, beer and crisps in hand. The Stag and Hound was packed with medics and nurses, all winding down after a hard day’s work. She let her fingers graze her mobile phone, tucked away in her pocket. She tried not to think about it.
‘Thanks, Mr Carrick,’ she said, as he carefully placed a half-pint of lager in front of her.
‘Julian, please. We don’t stand on ceremony in cardio,’ he said with a smile. ‘Not like you lot. Very formal on the fifth floor, or so I hear. Not that there’s anything wrong with being formal,’ he added hastily. ‘I’ve known Mark Fairbanks for years. He’s always been that way.’
Kemi wasn’t sure how to respond. Julian Carrick was in his late forties or early fifties, she guessed, perhaps a decade younger than her own boss. Suddenly she felt her mobile vibrate in her pocket. Her heart skipped a beat and she pulled it out, her fingers shaking. It was Jen. Disappointment crashed over her like a cold wave, but she struggled to keep her composure.
‘Boyfriend?’ Julian asked, as he manoeuvred himself into the seat opposite. ‘Or husband?’
‘Oh, no, no, just a friend,’ she said quickly, embarrassed. ‘I’ll . . . I’ll call her back later.’
‘Well, cheers. Here’s to one helluva day.’ He lifted the glass. ‘And what a day it was. Well done, by the way. You kept your head, and your nerve. Good job.’
‘Yeah, good job,’ Harry echoed. He still seemed dazed. He drained his half-pint almost immediately.
‘Thanks,’ she said, feeling slightly uncomfortable. Suddenly, someone shouted her name. She turned around. It was Geoff. He waved at her, surprised to see her in the Stag and Hound.
‘What’re you doing here?’ he asked, coming over. He was alone. He grinned at the other two men. ‘Unbelievable. I’ve been asking her to come out for a drink with me for nearly three months and she’s never once agreed.’
‘Well, you’re obviously not persuasive enough,’ Julian chuckled. ‘Julian Carrick. Cardio.’ He held out a hand. ‘You two obviously know each other.’
Geoff slid onto the bench next to her. ‘Same team. Nice to meet you.’
‘What’re you having?’ Harry got up. ‘I’ll get the next round.’
‘Not for me,’ Kemi said quickly. ‘One glass is about all I can take.’
‘Oh, come on, a half-pint won’t kill you,’ Julian said, smiling at her. ‘Drink it slowly. We’re celebrating her first embolectomy. Cool as a cucumber, in and out. Patient didn’t feel a thing.’
‘Course he didn’t,’ Geoff said, raising his glass. ‘He was asleep, I take it?’
She laughed. ‘Yes – Harry just burst in, Fairbanks was out . . . there was no one else.’
‘Your dad would’ve been proud of you. I remember watching him at the Royal Infirmary in Dundee when I was a lowly registrar. Same hands.’
Kemi felt the heat rise in her face. She could feel Geoff’s eyes on her.
‘Who’s your dad?’ Geoff asked her, frowning.
Kemi turned to face him. ‘Sorry,’ she said with an apologetic grimace. ‘I . . . I just don’t like people knowing.’
‘I’d have thought it was obvious?’ Julian said, surprised. ‘Everyone knows.’
Kemi squirmed uncomfortably. ‘Oh, no, hardly anyone knows.’
‘I thought it might be,’ Geoff said, still looking confused. ‘But you were so adamant it wasn’t. Why on earth did you hide it?’
Kemi made an impassioned face. ‘I just don’t like people knowing, that’s all. Can we drop it? Please?’ Her mobile buzzed again. She tried to ignore it but couldn’t. She got up clumsily, almost spilling her beer. ‘I . . . I’ll be right back,’ she said, retreating from the table. ‘Just give me a minute.’ She pulled her phone out. It was Jen again, not Solam. She felt suddenly close to tears. She pushed her way through the crowded bar, looking for the sign to the toilets. ‘Hello?’ she pressed the phone tight against her ear. It was so loud in the bar she could barely hear her. ‘What? I can’t hear you!’ She struggled to get to the stairs. The toilets were on the first floor. ‘What did you say?’ she shouted again, taking the stairs two at a time. Thankfully one of the stalls was empty. She ran inside and bolted the door.
