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It was the worst. The absolute worst. Annamari walked rapidly down the driveway, her eyes fixed on the poplars, trying to obliterate the horrible scene she’d just been forced to precipitate. But Arno’s face, anger and confusion alternating with despair and frustration, his eyes suspiciously brighter than usual, intruded and then, to her eternal shame, Beauty’s stunned expression as she’d bubbled into the kitchen, only to hear Annamari – the woman she looked up to as a role model, the woman she trusted, the woman she probably even loved – shriek in anguished despair: ‘No. Arno no. For the last time, no. I said you cannot take Beauty to the matric dance and that’s final.’
Beauty’s dusky face paled and she turned and ran. Arno took off after her, stopping only to spit: ‘I hope you’re happy now’.
Annamari had collapsed onto Rosie’s old stool, distraught. This wasn’t supposed to have happened. What was she going to do now? How was she going to explain, to make Arno understand that Beauty wasn’t for him, could never be for him? How could she do this without hurting Beauty, who had already been so hurt and damaged through no fault of her own? How could she make Arno and Beauty come to their senses without destroying her marriage, without alienating her son, without hurting Thys whose only flaw was to love her, to believe in her, to trust her.
The vague stitch in her side finally forced her to stop. She learned forward, sweaty palms on her thighs, trying to catch her breath. God she was so unfit. She made her way to a large, flat rock on the side of the road and sank down. She wrapped her arms around herself, hugging her grief and fear to her chest. She closed her eyes, but their faces, Arno’s and Beauty’s, remained sharply in focus. She opened her eyes and blinked. Thys’ angry face glared down at her accusingly, blocking out the sun.
‘What’s the matter with you?’
She closed her eyes again. Opened them. Thys was still there, his brown eyes hard and accusing.
‘What is wrong with you? Why can’t Arno take Beauty to his matric dance? This is 1995, Annamari. I thought you’d put apartheid behind you. I thought you’d changed. I thought you really believed in what we are doing here. For heaven’s sake, this is Beauty we’re talking about. She’s a wonderful girl; you should be happy Arno has such good taste.’
‘Thys stop! Please, stop. It’s not that.’
‘Then what?’
‘It’s... it’s... it wouldn’t be fair to Beauty,’ she blurted.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Think about it, Thys,’ she improvised. ‘The law may have changed but Driespruitfontein hasn’t. Beauty would be humiliated if she dared to set foot through the front door of the Royal Hotel.’
‘They wouldn’t dare. She’d be with Arno. He’d take care of her.’
‘No, he couldn’t. Not all the time. Think, Thys. What will happen when she goes to the bathroom? I can assure you some of the girls – girls who had probably hoped Arno would invite them to the dance – well, they’d make damn sure she’d know just how unwelcome she was. It will be unpleasant. It will be awkward for everyone. You know it will.’
‘Well, too bad. It’s time the good people of Driespruitfontein got used to the idea that things have changed.’
‘Thys, I agree. You know I do. But do you really think a matric dance is the place to make a political statement. Do you? Remember our matric dance? You wanted to make a statement then too, but you didn’t. Why make Arno and Beauty do what we were too afraid to?’
Thys flushed and Annamari squirmed. That was so totally unfair of her. But she had to get Thys on her side on this issue. As she had before, after Thys had found out that not a single girl in the school had been prepared to go to the matric dance with Alan Silverman – the Jewboy. Not one. Thys had been so angry about it that he’d said Annamari should go with Alan, just to make everyone realise how stupid they were. But she’d refused. She’d said it would be insulting to Alan because everyone would know that she’d only gone with him because Thys was Alan’s friend and everyone knew she and Thys were going steady. She’d turned away so that Thys couldn’t see the relief in her eyes when he finally agreed. Because if she had gone to the dance with Alan – although she doubted that her father would have let her – she’d have had to dance with him, to have his arms around her, and she wasn’t sure that she would have been able to stop herself from melting in to him the way she did when he put his arms around her when they worked on equations or theorems up in his bedroom, or when they sneaked down to the dam, or slipped under the stage in the school hall when it rained.
