There was a silence. Karen didn’t move.
‘I had it bad, too. Couldn’t keep anything down for the first few weeks – they were quite worried, thought they might have to take me in – but it passed eventually. You’ll feel better soon.’
Her resistance to all of them – to Ian and her mother and even Robin – gave her a perverse kind of strength. Once her mother had left the room she pushed off the bedclothes and slipped her feet into a pair of old suede moccasins. She put on a cotton dress over her pyjamas and a cardigan over the dress. In the bathroom she splashed water on her face and drew a comb through her hair. She checked her reflection in the bedroom mirror. She looked like someone else.
With one hand on her belly and the other pawing the walls, she moved down the stairs like a blind person, like a person weak with hunger or dying of thirst. In the hallway outside the living room, framed photographs hung on the wall: holiday images, wedding pictures and photos of Robin when he was newly born all testified to a togetherness she had shared. Now she felt remote.
Her father was on his hands and knees building a Lego city on the carpet. Robin leaned against his grandfather with one arm hooked casually around his neck. Ian and her mother directed operations from the sofa.
The door handle felt as if it might melt under her touch. She had a vision of it dripping to the floor and then the door itself cracked and splintered, breaking into sawdust. The Lego city seemed about to dissolve into a pool of molten plastic that threatened to fill the room. It would ooze through the door and move inexorably through the rest of the downstairs rooms, carrying Robin and her father and Ian and her mother in its glutinous mass. The walls of the house bulged, threatening to explode. Everything was about to dissolve or combust.
‘Here she is!’ Her father noticed her in the doorway. ‘Feeling any better, love?’
On seeing her, Robin left his grandfather’s side and came over to take her by the hand. Her father stood up, rubbing his knees. She could tell that Ian was embarrassed by her dishevelment as he explained how on top of her morning sickness they had all been a bit below par lately. He hoped her parents wouldn’t catch the cold they had all been suffering with.
‘That’s the trouble with little ones, isn’t it?’ her mother said. ‘What with them spending all day on the floor and so on, they pick up all the germs going. If you want me to have a go at your skirting boards, Karen, I’ve got a pair of rubber gloves in the car.’
‘You’re our guest, Val,’ Ian said. ‘You don’t need to bring your cleaning equipment!’
‘That’s what I told her,’ Karen’s father said, ‘but would she listen?’
Even though she recognised their words, Karen could make little sense of them and she had no words of her own to bring to the conversation. It was as if they were speaking a foreign language that she understood only in part. She hadn’t mastered the spoken version. She felt her parents’ eyes on her, darting away from hers if she caught them looking, but watching her all the time, taking turns to follow her, listening closely to the few words she said – as if trying to crack her code.
It was only Robin that she could understand with any confidence. The savoury smell of him and his biscuity breath – none of this required translation. She concentrated on the warmth of his small hand in hers and got down on her knees to be next to him. Before Robin, she hadn’t known it was possible to feel such connection – not to anything, not even to herself. With his soft voice in her ear as he talked her through the cityscape laid out before her on the carpet, she felt herself return to the world of others. Light from the living room window sharpened their features and she began to see them more clearly now. She felt like Sleeping Beauty, awoken with a kiss, returning to the normal, waking world.
‘Sorry if I was tough on you earlier,’ Ian said, once her parents had gone and Robin was in bed. ‘It’s no picnic being pregnant and your parents can be hard work.’
‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘It was fine, wasn’t it? In the end, I mean. Robin had a nice time.’
‘You’re not feeling so sick now?’ he asked, watching as she wiped a piece of crusty bread around the casserole dish, mopping up its remnants.
She heard the need in his voice, registered the baffled look on his face. She nodded. What he didn’t know was that she recognised the dullness that hung like a mist all around. Mostly, she could pick her way through it. With Robin as her guide and the green and red and yellow of his Lego pieces like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs, she was able to find her way. Sometimes, though, it descended so thickly it was impenetrable. Everything was cloaked and she too was cloaked and veiled in a mist of her own, that might lift at any moment or might remain in place, obscuring her from the world and removing the world from her. She had never found words sufficient to explain this veiledness to him, never when she was under it and not even at times like now when she was more free of it. Perhaps it was better for him not to know.
