The Boy Next Door Page 27

  “Wow.”

  “Can you believe, Enterprise Road is just behind all this?”

  We are with the beautiful people. We are the beautiful people.

  I reach out and squeeze Ian’s hand.

  The waiter takes our orders. A Thai curry for me. Lamb for Ian. A bottle of red wine. An extravagance.

  I feel not myself, as if I’m on a stage set. I wonder if Ian feels the same.

  “Here, I got you this.”

  He takes the packet from his jacket pocket, puts it on the table between us.

  “Can I open it?”

  “Sure, why not.”

  I wait until the waiter pours the wine and leaves.

  Inside, a single golden heart.

  A locket.

  A teenage boy’s gift. Lockets and lip gloss, daisy chains, whispered intrigues in the back of the class. Something to wear under your school uniform, to steal peeks at between lessons, feel its lovely coldness against your skin, to sneak out in the toilets, in the changing rooms.

  Ian and his gestures. The flame lily earrings, the box of pictures, the notebook. The owner’s deed he made me sign, “It’s this way or no moving on up, babe… ,” he said, and there were our names, side by side, newly minted homeowners.

  I lift the locket out from the box, open the gold heart. Inside, a paper folded and folded, over and over again, until it fit in the golden heart; Ian with his large, bruised hands doing this delicate task.

  I work on the paper. Over and over. Until there it is open in the palm of my hand. I read, a single momentous word: Us.

  There is such an ache in me. Something so sharp and terrible. So tender. So brutal. “Ian…”

  And then, the moment is shattered by the explosive frenzy of masked men rushing in, upturning tables, the crash of glass, plates, shouting: “Wallets! Money! Cell phones! Car keys! Valuables! Rings, necklaces, earrings! Watches! Move! Come on, move!” The blur of a man wearing a balaclava; another one, something dark in his hand; another wrenching a watch from a hand. “Come on, I said, move,” a voice behind me shouts. Clink of cell phones, keys, jewelry. Slap, slap of wallets. A hand swiping them off the tables into a black bag. “Down! Down!” A gloved hand pushing a man on the floor; bodies scrambling off chairs. “Down! Down!”

  And then, feet rushing, a car engine, engines, starting; squeal of tires followed by silence. Just the sound of the water trickling between the fairy lights. A woman sobbing, “Oh, oh, oh, oh…” A man shouting, “Fucking bastards!” A fist on the table, shattering glass. “Calm down, shamwari.” “Don’t tell me to calm down, white boy; this is not Rhodesia.” “Oh, foosake man…” “Ian, please, please, just…”

  I’m shaking, shivering; I can’t seem to stop. “Lindiwe. Lindiwe. Look.” He opens his hand, and there resting in its cradle, a golden heart. “No ways was I letting them get away with it, not a chance.”

  He holds me tight in his arms, squeezing the breath out of me into him. He holds me there.

  It’s early morning when we finally get home, after giving the police statements. Ma Patience is sleeping on one of the couches in the lounge. She sleeps as she moves. With a lot of heaving and sighing.

  Ian puts me to bed. He pulls the duvet right up, but I can’t stop shaking, shivering. He tucks in a blanket and sits on top of the covers, his hand on my head, nursing me.

  I don’t know when I finally sleep. When I wake up, it’s past midday and he’s gone. There is a note on the bedside. He scribbled it in a hurry: “Sorry. President. Late Already. Stay in bed. Rest.” He started another word but scribbled it out so hard that he made a hole. I sit on the bed listening. For something. Anything. The house is quiet.

  I get out of bed. I wait, my heart thumping. I stand up. I wait. The shaking, shivering is gone. My head feels heavy, that’s all. I look down at the night table and see the locket with its message. I go into the bathroom. I step into the shower. And that’s where the shaking and shivering begins again. I press my body against the wall, ignore how much it hurts. I press and press until finally the shaking and shivering stops. I don’t know how long it takes, but it is where Ian finds me. He runs the water. Over me. Us. And then he puts me in bed again, and when I wake up, it’s morning and he is there.

  “How did it go?” I ask him getting up. “The president…”

  He’s looking at me in a strange way. He looks so pale. His face contorted so.

