Vera knew it was pointless to question Oupa but could not ignore that this was expected of her. Their gaze met apart from the others, he was cornered by her, counting upon her. — How did you let it begin. — He understood this signalled You knew I trusted you, there are plenty of other women for you.
— It was nothing, quite okay, we all went to Kippies together to hear the music, poetry readings, and that. And then one time she said she wanted to see a play, she used to go to plays in London and — I even asked you, you remember … what was a good one … and she said her parents mustn’t know she would go out alone, she was only allowed if there were other girls, she’d tell them she was going to a party. So after that, we saw each other.—
— And the wife? — Sally rang out. — The wife and children, and now he makes my child, under age — does he know that? — a criminal offence — he gets my child pregnant? He’ll go to jail, does he know that!—
— Your child is not under age, don’t talk like that Sibo. Sixteen is not under age. She’s an adult by law. And what’s the use of threatening? You want him to divorce his wife? You want Mpho to get married at sixteen, not yet passed her A levels? Is that how we want to see her end up before her life’s begun. Is that what you want? Of course you don’t. Then what’s the use of all this, blaming this one, blaming that.—
— We should never have brought her from London. She should have been left at school there. You wanted her home; ‘home’ here, to get pregnant at school like every girl from a location.—
— All right. You also wanted her here. Blaming again, blaming doesn’t help.—
— That’s how you can count on these people. — Sally spoke of Vera as if Vera were not summoned by her to be present. — Same as it always was, eager to help so’s to be on the right side with us. And making a mess of it. Bringing us harm.—
— Sibongile, stop it! You’re talking nonsense, you don’t know what you’re saying. It’s my fault, it’s Vera’s fault — what’s the use, what we need is to talk about what we’re going to do, have you forgotten about Mpho, she’s sitting there on the floor, she’s our daughter—
— I don’t know what we’re going to do about her. I only know she’s got herself into a mess.—
— What we’re going to do has nothing to do with this young man. We shouldn’t be in this place of his at all. He’s out of it now, the whole matter. What happened between Mpho and him is finished. That’s all he needs to know. Finished and klaar. This child will not be born. Over and done with. Vera will help us—
How could they all keep the girl grovelling before them on the floor — her mother, her father, Oupa, herself? Vera, shamed, spoke roughly. — Mpho, get up, come on, you’re not alone—
Usually so quick and graceful, the girl lumbered to her feet, her tear-bloated face had the withdrawn expressionlessness Vera was familiar with in accused brought before court without hope of being found not guilty. Still the wrong thing: making her stand there. Perhaps she was in love with Oupa; but she knew, young and inexperienced in the judgments of the world as she was, that this was no plea.
— You mean Mpho should have an abortion.—
Didymus was used to doing what had to be done. — Yes. And we’re new here, now. It must be without danger to her. You’re the one who’ll be able to make sure of that for us, we know.—
Sentence passed. The girl went over to the arm of the chair where her mother was sitting and picked up a duffle bag decorated with the iconographic names of pop groups. She ignored her mother and took out a handkerchief, blew her nose.
FUNK DOGS HIPHOP ROCK ELECTRIC PETALS INSTANT KARMA
An intense discomfiture filled the room as if the temperature were rising. The girl was disposed of like a body. She was a body, in the solution that had been found; nothing else. The other aspects of the situation that had brought them together had been withdrawn — emotions, motives and responsibilities nobody knew how to deal with. Didymus gathered his wife and daughter; the girl walked out before him without glancing at anyone except — a moment — up at Oupa; Vera saw the movement of the head, from behind, and could not tell whether the look was in compact or defiance; but she saw no responding change in Oupa’s face. Didymus gave a nod to Vera: —We’ll call. — Oupa was imploring her with his eyes and his stranded stance not to leave with the Maqomas. In sudden distress Vera wanted to waylay them — Don’t treat her as if she’s a criminal, put your arms round her, hug her, she’s your daughter— but the girl, walking alone before her parents, was gone down the corridor. Vera slowed to keep to the hesitant pace of Oupa accompanying her, urgent to speak. — I wasn’t the first one she’d been with.—
— Oh what does that matter. Why tell me. It’s not the point. — Vera was impatient with him for burdening her with the confusion of excuses, if they could be accepted as such, she had thought of already.
— Not to you. But it would matter to her parents. I didn’t want to make more trouble for Mpho, if I’d told them.—
They walked a few steps. — So you love her. You think you were in love with her.—
— I don’t know. How can I be in love, I’ve got a wife. — He closed away from the intrusion.
— You mean you don’t think you have the right to. — She smiled. — That doesn’t prevent it coming about, you know.—
— When I say I don’t know … she’s such a kid, the time when I might have a girl-friend like that, I was inside, those young years. But also she’s seen, she knows, so many things I never have — London and Europe and so on … sometimes she even laughs at me, the things I don’t know about. In one way she’s too young, and in another way she’s ahead of me. So I don’t suppose we could ever get it right.—
As she drove home she realized she had not once, while there in the flat, been aware that this was One-Twenty-One. Otto’s One-Twenty-One. With that unawareness, everything that place had been to her and her lover slipped out of grasp; no retracing of walls and footsteps along a corridor would bring it back, once let go, overlaid, it was disappeared for ever. No part of her was occupied by it.
That flat was now the scene where she, whose daughter would never have a child, was appointed to arrange to abort the child of someone else’s daughter. The procuress. On the day when the Maqomas were to come and talk to her about arrangements, Didymus, once again, stood alone at the door. — Sally doesn’t want anything to do with this. — He revised what Sibongile had said: Just get rid of it.
— She’s still angry with me?—
— She has the idea you ought to sack the man.—
— How could she possibly expect that! Even if I had the power to, which I don’t.—
— Of course. It’s just that she’s in such a state. I can tell you. It’s not easy. After all, Mpho is our only daughter, we’d given up hope of having a girl and then she came along … Sally brought her up on her own, you know I was away most of the time. And Mpho just shuts herself off, she won’t speak to her mother, she won’t even speak to me, though I don’t reproach her, I’m prepared to forget about the whole business once it’s been dealt with.—
Didymus looked so different, so — battle-weary, in comparison with the man in great danger who had smiled and said, Vera how mean of you; so isolated, in contrast to the man who lived in the solitude of disguise. She had the instinct to offer some sort of exchange of unexpected situations, as people who feel attachment for one another do; something private out of her own life. — You know Didy, Annie has become a lesbian.—