The Boy Next Door Read online

  I shake myself free from what I used to call the heebie-jeebies when I was a girl.

  I go to the table and take the book from the floor. It’s Ian’s notebook. I sit down by the table and open its pages once again. I see that in a very soft hand with a pencil she has drawn a spidery web over his words.

  I think of what Ian has told me. The four years he lived with her in South Africa. She had just been recently divorced when he found her. She was living in a squalid flat in Johannesburg, supporting herself by doing housecleaning work. She was a poor white. She had the old yellow Sunny, one of the few things she’d been able to take from her marriage, which had made that journey to Bulawayo once upon a time.

  I open the book again and look at the pictures of a boy falling over the edge of a cliff, blood spewing from his lip; another of the boy standing on the same cliff, an eagle swooping down, its claws so near to the boy’s head; another, the eagle’s claws digging into his shoulders, and somehow the boy’s chest has been cut open and his blood is bleeding out into the air, but the boy wears such an euphoric smile as if he’s being set free at last.

  As I hold the book in my hands, I know one thing with absolute certainty: Ian’s mother has been in our bedroom. She has opened my bedside drawer and she has taken this book out. She has done it perhaps while I was sleeping, and as I lay there, she must have for a moment stood there over me, watching.

  I go back to our room where Ian is just getting up. I take the deepest breath of my life, it seems to me.

  “Ian, your mother… ,” I begin, wading into treacherous waters.

  He is rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He looks so much like a boy, a kid, his hair all rumpled, his head still in the warmth of his blankets.

  “Yes, my mother…”

  “Ian, I don’t know her. I don’t know who she is, what…”

  He is standing up, stretching, and he’s starting with his stretch and touch my toes routine.

  “Ian, I think we should…”

  I try the words out in my head: I think we should keep her locked up at night in case; it’s for her, to keep her safe…

  “Lindiwe, stop worrying. She’s fine.”

  It’s as if he’s gone right through my head, extracted the nugget of thought there, and is giving it back to me.

  “No, she isn’t Ian. She should be seeing someone, a doctor.”

  I can’t even say the word psychiatrist. I remember those years ago when he was right about David and the psychologist. But he’s not right now. He can’t be.

  “Lindiwe, she was locked up for all those years, and now you want me to put her in a position where some clown is going to say she needs to be put away again or that she has to be dozed up on pills? No, Lindiwe, it’s not going to happen.”

  “Ian, she went through my drawer. She… she just stands there…. I… I don’t feel safe.”

  He drops his arms.

  “You don’t feel safe.”

  He says the words slowly as if he is trying to fully comprehend their substance, what may lie behind, in them. I can’t bring myself to say about the fire. How yesterday I went through the kitchen drawers and took all the matches, the lighters, and I drove to Sam Levy’s Village with them and dumped the lot in a dustbin.

  “I would never endanger this family. Never. You either believe that or you don’t know me, Lindiwe.”

  I want to believe him.

  “Ian, did she start the fire?”

  It’s as if a bomb has detonated in the room and then I throw another one.

  “Did she do it on purpose?”

  Ian looks at me and then sits down on the bed.

  “You won’t let that go will you, Lindiwe? It’s always there, that story, no matter how many years pass. It always comes back to this point.”

  “She is living here, Ian. There’s David to think of.”

  “And you think she’s going to go after him?”

  “Ian, it works both ways, trust.”

  “Lindiwe, she found out about all that shit that was happening in the house. She found out on the day of my dad’s funeral. I was so mad with the bitch; the way she comes over drunk when we’ve just put the bastard under the ground and goes on about how I’m trying to steal her inheritance. Your father was there… and I lost it… sobbed the whole sorry story out to my mother. Every bit of it. The men who’d come there. Everything. So, you see, I’m responsible for what happened. I should have left well alone, driven us back to South Africa, but my mother said, no, no, we had to stick around to deal with all the legal shit, and then that evening we had come to discuss the house with the bitch and…”

  He rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands.

  I sit down next to him.

  “Anyway, she was out cold drunk when we got to the house. I went out back to check what was happening with Mphiri. I don’t know, it must have been ten or so minutes, and there was shouting coming from the house. As I’m rushing back in, she… she comes running out on fire. I froze, Lindiwe. I froze. And then my mother’s out there, and she’s trying to put out the fire except she catches on… God.”

  We sit there together in the room. One.

  And yet, a single thought elbows its way between us, the story always changes.

  2.

  Bridgette breaks the news to me at the Italian Bakery.

  I’m not sure, watching her walk to the table, if she has gone plain mental or is making a fashion statement that only people in the know are privy to. The long white skirt and blouse. The white doek. My first thought is oh, my God, she’s joined the apostolics, and then I see the belt in green and yellow cloth tied at her waist and the woolen Rasta hat tucked into it. She looks both odd and impossibly stylish. People keep turning around to look at her. I expect her to say at any moment, “jah, man.”

  “You like?” she says, giving herself a twirl.

  “I like. What’s the occasion?”

  “I’ve found the Promised Land, Lins.”

