Last Train to Retreat Read online

  In the morning Sarai said she needed more ‘house money’. Not once had she brought back any change and Lena had felt too guilty to ask for it. Lena went to work wishing she could stay at home with Sarai. At The Centre, Adi commented on a report in the paper to the effect that the police were leaving no stone unturned in their investigation of the stadium murder. ‘It’s the bad publicity … that’s why the gattas are running around,’ she said dismissively. ‘If there was no World Cup little would happen. They say the guy was a pimp from the city.’ Opinions flew thick and fast. Ronnie said, ‘I just knew something would go wrong because I tell you, this country is befok.’ Catherine said, ‘Sweet Jesus, all this noise about one murder! People are killed on the Flats all the time and no one hears about them except the gangs and the parents!’

  Nobody felt anything for the pimp. Lena, afraid that her face and voice would let her down, said nothing. It was unlikely that anyone had witnessed the killing of Cupido but Lena imagined a day when police would arrive at The Centre and ask for her, or knock on the door of her house – it was a case of when, not whether, her wretched deed would catch up with her.

  Seven

  The day after the kitchen episode Lena arrived home to find Sarai furiously digging up the garden, insisting that it looked terrible. Next to her lay uprooted plants that weren’t from Lena’s patch, a few already stuffed at crazy angles into holes Sarai had made. Then the girl refused to have dinner saying that the plants had to be in and watered before the sun came up.

  It became a daily occurrence – Sarai turning away food, not sleeping in Lena’s bed, turning conversations into arguments, acting weirdly. And all the while blue sacks were forming under her eyes.

  One day when Lena got home she couldn’t find Sarai. She ran through the house in less than a minute calling her name. The girl’s clothes in the wardrobe briefly comforted her. She stepped outside, her eyes sweeping the fences, houses, and streets. Except for Sarai’s clothes it was as if the girl had never been there. Lena sat on her grey-brown couch not knowing what to do. Then she heard it – a sound from the ceiling. She looked up and saw only a white nothingness. An icy sensation crept over her. She jumped up as if stung by a bee, ran into Sarai’s room and started searching. Deep under the girl’s mattress she found a lolly, a glass pipe with a bulbous end. Deeper still were cigarette lighters, and white crystals in a bag. Lena was staring at a crystal meth kit. Drug counsellors kept samples of Mandrax, cocaine, dagga, and crystal meth at The Centre and Lena had often studied these with morbid curiosity.

  She hurried to the kitchen and saw the squat little table on the counter. How could she have missed it! In the ceiling above it was a hole with a covering that her father had made in order to access the roof for repairs without a ladder.

  •

  Lena’s torch caught the girl huddling on a beam in the roof, her mouth twitching and skewed, her eyes darting around for a bolt hole. Lena helped her down, led her to her bedroom, and pointed at the meth kit. ‘I know what this is, Sarai, I want to know why,’ she said, controlling her voice.

  ‘It is my business.’

  ‘It’s my money and it’s my house.’

  ‘You don’ love me, Lena, that’s why … I do it one time only, Lena.’

  ‘That’s a lie, and you know it! You’re going to kill yourself. How the hell can I help if you do this, hey? We’re in enough trouble. You … we don’t need this, understand!’ No black-brown residue left in the pipe, Lena noticed, no broken glass lying about or in the rubbish bin, multiple lighters – signs that the girl wasn’t a rookie. Beginners often held the flame too close to the bulbous part, breaking the glass or burning the meth instead of vaporising it. Most of all, she hadn’t snorted it or drunk it mixed in water the way low intensity users did; she had smoked it. Making crystal meth was relatively easy but smoking it the first few times wasn’t.

