Long Lies the Shadow (21 page)

No one is at the high wooden desk. Viv peers over the top of it and into the empty office beyond. She looks around. Nick’s office can’t be that hard to find. The corridor ahead stretches into darkness, but it is either that or back the way she came.

She starts to walk along the corridor, her heels click hollowly into the gloom. Windowless doors alternate on either side of her. No light slats from beneath them. She assumes they are daytime offices, locked now for the evening. They are numbered, but she can see no names. She glances back towards the desk in the hope that someone has appeared, but it is still unmanned. She carries on towards the end of the corridor. There is a faint bang. A door shutting
somewhere
, perhaps. It is followed almost immediately by a distant shout, angry, like a curse. Another bang, louder. Like a cell door slamming, she thinks. Viv shudders, unnerved at the thought, and angry with herself now for coming. She has never liked police stations. She stops at the end of the corridor. To her right, another corridor, shorter, with a faint light at the end. She peers down it. A movement to her left startles her. Instinctively she steps back, swallowing a cry, her hand to her throat. Her reflection in the glass of double doors looks back at her, wide-eyed and pale. Viv sucks in a few breaths. Afraid of my own shadow, she thinks, her heart thudding. Again she turns to look hopefully back at the desk, a reassuring beacon of light. Again she can see no one. I’ll go right, she thinks, it must lead somewhere. She braces herself for the sight of her own reflection again, preparing
to grimace at herself for her stupid nervousness. She turns, but it is not only her own face staring back at her.

Someone is standing behind the glass, watching her.

This time the cry escapes her throat. She steps backwards,
half-stumbling
, her heart slamming against her ribs.

One side of the double door opens and a woman in police uniform appears. “I’m so sorry, ma’am. Did I give you a fright?”

Viv nods, then laughs in relief.

The woman smiles broadly, and then laughs too, showing even white teeth that shine against the blackness of her skin. She is young, and pretty. Her name badge says Grace Mathebula. “I’m sorry I frightened you. It’s happened to me too. And it’s worse at night. Unfortunately the women’s toilets are some way from the desk, and I have to go through here.”

The explanation for the empty desk. Viv nods again, afraid to speak, in case her voice quakes.

“Is there something I can help you with?” asks Grace. Politely, but obviously back on duty and wondering who this strange white woman is, walking down the unlit and deserted corridor.

Viv tries her voice. “I’m looking for Sergeant Retief.” She tries to sound formal, aware of trying to protect Nick’s personal privacy among his colleagues.

“Is he expecting you?”

Viv pauses, not quite knowing how to reply to this astute young woman with the steady brown eyes and genteel manner. She can hardly explain to her that no, she and Sergeant Retief had not arranged to meet tonight, but that she had found herself
unexpectedly
free, with the girls on an impromptu sleepover with friends, and so, yes, she had dressed in the little red skirt Nick loved, put her high heels on, and come down here to meet him after work, for her own impromptu sleepover.

Her hesitation must have said it all, for Grace is true to her
name, and says diplomatically, “Sergeant Retief is out on a case still, madam. But he’ll be back soon. So if you’d care to wait in his office, I’ll show you where it is.”

Viv follows her gratefully, and then is mildly irritated to find she was but two turns of the corridor away from Nick’s office, the door marked with his name, and would have probably found it unassisted soon enough, and without the subsequent embarrassment. But she thanks Grace, who wishes her a good evening and returns, Viv
presumes
, to her desk.

She has never been in his office. A bit nervous now of surprising him at work, of arriving like this with no warning, she sits upright in the chair in front of his desk, imagines him sitting behind it. The office has no window, she notices. There is a noticeboard on the one wall, strewn with messages, notes, photos, wanted posters and the like. It is the only untidy piece in the room. Everywhere else she sees evidence of Nick’s organised mind. Everything in its right place.

After a while, she relaxes, and goes to sit in his chair, swivels in it, looking around again, this time from his daily perspective. She realises that he has an unimpeded view of the door and that anyone sitting across from him is positioned so as to be in the fullest, clearest light possible. Bored, she pulls at his desk drawers. All except one are locked, and that offers nothing of interest but sheets of paper and official-looking forms. Across from the desk on the far end of the room is a steel-grey filing cabinet. On top of this are some
neatly-stacked
books and two piles of folders in trays, one considerably larger than the other.

