The New Girl (Downside) Read online

  Ryan crosses the main entrance road, scrapes past the security boom and out onto the street. It’s hot for March; the summer rain is drying up but the sun still blazes. There’s a steep hill up and over to his cheap room in Malvern; he’s one of the immigrants now, who overcrowd the run-down houses in that buffer suburb. Since he lost his licence – and his car, for that matter – walking has become easier. He gets into a rhythm as he walks and he manages to quiet his mind. He’s a lot fitter than when he used to drive to work, park near the lifts and ping out in his air-conditioned office. Not having a car is restrictive in Johannesburg, though, and he’s had to limit his orbit to the Eastgate and Bedford malls, the crummy shops on Langermann Drive, his rented room and the school.

  An image of that new girl flashes into his mind, the way she fingered the blood. It was intimate. She just looked at him, and there was no panic or disgust in her eyes. He couldn’t read what those eyes held, and that’s unusual for him. She must have just started at the school; it’s not possible that he wouldn’t have seen her before: he’s spent the last two months up ladders, washing windows, nailing guttering, looking into classrooms and down on school thoroughfares. There are not that many kids at the school, something like five hundred. The way she looked at the blood on her fingers. Curiously.

  ‘Ryan!’ An engine guns next to him. ‘Hi, Ryan!’

  An olive-green Land Rover is matching his pace up the hill, window wound down and a smell of expensive car and expensive perfume and cigarette smoke billowing out of the window. Julie Katopodis. She’s in good shape, fortyish, petite and buffed, straight black hair and manicured nails. Gold bracelets.

  Ryan smiles and approaches the door. Julie stops the car.

  ‘Hi to you,’ he says.

  ‘Hello again, Mr Maintenance Man,’ she says.

  Ryan smiles, knowing the effect his two-day stubble has on her.

  ‘Listen, do you want a lift?’

  Does he? Is he in the mood today? He supposes he is. What else is there to do? ‘Sure, thanks.’ He opens the passenger door as she dumps her handbag into the footwell.

  ‘I came to pick Artie up from hockey, but he messaged me to say he’s gone to his friend’s for supper. Would have been nice if he’d told me, like, before. I don’t like a wasted journey.’

  She lights up another Dunhill with a slim gold lighter. The gold suits her tan. She offers the plush pack to him, heavy on the finger contact.

  ‘No, thanks.’ He stares out at the flats across the road.

  ‘I wasn’t following you, you know,’ the woman’s saying, sighing her first drag out into the air. ‘Artie has practice every Tuesday and Thursday. Matches every Wednesday. Cricket and hockey.’

  Ryan turns back to her. ‘Hey, I believe you. You’re bona fide.’

  ‘So here’s me... come all this way with nobody to pick up.’

  Chapter 2

  TARA

  The library door slams, making Tara jump. She’s been daydreaming, lulled by the drone of Skye’s voice as he works his way through Tina and Kevin Go to the Zoo.

  She looks up, expecting to see Clara van der Spuy, the school’s head librarian, but a girl Tara’s never seen before is staring into the room, her back pressed against the door. Tara’s first thought is that the kid’s mother should be shot – poor mite is asking to be bullied; Tara’s almost certain her hair is dyed. It’s that peculiar bile shade that results when wannabe-platinum brunettes get the peroxide mix wrong. And there’s something off about her school uniform, her frayed blazer is a darker shade than Crossley’s regulation baby-shit colour, and her skirt is too large for her small frame; the stitching showing in the seams as if it’s homemade. Could she be one of the outreach kids, the small quota of less-privileged students Crossley College subsidises each year? As Tara stares at her she steps forward tentatively, then drops to her knees in front of the shelf of starter readers closest to the door. She grabs a book from the shelf, starts paging through it.

  Tara glances over at Malika, the other library volunteer on duty. Malika’s supposed to be supervising the quiet-time kids, but she’s smirking down at her iPhone and toying with her hair. It doesn’t look like she’s noticed the new arrival; either that or she’s pretending not to see her. And none of the other kids seems to have registered the girl’s presence. Tara would’ve expected at least a few of them to point and snigger, but perhaps they can’t see her from where they’re sitting. Unlike the rest of the school – a modern glass-and-wood structure with such crisp edges it looks like a giant Scandinavian architect’s model – the library is cramped, dingy and ill designed, full of useless corners and pointless pillars; plenty of places to obscure the view of the door.

