“You girls stop shouting,” he breathed heavily. “I could hear you squealing from the top of the stairs.”
Everyone went to their beds but Ivan didn’t move.
“You’re sounding like a Pom again.”
“Sorry, Hascott,” I said.
“Greet wants tea. He wants you to make it for him.”
“Why me?”
He threw his other shoe.
“Because it has to be someone’s turn and I told him it should be you.”
Over the last six nights, some random boy had been selected to make Greet’s tea, and at least three of them had come back crying.
“Get a move on. Two cups.”
My stomach bunched and loosened as I stood up to go. It was a comfort to feel Nelson at my side, coming with me, but Ivan blocked his path.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“To help,” said Nelson.
“Greet doesn’t want you touching his mug. He wants Jacklin. Only Jacklin.”
Greet’s study was right at the end of the sixth-form corridor. The gloom seemed to thicken the farther I went. His door was open, and as the kettle filled the seniors’ kitchen with steam I could hear voices over a watery cassette player trying its best with Def Leppard or Van Halen or someone like that.
When the tea was made I stood at the door and dutifully lowered my head. Leboule was in there, too, swinging a bat and practicing cricket strokes. Greet himself lay on his bed in the far corner, waving his stick in the air as he broke wind. Above his head, the green and white of the Rhodesian flag clung belligerently and illegally to the wall next to an equally dangerous poster of a white soldier with the words RHODESIANS NEVER DIE. It was the only decoration Greet had given his room other than a dozen or so empty Castle lager cans along a shelf instead of books.
A fire crackled. It was January, the middle of summer, but I didn’t dare think anything strange about having a fire going.
Greet spotted me first.
“At last.” He pointed toward the mantelpiece. “Put them there.”
The heat of the fire pushed against my trousers as I got near. The smell of wood smoke was strong. There was something mixed with it, and out of the corner of my eye I could see the red of a pack of Madisons peeking out from Leboule’s pocket.
Leboule hit an imaginary six. “Who are you?”
“Jacklin.”
“First name?”
“Robert.”
“Serious? As in Rroh-bett? Like our grrreat Mist-ah Mugabeh?” he mimicked. “Your parents must have hated you. Are you a Pom?”
“I was born in England, but—”
“In that case I loathe you. Get out.”
He turned his back. Defensive shot.
I put the mugs down and turned.
“Wait,” Greet called before I made it. He was holding out his hand. My heart thudded. “Do you expect me to fetch it myself? Bring it to me, you queer.”
One was a Haven School mug, the other was brown and had a picture of a white family looking over a huge dam with KARIBA above it and RHODESIA IS SUPER underneath. I’d seen Greet drinking from it before and took it to him. He looked pissed off that I’d got it right.
“Think you’re clever, hey, squack? How am I supposed to take it if you’re holding the handle? You want me to burn myself?”
“No, Greet.” A tremor had come into my voice.
“Then hold it. Like this. With both hands.”
The warmth spread into my palms and quickly became heat as Greet teased.
“I’m not thirsty yet, go stand by the fire. Nice and close.” He lay back against his pillow. His stick started to swing again. “So you’re a Pommie.”
“I was, but now I live here.”
“So? You’re still a Pom. In what way do you think you’re not a Pom, Pommie?”
Of course, I didn’t know.
“What are you doing in our country?”
“My dad is attached to the British Embassy.”
“Oh, is he now.” Greet gave his best English accent, a cocktail of aristocrat and chimney sweep. “How very noice for dear Papa, being at-’atched to the Bri’ish Embassy. Must be a lekker job, hey? The Bri’ish Embassy, cor bloimey.”
Leboule fed him laughs.
“So what’s wrong with Pommieland? Too much rain for you?”
“Yes,” I said too eagerly, fear making me betray the land I’d been born in and yearned to go back to.
“Place is a mess. You let your blacks get out of control, they’re all taking drugs and starting riots and shagging white women, and the government lets them get away with it. I could never live in a place like that.”
“Yes. I mean, no.”
“And now people like you think you can come here and screw our country again. Wasn’t Lancaster House enough?”
I didn’t know what or where Lancaster House was, just that it wasn’t good.
Greet let the silence needle me. A log spat. Sweat was starting to run down my legs.
“Or does your old man just enjoy African women?” Leboule wanted to know, swinging the bat toward my groin. Boiling tea spilled over my knuckles. “Well? Does he?”
I remembered now that Leboule had been one of the seniors who’d walked by and greeted my father while he was talking to Nelson’s parents.
“He tried to get a posting in lots of countries,” was my only defense. “Thailand, Singapore, India . . .”
Leboule scoffed. “A Kaffir’s a Kaffir, whatever the country. Your old man like the taste of colored women? Or is it because he’s crap at what he does and can’t hold down a job in Pommieland?”
“He was in the army once,” I said, as always hoping it might give me some credibility.
Greet reacted suddenly. How was I to know the things he’d gone through? In those early days how was I to know what a lot of people had gone through while the country was being ravaged by war?
The stick stopped and he glared. Even Leboule seemed uncertain. Then Greet got off the bed and came right up close.
