Last Train to Retreat (15 page)

Forty minutes later their silver spoons arced gracefully towards the deep blue, hitting the surface – tiny sprays in a vast expanse but enough to attract the big ones – only to be reeled in again to resemble small fish speeding erratically through the water. It was a ritual delicious in its anticipation of a large dark shape striking the spoon and the tip of the rod suddenly being pulled down.

They were casting from a rock ledge. Massive red cliffs rose up behind them, and immediately below their ledge deep water swept towards False Bay. It felt as if they were standing in an amphitheatre with a spectacle about to take place. The sun warmly embraced them but had trouble putting a shine on Hannibal’s faded hair. Being there made Curly forget about death and God. He whooped as he cast, his voice bouncing off the cliffs, and he repeated his cries like a kid for the effect. They didn’t look at each other, only at their writhing spoons, waiting, praying for a school of yellowtail to come past. As a boy Hannibal remembered the men catching big tuna from the ledges, and though scarce today so close inshore, a tuna run at Rooikrans was the stuff fishermen’s dreams were made of.

They fished for nearly three hours without catching a thing. They ate the cream crackers and cheese, the
koeksisters
, finished the flask of coffee, and Curly downed two double brandies and Coke. He placed his rod against a rock and mixed himself another drink, calling out, ‘Hey,
my bra
! Why not try for Hottentot and Stumpie? Put on redbait or mussel. I got ghost cotton.
Jissis
, it’ll be
kwaai
on the
braai!
’

‘
Naai duidelik,
Curly. Do a trace for me, will you? Then you carry on spinning … just in case!’ Hannibal had changed into baggies and his legs were like sturdy oaks planted in the rock. His eyes sparked in the sun and his yellow hair stood out against his caramel skin.

Curly made up a new trace, secured some slithery mussel on the hook with ghost cotton and passed it to Hannibal.

‘You go first, Curly, bring your rod and your drink. That looks like a good spot over there.’ Swells were coming in from the deep. They seemed to raise the entire ocean ten feet up against the rock without breaking, pulling back empty-handed with great angry, sucking sounds. Curly made his way carefully over the rocks – a little drunk, devoted as ever, his thick bandage causing his arm to stand out from his body. Hannibal stared at him. If Curly were a dog his tail would be wagging.

‘
Ek sê
,
dis darem lekka saam by die see,
Boss!
’

‘
Ja
, Curly, it’s nice by the sea like this, together. Now go for it,
bra,
get that spoon in the water! A lucky strike’s waiting for you in the deep, I feel it. Ha, ha! Get it,
bra
, it’s what you used to smoke, Lucky Strike! A good sign if ever there was one, I believe in these things. Lemme hold your drink … now go for it … that’s it. Watch the spoon, okay, watch for dark shapes, remember they come from the right, and fast …’

Curly tried not to blink as he concentrated on his spoon coming towards him like a small fish on the run. He was leaning slightly forward about to lift it from the water when Hannibal pushed him gently over the edge – two fingers were all it took. With a startled cry Curly plunged into an incoming swell. It lifted him up, up, higher than when he went in. He clutched his rod until it dawned on him it wouldn’t hold him up. He let go and turned towards Hannibal arms flailing. ‘Help, Hanno, help me!’

Hannibal watched as the ocean pulled away from the rocks with a deep sigh, Curly in its grip, screaming, ‘Help, it’s got me!
Jissis,
Hanno, I’m going!’

Hannibal walked to Curly’s rucksack, took out his phone, smashed it on the rocks and threw it into the sea where Curly and his rod had been a minute ago.

Z
ane had never seen the BAT pitch machine in action. He was in the boardroom watching the PowerPoint presentation to Good Hope Distillers, sitting with the agency team on one side of the long, gleaming yellowwood table. The client team sat on the other side. Everyone was dressed smart casual – suits were only for creative award functions, weddings, and funerals.

The presentation was drawing to a close. Magnus Theron had presented the agency’s credentials in spite of GHD knowing perfectly well who they were. Appleby had followed with a market overview even though GHD knew their business better than BAT did. Johan had reconfirmed media space and time already booked to catch Christmas and the New Year. The only new part was Justin’s creative presentation. Justin purposely avoided computer-generated ads that would have given a finished look, using rough scamps and storyboards instead to convey the big idea and how it could work above and below the line. He talked from flip charts – tearing off page after page and discarding them until he stood in a sea of paper and glossy cut-outs from
Cosmopolitan, Dolce Vita, Kasanova,
and
Vanity Fair
that illustrated the kind of people he’d use. Then he played a catchy soundtrack with the volume on high. He showed how the campaign could work on Facebook, Myspace, and MXit. Zane did not know what to make of the presentation. All he knew was that a Good Hope Distillers’ brand manager had let slip to Appleby that the competition had made ‘awesome’ pitches.

