by Rosie Rowell
‘Because he’s Simon,’ she said simply.
I shook my head.
‘He’s your friend, Meg,’ said Beth. ‘Don’t be weird.’
‘He’s not my friend, stop saying that!’ I snapped.
Beth stepped back at my tone. Then she broke into a run and cartwheeled across the rest of the lawn.
Inside I found Marta bent over a newspaper on the dining-room table. ‘What are you reading?’ I asked, walking towards her.
‘Nothing.’ She straightened up and picked up the dishcloth on the table. It was one of Mum’s English newspapers. The headline read: NO REFUGE FROM THE SOUTH AFRICAN VIOLENCE. It was about the St James massacre.
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘more of that.’
‘Genade, child, watch yourself! It’s terrible that the European people read these things about us.’
‘England.’
She frowned at me.
‘The newspaper is from England, not Europe.’
‘Don’t be cute, or I’ll wash your mouth out.’
I laughed. ‘I’ll show you.’ I fetched Mum’s world atlas from the bookshelf. ‘See,’ I said, pointing out the ink smudge of an island next to the larger Europe, ‘England – Europe.’
I was about to show her all the countries that Simon had visited, but the look on her face stopped me. She stared at the page for a long time. Then she smacked the dishcloth over her shoulder and turned away.
I watched her disappear into the kitchen. I thought I had been kind. Marta was so proud that she would hate to make such an obvious error. Mum stepped up next to me and squeezed my shoulder. I hadn’t seen her behind us. ‘Marta’s waiting for Simon to return from a continent and countries that are nothing more than words to her. He might as well have been in space.’
I shook off Mum’s hand and stepped out onto the stoep, into the last of the afternoon sunshine. Simon had been through a stage of wanting to be an astronaut.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I’d scoffed, ‘you’re Simon from Leopold, you’ll never get to the moon.’
‘I will too,’ he’d replied, ‘and I’ll leave you behind if you’re going to be like that.’
On Friday morning Juffrou stood next to her desk. Her eyes scanned the class like a jackal buzzard flying low. They came to rest on Xanthe and me.
‘So,’ she said, ‘this morning Mrs Franklin asked me how the new girl was settling in, whether our two English speakers had struck up a friendship. And I had to say, “No, Headmistress, they’ve not exchanged a word.”’
I prickled with shame.
‘I suppose we should be grateful,’ Juffrou continued. ‘The last thing we need is for our two English troublemakers to be in cahoots.’
Next to me Xanthe stirred, like a dozing cat who senses a bird and opens one eye.
At lunchtime I sat on the steps outside the biology lab, peeling soggy tomato off my brown-bread sandwich. I spent most of my lunch breaks here. Beth and her friends never came to this part of the school.
Xanthe had been here a week. It was obvious that she wasn’t interested in being friends with me. In every other class but Afrikaans she had chosen to sit alone rather than next to me. The birds were dead; my ‘lucky break’ had turned out to be a mean joke. Fat tears plopped onto the concrete step in front of me. They dissolved into the stone, leaving no trace. I didn’t want to be me anymore. It was too difficult. I wanted to be the kind of person Xanthe would like. I dug my hands into my eyes and sniffed loudly.
A yellow tissue appeared in front of me. A moment later it jiggled. I looked up. Xanthe was sitting next to me, tactfully avoiding eye contact.
‘Thank you,’ I muttered, blowing my nose.
When she didn’t reply, I picked up my sandwich and flicked away the last piece of tomato.
‘Yuck.’ Her voice startled me.
‘I know.’ I gave up and returned the remains of the sandwich to the Tupperware sandwich box and shut the lid. ‘My mother’s idea of a nutritious lunch.’
‘Have some of these. Much healthier.’ She reached into her school bag and pulled out a bag of Big Korn Bites.
As I dug my hand into the packet, she said: ‘How long have you been here, Madge?’
‘You make it sound like a prison.’ I laughed but stopped when I realised that for her it was. I followed her gaze across the gravel-dusty quad at the thirsty clump of tall, tatty orange cannas in the central rockery. They stood like a group of convicts chained together. On the far side of the quad a mess of pink bougainvillea flowers lay trampled into the ground by a thousand feet.
