The girls in my class ignored me pointedly, turning their backs and giggling, just like at my old school. I knew how to pretend I didn’t care: I stuck my chin in the air, brushing past them with a glare as though to say, ‘Don’t you dare look at me!’ But what I truly wanted was to scream at them to ‘Stop it! Just stop it. Please!’
I looked to the stars to help me sort it all out, to make a way, somehow, for me to be happy. If only I could wish hard enough.
Mom also had her times when she needed someone to talk though, usually when she was in the bath, blond hair drawn up in a messy heap on her head, drinking wine and smoking cigarettes, hot water up to her chest, skin flopping off her bones as she twirled her hands, drawing warm water toward herself, all her rules about ‘modesty and decency’ flung by the wayside in her moment of ‘need’.
‘Don’t make the mistakes I’ve made, Kate; God knows I’ve made a few. Not least marrying that bastard father of yours.’
I’d always hated the way she spoke about him, but once I knew that he was my Dad and no-one else’s—that she was not my mother—rage would prickle across my skin, but somehow I’d nod my head and agree with her: ‘Poor you, Mommy; poor you; it’s so unfair. You’re so beautiful. You deserve better.’
‘I do, don’t I?’ Her tone was subdued by her groggy, wine-pickled heart. She’d neglect to remember how much she despised me in those moments, behaving as though I was her best friend and closest confidante, her cheerleader and shoulder to cry on; as though my words were important and mattered. Mom spoke to Gran—her mom—often too, bragging about her boys or exaggerating the bad things I’d done and complaining about Dad. But she never told Granny Joe that she couldn’t cope, that she was desperately sad.
I wasn’t just her confidante, but her lackey, too. Sad Mom always needed stuff: top up the water; clean the ashtray; fetch me more cigarettes; fill my wine glass. Drinking wine and smoking in the bath meant that Dad was not going to be home till late, or not at all, and that I wouldn’t have to worry about Mom’s anger, so long as she remained drunk and needy. I’d purposefully overfill her glass of wine from the container in the fridge; I knew she wouldn’t complain. Grasping her drink in bony, drippy-wet fingers, she’d sigh, ‘Do you want to do something nice for me now?’
‘Yes, Mommy.’
‘As a special treat, you can shave my legs, like a big girl.’
‘Thank you, Mommy.’ I’d rub a loofah gently over her legs—pre-shave routine—then carefully lather up and trace the razor over her calves and knees.
‘I’m not such a bad mother, am I, Kate? I do my best, don’t I? You’re just such a difficult child; if only you’d behave like a normal person. You know everything would be fine if you just behaved, right, Kate? Do you think you can do that?’
‘Yes, Mommy.’
There’d always been a nagging hope in my heart that ‘needy Mom’ would stay forever, that she’d just carry on treating me like a person who was okay, and that somehow she’d maybe learn to love me. But once I knew that she wasn’t my mother, I held onto my separateness from her, nodding and murmuring assent while repeating to myself over and over that I belonged to someone else, a real Mum who would have looked at me with loving eyes every single day of my life. Frustrated with trying to imagine what she looked like, I obsessed about finding a photograph of her somewhere, some evidence that she’d really existed.
In the meantime I had St Helena, who may have looked like just a statue, but who, I’d been told, heard every prayer, whether spoken out loud or in the heart. I’d told her all about my mum being dead, and had asked her to help me find out what she’d looked like. I was just waiting for an answer to come through.
Chapter Six
That summer, the heat was stifling. Lying in bed at night was almost torture. Bedding that touched skin for too long burned like fire, while mosquitoes took it in turns to dive-bomb my face, kamikaze style. There was no way I could sleep, most nights. I’d lie there trying to guess what time it was by listening for tells: any cars on the Stateway Road nearby? No, just the odd truck, brakes shushing, negotiating one of the traffic circles that had given the town the title ‘Circle City’. There were no traffic lights in Welkom, with their limiting options of straight, left or right. In Welkom you got to drive in circles, car-dancing, ‘Look to the right, give way, step to the left, merge, indicate, retreat…’ I’d lie in bed fantasizing about the freedom the road offered, the freedom of birds.
One stifling night, I woke from fitful sleep to white light spilling around the edges of my curtains. Pulling them back revealed a moon so startlingly huge I was convinced I could reach out and touch it. I wanted that light all over me—magic light, bright and clean and all mine—so I tiptoed down the hallway, hoping to open the French doors to the patio without making too much noise. The patio door was already open, and someone was sitting on one of the cane chairs, bathing in the moonlight, legs spread out, head thrown back against the floral cushioned headrest.
It was Dad. At first he didn’t notice me, so intent was he on the moon, on his thoughts, his hair standing up in places and falling in others, free of the hair oil that usually held it slickly to his scalp. Ice clinked as he drew a glass up to his lips and sighed with satisfaction. He was shirtless, his arms dark brown against the pallor of his chest; for a moment I felt nervous—was it okay for me to see him like this? Mom would be furious. ‘Girls do not see their fathers naked, or half naked; it’s sick!’ she’d say. But she was asleep, it was just Dad and me for once, so I got my bravery up and decided to approach him, heart beating clippity-clop, my neck prickly with apprehension.
I’d hardly ever had time alone with him. Yet I craved his attention more than anything, so very much. Mom accused me of being a ‘suck up’ and said my need for Dad’s attention ‘disgusted’ her. If I said, ‘Good morning, Daddy,’ that was sucking up; if I used the term ‘Dad’ instead of ‘Daddy’, that wasn’t only sucking up, it was something so bad that I didn’t dare ever call him that in front of her. If Mom caught Dad and I speaking on our own, that was sucking up of the worst kind, and if he touched me, I had done ‘a disgusting thing’. The punishment for these crimes was meted out as soon as he was out of sight: a pinch; a twist of the ear; or a belting, depending on how Mom felt on the day. As a result, I avoided Dad when she was around. Sometimes I couldn’t avoid him, though, like when he’d say, ‘I said, good morning, Kate.’ I could see how disappointed he was in me that I had no manners. But I had to judge carefully which evil I could endure better: Dad being hurt and mad at me; or Mom’s revenge. Usually, I chose to hurt Dad, and it broke my heart because I loved him so much, and I hated Mom equally for making me choose.
But there he was, alone, everyone else sleeping, so I stepped forward determinedly yet gingerly. He turned to look at me, and I couldn’t see what his sky-blue eyes were saying, but he used a gentle tone: ‘What is it, Kate? What do you want?’
‘Nothing, Daddy.’
‘Too hot for you?’
‘Yes, Daddy.’
‘Sit on the tiles; they’re nice and cool.’ Moonlight bathed us, me and my Dad, my real family, the only family I wanted. We stared out at the golden heat-shriveled lawn and dark trees of our garden, all lit up by the massive moon-lantern blazing down on us. At that moment the others were banished; they didn’t exist. Still, I couldn’t utter a word, not one of the thousand things I normally wished to share with him each day; the silence was only broken by the humming and swatting of mosquitoes.
‘Did you know that the French and British have built an aeroplane that flies faster than the speed of sound, Kate? Supersonic speed. It’s called the Concorde; this plane can fly any distance in half the time it would take a normal jet. It took me three months getting here by ship in 1957; a Concorde would take less than a day.’
‘Wow!’ was all I could manage, hanging