  Lena observed her – movements and speech sharp, eyes clear except they were moving ten times faster than normal. Suddenly Sarai bounced up and hurled herself at Lena, hitting out at her and screaming, ‘I hate you. I hate you!’ The girl rushed to the kitchen and came back clutching Elton’s carving knife that he used for Sunday lunches. Stunned by the ferocity of the attack Lena ran into the lounge with Sarai after her. After three laps around the couch the girl cleared it like a hurdler on steroids forcing Lena into the small entrance hall. ‘I kill you, I kill you dead!’ She came at Lena with a feral fury, green eyes on fire, and her wild hair making her look bigger than her actual size. Her knife arm rose. Cupido’s last moments flashed through Lena. With the front door behind Lena locked, bolted, and chained, she had no option – she charged in below Sarai’s knife arm catching the girl in the solar plexus with her shoulder. They fell backwards knocking over a side table shattering Rowena’s vases that hadn’t seen flowers in years. The knife fell from Sarai’s hand as she tried to break her fall but she managed to pick up a shard shaped like the tooth of a Great White. Sarai clutched it and it cut into her palm, infuriating her. Gone was the vulnerable beauty whose hooded eyes spoke of exotic places, gone was the mystery. In its place a tik-possessed, murderous demon that was pitiable at the same time. Lena cried out, ‘Sarai, Sarai! It’s me. I love you! Do you hear me? I love you!’ She stepped towards Sarai, slowly, reached out for the shard and took it from her. Then she took the girl’s bloodied hand and pressed it against her cheek, all the while murmuring, ‘I’ll look after you. I’ll get you better. Stay with me, Sarai.’ But a raw sob was all Lena got, ‘I want to go home, Lena! Please take me home.’ Her eyes rolled back and she slumped into a small heap in Lena’s arms, more girl than woman.

  •

  A few days later Sarai disappeared. Staying at home to watch over her would not have been possible for Lena, and going to the police or to The Centre for help would have been too risky. There was no way Lena could have stopped it.

  A gaping hole opened up inside Lena. She was back to where she’d been just a couple of weeks ago – alone in the world.

  That night Lena took off her clothes and looked at herself in the mirror. She was fuller today than the unformed girl her father had abused but still skinny. Lena remembered stripping down at thirteen and staring at her gangly body wondering how it could unleash such unspeakable urges in him. He killed the excitement she had felt when she first noticed changes in her body. She took to wearing too-tight brassieres, walked with shoulders slumped to hide her budding breasts, lived in jeans, refusing dresses and skirts unless compelled to wear them at school, bought glasses with fake lenses that made her look geeky and bookish. Now that she was a woman she was hardly an oil painting, she thought, staring into the mirror – mahogany fringe cut squarely across her forehead, brown eyes, and a nose almost too small for her full lips. She was nothing like Sarai with her almond eyes, silky skin, and real woman shape. Yet Sarai wanted her, said she was beautiful. And Lena had rejected her. Oh, why didn’t she go with the flow, with the deliciousness of the moment?

  To her dismay Lena realised that she could have kept her lovely butterfly in her house, and the police away from the door.

  •

  In The Centre’s computer room where she had free internet access, Lena poured over websites on human trafficking. She read that it was the fastest-growing criminal industry in the world with an estimated value of 42.5 billion US dollars, reaching epidemic proportions in the past decade with millions being trafficked from 127 countries, and that Thailand, China, Nigeria, Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus, and Ukraine were the main source countries, and first-world countries the recipients. As a result there were more slaves today than at any point in human history. Powerful nations were working together to fight terrorism, spending massive amounts of money and sacrificing many lives, but when it came to human trafficking the world seemed to lack the will. A third of the planet’s countries had enacted laws against trafficking yet it was flourishing because there was no concerted effort across borders to combat it. The fact that she, Lena Valentine, h
ad single-handedly rescued one of its victims was mind-blowing, and all the more galling for having lost her again. Lena couldn’t blame Sarai, she blamed the traffickers – in the short period since the girl’s abduction they had turned her into an addict. A long-time tik smoker would not have had Sarai’s beautiful white teeth. Crystal meth had been her way to cope with Cupido’s cruelty and her debt bondage.

