The Boy Next Door by Irene Sabatini Read Free Book Online Page B

the level of the dams. Hillside dam, which
     we had visited at school, was not even half-full. The drought wasn’t showing any signs of ending. The city council tightened
     its water rationing measures. The use of hosepipes was completely banned, even if you were using borehole water. Maphosa had
     to water the vegetables with a bucket.
    Sometimes he would drive out of his gate at the same time in the morning as us. Maybe he had found a job. It was funny to
     me that he would never overtake Daddy even though Daddy drove so slowly. It was like a mark of respect. Sometimes sitting
     in the back, I was tempted to turn my head but I never did.
    And then, it was a Saturday morning and I was standing at the bus stop, getting nervous because the bus was already thirty
     minutes late. I was going to be late for the netball match if I didn’t leave straightaway. It was an interschools quarter
     final, and we were taking on the Convent Girls who had beaten us badly last year. Everybody on the team wanted revenge.
    He took the corner, passing me, and then he reversed.
    He rolled down his window and called out, “Do you want a lift?”
    I got into the yellow Datsun Sunny.
    I put my bag on the floor on top of my feet.
    I put my hands under my mauve skirt, and then I placed them on my lap. I wished that I wasn’t wearing my tracksuit bottoms
     under my skirt. I looked like a country girl.
    He drove all the way down Jacaranda Road, up the bridge onto Acacia Drive, where all the acacia trees along the road were
     in bloom, their yellow flowers making me think of how when Daddy got called to fix a fault in Hwange National Park, he saw
     giraffes feeding on the flowers and said that they looked like very tall, elegant ladies ruminating about life. And then he
     annoyed Mummy by saying, “Not like you big Manyano ladies.”
    I looked straight through the front windscreen, and then my neck began to hurt so I turned and looked out my window.
    There wasn’t much to see because most of the houses were behind durawalls, except for the white double story, which was at
     the corner of Athlone Avenue and Moss Street. When I had first seen it, I thought that it must be full of children running
     up and down stairs, laughing and screaming, something like in
The Sound of Music.
But only an old white man lived there who was rumored to have shaken hands with Hitler.
    I had the strange feeling that my head was shaking, vibrating.
    “Don’t be nervous. Lindiwe, isn’t it?”
    I was shocked that he knew my name, that he had said it out aloud to me. I liked the way it sounded coming from him.
    “Yes, Mr. McKenzie,” I said.
    “
Mr.
McKenzie,” he almost shouted. “Now, you’re trying to be funny, heh. Ian. Just Ian. I’m not an old bally.”
    “Ian,” I said in my head.
    I didn’t know why I had blurted out “Mr. McKenzie” and why I kept thinking of him as that. Was it because he had been in jail
     and had experienced things that adults do? Or was it because he was so big and made me feel like a child who didn’t know much
     about life?
    I didn’t think it was because he was white, that I was a little frightened of him. Mummy was always telling anyone who would
     listen that when I was a baby I would wail if cotton wool or a white person happened to touch me.
    We drove in silence all along Main Street, all down Fourth Avenue, and then at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Borrow Street,
     I said, “You can drop me here. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”
    He didn’t say anything.
    I opened the door and said thank you.
    He said, “Here, your bag, and good luck.”
    *    *    *
    The second time we passed each other along the escalators at Haddon and Sly. He was going up. I was going down. We looked
     at each other. That was all.
    The third time was at the Grasshut. It was dark inside, and I didn’t see him until he was out front at the till paying his
     bill. He was taking money out of his wallet, looking right at me. I was with