Jen shouted something but she couldn’t catch it. Suddenly, the line went dead. Kemi looked at the phone in disbelief. She’d run out of battery. Now she’d have to wait until she got home to hear from him, if he called at all. She promptly burst into tears.
27
Solam looked at the man sitting opposite, sweating with a combination of heat and drink, and wondered dispassionately if the distaste he felt for him showed anywhere on his face.
‘I don’t mind telling you, it’s a relief.’ Dirk Coetzee waved his brandy glass affably.
Solam sighed. He knew what was coming next. ‘Why? What were you expecting?’ he asked. He glanced discreetly at his phone. Twice in the past couple of days he’d been on the verge of phoning Kemi Mashabane but something had come up. He wanted to be in the right frame of mind to call her, not irritated and distracted, like he was now. He let out a barely perceptible sigh. Dirk seemed oblivious.
‘Oh, you know how it is. One’s never sure. Word comes from on high that you’ve got to take at least one, but you never know who or what you’re going to get. I don’t mind telling you—’
‘I don’t think you should,’ Solam said quickly, evenly, interrupting Dirk’s whisky-induced confessional flow. It wouldn’t do him any favours to pick a fight now, not when he’d barely been in post for a year. Don’t make waves, his mother had warned him. Especially not in the beginning. Go where you’re told, do as you’re asked. It’ll pay off, just you wait and see. He wasn’t sure. He would never say it to her face – or even behind her back – but things were different now. He looked around the bar at the gracious Saxon Hotel, one of the finest in Johannesburg, and tried to focus on the task at hand. He’d been instructed by his boss to charm the pants off the private sector bankers. Take them out, get to know them. Those were his orders. His division was staffed almost exclusively by rugby-playing, beer-drinking Afrikaners. He was probably the first black senior banker they’d ever come across, never mind shared a drink with. No wonder poor Dirk was knocking back the Laphroaig. It was far more of a shock to him than it was to Solam. He was well accustomed to throwing back drinks with white men. Until recently, it was all he’d known.
‘Another one?’
Dirk peered at his glass as though he’d never seen one before. ‘Yeah . . . another one, why not? You’re a good man, So-So . . .?’
‘Solam,’ Solam finished helpfully for him. He signalled to the waiter. ‘Another one for my friend here.’ He turned to Dirk. ‘Just nipping to the gents. I’ll be back.’
He left Dirk and walked towards the toilets. He pushed open the door to one of stalls and sighed. Socializing with well-fed white men was by far the most stressful part of his job. Two glasses in and they suddenly all felt comfortable enough to tell him what they really thought of the changes sweeping through the country. It didn’t occur to them that he had no interest in knowing what they thought. Dirk was a nice enough bloke when sober, but like so many, he was too dim to fully grasp what the changes actually meant. Their days were numbered. It might not happen now, or even within the next five years, but it would happen. The old guard would have to make way for the new. Those idiots who couldn’t pronounce let alone remember his name were going to have to adjust the way they viewed things, especially business. What had worked in the protected and isolated apartheid era no longer worked.
He flushed the toilet, watching the water swirl around and around, then zipped up his trousers. He looked at his watch. It was just past eleven. Another half an hour and then he could go home. Maybe then he’d find the space and time to call Kemi. It had been almost a week since he’d kissed her. He was aware of an unfamiliar longing to hear her voice again. He washed his
hands, still thinking about her, and pushed open the door to the corridor. A woman was standing just by the entrance to the bar, fingers curled around a wine glass. She was tall and blonde, stunningly beautiful.
‘Hi, Solam,’ she murmured as he passed. He stopped and looked at her in surprise. Was she talking to him? ‘Hi there, Solam,’ she said again.
‘Hi . . . have we met?’ he asked, confused. How did she know his name?
‘I’m a friend of Dirk’s,’ she said, with a quick toss of her head in Dirk’s direction. ‘He thought we ought to meet.’
He looked past her to the bar where Dirk stood with a brunette draped across his chest. He winked at Solam, suddenly not quite as drunk as he’d seemed. Solam turned back to the blonde. ‘What’s your name?’
‘What would you like it to be?’ she asked, her eyes widening. Her accent was hard to place.