‘Forever,’ I replied eventually. ‘I was born here.’
She whistled. ‘Je-sus, Madge, that’s bad luck.’
‘Margaret,’ I corrected her. ‘Or Meg.’
She looked at me, head cocked to one side, her cat’s eyes narrow. ‘Nah, it’s definitely Madge,’ she said, the corners of her mouth twitching.
*. Mr
*. Rock rabbit
CHAPTER SIX
My new name stayed with me all weekend. ‘Madge,’ I practised when no one was around. ‘My name is Madge.’ It made me stand differently; it changed the angle of my head. It was a second chance. I could step out of everything I didn’t like about Meg and fill Madge with all the things I wanted to be. Meg was a hen’s name – it rhymed with peg and beg and dreg. Madge was too gritty to rhyme with much at all.
I made a list of Madge things to do. I managed ‘hang out with best friend; have a boyfriend; go for milkshakes’ before I realised that was what the characters did on Beverly Hills 90210. More than that, the last two items on my list were currently impossible in Leopold.
I studied myself in the mirror, searching for signs of Madge. I needed a look. Xanthe had one without even trying. Her mouth was subversive. Her eyes were steely. They made me think she enjoyed having secrets. Most of all she looked experienced. You couldn’t fake that. At this my Madge mood started to slip.
Mum found Beth and me on the stoep, locked in a hyperventilating competition.
‘Dad says there’s a new girl in your class.’
I grunted without looking up from the stopwatch.
‘Why don’t you invite her for lunch?’
‘No thanks,’ I said.
‘They’re not actually friends,’ panted Beth, forfeiting her time.
‘Yes, we are!’
‘So then,’ said Beth, still red in the face. ‘Invite her for lunch.’
Later that week I stood over the kitchen sink, staring at a mug in my hand. I had left the washing-up long enough for Mum to be fuming but not yet thundering through to my room. The mug was brown with a pattern of square orange flowers embossed on it. It was the last remaining of a set of four.
Xanthe would hate this mug. It was old and chipped. The handle had been glued back on several times. I dumped it on the drying rack. What would she think about the old yellow clock on the wall and the kitchen table and the net curtains? Mum insisted on the curtains; she said they were ironic. They were tatty and beige with age. Two weeks ago the kitchen had been fine. Now I knew it was awful. It hadn’t occurred to me before then that the dishtowel lying on the counter was a puke shade of yellow, it had simply been a dishcloth. I leaned over and chucked it away in disgust, but that didn’t feel like enough. I picked up the brown mug and smashed it onto the floor.
My parents appeared.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said quickly. ‘It slipped out of my hand.’
‘It was my favourite,’ said Mum quietly as she bent down to pick up the pieces.
‘I know,’ I said. I stared at the chunks of thick brown porcelain on the floor. ‘Why did you call me Margaret?’
Mum peered up at me. ‘What?’
‘Margaret, of all names?’
‘It’s a very pretty name,’ she said.
‘It’s not! It’s clumpy and stuffy and so 1970s,’ I said.
‘But darling, you were born in the 1970s.’ Her confusion made me want to scream.
‘Margaret
wasn’t my choice,’ said Dad, as he picked the dishtowel up off the floor.
‘A-ha!’ I said to Mum.
‘I wanted to call you Petronella, after my grandmother,’ he said. He folded the dishcloth over the oven rail. Mum giggled and left the kitchen.
‘What do you think about that dishcloth?’ I turned on Dad.
He glanced after Mum, then turned back to me, his head on one side.
‘The cloth,’ I said, ‘the colour, what do you think?’
He looked down at his hands and back at me. ‘It’s … nice? Different? Nicely weird and a little bit different?’
But I didn’t want to be teased. I wanted to tell him that at last I thought I had found a friend who was fun and even made me feel fun. She embodied everything I wanted to be, but as a result everything else seemed insufferable. I had a ‘Xanthe’ voice in my head and it was loud and funny and brighter than me. It was also meaner than me. But that sounded ridiculous. The best I could manage was: ‘Do you ever hear voices in your head?’
‘Sure,’ he shrugged. ‘All the time.’ He picked up a jug of custard and scooped a large dollop into his mouth. ‘Take this custard, for instance. I don’t want it. It’s the voices! They’re screaming out for it, they won’t give me any rest.’
