Ishmael Toffee (3 page)

Now, Ishmael has done a lot of bad things to a lot of people. Most times if he didn’t do it to them, they would have done it to him. The way it works when you born the wrong side of life. But Ishmael never done bad things to a kid. Not never.

For the last twenty years or so he never seen much of them. Early on, first few years he was in Pollsmoor, an old church lady came sometimes on a Sunday to visit him. Brought him a tin of fish or gave him five rand. During those visits he would see the other prisoners with their families, those allowed contact visits sitting with kids on their laps.

Then the old lady must have gone and died cause Ishmael never seen her again. And nobody came for him. Nobody knew he existed outside of the prison. Was years later, when he went to work in the vegetable gardens, that he saw children again, beyond the high electric fences and razor wire that separated the gardens from the guards’ compound, small pink and blue houses with patches of grass where the kids played.

Depending how the wind blew he could sometimes hear their voices. Little snatches of songs that came over the wire at him. He liked it.

Staring down now at the book with its bright pictures and happy smiling faces is like a piece of a happier world. Thinks of that little girly, talking to him all bossy and grown up, but talking to him like he’s a human, not a thing, way most people do, and he falls asleep holding the happy book across his knees.

5

Florence can’t stomach being close to him now, John Goddard. Now that she’s done lying to herself about what he is and what he does.

Mr. Goddard, dressed in one of his expensive suits, stands in the kitchen drinking fruit juice from the bottle. He puts it back in the fridge and crosses to where she washes the dishes. His smell—once so nice and fresh and clean—is sour in her nostrils.

She glances at him and when he smiles one of his rich man’s smiles she looks away, carries on washing up as he rinses his hands and dries them on a dish towel.

 “Flo,” he says, “now that
kindergarten’s
out, can you keep an eye on Cindy today and tomorrow, until I can arrange play dates later in the week?”

She lifts a hand from the soapy water and reaches for a plate, sponges away a smear of fat and gravy. “Of course, Mr. Goddard. She’s as good as gold that little one. It’s no problem.”

There’s lint on his collar and usually she’d dry her hands and pick it off, but she turns back to her dishes. She sees him reflected in the window above the sink and if he carried on out the kitchen door to his car she would have lost her courage and said nothing, but his phone rings and he answers it, and she hears him telling someone to come anytime in the day and ask for Florence.

He slips the phone into his pocket and says, “Flo, an estate agent may come to look at the house today. Her name’s Penny Gold. Show her around, okay?”

“You selling, Mr. Goddard?” Trying to sound casual, but her heart is beating like a mad thing.

He shakes his head. “No, no, just getting the place valued. For insurance.”

He’s lying. Does he think she’s a fool? He’s going to sell and leave the country and dump her.

Mr. Goddard walks toward the door, saying, “Don’t worry about cooking for us tonight, I’ll bring home pizza.”

And she sees him with the child on the sofa, watching a movie, feeding her pizza before he takes her through to the bedroom to do what he does.

“Mr. Goddard, I know what’s going on,” she says before she can stop herself.

“What do you mean, Flo?” Smiling at her, hands in his pockets.

As she turns to him she feels breathless and the room spins and she has to hold onto the counter with her soapy hands.

“I know what you do to Cindy.” Her voice choked.

He’s looking at her with blue eyes cold like seawater. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

There’s no stopping her now and the words spill from her mouth. “I know why Mrs. Goddard done what she done. Killed herself. When she found out.”

He takes a step toward her. “I would advise you to be very careful, Florence.” Speaking like the lawyer he is. “Allegations like these can get you into serious trouble.”

“I got proof.”

“What proof?”

“I got the child’s panty. With blood on it. And your stuff on it, too.”

For a moment she’s sure he’s going to hit her, his face white and something beating in his jaw. “Where are they? The panties?”

“They safe. With a friend.”

“This is nonsense,” he says. “Dangerous nonsense.” But his eyes don’t believe his words. He looks away, pinches the bridge of his nose with his nicely manicured fingers, then stares at her. “What do you want?”

“One hundred thousand,” she blurts out.

