My best friends think I am. Lily, Kari and Di make their judgments of me. I leave them; I think they feel good to have someone to preach to. I’m not oblivious. I just don’t know what I can do about it. I did once ask Beauty what it’s like, living in Dunoon. She said it could be very dangerous, depending how deep in you lived, and then she tried explaining the different areas and the different dangers to me. When I couldn’t keep up, didn’t understand what she meant by ‘deep in’, she simply said that at night it was terrible but it was better in the day since she had many friends. She was never alone and it was never quiet and she liked that. Her goal had been to help her daughter through university as much as she could. She’d done that. Now she wanted to move to Parklands and learn to drive, but had neither the time nor the money. She was hoping her daughter would send her money when she got a job.

  I know. I have no right to be bored, boring, a stupid boring old bitch. I have no right. I spent my free day getting in all my maintenance, and I’ve probably paid the equivalent of a good chunk of Beauty’s wished-for driving lessons for it.

  I could feel a downer coming on. When I’m like this, I miss my mother the most, the lead lining in every cloud. She could always fix me, pull me out of anything. She’s been dead fourteen years, and I left Joburg because I couldn’t be in that city without her, but I still miss her voice in a way that’s so sharp it stabs me in my throat, right there in the space where my own voice gets choked by the thought of her. I missed her so much when the twins were born and I couldn’t tell anyone how difficult I found it. When she was alive, I never felt alone; I could call her any time and she’d be happy to hear from me. She would never let me get too full of myself or too down on myself. Whatever the situation, she’d say, ‘Pull yourself together, Shellbell; no-one is perfect – least of all you. You just do what you can.’ It annoyed the hell out of me, her equal matter-of-factness about the joys and tragedies of my life. Her view was that it was just luck if anything good or bad happened; how I dealt with it was the only thing that made a difference to her. And then she would help me. I imagined telling my mother I felt like a boring old bitch. I heard her cackle.

  ‘Pull yourself together, Shellbell.’ Before coming up with a plan to force me out into the world.

  I finally posted a message:

  Me@ABS: What’s the plan? First full day and Friday afternoon off and I managed to fit in all my maintenance, can you believe it. Nail-painting emoji, haircut emoji. (I couldn’t find the one that showed a facial and eyebrow/moustache/bikini/leg wax.) Jerry’s gone with the kids. Let’s do something.

  I watched my phone to see if anyone was typing, swiped right to see who had read my message.

  No-one.

  I waited another ten minutes. Made myself a double G&T, took a photo of it, sent it to ABS with my new Little Black Dress nails curling over the glass. One of Wayde’s friends had popped in for a coffee and I’d seen her wearing a similar colour. Wayde, in his quest for the low-maintenance, hot, grown-up woman would be shocked if he knew the level of maintenance an actual grown-up woman required. Besides the hair, nails, face and waxing that was only today’s work, there was the Botox and filler from Lily that I was overdue for, the exercises I never did, plus the increasing list of medical tests I needed to keep up with. My current list was cholesterol (my dad had a heart attack at forty-two), mammogram (my mother had breast cancer that killed her at fifty-three), pap smear (my mother also had cervical cancer) and dermatologist screenings (I needed moles burned off two years ago). My grown-up woman’s body is a classic case of ‘you never know what lurks beneath’. Who knows what is coming for me in the next twenty years?

  No reply on ABS.

  I called bullshit.

  I topped up my glass with gin and took a selfie of me holding it, tilting my head so that my new hair fell into my face, but I kept my chin up like I’d seen Lily do. I’d tried a salon at the top of Bree Street in town and the stylist (also called Wade, which I took to be a very good coincidence, but without the complications of the ‘y’ I’d come to associate with my surfer boy). Wade without the ‘y’ had given me exactly what I had in mind. A bright red, wavy blunt cut to just under my jaw, redder and shorter than I’ve had since high school. I stared at myself. There were a few long layers that tangled loosely to the sides of my heart-shaped (that’s what Wade said) face, which seemed to hide that the Botox on my crow’s feet was overdue. I’d bounced into my car with red lips and black nails and new black no-name sunglasses from a boutique across the road. I felt twenty-five. Give or take some change.

