Slipping

by Lauren Beukes

  —Would you still love me if I cheated?

  —Cheated at PlayStation or cheated on me with someone else?

  —Either.

  —No.

  —Even with a girl?

  —Am I there?

  —No!

  —Then no.

  I did kiss a girl, once, before I met Joe. Coked off our faces at one of those season clubs in summer, she’d pushed me up against a wall in a dark corner, pressed her lips to mine and tried to put her hand up my skirt. I didn’t really resist, but I didn’t go home with her either. She decided I was too straight for her. I guess I was. Am. Breeder.

  The arrowhead has shifted from my ribs. I know I can run out a stitch, only now the pain has moved to my belly and it’s heavy and gnawing, like cramps. It can’t be cramps. I know, although Joe doesn’t. I haven’t told him yet. It’s uncomfortable though, so even though I still have a ways to go, and I need to stay fit, especially now, I slow down to a walk, just for a little bit.

  There’s finally someone else out here: a man walking a huge dog, a Weimaraner. It’s not on a leash and it bounds up to me and shoves its nose into my crotch as I raise my hands defensively.

  —Nushka! Nushka! Down! I’m so sorry. The man wrestles the dog away and slaps at its nose. I’m really sorry. He’s just excitable around pretty girls.

  —No, it’s okay. It’s fine. There is a shiny snail-trail of dog slobber on my tracksuit. I suddenly feel sick.

  —Hey, I’ve seen you jogging around here a lot. Do you live nearby?

  I barely hear him. Gravity spins out for an instant, so that it feels like the world takes a leap in strobe.

  —What? Yes. No. My boyfriend does.

  —Oh. Yeah? Well. I live nearby. Maybe we could get a cup of coffee?

  —What?

  —I mean, after you’re done jogging. Sometime. Is he hitting on me?

  —Are you hitting on me?

  The world strobes again. I think he has the decency to look a little embarrassed, but right now I don’t care. I feel wrong. Like my insides have been strung around a fork that someone is twisting.

  —Well, you know, Nushka likes you, and you seem pretty cool. Maybe I could get your number and . . .

  —I left it at home, I snap, and brush past him to the hospital-blue box of the public toilets.

  —Well, jeez. I’m sorry for asking. I was just being friendly. What’s your fucking problem? Bitch.

  I push against the door of the ladies’ bathroom, only it doesn’t budge. I push again and then stumble around the side to the men’s bathroom, shove the door open, reel as a fist clenches on my guts and nearly fall to the concrete that is spattered with damp grey sand.

  —Okay, how about if I killed someone?

  —Did they deserve it?

  —Kind of. But it was pre-meditated murder rather than self-defense.

  —Hmmm. I dunno. Do the cops know you did it?

  —Does it matter?

  —It does if I have to pay for the lawyer.

  I’m crumpled in the stall, my shorts around my ankles, doubled over my knees, holding the door shut with one hand because the lock doesn’t work. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. God god oh fuck god fuck!

  And now the slipperiness has moved to between my legs. The pain moves like breath, builds with bright intensity, tearing through me, then easing, fluttering, then steadily building again. My fingers are pressed white into my belly, trying to hold it in, oh god please. Time stutters and drags. I will someone to come and find me, to make it stop.

  Only, when I hear the door open and footsteps on the concrete, it’s accompanied by the click of claws.

  —Hey! Are you still in here? Are you okay?

  I can hear the dog panting, big doggy gasps, and meanwhile he’s waiting. Listening. A shadow over the slice of light beneath the door. I bite down on the back of my hand and lock my arm against the door. Go away go away go away please just please please.

  —He-ll-o? Are you in there? He rolls his knuckles over the door.

  I’m trying not to breathe, not to let out the tight sounds catching in my throat.

  He stands there for a long time. But then the shadow moves, there’s a scrunch of sand under boots, soft clothing sounds, the squeal of a zipper. Oh god. And the dog panting.

