‘How’s it all going?’ she asked, and he told them about paying guests he took golfing and on vineyard tours.
‘Well, you’re looking good on it, Ian,’ she said.
He thanked her and seemed a little embarrassed. The bangle he wore slid down his arm as he pushed his hair back. It used to be Karen’s. His hair was mostly grey now, but longer than before and curly like it was when they first knew him. It was true he looked well. Everyone looked better with a tan.
‘And the lifestyle out there – you like it?’ she asked.
‘It’s wonderful, Val. The climate, the landscape, being in the open. You’ll have to come and see for yourself, won’t she, Indy?’ He stroked his daughter’s cheek with his own and Indy complained that his felt prickly. She was too old, really, Valerie thought, to sit on her father’s lap. She caught herself feeling bad that she hadn’t been touchy-feely like that with Karen.
Ian said he wouldn’t stop for dinner. She knew he preferred to get straight off so she had made sure the children were ready. He was always in a rush, as if he couldn’t stand to be in their company.
‘How d’you like the new car?’ he asked as they stood all together on the pavement.
‘Very swish,’ she said. ‘Is it a people-carrier?’
‘Yes, for carrying the peeps.’
He was certainly in an upbeat mood – the most upbeat she had seen him lately. Robin asked if it was a hire car and Ian told him that no, he had bought it. He showed them the drinks-holder and the stereo. She wondered how he managed to afford a new car on top of all the travel backwards and forwards to South Africa. His business must be doing as well as he said it was.
‘What do you say, babies?’ he asked.
She wished he wouldn’t make them thank her for having them. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate good manners, but it made things too formal.
‘Thanks for having us,’ Robin said.
Ian promised to bring them back at the weekend and he made a point, as he always did, of telling her and Doug that they were welcome to come to the house. There were too many reminders, though, in the fairy-lights strung around the kitchen window frame, in sofa cushions that still smelled of her.
She waved goodbye to the disappearing car, and kept waving because Indy continued to stare at them out of the back window. ‘Keep waving, Doug, she’s still looking.’ They waved until her face faded into a pale oval and even then they carried on waving, until they saw the indicator blinking and the brake lights come on at the junction at the bottom of the hill. Then the car pulled away, out of sight.
Later that evening, eating a bar of fruit-and-nut while Doug dozed in front of the television, Valerie noticed a series of minuscule felt-tipped hearts drawn along the windowsill, like a parade of ants. They continued their journey across the wall and on to the television cabinet. She gave her husband a gentle nudge but when he didn’t wake up she had to poke him quite hard.
‘Doug,’ she said, ‘you missed some.’
A DOG WAS BARKING and a cock was crowing. The shape of a helicopter’s propeller was printed on the insides of my eyelids. I opened my eyes and saw the ceiling fan. It was morning even though I didn’t know I had been asleep. I felt warm and cold at the same time and I knew what that meant. The cold was my pyjama bottoms sticking to my legs. It hadn’t happened in ages.
I crouched down next to the bed like a ninja and pulled the sheet off. The mattress didn’t look too bad. I changed my pyjama bottoms for dry ones. Luckily I had two pairs. There was a shushing noise coming from outside and a hissing, like air escaping from a tyre. A dog was still barking, but not Jack – one further away. It was already hot outside when I opened the shutters. The sun was so bright it was blinding and the air pressed in like a fat, warm pillow. I had a glass of water left over from the night, so I held the pissy sheet and bottoms through the bars of the window and poured it all over them. I left them hanging there so they would dry. The chickens were out from underneath the cars and the shushing sound was Zami with a broom, sweeping the yard. He had bare feet and a piece of material wrapped around him like a skirt, the same as Dad. He was wearing a T-shirt with the cloth skirt, not bare like Dad. I stood to one side of the shutter so he wouldn’t see me and I watched him sweeping and sweeping with the chickens following him, pecking. He collected up all the small sticks and leaves and dust on a square of cardboard and carried them over to the fence, where he tipped them on to a pile. Then he picked up his broom again and kept on sweeping.
Page two in the aeroplane drawing book was a picture of a clown. I coloured his hair in yellow and his shoes in red. The spots on his costume were blue and green. I heard the television go on so I went to my door and listened. I could see into Robin’s room. He was still asleep. I crept in and put my face right next to his. I couldn’t hear air going in or out and his chest wasn’t going up and down but his mouth was open and his breath stank so bad I could tell he was alive. I went out again.
