by JT Lawrence
“Mister Harris,” booms the voice that is Mrs X.
“How did you know my name?” I ask.
“She knows … everything,” purrs a small man to my left whom I hadn’t noticed.
“I prefer not to reveal my sources,” she booms, “I’m sure you understand.”
The butler motions to a chair with his white glove and I nod at him and sit.
I look around the room, as it glitters and glints and shines at me. Mrs X adjusts her feather boa.
“Why have you requested an audience with me?” she asks, showing me her little teeth. It occurs to me that she thinks she is the queen. The queen of Sub-Nigel is, after all, still a queen.
“I need information,” I say. The little man nods furiously. The Pomeranian next to my chair yaps at me. Was he there before? He looks like a Chihuahua fresh out of a tumble dryer.
“I need to know about a family that lived around here twenty years ago. The Shaws. The father was the mine manager at …”
“Yes, Mister Harris,” she says, “the Shaw family.”
The dog yaps.
“He comes from royal blood,” she breathes.
“Mister Shaw?” I say.
“Ha!” she laughs. “Ha! Ha!”
The little man laughs. “Ha! Ha!”
She puts a taloned hand on the shimmering lamé of her jelly breasts, then fondles her pearl necklace. She dresses the way she decorates.
“Dasher.” She says.
“Sorry?”
“Dasher, the dog.”
“Ah.”
I look down at the dog.
“What do you want to know about the Shaw family, Mister Harris?”
I sit forward on my chair.
“I want to know what happened to them. Why they disappeared.”
“No one disappears,” she says, taking a drag of a cigarette I never saw her light. “They always go somewhere.”
“I’d like to know what happened to them and where they went.”
Dasher barks and we stare at each other.
“That, Mister Harris, is a seedy story of which I desire to reveal no part. Ask me something else. Like who will assassinate Obama, or what you had this morning for the breakfast you couldn’t finish.”
“I need to know about the Shaws. Someone is trying to kill me.”
“Yes,” she sighs, “I saw The Mark.”
Oh God, here comes the mumbo jumbo. She wants me to ask what mark. There is an uncomfortable silence.
“What mark?” shouts the little man.
She’s going to say: The Mark of Death.
“The Mark of Death,” she says, and Dasher begins to growl.
38
Pigeon
This is a David Lynch movie and I have stepped right into it. All I am missing is a giant and a midget who talks backwards. I decide to play along.
“I know I am marked,” I say, “and I need to find who is behind it.”
The butler arrives with a tray of Piña Coladas and cashew nuts.
“She has passed,” Mrs. X hisses. “The Shaw girl.”
“Yes,” I say. Mr X throws his drink back and I follow suit.
She strokes her chin.
“I am a good Christian woman, Mister Harris, and I don’t partake in gossip mongering.”
“How much?” I sigh.
“Five thousand, for starters,” she sighs, “I usually charge more but I know you don’t have it.”
“Five THOUSAND?” I splutter. “Rand?”
“For starters.”
“For a shred of information that may or not help me?”
“It will help you,” she says.
“It’s extortion.”
“I prefer the word ‘donation’. Do you think,” she says wildly gesticulating, “that this lifestyle comes cheap?”
She looks around, as if for something to eat. I look at Mr X who is scrunching up his eyes and upper lip in a smile. The butler reappears with a tray of dirty Martinis and a bowl of pretzels.
“Okay,” I say, “I don’t have it on me. Can I come back later?”
“Come for dinner. Entrées will be served at five. We’re having pigeon.”
Dasher pants and paws his pillow.
“Dasher likes pigeon,” twinkles Mr X.
The butler shows me out. I start to shake off the jacket but he insists I keep it, saying it’s mine.