He shakes his head and laughs with no humor. “You bloody people. It’s always about money, isn’t it? You don’t care who you betray as long as you’re getting your pockets filled.”

As if she’s the one who has done wrong. She feels her cheeks burning, left confused and off balance.

Mr. Goddard says, “It’ll take me a few days to get that much money together.” She nods. “You won’t get a cent if you speak a word of this, do you understand?”

She nods again, looking down at his shiny black shoes on the yellow and white tiles. Shoes she polished. The shoes turn with a little squeal and he is out the kitchen door. She hears the tweet of the car alarm as he unlocks the Mercedes and then the low rumble of the engine. Tires crunch on gravel and he’s gone.

She sees the child outside on the lawn, talking to that bloody garden man again, keeping him from his work. She’s about to call Cindy inside when the child laughs at something the man says and Florence decides to let it go. What’s the harm, the little thing looks so happy?

She feels a moment’s sick guilt for not talking up about what Mr. Goddard is doing to that poor girl. Then she reminds herself of all the children being raped and murdered every day on the Cape Flats, an epidemic out there and nobody cares. So why should she worry about this spoilt white brat?

She leaves the kitchen to vacuum the hallway carpet, thinking how relieved she will be in a couple of days when she gets that money and packs her things and leaves this bad luck place forever.

6

The wind blew something terrible Tin Town side, rattling his roof like it was gonna fly off and go back to the dump where it come from. Kept Ishmael up all night, and it takes a lot to do that.

Blew here, too, in Constantia. But not so bad. Protected by the mountains, this place, and the big old trees that go back to who knows when. Still, the swimming pool is full of leaves and the automatic pool cleaner—blue thing on a long pipe, runs around under the water all day—lies on the bottom like it’s drowned.

Ishmael sees the cleaner’s pipe disappearing into the side of the pool. Gets down on his knees (carefully, he’s no swimmer) and lifts a plastic lid and finds the little basket in there is packed with leaves. Hauls the basket out and gives it a smack on the tiles, and wet leaves come out like a cake from a tin. Connects the pipe again, feels it throbbing, and there goes the pool cleaner, sucking like the new boy in the cellblock.

Ishmael gets the scoop from the little room by the pool and uses the net to clean up the leaves on the surface of the water. The kid comes across the grass, wearing little pink shorts and a T-shirt. No shoes.

“Hello, Ishmael.”

“Hullo, missy.”

“I
told
you, my name is Cindy.”

She sits down, feet dangling in the water. He makes like he’s going to scoop her up and she laughs and splashes his shoes with water. No matter, they’re old shoes these, seen worse than pool water in Tin Town.

“Did you read your book?” she asks, squinting up into the sun.

“Tole you, can’t read. But I looked at the pictures. Very nice.”

“What are we going to do with you, Ishmael, about your reading?” Sounding like a proper white lady, all grown up.

“Too late for me, I’m telling you.”

He lifts the scoop from the water, tips and shakes it so the leaves fall onto the grass, then he takes it back to the little room. Kid follows him.

He stows the net and crouches behind the pool house, out of the battle axe’s sight. Digs a roll-up—newspaper and coarse tobacco—from his pocket and lights it.

The kid sits by him and wrinkles her nose. “Poof,” she says.

He exhales and offers it to her, deadpan. “Want some?”

“I’d rather
die
!” she says and he hears her mommy in there, the one gone to heaven.

They sit a while, Ishmael smoking, kid pulling at bits of grass like she’s thinking deep thoughts. The sun shines through the trees, hitting her legs and he sees marks on her skin, right up on her inner thigh, near her privates. Bruises. Like somebody grabbed her there. A grown-up.

Ishmael is about say something. Stops himself. He looks away, over the trees toward the mountain. There’s a
crazy
man up there, in the sky, hanging from one of those big kites, gliding like a bird.

The child stands and walks away, not saying nothing, like kids do. Ishmael gets to his feet and nips his smoke between thumb and forefinger. Wets his index finger with spit and makes sure the smoke is good and dead before he puts it back in his pocket for later.

