Sugar Town Queens

by Malla Nunn

  “Check the cupboards, Amandla. See what we have.”

  The answer to What’s in the cupboard? is always the same: enough to get by on for a week or two. We never starve, but we don’t have much. I get up and check our supplies. Three cans of lentils. Onions. Rice. Cornmeal. Packets of dried mashed potato. A row of canned soups and a full bag of flour. And, on the top shelf, an unopened box of Romany Creams biscuits waiting for a special occasion.

  “Run to the Supa-Value and get two cans of kidney beans and two cans of beef in gravy.” Annalisa takes the stack of money from her bag. The pile of notes is slimmer than it was three days ago, thanks to two unscheduled trips to Durban North and one minivan ride to the family home in Umhlanga Rocks.

  “Mayme give you the money?” That’s what Neville said, but Lewis Dumisa is right. I can’t believe anything he tells me.

  “Yes, and this is the end of it,” Annalisa says. “The moment Mayme dies, my father will cut us off. We have to spend as little as possible while I look for more work. Buy dented cans with expired labels if you can find them.”

  Dented cans with expired labels. That’s new. I love a bargain, but . . .

  Oh, I get it. Annalisa’s job puts food on our table and shoes on our feet, but Mayme’s money keeps us afloat. My school fees are paid on time and in full at the beginning of the year. We live in a one-room house with running water, electricity, and a toilet out back. Mrs. M has five people squashed into a tiny space. I have taken what we have for granted. Yes, we are poor, but things could be much worse. With no money but Annalisa’s wages coming in, we might not be able to pay the rent. People who can’t pay their rent end up on a stretch of mud behind the shipping-container graveyard. It’s called Hopetown, but those who live there have little hope of ever getting back into Sugar Town once they’ve been forced out. And what about school?

  “Be fifteen minutes.” I take the notes from Annalisa and grab a cotton shopping bag from the hook by the door. I step out into weak sunshine. Iron rooftops glow red and silver. A crow swoops low to feed on insects buzzing over a pool of stagnant water in front of Mrs. M’s garden gate. I have dreamed of leaving the lane so often that the dream has worn a groove in my mind. Now I’m faced with the possibility of being evicted from it, and I am just scared.

  * * *

  * * *

  I pay for the dented cans, all beyond their expiry date, and head for Amazulu Street, where Lil Bit lives with her mother in a one-bedroom house with mice in the ceiling. They used to live on Bompass Street in a brick house shaded by a giant Natal mahogany tree. That was before the congregation caught Reverend Bhengu and his girlfriend in an unholy embrace. They kicked the family out of the priest’s house that afternoon.

  I knock, and Lil Bit opens the door, eager to hear the news. She reads my dazed expression and leads me into a living room where two stuffed sofas, three bookshelves, a writing desk, and two side tables fight for space. Small as she is, even Lil Bit might have trouble finding a way through the maze. Mother is right: Mrs. Bhengu needs to burn the stuff or sell it and start fresh.

  “Sit down.” Lil Bit plops onto a ratty velvet sofa. “Tell me what happened.”

  I sit next to her. I tell her what happened.

  When I finish, I notice that Lil Bit’s mouth is curved in a soft smile. “It isn’t funny,” I say. “Not even a little. I was so angry. And so was Mother.”

  Looking back, a part of me wonders if Annalisa and I made a mistake. Did we say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing to make Neville turn so mean? He is doing everything he can to keep us away from Mayme. It makes me wonder: Is there more to the situation than I can see?

  “I don’t mean to laugh.” Lil Bit picks at a hole in the moth-eaten sofa. “You had a terrible day, but it makes me feel better to know that my family isn’t the only one with problems. That other people are also unbalanced.”

  “Unbalanced is a nice way to describe Annalisa’s family and Neville in particular. He hates me, and I hate him right back.”

  “I hate my father, too.” She nibbles her bottom lip, and the next words come out in a rush. “But I miss him as well. Is that strange?”

  “Not strange,” I say. “Complicated.”

  “How is it complicated?” Lil Bit asks.

