At twenty-past five she parked her rented car a block away from Duncan’s. She said to the healthy girl behind the desk, ‘I’d like to join tonight’s aerobic class?’
‘An absolute pleasure. It’s ten rand.’
The changing room had a long, continuous dressing-table, punctuated with ornate lights. The place was sprinkled with women disrobing, redolent with perfume and the chatter of women-talk in two languages. Sarah found her locker, unzipped her bag, and took out her new leotard.
The aerobics room was mirror-lined, reflecting female forms off into infinity, in all shapes and sizes, waiting to be instructed on what to do with their wide variety of bodies. Sarah glanced around the mass of female flesh. She identified Lisa van Rensburg immediately, by her long blonde hair.
She was wearing a bright purple leotard. Her legs were not bad, although her waist was a bit thick. Her hair was swept back and held in place by a headband. She was standing by herself, examining her fingernails.
Sarah took up the space next to her. ‘Hi,’ she smiled.
Lisa van Rensburg looked up. ‘Hullo.’
Sarah said brightly, ‘This is my first time here. Is it a tough workout?’
Lisa said, ‘Not really. Depends on how fit you are, I suppose.’ She had an Afrikaans accent.
‘Well, I’m not. That’s why I’m here, I guess.’
‘Are you an American?’ Lisa asked.
‘Yep. I’m Sarah, by the way.’
‘I’m Lisa. Are you new in town?’
‘I’m new in the country. I’m in women’s fashions. I’m doing a market survey to see if it’s worth my company’s while to open here.’
‘That’s interesting. How do you like South Africa?’
‘Pretty,’ Sarah said. ‘But lonely. I’ve hardly made any friends yet.’ She paused. ‘That’s another reason I’ve come along here today.’
Just then the instructress came in. She clapped her hands cheerfully. ‘Welkom terug, dames! Welcome back, ladies!’ She was a long-legged brunette in a passion-pink leotard, her hair in two stout pigtails. She went to a tape-recorder and hit a button.
‘Wow,’ Sarah whispered to Lisa, ‘isn’t she sexy?’
It was a tough workout. ‘She sure gives you your money’s worth,’ Sarah said as they walked back to the changing room, hot and sweaty.
‘Do you want to take a sauna?’ Lisa said.
Sarah did not. She was quite sweaty enough. ‘If you like. Or the jacuzzi?’
‘Then we take a shower first.’
They entered the changing room. There were women stripping off sweaty leotards. Sarah stripped off, draped her towel around her waist, picked up her toilet bag. Lisa was waiting at the showers. ‘There’s three temperatures: warm, hot and freezing needlepoint.’
Sarah washed her hair, soaped herself, then turned the tap to hot. She luxuriated in it, then slammed the tap to blue. The freezing needlepoint stung her from all sides.
Lisa was waiting when she emerged from her booth.
The jacuzzi room was festooned in hanging plants, and white beach-beds were dotted around an artificial lawn. The pool, big enough for a dozen people, was made of small mosaic tiles. Steam rose off the clear, swirling water. Sarah dropped her towel and stepped in. She eased down onto the curved seat, up to her shoulders in hot water. Lisa sat a yard away from her.
‘That’s good, after the exercise and the needlepoint.’
Lisa agreed. Then she asked shyly, ‘Are you married?’
Here we go, Sarah thought. ‘No. Thank God. Are you?’
‘No.’
There was a silence, before Lisa said shyly:
‘You shouldn’t be lonely in South Africa. You’ll have men chasing you everywhere.’
Sarah rolled her eyes. ‘Men? Bastards.’
Lisa looked at her. She was about to say something, then stopped herself.
‘Have you got a boyfriend?’ Sarah asked.
Lisa glanced at her. ‘No.’
Sarah waited. The girl was looking away, as if racked with doubt. Oh, you poor kid, Sarah thought – a real closet gay. She tried to make it easier for her, without blowing it. ‘Boy, am I going to be stiff, tomorrow. Who does the massage here?’ She added, ‘I don’t like men massaging me.’
