New Ground, New Love

Pretoria no longer sounds like home. Not with cupboard doors slamming downstairs. Not with his mother's voice cracking through the double-storey house like shattered glass. Not with the dead silence of his father's study. Once the most powerful room Divan Venter knows. Now standing opens and gutted, files scattered across the mahogany floor where forensic officers have tossed them aside as if the Venter name means absolutely nothing. Divan stands in the middle of his bedroom with an open navy suitcase on his bed. For a long moment, he just stares at it. It looks too small to carry fifteen years of a life that always felt untouchable. He bends down stiffly and picks up the folded blue blazer lying over his desk chair, the crest of St. Augustine College catching weakly in the pale late afternoon light. His thumb runs over the gold embroidery. A month ago he walked through those gates like he owned the world. Divan Venter. Captain of St. Augustine under-fourteen. Captain again at under-fifteen. Hooker. Blue Bulls academy selection at under-fourteen. Blue Bulls academy selection again at under-fifteen. The boy every coach slapped on the back. The boy every younger played stared at when he walked past. The boy teachers proudly pointed out when visitors came to the school. "Future Springbok," Mr. van der Merwe told him after his last match. Future Springbok. Divan lets out a dry laugh now, but it catches painfully in his throat. Future nothing. He folds the blazer and pushes it into the suitcase harder than necessary. On his bedside table lies two formed photographs. He reaches for the first one. Brendan. His best friend grins back at him from the photo, both of them standing in their Blue Bulls Academy tracksuits after a muddy training camp in Johannesburg, arms hooked over each other's shoulders like nothing in life can ever touch them. Brendan was there for everything. First academy call-up, first school captaincy, and first beer stolen behind the clubhouse after a win. "Us at Loftus one day, bro," Brendan always said. Loftus. Bulls rugby. Provincial greatness. Divan swallows hard. Brendan came over two nights ago to say goodbye, but goodbye sat awkwardly between like a third person in the room. Neither of them knew how to talk around disgrace. Brendan tried. "Bloemfontein isn't forever," he said. Divan nodded. But they both knew Pretoria boys move on quickly. New captains get chosen. New stars rise. Forgotten names gather dust. He slips the photo into the front pouch of the suitcase. The second frame is Angelique. Blonde hair. Perfect smile. St. Augustine's sister-school princess. His girlfriend for eleven months. The girl who wore his under-fifteen rugby hoodie and sat in the pavilion with her friends pretending not to scream too loudly when he scored. Or maybe his ex-girlfriend now. He still doesn't know what to call the cold text she sent this morning. "I think everything is just too complicated right now, Divan. Maybe spacs is best." Space. He almost laughs. His father sits in prison. His mother cries in another room over a marriage that has rotted from the inside. And Angelique wants space. He places the frame back down. Let Pretoria keep some of it ghosts. Downstairs his mother shouts again. "I cannot do this anymore!" Divan closes his eyes. That sentence became the anthem of the house. Ever since the arrest. Ever since the flashing blue lights painted the driveway at ten o' clock on a Thursday night. Ever since neighbours stood in slippers on their lawns pretending not to stare. Ever since his father, once immaculate in expensive suits and polished shoes, got led out in handcuffs while two policemen ducked his head into the van. Fraud. The newspapers used the words like a knife. Business fraud. Investor fraud. Financial corruption. His surname sat under every headline in thick blank ink. At school the whispers started before first period. At rugby practice boys who once worshipped him spoke in hushed voices when he walked past. Teachers looked at him with pity. Pity. Divan Venter hates pity more than losing. Then came the divorce papers. Then came Gavin. His mother's new boyfriend. A tanned estate agent with expensive cologne and too many apologetic smiles, arriving with flowers and wine as if he can renovate a collapsed family. Divan wanted to smash every bottle over the kitchen tiles. Instead he stopped talking. He zips one side of the suitcase and reaches for his Blue Bulls Academy jersey hanging in the cupboard. Navy. Sky blue. His surname stitched neatly across the back. This one makes his fingers tremble. This jersey means certainty. It means route maps. St. Augustine First XV. Blue Bulls Craven Week. Junior Bulls. Proffesional contract. His life was arranged in straight white touchlines. Now all the lines disappeared. A soft knock sounds against the half-open door. His mother stands there. She looks older than thirty-eight. Mascara smudged. Hair tied carelessly. Phone still clutched in one hand. For a second neither of them says anything. Then she speaks quietly. "John booked your bus for tomorrow." Divan stares at her. Not we booked. John booked. Uncle John in Bloemfontein. The bachelor school teacher he sees at Christmases. The man now inheriting him like unwanted furniture. His mother steps inside. "I called him this morning. He says you can stay for as long as you need." As long as you need. Divan's jaw tightens. "You mean as long as you need me gone." "Divan..." "No, it's fine." His voice comes out flatter than he expected. "Everybody wants the scandal out of Pretoria." "That is not fair." "Fair?" He lets out a bitter laugh. "Dad is in jail. You move Gavin in emotionally before the divorce ink is dry. I lost Angelique. St. Augustine looks at me like I'm contagious. Brendan doesn't even know what to say to me anymore. But sure, Mom. Let's talk fair." Tears fill her eyes. Divan hates that too. Because once, not long ago, she was the centre of warmth in this house. Now she looks like another stranger pushing him out. She inhales shakily. "Bloemfontein is a fresh start." Fresh start. People always call exile that when they aren't the ones leaving. Divan turns back to the suitcase and folds the Blue Bulls jersey with careful hands. His mother lingers at the door. "I am sorry," she whispers. He doesn't answer. A minute later he hears her footsteps retreat. The room becomes quiet again. Divan looks around slowly. Trophies on the shelf. Rugby medals. A St. Augustine team photo. Pretoria sunlight outside the window. Everything he built by fifteen. Everything he believed is permanent. Gone in the space of a few weeks. He zips the suitcase closed. The second echoes for louder than it should. Divan rests both palms on the bed and bows his head. Tomorrow he boards a bus to Bloemfontein. To uncle John. To a new school. To strangers. To a life he never asked for. And for the first time since the police car lights flashed across the Venter driveway, Divan Venter understands something with terrifying clarity. Pretoria is already moving on without him.