Love Tastes Like Strawberries. Rosamund Haden

      “You’re right . . . how did you know?”

      That was it – the moment that she couldn’t take back. She had spoken to him. Everything starts somewhere. Now he will think I am weird. That I am stalking him, she thinks.

      “You buy the same things every Monday.”

      “You noticed.” He laughs, delighted. “It’s boring, I know.” He doesn’t add that he can’t help himself.

      “It’s not boring. It’s just . . .” She searches for a word. Luckily the next customer is waiting and she has to say goodbye. She drops the customer’s tin and has to scrabble under the till to find it.

      Chantelle at the next till winks at her. As she checks the woman’s groceries through, she is aware that he hasn’t left the shop. He is waiting, reading the notice board. Then she watches as he writes down a number on a piece of paper. For what? Tai-chi, accommodation, yoga, tutoring or life drawing classes. Which one? She feels a nervous flutter in her stomach. Five more customers and he is gone.

      “He really likes you. You spoke to him.” Chantelle laughs as they pack up. It is late and the shop is closing. “So get his number. Do you even know his name?”

      Françoise shakes her head; she is embarrassed, but pleased. “No. He’s probably married.”

      “So?” says Chantelle.

      “So!” says Françoise. They laugh.

      On her way back to their room she stops at the Chinese shop and uses their payphone to call the man, Ivor. She doesn’t want Dudu in on this because she would mess it up.

      The phone rings then goes on to the answering machine. She takes a deep breath and leaves a message.

      “Hello, this is Françoise. I am interested in your job for the life drawing model. Please call me . . .” – and she gives her cellphone number. Dudu has borrowed her cellphone again without asking. If she is quick she can run up the stairs and get to the cellphone before Dudu does. Chances are he won’t ring back within that time.

      Dudu has a little book with important numbers and useful people written in it. A book that is almost full. She has another little book which she has kept since she was ten. A book that Françoise has tried to get rid of a number of times, but which Dudu will not be parted from. A Book of Reckoning, where she writes down the names of people that she wants to remember.

      As Françoise runs up the stairs the smell of gas and the sweet smell of carcasses boiling hits her from No 2. The smell permeates the whole building and mixes with trapped fumes off the main road that are sucked in through the slit of open window. It has been stuck since they moved in, impossible to open or close fully.

      When Françoise pushes their door open, she sees Dudu has cooked supper on their two-plate stove, which is balanced on the pile of National Geographic magazines. This meat smells tasty in comparison with the smell coming from next door. Dudu has put a plastic cloth with a bright flower pattern over the beer crates they use for a table, and a plastic flower sits jauntily in an old glass vase. It looks strangely like a romantic dinner.

      “Who did you invite?” asks Françoise warily. “Pascal?”

      “He’s working on his uncle’s car. No, I invited you,” says Dudu sweetly. Françoise sits down, her feet are sore. The food smells good.

      “What is this? No, it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to know.” The meat tastes good and it’s hot.

      “Am I not your best sister?” asks Dudu, like she did when she was ten and Françoise fourteen.

      “Dudu, you are my only sister. What would I do without you?” Françoise says sarcastically.

      “So, was he there? The guy who buys the same things every week?” Françoise should never have told Dudu.

      “No. He’s stopped coming,” she lies.

      “Someone phoned just before you got here,” Dudu says. “There’s a message on the machine. I was cooking. It’s from a white man called Ivor.” She looks at Françoise.

      “It’s a friend.”

      “You don’t have friends.”

      “Yes, I do.”

      “Who? Name one?”

      “Chantelle and Vincent from work. And Nadia and Brigitte in room five and . . .”

      Sometimes she and Brigitte and Nadia go to KFC together when there’s money, or have their hair done. She has been to the wedding of a relative of Vincent’s.

      “It’s a job.”

      “What job?”

      “Nothing. I don’t want to talk about it.”

      “I have a job too,” says Dudu.

      “Your job is to pass matric next year,” says Françoise.

      “I’m going to buy a car and drive it up to Lubumbashi. You get good money for cars up there.”

      “Dudu, you can’t. How can you buy a car? How can you drive to Lubumbashi? That’s crazy. That’s suicide.” She hopes Dudu is just winding her up.

      After supper Françoise listens to her voicemail. “Hello, this is Ivor. Come around to 54 Kingston Road, Observatory, on Friday at six fifteen – I’ll try you out.”

      That was all. She didn’t even know where Kingston Road was. But she could find out. What should she wear? What did an artist’s model have to do? Suddenly she feels fear and excitement mixed together.

      After she has washed the dishes, Françoise joins Dudu on the mattress. They watch the fuzzy black-and-white TV together. She closes her eyes hoping she can fall asleep. It is only if she is really tired that she doesn’t dream and wake up with her heart pounding, in a state of panic. If she is tired enough she will sleep like the dead. Dudu holds her hand in the dark. It’s something they started doing in the forest and they have never stopped. They are too scared of what might happen if they do.