  Now here I was, Friday afternoon meatloaf. All dressed up and nowhere to go, no-one to show. Jerry had barely noticed, too irritated with the traffic and the twins (and me, obviously) to say more than ‘That’s proper red’ on his way out to Shabbat.

  Pull yourself together, Shellbell.

  I tried again.

  Shelley@ABS: Halllooo, where is everyone? See my look! I added the selfie. Come over – I’ll get the drinks ready and I’ll let you touch the hair.

  I drank another double G&T. Great bang for my buck on an empty stomach. Still nothing from ABS.

  Dammit. I did it.

  Me: What you think? Hope your Friday is good, not missing me too much? I sent the selfie.

  Him: Ten flame emojis.

  I settled in. Made myself another drink.

  Took some more pics.

  18

  I woke up in the dark on the couch to see the back of Jerry huffing up the stairs with Stacey in his arms. A few minutes later, he came back down, red in the face, and went back into the garage. More huffing with Harley up the stairs. My mouth was furry, nausea in my stomach. I remembered the last photo I’d taken and buttoned up my shirt, pulled my long skirt down to cover my legs. I patted the couch for my phone, couldn’t find it. How many photos had I sent? I needed to check.

  ‘What time is it?’ I asked Jerry, my voice thick even to my own ears as my fingers curled around my phone lying face down on the carpet. He flicked the light switch. Too bright.

  ‘Almost eleven. Had yourself a bit of a party here, hey, love?’ Jerry said, looking at the nearly empty bottle of Tanqueray and the empty cans of tonic strewn on the coffee table. He was smiling. Nothing like the mood he’d left me in. ‘I thought it was blondes who had more fun, but looks like it’s reds I gotta watch out for.’ He made a little wink at me. He was trying to make it look funny, but all it did was remind me of Wayde – that tiny little wink that made me feel like I was in a conspiracy with him. Jerry came towards me, around the coffee table with the evidence of my solo party. He seemed tired, as if it had been a long night since I’d seen him last. But he was not that tired. ‘Shall we go to bed then?’ he said, his voice low as he reached out to me and pulled me off the couch so quickly so that I had to steady up against him. I recognised that tone; I tried to be asleep most nights before he could use it. ‘You’re not fair – I already missed you there,’ he said, his arms wound around me, his body pressed into me, his hot face in my neck. ‘And I had to see those pics you took. God, you are a wicked woman.’

  I felt nauseous. I clutched my phone to my chest, scrabbled in my head to remember exactly what I had taken. Had he looked at my phone while I was sleeping?

  Upstairs in our room, I waited for him to go to the bathroom before I checked my WhatsApp. Relief washed over me as if I were the one taking the shower, not Jerry. After that one pic to Wayde, I’d sent him two others: in both my shirt was almost completely undone, my eyes only a little glassy. My mouth in a pout as I pulled at the shirt like an old school pin-up. Showing not showing. Hinting at what was to come. Not exactly kosher but not the whole pig. Then Jerry had sent me a picture of the kids sitting obediently at the Shabbat table, and I’d sent all the other photos to him.

  There was me with my new boobs loud and proud, the scarring impossible to see in the blurry photo.

  Another one with my skirt hoisted up, bunched between my legs.

  A money shot.

  All for Jerry’s phone only. Thank God. I wish I was religious – then I could think that God would protect me from doing something too stupid. I wish I had faith like Jerry, something to believe in. That someone or something was looking out for me. But I knew it was just stupid luck that I sent those pics to Jerry and not Wayde.

  I could explain the pics away, I decided; I’d meant to send them all to Jerry. It was the truth?

  I am never drinking gin again. Mother’s Ruin, they call it. Not such a joke.

  I put my phone away as Jerry came out the shower, naked with the towel slung over his shoulder. He got into the bed, ready for his red-headed wife who had surprised him with drunk sexting all evening. Good Shabbos for sure.

  I did it.

  I fucked my husband with my eyes closed and my mind full of a man-boy who smelt like Pina Colada Coconut Vanilla. Was I cheating? I was right there with Jerry, doing all the things I’d stopped doing over the years. But in the hidden rooms of my mind, I imagined Wayde’s tanned brown body instead of Jerry’s soft pale one. I felt Wayde’s tattooed arms around me, imagined his dark hair wound in my hands. I didn’t open my eyes to see Jerry. I tricked my mind so that I didn’t feel Jerry.

