Last Train to Retreat (27 page)

‘Singles,’ Lena said quickly.

Later, after they’d showered and eaten the last of their snacks, Lena’s drowsy voice came to him in the dark from her bed, ‘I’m glad I came with you. I feel better already.’

‘You seem to be making a habit of it.’

‘You must hate me, Zane, for bringing you so much trouble. You must be sorry you ever got on that train …’

‘It’s crossed my mind,’ he said. It had been a nightmare from the time he set eyes on her. ‘I still don’t understand how it got so big so quickly … it’s been one thing after another. Where will it end, Lena? I’m not blaming you, it just happened, like most things do. I’ve also done wrong. Look how I’ve had to run to Malaki after all these years …’

‘We’re two people who’ve done wrong. You know what they say – two negatives make a positive.’

‘Maths, Lena, not life. Two people who kill don’t make it good. Lena …?’

‘Yes Zane.’

‘Maybe fate meant for us to be together, like it’s the only way to sort out our lives and the things that bothered us
before
we got together? I’m not explaining it very well …’

‘No, you are …’

‘Well maybe we should start by telling each other what these things are, don’t you think?’

He was waiting for an answer but her deep and regular breathing told him she’d fallen fast asleep.

•

They felt lost in George the next day, not because it was big but because without transport all they could do was walk its streets. After crisscrossing the central area bordered by York, Courtenay, Merriman and Union streets they’d had enough. It seemed that their sudden freedom had brought them only more time to think about their predicament, and as they did so they became increasingly edgy. He made the call he’d been putting off since arriving in George – to his mother, telling her he wouldn’t be home for Christmas. He said it was something he couldn’t talk about and that he loved her and Pa and Chantal and they shouldn’t worry about him – he’d be back with more presents than they could dream of.

They walked back to the hotel. A new girl was at the desk, blue-eyed, blonde, and slightly breathless from her early morning tasks. She gave them a short ‘morning’ and the bill. ‘It’s checkout time,’ she said.

Zane flinched. ‘Yes, yes, here’s the money.’ He paid R700 from the R6 000 cash he had drawn in Cape Town. This was after the R360 he’d paid for their bus fares – one way. The thought of returning to Cape Town had been too much at the time. ‘Where’s the nearest beach?’

‘I suppose Vic Bay, and there’s Wilderness a little further away … it depends,’ the girl said, juggling pieces of paper as if they were hot potatoes. Without looking up she gestured to a rack, ‘Take some brochures, they’ll tell you what’s where.’

He looked at the brochures. Wilderness seemed to have endless beaches and lakes, and rivers that twisted python-like through forests. How beautiful it looked, so different from the Flats. He tried again, ‘It says there’s a train to Wilderness?’

‘Oh, the old steam train. The Choo-Choo doesn’t run anymore.’

Jeez, was he in Legoland? Wilderness did look a bit unreal. ‘So your brochures are also out of date? Okay, what about buses?

‘No buses, only taxis, about one-fifty rand one way.’

The admin dragon winning the day over the client, Appleby would say.
And to think I’ve just paid a portion of her salary from my hard-earned bonus,
Zane thought. Or was it that he looked and sounded poor? His first hotel experience sucked.

His mood lifted when he told Lena he wanted to buy her a swimming costume. He pictured her in a bikini and picked one for her in the shop. She shook her head vehemently but conceded to take a black one-piece costume. Even so she did not bother to try it on. The way she clutched her present as they left the store was enough for him. He had looked longingly at some Billabong baggies but decided that Malaki’s frayed wax-smudged ones would have to do. He had never realised how travelling chewed up money.

They took a taxi to Wilderness, 15 kilometres east of George. If he had to pay to stay somewhere it might as well be in paradise because he doubted that he would make heaven. In the taxi Zane imagined this was how soldiers felt on a week’s leave from a deadly combat zone. The difference was that soldiers usually spent it with good time girls who didn’t worry about tomorrow.

Z
ane and Lena found a guest house on the Touw River lagoon. At R600 per room per night it was half the price of places overlooking the beach. They took the only available room that had twin beds. Zane wondered what they would have done had it not been free. It was nicely furnished and an easy walk to the sea. It took them all of sixty seconds to unpack.

