Leopold Blue (15 page)

I looked down at the white polo shirt I'd asked for especially for Christmas.

Xanthe stopped in front of a spread of psychedelic tie-dyed T-shirts. She held up one and handed it to me. Concentric circles of green, pink, blue and yellow radiated outwards.

I took a breath. ‘That's very bright.'

‘It's perfect. Put it on behind that mirror.'

I stood in front of the mirror, staring at the loud top. Xanthe grabbed the polo shirt I had tossed to the side. She beckoned over a street child that was hanging around and gave it to him.

‘Xanthe! It's brand new. My mum will –'

Xanthe and the boy looked at me.

‘Forget it,' I muttered.

Xanthe clapped her hands in satisfaction at the T-shirt, her mouth spread unconsciously into a smile.

‘Peace, sister,' said the longhaired stallholder, as I paid for the top.

‘Peace,' I agreed, which made Xanthe laugh.

Past the drums and the counterfeit CDs and the shorts made from recycled maize bags, I stopped at a stall selling rings. Some of them were plain silver bands; others were decorated with black and white ying-yangs. One tray was full of skulls and cross bones. Right in the front was a collection of rings with semi-precious stones – moonstones, quartz and cats' eye. Some of the stones were fatter than your finger, others small enough for a child to wear. A row of turquoise stones set into silver rings caught my eye. Beth loved rings. In a rush of guilt at her being stuck at home while I was here, I chose one for her. As I paid for the ring, I pointed to a tray of the smallest rings I'd ever seen. ‘Those are tiny!'

‘Toe rings,' replied the bare-chested stallholder. He had a large tattooed lizard crawling up his arm. Its tail wound around the bulge of his bicep.

I laughed, ‘What, like a ring for your toe?'

‘That's right.' He looked at me as if I was backward.

‘Oh.' I hurried away.

The market was filling up. We jostled and squeezed between knots of shoppers leaning over tables. As we stood to one side to let a family pass, I looked towards a small clearing where children were performing acrobatics. My heart plummeted. Standing amongst the crowd was Simon. ‘Oh no!' I said.

‘What?'

I strained to see him, but he had moved. I saw his head again, coming towards us. He disappeared and was suddenly in front of me. ‘Thank God!' The boy looked nothing like him. ‘I thought I saw Simon for a moment.'

‘But he's not here,' said Xanthe.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Jeez, I don't mean anything. I thought he was in Leopold.'

‘Xanthe!' called a gravelly voice. ‘Hey, Xanthe, wait up!'

We turned about, in search of its owner.

‘Here, man!' A tall girl with straggly blonde hair emerged from behind the ‘Crazy About Cape Town' T-shirts. She had on the same Doc Martins as Xanthe, black leggings and an oversized lumberjack shirt.

‘Howzit, Xanth,' she grinned. ‘Thought you'd fallen off the planet.'

‘Karen! Don't ask.' Xanthe shook her head.

‘Did your parents really send you to that school?' asked Karen, pulling a pack of Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes from her bag and offering one to Xanthe. I waited for her to offer one to me, trying to think up a clever way of saying no, but she put them back in her bag.

Xanthe and Karen lit up.

‘It is the arse-end of the world,' said Xanthe, blowing out a stream of smoke. The cloud hung about her.

I laughed, not knowing what else to do.

Karen looked at me in surprise.

‘I'm Meg,' I said.

‘Hi,' she said, ‘Nice top.'

Xanthe flashed me a smile of triumph.

‘Fuck man,' Karen continued, returning to Xanthe, ‘What a bummer.'

Xanthe nodded. ‘It's everything you've heard, only ten times worse.'

By now I thought my smile would split my face in two. And yet for all my manic grinning, I seemed to be invisible to them.

‘Why don't you come to the Heidelberg tonight? They hardly ever check for IDs anymore,' said Karen.

Xanthe's face brightened at the suggestion. Then she remembered me and sighed. ‘I'd better not.'

I looked away. In the silence that followed, I imagined them exchanging a glance.