  When it was over and I’d clutched at the sheets and Jerry had panted his last breath in that way that he does, I lay still on top of him and he said, ‘Sjoe, love, that was something else. We haven’t been like that since before the kids, I think. I don’t feel so bad now that you didn’t join at Shabbat.’ He made a little laugh as I opened my eyes, tapping me lightly on the bum. I didn’t say anything, just pulled the duvet up over my back and let myself slip to his side and be held, my head in his neck and his hand in my waist.

  I disentangled myself from his heavy arms when I heard his breathing settle into sleep. His goodnight, ‘I love you, babe’ sat in my ears.

  I lay there on my back next to him, not touching any more. I cried quietly, tears rolling out my eyes and dropping into my ears, right there on top of the ‘I love you, too’ I’d said to him.

  Wipeout

  •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

  19

  Saturday, 24 February

  I imagined Wayde looking at the photos I had sent. Other than the reply with the flames that he sent about my hair, he had been silent about the other two photos, the ones where my hair was not the main attraction. Jerry on the other hand was outspoken about it, overjoyed, a man with a spring in his step. He couldn’t believe the naughtiness of the photos, kept saying, ‘That’s the Shelley I know, hey, that’s my wife – still can’t keep her hands off me.’

  I felt like a fraud.

  I wanted to avoid Wayde, avoid the embarrassment of what I had done, but there was going to be no escaping him. I had to see him nearly the whole day. First in the morning at the kids’ surf lesson and then at the shop for our shift together. Would he mention the photos? What had he thought of them? I caved and sent him a message an hour before we were due at the beach. It sounded lame, even to me.

  Me: Sorry about the last photos, meant to send them to my husband.

  I had meant to send them to Jerry. I’m sure.

  He was gracious at least.

  Him: No worries, Jerry is a lucky oke. See you at surfing. Smiley-face emoji. Surfer emoji.

  He thought Jerry was lucky? I know it was probably just a line, and I shouldn’t have read anything into it, but I picked my black bustier bikini to wear to the beach anyway. Not that Wayde did anything more than roll his eyes over me together with that slow smile that made me trip in my belly. At the beach he had attention only for the kids – Harley and Stacey and Adam were laughing and shrieking in the water with him. I had a weird feeling of relief (I wanted him to be watching the kids) and disappointment (I wanted him to watch me, just a little bit). Lily, Kari and I sat on low beach chairs watching them all from under a massive stripy umbrella Kari had brought. Lily with an extra-big sun hat and long-sleeved loose white shirt dress to ward off the enemy of the sun, she said. I wish she’d stop moaning about covering her body. She’s always on about loving the body positivity of Thick Leeyonce on Instagram but she isn’t yet body positive about her own bum. Having Chiara, her super-skinny sixteen-year-old stepdaughter, possibly doesn’t help with the bum-loving cause. It’s hard to see the young and the beautiful without comparing yourself with them. Lily had brought Chiara with her, and I watched as she surfed with Di’s daughters, Kate and Sarah, ever closer to Wayde and the kids. Lily says she feels chunky dunk to Chiara’s skinny dip. Watching her for a morning, I could understand why. I felt as round as a watermelon.

  ‘Hey, man, what’s up with you, just staring like that.’ Kari touched my arm, pulling my head out of the sea. ‘Don’t still be mad, we’re sorry we replied to your messages so late,’ she said while arranging hot dogs in the hard-shell cooler box next to her feet. It was nearly eleven, we’d only been here for an hour, and the lesson would only go for another half-hour, but Kari had brought enough food for all of us to spend the weekend. Becoming a mother had changed her from being oblivious to food that wasn’t cake into someone who Dirk apparently called a ‘feeder’. How she stayed skinny, I will never know. Never happens to me – if I make food, I have to eat a lot of it. Feels worth the effort that way.