  Something is tearing loose. Outside, there’s a splash of piss. Then the urinal flushes. Footsteps, the creak of his jeans and the dog tjanks once.

  —I’m just looking out for you, you know. I can hear the dog, Nushka, I can hear Nushka breathing, I can hear his fingers in the dog’s fur, his hand ruffling its head. I can hear the drone of the morning traffic. There is blood in the toilet bowl.

  Or maybe it’s the waves. I can’t tell.

  Dark clots of it.

  And he’s still standing there, blocking the sliver of light under the door. I think about Joe and the police station not even two hundred yards from here and the traffic and the homeless guy and the other joggers. And he’s still here. And our breathing, me and him and the dog playing counterpoint. And we’re not even a foot apart. Jesus please. And I wonder if his hand is on the door, if it’s touching mine through the wood. And it’s like we’ve always been listening to each other breathe on the other side of three centimeters of wood, white paint flaking, graffiti and dirty fingerprints. And my body can’t fucking hold it. Oh god, Joe. Would you still? Would you? I lean my head against the door. And the sound escapes.

  —Hey.

  My hand is pressed tight against my mouth, my fingers digging into the shape of my jaw, but I’m sobbing, the sound raw against my teeth, against my fingers.

  —Hey!

  Would you wouldyouwouldyouwouldyouwouldyouwouldyou, and I’m screaming now. So I can’t hear the dog panting, so I can’t hear him breathing, so I can’t hear the fetus slipping from my body. I’m screaming so I can’t hear myself scream.

  His name is Nikolas van Rooyen. He is an officer with the metropolitan police. A traffic marshal. It doesn’t escape him that most of his colleagues are women. They say it is a tough job, that people are rude. They are defensive. They try their luck. But he is twenty-two and grateful for the work.

  He works on Long Street, which is good, because it is always busy. There is always a bustle and a hustle here. He likes being outside. He likes the noisiness of the street, although he also likes it when it is quiet, early in the morning, before the city is swollen with cars and people. He likes it when the streets are empty, when the spaces are still white lines waiting to be filled. It is hard to find parking in town.

  His job is to ensure that people put money in the meter or rather that they swipe their prepaid cards. His job is to recharge cards that have run out of credit, to sell brand-new cards to people who don’t have one at all, or to sell them minutes off his own card. Parking costs R3.40 for half an hour. His salary comes out of the meters.

  He has been watching her for three weeks now. She comes here often, to Long Street. Not always, not every day, but often. Usually in the afternoons, every second or third day. At first he thought she might work here, but she is only here for a couple of hours at the most, and what kind of job would let her to do that?

  She drives a red Toyota Tazz. The license plate is CA 087-167. He has it memorized so that he can look out for her. She is often in his area, on his beat. He thinks he is in love with her, although he doesn’t know her name. Only her car.

  She tries to park in Pepper or one of the other cross-streets between Long and Loop, where there aren’t any meters. But everyone else knows this too, and these spaces are rarely free. Sometimes she gets lucky, though. It depends on the time of day. Sometimes he has seen her circle the block several times, going all the way down Long and turning up at the restaurant on the corner, until a parking space opens up on one of the cross streets, or she surrenders and takes the first available space with a meter.

  When she is here, she goes to Mr. Pickwick’s Coffeeshop and Eatery. She knows the waiters well. Th
ey hug her when she goes in. It is better when she sits outside, where he can see her. She smokes, Stuyvesant Blue (he has checked at the café, matched the color of the box), and drinks coffee and meets many different people. When one of the men who walks the streets here flashes her a pair of sunglasses, she shakes her head and looks angry, and this makes him feel like he knows her, because he wouldn’t take them either—although the man has Oakleys and Ray-Bans.

  Her car is a 1300, bottom of the range, but new enough, maybe three or four years old, so he can tell that she has money. She has looped a necklace of flowers, like the ones they hang around your neck at the airport in Hawaii (he has seen it once on TV), around her headrests. The flowers are faded in the sun, but still colorful. He sometimes thinks when he is passing her car that he can smell them, although he knows they are made of silk, like the ones in his mother’s house in Beaufort West.

