Alarm Girl (3 page)

The pancakes had chocolate sauce and pineapple. I sat on one of the high stools to eat mine and there were cloth napkins, like in a restaurant. Dad never used a napkin at home, only kitchen roll if he needed to wipe his mouth or something. When Robin’s pancake was ready Dad let me bang a little gong. The end of the beater was wrapped in cloth. The sound it made was loud and soft at the same time, and kind of rippled through the air so you could almost see the airwaves.

I was wearing my T-shirt with the horse on it and Dad said On a horse you can get up close to the animals because they can only smell the horse so they don’t
know you’re there. I said It’s Robin who wants to see all the animals and Dad said What are you into these days? I said I didn’t know.

I checked out the presents underneath the Christmas tree. The tree was fake like Nan’s, except silver instead of realistic and only gold decorations, not multicoloured like Nan’s. All the presents underneath were wrapped in silver wrapping paper with yellow ribbon tied around them and tags made from plain card with no pictures on, just our names written in old-fashioned ink pen. To Indigo with love. It didn’t say who from. The handwriting wasn’t Dad’s. It was like the writing on an ancient manuscript that gets found in a grave in one of the films that Robin likes. There was a present for Dad, with his name written on the tag like all the others. When I asked him if he wrapped them up he said he wasn’t very good at that kind of thing so I asked him who did but instead of telling me he said it was elves.

He got his big load of keys and showed us behind the house where the garden was and where there was a little round cottage for guests who come on holiday. It’s got a thatched roof that looks like a pointy hat and inside the ceiling is a dome. It’s the exact same shape as a beehive so now I know what a bee feels like. Next to the cottage there was a giant hole for a swimming pool. Robin jumped in, even though there was no water because the swimming pool wasn’t made yet. Dad was laughing because he was doing front crawl up and down with no water and showing him his butterfly and backstroke.
The earth inside the hole wasn’t brown like in Grandad’s flowerbeds. If you were drawing it you would have to add red to the brown to get the right colour. Next time we come the hole will be a swimming pool and we can swim in it, and there are going to be some seats under the shade of a big tree, but for now there’s a tyre swing. Dad made it specially for us so we had a go. I got black stuff all over my hands from the tyre but it was insane. Dad pushed us really high and it was my best moment so far.

Night-time came with no warning. We were on the tyre for ages and it was sunny and hot then suddenly it was dark and even a little bit cold. I didn’t know Africa could be cold. Dad said it’s because there are no clouds to keep the air warm. This was the time of day the mozzies get busy so we had to go indoors and put long sleeves on.

There was a black man in the kitchen. He had a knife. I hid behind Dad and that made him laugh – No need to be shy, Indy, he said, this is Silumko, our wonderful chef. Silumko was chopping vegetables. He didn’t say anything, he just smiled. Dad said we were having shepherd’s pie for dinner. He knows shepherd’s pie is Robin’s favourite. He lit some candles that smelled of lemons and he said if we listened carefully we might hear lions. Some were nearby and we could go out to see them. He didn’t mean straight away, he meant the next day. I was glad we didn’t have to go on safari right then. There was a giant bowl of crisps on the table. I wanted
one but no one else was eating any, not even Robin and he loves crisps. When I took one it tasted of soap. I spat it out and I was quickly going to hide it but Dad saw me. He laughed and said to Silumko that I was so hungry I was eating pot-pourri.

After dinner, instead of just leaving us to go to bed by ourselves like Nan does, Dad came in to our rooms to say goodnight. He saw my malaria pills on the little table and he got annoyed with Nan because there’s no malaria at his house and those pills were too strong, he said. They can make you crazy. He asked where Nan got them and when I said she ordered them online because she was scared of us getting malaria he was angry because he already told Nan the last time we Skyped that we didn’t need them. I was going to ask if we could Skype Nan and Grandad to say we had arrived like Dad said we could and to say night-night but because he was in a bad mood I didn’t.

Dogs were barking in the distance but not our one. Dad said he would only bark if there was an intruder. I put my Alarm Girl under my pillow and Dad said the guard that stands outside the gate would let us know if there was anyone trying to get in. Plus the tangled-up barbed wire, plus the burglar alarm that automatically contacts the police who come straight away.