I was beginning to suspect that his simple-mindedness was cultivated. ‘Dad, I hate to say it, but you’re a bit of a moron.’
‘Funny,’ he replied as he left the kitchen, ‘The voices were saying the same thing about you.’
Xanthe had been in Leopold for three weeks. Sometimes she appeared at lunchtime on the steps of the biology lab, but not every day. I was always there, although never again with my soggy sandwich. I ate that quickly standing behind my open locker door.
Some days she was relaxed and chatty. But that could change without warning and she’d be monosyllabic and constantly looking over her shoulder. Then I had nothing to say.
Xanthe arrived near the end of lunch break. She never mentioned where she’d been and I wasn’t brave enough to ask. She had taken to bringing me packets of Big Korn Bites. I found it unnerving – it was such a motherly thing to do. I felt I should give her something in return, but there was nothing she’d want from me.
‘What’s next?’ she asked as the bell rang.
‘Swimming,’ I muttered.
‘Swimming?’ she shouted. ‘With that woman – Juffrou Kat? Fuck that. There’s no way I’m getting undressed in front of her.’
I laughed. ‘Why not?’
‘She’s a complete lessie.’
‘A what?’
‘Les-bi-an.’
‘Seriously?’
Xanthe didn’t bother responding. She stalked off, in the opposite direction to the pool.
‘Where are you going?’ I called, and bit my lip at the sound of my voice.
Girls streamed past, criss-crossing the space between us on their way to class. Xanthe stopped and looked back. ‘Come on,’ she said eventually.
I swallowed and looked around. Juffrou Kat emerged from the building, a bundle of hula hoops over one shoulder and a sack of netball balls over the other. Juffrou Kat was taller than anyone else in the school. Her year-round uniform was a tennis skirt and a white polo shirt that stretched tight across her shelf-like breasts. Her thighs were thicker than Dad’s. She blasted the whistle that hung around her neck with a strength that made you pee in your pants. I turned towards the swimming pool. But a moment later, Xanthe’s hand on my arm stopped me.
‘Why aren’t you two up at the pool getting changed?’ Juffrou Kat demanded.
I looked down to avoid Xanthe’s smile.
‘Juffrou, we were on our way to find you,’ Xanthe replied, her voice like the distant hum of bees. ‘How are you?’
Juffrou frowned at Xanthe.
‘Great,’ said Xanthe, with another quick smile. ‘Juffrou, the thing is, I’m far behind in maths, and Margaret has offered to help me catch up. If I don’t, my father –’ She broke off, and looked over her shoulder, as Juffrou Kat and I watched. ‘There will be trouble at home if I don’t improve my marks,’ Xanthe said softly. ‘Would you mind if we used this one hour to work in the library? It would make such a difference.’ Xanthe smiled at the teacher, who astonishingly smiled back, if only for a second. Then Juffrou Kat turned to me.
‘Maths,’ I said, nodding.
Juffrou Kat’s eyes drilled holes straight into my lying soul. She sniffed once and said, ‘Just this once.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Xanthe, nodding. ‘Come on, Margaret, let’s get going.’
I followed Xanthe around the building. ‘This isn’t the way –’ I started, but Xanthe carried on walking. ‘Are we not going to do maths?’ I asked.
She laughed. Excitement and fear collided in my veins.
We were outside the side door of the new hall, the door that led to the stage. Xanthe looked around, her face suddenly so serious that I wanted to laugh. She opened the door and slipped inside.
I followed her in and up the steps to the stage. The new hall was in fact the school’s only hall. It was not that new either, but it had stage lights and a sound system and was a source of great pride. She walked past the three rows of chairs where the staff sat during our daily assembly, and then waited for me, holding back the long black curtain that separated the front of the stage from the back. Her normally mirror-like eyes danced. Her grin was wide. Wolfish, I thought, and then disregarded it. How could a girl be wolfish?
At the back of the stage, behind two rows of wooden chairs and benches and next to a collection of stacked sets was a stepladder attached to the wall. The ladder led up to a metal walkway that framed the stage from above. At the front left corner of the stage was another ladder, even narrower than the last. This led up into the ceiling. Oh dear God! I thought. Oh, please no!