‘Let’s go for a swim,’ Zane said.

‘I can’t swim.’ She sat on the bed clutching her costume.

‘You don’t know how or you don’t want to?’

A tear fell silently onto the garment in her lap. He knew why – she didn’t want to bare herself to him and the whole world. Since the time in the flat when he had to wash and dress her wound he had noticed this thing about her. It was why she walked the way she did, not wanting to bring attention to her breasts. He pulled her up next to him. ‘It’s okay to wear it, Lena. You’re going to look great in it, trust me.’

They walked hand in hand to the beach, she with a big towel wrapped around her. Unthreatening white clouds lazed overhead. Gulls floated on soft air currents. Wild duck skimmed the lagoon’s quiet waters almost touching the diamond patterns created by the sun. God, let this last forever, he thought.

It was two days before Christmas. The beach was abuzz but it was so big they easily found an empty spot near the high-water mark. He watched her step out from behind her towel. She was shapely as he had thought. She let him take her into the sea up to her waist and no further, squirming like a seal in her black one-piece suit and holding onto him. ‘Come on, this is warm, try False Bay!’ he teased. She suddenly broke loose and started splashing him. ‘Aha!’ he said. A vigorous water fight ensued with more squeals. She was about to scoop up more water when she stepped into a hollow and fell over. When she surfaced her thick fringe was a small waterfall cascading down her face. She couldn’t see a thing. He stepped forward and kissed her without warning and without embracing her. She took in a sharp breath and froze as if in arctic water. He left his mouth on hers, lost in the sweet saltiness of their kiss. They stood like that for what seemed an eternity, eyes closed to the world.

•

They spent the next day on the beach again but she had withdrawn behind the old Lena. It was as though she realised she had overstepped the lines drawn over many years. Their kiss seemed forgotten. They didn’t even hold hands.

Now, with the sun beginning to cast long shadows over the sand and people packing up to go home, he could stand it no longer. ‘Lena, are you angry with yourself about yesterday? Don’t be if you are – what happened was so natural and beautiful it can’t possibly be bad.’

She took a handful of sand and ran it through her fist in a steady flow like his mother’s egg-timer used to do except all he could think of now was time running out for them. ‘I’m not sure …’

‘Not sure! I didn’t notice that you didn’t want to be kissed.’ He felt hurt and frustrated.

‘Hey, it’s not that it wasn’t good, it’s just that … that I made a promise to myself long ago not to trust those kinds of feelings.’

They were using double negatives to say something positive. Double negatives drove him crazy – they were so roundabout. ‘Jesus, Lena, it was either good or it wasn’t. We’re pussy-footing around, I mean we’re
made
to enjoy the very feelings you’re denying yourself. I don’t understand …’

‘No, you don’t!’

‘How can I understand if you don’t tell me?’

She blurted out, ‘Don’t be so touchy! If passion was all good and beautiful I’d trust it but it’s not. It can be evil and ugly – because deep down we’re animals. I saw it as a girl. We saw it with Gatiep and Curly. Passion is two-faced like a coin – on one side there’s love, on the other, rape, and you know what, God doesn’t give a damn which way it falls. It’s not about Him, it’s about how the coin lands.’

The setting sun fired up Lena’s brown eyes. He was looking at the girl on the train and in his flat when he nursed her – a dark bitterness flowing from her. She said wearily, ‘
Dis die drif en die dier in ons
, Zane.’

The passion and the beast in us
– she was barricading herself behind generalities, he thought. He took her hand. ‘If it
is
just the two of us, Lena, shouldn’t we help each other? Talk about the things from the past that are still hurting us, didn’t we say that? It would be a good start.’

But what he saw in her eyes was only despair.

•

In the morning he phoned his mother and father and Chantal to wish them a happy Christmas and to assure them he was alright. Chantal asked when he’d be back and he said, ‘I don’t know,
Sus,
but soon … I have to get back to work. I’m glad the factory’s closed so you don’t have to walk that road every day, you know what I mean. Look after yourself,
Sussie.
’

To avoid the crowds on the beach and on the banks of the lagoon they took the giant kingfisher trail running alongside the Touw River. It was so forested that they got only occasional glimpses of the river. It was like another planet compared to the Cape Flats and it made them realise that what they called home was a hellhole. For nearly four kilometres they followed the twisting river until they reached some boulders and a waterfall. There they swam in a rock pool, clear to the bottom and bracing. With thumping heart Zane pulled Lena towards him, afraid of what she might do. She didn’t resist, looked at him strangely and lifted her face brushing his lips once, twice, three times with hers before kissing him fiercely. He didn’t move, too afraid to disturb the magic spell that had been brought on by her in this primeval place.