She goes over to the cabinet. The books appear to be legislative, with black and red spines, and gold lettering. The tray with the larger pile of folders is labelled
Open
. The other tray is predictably marked
Closed
, and she presumes they are recently so, and due for filing. Viv picks up one of the folders from the
Closed
pile, opens it and starts to read about a case in which the man of the house had
chased two young burglars onto the street, brandishing his golf club and screaming loud enough to wake his neighbours. The scene that forms itself in Viv’s mind is initially amusing, until she reads how between them, the neighbours had managed to beat up one of the thieves so badly that he had died from his injuries. No one had been brought to justice it appeared, since no one knew who had struck the fatal blow. Viv is upset by what she reads, and wonders how this case can be so casually closed. She puts the folder back in its pile, but in doing so, she knocks several folders from the larger pile to the floor. Annoyed with herself, Viv starts to pick them up. The files are labelled, she notices, not with case numbers, but names. She wonders whether they were stacked in any kind of order so she goes to the folders that remain in the tray, lifts them out and shuffles a few of them to determine any kind of chronological or alphabetical order. One of the labels has peeled and curled up on itself. Viv trails a finger across it, unfurls its length. A quick intake of breath.

Gold/McMann
.

Viv stares at the brown folder, unwilling to open it.

She puts the folder onto Nick’s desk, unopened, and neatly stacks the fallen folders back on their tray. Then she walks around the desk again, sits down and looks at the folder. The intrigue is too great and she opens it. Inside are photographs, statements, reports, forms. She reads quickly. At one point, she pulls her eyes away. Had Simon not died, would she and Gin have met again? Have mended their
friendship
? She brings a hand up to rub her eyes, and the folder starts to slip from her lap. She stabs at it. Another, slimmer folder falls out of it, lands at her feet. Leaning down to retrieve it, she sees the name.

Weetman/Kassan
.

She stands with her back to him.

Nick’s day has been long and harrowing. Two murders, two rapes, and an armed robbery. He still has reports to file and the night stretches ahead. To find Viv in his office is a welcome surprise. They had not planned on seeing each other tonight, but now he can think of nothing nicer. His eyes trail the length of her, the arch of her back beneath her blouse, the curve of her hip resting against his desk. She is wearing that figure-hugging red skirt that shows off her shapely legs.

“That skirt could get you arrested.” He says this quietly, but in the silence of the office, his voice reverberates.

Viv spins around with a small exclamation.

“Sorry,” he grins, “I didn’t mean to startle you.” He moves towards her, but stops at her glittering look. “What?” His gaze is drawn to the folder in her hand. He feels the grin vanish.
Shit
. “Vivienne –”.

The atmosphere in his office has a feeling of static, the air before a Highveld storm.

Viv points the folder at him. “You kept a
file
on me?”

“Vivienne –”.

“You kept
notes
on me? My family? Jonnie?”

“You know I had to.” Nick stops, remembering her anguish that day on the beach when he had spoken about Gabriel McMann’s death. He is dog-tired, the day has worn him out, and now this. This is all he needs, today of all days. He tries to explain. “Look,” he starts, exasperated, “your name, Jonnie’s name, it came up as part
of the Gold investigation. It was routine stuff. Gin was staying with you, then it turned out your husband had been involved with her before he married you…” He trails off at the fury in her eyes, repeats firmly, “It was part of the Gold investigation.”

She takes a step toward him. He can see she is shaking. “
Routine?
” she says, her voice like thin ice. “I trusted you. You let me tell you about Jonnie, the reasons for my divorce, his – his abuse – when all along you
knew?
So tell me, Nick, was
fucking
me part of the
routine
Gold investigation?”

He has never heard her swear.

“Vivienne –”

She throws the folder at him. It flutters in the air and does not hit him. The contents fly out, papers, forms, photographs, gliding almost gracefully to the floor. Viv steps on them as she walks past him, heading for the door behind him.

Without thinking, Nick reaches for her arm to stop her. But Viv wrenches her arm away. She steps backward, moving away, closer to the door. She clasps her arm where he had grabbed her as if hurt.

“Don’t touch me!” A whisper. “Don’t touch me.”