  Her eyes are cloudy. Her movements lazy. I wonder if she’s been smoking dagga, if she’s floating on rainbows. The long skirt doesn’t hide how skinny she’s become. I tried once to ask her if she needed help getting some of the drugs, and she got angry and said that all she needed were natural foods and vitamins. The chemical shit was messing up her body.

  “Listen girlfriend, I’m off. Jamaica. ASAP. One love.”

  “Jamaica, Bridgette? When?”

  “Wednesday.”

  “Wednesday? Next week, Wednesday? You mean in five days’ time?”

  “Yes man, I’ve been given a place at the University of the West Indies. Clever me.”

  “You serious?”

  “Jah man. I’m going to see the ocean, Lins, have some red, red wine. That’s where I want to…”

  She shakes her head, banishing the thought.

  Even though I can hardly believe her, I say, “We have to have a party, Bridgette. Blast you off with some quasi-homegrown reggae, Lucky Dube and company.”

  I find David at the bottom of the garden, sitting on the borehole, dismembering a locust. Even from here I can hear Ian’s mother snoring out by the gazebo. He looks up at me while his fingers keep working on the locust. And then, he chucks the bits of locust away and stands up.

  Even the neighbors must be able to hear her.

  “You know, she reckons she’s a ghost, so it doesn’t matter what bad thing she does because she doesn’t exist. That’s what she told me yesterday.”

  “Well, she’s a very noisy ghost, David, that’s for sure.”

  We exchange shy grins.

  “She’s just talking. Old people do that sometimes.”

  That brings out a stretching of the lips which I take for an introspective smile.

  I put my hand gently on his wrist (how long his limbs are).

  “David…”

  He stands so still then. Just his soft breathing. In and out, in and out.

  And before he can be off again, I tell him about Bridgette.
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  We stand together there, quiet. The sun is beginning to set. The day is coming to a close, and I am standing here with my son. The thought seems incredible to me at this moment. He scratches his right shoulder, pulls at the sleeve there. I can’t believe how much he’s grown. I’m looking up at him. He’s wearing sports shoes one size smaller than Ian’s. And he’s got muscles now. He can outrun me. Sometimes his manliness intimidates me. I thought that he was going to be one of those nerdy kids, his head always in a book, perpetually afraid, timid. I thought I would have to deal with bullies.

  “We can visit, right?”

  “Yes, yes, we can. It’s far, but of course, we can visit.”

  “So we’ll see her again.”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “She’s sick isn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  And it’s as if for the first time, I’m acknowledging this to myself.

  “Jamaica. Cool. I could learn to surf, water-ski.”

  “Great, another reason for me to get a heart attack.”

  “I wish we could head off to Bulawayo. I’m bored here, Mum.”

  I wait for him to say something more. He waits for me.

  “We will. Sometime, soon.”

  I can smell the locust off his hands. He rubs the smell onto his jeans.

  He’s about to wander off when I remember something I’ve been meaning to ask him for some time.

  “David, over at the gardens, what do you guys do?”

  “Stuff.”

  “Stuff?”

  “Yeah. Just stuff stuff.”

  A thought strikes me.

  “I hope you’re not smoking.”

  “Oh, please, Mum.”

  And then another thought that sends my heart racing.

  “And I hope it’s not girls.”

  “Mum, enough already.”

  “Well, okay, I just hope you’re not messing about at the back, you know, over the fence. You know you can’t go there. It’s a restricted area. You’ve seen the signs.”

  “You mean where the army is?”

  “Yes, David. You’re to stay in the gardens, okay? Doing whatever innocent thing you’re doing.”

  I wait for him to say yes.

  “What do they do there anyway? Lots of activity, trucks coming in and out, packed with—”

  “David…”

  “Okay, okay, Mum… chill.”

  I try to think of all the boys I know. Not much. The Secret Seven. The Hardy Boys. What do boys do? They get up to mischief. They have adventures. They build tree houses… I think of my father. What did he do as a boy? Terrorize the countryside with his homemade catapult? Herd cows, yes, now that would be a great help!

  “Are you building a tree house?”

  The thought fills me with so much hope.

  David looks at me with something like pity, and then he offers me a lifeline. “I’m taking pictures. Nature.”

  Now this, I can believe in, happily live with.

  It’s either the Walkman or the camera, sometimes the two of them in tandem, a double act. The camera, one of Ian’s old ones, the one Ian says of, “I tell you, my boy, if that camera could talk, the things it’s seen…”

  “For the class project. Environmental Science.”

  “Good. Just stay in the gardens, okay? Or you’ll have me tagging along.”

  He pulls a face.

  “So about this school camp, are you sure you want to go?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Two whole weeks?”

  He stretches out his hands in a long, extravagant yawn.

  “Definitely, definitely, definitely fucking sure.”

  And then he bursts out laughing and runs away.

  When I phoned this morning, Rosanna said they had received a visit from some youths demanding that they show their ZANU-PF party cards.

  Luckily, said Rosanna, she had Maphosa’s card which he had left behind.

