Most of my friends will be raging hard this December — hooking up and partying non-stop on a group vacation in Plettenberg Bay or flying out to start their gap years in London or Sydney. But my parents insist that I spend the next three months — before university starts — working. Mom says I’ll be “clarifying my future.” Dad says I’ll be “demonstrating my work ethic.” I call it what it is: slave labour.
I brush my hair and teeth, sticky-roller Lobster’s dog hair off my dress, and check my phone for messages. While I wait for everyone else to get ready, I tidy my room. At least that will please my parents.
I like my bedroom. The bleached white wooden bed and desk, the Oregon pine strip floors and the pale aquamarine walls give it the feel of the beach — like foam and sand and water. It would probably look better without the posters that cover most of the walls. A calendar with pictures of breaching whales and schools of dolphins is stuck up beside protest posters condemning shark-finning and the destructive long-lining, drift-netting, and bottom-trawling practices of commercial fishing. Directly opposite my bed, I’ve hung an enormous picture of the Syrenka, a former Russian icebreaker now converted into an environmental warrior ship.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve dreamed of joining an expedition down to the Southern Ocean to disrupt Japanese whaling operations there. I even sent in a crew application back in March when I turned eighteen, but when the reply email came, it was to inform me that although I’d made the shortlist, I hadn’t been chosen for the December trip this year. But I’ll go and see the ship when she docks to refuel and stock up in Cape Town before making her way south into Antarctic waters. Maybe I’ll be able to meet the captain and persuade him to take me next December, during the university end-of-year break.
At least half of my room is dedicated to my other passion. Posters and collages of Logan Rush adorn my wardrobe doors, inside and out. A little figurine of him, tied to a red velvet ribbon, dangles from the handle of my underwear drawer. I stuck a life-size poster of him as Chase Falconer on the wall alongside my full-length mirror so that when I stand in front of the mirror staring at my image, and his, it’s kind of like we’re standing next to each other.
He looks so real in that picture, so lifelike, that the photographic version of him seems more real to me than what actually happened last Saturday. That was more like a dream now, a hallucination.
I plant a kiss on his lips, and I’m applying lip gloss to my own when a voice sounds from the door.
“Knock, knock.”
My mother, wearing a flowy salmon-pink dress, a necklace made of coral, and delicate high heels, looks more like an elegant royal than the hard-working university lecturer in marine biology that she is. But I have not inherited her talent for immaculate grooming, so her quick inspection of me ends in a wince.
“Not dressed yet?” she says hopefully.
“I am dressed, Mom, this is what I’m wearing.”
“Not the blue silk I bought you?”
“No, I’m comfortable in this.”
“But you’ll be putting on some make-up, yes?” She picks up my brush from the dressing table and brushes my long hair with firm strokes.
“Mo-om, I’ve put on mascara and lip-gloss.”
“I consider myself honoured.” She smiles gently at me. “Just a heads-up, Romy, your dad’s on his way. He’s looking for a conclusion to his speech tonight.”
I don’t respond, except to take the brush out of her hand and return it to the dressing table.
“Still not decided?” she asks.
Mom is kind and gentle, but pressure is pressure. I shake my head.
“Ah, well, either one would be good experience for you, but,” she leans down and kisses me on the cheek, “I hope you’ll choose me. You’re my favourite, you know.”
“Mom, you say that to each of us.”
“Because it’s true!”
The doorbell peals. Barking furiously, Lobster leaps off my bed and hurtles for the front door downstairs.
“That’ll be Meriel, come to collect Nana.” Mom pauses at the door to offer more advice: “A little blusher wouldn’t kill you, Romy, you’re as pale as a Parapeneus Margaritatus.”
“Go on — say it. You know you want to.”
“A Pearly Goatfish.”
“Charming.” My mother has a habit of comparing things, including her family, to ocean dwellers, but ‘Pearly Goatfish’ is a new low. “Very flattering,” I call after her departing form. “And highly maternal!”
I’m still muttering when the youngest of my four older sisters bounces into my room, and — as she always does when she visits — raps my Syrenka poster three time with her knuckles for luck, saying, “One day, Romy, it’ll happen one day.”
Meriel’s my favourite sister, and the only one in my family who encourages my eco-activism dreams. She’s a meteorologist who specializes in studying marine weather patterns and, like me, she loves the ocean and its creatures.
“Are you catching a ride with Nana and me, or with the folks?” she asks.
“With you guys. I’m trying to avoid Dad.”
“Did I hear my name?” my father says, coming into my room.
“I’ll go make sure Nana’s ready,” Meriel says, abandoning me without a moment’s hesitation.
“Thanks for that, Meriel,” I say sarcastically.
“Anytime,” she calls back.
My father, solidly-built, with sleek grey hair and an air of self-importance, wears a dark suit and a red tie imprinted with a diagonal pattern of tiny black tridents — the corporate symbol of Poseidon Industries. Whereas Mom was disappointed by the way I look, my father is more disapproving of my room’s appearance. He knows that the protest posters are a dig at the environmentally unfriendly methods used by some of the fishing operations supplying Poseidon Industries.
He averts his eyes from the posters, clears his throat, and addresses me.