  ‘Carry on,’ Tara says to Skye. ‘I’ll just be a minute.’

  Tara finds herself approaching the girl cautiously, as if she’s a wild animal that might dart off at any second. It’s only when Tara’s right next to her that she realises the book she’s paging through is upside down.

  ‘Hello,’ she says to the girl’s back, putting on her I’m-your-buddy voice. ‘Can I help you? Are you lost?’ No reaction. Tara gently touches the girl’s shoulder. ‘Hey.’

  The girl freezes, and then slowly turns her head and stares up at Tara through grey, unblinking eyes.

  ‘Hi. I’m Tara. What’s your name?’

  She whispers a word that Tara doesn’t catch.

  ‘Say again? Sorry, sweetie, must be getting old, I didn’t hear you properly.’ Tara’s used to her American accent breaking the ice with the shyer children, but it’s not working with this kid. The girl isn’t pretty – those eyes are way too large for her face – but there’s something charmingly old-fashioned and serious about her, as if she’s stepped out of an old sepia photograph. Tara crouches down next to her, notices a dark-red substance clotting strands of that strange hair together – and there’s more on her fingers. She can’t see any sign of an actual wound, but it certainly looks like blood. Paint, maybe?

  ‘Hey, are you hurt?’ The girl finally blinks and follows Tara’s gaze to her hand. Her tongue darts out of her mouth and for a second Tara’s convinced she’s going to bring her fingers to her lips and lick them. ‘Can I see, sweetie?’

  The girl bares her teeth at Tara, then throws the book to the floor, leaps up and darts through the door, body listing to one side as if one leg is shorter than the other.

  ‘Hey!’ Tara calls after her, her knees popping as she scrambles to her feet. She pokes her head out into the corridor, but there’s no sign of the girl. Could she have scuttled into one of the bathrooms? Maybe, but what the hell was she doing wandering around the school willy-nilly in the first place?

  Bemused, Tara returns to where Skye is still doggedly working his way towards the book’s predictable climax. ‘You know that girl?’ Tara asks.

  ‘What girl?’

  ‘The girl I was just talking to. She new?’

  Skye shrugs. ‘Ja. I s’pose.’

  ‘She in your class?’

  Skye looks at her blankly. Tara knows that he isn’t the sharpest tool in the box, but it’s hardly a challenging question.

  ‘You know her name?’ she tries again.

  ‘Can’t remember,’ Skye mumbles, bending one of the book’s pages into a triangle. Tara would usually discourage this, but in her opinion the only fit place for a book as stultifying as Tina and Kevin Go to the Zoo is the recycling bin.

  The end-of-class siren whoops, making Tara jump as usual, and there’s the screech of chair legs scraping on wood as the kids stand up quietly and file out.

  ‘Hey,’ Tara says to Malika, who’s busily rummaging through her Louboutin bag. ‘You see that weird-looking kid who came in here just now?’

  Malika shrugs. ‘They’re all weird at that age, aren’t they?’ She yawns, drags her fingers through her hair. ‘God, library duty is so boring. I can’t believe you signed up for another year. How on earth do you put up with this every day, Tara?’

  Tara shr
ugs. She started volunteering at the library last year to demonstrate to Stephen that she was at least trying to be involved in his son’s life (pointless, really, as the little snot couldn’t care less if she was here or not). Maybe she does it to get out of the house, as a tenuous link to her former profession, or to prove to herself that at least she’s doing something useful while she waits for her permanent residency to come through. Although helping privileged Joburg kids with their remedial reading isn’t exactly on the same level as, say, counselling AIDS orphans in the townships. Anyway, if all goes to plan – if her business takes off – she won’t have time to volunteer here, will she?

  But she isn’t about to go into this with Malika, a member of that tribe of primped, alien women who waft in to fill in at the library and tuck shop, their bodies sculpted by Zumba classes and Botox, clouds of expensive scent trailing behind them as they clack through the corridors. Sure, they’re friendly enough to her, but Tara’s never managed to penetrate the clique, or make anything approximating a friend. Plus, she hasn’t missed the contemptuous glances Malika tends to direct at her old Levi’s and battered sneakers.

