The Boy Next Door (17 page)

I watch him push and grind his palms on the rock. I remember that day at the museum when I saw that his hands were bruised.

He looks up, his palms flat on the stone. I move my hand that little bit across the stone, put it on his.

“She’d told Mphiri that she wanted him out of the house. That she knew he was stealing. She was hitting the old chap. She’d
lock him in the boy’s kaya, hit him with sticks, belts.”

He lifts our hands off the stone.

I watch him wipe his palms with a tissue, see the streaks of blood there.

“He snapped, that’s all. He must have got her while she was sleeping. Poured the paraffin. I told the police it was an accident.
That she tripped on a paraffin stove. They weren’t interested.”

He gets up from the stone, sways a bit. He looks down at his hands and then up at me. I force the words out, unsparing and
cold. I have waited so long. I cannot look at him, though. I look down at the stone, the stone that has particles of his flesh,
blood.

I try to imagine Mphiri doing something like that. The old man with paraffin in his hands bending over the sleeping woman.
I try to think of how much Mphiri knew, what he saw in all those years there in that house. I think of Ian, the small boy,
running away from his stepmother into the boy’s kaya, a safe haven from the shouting, the beatings. The picture wavers in
my head, and it is replaced by something else.

“What about the other woman?”

I look up, up at the vast sky, following the arc of a bird, waiting.

“What other woman?”

He is standing there, his hands tucked in his jeans.

“The police said that there was another woman who got burnt. They said you took her to the hospital before you went to the
police station.”

I watch him watch me.

“You know who it is, Lindiwe, my mother. Sarah Price. I went to Ingutsheni yesterday. I haven’t been to see her since I left,
not once.”

His eyes are steady on me.

I think of my pink handbag with the page from
The Chronicle.
“Murder!” it said. I touched his head with my finger, and when I looked down, I saw that his feet were bare.

“And now I’m here. With you.”

The first time he said my name, the way he said it: no exaggeration, not a hint of exasperation at having to pronounce an
African name. My name was there, perfect in his voice.

“I wanted to sort myself out.”

He is standing by the gate, looking up at the house, until Mphiri comes to open it.

“I kept telling them that I could look after her; that we could move to the house or go back south but nothing. The psychiatrist
on her case was on a real power trip, a real pompous windbag—she was his responsibility; I had just been released from jail,
no guarantees, couldn’t take the chance—on and on he went when I got the nerve to go to that place, you must know how it goes,
Lindiwe, it’s your field.”

He is sitting on Daddy’s chair, the car radio on his lap like a cat, white tackies on his feet.

“Once they found out she was my mother they reckoned they had it all locked up. The two of us there. A domestic dispute, incident:
premeditated.”

Our hands are side by side on the car. He is helping me to push it.

And here he is, wiping his hands on his jeans.

“Okay Lindiwe, can we leave it for now? I just want to chill.”

On the drive to Troutbeck Inn, we listen to a homemade tape of a South African band, Stimela.

“You should see them live. They’re going to be hot. Check out Ray Phiri on the guitar and vocals.”

The road, enveloped in mist, unwinds down the mountain; sometimes we are so close to the edge of the escarpment that one moment’s
inattention and we could disappear below. I don’t tell him that I’m nervous about the drive back in the dark.

“What music do you like?”

“You’ll laugh.”

“Come on.”

“Dire Straits, UB40, Bruce Springsteen, Culture Club—”

“Jeez—”

“It gets worse. Until recently I was really into the New Romantics, you know, those British bands with lots of eyeliner and
lace, Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran—”

“You’re a fricking Rhodie!”

“And, and Julio Iglesias.”

“Julio who?”

“Julio Iglesias, he’s Spanish. Don’t tell me you haven’t heard ‘Hey!’”

“No. Hey, what?”

“Just ‘Hey!’ It’s all in Spanish and I don’t understand any of it, but it sounds so romantic. Yes. Yes, I even have the album.”

“Christ!”

“Oh, and Richard Clayderman.”

“Rhodie fricking Central for sure. Culture, my child, culture. You should check out Lovemore Majaivana and those township
blokes. They can really belt out a song; you can really feel the emotions, all that shit about the ancestors, it’s all there….”

