Street Kid (24 page)

‘Well, that’s very kind of you to help an old woman, Judy,’ Mrs Ezra said. ‘Your mother would be proud of you.’

Mrs Ezra hadn’t asked me anything about my home life, for which I was thankful. I sensed that she’d realized I was a lonely child with troubles at home, but she was not the prying sort, even though she must have guessed everything wasn’t all right with me. I’m sure she thought I’d open up to her if I wanted to, in time; but until then, she’d let me be.

We walked up the hill slowly to Garth Mansions, where Mr and Mrs Ezra lived. At the front door she asked me if I’d like to come in. ‘I’m sure you’d like a cup of coffee and a biscuit,’ she said. ‘And you can meet Soli. He doesn’t get out much these days so it’ll be nice for him.’

Inside, the sitting room was warm and stuffy. Mr Ezra was in an old, comfy-looking armchair with his feet up on a stool. He looked very small and frail, sitting there amongst the huge dark pieces of furniture that filled the room. When he spoke to me, his voice sounded reedy and faint.

‘Hello, Judy,’ he said kindly. ‘Now that’s very kind of you to help with the shopping. Sit yourself down, Mrs E won’t be a moment and then you can tuck in to a biscuit.’

When Mrs Ezra brought in the coffee and biscuits I had to stop myself from stuffing the lot in my mouth. But I hadn’t become as desperate as that, yet, and managed to satisfy myself with two, although I’m sure my eyes never once left the plate.

When she saw me to the door, Mrs Ezra looked at me straight in the eyes for a moment and put her hand on my arm. ‘Life goes on, dearie,’ she said. ‘Life goes on.’

It was as if the space between the years had vanished for her and she was looking at some time in her own past when things had been particularly harsh. I understood then why the old lady had approached me when no one else had. She knew when another person was in pain, and had felt drawn to me. Perhaps she saw in me something of the child she had once been.

Mrs Ezra gave me a pair of pink flipflops for Christmas and a little hanky with a ‘J’ embroidered in the corner. She told me that she was going away the next day to stay with her daughter in Durban. I was glad to have the flipflops. Perhaps people wouldn’t think I was homeless if I wore them sometimes. Most of the younger kids in South Africa went barefoot in the summer, but I was very aware that my clothes were looking more and more dirty and the flipflops gave me a bit more confidence.

After Mrs Ezra had left, I felt very alone and no longer liked to sit in the park, knowing I wouldn’t meet her and Bitsy there. In the centre of Johannesburg, on Eloff Street, shoppers were rushing about with bags of presents and everywhere I went I heard the jingling of carols proclaiming peace to all men. In the department store, I watched Santa giving presents to the children and thought he must be roasting in his red suit.

The more excited people became as Christmas approached, the more depressed I felt. It really hit me then that everybody was together, busy preparing for an event they were going to share with people they loved.
I’m surrounded by all these people and yet nobody sees me,
I thought to myself, miserably. I felt even worse than I had on the boat the previous Christmas, if that was possible.

I was desperately worried as well. With the shops and restaurants closing for three or four days over Christmas, I wondered how I was going to find any food.

On Christmas Eve, I went back to Cherie’s apartment, hoping that Dad might have come back to Johannesburg to preach at Christmas; but there was no sign of life there. As the afternoon wore on, I felt increasingly anxious. I had no plan, and no way of getting food. By the evening, all I could think of doing was following the rest of the families to church for midnight mass.
Maybe,
I thought,
I should to ask the priest to help me.

St Joseph’s hadn’t given me a particularly good opinion of priests, but I thought it was worth a try. I went into the church and sat down in a pew. Around me, the place was filling up and there must have been three hundred packed in by the time the service started. I didn’t feel at all comfortable surrounded by so many people, and the more panicky I became, the more I thought how hopeless my plan was.
I haven’t the nerve to talk to the priest and wouldn’t know what to say. Anyway, it would only get me in trouble. If my father finds out I’ve been blabbing, he’ll kill me. Say nothing to no one. Say nothing to no one. That’s what he always says.

I sat there, looking fixedly ahead at the altar, my heart pounding in my chest. Then, as the organist began to play the opening bars of ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ and the choir started to process up the aisle to their stalls,
I stood up quickly and fought my way out of the pew. I was gasping for air.