Xanthe started climbing. My hands were wet and tingling. She looked back at me from the top of the first ladder. ‘Say something!’ I instructed myself. ‘Tell her you don’t like heights. She’ll understand. Don’t be such a scaredy-cat!’ But the look on her face quickly shattered that hope. She didn’t move until I started up after her.
By the time I had climbed five rungs, I thought I was going to throw up. Xanthe had reached the suspended metal walkway. It swayed as she walked.
‘Where are you going?’ I asked.
She looked around, expecting me to be behind her, and frowned to find me still only a few rungs above the floor.
‘We’re going up there.’ She pointed to the ceiling midway along the hall where a row of spotlights was fixed, like the bottom row of teeth in an open mouth. ‘We’re going to the gods!’ She laughed. ‘Or are you too scared?’
I had lied to a teacher. I was supposed to be in the swimming pool, attempting an underwater backwards somersault in time to ‘The Final Countdown’. Instead, I was following Xanthe up a set of ladders that were strictly off limits to all girls. This was so obviously bad it was comical. What if I got stuck and needed rescuing, or fell? Or Juffrou Kat went to the library to check up on us? Why would I risk all this on a ladder I didn’t want to climb?
At the same time I knew that if I turned around now, Xanthe would never speak to me again. ‘What is your problem?’ shouted the voice in my head. ‘Move!’
Nauseous and sweating horribly, I made it onto the steel walkway. The side door opened below us. Heavy footsteps approached. I froze. The footsteps climbed the stage steps; they were almost below us. I was far too scared to cry. My hands were so wet that they slipped back and forth over the metal railings. One step, I kept thinking, one wrong step and you’re dead. No – maimed. Ahead of me, Xanthe leaned far over the side railing to see who it was. She let out a long, low whistle. A few more footsteps and Buddy came into view.
‘Howzit, my man?’ Xanthe called softly.
He chuckled, shaking his head. ‘It’s the cat lady.’ He waved his hand in farewell and disappeared.
‘The cat lady?’ I asked, but Xanthe was already
at the top of the second ladder. The next moment she disappeared into the ceiling.
At last I crawled next to her, behind the spotlights, grubby from sweat and dust.
‘Cool, huh,’ she said.
I nodded, feeling dizzy. It was as though we were perched high in a tree. All I had to do was stretch out my arms and take off. I laughed.
‘What?’
I shook my head. The giggles bubbled up, unstoppable.
She started laughing at me. ‘Shh!’ she said.
‘Sorry.’ I pressed my lips together to try and stop. ‘Sorry,’ I said again. I held my nose, and snorted like a pig, which made her laugh a generous, full-throttle laugh that transformed her face. It made it look kind.
I followed her back with barely a downwards glance. This was a Madge thing to have done. I bet Simon had never done this type of thing. He would have been too busy coming top of the class.
‘My mum thought you might want to come for lunch,’ I said, trying to sound off-hand. ‘The boarding house must be pretty dull on a Sunday.’
‘Sure,’ replied Xanthe after the slightest pause. ‘Why not.’
‘What does your dad do?’ I asked as we started down the bottom ladder. I made my voice light, as though the question had only then occurred to me, not one of a stack of things I was dying to know.
She stopped. ‘I’m not really sure.’
My heart lurched. ‘I’m sorry. Your parents are divorced?’
‘No.’
No wonder she was so odd! ‘Did he die?’ I asked quietly.
She threw her head back and laughed.
I clutched the railing.
‘My dad is very much alive,’ she said, ‘He’s a businessman. He spends a lot of time in Russia. Mostly to get away from Shirley, I suspect.’
‘Shirley?’
‘My mum.’
‘Nice name,’ I said, grasping at something to say. I tried to imagine a life where my father travelled to Russia and my mother was called Shirley. Xanthe stopped to deliver a particularly withering look.
The end-of-day bell rang as we emerged from the hall. The afternoon burst into slamming doors and shouts and running feet. At the entrance of the main building, where I would turn down towards home, and she towards the boarding house, she paused. ‘You’re alright, Madgie,’ she said. Then she grinned.