‘They have both.’ Lisa hesitated. Then she said. ‘I’ll give you a massage, if you like.’
At last, Sarah thought. She smiled at the girl.
‘Thanks. That’s a good idea.’
Lisa was blushing. She looked away.
Sarah sighed and pushed the jets-button. Jets of water began to pummel their backs and hips. ‘Oh boy.’ She closed her eyes, slithered down and half lay on the submerged seat so the jets beat her legs, and she let her foot touch Lisa’s thigh. She let it linger a moment, then moved it away. And Lisa’s hand came down on her ankle and gripped it against her.
Sarah opened her eyes. Blushing furiously, Lisa let go. Sarah left her foot against the girl’s thigh. She smiled, ‘You can do that again.’
Lisa looked at her, with utter, confused adoration. Her hand went to Sarah’s knee ardently.
At that moment two women entered the room. Lisa let go and Sarah sat up. She smiled at the girl. ‘Let’s go for a drink somewhere. Then the massage?’
She felt a bastard.
It was almost ten o’clock when Sarah parked her rented car outside the Burgerspark Hotel.
She felt saddened. She could rationalize away a sense of shame, but not her sadness about that poor, weeping girl she had just left.
She forced the feeling aside and concentrated on the story she was going to tell McQuade. No way was she going to tell him the whole truth. She sat in the dark for a few minutes. Then entered the hotel.
McQuade bounded up off the bed, relief all over his face. ‘Hi,’ she said brightly.
He took her in his arms. ‘Oh, thank God! I was so worried.’
She squeezed him, then walked across the room with a saunter she did not feel. ‘Well, I think you’re going to be very pleased with me.’ She turned: ‘You don’t need Miss Brownlee.’
He stared at her. ‘You mean you did it? …’
She laughed. ‘Thought that might shock you. No, I mean that she confessed it.’
‘Confessed it?’
Sarah sat down on the bed. ‘She invited me home, and made a heavy pass at me. I reacted indignantly. She was terribly embarrassed. She broke down and confessed she was lesbian.’ She raised her eyebrows at him. ‘I decided to strike whilst the iron was hot and blackmailed her. And she’s agreed to give me a print-out. To save her skin.’
McQuade slumped down on the bed beside her.
‘You’re a genius! Tell me everything.’
She sighed convincingly. ‘We had a drink. She is a very shy girl, and she was very nervous. She wanted to make a pass at me, but couldn’t screw up the courage. Finally she did, and touched my breast. Very ardently. I pretended to be embarrassed and said, “What’s this, are you gay?” She was mortified.’ Sarah shook her head. ‘Poor girl. She broke down, blushing and stammering, and pleaded with me to understand. Apparently there had been a big scandal in her department once and some gay men had been fired, so she begged me not to tell anybody or she could get fired too. She’s just bought this apartment on a mortgage and desperately needs the job. What other job could she get if she was fired on moral grounds? Et cetera, et cetera.’ She sighed. ‘I really felt terribly sorry for her.’
McQuade squeezed her knee. ‘Go on.’
‘I had two choices. Either report back to you, or put the hard word on her then and there.’ She paused. ‘So I put the screws on. I said I wouldn’t tell anybody, provided she did something for me. Namely, give me a print-out of all the people in her computer with a certain name. Plus their photographs that accompanied their original forms. I hope you consider I did the right thing?’
‘What happened then?’
‘She went white. Absolutely aghast. I thought she was going to scream. She started trembling.’ Sarah closed her eyes. ‘She asked me why I wanted that information, so I made it easy for her. Said I was trying to trace my natural father, and that I was an adopted child and desperately needed this help. She asked why I didn’t apply through the courts to her department. I said because of the delicacy of the situation.’ She smiled mirthlessly. ‘Then there was a new development.’
‘What?’ he demanded.