“Rosemary.”
“You look smart, Dad.”
“Well, now, Rosemary, you look very nice, too.”
“Tell that to Mom.”
“What I’d like to be able to tell your mother — what I’d like to be able to tell all our family and friends at tonight’s celebration — is what you have decided to do with your life. And, more immediately, where you plan to work during your vacation: in your mom’s department at the university, or with me at the office?”
“I haven’t decided yet, Dad. But you’ll be the first to know when I do, promise.”
I grab my bag and head for the door, hoping he’ll take the hint. But subtlety is wasted on my father.
“It depends, naturally, on what you intend to study next year,” he continues. “Will you follow in your mother’s footsteps and study the denizens of the deep? Or will you register for a business degree in preparation for one day taking up a position at Poseidon — I would so love to keep the business in the family.”
“You’ve got Cordelia for that.”
My second-eldest sister, Cordelia works in Dad’s business. More than once, she’s tried explaining to me what exactly she does there, but terms like “strategic planning” and “enterprise architecture” make my eyes glaze over in boredom.
“The point is, would you prefer to study science or commerce, Rosemary?” Dad asks, leading the way downstairs.
“Are those my only two options? Study either one thing or another in the family line, then settle down and have babies?”
He stops beside the tropical fish tank on the landing and gazes up at me in genuine puzzlement.
“What more are you hoping for?”
“I just …” I blow out a frustrated breath. “Sometimes I just wish I could be out there.” I fling my arms out, gesturing to some far horizon.
“Out where?”
Anywhere but here — that’s the honest answer. But saying it out loud would only hurt him and Mom.
“I think it’s time for me to stand on my own two feet, Dad, to find my way in the wo
rld.” I don’t expect him to understand what I mean, and he doesn’t.
“I agree completely. Now you’re talking more sensibly. So, would you prefer to spend the next few months in preparation for your career with your mother or with me?”
“I’m still not sure.”
That’s a lie. I am sure. I don’t want to do either.
Part of me is tempted to take up the position at Poseidon — I could try to make the people who work there see how commercial fishing harms endangered species, try to change their attitudes and procedures. But who would listen to me? Certainly not my father — he never did. Besides, how much could one person accomplish? How likely would a student intern be to change the ways of a long-established business?
Following in my mother’s academic footsteps is hardly more appealing. I love the ocean, but I want to be out there actively doing something to fight for its protection and survival, not sitting in a laboratory, studying the minute differences between sea slugs, sea squirts and sea cucumbers. Everyone just assumes I’ll follow either my mother’s or my father’s path, but both only fill me with strong feelings of meh.
“I’ll think about it, Dad, okay? I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve decided.”
“We tried to give you everything you could possibly need, but you always were an unusual child, Rosemary.” He sighs.
“Comes from being a Pisces, they always want to swim against the stream,” comes my grandmother’s voice from downstairs.
Today Nana looks as if she’s costumed for the theatrical role of an eccentric great-aunt, even though it’s been more than twenty years since she was last on a stage. She’s a vision in purple satin and exotic feathers, her cheeks are rouged a lurid pink, and thick black eyeliner sweeps up dramatically at the edges of her eyes. Still barking frantically, Lobster leaps up against her, eager to get his bared teeth on the hideous and slightly mangy fox fur slung around her neck.
“Mother,” Dad says.
He’s always wary of Nana. It’s like he lives in constant fear that she’ll do something crazy — strip naked and run through the streets, perhaps — for the sole purpose of embarrassing her son. Actually, I wouldn’t put it past the old devil.
“Rex, you look admirably conventional.”
“Lobster, sit! Nana, you can’t wear that.” I point to the mangy circle of fur which ends in a sharp-nosed face, complete with beady, black glass eyes and eternally pricked ears.
“And why not, young lady? If you can wear those,” she arches a disparaging eyebrow at my flats, “then I hardly think you are qualified to give me fashion advice.”
“Furs are disgusting; no one wears them anymore. And yours looks diseased. Besides, it’s summer, Nana.”
She merely clutches the fur tighter around her throat with pale, veined hands heavy with enormous rings — intricately designed twists of gold inlaid with brightly-coloured stones.
“Rhea, it makes you look old,” my mother says simply.
At once, Nana removes the fur and flings it onto a nearby sofa.
“Begone, accursed thing,” she says in throbbing tones.
“Right, who’s going in which car?” Mom asks.
“I’ll take Nana, and we’ll collect Genna on the way,” Meriel says.
“And I’ll go with them, too,” I say.
Dad seems ready to protest — no doubt eager for an opportunity to lecture me further — but Mom, perhaps sensing that I’ve had enough nagging for one day, intervenes.
“Good, that means we can go straight to the restaurant, Rex, and check that everything’s organised and on track before the guests arrive. See you there, girls.”
“Give me a moment to perfect my appearance, mes petites filles, and then we’ll be off. Romy, I have a surprise for you. Hound, release my fox!” Nana commands imperiously, wrestling Lobster for possession of the fur.
