Grace

by Barbara Boswell

  “You want it, you buy it. I can’t have a coloured use the same sample I use for the other ladies.”

  Mary slid her R10 note across the counter, slipped the packaged bottle into her handbag and, head still bowed, left the department store without waiting for her change.

  “Come!”

  She had grabbed Grace’s hand as they moved through the swishing doors that magically parted before them. Grace had never seen Mary cower to white people: her mother didn’t care for them, didn’t respect them, was indifferent to them outside of what she needed to do for them at work. But that day she had been shamed in front of them by Patrick’s hand, her proud head bowed by his public humiliation. And there he was, waiting for them outside the fancy shop, eyes glistening with shame and puppy-dog love. He moved towards them and tried to slip an arm around Mary’s shoulder. Grace fought the urge to kick his shins, scream at him to leave her mother the hell alone. She wanted to shout it in front of the whole world, in the middle of the milling Saturday morning shoppers, what a fuck-up he was, how she wished he would die. Mary had shrugged off Patrick’s gesture. Good, Grace thought, as she shot him a smug little smile. She doesn’t need you. People were staring at them as they moved this shame-inflected dance through the parking lot.

  Grace removed the last traces of Elegant Ivory from her face and glanced at her mother’s bedside clock – it was only nine. The day stretched before her like a nightmare. She had library books to read, but didn’t feel like reading, and there was nothing else to do between these walls. Where was Johnny? Was he hurt, in pain? Had he even woken up this morning? She would go next door for a quick visit, despite Mary’s warnings, and find out the latest. He might even be back.

  The sun had come out from behind the clouds and was straining through the bedroom curtains. Grace wanted to go, but was scared of disobeying orders, even though Patrick was no longer around to enforce his particular brand of discipline. There was also the matter of the soldiers. It was hard to tell what was going on in their corner of the Cape Flats this morning: there could be rioting and shooting just a few blocks away, but because their house lay on the outskirts of the township, Grace wouldn’t know that until the chaos spilled onto their street. Springbok Radio revealed nothing but Esmé Euvrard gurgling a cheerful request for an Aunty Liesbet. She would go, just for five minutes. What could happen in five short minutes?

  Grace opened the front door, pausing for a moment before unlocking the security gate, the final barrier between the public and private. Save for the howl of the wind, everything was quiet. Fresh air rushed into the living room, forcing out the stale smell of cigarette smoke. She inhaled deeply. The air was good, so clean. Spring was here. Outside the southeaster was blowing madly, chasing wisps of streaky white cloud across a blue sky. It lifted her spirits. She stepped onto the path and headed next door to Johnny’s place.

  Grace had never before been inside the garage that housed Johnny and his family, even though it was only a few metres away from her back door. Rowena was sitting at an old wooden table, surrounded by women. Grace hesitated in the doorway, unnoticed, behind some women from around the neighbourhood. One woman Grace didn’t recognise had her arm around Rowena and was stroking her shoulders while making soft clucking noises. Rowena’s face, red and swollen, told her all she needed to know – Johnny was not home.

  “...all the hospitals, and the police stations... nothing.”

  The words drifted up at Grace, who was touched by the depth of Rowena’s concern. Johnny was not her child, not even her own blood, but her distress was real, maternal. She had obviously not slept. Tim was going out of his mind, she heard Rowena say; she was worried he could snap at any moment and cause more trouble with the police.

