Chapter 25

Lindy was glad to have a plan, even though it was hardly a simple one. Getting to Upington was going to be tricky. For one she didn’t have a car, and the friends who could lend her one, she hadn’t spoken to since the divorce. Well, since the marriage to be precise.

Lindy was also positive that the R64 – the route she and the hungry policeman had driven – would be monitored by Stefan’s people. But there was another road to Upington, through Barkly West. It was maybe a hundred kilometres longer, but it was less likely to have roadblocks, and there was a bus that ran as far as Delportshoop. After that, the road continued into the desert and few people had any need to go that way – barring the lime-quarry workers who commuted to Danielskuil and Lime Acres. From Delportshoop, Lindy figured she could hitch a ride to Upington, despite her horror at the idea of getting into some sweaty stranger’s car.

What kind of person picks up hitch-hikers these days? Only perverts and lunatics, thought Lindy, hoping for the latter.

Lindy wound her way along the backstreets until she met a road she recognised and she could gather her bearings. At the nearest ATM she drew her maximum daily limit of a thousand rand – all the while looking over her shoulder for anyone suspicious. Or anyone blond. Then she took an overloaded taxi to Schmidtsdrift Road. When it stopped to pick her up she pretended not to need a lift anymore – but on second thoughts she waved her arms and squeezed in between eight frozen-chicken-filled shopping bags piled to the ceiling, and a very large man. She felt his whole left side mould around her as yet more passengers crammed in through the sliding door. It was sickly hot in the taxi, and by the time she called for her stop she was covered in at least five different people’s sweat. If it hadn’t been for the bags of frozen chicken, which she huddled against, she’d surely have passed out. Her head was pounding from dehydration as she emerged from the bowels of the taxi. She felt weak. The still, thirty-eight-degree air of Kimberley was like a cool sea breeze.

The bus for Delportshoop left from outside Checkers, and she was miraculously twenty minutes early for the last departure of the day. She paid the bus driver and found a seat right at the back, next to the window overlooking a row of vendors. After five minutes in the baking heat of the bus, she leant out the window and called to a man selling chips and cigarettes.

“If you can get me two Energades before this bus leaves I’ll give you fifty rand.”

In less than a minute Lindy had two ice-cold green Energades. She happily parted with her fifty rand note.

My birthright for a bottle of sports drink, thought Lindy as she downed the first one and began on the second, tearing at the protective plastic of the lid with her teeth.

Lindy got out of the bus just on the other side of Delportshoop and stood on the verge of the highway with her thumb in the air. She could feel her neck and arms burning in the sun. This was the real desert. Across the landscape, as far as she could see, there were maybe ten trees in all. Between them was sand and stones and the bright glow of white plastic packets blown from the town and caught by greedy thorns. Passing cars kicked up clouds of dust as they went by, and she coughed violently to rid her lungs of this wasteland.