  On weekends Lena took to walking those streets where she would most likely find Sarai – Long Street and Bree Street in the city, Voortrekker Road stretching for miles from Maitland to Belville, and some parts of Sea Point. In Voortrekker Road the prostitutes were obvious because they stood in the street but in the city most worked indoors – in massage parlours, bars, and apartments. She even went during the week sometimes, riding the trains to and from the city after work. She was like a person compulsively patrolling the shoreline for a loved one who had been taken by the sea.

  As Lena’s anger mounted over the dehumanisation of Sarai so her remorse subsided over the killing of Cupido – until one morning she awoke feeling only rage. Rage against traffickers and against unfeeling men who funded them by fucking their victims.

  Eight

  Zane was all ears as Magnus Theron of Barnard, Ainslie, Theron advertising agency, or BAT as it was known, gave them the big news: ‘The rumour’s true – the other agency hasn’t cracked the campaign for the new spirit coolers that Good Hope Distillers want to launch this summer. October’s nearly gone and GHD aren’t pleased, to put it mildly – already TV deadlines are in question. So they’ve given us the opportunity to pitch as one of their long-standing agencies. The bad news is they’ve asked two outside agencies to do the same. We know what that means – if either of them gets the business, our existing GHD accounts will become targets.’

  Magnus let his protruding blue eyes rest on each person in the boardroom just long enough: Appleby, BAT’S client service director, Justin, the creative director, Deirdre, a creative group head, Jenny and Steve in charge of traffic and production respectively, Johan, the media director, and Zane. Zane had been flabbergasted a week earlier when Appleby said, ‘With Hein having left you’re in, Zane. It’s your chance, old man …’ As a rookie, Zane had been handling some of BAT’s smaller clients under Hein, the account executive – a restaurant chain, a canned fruit and jam producer, and a clothing manufacturer. To be included now in a team pitching for more GHD business was awesome – BAT depended heavily on liquor.

  Five years earlier Zane had received his first break when The Centre in Lavender Hill helped him to prepare a letter to BAT applying for a job as messenger. To his utter amazement he landed it. For the next three years Zane and another messenger crisscrossed greater Cape Town on motorbikes delivering and collecting CDs, product samples, documents, pack designs, gifts/teasers, and pizzas for staff working late. But courier services and digital communication soon meant that only one messenger was required. Expecting to be retrenched, Zane had got his second break when he was asked to join BAT’s client service team as a trainee. Zane could not believe his luck. ‘Is it because of affirmative action, Mr Appleby?’ ‘You know the deal in this country, Zane. You prove to Mr Theron that you’re not just a number on an AA scorecard, okay? And call me Tom, or Appleby, like the others.’ Appleby had been looking out for Zane from that time on. How ironic, Zane thought, that a soutie had taken Eddie’s son under his wing.

  Magnus summed up, ‘The pitch is in three weeks’ time. I want a knock-out campaign. The product is there – a range of new fruit-flavoured coolers with a kick equal to strong beer, in smart-looking bottles that any youngster would be proud to hold. Be careful, though, and stay inside those liquor advertising rules – the people drinking it must look over 18 but the feel of the ads can be young and hip. We know the under 18s lap up the stuff and it’s only good strategy to acquire first-timers, not just brand-switchers.’

  It was a statement that would give Zane sleepless nights. With shock he realised it was the kind of thing Hannibal would have said to his drug runners. ‘Get them young, get them for life,’ was how Hannibal had made his money.

  •

  Afterwards Zane went over to Appleby’s desk. Seniority at BAT was denoted by where one’s desk was: the lowly had their desks out in the open, senior people like Appleby and Justin had their desks against a wall, and only Magnus’s desk was in an office with four walls. On Justin’s wall hung famous ads from the past: VW, Avis, Hertz, Xerox, Volvo, Coca-Cola, Perdue, Esso, Clairol, Schweppes, and many more, arranged in clusters behind him as though he was hoping to catch some of their creative spark. Appleby, in contrast, had posters with dreamy shots of Seychelles, Bali, the Maldives, and Cancun on his wall, ‘getaway pictures’, he called them.