  From the door, Grace took in the details of Rowena, Tim and Johnny’s tiny home. The garage was divided into two rooms, separated by a row of dark cupboards. A wooden table anchored itself in the kitchen – clearly the hub around which this household revolved. Down a side wall stood a large green couch, now crammed with women whose bodies didn’t quite hide its holes and the errant springs poking out underneath it. There was no kitchen sink, no taps for running water. A giant plastic tub stood on a bright orange cabinet – this was the sink in which they washed dishes, prepared food, and bathed. Next to it was a bucket used for fetching water from the outside tap that served all the tenants living in the neighbours’ back yard. There was not much to see of the bedroom: a double bed covered with a velvety red bedspread peeked from behind the cupboards partitioning the space. For the first time, Grace wondered where Johnny slept. She could see no bed or space that would belong to him. She thought about her own room, the one she’d despised this very morning with its freshly broken window, and shame settled around her shoulders. At least she had a bed, warm blankets, could close the door when she wanted to be alone. At least she could imagine another time, another place, being grown up; in the privacy her room afforded she could imagine a different life. Shame dug in even deeper around her throat as she realised she had been close to Johnny for all these years, and now, for the first time, was taking in his home, without him there, without the women even noticing her. She felt like she was spying on Johnny’s private world. It dawned on Grace why he spent so much time with them, even sitting in the kitchen having cups of tea with her parents on occasion; why she was never invited to his place. There really was no space that was his own, nowhere to sit and think, nowhere to dream.

  More women arrived, their bodies pushing Grace inside the garage. Rowena started to sob quietly, and the weight of the bodies pressing against her became too much for Grace. She began to feel faint. Quietly, she worked her way back through the crush of bodies and out the door. She needed air, space.

  And then she was running, as fast as her legs would carry her. She ran and ran, down Saturn Street, across an open field, past the last humble row of houses in the township, past the garbage dump that was always smouldering and belching its stench at them, across the busy arterial road leading to the winelands, and into the dense green bushes – uncluttered, uncultivated – the undeveloped, completely wild buffer zone left by developers to shield DF Malan airport from the masses who lived just beyond it. From their back and front yards, Grace and others like her could see the planes take off like giant birds, hear their deafening roar when they came in to land, watch them glide and slice the sky on perfect, blue-sky Cape Town days. Only two miles away but, for most residents of the township, inaccessible as a dream forgotten upon waking. Why would they go there? What business could they possibly have at an airport, besides perhaps cleaning toilets or sweeping floors?

  Gravel crunching under her feet, hair flying, Grace knew she shouldn’t be heading towards the dense bush that buffered the airport from her people, but the soft promise of green set off against a flawless blue sky, the knowledge of spring flowers turning their throats to the sun, the soft tranquillity of the air, proved irresistible. They pulled at her feet and her heart.

  She could already smell it, the air on that side of the road, infused with the scent of green leaves opening to sunlight, untouched by the smell of cooking, standing water, dog shit. She paused before dashing across the big road to the other side, the wild untrammelled place. Once she was across, where the road’s black tar receded, small yellow flowers dotted the gravel and sand. They were a constellation of beaming suns lifting their heads in greeting towards her. Behind them stretched a lush expanse of green. Low, crouching clusters of shrubs, spilling leaves, and roots spreading like rivulets across the brown earth. Grass followed: green, red and yellow grass, not clipped and disciplined like lawn but free, flowing and whispering in the wind. More yellow suns, and blue flowers too, swayed with the grass. Long grass brushed against her ankles. Grace stopped running and relaxed. She moved forward, deeper into the thicket, until her feet found the path that had been worn there by the two of them – she and Johnny. She moved onward until she felt the familiar dip in the sand and the leaves and branches su
ddenly danced against her chest. The bush enveloped her completely; the shrubs which seemed so small and lush from the other side of the road became a mess of sticks and prickly leaves. Grace walked on, through a tangle of gnarled and twisted branches until her head dipped beneath the canopy of leaves. Sunlight glinted, diamond like, through the roof of leaves above her. She went down on her hands and knees for some more space to move, and crawling, with sand granules filtering through her fingers like brown sugar, she entered into a new, magical world. Slowly she made her way through the jungle, twisting and contorting her frame into whatever shape would allow her to negotiate the narrow gaps between the trunks. Her body found its rhythm against the thick foliage, and she moved, swayed along with it – a sigh in the breath of the bush as it whispered a prayer to the sun.

