Black Dog Summer (19 page)

“Fuck.”

“What is it?”

It's impossible to answer. He goes through to the en suite bathroom and rips off his sweaty shirt, then attacks the buckle of his belt with furious fingers. He jams his fist against the shower faucet to get the water started and plunges beneath the icy spray. He scrubs vigorously at his goosefleshed skin, drags his fingers over his scalp, and rubs his face with disgusted, angry jabs.

The water starts to warm up, and his shoulders slump and his hands go limp. He drops his head forward to lean against the tiles as the nausea that has been rising up inside his gut finally overwhelms him.

Selfish fucking bastard.

Suddenly, Adele is at the shower door. She pulls it open, and the spray drenches her dress.

“I have to know, Liam,” she says as water splashes around them both and starts to pool on the bathroom floor. “Because I want to grieve for my sister and I am just so goddamn confused. You and Gigi clearly have . . . a history or something, which means . . .” Adele stops, gulps for breath. “After I kicked her out and . . .”

Liam looks at his wife with her mascara running and her hair half sodden from the shower water, and he begins to weep.

“Liam, did you and Sally have an affair?”

Liam inhales tears and spray. An hour ago he would've answered no without hesitation, and meant it. One drunken smooch in a parking lot as a teenager certainly did not count as an affair, and that was the only time they'd actually ever touched in such a way, but now he can't even manage a shake of the head.

“Liam, damn it, answer me.” Adele steps further into the shower; her sopping dress sticks to his legs and he can feel her hands, curled into small, tight fists, trembling between their bodies. “Did you sleep with my sister?”

“No.” It comes out as a cracked cry, and he collapses against Adele and clutches her to his chest. “No. I didn't, Addy.”

After a long while, her arms move up around his back, but her hands don't soften. He can feel those little fists knocking into his spine with each shuddering sob.

Over the years that Liam had been making his clandestine visits to me and Gigi at the farm, we established a farewell ritual. Every time he left we'd say our good-byes in the yard, and then Gigi and I would climb into the Mercedes and drive along with him (with Gigi abusing the dials on the stereo system and singing along, more often than not) down the long rutted drive to the gate. We'd then get out and open the gate for the car to pass through before waving him off until he was nothing but a tendril of dust on the horizon.

But it had been months since I'd last seen Liam.

The afternoon was too quiet, and the heat too cloying, and my new charge, a young female baboon with a broken back leg, had been screeching like a banshee all morning as I'd tried to minister to her wounds.

My ears were ringing by the time I allowed my restless feet to take me away from her enclosure, out of the yard and along the driveway, all the way to the gate. I stood in the spot where I'd last touched him; it had been a small flick of my fingers against his shoulder through the open car window. From here, even the baboon's tantrum was muffled by the silence and the solid heat. Beyond the gate, I could see the dirt road curving off into the distance: orange powdery dust and lumps of gravel and stillness. In the distance, the solitary baobab reached its sculptural branches towards the sky. I leant my body against the mesh of the gate and pressed myself to it, feeling each little wire diamond cut into my skin.

For a childish moment, I let myself imagine a distant puff of dust that would soon materialize into the familiar bulk of Liam's white Mercedes. I closed my eyes for a moment to see it more vividly: Liam arriving unannounced, climbing out of his car, taking me into his arms . . .

“You're an idiot, Sally.” The voice seemed to come from nowhere, and I gave a startled little cry before realizing that Johan had been tightening a wire on the electric fence only a few meters away from me the entire time.

I whirled around and stomped towards him. “What the hell's that supposed to mean?” I demanded. Johan's face was beaded with moisture beneath his wide-brimmed hat, and there was a large damp V of sweat down the front of his khaki shirt. I could smell the warm, glazed-pastry smell that his skin gave off in the sun.

“I meant . . .” He trailed off. His eyes locked on to mine and then slid away again. “Nothing.” He turned his attention back to the fence.

“Rubbish. You meant
something
, Johan.”

He gave the wire a vicious yank with his pliers, and the thick rope of muscle on his tanned forearm twitched.