I attempt to race to the hotel to get the money, but Sub-Nigel will have none of it. There seems to be some kind of signal interference and the map on my phone confounds me further. Despite taking different turns I end up going past the same pylon again and again. The road names are like something out of Alice in Wonderland: Right Way; Left Avenue; This Way; Ring Road; Wrong Boulevard. I haven’t felt this frustrated behind a wheel since I ‘borrowed’ Dad’s car when I was fourteen and then couldn’t find my way home. I’m in the same car now. Karma is a bloody bastard. I look at my watch: it’s already 16:45. My reflection in the rear view mirror is shiny. Eventually I see a road that looks different and I take it. It is windy and seems to go in circles but soon I see houses I remember from the journey in.
“Bless you, Jesus,” I mutter, not without sincerity.
I screech to a halt outside the hotel and run up the stairs. The envelope is where I left it, wrapped in a plastic packet and stuck to the underside of the cistern lid. It’s an old cliché but seems marginally safer than under the bed. I empty my wallet out on the dresser – the money my father gave me – and count out the notes with shaking hands. All together it comes to five thousand, four hundred Rand. I put the four hundred back into my wallet. If I pay Mrs X what she wants I won’t have enough to pay for this room or for petrol for the trip home. I imagine being marooned in Sub-Nigel for the rest of my life. Then I imagine being dead, and shove the envelope into my jacket pocket. I throw my toiletries into my bag, stealing the mean bar of complimentary hand soap in the process and giving the shower one last glance of malcontent before slamming the door behind me. I leave the door key at the empty reception desk. In seconds I am outside and I throw my bag in the car, then jump in.
The sun is still high in the sky but my watch says 17:02. I drive as fast as I can to Mrs X’s house, this time only making a few wrong turns. I panic a little while finding my way. What if there is no Mrs X, no house and no Pomeranian? The whole experience felt like a dream and I wonder if, cracked by desperation, I have just made it up.
I am elated when I park outside the manor house at 17:14. So much so that when the gates sweep open, I see a new charm in the concrete relief bowls of grapes. The cherub pissing water makes me want to sing. I bound out of the car and through the gates that close behind me, tapping my rib to make sure I still have the envelope of cash. I approach the oversized front door and lift the lion’s head of a knocker but before it has the chance to make contact, the door is opened by the cheekboned butler.
“Mister Harris,” he says, with a distinct Nigerian accent which makes me take an involuntary step back. If anything I expected him to be Kenyan, or at the very least, Mozambiquan. Did he have an accent before?
“Hi,” I shout, “sorry I’m late.”
“It’s not a problem. I have a message for you from Mrs X.”
“Oh? She can’t tell me herself over the … pigeon?”
“The pigeon is no longer on the menu,” he says.
I nod. I understand. Not everyone likes pigeon. Unless he’s trying to tell me something. Is the pigeon is no longer on the menu a code for something? It sounds like it. I try to think of an appropriate response.
“What is on the menu?” I venture.
“Nothing, sir, the dinner has been called off.”
Now that could mean anything.
“Are you saying that the deal is off?”
“No, Mister Harris, only that dinner is off. If you hand me that envelope in your pocket the deal is still very much on.”
My mouth is dry and swallowing is difficult. It goes against every instinct in m
y body to hand over a fat envelope of cash to a Nigerian. These are people who kidnap tourists, scam grannies by email and keep hyenas as pets. I hand it over.
“Thank you,” he nods, and begins to close the door. I jam my foot in.
“I need to see Mrs X!”
“There is no need for that.”
He is looking decidedly more Nigerian the longer I stand here.
“Look,” I say, giving him the most threatening face I can muster, “I need to see her. She has the information I need.”
“Mrs X has gone on holiday.”
“Holiday?” I cough.
“Aspen. She is fond of skiing.”
“But you said … the deal is on.”
“You have everything you need Mister Harris.”
I laugh.
“Beautiful. That’s just fucking beautiful. So, you wait to tell me that after I handed over the cash.”
He motions almost imperceptibly towards the inner pocket of his jacket.
I hesitate, feel mine, then pull out a letter with gold wax insignia. Sealed with an X.
“Have a pleasant evening further,” smiles the butler and closes the door.
