Last Train to Retreat (7 page)

As Lena’s anger mounted over the dehumanisation of Sarai so her remorse subsided over the killing of Cupido – until one morning she awoke feeling only rage. Rage against traffickers and against unfeeling men who funded them by fucking their victims.

Z
ane was all ears as Magnus Theron of Barnard, Ainslie, Theron advertising agency, or BAT as it was known, gave them the big news: ‘The rumour’s true – the other agency hasn’t cracked the campaign for the new spirit coolers that Good Hope Distillers want to launch this summer. October’s nearly gone and GHD aren’t pleased, to put it mildly – already TV deadlines are in question. So they’ve given us the opportunity to pitch as one of their long-standing agencies. The bad news is they’ve asked two outside agencies to do the same. We know what that means – if either of them gets the business, our existing GHD accounts will become targets.’

Magnus let his protruding blue eyes rest on each person in the boardroom just long enough: Appleby, BAT’S client service director, Justin, the creative director, Deirdre, a creative group head, Jenny and Steve in charge of traffic and production respectively, Johan, the media director, and Zane. Zane had been flabbergasted a week earlier when Appleby said, ‘With Hein having left you’re in, Zane. It’s your chance, old man …’ As a rookie, Zane had been handling some of BAT’s smaller clients under Hein, the account executive – a restaurant chain, a canned fruit and jam producer, and a clothing manufacturer. To be included now in a team pitching for more GHD business was awesome – BAT depended heavily on liquor.

Five years earlier Zane had received his first break when The Centre in Lavender Hill helped him to prepare a letter to BAT applying for a job as messenger. To his utter amazement he landed it. For the next three years Zane and another messenger crisscrossed greater Cape Town on motorbikes delivering and collecting CDs, product samples, documents, pack designs, gifts/teasers, and pizzas for staff working late. But courier services and digital communication soon meant that only one messenger was required. Expecting to be retrenched, Zane had got his second break when he was asked to join BAT’s client service team as a trainee. Zane could not believe his luck. ‘Is it because of affirmative action, Mr Appleby?’ ‘You know the deal in this country, Zane. You prove to Mr Theron that you’re not just a number on an AA scorecard, okay? And call me Tom, or Appleby, like the others.’ Appleby had been looking out for Zane from that time on. How ironic, Zane thought, that a
soutie
had taken Eddie’s son under his wing.

Magnus summed up, ‘The pitch is in three weeks’ time. I want a knock-out campaign. The product is there – a range of new fruit-flavoured coolers with a kick equal to strong beer, in smart-looking bottles that any youngster would be proud to hold. Be careful, though, and stay inside those liquor advertising rules – the people drinking it must
look
over 18 but the
feel
of the ads can be young and hip. We know the under 18s lap up the stuff and it’s only good strategy to acquire first-timers, not just brand-switchers.’

It was a statement that would give Zane sleepless nights. With shock he realised it was the kind of thing Hannibal would have said to his drug runners. ‘Get them young, get them for life,’ was how Hannibal had made his money.

•

Afterwards Zane went over to Appleby’s desk. Seniority at BAT was denoted by where one’s desk was: the lowly had their desks out in the open, senior people like Appleby and Justin had their desks against a wall, and only Magnus’s desk was in an office with four walls. On Justin’s wall hung famous ads from the past: VW, Avis, Hertz, Xerox, Volvo, Coca-Cola, Perdue, Esso, Clairol, Schweppes, and many more, arranged in clusters behind him as though he was hoping to catch some of their creative spark. Appleby, in contrast, had posters with dreamy shots of Seychelles, Bali, the Maldives, and Cancun on his wall, ‘getaway pictures’, he called them.

‘Hey, thanks Appleby,’ Zane said.

‘No sweat, kiddo. It’s your opportunity, you know that.’ Appleby was forty but looked fifty – face creased, hair grey on the sides, stomach pushing out. He smoked a lot, loved his drink, and clients loved him in return which was just as well – in London he had lost his wife to someone, as he put it, ‘more bedworthy than me, a beefcake not worth fighting.’ He’d say it to laughter, not tears, but Zane knew how he pined for his two kids. Appleby was nice, too nice. Zane suspected it was why Appleby would never have Magnus’s job or income.

