The Boy Next Door (11 page)

I think of Daddy, Mummy, Rosanna, Bridgette, Ian.

In my room I take out the newspaper article from the pink handbag. I look at the picture and then I lift the paper up and
I put my lips gently on his hair.

“
You wouldn’t believe
I was with a chick last night. A fricking expat. I was over at the curry munchers, Naiks down at Lobengula, trying to pick
out a shirt, and she just comes over and says that the blue one really brings out my eyes. These European chicks as forward
as you like. And hairy as hell. And the curry muncher is standing there, grinning like a fricking monkey, ‘yes, yes, the lady
is quite right, quite right.’ So I buy the thing and head out of the shop, and can you believe she is standing by the door
asking if I want a drink. Jeez, man. No chance I’m saying no to free booze. Heh, what’s the matter with you? Anyways, over
at her place she starts telling me that there’s hobo shit going on at Matopos. She’s Swedish and working with one of these
NGOs, development something or the other, one of those fundies running around. And the waterworks start flowing when she starts
on about how the Fifth Brigade is busy tshaying people left, right, and center. Speciality: broken ankles, wrists. Man, even
talk of bodies dumped in Antelope mine.”

We’re at Mzilikazi Arts and Crafts Centre. We’re sitting on a bench under a jacaranda. He’s chewing a biltong.

“Jeez, luck, and she lays it on thick how nice it is to meet a white Zimbabwean who isn’t—what was the word she used again?—‘prejudiced,’
that’s it, prejudiced. What a bunch of dunderheads these, ‘I’ve come to save Africa’ whities. So I go on about how I’m a farmer
trying to contribute to the new Zimbabwe, and boy, does she lap it up hook, line, and sinker. For fundies man, they can be
dwaas.”

He takes out a strip of biltong from the packet. “Here, do you want some?”

“No, thank you.”

“Fricking good, impala.”

“A boy tried to kiss me at the youth group.”

“Did he manage or did you tshaya him good?”

“Where’s Mphiri?”

“Mphiri? What’s that to you?”

“I… I just haven’t seen him around lately. Is he all right?”

“Yah well, I took him to Renkini some days ago. I told the mudala I was hightailing it out of here and he had to go back to
makhaya. Talking about waterworks. The fossil starts crying and saying why am I chasing him away, has he done something bad.
I say, ‘Look, Mphiri, I am leaving, you must leave, too.’ He says that he will take care of the place. So I try to get through
to him that the place is for sale, that there will be a new baas, I felt like a real wally, you don’t know what that man has
done… anyways I put him on the bus, with a letter in case he gets stopped at a roadblock.”

“Are you selling the house?”

“Not that anyone’s queuing to buy the dump. Hey, maybe your old man could take it, expand his business. I’ll give him a damn
good offer. Super discount. I should have a word with him before I take off. You know the history of the two places, don’t
you?”

“Which two places?”

“For an educated chick you’re slow. The two houses, what else? They used to be one lot. Oupa, Grandpa McKenzie, thought it
was fricking genius to have the two houses facing each other. He stashed Grandma McKenzie over at your end and carried on
like a fricking bachelor at the other end. You check the goffles hanging around the bottle store, all McKenzies I reckon.”

He makes a noise like something is stuck in his throat.

“But then my old man must have needed cash and he sold the place. I reckon it was the bitch who got him to. Shame, I used
to have a lekker time at your place, used to hide out there when the old man got hobo drunk or when the bitch….”

“You mean your father sold it to my father?”

“You’re slow, but at least you’re catching on.”

I try to remember the big day when I came with Daddy to the house. I try to remember the white man who stood by the gate giving
Daddy the keys and papers. Was that Mr. McKenzie Senior? But all I remember is Daddy sitting in the car crying. We didn’t
even go straight into the new house that day. Our new house.

“Hey, I think I caught sight of your war vet down by Queens Bottle Store. He looked as mad as hell. Ten or so of them shouting,
clenched fists, kicking dust. He should watch out. He’ll end up where the sun don’t shine.”

On our way back he suddenly stops the car.

“A little detour,” he says.

He does a U-turn and we drive towards Belmont.