I WOKE UP THINKING the worst because I drank two Cokes at the restaurant but I was dry. I put on my elephant pattern dress to celebrate. Today was what Dad called a Chilling Day. He was on the phone loads so he said we could just hang out. I was glad. It reminded me of when he lived in England and he was at work and you would say Today is a Pyjama Day. I asked him if Beautiful was coming round but he said she was working. He said it in his annoying gentle voice. I said What is her job and he said she was a seller of houses. I wanted to know if she sold Dad his house but I didn’t ask.
I was getting really good at the drawing game. I kept guessing Eleanor O and CatladyUK’s pictures. I thought Picasso might be you because I could guess Picasso’s drawings straight away and Picasso could guess mine. We never didn’t guess and the drawing of a baby was exactly how you would draw one – all chubby with a wiggly line on top of its head for its hair. I thought maybe you weren’t dead and instead you were living somewhere with a new family and new children playing the drawing game with me while they were at school and not having Pyjama Days. Maybe you found a new boyfriend and had a baby and Dad thought we would be so sad to find out that he told us you had died instead and had a fake funeral and sent us to live with Nan and Grandad.
Another possibility was if Dad wanted to live in South Africa and be girlfriend and boyfriend with Beautiful maybe you weren’t living with a new family. Maybe Dad killed you. People get money when another person dies. Maybe that’s why Dad is so rich. When I look at him I am wondering if he could do it and how he did it if he did it. On the news in England there was a man who killed his wife by driving her car into a river. If I think about the car sinking and the water coming in if you open the windows I feel like I’m drowning and my legs and arms start swimming even though I’m on dry land.
Zami said he would take us into the village if we wanted. Robin said Are we allowed? I went indoors to ask Dad but he was on the phone. I heard him say The kids don’t know yet and I wanted to know what we didn’t know so I hid in the corridor to our bedrooms and I heard him talk about an airport pick-up. He didn’t know I was listening but the front door was open and Tonyhog came tip-tapping in so Dad got up to shoo him out and saw me. He laughed and said What are you doing lurking around here, Indy? I thought you were outside. I could tell he was nervous that I would find something out.
I went back outside and I told Robin that Dad said we could go to the village even though I didn’t ask. We walked along with Zami like he was our proper friend and like we lived in Africa instead of being on holiday. He taught us some of his language and when people said hello we said hello back and when they asked us how we were we said we were cosy. Zami was going to see his sister on a bus and I wanted to see her too so that meant Robin had to come. I bought us all Cokes with my own money and I told him Dad said we could, which served him right.
The bus journey took ages and there were no seats free so we had to stand up. When the bus went around corners we fell over. It was hot and bumpy and the driver played loud music. Some of the people on the bus ta
lked to Zami and even though they were speaking a different language I could tell they were talking about Robin and me. Robin didn’t like it. He wasn’t saying anything to anyone. Why aren’t you speaking to me, I said, but he wouldn’t answer. We got off the bus in a marketplace. People were carrying shopping on their heads but they stopped what they were doing when we walked past. There were lots of dogs, but the kind you don’t touch in case they’ve got rabies. The buildings were sheds made out of tin. Robin said we should be getting back now but we had only just arrived and me and Zami wanted to say hello to his sister. Zami said we would be quite quick. I whispered Africa Time to Robin, which is when nothing is quick, but he ignored me and took my scarf off me so he could hold it up against his nose to stop the smells coming in. The smells were of burning cooking and rotting rubbish.
