Ishmael Toffee (5 page)

She sits with her face all squishy against the glass and closes her eyes and doesn’t know how long she stays like that. She hears Flo vacuuming downstairs and the thing in the pool going chug, chug and splash, splash as it runs around under the water like a big snake.

She was scared of it when she was little and Mommy took her into the water, holding her tight, and showed her that there was nothing to be scared of, silly. And she splashed with Mommy, wearing her bright pink arm bands that she doesn’t need anymore, because she can swim now like a big girl.

Tears come from her eyes and onto the glass, and she uses her finger to trace a teary picture on the window. Cindy and the little man. Holding hands. A secret teary picture that only she can see.

The clock downstairs bongs ten times and Cindy knows her friend the little man is very late. And, after even more time, when it makes one small bong, she is scared that she is never, ever going to see him again.

13

All the way over in the taxi Ishmael tells himself that he’s going to Bellwood to find work. Sit on the sidewalk with the other men waiting for the whities to come pick them up to clean their yards or help them take crap to the landfill. Dirty work that pays nothing.

But why then doesn’t he get out the taxi when it stops by the useless men, draped outside the white people’s houses, wearing torn clothes and hopelessness? Why then does he ride on to Voortrekker Road, with its endless strip malls and stores?

Because he’s a barefaced liar, is why. And a bloody idiot with it.

Ishmael still isn’t used to all these cars and the crush of people on the sidewalks, mostly coloreds and darkies. In the old days, before he went Pollsmoor side, Voortrekker was all for the whites. You had a brown or black skin your money wasn’t welcome here. All changed now.

Ishmael, backpack held safe under one arm, makes quick through the crowds, taking gaps, dodging the fat black mamas sitting on the sidewalk selling sweets and cigarettes. He avoids the big stores, knows all about their TV cameras and the things they put in the clothes that make a bloody racket when you try to walk out the door. Plenty of fucken stupids ended up in prison with him, caught by the securities in these chain stores.

Sees what he wants: little outfitter shop, dirty barred windows, faded and dusty clothes on white dolls. Not even a safety gate. Ishmael enters the store, an old Muslim man half asleep behind the counter, beard like cotton candy scraping the glass display. Old man don’t even look his way.

Ishmael checks out the back of the store—no big mirror to show the Muslim what’s going on—and slides behind a rail of little boy clothes, guessing sizes now. Grabs jeans and a jacket with a hoodie off the hangers. A cap too, with writing on it. Catches a peep over the rail: old man’s on the phone now, bitching that he wants his lunch.

Ishmael opens his backpack and stuffs the clothes inside. First crime he’s committed here on the outside. If he gets caught he goes away for life, with his record. And life means death, those fuckers waiting for him.

He closes the pack and heads for the door. A young Muslim in a long white robe, nose like an anteater poking through a fuzz of beard, comes in from the sidewalk carrying a bag of food. Ishmael can smell the spicy meat curry. The young guy checks Ishmael out, blocking the doorway.

Ishmael says, “
Aasalaamu aleikum
,” throwing out a bit of the Arab lingo these religious types like.

Guy still blocks his way, looking Ishmael up and down. Then he steps aside.

Ishmael is out of there and ducks across the road, big fucken Golden Arrow bus swerving to miss him, loses himself in the crowd on the opposite sidewalk. Jesus, he’s sweating.

Ja, Ishmael, and this is just the fucken beginning.

He leans against a barred window, catching his wind. Display of knives inside, all shiny like Christmas in the bright light. Sees his old favorite, Okapi knife, with its curved wooden handle (shaped to fit your hand) and four-inch blade. Put more brown men in the ground with that knife than he cares to remember.

Ishmael thinks hard about the promise he made himself. No more killing. Voice inside says,
ja, but you gonna need it now. For protection.

Ishmael cuts the conversation dead by walking on, down to the taxis. Walking himself into God-knows what kind of trouble.

14

Florence dusts the living room and catches sight of herself in the ornate mirror above the sofa. She can’t remember looking worse. Her skin is the color of dirty dishwater and the pouches under her eyes are dark with exhaustion. She hasn’t slept the last two nights. Not a wink.