I watch him roll the window down, and I listen to his voice as it is carried away into the forest.

He rolls the window up again, looks at me, his fingers tapping the steering wheel to the song in his head.

I look at him with my mouth wide open.

“Yah, yah, it’s a honky voice. No need to look like you’re going to cry. Not that bad.”

“It was beautiful, Ian.”

“When I was a lightie, ten, eleven roundabouts then, over at Matopos, I checked out a rainmaking ceremony like you never believe.
I was hiding out in the bush, scrammed away from the troop, went right up…. And there the saddest—you want to hear beautiful,
that was beautiful—scared the life out of me. Then they start blowing on the gourds and shit, the air is carrying that sound,
vibrating with it, like everything is waiting, calling on God…. If God is going to be anywhere, it’s in the African bush all
right.”

I watch him turn the cassette over, press the play button and hold my breath as the car is flooded with Louis Armstrong and
his magical trumpet.

On and on we drive.

“You know he came to Bullies in the sixties?”

“No, really?”

“Played over at the Queens Cricket Ground. I would have loved to see that. The guy belting out the classics, “Mack the Knife,”
“When the Saints Go Marching In.” Past his prime but still delivering the goods. The place was packed, black, white. Listen.
Sweet.”

Because we’re early, we sit outside, having drinks. I look about and an image of Troutbeck Inn before independence fixes itself
on me, just like this one: the white golfers teeing off around the lake, the anglers fishing, the wives nursing children here
at the patio, the black waiters carrying trays, weaving in and out of tables,
good evening, madam, sir—
yes, just like this, except, of course, I wouldn’t be here getting looked over by wives, nannies, and waiters. And I can hear
Maphosa all right; his anger still fresh and raw, “Amabhunu” and then right at me, “Sellout.” I look at Ian and see “the White
Man,” “the Oppressor,” “the Settler,” “the Colonizer,” for the first time really, and wonder if he would accuse me of being
racialistic.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, I’m just going for a walk.”

“You don’t like it here?”

“No. I mean, yes, I like it. I’m just going for a short walk.”

“I’ll come with you.”

We find a signposted trail just over the lake, and we go into the forest. We walk without talking until we reach a clearing
and find ourselves at the trout breeding farm. I sit down on a log bench.

“I know what that was about,” he says. “You shouldn’t care so much what people think.”

And suddenly my anger is so hot and fierce.

“You don’t know anything!” I shout. “You’re white, how would you know?”

“Shit,” he says, “it’s your birthday cele—”

“Forget my birthday. I don’t care.”

“We’ve all been fucked up good. Shit man.”

And the anger evaporates. And he is just Ian again.

“It’s beautiful out here,” I say.

“You eat fish?”

“Yes.”

“Now, correct me, but last time I checked, fish was not a vegetable.”

“That’s right.”

“And next you’re going to order chicken.”

“Yes.”

“Exactly what kind of vegetarian are you?”

“I just meant to say that I don’t eat red meat anymore.”

“Why?”

“Just…”

We’re at a table a little bit away from the fireplace. Ian has a choice of views: the fire, other diners. I only have a view
of the other diners. I want to swap seats, but I don’t want to cause a scene. I’m trying to find a sentence that will come
out naturally:
Ian, do you mind changing seats, I want to see the fire (I don’t want to see them).
He’ll see through that. And I can’t imagine saying his name in here. As if he were a boyfr—

“Hello, anyone home?”

“I just OD’d on red meat.”

Secrets. I don’t tell him it’s because of that day. The old man in the bush going through the ash, gathering bones.

“You’re one strange chick. I reckon it’s all the Frenchies you’re hanging around with.”

“French people eat meat.”

“And snails and frogs.”

“Yes, and you guys eat raw dried meat; Ndebeles eat macimbi and flying ants; Shonas, well, I don’t know what their speciality
is, but I’m sure it must be pretty interesting, every culture has its—”

“Yah, yah, now we are the international food fundie. Biltong, one thing; even dried mopani worms, no worries, you can chuck
those things in your mouth like popcorn; as for amahlabusi, man, those were the days. Come the rains, I used to joll to the
bottle store and join the picannins by the streetlight just opposite. Boy, did we catch those buggers, and boy, did I get
bawled out by my old man, hanging with picannins and all that, but yuck man, frogs, those things live on flies, only Frenchies.”