‘She blurted out that I could get this information perfectly legally by buying the Voters Roll.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘You didn’t think about that, did you? We could have avoided this whole nasty business.’
‘The Voters Roll …?’
‘She explained that every single person eligible to vote in South Africa – white, of course – is registered on the Voters Roll whether or not they vote. Full name, citizenship number, address. In alphabetical order. Constituency by constituency. This Roll is updated once a month. When a voter dies, his name disappears off the Roll – the moment a juvenile turns eighteen, his name automatically appears. So if a man’s name is on the Roll, you know he’s alive. And his address.’
McQuade’s mind was fumbling. ‘But not his age?’
‘Yes, that too,’ she replied, ‘the age is incorporated into the voter’s citizenship number. For example, somebody born in 1941, on December the eleventh has a number which begins 41, for the year, 12 for the month, 11 for the day. But there’s a snag. You’d have to buy the whole Voters Roll for the whole of South Africa, at so much per page – you can’t merely buy the pages of Smiths or Joneses – and that costs over five thousand rand.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Expensive, but no risk of blackmail.’
McQuade felt feverish. ‘But what about all the other information that’s in the Population Register – date of marriage, place of birth, children, et cetera? That’s not on the Voters Roll, surely?’
‘No. Marriage, wife’s name, yes, but no date of marriage. Or place of birth, no driver’s licence, et cetera. I thought of all this too. So I made a snap decision to stick to the brief. I said no, the Voters Roll was not good enough, I wanted the extract from the Population Register.’
McQuade took a big breath. Oh, the Voters Roll would be the easy way out. No risk. But much less detail, no photographs, and fearfully expensive.
‘You did the right thing. Then what happened?’
‘Well, the poor kid capitulated …’ Sarah lowered her eyes. ‘She grabbed my hands, went down on her knees and cried. Yes she would do it, but please, please, please, don’t tell anybody her secret. And, I felt an utter shit.’
McQuade squeezed her knee, and stood up. ‘And so do I. But it had to be done.’ He looked down at her sincerely. ‘I’m very grateful.’
‘So, she’s waiting now, for me to telephone her the name,’ she said flatly. ‘Then she’ll extract the print-out tomorrow, when everybody’s gone home. It’s Saturday tomorrow, only a skeleton crew works.’
‘And how does she get the print-out to me?’
‘She brings it to Duncan’s tomorrow afternoon. She gives it to me.’
McQuade turned away and paced.
‘You did very well. But I’ll tell her the name. But not by telephone. And I’ll pick it up from her at Duncan’s.’
Sarah stared at him. ‘I don’t believe this.’ McQuade sighed but she went on: ‘After all I’ve done – putting myself on the line as a blackmailer and having myself groped by lesbians – you still don’t trust me!’
‘It’s not a question of trust, Sarah – it’s a question of security.’
‘But she won’t trust you,’ she cried. ‘It’s me she’s dealing with – she’s almost grateful to me for keeping her secret! If you barge into the picture you’ll terrify the poor kid! She may even call the police and make a clean breast!’ She waved her hand angrily. ‘Give me the name in a sealed envelope if you like – but don’t make the girl suffer further!’
McQuade rubbed his chin.
‘Okay, we’ll do this: telephone her now and tell her to meet you in the dining-room of this hotel on her way to work. Whereupon you give her the sealed envelope. Tomorrow afternoon she delivers the print-out in a sealed envelope to you in the dining-room.’
Sarah gave him a weary smile. ‘And you’ll be sitting at the next table. To see I hand over the envelope unopened …’ She raised a palm. ‘Okay. But all I’d have to do if I really wanted to know the blessed name is telephone the poor kid and ask her.’
‘But I don’t think you’ll do that. The only reason I don’t want you to know—’
‘Is because what I don’t know I can’t be forced to tell.’ She sighed. ‘Okay …’
She picked up the telephone. He bent and kissed her.