‘Appleby, we need to talk …’

Appleby held up his hands. ‘Ho! We’re not starting from scratch. The product’s there, so is the marketing plan, all we have to do is crack the campaign. Magnus will do the credentials, I’ll cover the market, and Justin will present the creative. I’ll introduce you as a member of the team on the new coolers … if we get it.’

‘But I don’t know …’

‘Don’t worry, here’s stuff on the market – size, segments, trends, attitudes, usage, etc.’ Appleby shoved a pile of documents towards Zane. ‘As important would be for you to get the feel of it – visit liquor stores, talk to the staff, observe people at parties, drink the stuff.’

Zane thought,
but
I don’t do alcohol, how can I order apple juice when we’re with
GHD?
Zane had heard how GHD planned agency meetings for the afternoons so that everyone could have a piss-up in their pub afterwards, especially on Fridays. But another voice said,
shut the fuck up, Zane-boy, keep your ideas to yourself about not drinking
because of Pa.
What if Magnus got to hear about his reservations? Magnus was as crusty as crisp bread and snapped as easily. Never with clients, mind you, only with staff because Magnus was a bottom-line man. He believed that if firing a shitty client gave you more satisfaction than winning a new one then you were wrong for the business. Zane was convinced that to Magnus Theron he was just an affirmative action statistic and that if he messed up Magnus would simply find another person of colour to replace him. ‘He gets aerated, you know,’ Appleby had warned Zane, ‘about all kinds of things, some you never see coming.’

As Zane walked to his desk carrying Appleby’s pile of papers he thought, this is for them – Eddie and Gloria, and above all, Chantal. Let fancy cars, clothes, and holidays wait. Saving to set his family up on the other side of the track came first.

•

Spin Street, probably the shortest in Cape Town, squeezed as it was between Plein and Parliament Streets, was where Zane worked – in an old, beautifully preserved four-storey building. A computer shop had taken the ground floor and BAT had a long-term lease on the three floors above it. It was in the heart of old Cape Town, near Van Riebeeck’s Castle going back 350 years, Parliament, and the Grand Parade where Nelson Mandela made his first public speech after his release from prison. Today the area wasn’t as ritzy as Green Market Square but rents were cheaper which was what mattered to Magnus. ‘Rent and headcount – they eat up profits,’ he’d complain as if headcount and people at BAT were not one and the same thing. Whereas Magnus couldn’t escape paying rent, everyone knew he could, and would, cut headcount if BAT ever lost a major client. Spin Street. It had cracked Appleby up when he first arrived. ‘Lord! An ad agency in a street called that – it
has
to be good.’

As Zane exited the building at 7.54 pm, his head heavy with liquor matters – he’d been at his desk since mid-morning, skipping lunch and then his evening session with Sensei Simon – the prospect of getting involved in booze loomed over him. He had closed himself off from BAT’s liquor business for three years doing his best on the clients he’d been given. Now he had to work with the spider of spin creating subtle webs, in this case to catch young, impressionable consumers.

‘The brand promise has to be unique lest you get lost in the clutter!’ Magnus had explained after Zane had moved from messenger to trainee account exec. It was one of BAT’s mantras.

‘But what if the products are the same, Mr Theron?’ Zane had asked.

‘Then we’ll
create
a point of difference, that’s what adding value is about.’

‘How can we tell it’s what the consumer wants? I mean, maybe there’s something else they want?’

Magnus’s bulbous blue eyes had studied him. ‘I can see you still have a lot to learn. It’s like this, Zane, if you say something often and creatively enough people will soon believe that’s what they’ve been wanting all along.’

‘You mean it’s like we know what they want before
they
even know it? That’s cool!’ Zane had walked away in wonderment. It was why men like Magnus lived in Bishop’s Court and had holiday homes in Hermanus. Only afterwards, in his freezing, added-on room in Lavender Hill, had Zane reflected that it sounded a bit like the old White Government telling Coloureds what was best for them without them ever having a say in it.

Zane walked past the statue of Jan Hofmeyr in Church Square and wondered what Onze Jan would have said. But then Hofmeyr had no idea how bad things would become in his country and that one day there would be a place called the Flats where
any
hope offered had to be grasped with both hands. Even if it turned out that salaries were paid by Spin Street.

To Zane, complete freedom came only through financial freedom and his job was the ticket to it. He just had to box clever, as Appleby would say.