Lain awake, fretting and worrying. Nowhere to turn and nobody to trust.

This morning when she took breakfast through to the dining room, Mr. Goddard was on his own, his face in the newspaper.

“Mr. Goddard?’” she said. He didn’t look up. “Mr. Goddard, about what we discussed?”

He lowered the paper enough for her to see his cold eyes. “There was no
discussion
. You’re blackmailing me.”

She forced herself to hold her nerve, to remember what he was. “I want my money.”

“You’ll get it, you greedy brown bitch. Now leave me alone.” Lifting the newspaper, blocking her out.

She was about to retreat when she felt an emotion that took her a moment to recognize. Anger. She was bloody angry and before she could stop herself she grabbed the newspaper from his hands and threw it down, pages fluttering to the polished floor. He stared at her, astonished.

“Now you listen to me Mr. John Bloody Goddard. You hold yourself all high and mighty with your money and your house and your fancy friends. What they gonna say, your friends, when it comes out what you doing to that poor child? Think they gonna stick by you? And how you gonna manage when the courts lock up your white backside in Pollsmoor Prison, those dark men giving you a taste of your own medicine?”

His mouth moved but no words emerged. She pointed a shaking finger at him. “I want that money by tomorrow night or I go to the police. Are you hearing me?”

He nodded and she rushed out, going straight into the small bathroom off the kitchen and puking up last night’s tea. By the time she washed her face and went back into the kitchen he was driving away. She had to sit down at the table, her head dizzy.

All morning she’s been waiting for something to happen. Some retaliation. The front gate buzzes, startling her. Filled with dread she crosses and presses the intercom button.

“Ja?”

“It’s Ishmael, Missus April.”

She doesn’t reply, mute with relief.  The buzzer drills through her head again and she hits the gate release. She thought the jailbird wasn’t coming back, scared off by what she said to him last night. But here he is, walking up the driveway with his backpack and his stink.

15

Ishmael drops his pack behind the pool house where the battle axe can’t see it. No sign of the child. He crosses to a flowerbed and starts pulling out weeds, keeping his eye on the kitchen door.

After a while out she comes, the kid. Dressed in a T-shirt and little shorts, no bloody shoes, which is bad. Pretends not to see him, dancing on the grass and singing some child’s song. Ishmael knows this is all because he’s late. His punishment.

Come on, missy, fucken get over here. Now.

She’s chasing something that isn’t there but all the time looking his way. Two can play this game and Ishmael turns his back on her, fingers deep in the dark soil. He likes the feeling, cool on his skin, and a clean smell coming from the earth.

He hears soft scuffs on the grass and she’s behind him. “I thought you weren’t coming,” she says.

“I’m late.”

“I
know
that, silly.”

Ishmael stands, catches a quick look over at the house. No sign of the kitchen bitch.

“Missy, go put your shoes on,” he says.

“Why? It’s hot.”

“We going somewhere, you and me.”

“Where?”

“Just you go put on your sneakers. And you don’t say nothing to Missus April, hear me?”

She stares up at him, nods and runs off toward the kitchen.

Ishmael goes to his backpack behind the pool house, finds the last half of one of his cigarettes and squats down and lights it, sucking smoke, trying to calm himself.

You mad, Ishmael. Fucken out of your head.

He sees the walls and wire of Pollsmoor Prison. Hears the shouting and the moaning of the men. Smells the stink of their rotting bodies.

Enough.

Ishmael nips the smoke and puts it behind his ear. Stands and slings his pack over his shoulder, uses the bushes for cover as he hurries his ass toward the road, his shoes crunching on the stones.

Big gates ahead of him now. And like magic—nearly crapped himself the first time it happened—the gates automatically open away from him like bird’s wings, showing him the leafy street and freedom. He takes a deep breath and walks out into his future, far from all this wrong-headed bullshit.

“Ishmael.”

Don’t stop
, he tells himself. Just walk on.

“Ishmael!”

Hears the small feet on the stones and feels fingers gripping his hand. He looks down, and there she is, in her shoes like a boy’s.