  ‘Hey, thanks Appleby,’ Zane said.

  ‘No sweat, kiddo. It’s your opportunity, you know that.’ Appleby was forty but looked fifty – face creased, hair grey on the sides, stomach pushing out. He smoked a lot, loved his drink, and clients loved him in return which was just as well – in London he had lost his wife to someone, as he put it, ‘more bedworthy than me, a beefcake not worth fighting.’ He’d say it to laughter, not tears, but Zane knew how he pined for his two kids. Appleby was nice, too nice. Zane suspected it was why Appleby would never have Magnus’s job or income.

  ‘Appleby, we need to talk …’

  Appleby held up his hands. ‘Ho! We’re not starting from scratch. The product’s there, so is the marketing plan, all we have to do is crack the campaign. Magnus will do the credentials, I’ll cover the market, and Justin will present the creative. I’ll introduce you as a member of the team on the new coolers … if we get it.’

  ‘But I don’t know …’

  ‘Don’t worry, here’s stuff on the market – size, segments, trends, attitudes, usage, etc.’ Appleby shoved a pile of documents towards Zane. ‘As important would be for you to get the feel of it – visit liquor stores, talk to the staff, observe people at parties, drink the stuff.’

  Zane thought, but I don’t do alcohol, how can I order apple juice when we’re with GHD? Zane had heard how GHD planned agency meetings for the afternoons so that everyone could have a piss-up in their pub afterwards, especially on Fridays. But another voice said, shut the fuck up, Zane-boy, keep your ideas to yourself about not drinking because of Pa. What if Magnus got to hear about his reservations? Magnus was as crusty as crisp bread and snapped as easily. Never with clients, mind you, only with staff because Magnus was a bottom-line man. He believed that if firing a shitty client gave you more satisfaction than winning a new one then you were wrong for the business. Zane was convinced that to Magnus Theron he was just an affirmative action statistic and that if he messed up Magnus would simply find another person of colour to replace him. ‘He gets aerated, you know,’ Appleby had warned Zane, ‘about all kinds of things, some you never see coming.’

  As Zane walked to his desk carrying Appleby’s pile of papers he thought, this is for them – Eddie and Gloria, and above all, Chantal. Let fancy cars, clothes, and holidays wait. Saving to set his family up on the other side of the track came first.

  •

  Spin Street, probably the shortest in Cape Town, squeezed as it was between Plein and Parliament Streets, was where Zane worked – in an old, beautifully preserved four-storey building. A computer shop had taken the ground floor and BAT had a long-term lease on the three floors above it. It was in the heart of old Cape Town, near Van Riebeeck’s Castle going back 350 years, Parliament, and the Grand Parade where Nelson Mandela made his first public speech after his release from prison. Today the area wasn’t as ritzy as Green Market Square but rents were cheaper which was what mattered to Magnus. ‘Rent and headcount – they eat up profits,’ he’d complain as if headcount and people at BAT were not one and the same thing. Whereas Magnus couldn’t escape paying rent, everyone knew he could, and would, cut headcount if BAT ever lost a major client. Spin Street. It had cracked Appleby up when he first arrived. ‘Lord! An ad agency in
a street called that – it has to be good.’

  As Zane exited the building at 7.54 pm, his head heavy with liquor matters – he’d been at his desk since mid-morning, skipping lunch and then his evening session with Sensei Simon – the prospect of getting involved in booze loomed over him. He had closed himself off from BAT’s liquor business for three years doing his best on the clients he’d been given. Now he had to work with the spider of spin creating subtle webs, in this case to catch young, impressionable consumers.

  ‘The brand promise has to be unique lest you get lost in the clutter!’ Magnus had explained after Zane had moved from messenger to trainee account exec. It was one of BAT’s mantras.

  ‘But what if the products are the same, Mr Theron?’ Zane had asked.

  ‘Then we’ll create a point of difference, that’s what adding value is about.’

  ‘How can we tell it’s what the consumer wants? I mean, maybe there’s something else they want?’