WITH ROXY MISSING, my mind hadn’t been focused on P&P work. One particularly inauspicious Monday the universe sent me a message it was time to get back to the business of economic survival.
The first sign that something was up was an SMS from Andrew. You heard it from me first. Shit storm coming down. Keegan f’ing crazy. Called meeting 9am today. Be there!
This was not good.
Andrew’s message caught me on my way to the client offices for an early meeting. It was a meeting that had been postponed twice before. For the third time I called the client project manager to cancel the Database Strategy Meeting.
‘Ag nee, Paola. Nou wat gaan ek vir hulle sê?’ Jan Opperman grumbled. Now what was he going to tell them? It was a rhetorical question. Being called in to a management meeting with the senior EMEA hatchet man was clearly not under my control. He even felt sorry for me.
Justin Keegan was nattily dressed in a crisp white shirt with an expensive-looking London tie and flashy cufflinks. He waited for everyone to be seated, asked the person closest to the door to close it, and then opened his laptop.
‘Let me read you −’
He raised an eyebrow as the door opened and Laeticia Lategan peered in, checking she had the right room.
She mumbled something about dropping her child at crèche and the bad traffic on a Monday, sank into an empty chair and removed her laptop from her bag with fumbling fingers.
‘Ready?’ he asked solicitously.
‘Ready,’ Laeticia replied.
‘P&P employees shall not engage in private business activities of any nature for purposes of deriving a personal income, whether a registered or non-registered enterprise, whether an internet or land-based business … Work for charitable purposes or an NGO is excluded from this restriction.’
Justin Keegan was prosecutor, jury and judge, and he wanted everyone in the room to know it.
The air-conditioning wasn’t set high enough for summer, which had come early this year. The meeting room was stiflingly hot. I struggled to breathe. He’d found out about my Nigerian contact. My brilliant corporate career was about to end, with a whimper.
Breathe, Paola, breathe. It’s just a job.
I looked around. Some of my colleagues were not doing too well.
Justin thrived on the detailed theatrics of power. He’d saved the bombshell for last. Raising his head, he told us without preamble that Emma Patterson had been suspended from all her duties and frogmarched by security out the building at 8:30 this morning, after having her laptop and access key taken from her.
We all just stared at the EMEA emissary, the apprehensive and dismayed faces of a moment ago now turned to him in disbelief.
‘You fired Emma?’ Andrew finally said.
This meeting is about Emma?
Andrew was quicker on the uptake than most of us, perhaps because he was one of the few innocent of the same charge.
‘What proof have you got?’ Andrew had joined the dots. He looked across the table at Stan Vassili, Emma’s manager, but there was no response. Stan acted as if he didn’t hire Emma straight out of university and didn’t know that she was one of the few sales consultants who always met their targets.
Justin was beginning to enjoy himself. He smugly informed us that Patterson had been found to be running her own business from company premises, using company equipment. A disciplinary process had been instituted.
‘So she’s been given warnings?’ Andrew persisted, still looking at Stan.
‘We’ve had legal advice. Having additional employment of any nature is a fireable offence,’ Justin continued. ‘For the moment that’s all your consultants need to know. I trust that you will consider this case in the serious light which EMEA management regards it. You will receive further communication as and when it becomes available.’
‘What kind of business?’ Cecilia van Wyngaardt asked.
‘An underwear apparel internet business,’ Keegan replied with prim exactitude.
‘You fired her because of her underwear parties?’ Big-busted, chestnut haired Cecilia snorted with laughter. Nobody else joined in; the rest of us suspected Keegan would neither forgive nor forget. What Keegan said next stopped Cecilia in her tracks.
‘There is another matter involving the financial mismanagement of travel funds which is being investigated by the internal auditing division before a criminal charge is laid against Ms Patterson.’
Oh Emma.
Justin had overridden Piet and sent the auditors in.
‘It’s just her way of staying sane …’ Cecilia muttered.
Everyone else was struck as dumb as if a meteorite had struck the P&P building and they’d been left intact, alive, in a scene of carnage. Nobody said anything further.
