by H. J Golakai
It lasted about two minutes before the phone went. Let it ring, he thought as he reclined his chair, pressing thumbs into tired eyes. It didn’t stop. Sighing, he reached over and answered. It was Tamsin from paediatrics, fraught and apologetic as she informed him they had only two doctors available and the place was a meat market. She knew it wasn’t his responsibility to monitor his wife, but she’d tried the other Dr Fourie several times on her beeper, cell and home phone and still no answer. Could he perhaps …
Ian hung up. He didn’t need to glance at the wall calendar or the smaller, flip-over version on the desk to know the date. No parent ever forgot the month that carried the anniversary of a child’s death. Obviously that was why Carina wasn’t at work yet, why he knew she had no intention of turning up at all. September had truly begun, and every year like clockwork, September rolled in like a cumulonimbus, dank, heavy presence that chewed up every scrap of joy in his heart and home. Every member of his family grew subdued, avoided eye contact and engaging conversation, not to mention the frequent, inexplicable absences from home. Having slept at a nearby bed-and-breakfast last night, he was hardly setting the best example.
Their well-coordinated, sombre dance around the unspoken was familiar – sickeningly comforting, in fact. All the same, he’d expected it to have petered out, if not through the passage of time then at least from how exhausting it had become for all of them. He couldn’t help but conjure up an image of himself seated at his mother’s kitchen table as she fussed over him, his attire and confidence changing over the years but a petulant, hangdog expression tattooed on his face. The years had yawned between them, and neither had been able to submit to the grief of losing a husband and father. Food and denial became substitutes for communication. Anything could petrify into tradition if people gave it enough respect. Now here he found himself again, decades later. Rinse, repeat. Superstitious he was not, but wondering if a curse hung over his head was beginning to sound plausible.
Ian picked up a framed photograph. The smiling face of his son looked back at him, a face so like his own that the resemblance threatened to splinter his ribcage. In a green shirt splashed with a jaunty print that made him look even younger than his fourteen years, Sean grinned as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Wherever he was now, he likely had no cause for cares. Even with the barest of fuzz on his scalp and lighting that hardly compensated for a sallow complexion, it was hard to tell he was a sick child with precious moments left of his life.
Ian removed the frame and drew another snapshot from behind the first, peeling them apart. The heavy, gilded frame ensured no one ever guessed it was there. The hidden photo showed a young girl in a T-shirt and blue jeans, framed in a doorway with hands in pockets and shoulders raised as she laughed into the camera. Same smile, same-ish nose.
They could be brother and sister.
Absurd, seeing as they were, a bond they would’ve enjoyed more thoroughly had he allowed it in the short time they’d known each other. ‘2 September, 2002’ was written on the back of the boy’s photo, the same day as today, the memory captured mere weeks before he died. ‘17/03/07’ was scrawled behind the girl’s. Sean, who in a few weeks would have been dead for seven years, and Jacqueline, missing for nearly two.
Two of his children lost in less than a decade, frozen forever at ages fourteen and seventeen. Two grieving mothers hating his fucking guts for the rest of his life: one whose smouldering contempt he had to swallow every day, the other’s leaden silence and ability to freeze him out of every line of communication more effective than any physical blow.
Ian picked up the phone. It felt like a boulder in his palm. The next number he dialled was his wife’s.
The knife carved a slice off the carrot, nearly taking with it the tip of her finger. Carina swore and stuffed the digit in her mouth.
The metallic taste of blood coated her tongue and amplified, filling her mouth and nose. The smell brought back the operating theatres of her internship, of patients drugged and helpless, relying on her skill to see them through. It reminded her of many smells she couldn’t face today: baby powder, full nappies or vomit. She couldn’t handle the combined aroma or sight of babies living and being, no matter how much she was needed at the hospital. I can’t face much of anything right now. She squeezed her eyelids together and sucked in gulps of air. Today I see myself through.
It was pointless. The tears would come no matter which way she played it.
Motherhood was a glum occupation, Carina thought. A dull, thankless stretch of heroism that some women, most, were born to shoulder. Others were self-made, morphing into the role as their bodies plumped and the realisation that they’d intended to do it at some point sealed their acceptance, even joy. Others were simply resigned to the prospect. She had no idea where, or if, she fitted into either of the latter two groups, but she definitely wasn’t of the first. She’d never fancied the idea of mothering, mostly because she hadn’t given it much thought, preferring to think of things only when they were immediately relevant. She had, though, very much liked the idea of being part of a couple. The better half of a pair. Significantly othered.
Once married, she’d had no clue why the first pregnancy had surprised her. She hadn’t gone out of her way to prevent it, and the thought of a termination had repulsed her as soon as it sprung to mind. Not on any moral or religious grounds, but purely on the principle that she always completed anything she began. Her own mother wouldn’t have been shocked to discover her daughter’s first reaction to the news had not been unbridled delight. Carina made sure she didn’t deliver the news until she wrapped her head around it herself. Not that her mother was someone she had a history of rushing to with tidings of any sort. The woman took judgemental way too far. Since childhood, Carina felt she’d been accused, too harshly in her view, of being too sleepy in her decision-making in some areas and too headstrong and impulsive in others. This from the woman who, after all these years, still doubted that her daughter’s decisions – to study medicine, leave Germany to practice in Africa and marry a man who wasn’t white – were all carefully considered. Which, of course, they had been.