Exhaustion washes over him. He rubs his forehead. “Vivienne, look, let me take you home. Let’s talk.”

“Don’t call me. Don’t come to my house. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

Then the woman he loves pulls open his office door and lets it slam closed behind her. All Nick can hear are the sharp sounds of her heels running down the corridor. Fading into the darkness. Into the night. Away from him. And out of his life.

It is a strange day, driving to the airport, wondering if the snow, so unusual for London, will allow for take-off. It is icy on the roads, and Jonnie is taking it slowly. She doesn’t care. She does not mind if she makes her flight or not. How long since she has been home, how long since her father’s funeral, seeing Simon, the weeks in the
hospital
? Thinking of Simon will lead her to thinking of Ellie, and this she does not allow herself in her waking hours. Instead she thinks of Gabe. How long to get over that one, Virginia? Anger still ready to flare.

The car has stopped. Heathrow already. Jonnie locks the car, takes her arm in one hand and her suitcase in the other. Her ears throb almost immediately from the short exposure to the wind, and Gin wonders again if the planes will leave. Soon the shops will envelop her in their seductive splendour, soothing, distracting, enable a type of normality. She checks in, feeling stuporous while she answers the farcical questions. Lack of food and sleep has exacted its price, and a sense of unreality, a strange feel to her skin, takes over.

Jonnie buys her coffee and waits with her until it is time to board. They say little. She wonders if it is odd to him that tomorrow she will see his ex-wife, his daughter and stepdaughter. For her part, perhaps she ought to be more curious about Abbie and Kayleigh, but she feels nothing, just the constant coldness in her body.

When the gate for her flight flashes up on the lurid screen, he walks with her as far as he is allowed. She is thankful he does not kiss her. Instead he rests his cheek against hers, holding her in an
embrace so asthenic it is as if he fears for her fragility. Gin supposes she ought to feel grateful to him, for the past three months, and especially this last one. For his company, his care, for the desolate nights that he has lain next to her, for the use of his body as comfort.

Perhaps she ought also to feel guilt, but there is none. She suspects that Jonnie in his own way had made use of her too, and so by her reckoning they owe each other nothing. It seems that whatever it was that lay unfinished between them is now complete. Her journey with Jonnie is over. Her journey home has yet to begin.

Despite the weather, the planes fly. The sense of unreality deepens till she sleeps, exhausted. Frazzled dreams of home, England. Jonnie, Simon, Gabe, and Dad. Dearest Dad. How she has missed her father, his wise countenance, the shock of grey hair, his kind eyes behind his glasses, and his solid advice. And then Ellie. Ellie, always Ellie, dreams that tear at her until she is awakened by the sound of her own strangled sobs.

The plane is dark, humped figures attempting some kind of sleep,
the only sounds the persistent hum of the engines and a fretful child. It had been a late booking, an unpopular seat, with no personal television, but Gin does not mind. The seat next to her is unoccupied, allowing some privacy. Panic attacks threaten to overwhelm her, the old claustrophobia surfaces. Constantly she arranges and re-arranges the scratchy tartan blanket around herself.

The woman across the aisle intrudes on her solace. Could Gin watch her daughter while she nips to the washroom, she asks. Gin is too polite to refuse, and anyhow, what can she say?
No, please, because my daughter is dead?

Gin looks at the infant and looks away. Her breasts start to ache. Occasionally, despite the tablets meant to dry her milk, her nipples weep. As if her breasts mourn for the tug of Ellie’s perfect little mouth.

The woman returns quickly, thanking her. She is Dutch, she tells Gin, and her daughter is three months old.
Ellie’s age, the age she will always be
.

This is the first daughter, the woman continues, in her husband’s family for three generations. Her husband is South African, and she is going to meet his family. Given the transient nature of meetings like these, they do not even exchange names, but the woman
confides
further that her husband, an engineer, will join them later. A map comes up on the flight screen, and she asks where Gin is bound. Gin points to Cape Town.

In that peculiar, pleasantly heavy accent, the woman exclaims, “It looks like the end of the earth!”

Gin sleeps and dreams again.

