by H. J Golakai
He was open and engrossed as she talked of this fictitious young woman her age, in great health and full of promise. His eyes flicked to high beam when she got to the interesting part: say this woman began, spontaneously, to suffer from brief, unexpected and crippling attacks for no apparent reason.
Neethling cocked his head. ‘Muscle spasms? Nausea? Dizziness? A paralysing fear that this is the final gong, the world’s about to end?’
‘Exactly! I mean, yes, come to think of it my friend mentioned those very symptoms.’
‘It’s a typical panic or anxiety attack, or chronic anxiety disorder if it’s been going on for a while.’ Neethling was a little hesitant in the beginning about embarking on what was clearly a consultation, but was leaning into it. ‘In my opinion, and I deal with more serious mental disorders, but others would agree–’
‘Mental disorder?’
He laughed and held up his hands. ‘Hold on. That sounds too scary. Let’s call it a psychosomatic event. It stems from our normal fight or flight response, but because the trigger is sudden and unprovoked, there’re a lot of theories as to what causes it. But in a healthy person with no history of drug abuse, other mental conditions or a genetic predisposition … then a good place to start would be here.’ He tapped a finger on the side of his head.
Vee hugged her arms to her body. ‘What … How would that matter?’
‘The body and the psyche express trauma in different ways. All our systems communicate, even when we set up mind-blocks. I guess you could say the body reacts against a conscious effort to suppress the anxiety. Unfortunately, the experience is like having a meltdown.’
‘What if …’ Vee dropped her arms. They felt naked and useless by her sides, so she grabbed her glass with both hands to hide the tremor in her hands. ‘What about hallucinations?’
‘Like what, lucid dreaming? Sleep paralysis?’
‘No.’ God, how she wished. ‘A real manifestation of … shapes. Things you could touch if you weren’t completely paralysed.’
‘Visions of what, exactly?’ Neethling looked uneasy.
Vee waved a hand. ‘Ahhh. I can’t believe I’m about to ask this. What the hell. Can one of these attacks … can they open doors to the other side? Like, make things that aren’t real come out of nowhere and … menace you?’
Neethling rubbed the bridge of his nose. Yep, Vee thought. He’s going to call the guys in white to drag me away. ‘I won’t give you a neurology lecture, but anxiety attacks stimulate many areas of the brain. They’re intense and can imitate a highly spiritual experience. Joan of Arc? Paul on the road to Damascus?’
‘Oh-h-o-o! I thought the reigning scientific theory debunking all that was schizophrenia. Or bipolar disorder. Or boring, Christian nuttery.’
Neethling laughed and put his hands up. ‘No comment, on any of that. All I’m saying is brain chemistry is complex. Don’t let it fool you – your friend, I mean – into thinking the supernatural is a possibility here. Consider the obvious. Has she ever gone through a huge trauma, physical or emotional? Something she never fully processed or let go of?’
‘It depends. I’d have to ask her what she considers traumatic,’ Vee said. ‘She’s seen a lot. Her definition’s pretty wide.’
‘There you go, then. Examine the past. Panic attacks and PTSD go hand in hand. Death, major life changes, horrific experiences like war–’
The flute stem snapped and slashed her thumb, and the glass tinkled to delicate bits on the balcony floor. A waiter materialised to clean up the mess. Mark Neethling rose to help, but Vee squeezed past him and scuttled off the balcony, leaving him staring after her with a frown.
19
‘I saw this medical series once,’ Vee mused aloud, taking her thumb out of her mouth, ‘about horrifying ways to die. This woman cut herself. A small knife cut, and flesh-eating bacteria got in her system and started eating her up and they had to chop her arm off to stop it.’
Joshua examined the cut. ‘Nothing’s going to dissolve your arm off,’ he said. ‘While we’re on the subject of honesty …’
‘We very much weren’t.’
‘Lately you’ve been very shady. You’re hiding something. Don’t forget you already have the talent for theft. Throw that in and you’re well on your way to turning into a full-blown criminal.’