“You might not be racialistic, but you really are xenophobic.”

I must have spoken a bit loud: the lady at the corner looks up sharply and whispers something to the man sitting opposite
her. He turns round, fixes me with a stare. Ian stares back.

“Zeno what? Hey, some of us didn’t finish secondary school.”

“Which reminds me, did you do your O’s?”

“Nope, got caught up by events.”

“You’re going back on Monday?”

“Yah.”

The children at the table are staring. One of them, a chubby little boy, sticks his tongue out. I smile. He starts pulling
his ears, rolling his eyes. The two girls start giggling. The mother looks up at him, slaps the boy on the arm. “Shush,” she
says.

“We’ll check out World’s View tomorrow.”

“Another one? Don’t tell me, The Very Honorable Mr. Cecil John Rhodes is at it again.”

The lady at the table on the left of ours chews very slowly, her raised hand with its knife still in the air.

“Yes, he’s been here too. Liked the place. Built a grand house, which you now know as the Rhodes Inyanga Hotel.”

“Very interesting, Ian.”

He looks over my shoulder. I can hear the wheels of the trolley.

“Dessert time,” he says.

“Happy birthday, madam,” says the waiter, lifting the cake from the trolley.

“No,” I say.

The waiter confused, hesitates.

“Oh yes,” says Ian, nodding and rubbing his hands.

The waiter smiles, puts the cake on the table.

It’s chocolate with one candle.

“I reckon you chicks are so sensitive about your ages better not give too much away.”

The waiter lights the candle.

“Make a wish,” Ian says.

I close my eyes, blow.

My single wish lights up the room and is then, gone.

We don’t go back to the cottage; we check in: a double room with a view of the lake.

It is the longest kiss.

The longest, sweetest kiss.

In the morning I wake up, lift my head from his hand.

“Where are you going, Lindiwe?”

He lifts his hand, pulls me back to him.

“Lindiwe,” he says, “it’s different. This time, it’s different.”

Secrets. And there it is, here it is, the moment for me to tell him the truth.

“I know.”

That’s all I say.

I go back to sleep in his arms.

I wake up in his arms.

We are late for breakfast so we have sandwiches on the patio. Like yesterday there are the golfers teeing off around the lake;
the anglers fishing; the wives, children, nannies here; the waiters weaving in and out of the tables,
good morning, sir, madam,
looking me over, but today, none of that matters.

“Lindiwe…”

“Yes.”

“You keep tuning out. One minute here, the next gone.”

“I’m here.”

“So we’ll stop over at World’s View, then head back to the cottage; should we spend another night here or do you want to go
back to Harare?”

I don’t want to go back. I want to stay. I don’t want to move from this place. I want us to be here, together, forever.

“Lindiwe…”

“You have to be in Harare by Monday.”

“We can leave early Monday morning; I’ll just belt it down to Jo’burg.”

“That sounds fine.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, more than all right.”

After a bit of a scramble, Ian pulls me up and finally we’re on a smooth expanse of rock, looking out at a view of the world.
Far, far away the mountains shade into purple. I’m embarrassed by my heavy breathing, how unfit I am.

“Not bad,” he says, turning to me. “Are you okay?”

“I think I’ve had the exercise of several lifetimes.”

He smiles and comes to sit down next to me.

We watch some Japanese tourists busy photographing each other leaning against the observation tower, looking away from the
view towards the car park.

“I’m going to start jogging when I get back or play tennis, squash, anything. The university has courts.”

“How about netball?”

We look at each other and both smile as the shared thought of our younger selves settles between us.

“Man, I was confused.”

“Confused? About what?”

“You, Lindiwe, you.”

He bends over and kisses me, his hand warm and strong against my neck.

And then he points out the different types of sunbirds and warblers darting among the trees, perched on the rocks.

On our way back to the car, we pass the vendors’ stalls lined up away from the warden’s hut. Ian lifts a stone sculpture.
A Zimbabwe Bird. He lifts another one, holds them in the palm of his hand.