‘Pity,' said Karen, not sounding particularly concerned, ‘Give me a call when you're, uh, free. Bye  … '

‘Meg,' I said again.

As she disappeared into the stalls, I turned and picked up the closest thing to me, while I tried to blink away my tears.

‘Let's go,' said Xanthe behind me but I didn't answer. I was sick of my life. Every time I believed that I wasn't that pathetic girl stuck in apparently the arse-end of the world, reality marched up and spat in my face. Karen couldn't even remember my name for five minutes. I didn't belong here, even if Xanthe had invited me.

Then I remembered that it had been Shirley who'd invited me to stay, out of an obligation to my parents. Xanthe was probably counting the days until I left.

A fat man wearing a Springboks rugby shirt jostled past me, pushing me against the edge of table. I wanted to be back at home, on the stoep, staring out over the empty garden.

‘Madge, hey, what are you doing? Why do you want that?'

I blinked and focused on what I'd picked up. It was an ostrich egg. Hand-painted angular Bushmen with fat round bottoms and stilt-like legs clutched oversized bows. Glinting gold arrows flew all around them. ‘What? No!' I let go of it in surprise and stepped back.

We watched it fall and disintegrate into tiny pieces around my feet. Xanthe started laughing and pulled my arm. I turned to the stall owner, but he had his back to us, talking to a tourist dressed from hat to socks in khaki. Xanthe pulled my arm again and we ran, weaving and pushing along the narrow paths between the stalls, squeezing through the crowd around the second-hand books, the bright animal mobiles, the wide-rimmed leather hats. I laughed in gasps as we ran, not daring to look back until we reached the edge of the market. I followed Xanthe across the cobbled road to the stone steps in front of a church, where we flopped down. Each time we looked at each other, we started laughing until my tummy ached. I leaned back on the step behind me.

‘Why don't you want to go that place?' I asked, my eyes against the sun on my face.

‘Karen's full of shit. They always check for ID at the Heidelberg,' she replied.

‘You have a fake ID?' I asked, although I knew the answer. ‘You should go, I don't mind.' I opened my eyes. ‘I'm sorry about earlier, I was –'

Xanthe stood up. ‘Come on, let's go.'

‘I thought you were going to –'

‘I saw a dress I like,' said Xanthe, talking over me. ‘Come
on
, Madge, there's so much more to do.'

I lay awake that night. Police sirens and cars passing on the road below were a constant reminder that I was surrounded by city life yet I felt as alone as I did in my bed at home.

Xanthe turned over in her sleep.

Visions of the day flashed back at me. I loved the market and the freedom of being dropped off for the day. Then, when I met Karen it had all gone wrong. I had failed a test, Karen's test. Friendship with Xanthe felt exhausting. It hadn't felt that way with Simon, but then I supposed Simon hadn't been a real friend.

There was no sign of breakfast when we arrived downstairs the next morning. It was New Year's Eve. Newspapers covered every kitchen surface. Shirley was in her cotton nightgown. Next to her was Lizzie, Shirley's maid. They were studying the papers.

‘What have those men achieved, Lizzie? That's what I don't understand,' Shirley said.

Lizzie clicked her tongue. ‘They are mad for blood.'

‘Who is mad for blood?' asked Xanthe, leaning over Shirley's shoulders. ‘Oh my God!' She went pale, looking up at me quickly, and then back at the paper. ‘That's the Heidelberg! What happened?' Lizzie shuffled out of the way to make room for Xanthe.

‘Three men burst in there early this morning and opened fire on the full bar. On their way out they shot the man from the Portuguese café who was standing on the street. They had no reason other than to kill.'

‘Fuck!' said Xanthe.

Shirley smacked her hand.

‘Were lots of people hurt?' asked Xanthe.

‘It says three women were shot. Young girls,' said Shirley.

Xanthe mouthed the word ‘Karen!' at me. I sucked in my breath and stared at the pictures. If it hadn't been for me, Xanthe might have gone. If it hadn't been for the ID-checking, I might have gone. The horror of the pictures seemed more like a movie scene than a bar twenty minutes down the road. Suddenly Mum's St James massacre victims came horrifically into focus. They became people, whereas before they had simply been part of Mum's general diatribe.