I wait for everyone to stand up and leave, and I stay sitting, facing Justin.
‘You can’t do this.’
‘Why can’t I do it, Paola?’ It’s odd how Christian names can seem unchristian when uttered by certain people.
‘There are personal extenuating circumstances,’ I say. ‘It’s expensive to replace highly trained personnel. We’re dealing with human beings, not robots.’
I’d never intended Emma to get fired. I fight to stay in control of emotions I don’t entirely understand.
‘We have a project leader on one of our projects who has a problem with alcohol. Wayne gets a free psychological assessment and visits to a psychologist paid for by Medical Aid. What’s different about Emma’s case? She’s basically suffering from long-term personal trauma.’
He starts packing his laptop away. ‘What would you say if I told you Nancy Pebasco approved this?’
‘I’d say it was unlikely,’ I reply evenly. ‘Americans like to consult before they fire people.’
He winces in exaggerated fashion. ‘Ah! Yes, well, EMEA has requested a tightening up around employees conducting private business on P&P time. She should have informed you of the EMEA directive. Perhaps it slipped her mind.’ The subtext is that Nancy Pebasco and her big US shoes will just have to toe the EMEA line.
‘It always amazes me how dishonest people can be so popular,’ he continues. ‘Your Emma’s a criminal. You should have seen her, sniffling like a teenage girl. She knows why she’s out.’
I have the urge to slap the face of this supercilious functionary from across the ocean, who acts as if he’s still colonising Africa.
Stick to the issue. Do your job. Emma is not your problem.
‘You can’t do this kind of thing in South Africa. Emma will drag you to the CCMA and they’ll side with her because you haven’t followed due process. Did you clear it with HR?’
He blinks twice behind the thick glass of his trendy spectacles. ‘Liz is away,’ he says. ‘I discussed it with Marlise. She said there was no problem.’
‘Marlise knows nothing,’ I say. ‘They’ll crucify you.’ I have the satisfaction of seeing his eyes darken.
But he gets the last word.
‘Paola, I’m concerned for you. I hope you understand that EMEA takes employee contractual infringements very seriously. It seems that Ms van Wyngaardt at least was well aware of Emma’s activities and yet she did not inform her line manager. That attitude will no longer be tolerated. You should know there are a number of ongoing investigations.’
There is no mistaking the threat in his voice.
I found Stan at the P&P bar before I headed off home. Apparently, behind the scenes, Emma and Justin Keegan had been involved in a titanic running battle over a client’s database licence fee. On his second drink, Stan admitted that Keegan had laid into Emma, telling her she dressed like a whore and criticising the way she conducted herself. Stan said the only time he’d heard sexist language like Keegan used to Emma that day was in the army. After that, things started unravelling. Keegan had somehow obtained the link to the online underwear site. Stan suspected a colleague in sales saw an opportunity.
I kept wondering if things might have been different for Emma if I hadn’t showed her up like that in front of Nancy Pebasco. But it was too late for those kinds of thoughts. What was done was done.
Bit by bit, the story came out. Emma had accused Keegan of sexual harassment in an email to local senior management. When her demand for a public apology was ignored, she’d filed a case of sexual harassment with the CCMA against P&P South Africa, naming Justin Keegan as the respondent. That was the Friday before the Monday when he’d had her frogmarched out the building.
Sometimes in business, as in life, things don’t go exactly as planned. I tried to warn Justin Keegan. Underestimating Emma was a mistake. Underneath the make-up and the Girl Friday outfits was the other Emma, who was an active member of Mensa, who ran ten kilometres after she ate a slice of cake, and who made sure she was so popular at university that she was voted residence committee chairwoman two years in a row. But Justin was dizzy with vicarious power.
