Out of Shadows (24 page)

I went straight into my old man's and Matilda's room to hunt for the keys to the car. I was planning to be long gone before they realized.

Everyone knew Mermaid's Pool. About forty kilometers out of town on the Shamva Road, it was an oasis in the bush where nature had crafted one of the best playgrounds in the country. The pool itself was a huge gouge in the rock, black with depth so you could easily dive in without touching the bottom. There was a rope swing and a zip line, but the best part was the twenty meters of steep granite you could slide down in fast water because the place was on a hillside.

I saw Adele straightaway sitting toward the top of the slope. She was alone. I sat beside her and she reacted as though I'd been away for minutes, and for the next quarter of an hour we chatted about nothing. I was happy to delay what I'd really come to say.

“Do you . . . That is, has he . . . Does he ever . . .” I took a breath. “Does Ivan ever hurt you?”

I sensed Adele retract. She finished her smoke and grabbed another.

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, does he hurt you? Physically. Does he grab you, or play too roughly?” I remembered seeing bruises on her legs. “Or hit you?”

“Of course not. You're not being very nice. I don't think I like you at the moment.”

“I'm not trying to make you uneasy.” I moved to put my hand on her shoulder but she wouldn't let me. I'd gone too far. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to.”

“Why are you being like this, Bobby?”

“Because. Because . . . he's been acting strange recently.”

“Ivan's always acting strangely.” She bit her lip. “Isn't that what everyone likes about him? Why did you come here?”

“You're the closest one to him.”

“Am I?” she turned, looking hurt. “You could have fooled me. He thinks far more about his
gang
than me.”

“Yes, but you're closer. You know what I'm trying to say.”

“
Ja
, I know. And I've a good mind to tell you to voetsek and mind your own bloody business.”

“I'm not trying to pry.”

“Yes, you are, that's exactly what you're doing. Why don't
you
tell me something, Bobby?”

“What?”

“Does Ivan know you're here today? With me?”

“Of course not.”

“Any reason I shouldn't let it slip when he phones tonight? I didn't invite you, I've done nothing wrong.”

Now
I
was nervous.

I watched a couple of kids slide by and smack the water at the bottom. Suddenly I saw how bad an idea this had been.

“I should go,” I said. “My old man will be shitting mangoes about the car.”

At last I got a smile.

“You know you shouldn't have come.”

“I know.”

“But I'm glad you did.” Her warm fingers briefly touched my hand. “I was so bored. And it's nice having someone I can talk to.”

“Where are your friends?”

“Not here.” She began playing with her hair. “Sharon wanted to bring her brother, and if Ivan found out . . . It's less complicated to come on my own. And then you phoned anyway. I told them I wasn't feeling good.”

“Oh,” I said stupidly and stood up.

“You're not really going, are you? Stay a bit longer.”

“I wasn't joking about my old man.”

“I'm quite thirsty. Can you get us a Coke? Stay and drink with me, and we can talk properly.” She shaded her eyes from the sun. I thought:
Marry me
. “Please? I'll answer anything you like—
apart
from that—and I promise I won't be such a bitch.”

“Are you sure?”

“It'll be good.”

I walked down to the store and didn't even wait for the change from five bucks. But as I got back up the slope I saw Adele wasn't on her own anymore. Some guy had taken my space, and an icy shiver gripped the skin around my neck when I recognized the back of Ivan's head.

My feet rooted to the spot.

They were about thirty feet away. I was coming from the side, and fortunately he had his back turned. Adele was smiling and looking at him with surprise-wide eyes, and even though she must have seen me coming she did that thing of looking by not looking.

They stood. I shrank into the bushes. Now they were walking away. Adele had picked up her towel and her bag, and they were moving down the edge of the rock toward the parking lot, Ivan making her hold his hand.

Had he seen me? Had she told him? Was she telling him now?

No, I decided.

But
what was he doing here?

I watched their cars reverse out and move off into the distance, sunlight glinting. I could taste blood and felt a hole I'd chewed in my lip.

I gave the Cokes to a couple of piccanins playing by the side of the road, and when I tried to unlock the Peugeot I dropped the keys three times because my hands wouldn't keep still.

I lay on my bed
and smoked all night. I didn't feel I'd slept but I guess I must have done because suddenly the unwanted day was pushing against the curtain. As the sun broke the horizon, I was already out of the house, walking the road to the cemetery for the first time in a long time.

I found my mother's grave and sat beside it.

“Mum,” I said eventually. The word sounded weird yet strangely comforting. I'd missed it. “Sorry I haven't been to see you for a while.”

For once I went back to school as late as possible, moving silently through the house while everybody was showering and getting ready for supper. I went to my study and closed the door behind me until, all too quickly, the shout for roll call came.

Ivan was already at the head of the line preparing to read off names. I stood close by. It was going to be another hot evening, although that probably had little to do with the damp hair matted against my brow.

“Howzit.” He flicked his eyebrows.

He looked serious. Or did he always look like that?

“Howz,” I said back.

“Good weekend?”

“Not bad.”

“Club any good?”

For a moment I fumbled. Then I remembered. “Place was wanked, reckon I could find better.”

He seemed happy with that.

I didn't see him again for the rest of the night, not until after ten, when most of the house was asleep.

I was sitting at my desk when he came, in the dim pool of light that my lamp made. Books lay strewn and open, though I was finding it hard to soak up a single word. I'd spent hours gazing out through the window. The cicadas screeched and my head pulsed noisily, sometimes I couldn't tell which was which.

I hadn't heard my door open or Ivan coming in. He was just there, sitting on my bed, removing his tie and playing with it in his hands like a hangman might play with a noose.

I didn't speak. On a normal occasion surely he would have found that strange? I thought. But this wasn't a normal occasion, and he just sat and toyed with the fabric serpent between his fingers.