Vee put her finger back in her mouth and looked away. She was in no mood to be psychoanalysed twice in one night. She felt stupid enough for giving a virtual stranger access to poke around her life, her guarded hurts. What had she been expecting – that Neethling could magic up a cure in one sitting? ‘You should get better friends. The open-book kind, who don’t lie or keep secrets.’
He cussed the air blue. ‘Why don’t you just talk to me? What could be so terrible? And before you answer that, weigh in everything else I already know about you. And you about me.’
This is different. This time I’m being haunted, or I’m possessed, or I’m certifiable. I’m terrified and I don’t want you laughing at me. No … I couldn’t bear it if you gave up on me. Quilting together the patches of Jacqui’s story was her problem, and the process was much more convoluted than it looked in the movies. Movie ghosts introduced themselves, and then went about sprinkling helpful clues for the intrepid heroine to find. Jacqui was a lazy, taciturn diva.
‘I ever told you the story about my Grammah?’
‘You’ve told me a hundred stories about your grandmother. She practically raised you.’
‘The other one. The one I never talk about.’
Joshua’s eyebrows jumped to his hairline. ‘The one that throws bones and shit?’
‘She’s a zo, like a spirit medium … cleanser, not a witch doctor.’ She folded her hands on her lap. ‘When I was born, she told my mother I was her ‘gift’. That I had a wonder about me, and she would teach me all the zo intricacies. There was going to be a ceremony and everything when I got to a certain age.’ Vee looked up at Joshua and saw she had his full, horrified attention. ‘That’s why my mother fell out with her mother and they barely speak to this day. That’s why even when I go home I rarely visit her, though she’s reformed and not in the spirit business any more.’
Joshua’s irises were two onyx planets swimming in an ever-widening ocean of white. ‘Are you saying she made you into a witch?’
Vee put her hands over her face and laughed. ‘No, dummy. My parents are Anglican snobs, they’d never let shit like that happen. I’m saying …’ What was she saying? ‘I don’t always know what I’m about, what all the things in me are reaching for. I don’t want you getting swept up in my mess again. I can handle it.’
‘Everything isn’t always about you and what you want.’
Vee put her head on his shoulder. ‘Of course it is. That doesn’t even make sense.’ She plucked the tissue that had been wrapped around her thumb out of his hand and tucked it back around. ‘I’m ravishing and intense and highly complex. But I’m not myself right now. So don’t get all up in your feelings.’ She gave him a peck at the corner of his mouth.
‘You’re right.’ He kissed her, briefly, on the lips.
‘This is inappropriate.’ Vee kissed him back.
It would never go any further.
The mood threw a curve ball, shooting tingles up the back and between her legs. He nipped her bottom lip and she gave a little shudder. She linked both hands around his neck; he dragged her onto his lap; she ran her fingers over his buzz of curls; he moved a hand up her thigh, smoothing her dress aside–
‘Whoa!’ Vee pulled away.
‘What?’
‘Sshhhh!’ Her mouth dropped open. ‘Oh my God, how did I miss that?’
Joshua sagged. ‘Jesus wept.’
Vee barely heard. She called up a blank page in her mind’s eye, a table much like the ones she’d used in secondary-school bookkeeping. A clear, nondescript sheet with a line down the middle to separate a credit and debit side. Basic accounting, no mess, no fuss. But suppose that was exactly wha
t Jacqui hadn’t wanted? What if the files had looked disappointing because they were meant to? If anyone snooped around in Jacqui’s room hunting for proof of mischief, for something that looked out of place, all they’d uncover was–
‘Absolutely nothing,’ she said to herself. She snatched her clutch handbag on the edge of the bench and took out her cell, gave Joshua an apologetic grimace, and dialled. In seconds, the other end picked up. ‘Chlöe, finegeh, listen. Remember the mystery folder The Guy sent us today? Yeah, I know, useless. But what if it wasn’t?’
She rattled off her theory: the files were a track record of a little informal business. One side was an inventory of all Jacqui’s merchandise, and the initial typed next to it was simply the name of the person who’d made the order. A crossed out name meant money and goods had changed hands – transaction sorted.
