The Lazarus Effect by H. J Golakai Read Free Book Online Page B

boots.
    ‘Then you know what I mean. You pretend to get over someone so well that you start to believe it. You remember all the history, everything they put you through, and tell yourself you can’t forgive. Then you plan this new life, to hell with the past. And all the while, deep inside you know you’re completely full of shit.’
    Vee fidgeted. Dammit, was she looking at her own future here? ‘What happened when Ian finally came home?’
    Adele shrugged again, only this time it was more a lazy lifting and resigned dropping of the shoulders. As if gravity was too strong to encourage more.
    ‘What I expected. We didn’t just pick up where we’d left off. Too much time had passed for that. We danced around it. I heard talk in the old neighbourhood that he was home for good, but over a year passed before we saw each other. Cape Town’s pretty small but you can avoid people if you want to. We finally ran into each other at a party at a mutual friend’s place. He looked so much the same. Only difference, he was married.’
    She looked over, clearly expecting reproach. Vee nodded, impassive.
    ‘I knew – of course I knew. His wife wasn’t with him that night. She was ready to pop by then, about to have their first. I only saw her in passing over the years, and not often. We … met, much later on.’
    ‘What was she like? When y’all finally did?’
    ‘We didn’t talk much that night. Wanting to pretend for a while,’ Adele ploughed on, voice soft, a lover reminiscing aloud, alone in her sitting room. ‘That’s what grown-ups are meant to do, save face and moralise until they’re not fooling anyone any more. Then we met up for drinks, just to catch up. How long does that last with a man you have a past with. We swapped old stories from back in the day and laughed … It became a routine. More drinks, lunch, we’re only talking, I was just in the neighbourhood, until …’
    She turned away, her expression a tempest of too many emotions for Vee to untangle.
    ‘After Jacqui disappeared, I started thinking maybe it was God’s way of punishing me, both of us, for the way we behaved. It’s crazy superstition, thinking that a child is a necessary sacrifice to set things right again. But I can’t help feeling that if we’d been more careful and she’d never been conceived, or if I’d been stricter and done more to keep her away from that pathetic family, none of this would’ve happened.’
    ‘When did Jacqui get to know her father’s other family? Was it your idea, or her father’s, to be closer to them? Or Carina’s?’
    A sharp, bitter laugh broke from Adele’s lips. ‘Whose idea was it? My God, it wasn’t anybody’s grand idea . The three of us would never be that ridiculous, discussing things like mature adults. There was never a sit-down, no ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be fantastic if our families got to know each other and became one big, happy unit.’ God. Imagine that happening.’ She shook her head, chuckling again into her tea. A swift slurp and she set the cup down and fixed Vee with her full, grave attention. ‘You really have no clue, do you?’
    Adele’s eyes drifted down again, this time to her feet, crossed at the ankles. ‘You know, when you called wanting to talk, I thought, I hoped , that Ian was finally stepping up. That finally he wants to stop being macho and grieving alone, or expecting the police to work miracles after two years, and that he had hired someone. Looks like wishful thinking, as usual.’
    Vee waited.
    ‘Jacqui was born not long after Sean. In fact, Jacqui’s close in age to the three eldest Fourie kids. She was born after Serena, same year. Carina did not waste time. She got pregnant right after they were married, and popped three more kids like it was going out of fashion. I assumed she’d be different, posh and what, being a doctor and white and all that. Maybe have only one. Maybe take some time to get to know his family, get used to our racial mess and