Solam suppressed the urge to laugh out loud. The blonde was still staring suggestively at him. He felt his cock stir. It had been a while. One way to keep his mind off Kemi. ‘Anything,’ he said finally, almost wearily. ‘Call yourself whatever you want.’
She smiled and tucked an arm through his. Her perfume closed over him, thick and heady. ‘Let’s start with “A”. Call me Anna. That’s easy, isn’t it?’
He shrugged. ‘OK, Anna. Whatever you like. So where are we going?’ She steered him towards the bar where Dirk had his tongue down the brunette’s throat. The bar had suddenly emptied.
‘Come and meet my friends,’ she said, reaching up to speak close to his ear. ‘We’re all Dirk’s friends.’
‘Popular guy, Dirk,’ Solam murmured.
‘Very. You have no idea who he knows.’
‘Where are we going?’ Solam asked, as Anna expertly manoeuvred the car out of the tight parking space. It was a Jaguar. Red, with black leather seats. Was it hers? He glanced at her. Her long white skirt was parted to reveal a firm, tanned thigh. She must have sensed his gaze. As she swung onto Rivonia, she opened her legs a little wider. She was wearing nothing underneath. His eyes widened. She turned and gave him a faint but knowing smile. ‘Where are we going?’ he asked again, only just managing to resist sliding his hand in between the soft folds of her dress.
‘There’s a party at a friend’s place. It’s not far. Dirk thought you might enjoy it.’
He caught the trace of an Eastern European accent. ‘Are you Russian?’ he asked, as they sped down the road towards Sandton City.
‘Does it matter?’
He shook his head. ‘No. Just curious.’
‘Don’t be curious. And don’t be worried. Dirk is very discreet. Nothing will happen to you unless you want it to.’
‘I’m not worried,’ he said, leaning back into the plush leather seat. It was true. For some odd reason, the thought that it might be dangerous hadn’t even crossed his mind. He smiled to himself. He’d underestimated Dirk.
She turned left and pulled to a halt in front of a security hut. They waited for a second whilst the security guard jotted the car number plate down and then the gate swung open. He sat up as they sailed through. It was a long driveway, thick with plants and trees, curving round at last to a neoclassical portico.
‘So . . . here we are,’ she said, pulling up the handbrake.
He looked around. There were at least a dozen cars in the enormous driveway . . . Mercedes, Jaguars, a couple of luxury 4x4s, a Bentley . . . even a Hummer. He let out a low whistle. ‘Some party.’
She laughed and got out of the car. ‘Come on. Let’s go inside.’
The house was lavishly decorated in the way only a house which was usually empty could be. The living room was vast, stretching across several sunken pits towards a garden that was lit up like a Christmas tree. There was a long glistening pool, palm trees, loungers, and those ridiculously pruned round hedges that looked like a row of poodles on guard. He looked around him. There were perhaps a dozen men sprawled on the endless white couches, with drinks and plates of half-eaten food everywhere. And women. There were more beautiful women than he’d ever seen in his life in one room at the same time. Brunettes, blondes, a redhead or two . . . black girls, white girls, two Asian girls sitting with a large, florid man sandwiched in between them. There were champagne bottles everywhere. A door opened to his left and a girl walked into the living room, naked save for a tiny black thong and a pair of leather high heels.
‘Drink?’ Anna had appeared beside him, holding a tumbler of pale whisky. ‘Or drugs?’ She pointed to a side table with several neat lines of coke hospitably lined up.
He shook his head. ‘Nah, a drink’s fine for me.’
‘Then there’s more for me,’ she said happily. She handed him the tumbler and sank gracefully to her knees, bending her head to the glass. A minute later, the coke was gone. She straightened up and held out her hand. ‘Come on. Party time.’ She led him through the room, seemingly knowing her way around. She pushed open a door at the far end to a small study, dominated by a huge television screen and yet another white leather sofa.
‘Whose house is this?’ he mumbled, as she pulled him down onto the sofa next to her.
‘You ask so many questions,’ she replied, her fingers busy at his zip. ‘What does it matter? You’re here. I’m here. Just relax and have a good time. Everybody else is.’