‘I was waaay overthinking it. We know Jacqui liked being up in things. Things cost money; she had to be getting the mah from somewhere. Now I thought about all the ways a clever girl could go about getting spare cash and none of them added up. Adele, forget it. Her pa spoilt her all right, but from what we saw in her room, her acquisition dysfunction was worse than yours, something Ian wouldn’t enable. She couldn’t have been twisting her oliver for some sugardaddy so he’d pimp her lifestyle. Her best friend would’ve told us, and Jacqui doesn’t strike me as the type. Why be with a cretin like Ashwin if you weren’t a romantic deep down?’
‘Then what was she up to?’ Chlöe replied.
‘The obvious. Rosie handed me the answer and I didn’t get it. Every kid tries their hand at enterprise at some point, right. Rosie said they shoplifted for a while and lost interest. But Jacqui didn’t, she just went wholesale on her own. Those bales of clothes in her room, that was it! She was hawking what she was stealing. What better way to make money off other fashion-crazy gossip girls.’ Vee chortled. ‘Jacqui fuckin’ Paulsen. This li’l girl was a mafia market woman.’
Now it all computed, what the brand new clothes in those three plastic bundles were for. Jacqueline had contrived her own ingenious shortcut to the pocket money dilemma.
‘Okay, hmmm … I see your reasoning …’ Chlöe mulled. Vee pictured her pinching her bottom lip. ‘If that is the case, she must’ve been at it for months, pssh, maybe even a year. That was quite a printout we got. Where the hell was the money going?’
‘I’ve got a few ideas. I’m sending you pictures of the things she had lying around in her room; our answer’s bound to be in there. I know it’s late, but go online if you can, check if any of it was pricey. I’m in the middle of something.’ Vee hung up.
Joshua said, ‘You’re a fantastic date, by the way. In case you were wondering.’
‘Sorry.’ She kissed his cheek. ‘Tell me, what kind of kid were you? I mean, at seventeen? You’ve told me plenty about your childhood but you do get cagey with the details around high school.’
‘Because my teens were weird and stupid. Everyone’s are, they’re supposed to be. I have little trust or respect for anyone who peaked early. What was I like?’ He slouched, stretching his arms along the backrest of the bench. ‘Horny.’ He shrugged. ‘Impatient, brooding, obnoxious. Excited that high school, the most confining place ever, was almost behind me. Scared shitless about the concept of ‘the rest of my life’.’ He paused. ‘Super horny, and obsessed with obsessing over all the action I missed out on.’
‘You were still unblemished at seventeen? How did I not know this?’ Vee gasped in mock horror. He looked like he’d been fiddling with people’s daughters since the first grade. ‘But you look like such a ho.’
He shook his head. ‘Nah. Learnt on the job. I had a lot to work through … awkward, gangly, a smile to frighten small children.’ He flashed a sharky grimace and ran a finger over his teeth. She understood the gesture: braces. So the shit-eating grin was, in part, the flourish of a talented dentist. ‘Every girl I wanted was taken, half the time by one of my friends. Wasted a shitload of time on stupid crushes.’ He pressed an index finger to his temple. ‘Huh. Breakthrough moment. I may have a thing for unavailable women.’
Her Nokia interrupted. ‘No need to go online,’ Chlöe said. ‘These products are all dead expensive. I recognise the brand names: REN, Dr Hauschka, Sisley. La Mer facial moisturiser – that’s liquid gold in a jar, bosslady. If our girl was buying herself status, she fucking knew how to shop for it.’
‘How could her own mother have missed all this?’
‘No offence, but did you recognise REN’s mayblossom and blue cypress cleansing gel?’
‘Point taken. We’ll go through that file again on Monday. I now pronounce you free to enjoy the rest of your weekend. Where are you, by the way?’ The clamour in the background was outrageous.
‘Joburg,’ Chlöe said.
‘You flew to Johannesburg for the weekend?’
‘No, Grandma. Joburg the club. Long Street.’ Chlöe ruptured into giggles and whispered, ‘Gotta go, someone’s writing their number on my boobs.’
Vee hung up and gave Joshua a pained look. ‘Can we please leave, before I lose it again?’
20
Vee got her notes in order as, once again, she waited in the paediatric unit’s reception, this time to be ushered into Carina Fourie’s consulting room.