‘Have you spoken to Judy today?' Xanthe asked Shirley, with studied casualness. She picked up a carton of orange juice.

‘I called her first thing,' Shirley replied.

‘Karen OK?' asked Xanthe, looking at me.

‘Fine,' said Shirley, looking up at the question. ‘Do you want to invite her around for a swim?'

‘Nah,' said Xanthe, and left the room with the carton of orange juice.

Mum was beside herself. The papers hadn't been delivered in Leopold that morning, so she had nothing more than the national radio reports about the massacre to go by. She made me read her every article.

‘And what does
The Argus
say?' came her voice down the phone line.

I sighed. ‘“Heidelberg Pub Massacre. Four die, six injured as gunmen blast popular Observatory tavern.” There's a picture of an ambulance guy picking up the body of a woman, and one of some men helping another, and one of a guy sitting with his head in his hands.' I looked longingly through the door towards the kitchen, where Shirley, in her distress, had cooked a full English breakfast. Mine was untouched as Mum gabbled on. ‘And they say APLA have claimed responsibility for it?' she asked for the second time.

‘Yes, Mum, whoever they are.'

‘For goodness' sake, Meg! They're the armed wing of the PAC.

‘OK,' I said. I wound the phone cord around my finger.

‘The Pan African Congress,' she elaborated slowly.

‘Yup,' I replied. The coils had become twisted. There was an ugly hiccup to the pattern halfway along the cord that hadn't been there before I had started fiddling. I panicked. I was in Xanthe's dad's study. The room gleamed like a hospital theatre. From our one meeting he seemed the sort of man who cared about ugly hiccups in the phone cord.

‘What happens now?' said Mum. I assumed she was musing, but when she said nothing more, I realised she was waiting for an answer.

‘Life goes on, I guess,' I mumbled eventually.

‘For the lucky ones.'

I rolled my eyes.

‘Are you having a lovely time?'

‘Yes.' The phone cord was fixed.

‘And you're being polite, cleaning up after yourself?'

‘Mo-ther!'

I heard Beth shouting in the background.

‘Hang on, Beth,' Mum said. ‘What have you been up to, Meg?'

‘Stuff.' I was bored.

A deeply dissatisfied silence issued forth from Mum. I gave in. ‘Greenmarket Square market, the beach, a bit of shopping.'

‘That sounds lovely! Any plans for tonight?' Mum's attempt at sounding casual and gossipy did not work.

‘Drugs,' I replied, ‘lots of them. And unprotected sex.'

‘Honestly, Meg –'

‘We're going to the beach for supper. And maybe some fireworks.'

‘Thank you. We're not really –'

‘We've had pizza – twice!' Beth's voice shouted into the phone, ‘And Coke, every day, and Mum and Dad let me watch
Dirty Dancing
–'

‘Wow,' I said, and yawned for effect.

‘I'm not finished! And Mum's bought me a pile of new clothes!'

In the background Mum laughed and said, ‘That's a gross exaggeration!'

‘And,' Beth paused for effect, ‘Simon and I went canoeing all day on the dam.'

‘Hooray!' I said. I didn't care how Simon chose to spend his time. At the same time, I was relieved to know he wasn't here.

‘Yip. We had so much fun he wanted to do it again today, but he had to catch the early bus.'

‘Where was he going?'

Beth sighed in exasperation. ‘The bus only goes to Cape Town.'

Later that morning I sat on the porch, and nursed a cup of tea. Why would Simon be coming to Cape Town? It must be to visit his aunt and cousins, or perhaps his larny school friends. Shirley and Wellington were busy in the flowerbeds. Wellington rested on his haunches, muddy gumboots over his blue overalls in the middle of the bed while Shirley was primly positioned on the edge of the grass, on her floral print gardener's mat, wearing gardening gloves and a sun visor. As she bent forward two diagonal stripes of her pants appeared across her shorts in a ‘v'. Every now and then she'd say something to Wellington, who'd grunt in reply. I closed my eyes, and leaned my head back against the wall, lulled by the late morning sun and the distant hum of a lawnmower.

