The New Girl (Downside) (15 page)

which is broken by someone’s hand waving. That library volunteer who he saw the other day. Christ, is she waving at him? He ignores her and tries to re-establish the connection with the
new girl, but now she’s looking away, at nothing in particular. Ryan feels a flash of rage towards the library woman, but then remembers what he needs to do. He needs to go. Now. Before
Duvenhage looks in his drawer and finds it unlocked.

He doesn’t know where he’s going to go. Despite the fact that in the last twenty-four hours he’s lost everything that’s important to him, burnt every bridge, he still
feels anchored here. Just knowing that Alice is nearby – they must be near if they still come to Bedford Centre for take-aways – makes him loath to leave. But he must, and when
he’s on his feet again, he’ll find her.

So he’ll head back to Ma Beccah’s. He’s going to take some clothes and whatever else he can carry and start off before Fransie gets back from work.

By four in the afternoon he’s out in Bedfordview walking along Excelsior Avenue, past the hideous electrified mini-mansions and being glared at by bored security guards and rich wives in
their X3s. Ma Beccah was out so he just left her a note and a week’s rent.

Julie’s house was somewhere around here. Just two days ago he was lying in her bed, her little hand rubbing his thigh, and he had felt almost happy, like life was in balance. But it never
is, is it? There’s always something – someone – who comes along and fucks things up for him.

He has no particular plan for what he’ll do once he’s there. He crests a rise in the road and sees the most grotesque mansion on the street. He’s driven by it several times but
this is the first time he’s ever walked past it. He gets the full effect of its hideous kitsch now. Its wall is studded with concrete statues of naked gods of one sort or another, but not
tastefully placed twenty metres apart. These are crammed along the wall, another recess with a mismatched sculpture every two metres. The wall is at least four metres tall, crenellated with
ramparts and topped by a clicking electric fence. It’s a massive stand, three or four times bigger than most of the properties on the road, and the wall goes on for perhaps a hundred metres,
studded by those kitsch concrete statues.

As he walks downhill alongside the wall, a little Pajero turns into the drive and stops by the front gate, which glares gold light back at the car. A woman steps out and goes around the back of
the car to its far side. He’s no more than twenty metres away from the car when the woman comes to the gate with her passenger.

Ryan stops short. It’s the girl. It’s the new girl and that library teacher. She’s giving the girl a lift home. He thought he was still in the 50s, but here it is. Number
67a.

He stands still, willing himself invisible as the woman and the girl push through the gates. All this security and they’re not even automated? They must be broken. There’s a boy in
the Crossley uniform in the back of the car but he’s lost in his phone or game-pod or whatever, and he wouldn’t look at a guy walking along the pavement anyway. Ryan ducks in front of
the car and through the gates, keeping his distance behind the woman and the girl.

Inside the walls, the house is like some failed fantasy castle theme park, cluttered with more concrete statuary and balconies and balustrades overlapping each other at insane angles, like an
Escher drawing. The walls are all plaster, only painted in patches, and the ground is packed red soil, as if they stopped building in the middle of the process.

The girl and the woman move on towards a white facade, perhaps an older house that’s now the core of this bewildering new structure. The woman looks back nervously and Ryan ducks under a
deep portico. He peers out at their backs disappearing into the house and decides to wait. Once the library woman’s gone, he can decide on his next move.

He looks around the space he’s in. Rather than a portico, it might have been designed as a garage for multiple cars. He counts eight columns, each spaced a good car-width apart and each
adorned with more statues. There’s one of a voluptuous woman and a muscular man kissing, naked but for a drape of cloth obscuring some of their private parts. But as he paces between the
columns, out of sight of the windows in the white house, he begins to notice that some of the statues are strange – not just standard Grecian stuff you’d get in a garden centre. Some
might be Egyptian or Indian or something, men with animal heads and women with many arms, some with knives, some with nasty leers and drooling teeth. These must have been hand-moulded and custom
designed, and a chill runs through him. What sort of person would want these images in their house?

