Читать книгу Love Tastes Like Strawberries - Rosamund Haden - Страница 17

Dudu is lying on the mattress that serves as a sofa and their bed, watching a soapie and flicking through a magazine. She has had her hair braided at the station and is wearing a hot pink top and a tight denim skirt that shows off her curves.

She and Françoise have been renting the room above the Chinese shop in Woodstock for three months now. In that time Dudu has gone to school, Grade 11, got herself a boyfriend with a car, Pascal from Congo, and found them a TV.

Her eyes track from the magazine to the TV screen, which is the only light in the dim room. The picture is fuzzy and the faces look yellow.

“I’m going to work now.” Françoise unplugs her cellphone from the charger and slips it into her bag.

“Why don’t you come out with me and Pascal afterwards? We’re going for KFC.”

“Not tonight.”

“That’s what you say every time I ask. Come on. You need some fun. How are you going to meet guys if you are always working?”

“I’m not going to meet guys at KFC.”

“That’s what you think.”

“How are we going to pay bills if I am not working?”

“One night out won’t change anything.”

But it will, thinks Françoise. If she just takes her eyes off the wheel for a second they will lose control of their lives, skid off the road and crash. She will have to hurry or she will be late for her shift and she is still on probation. If she loses her job they won’t be able to pay the rent. The manager fires people for any reason he chooses. Being late is a big one.

“Bring me a Coke,” says Dudu.

“You should be studying. You’ve got exams in a month.”

“Who needs exams? I have a plan,” says Dudu.

“Not now,” says Françoise. Her jeans still feel damp from the line. There wasn’t a chance to dry them properly. She pulls her denim jacket over her T-shirt. “I’m late for work.”

“Relax. You won’t need to work soon,” says Dudu. “I’ve got it all worked out. What I’m going to do is . . .”

But Françoise is already out the door and running down the concrete steps. She doesn’t want to hear another of Dudu’s crazy plans. Rounding the corner of the stairs she nearly trips over a toddler who is playing in a puddle of filthy water. The whole place stinks since the sewerage pipe overflowed. They are living in a cesspit.

Françoise takes a taxi down Main Road, gets off and runs to the Spar. But when she gets inside the cashier on the shift before is still cashing up. Françoise turns to the notice board near the entrance while she waits to take her place at the till. She reads the adverts every week, looking for a better job, with better pay. Every time they need experienced people. Today there is a new advert. An A4 sheet tacked to the felt board with a pin.

Models needed for Life Drawing class. Phone Ivor Woodall . . .

She writes his number down on the back of her hand before she goes to check in at her till. The manager of the store comes over.

“You’re ten minutes late.”

“She was still cashing up.” She points at the cashier who is just leaving. “I was here, waiting.”

“Don’t backchat me. You were late.”

“I’m sorry. It won’t happen again,” she says, opening the till.

“Remember I can replace you – anytime – you hear me? You understand?”

“It won’t happen . . .” But he is gone and a customer is waiting.

When she has finished putting the woman’s groceries into a plastic bag she looks up and scans the store. There he is in aisle two. He has come in every Monday at the same time since she started working here. And every Monday her heart beats a little faster when she sees him.

She knows exactly what he will buy because he buys the same things every week. He is tall and athletic, broad shouldered and long-limbed, but his face doesn’t match his body. It is not tanned and chiselled like the guys in the soapies Dudu watches. He has a boyish face, earnest and apprehensive one second, the next open and smiling. His thoughts register on it like clouds across the surface of the sky.

Today he is wearing a black T-shirt with some writing on it. As he walks towards her down the aisle she sees that it says Look Busy – Jesus is Coming.

Blasphemous. The nuns at The Sacred Heart would faint. But they are gone, obliterated – corpses, then bone, then dust. Lured into the false safety in the church where Françoise had lined up for communion in her white dress and Dudu had mouthed the words to Mass, in their other life. Sister Beatrice, who had washed the cuts on grazed knees of the children in the school yard when they fell, was hacked to death.

Françoise watches the young man as he goes up and down the aisles with his shopping basket. She mentally ticks off his list for him: double-ply toilet paper – very soft – very luxurious; two per cent milk; haloumi cheese – very expensive; Greek yoghurt; cucumber; linguine; cat food (he has a cat). Once there had been a box of condoms – he had flushed bright red at the till. There had been an awkward moment where she was about to pick it up and drop it into the plastic bag when he had reached for it and their fingers had touched. She couldn’t look him in the eye.

He is in a hurry today. He does the aisles in a few minutes. Still, when he is done he waits with his basket until her till is free. He always does this. Even if there is a longer queue at hers and another cashier is free. He waits his turn. The other cashiers tease her.

“He likes you,” Chantelle at the next till had assured her during a smoke break. Françoise had tried one of Chantelle’s cigarettes but it had made her choke. Then Chantelle had given her a swig of Coke to help the choking, and it had fizzed out of Françoise’s nose. She hadn’t laughed so much since . . . she can’t remember.

“How do you know that he likes me? You’re making that up.”

“It’s obvious, the way he stares when you’re not looking. And he always chooses your till. He’s kind of . . .” Chantelle flicked the ash from her cigarette into her empty polystyrene coffee cup and then stood up. Break was over. “He’s kind of old fashioned.”

And here he is now. Next in the queue.