I think of Uncle Robson who works at the Lobels’ factory down one of these side roads; whenever he comes to visit, he brings
us two or three loaves of bread, which have not risen well or are slightly burnt, and some buns.

We pass the industrial sites (in my head I say out loud all the names of the factories along the road) and finally he stops
at a gate.

He shows the guard some papers and says his name and then I hear, “Sarah Price.”

I read the sign on the guard post: welcome to ingutsheni mental hospital.

After checking the papers and names against the information on his clipboard, the guard unlocks the gate.

Ian parks the car in the visitors’ section.

“Wait here,” he says. “And keep the doors locked. I won’t be long.”

I sit in the car and watch him walk up the dirt path, jump up some steps, and wait at the door.

I watch him disappear inside.

On the dirt path there is a man mumbling to himself and twisting his hair. Every now and then he throws his hands in the air
and clutches at it as if he is trying to catch butterflies or flying ants. Then he goes back to mumbling and twisting his
hair. I turn my head and watch the woman sitting on a bench suddenly jump up and stamp her feet on the ground. And then she
bends down and starts scratching at it with her fingers. I see attendants in white walking along paths, and over by the walls,
there are men, women standing. I am hot in the car. I unwind the window. The air is so still and quiet. One of the attendants
looks at me and waves. I wave back. I put the palm of my hand on the metal of the car. It’s burning. I look by the bench again
and see the attendant who waved pull the woman from the ground and call out to the men and women by the wall. There are cars
and trucks outside, but this place seems to make everything silent, a world in itself.

“Shit, I hate this,” he says when he comes back. “I’d rather be dead than…”

And then he’s quiet.

He drives for a long while, holding the steering wheel so tight as if he wants to snap it in two.

At a robot he says, “When I’ve made some real dosh I’ll find something better, private. I’ll sort it out.”

He is talking to himself, making plans, and then he remembers me. “Now you
really
know Bullies, warts and all, heh.”

He looks at me and tries to smile. I look out at the robot and watch it turn green.

For a long time we drive without talking until I say to him, “Do… do white people get put in there, too?”

He brakes hard and for a while there is just his breathing.

He opens the door, slams it, and stands outside.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean…”

He is punching his right palm with his left fist.

“No problem,” he snaps, looking at the stray dog that has stopped to take a look at us. “Just a question.”

But he doesn’t answer it and I don’t ask him again.

I can’t sleep
.

I go to the kitchen and I take out the Histalax cough mixture. I take the bottle to my room. I put it on my lips. I open my
mouth. I drink and drink.

Geraldine always carried a bottle with her at school when a test was coming. She said it calmed her nerves. She would take
swigs of it in the toilets.

I put the bottle back in the fridge and I go back to my room. I lie on my bed. I see Ian standing. He’s wearing a blue shirt,
which brings out his eyes. He’s swaying this way and that. And he is saying something I can’t hear. And then, it’s morning.

The room smells of chloroform and the frogs are lying on the white sheet waiting. The frog makes me want to cry. He should
be out jumping and croaking, but he is here waiting for me to cut him up, to show off his heart and lungs, pin them on a board.
I don’t want to do it. But I have to. I pick up the scalpel and I press it on the frog’s stomach. I can’t remember how I’m
supposed to start. All the way down, all the way up? I look sideways and see Tracey pushing the blade in; I copy her.

Afterwards I sit on a bench in the quadrangle. I take out my peanut butter sandwich and feel sick looking at in my hand.

I think of Bridgette and I try to stop. I try and try not to remember.

“Eeeeee…!”

I look up and see a bunch of girls who’ve come back from Chicken Licken, pushing and shoving each other, laughing and shouting,
their hands clutching paper bags streaked with oil, full of chicken burgers and chips, knocking against their thighs.

I see Sophia turn around, see me. I see her whisper something to Brenda, give her a high five. I see her walk over, throwing
her head back, laughing at something one of her friends has called out. And here she is now, hands on hips, chewing gum, ready
to have some more fun.

“Everyone’s saying your friend killed her baby, shame.”

She blows a big bubble and pops it. She takes the gum out of her mouth, stretches it out and rolls it into a ball again, puts
it back in her mouth.