  On the other side of the thicket, she stumbled out onto a grassy clearing. Here the grass was shorter and soft, inviting her to lie down and stretch, fully, in the sun. For the thousandth time, she marvelled at this spot, this place that seemed to have been cleared especially for her, a space where she could just be. Wildflowers blossomed everywhere among the few low shrubs. Clumps of reeds dotted the periphery of the clearing, their brown fuzzy heads floating from pencil-thin stalks. A stately eucalyptus tree watched over it all, its branches throwing protective shade across her little patch of heaven. The clearing was anchored by a large rock, smooth at the base but jagged at the crown. This was Grace’s personal throne, with couple of fat, lazy lizards her only subjects. She touched her hand to the rock, relishing its texture, and flopped down beside it. Then she leaned her back against the smooth edge, arms stretched, legs out in front of her, with her bare toes splayed against the tree trunk. No one could see her, tell her to sit up straight or close her legs and act like a lady. Here Grace was in charge of her own queendom.

  She was aware of the drone of distant traffic and then the sound of a plane coming in to land, thundering low across her spot. Once its noise receded into the distance, her ears picked out the hum of cicadas, the gentle swishing of reeds in the breeze. The first time she’d come here, years ago, she’d lost all concept of time, got home when the sun was dropping behind the mountain. Patrick had been pacing the front stoep like a caged animal, while her mother sighed in the living room with cigarette in hand. Where have you been? Worried sick! But not even a beating could force her to give up this place.

  Today it was the perfect escape from the clucking, sympathetic tongues around Rowena, the stench of burning tires, broken windows and the sounds of guns. Johnny might even appear: this had become their special place. About a year after he had started coming to their house she brought him here. She had never shown it to anyone before then, and in his quiet way Johnny belonged here too.

  He was not like other boys who recklessly pitted themselves against nature, climbing and conquering trees or throwing stones at lizards. He had a respect for nature that mirrored hers. They’d spent hours at this very rock, laughing, talking or just sitting together in silence. It was here that Johnny leaned over one day as they lay in the grass together and planted a gentle kiss on her lips.

  “Why did you do that?” Grace had blurted out.

  He’d looked down at the ground then, the way he used to when they were still shy around each other. Embarrassment crept across her cheeks; embarrassment for herself, for reacting in such a childish, uncool way, coupled with a compounding shyness on his behalf for his obvious, squirming discomfort.

  “Well, you’re a girl, I’m a boy,” he’d said, as if that was all it really took for one person to start kissing another in the middle of nowhere. “And... I like you.” His eyebrows rose into a question mark.

  Grace had felt the heat rush to her face and in her chest strange sensations bubbled, as if she hadn’t eaten for days and had suddenly realised she was ravenous. The hunger spread across her chest. Johnny liked her? Not in the friend or family way, but like that, like a man liked a woman? No one had ever told her that they liked her; she had never even thought it possible that in a universe of bold, outspoken, pretty girls with better hair and wide hips, a boy could possibly be interested in her. When Grace dreamed about the future – when she was able to see a future – she was grown up with a husband who loved and took care of her. But in her imaginings the man who loved her always appeared in adulthood, after she had grown up and out of this unloveable skin; after she had shrugged off Patrick and the ugly house; after she had reinvented herself as a beautiful successful woman who looked like Mary, after she had cast off this ugly shell that was only temporarily Grace, and the ugly things that had happened to her. Her life would begin after she grew up. This here, now, was not really her life. It was just a period of waiting – waiting for her father to leave or die, for Mandela to come out of prison, for her mother to be happy and free. This was not anything really, this waiting. When it was over, that was when her life would really start. Then. Then there would be men who loved, when she could step away from this and love herself. She blushed in dazed awe that anyone could find something loveable in her, and knew, immediately, that she loved Johnny back, that she would always love him. She knew this on the day he kissed her. Her Johnny.

  A plane took off, its orange tailfin glistening in the sun. Grace looked up, tracking its journey across the sky and prayed, harder than she’d ever prayed before: bring him back! She begged God, the plane, the trees, the grass, the distant mountain, the infinite blue sky – which, stretching as it did around the world, surely must see him. Bring him back! She got onto her knees beside the rock and prayed, until prayer rose up from every molecule in her body, until she became the very breath of God, until she was nothing but spirit, soaring up to the heavens, whispering in His ear: bring Johnny back!

