In the very meantime we had acquired a new colleague. That she was black didn’t matter, that she was as thin as a rake was concerning and that she was determined not to learn a thing was more than worrying.
Caroline Geel had been a pre-school teacher, but obviously the money was no good and she’d decided to try her hand at journalism. Just like that. After all, she had a diploma in teaching and therefore she qualified as a sub. The editor of the associated paper in Kimberley had assured her father, a struggle royalist, that his daughter would fit in just fine. But Ms Geel soon tired of that dry, thorny part of the world’s social limitations and had requested a transfer to that place where the real action was: Jozi, Egoli, Johannesburg, Joburg, City of Gold, call it what you will. That was where the big bucks were. One time.
It soon became quite clear to us that Ms Geel didn’t have the foggiest idea of how to string a sentence together, and when we showed her how she seemed to have the memory of a praying mantis. It went in the one delicate ear and out the other. We thought Robert Black as revise sub would give her hell, as he had us as part of the softening-up process, but he swallowed her vacuous excuses up to such a point that we feared for his life. He looked like he was constantly on the verge of a heart attack. Jay made a call to an ex-colleague in the city of the big hole and it soon became clear what had happened. No one had wanted her, but no one wanted to be seen to be blocking her way, either. Therefore, she was passed on, with glowing references, to the next bunch of suckers, the present ones being us. Jay made as if she didn’t exist, Desiree was as blunt as a sledgehammer, I was fascinated, amused and despairing, and Ms Geel was as imperviously gay as a tweety bird.
The latest joke was that she had neglected to write a headline for a story on deadline and – as these things happen – it slipped past everyone after that and there it was, opposite the editorial page, loudly proclaiming that, according to the layout sub, the Heady Goes Hearey and Hery. The story had been an obituary.
When she wasn’t working, which was most of the time (Bob simply bypassed her and piled the pressure on us), she was openly reading celebrity magazines. Not local ones but international ones, with mostly white celebs. There she sat in an anorexic daze, reading about Britney et al, chewing gum, flirting with all the black heavies and delighting some – though far from all – of them. Soon, no doubt, she would be promoted over us or, almost as bad, moved to write for the social pages, which we’d have to edit, looking up various double-barrelled surnames like Mngxitama-Brkic.
On Sunday I found the old man was buried deep inside his house, watching TV in his airless room of dog, even though the back door and security gate were wide open. He was in a crappy mood because he hadn’t heard me, couldn’t see properly, his shoulders ached, as did the plantar wart under his foot, his sister had phoned again, everybody wanted to tell him what he should do and the price of electricity was shooting through the bladdy roof.
I was in a pretty shitty mood myself because I had dreamed about Shanti again, falling in love anew with the idealised woman instead of the real one.
“You know,” the old man said out on the cement apron, “people say they want to live there or there, but this is the only place in the world I want to be.”
“Good,” I said.
“This is the place they’ll carry me out after I’ve died.”
“Hmm.”
Silence.
“So tell me, where is Shanti?”
“I don’t know, Dad. We’re divorced.”
“What?”
I didn’t say anything to that.
“But wasn’t she here the other day?”
“No, Dad. That was Kay, a friend.”
“I liked that girl, you know.”
“Which one?”
“Shanti.”
“So did I.”
“Then why did you divorce her?”
“I didn’t. She divorced me.”
“Your mother stuck with me through thick and thin.”
“I don’t think she had that much of a choice.”
“What?”
I repeated myself.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean she’d spent her life looking after her mother, then her father, then being your wife. She didn’t have any qualifications. Where would she go to? What would she do on a dental assistant’s salary?”
“People today get divorced at the drop of a hat.”
“Why don’t you ask me why Shanti divorced me?”
“Do you think our marriage was easy?”
“Why don’t you ask me?”
He stopped.
“Why did she divorce you?”
“Because I spoke to her the way you spoke to Ma.”
“What do you mean?” he said, bristling.
“Nothing was ever good enough for you. The meals she cooked, the father she had – nothing was ever good enough. It was one long half-a-century assault of venom and bile. And that’s what I gave Shanti. I hammered her with your and my rage. I may never have lifted a hand to her, but there are many other ways to torture someone. And I did. And guess who I learned it from? You.”
“Bollocks.”
“Yes. You.”
The dog was up and barking but I told it to bugger off and continued.
“But then I even went one better. I spoke to everyone like that, to their faces, thinking I was being very smart. Thinking I wouldn’t be a two-face like you, crucifying people behind their backs. Oh no, I went all the way. I told them what arseholes they were up front, to their faces, and in print. And do you know what I’ve got to show for it? Nothing! Sweet blow all!”
The old man was the colour of crushed shells and said we could all go to hell, he had his dog and that was all that mattered.
“Yes, and you’re killing it with kindness, just like you killed all the others. Just like you tried to kill me, but I won’t have it. If that’s the only way you can show love, then shove it!”
I walked to the front gates, opened them, walked back to the car, got in, slammed the door, started the car and drove off. The traffic light, of course, turned red and I sat there, seething. If he didn’t want to take any security measures then he had to suffer the consequences, whatever they were. I lit a cigarette and did not bother looking in the rear-view mirror. I didn’t give a shit whether he was watching or not.
I drove to work and applied for emigration before my shift started.