“Why are you so mad at me?”

“Why are you so mad at
me
?” he muttered.

“Because you gave me a fright, because you were spying on me, and because you called me an idiot and now won't tell me why.”

“I wasn't spying on you, and . . . Ag, you
know
why, Sal,” he said in a softer tone, still not looking at me. “You know.”

“What?”

“Liam,” he said in a flat voice.

I felt utterly naked, as if he'd climbed right inside my head and seen my childish fantasies. It was mortifying.

“You're like a schoolkid with a crush, only you're not a schoolkid, and he's never going to leave his wife and choose you, and you're wasting your whole goddamn life lusting after something that you can't have and don't even need.”

I was too shocked to speak. In the ensuing silence, Johan crouched down to work on a lower wire. A slight breeze picked up and ruffled the grass around us. It blew soft, cool kisses on the back of my boiling neck.

“Wow, that's a long sentence from you,” I finally sneered. “Thanks for sharing.”

“I didn't mean to upset you, Sal—”

“Really? That's funny, because it feels like that's exactly what you were trying to do.” I battled to keep the rising tears out of my voice, but it wasn't working.

Johan dropped the pliers into a patch of sand and stood up, turning to face me. “Sorry, man,” he whispered. “That's not what I really wanted to say.”

“Then what did you want to say, Johan?” I snapped, dragging my hands over my wet cheeks.

“That I'm right here.” It came out so softly that, for a moment, I wasn't sure I'd heard correctly. The look on his face told me that I had.

“Johan . . .” I took a small step backwards. “I didn't know.”

“No, of course you didn't. You've been too ‘busy.' ”

“You don't understand about Liam; it's very—”

“I know how it feels to be in love with someone who doesn't see you the same way, if that's what you mean,” he said, and bent down to pick up his pliers again, hiding his face from me.

“Johan, it's not that I don't . . . I just . . . I didn't know you felt . . .”

“Of course you didn't.” His voice lost its softness. The unfortunate wire got a brutal yank. “Even your kid is more aware of me than you are.”

“Gigi? What do you mean?”

“She's got a crush, that's all.” He grunted as he tested the tautness of the wire. “She's a teenager now, or hadn't you noticed that either?”

“Of course I had, but . . .” I trailed off, wiping my sweaty hands on my shorts.

“Perhaps it's time she hung out with some kids her own age, Sally.”

“Yeah,” I said, the wind knocked out of me. “You're probably right.” Something made me look up and over at the clump of acacia trees to our left. For a moment, I was certain I saw movement and a flash of white amongst the leaves. I stared hard, but nothing moved except the breeze and the bugs in the swaying green grass. If someone or something had been there, they weren't anymore. “I'm sorry, Johan,” I whispered.

“Don't. Just . . .”

I waited for a very long time, listening to the shrill cicadas and the squeak of his pliers against the wire, but he didn't say another word.

BRYONY HAS
chosen to walk the long way round the town house complex to get to Dommie's because, even though it will take a lot more time, at least she won't have to cross the Matsunyanes' driveway and risk running into any witches. She balances on the curbstones that line the road, stepping from one to the next with straight legs and pointed toes like the Olympic gymnasts on those skinny balance beams that she's seen on TV. She raises her arms above her head and imagines leaping into a graceful forward flip, spinning through the air, and coming down to land with feet perfectly placed, one in front of the other. Ta-da!

Then, suddenly, she gets a funny cold feeling right between her shoulder blades. She jiggles them to release it, but the cold spot only grows bigger, spreading down her arms and into her fingers.
Lesedi's behind me
, Bryony thinks, and then shakes her head to force the silly idea back to where it came from. She tries to walk like a gymnast again, but her movements are clumsy now, and she stubs her smile-toe on the edge of a curbstone. She bends down to inspect the painful damage: a tiny flap of transparent skin with a seam of fresh red blood seeping out from under it. She blinks back tears. She's going to need a Band-Aid when she gets to Dommie's.

And then the cold spot is back.

She made it happen.