Awake, she watches dawn breaking over central Africa, orange in her porthole.
Africa, ah, consider Africa
. All its contradictions. It is Africa well enough. They land in Johannesburg and Africa assails her. The heat, the dust, the very blood in the air hits her as she steps off the plane. Even the feel of the air on her skin is unique to this continent of suffering and survival. Nothing changed. Governments, maybe, but it is all so recognisable, frighteningly recognisable.

Yet she feels nothing for this fast, brash city set in the brown veld. This is where Simon had chosen to make his life, pursue his career, set upon his path, away from her. A mild curiosity interests her in shops, their shiny newness testament to almost two decades of democracy, tempting tourists to this still troubled land.
Impressions
of her new country bombard her. The danger during the time she lived here was probably far worse than now, but a fool would disregard personal safety. A fool like her, she knows. Is Michael right, does she court death in any welcome form?

She allows a man to carry her bag, knowing if he runs with it, she has no chance of catching him. He knows it too, her leg is troubling her, and she limps alongside him. He has no interest in stealing her belongings, however, and deposits it safely beside her after the hot, tedious walk to the domestic terminals.

He smiles broadly in anticipation of payment. Everyone, it seems, is so polite.
Ma’am this, ma’am that
. Then it hits her. This is what it was always like. It is not politeness, but the legacy of apartheid, of slavery and deference to a white skin. This, it appears, still part of the journey. Introspection, retrospection, change.

She drinks a cappuccino while waiting for her connection to Cape Town. She will see Michael soon, she hopes. Viv had promised a trip
up to Grahamstown, to the university where he now teaches. Abbie, said Viv, is considering studying there next year. Gabe’s daughter, already old enough for university. She has missed Michael so much, his sense of humour and his earthy laugh. He had always felt at home here, owning his presence here, owning his country somehow, owning it well, embracing it for all its sins and sadnesses. Unlike her. And yet she had not been able to exorcise her feelings for her homeland. She had found England alien and lonely. She had tried, succeeded some, used the liberation offered her, but she was always haunted by home. Home, and the ghost of Gabe. Gabe had felt about this country the way she did, disgusted with the discarding of humans on such a huge and awful scale. Perhaps their history made them so, perhaps their grandfather’s story had been bred down in them, his early exit from a Nazi Germany, a lesson forever learned, instilled into their very genes. Gabe, like Michael, had hurt to leave. Unlike Michael, he never did. It would have saved his life. How
different
it might have been. Perhaps now all three of them could have been here, making this slow pilgrimage together. She, Michael, and Gabe. Instead she must make it alone.

Impossible to imagine another life. Perhaps she can find it within her to finally let her brother go. She doubts the possibility of healing fully, doubts Michael’s optimism, his enthusiasm about this trip. And now England is tainted too. How can she return when only Ellie’s ghost awaits her in the house on Ladbroke Road?

She orders another coffee. The prices here astonish her. She divides her pounds by ten and finds her cappuccino still cheaper than London. She feels fresher now, calmer. Tired, but settling, waiting for the domestic transfer. Passing time, she enters Viv’s name and address in a competition to win a car, wills herself to quell the lingering suspicion that any information she supplies will be used to malintent. Is it Africa, or London, that has made her so edgy, so nervous of others and their intentions? Is it strangeness or familiarity
that breeds this paranoia? The Dutch woman had remarked on her lack of accent, and now she finds herself adjusting to the heavy gutturals of home.

It is time to board. Gin struggles to stand, her leg numb and awkward. People look at her, the way she stumbles. After a while, movement will increase its flexibility. She finds herself
trembling
slightly at the passport checkpoint. Cape Town, its ghosts, lies ahead. The Dutch woman’s words come back to her:
the end of the earth
.

The flight seems to take forever. Was it only yesterday she left London, only yesterday Jonnie held her like brittle glass? They fly in low over the green plains, the ridge of mountains. She cannot but think of the last time she flew here, on her way to meet Simon.

She wants to scream, to cry, to climb out her seat, smash the window, and breathe fresh air. Instead she sits, dumb, frozen.

Only when she has collected her suitcase from the rolling rubber rail, only when she has walked the length of the tiled arrival hall, only when she has exited through the automatic doors to see Viv standing alone at the barrier, only then do her eyes start to burn, and only when she is enfolded in Viv’s welcoming embrace does Gin start to shake uncontrollably, her body wracked with soundless, heaving sobs.