  “Neville’s house is something out of a magazine. It has more windows than I can count and a white marble sculpture in the front garden. It is perfect. When the guards turned us away, I wanted to set fire to it, but a part of me was desperate to go inside. I hate him, but I also . . .”

  “What?”

  “I also want him to love me. Is that sad?”

  “Not sad,” Lil Bit says. “Complicated.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Lil Bit walks me home past the tiny shops selling single cigarettes, soft drinks in plastic bags, and lottery tickets with their yellow and blue logos. We also pass street stalls selling mangoes and mobile phone credit for tiny amounts. It’s two in the afternoon and groups of children run wild on the street, drunk with school holiday freedom.

  I look ahead and stumble over my shoes. Jacob Caluza stands across the road with two friends in their early twenties; they’re slouching twins with devil horns tattooed on their foreheads and spiderwebs tattooed on their necks. Prison tattoos. The crude images of knives and guns inked on the tops of their hands hint at the crimes they have committed. Jacob’s friends are the sort of men that girls like us cross the street to avoid.

  “Hey, Amandla.” Jacob waves me over. “Come here.”

  I keep my eyes on the footpath and pretend not to hear him. I don’t want to make him mad, but I sure as anything don’t want to be near him or his prison pals. Lil Bit edges closer so that our arms touch.

  “You know him?” she whispers.

  “Not really. He wanted me to have a drink with him and I said no.” Shuffled footsteps sound on the pavement behind us. Jacob and his friends are following. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle with warning.

  “Ignore them,” I tell Lil Bit in a fierce whisper. “Keep walking.”

  I want to run, but if I do, Jacob and his friends will chase me.

  “Amandla! Amandla!” Jacob calls out in a singsong voice. “Why the rush?”

  I have to answer now. No choice. “My friend and I have homework to do. I can’t stop.”

  Jacob jogs past us and stands in the middle of the pavement with a crooked smile. He is high again. Across the way, a group of old ladies stop and stare. They won’t interfere, though. I don’t blame them. Going up against men with prison tattoos will only bring them trouble, and like everyone else in Sugar Town, they have problems of their own.

  “Sorry,” I tell Jacob. “Not today.”

  “Don’t be like that,” he says. “Come meet my friends. We can go, grab a drink. Your little girlfriend can come with. We have plenty to go around.”

  The tattooed twins move in on Lil Bit with wide grins and animal eyes. She holds her ground but flinches when the twin on the right leans close to her ear and whispers, “So tiny. I could break you in two without even trying. You might even like it.”

  I grab Lil Bit’s hand and pull her to my side. Jacob is a pest, but the twins are something much more menacing. We need to get away before the situation turns dangerous.

  “Thanks but no thanks for the invitation.” I am polite but firm. “We have catch-up homework to do, like I said.”

  I sidestep Jacob and his friends and pull Lil Bit with me. Jacob clamps a bony hand onto my shoulder and tries to pull me back in his direction. I tear out of his grasp and turn on him. The drugs have made him bigger in his mind than he is in real life, and he needs to know I will not be manhandled in the street. Neither will Lil Bit. Enough is enough.

  “Listen, Jacob,” I say with the calm my mother uses in situations like this. “You asked me to go with you and I said no. No, thank yo
u. Now please, leave me alone. I have work to do.”

  Jacob’s smile vanishes. My cool manner was a mistake. I should have stayed soft and sweet, a clueless little girl in awe of his tattooed friends and flattered by his attention. He sucks his teeth, annoyed.

  “You really think you gonna make it out of Sugar Town, Miss High and Mighty,” he says. “You are as crazy as your mother if you think you’re gonna do better than me, girl.”

  I snap. I look straight at him.

  “Seriously, Jacob? You think you’re the best I can do?!”

  He goes quiet.

  “I’ve been polite. Now leave me alone!” I say it loud enough for Mr. Solomon, the owner of Solomon and His Three Wives General Store, to poke his head out of the doorway. One look at the twins and he ducks right back inside. Jacob and his friends slowly back off.