“Hello.” He smiles at her. She frowns because she is embarrassed.

“You’ll never get a boyfriend like that,” Dudu told her. “You scare people off. People think you’re angry. Stop frowning.”

“You must be tired,” he says. “End of a long week. Me too. I’m sorry,” he adds as though it were his fault. And when she doesn’t answer, “This wind makes everyone tired. It frays on your nerves.” Then she looks up and smiles.

“You forgot the cheese,” she says. He looks startled by her voice, it’s the first time she’s spoken to him. Then he is beaming. “The cheese, you forgot . . .”

“You’re right . . . how did you know?”

That was it – the moment that she couldn’t take back. She had spoken to him. Everything starts somewhere. Now he will think I am weird. That I am stalking him, she thinks.

“You buy the same things every Monday.”

“You noticed.” He laughs, delighted. “It’s boring, I know.” He doesn’t add that he can’t help himself.

“It’s not boring. It’s just . . .” She searches for a word. Luckily the next customer is waiting and she has to say goodbye. She drops the customer’s tin and has to scrabble under the till to find it.

Chantelle at the next till winks at her. As she checks the woman’s groceries through, she is aware that he hasn’t left the shop. He is waiting, reading the notice board. Then she watches as he writes down a number on a piece of paper. For what? Tai-chi, accommodation, yoga, tutoring or life drawing classes. Which one? She feels a nervous flutter in her stomach. Five more customers and he is gone.

“He really likes you. You spoke to him.” Chantelle laughs as they pack up. It is late and the shop is closing. “So get his number. Do you even know his name?”

Françoise shakes her head; she is embarrassed, but pleased. “No. He’s probably married.”

“So?” says Chantelle.

“So!” says Françoise. They laugh.

On her way back to their room she stops at the Chinese shop and uses their payphone to call the man, Ivor. She doesn’t want Dudu in on this because she would mess it up.

The phone rings then goes on to the answering machine. She takes a deep breath and leaves a message.

“Hello, this is Françoise. I am interested in your job for the life drawing model. Please call me . . .” – and she gives her cellphone number. Dudu has borrowed her cellphone again without asking. If she is quick she can run up the stairs and get to the cellphone before Dudu does. Chances are he won’t ring back within that time.

Dudu has a little book with important numbers and useful people written in it. A book that is almost full. She has another little book which she has kept since she was ten. A book that Françoise has tried to get rid of a number of times, but which Dudu will not be parted from. A Book of Reckoning, where she writes down the names of people that she wants to remember.

As Françoise runs up the stairs the smell of gas and the sweet smell of carcasses boiling hits her from No 2. The smell permeates the whole building and mixes with trapped fumes off the main road that are sucked in through the slit of open window. It has been stuck since they moved in, impossible to open or close fully.

When Françoise pushes their door open, she sees Dudu has cooked supper on their two-plate stove, which is balanced on the pile of National Geographic magazines. This meat smells tasty in comparison with the smell coming from next door. Dudu has put a plastic cloth with a bright flower pattern over the beer crates they use for a table, and a plastic flower sits jauntily in an old glass vase. It looks strangely like a romantic dinner.

“Who did you invite?” asks Françoise warily. “Pascal?”

“He’s working on his uncle’s car. No, I invited you,” says Dudu sweetly. Françoise sits down, her feet are sore. The food smells good.

“What is this? No, it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to know.” The meat tastes good and it’s hot.

“Am I not your best sister?” asks Dudu, like she did when she was ten and Françoise fourteen.

“Dudu, you are my only sister. What would I do without you?” Françoise says sarcastically.

“So, was he there? The guy who buys the same things every week?” Françoise should never have told Dudu.

“No. He’s stopped coming,” she lies.

“Someone phoned just before you got here,” Dudu says. “There’s a message on the machine. I was cooking. It’s from a white man called Ivor.” She looks at Françoise.

“It’s a friend.”

“You don’t have friends.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Who? Name one?”

“Chantelle and Vincent from work. And Nadia and Brigitte in room five and . . .”

Sometimes she and Brigitte and Nadia go to KFC together when there’s money, or have their hair done. She has been to the wedding of a relative of Vincent’s.

“It’s a job.”

“What job?”

“Nothing. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I have a job too,” says Dudu.

“Your job is to pass matric next year,” says Françoise.

“I’m going to buy a car and drive it up to Lubumbashi. You get good money for cars up there.”

“Dudu, you can’t. How can you buy a car? How can you drive to Lubumbashi? That’s crazy. That’s suicide.” She hopes Dudu is just winding her up.

After supper Françoise listens to her voicemail. “Hello, this is Ivor. Come around to 54 Kingston Road, Observatory, on Friday at six fifteen – I’ll try you out.”

That was all. She didn’t even know where Kingston Road was. But she could find out. What should she wear? What did an artist’s model have to do? Suddenly she feels fear and excitement mixed together.

After she has washed the dishes, Françoise joins Dudu on the mattress. They watch the fuzzy black-and-white TV together. She closes her eyes hoping she can fall asleep. It is only if she is really tired that she doesn’t dream and wake up with her heart pounding, in a state of panic. If she is tired enough she will sleep like the dead. Dudu holds her hand in the dark. It’s something they started doing in the forest and they have never stopped. They are too scared of what might happen if they do.