7

Cindy goes into the house. She wants to get the little man another book. A more cleverer book, to help him with his reading. She passes Flo, polishing the dining room table. Flo smiles at Cindy, but Cindy doesn’t like her.

She smells.
Flo, Flo, stinks
like poop.

She sung that once to Mommy and Mommy was very cross. Didn’t smack her—Mommy never did that—but told her she was a very rude little girl. That if Flo heard her she’d be very, very upset. Made Cindy stay up here in her room for the whole afternoon.

Cindy likes her room so it wasn’t a terrible thing. But she didn’t like it when Mommy was cross. Made her sad. Like thinking of Mommy now. Cindy opens her closet and looks through the books. Finds the right one. She’s too big for it now, but maybe it can help the little man.

She likes the little man. He’s her friend. And when you have a friend you tell them your secrets, don’t you? If they really, truly are your friend and you can trust them. But she knows she couldn’t tell him with her mouth. Never could do that.

So she takes out the little pile of cards—pretty with flowery borders—Mommy used to send to people to say thank you when they were nice. Ready to write him her secret.

“But silly Cindy,” she says, “he can’t read. But he’ll learn, from the book. He will.”

She takes a card and her pen and very, very, carefully and even more neatly than at kindergarten, she writes him a note. She blows on the card, flaps it the way Mommy used to, slips it between the pages of the book and goes back out to her friend.

●

The taxis are full, so Ishmael rides home on the bus. Slow and stinks of diesel, but what of it? He’s smelled worse and he’s in no hurry, and he gets a seat to himself, back of the bus. Sits with his face against the window, watching the rush hour traffic. All these new cars, small and round looking. When he went away cars were big and square like boxes. Lot more brown people driving now. Even brown women. Didn’t see that, back in his day.

Apartheid gone, too. Whities and darkies and coloreds all together on the same bus. Go use a public toilet now and you piss next to a white man. Takes some getting used to and that’s a fact.

Ishmael opens his backpack, lying beside him on the seat. He helped himself to some plants from the big house and who is ever going to notice? Has them in a plastic bag inside his pack, next to the new book the little girly give to him. Checks on the plants—roots still nice and damp—and closes the bag.

He wipes his hands on his jeans and lifts out the book. Bigger than the last one. More pictures, not so many words. For a smaller kid, he reckons and this makes him laugh. He flips through and comes on a little card, white with flowers, stuck in the pages. Kid must have left it there sometime. He sees a drawing on the front of the card and looks closer. Two stick people, way kids draw, one bigger, one smaller. Bigger one holding something like a net on a pole. Pool scoop.

Left this for him, the kid did. On purpose. He turns the card over and sees writing and something tells him that what’s written on that card isn’t good. Flashes on those bruises on the kid’s leg, and that gets him all upset and nervous.

It’s trouble, written on there. For sure. And he wants none of that. But long as he don’t know what it says he’s safe. He folds the card and drops it on the seat beside him.

The bus drives into Paradise Park  and he packs away the book but doesn’t touch that card. Leaves it there. He slings his pack over his shoulder and walks like a sailor to the front, people coming up behind him.

The bus pulls up and the doors open and Ishmael steps down. Then he stops. Throws a U-turn and he’s back in the bus, and the people are bitching at him. Fuck them. He fights his way to his seat, picks up the card and puts it in his pocket.

This is trouble, Ishmael. Fucken trouble

8

All day long Florence’s nerves have been playing up something terrible. She’s in her room sitting on the kitchen chair given to her by Mrs. Goddard when they redecorated, watching an Afrikaans soap opera set up in Johannesburg. She’s never been to Jo’burg—never left Cape Town—but there are some colored people in the soapie, along with the Afrikaners, and all the broken marriages and love affairs and what-not usually keep her glued to the screen. On nights when she cooks for Mr. Goddard and Cindy, she watches the show on the little portable in the kitchen of the big house, Mr. Goddard doesn’t mind.

But tonight her attention wanders. She’s terrified of what she has done. Wishes she could rewind the day like it’s a movie, grab those words she said to Mr. Goddard in the kitchen this morning and swallow them back into herself.