•

Zane hurried down Parliament Street to catch the 8.05 pm train bound for Simonstown via the southern suburbs, the last one for the night. The special late trains that ran during the FIFA World Cup were a thing of the past. He suddenly remembered that the Golden Acre Centre was already closed – he’d have to walk around it, not through it as he usually did, to get to the main station. He hadn’t factored in the extra few minutes. With plenty of breath still in him he took the detour along Darling and Adderley Streets at a running pace.

At 8.04 pm Zane burst into the near empty station hall and through a squeaking turnstile. Trains routinely ran late but tonight he couldn’t bank on it.

The train was still there, at platform 5 – eight carriages of steel trapped on tracks, hemmed in by a driver cab at either end, the bright lighting failing to create any sense of welcome. Zane entered the nearest coach thankful for his season ticket. Inside there was one passenger, a girl in a black sweater and skinny jeans, hunched over a newspaper. Zane couldn’t see her face – only her hair cut in a bob with a fringe that reminded him of a brown horse’s tail clipped neatly across.

The coach’s seats ran along the sides creating an open centre for standing passengers during rush hour. The interior was drab – no advertising, no brightly-coloured route maps, only a few stickers indicating changeovers. Graffiti everywhere made it more depressing – on the walls, the doors, even the seats. Gnarled baobabs had more shape and grace, Zane thought. It was as though he had entered a place crammed with signatures from the Flats – a petition as it were about the raw deal they’d been given. How well he understood those who rode the trains in anger!

Only twenty-four minutes, nine stops, and he’d step off at Wynberg station. Then a short walk to his flat, a can of pilchards on toast with salad, a shower, and a goodnight call to Bernadette. He sat down at the other end from the girl and closed his eyes, his mind once more brimming with stats and charts, his stomach noisily empty.

I
t was somewhere between Observatory and Mowbray that the two men entered Zane’s coach. They came through the inter-leading door – the man in front tall and sinewy, his step springy as though only the balls of his sneakered feet were touching the floor, his companion behind him lower and slower as if he realised his thick body could topple over in the moving train. Leader and follower, Zane thought – jeans, sweatshirts with hoods down, one baseball cap sideways, the other backwards. Zane sat up.

‘
Bru, check daai klonkie chicky, she’s nice, huh?
’ The leader stared at the girl.

‘
Aweh, jy, hoesit
?’ the other greeted her.

The girl said nothing, lowered her head more. The men did not sit down and their unwelcome presence filled the coach.

‘
Oulike kind
,’ reiterated the first one, clearly liking what he was seeing.

‘
Dikbek sê ek, of stirvy, of plein mompies
.’ Rugby-neck was pronouncing the girl either surly or stuck-up, or simply retarded. He treated Zane as if he didn’t exist or was of no consequence. Zane could feel his heart thudding. They sat down opposite the girl. ‘
Awe, Gatiep, steek ‘n ent!
’ The big man stuck a cigarette in his mouth and waited for his friend to light it in spite of the no-smoking sign. He inhaled deeply then blew the smoke in her direction. It hung like a vapour trail between them. Clack, clack, clack, the train’s wheels never missed a beat.

To stop his legs from shaking Zane pressed down on his knees with his palms. He imagined water from his shower running over his dry mouth and throat – soon he’d be home. He glanced at the girl. She sat as if made from stone. The big man flicked his cigarette in Zane’s direction and leaned back. The carriage light accentuated his wiry hair, narrow forehead and coarse face. The leader kept staring at the girl as though he was willing her to lift her eyes. Every now and then his open mouth would shut and he’d swallow and his big Adam’s apple would slide up and down. Like a vulture about to throw up, Zane thought. The man had a permanently hungry look about him.

The cigarette landed near Zane, its burning tip blackening the floor. Zane got up and snuffed it out with the heel of his shoe.

‘Hey, Curly, someone’s stomping on your
stompie!’
Gatiep said. ‘Ha, ha, get it, bru?’

‘
Get it
… from the floor?
Nooit!
’

‘Don’t be a
mamparra
, man.’

The cigarette had been a baited hook. Now they were pulling Zane in like a hapless
snoek
. A familiar feeling ran through him: the possibility of physical violence that made him cross a street, walk out of a club, or cut off a conversation, just to avoid it. At this moment he had no choice – he was trapped in this cage feeling nauseous.