But there are even stranger ones. The columns in the middle of the garage area are supported by sculptures of much more modern-looking people – or creatures, because these people are
lopsided, some have amputated legs or massive, misshapen heads; something about them makes Ryan think of Duvenhage’s photos, and the recall sends a bilious rush up his oesophagus. Despite
himself, despite the fact that he’s nauseated, he can’t look away. He paces between the columns. These statues have arms that look like they’ve been... sharpened. They come to a
hook-like point. Almost like tentacles, and the figures probe at each other in foul ways. What sort of sick imagination could conjure such a—

There’s a slam outside and the gate squeaks open again on its massive hinges. The boy from the car comes stomping up the sandy pathway towards the door, cursing under his breath as he
goes.

Ryan steps back into the shadows and watches him pass. He tells himself to stop looking at the decor of this place, shut his eyes and calm down, make a plan. What is he doing here? He should be
finding a place to sleep, not hiding out in the front yard of a weird schoolgirl’s house. He has to start again and get himself together this time. If he carries on behaving like this,
he’s never going to get Alice back.

He’s right. He should just go. He slings his backpack over his shoulder, ignoring the pull of the captivating girl inside – if he can’t see her, she can’t pull him in
like she did earlier – and heads back towards the gate.

His muscles are frozen by a shrill scream.

What are they doing to his girl?

Stephen paces in front of the bathroom door, gripping his cellphone and sucking his teeth. ‘Martin! Come out of there now!’ He bangs his fist on the door, glares at
Tara. ‘What the hell is he doing in there?’

Tara doesn’t reply. Asshole. How would she know? Martin seemed fine when she knocked on his bedroom door early this morning. Sure, he was a tad subdued, but nothing like the state
he’d been in yesterday evening when she found him shaking in the driveway of that strange house, refusing to say why he’d screamed. She’d been seriously worried about him then,
but by the time they’d arrived home he’d appeared calmer, almost back to normal, making her regret the panicked phone call she’d made to Stephen en route. Stephen had been all for
storming over to Jane’s house; he insisted that Tara was hiding something from him, that something
must
have happened there to spark off his son’s screaming fit. Refused to
listen when she said that she hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary (a massive understatement considering the freakishness of that woman and the house’s extraordinary decor). He also
refused to accept Tara’s argument that Martin’s odd behaviour had started after he’d been to that first Encounters session, that if Stephen had bothered to take an interest in his
own fucking son
he would have noticed this. Back and forth they’d raged, the argument reaching a head when Stephen insisted on phoning Olivia. Tara’s now dreading the mammoth
‘We Need to Talk About Martin’ session that’s planned for tomorrow evening, with Olivia valiantly flying back from her business trip to rescue her son from the clutches of his
evil stepmother.

Her phone beeps. Without even looking at the screen she knows it has to be Batiss. She’s right.
date>

Goddammit, Tara thinks. She didn’t have a chance to do any work on Baby Tommy last night, preferred to keep him locked in her sanctuary, untainted by the toxic atmosphere. Still, if
she’s able to work on him solidly this weekend – Martin and Olivia permitting – a week should be enough. She taps in
okay?>

Monday? Batiss has to be joking.

Bonus?

Does this mean Batiss will double the money? Jesus. Who
is
this person? She’s now sure it can’t be a scam – the seventy-five grand is in her account, she’s
double-checked. No, Batiss must be very rich or very deranged. Or possibly both. Double pay would mean almost R150,000. That could really set her free. And, thanks to the fact she decided to use
Baby Gabby as a base, she has to admit that most of the work has been done already. If she pushes, she could just about make it.

Jesus.

She knows what the response will be. She’s not disappointed.

Another message immediately follows:
penalty clause additional for late deliverance. contract dispatched to your electronic address>

Penalty? Probably just another one of her client’s idiosyncrasies. She’ll get it done by Monday.

‘Who’s that?’ Stephen snaps.

‘My client,’ she says.