‘That’s it, ladies and gentlemen,’ Magnus said, his blue eyes reaching out to the row of impassive client faces. ‘We believe we have come up with a compelling campaign – the stars in the ads are the trendy, upwardly mobile young people having fun in exotic settings, with the product basking in this halo of chic and glamour. The campaign is unashamedly about
extrinsics
– the look, the sound, the mood. Intrinsics like the easy-to-hold bottle and funky new flavours are simply there as hard evidence for a campaign that’s clearly the coolest thing to hit this sector for a long time.’ He chuckled at his pun.

Zane felt a stab of shame while Magnus talked. What did it say in Matthew about Judas selling Jesus to his enemies for thirty pieces of silver? Was this not like selling one’s soul? He reminded himself that it was for his family, in the same way that he had lied to the doctor to get medicine to save the girl. He craved the day when he’d have enough money not to have to compromise on what was right and wrong, to be his own man beholden to no one.

Hennie Laubscher, GHD’s Marketing Director, a fleshy man in his forties with capillaries like micro roots in his face, spoke for his team: ‘Magnus, our thanks to you and BAT for all the hard work you’ve put into your pitch, and, I should add, the work you’ve done for GHD over the years.’ He stood up, everyone followed. ‘We’ll let you know in two days’ time.’ The agency team stared at him desperately trying to make out what he was thinking but his poker face gave nothing away. For the first time Zane realised what power men like Hennie Laubscher held over ad agencies, over BAT’s future, and Zane’s.

It was Appleby who cut the brittle air. ‘Gentlemen, a drink or two before you go?
And
ladies, sorry!’

Zane tensed. He’d have an apple juice, a clear and fizzy Appletiser that looked like a serious drink. But drinks could lead to dinner. He could be in for a heavy night – the boring one in the group trying to fit in with the boisterous. Appleby had said once that brand wanking always reared its self-satisfying head on such nights. Zane never got around to asking him what he meant – it sounded embarrassing.

‘No thanks, Magnus, Appleby, not tonight,’ Hennie answered for his team and made for the door. Jeez, was it a bad omen, Zane wondered, or simply the client not wanting to risk loose talk in the pub on BAT’s chances? It was all a new game to him.

In the men’s room Zane and Appleby stood side by side at the urinal.

‘What do you think, Appleby?’ Zane stared at the white wall.

‘Bugger it! I told Justin to use high-finish ads but I was overruled by Magnus.’

‘At least the client could see how versatile the idea is,’ Zane said, ‘and that it’s got legs.’

‘If he has the imagination, old chap, if he can see beyond the kids’ drawings. There are clients and clients, you know.’

‘Advertising would be great if we didn’t have them at all, hey, Appleby?’ Zane teased him.

They pulled up their zips in unison.

•

Zane was about to enter his block of flats when he sensed a presence behind him. He spun around. She stood on the pavement in the dusky light of evening just before the streetlights came on. He had not heard a sound and was taken aback by her sudden, ghostly appearance, in black sweater and jeans and Adidas sneakers, her face ill-defined below her mahogany fringe. He said nothing, waited.

‘I had to see you,’ she said, her neutral voice belying her words.

He had dreaded the possibility of her coming back, known that her leaving couldn’t be the end of it. Two deeply troubled people whose paths had crossed, causing a death and then keeping it from the world could never hope to live apart in peace. That kind of thing happened only in books and movies. ‘Why are you here? I don’t even know your name,’ he said.

‘We killed someone, remember? Can we go upstairs?’ Her eyes were still bitter.

‘We shouldn’t be seen like this. Come.’ He strode towards the lift. The steel cage opened and shut its doors and hummed upwards. They stood like strangers watching the panel lights.

‘Your wound – how is it?’ he asked.

‘Oh, it’s closed up and the swelling’s gone,’ she said, ‘the muscle’s stiff, that’s all.’ She had never thanked him.