  “If she speaks to you like that again, you have to show her who’s boss!” the twin with the words Pain Is Love tattooed across his cheek says. “A woman has to respect her man.”

  As if.

  Lil Bit tugs at my skirt. “Come on. We’re running late.”

  I don’t have to be told twice. I walk away. I do not look back. My body vibrates with rage at being touched without my permission. First Neville and now Jacob. My patience with lousy men has evaporated. I should be scared. Instead, all I want is a chance to take them both down with one clean hit.

  “Are they following us?” I ask Lil Bit. “Take a quick look for me.”

  Lil Bit peeks over her shoulder. “No, they’re just standing and watching.”

  We turn the corner, and I let out a long breath I didn’t know I was holding. My hands shake. Lil Bit grabs them and squeezes tight.

  “That was tense, but you were amazing,” she says. “You told him to back down, and he did.”

  How long will that last?

  “I don’t understand what’s gotten into Jacob. He didn’t notice me before, and now suddenly . . .”

  “Father says that once he saw that girl, Sunshine, he couldn’t get her out of his mind. She filled up his eyes. Maybe it’s like that.”

  “I hope not. I have to find a way to stop this nonsense for good.”

  “Ask Goodness to help you out,” Lil Bit says. “Her brothers can talk to Jacob and warn him off, nice-like.”

  “I can’t ask for a favor from her brothers,” I say. “They don’t owe me anything, and Annalisa already has too much on her mind with Mayme in the hospital and money running out. I have to find a way to handle Jacob myself.”

  “Good luck,” Lil Bit snaps back. “You saw his friends, Amandla . . . twin criminals out of jail but never out of trouble.”

  “I don’t know what I’ll do.” That is the truth. “I have no room in my head for Jacob and his friends, Lil Bit. They are next week’s problem. Seeing Mayme again is the number one thing. She has the keys to Annalisa’s past. I just have to figure out a way into the white house.”

  Lil Bit reaches over and plucks Mayme’s note from my jacket pocket. She unfolds it and points to Sam’s mobile number and the cryptic message. If you need help.

  “Call him. Ask for help like your granny said.”

  14

  At 10:55 the next morning, I throw Lil Bit a brave smile and pull the clean curry container from my backpack. Lewis said to bring it back to the Build ’Em Up—or the Dumisa house—so here we are. Lil Bit stands next to me, flush-faced and nervous. I get it. We never come to this part of Sugar Town and being here feels strange. The houses are big, not as big as the house Annalisa grew up in, but big enough, and built of brick.

  “Knock.” Lil Bit tugs at her T-shirt. “All we can do is ask. If she says no, we’ll make another plan. Simple.”

  Today, Goodness gets her mobile back, and I need a phone with unlimited data and endless credit to plan my next move against Neville. I knock, and we wait. The door opens, and a short black woman with smooth cheeks and a wide mouth frowns at us on the porch. For a second, I think she might turn us away.

  “Yes?” she says.

  “Lewis asked me to return this.” I hold out the empty container. “And I was wondering if Goodness was home.”

  “Come in,” the woman says, and walks through a living room with two sofas covered in plastic and two easy chairs with crocheted doilies draped over the armrests. A three-tier diamante chandelier with fake candles hangs from the ceiling. Annalisa calls this “granny fashion,” though I can’t imagine Mayme’s furniture covered in anything but soft leather.

  “Goodness!” the woman calls at the kitchen door. “Two girls to see you.”

  Goodness sits at a long wooden table with a late breakfast of bacon and eggs in front of her. Dressed in a black Adidas tracksuit trimmed in white and with her bleached braids pulled into a high ponytail, she’s ready for a game of soccer or a marathon shopping spree at the mall. Lil Bit’s stomach rumbles, and my mouth waters. In our house, bacon is a Sunday-morning treat, and today is only Wednesday.

  “Hey, my sisters.” Goodness smiles and waves us into the kitchen, which smells of coffee and bacon grease. Mrs. Dumisa must have wanted a pretty little miss for a daughter, but Goodness, with her elbows propped on either side of a heaped plate of food, is fabulous in a totally different way. “Have you eaten?”