“Here I am, Ishmael.”

And what is he to do but kneel down and take the stolen clothes from the bag and dress her? He hides the blonde hair under the cap and hurries them down to the main road, jumping a taxi just as the co-driver slams the door closed like a prison cell.

16

Mr. Goddard stinks as he comes into the kitchen, something sour like meat gone bad creeping out from under his pine deodorant. His white shirt is dusty, streaked with mud, tie pulled half-off, his suit pants khaki with
weeds.
He’s been out in the garden, crashing through the bush, calling Cindy’s name at the top of his lungs, and he’s out of breath, a lick of sweaty blond hair hanging over his one eye.

“Florence,” he says, coming up too close, pushing her back against the fridge. “I want you to be honest with me, understand?”

“About what, Mr. Goddard?”

“Did you help that little thug? Is it money you bloody people want?”

 “I never done nothing, Mr. Goddard. I could never hurt a hair on that child’s head!”

He stares at her and she can feel his breath on her face. She moves away from him, her shoulders dragging against the fridge door, loosening a magnet, one of the child’s drawings floating to the tiles.

Mr. Goddard follows Florence, pressing her against the sink, a rain of his spit hitting her face. “But that’s not true, is it?
You’re blackmailing me and now this.
Where has he taken her, that bastard?”

She feels the tears well up in her eyes. “I swear, Mr. Goddard. I done nothing. Nothing.” She puts a hand up to her face and wipes her eyes, but the tears keep on coming.

John Goddard looks like he’s going to smack her, then he sags against the table, running a hand through his hair. “Tell me again.”

Florence repeats how she called Cindy in for her afternoon tea and she never came. How she searched the house high and low, looked under the beds and in the closets, but she could find no trace of the child. Looked for the gardener, also, but they were both gone. How she panicked and phoned Mr. Goddard on his cell.

“What time did you last see her?”

“Maybe two o’ clock.”

He nods. “Three hours ago. Jesus Christ, he could have killed her by now. Or worse.”

Mr. Goddard stands up straight and she waits for more accusations, but he turns and walks into the living room, digging his cell phone out of his pocket and she hears him calling the police.

Florence picks up the drawing from the tiles and uses the magnet to stick it back on the fridge. Crayon picture of a child and two grown-ups in front of the house. She’s never looked closely at this drawing, but now she sees a third figure, in the kitchen doorway, and knows it is meant to be her.

Oh please, sweet Jesus, forgive me
. And she’s crying again like she’ll never stop.

17

Ishmael and the girly hide behind a wrecked car that lies in the open lot across the road from the social worker’s office.  The car’s got no windows or doors and the bodywork’s rusted to shit, but it’s home-sweet-home to a meth head who lies snoring in a little ball where the front seat used to be, a small glass pipe—black from smoke—still gripped in the pathetic fucker’s hand.

When Ishmael sees the druggie’s not gonna give them no problems, he keeps his eye on the office, a low brick building with bars on the windows, built right up against the railroad track. A long line of people, men and women—some with kids and babies—stand in the late afternoon sun waiting to get in the doors.

Ishmael stood there, too, last week. Just stood and waited.
One thing he knows how to do.
Took two hours to get to see the young woman who told him about his garden job. Missus Appolis is her name.
Merinda Appolis
.

Only place now Ishmael can think of taking this child. Tell the social worker what her daddy’s doing to her and let the woman keep the kid and sort it out. That’s his plan.

“Ishmael, I’m thirsty,” the girly says.

“I know, I’m sorry. Just wait a little bit, okay?”

The kid nods and sits still. A good kid.

“What are we going to do, Ishmael?”

“There’s a lady across there gonna help us,” he says.

“She won’t take me back to my daddy?”

“No.”

“Promise?”

“I promise,” Ishmael says, seeing a uniformed man locking the front doors.

The people still outside slope off into the dust, wandering toward the taxis and the trains.

Ishmael stands and takes the girly’s hand. “Come.”

He checks there’s nobody watching them (looking hard for cops) then he hurries across the road on his short legs, the kid jogging to keep up with him. Ishmael comes to the locked doors and bangs.