'You'd be amazed at how people open up when they think someone cares. Listen, don't wait up. After this, I'm thinking of taking in a round of golf. I'll expense a cab home.'
Maltese sneers. 'One day on the job, and she's too good for us.'
I watch them out the door and then set to snooping. I skip the kitchen, which, surprisingly for a house full of teen boys, doesn't require Health Department intervention, and head upstairs, stepping over an amp at the top. There are more instruments lining the passage. A bass guitar, a tangle of microphone cable. Deck the halls. It's not clear whether they're normally out here, or part of Mark and Amira's redecorating scheme.
The first room is hotel-anonymous. A monotone motif with a black and white print of Namaqualand daisies above the bed. Guest room. I move on to the next: two single beds pushed to opposite corners. Clothes are strewn around the room, cushions have been thrown on the floor, the mattresses upturned, the camo-print beanbag leans on its side. There are posters of Megan Fox and Khanyi Mbau taped up, spreads from fashion magazines, all featuring menswear, and a business plan mapped out on a whiteboard underneath a sketch of an old-fashioned Nintendo video game controller and the words 'War Room'.
I take notes. Move on.
Bathroom #1. A scramble of boy stuff. Five different flavours of deodorant, slick electric razors, electric toothbrushes, shaving cream, moisturising balm, exfoliator, anti-wrinkle eye cream – all for fifteen year-olds. A shower with a curtain featuring mildew and Hawaiian flowers. Sodden towels puddled on the Italian tiles. But otherwise remarkably clean. No skid marks in the toilet. Nothing living in the bath. Well stocked on toilet paper.
Bathroom #2. Dramatically smaller. The first hint of Song. A bottle of perfume on the counter. A punky black bottle with the name Lithium etched in white, like chalk scratchings. Blue nail polish. Eyeliner. More eyeliner. Four different kinds of mascara: coal, black, ultra-black and green. Eyeshadow in jewel colours. Gothpunk Princess Barbie. I spritz the perfume into the air. It smells like petrol and dead flowers. Sloth sniffs the air appreciatively. Clearly there are tones in there that human noses just can't appreciate. There is a glass jar of dried green leaves. I crush some between my fingers. It's fragrant. Not dope. Possibly
More helpfully, there is also an unopened pill container marked 'Songweza Radebe' and 'Flurazepam', 'dosage: 1 per day with food.' I look it up on my phone. It's a generic, used for anxiety or insomnia, especially for those with manic depression. The date on the label is Friday 18 March. So one day before she runs away, she gets a prescription for heavy-duty anxiety pills. Makes it seem like the script wasn't her idea. Interesting.
Next door is a full-on bedroom studio with egg-boxes studding the walls, mixing-decks, a computer facing the tiniest voice booth you ever saw, but at least semi-pro, if I'm any judge of expensive. And I am.
Adjoining the studio is the final bedroom. This has been creatively adapted. It's barely a metre across because a slapdash drywall has been erected in the middle of the room, forming the back of the recording booth next door. A double bed takes up most of the remaining space, under a block-mounted poster of Barbarella gazing into the depths of space, managing to look yearning and bold all at once. The cupboard has been thrown open, and clothes dumped recklessly on the bed among a spread of comics. There are more comics crammed into every available space on a long, low bookshelf that runs the length of the window. I skim through a few. Swamp monsters and teleporting houses, a muscled guy wearing the Union Jack.
A collection of movie monsters are posed all along the top of the bookshelf. On instinct, I pick up the one that looks like an upside-down dustbin with rows of studs down the side. As I do, it says 'Exterminate!' and I nearly drop it. The head comes right off. There's a
I put the little robot's head back on, leaving the dope where it is, and replace him carefully between Arnold Schwarzenegger, metal chassis gleaming from under ripped plastic skin, and a manga girl with a mane of bright pink hair and boobs popping out of the leopard-print bikini that matches her tail and ears. But I do take one of the A5 soft-cover notebooks ferreted away between the comics. It says
As we're heading back towards the stairs, Sloth chirrups. 'My thoughts exactly,' I say, stepping back into the anonymous hotel room, which is not in fact a guest room. I open the cupboard and face an array of pretty preppy clothing. White sundresses and Afro-chic numbers by Sun Goddess and Darkie and Stoned Cherrie. Perfect for a hip teen kwaito queen. But not for a Gothpunk Princess Barbie. There are empty hangers, like a gaptoothed smile. Wherever Song went, whoever she went with, she had time to pack.
I ransack the room for lost things, digging under the mattress, in the back of the cupboard. There are only dust bunnies and some spare change, a hair band. Nothing lost. Nothing to lead me back to Song. Which means I'm stuck with the investigative journalist angle.
'Uh-oh. Fweag aled,' Arno says nasally as I approach. He's looking considerably less stoned, likely courtesy of the pain in his nose, although his eyes are still bloodshot.
'Just ignore her. Maybe she'll get the hint.' Des lines up the tee, once, twice, and then swings hard, neatly chipping out a clod of earth to join the other clods of earth gathered around his trainers, which are
'You play golf now as well as
'No. I hate golf. It's the genteel version of seal-clubbing, only not as much fun.'
'What do you want?'
'Background stuff. Colour.'
'Is bad a whide joke?' Arno bristles.
'As in painting a picture of iJusi's life. The people they hang out with, what goes down.'
'You're bod gonna wide about de guns ding, are you?' Arno looks worried.
I laugh. 'What
'It was the dope. He gets
'Don't worry, I'll make that incident 'off the record'.' I take out my notebook and pen, and look at them expectantly. 'So tell me about you guys. How do you know S'bu?'
They look at each other uneasily.
'If this isn't a bad time for you. Wouldn't want to interrupt your…' – I look down at the pitted grass – 'gardening.' They have the grace to look sheepish. 'C'mon, I'll buy you a drink at the clubhouse.'
Turns out Des and Arno already have a well-established reputation at the clubhouse. 'Oh no,' the waiter says, wearing a bowtie and gloves, like this is Inanda instead of Mayfields. 'No shirt, no service. And no animals.'
'Hi there,' I say, sticking out my hand. 'Zinzi December, journalist for
'Do you have a business card?'
'Not on me.' I give him my best fake-tolerant smile. He considers this, then breaks out his best fake- obsequious smile in return. 'Right this way, madam. But please inform the young gentlemen that we won't be serving them alcoholic beverages. We confiscated their fake IDs the last time they visited with us.'
We sit outside overlooking the gentle rolling greenery of the course. A shrike eyes our table, checking out the scraps. Also known as the butcherbird, it has a habit of impaling its prey on barbed-wire fences. People tend to