Dad was sitting on one of the sofas watching the news. He wasn’t wearing any clothes apart from his sarong thing and nothing else except his shark-tooth necklace. His chest was quite hairy. He said Good morning, treasure and asked me how did I sleep. I never know what to say when people ask that – everyone sleeps the same. He called me puppy and gave me a cuddle and apart from his shark-tooth necklace for about two seconds it was like you were right there in the room. He never used to wear a necklace. I said Swear on mine and Robin’s lives that’s a Great White’s tooth and he said I swear so it must be.
For breakfast Silumko was making eggy bread or there was fruit salad. I said I wanted cereal and Dad said What kind? Any kind, I said. Dad said you can get anything you want in South Africa.
Silumko lives in the village with his wife and daughter and baby boy. He supports the same football team as Dad. His daughter’s name means ‘blessing’ in his language. Dad made a joke about fathers loving their daughters and having to protect them – from rascals who would pinch them, he said. He said it was a terrible thing to have a daughter but he was smiling when he said it, like it was a joke. Silumko said You are right, man. Dad said I know it, man. He told me I was growing up into a young lady and that I wasn’t a girl any more. I said it was nice for Silumko to live at home with his daughter and Dad said he was working hard so one day me and Robin could come and join him and live here. I didn’t say anything but secretly I was thinking I wouldn’t like to live in South Africa and when would I see Beth and who would look after Nan and Grandad? Zami lives in a concrete building in the yard next to where the cars are parked. Me and Robin would have to live in a place like that because the proper rooms are for guests.
Dad said the big town nearby had nice girlie shops. He was telling me all the things there were to do but in my mind I just wanted to go on the tyre swing. Zami came in and Tony the bushpig was following him with his hooves going tap-tap on the floor. Zami gave Dad some letters and a newspaper. Silumko said something in a foreign language and Dad told Zami to take Tony out into the garden and why didn’t I go with them too.
I was still wearing my pyjamas but I had my sun cream on like Nan told me to every time we are outside. The dusty ground felt like sand under my bare feet. I asked Zami if there were any snakes. Robin says African ones are deadly but I know he’s trying to wind me up. Tony walked next to me, like he was trying to keep the same pace as me. He was keeping me company. He looked like he was walking on tiptoe. His hooves were like miniature high heels. He let me touch him. His skin was all rough.
I could hear hissing, louder than before. I said to Zami Are you sure there aren’t any snakes but it wasn’t a snake. It was coming from all around. Zami couldn’t hear anything. His voice was so quiet I had to ask him to say everything twice, like I was deaf with just hissing in my ears. Like Grandad’s before the wax got taken out. Zami got the water container and poured some water into the same bit of dust as before. He did it in silence with me following him. He swirled the water around with a stick and the
n he spoke without me asking him a question. To make it good for him to bathe in when it is hot in the day, he said. When he speaks he sounds like someone in a history book and his face is a perfect circle.
Tonyhog lay down in the mud that Zami made. His legs stuck out from his body straight as twigs. Me and Zami were scratching his back and the top of his head. Dad’s garden has got giant weird cactus plants all around and the grass is really green and like velvet but near the Jeep the ground is bare. I left my sandals by the tyre swing all night but I could only find one and it was half destroyed. Only the sole and one strap with its buckle was left. Zami said jackals ate it but I didn’t believe him and I didn’t even know what jackals were. When I went back in the house, Robin was stuffing his face and talking with Dad and Silumko about football. Dad said What’s the matter, Indy, you look as if you’ve seen a ghost but he meant my sun cream. I showed them my broken sandal and Dad said jackals are a kind of fox who come right up to the house at night. Once they tore the seats of his Jeep with their claws and tried to eat the leather. He said it was true what Zami said and they probably did eat my sandals. Don’t be upset, Indy, he said, because I was crying. We can go shopping and get you a pair of South African shoes. That made Robin think I was a spoilt brat and he told me to go and wash my hands because I had been touching wild animals, meaning Tonyhog. I said Tony’s not wild, he’s tame and Robin said He’s still got germs and Dad said he was right I should wash my hands.
Even though Robin’s got loads of animal books, he only wants to know facts about them instead of actually liking them.