“So,” he spoke at long last. “Town was good, was it?”

He knew. He knew very well.

I swallowed. My throat clicked.

“You mustn't blame Adele. I was the one who asked to see her. I insisted.”

He didn't respond.

I couldn't take the silence. I couldn't take the gloom, either, and I moved across the room to turn on the main light, but Ivan must have thought I was leaving because suddenly I was being propelled the last few feet. My head hit the door and
bounced off. Stars flashed in my eyes. The next thing I knew I was back at my desk, smashing against it, pain flaring up my legs as Ivan leaned me further and further until I was sure something would snap.

I gave in. Now I was on my back and helpless, lying over my books with Ivan pinning an arm across my chest. I could barely see his face. He was an outline as the lamp blinded me, coming closer, its heat getting stronger and stronger until the searing bulb was eating into my skin. I shouted out, twisting. Ivan's hold was too heavy and my cheek burned.

“You picked the wrong chick to steal, Jacko,” he said over my cries. “A fine mate you turned out to be.”

I spluttered. “I didn't . . . I wasn't trying to . . .”

The heat vanished. He hauled me up and tossed me onto the bed. Two quick punches and I was curled in agony.

“Don't bullshit me. Why else would you have gone there? Tell me. What were you doing if it wasn't to try and take my woman?”

What could I say? The truth?

He backed away. Almost as an afterthought he lurched forward and slapped me several times around the head.

“I trusted you. Despite my better judgment I took you in and made you my friend, and this is how you repay me. Why, Jacko?” He kicked my feet. “Tell me why. What have I done to you?”

I groaned.

“I wasn't . . .”

“Don't
lie
to me,” he yelled. “I
knew
you were lying. I didn't want to believe it. I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but you had to go and screw it all up. And I'm the idiot with egg on my face for opening the door and inviting you to come and be one of us. Well, not any longer. You can fuck off and die. You'll regret this, I promise you. I'm Head Boy; you have no idea how miserable I can make your final days here.”

He headed out. At the door he paused without turning.

“Don't you get it? You needed me. You could have been part of something great. You still need me, but now you're going to find out what life's really like.”

Since then I've gone over and over those words in my head, poring over the irony of how it was actually completely the opposite of that. For what he had planned,
Ivan
needed
me
, and he'd known it. He was in far greater agony.

I probably could have made it
.

Despite everything they threw at me—the names, the jibes, the stares, ants' nests in my bed, glass under my pillow, the shit smeared on my study walls, even a snake in my wardrobe—I reckon I could have kept my head down, focused on my studies and got through relatively unscathed.

The problem was Weekend.

Every night I saw his face as I tried to sleep, and I'd hear the words again and again, always the same.

And then there are the children who do not return
.

In my dreams I saw the piccanins with burned and acid-scorched skin—and Tuesday, of course, with his missing eye—and I would invariably wake chasing a cry into the darkness. I didn't like sleeping anymore, so I didn't mind that, increasingly, I couldn't. But my studies were suffering, too, and all I could think about was Ivan.

In the week that marked the midway point, with half term approaching, I returned from class to find my study turned
over again, although this time was slightly different because it was as though they'd been looking for something.

What did I have they could possibly want? I thought as I put the room back together.

My heart beat faster and faster when I realized I couldn't find the keys to the rifle room.

I heard Ivan's study open. There was a murmur of voices and a snigger before they drifted off. I dared to crack open my door; off on one of their walks, by the looks of it, Klompie and Pittman each with a hefty stick.

And then there are the children
 . . .

I gave them another fifteen seconds before slipping out in their wake.

My stomach rolled as they headed straight for the rifle room. But they didn't stop, instead carrying on through the classrooms, past the woodwork shops, right on out of the top gate. Now they were on the dirt track there, a popular back route for smokers because it was rarely used and, more importantly, it met the main road right opposite the Zama Zama bottle store, far away enough from the school's official entrance not to be spotted.

They veered off the track and hovered under a msasa tree to light up, and when they were done they moved on again, digging out coins from their pockets.

Just coming for a smoke, picking up more illicit supplies. That was all.

Zama Zama was little more than a concrete block under a tin roof, the front wall splashed red and white by a giant Coca-Cola logo. The coast was clear. Ivan stole into the gaping black mouth that was the way in while the other two hung about around the side. Apart from them the place was deserted, it was too hot, everything was still.

I watched and waited.

Eventually Ivan emerged with a couple of bottles. The
store owner was right behind him, also carrying beers, and Ivan indicated for him to go ahead.

“
Mazviita, shamwari
.” Thank you, my friend. “You are number one.”

The owner—a short man of about sixty with eager eyes and a boyish face—beamed. He'd be making a buck out of this, maybe even two.

He walked on.

Out of the man's sight, Klompie and Pittman were waiting, tapping their sticks on the ground, getting ready for something.

Ivan let the man get to within a few feet of the corner then paused to quickly put his beers down. Now he crept up on the storekeeper's back.

I didn't like it. This wasn't right. I looked around for anything and found it.

The stone hit exactly where I wanted it to go: not at them, they would have known for sure it was me, but into a stack of wooden crates. Sound ricocheted and instantly the three of them were scampering into the bush, scarcely pausing to glance at the bewildered store owner. By the time they passed me, heading back to school, they'd started to laugh and joke.

Would they have actually done anything? Was it all in my mind?

Yes, I decided as I ran back, and no. In that order. And I had to do something about it.

Bully looked over his half-moons and I knew I was wasting my time. I hadn't really expected anything else. Ivan wasn't just Head Boy, he'd been Mr. Bullman's outright choice. An attack on Ivan was an attack on Bully. Bully was, in short, in league with the Devil, a fact made more terrifying because he had no idea.