39
The Sun Sinks
The fountain is fizzing and the late afternoon sun lends a peculiar glitter to the birds of prey, making them look ready to pounce.
I shake my head. Aspen, for God’s sake. I picture Mrs X dangling on a ski lift, sipping Moët in a golden winter suit, making kissy noises at Dasher, poking his ear-muffed head out of her trembling handbag. As I leave the property an uneasy feeling stirs. The one I should be used to by now. The one that tells me someone is watching me.
There is a man standing by the Merc. I lift a hand to shield my eyes from the setting sun and blink at him. It is Edgar. We both freeze, then he turns and runs. Without thinking I take off and follow him. Anger propels me forward and I gain on him but I’m unfit and he is a fast fucker and after a few hundred meters, he turns a corner and is gone.
I lose my temper, dig my phone out of my jeans pocket and hurl it onto the tarred gravel.
“FU-U-U-U-U-UCK!” I scream with what little breath I have left. How the fuck? How did they know? Panting, I goose-step back to the Merc and kick the tyre.
“Fucking FUCK!” I scream. The shoes on the people around me are stuck to the pavement. Fucking tracking system on the car. Fucking smartphone GPS. I jump on it. Then I stick my hand under the car arbitrarily looking for some kind of wire I can pull out but come up with nothing but a greasy hand. I want to throttle someone; preferably Edgar. The people who are stuck to the pavement start walking again, slowly, keeping a wide berth. No wonder they don’t like strangers. It is clear that before I do anything else I have to get the tracker off the car. Only in South Africa would a clapped-out car like this be fitted with a tracking system. Fucking insurance companies, fucking criminals. The sun sinks.
Being a kind of outlaw myself, I wonder who would agree to remove the system from the car. There is a township nearby called Duduza. Call me a racist but I reckon that’s my best chance. I get in the car and before I do anything else I uncap a new bottle of whisky I don’t remember buying and have a good long sluk. I start driving and after taking the first few turns, I see the grey Datsun parked on a grass verge, behind a Privet hedge. There is a shouty laugh in my head, à la Mrs X: Ha! Haha! as I jump out and let down all four of Edgar’s tyres. As I drive away I think, well, at least I hope they were Edgar’s tyres.
It should be a ten-minute drive to the township, but without GPS it takes me half an hour and when I get there it’s dark. I see people frowning at me when I cross the boundary. Despite it being 2011 South Africans are still vaguely surprised when they see a white person in a township. Ironic, because it is quite possible it is one of the safest places one can be, because when you are so obviously out of place you are protected by your very conspicuousness. Except in Soweto, I guess, where there are so many whites nowadays I’m sure the tourists feel scammed.
Duduza, despite its name, has a brutal past. The black people who lived in Charterston were forced to ‘resettle’ here because their close proximity to the white town of Nigel made the government feel uncomfortable. The same government named it: a Zulu word, meaning comfort. I remember seeing Duduza in the news in the 80s as violence flared up – boycotts and marches – one in particular ending in what was supposedly the first mob necklacing in the country.
I drive on the sandy braille roads set between the shacks that hover on the edges, squatting on the red soil. There is the large heart of Duduza, which has tarred roads, schools, pretty gardens and streetlights, and then there is the overspill in every direction, a sprawling informal settlement. My money is on the shack dwellers for what I have come for, so I keep to the dark, smoke-choked radius, dodging drunken pedestrians and street dogs with glowing green headlights for eyes. I weave slowly ahead, hoping to see someone dodgy-looking. A young teenager with a torn shirt flags me down and I roll down my stubborn window.
“Heita brother,” I say.
“Dagga?” he offers. “Tik?”
He is thin and his skin is ash-dry.
“I need someone to help me with my car.”
“Blow job?” he blinks. I cough in shock, and shake my head.
“I need help with this car. I’ll give you money if you show me where to go.”
He looks worried and glances side to side. Probably thinks I’m a pervert, or a cop. But at the mention of money he opens the door anyway. Poor bastard.