‘Eh! Those two!'

I opened my eyes. Lizzie stood next to me.

Her soft body cushioned out from her baby-pink maid's outfit. She held a tin of Brasso and polishing cloth and at my glance made a half-hearted attempt at the front door knocker but soon enough she was leaning against the front door frame, soaking up the sun behind me.

‘Uh-uh. Tennis, bridge or the garden.' She counted off the options on her fingers. ‘“Why do I employ a gardener, Lizzie?” says Mister Alan when he phones.' She laughed. ‘All day in the garden, bent over those flowers. And all the time talking to Wellington.'

‘What does she talk about?'

Lizzie chuckled. ‘A river flows. Some days it's fast, other days slow. Some days deep, sometimes shallow. But it's always water.'

Shirley straightened. ‘No, Wellington!
Haai
, my friend! We need to clear there,' she pointed to her left, ‘and there.' Her hand swept around the far edge of the bed.

Obediently, Wellington got up and repositioned himself with his garden fork. Lizzie looked at me and shook her head. ‘You looking for Miss Xanthe?' she asked suddenly, remembering why I was there.

‘No. She's inside I think,' I mumbled. Since making a telephone call earlier, Xanthe had been in a mood.

‘Where is your family?' asked Lizzie.

‘Leopold,' I said.

She looked unimpressed.

‘Near Piketburg,' I tried.

She shook her head, a slight frown on her face. After a few minutes, she said, ‘Is it near PE?'

‘No,' I replied, ‘It's in the middle.'

‘What do you think, Wellington?' Shirley's voice wafted back across the morning air. ‘By the time we're done here, we'll have a garden fit for your new president, hey.' Shirley laughed. ‘For Madiba.'

Wellington grunted.

Lizzie shook her head almost imperceptibly. ‘He's a Zulu, Madam,' she scolded Shirley softly. ‘Madiba is not the Zulus' president.'

Shirley sat back on her heels and stretched.

Lizzie was back polishing the knocker. ‘Madam!' she called, a pre-emptive strike, ‘Miss Judy called. I say you call right back.'

Shirley turned and smiled: ‘Thank you, Lizzie,' and returned to her shrubs.

Every table in the restaurant was occupied by the time we sat down. The atmosphere crackled. People talked and laughed loudly, as though in competition with their next-door neighbours. We sat near the front of the restaurant, overlooking the palm tree-lined beach below. ‘When my mum says “on the beach”, she means a restaurant overlooking the beach,' Xanthe had explained earlier as she shook the bottle of Vixen nailpolish. ‘Shirley doesn't do tomato sandwiches.'

I watched the clusters of families with blankets and cooler bags spread on the beach below us.

The waiters wore white vest tops, long blue aprons and jeans. They called each other ‘babe' and ‘sweetie'. The girl hovering next to Alan had long blonde hair scooped up into a high ponytail. She belonged on
Baywatch.

‘Champagne, I think,' said Alan, after a glance at the wine list.

‘Ooh, yes,' said Shirley, ‘I do like my bubbles.' She giggled in my direction. She was wearing a sparkly gold blouse that showed off her deeply tanned cleavage. Her cheeks were flushed.

I giggled too.

‘Here we go,' said Xanthe.

She had drawn thick black eye liner across each lid. She looked incredible. I stole glances at myself in the mirror across the restaurant. Xanthe had made me wear a green dress she had found at Greenmarket Square. Shirley had done my eyes. ‘Oh my God!' she'd said. ‘Look at that! Just like Bridget Bardot!'

Alan looked around the table. Shirley was much more twittery around him. When he spoke his words were clipped and quick. ‘Enjoying Cape Town, Meg?' he said as he passed the menu back to the waitress without looking at her.

‘Yes, thank you very much,' I said quickly.

‘Loosen up, Dad, you're scaring her,' said Xanthe.

‘I'm fine,' I squeaked.

‘How can you tell your father to loosen up?' Alan demanded, forgetting about me.

‘You're killing the vibe,' said Xanthe.

