‘My back ... can’t move.’
‘What?’
‘I < mmmm try ing.’
She squirmed away a few inches to get a look at his face, but could only see his
knotted old brow under wisps of thinning hair. It hung purple and sweaty and
reminded her of a baboon bum. She started giggling.
‘Not < funny. I can’t move.’
‘Are you serious?’
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‘No, playing the fucking fool! Sorry. Sorry, munchkin. Give it a second. Sorry.’
‘Just don’t die on me, okay? That’s all I need.’
‘No < just cramp. Seized. Wait, lemme try again <’ He eased himself up and then
bellowed King Kong breath all over her, a faint poo-and-yoghurt smell as he fell
forward again. He hung on, one hand hooked on the cliff’s edge of the cubbyhole, the
other a ham around the headrest, not touching her anywhere. She curled, incredulous.
Their noses pinged once, like a doggie hullo.
‘What if I tickle you?’ She smiled brightly up. He coughed a laugh, then found he
couldn’t stop. Each laugh hurt like hell, but each was sure as hell on earth worth it.
‘Sav, my love. Unlock your door. You can slide out.’
She glanced out at the jungle outside. ‘No, daddy. If something happens you can’t
help me.’
‘eeee < ah, reach into my jacket pocket. Cell. Call y’mom.’
So she reached up and tickled him, and he whimpered like a dog in winter. She made
him say, ‘please,’ and then, ‘pretty please,’ and then, ‘pretty please with knobs on.’
Eventually she had mercy and tugged out the phone, her tongue peeking out from the
corner of her mouth.
‘Can’t I not help, somehow?’
‘Don’t use no double negative.’
‘Help you, you silly man.’
‘Maybe. Prop up my chest.’
She could only get one forearm in, and the pressure unbalanced him. ‘No,
sweetheart. Not working. Take it away.’ She sighed and rolled a drumbeat on the seat
with her fingers.
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‘I know! Let’s have a conversation!’
‘< nnnggg <’
‘Come on! You can do better than that!’
‘Ohhkay, whadja wanna be when you grow up?’
‘You know already. A doctor. B o-oring. You have no conversational abilities
whatsoever. You’re like a totally whack dad. The mayor of Sucksville.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Hmmm. Let me mop your fevered brow.’ She tugged up the corner of her shirt but
could only reach his nose. She dabbed away the pearl of sweat dangling at the tip and
wrinkled her own. He was beginning to smell really, really bad.
Her bare belly disturbed him, and he told her to pull the shirt down. He slowly tried
to twist his torso back, but the pain cramped him again. He squirmed and tried to roll
away, but his fat hips were wedged under the steering wheel and his right foot caught
under the brake. He eyed the leather edge of her seat and wondered if he could drop his
right hand in fast and prop himself up. No, too risky. Might fall on her. He silently
cursed his fat stupid belly, his lazy uncut arms, a litany of swearing as form to the
miasma within him – the pain, the cry to the betrayal of his youth, upped and gone and
left him broken, the chained-down fear of a crippled old age. The incoherence of the
swearing picked up a rhythm, a beat, a counter-curse which formed into words: None of
this matters. Savannah matters. Only Savannah matters.
And as for Sav down there, she had a moment, a very important moment. It was a
good moment, but she didn’t know that yet, as it came to her with gifts of revulsion and
dread. She grasped, in a visceral heartbeat, her father’s mortality, the weakness of his
flesh, how his stinky body suffered to carry his soul. Daddy wouldn’t always be there.
Daddy often couldn’t help. Daddy was only human. She felt it to be the end of
something, some part of her life forever lost, but it was also a beginning. She became
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angry with him, but from that day on she took control of her life, grew smarter and
harder, made alliances with the other clever kids and dealt with her enemies, despite
everything that happened that summer.
A car pulled up alongside, blaring Green Day. Bob hoped it wasn’t the cops - this’d
take some explaining. But it was Kay’s shocked gasp. She cracked open the passenger
door and he creaked his head up to once-over her snug jeans. Looked pretty fit from
where he was hanging.
‘Bob! What on earth are you doing?’
