The sun is still high in the sky but my watch says 17:02. I drive as fast as I can to Mrs X’s house, this time only making a few wrong turns. I panic a little while finding my way. What if there is no Mrs X, no house and no Pomeranian? The whole experience felt like a dream and I wonder if, cracked by desperation, I have just made it up.
I am elated when I park outside the manor house at 17:14. So much so that when the gates sweep open, I see a new charm in the concrete relief bowls of grapes. The cherub pissing water makes me want to sing. I bound out of the car and through the gates that close behind me, tapping my rib to make sure I still have the envelope of cash. I approach the oversized front door and lift the lion’s head of a knocker but before it has the chance to make contact, the door is opened by the cheekboned butler.
“Mister Harris,” he says, with a distinct Nigerian accent which makes me take an involuntary step back. If anything I expected him to be Kenyan, or at the very least, Mozambiquan. Did he have an accent before?
“Hi,” I shout, “sorry I’m late.”
“It’s not a problem. I have a message for you from Mrs X.”
“Oh? She can’t tell me herself over the… pigeon?”
“The pigeon is no longer on the menu,” he says.
I nod. I understand. Not everyone likes pigeon. Unless he’s trying to tell me something. Is the pigeon is no longer on the menu a code for something? It sounds like it. I try to think of an appropriate response.
“What is on the menu?” I venture.
“Nothing, sir, the dinner has been called off.”
Now that could mean anything.
“Are you saying that the deal is off?”
“No, Mister Harris, only that dinner is off. If you hand me that envelope in your pocket the deal is still very much on.”
My mouth is dry and swallowing is difficult. It goes against every instinct in my body to hand over a fat envelope of cash to a Nigerian. These are people who kidnap tourists, scam grannies by email and keep hyenas as pets. I hand it over.
“Thank you,” he nods, and begins to close the door. I jam my foot in.
“I need to see Mrs X!”
“There is no need for that.”
He is looking decidedly more Nigerian the longer I stand here.
“Look,” I say, giving him the most threatening face I can muster, “I need to see her. She has the information I need.”
“Mrs X has gone on holiday.”
“Holiday?” I cough.
“Aspen. She is fond of skiing.”
“But you said… the deal is on.”
“You have everything you need Mister Harris.”
I laugh.
“Beautiful. That’s just fucking beautiful. So, you wait to tell me that after I handed over the cash.”
He motions almost imperceptibly towards the inner pocket of his jacket.
I hesitate, feel mine, then pull out a letter with gold wax insignia. Sealed with an X.
“Have a pleasant evening further,” smiles the butler and closes the door.
39
THE SUN SINKS
The fountain is fizzing and the late afternoon sun lends a peculiar glitter to the birds of prey, making them look ready to pounce.
I shake my head. Aspen, for God’s sake. I picture Mrs X dangling on a ski lift, sipping Moët in a golden winter suit, making kissy noises at Dasher, poking his ear-muffed head out of her trembling handbag. As I leave the property an uneasy feeling stirs. The one I should be used to by now. The one that tells me someone is watching me.
There is a man standing by the Merc. I lift a hand to shield my eyes from the setting sun and blink at him. It is Edgar. We both freeze, then he turns and runs. Without thinking I take off and follow him. Anger propels me forward and I gain on him but I’m unfit and he is a fast fucker and after a few hundred meters, he turns a corner and is gone.
I lose my temper, dig my phone out of my jeans pocket and hurl it onto the tarred gravel.
“FU-U-U-U-U-UCK!” I scream with what little breath I have left. How the fuck? How did they know? Panting, I goose-step back to the Merc and kick the tyre.
“Fucking FUCK!” I scream. The shoes on the people around me are stuck to the pavement. Fucking tracking system on the car. Fucking smartphone GPS. I jump on it. Then I stick my hand under the car arbitrarily looking for some kind of wire I can pull out but come up with nothing but a greasy hand. I want to throttle someone; preferably Edgar. The people who are stuck to the pavement start walking again, slowly, keeping a wide berth. No wonder they don’t like strangers. It is clear that before I do anything else I have to get the tracker off the car. Only in South Africa would a clapped-out car like this be fitted with a tracking system. Fucking insurance companies, fucking criminals. The sun sinks.
Being a kind of outlaw myself, I wonder who would agree to remove the system from the car. There is a township nearby called Duduza. Call me a racist but I reckon that’s my best chance. I get in the car and before I do anything else I uncap a new bottle of whisky I don’t remember buying and have a good long sluk. I start driving and after taking the first few turns, I see the grey Datsun parked on a grass verge, behind a Privet hedge. There is a shouty laugh in my head, à la Mrs X: Ha! Haha! as I jump out and let down all four of Edgar’s tyres. As I drive away I think, well, at least I hope they were Edgar’s tyres.
It should be a ten-minute drive to the township, but without GPS it takes me half an hour and when I get there it’s dark. I see people frowning at me when I cross the boundary. Despite it being 2011 South Africans are still vaguely surprised when they see a white person in a township. Ironic, because it is quite possible it is one of the safest places one can be, because when you are so obviously out of place you are protected by your very conspicuousness. Except in Soweto, I guess, where there are so many whites nowadays I’m sure the tourists feel scammed.
Duduza, despite its name, has a brutal past. The black people who lived in Charterston were forced to ‘resettle’ here because their close proximity to the white town of Nigel made the government feel uncomfortable. The same government named it: a Zulu word, meaning comfort. I remember seeing Duduza in the news in the 80s as violence flared up – boycotts and marches – one in particular ending in what was supposedly the first mob necklacing in the country.
I drive on the sandy braille roads set between the shacks that hover on the edges, squatting on the red soil. There is the large heart of Duduza, which has tarred roads, schools, pretty gardens and streetlights, and then there is the overspill in every direction, a sprawling informal settlement. My money is on the shack dwellers for what I have come for, so I keep to the dark, smoke-choked radius, dodging drunken pedestrians and street dogs with glowing green headlights for eyes. I weave slowly ahead, hoping to see someone dodgy-looking. A young teenager with a torn shirt flags me down and I roll down my stubborn window.