Chapter 10
Surface and settle
On the way to collect Genna, Nana insists on sitting in the back seat with me. She’s replaced the fox fur with a long feather boa, and now the white feathers float around us in the strong air-conditioning of the car.
“I feel like a taxi driver up here alone,” Meriel complains.
“I have something I want to give Romy,” Nana says, opening her enormous red crocodile-skin handbag. “I gave each of you a gift when you came out, and now it’s Romy’s turn.”
“I don’t think girls have ‘come out’ since the Victorian era,” Meriel says.
“Here!” Nana hands me a large, purple velvet box and claps her hands in excitement as I open it.
Inside, clipped to a bed of white satin, is a pair of beautiful earrings. In each, a fat pearl of palest blue nestles in a curved petal-shaped wrap of glistening mother-of-pearl. They look like arum lilies.
“Oh, Nana — thank you!”
“They’re antique and awfully valuable, my dear. They were a gift from a dashing Yugoslavian nobleman — Prince Alexander Petrovich — who was on the run from the Bolsheviks. I was only a little older than you are now when he saw my Lady of Shalott on the West End, and was utterly captivated by my charms. Ravishing, he called me! He said I made these beauties look dull by comparison.”
I’m never sure how much of Nana’s tall tales to believe, but it makes her happy to tell them, and I enjoy listening. Now that all four of my sisters have homes of their own, Nana’s reminiscences add variety and spice to the usual talk of university politics and fishing quotas that tend to dominate our dinner table.
Nana clips the antique earrings onto my earlobes. They’re very tight.
“There! And with a little colour” — she pinches the apples of my cheeks — “lovely! Now you look fit for a prince. And, if I may say so, it’s about time you started looking for one, dear. Youth, sadly, fades.”
“They pinch a little,” I say, pulling off the earrings and rubbing my already-tender earlobes.
“Uh-uh-uh,” she chastens, and fastens them back on again. “A woman must be prepared to suffer for her beauty.”
“Says who? Why are women even expected to be beautiful?” I say.
“Darling child, don’t be tiresome. I do believe you rival your father in obstinacy.”
“Speaking of Dad, have you decided about your vac job yet?” Meriel asks.
“No.”
“And your career?”
I shake my head.
“Career!” Nana says dismissively. “Careers are for stout little typists with crooked teeth and bad skin who cannot net a man without being efficient.” She shudders in delicate distaste, despite the fact she herself pursued a lifelong career.
“Perhaps you should run away and join the circus, Romy.” Meriel’s smiling eyes meet mine in the rear-view mirror.
“Don’t tempt me,” I mutter.
“I once met an acrobat from the circus. He could tumble the length of a cricket pitch and drink vodka while standing on his head. And he could bend in the most extraordinary ways when we … but, ah, here is Genna, waiting for us. Sensibly clad, as usual.” Nana eyes Genna’s beige slacks suit and comfortable shoes with deep disapproval.
Genna runs a home for orphaned and abandoned babies in the impoverished Cape Flats just outside of Cape Town. It’s selfless, noble work, and I admire her for doing it even though I cannot comprehend why anyone would choose to spend their days wiping snotty noses and poopy bums. But then, all my sisters — except for Meriel — baffle me.
Half an hour later, while we’re all tucking into our dinner at the restaurant, I try to explain it to Zeb.
“One way or another, all four of them have settled for suburbia and a little patch of land. It’s like they stuck their heads above water, had a quick look around, and then sank back again to settle down. Their lives are all so … tame.”
Together with a couple of our school friends, we’re seated at a table as far from my parents as possible — I had to bribe a waiter to rearrange the name-cards to wangle it.
“Case in point: Marina,”
I say, pointing at my eldest sister with an asparagus spear.
Zeb glances over to where she sits with her husband and their three sulky children at the table next to my parents. Marina’s a qualified marine biologist, but she stopped working when the first baby arrived, and never went back.
“I don’t know,” Zeb says. “She looks content. All your sisters do.”
“Content? They used to be kickass.”
My older sisters had seemed so exciting to me when I was a little kid — watching as they dressed up to go out nightclubbing, or snuck out of a window to date a boy Dad had forbidden. I had believed they could do anything, be anything. They’d seemed so vital and free, and now they just seemed stuck in dull, domestic lives.
“I want something different, something more,” I say, breaking a stalactite of wax off the candle on the table and feeding it to the flame.
“Have you told that to your dad?” Zeb nods over to where my father stands behind a microphone at the front of the room, shuffling speech cards.
I groan.
My father taps the mike a few times to get everyone’s attention and begins.
“Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends and family, Sally and I would like to welcome you here to celebrate the conclusion of our youngest daughter’s schooling. When one door closes, as they say, another opens, and so it is time for Rosemary to venture out into the wide world.”
“He says that, but he doesn’t mean it,” I whisper to Zeb. My chest is tight. There’s no fresh air in this place.
“… to find her own path through the confusing highways and interchanges across the open vistas of life …”
Yeah right. My future is more like a narrowing tunnel than an open vista.
“… and her mother and I are confident that she will choose wisely …”
“Translation: we pray daily that she won’t scare us stupid by trying anything new or different.” I cross my arms and glare at the hollandaise sauce congealing on my plate.
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