In the lounge he made no further effort at conversation. She looked around like a
meerkat
in a hideout sniffing to see that all was safe. ‘Things have happened,’ she said.

‘Oh?’ Insects crawled in his stomach. Were the police after her? ‘Why don’t you just leave me alone, huh? I’m not going to say a thing if that’s what you’re worried about, not because I care about you but because I don’t want trouble. Let’s get that straight. I got important things in my life and don’t need
any
of this.’ He’d come home fatigued after the agency pitch, uncertain about his future.

‘I got no one else to talk to, and things have happened.’

‘So you said. So tell me and then go.’

She started telling him and suddenly he wanted to know more, like a patient who’d been given bad news about cancer, hoped for containment and was now told it was spreading.

‘So you think both of them may be dead, Gatiep
and
Curly? And they could’ve been members of a gang trading in drugs and humans? What happened to Curly?’

‘I got the feeling from Gatiep’s father, Sollie Baatjies, that they were members of a gang. But he didn’t say which one, maybe because he doesn’t want them to get into trouble … he doesn’t know Gatiep’s dead.’

Zane’s mind raced. The men were from Lavender Hill and members of a gang. Could it be the Evangelicals? He dismissed the thought. Sollie said they worked in town but no single gang controlled the city. ‘Isn’t it time you tell me your name?’ he said.

She hesitated, then: ‘It’s Lena, Lena Valentine. I work for SASSA, at The Centre.’

‘I can see you’re not wired for optimism,’ he said, quoting a favourite from Appleby.

‘Well, strange that Curly’s missing,’ she said, ‘both people on the train now gone. And both worked at a club or parlour in the city. You know what
they
’
re
used for.’ She looked at him with disgust as if he represented all men. ‘Sure I wanted Curly dead – he knows our faces and probably where we got off – but I messed up. Then he just disappeared. Now no one can find him. I tried his number …
nothing
.’ She told Zane about her brush with Curly at the disco club and her theory about the list of numbers in Gatiep’s mobile.

‘Maybe he’s hiding. You’re not exactly the friendly kind, you know.’ He was prodding her to find out more. She was unlike any woman he’d ever met: cold steel forgetful of its red-hot birth, yet vulnerable like a sapling in a storm; feline and slinky, yet viciously feral when cornered. ‘I’d also hide from you if I could,’ he said. A nasty thought occurred to him. ‘Have you come to get me too, because I know too much?’

Her eyes went moist like the night at Wynberg station when she couldn’t walk. ‘I thought about it, yes, but I can’t,’ she said simply. ‘You’re too good.’

‘You know nothing! I can tell you a thing or two about Zane Hendricks!’

‘You saved me twice, once from them, the second time from infection.’

‘So why are you here?’ He ran a hand aimlessly over his close-cropped hair.

‘To be friends,’ she said awkwardly, ‘I’ve never had any.’

Zane looked at her. It would be like being friends with a psycho. He’d seen them in movies and would rather have a thousand strangers as friends on Facebook.

•

‘Spin Street sure is in a tizz,’ Appleby observed for the umpteenth time. At the agency, people mooched around at the coffee and tea machines, in the corridors and toilets, sat on their desks instead of at them. Smokers, like Appleby, went for frequent puffs in the square across the street where Onze Jan stood, the only composed figure around. Some, like Zane, tried to work and snack at the same time – chips, sweets, nuts, biltong – the constant chewing action calming their nerves. Magnus walked around muttering about how ‘piss-poor’ productivity was in the new South Africa. There had been talk about bigger year-end bonuses if BAT won the business, and with Christmas around the corner the possibility of
not
winning weighed on everyone. It would be Zane’s first bonus. He’d also been thinking about the girl’s visit. She was unpredictable, a loose cannon capable of sinking his bonus and his job.

•

In the afternoon of the following day, Magnus walked out of his office with the electrifying news: BAT had won the pitch, boosting agency billings as well as its reputation. It made everyone feel a little more secure in a business notorious for its insecurity. Magnus opened the bar and beamed, ‘Tonight’s on the house!’ Appleby was twice gobsmacked – at BAT actually winning the business (with rough scamps) and Magnus promptly sending for magnums of sparkling wine. It augured well for Christmas bonuses. Zane phoned Bernadette and told her the news. He thought of phoning his father but didn’t. Just what would Eddie say if he heard it was booze business that Zane was going to handle? No, he’d tell his parents only once he had brought them across the line to a better life.