  “Ian, what’s wrong?”

  That’s when he tells me about Bridgette.

  She is dead.

  It was a frenzied attack. Multiple stab wounds. Her blood all over the house.

  Dorcas, her new maid, and the complex’s gardener have been arrested. Dorcas confessed. She made copies of the keys, gave them to a cousin. Bridgette surprised them.

  “People are desperate,” everyone keeps saying. People are desperate. We are fast going in the way of South Africa. Hijackings and the like. The young ones see all these Pajeros, and they want to get rich quick, too. They see corruption and stealing among their elders, so why not them? Why must they starve, sacrifice, be fools like their parents? Why must they lose out? No. Not a chance. They will get what they want fast, fast. If the government cannot find employment for them, they will find it for themselves.

  I can’t go to her funeral. I can’t go down to Bulawayo, watch her getting buried. I can’t see her like that.

  I go out to find her alive. Here. In Harare. The Sunshine City. I go to one of her hair salons, the one by Eastgate. There’s a note stuck on the closed door. I do not read it. I know what it says. I cross the square, sit down at a table. The waiter comes and I ask for an espresso. I sit down looking at Bridgette’s place. I look down and watch my hand shake.

  I slap it down; push it hard on the table, so hard I might just crack a bone. Slowly, drifts of voices from a table behind me find their way. “I mean, what a slut… Ndebele… She spread her legs for anybody… What did she expect…?”

  I close my eyes. I drink the espresso. I don’t wait for the bill. I leave some notes.

  I walk. As far as my legs will carry me. And then I’m running, running, as far, as fast as my legs will carry me, running so fast that the feet pounding on the ground bounce, leap, and I’m up, breathless, far, far away, going, going, as high, as fast as I can…

  “Iwe, stupid!”

  The commuter bus driver leans so far out of his window that his spit hits my face.

  Before I can catch my breath, he’s off, blasting his horn.

  I look around me. Faces staring back at me; penga, they must think. Running into the road like that. Where does she think she is, in the bush? What does she think she is doing, a marathon? Practicing for the Olympics? Waves of heat. Legs trembling. A blur of color and sound. Silence. Absolute silence.

  I take a taxi home.

  I go into the bathroom. I take a long, hard look in the mirror. I pick up the electric clipper and run it through my hair. I take a shower. And then I go to bed.

  3.

  I wake up to the sound of someone humming in the house.

  In the kitchen there is Heather drying a cup, Ian sitting at the table, scratching the back of his head with a pencil.

  “Jeez, what did you do to your h—?”

  Heather looks at me openmouthed.

  I put my hand on my head, scalp. I’d forgotten about that.

  “Coffee?” asks Ian.

  “Yes, thanks,” I say, going over to the table.

  I haven’t seen Heather since the fight with Duncan. I notice her hand posed on her stomach as she leans against the sink. She had a miscarriage.

  When her back is turned I mouth to Ian, “What is she doing here?”

  Before he can answer, she sits down, too, and says, “If you wear hoops, you’ll look fine.”

  It takes me a moment to realize she means earrings.

  “Heather has found a place for my mother. They’ve just opened. That complex on the Borrowdale Road.”

  “Dandaro,” says
Heather. “It’s assisted-living accommodation. There’s a full-time nurse on the premises.”

  “But isn’t it way too expens—?”

  “I can get you guys a special rate.”

  “Heather’s working for the company that owns it.”

  I nod.

  “I’ll get everything sorted before I leave. She’ll like it there. She might even make some friends. Anyway, I just came over to tell.”

  “So where’re you off to Heather?”

  Ian’s leaning back on the chair with that look on his face that dares “entertain me.”

  “Oh, that’s another reason why I came over, so that you didn’t hear it over the grapevine. We’re emigrating. Australia.”

  Ian and I exchange a look.

  “Australia,” he says. “So they’re still taking Rhodesians then.”

  Heather darts me a look.

  “Skilled. I have family there. We’re having a party on Saturday. Next week. You must come. Anyway, I have to go now. I’ll phone about things.”

  Ian takes Heather out, and when he comes back, he stands against the fridge, his arms folded over his chest.