The CCMA hearing was a rout. Emma conducted her own case, calling Stan and a sales colleague as witnesses. Mindful of their exposure, they trivialised Emma’s version, describing Justin’s behaviour as business as usual in a tough environment. It was always going to be her word against his. Justin’s arrogant refutation of her charge was allowed to proceed without interruption or challenge. She waited politely until it was her turn again, and then she put her mobile on the desk and pressed a button. Emma had recorded Justin’s tirade on her phone. Into the stunned silence that followed, an enraged Justin yelled ‘You fucking cunt!’ The CCMA commissioner instructed Mr Keegan to leave the room if he could not control himself.
An agreement was reached. Emma paid back what she owed on the AMEX card and accepted a fat settlement payout in exchange for her silence. Justin Keegan, his briefcase, and his latest generation MacBook, got redeployed to the warzone of Indian online consulting services.
It was not the same without Emma. Meetings with the sales team followed a boring predictable pattern. I would have given anything to see a pair of yellow wedge sandals with a tattooed ankle walk in the door.
Late one Tuesday, I was in a project steering committee meeting with client executives when my phone vibrated. I glanced furtively at the phone screen. Kiki’s SMS read: ‘Come home when you can. Everything under control.’ Which meant that at some point it wasn’t.
I murmured an apology to the meeting at large, grabbed my laptop bag and jacket, and exited hastily before anyone could object. I sensed Piet’s cold fisheye on me as I slipped out the door. When I got to Sonkasteel, there was no outward sign of anything amiss, just the usual night-time voices carrying and the suppertime cooking odours mingling with the rancid odours of oil and onion and cabbage that emanated with ghostly bad breath out the brick walls. An emotionally drained Kiki rose from our couch. She’d given Simone some of Sharon’s sleeping mixture. Truschka had been run over by a car in front of Sonkasteel after being chased by that dog, the one with the scary eyes that walked with that guy who looked like he was ex-military. The vet said it was bad but he would do his best. Luckily he said that in private when Simone went to the bathroom.
I put my stuff down carefully as Kiki talked, everything in its correct place, to give myself time to absorb the information. ‘Did Simone see it happen?’
‘No.’ Kiki shook her head. ‘It was my fault, Tuschie followed me downstairs. I let her come in the lift with me. I was waiting at the bus stop and she was getting sun on the verge when I saw someone fiddling at the pedestrian gate where that guy’s staying. Next moment the dog came flying out. I swear Tuschie saw that car coming and reckoned she’d do better to put the car between them than stand still − and maybe in her young days she’d have made it.’
‘Thank God the cat’s alive,’ I said. ‘Can you imagine …?’
‘Shame,’ Kiki said, wiping away a tear. ‘The car came round the corner and it was going too fast, he floored the brakes but Tuschie went under one of the wheels. He just kept on going. Simone heard and she came out to see what happened. I thought she’d cry or scream or something but she didn’t, she just sat there in the road stroking her cat. Some traffic cops arrived and they diverted the traffic around her. Jeez, I’m sorry, Paola, there wasn’t anything I could do.’
‘You did plenty, Kiki. How did you get to the vet?’
‘The hunk came out,’ Kiki said. ‘Ag jy weet who I mean, Mr Ex-military, the dog’s owner. He kept saying that he knew for a fact he’d shut the gate. I’m afraid I wasn’t very polite, I called him and his stupid dog a lot of names. Now he thinks I’m a fishwife. But anyway he made a splint for Tuschie’s broken leg and he said he didn’t think she’d broken her back, so Simone brightened up a little, and then he took us to the vet in his bakkie, and he gave us a lift home, and he said I must tell you he’ll cover all the bills.’
I called the vet the next day and he said that Truschka must have used up all her lives now, but she was a tough old girl. To be honest he hadn’t thought the cat would survive the night, and by all rights it should have been put down because the rehabilitation process was difficult for old animals with broken bones, and they often got long-term arthritis and joint issues as a result, but my daughter had looked so distraught he’d decided to let nature decide.
After I’d cooked supper, Simone stared down at her pork chop and mash and pumpkin and said she wasn’t hungry. ‘How about a yoghurt?’ I said brightly but she just shook her head. Then she disappeared into her bedroom and I didn’t see her until breakfast time when she held her spoon in her fist and smashed at her cereal as if it was separately and collectively to blame for what had happened to Truschka.