“The British army?” He breathed. I could smell cigarettes and the beef and cabbage we’d had for supper. His eyes reflected the fire like broken glass in the sun. “They’re the worst of the bloody lot. I hate them the most.”
Now I fully expected something bad to happen so I was surprised when he removed his mug from my red and swollen hands. The skin sang merry hell. He took a long sip and I wondered if that was it—he hated me, but I could live with that as long as he let me go.
He put the drink down.
Kneeling, he grabbed the ends of my trousers with his fingers and pulled. I didn’t get it at first; it seemed a bit weird. A moment later the black material was gripping my calves. Pain roared and dug in. I could feel the hairs curl and singe under polyester that had soaked up the heat of the flames like metal. Already the blisters I’d have for days were starting to bubble. Fortunately there were no tears, but they would come later.
Greet stood.
“Now piss off, Pommie bastard. You make shit tea, I’d rather have a bloody black do it.”
Leboule sniped my backside with the bat hard enough to push the air from my lungs. The door slammed behind me.
Before I reached the end of the corridor, the sound of Don Henley on cassette was drowned by their own gruff voices.
“We are Rhodesians and we’ll fight through thick and thin,” they sang.
“Three six six five, please.”
The handset was black and heavy in my hand. I struggled to keep my voice from cracking. I knew I was breaking all the rules but I had to. I didn’t care. I needed to tell my mother what it was like. I needed her to take me away.
The operator made a gentle slap with his tongue—a lazy sound. I made up a picture instantly: a friendly black face, half lidded and drugged with sleep. As I sat in the lightless telephone booth I kept one eye out of the small window, checking, but the school was dead beneath the moonlight. My legs throbbed.
“The telly
phone exchange is closed,” said the voice. I knew the operator room was nearby, at the back of the kitchens where we weren’t allowed, but he sounded miles away. “The tellyphone exchange is open between six eh-em and nine pee-em, you must try again tomorrow, pliss.”
Tomorrow?
“It’s an emergency.”
“Then you must speak with your house mastah. The tellyphone exchange is closed now. From nine pee-em in the evening until six eh-em in the morning.”
“I have to get through tonight. Please.”
He thought about it. “What is your name?”
Maybe he sensed the desperation in my words, or maybe he’d just had too many boys like me in the past.
“Jacklin. Robert Jacklin.”
“Manheru, Rhrob-ett. Tonana mangwana.”
“Pardon? I don’t understand.”
“I said, good evening, Rhrob-ett. But I am very very sorry, the tellyphone exchange . . .”
The receiver weighed like a brick. A hundred meters away Selous House was hulking in the dark, waiting.
“Mastah Rhrob-ett?”
“Yes?”
“My name is Weekend,” he said, “and I will be here tomorrow.”
FIVE
During the war a number of black anti-Rhodesian fighters had been found on the school grounds and killed down by the squash courts. If you looked closely you could see where gouges made by the bullets hitting the wall (all close together, even though it was claimed the terrorists had been running away) had been filled in and painted over. Mr. Bullman, the Head, had discovered the terrorists and called in the Rhodesian Forces, and he’d been given official recognition for diligence and quick thinking.
Ivan took us down to see the gouges one Saturday morning after classes. He’d been acting all friendly for once but I quickly realized it was just a trick because, as soon as we got down there, he and De Klomp started pretending to be soldiers and fired imaginary guns at Nelson: “Terrorist! Get him! Shoot the fucking gook!”
We walked quickly away.
“That guy’s a jerk,” I said. I could see Nelson was struggling with tears. “Just ignore him.”
Somehow, he still managed to stay above it all.
“The war only ended three years ago,” he said. “I guess it can take time to forget.”
He was small, and yet it was such a tall thing to say.
“Yeah, well, he’s an idiot. We won’t fall for something like that again.”
And at the time I meant it.
Nelson and I went back to the house and hid in the common room. Simpson-Prior was hiding, too. He’d failed the math test and got into trouble, and he slashed a look at me for not having sat next to him.
You said I could copy.
I tried to say something, but he just continued reading a copy of Time magazine, which had pictures of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan on the front, and no one ever read those. I didn’t like the way he was trying to make me feel so I went.
All that afternoon we had house trials for athletics. Taylor split us into groups, and because we were friends he put me in the 1,500 meters with Nelson and sent us to the far end of the field to warm up. When it was our turn to run, Kasanka came up and pulled Nelson to one side.
“I want you to show these lame white asses what running is really about,” he said. He seemed angry. Had he found out about Ivan’s stupid trick that morning? “This is our country now. Don’t let them beat you. Never let them beat you. You’re better than any of them. You hear me?”
Nelson looked to the grass, embarrassed, but we’d all heard it.
Mr. Bullman didn’t usually take sports but he was the official starter. As he clicked his fingers at us to get to the line, I wondered if the gun was the one he’d used to capture the terrorists all those years ago.
“To your marks, gentlemen . . .”
And we were off. Dry grass filled the air as boys watching from the pavilion roared their houses on.
“. . . Come on, Forbes . . .”
“. . . That’s it, Willoughby, keep it strong . . .”
“. . . Burnett’s the best . . .”