  He looks at me.

  “What?”

  “What happened to you yesterday? I couldn’t find you anywhere. I was worried sick.”

  “I had to get out of the house. Ian, where’s David?”

  I see him standing there, thinking how much he can push anything.

  “Camp, remember?”

  “No, Ian. You didn’t let him go, not after…”

  “Lindiwe, he wanted to go.”

  “What if he wants to talk? He loves Bridgette. What, what if…? Oh, God, Ian, oh…”

  Ian tries to hold me, but I push him away.

  “Just leave me. I’m fine. Fine.”

  I swipe away the tears with the sleeve of my nightdress.

  I give Ian a smile. See.

  “I didn’t tell him, Lindiwe. I didn’t have the heart. He was so keen on the camp, I…”

  “You did the right thing, Ian. I wanted to see him, that’s all.”

  I don’t want to talk anymore about Bridgette. To remember.

  “So are you going to show me those portraits or what? That’s if the war vets let you in.”

  Ian opens his mouth and closes it.

  “Lindiwe…”

  “Ian, please, not now…”

  “Okay then, come with me, my girl.”

  And there he is, our dear leader, all spread out on our dining-room table.

  I don’t pick them up. I look from afar.

  “Ian! What did you say to him? What did you do? Look, he’s smiling. And that one, look at his laugh. Ian!”

  “Don’t go on about it. I’m in a real fix.”

  “But they’re good, great, so human.”

  “Exactly, like I’m running his ad campaign. I mean, I couldn’t take one shot that says ruthless African dictator, bloodthirsty tyrant; no, there he is looking like a decent chap in all of them. Asch man, I’m screwed.”

  Somehow, I must smile, somehow.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Just tell him they came out bad, that they aren’t any use.”

  “No, he won’t fall for that. Like the Americans say, the man’s got game. He wants me to deliver the pictures personally. Man, I’m knackered.”

  “What about Grace, the kids?”

  “Not a sign. I actually felt sorry for the bloke. Looked as lonely as hell when I got in there.”

  “That’s why he must have appreciated your company.”

  “You know who popped in? The police commissioner. He was huffing and puffing about “urgent, disturbances, townships, war vets.” Something’s going on. Bob waved him away like he was a mozzie. Listen, are you going to be all right today here? I want to head down to the studio, do some tweaking on these.”

  “Yes, yes, go. I’m fine. Promise.”

  For lunch I eat a slice of brown bread and I open the wine that Bridgette gave me for my birthday. I drink it all and then I go to bed.

  I wake up; I go into the bathroom, throw up. I wash up, change.

  I stand outside Ian’s mother’s room. I push the door open. She is sitting by the dressing table, head bent down, pulling at the strands of her hair. Her hair fascinates me, the abundant luxury of it against her scarred, shiny pink skin. A stranger looking at her from the back might mistake her for a young and vibrant beauty. She looks up, our eyes meet, lock, something passes. I don’t know who gasps. Me? Her? Us? I close the door gently behind me.

  I go out to the gazebo, and I sit there until it gets dark.

  4.

  David comes home from camp with a cut above his left eyebrow and a black eye. When I ask him what happened, he says, “fell,” and goes into his room without another a word.

  “Ian, he looks like he’s been in a fight; what did the teacher say?”

  “He was very vague; according to him, David and some boys were fooling around, and well, boys… I’ll talk to him.”

  It comes out. Some boys calling him names: “dirty colored,” “half-breed,” “a wannabe honky.” Ian looks as though someone’s punched him right in the stomach, winded him.

  “He doesn’t even look like a colored, Lindiwe.”

  “Oh, so, he’s white then.”

  Ian stands there looking at me, and it hits me that he has always thought of his son as white. I’m stunned.

  “He shouldn’t hang around that gardener’s boy.”

  “Robinson? Why not?”

  “He should be friends with kids his own level.”

  “Charles is his friend, too.”

  “Others also. He’s always with those two.”

  “Others like who?”

  “Asch, I don’t know Lindiwe, kids in his class, good kids.”