‘Truschka is going to be okay. It was just an accident,’ I said.
‘No it wasn’t!’ she yelled at me, banging the spoon so hard on her plate that it almost toppled over. ‘Somebody opened the gate on purpose and you know it!’ Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying and she was furious. The drive to school took place in total silence.
On Wednesday I came home early so we could visit Truschka at the vet’s rooms. Simone talked to her through the bars, but Truschka sat pitifully at the back of the cage and refused to come forward in spite of her mistress’s tender entreaties. The vet seemed impressed that she was just hanging on.
On Thursday morning, the headmistress called me. My presence was required. When I walked into her office, she was standing in front of the tall sash window that looked out over the well-tended school grounds and Simone was sitting on a chair in front of the desk with arms tightly folded. The headmistress turned round to greet me with a grim look on her face. The latest incident was set out before me in brisk, staccato terms. Simone had taken it upon herself to sort out a group of bullies who, in the absence of Roxy on the bus, had been pestering Josh and Wally. When Mario Ferraris put some glass fibre wool down the back of Wally’s school shirt, Wally had started to cry, and Josh had started to bang his head against the window. Simone waited for Mario Ferraris to sit down again in the midst of his laughing band and then she had stood up and put her school jersey over Mario’s head from behind and hit his head hard once against the seat railing in front of him. The bus driver only realised what she’d done when he heard Mario’s yell of pain. After that, she took her jersey back and went back to her seat without a word. Mario Ferraris now had a broken nose.
The headmistress asked if Simone had anything to add. Simone folded her arms tighter and scowled. The headmistress sighed and said that Simone could wait outside.
She waited for the door to close and then informed me that the boy’s parents had been to see her; they wanted Simone expelled. She’d pointed out that she was on good terms with Mario’s headmaster and that bullying was not tolerated at Mario’s school, and they’d calmed down. I’m so, so sorry, I interjected. She glared at me and lifted a finger to shush me as if I was one of her pupils. Yesterday afternoon was not a good situation, she informed me. The bus driver had to stop the bus and call for assistance to get Mario Ferraris to a doctor, and she was going to have to do a lot of explaining to the school board. No, it wasn’t a good situation, I agreed, but there were extenuating circumstances: Truschka got run over on Tuesday, and with Roxy missing, Simone overreacted. It would not happen again. I sincerely hope so, she said dryly. If I was prepared to cover the medical costs, she believed that she could convince the parents to walk away from this mess.
Suddenly I was annoyed. ‘I’ll do it on condition that he apologises to Georgie with his parents present and promises he won’t bother Wally and Josh ever again.’
The headmistress must have realised I meant it, because she said she’d put my offer to the parents.
‘What on earth came over you?’ I asked Simone as we trooped out into the corridor. ‘Do you want to be expelled? Where did you even learn to do something like that?’
She gave me the pitying ‘I am so much older than you’ look that petrified me. ‘He deserved it,’ she said. ‘Nobody was doing anything. Can I go to class now?’
On Thursday evening, I was still trying to find the words to reopen the topic of her assault on the bus bully when the doorbell rang. It was not a ring I recognised.
What now?
It was the big ex-military guy with his dog. They faced me very straight and at attention, the dog on its haunches and the man standing. But there was also something hangdog and contrite about them, as if they’d both been hauled over the coals many times before and fully expected it to happen again tonight. It was oddly comical and sweet.
‘Evening, my name is Robert and this is Mona,’ he said politely, indicating the dog. ‘How’s your cat?’ A slight (Australian?) twang was discernible.
‘She’ll live, apparently,’ I said. ‘No thanks to your dog.’
‘I’m afraid it’s a habit picked up from her hunting days. Being a cat chaser makes her a bad bet for rehoming. I’m working on it but we’re a long way from being able to find her a good foster family.’
‘Were you letting her practice on our cat?’