I think of how she got a week’s detention because Miss Turner caught her reading
Lace
in class. The blockbuster was on her lap, her exercise book on top of it.

Ever since the book became hot news, Sophia and her gang have been calling other girls “bitches.”

I think of Bridgette and me right at the last table in Grasshut, Bridgette reading the juiciest bits to me using a small torch
because it was so dark, sucking her chocolate milk shake in between.

“Stop, I don’t want to hear anymore; shush, you’re too loud.”

Some of the words made me feel funny.

“Lins, don’t be so squeamish. You can learn lots from her.”

Her
was the film siren Lili, who was looking for her mother who had abandoned her a as a baby.

She would skip over the boring bits and go to the parts where something juicy was happening.

“Lins, look how you can give yourself pleasure without a man.”

“No, Bridgette, stop!” And we would end up giggling, the two of us.

I look up at Sophia and my head is sore with Bridgette.

“She thought she was so smart. They’ll put her in jail, you know. Maybe even you. If you confess…”

“Oh, shut up,” I say, getting up.

She stands there with her mouth wide open.

I hope she chokes on her bubble gum and dies.

There is a bomb alert at Woolworths. Someone has left a suitcase in one of the aisles. So I cross the road to OK’s and get
a bunch of Cadbury’s Flakes. The Fawcett’s security guard looks at me and I walk right past him, right out the door, and I
do not turn my head once to check if his eyes are still glued on me.

I sit on my bed and break the chocolate into tiny, tiny pieces. I lick my hands and stick them in the chocolate, and then
I start licking it off my hands. I do this until there is no more.

I go into the bathroom. I lock the door. I look at my face in the mirror. I watch myself put my finger in my mouth; I push
my finger as far back as it will go. I hold my hands on the sink and watch it fill with chocolate.

I go out of the house, over to the back.

Rosanna is lying on the mat, making a strange noise.

“The baby is coming,” she gasps. “The ambulance. Call the ambulance, Sisi.”

I stand there and then I run back into the house. I cannot think of the phone number. I cannot think of where the phone book
is. And then I remember Daddy has all the emergency numbers on the wall above the phone. I dial seven, one, seven, one, seven.
The phone rings and rings. No one answers. It rings and rings. I put it down and dial again. It rings and rings. No one answers.
I run out of the house. Rosanna is moaning and crying. I run out over to Number 18 shouting, “The baby, the baby, Rosanna!”

Ian walks out of the boy’s kaya. He’s rubbing his eyes as if he’s been asleep. He’s wearing a blue shirt, the buttons done
up wrong.

“What the…”

“It’s Rosanna, the baby’s coming, I don’t know…”

“So call the fricking ambulance.”

“I tried; no one’s answering.”

“Jeez man.”

He jumps over the fence and stands outside the door.

“Jeez man, she’s in a bad way. We’ll put her in the car. Take her to the hospital. Try the ambulance again.”

I go back to the house, try, but still no answer.

Ian tries to lift Rosanna, but she starts to scream. “No, no, oh, oh…”

“The baby’s head, it’s fricking huge.”

I look and I see it. The baby coming out.

“Put your hands under, Lindiwe. You don’t want the little bugger to get concussed or something.”

Rosanna is pushing and pushing and then, just like that, all of the baby is out, in my hands.

The baby is wet and slimy and crying.

“Put him against her stomach, so he gets some heat or something. Does she have a blanket?”

I put a blanket over the baby.

“I’ll go and get an ambulance,” he says.

I stay behind.

Rosanna is shivering.

I look down at the baby.

Someone comes into the room.

It’s Mummy.

She looks up at Rosanna, then down at the baby.

“It’s just a girl,” she says and goes away.

The ambulance arrives. They take Rosanna and the baby away.

I look for Ian, but he is gone.

I go in the kitchen and Mummy is there. She is humming. The Lord Is My Shepherd.

“Lindiwe, my child.”

“Yes, mummy.”

I wait for a bit and then I say, “I have to go and study.”

“You are a good child. Don’t study too hard.”

I wait for Daddy by the gate.

When he comes home, I tell him about Rosanna and the baby.