by Rosie Rowell
‘A present. You’re the only person over ten years old in the world who should wear these.’
They make me feel cold just looking at them.
‘Do you still see Mr Thomas?’ she asks in a casual voice as she’s paying.
For a moment I think I’ve imagined the question. We’ve never spoken about Rory until today. I wasn’t even sure she knew about my weekly appointments. Instead of looking up, Louisa seems fascinated by the contents of her purse while she waits for me to answer.
‘No,’ I reply. I pick at the display of bead and string bracelets on the counter. Some of them are striped in reggae colours; others have little shells braided into the pattern. ‘Why would I?’
Louisa shrugs. ‘Theresa said –’
‘Theresa doesn’t know what she’s talking about!’
From the surprise in Louisa’s eyes, I realise my words came out too aggressively.
‘OK,’ she says quietly.
The silence is awful. It’s the sound of the invisible stitching of our friendship beginning to tear. There are a hundred things that I know she wants me to tell her, but I said them all to Rory and look where that got me. ‘Cheese and rice,’ I say instead. Jesus Christ. Our Biology teacher – the man most unsuited in the world to teaching – used to mutter it regularly, especially when someone got a question wrong. It used to trigger unstoppable fit of giggles between us. It became our code for ‘Oh my god, this is awkward’ moments, like the time when Louisa’s mum recently asked us whether we thought any of the ‘bad girls’ in our year had had sex.
Louisa smiles without meeting my eye.
My first impression of Rory, or Mr Thomas, was that he was as big as a boulder, blocking out the sun. My headphones were in my ears so he seemed suddenly there, on the grass bank above me, standing legs apart, hands in his pockets.
I yanked the speakers from my ears and scrambled up from my seated position against the back wall of the swimming pool. ‘Sir?’ I blinked into the sunshine. No excuse in the world would make my being here acceptable, so I decided it was best not to say anything.
‘Sorry to surprise you. I can’t get down there. Done my back in.’ As usual, he was wearing sweat pants and a school sweatshirt with ‘Coach’ written on the back. He oversaw boys’ swimming and water polo. He also taught Geography and was the school guidance counsellor. Louisa thought it barbaric that we didn’t have a female guidance counsellor and brought it up at every school council meeting.
‘Any stray polo balls down there?’
‘Nope.’ I gathered my school bag, and stuffed my book and phone back inside.
‘Nice spot.’
‘It’s never windy here,’ I replied without thinking.
He waited for me to clamber up the side of the bank. ‘Let’s walk back together,’ he said, in a pleasant voice I didn’t trust. ‘Grace, right? You’ve signed up for Psychology Club?’
I nodded. How could he have found me here? No one ever came here. It was my spot.
‘You planning on studying Psychology at university?’
I nodded again.
‘What topics would you like us to cover this term?’ The previous week he had asked the same question during the first lunchtime meeting. Everyone else was bursting with questions.
I screwed up my eyes. ‘How amputees can feel extreme pain in their limbs after they have been severed.’
‘That’s a good one. The brain is extraordinary.’
‘My mum believes mood swings are nothing more than a chemical imbalance in the brain. So they’re not even real. If you have half your brain removed, your personality changes.’
‘If something feels real to you, then it’s real.’
‘That’s so school counsellor-ish.’
He laughed. ‘Well, it is my job. To give you a medical reason, I’d have to be a brain surgeon, in which case I wouldn’t be renting a two-bedroom flat and driving a crappy car.’
The bell rang. ‘Next time you’re thinking of lurking behind the swimming pool, come and talk to me. I’m sure you have plenty more unanswerable questions for me to look foolish over.’
I looked down to hide a smile. ‘I wasn’t lurking.’
Early the next week I found myself in front of Mr Thomas’s door. I raised my hand to knock, but the door wasn’t properly closed so it swung open as I touched it. He was sitting behind the desk. In a seated position he seemed overweight rather than well built. He looked up as I was about to turn and run.
‘Have you come up with another impossible question for me?’
I stepped inside and looked around the tiny office.
‘It’s ridiculously small, right? Obviously when they built the school in the 1950s there was no need for a guidance counsellor. Kids didn’t have problems back then.’