Alan laughed. Shirley and I joined in after a fraction of a pause.

Our waitress returned with the bottle of champagne. ‘Two glasses?' she asked Alan.

‘Four,' said Xanthe.

‘Oh, I don't know.' Shirley glanced in my direction.

‘It's New Year, Shirl,' said Alan, ‘we don't want to kill the vibe.'

The champagne was dry and bubbly. The champagne Mum and Dad occasionally drank at home was much sweeter. This filled my nostrils and made me want to sneeze.

‘How did you do in the exams?' Alan returned to me.

‘Alan, please,' Shirley tutted.

‘Is it you we have to thank for helping Xanthe make such an improvement in science?' he said with a dismissive pat on Shirley's arm.

‘Oh no, I had nothing to do with it,' I said quickly.

Alan sat back in his chair. ‘Did you actually work for these exams?' he asked Xanthe.

Xanthe smiled.

‘I always knew you were a sciences person.'

‘Blah, blah, blah,' said Xanthe, grinning. Her eyes flickered up at Alan's and for a moment I saw the chubby blonde girl in the photographs again.

Alan looked across at his wife. ‘Not like Shirl. Shirl's more of an arts person.'

‘Nothing wrong with the arts,' said Shirley.

After supper we drove around the coast to the next bay. Large boulder rocks that lined the shore divided the bay into four small beaches.

‘We'll see you here, in Fourth Beach car park, not a minute after one o'clock. Fourth Beach, not Second or Third. Do you understand?' said Shirley.

‘I'm quite sure the whole beach understands you,' said Alan and Shirley giggled.

‘I've got to get my bag out the boot,' said Xanthe and when Shirley swivelled around, she added, ‘Jerseys and stuff.'

‘Clever girl. There's always a chilly wind in Cape Town.'

As Alan reversed the car, he shook his head and laughed.

‘What?' said Shirley. ‘It's perfectly true.'

The beach was dotted with groups of people come to see in the New Year. Some had lit small bonfires and sat around it. Others sat inside circles of glowing candles in brown paper bags. Several hi-fis competed with each other. A man with blonde dreadlocks and wearing multi-coloured clown trousers sat on an upturned crate strumming ‘Bye-bye Miss American Pie' on his guitar.

‘Hey, Bruce,' Xanthe called out as we passed. He looked up and nodded in reply. Halfway down the beach Xanthe plonked down and unpacked the bag. The ‘stuff' was a six-pack of beers. ‘My dad won't miss them,' she said. She pulled out some sachets of clear liquid, bit them open and squirted the contents into each of our open cans. ‘Flavour,' she grinned. The wolfish look was back.

The ‘flavoured' beer tasted disgusting – bad enough to spit out. But Xanthe sipped it without making a face, so I did my best to copy her. A boy, not more than Beth's age, ran in front of us, carrying a bottle half full with bright green liquid. Two other boys ran after him. They tackled him to the ground and the bottle went flying. For a few seconds the three of them looked at the bottle and the green liquid that was seeping into the sand before starting to push and shout at each other.

‘Kids, huh,' said Xanthe.

I managed to get through the first can of beer and started on the second, which tasted less toxic than the first. The stars wiggled out of their fixed positions. Shouts, singing, laughing and stereos melted into one happy background buzz.

Xanthe looked at her watch. ‘I'm going down the beach to see if I can find some friends. They're always here at New Year,' she said.

‘Shall I come?' I started to get up.

‘No, no, you stay here with the bag and stuff. I won't be long.'

‘OK.' I sat back down. The sand felt warm. I took off my shoes and squiggled my toes around in the sand. I could feel each grain of sand separately. I tried to estimate how many grains of sand would be in contact with each foot. I smiled and waved at passers-by. After what seemed like a long time but also none at all, the thought that I needed to find Xanthe popped up with a pinging sound, like a cash register. It was such a surprise to hear the noise that I sat up. I put everything into the bag and stood up. The sand felt very uneven. I dug my toes into the sand to steady myself. A few paces down the beach, after having weaved through and around and over groups of people, I stopped and looked back, in case she might have returned.