I couldn’t get to sleep. The TV was on but Dad wasn’t watching it. He was talking on the phone to someone. I heard him telling whoever it was about my malaria medicine but it wasn’t Nan he was speaking to because I
know he doesn’t speak in that kind of voice to her. When he saw me in the doorway he told whoever it was that he would ring them back. Can’t sleep, treasure, he said, and I said I thought it was a shame the dog didn’t have a name. He laughed and asked me if that was what was keeping me awake and I could think of a name for him if I liked. I said How about Jack and Dad said that was a nice name, it suits him because he is a rough and tough kind of dog. Dad said Are there any boys in your class called Jack and I said No. Then I went back to bed. Robin was pretending to be asleep when I went past his room but he knew I was standing there and when he started talking it made me jump. He said he hoped I wasn’t going to be like this the whole time. Like what, I said. All weird, Robin said, and I said I hoped
he
wasn’t going to be like
this
the whole time and when he asked Like what I said All mean.

Then I went into my own room and I fell asleep with lions and mosquitoes and muggers all around.

VALERIE WAS AT HER BEDROOM
window when she saw Ian’s car draw up. It wasn’t the blue saloon he normally drove, it was a big shiny grey thing. She moved away from the window.

There was no answer when she knocked on Robin’s door. He was lying on his bed with his eyes closed. He was so tall now that his feet hung off its end. He had
headphones on, so she had to tap him on the leg to tell him his dad had arrived.

Downstairs, a dining chair lay upturned on a sheet of newspaper in the middle of the room.

‘Almost there,’ Doug said.

She opened the front door to her son-in-law, who kissed her hello. Sometimes there was no kiss. During the worst times there was none.

‘Bit of DIY, Doug?’ Ian asked by way of a greeting.

‘You could say that,’ Doug replied. ‘I’ve already had a go at the table.’

Ian complimented him on the good job he was doing but she could tell he thought the old man had gone gaga. He probably imagined Doug was so bored in retirement that this was how he filled his days.

She made a pot of tea and, together with the children, they sat around the table. Ian rarely chose to sit on the sofa when he was at theirs, as if he was on business. In fact there was often some kind of business to attend to – school permission slips and money the children needed for something or other.

‘How’s it all going?’ she asked, and he told them about paying guests he took golfing and on vineyard tours.

‘Well, you’re looking good on it, Ian,’ she said.

He thanked her and seemed a little embarrassed. The bangle he wore slid down his arm as he pushed his hair back. It used to be Karen’s. His hair was mostly grey now, but longer than before and curly like it was
when they first knew him. It was true he looked well. Everyone looked better with a tan.

‘And the lifestyle out there – you like it?’ she asked.

‘It’s wonderful, Val. The climate, the landscape, being in the open. You’ll have to come and see for yourself, won’t she, Indy?’ He stroked his daughter’s cheek with his own and Indy complained that his felt prickly. She was too old, really, Valerie thought, to sit on her father’s lap. She caught herself feeling bad that she hadn’t been touchy-feely like that with Karen.

Ian said he wouldn’t stop for dinner. She knew he preferred to get straight off so she had made sure the children were ready. He was always in a rush, as if he couldn’t stand to be in their company.

‘How d’you like the new car?’ he asked as they stood all together on the pavement.

‘Very swish,’ she said. ‘Is it a people-carrier?’

‘Yes, for carrying the peeps.’

He was certainly in an upbeat mood – the most upbeat she had seen him lately. Robin asked if it was a hire car and Ian told him that no, he had bought it. He showed them the drinks-holder and the stereo. She wondered how he managed to afford a new car on top of all the travel backwards and forwards to South Africa. His business must be doing as well as he said it was.

‘What do you say, babies?’ he asked.

She wished he wouldn’t make them thank her for having them. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate good manners, but it made things too formal.

‘Thanks for having us,’ Robin said.

Ian promised to bring them back at the weekend and he made a point, as he always did, of telling her and Doug that they were welcome to come to the house. There were too many reminders, though, in the fairy-lights strung around the kitchen window frame, in sofa cushions that still smelled of her.

She waved goodbye to the disappearing car, and kept waving because Indy continued to stare at them out of the back window. ‘Keep waving, Doug, she’s still looking.’ They waved until her face faded into a pale oval and even then they carried on waving, until they saw the indicator blinking and the brake lights come on at the junction at the bottom of the hill. Then the car pulled away, out of sight.

