Читать книгу The Choice Between Us - Edyth Bulbring - Страница 5

Dear Teen Agony Aunt

I want to divorce my mother. Please advise me how to do this. ASAP.

Yours sincerely

Miserable At Home (15 years old)

Yes, I wrote this email. In February, a whole month ago. I’m still waiting for a response but I guess Aunty Agony thought I was trying to be funny and deleted it. Except, I wasn’t joking. See, my name is Jenna Moore but I’m also Miserable At Home.

I use the “home” word loosely. It’s just a house where I live with my mom until my dad discovers my existence and rescues me from domestic hell.

The idea of divorcing my mother didn’t come from nowhere. I read about a sixteen-year-old girl who actually tried it. In her case the dad was the problem. He was too strict on her. My mom doesn’t care what time I go to bed, if I do my homework, what my report says, or if I bunk school. She isn’t an uptight dictator, she’s just totally hopeless.

It’s dark outside, and I’m in bed listening to the rain thudding on the roof. Trickling down my bedroom wall. The cooking pot propped against my feet, catching the water dripping from the ceiling, is close to overflowing. Plop. Plop. Plop. I’m not kidding. The roof’s a colander.

My mother tiptoes into my bedroom and swops the pot with a bucket, trying to make as little noise as possible. She’s not big on confrontation and believes in letting dogs and hormonally challenged teenagers sleep.

“I thought you got the roof fixed?” My voice – soft, but hard – stops her at the doorway. Busted!

Our roof has been fixed more times than I’ve had sex. Not that I’ve had any, so it’s not such a hard number to beat. My mom collects hot handymen like spare change. The first “builder” was Useless Trevor, then Useless Graham and after them guys whose names I can’t remember. They all said that the roof was as tightly sealed as a priest’s lips after confession. They took our cash and ran, leaving us to deal with the leaks.

“Maybe I can track Phineas down. He was cute. But he must have overlooked a couple of things.” My mother shrugs, wrinkles her nose in a way some men find appealing. Yes, Useless Phineas, that’s him. He was the last one not to fix the roof.

“What an awesome storm!” She laughs as lightning cracks and rain slams down on our tin roof.

Yes, awesome.

If you met my mother you’d probably think she was cool. “Call me Holly. Mrs Moore is too old. Jenna calls me Holly too, don’t you, baby?” I do. Always have. Calling her Mom would be like Cinderella’s sister trying to squeeze her fat foot into the glass slipper. It could never, ever fit.

“I’m too young to lay all that mumsy crap on you, that’s for other people. We’re different, I want us to be besties.” She pulls me close and squeezes the breath out of me as she says this.

Like, really? Why would a fifteen-year-old girl want to be best friends with a thirty-three-year-old woman?

If your dad met Holly and me he’d look us both up and down and his eyes would settle on her. Maybe for a bit too long. On the belly ring peeping out from under her T-shirt or the daisy tat on her left shoulder. He’d probably say something like: “So, which one of you is the older sister?” It’s sickening.

I can’t introduce you to my dad because he isn’t around. Hasn’t been for the past fifteen years. A bit scarce, really, like world peace.

Holly got “knocked up” during her first year at university. Whoopsie! As if someone just knocked against her and she fell. Up rather than down.

Wingardium Leviosa! And there I was, her little floating bun, fresh out of the oven.

Holly was open with me about it right from the get-go. Some mothers don’t play it straight with their kids. Let’s face it, there’s a two-thousand-year religion, courtesy of a mother who didn’t ’fess up. No, Holly’s a fierce believer that honesty is the best policy even when it guts your four-year-old kid, and actually, a few white lies would have done the trick in the meantime.

“Sorry, baby, your dad and I just didn’t work out and he wasn’t too keen on a kid. He ran for the hills. But you’ve got me, haven’t you?”

Class act.

“He was a really nice guy, just commitment phobic. Maybe next year I’ll make contact and the two of you can meet up. Now’s not a good time.”

It was never a good time.

Holly fishes in my laundry basket and pulls out a red-and-white checked dress, giving it a couple of vicious swipes to straighten out the creases. “I’ll get to the washing later on. But this one’s fine for school today, isn’t it?”

“Please, just get out of my room and leave me alone.”

I’m still pissed off at Holly. It was about a month ago that we had the most brutal conversation of my life (fight, actually). I don’t know if Holly and I can ever go back to being normal again. In our case, abnormal.