  “So you think if his friends are white, then maybe people will think he is white, too? He is colored, Ian. Colored in Zimbabwe, South Africa; mixed race in Britain; black in America. There is no place on earth where he would be classified as white, Ian; in case you’ve somehow forgotten, he does have a black mother.”

  “Oh, so now you’re black. Weren’t you once a goffle?”

  Ian looks at me as though he’s seeing me for the first time. He makes me want to hit him, throw something at him, shake him.

  “Ian!”

  “What? I’m not thick. Ever since those war vets have started going on about getting back the land, finishing off the Chimurenga, chasing the white man out… asch it’s like there’s been no bloody progress.”

  I don’t know how the war vets have suddenly leapt into this conversation.

  He can’t get over his own flesh and blood being a victim of racism. Welcome to planet reality, Ian!

  “Don’t start talking to him about race this, race that. I mean it, Lindiwe, I don’t want him getting hang-ups.”

  “Oh, and you don’t think that hearing himself being called a dirty colored is not going to give him hang-ups?”

  “He beat the kid, didn’t he?”

  “Ian, he got beaten up. He can’t fight everyone who calls him names. He’s going to grow up with that kind of abuse. It’s everywhere, Ian.”

  “Yes, Lindiwe, I’m a Bhunu remember? The lowest of the low. I know all about racism.”

  I don’t know what to say about that, so I keep quiet.

  “He’s not a goffle.”

  “That’s right, Ian. He’s our son. My son. Your son. But out there where they put people in boxes, categories, he is a race.”

  “Asch man, maybe the Afrikaners have the right idea. Everyone must keep to their own race, avoid complications.”

  “That’s right, Ian, as soon as things start to get a bit difficult, uncomfortable, all of a sudden apartheid seems like a jolly good idea.”

  “I’m just sick of everything being about racialism. Those war vets blew their compensation fund big-time and now it’s back to scapegoat number one—whitey. It’s not whitey who stuck his paws in the pot an
d doshed themselves millions for nonexistent injuries. The thing was looted by their own fricking ZANU-PF chefs, and now Hunzvi and his war vets even have Bob dancing to their tune, telling him that they’ll take matters in their own hands if he doesn’t cough up the land. And it’s all the fault of the white man, of course.”

  “And you don’t think I’m sick of it, too, Ian?”

  “So why do you keep going on about it, heh?”

  “You know what, Ian? Here’s an idea. Why don’t you find a white girl like, like Heather fricking whatever, get a white son, and go off in the fricking sunset to fricking Australia.”

  Now he looks stunned.

  “Man, Lindiwe, that’s harsh.”

  And he cracks up laughing.

  “It’s just that I don’t want to see him suffer. It really tears me up.”

  “I know.”

  “As long as he knows where we’re coming from, I suppose he’ll be okay, huh?”

  I don’t ask him where we are coming from. I nod.

  “You know what he asked me in the room just now? It really threw me.”

  “What?”

  “What happens to the three of us if Bob decides to throw all whites out of the country? It really hit me Lindiwe, what with all the noise the war vets have started making…”

  I know what he wants me to say, what he hopes I’ll say.

  “I hope Bob really likes your pictures” is all I can manage.

  Ian gives me a long, hard look.

  “God, you’re so full of it sometimes,” he says and turns away.

  Two weeks later Ian takes his mother to Dandaro. When they are gone, I go into her room, open the two windows, and I start cleaning. Ian finds me vacuuming. I feel as though he’s caught me with some kind of incriminating weapon.

  “Thanks for sticking it out.”

  “I was feeling restless,” I say, feeling obliged to explain the vacuuming.

  He’s wearing the jeans I got him for Christmas last year. Fashionable Levi’s instead of the hard-wearing local ones that he’s had for years, which never fade and have a permanent iron crease in the middle of each leg. He’s got a great butt. He was complaining yesterday that already there are holes appearing in the jeans. “They’re meant to be like that,” I said, and he looked at me with that “asch, man I’ll just amuse the chick” expression of his. The T-shirt is another piece of image makeover sneaked in as a gift from David. It fits just right, not baggy and not too tight, a nice change from his collection of power sales, express, radio ltd, dees garage ones, buy one, get one free.