The Devil's Wire (3 page)

"Stay away from me and my son," says Lenise, eyes widening briefly as if to punctuate the sentence.

She throws them a parting, icy stare and strides back to her house, but not before she kicks over their trash can.

"Why didn't you tell me," says Hank.

"Just don't," says Jennifer, pushing past him to gather the trash.

5

In the week since Baby died Lenise has managed to avoid the neighbors. Sometimes she sees the woman, Jennifer, go to work in the morning, dressed in those expensive clothes, sipping coffee from a reusable Starbucks mug, pretty face framed by the windscreen. Lenise wonders where she works and pictures an Art gallery or magazine editor's office or maybe a trendy boutique.

The husband, with his thick neck and receder so fashionably shaved, comes and goes at all hours in his oversized pickup truck. He has an overbearing sense of entitlement about him and Lenise suspects he is the type who likes to slam cupboard doors and thump walls when he doesn't get his own way.

She imagines them at night, in their fancy, pocket-sprung bed, whispering about her, the crazy neighbor, his arm protectively curled around Jennifer's midriff and him murmuring that he'll keep her safe from that nutcase with the dead dog while he hitches up Jennifer's nightgown and kneels behind her, searching out her waxy petals, readying himself to mount.

She knows they must think she has it in for them after losing control like that. But she was grief-stricken, who could blame her? On any account, it wouldn't hurt for them to be a little fearful – there ought to be some consequence for Baby's tragic demise. Let them think the worst. Let them worry themselves to sleep. It was the very least they deserved.

Lenise crosses her legs and smoothes down the front of her dress. She does not wish to waste any more time thinking about them and pulls her thoughts back to herself, back to the unpleasant and immovable fact that not only is she without her beloved dog but that today is also her birthday.

She's come to hate birthdays. They are a reminder of everything she has never achieved, like the failure of her childhood dream to become a gemologist and travel the globe and source the world's most beautiful gems, quantifying and cataloguing, and make her mark and become a highly regarded expert in her field. But she never finished high school and was married and pregnant with Cody by the time she was eighteen and tonight, as she sits alone in her darkening kitchen, Lenise tells herself she is probably lucky to have that.

Headlights arc across the living room wall and her heart leaps hopefully then dies just as quickly when the car carries on up the road. This morning Cody told her to put on her best dress because he was taking her out for her birthday. She knew dinner was his way to make up for what happened. The entire sorry incident had been unfortunate, but Lenise couldn't abide by Cody's behavior and she had told him in as many words when she saw the two females, half undressed, messing about in his bedroom.

"This isn't a brothel, you stupid boy, get them out!"

Cody didn't take too kindly to being told what to do by his mother in front of his floosies, puffing out his chest and growling at Lenise to mind her own business.
Mind her own business?
Who the hell did he think he was? It was her bloody house. Lenise had spit out every hateful thing she could think of, every minor annoyance, every grievance, every little insult he had inflicted upon her since his birth. Then she began on the things his son-of-a bitch father had done, like the time he had driven down a dusty, weed-infested back road and pushed her over the bonnet of their car and raped her with his gun. You are no better than him, she yelled at Cody, jabbing a finger into his chest.

The girls had quickly strapped into their bras and Cody tried to gather his things but she didn't let up and trailed him around the room until she got in his way and he pushed her, which made her madder than hell, so she came at him and he shoved her off and his elbow connected with the bone of her right eye.

"You asshole!" she screamed, holding her eye, but he was already out the door and gunning it down the driveway.

She hadn't heard from him for three days, until this morning, when he turns up with an unsigned Hallmark card and the promise of dinner.

Lenise checks her watch again and drains her glass and accepts the fact he isn't coming. Delving into her handbag, she locates the fuchsia pearl lipstick roaming loose amongst the tampons and grocery receipts, applies a generous smear then leaves.

*

The bar is crowded, which is good because if anyone asks she can point to the dance floor and say she is here with a friend. She takes a seat and orders a Bloody Mary. By the looks of it, they are having a Hawaiian-themed night – coconuts hang in bunches from the overhead racks and the bartender is wearing a multi-colored plastic lei and a stiff grass skirt over his regular clothes.

A man sits down on the stool next to her.

"Ever been there?" he says.

"Where?"

"The great Aloha State."

He is at least 20 years her senior and Lenise can tell he rates himself. He is wearing a cowboy style shirt, open-necked, and has too much chest hair. He extends his hand.

"Ray."

"Tania."

"That an accent?"

"South Africa."

"Well, nice to meet you South Africa."

His eyes drop to her cleavage. She looks away as he roams the rest of her body. She drains her glass and orders another.

"Knocking those back," says Ray.

"It's my birthday."

"No kidding."

"I wouldn't kid about a thing like that."

