The soft sound of the access card being swiped always smells like fresh wood, or a tree before it becomes wood: a just-cut sap-smiling tree. A raw, green, disconsolate smell. The front door opens and James stumbles in, struggling with a toppling bag of groceries. He is distracted, humming to his earbuttons, and when he finally sees Kirsten sitting in the dark he jumps.
He knows immediately that something is wrong: the flat smells like toaster waffles. Kirsten only eats toaster waffles when she is particularly upset. She says they make her think of the Gingerbread House. Can you imagine being lost in the woods for days, she used to say, starving, and then you come across a house made of sweets? Roof-tiles of toaster waffles. It’s the ultimate comfort food. He doesn’t point out what they both know: that the Gingerbread House was a trap.
James stops wrestling with the bag and walks towards her. Some bright green Granny Smith apples find their way out and tumble onto the kitchen counter, a couple rolling off and landing on the balding oriental carpet. James quickly gathers them up. That’s when he sees it – the detested object – sulking on the wooden floor. He lifts her chin and kisses her dry eyes.
‘Kitty… you have got to stop doing this to yourself,’ he says.
‘Doing what, exactly?’ Kirsten asks, ‘Hoping?’
He shakes his head. ‘I hate seeing you like this.’
Kissing James is always orange: different shades of orange depending on the mood of the kiss. Breakfast kisses are usually a fresh Buttercup Yellow, sex kisses are Burnt-Sky, with a spectrum in between of, among others, loving, friendly, angry, guilty (Pollen, Polished Pine, Rubber Duck, Turmeric). His energy is warm yellow-orange-ruby, sweet, with a sharp echo. Marmalade James.
He examines her face, trying to read her thoughts, but knows that when she is like this she is impenetrable. She despises this bright bitter part of herself, hates what this is doing to her, and to their relationship. James picks up the negative pregnancy test and throws it in the bathroom pedal bin. Runs some sanitiser over his hands – a grind-related habit.
Kirsten watches him in the halo of refrigerator light as he packs the groceries away. Green mangos, raw almonds, olive oil, coconut water, pineberries. Black chillies, baby spinach, purple carrots. Heirloom tomatoes, butter, stevia nut cookies. Five litres of Hydra bottled water. She studies this man she knows so welclass="underline" his untidy blonde hair, his wrinkled cotton shirt, sleeves always rolled up, no matter the season.
He grabs a wineglass, pulls up a chair close to her. She pours what is left into his glass. He throws an arm around her legs, pulls her body towards him, puts his hand up her pants, feels her warm thigh.
‘I can’t do this anymore,’ she says, her voice catching. His hand tightens around her leg.
‘You always said you would never—’
‘Always. Never. I’ve changed my mind.’
He looks into her ever-changing eyes, the sound of the sea.
‘I wish that I was enough for you,’ he whispers, turmeric in the air. She gives him a segment of a smile. They both know it will never be true.
Journal entry
20 February 1987
Westville
In the news: South Africa is reeling in the wake of a grenade attack that killed a number of SADF personnel at Tladi secondary school. A second Unabomber bomb explodes at a Salt Lake City computer store, injuring the owner.
What I’m listening to: Slippery When Wet - Bon Jovi!
What I’m reading: ‘Echoes in the Darkness’ – non-fiction about the murder of a teacher and the disappearance of her two children. Heartbreaking.
What I’m watching: The Bedroom Window. Bow-chicka-wow-wow!
Can you believe the news? Seems there are bombs going off everywhere.
Today was the worst and most shocking day of my life.
After fainting yesterday in the photocopy room at work I went to the doctor down the road, at the corner clinic. All the girls here go to him, although I don’t know why! He is downright creepy! I won’t be going back there again. Told him about the nausea, dizziness etc. Can’t keep any food down. Thought I had a tummy bug. Felt like he could see my secret through my skin. He asked me if I was sexually active as he looked at my naked ring finger. SRP. Self-Righteous Prick. And hypocrite. Everyone knows he’s been having it off with Susan Beyers since her diagnosis. He’s way too young to be such a SRP. Maybe even too young to be a doctor?! He can eat my shorts. Argh, I hate them. Doctors, I mean. They give me the creeps!
So yes, I know you’ve guessed already. I had too, although I was in serious denial. The nurse phones me today (at work!) and tells me the test was POSITIVE. Not positive, as in, Good News, but positive as in PREGNANT.
I AM PREGNANT (!!!)
I was (am) completely shocked. I’m practically a virgin! Plus P and I have always been so careful. I’m on the pill AND we use condoms. Well, we use condoms most of the time. There was that time at the beach after the concert when we didn’t have one. And that once in my Citi Golf when I had that vicious bruise on my left knee from the hand-brake and had to wear stockings to work in the middle of summer. Oh, God. Oh God.
A miracle/tragedy. A tragic miracle. Shoot, was all I could say into the phone. Shoot. Shoot. I wanted to say a lot worse!
They wanted me to go in immediately to get prenatal care: vitamins I think. She said something about ultrasounds and folic acid. Acid is right. My life is over! I said I wasn’t going back to that clinic and then she tried to refer me to an obstetrician but I just, like, put down the phone. There is NO WAY I can have this baby. P will think I’m trying to trap him. Get him to leave his wife.
P aside, what on earth am I going to do with a baby?!! I’m 24, still kind of new in town, and trying to make a good impression at work and in the neighbourhood. This was supposed to be my new beginning, my Big Break. How am I going to explain being single and knocked up?!
And, more importantly, what about taking care of the little anklebiter? Screaming sprog and dirty nappies? No way, I’m supposed to be a career girl! It’s the 80s for God’s sake! I left home so that I could make a life for myself, not tie myself down. Not be a gin-swilling housewife. I’ve dreamt for years of perms and power-suits and matching pumps, and having my own computer. And a telephone that I can dial with the back of my pencil so that I don’t ruin my new manicure. Why am I so damned fertile?! It’s a curse!
I don’t know what to do. Very stressed and there’s no one I can tell. Except Becky back home but then she’ll think she was right: that the Big City would change me. Oh my God, can you imagine what she’d think of me now? I could never tell her! The girls around the office are great but I’m not close enough to anyone yet. Besides, they all obviously know P and it would be too dangerous. This will make me sound like a hypocrite but I really don’t want to hurt P’s wife. That would be terrible. I’m a terrible person. This is probably a punishment. As they say, Karma’s a bitch.