Four pregnancies, though … Carina herself hadn’t seen that coming. After the trauma of Sean’s birth, when they’d finally laid his perfect, downy head on her chest, she’d told herself she was done. One was enough. But like most modern women who thought themselves above the subservience of love, she hadn’t made any allowance for how powerful would be her need to please her husband. Ian was absolutely besotted with Sean. In that sentiment she’d agreed with her husband wholeheartedly, as they joined forces in showering their eldest with the adulation he deserved.
She’d named him Heinrich, after her own beloved father, but as was usual resigned to having her authority undermined when he went by Sean, his middle, ‘less stuffy’ name. Regardless of what he was called, no child deserved spoiling with love and gifts as the first Fourie. Sean was as good and sweet-tempered in the flesh as he’d been in utero, not at all what she’d expected. Carina had looked on in quiet terror at the monstrous blue-veined stomachs, pimpled faces and oedemic legs of expectant mothers, the frightful carryings-on and tantrums of other people’s offspring in public. How had she, a seasoned paediatrician, not noticed these things before? Which blinkers had shielded her eyes from the truth that these little balls of human, her primary clients, were hell-raisers? Without a second thought, she simply doled out the routine lines on childcare that parents craving sleep or time to themselves craved. Until it was her turn, but she’d gotten lucky.
At least with Sean she had. As her belly had swollen distastefully another three times, her attachment to her firstborn had grown disproportionately more intense. None of her children, Sean included, looked much like her. One of her girls, Rosie, even had the audacity to look like a reincarnation of one of Ian’s overbearing, bearded great-aunts. But Sean had had enough of her in him to satisfy her, she reflected with a smile, something in the general way his features a
rranged themselves while he battled his emotions and fears. He’d got his strength and resolve from her and, combined with uncommon cheerfulness and maturity, his personality had served him well throughout the course of his illness.
Carina blinked against a hot welling of tears. All that self-sufficiency had driven her crazy. Throughout her medical career she’d seen her fair share of myths debunked. The one about the glowing angel that soldiered through chronic illness, uplifting others despite his or her own pain and hopelessness, was as rubbish as unicorns. Sick children were like sick adults: frightened, cranky, and downright impossible. The terminal ones were the worst.
Her Sean had been different. She’d waited desperately for the moment he’d become pathetic with need and fear, allowing her to be the pillar of maternal strength she needed to be. Until the bitter end, he was more a comfort to his family than they’d been to him, more so because every last one of them had failed him. It was almost as if Sean had been born to die nobly and show others how to do it. For heaven’s sake, even that bastard of Ian’s–
She shrieked as the knife sliced through the same finger again, deeper than before. Blood arced over the kitchen counter and the vegetables. Hissing and swearing under her breath, Carina wrapped the nearest piece of cloth, one of her favourite scarves, around the cut. On the tabletop, her Samsung cell phone began to buzz and vibrate like an irritating electronic animal, lifting and clattering back against the marble in miniature convulsions. With one hand she grabbed it, pressed a button and balanced it against an ear with a shoulder.
In the front garden, Serena Fourie peered through the kitchen window at her mother on a call. Her cascade of blonde hair shrouded the phone, while she bustled around with things unseen. Serena didn’t need to be within earshot to know who was calling and what the call was about. It was almost midday and her mother, the workaholic, was at home. She watched her mother’s posture change sharply: her fine-boned, slender frame, which none of them had inherited, stiffened and her face reddened as her head snapped up, nearly causing her to drop the phone. She uttered what looked like sharp words into it and turned her back to the window.
‘Boo.’ Two fingers poked her in the ribs and Serena jumped.
‘Cut it out,’ she said to her sister, not turning around. Her voice came sharper than she meant but she couldn’t help it. Every word and every movement would be as barbed and poisonous today as it had been for weeks. By the look of it, the two likeliest contenders for a showdown were already squaring off. They’d held off for longer than last year, not bashing antlers until the actual day. Serena wondered if that was good or bad.
‘That means you’re jealous, if you jump when someone pokes you,’ Rosie giggled, unbothered. Her chest against Serena’s back, she draped her arms around Serena’s shoulders. ‘Or having sex.’
Rosie leaned into her neck, and Serena caught the waft of something sweet laced with peanuts on her illicit whisper. In silence they watched their mother, breathing almost in tandem. In the kitchen, Carina cut the call and flung the phone away from her, then began pointlessly shunting items around on the counter.
‘What’s she doing?’
‘Making stew for supper.’ It was eleven thirty in the morning.
‘Was that Dad?’ Rosie whispered.
Serena nodded.
Another pause. Then: ‘What’s the date today?’
Sighing, Serena disentangled herself and spun around. The exasperated look she shot Rosie said, You know what day it is today. The day Sean had begun what would prove to be his final bout of chemotherapy. They all knew, had been raised to know and remember every landmark of their brother’s short life.