I looked at him. ‘When did the problems start?’
‘With your generation,’ he said.
I smiled and sat down.
He started talking. In this office, he wasn’t Mr Thomas, he was Rory.
‘Is that your real name?’ I asked.
He looked surprised. ‘Yes, why?’
‘You don’t look like a Rory. You look more like a Craig.’
‘I wish you’d told my mother that.’ He wanted to hear about my family.
‘Just me and my mum.’
‘No siblings? No dad?’
I shake my head. At Louisa’s house there were always doors banging and relatives visiting and multiple phones ringing at the same time.
‘Is she the Virgin Mary?’
I laughed. ‘She acts like it.’
‘What do you get up to on the weekend?’
Over the past few months I had been very busy trying to hide – from party invitations and Louisa, and especially my mother. ‘Usual teenager stuff,’ I replied with a shrug.
‘Do you want to talk about eating?’
‘Do you want to talk about eating?’ I snapped back.
‘I do. I love food, as you can see. Put anything down in front of me and I’ll eat it. But curries! Nothing beats a curry. What about you?’
I stared at him. I didn’t want to think about him eating.
‘Sushi,’ I replied.
He looked surprised.
‘What?’
‘I thought you’d be vegetarian or into one of those food routines that sounds more like a fraction – you know, “take your food, divide it in half, divide that portion in half and only eat on a day starting with T”.’
I laughed and shook my head.
‘That’s a relief,’ he replied, rubbing his hands together. ‘In that case we’ll get on well.’
Louisa is waiting for me at the Spar checkout counter. Her basket is groaning with variously packaged saturated fats. She frowns at her haul, mentally ticking things off as the cashier starts ringing them up. She points to the pack of one hundred paper plates. ‘No more washing up. Wait –’ She dashes away and arrives back with an armload of chips. ‘Can’t forget these!’ she says. The cashier laughs. By the look of her she eats a lot of chips.
I look down into my basket of Coke Zero, skim milk, apples, carrots, celery and fat-free cream cheese. It was all I could find. The thin metal handles of the basket keep slipping over the cuts on my hand.
‘I thought we could braai …’As Louisa is speaking she glances down into my basket. Her mouth draws a tight line.
‘I don’t mind braaiing,’ I say.
‘You’re such a child,’ she mutters.
‘I beg your pardon?’ I’m suddenly tired of the looks and bitten-back words. ‘Do you want to say something?’ I ask.
‘It would only be to point out the obvious.’
‘Which is?’
‘You’re on a death mission.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’ A boy and his friend have come up behind us with a litre of Fanta and a bumper packet of Cheeseniks. Behind them a queue is beginning to form.
‘OK. Eat this chocolate.’ Louisa grabs a Tex bar from the rack next to the
counter and shoves it under my nose.
I step backwards.
‘Go on, eat it all, right here.’
I can feel the people behind us grow restless. It is so like Louisa to make a scene.
‘I’ll eat the chocolate,’ offers one of the boys behind us.
‘No one’s eating the chocolate before it’s paid for,’ says the cashier quickly.
I glare at Louisa. ‘You’re picking a fight. You’re trying to embarrass me.’
‘Are you actually crazy? I am tired of being your mother!’ shouts Louisa, waving the Tex bar. The cashier’s eyes follow the chocolate.
‘When did I ever ask you to be my mother?’ I shout back. ‘Last time I checked you were my friend.’
‘Friend?’ Louisa gapes at me. The chocolate falls onto the checkout counter. The cashier picks it up. ‘The only time you are any fun is when you’re so hammered you’re falling over. “Oh Lou. I love you, I just want to be happy.”’ She mimics.
‘Fuck you.’ I dump my basket and walk out of the shop.
‘Yoooh!’ the cashier exclaims behind me. ‘What’s her problem?’
I don’t wait for Louisa’s reply. As I step outside the impact of the vibrant red Spar banner, the blue sky and the harsh sunlight make me feel dizzy. My cuts ache; my legs feel ready to give way. I reach out for one of the pillars at the entrance to steady myself. People pass me clutching shopping bags or pushing trolleys towards their cars. If Louisa and I had to meet now, I bet we wouldn’t be friends.
‘Sorry,’ she says behind me.