Bryony looks around, heart pounding. Instead of Lesedi, wrapped in worms with a white-painted face ready to curse her, there are two small boys playing with a Frisbee on the grass a little way off.
You're being an idiot, Bryony.
She gets back to her feet and starts to jog towards Dommie's. She can feel the flap of skin moving loose on her toe, but she goes even faster, trying to control the mounting panic that has colonized her chest.

She turns the corner and skids to a stop. There's a large black dog standing on the herringbone paving in the center of the road. The dog has a rough coat and sticking-up ears, and it stares right at her.

“Hi, boy.” She tries to sound friendly. The dog remains motionless. “Go home,” she commands, but there's not enough air in her lungs to make it forceful enough.

The dog doesn't move.

It's against the Body Corporate rules to let a dog run around the communal areas without being on a leash, but there's no one here to enforce the rule. In fact, Bryony feels entirely alone, as if everyone in the whole complex has just suddenly packed up and left without telling her. Bryony stares at the black dog, and the dog stares back. A sudden gust of wind howls up the road and forces her to close her eyes against the swirling dust. When she opens them again, the animal is gone.

The ice-cold spot in the center of Bryony's spine is now an all-encompassing paralysis, and she can only manage tiny little sips of breath. There is no sign of the dog. The wind has stopped completely, and the afternoon air hangs still and heavy, hot against her icy skin.

Finally, she runs again, throbbing toe thumping down on the bricks as she pounds towards Dommie's house. She crashes through the Silvermans' garden gate, hurtles up the path, and collapses against the front door, sobbing.

“Good grief, Bryony!” Mrs. Silverman says when she finds the white-faced wreck on her doorstep. “What on earth has happened? Are you all right?”

“There's a . . . She's put a curse on me . . .” Bryony splutters through her sobs.

“Now, now, come inside and sit down,” Mrs. Silverman says, ushering Bryony into the front hall, where the rest of the Silverman family has now congregated, drawn by the commotion.

“Her foot's bleeding,” Dommie whispers.

“So it is. Looks like you've had a bit of a journey getting here, Bry.” Mrs. Silverman guides the girl into the kitchen and helps her into a chair. “Craig, get the antiseptic and some cotton wool from the upstairs bathroom, will you?”

“OK,” Dommie's brother says, and dashes off.

Without needing to be asked, Mr. Silverman goes to the fridge and pours a small glass of guava juice. As Bryony sips the soothing pink liquid, her tears begin to dry on her cheeks.

“Now tell us what happened, darling,” Mrs. Silverman says, dabbing antiseptic onto Bryony's injured toe.

“It's our neighbor, Mrs. Matsunyane,” she manages between heaving breaths. “The one who lives in number thirty-seven. I didn't mean to spy on her, but she seemed so interesting and different and I wanted to be her friend actually and then I saw the mask.”

“Mask?” Mrs. Silverman exchanges a baffled look with her husband.

“And then I saw all the people coming to her house and she told me about her business and I said I wouldn't tell on her but still she said that the darkness was coming to get me and that there were monsters under the bed.”

“Mrs. Matsunyane is running a business?”

“Yes. She's a sangoma and people come to her for potions and spells and I don't know what else.”

“Gracious.”

“And now she's put a curse on me and I can feel her watching me even when she's not there, and then the dog was there and then it was gone and I was all cold.”

“Well, darling, it sounds like you've had a hell of a day.” Mrs. Silverman gives the Band-Aid she's just put on Bryony's toe an extra smooth-down. “But in my expert opinion, you're going to be just fine.”

“But what about Lesedi?” Bryony sniffles. The sobs are gone now, and the guava juice is almost finished.

“Well, Geoff and I are on the board, and we're going to have to look into this whole ‘running a business' thing. It's strictly against Body Corporate rules to do that on these grounds. We had another woman once who started selling imported handbags from her front room, can you believe it? We'll put a stop to it, trust me. A practicing sangoma . . . Who knows what sort of people must be coming in and out of here all day. It's not at all good for security.”