‘Sav. Explain.’
‘I < I told him I won a race, and he hugged me, and his back went kap looey! ’
Upside-down Mom took a step back.
‘Don’t worry. He’s not gonna die yet.’
‘A lot of things he’s not gonna do,’ said Kay, and burst out laughing. She stepped
forward and whisked Savannah out with one fluid pull. The child dusted herself off,
raised her arms and howled ‘ Freedom! ’ at the sky, hopping from foot to foot.
‘Okay Bob! Thanks for everything. See ya!’ Kay was still laughing.
‘Fffff < funny.’
‘Have a nice day!’ Her voice receded to the front of the car.
‘Wait! I got money!’
Rapid footsteps and the driver’s door swept open.
‘Hmmm. Only fifty bucks for the massage.’
‘Done. How much for sex?’
‘ That’s going to cost you. In exercise, healthy eating and a positive attitude. Now
shush.’ She placed a cool hand between his shoulders blades and then gently moved it
down.
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Was that a yes? A maybe? His balls stirred, painfully, squeezed between his thighs.
She began kneading his love-handle by his spine, muttered, ‘Knotted here,’ his skin
heating under her hand. After a while she grasped his shoulder and pressed into his
spine. ‘Okay, bring your leg < here. I’ve got you, Bob. Just relax.’ He found himself
turning and then seated again, waves of pain pulsating through this beast of a body.
‘You sure?’
‘Absolutely. Don’t worry. Under control. I’ll drive back and put some ice on this.’
‘I can’t help you tonight. Got a meeting. Thanks for the maintenance.’
‘I gave you an extra five hundred.’
She lifted her eyes to his. ‘For Sav, right?’
‘Right.’ He lowered his face and started the engine.
Savannah was already in the car, eyes shadowed by her hand, don’t-talk-to-me face
on. She looked dirty, hot and thoughtful. Kay let her be. She had her own thinking to
do.
Kay’s thing was, she worried all the time. About everything. Worried morning, noon
and night. She worried in her sleep and worried when awake, worried herself into her
clothes, poured worry in her cornflakes and brushed her teeth with worry, staring
emptily at worried eyes in the bathroom mirror. She knew all the moods of Worry, the
tentative, absent-minded, angry, anxious, passionate. He even lent her fleeting
moments of happiness, came into her bed at night, worried her rough on the kitchen
table, sensuous in the bath. Only death could do them part, and they worried about that
too.
And they had found their vocation: professional worriers employed, for a very
worrying single salary, by the Environmental Conservation Society of Southern Africa.
He walked with her in public, honed, fierce and fearless, charming and positive,
185
articulate and well-informed. Many a developer had withered under Worry’s fire at
public participation meetings, many a doubter swayed to their cause, and they knew a
lot about biology, ecology, climatology, geohydrology, chemistry, energy, mining, the
local environment and the law.
But now, driving carefully down the road with most of her awareness in her hands,
feet and eyes, the pre-Christmas lull sultry in the air, Kay only chatted with Worry,
about the new maid, and whether she should leave Savannah alone with her. And then
about the electricity bill, the widget for the cistern, money, this rattle in ECSSA’s high-
mileage Mazda, enough time for a shower? She interrupted and turned to Savannah.
‘What do you want?’
Savannah shrugged and wrinkled a hidden nose. ‘I dunno. Garden salad. Have we
still got ostrich steaks?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll make it, Mom. Don’t worry.’
Kay touched her arm and geared up out of a corner. ‘Stupid meeting. Waste of time.’
‘You go, mom-girl,’ faintly. ‘You blow them away.’
Kay began to worry about the regional board meeting, the glint of knives at her back.
Last week at a seminar the chairperson had approached her, a thin, khaki-dapper little
white man, and he had mumblingly interjected, with a prim smile and sliding eyes, that
she was ‚going overboard' into chitchat about the society’s objection to a proposed toll
road. Was the hint ambiguous? A threat to her job, as in, walk the plank? – Savannah
coughed and blew her nose, and Kay gave an impatient shake of her golden, leonine
hair.
‘How was your day?’