The last thing she’d expected come Monday morning when she got to her desk was a call from either of the Fouries, so Carina’s genial summons to meet at the WI came as a surprise. Vee had listened with no interruption, agreed to the meet Carina at ten-thirty and thanked her for offering an interview. She hung up and sat at her desk, letting the encounter boomerang around her brain. Either the Fouries were up to something – as a rule, people loved the idea of a successful pre-emptive strike and it rarely worked out that way in reality – or they had decided to play it straight.
Vee kept an eye on Carina’s door and took advantage of the half-hour of free wifi to browse emails. Things were taking shape. Chlöe had checked in to report that the Sticky Fingers theory was holding up. Several old classmates of Jacqui’s had confirmed buying her wares on school grounds at knock-off prices. The headmaster eventually cottoned on to the enterprise and called in Jacqui’s parents, threatening immediate expulsion. Adele and Ian had pleaded ignorance and moderation, and after a lot of negotiation Jacqui’s punishment was shaved down: suspension if the goods were returned, and counselling. Her disappearance meant neither had transpired and Jacqui had at least been spared one minor embarrassment.
Why hadn’t Adele considered it important enough to mention? Better yet, why not avoid the possibility of meddling questions altogether by getting rid of the evidence? Adele clearly had an unhealthy relationship with her daughter’s room, but an oversight like that was just plain sloppy. Vee wondered what Adele had told the case officers who’d examined Jacqui’s belongings, that’s if they’d caught it at all and questioned her. What Vee was most interested in knowing was how the good doctor had handled his daughter’s disgrace. Ian would hardly let something like that go unpunished.
Vee looked up to find Carina standing over her, for how long she had no idea. She closed her laptop quickly, rose and followed Carina into her comfortable, east-facing office.
‘My husband will be joining us. I’m sure it’ll be more convenient if we both speak to you. More practical, right? We’re all busy people.’
Germans and their efficiency. Vee wondered a little guiltily if that was a racist thought to have. Within minutes she was comfortably seated, sipping on an overly strong cup of Jacobs Krönung blend and studying the husband and wife in the sofas across from her as they presented a united and creepily frosty front.
The quick clench and release motions of Carina’s right fist were a dead giveaway that wifey was highly tense. Vee had an inkling that Carina called her on her own gumption but that plans had changed. Either she’d chickened out of riding solo through the interview, or Ian had found out and wedged himself in to monitor the proceedings. Vee leaned heavily tow
ards the latter.
Adele had described him well. Ian Fourie commanded devotion, obedience, admiration, the spectrum. Vee didn’t go so far as to call it magnetic – there was something warmer and more pleasant about that energy – but Ian did have a pull just by being in the room. In a blue shirt and slacks, shoulders relaxed as he made direct eye contact, he looked the picture of a man at ease, yet his eyes were guarded. He reached to his left and took hold of his wife’s hand, but her body language didn’t change. Eyes dead ahead, back straight, knees together. Her pale hand looked like a dead fish in his.
‘I will start by talking about Heinrich. I’m sure you will want to begin at the beginning,’ Carina said. There was a soothing cadence to the trace of German in her accent. She instantly began to look relaxed and strangely happy now she was on the topic of her son. It took a second for Vee to recall that Heinrich had been Sean’s proper first name.
‘He had acute lymphocytic leukaemia, or ALL. It’s a common type of cancer in children and the survival rate is encouragingly high. Sadly for us, he had a very aggressive sub-type, which changes the treatment strategy substantially. He was diagnosed when he was five–’
‘Five and a half,’ Ian interjected, his voice gruff. Head bent, he cleared his throat and managed to look up, embarrassed. He issued a low murmur and nod for Carina to continue.
‘Over the years, he went into remission but the outlook wasn’t good. The cancer returned with full force in late 2001. We agreed with his specialists that since he wasn’t responding to standard therapy, we would focus our energy on allogenic stem cell transplantation.’
Carina gave a wry smile at Vee’s blank expression. “Allogenic’ simply means the transplant material would come from a donor who was a genetic tissue match. The stem cells they transfuse can either be from the blood or bone marrow. The best shot at improving our chances was to try both, but first we had to find a good HLA match.’
