‘Tebza and I heard the shots – when you were testing your cannons. We followed the sound, tried not to get pinned by stray bullets, and here we are. Tebza was supposed to follow you from a long distance but I presume you lost him at some stage. He’s not really the following type.’
‘Where’s he now? Tebza?’
‘Not sure,’ Fats replied, three-quarters of an eye seeking Babalwa’s vanished form. ‘That will have to be our next move, before we go back. We’ll have to find him.’
‘Back where?’
‘Home, my half-toothed friend. Home.’
There were a million reasons why I had never liked Fats Bonoko and they all came flooding back as he marched through Eileen’s flat calling the shots. Firstly, he was an arrogant son of a bitch. Secondly, he was extremely skilled at putting that arrogance to work. Fats invariably emerged shining from the rubble of his business interactions. He launched the hand grenades, picked out the prizes and stepped around the corpses. Hardly a unique paradigm in our business, but extremely frustrating for the foot soldiers.
He was, to top it all, good-looking, fit, muscular and possessed of a powerful, annoying wit.
‘I’ve just remembered,’ he offered as we waited for Babalwa to gather warmer clothes. ‘That chewing gum thing you came up with. Awesome. Quality work. What was the line again?’
‘Counter revolution.’
‘Counter revolution.’ He slapped the butt of his rifle. ‘Counter revolution. Love it. It was rare, that one. Perfect timing. Fantastic.’
‘I like to think I made a contribution.’
Fats burst into a guttural laugh, slapped his rifle again. ‘Ah man, too much. So dry. You always were so dry.’
We headed out. Fats in front, leading us down the stairs. Babalwa behind him, then me.
‘There are seven of us,’ he called out as we descended the stairwell. ‘Me, Tebza, Lillian the American – don’t even fucking ask me how we ended up with an American – sis Beatrice, Gerald the mercenary and the twins – well, that’s what we call them, they’re inseparable. Thus far, just so you know, we have no agreement on what happened. Tebza has his very own ideas, which no one can understand; the rest of us are split somewhere between the apocalypse, a virus and godly intervention of some kind or another.’
Our feet thumped in unison down the last stairs.
‘Me,’ Fats continued, ‘I’m scared shitless, but I’m also glad I’m not in advertising any more. You feeling me, Mr Fotheringham?’
I grunted.
Teboho appeared as we left the building. He was a tall, sloping kid of about nineteen or twenty, one tiny white earphone dangling over his heart, the other plugged in. There was a faint scar next to his left eye, which squeezed and wrinkled when he smiled or squinted. Basketball clothes: shorts cutting off below his knees, fat white sneakers, red Nike vest. An R1 wrapped uncomfortably around his left forearm. He stepped forward and shook hands politely, repeating his name to me and Babalwa.
Teboho.
Teboho.
He turned after the greeting and led us down the block and into Jan Smuts, where their gleaming black Toyota 4x4 was parked beside an abandoned bus stop.
‘We did a big campaign for them years ago. Don’t know whether you noticed it, Fotheringham,’ Fats said, not bothering to look at me or wait for my participation, ‘but it was massive. Fell in love with these beasts then.’ He patted the Toyota’s bonnet. ‘Just can’t resist.’
We got into the car in silence.
Fats waved his thumb over the reader, started his beast and kicked it into first with relish.
‘For as long as there’s petrol, I think this is my baby.’
Teboho, front passenger, popped the dangling earphone in and stared out the window.
Babalwa took my hand and squeezed it.
Fats blitzed us over Bolton, then over the highway, and cut a series of sharp rights into the upper side of Houghton, where the mansions lined up on the ridge. He didn’t stop talking, rattling off random snippets like a tour guide, ranging from reminiscences from his ad days to broad reflections on the apocalypse and specific insights on the current practical difficulties in their community.
‘Our focus at the moment is on security – obviously – and the solar bank. That’s the big thing, for now. With enough power we can do pretty much what we want into the future with the farm and regularised production. That’s why we are where we are, on the ridge. We’re picking up wicked sun pretty much all day…’
Fats spoke in the classic manner of the project manager, the we’s and us’s flowing seamlessly into each other, pulling Babalwa and myself immediately into the centre of things. A de facto integration had already occurred. His mission was ours. Their challenges already belonged to me. I wondered what Teboho thought about it all – about Fats and his assumptions and directions. I looked for some kind of expression from him in the side mirror, but his face was completely blank. Zoned out.
‘Don’t mind him,’ Fats offered, letting me know he was observing as well as rambling. ‘He’s totally addicted. Don’t think I’ve ever seen him without at least one ear plugged in. It’s disconcerting but you get used to it.’
‘Music?’ Babalwa asked. ‘Is he listening to music?’
‘Ja, that and scanning for communiques from the aliens, and pinging, always pinging. He can’t let go of the idea of the network.’ Fats chuckled, then added, ‘On the real, though – this boy’s on completely another trip. Personally I think he’s just got monster withdrawal, but there you go, we all cope in our own ways, nè?’
Teboho’s head bounced gently up and down to some kind of beat. He could have been agreeing with Fats’s assertions, or he could have been completely otherwise engaged. It was impossible to tell.
After we’d crested a steep series of S bends, Fats turned the Toyota into a plush lane, mansions on the left and the classic stone British public school buildings of King Edward High School on the right. Just past KES we pulled into an anonymous driveway fronted by Joburg’s traditional upper-class black gangster gates. The gates swung open.
‘Look,’ Babalwa poked me excitedly in the ribs. ‘They’ve got power.’
‘Not a lot,’ gushed Fats. ‘But enough to cover all the basics and we’re growing the bank every day. Soon we should be able to juice up anything that needs it.’ He steered us through a driveway designed to impress and maybe even humiliate its visitors. We rolled down a steep slope, stone walls on either side fighting a barely controlled jungle.
‘We haven’t got to regular gardening yet,’ Fats added, in reference to the foliage. ‘But soon. The way these fucking things are growing, very soon.’ He stomped hard on the brake and guided us down an especially sharp slope before parking in a garage area littered with 4x4s of various colours and sizes and featuring a long, extended turning loop. On the left of the parking area was a multi-levelled stone mansion behind an enormous and surprisingly clear swimming pool.
The mansion rolled out across the property in several different directions. Each wing looked like it could have lived a full life on its own – creeping vine covered the central hub and stretched out to each arm, but the four quarters could have worked as stand-alone buildings. At the far end of the garden, near the front gate, stood a separate house, a cottage for the help. Also built from stone, it had its own small swimming pool, a tiled veranda and four or five rooms.
‘Previously owned by the Minister for What, What and What, I believe,’ said Fats. ‘The Right Honourable Jackson something. Also, obviously, a member of the King Edward High School governing body, et cetera, et cetera.’ He waved in the direction of KES. Babalwa looked at me blankly, seeking elaboration, but before I could get going a tall, incongruously made-up and polished lady clipped beaming out the front door. She fit well into her mid-range stilettos, blue jeans and neat black vest. She sported gold hoop earrings and maroon nail polish, her hair swept into a tight set of braids running in parallel lines over her skull and down into a funky yet neat tail that rested, mullet-like, on the back of her neck.