  There is a scratch on her front bumper, a nasty one that wraps around the edge, as if she has grazed a pole or perhaps another car. She is a careless driver. She pulls out from between the lines of her parking space without indicating, and her parallel parking is terrible. He wishes sometimes that he were a car guard in an orange vest rather than a warden, that he could guide her in with whistles and gestures and tap the trunk smartly, not so as to give her a fright, but to tell her to stop. Like Emmanuel, who is from the DRC, who only comes at 4 p.m., when the rest of them are going off shift.

  Part of his job is to chase away the informal car guards and the street people and the barefoot children who sleep in doorways. His job is to keep the city safe, especially for the visitors, to chase away the rubbish. It is a respectable job, and they say that this is how they sorted out the crime situation in New York. That by stopping the small crimes, you can stop the big ones. But this is the work he tries to avoid, when he can. Emmanuel says he is soft, that he would not last in the Congo, if he can’t even handle children.

  There is another scratch on her rear bumper. Though he’s not quite sure what could have caused it. The bumper is the same dark cherry red as the rest of her car. He thinks she could be his cherry, and is instantly ashamed at how childish the thought seems. It is something his father would say.

  The paint on the bumper is cracked and ugly like a scar. It is flaking off in patches, like burned skin peeling off. Once, when he was certain no one was looking, he pried off a flake of paint with his fingernails and palmed the thin curl. It was too small to put in his pocket, so he put it on his tongue instead. It tasted like nothing. He was expecting it to be cold, metallic, or at least to taste of dust and dirt and the city streets, but it was like a piece of plastic, like he had ripped a packet of chips with his teeth and got a snag of it left in his mouth. He couldn’t think what else to do, so he swallowed it.

  At first, he didn’t think much of it when he didn’t see her for a few days, because it was the weekend and it was his Saturday off. They rotated shifts every weekend, one on, one off. She wasn’t there on Friday, so that made three days, including Sundays when no one works, but then she didn’t come to town on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday. He wondered if she had left. If she was ever coming back.

  She never notices him. His uniform is like camouflage, as if he is part of the street, smudging into the background like the pigeons. On Thursday, he nearly misses her, because she parks on Loop and walks down. It is only by chance, because he is crossing the road to help a woman who has run out of minutes on her card, that he sees her disappearing into one of the fashion shops. He recognizes her hair, with its streaks of color and its scruffy cut, like it is her own special camouflage.

  When she emerges from the shop with its headless mannequins and ugly clothes, he nearly walks over to her, nearly opens his mouth, but then she is already stepping into the street. He imagines that there is a car bearing down on her, speeding, like the cars do here, despite the pedestrians, that he could grab her out of the way, that she would turn and see him. But this is stupid, he knows. Just dreaming.

  He likes to think that her life doesn’t exist outside this street, that as soon as she clears the traffic lights where Long becomes Kloof, she simply winks out of existence. That she is only real when she is here.

  Her car is always dirty, inside and out. She leaves a lot of things on the back seat: empty cool-drink cans and magazines and Happy Meal wrappers. He wishes she had more respect, but at the same time, it gives him clues into her life, like fingerprints on a detective show. For example, the cans are always Coke Light and sometimes the rims are smeared with lipstick, although he hasn’t seen her wear any, at least not during the day, when he is on duty.

  He doesn’t think she has a boyfriend, but Rudy, who works with him, who comes by to chat and have a smoke and to talk about God, says you never know with women.

  “They’re bad news,” Rudy says. “You can’t trust them. They tell you one thing, but meantime, they’re stringing along five guys! Women are not ordentlik any more. They sleep around. Like these bloody foreigners bringing AIDS.” But he knows she doesn’t. He’s sure. He can tell.

  Another two weeks go by and then, on a rainy Monday morning, he gets his chance. She parks on the corner of Long and Wale and dashes from her car, down the street. She has not paid the meter. But she has not seen him either. On at least two separate occasions, he has topped her up from his own card when her time was about to run out. This time, he will not. Instead, he radios for the clamping company to come.