I found out something she’d kind of forgotten to tell me. For Holly, this isn’t lying. But it wasn’t the sorry-I-used-the-last-of-the-milk-in-my-coffee forgetfulness.

I’d been on at Holly about my father. Was he tall, like me? Did he also hate cauliflower? When can we meet? And then she lost it with me. I guess she was hung over.

“Enough already, Jenna. Give it up, won’t you? He doesn’t even know you exist, okay?”

Boom! Her words were a hand grenade in my face.

“You never told him about me?”

Holly turned away and filled a glass of water at the sink. She gulped it down, dribbling at her chin. “I’m sorry, baby, I really am. Please, just let it go.”

Let it go. Give it up. Like deleting spam clogging up my inbox.

I got up and locked myself in the bathroom. I stared in the mirror. My face was out of focus. I was only half a person, not even that. I didn’t exist. To some man out there, I wasn’t even born. I was nothing.

I’d forgiven Holly a truck-load of crap behaviour because I thought she got ditched – being a single mom is tough. But all along it was her decision. She’d kept my father from me.

I pull on the manky school dress and join Holly in the lounge. It’s so much more than just a lounge. Hell, yeah! It’s also a kitchen, dining room and TV room. It’s the kind of space that multitasks – an open-plan room the size of an iPad.

“Well, that’s Craig. History.” Holly switches off her phone and bites into a peanut butter and jam sandwich.

“You dumped Craig?” I wipe the peanut butter and crumbs off the counter and screw the tops back on the jars. “He was nicer than the last one.” On a scale of one to ten, Craig is a three. Her boyfriends don’t often make it past five.

Holly sets her sandwich down on the side table. She avoids plates, they lead to washing up. “The dude dumped me. But he had issues.”

Holly’s boyfriends all have issues. She’s got rubbish taste in men. Her type: always good-looking and never any good.

She stretches out her legs and puts her feet up on the arm of the couch. It’s a dead person’s couch. I take my spot on a dead person’s chair, chew on a carrot and stare at the pattern on a dead person’s carpet. All our furniture comes from the Hospice shop, a lot of our clothes too. The ones that really creep me out are those with a name written on the inside of the collar. Always grimy with some dead person’s neck grease.

Holly frowns at her toes and picks at a nail. “I might be late tonight. You’ll buy some groceries on your way home from school? I’m not sure I’ll get it together.”

Holly and I are a partnership and the household chores are split down the middle. She does the splitting and she’s not so hot with maths. Seriously, this partnership is no longer working for me. Aunty Agony needs to stop agonising and get back to me ASAP. When I find my father I never want to see Holly again.

I grab my satchel and my lunchbox. I’m going to be late for school. (Thanks, Holly, for coming home at three and waking me up. Lost your front door key. Again?) I scribble a note on my exam pad. Jenna woke up with a sore throat this morning and I thought she should sleep in. Please excuse her for being late. I pass the note to Holly but she waves it away. “You do it,” she says, licking jam off her fingers.

I sign the note and tuck it into my blazer pocket. “You not working today?”

She yawns. “Just a bit of admin and a pamphlet round. The market is totes rubbish these days.”

If you spoke to Holly on the phone you’d think you were speaking to a teenager. There’s only one word for it: pitiful.

Holly’s an estate agent – one of the million jobs she’s had over the past fifteen years. For now, she sells houses to families who are looking for “real homes”. Funny, that. Mostly she doesn’t sell. Just another thing she’s useless at.

Here’s her selling pitch – it’s genius: “If you move the couch away from the wall you’ll spot the damp. Believe me, under this new paint job the walls are dripping wet. The pipes are rotten.” She beats the honesty is the best policy to a pulp. By the time her sole mandate’s expired the seller’s already lined up another estate agent he can trust to lie.

“I can’t help it, baby. I don’t like to mislead people.” Like that crook who sold us our leaky shack eight years ago.

I leave Holly picking at her toenails and check my appearance in the bathroom mirror. I suck in my cheeks and stare at my reflection. I arrange my hair into a messy bun and use an earbud to smudge my eyeliner. I scan my teeth. All good. I practise smiling, not just with my mouth, but with my eyes. It’s Holly’s smile, flirty but fun. I try frowning instead.

In the lounge, Holly stretches up her arms to me. Her hugs are always fierce. “I love you more than all the stars in the sky.”