Rosie’s face remained woefully blank for a few seconds, before dawn broke through the clouds and she nodded robotically and hung her head. Serena shook her head. Trust Rosie.
‘I won’t be here for it, though. Supper, I mean.’ Serena hefted a gym bag of clean laundry. ‘Got cell group tonight. Going back to campus.’
‘Lemme come with you.’
A car crunched up the front driveway. It pulled to a stop outside the gate, and a young man slithered out of the driver’s seat and craned his neck over the gate. His hopeful eyes searched those of his sisters. Serena gave her head a sad, slow shake, and Lucas Fourie slumped back behind the wheel and drove off. She walked through the gate to her own car, fighting the urge to look back at Rosie standing alone on the lawn, biting her nails and looking lost.
3
Vee hung her legs out the driver’s side of her Toyota Corolla and polished off a Top Red apple. As lunches went, fatty steak rolls and unwashed fruit weren’t the best she could do, but it worked on the move.
‘On the move’ had a nice ring, active with a predatory edge, which made a pretty good ripple on the stagnant pool she called her career these days. The shocking part was that she’d let it happen and hadn’t cared much. Her recent blackouts told of a subconscious dissatisfaction, but her subconscious wasn’t really her problem if it didn’t speak up. True, making its presence felt by flipping all her switches with no provocation at the oddest times was not ideal, but that simply meant there’d have to be some new ground rules.
Reminded of one, Vee popped a foil tab of Cipralex and grimaced the pill down her throat. The previous plan, finding a specialist in her brand of issues (‘psychiatrist’ sounded so wrong and ‘therapist’ far worse), was canned. Popping pills for a so-called anxiety disorder was the size of it; a professional and meds combined she couldn’t handle.
Vee flipped through a paperback, eyes skimming, mind wandering. Solo missions had their perks. Most of the staff at Urban magazine couldn’t handle twiddling with their own thoughts to keep the hours from crushing their skulls in. Juggling the drudgery of being both investigator and part-time features editor meant she was well aware that she was looked upon with both awe and pity.
She gnawed on the apple core, relishing the mingling of the pips’ bitterness with the film of medication on her tongue. Hard as it was to admit, ‘investigator’ was nothing but a title at this point. One more lame fashion feature, one more piece of junky prose slapped under a ‘human interest’ header, and she’d start collecting scalps. Now was the moment to poke the bear, or perish.
‘This isn’t how we operate.’
‘Yeeessss, it kind of is. This,’ Vee nodded at the manila envelope, every angle of her pitch outlined and cross-checked to the hilt, ‘is what you expect of me. When last have I asked you to expect things of me?’
‘A while, I’ll admit,’ Portia Kruger said. ‘And I’ve not minded too much. You’re stretched across two publications. If anything, I’ve been expecting you to announce that you were scraping together what’s left of your leave and buggering off for a bit, not asking for more work. You’re ill, anyone can see …’
Vee dropped her arms and leaned her head, ever so slowly, to one side.
‘That was …’ Kruger raised exquisitely manicured hands in apology. ‘You have asked that I not pry, and so far I’ve obliged. So far. But this is clear out of the blue sky, not to mention rather obscure an angle, even for you. Surely you don’t think I’m so out of touch or poor at assessing human character that I’d miss the subtle traces of a personal agenda in here,’ she tapped the edge of the folder.
‘It’s a good story,’ Vee replied, flagging.
‘Come now, there’s more. Show your working as well as your sums. We’re not doing the movie scene where I’m the bastard boss forcing the ingenious maverick to toe the line and throw away a great hunch. I don’t know which journalism tactics the Americans taught you at the oh-so-prestigious Columbia University, but it’s not how the cookie crumbles on the dark continent.’
Okay, so we are doing this. Vee steeled herself. Her CU credentials only popped up when Portia felt intimidated – which she had no reason to be, as an Oxford graduate running one of her father’s newspapers at thirty-two – and when she wanted to sharpen her claws on a minion’s bones. The editor-in-chief looked i
ntrigued, and also piqued that she hadn’t sent a writer to sniff out a story like this already.
‘This breaks us out of our comfort zone, which we need. Badly.’
‘Too hard core for a major feature. An article on the rising incidence of missing children sounds riveting, but where’s the appeal? Our readership isn’t chuffed when we go too dark.’ Portia eyed her as she ran her palm over the back of her chignon, from which a few curls had tumbled loose.
Taking a different tack, Vee rallied. ‘I haven’t done investigative work in months. We’re both wasting resources. That can’t be what you want.’ Too whiny; turn it around. ‘Our readership needs pushing. Otherwise we’re just adding to the growing pile of garbage that sets us back to last century.’ Johnson, come on! Predictably combative. Steer straight, for God’s sake. ‘Look. This could be as big as the xenophobic violence piece …’ Vee levelled a challenge, but Portia refused to meet her gaze, looking away with a genteel cough. ‘And that made waves, if memory serves.’
‘Voinjama, there’s no debating you’ve done some great features here, okay? Kudos for the violence thing.’ Portia waved a hand. ‘It’s still on everyone’s lips.’