As he climbs in, I can see how nervous he is. He slaps the dashboard and smiles. “Nice car!” he says. The stink of poverty fills the cramped space. His anxiety makes him animated: he motions with his hands and grunts to show me the way. We drive deeper into the darkness. I look over at him every now and then, trying to gauge how truly fucked I am. He has scars on his cheeks.
“This house,” he says, “here!”
It looks just like every other shack we have passed. There are lots of people milling around. I take a deep breath. When driving in here I thought the best possible outcome would be to do this job quickly and cheaply and then get the hell out. Now I’m hoping that I don’t get knifed. We get out of the car and I lock it, then on second thoughts I open it again and grab my bag, slinging it over my shoulder. We walk towards the house and before we go in the young man puts his hand on my chest to stop me. He motions for me to wait outside. I look around. People are glancing at me, some chuckling. The smoke in the air makes my eyes burn. I look down and try to stay out of trouble. I feel like a prat in this dinner jacket. Thank God I don’t have the Jaguar. Despite my circumstances I can’t help feeling this is an experience I’d like to write about. The feverish energy in the smoggy air, the young tattered boy. Between this and the taxi rank in downtown Jo’burg, which feels like years ago, I’ve really got some good material. I’m glad I have travelled all over the world for the sake of my writing but realise, now, I have largely ignored the dirtygritty beauty of my own country. Perhaps things do happen for a reason. Perhaps after this disaster of a year I really will have some good stuff in my pen.
The youngster comes out, trailing a handsome man behind him. He doesn’t look anything like a criminal. He walks right past me and up to the car, sizing it up.
“Hi,” I say, offering a hand. The man lifts his chin at me.
“You want to sell?” he asks.
“No,” I say, “I need …”
“It’s a good car, easy to sell. But not a lot of money.”
“No, I want to keep the car,” I say, “It’s my father’s car. I need to keep it to get home.”
He looks annoyed and whacks the kid hard on the back of his head, shouting at him in ambush language.
“Stop!” I shout. “I’ll pay you.” I take out my wallet and shake it at him. “I’ll pay you to take out the tracking system.”
“Tracker?” he says.
“Yes, take the tracker out, and I’ll pay you.”
“Five hundred,” he says.
“So you can do it?” I ask.
“Five hundred,” he confirms.
I look in my wallet. I only have four hundred and change. Plus I need to put petrol in the tank to get back to Jo’burg. And I need to pay the kid.
“I only have two hundred,” I say, “Can you do it for two hundred?”
He clicks his tongue at me and says something I can only guess is not complimentary.
“Please,” I say, grabbing him forearm.
“Nice watch,” he says. It takes a moment before I register what he has said. I look down at the wristwatch Eve gave me. Worth thousands, but that’s not why it’s my most precious possession. I close my eyes, sigh, undo the clasp and hand it over. He puts it on straight away and admires it, flashing his teeth at me.
“I’ll give you the rest when you’re finished,” I say. While he fetches his tools I slip the kid R100. He hops. The man gets to work on the car. The youngster hovers and learns. The man switches on his miner’s headlamp and starts inside the car, near the dash, then hoists the Merc up with a jack in jerky motions so that he can get underneath. I back away, looking for somewhere to sit for a few minutes. I have another long sip of whisky and sit with my head in my hands.
Out of nowhere time freezes in a big white flash. Then there is red and yellow – only then does the shattering blast strike me deaf. I am on the stony ground and there is no air. I can’t feel my arms or legs and for a terrifying second I think they have been blown off until I lift my leaden skull to check and they all seem to be there. My hearing trickles back but the screams I hear are dull. I roll my numb torso over and get a mouthful of sand. My brain has short-circuited from the shock. Finally I stagger to my feet where I feel the heat in the air. I am almost knocked over by people running past me. Some stay behind: wailing. Others are singed and sleeping. The car turns from a hot orange bloom into a black, smoking shell. I walk away.
