Like Clockwork

35

It was drizzling when Clare got home. She made a sandwich, fetched her duvet, and settled in to watch an old black and white movie. Its gentle tedium lulled Clare to sleep within an hour. The telephone’s insistent ringing roused her, but when she picked up the phone there was only silence.

‘Who is this?’

Faint breathing was the only reply.

‘Whitney? Where are you?’

‘Clare?’

There was silence. ‘Tell me, Whitney. It’s safe.’ As Clare waited for Whitney’s voice, she picked up the tape on her desk. She had pencilled Interview: Florrie Ruiters: Local Trafficking on the spine. Mrs Ruiters had phoned Clare and they had met in a nondescript café in Wynberg. Smoking her way through half a pack of cigarettes, Florrie Ruiters told Clare how it had taken three days to coax her fragile child outside the house again. For it was there, while she’d sat in the sun in the front yard, that Landman’s men had taunted Whitney. Florrie, her fear banished by fury, went on to tell Clare that the price exacted by Kelvin Landman and his gangsters escalated as his stranglehold on the community tightened.

‘It makes no difference, Dr Hart,’ Florrie had said when Clare urged her to press charges. ‘If they get convicted – and it is a big “if” – a lost docket costs them just a couple of hundred rands, you see. If they get convicted they just run things from inside. This government gives amnesties left, right and centre. And heaven help you when they get released.’

‘Can you come?’ Whitney pleaded at the other end of the line, pulling Clare back into the present. ‘I’m at my aunt’s house in Mitchell’s Plain.’

Clare looked at her watch and sighed.

‘Please fetch me now.’ The girl’s terror had settled like a stone in her throat, making it difficult for her to speak. ‘You promised.’

‘What’s happened?’ asked Clare. ‘Who has threatened you?’

‘My cousin says they know where I am. Will you come?’

‘I’ll come,’ said Clare. She picked up a pen. ‘Tell me exactly where you are. I’ll come as soon as I can. Don’t go anywhere.’ Clare wrote down the address. Then she made a call. It did not take her long to arrange what Whitney needed.

Clare wove her way through clogged evening traffic until she reached the highway, then she pulled into the taxi lane. The turnoff came sooner than she expected and Clare easily found the street. She pulled over at the modest little house. It was ice-cream pink, in defiance of the grey sand that seemed to have seeped in all over the area. Whitney opened the door as she heard the car door slam. Her small bag was packed. Her coat was on, a beanie pulled low over her forehead.

‘Hello, Whitney.’ The girl hurtled down the path. Clare opened the car door and Whitney collapsed into the seat. She looked back at the house. A grimy net curtain swung back into place in the front room.

‘What happened?’ Clare asked. Whitney stared straight ahead as Clare started the car and drove back to the highway.

‘They kept asking me,’ said Whitney. ‘They kept asking me what they did to me. They wanted to know the details. And then they would discuss what they did to me, whether I had got HIV.’ Her voice drifted off into silence. The street lights had come on. They cast a ghostly orange light that flickered rhythmically across their faces as Clare drove. Whitney did not move a hand to wipe the tears that glistened on her cheeks. Clare turned back onto the highway, away from Cape Town.

‘Where are you taking me?’ asked Whitney.

‘I know a woman on an apple farm up near Elgin. I phoned her and she said you could stay. You’ll be safer there. And they don’t know what happened to you,’ said Clare.

They drove in silence for a long time. Clare decided not to ask Whitney why she had not gone back to see the counsellor after the first session. The charges that she had reluctantly laid – at her mother’s insistence – had been withdrawn, and Whitney had refused to speak to Rita Mkhize when she’d arrived to follow up.

‘There was somebody else there the first night.’ Whitney’s voice was just audible above the car’s engine. Clare turned to look at her. The girl was staring straight ahead. Her jaw was clenched with the effort of memory, the effort of speech. ‘He watched.’ She turned briefly to face Clare. ‘He watched what they did.’ Again, Whitney looked into the black night. Cape Town had receded into the distance. They started to climb the steep pass that would take them over the peaks that bordered False Bay.

‘He told them what to do. Sometimes he told them to do the things again. Then again.’

Clare said nothing, afraid that any word from her would dam the flow of Whitney’s thoughts.

‘He filmed it. He had a camera. I think two cameras. One I saw when they first brought me in. I saw myself reflected in its eye: it stood there on a tripod. Like another one of them. First they made me put on some boots – very high, I couldn’t stand properly in them. And then it all started. But the other man, I saw him come out of the corner of the room where it was dark. He had another camera in his hands.’ She stopped speaking. It was very dark now that the mountains hid the carpet of city lights.