  ‘Yeah, come on, Shelley, you’ve hardly said two words. I’ve done enough Botox on you to know you’re not thin-skinned, and I’m good at what I do, so I also know your face can still move,’ said Lily and stuck her tongue out at me. ‘And we did all reply eventually.’ She took a hot dog from Kari but only ate the sausage and left the bun. I hadn’t said anything about the ABS WhatsApp fail, where all three of them hadn’t replied to my Friday messages until this morning, various excuses for their silence.

  Di had been out on a date.

  Lily had worked late and then gone to collect Chiara from her mother’s house. She and Owen had taken Chiara and Di’s daughters to Canal Walk movies.

  Kari had been at her sister-in-law Shireen’s house in Walmer Estate since the afternoon.

  All of them had plans I knew nothing about. I didn’t know Di was dating again after Andile. Chiara, Sarah and Kate? I was surprised that the three girls did so much together; they were hardly the same age. Kari at Shireen’s house? Last I heard, things were tense with her mother.

  ‘I’m not cross,’ I said, possibly a little too fast, trying not to show how bad I felt that I knew so little. ‘I had a party at home, me and my friends G and T ripped up the place.’ I forced a laugh. ‘They are always reliable.’

  ‘You should try the Shabbat thing with Jerry, you know,’ said Kari. ‘How bad can it be? We’ve been going to Shireen on Fridays, or she and her kids come to us if it’s Dhanyal’s weekend with his other wife. Mama goes with Dhanyal, so that everything is equal with that family also. Ja, it’s lekker. Shireen gets a break, we eat and we talk, and Adam has children to play with.’ Kari didn’t say it, but I knew she thought I should try harder for the twins’ sake.

  ‘I’d rather come to you on a Friday than go to Uncle Mervyn on a Friday, thanks for the offer,’ I said. I’m not sure there was an offer in there, but I would rather hang with her and Shireen and her kids than Mervyn, especially if Kari’s brother wasn’t there.

  ‘Check that Chiara over there,’ said Lily, interrupting us. ‘See how she is surfing closer and closer to Wayde and the kids. That girl nearly dropped her board when she saw Wayde, but he hardly gave her a two-second look, which means now she’s going to make eyes at him big time. Fuck, how old is he? Tell me he is just an innocent little schoolboy.’ She said it as if Chiara were just an innocent Grade Eleven schoolgirl. ‘Relax, Kari, there are no little kiddies to hear me saying “fuck” – I can say it a million times and nothing will happen.’ She flashed a look at Kari who had tutted at the ‘fuck’.

  ‘He’s not at school, and he’s not that young – he’s twenty-two,’ I said, feeling defensive. Wayde wasn’t a child, not a match for Chiara. I looked where Lily said. Yes, there was Chiara, paddling closer to Wayde and the kids. Smiling broadly at him – we could see her teeth from the beach. ‘He’s definitely way too old for Chiara.’

  ‘You try telling Chiara that,’ Lily said grimly. ‘Or try telling that to the old guys who stare at her.’ She pushed her sunglasses onto her head as if that would change what she was seeing. ‘Creeps. Men don’t seem to care that they are twenty, twenty-five years older than her. On the other hand, if you’re two years older than your husband, you get cradle-snatching jokes forever. Ag, whatever. Chiara’s calmed down a lot these days, but the hormones and boys, and the creepy old guys, I can tell they’re going to be around for a long time still.’

  ‘How come Di’s kids are with you?’ I asked Lily, changing the subject. I didn’t want to talk about Wayde and Chiara. Or feel like I was Wayde’s creepy old guy. ‘Isn’t it Alan’s weekend with the girls?’

  ‘Yeah, it is, but Alan and Anna swapped with Di and she already had this Tinder date set up. I told her to leave the girls to do a sleepover with us and I’m dropping them at home when she is done at the shop. I don’t mind. Di’s girls are so sweet – they keep Chiara out of trouble when she’s with us,’ she said while she popped the collar of her shirt up to cover her neck. Not that the sun was blasting her. I stuck my legs out past the shade of the umbrella.

  ‘I didn’t even know she was on Tinder. Not like anyone tells me anything,’ I said, pretending to examine the freckles on my legs. It was clear that Kari, Lily and Di all knew what was happening in one another’s lives. When did I move to the bottom of the friend chain? I hadn’t even realised there was a chain; I thought we were a group. #GirlSquad in Lily-speak.