The New Girl (Downside) (21 page)

‘She was right. You’re lying!’

The call ends.

Ryan slumps down against a tree trunk, scraping his back as he goes. That was his last play, and he’s fucked it up completely. Goddamn fucking hadedas.

He searches his phone for the last number received but it’s listed as unknown.

An SMS comes in.
time>

he texts back.

Ryan switches off his phone and pulls out the SIM card. Even if it was a trap, they won’t have been able to trace his location from that short call, surely. He thinks of the police
crawling around Bedford Centre. He’s safer here than anywhere else for now. He’ll hide right here in the house until he can make a plan. The appliances here, for one thing, are worth
something. He wouldn’t be able to carry much, but what if he steals Danish’s car? Come to think of it, these people won’t have a bank account. Whatever business they’re in,
they’ll have plenty of cash on the premises. ‘Heed the notices,’ Mother warned him. Of course. Upstairs. They must keep it all there.

He rushes towards the house, but is halted by a deep instinct of self-preservation.
Wait! Think!
You do
not
want to be caught stealing from the home of a Serbian mafia
leader.

He forces himself to stop, breathe. Tomorrow’s Monday. Danish will take the girl to school. He’ll have to wait until the right time, act normal until then. He does not want to get
caught.

Tara awoke yesterday morning so weighted down with loss that she found it hard to breathe. She refused the mug of rooibos and honey Stephen brought her, blocked out his voice
when he tried to convince her she was overreacting; that Baby Tommy was nothing more than vinyl and paint, just a doll – a thing that could easily be replaced. She numbly let him attend to
her blistered palm, glad of the sting when he smothered it in Betadine and bandaged it up. She deserved to suffer. How could she have been so stupid?

She spent the rest of Sunday cocooned in their bedroom, the curtains drawn, drifting in and out of a sweaty, troubled sleep. That evening, ignoring Stephen’s entreaties to join him in the
lounge, she slipped into the kitchen and fished Baby Tommy’s warped head out of the kitchen bin where Stephen had carelessly thrown it. She wrapped it in tissue paper, slunk upstairs to her
sanctuary and carefully placed it in Baby Paul’s drawer, unsure what else to do with it.

This morning – Monday – she’s feeling slightly better. Stronger. Even feels a smidgen of shame. Really, why is she taking this so hard? It’s almost as if she’s
mourning the loss of a child – as if Baby Tommy was actually a living breathing entity. She has to snap out of it. Stephen’s right. All Tommy is –
was
– is a doll.
A thing. A nothing. A commodity.

Yet the memory of his little melted head plopping onto the kitchen tiles still makes her ache. She’s read several articles discussing the psychology behind Reborning, but she’s never
thought of herself as one of those women who yearn so desperately for a baby that they start treating their Reborns as living beings. Women who take their dolls out for walks in strollers, burp
them, dress them in fresh clothes and nappies every day, even go so far as to buy devices to insert in their chests that ape the sound of a heartbeat.

She pictures Stephen and Martin standing around a tiny grave in the back yard behind the plunge pool while she sobs next to them in a black lace dress and veil. Jesus, she thinks. Maybe she has
finally lost it, after all.

Her phone beeps again. Yesterday evening she finally sent a message to Batiss:
deliver>
She received a slew of replies but in her grief-stricken state she hadn’t mustered the energy to read them. But she can’t ignore Batiss forever. She snatches the
phone from the side table, scrolls through the messages.

And then, simply: <
>

Fuck this, Tara thinks. She doesn’t need this. Not after the week she’s had. Not after all that business with Martin, her concerns about Jane, and Duvenhage’s bombshell about
Raymond Scheider Primary. Sure, she needs the cash, but what can she do? She can hardly deliver Baby Tommy as is, can she? Not even an eccentric like Batiss will want a baby with a charred,
misshapen head. She sends back:

She’s married to a lawyer, after all. If Batiss
causes any trouble, she can always hand the matter over to Stephen. And if he finds out that she lied about the amount she’s been paid, well, she’ll cross that bridge when she comes to
it. Not that she really cares what Stephen thinks. Not any more.

The phone beeps again, and Tara turns it off without reading the message.

There’s a light tap on the door and Martin enters the room. She couldn’t believe it when Stephen told her he’d decided not to return home with his mother. She’s spent
months listening to Martin boast that everything from the food to the furniture is better at Olivia’s house.

The pre-Encounters Martin, that is.

Martin carefully places a steaming mug next to her phone. ‘Brought you a cup of coffee, Tara.’

Add that to the list of things she never thought she’d see Martin doing. Incredible. She sits up, takes a sip. Just the right amount of sugar. How does he know how she has her coffee? She
makes herself smile. ‘Morning.’

‘I’m sorry about your baby,’ he says.

Tara takes another sip of coffee to hide her expression. ‘Thanks. Hey, why didn’t you want to go home with Olivia?’

Martin shrugs. ‘Just didn’t.’ He still looks tired, the rims of his eyes are red, the skin on his face is looser as if he’s losing weight. He scuffs a foot over the
carpet. ‘Tara, it’s Encounters tonight. Please can I go?’

Ah, Tara thinks. So there is a motive behind this behaviour, after all. ‘It’s not up to me, Martin. What does your dad say?’

Martin scowls. ‘He says I can go if Mom says it’s okay.’

Typical Stephen, Tara thinks. Passing the buck. ‘Did you ask her?’

‘Ja. She says she’ll think about it. Please, Tara,’ Martin whines. ‘Can you talk to Dad? They’re going to install one of us tonight and—’

‘Hang on, they’re going to
what
?’ He must mean induct or something, got the word wrong.