"Nothing wrong with a more mature woman."

His hand lands on her thigh.

"Who you calling mature, Grandpa."

She means it as an insult but he simply laughs.

"Ain't no substitute for experience, darling."

The hand slides further up and makes its way under the hem of her dress.

"So what are you into, Tania?" he says, rolling his tongue behind his lower lip.

Lenise doesn't know why she does it, but she goes with him to the car park, behind the green WM dumpster and drops to her knees and takes him in her mouth. He is as hard as bone.

"Oh yeah, darling, that's the sweet spot right there."

His cold fingers cup the back of her head and he jack-hammers against her. Her knees hurt from the ragged concrete, but she continues on, propelled by some perverse sense of duty to finish what she has started.

"Holy Jesus!" he gasps.

Her mouth fills with salt and sweat. Then, just as quickly, he steps back and zips up his fly.

"Thanks for obliging, darling."

He peels two twenties from his money bill and tucks it down the front of her bra.

"Happy Birthday," he says.

When she gets home, Cody still isn't there. She leaves off the lights and climbs the stairs. Whatever alcohol-induced pleasure she has managed to gain over the course of the night has left and a headache now drums at the base of her skull.

The bedroom curtains are open and she sits down and stares at the moon. Beyond the houses, Pine Ridge Forest is a dark unchartered wilderness. Looking at it now, she thinks of home and the great African Savannah.

Across the road something catches her eye. Movement in the upstairs window at the neighbor's house. The girl's room. There's a faint amber glow as if a child's night light has been left on. Lenise can barely see a thing, just shapeless shadows moving about. Then a man steps into a strip of moonlight, the husband, then the daughter, and her blood runs cold.

6

A car door slams and Lenise stirs. Morning. Too fresh and bright. At first, she's mystified as to why she is in her bedroom facing the window, slumped in this rattan chair, left forearm indented with the braid of the wicker. Thoughts are loose stones jiggling round in her head. She thinks of a man, his smell and feel, and glances at the slight graze on her right knee. Over her shoulder, the bed covers are still in place, corners tucked tight.

She raises her head and looks across the road and realizes her mistake. Not here, but there.

The window to the girl's room is black because light hits it the wrong way. Lenise rakes her memory but everything is vague and unreachable. She forces her brain to engage, trying to needle the images to click into place. Then something. A smile, delivered with such sincerity that at first you could be fooled into believing it was not the act of treachery that it was, and a flash of white skin as the father lifts his chin to the ceiling.

Lenise becomes aware of the chill pricking her skin. Could she be making it up? Was she putting things together that weren't meant to fit?

She remembers her phone. It had slipped beneath her thigh in the night and she retrieves it, fumbling with the apps, until she gets to the camera, the gallery, the photos. Baby, panting happily, looks back at her. Lenise swipes at it furiously. Images flashes past. Paws. Ears. Baby on his back in the grass. Her accidental feet. Then she realizes it's the wrong app and she has to go all the way back to the start until she locates the movie camera icon. She touches it and the screen comes to life – mostly just the sound of her own breath, but there are moving images too, the jarred, hazy impressions of two figures. Grey ghosts. Not much to anyone else but irrefutable confirmation to her.

The garage door shudders upward and the woman called Jennifer backs out the drive. Lenise glimpses that attractive, Starbuck-sipping face. If only she knew what was going on beneath that pretty nose. The front door opens and Lenise leans back from view. It's the daughter, back pack across her shoulder, iPod on, traipsing down the pavement to school. Lenise fights the urge to open the window and call out. But what would she say?

Lenise turns back to the house and the husband emerges. He springs up and down on the front step, gives his quads a stretch, shakes out his hands like he's a real pro. Lenise watches as he takes off, his feet striking the ground at a decent pace, chest out like he's a big somebody. But he can think what he likes, she knows what he is.

Long after he's gone, Lenise just sits here, picking at a loose curl on the arm of the chair. There are important decisions to make.

*

In the end, she decides to wait. Watch and wait. For three days and four nights she observes their comings and goings, the ebb and flow of their domestic life – groceries on Tuesday, taking out the trash on Wednesday, mowing the grass on Thursday. Lenise has some necessary duties for work to attend too, and of course there are personal ablutions, but apart from that she is parked on the chair, flask of sweet tea, an ashtray and packet of cigarettes by her side.

It is hum drum and boring but she has to be sure: she can't accuse anyone of anything unless she is sure.

She doesn't like to spy. In fact, like any good South African citizen, she has been raised to look the other way. Over there, other people's business was never your concern, no matter how many broken noses you saw or bribes you witnessed. The golden rule was: do not tell tales. The one time she had, when she was ten and saw Nathan De Kock cheat on a mathematics test, her father had slapped her backside and she could not sit down for a week.