Outside the church, I stood drinking in the night air and looking up at the stars, just as I had done years before in the nursery at St Joseph’s.

That night, in the bottle shed, I came up with a plan at last. I asked myself where families might go for the day if they didn’t want to celebrate Christmas in their homes and suddenly I remembered Zoo Lake, which I’d explored with Carl. It was a long way to walk from Hillbrow, but I was certain there would be people there on Christmas Day.

Zoo Lake turned out to be a godsend. It took me a couple of hours to get there but once I’d reached the Northern Suburbs I found that the plane trees that lined the streets made a huge green canopy that protected me from the intense midday heat. Red and purple bougainvillaea blossom tumbled in tangled vines over the wooden
stoeps
and garden walls of the houses. Everywhere it was green, shady and calm.

I was tired and footsore when I arrived at the lake but was immediately cheered to see tendrils of smoke curling up through the trees. As I drew closer, I almost broke into a run as the smell of barbecued sausages reached my nostrils.

I had to wait until the families had finished eating and had dumped their paper plates of chicken bones and salad into the large bins by the picnic site before I moved in. Standing there at the sidelines, trying not to look conspicuous, I knew how a starving jackal must feel, waiting his turn near the carcass, tongue hanging out.

When everyone had gone off to swim or sail their boats after lunch, I went over to the bins. With fingers covered
with ketchup and grease, I combed through the rubbish until I had a carrier bag full of meat, bread rolls, and salad. I reckoned I had enough to last three or four days, if I was careful.

And when that runs out there is always the drive-in,
I thought to myself.

A couple of weeks before, I’d been exploring downtown Johannesburg when I’d seen a poster advertising a film that was going to be shown at the Top Star Drive-in Bioscope. I didn’t really care about seeing
Three Coins in a Fountain,
but it occurred to me that a drive-in might be the perfect place to scavenge for food and coins. And I’d been right.

It was situated on an old mine dump and it took me over an hour to walk there from Hillbrow. The first couple of afternoons, I just stood at the entrance, watching people come and go and working out how I was going to get in for free.

But it was easier to get past the man on the gate than I’d thought. All I had to do was pretend I belonged to one of the carloads of people who had already been through. I’d seen many parents letting their kids out of the car to play on the swings until the film was ready to start, so it was easy to make out I belonged with them. I made sure to memorize the colour and make of one of the larger cars in case I was quizzed by the man on the gate, but he waved me through without a problem.

It was now the Saturday before school was due to start. Before the break, I’d been given a list of the books and sportswear I’d need for the new term. It was hopeless to think I’d be able to go back without them. When I was first living rough I’d gone to Barnato Park every day, fearful
that, if I didn’t, I’d get beaten to a pulp by my dad for truanting; but now I had far more pressing worries to deal with. My supplies had all but gone.

I decided to make the long trek out to the drive-in with my carrier bag, hoping I’d find some pickings there. As it turned out, it was both a successful and a disastrous evening.

When I got to the entrance, I was waved in as usual. Once inside the enclosure, I picked my way through the small crowd of picnickers until I found what I was looking for. Near the front was a friendly-looking family with an enormous picnic, big enough to feed an army. I guessed they must be on their holidays or they wouldn’t have bought so much food.

I went over to the mother and waited until she realized that I was hanging around wanting to speak to her.

‘Hello, there,’ she said. ‘Are you okay?’

I trotted out my well-rehearsed patter. ‘I was wondering if it would be all right if I sat with you. Our car’s really near the back and I can’t see the screen very well.’

‘Of course you can!’ she said, making a space for me on the rug. ‘Come and join us. And you’d better tell me your name.’ I did so and then her attention drifted to her little boy. ‘Joseph, just one at a time, please! Here, take a napkin.’

A moment later, she remembered me. ‘Would you like a drumstick too? We’ve got plenty to spare. We’ll never get through it all.’

I thanked her and took the chicken leg, tucking into it ravenously. The woman looked thoughtfully at me for a moment. ‘Goodness, your legs don’t look much fatter than that drumstick you’re eating! Eat up, my girl.’ Then she laughed kindly. ‘I bet your mother’s always saying that.’