I pull away. Hating her.

“More than all the planets in the universe,” she says.

Outside, the rain has stopped and the sun screams down at me from a sky washed clean and blue. This is the way of Joburg summers. This city doesn’t do things half-heartedly. You want a thunderstorm, Joburg will give you one. You want sun? Don’t forget your sunscreen.

On my way to school I pass the For Sale signs outside the houses. Real Homes say the signs, with photos of Holly grinning at me. She’s wearing a dead person’s glasses, even though her eyesight is twenty-twenty. It was my idea: Like, get real, Holly. Who wants to buy a house from someone who looks like a cheerleader?

The security guard outside the red brick building opens the gates and lifts the boom.

No firearms or alcohol are permitted on the school premises. Spot tests for drugs will be conducted at the discretion of the school. Underneath this, a No Smoking sign.

Welcome to St Virgilius. Virgins, as me and my fellow inmates call it. Not that we’d confess to being saintly or virtuous even if you beat us over the head with a crucifix.

I hand in my note at the secretary’s office. She’s on the phone but raises an index finger. “Camp fees, Jenna. They were due last week.”

“I’m sure my mom already paid.” Ha! No chance of that. People who can’t sell houses don’t have a lot of cash. “I’ll get her to call you.” I duck out.

I fetch some books from my locker, head for the classroom, and run a hand down the side of my dress. I shortened the hem last week and it’s halfway up my thighs. I’ve got good legs. Holly’s legs. I open the classroom door and try to slip past the teacher in front of the whiteboard.

Andile Skhosana turns around as I reach my desk.

“Nice of you to join us.” The heat rises in my neck and into my cheeks. Someone sniggers.

“See me after class.” He turns back to the board.

See me after class. See me after class. The words beat a tom-tom in my chest. He said it like it was a date. Sort of.

After class, I hang around at my desk. My hands are damp and I have this terrible urge to scratch my left eye. I rub like mad and, too late, I remember the eyeliner.

Panic!

My knuckle is smudged black, so I rub the other eye to balance out the weird panda look. Andile glances up and beckons, his finger crooked. The last girl leaves, shutting the door behind her.

It’s just Andile and me. Alone.

“I’ve got a note from my mother. It’s this flu that’s being going around, I haven’t been able to shake it.”

He riffles through a pile of papers, his head down, not looking at me. His hair is thick and springy, overdue for a cut. He’s not one of those men who’s going to go bald when he gets old.

Maybe I could touch it. Just softly.

“It made me late for class. I’m sorry.”

He looks up and smiles. There’s only one word for him: snack. No, scratch that. He’s a full meal. Andile Skhosana is hot. Sizzling. On a scale of one to Michael B Jordan, he’s an eleven. Think Chadwick Boseman meets Childish Gambino – without the boep – and you get the idea. His teeth are straight. But not in that fake way from wearing braces. So I guess he didn’t wear them as a child. And the scar on the side of his hand tells me he cut himself, maybe with a knife. It’s an old scar, though, and probably happened when he was a kid.

“Oh no, it’s your essay I wanted to talk to you about. I handed them back at the beginning of the lesson.” He finds my essay and passes it to me.

His voice is Morgan Freeman and his accent murmurs private school. I haven’t found out which one. He tends to end his sentences with a question mark, even when he isn’t asking a question, as though he’s interested in my response, even when I’m not expected to make one. It’s like we’re having a real conversation.

“It was good, Jen. You really seemed to go the extra mile.” He smiles again. This time his mouth is closed, so I don’t see his teeth.

I clutch the essay. He calls me Jen. I like the way his tongue touches the top of his palate when he says it. Like a caress.

Jennnnnnnnn.

“What do you mean, extra mile? I ran a marathon for this essay.”

He laughs and shakes his head. “Funny girl, Jen.”

I look down so he can’t see the stupid grin on my face. I made him laugh! I’m funny girl Jen. Not needy, whiney, pissed-off Jenna. I’m different when I’m with him. Brilliant, funny.

“It was like you got inside their skin. It’s a real talent.”

I shrug. “I love history.”

I love you.

“If you ever want to read more on the Second World War, I’ve got loads of books at home I could lend you.”

Andile lives in a flat in Killarney. I saw this on his phone bill while snooping through his classroom desk last month. And I’ve gone round to the block to check it out. His fifth-floor view of the skyline is brilliant. The flats are selling for more than two million. Great views. Located near the shops and Gautrain, the advert says. One day I’ll get to see inside his flat.