‘I thought he would help me.’ Whitney laughed bitterly.

‘Who was he?’ Clare asked.

‘He was a director. That’s what they called him. He was telling them what to do. To me. He came right close to my face when they…’ She put her hand to her mouth, took it away again. ‘When they hurt me. He liked to watch my face. Then he would make them do it again – what they were doing to me – so he could film that too.’

Cutaways, thought Clare. Always make sure that when you shoot you have enough cutaways. She gripped the wheel and kept her eyes on the broken white line marking the centre of the road. She counted the sections. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. That kept her calm enough. ‘Did you see him?’

‘I see him all the time. He’s the one I see all the time.’ Whitney’s fury erupted. Then she slumped back in her seat. ‘But I didn’t see his face. He was wearing a hood. A blue hood with holes for the eyes and his mouth.’ She was quiet for so long that Clare wondered if she had closed in on herself.

‘What was it for, Clare? Why did they do it? Why did they film it? That’s what makes me feel sick. That they did that to me and now it’s there for anyone to watch. It feels as if what happened is happening over and over and over. I can never stop it now because it’s there on their tape.’

For a long while, Clare could not think of anything to say. She turned onto the rutted farm road, slowing down so that she didn’t miss the turnoff. The twin lights from the front windows of the cottage glowed, warm and sudden, in the dark.

‘You’ll be safe here, Whitney. The woman who lives here will take care of you. And she’ll leave you in peace. If you stay indoors until everyone has gone to the orchards, nobody will know you’re here.’ Whitney did not respond. The effort of delving into the horror she had endured had sapped her. She clutched her bag to her chest.

There, outlined under the cheap, pink fabric, was Clare’s book. She reached over, traced the spine. ‘Did you read it?’ she asked. Whitney nodded but offered nothing more. They arrived. Clare parked under the enormous oak that dwarfed the whitewashed labourer’s cottage. The door opened, releasing warm yellow light into the blackness.

Dinah de Wet stood broad in the doorway, her shoulders strong from years of picking and pruning and carrying other people’s children. Her body was soft as she hugged Clare. She turned to Whitney. The girl sank further into her seat.

‘Kom binne, my kind.’ Her guttural voice was gentle, its tone one she used for a nervous puppy or a fretful baby. She took Whitney’s hand. ‘Come. I’ll show you your room.’

Whitney was unable to extricate herself from the situation, so she capitulated and followed Dinah inside. Clare followed. Dinah’s single plate and cup were neatly stacked in the sink. The fire welcomed them. Dinah took Whitney into a small room that led off the living room.

‘You sleep in here, my girlie. I sleep in there.’ She pointed back to the lounge. ‘If you are cold you can come in with me.’

Whitney surveyed her room. The single bed was covered with a crocheted blue and pink coverlet. A teddy bear clutching a red satin heart was perched on the pillow. A candle stood next to the bed. Nails on the walls had empty hangers on them for clothes that Whitney had not brought. On the windowsill was a vase with a bunch of purple-flowered fynbos.

‘Whose room is this?’ asked Whitney.

‘It was my daughter’s,’ said Dinah. Her face was in shadow. ‘But you are welcome to it as long as you need it.’

Whitney set her bag on the bed and sat down next to it. She had no idea of how to continue.

‘I’ll get you some tea,’ said Dinah. ‘Come with me, Clare.’ They went through to the kitchen. Dinah set out cups, poured water.

Clare took some notes from her wallet. ‘This is for food, or whatever.’

Dinah took the money. ‘Whatever happened to the child?’ she asked, tucking the notes into her bra.

‘Maybe she’ll tell you if she trusts you. I promised her that nobody would know she was here.’ She picked up a cup of tea and took it to Whitney. She was in bed with all the blankets pulled close around her. She did not acknowledge the tea that Clare put on her bedside table. Her eyes were closed tight, arms around her knees. Her back was a tight, defensive curve.

‘Bye, Whitney. Stay here, you’ll be safe. Phone me if you need anything. Dinah has a cellphone.’ Clare was about to close the door when Whitney spoke.

‘Where is Constance now?’

‘She’s safe now.’

‘Where is she?’ Whitney sat up, her eyes feverish.

‘On a farm. Like you. She lives there now. She never leaves it.’

‘Tell me the name.’

‘Serenity Farm. It’s near Malmesbury.’

Whitney said nothing more, so Clare closed the door. She said goodbye to Dinah and drove back to Cape Town. Clare could not get the film Whitney had told her about to stop playing – the unseen images were like circling vultures in her head.