?Why are you giving me all these tips??
?Why not??
?Aren?t we in competition??
?Sweetheart, it?s all about supply and demand. The demand from needy men in this place is unlimited, but the supply of whores who really are worth five hundred rand an hour is . . . Jesus, you should see some of them. And the men get wise.?
And: ?Get yourself a separate place to work. You don?t want clients bothering you at home. They do that, turning up drunk on a Saturday night without an appointment and standing on your doorstep weeping: ?I love you, I love you.? ?
And: ?I had a fifty-five thousand rand month once; shit, I never closed my legs, it was a bit rough. But if you can do a steady three guys a day, it?s easily thirty thousand in a good month, tax free. Make hay while the sun shines, because some months are slow. December is fantastic. Advertise in the
as well, that?s where the tourists will find you. And on
on the Internet. If he has an accent, ask for six hundred.?
And: ?It?s their wives? fault. They all say the same thing. Mamma doesn?t want to do it anymore. Mamma won?t suck me. Mamma won?t try new stuff. We?re therapists, I?m telling you, I see how they come in and how they go.?
Vanessa told her about the other members of the AECW?Afrikaans and English, white, brown, black and a tiny delicate woman from Thailand. Christine only met three or four of them and spoke to a few more over the phone, but she was reluctant to become involved?she wanted to keep her distance and anonymity. But she did take their advice. She found a room at the Gardens Center and set her sights higher. The money followed.
The days and weeks formed a pattern. Mornings were Sonia?s, and weekends, except for the occasional one when she was booked for a hunting weekend, but the money made that worthwhile. She worked from 12:00 to 21:00 and then collected her daughter from the daycare where they thought she was a nurse.
Every third month she phoned her mother.
She bought a car for cash, a blue 1998 Volkswagen City Golf. They moved into a bigger flat, a spacious two- bedroom in the same building. She furnished it piece by piece like a jigsaw puzzle. Satellite television, an automatic washing machine and a microwave. A mountain bike for six thousand rand just because the salesman had looked her up and down and showed her the seven-ninety-nine models.
A year after she had placed the first advertisement, she and Sonia went to Knysna for a two-week holiday. On the way back she stopped at the traffic lights in the town and looked at the sign board showing Cape Town to the left and Port Elizabeth to the right. At that moment she wanted to go right, anywhere else, a new city, a new life.
An ordinary life.
Her regular clients had missed her. There were a lot of messages on her cell phone when she turned it back on.
She had been nearly two years in Cape Town when she phoned home once more. Her mother cried when she heard her daughter?s voice. ?Your father died three weeks ago.?
She could hear her mother?s tears were not for the loss alone: they also expressed reproach. Implying that Christine had contributed to the heart attack. Reproach that her mother had had to bear it all alone. That she had no one to lean on. Nevertheless, the emotion Christine experienced was surprisingly sharp and deep, so that she responded with a cry of pain.
?What was that noise all about?? her mother asked.
She didn?t really know. There was loss and guilt and self-pity and grief, but it was the loss that dumbfounded her. Because she had hated him so much. She began to weep and only later analyzed all the reasons: what she had done, her absence, her part in his death. Her mother?s loneliness and her sudden release. The permanent loss of her father?s approval. The first realization that death awaited her too.
But she could not explain why the next thing she said was about Sonia. ?I have a child, Ma.?
It just came out, like an animal that had been watching the door of its cage for months.
It took a long time for her mother to answer, long enough to wish she had never said it. But her mother?s reaction was not what she expected: ?What is his name??
?Her name, Ma. Her name is Sonia.?
?Is she two years old?? Her mother was not stupid.
?Yes.?
?My poor, poor child.? And they cried together, about everything. But when her mother later asked: ?When can I see my grandchild? At Christmas?? she was evasive. ?I?m working over Christmas, Ma. Perhaps in the New Year.?
?I can come down. I can look after her while you work.? She heard the desperation in her mother?s voice, a woman who needed something good and pretty in her life after years of trouble. In that instant Christine wanted to give it to her. She was so eager to repay her debt, but she still had one secret she could not share.
?We will come and visit, Ma. In January, I promise.?
She didn?t work that evening.
That night, after Sonia had gone to sleep, she cut herself for the first time. She had no idea why she did it. It might have been about her father. She rummaged around in the bathroom and found nothing. So she tried the kitchen. In one drawer she saw the knife that she used to pare vegetables. She carried it to the sitting room and sat and looked at herself and knew she couldn?t cut where it would show?not in her profession. That?s why she chose her foot, the soft underside between heel and ball. She pressed the knife in and drew it along. The blood began to flow and frightened her. She hobbled to the bathroom and held her foot over the bath. Felt the pain. She watched the drops slide down the side of the bath.