We came to a battered old door with its number painted on the front. The woman who opened the door was Zami’s sister. She had a pink towel tied around on the outside of her clothes. Her house was really dark. Robin didn’t want us to go in but Zami made us by waving his hand and saying please and frowning when Robin said we wouldn’t. A toddler was on the floor and there was a bed in one corner and some shelves with nothing on them. The floor was red and the walls were blue. The toddler liked the bows on my new shoes and if I moved my feet he tried to get them. Zami was talking to his sister in their language and I was playing with the toddler but Robin was just standing there holding my scarf over his face even though there were no smells inside Zami’s sister’s house. I tried to get him to give my scarf back but he wouldn’t. Zami’s sister had a serious face and she didn’t speak to us, only to Zami in a foreign language, but when she saw the toddler playing she laughed and her laughing voice was different, just like Zami’s. When he’s with Dad he doesn’t laugh but when he is with me and Robin he does sometimes laugh and it is a different sound from his normal voice, as if he’s got two different voices, one for speaking and one for laughing.
I noticed there was a tiny baby wrapped up in the towel that Zami’s sister was wearing over her clothes. It was having a piggyback but it was fast asleep. It was a boy, Zami said, and thank goodness he was healthy. When Zami’s mum died him and his sister had to live with his grandmother. Same with me and Robin, I said – but the difference is that Zami’s grandma got too old to look after him and there wasn’t enough food so first his sister came to South Africa and then him. The last words their mother said were to his sister and what she said was Look after Zamikhaya. It was our mother’s dying wish for us to stay together, Zami said. His sister’s name is Nomsa and Zami said her husband was a bad man. At first he helped them and said he could get jobs for them but after the baby was born he wanted Zami’s sister to go and live far away. In Africa the baby belongs with the father’s family. Zami’s sister wanted to stay with Zami so she ran away from the husband and now she was all alone. The toddler who liked my shoes wasn’t her baby, she was looking after it for somebody else and they would give her food in return. I said to Zami Why don’t you bring your sister and her baby to live at Dad’s? Not the toddler but the tiny sleeping baby in the towel. I said I would ask Dad but Zami didn’t want me to. I said Why not, he wouldn’t mind but Zami said Your father has done enough for my family already. When he says father he says it like this – fatha.
Robin wanted to go, even though we had only been there a short time. There was a bus waiting at the market. This time it wasn’t so crowded. I said to Zami It’s so sad about your granny and your mum and your sister. Robin gave me a dig and said Don’t get involved. The whole journey I kept thinking about Zami’s mother’s dying wish. I was thinking what your dying wish was. Robin doesn’t look after me. He doesn’t do anything with me except be mean. When I asked for my scarf back he threw it at me and said Have your stupid baby scarf.
I was trying to remember what were the last words I heard that came out of your mouth. I think it was Night-night.
When we arrived back at the village near Dad’s all the little children were holding our hands and laughing. They ran away when we got to our gate. Zami stayed behind to talk to Lindisizwe and Dad came storming out of the house looking really angry and wearing smart trousers. He shouted because he had been looking all over for us and he didn’t know where we were. I told him we went into the village and he said we were only allowed out of the gate with him. It felt like we were his prisoners. I said Why are you wearing that outfit and he said I haven’t finished with you, young lady, but it will have to wait because there’s a surprise for both of you indoors.
Whenever anyone says that, I think the surprise is going to be you. We went indoors and there, sitting on the sofas, were Nan and Grandad. It wasn’t you. Robin said What the –? and his face was like in a cartoon when the character looks and then looks again and their eyes go ginormous because they can’t hardly believe what they are seeing. Dad said Now we can all be together as a family for Christmas. It was Christmas in three days’ time but it didn’t feel like it and Nan and Grandad didn’t feel like Nan and Grandad because they looked different in Africa. Grandad was all shy and Nan’s hair was all big and standing up where she’d back-combed it like she does when she wants to give it body. It was weird them being there – as if it wasn’t really and truly them. Dad tried to put his arm round me but I didn’t let him. He said Sorry I got so angry, Indy, but you have to understand there are different rules here. Neither of you had your phones with you and I didn’t know where you were.