  Malika makes a show of glancing at her phone. ‘Do you mind packing up? I’ve got to meet my personal trainer at three.’

  ‘Sure,’ Tara says. She doesn’t really mind. She’s still got an hour or so to kill before Martin finishes rugby practice. Besides, she wants some time alone on the library computer. Her cellphone network is down again and she hasn’t been able to check her emails on her BlackBerry all day.

  It doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes to re-shelve the books; the class today was small and in any case there aren’t that many books to choose from. Most are dull, storyless starter readers along the lines of Tina and Kevin Go to the Zoo, but since Mr Duvenhage became head other, more disturbing, books have appeared on the shelves. Sinister self-published morality tales with amateurish illustrations, most of which involve a child getting his or her comeuppance in ways that pretty much amount to child abuse. Titles include such gems as Lying Means Crying and Malicious Molly Makes a Monstrous Mistake. At the beginning of the year, she’d enthusiastically brought in a selection of Winnie the Witch and Roald Dahl books, but Clara van der Spuy had nipped that in the bud: ‘We try not to encourage this kind of distorted thinking, Mrs Marais. It’s not really in line with the school ethos.’

  Tara slips into Clara’s small office at the back of the library, trying to ignore the saccharine baby-animal posters, complete with captions, that are tacked up all over the walls. Since she was last in here, Clara’s added a glossy image of a pair of terrified-looking kittens (‘I can haz friend’) and a soft-focus photograph of a traumatised baby gorilla (‘Needz a hug? Try me’) to her collection. Tara fires up Clara’s computer and quickly logs on to her website. It’s only been up and running for a month, and she still feels a thrill when she scrolls through the photographs. She checks to see if her clients have posted their promised recommendations on her feedback page (they haven’t), then clicks onto the Gmail account she uses solely for her work (her hobby, Stephen insists on calling it).

  There are two messages – not bad. She opens the first, which is from a Susannah Ferguson, subject line: ‘I Love Baby Paul!!!!!’

  ‘Hi Tara! My name is Susannah and I am interested in adopting Baby Paul. He is soooooo beautiful. Please how much is he? I will pay anything!!!! Is 900 rand enough? Do you do lay-byes too?’

  Tara smiles to herself. She knows most people can’t afford her rates, and while she’s tempted to cut the price, it’s a fraction of what they go for in the States or the UK. She keeps telling herself she’s not in it for the money, but since Stephen started whingeing about cutting back, she decided to do what the self-help books encourage and ‘turn her passion into profit’. She takes her time crafting a gentle, encouraging response, providing the link to the rates section on her website.

  Disappointingly, the second message looks like it’s probably spam. It’s from a Yahoo account, the sender’s name listed as ‘varder batiss’. No message in the subject line. She opens it anyway. ‘We require baby,’ is all it says.

  Tara snorts. Don’t we all, she thinks, pressing delete.

  A cough makes her jump again, and she looks up to see Clara van der Spuy standing in front of the desk, smiling fixedly at her.

  Tara feels guilty colour flushing her cheeks. It’s not as if she’s doing anything wrong – volunteers are allowed to use the library’s computer – but Clara’s perennial self-righteous expression always makes her feel as if she’s nine years old again. Tara has no idea how old Clara is – she could be anywhere from fifty to seventy – and she appears to have an inexhaustible supply of high-necked sensible blouses and tweed skirts. According to Malika – the font of all school gossip – before she joined Crossley College, Clara spent years teaching English at one of those old South African colonial institutions. Tara has no problem imagining Clara happily teaching apartheid dogma and stamping the word ‘Banned’ on any slightly controversial book that came her way.

  ‘Sorry about this, Clara,’ Tara says, trying to smile. ‘Just killing time before I fetch Martin.’

  ‘It’s fine, Mrs Marais. I was just popping in to add the new books to the catalogue. But I can wait until you are finished.’

