Slinking past the lounge where they now both sat bolt upright watching the late news I hid myself in the dusky pink and unnaturally tidy guestroom that smelled of mothballs and electric-blanket-baked bed. I’ve made a terrible first impression, no, they never liked me anyway…Why did I come, humiliate myself like this? The same words rolled through my mind on constant replay until the aching tightness in my forehead warned me to turn my thoughts outward, to focus on the warmth, the smells, on assuring myself I’d be OK.
That’s when Uncle Johns voice, the wolves charging in its wake, had boomed through the walls, the shut door and torn into my heart. I’m shifty. I’m useless. They still think I’m a liar. Ice-cold, razor-sharp gnawing and gnashing. Come on then, come on, why don’t you just finish me off for once?!
Chapter One
“The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.” Mother Teresa
New Year’s Eve 1975 found me ready to give fate or chance a crack at making my life better. Greedily I clung to embers of hope in my soul. I nurtured them all that day, rehearsing how I wanted things to work out in 1976: I’d be loved; I’d be popular; I’d be beautiful and happy. My eleventh year on earth would be a wonderful year.
The day started off in the best possible way, with the grown-ups actually smiling at each other! ‘How about a family picnic down by the jetty? It’s a beautiful day, perfect for throwing in a line or two—what do you say, boys?’ Dad was sitting at the breakfast table with us, actually talking to us, planning to spend the day with us!
Please, Steven! I crossed my fingers, silently willing a positive response from him. Please, please, don’t muck this up! Say yes!
‘Nothing’s open in town today anyway, sweetie,’ Mom said, before Steven could utter the negatives already etched into his face. ‘We may as well do something other than hang around here all day. And there is the party to look forward to tonight.’
‘Do I have to?’ Steven groaned—actually a positive response from him. Yay! I exulted inwardly as Simon, Mom’s angel, sunnily suggested wave-riding instead of fishing.
The summer breeze that always crept over the coast around 11 a.m. found our picnic scattered over a chequered rug that was sheltered and shaded by an old canvas windbreak—crisps and drinks, cookies and sandwiches for grazing on, suntan lotion, towels and hats. Mom was in a good mood, baby-oiled and brown-skinned. Lithe from long walks along the beach, she lay sunbathing in one of her tiny bikinis, reading her magazines, seemingly enjoying the admiring glances of passers-by.
We kids rode waves on our polystyrene boards, though I didn’t venture out to the breakers where the boys were being bumped and tossed along by what were, to me, terrifyingly enormous surges of menace. I paddled around in water no deeper than my knees, careful to keep out of the way of the whizzing boys as they crashed toward the shore. I noticed Mom taking photos, now and then, from behind her magazines and Courtleigh Satin Leaf cigarettes. Dad stood a little way off, casting and reeling in the light bouncing from the water, the sun brightly obscuring him, melding him into the scenery, so I had to shade my eyes to be sure he was still there.
It was as though happiness stretched our family toward some unpredictable breaking point. With that expectation in mind, I soaked up the pleasures of the day, every now and then smiling at Mom for reassurance that all was still well with us. ‘Thank you, Mommy. I love you, Mommy.’
But not all days were good just because we were on holiday. At times the wind blew gales off the ocean, keeping us cooped up in the coastal cottage we visited once a year, or rain brought dreary boredom in the place of swimming and playing at the beach. And in that year—1975—our holiday suffered a particular underlying tension: just before leaving to come on holiday, we’d moved all our belongings from our home in the Transvaal to the Orange Free State for Dad’s work. ‘I don’t know how you can do this to us!’ Mom had hissed, wailed or demanded, depending on her mood, on the weather, or if Dad was going fishing or not.
‘It’s not my choice, for God’s sake; it’s what’s called a promotion. I’d expect you to be supportive, maybe even proud of me, for once,’ Dad had said, repeating, in the various ways possible, the same thing over and over. ‘You have a choice, by the way—if you don’t like it you can leave!’ Dad spat the word ‘leave’ often that holiday: either Mom could leave, or he’d leave; or he’d slam the door, saying, ‘I’m leaving now, can’t take another minute of this shit.’ He would punish us all by taking the Kombi for the whole day, leaving us stranded in Paradise Beach.
This caused Steven, my fourteen-year-old bully brother, to wail, ‘He ruins my life—I hate him!’ The lack of transport kept him from the surfing beaches, stuck at home with Mom, Simon (a year younger than me) and myself. Mom would try to make it up to the boys by walking them to the local cafe for chocolates and chips. I was the odd one out; they called me ‘Stinky’ or ‘Ugly’ when Dad wasn’t around, leaving me to do housework as punishment for being myself. I was used to it, but still wished to belong, and for Mom to change her mind and love me.
The same house that took the sting out of life—that gave me Dad’s presence and with it a sense of safety, meaning I could breathe a little more freely, play a little more happily and at times even feel the warmth of the sun right down into my heart—was sometimes a prison, trapping me with the boys and Mom. It squeezed the breath out of me as I tried to be invisible to them in the confined space of holiday hours that could be interminably long. ‘Make the beds, Stinky.’ ‘Brush my hair, Stinky.’ ‘Wash the dishes, Stinky.’ ‘Punch me, Stinky! I said punch me, you wimp!’ ‘I can’t stand the sight of your ugly face; sit in the corner and don’t you dare turn around.’ ‘I’m so goddamn lonely and depressed, Kate. Life with your father is hell!’ ‘I’ve got a headache, I need a massage before you go to bed. Yes, like that; God you’re good at this. Now kiss me good night.’ She’d twist her nose away from the smell of me, my Mom, twisting her lips to the side so I couldn’t contaminate her with my germs; I had to kiss her contorted cheek every night of my life, holidays or not, so I could go to bed knowing my place in the world.
That was normal life for me, but something came over me that holiday. I wasn’t prepared to hang around and take whatever they had to dish up for me any more. I took to slipping away when I was supposed to be hanging up washing; or I’d climb out a window when banished to my room. I’d be gone until the sun set orange over the mountains in the east, or at least until Dad and the Kombi growled up the drive again. I filled the hours hanging out with—or at least alongside—the Afrikaans boys, who ran in packs, free from the constraints of the English kids, who had to be near their parents at all times and have their feet shod in appropriate footwear. The Afrikaans boys ran barefoot in the veld or by the river, hair bleached golden as the dunes they careered down, shirtless in khaki shorts. I stole one of Dads t-shirts to wear over my swimmers on the days I spent with them. I hid it in a copse on the side of a dune, along with a bottle for water and a couple of tins of whatever I could lay my hands on so I wouldn’t starve. My copse had a little clearing in the center, a patch of sand that looked up at the startling blue sky. I’d hang my ‘good’ clothes on a branch and lie on my Dad’s t-shirt watching clouds scud across the patch of blue, finding faces and figures amid them before they vanished, and listening out for the gang of boys.
When I couldn’t find the boys, I’d wander around on my own, attaching myself to any strays I came across, whether human or animal. Sometimes I watched our house from afar, hunkered on my haunches until I got pins and needles, like a spy, waiting for Mom and the boys to head off to the shops so I could find a way back inside to steal some food and dance rebelliously across the kitchen linoleum to the latest hit buzzing around in my brain.
Inevitably I’d cop a good yelling from Mom each and every time I tried to sneak back inside each evening, but I copped nothing worse because Dad was there, my secret yet visible shield. Mom tried to enforce a rule that all windows were out of bounds to me, but