I turn around. She’s clutching the shopping bags; she’s bought the stuff in my basket too. I’m about to hug her, then I remember her description of me last night. We’ve never had a touchy-feely friendship. Instead I manage a smile. ‘Me too.’
‘We’re not going to get home unless we get some petrol,’ I say, leaning over and looking at the red light flashing on the dashboard.
Louisa has taken an apple from one of the shopping bags and is holding it between her teeth as she starts the car. That apple is a whole meal. She’s eating a meal on the way home.
We head up the main street. I try and block out the sound of the crunching apple. There is a makeshift market in a parking lot. It appears to specialise in fresh fish, plastic containers and children’s clothes.
At the petrol station the attendant peers at us, his eyes taking in Louisa behind the steering wheel and me next to her. He says something to her in Xhosa.
She ignores him and says, ‘One hundred rand of petrol please.’
He raises an eyebrow. A second later he is back. ‘I need the key.’
‘For what?’ Louisa asks sharply.
‘To open your petrol tank,’ he replies, copying her accent.
‘Oh,’ says Louisa and hands Spook’s bunch over.
When the attendant hands back the keys, he says, ‘Sucha posh sisi with a buggard car.’
He chuckles when she doesn’t reply.
As we leave I say, ‘He didn’t wash the windscreen.’
‘Would you, considering the state of this car?’
Louisa seems to be driving faster as we leave town. I turn to her, but she is frowning. She miscalculates the bend in the road and we end up swerving wildly away from the verge.
‘Ever since I turned back onto the road there’s been a car up my arse. When I speed up, it does too.’
The wobble in Louisa’s voice scares me. She tries to change down, but can’t find the correct gear. The engine surges like an asthmatic.
‘It’s probably the police,’ I say. ‘You’d better stop.’
‘It’s not the fucking police!’ shouts Louisa.
I turn around. Behind us is a black Volkswagen Golf, with an Hermanus number plate. The car is so close that I can see the two people sitting in the front. They look like local fishermen. They are staring straight at us. The driver points at me. His face is stony. As well as being famous for pretty beaches and whales, Hermanus is home to many of the infamous poaching gangs that operate along that stretch of the East Coast. ‘What do they want?’ I glance at Louisa. Is this going to be the moment that the newspaper headlines become real? Carjackings happen every day. This is why people emigrate.
‘I don’t know, but there’s no way I’m stopping,’ replies Louisa.
‘Just let them take the car!’
‘It’s not our fucking car!’
‘They’ll shoot us, Louisa!’ The car speeds up to overtake. As it draws alongside, the passenger rolls down the window and shouts something. I can hear myself crying.
‘Don’t look at them!’ barks Louisa.
A farm lorry is approaching in the opposite lane. There is not enough space for the three of us on the road. The lorry blares its horn.
Seconds before the lorry reaches us, the black car speeds ahead and disappears.
Louisa slows down and pulls over. She doesn’t say anything but her hands are shaking. We sit, frozen, until the glove compartment falls open. We both stare at it but neither of us reacts.
I listen to Louisa’s breath returning to normal. ‘Right,’ she says. ‘You OK?’
‘We should have gone to Plett,’ I say, which makes her laugh.
‘They were probably just some local weirdos.’
‘D’you think?’
‘Ja,’ she says, but her voice sounds wobbly. ‘Local joyriders mixing it up on a slow Saturday.’
‘The car had a Hermanus registration. They weren’t that local.’
‘You know what I mean.’ Louisa sounds exasperated.
On the way back we find ourselves on a dirt road. The car judders along. It feels as if a particularly big jolt could make it simply fall apart. Neither of us says anything else about the black car, but as we turn into our road, Louisa slows to a crawl. ‘There is no reason to mention that black car to the boys. It was nothing, OK?’
I know that Louisa is more worried about Brett’s reaction than Spook’s. She hates showing any sign of vulnerability. ‘OK,’ I reply.
Brett’s car is parked under the tree. Louisa jerks to a stop behind it and curses, but whether this is at the crappy clutch or that Spook will know we took his car, I’m not sure.
I help her gather the shopping bags from the back seat and follow her up the stairs to the deck. She bristles at the sound of Spook’s voice.