No one knew what I was talking about when I asked what the hissing noise was. I made them listen but none of them could hear it. Robin said it could be insects or a hosepipe watering the grass but Dad said That, my puppy, is the hiss of life itself. I had my scarf and Robin told him Nan and Grandad’s name for me, Mrs Fiddle. Dad said he wished they wouldn’t call me that, as if he knew it already. Then Robin said about me drawing on Nan and Grandad’s furniture. Dad didn’t know about that. Probably Nan didn’t even tell him. I told him I didn’t draw much and Nan didn’t mind but it wasn’t true, she did mind. I drew hearts on the table legs with black pen that wouldn’t come off so Grandad had to get his toolbox out and sandpaper them. I drew hearts on the top of the table too and on the wall. Robin told Dad how Grandad had to sand everything then varnish it to get rid of the pen. Dad was shocked, but he was laughing. Robin tried to get me into trouble by saying Nan was really angry but it didn’t work, Dad thought it was funny, so Robin got annoyed and started moaning how no one ever tells me off. He called me Indy, but in a baby voice so I could tell he was being mean.
It’s true Nan didn’t tell me off much about drawing on the furniture. Not as much as you would think. Her and Grandad just looked at me with sad faces and asked why I would do such a thing. I told them it was because I couldn’t find any paper, which wasn’t true. I had loads of paper. I don’t know why I did it. I liked the shape of the hearts I was drawing, all round and fat and going to a sharp point, and once I started I couldn’t stop.
Dad showed me a picture of a jackal on his laptop. It was a sort of fox but with a mean face. When I was washing my hands to get rid of Tony’s wild animal germs I sneaked into Dad’s room. It was the same as mine and Robin’s, all plain with nothing in it apart from a wardrobe, but it smelled different and there was a painting on the wall like the one in the hallways. It looks like blobs of paint until you notice it’s really a woman carrying a spear. The mosquito net over the bed was tied in a knot and hanging all bundled up from the ceiling. It looked like something fat in a cocoon that was just about to get born. There were some necklaces hanging on the wardrobe door handle and a key in the little lock. I ran the beads through my fingers. The air was all perfumey and I started to get a headache. The key turned easily and the necklaces clattered against the wardrobe door when I opened it. Inside were skirts and dresses and tops. Lots were white and there were some turquoise things and some patterned, but mostly white. I didn’t recognise them. They weren’t yours. At the bottom was a jumble of shoes – some old trainers and walking boots as well as a pair of gold plaited sandals. I knew I should stop being nosy but my legs wouldn’t move. The flowery smell put me in a hypnotist’s trance. I felt like Snow White when she eats the apple and faints. There was a mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door and my face in it was like a dead person’s, all white from my sun cream. If I forget what you looked like I look at my own face in the mirror and I can remember. Now I stared at my face in Dad’s mirror and I showed my teeth and growled. I didn’t look like you any more. My eyes were all narrow and I was vicious, like a jackal that could tear the clothes hanging in the wardrobe to pieces and toss the shoes all about. Rip big holes in the mosquito net and roll around on the bed, covering everything with my oniony jackal smell. I snarled at my reflection. If they could do that to a pair of sandals or a car seat, imagine what they could do to a human.
I shut the wardrobe door and turned the little key in its lock.
The person Zami likes best is Tonyhog, even though he’s not a person. After that he likes Lindisizwe who guards the gate. Lindisizwe stands up all day and all night. Dad showed me how to write his name and Zami’s proper name, which is Z.a.m.i.k.h.a.y.a. When he’s not guarding, Lindisizwe lives in the village which is the same one where Silumko lives. Dad took us there. There weren’t any shops but there was a shack where you could buy Coke. There were posters for Nelson Mandela with the dates of his life on and his nickname, not his real name. Some chickens were pecking the ground and some dogs were in the shade. Robin played football and me and Zami watched. Dad said football is a universal language. I didn’t know what that meant. We watched and we drank Coke. Dad bought some for the other kids too. One of the boys had trainers on, but two different ones that didn’t match. The others had bare feet and all of their clothes were old. Dad asked one of the mothers to plait my hair but it was too short to do it properly and my ears were sticking out and Robin called me a bald eagle so I took the plaits out when we got back.
Before dark, the living room at Dad’s was full of pink sunset. Dad made us put on our insect repellent for playing on the tyre swing. I remembered to bring my shoes inside the house this time. Robin was feeling ill but when I said he might have malaria he got annoyed and wanted me to leave him alone. If we caught malaria and died Dad would be an orphan as well as a widow. Dad said probably swinging on the tyre made Robin dizzy and that was why he was feeling ill. He made him drink lots of water because he had been running around playing football. I didn’t want to drink too much because of the night and because of the feeling of waking up and moving my legs under the sheet, waiting to see if it sticks, waiting for the warm to turn cold. The best is when I kick my feet and the sheet goes upwards and falls softly down like a parachute.