She slid down on the couch until she was kneeling right in front of him. Her blonde hair spilled over his thighs. He was about to say something when he felt her warm hand slide right inside his boxers, shaking him free. He felt the day’s tension flood right out of him, making his head spin. He was glad he was sitting down. He closed his eyes. For a brief, startling moment he thought of Kemi. Then the blonde’s mouth was upon him and for a few minutes he was unable to think of anything at all. She was expert at her job. Within minutes he exploded in her warm, willing mouth.
PART FIVE
1998
Three months later
• • •
The past, the present and the future are really one; they are today.
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
28
A half-eaten Kit Kat and two empty cappuccinos lay between them. Kemi had finished talking and for once, Jen couldn’t think of a single thing to say. They were sitting in a small coffee shop around the corner from the hospital.
‘So, he just never called back?’ she asked incredulously. ‘Not once?’
Kemi shook her head. ‘Nope. I left three messages. I wondered if something had happened to him . . . you know . . . maybe he’d had an accident, or he was ill or something? But my mother was at some function or other and she saw him. Apparently, he’s well. Very well. He’s just been promoted.’
Jen was speechless with indignation. ‘What an arsehole!’ she said hotly.
Kemi shrugged. ‘Well, one dinner and a kiss . . . doesn’t mean a thing.’
‘Kem, it’s not that . . . it’s just so bloody rude! I mean, who does he think he is?’
Kemi shrugged. ‘Oh, forget him. He’s not important. Anyhow, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.’
Jen eyed her warily. ‘So, what did you want to talk about?’
Kemi reached down into her satchel and pulled out a folder. She placed it on the table. ‘This,’ she said, opening it to the first page.
Jen looked at it. It was an application of some sort. The J Taft Funding for Surgical Residencies in Southern Africa. She frowned. ‘What is it?’
Kemi looked at her. She drew in a breath. ‘I’m going to ask you something,’ she said slowly. ‘Something big. It’s a lot to ask, I know, and I won’t blame you at all if you say you can’t.’
Jen looked at her in surprise. Kemi never asked her for anything, let alone anything big. ‘What?’
Kemi’s eyes met hers. Slowly, as she watched, Kemi’s face changed. There was a small fold of skin beneath each eye that sank away, drawn tightly over her cheekbones. It was a look Jen had seen many times before, a look of quiet, steely determination. Her mind was made
up, whatever it was. When she spoke, Jen had the feeling she’d known all along what was coming. ‘I want to go back,’ she said, tracing a line on the patterned tablecloth with the tip of her teaspoon. ‘And I want you to come with me.’
Jen blinked. ‘Back? Where?’
‘South Africa. Johannesburg. Will you?’
Jen’s mouth dropped open. ‘Go with you? Why? What on earth will I do there?’
‘Do whatever you like. It’s only for three months. I’ve already been accepted. I just . . . I just think if I don’t go now, I never will. It was one of the things I . . . I liked about him. He’d gone back. He was – he is – doing something useful. He’s needed.’
‘Jesus, Kemi. You’re needed here. If anyone’s needed, it’s you. Look at the job you do.’
‘Yeah, but there are hundreds of surgeons here who could do the same thing. I want to be properly useful.’
Jen swallowed. It had been three months since Federico had fired her. She’d taken on a series of dead-end temping jobs just to fill the time – and to keep Father from asking yet again what she intended to do with her life. She was suddenly reminded of the day she and Kemi had sat outside her father’s study, eleven years earlier, Jen trying desperately to summon the courage to tell him she wanted to be an artist. What had Kemi said to her? It’s your life, Jen. Don’t let anyone else tell you what to do with your life. Sound advice, which she’d failed to take. And now here it was again. Only this time, Kemi was setting a test for herself, not for Jen. There was no question Kemi would fail it the way she had.
‘I’ll come,’ she said suddenly. ‘I’ll find something to do, don’t worry about me. You’re absolutely right. If it’s something you feel you have to do, then you should do it. You told me that once, and I didn’t do it then. I want to do it now.’
Kemi looked at her. Her eyes were shining. ‘Really? You’ll come with me?’
‘Course I will. You don’t think I’d let you go out there on your own, do you?’ Jen said lightly. ‘No . . . if you’re going, I’m going. Even if it’s only to stop you throwing yourself at that idiot, what’s-his-name?’