He is new at Virgins this year, and it’s his first teaching position. He studied to be a lawyer at university but the law and him didn’t work out. From what he’s told us, I guess he had a problem defending crooks and bastards. History’s his passion now.

The whole class is in love with him, me most of all. He’s twenty-eight and he’s got two hundred and fifty-three friends on Facebook. I’m not one of them, but his security settings are rubbish – like most people’s.

“Everything all right at home, Jen? You’re looking a bit dark around the eyes. Nothing troubling you, I hope?”

I shake my head as the door opens and a girl shoves her face inside the room. Xoliswa is my ride-or-die homie. We’ve been as tight as a pair of True Religion denims since nursery school. Her hair is a giant afro. No more pretty corn-rows or braids. Natural, she calls it, and refuses to tie it up, even when threatened with detention. She does shave her legs, though. There are limits to natural, obvs. I flash her my death stare: Go away. She gives me a stink eye and ducks.

“Don’t be late for your next class.” Andile walks me to the door, his hand poised above my shoulder. Not touching, but nearly.

Please, please, touch me – but he never does.

Soo Ling is waiting for me in the corridor. She’s the third wheel in my friendship with Xoliswa. She balances us out, but sometimes slows us down. Soo Ling and Xoliswa are pretty much my only friends at Virgins. I’m picky about who I hang with, okay?

“C’mon, Jenna, what did Randy Andy want?” Soo Ling says. “Tell me, tell me!”

We hurry towards the maths class.

“He likes me. He says I’m smart and I make him laugh. He sort of nearly touched me.” I give a slow nod. Oh, yes. “And I almost stroked his hair. It’s springy and soft. Gorgeous, like a poodle’s.”

Soo Ling slaps me on the arm and giggles. “Hey, girlfriend, don’t let Xoliswa hear you say that. Andy’s not a dog, you know.” She glances over my shoulder at Xoliswa, who is collecting her books from the locker. “And then what happened?”

“Xoliswa kind of interrupted us just when things were getting interesting.”

Soo Ling rolls her eyes at me and pokes the side of her mouth with her tongue. “Yeah, yeah,” she says.

I can’t help noticing the pores on her chin. I’m sure they’ve always been there, but for some reason they irritate the hell out of me today.

“What’s ‘Yeah, yeah’? He invited me around to his flat. This weekend.” So, I lie. It’s not a biggie. He did sort of invite me round to borrow some of his books. Sort of.

“Shuddup! He never did. You’re such a liar!” Soo Ling nibbles at her bottom lip.

“Suck my hairy balls, biiitch.” There are some days when I think our friendship has reached a dead end. It’s like the longest-running soapie on TV.

“Well, are you going? That’s if he really asked you?”

“Maybe. Just don’t say anything. Especially not to Xoliswa.”

Xoliswa’s developed a God complex lately, always judging. Last week when she saw me giving the security guard my school sandwich she’d picked a stupid fight about it.

“What’s this, Jenna? An attack of white guilt?”

“Jeez, man, take your head out of your arse. He’s poor and hungry, he appreciates it, okay?”

“Really? Have you ever asked him? Why do you people always make assumptions about people of colour? It’s so patronising. If he was white you’d never dream of doing it.”

For some reason I’d become “you people” instead of Jenna, her best friend. And she was one of them, the “people of colour”. Like part of a rainbow that didn’t allow white. Things were awkward between us. Everything I said was wrong. We danced around each other, mostly out of step.

Soo Ling and I reach the classroom. But before I open the door I whisper, “So don’t tell Xoliswa, okay? It can be our secret.”

Secrets. I knew how to find them and how to keep them.

Holly’s still home when I arrive back from school. She’s curled up on the couch with MasterChef Australia. Those who can’t cook watch the food channel. It makes them feel better about being unable to boil an egg.

“You just caught me, baby. I’m off in a couple of minutes.”

I’m no longer in the mood to play nice with Holly. “Why haven’t you paid the camp fees? If you don’t pay, I can’t go.”

Holly pulls her mouth down and makes her eyes wide like a puppy. “Ag, sweetie, I’m strapped for cash at the mo’. It’s been a tight couple of months.” She flips herself off the couch and slips on her heels. She still hasn’t got around to taking the price sticker off the sole.

