The Mall (29 page)

‘But they don’t tell you what to do next.’

‘They don’t tell you what to do next.’

It’s quiet for a while. I listen to the food blender downstairs, to the sound of Florence knocking about with her broom, Clarissa scrolfing on the rug. The mowing down the road has been
replaced with hammering or hacking. Rhoda’s breathing slows and deepens. I look over to see if she’s sleeping.

‘I wanted to tell you,’ she says without opening her eyes. ‘I’m on a missing persons website.’

‘Jeez. Seriously?’

‘Yeah. Looks like my parents are trying to track me down.’

‘But we weren’t gone that long.’

She finally opens her eyes and looks into mine. ‘Dan. I haven’t spoken to them for over four years.’

chapter 25

RHODA

For fuck’s sake. I know she’s in there. I can hear the tinny sound of the
Bold and the Beautiful
intro behind the door.

I jam the buzzer again, holding it down with my thumb. ‘Zinzi!’

Finally I hear the clump of footsteps. ‘Who the fuck is that?’

‘It’s me!’ I call.

I hear her fumbling with the deadbolt, and the door creaks open. ‘Yeah?’ She stares at me through the security gate, no sign of recognition on her face. Her eyes are bleary, ringed
red, and a waft of dope smoke floats out of the flat to greet me. We’ve been cousins for fuck knows how many years. Nice to know some things don’t change.

‘It’s me.’

She does a ridiculous double take. ‘Woah! Rhoda?’

‘The one and only.’

‘Fuuuuck! Check out the hair! What you done to yourself, girl?’

‘Like it?’

‘You kidding? You look hot, man. Seriously.’

She unlocks the gate, and stumbling slightly on her heels, waves me in.

Bloody hell, has she been smoking herself stupid all morning? Whorls of smoke drift in the air, creating a smog cloud just beneath the ceiling. But I’m relieved. She’s talking to me,
at any rate. I grab the TV remote and kill the sound.

‘Where the fuck have you been, Rhoda? You have any idea the world of shit you’re in?’

‘I’ve been trying to call you for days, Zinzi.’

She looks at me blankly. ‘Oh yeah. My phone.’ She giggles. ‘I lost it. Or someone nicked it, I dunno.’

‘When?’

‘Ages ago. I don’t know. Last week some time.’

‘So why didn’t you call
me
?’

‘I lost your number, didn’t I? Was on my phone. And that’s fucking gone, so…’ She loses her train of thought.

The flat is in an even worse state than usual, dope pips scattered over the floor, an avalanche of Rizlas, overflowing ashtrays and dirty glasses on every surface. After staying at Dan’s
pseudomansion, Zinzi’s place is truly decrepit in comparison; basically one step above the Handsworth squat I used to stay in. Bass from next door thumps through the partition walls, and the
smoke’s beginning to make my eyes swim. I pull open the curtains and crank open a window. The day is hot and still, so it doesn’t really help.

‘You look cool, though, girl. Wherever you been, it suits you.’ Zinzi slumps down on the couch and starts rolling another joint. ‘So. What’s his name?’

‘What you on about, Zinzi?’

‘The man you been with, Rho. I mean look at you. Must be a man.’ She licks the edge of the joint and fishes around for her lighter. ‘But I’ve been worried. I tell you, I
was saying to Thabo, maybe she’s been kidnapped, taken by sex slavers or something. But he was like, “Rhoda? That girl? No ways. She can look after herself.” Should have called,
though, Rho. Least you could have done.’

‘Zinzi, I
did
try and get hold of you, you’re the one without the fucking phone, not me, remember?’ I hope she doesn’t think to ask why I haven’t been around
before now. But thankfully this jump of logic looks to be beyond her.

She shrugs. ‘Whatever.’ Then her face lights up. ‘Shit, Rhoda. You’ve got to hear this. Last night, we were like totally wired and then Thabo said we should head
into—’

‘Yeah, yeah, Zinzi,’ I cut her off, not wanting to hear about her fucked-up night of snorting lines off dirty toilet seats or whatever she got up to. ‘Look, I need to know what
happened, after I, you know… didn’t come back that night.’

‘Happened?’

‘With the kid.’

‘Oh yeah. Well, you tell me, girl. You’re the one that disappeared into thin fucking air.’ I glare at her and she sighs. ‘Fuck. First thing I knew was when Carlos
phoned from Highgate Mall, and I was like—’

‘Hang on. Who’s Carlos?’

She rolls her eyes and giggles again. She’s really beginning to piss me off. ‘The kid, retard.’

