Who was he to notice that other men were dumb disciples? Here he was, practically left to rot on the kerb like an old banana peel, and he wasn’t even put out. It wouldn’t be surprising if women no longer registered his presence either.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he ventured to passing potential in a very snug pair of jeans.
“Fuck off.” The girl eyed him up and down with lazy nastiness and swayed on.
Too young anyway. Her hips dipped just a touch in his direction, though; he was sure of it. He considered going in and breaking up the shoe conversation rather than standing around like a moron, but knew it was a bad idea. His presence would slow rather than speed things up. He’d be judged on his attire and bearded, ice-cream-encrusted chin, and his owner would wonder in shame if his only goal was to bring her down in public.
As he resumed his stoic stance, the movements of a solitary figure across the street caught his attention. Someone loitered before the display window of an electronics store, watching multiple images of Celine Dion in concert on a dozen stacked screens. This time, the feet of the one-woman audience bounced in anticipation. Joshua hesitated for a moment, then stepped off the kerb. In a beat his way was blocked by a barrel-chested blond man, two heads shorter but making up for it in previously advantaged authority.
“How much per hour?”
“Uhh . . .”
“Parking.” The man pointed to his car and dug through his pockets. “How much?”
Joshua shrugged. “Ten bucks . . . rand. Ten rand.” This was the city he now inhabited, where a driver could assume any man of colour standing around in a parking lot was a car guard. Might as well make some money off it. The man made a big deal of looking surprised before he paid up, muttering about the country going to the dogs as he walked off.
“Please, man, some money for food.”
Joshua looked down again, further this time. A street kid in oversized, battered tracksuit top and severely old shorts – too short for the Cape Town winter weather, however mild it was by Joshua’s American standards – looked back at him. He seemed to be sizing up both Joshua’s rank as a fellow homeless person and his right to any coins handed out on that turf.
“Listen, kid, I made this money fair and square,” Joshua joked. “How ’bout we split it?”
“It’s only ten rand,” the boy said stoutly. “And that’s yours.” He pointed accusingly at a gleaming Jeep and then thrust out his hand. “I saw you park.”
With a laugh of grudging admiration, Joshua handed over the money. “And here,” he added, offloading a container with a KFC meal in it. “Might do you some good.”
He struggled not to run as he crossed the road. On the other side, Celine Dion’s rapt audience lingered, holding a plastic bag from the supermarket. His heart was going way too fast for half a minute’s exertion, but that much was out of his control. He searched his mind for the perfect, coolest opener, and the best he came up with was: “I’ve asked you to stop following me around. I’m never gonna crack and sleep with you.”
The tall, slender woman turned, and a huge smile lifted the loveliest, warmest mouth Joshua had ever pressed his own against.
“Why, Joshua Allen!” Voinjama Johnson laughed in surprise.
“VJ.”
At five-nine she was tall, but he gave her stiff competition at just over six feet. Vee tiptoed into a one-armed hug, and he revelled in the smell of her hair and neck and breath. A waft of baby soap, vanilla and something thrillingly feminine and unique drifted in as he inhaled. Through her trim dark suit, his arms noted she still hadn’t returned to her normal weight since the surgery, but she looked a lot more solid than in previous months. He stepped back to examine her properly, relieved to find the burnished glow to her rich brown skin had returned and her smile touched her eyes.
“New York City boy. What you doin’ round here? Dis ain’t even your neighbourhood. I didn’t even know you were still in town, since you too hip to take anybody’s calls. Where you been hidin’ at?”
A man could set his pulse by the ebb and flow of her mesmerising accent, and he always surrendered to the sound of it. Her patois-inflected lilt remained strong and unaffected even after years of living abroad, although he caught a hint of American.
“Still the interrogator, always with the questions. I see Celine Dion still fascinates you.”
Vee shook her head in amazement at the performance on the screens. “’S a miracle that big voice bustin’ out of that dry woman. She wi’ jus’ explode one day, jus’ you wait.”
She turned back and gave him the once-over. “Don’t change the subject. And what’s all dis here now, some new look?” She reached out an arm and touched his overgrown hair and the stubble on his face, giggling. “For heaven’s sake, Joshua Allen, there’s a hole under your arm. You look homeless. Don’t tell me you been fired.”
“Bet you’d love that, wouldn’t you?”
“For true, you rich bastard. You can come scrub my floors and kiss my feet for pennies. You still ain’t told me –”
In the lot across the street the pricey boots were pacing quizzically, their owner on the prowl.
“Oh,” she finished as she caught sight of his companion.
Watching her smirk, Joshua hoped it was too dark to see his face flush. Suddenly awkward, he offered to walk her to her car. She assured him it was two steps away and she’d be fine. He walked her anyway.
“You look good,” he said. “Much better. Happier.”
She snatched his ice cream. “I’m working on something.”
“What?”
“That’s a good question.” She crunched on the cone, eyes far away.
In the dim light Joshua admired her profile, taking in the sharp curve of cheekbone and plump outline of mouth. Something major was on her mind, and he could almost hear it being processed, mashed up into lengths of Voinjama-encoded information and spliced back together in a format only she could digest. She’d once remarked how a professor, finding her abilities maddening but perversely fascinating, had called them “a beautiful symphony born of nonsensicality”. She’d laughed, unfazed at being called a fool and a magician in the same breath. Vee’s methods were often highly circuitous and plodding, but she’d get there in the end. Like a curious, meticulous bird, she’d pick it all apart and reassemble it until she had a nest of facts that held together.
“I’ll get back to you on that,” she finally answered, turning to go. “Now let me get going before you get us both in trouble.”
“I’ll hold you to it,” he called after her.
Chapter Six
“You sure you don’t want something to eat?”
Vee drained her cup of Ovaltine and ahh-ed in satisfaction as she shook her head in refusal. Agreeing to supper would mean having to wait until it was prepared, and neither she nor her best friend were up to that. There was bound to be something reheatable in her fridge.
After a stop to refuel, she’d acted on a hankering for a more bustling environment than her own sitting room. She sometimes liked to think in noisy or alien surroundings, and Connie Adeyemo’s flat in Rondebosch was rarely a disappointment. Her younger sister Suwa moaned about money problems to an unappreciative world at large as Jeremy