  When she was done the sun hung low in the sky, ready to dip behind the unmoved face of Table Mountain. Calm settled over her. Leaves glowed in this magical light, knitting into Grace’s bones the quiet surety that Johnny was alive and would be found. He would be found and would come back, and everything would go back to how it was before – no, better than before, with her father at a safe, bearable distance.

  She got up from the clearing and pushed her way back through the branches and bushes to the tarred road that divided the bushy expanse from the township. It had grown late and people were coming back from work. Streams of cars were winding their way home on the old, too narrow arterial road. She waited too long, losing her nerve several times, before dodging between cars and getting halfway. Then she spent too long hopping about in the middle of the road on the white line where she shouldn’t have been. Finally, safely on the other side, things were quiet. There was no sign of the armoured vultures. Outside Johnny’s home, people were still milling about, some with bowls of food covered in dishcloths. She could see Tim waving his arms, his gesticulation stirring a group of men into action. It looked like they were ready to depart on another search. Johnny was still not home.

  Grace had just reached her house and was about to walk through the low front gate when on the corner a familiar figure came into view. The swagger in his gait revealed what Grace instinctively felt – that he’d had a few drinks – no, more than a few. There are times when a body knows, just knows, before the brain catches up, that it’s in mortal danger. For Grace, that time was now. Heart pounding, she ran up to the security gate, and with fingers turning numb, fumbled to unlock it. A few quick prods at the lock and the key took on a leaden weight of its own and gave up the fight against gravity. Dropped. She turned and he was there, behind her, upon her, his body blocking out the sun and Grace from any passerby’s view.

  “Hello, Grace! How’s my girl?”

  Smiling. Drunk. Eyes aglow with a brewing storm.

  “Daddy....” she nodded.

  “Where have you been, Gracie?”

  “Nowhere....”

  “Whoring around like your mother?”

  Grace stopped struggling with the key, defeated. She wanted to hit him in his belly and see him cry wi
th pain, but there she was, trapped between him and the security door with no chance to inflict an equivalent wound on him, no chance to get away.

  “Pick up the key.”

  His voice was low, almost a whisper, chilling to her ear. Grace obeyed the command.

  “Now unlock the door.”

  The dutiful daughter obeyed. Mama’s words – “Whatever you do, don’t let him in!” – screeched through her head as the rest of her went numb. From the corner of her eye she saw a convoy of cars, led by Tim’s yellow Mazda, pass by. All the men from next door were gone.

  The gate swung open. Impatiently, Patrick grabbed the keys from her and unlocked the front door. She was never quick enough. His hand closed like a vice on her upper arm, and in one powerful, practised movement, he launched her unresisting body across the threshold and into the dark living room with its curtains all drawn. Grace picked herself up from her landing spot on the floor and sank into the dirty white couch, tightly wrapping her arms around her body. She kept her eyes on the floor, taking in the minutiae of today’s sand arrangement on the carpet. No matter how she tried to clean it (Mary had long ago given up) the sand had a way of creeping back into the house, reclaiming its lost kingdom. Steel-toed work boots came and went across the still-life of the floor, carrying the upturned cuffs of dark blue jeans, resting neatly above laced shoe-tongues. Grace focused hard on the brown laces, moving slowly in and out of focus, in and out of her tableau of carpet and uncontrollable sand.

  She heard the click of the front door being locked. The boots finally came to rest right in front of her, toe-to-toe with her own takkied feet.

  “Look at me!”

  She knew she had to, but she couldn’t. Her shoulders were two blocks of ice, solid, pressing the rest of her body down into the couch.

  “I said, look at me!”

  A blow landed on Grace’s left cheek, forcing movement from her stubborn head. She tried to hold back prickly tears, but they rolled down her cheeks as she tilted her head upwards, slid off her chin and plopped onto the tops of her hands. Anger, pain and shame coloured the contours of her face.