Before we went to bed I put Dad’s Christmas present under the fake tree. Robin thought I was looking at the presents which made him call me a spoilt brat but I wasn’t looking at the presents, I was looking at the writing on the presents. I said to Robin Do you think he’s going to talk to us about Mum? Robin said Shut the fuck up but he whispered it and I could tell he was thinking the same as me, which was Dad was going to give us a talk about you. That was why he made us come here instead of him coming to England like usual.
Whenever I ask Robin why no one in our family talks about you he says it’s too sad and we probably wouldn’t understand that’s why. I say Of course it’s sad when your Mum dies, that doesn’t mean you can’t talk about her, but then he just says Not everyone is like you, Indigo and Don’t be so selfish. He is glad we don’t see the bereavement counsellor any more. He said what was the point doing graffiti on a special graffiti wall, the whole point of graffiti is that it’s on a proper wall, hopefully someone else’s or the wall of a school or something. He said the other kids at grief counselling were nerds. The place we did it is too far to travel from Nan and Grandad’s house anyway so we only g
o when we feel like it which is never. I liked writing to you on a balloon though, and the bereavement counsellor was the only person who liked me talking about you. Robin said she was a Goth but she wasn’t, she just wore black nail varnish sometimes.
In the morning we had to get up really early, so early it was dark. Dad was taking us on a game drive. Not a game you play. I didn’t feel like driving anywhere, though, so I started the next colouring-in. The picture was of a hot-air balloon and I coloured in a red section, a pink section, an orange section and a yellow section and then because it looked like the sunset I started colouring in the sky all around it in stripes of the same colours. Dad told me off for not being ready. Everyone was waiting and Dad was jingling his keys but I wanted Cookie Crisp. Robin had seconds, which Nan wouldn’t agree with because she says sugary cereal puts him in a bad mood.
I didn’t want to go on a drive so I asked if I could stay at the house by myself. Dad said Oh, come on, Indigo, you’re in Africa, you can see animals here you would never get to see at home. I said My favourite animals are dogs and you get loads of them in England. Dad made a joke that next time he comes back me and Robin can take him on safari too but I said When are you coming then? That made him stop laughing. After we finished our cereal he told us to stand outside while he set the alarm. Robin gave me a dig so hard I could feel it turning into a bruise straight away.
Zami was waiting next to the Jeep. I didn’t know he was coming and I was glad it wasn’t just me and stupid Robin. The Jeep smelled of petrol and its seats were torn up, with stuffing poking through. It was all spongey and good to pick but I had to hide the pile I made in case I got told off. There were no car windows, just a material roof to roll down if it rained. Me and Zami sat in the back. He saw me picking the seat stuffing but he didn’t say anything. It was freezing cold so we had a blanket. Dad had to start the engine by lifting up the bonnet. It made a loud noise and loads of smoke and smell. Lindisizwe was standing outside as usual. He never goes to sleep. Instead of driving left out of the gate towards the village we turned right and we were in countryside with no proper roads. It was still dark. Dad had to show his ID to a man in a shed who let us go into a bit of land where animals are allowed to be wild. Dad kept calling it the Bush even though there were no bushes. The ground was really bumpy and everyone was bouncing up and down in their seats. It was getting light but the sky was all grey and it felt like a different country from the sunny one where we play on the tyre swing and have to go indoors to stay cool. We watched a herd of antelopes through our binoculars. Stripy marks, pointy horns. Dad said we were using trees for markers, like proper Africans. There was a big tree next to two small ones and Dad said Remember we came past them so we can find our way back. It made me think of that fairy story when the boy and the girl get lost because the birds eat all the breadcrumbs and the thought of getting lost out in the nowhere like that made my heart beat loud. In the story the dad deliberately takes the boy and girl into the forest to kill them because there isn’t enough food. I had the thought that Dad was taking us where wild animals were on purpose to kill us like in the story and once I thought it I couldn’t get rid of it. I knew it was a stupid thought for me to have, the kind Robin would hate, and I knew it wasn’t real, but nothing was real so it didn’t make any difference. I didn’t want to think that thought so I shut my eyes.
Alarm Girl Page 3