‘Hang on. He phoned you? From the mall? The night I disappeared?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You mean he’s safe?’

‘Yeah, course. Some security guard found him wandering around.’

‘Fuck.’ I’m almost faint with relief. I have to lean forwards and take deep calming breaths.

‘Hey,’ Zinzi says, ‘you okay?’

‘Yeah. You’ve no idea how I’ve been freaking out worrying about him.’

She giggles again. ‘Chill, Rhoda. See, that night, I got back to the house, and was like, where the fuck is Rhoda? And then Carlos phoned from the mall saying that he was lost. So like me
and Thabo went and got him. I tell you, Rhoda, the security guards were pissed off at you. Crazy pissed off. So was I at first. But I know you, see. I knew you must have got yourself into some
fucked-up situation.’

She’s saying something else, but I tune her out. Because fuck me.

The kid was never in the corridors at all.

It was all for nothing.

For
fuck
all. Everything that Dan and I had been through. It was all a wild goose chase with nothing to show for it but a screwed-up mind and a hank of fake hair.

‘Hey! Rhoda!’ Zinzi clicks her fingers in front of my face. ‘Wakey, wakey! You want a hit?’

She hands me the joint, but it’s the last thing I feel like. I take a drag anyway, letting the smoke roll over my tongue, but not inhaling.

‘So the kid’s really okay?’

‘How many more times? Christ. He thought I was going to be pissed at him. He said you told him to wait in some store for you.’

‘Yeah. I did. He ran off.’

‘Little fucker. Knew that was what had happened. Hey, why’d you take him there in the first place?’

‘Had to meet Jacob.’

She nods as if this is perfectly understandable. As if it’s cool to take a kid to a mall to score some blow. Has she always been like this? Compared to me, I’d always thought of her
as the responsible one. The one with the flat, the job, the car, the boyfriend. Weird how everything is shifting, how after those two little days of craziness the whole world seems different.
Warped. Fucked-up.

‘Fuck, though, Rhoda. I was pissed off about the Honda.’

‘Yeah. Sorry,’ I say.

‘You know I got your back, girl, but sheesh.’ I can tell Zinzi is now completely stoned out of her gourd; she always puts on her b-girl American accent when she’s smoked too
much. ‘You’re lucky I stashed a spare key. But you owe me a hundred bucks – lost ticket fine.’

‘I’ll pay you back. You still got my stuff?’

‘Course. In the bedroom.’

‘But what about the kid’s parents? Didn’t they freak out?’

‘Nah. Never knew. Only got back at two. They probably wouldn’t have given a shit anyway. That reminds me. What the fuck’s the time?’

‘Eleven.’

‘Shit. Got to be at work just now.’ But she makes no move to get up.

‘So you didn’t call the cops or anything?’

She snorts. ‘Course not, Rho. I mean, the security guard fucker wanted to. Said you assaulted him. Don’t blame you, though. He was a cunt.’

‘But you said I was in serious shit?’

‘Oh that. See, Ma phoned me.’

‘Thought you said you lost your phone?’

‘Yeah. She phoned me at work.’

‘And?’

‘Your folks. They’re fucking freaking out, man. Going crazy with worry.’

‘But why? I haven’t spoken to them in years. For all they know I could be banged up in a South American prison.’

‘Yeah. But they’ve been kind of keeping tabs on you, haven’t they?’ Zinzi looks sheepish. ‘Look, when Ma phoned I kind of let slip that you’d disappeared, and
she let your mum know.’

‘Fuck, Zinzi!’

‘Hey! What was I going to say? Oh it’s cool cos Rhoda does this all the time, specially when she’s on a coke binge? And by coke, Ma, I don’t mean the fizzy stuff that
you—’

‘Okay, okay. But you could have at least covered for me.’

‘You were gone for days. I couldn’t lie to them. I mean, what if something had happened? How was I to know you were off getting a fucking makeover or whatever the fuck you been
doing?’

‘Christ.’

‘So, Rho? When do I get to meet the new man? What’s his name?’

‘Daniel,’ I say without thinking.

‘Daniel? What kind of a name is that?’ Her eyes skate over my body, lingering on the green silky dress. ‘Where the fuck you get that dress? He buy you that? He’s got
taste, I’ll give him that.’

‘Nah,’ I say. ‘I got it at the mall.’

‘Can I borrow it some time?’

As if it would fit. But I keep my mouth shut, stub the joint out in the ashtray and head to the bedroom to fetch my bag.

I stomp into the hallway, slamming the door behind me.

‘Dan!’ I shout up the stairs. I can’t wait to tell him about the kid. I’ve been phoning non-stop since I left Zinzi’s but all I’ve been getting is voicemail.
‘Dan?’