The girl's bedroom with its pop star posters was, of course, her primary focus, especially at night. Sometimes the curtains would be pulled, other times not. Sometimes the girl would be on her bed reading or brushing her hair or tidying her room. Other times she would sing into a bejeweled microphone and perform some sort of synchronized dance – two steps forward, arm above the head, two steps back, side turn – as if she is a one of those tweeny stars with one million followers and a bank account big enough to support Nigeria. And sometimes the girl would come right up close to the window, lean her elbows on the sill and stare mutely at the stars. Lenise had never seen a human being look so alone.

But the father, the false protector and taker of innocence, never goes into the room again, and Lenise begins to doubt herself because she can't be sure she really remembers anything and thinks that maybe it was all just a result of the drink or stress or a vivid imagination, and the more time that passes what she does remember seems to fade and become more fiction than fact.

She replays that clip over and over, zooming in and out, trying to make the picture sharper, brighter, but it doesn't do any good. She knows an objective person would not see anything – it's too dark and amorphous – you can't even tell there are two human beings. Fed up and bone tired, she nearly throws in the towel.

Then on Friday night it happens again.

Her stomach turns at the sight.

Even so, Lenise allows herself a brief smile, not because she is happy he is at it once more, but because she was right.

*

Now that she's certain, Lenise accepts she owes a responsibility, a duty of care toward the girl. The only question is how to proceed. Once again she had filmed "the activity" with her phone, but disappointingly, just like before, the phone wasn't up to the task of a night time shoot. Therefore, it was not a simple matter of anonymously slipping a copy to the appropriate authorities. There was really no evidence apart from her say-so. Unfortunately she will have to go in person.

She's here now, driving around the block for the fourth time. There are plenty of parking spaces, she just keeps changing her mind. She wants to help the girl, she truly does, but the police and she are not natural companions. Finally, when the gas runs dangerously low she bites the bullet and pulls into a parking space outside the station.

When she gets inside there's a man with frayed gloves and soiled jeans at the vending machine checking the dispenser for coins. When he sees her staring, he withdraws his grubby hand and gives her the finger.

"What you looking at," he barks, sloping out the doors.

"Never mind Angus," says the policewoman behind the counter. "He's a pussy cat really."

Lenise studies the uniform, the blueness of it, the shiny buttons and starched collar.

"Need help?"

Lenise looks up. "Pardon?"

"Do you want to lodge a complaint?" The policewoman announces each word as if Lenise is deaf.

"No, report a crime."

"Same difference."

"Oh."

The policewoman slips some sort of form on a clipboard and passes it over.

"Fill this out."

Lenise takes a seat and stares at the form. Incident Report is written in big black typescript across the top. Other headings call for a description of the offence, date, time, place, contact details of the complainant. For the first time, Lenise realizes she will have to put her name to something and be on record in the United States Justice system as an informant.

She understands now how stupid she's been. She thought she would just come and say – I saw something bad over the road, a father messing about with his daughter, I think you should check it out. But this was America, with a Constitution, amendment rights, chains of command, processes and procedures. Cops need clear evidence before they will look into anything. It isn't like back home, where they would just take dad out back and give him a thrashing he would never forget.

She stares at the spot where her name was supposed to go. And what good would it do? The father will just deny it, and most likely the daughter too (shame will do that to a person) and both will say she is making it up and she'll end up being the one in trouble.

Lenise gets to her feet and returns the clipboard to policewoman.

"I made a mistake," she says and turns around and walks out the door.

*

When Lenise gets home she sees the filthy bastard leave the house. She could swear he is whistling as he gets into his truck and drives off.

After he's gone, she reaches into the back seat to retrieve her groceries and spots the girl, returning from school. The child is in her own world, or pretending to be, and walks along the pavement with head bent, face barely visible beneath that strange-looking cap. Lenise watches her walk up the steps and put the key in the front door. Lenise calls out.

"Hey there!"

The girl turns round and Lenise half-jogs across the road.

"I'm looking for my cat," says Lenise, breathless. "Have you seen him?"

The girl peers up from underneath the peak of her cap and shakes her head.

"You sure?" says Lenise.

The girl pauses. "What does he look like?"

That throws Lenise.

"Ginger and white."

"Ginger?"

"Like my hair."

"Oh, you mean red."

"Yes, red, that's correct."

"I haven't seen any cat," says the girl.

"Shouldn't you be in school?"

"It's four o'clock."

"Is your mother home?"

The girl looks concerned. "She's sorry about the dog."

"I know."

Lenise hesitates. What is she supposed to say? I saw you in your room. I saw everything.

"Tell your mother."

"Tell Mom what?"

Lenise looks at the girl.

"Your father, what he does to you."

The girl's lips part in shock.

"That's all," says Lenise, turning and walking back to her house.