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ he said levelly. ‘I train her on a lead. I know for a fact I shut that gate. And it’s a special kidproof lock like they have for swimming pools, so I can’t explain it.’ He nodded a greeting at Simone, whose blonde head had appeared in the doorway next to me. She sometimes did this – eavesdropping until she thought it was safe and then popping up next to me.
‘Mona,’ the man said. ‘Apologise to the young lady about her cat.’
Mona offered her paw to Simone. Simone hesitated, taking in the dog’s silvery skin and eerie light eyes, before accepting the paw.
‘It’s not your fault,’ she said solemnly to the Weimaraner. ‘They opened the gate and let you out.’ She flashed me a triumphant look, and then instructed, ‘Come, Mona …’ Mona glanced at her master and then cautiously trotted inside after Simone.
The man at my door said casually, ‘What was that about?’
‘It’s a long story,’ I replied. He looked thoughtful but let it go.
While Simone was issuing commands to the hunting dog to see what she could do, her master told me that he would be changing the gate arrangement so that there was a lock on the gate to which only he had a key. It might have been an attempted break-in but he doubted it, word got around fast if there was a dangerous dog on a property, so he didn’t want to alarm me but it would probably be a good thing if we all kept our eyes open. Mona wasn’t young but she was trained to predate on small animals. Cats would fit into that category. We should assume that whoever opened the gate knew what the dog was capable of.
His tone was impersonal, competent, and it seemed reasonable to assume he had been out walking with Mona the night I was attacked. Robert, the ex-military man, was in all probability my rescuer. And it wasn’t so surprising that he hadn’t shown himself. Somebody with Robert’s particular skill set might well prefer to keep a low profile, slipping in and out of countries and neighbourhoods without ever getting on the police radar.
It didn’t take long after our unexpected visitors left for Kiki to knock at our door. What was hunky Mr Ex-military doing at our door with his dog? I offered her a cup of coffee and I told her what Robert had said. Kiki said she was sure she’d recognise the man who’d opened the gate if she saw him again; He was a brown person, tall, big built and a smart dresser, you wouldn’t say he was a skelm. When she said that a little bell rang under my skin.
‘Those traffic policemen that arrived later, could one of them have been the man you saw?’
Kiki considered. ‘Ja, maybe. One of them was big enough, and he had this testosterone attitude, but he had a traffic-cop uniform on and I wasn’t really looking−’
‘Was the other cop short and fat?’
She nodded.
Simone’s subdued voice spoke from behind us. ‘I saw him too. He opened the gate. It was that same policeman who came about Daniel’s traffic tickets. I was looking down onto the road to see where Truschka was.’
My heart was a gong beating in our small kitchen. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure, mom-person. He’s with them,’ she said quietly, before she turned around and went back to her room.
I sat in the kitchen alone for a long time after Kiki left. Simone felt it as I did – danger was everywhere, they were trying to unsettle her, to make her go to them. But we had no proof. There was nothing I could do about Qamarana except be vigilant. If I called Klaus he’d say something like I was catching at straws and seeing Qamarana behind every tree.
Truschka came back with both back legs in a cast and looking mortified and bony, her coat dull with missing patches of fur, listing from side to side like a drunken sailor. It would take a while for the pain and discomfort to ease. She spat and scratched as Simone lifted her onto the couch and tried to settle her. Simone let her go in surprise: this was another Truschka, a disgruntled wildcat. I sent Simone to put some Dettol on the scratch, and when she returned I asked if she realised that Truschka’s vet bill, which I had emailed to Robert, was as much as what four blue-blooded Persian kittens would have cost. Simone was unimpressed and informed me with glinting eyes that Truschka would no longer be allowed to go outside the apartment. At All. Not Ever! And she also told Kiki and Sharon and everyone else on our floor. When Simone was not looking, I stroked our old boat cat who had curled herself up in a corner of the couch and hidden her head away.
We are alike, us and our cat, discombobulated, and hanging on by a thread.