Nan said she couldn’t believe the place Dad had and wasn’t the garden lovely. She was wearing a yellow T-shirt I had never seen before. It had a big white bird on it and the sleeves had white beads hanging off. You never get to see her arms normally, but in the summer you do and they’re all freckly. It was summer here even though it was Christmas. That’s a colourful top you’re wearing, Nan, I said, and she said to Dad She doesn’t miss a thing which is what she always says about me. How about that dress of yours, that’s new, she said, and she noticed Robin’s new T-shirt too but she didn’t say anything about my shoes so I knew we would have an argument about wearing them to school. She bought her bird T-shirt at the airport when they were waiting for a lift. Dad said Sorry about the wait and Robin said Africa Time and everyone laughed. Nan said Don’t I get a kiss then and me and Robin had to kiss her and Grandad. Then we all went and sat on the big sofas. Dad said Both of them are doing so well, meaning us, and Grandad said we were lovely kids. I know that, Dad said, but you’re doing a good job is all I’m saying and I want to thank you. No need, said Grandad, and he wouldn’t look at Dad. They were all talking as if they didn’t know each other and none of us were looking at each other. I was looking at my shoes which were all dusty from the village and I couldn’t wait to clean them. Dad was talking about all the things we were going to do while Nan and Grandad were here, like safari and posh restaurants. We were going to an island with a prison on it the next day. Nan said it was very generous of Dad to pay for their holiday and he said they were welcome any time and it wouldn’t cost a penny.
There is a narrow white line running around his neck, where his necklace goes. If you lift up his necklace you can see what colour he would be if he lived in England not in South Africa. It would be the line to cut along if someone was chopping his head off.
WIND RATTLED THE WINDOW frames and whistled through the thin walls of the rented cottage. Karen could feel its draught as she stood at the main bedroom window watching trees bend. In the moments when it paused she could hear Ian talking with the children in the room next door.
‘When adults get fed up or tired they don’t cry like kids cry, do they?’ he was saying.
‘Why not?’ Robin asked.
She heard Ian hesitate and the wind, too, held its breath, like a child crying, gathering energy for the next wail. ‘Because they’re grown-up, I suppose,’ he said. ‘It’s the kids’ job to cry, but the grown-ups have to soldier on.’
‘Soldier?’ Indy’s voice now. It cut Karen to the
core.
‘Sometimes Mum feels like being quiet, doesn’t she?’ Ian explained. ‘Sometimes we all do. And we just have to leave her be.’
She moved quickly away from the bedroom window and went downstairs. There was a sensation of being followed and she knew what the feeling was. She knew not to look back over her shoulder.
Rain spattered on the coals. It was ridiculous to light a fire in summer but the cottage was freezing. This holiday was a disaster. Several times they had bundled the children into waterproofs hoping to walk to a nearby beach, but each time the weather had turned them back. Today they had spent the day indoors trying to play board games, but at four years old Indigo was too young for most of them, so Ian had made her a shop underneath the table where her merchandise, comprised of their own belongings and random items from around the cottage, remained on display. They had put the kids to bed early – it was still light – and now the evening stretched out ahead of them.
‘Robin wants you to go up,’ he said, coming into the room. There was a glass of wine in his hand but he hadn’t poured one for her. She was afraid he was reaching the limits of his tolerance. He had been earnest and patient in his bid to understand why it was that she could become rigid – petrified, almost – but soon he would demand that she account for her behaviour. She had a vision of him with an enormous ledger in which he would list his complaints and ask her to explain herself.
There were no answers she could provide. The sums wouldn’t tally.
‘It’s not helping,’ he said. ‘The way you’re being.’
Rain whipped the windows. Time slowed. When he spoke, his voice sounded unnaturally loud, and yet she knew he was speaking normally.
‘The kids are feeling it and so am I,’ he said. ‘What’s going on?’
With his question came the rushing sensation she had been dreading. With his words it gathered momentum, like an urgent beast that had collapsed in pursuit of her, and now staggered to its feet. It thundered towards her with frightening speed. Its weight was immense, this bull in the china shop of her mind. If she didn’t talk about it or address it by name she could keep it at bay, but if she made eye contact she would be done for. If she acknowledged it, it would come for her, like an animal from the wild that, once allowed into the home, would ingratiate itself perhaps, and appear tame, but nonetheless retain an awesome and frightening power that it could unleash without warning.
Alarm Girl Page 6