‘Great! I played soccer, and I fell down, and I whacked my face! And I nearly scored
a goal.’
‘ What? Are you–’
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‘Fine, mom. I’m fine. Don’t worry. It’s spank to be outside, getting exercise, very
healthy. Better than school. Mom?’
‘What?’
‘What’s got sharp teeth and a long tail and comes out of your bum?’
Worry leapt to attention again.
‘A kakadile!’
And Kay laughed and relaxed and lived, for a while, in the moment. That was
Savannah’s gift today, best of all: a little earthy joke.
An inlet pipe to the vegetable tunnels from the compost sump was blocked below the
filter, so Churchill dug into the soft red clay. The blade of his spade overturned an
earthworm and he tossed it to an attendant dog, who snuffled in disgust and wandered
away. The worm raised a blind, quizzically-pointed head, swaying in all directions.
Churchill clicked his tongue and strolled over, scooped it in a gentle claw and dropped
it onto a potato bed.
A good day. He hummed in satisfaction and spat on the ground. A good,
hardworking day. He had put his back into it alongside his six men and four women,
and they had responded cheerfully and done all the day’s jobs. Leaves had been swept
up and hoarded in compost, another bluegum cut down and cut up. The mango trees
had been sprayed and the cattle ambled back from fresh new grass in a gut-swinging
loiter. He began to dig again and then paused, turning towards the approaching noise
of Kay’s car. He smiled and wiped the dirt from his hands.
The girl came running first. ‘Howzi Church!’
‘Savannah Tothill!’ Kay strode cheerfully after. ‘Good afternoon Mister Ngcobo,
please. Sorry. Gets her manners from her father.’
‘As well as her surname, Mizz Quail.’
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‘ Mis ter Ngcobo!’ Savannah sketched a courtly bow. ‘Most noble landlord, and well-
read guy. What’s the quote of the day?’
‘Let us see. Love may fail but courtesy will prevail. Kurt Vonnegut.’
‘And what are you reading?’
‘Very interesting poems, young sprat.’ He pulled a wad of fourway-folded paper
from his shirt. ‘Women’s prison poetry. Printed from the internet. Please. I am done.’
He handed it over and she took it the polite way, two-handed, no racial irony in the
gesture of respect.
She sniffed and unfolded importantly. ‘Amateur?’
‘But heartfelt. The third one is very good.’
Kay averted her smile and her delight away. Two women, walking back to their
quarters, saw the tableau, the frame of the black man and the white woman, just so
around the child. They paused and watched, their murmurs like honey in the air. A
wind gusted through, rippling their skirts, and they moved on.
‘Here, Churchill. I brought the rent.’ Kay handed the wad over. He tucked it into a
pocket without glancing.
‘Are you,’ she said, and paused. Always, this pause after business, a courtesy before
even, unhurried conversation, where both understood the value of listening. Wind
stirred the afternoon air as it softened toward twilight. He put aside the spade, his
dignity carried lightly but self-consciously, and Kay liked how her eyes deferred away
from him. A leopard, she thought again, glancing up with pleasure at his small, shaved,
pointed head, penetrating gold-flecked eyes. This is his territory. I respect him with my
eyes.
‘Are you < um, planning anything for Saturday night, Church?’
‘I <’
‘I wondered if, would you like to have supper with us? Sav ‘n me?’ The words were
blurted, for this was the first such invitation, ever.
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‘Yes. Sure, Kay. Yes. Thank you.’
‘You wanna bring someone?’
‘I have no-one. Perhaps my son?’
‘Perfect. About seven?’
Churchill smiled and met her eyes. ‘Thank you. Um. How’s Blessing working out?’
‘She’s totally useless.’ Oops. Also blurted out. The new maid was a relative of
Churchill, and she had collapsed into Kay’s place with a pleased, infantile lethargy.
Blessing ate and ate and slept on the job, and sat staring at nothing while soil and lost
objects crept at her ankles and the dishes piled up. Kay had seen how Savannah was
erecting a universe of silence into the small domestic space between herself and
Blessing, and how Blessing didn’t give a damn. It was like, Kay’s the mom, Blessing the
surly big sister, and now she had two kids to look after. Worry, awake and in a nasty
mood, hovered at Kay’s shoulder. And she had embarrassed Churchill.
