afternoon,” said Fundiswa, coming up the wooden steps to the deck a little out of breath. “Whew! I’m unfit! My exercise regime starts tomorrow.”
“… and then they sprinkle it with powder, y’know, to check whether it’s a biological threat! A biological threat!” Neville wiped away tears as he reread this.
“You going to gym?” asked Sharon.
“Too expensive,” said Fundiswa. “Nina and I are going to start jogging tomorrow morning.”
Sharon looked the two other women over from head to toe. “I must say I’m lucky with this body of mine. I don’t put on weight. This body of mine has never let me down.”
She swept her hand from her chest to her denim-clad thighs, inviting their gaze.
“That’s lucky for you,” said Fundiswa. “I can honestly say that this body of mine has let me down at every possible opportunity. I look at a vetkoek and I get fat. Used to be I looked at a man and I got pregnant, but, thank the Lord, those days are over.”
“I know what you mean about the pregnancy thing. I fell pregnant with Dylan the very first time I ever had sex. Floyd, well, we used a condom but I had such kickass Kegel muscles down there that I actually took his condom off while we were at it.”
“Excessive pelvic toning leads to unwanted pregnancy,” chirped Neville, trying to enter Sharon’s conversation since she’d failed to enter his.
“Please educate your sons,” said Fundiswa. “Otherwise they will come home like mine did with all these motherless babies that I was supposed to feed and educate. I said, ‘Who do you think I am? I’m not a bladdy child grant!’ But they’re all the same. I ask my sons the same question that I used to ask my lovers: ‘Why do you refuse to wear a condom?’ Each and every one said: ‘Fundi, I’m a man who doesn’t like to wear a condom. I’m sorry, but it isn’t nice for me if I’m wearing a gumboot.’ Nx! Each one thinks he’s so unique when he says that. He says it like he is the only man in the world who doesn’t want to wear a bloody rubber jacket!”
“Ja,” said Neville. “No man likes to wear a sleeping bag, that’s the honest truth.”
Nina was feeling quite safe as the invisible member of the conversation. Then Sharon’s eyes landed upon her. “That’s a pretty dress you’ve got on,” she said. “The red patterning around the scoop of the neck creates a pretty frame.”
Nina sat very still, hoping something or someone else would catch Sharon’s attention, but she seemed fixated.
“It’s the kind of neckline that looks stunning on me. But what I would do, if I were you,” she said, darting forward, “is to undo this top button here – oh my, that’s quite a lot of boob you’ve got lurking there.”
“Sharon, sweetie,” said Neville, in the tone of one speaking in his area of expertise, “breasts do not lurk. They peep discreetly from their hiding place.”
“You can’t call this peeping discreetly!” said Sharon, pulling the fabric back from Nina’s cleavage.
“Very nice,” said Neville. “Very nice bazoombas. Though, I’m a small-breast man, myself. Dolly, for example,” he continued. “I always used to fancy hers. Almost nothing on top at all, just these slightly raised nipples. Very classy.”
“And how would you know what Chas’s wife’s breasts looked like?” asked Sharon.
“Come on! You used to see her yourself, prancing around the tidal pool without her bikini top.”
Nina imagined that hell might be like this: being mauled by a tall woman in tight stonewashed jeans while her husband pointed out one’s aesthetic shortcomings and spoke admiringly of an ectomorph.
“Leave her alone. Can’t you see that the poor girl is shy?” said Fundiswa.
“But that’s the whole problem,” said Sharon. “She shouldn’t be shy. She should be proud. Stick your chest out.” She demonstrated. “When I walk into a room, everyone turns their heads and thinks ‘Who is that woman?’ ”
“That’s true,” said Neville loyally. “When Sharon walks into a room, everyone turns to look at her. But, Nina, my lovey, no one notices you. You slip in like a little mouse.”
“A mouse!” Nina felt utter despair.
They heard slow, heavy footsteps on the wooden staircase that led from the lawn to the deck and then the manly voice of Dot Fawkes, Chas’s mother.
“A mouse? More pest problems, Neville? What this place of yours needs is a jolly good fumigation.”
Neville stood up. “Sit here, Mrs Fawkes. Let me get you a brandy and soda.”
“Thank you, Neville. And an ashtray, please. Chas is a little delayed, as usual, but I thought I’d better set out on my own because I have to walk slowly these days.” She sat down, looking displeased. “This chair doesn’t have very much back support.” She looked across at Fundiswa. “I usually sit in that chair, don’t I? I need the armrests.”
Fundiswa stood up obligingly so that they could switch chairs.
Thanks to Mrs Fawkes, Nina sank back into happy obscurity. In the old woman’s ruined face she could trace the origins of Chas’s noble profile. Mrs Fawkes’s hair, what little remained of it, was cropped short. Her hairdresser had set it in rollers to create the illusion of volume and height, exposing her scalp in the process. She had elegant hands, though, a diamond ring on each.
“I wonder,” said Mrs Fawkes, “if I might not feel the chill soon.”
The customer who had complained of the cockroach was now leaving, and seeing a brown face pass by, Mrs Fawkes called out: “Excuse me, could I have one of the blankets you keep under the counter?”
The man did a double-take, but went back inside to fetch Mrs Fawkes a blanket. Right behind him came Neville, with Mrs Fawkes’s brandy and soda.
“That man isn’t a member of staff, you know. He’s a customer,” said Fundiswa.
“I don’t care if he’s Marie of Romania,” said Mrs Fawkes, “as long as I don’t catch a chill. Thanks,” she added as Sharon lit her cigarette for her. “Aren’t you feeling the cold in that little vest of yours?”
“I’m so hot,” said Sharon. “And I’m not just talking about the weather.” She put her hand on her hip and jutted her chest out once again.
It was possibly the warmest evening of the summer; all the children from the tents and caravans were playing cricket on the grass in T-shirts and shorts, smoke rose from the first braai fires of the evening. The clubhouse balcony had a good view of the tidal pool and the garden of Midden House. There, too, the balmy weather was evident in the general state of undress. Nina watched as Chas emerged from the garden gate and cut across the caravan park towards them, his shirt now partly buttoned in deference to the occasion. She had been starting to feel calmer, but now her heart ran ahead of her again.
He called out his usual greeting – “Hello, hello, hello!” – as he bounded up the steps. It was more an announcement, really; a call for attention. “Enjoying the rough male kiss