  “Oh no,” she says. “Oh no, please. I was only gone for a minute. I was just dropping something off.”

  “Sorry, ma’am,” he says, thrilled that this is easy, that his official script, played out so many times before, does not leave him stumbling for words. “You have to pay for your parking.”

  “I was out of money on my card!”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. You should have refilled your card. I’m just doing my job.”

  “Oh please, Officer, I promise I won’t do it again. It was just this once. Please.”

  “I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do.”

  “Well, how much is the clamping fee?”

  “It’s a two hundred rand spot fine.”

  “Two hundred rand! Oh no, please, I’m a student. I’ve got a student loan to pay off. I’m working as a waitress, I probably earn less than you do! Please don’t do this to me. Please.”

  “Okay. But then you must have coffee with me.” The words are out fast, before he can think to stop them, and isn’t this what she does all the time?

  “What?”

  “Just to talk. We can talk.” His heart is like a fish in his throat. He opens his hands out to her.

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “Tomorrow. Over there.”

  “Pickwick’s?” She turns to look.

  “Yes. At five. I finish at five.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Okay?”

  “Ja. Okay, okay. But unclamp me first.”

  He pretends to unlock the clamp, but the truth is that Albert from the clamping company has not locked it at all. For twenty bucks, the price of a joke, he says, Albert is across the road talking to a street vendor who sells Chappies and Simba chips. He straightens up with the clamp in hand and notices with alarm that her face is blotchy.

  “Hey, thanks, Officer. And don’t worry, I won’t do it again.” But she is not smiling. She has already climbed into her car and started the engine. The Toyota peels away from the curb without indicating, and she is gone. He half-raises his hand, only to realize that the clamp is still in it, clumsy, like a bear trap.

  On Tuesday, his day goes badly. He has to get the street kids to wake up and move on, but they are drunk with sleep and other things besides, and they are slow. A woman at the restaurant on the corner shouts at him, “Hey, leave them alone!” and the children spit and curse, but they are only children, and there is only so much he can do.

  After lunch, a man in a suit who is going to the court, he can tell, yells at him too. “Just give m
e a fucking break, okay? I’m going to be one fucking second. I don’t see why I should have to pay three bucks if I’m only going to be here for one second!” He wants to explain that it is his salary, that it is the law, that it is his job, but he doesn’t feel like this today. Instead, he lets it go, lets him go, although he knows, and he is proved right, that the man will be twelve and a half minutes, not one second at all.

  He should see it as a warning of things to come, but he chooses to ignore it. He has brought a button-up shirt from home. He changes in the bathroom of another coffee shop, where they let him use the toilet during the day when he is on duty.

  He thinks of buying her a rose, but decides not to; he does not want to scare her or for her to think he is coming on to her. And besides, he doesn’t know if she likes them, and she has strange tastes. Like her clothes.

  He sits in the window of Mr. Pickwick’s, at the counter, so he can be sure not to miss her. He orders a glass of water, not sure what she will want to drink when she gets here. He studies the menu to find an appropriate choice, but also so that he will not have to meet the eyes of the other customers, who might wonder what he is doing here all alone. He looks up whenever someone comes in the door. A lot of people come through here, and the waiter with the dreadlocks and the tattoo like a black bullseye on his shoulder smiles at him once, briefly, as he steps through the entrance carrying empty beer bottles from the table outside.

  At six, he orders a Black Label. He makes it last. But not long enough. He orders another beer and lets exactly one minute pass, timing it on his watch, between sips, between each time he is allowed to lift the bottle to his lips and then barely wet his mouth. He peels off the label and carefully sticks it onto his glass because it is something to do.

  At eight, he pays the bill and finally gets up from the counter and walks out onto the street. It is too late to take the train, so he must catch a taxi. He walks down Long all the way to Strand, before he turns down to the station. Just in case.