There is still no sign of Roxy. The near catastrophes continue. Georgie is admitted to a psychiatric hospital for observation after cutting her arm with a serrated fish-gutting knife. Somebody at the house calls for an ambulance after seeing bloody water running out from under the communal shower door. Fortunately she has missed any major veins. Wally and Josh go to live with their maternal grandparents. Simone is frantic, but she won’t talk about it; her nails are bitten down to bleeding stubs, she’s got permanent fever blisters and her eyes have black rings around them. We have given up pretending I don’t know that she can’t sleep. I remind her to take Sharon’s sleep potion every night, and like a wakeful sleepwalker she obeys.
Enid calls me on my mobile to say Simone has now missed two psychotherapy sessions. I walk out a project meeting with a mumbled apology. Standing outside the building I gather my wits and ask Enid what happened at the last session. A meaningful silence meets my question.
I almost scream at her, ‘Enid, forget your damn client confidentiality, forget your come-back-again-and-again story, think of her as a child that we might lose. Now, right now, in this life!’
She says she struggled to get Simone back from the hypnosis. It was very rare. There is a tone to her low voice that I’ve never heard. It might be embarrassment or it might be humility or it might be fear. Maybe it’s all three.
‘What did she tell you?’
‘It was rambling, incoherent. Dead butterflies pinned to boards. She is a very troubled child.’
‘Aren’t you supposed to be a specialist in chronic sleep disorders? It’s not hard to imagine that Daniel’s nightmares were also a form of post-traumatic stress but you had to make it something weird and call it night terrors. She’s terrified Roxy will die out there, and that somehow she’s to blame. Is that so hard to understand? You said you’d go gently, but no, you had to push it.’
‘You may be right,’ Enid says, for once not arguing. ‘The mind is a labyrinth. There is always a danger of going too deep too quickly. But there is not a lot of time.’
Enid is right. We are running out of time.
The night comes when, for the first time in a long while, I’m woken by the shrill sound of the intercom system. George the yellow-bib man is calling from downstairs to tell me Simone is asleep at the bus stop. I lead my sleepwalking daughter upstairs to her bed wrapped in a blanket, wait until her breathing is regular and then lock her in. I set my alarm for 5:30 so that I can unlock her door before she wakes up.
I’ve taken to fetching Simone at school myself and bringing her home. It’s like having a zombie sit next to me but she doesn’t refuse my lifts, so I continue. I rearrange meetings and field mobile calls from the car; I tell her to wait if I’m late and she does.
Through a mutual friend, I learn that Georgie’s parents have money and are taking Josh to someone who specialises in treating autistic children. The neurologist has put the little boy on new medication, and she has suggested that he be allowed to choose a puppy at the animal shelter and listen to as much music on his headphones as he likes. The day I find out that the puppy sleeps with Josh every night and he hasn’t bashed his head against a wall in a while, I stop the car under a tree next to the park and relay the news to Simone. She listens quietly without saying a word, gazing out her window. I keep talking, relating every last bit of information about the puppy’s antics and Josh’s newly discovered musical skills, and the grandparents who seem to love the odd child they’ve taken in. At last she looks at me, her eyes lit up for the first time in weeks, and says smugly, ‘I told you Georgie was the problem not Josh.’
I wonder if I should tell her I have the grandparents’ landline number but in the end I don’t. Josh is safe for now; that’s enough.
That night I lie awake listening to the pounding ocean, my heart thudding in irregular time, my breathing ragged as I ponder motherhood. My thoughts keep veering off to Georgie. Had she reached the same conclusion as Simone? That her kids were better off without her? Maybe Simone would be better off living with my mother, and having Monica and Sharon and Kiki as her aunts. It’s Esmeralda’s wise voice, brought in by the waves, that finally lulls my panic: ‘Just be grateful you got through today. Take it one day at a time, and try not to be so hard on yourself. Some day you’ll look back and she’ll be grown up.’
I pad down the corridor on bare feet and open her bedroom door.
Simone’s soft snores fill the night.