‘Please Tara. Everyone else is going. It isn’t fair if I don’t go.’

‘What’s all this?’ Stephen says from the doorway in a forced cheery voice. ‘Family conference?’

‘Can I go to Encounters tonight, Dad?’

‘Sorry, my boy. Your mother said no.’

‘She said she’d think about it.’

‘Just spoken to her. The answer’s no.’

‘Aw
please
, Dad. I can stay in aftercare till it’s time to go.’

He’s thought of everything, Tara realises. She’s really curious now. What the hell can possibly go on at these meetings?

‘Sorry, my boy. I won’t be able to pick you up anyway. I have a late meeting again.’

‘I can fetch him,’ Tara finds herself saying.

‘Really? But I thought you said Encounters was—’

‘It’s fine.’ If she arrives a few minutes early to pick him up, then she’ll be able to see for herself what it’s all about. And she’s not immune to the
satisfying prospect of defying Olivia.

Martin slumps with relief. ‘Thanks, Tara.’

‘Go get your stuff together,’ Stephen says. ‘We’re leaving in five minutes.’

Martin whoops and races out.

Stephen frowns down at her. ‘What the hell was that about? I thought you said that Encounters stuff was what set Martin off in the first place?’

She shrugs. ‘Maybe I was wrong.’

‘How’s your hand this morning?’

‘I’ll live.’ Which is more than can be said for Baby Tommy. The thought makes her crumple inside again. ‘You want me to call the school, tell them you won’t be in
today?’

Tara thinks about spending the day alone with the ruins of Baby Tommy’s head. Can’t face it. ‘No. I want to go,’ Tara says. ‘Do me good to be out of the
house.’ The library will distract her. Besides, she wants to see how Jane is today. And if Duvenhage has told Clara about what happened at Raymond Scheider, well, so what?

‘That’s my baby.’ Stephen reaches out to stroke her hair.

She pushes his hand away. ‘Don’t call me baby. You haven’t called me that in months. Why start now?’

Stephen recoils, frowns down at her, opens his mouth to say something, then thinks better of it. He’s trying, Tara knows. But far as she’s concerned, it’s too little too
late.

She’s half an hour late for volunteer duty. She decided to make an effort, have a shower, shave her legs, blow-dry her hair and apply make-up in an attempt to put on a
brave front, but this had taken longer than she thought it would. She couldn’t bring herself to rush this morning.

She spots Clara emerging from Duvenhage’s office as she heads down the corridor towards the library. She ducks her head, prays in vain that Clara won’t spot her.

‘Oh, good morning, Mrs Marais,’ Clara calls.

Tara turns around and slaps what she hopes is a convincing smile on her face. ‘Morning. Sorry I’m late.’

Clara’s beady eyes flick to Tara’s bandaged hand. ‘What have you done to your hand?’

Oh, this? I burnt it on a baby’s head.
It would almost be worth saying it out loud just to see the expression on Clara’s face. ‘I was... cooking steak, burnt it on the
grill.’

‘Shame.’

‘I’d better get on,’ Tara says, scurrying away before Clara has a chance to say anything else.

She pushes through the library doors. Malika is sitting with the quiet-time kids, smothering a yawn, but the second she spots Tara she leaps up excitedly and waves her over. Tara smiles back at
her, but doesn’t approach. The last thing she feels like right now is listening to whatever snippet of gossip Malika’s clearly dying to tell her.

Tara looks around for Jane, but can’t see her anywhere. The other members of Jane’s reading class are here – she’s already spied Skye kneeling next to the Enid Blyton
shelf.

‘Tara!’ Malika hisses.

‘Hang on a minute,’ she mouths back, before hustling over to Skye. ‘Hey, Skye. You seen Jane?’

He looks up and rubs his eyes. ‘Huh? Who, miss?’

‘The new girl. Come on, Skye, you know who I mean.’

‘Oh,
her.
No. She’s off sick.’

‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘I dunno.’

Tara drops to her knees next to him. ‘Skye, when you all lined up during the fire drill, why didn’t you want to hold her hand?’

‘I just didn’t.’

‘Has she ever said anything to you about her family?’

‘No, miss. She... she doesn’t usually say anything.’ He starts picking his nose and Tara has to stop herself from slapping his hand away. ‘She just watches us,
miss.’

‘What do you mean, watches you?’

‘She just stares at us all the time. It’s creepy. And she smells funny.’

‘That’s not very nice.’

‘You asked me, miss.’

‘It’s hard being different, Skye.’

Skye gives her a ‘no shit, lady’ look, and she decides to stop pressing him.

‘Tara!’ Malika calls again, not bothering to keep her voice down this time.

Unable to ignore her any longer, Tara sighs and makes her way over. ‘What’s up?’

Malika waves her into the corner of the room, her lips pressed together in suppressed excitement. ‘Oh my God, Tara. You are not going to believe what Sybil told me this morning.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s that new guy. That janitor guy. Ryan what’s-his-name. You know the guy I mean. I swear to
God
I knew there was something shifty about him.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The cops were here first thing this morning. Sybil says they’re asking questions about him.’

‘What’s he done?’

Malika leans in closer, licks her lips. ‘I shouldn’t really say... Sybil asked me to keep it quiet.’

Brilliant job so far, Tara thinks. But she’s curious all the same. ‘You know it won’t go any further.’

This is all the encouragement Malika needs. ‘Well, they’re looking for him. One of his neighbours has accused him of...
doing things
to his daughter.’

Tara recoils, swamped with mixed emotions. Horror, of course, but also a sense of relief that her instincts were right about him. Hard to forget the intense way he stared at Jane when they were
out on the quad during the fire drill. ‘And? Have they caught him?’