Louisa is incapable of apologising. She stalks past the boys and into the house. Spook is shirtless, standing over an upside-down surfboard on the table. He has a tattoo between his shoulder blades. It is of two heartbeats. Instead of the usually straight line between them, the heartbeats are connected by three curly waves, the same pattern as I drew on the car window. He looks up at Louisa but doesn’t comment.
‘Why are you back so soon?’ I ask.
‘No waves,’ replies Brett, lying back in a deck chair with his eyes closed.
‘There were waves,’ says Spook, ‘just none big enough for Kelly Slater here.’
‘Bru, I’m not going to waste my time splashing around in a millpond. There is beer to be drunk. Parties to be partied.’
Spook raises an eyebrow.
Brett yawns expansively and stretches before flumping back into the same position. ‘You left your phone behind. I had a lovely chat with your mum,’ he says to me.
‘What did you say?’ My mother loves Brett the way one does an exotic monkey.
‘I told her that now I’m eighteen she and I can explore our mutual passion without any shame.’
‘Brett?’
‘She said, “Brett Taylor, you’re a scream!” I like the way she says “Brett Taylor”. It reduces the years between us.’ He makes a revolting sound against his hand.
‘Anything else?’ I ask.
‘Oh yes. She said “Tell Grace that if she doesn’t phone me back, I’m coming up to Baboon Point myself.”’ He turns to Spook. ‘You could have mother and daughter!’
‘Don’t be disgusting!’ I screw up my face.
Spook laughs. �
��That never turns out well.’
Louisa reappears, in the new yellow dress, with a six-pack of beer and a packet of chips. Balsamic vinegar flavour – the best. Spook looks up at her. I can see in his glance that he’s annoyed.
She flips the lid off a bottle and hands it to Spook.
Spook inclines his head and takes a sip. ‘Do you often nick strangers’ cars?’
I look at Louisa.
‘Do you often stay over at strangers’ houses?’ she replies.
‘That car is my livelihood.’
‘I put one hundred rand’s worth of petrol in it,’ comments Louisa and has a sip of beer. ‘One more thing –’
She’s going to tell him about the black Golf.
‘I couldn’t open the boot but I swear to God that wasn’t my fault.’ Louisa leans back into a chair and rests her blue-tipped toes against the railing. I look at her but she is still bristling and won’t catch my eye. Spook has that quasi-relaxed look which only an idiot would take at face value.
We’ve never had a set of rules at home. I suppose they are obsolete when there are only two of you. The thing I learnt very early on was that as far as the rest of the world is concerned, the two of us are always ‘fine’. Every telephone conversation my mum has begins with ‘Yup, we’re fine, thanks. Grace is fine. Work’s fine.’ It is a huge, protective boulder of a word to hide behind.
Me being fine all the time really bothered Rory. ‘What would happen if you weren’t fine?’ he asked. He was so easy to read. He was always looking out for a trauma that would make sense of why I’m me. No trauma, Rory. Simply the view that if we all said how we truly feel, life would be chaotic. What is grossly unfair is that while I’m making the effort to be ‘fine’ at all costs, most other people seem unaffected by contrary emotions openly clashing against each other. It is as though they were born with an extra layer of skin.
‘Well then,’ says Brett, rubbing his hands together, ‘let’s get drunk!’
My cuts ache. I hate the open packet of chips on the table. I hate Louisa for the silence. All the oxygen seems to have been sucked out of the afternoon. I have to get away.
Back in my room I start tidying. Spook’s belongings lie scattered about, like a dog spraying its territory. My hunger makes me feel restless and out of control. At school I used to look forward to my grumbling stomach. It meant that another day was going according to plan. But here there is no plan. The rest of my life has no plan. I notice that my hands are shaking; it seems my brain is no longer able to control the extremities of my body. The combination of the car and the fall on the beach and waking up, apparently having slept with a complete stranger, is too much. I try to fold Spook’s jeans, but end up dropping them. A passport-sized, dark green book slips out of the back pocket onto the floor. It’s curved to the shape of Spook’s bum. It’s an ID document with the old South African emblem in faded gold. I lean over for it. The plastic cover is torn and studded with trapped sand.