Stephen rolls his eyes. His own phone has been beeping and buzzing all morning, but apparently
that’s
okay.

The bathroom door finally clicks open, and Martin emerges. Tara’s relieved to see that he looks none the worse for wear, although his wrists are red as if he’s been scrubbing at
them.

‘You doing okay, my boy?’ Stephen says to him, ruffling his hair. ‘What were you doing in there?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You want to have the day off school today?’ Stephen asks.

‘No! I have to go to school.’

‘You sure, bud?’ Stephen says, compromising his concerned-parent act by glancing at his frantically beeping phone. ‘Hold that thought, I’ve got to take this.’ He
stalks into the bedroom, slams the door behind him.

Martin glances at Tara. ‘I have to go to school. It’s Encounters this afternoon. I can’t go if I’m off sick. It’s the rules.’

‘It’s not up to me, Martin. Your dad doesn’t think you should go. He thinks it’s what’s caused all this.’ She’s not going to mention that she was the
one who put that idea in Stephen’s head.

‘It didn’t, Tara. Really, it didn’t.’

‘What’s so cool about it anyway?’

Martin scratches at the back of his neck. The skin is raw there, looks like he’s getting a nasty pimple. ‘I like it. It makes me feel... special.’

Again, Tara has to concede that, last night’s disturbing behaviour aside, he’s certainly been more pleasant to be around since he started to attend those meetings.

‘I know you don’t want to talk about this, Martin, but back at that house, why did you scream?’ His eyes flick away from hers. She smiles down at him. ‘I don’t mind
telling you, that place made me feel a little bit like screaming, too. What did you see?’

‘I didn’t see anything.’

‘You can trust me, Martin. You know that now, right?’

He nods miserably.

‘So what was it?’

‘I’m... I’m not sure,’ he whispers. ‘It was a... a... thing.’

‘What kind of a thing?’

‘Ja, Martin,’ Stephen says, appearing behind them and making Tara jump. ‘What kind of thing?’

Martin shrugs. ‘It was a just a snake, Dad.’

‘A snake? All this for a fu— for a bloody snake? What are you, a moffie?’ Stephen chuckles. But Tara can tell he’s relieved. For all his bluster, she knows that the last
thing he wants is more complications.

‘So I can go to school, then?’

Stephen shrugs. ‘Don’t see why not, sport.’

‘And I can go to Encounters?’

‘Long as we’re not going to have any more of these episodes.’

‘I’m fine, Dad, I promise.’

Stephen ruffles Martin’s hair again. ‘That’s my boy.’

Martin flinches away from his father’s touch, gives Tara a curious half smile that looks, she thinks, almost conspiratorial.

‘You sure you’re feeling well enough to go to school?’ Tara asks, pulling into the teachers’ parking lot and turning off the engine.

‘I’m fine.’ He unclicks his belt and slides out of the car. ‘Laters.’

She watches him drift towards a small gang of kids who are hanging around in the basketball quad, dragging his bag behind him. The group shifts, and Tara makes out Jane’s shock of
artificial-straw hair. She’s crouching down, appears to be staring intently at her cupped hands.

Goddammit, Tara thinks. Is she being bullied? It certainly looks like it. She hurries out of the car, jogs towards the group. ‘Hey! What’s going on here?’

Several of the kids start guiltily, duck their heads and scurry towards the entrance hall. Martin shrugs at her, shoulders his rucksack and slouches after them. ‘Hey!’ she calls
after them. ‘I’m talking to you!’ She tries to remember faces and names, in case she needs to report them. She recognises Jonah, Martin’s vile buddy, but that’s
all.

Jane hasn’t moved. Tara drops to her haunches and gently touches the girl’s back. ‘Hey, Jane. Are you okay?’

Jane looks up and Tara gasps. Jesus. She’s wearing thick, dark foundation, false eyelashes and a smear of orange lipstick. ‘What have you done to your face, Jane?’

‘I’m cosmetically prettified, like the browns on television, miss.’