If you only knew.
I thought bleakly.
There’s probably only three or four people in my whole life who’ve ever said ‘Eat up’.
And then I remembered Miss Williams for a moment, with her tray of fairy cakes.

Everyone went quiet just then as the film was beginning. I wondered if I could reach out and help myself to more food, but didn’t feel I should. My mind wasn’t on the film at all; it was just circling round and round the plates of chicken and sandwiches.

At half time, the kids’ dad put his hand in his pocket and brought out some coins. ‘Joseph, Anne,’ he beckoned to his children, who were already wandering off to play. ‘Would you like an ice cream?’

They skipped over excitedly and he gave them each a few pence. Then his wife spoke to me. ‘Would you like one, too?’ she asked. ‘Hey, Anne, wait on. I’d like you to get one for Judy as well, please.’ She gave her daughter another penny.

I’d never had ice cream in a cone before and was thrilled. Anne came back with a large whippy vanilla one with sprinkles on top, like the ones I’d seen people buy at the circus from a machine at the hotdog lady’s stand.
What a bit of luck choosing this family,
I thought happily as I licked the dribbles from the side of the cornet.

The film seemed to be going on an awfully long time and before the end I grew restive. I knew I had to get back to the yard before the drunks came into the alley and started kicking up a rumpus. Usually I’d be in my bottle shed by seven, but now I reckoned it must already be past eight.

I got up from the rug and whispered my thanks to the lady beside me. I still had to go on my hunt for coins and didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity. I’d quickly
found out that if I walked along the rows of cars, searching the ground beneath the drivers’ windows, I might find the odd penny or threepenny bit that had been dropped by the waiters who went from car to car offering drinks and peanuts.

And now my luck was in again. I found two tickies – threepenny bits – and a penny.

Afterwards, though, walking through the darkening streets, the glow I’d felt earlier started to fade and, as I made my way along Kotze Street towards my alley, the snake of unease in my belly began its familiar writhing. I’d never got back this late before and knew it wasn’t safe here.

I entered the alleyway and saw, to my relief, that all was clear. The drunks hadn’t yet arrived. It was only when I slipped through the opening in the wall that led into the yard that I realized I wasn’t alone. But by then it was too late to get away. There was a man standing between me and my exit into the alley.

I had the most horrible feeling that I’d been here before, that I knew what was going to happen to me now. And, like that time on the beach at the Isle of Man, I simply froze. I wanted to run and scream but, like in a bad dream, my legs wouldn’t move and the breath stuck in my throat. I wasn’t in a dream, though, and the man, when he came up close, smelt too strongly of sweat and beer for me ever to suppose I was.

‘Wharra you doing here?’ he asked me in a slurry voice.

‘My … my dad works in the shop,’ I told him, quite unable to hide the fear in my voice.

‘You lying little kaffir,’ he said, grabbing me by the hair and twisting my head back so that I was looking straight into his eyes. They were mean.

I realized, when he’d called me a kaffir, that he must have thought, with my dark skin and bushy hair, that I was a black girl. I knew then I was lost.

‘Please, please let me go. Let me go! My dad, he works in the shop. He works in the shop!’ I couldn’t think of anything else to say and felt suddenly like I was going to pee in my pants.

‘Shut up, you dirty slut!’ he grunted, pulling my face to his and shoving his mouth over mine while he fumbled with his fly with his other hand. ‘Come on, come on,’ he mumbled. ‘Christ, you’re a skinny kaffir.’

I tried to fight back but that made him angrier and he punched my face. I couldn’t breathe as he had me by the throat. With one of his legs he kicked my feet out from under me, forcing me onto my knees, and I think I must have blacked out because I don’t remember anything else.

When I came to, I was lying curled around myself on the dirt floor of the yard. The man had gone and the alley was quiet. I gingerly lifted my head from the ground and drew myself onto my knees. I couldn’t yet stand up. Then, trying to take steadier breaths so I wouldn’t be sick, I managed to get to my feet and pull up my shorts. Every bit of my body felt bruised and broken and I could feel that I was sticky with blood, on my legs and in my mouth where he must have bitten me; but the terror was still so strong in me that I was galvanized to get out.
I’ve got to get away, got to get away! He’ll come back and kill me. I know he will!