She wondered if Thys had also seen Alan lurking behind the pillar outside his mother’s shop, watching all his classmates prancing into the Royal Hotel, decked out in their tuxedoes and long dresses, for their matric dance that should have been his dance too. She felt terrible for him. But she also hoped Alan had seen her because she knew she looked pretty in her silvery pink dress with its big puffed sleeves, black velvet belt and swirly skirt that swooshed and swayed, just allowing her pink satin high heeled shoes to peek out as she walked up the red carpet into the hotel on Thys’ arm. Thys had brought her a big, pinky-white orchid which she wore on her wrist.
She’d flicked back her hair, which her mother had helped her to blow wave just like that actress, Farah something or other, from Charlie’s Angels. As she disappeared through the doors into the foyer, she looked back at Alan, and wondered what he was going to do that night, all by himself. But then she put him out of her mind and let Thys propel her around the dance floor at top speed, till they were all hot and steamy. She tried not to think of Alan as she saw couples sneaking out the ballroom – some heading to the lane at the back of the hotel for some heavy petting, some up to rented rooms for more. The hotel owner feigned ignorance about exactly who had rented the rooms or for what purpose. She knew that at least three of her classmates lost their virginity that night – and she’d smiled and tried hard not to blush when they teased her afterwards because she and Thys still hadn’t done it, not even when doing it that night was as much a rite of passage as the matric dance itself.
She was pretty sure matric dances hadn’t changed much over the years. Which was why she was absolutely determined that there’d be no matric dance temptation for Arno – at least, not with Beauty.
‘Okay, so perhaps the matric dance isn’t the place to drag Driespruitfontein Hoërskool into the post-apartheid era,’ Thys said and she swallowed her sigh of relief. ‘But Beauty is not going to be held back because Driespruitfontein refuses to move forward.’
‘What do you mean?’ Annamari felt the all too familiar knot of dread rising in her throat. She recognised the gleam in Thys’ eyes – he was having one of his ideas again.
‘Beauty is going to be enrolled at Driespruitfontein Hoërskool next year. Academically, she is more than ready to go into matric. But she also needs to be prepared socially for university.’
‘University?’ Annamari was stunned. ‘You think Beauty will get in to university?’
‘I have absolutely no doubt that she will. She is exceptionally bright – I’d put her on par with Arno. And when you consider how much she’s had to catch up – she has literally crammed almost eleven years of schooling into five years. By the end of this year, she will have completed Grade 11. She’ll find Grade 12 a breeze next year – if she can cope socially and emotionally.’
‘Oh Thys, are you sure? She’s been through so much and it will be really tough for her in a white school.’
‘I’m sure she’ll cope very well. She is a special young woman. But it’s up to her to decide whether she wants to take on the challenge.’
Thys helped Annamari to her feet. Arm in arm they walked back to the house, discussing how best to break the news to Beauty that she could go to Driespruitfontein Hoërskool next year, if she wanted; and how to tell Arno that he would have to find another date for his matric dance.
‘It’s okay, MaAnni. Really, it’s fine,’ Beauty muttered after Annamari had haltingly explained that her only objection to Arno taking her to the dance was to avoid any unpleasantness.
Arno was less sanguine about it. ‘If I can’t go with Bootie, I won’t go at all,’ he said, his eyes glued to Beauty’s pale face.
Annamari’s heart dropped and then soared as Beauty said: ‘You must go, Arno. You know how much you’ve been looking forward to your matric dance. You can take Greta – didn’t you say she had a crush on you?’
Annamari smiled at Beauty, and then her heart lurched as the girl added: ‘And next year, when I’m in matric at Driespruitfontein Hoërskool and they’ve got used to having me around, you can be my date at my matric dance.’