‘Anyway, see you.’ Kay stepped aside, flustered. ‘Sav!’ Girl had disappeared again.
She looked one way, then another, and then felt Churchill’s fingertips on the back of her
hand, just a touch before they lifted away.
‘Kay. Don’t worry so.’
‘Ah <’
‘I saw her go into the shed. Listen, I want to say something.’
‘Hm?’
‘Blessing, she means nothing to me. If she’s useless, we can fire her. I mean, I will, if
you want. This situation here,’ he gestured, ‘I’m the landlord and you’re the tenant and
also the only white people on the land. The way it is < my people on one side and you
and Savannah on the other < it’s just not like that. Okay? I’m trying to say that < I <
value you,’ his voice as soft as the wind. ‘A lot. We all do. It feels like, you’re the
blessing, ahaha.’
‘I <’
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‘She’s a child. Needs a kick up the backside. Be good for her to get fired. I’ll find
someone else.’
‘No, just leave it, Churchill. I’ll sort it out. And thanks-’
‘MOMMY! KITTENS! KITTENS!’ Savannah came hurtling from the shed.
‘Oh no,’ said Churchill, clutching his forehead. ‘Sorry. I forgot.’
‘Sav, you know we can’t-’
‘Just come and look, Mom. Don’t think. Just come.’
‘Well, okay.’
And when Kay saw their big-eyed, furry loveliness, she just didn’t feel like fighting
anymore. Savannah rubbed her sore nose and eventually chose the half-wildcat, cradled
cute as a button-nose in the crook of her arm.
Churchill galloped down the steps past the goat kraal as if a thousand eyes were
upon him, giddy with bashfulness. Then he slowed down and grinned at the sky. He’d
said it at last, and she had heard. And she asked him over. Should he not have touched
her? He shouted ‘ Hah’ and put a spring in his step.
He fetched the delivery note and unlocked the front door and then the security gate.
Mosh was waiting in the Toyota bakkie, the back piled with boxed fruit and vegetables
and newspaper-wrapped herbs.
‘Hurry up, father. I’m late.’
‘Here. Go. Go.’
He was so proud of his son. His pride followed the boy down the dirt driveway,
waving and wishing him safety. Worked hard at the farm all afternoon fixing and
learning the machinery, did the deliveries to the hotels and lodges, and then worked all
night as a security guard at the game lodge on the other side of the public road.
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Churchill paused, closed his eyes, said a brief prayer, and went back through the open
front door.
About Moshoeshoe there’s little to say. He was only nineteen that year, offering
himself to the world with hope and energy, not knowing or caring if he’d live or die
today. The future lay utterly unknown. He was privileged with education and skills,
but still just a farm-boy. He was thinking of a career in tourism, and the job at the game
lodge was a good step – next year, maybe college. Then maybe a Black Economic
Empowerment deal. He had the collateral, or rather Dad had. More than half of his
father’s land was virgin bushveld, over there below Kay’s cottage, and his father had
raised the idea of joining it with the adjoining private game reserve, a hundred hectares
between the farm and the Kruger Park. But he didn’t think about it all too much, for
now. He liked girls, and soccer, and music. He read books, though. His father was Zulu
and his mother a ghostly Shangaan, and from both he had inherited a smidgen of
centuries–old Arabic blood, almond eyes, a slanting, aquiline nose above his meaty
African lips, within a blankness of face which bespoke no great crisis or suffering in his
youth. From his mother he was tall, from father, powerful. The interest from the women
was intense but reserved – he was still just a boy – and from the local girls a lot more
active.
Mosh drove slouched back, elbow to the wind, and he was a lunatic at the wheel.
Other drivers had wished him death, and he was clueless how often he brushed close to
it. He had heard a young Springsteen once, on the radio, when parked and feeling
empty, and loved him. He spun through the Y-fork past the broken sign and caught the
eye of a girl, the gate guard coming back early from her shift, walking slowly along the
dust-red verge. She saluted him, and he frowned.