“Come on, Jenna, who wants to go on a school camp? Bo-ring!”

Andile’s one of the teachers taking the Grade Tens to the Magaliesberg next week. I want to strangle Holly for messing this up for me. Not just camp – my life. Everything.

The conversation doesn’t end well. Holly rushes off on her date with a blotchy face, slamming the front door. “I’m a useless, terrible mother and I don’t blame you for hating me. But really, baby, I try so hard …”

A few weeks ago I’d have been more understanding. But I’m done with this woman. I clean up the kitchen (how many coffee cups can one person use in a day?), and load the washing machine.

The telephone rings. Yes, we have a landline. Holly’s Plan B for when she breaks/loses/drops her phone in the bath. It will go straight to voicemail and Holly will deal with it when she gets home.

Nope, this is not how it happens. Setting up voicemail to take her business calls is just another small detail Holly will get to when she has time. If it’s not someone trying to sell me an insurance policy from a call centre in Pondicherry, it’s one of Holly’s clients with questions about a house. It stops ringing, and a few minutes later, rings again. I answer.

“Hello, may I speak to Holly Moore?” The woman’s voice is hoarse. It belongs to a life-long smoker or someone who’s got a chesty cough.

“She’s not available right now. This is her daughter, Jenna, speaking. Can I take a message?”

“Jenna? What sort of name is that?” She says this with a snort. “Would you tell her that her Aunt C-C called and she must ring me back? Let me give you my telephone number.”

I’ve never met Aunt C-C or spoken to her on the phone before. Getting a call from her is about as rare as spotting a black rhino in a shopping mall, or a game park. She’s somehow related to my great-grandfather Frank. When Holly was fourteen, her parents were killed in a car accident. My mom was a little short on relatives, so she got dumped on Aunt C-C. After Holly got pregnant and dropped out of university, the two of them argued. They’ve only seen each other a handful of times in the past fifteen years.

Tapping her number into my phone, I say, “Are you sure there’s nothing I can help with?”

“I simply wanted to inform your mother that I intend to put the old house in Pembroke Street on the market. I still have a few of her belongings and I require some assistance with packing up.”

Not so interesting. Packing up is grunt work. I’ve done it for Holly’s clients a couple of times and it’s something I try to avoid. But I just have to be on that bus to the Magaliesberg next week.

“I’m your guy. But I don’t come cheap.”

“Excuse me, who’s ‘your guy’? Do you have to speak like some cliché out of a movie?”

Sheesh! Talk about a humour by-pass. It takes a few minutes to agree on a rate. Aunt C-C drives a hard bargain and doesn’t allow our blood ties to influence the arrangement. I make sure she agrees to pay me in advance. I start tomorrow.

While we’re busy closing the deal, I check out the photos on the passage wall. In mismatched frames, they’re arranged Holly-style, a haphazard mess. Among them is an old black-and-white one taken at the house in Pembroke Street. People posing on the stoep. I recognise my great-grandfather Frank. Holly and I have his eyes. His arm is draped around someone who looks like his older brother. Not as hot, though he has the same cheekbones. Daniel – or David, Holly isn’t sure. His two daughters are sitting on a step in front of them.

“Tell your mother to ring me,” says Aunt C-C. “She must collect the personal things she left behind. And don’t you be late tomorrow.” She slams the phone down without hearing me say I’m always on time – unless Holly’s been messing me around, of course.

I make popcorn for supper and lie on my bed, checking out Andile’s Twitter feed. He’s watching the soccer, Manchester United. Soccer sucks, but I download some info and memorise the players’ names. We’ll chat about soccer after class tomorrow!

In the morning, I don’t tell Holly about the phone call. Or that I’ll be working for Aunt C-C after school. Let’s just say that Holly’s personal stuff at the big house is something I’ve got a keen interest in.

On my way out, I glance at the photo of the family at Pembroke Street. I guess from the style of the clothes that it was taken more than fifty years ago. The older of the two girls is wearing a black beret, and she’s scowling at the person behind the camera.

I look closer at the girl’s face. Her expression is more than just sulky, it’s angry. But the younger of the two girls is smiling, mouth closed. She’s hiding something behind those sly lips. And the door to the big house is shut, the family gathered in front, like they’re guarding a secret.

I’ll be there today after school to claim mine. Because if there’s anything in Holly’s belongings about my father, I’ll find it.