She whispered between kisses, ‘I don’t know who I am anymore.’

‘You’re confusing me too.’ He held her tightly and felt her pointy breasts against him.

‘I’m scared of what I might do.’

‘Don’t be, I’m not.’

She pulled away and gave him that strange look again. ‘Listen to me, Zane – I’m not what you think I am. There’s Lena and Lena, there’s the passion and the beast, don’t you see?’

He suddenly felt the cold of the water. Was it Lena’s I and I, Lena and her own shadow rider? It was also Lena and Zane, thrown together on a train bound for God knew where. How much was there that she hadn’t told him?

•

That night she came into his arms for the first time, her fragrance a mix of sun, sea air and rock pools. They didn’t make love, too aware of the past lying between them. There was an oppressive stillness in their little room on the lagoon, like before a storm when the world sensed that something had to give. It came after they fell asleep. She woke as if from a bad dream, clinging to him and crying even before she spoke the first words about her father. ‘Elton Valentine,’ she said a few times as if he had been a stranger who had come into her room and into her bed, whispering stories as he destroyed her, while outside he preached in the name of the Father in Heaven, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Lena’s words fell like drops of welcome rain while Zane held her. She spoke of her years with Rowena and of a silence so absolute it felt as if her tongue had been cut out, and how, when she was finally on her own and free she couldn’t bring herself to talk about it to anyone.

Only then did he talk. ‘You have
me
now, Lena.’ He kissed her and she kissed him back as if she would never let him go. She was beginning to drive him wild.

‘There’s more, Zane,’ she said holding on to him.

‘Oh?’

‘Gatiep was not the first man I killed.’

He suddenly felt all desire leaving him. He sat up. ‘What in God’s name do you mean?’

She told him everything, how she’d had no choice but to kill Cupido the night she rescued Sarai. ‘He was evil, he was like Gatiep … it wouldn’t surprise me if they worked for the same gang. How could I have known what was coming! First Cupido and then Gatiep – it was as if killing them was the price I had to pay for Sarai. They were like sacrifices, Zane, and then she had to die after all that – because of me.
I killed her,
I’m the one
I’m scared of …
don’t you see now?’

Zane could do nothing to stop her sobbing. He’d never seen so many tears flowing from such a small body. She did not seem to care that he took off her wet top so that he could put on one of his T-shirts. But he never got that far. He cupped her shy breasts instead, holding his breath as if he was under water. She didn’t stop crying but she didn’t stop him either, clinging to him as though they were both about to drown.

•

It was his turn to wake with a start. Like a crocodile the thought had been lurking beneath the surface of his mind and was now breaching his sleep with a mighty slap of its tail – what if the people who wanted to kill him and Lena were the same? Sarai had told Lena that Cupido ran the brothels near the Green Point World Cup stadium as well as the city parlour where Sarai lived. It was Lena’s theory that Gatiep had taken over from Cupido. Through Sollie Baatjies Lena knew that Gatiep and Curly were from Lavender Hill, so they had probably been on their way home when the train incident happened. From there, all the hunters had to do was put together the pieces of the puzzle they had gleaned from Curly, Chantal, and Sarai.

Zane gently moved Lena’s head from his chest and slid out of bed. He walked outside. If only their lives were as gentle and undisturbed as this lagoon tonight. There was harmony all around them but not within themselves. If he was right the common denominator was Hannibal who wanted both of them dead. It would explain his fury – Lena killing two high-ranking members of his gang, making off with Sarai, a prized possession, Hannibal being rejected for the second time by Chantal, opening old wounds, and finally, Hannibal realising Zane was the man who’d been on the train. By being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Zane had pushed Hannibal’s hatred of him to the point of no return, and, just as fatefully, Lena had also crossed Hannibal – both of them without realising it.