Later that evening, eating a bar of fruit-and-nut while Doug dozed in front of the television, Valerie noticed a series of minuscule felt-tipped hearts drawn along the windowsill, like a parade of ants. They continued their journey across the wall and on to the television cabinet. She gave her husband a gentle nudge but when he didn’t wake up she had to poke him quite hard.

‘Doug,’ she said, ‘you missed some.’

A DOG WAS BARKING
and a cock was crowing. The shape of a helicopter’s propeller was printed on the insides of my eyelids. I opened my eyes and saw the ceiling fan.
It was morning even though I didn’t know I had been asleep. I felt warm and cold at the same time and I knew what that meant. The cold was my pyjama bottoms sticking to my legs. It hadn’t happened in ages.

I crouched down next to the bed like a ninja and pulled the sheet off. The mattress didn’t look too bad. I changed my pyjama bottoms for dry ones. Luckily I had two pairs. There was a shushing noise coming from outside and a hissing, like air escaping from a tyre. A dog was still barking, but not Jack – one further away. It was already hot outside when I opened the shutters. The sun was so bright it was blinding and the air pressed in like a fat, warm pillow. I had a glass of water left over from the night, so I held the pissy sheet and bottoms through the bars of the window and poured it all over them. I left them hanging there so they would dry. The chickens were out from underneath the cars and the shushing sound was Zami with a broom, sweeping the yard. He had bare feet and a piece of material wrapped around him like a skirt, the same as Dad. He was wearing a T-shirt with the cloth skirt, not bare like Dad. I stood to one side of the shutter so he wouldn’t see me and I watched him sweeping and sweeping with the chickens following him, pecking. He collected up all the small sticks and leaves and dust on a square of cardboard and carried them over to the fence, where he tipped them on to a pile. Then he picked up his broom again and kept on sweeping.

Page two in the aeroplane drawing book was a picture of a clown. I coloured his hair in yellow and his shoes in
red. The spots on his costume were blue and green. I heard the television go on so I went to my door and listened. I could see into Robin’s room. He was still asleep. I crept in and put my face right next to his. I couldn’t hear air going in or out and his chest wasn’t going up and down but his mouth was open and his breath stank so bad I could tell he was alive. I went out again.

Dad was sitting on one of the sofas watching the news. He wasn’t wearing any clothes apart from his sarong thing and nothing else except his shark-tooth necklace. His chest was quite hairy. He said Good morning, treasure and asked me how did I sleep. I never know what to say when people ask that – everyone sleeps the same. He called me puppy and gave me a cuddle and apart from his shark-tooth necklace for about two seconds it was like you were right there in the room. He never used to wear a necklace. I said Swear on mine and Robin’s lives that’s a Great White’s tooth and he said I swear so it must be.

For breakfast Silumko was making eggy bread or there was fruit salad. I said I wanted cereal and Dad said What kind? Any kind, I said. Dad said you can get anything you want in South Africa.

Silumko lives in the village with his wife and daughter and baby boy. He supports the same football team as Dad. His daughter’s name means ‘blessing’ in his language. Dad made a joke about fathers loving their daughters and having to protect them – from rascals who would pinch them, he said. He said it was a terrible thing
to have a daughter but he was smiling when he said it, like it was a joke. Silumko said You are right, man. Dad said I know it, man. He told me I was growing up into a young lady and that I wasn’t a girl any more. I said it was nice for Silumko to live at home with his daughter and Dad said he was working hard so one day me and Robin could come and join him and live here. I didn’t say anything but secretly I was thinking I wouldn’t like to live in South Africa and when would I see Beth and who would look after Nan and Grandad? Zami lives in a concrete building in the yard next to where the cars are parked. Me and Robin would have to live in a place like that because the proper rooms are for guests.

Dad said the big town nearby had nice girlie shops. He was telling me all the things there were to do but in my mind I just wanted to go on the tyre swing. Zami came in and Tony the bushpig was following him with his hooves going tap-tap on the floor. Zami gave Dad some letters and a newspaper. Silumko said something in a foreign language and Dad told Zami to take Tony out into the garden and why didn’t I go with them too.