  Taking the hint, Tara quickly clears her browsing history and gathers her stuff together. She pauses, remembering that strange new kid. ‘Hey, Clara, what’s up with that new girl?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘She came into the library earlier. Could be one of the outreach kids. Weird hair colour, might be slightly disabled.’

  Clara squishes her lips in disapproval. ‘You mean physically challenged, Mrs Marais?’

  Jesus, Tara thinks. Excuse me for breathing. ‘Yeah. She told me her name but I couldn’t quite catch it.’

  ‘I can’t say I have a clue who you mean, Mrs Marais.’

  ‘Really? I was worried she might have hurt herself.’ She shrugs. ‘Hey, maybe I just imagined her.’

  Clara doesn’t crack a smile. ‘I don’t think that’s likely, Mrs Marais.’

  ‘Please, call me Tara.’

  ‘Best not to,’ Clara says. ‘It’s good to keep on formal terms. It confuses the learners otherwise.’

  ‘Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  Clara relaxes; her smile actually reaches her eyes this time. ‘Yes. We do appreciate all the good work you do here for us, Mrs Marais.’

  Tara steps out into the corridor. With the children gone now, the building feels more soulless and utilitarian than usual, as if it shrugs off the kids’ energy every day like a dog shaking fleas off its back. Not that there’s all that much energy to shake off. Even in the heart of the school morning, the kids who attend Crossley College are more subdued than the kids who inhabited the smelly chaos of the schools she’s taught at over the years.

  She heads out into the sunlight, sneakered feet crunching on the raked gravel. The grounds are similarly deserted and silent, just the distant buzz of a whistle and muffled yells from the sports fields. Ahead of her, a rangy figure emerges out of one of the maintenance sheds. Tara hesitates. If she carries on walking, their paths will cross. She pretends to fumble in her bag as an excuse to stop. She’s seen him before, of course. Well, she could hardly miss him; his appearance is so totally at odds with the rest of the staff. According to Malika (who imparted the information in a slightly breathy fashion) he’s the new maintenance man. He’s swarthy-skinned, wild-haired, always looks dishevelled, but in a cool way like the hard-eyed alternative kids who used to hang out on the fringes of her own high school. Dangerous. Sexy dangerous. Like a gypsy; maybe a pirate.

  But he doesn’t even turn his head in her direction. Feeling like a fool, she hurries towards the parking lot.

  Martin’s waiting by the car, kicking at the back tyre. ‘Where were you?’ he whines. ‘I’ve been waiting for ages.’

  Tara knows this isn’t true. She’s five min
utes late, if that. ‘Sorry,’ she says anyway. ‘Hey, how was school?’

  He shrugs.

  ‘What would you like for supper?’ she asks brightly as he straps himself into the back seat. ‘How about chicken?’

  ‘I hate chicken,’ Martin mumbles.

  ‘Okay. Steak and fries, then.’

  ‘Whatever. Oh, and by the way, in South Africa we call them chips.’

  ‘Not at McDonalds,’ she says, trying to make a joke of it. ‘You order fries there, don’t you?’

  Martin mumbles something that sounds like ‘totally lame’.

  She zoots down the driveway, pausing to let a Land Rover with tinted windows pull out in front of her. The driver sticks her hand out of the window, waves her thanks with a flick of her cigarette. Tara squeaks into the traffic, which, as soon as they reach the first intersection, slows to a crawl.

  Martin’s phone beeps out a gangsta-rap riff. ‘Ja?’ He sighs and kicks the back of her seat. ‘It’s Dad. Says he’s been trying to get hold of you.’

  She reaches back for the phone, which is slick with Martin’s palm sweat. ‘Hey, honey,’ she says into the handset, automatically checking the mirrors for cops.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ Stephen says. ‘I’ve been trying to get you all day.’

  ‘Sorry. Problem with the network again. What’s up?’

  Stephen huffs as if the vagaries of her cell provider are her fault. ‘One of Olivia’s clients needs her to go to Cape Town.’

  ‘What? When?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow? And she’s only just told you?’

  ‘It’s not her fault. They sprung it on her.’

  Bullshit, Tara thinks, smothering a bitter response. She hates it when Stephen defends Olivia, which he seems to do more and more these days, but she can’t let Martin hear her bitching about his mother. ‘Right. So that means...?’