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The bustard, hiding from the girl, watched him speed past and tut-tutted. The
carmine bee-eater flew out towards darkness as the girl looked away at the speeding
bakkie, no headlights in the gloom.
Cell phone rang. ‘Yebo!’ he shouted, blocking the right side of his vision with smooth
knuckles.
‘Mosh? Bob Tothill.’
‘Mister Bob!’
‘Just Bob. Listen, when will you get to work?’
‘About an hour?’
‘Could you pop past the owner’s suite after you’ve checked in? Speak to Stein? He’s
not answering his phone and the girls are busy at reception.’
‘Yes sir. What must I tell him?’
‘I’ve <’ muffled, ‘hurt my back. Can’t move. Won’t make it. Tell him I’ll speak to
him tomorrow.’
‘Yes sir. Is that all?’
‘Yeah. Sure. Fuck him and his problems. I’m going to bed.’ The phone went dead.
‘Thanks, boy,’ in a disapproving hiss.
Mosh stepped back from Stein’s door as it closed, and gave what must be that
shudder thing he had read about. Ugh, Stein was so < creepy, so bald and old liver-
spotted dead skin, eyes hollow and glinting with malice. Mean muthafucka mlungu.
Old, but strong-looking, like a baboon exiled from his tribe. Like a vulture. Fucking
snake-man.
He shuddered again, just for the feel of it, contorting his back like a breakdancer as
he loped across the night-black lawn, and then whistled a chirping, three-note kwaito
tune.
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One more chore, the bowl of welcome-fruit to the two new guests at number 23, and
he would begin his prowl, slipping through shadows from one end of the buildings to
the other, waiting silent and watching for movement along the line between human
territory and the bush. He loved the solitude, the quiet < how dangerous he felt.
He knocked, and Heaven itself opened the door.
Ariel was flooded by this beautiful, beautiful boy, a rush right through her. Blood
flowed to the tremor of her extremities, and she took one dizzy step forward. Smell rose
all about them, like clean wet earth, like flowers, like fruit. Both mouthed a silent word
as their eyes joined.
‘Ari?’ Stephi’s voice came from far away. ‘Who is it? Please, always make sure you
know who it is before you open the door.’
But it was far too late for that.
193
3
‘Ssshhhh. Quiet. Now crawl.’ Ingwe watched her kitten from the corner of one eye
and then twisted in irritation, hissing at the whimsical, white-tipped tail. ‘Tail down!
Down! Ears flat. Look sharp!’
She threw back a nonchalant kid’s glance, like, what ever, then scratched at the grass,
signaling her presence with a shiver of stems and a toss of russet fronds. Infuriated,
Ingwe snarled and bit, releasing only when the young cat growled in pain. Then she
pinned her down with one paw and spoke:
‘Child, you do not know these creatures. Terrible, terrible monsters. They hunt us.
They hunt us. You think you are safe with me. You are but a baby. We are in danger,
danger, danger <’
‘I understand, mama.’
‘Now crawl. Quiet < become the rock, the grass, the night.’
They crested the small koppie and snaked onto a flat, splintered rock, shaded from
the moon by a crouching thornbush.
The leopard’s rock, only twenty meters from seven linked face-brick units, was a
good hide for observing humans in their natural environment. The wind ran their scent
up to the rock. A stream gleamed between them. The young cat saw, for the first time
ever, several of these two-legged creatures in thatched, open caves, moving slowly
about or sitting with staring pudgy faces awash in flickering blue light, or talking,
yackety-yak. Fire trailed smoke, the embers like evil eyes in squat, black metal. She
whimpered with fear and curiosity, her snarl glistening in the flat glare of the unnatural
light.
‘Can you smell them?’ Mother’s breath, close.
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‘< no. So many smells <’
‘Search for the animal.’
They breathed for a while.
‘Yes. Got it. Black flowers. Piss. Fruity. Not warthog? Monkey? Smells tasty.’
‘No! When you smell that, hide! They are terrible!’
‘They don’t look like much,’ she sniffed. ‘Like they can’t run or climb or fight. And
look! You’re right. Such small