He’s probably slumped on his bed or playing endless stupid computer games again. But he needs to hear this.

‘That you, Rhoda?’ Rose calls from the back of the house.

I wander into the kitchen. She’s sitting at the breakfast counter, a bottle of Tanqueray, a six-pack of tonic waters and a jaggedly sliced lemon in front of her. I’ve never seen her
drink before. Not even a sherry.

‘What’s going on, Rose? Where’s Dan?’

‘He’s gone out. We had a bit of a… fight.’ She’s speaking with the exaggerated care of someone trying not to slur their words.

‘I see,’ I say.

‘And I felt like a drink. You ever just feel like a drink?’

I sit down on the stool across from her. ‘What sort of fight?’

‘I was just asking him what his plans were. Now that he’s quit his job, I was just asking about his future plans, and he just…’

‘Freaked out?’ I finish for her.

‘Yes.’ She plops one of the lemon circles into her drink and we both watch in silence for several seconds as the tonic fizzes around it.

‘What’s got into him, Rhoda? He never used to be like this. Cold, distant. Just…’ She catches my expression and speaks hurriedly. ‘I know it’s not you,
Rhoda.’ She leans forward and blasts me with gin breath. ‘You’re good for him. I can see that.’

Woah. Maybe Rose has been at the valium or something. ‘You think I’m
good
for him?’

She nods. ‘I do.’

‘Why?’ I’m honestly curious.

‘Since he met you he’s become more… confident. More… aware of himself.’ Jesus. ‘It’s towards me that his attitude’s changed.’

‘Look, Rose,’ I say. ‘I think he’s still dealing with what we went through.’

‘Probably,’ she says, taking a large sip of her gin and tonic. ‘You think I’m a bad mother, Rhoda?’

‘Of course not!’ The old Rhoda would probably have said ‘damn straight you’re a bad mother’ just to get a reaction. Just to watch her crumple. Dan’s not the
only one who’s changed.

‘Never managed to find a good father figure for him.’

‘Is there such a thing as a good father figure?’ I say.

She shrugs. ‘Who can say? Not in my universe there’s not. Why don’t you join me?’ She shakes her glass in front of my face, and a dribble of gin splashes onto the
counter. ‘Whoopsie!’ Her face suddenly clouds over. ‘Come on, Rhoda. Have one with me. There’s nothing sadder than an old woman drinking alone.’

Why the fuck not? I need to celebrate the fact that the kid – Carlos – is safe. ‘Actually, I’d love a drink, Rose.’

She sloshes at least three fingers of gin into a glass and hands it to me. I do my best to dilute it with tonic, but there’s not much space left.

‘Jolly wolly good,’ she says. ‘I had a lover who used to say that. Jolly wolly good, he’d say.’

‘Is that why you dumped him?’

‘No,’ she says. ‘Other way round. He dumped me. But you think that would have been a good enough reason to sling him out?’

‘Definitely.’

She throws her head back and hoots with laughter. She leans forward again. ‘He was boring as shit. Enormous cock, though.’

I almost spit out my drink. She’s way drunker than I thought. I fish around for something to say, settling on: ‘Where are the dogs?’

‘At the parlour.’ She grabs the knife and stabs it into the lemon. ‘I keep killing them off!’

‘The dogs?’

‘No! Men. I’m the kiss of death. The black widow of Bryanston.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘Either that or I chase them away.’

‘But what happened to Alvin wasn’t your fault, Rose. You didn’t give him lung cancer.’

She waves her hand in the air. ‘Yes, yes. I’m talking about
before
that.’

I sit back and wait for her to speak again. May as well let the old bag get it off her chest.

‘He had an affair. With his tart of a secretary. That old cliché. Went off with her to some fetid love nest.’

‘Dan never said!’

‘Dan never knew. Alvin was only gone a week. Came back to me, tail between his legs. Three months later, he was dead.’

Tears are beginning to glisten in her eyes.

‘How many have you had, Rose?’

‘Men?’

‘No, drinks.’

‘Just one for the road. A very large one!’ This time her giggle is hollow.

‘Well,’ I say, draining my glass and struggling not to gag as the barely diluted gin hits my throat. ‘I’d better go and—’

She clamps a veined hand on my arm. ‘Rhoda? Can I ask you something? Something personal?’

‘Sure, Rose.’ I owe her that, at least.

‘How did you get the scar on your face?’

I flinch. I assumed she was going to grill me about Dan again. But of course she’s noticed the matt of scar tissue. She’d just been too polite to mention it before.