  I thought of the Unity Accord signed in the late ’80s that had finally put a stop to the Fifth Brigade terror in Matabeleland and effectively demolished Nkomo and the opposition. How Nkomo had been accused of selling out the Ndebeles by former Ndebele fighters like Maphosa, and yet now, so many years later, some of the same fighters had maneuvered themselves in good positions in the unified party. They virulently supported Mugabe in his sporadic attacks against white farmers and his default revolutionary cry to wrench the land from them. And now, there are reports of farmers being harassed and chased off their property.

  “The youths are so ignorant,” Rosanna said. “They did not even read the name. Anyways, they were drunk and they were satisfied when I gave them some chicken and bread.”

  She said Daddy was sitting up these days, more and more, and that he was writing things with his right hand.

  “You must come and visit, Sisi. He would like that very much.”

  I felt a stab of guilt. It’s been almost a year since I last saw him.

  “He is missing little David. How is he?”

  “He’s fine, Rosanna. What about Danielle?”

  Peals of laughter from Rosanna. “She is fine, fine, fine, Sisi. She is doing so well at school; she is in Form One now. She is catching up. Thank you for the moneys that you are sending for her education.”

  “I’m glad it’s helping. Has Mummy called?”

  She had taken off again to Botswana. And every time she left, she took more and more of the furnishings of the house with her. It was as if she was moving away in bits and pieces. When she came back, she would throw Rosanna out.

  There was a little silence, and I imagined Rosanna nervously twirling the cord between her fingers.

  “No, Sisi. Not at all.”

  Ian finds me on the veranda.

  “Guess who called? You won’t believe.”

  “Who?”

  “The President’s Office.”

  “What? You’re joking.”

  “Listen to this one.”

  “Yes, what?”

  “They want me to take some portraits.”

  “What?”

  “Tomorrow. Can you believe it?”

  “What did you say?”

  “Say? I had no choice in the matter, girl. It was a summons, not an invitation.”

  “Presidential portraits?”

  “Ugha, and I’m thinking now, maybe these are the ones that are going to be anointed with the ‘all-seeing eye.’ Jeez, man, I’m good.”

  “Maybe you can say you’re sick or something.”

  “What! You know how much I’ll get paid? It’s not like we’re exactly swimming in dosh, is it? And don’t look at me like that. Principles, my foot. About the eyes, I’ll try to get Bob to look down, or I’ll do something when I develop the things, maybe an Andy Warhol kind of thing, you better believe. I’m supposed to get my ass over at State House nine sharp tomorrow. Maybe I’ll get to see Grace and the kids. I’m going to Graceland, Graceland—”

  “Try not to get shot while you’re there.”

  “No worries. He’s got enough issues, what with the war vets camping outside State House. I hope they get me in through a back door; I don’t fancy a confrontation. By the way, we’re jolling tonight, you and me dolly bird.”

  “Jolling?”

  “Jolling, for sure, over at that fancy place at Highlands, where all the Pajeros, VIPs, expats, and local fundies hang out.”

  “Now, you’re joking.”

  “No, my child. I’ve booked us a table and everything. Don’t look so shocked. We’re talking class here.”

  “And what’s the occasion?”

  “Occasion? What? I can’t just take my chick out? Okay, but you’re really chissering me. You mean to tell me that you’ve forgotten our anniversary.”

  “Anniversary?”

  “Anniversary, for sure, now you’re really burning me.”

  “What anniversary?”

  “You don’t even remember. Man, I’m burnt.”

  “Ian!”

 
“That day at the bus stop. That day I picked you up in your netball getup.”

  “Oh, I…”

  “It’s official, an anniversary. Fifteenth anniversary, if you please, plus or minus. You have two and a half hours to doll yourself up.”

  “What about David?”

  “All taken care of. He’s spending the night at Charles’s.”

  “Your mother?”

  “Ma Patience is coming over.”

  “A well-planned operation, I see.”

  “Yes man.”

  Ma Patience comes in with her customary heaving and sighing.

  “Hello. Hello. I am here now. Where is that big boy known by the name of David? Where is he right now?”

  David, of course, has long gone. He has had more than enough experience of getting squashed up in Ma Patience’s ample hands to hang around.

  “Hello, little madam. I have come. I have come. As you can see, I am here.”

  Ever since Ian’s mother has moved in, I have become the “little madam.”

  “I will go and see madam now. You can go. I am ready. Have a good time now, you young people.”

  And with that she giggles into her fist and heaves and sighs out of the room to find the (big) madam.

  “You look nice,” he says, opening the door for me.

  I don’t say, “what the…?” although I’m tempted to.

  “Thank you.”

  * * *

  Even though it’s a Tuesday, the restaurant car park is almost full. The guard directs us with a flourish of his baton to an empty space.

  “Stay right there,” says Ian jumping out of the car.

  He darts around to my side and flings open the door.

  What the… ? “Thank you.”

  Ian tells the young lady standing behind the dais his name and the time of his reservation.

  The lady looks at Ian and then me and says, “This way, sir.”

  Ian fairly vibrates with importance.

  I’ve heard about this place. Bridgette’s told me. But nothing has prepared me for the fairy-tale display of light, water, and foliage, which spreads out before us, as we sit on a table on the veranda. There is the sound of running water, lights shimmering along its path as it darts in and out of the green.