  If a slice of bread and a weak cup of tea counts, then yes, Lil Bit and I have both eaten breakfast.

  “We were so busy discussing Amandla’s grandfather that it slipped our minds.” Lil Bit lies as easily as she steals. “Wait till you hear what he did.”

  “Sit. Tell me.” Goodness turns to the black woman who opened the front door and says, “Two more helpings of bacon and eggs for my friends, please, Mina. Thanks.”

  We sit, and I tell Goodness everything that happened. Except for the part about Annalisa and me screaming. I leave that bit out. If our friendship lasts beyond the school holidays, maybe I’ll tell her what it’s like to have a mother who has lost part of her mind and that, for a moment, I let part of mine go, too. That it felt good. That maybe I might be a little crazy, too.

  When I finish, Goodness gets a serious look on her face.

  “What are you going to do?” she asks. “Men like that? Give them an inch and they’ll take the whole village. No way can you let your gramps win. You have to fight back.”

  My thoughts exactly, and now’s the time to ask for that favor.

  “My cousin Sam might know a way into the house. I need to call him and find out.”

  Goodness slides her iPhone across the table without hesitation. No need to ask or beg.

  “Thanks, Goodness.”

  “No problem, Amandla. Power to the people!”

  She gives Lil Bit a crisp piece of bacon to hold her over while Mina cooks a second round of breakfast.

  “Use the speakerphone,” Goodness says. “Saves you repeating the conversation afterward.”

  Fair.

  I dial Sam’s number, which I have memorized. The note from Granny Amanda is tucked safe inside the pages of my sketchbook. It might be the only letter I ever receive from her. That makes it precious and worth keeping.

  The phone is picked up on the other end.

  “Hello?” It’s Sam.

  “Hey, it’s Amandla. Your cousin.”

  “My one and only,” he says. “Ready for that ice cream on the beach?”

  “I am, but it’ll have to wait. You’re on speaker with my friends Lil Bit and Goodness. I have something I need to talk to you about.”

  He has no idea what’s happened, so I tell him about being turned away on Neville’s orders. How it’s not right, what he did. That Annalisa told me Grandpa always wins and isn’t it time for him to suck on failure? “Okay. That came out wrong. What I mean to say is, if Mayme is home from the hospital, I plan on getting into the white house, one way or another. Will you help?”

 
; “Mayme came home last night, and yes, I’ll help,” Sam says. “There’s a separate entrance for the servants that opens with a security code. One problem, though. The maid and the gardener and the cook have worked for the family for decades. Me coming in through the servants’ entrance is no problem, but they’ll call the guards on a stranger.”

  A stranger. He means me.

  “Can we sneak in somehow?” I wonder out loud, knowing that Sam is our only way into the white house. I’m too shy to ask him to get physically involved in our plans. We are family, but we don’t know each other. Not really. Lil Bit leans over the table and says into the phone, “Where is the servants’ entrance?”

  “Down a small lane to the right of the front gates,” Sam says. “The entrance door is made of steel. Unbreakable.”

  “Can the guards see the door from the front gates?” Lil Bit asks.

  “There’s usually only one guard,” Sam says. “Manfred. And he’s asleep on the job most of the time.”

  “Describe Manfred to me,” I ask Sam out of curiosity. “Old or young?”

  “Old. Fat and bald. Been there since my dad was a kid. Wears a coat that’s two sizes too big for him.”

  “Neville has three guards on patrol now,” I say. “All young and fully awake. All professionals with earpieces and guns.”

  “All there to keep you from getting into the white house,” Goodness points out. “Your gramps didn’t trust the old guard to turn your ma away from the family home.”

  That makes sense. The way Sam tells it, Manfred and the Bollards have decades of shared history. Annalisa grew from a child to an adult under his watch. No way would he have made us stand on the sidewalk like beggars.

  “Manfred won’t be back till after Mayme has passed. That’s my guess,” I say. Neville is cautious. He is cunning. He plays to win. What can a colored girl from the township do to a white man who has all the power?