“. . . Go, Heyman . . .”
“. . . All the way, Selous . . .”
At the end of the first lap I was right at the back. Ivan yelled at me from the pavilion, but Kasanka must have been grinning because Nelson was way in the lead. With two more laps to go I felt I should want to slow down or give up, but I kept the pace, and a lap later I was more than halfway through the order. The crowd was ecstatic. It felt like a race day as boys from all years swelled and cheered. Even Ivan. I saw him in the blur of boys, clapping and urging me on.
“Come on, Jacklin. You can do this. Only five places. You can do it.”
This was one of Haven’s key lessons, I realized, the one about winning being everything, and for the first time I was more than just Robert Jacklin.
My feet were on springs. Fifth place was mine, then fourth, and on the back straight I climbed yet another rung on the ladder. With eighty meters to go I was on Nelson’s heels and almost at the front, and everyone was going crazy, but suddenly my legs turned to lead. Nelson stretched the lead again and there was nothing I could do, and I sprawled across the line in sixth.
I lay in the sun with stars on the insides of my eyelids. I felt shade, and when I looked, Ivan was standing over me, panting like he’d run his own race.
“How could you let the Kaffir win?”
The anger was as black as it was deep, and I felt more alone than ever.
To my relief, he turned and marched across the playing fields, shaking his head.
“Good race, man.” Nelson came over and offered a shy arm to pull me up. “You know, I didn’t win because of what Kasanka said. I just love running.”
“It doesn’t matter if you did,” I said. “You’re really good and I’m glad. Showed Ivan a thing or two.”
But Nelson still seemed suspicious and watched Ivan storming across the field.
“Was that about me?”
“No,” I lied. But I hated myself for making sure Ivan wasn’t looking before I shook Nelson’s hand. “Honest. He’s in a mood. I don’t care.”
And when we got back to the house I cared even less because waiting for me was a postcard from my grandmother, the first since the start of term. I knew it was from her straightaway; a picture of one of those chocolate box villages drenched in perfect snow.
Darling Bobby, it began. How is your new school? I think about you every day. Here’s somewhere I haven’t sent you before. Maybe one day I can show it to you for real, darling, with all the snow!!
Yes. One day soon, I thought. I imagined how it would be living in that village, away from school and away from boys like Greet and Ivan, and I smiled right up until after showers, which was when the day plummeted with no warning at all.
Funny how good things always seemed to happen before the bad.
“Has anyone seen my tie?” I asked the dorm as I changed into my evening uniform, but already I had a sinking feeling about this.
No one had so I had no option but to line up, ears on fire, with a gap around my neck while Ivan sniggered and trembled from trying not to let it out. Greet was taking roll call that evening. He almost didn’t notice but Ivan trod on my toes and made me cry out.
Greet shot back. “Where the hell is your tie?”
“Floating in the piss trough,” someone further up shouted.
The whole line laughed. Everyone except Greet.
“After supper,” he said, “come to my study.”
Tears needled the corners of my eyes. Only then did he smile.
“Three six six five, please.”
There was only the sound of the operator breathing. I thought he was going to just tell me the exchange was closed again but something made him change his mind.
“Is this Mastah Rhrob-ett who is speaking? This is Weekend. How are you this evening?” And when I couldn’t answer him: “Is this your parents you are try
ing to make call, Mastah Rhrob-ett?”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, it is.”
“One moment, pliss.”
There was a hum. My eyes were swimming and blurred, my heart throbbed in my ears in time with the pain. Then, after what seemed like eternity, my father.
“Robert.” It was neither question nor statement. “We spoke about this. No calls. Not this soon. It’ll only make it harder for you.”
In the background I caught a noise and pictured a bottle pushing among bottles.
“Is Mum there?”
I could hear my father lifting his eyes to the ceiling.
“It’s gone nine, you know how your mother gets . . . sleepy.”
“I need to speak to her.”
“About what?”
“I want to ask her. About something she once said.”
He sighed. “Make it quick.”
I heard the phone being handed over. Then my mother, incredibly near as though she was trying to climb down the wire.
“Darling? Are you all right? I’m missing you so, so much. I mean, we both are.” Her voice was slightly loose, like she’d just woken up.
Suddenly the words I’d wanted weren’t there. It had seemed so easy in my mind.
“Mum . . .” It was like there was something in my throat, stopping anything from coming. “I don’t like . . . I want to . . .”
I swallowed hard and had to put my head against the wall.
Gently, she filled the gap.
“You’ll never guess who I got a letter from today.”
The corner of my mouth twitched up. “From Granny? I did, too.”
“She received the photographs I sent. She thinks you’re ever so good-looking in your uniform. She’s shown all her friends, and Marjorie Downe’s granddaughter is dying to see you again, by all accounts.”
“Mum!”
“You remember Natalie, don’t you? I don’t think she knew what a boy was the last time you and her met, but apparently she couldn’t take her eyes off you. I’m sure none of the girls at home will be able to when we go back, you’re the talk of the town. The mysterious boy from Africa. And so handsome!”
From somewhere I found a laugh.
“That’s silly,” I said.
Out of Shadows Page 3
