Taken at Riptide

2. Meredith : 1st Day – 2

2

Meredith : 1st Day – 2

Mbuga pushes me down so that my head is on his lap. Not a pleasant experience. He tells me to keep quiet.

“Pull over.” He says to Johnson.

When Johnson stops Mbuga tells him to lower his window in the back. He calls out to an African passing by. They speak in a language I’m not familiar with, one with clicks. It’s a satisfactory exchange for Johnson pulls out into the road again. Mbuga lets me sit up. We’re moving away from the town centre and through a semi-industrial area. We stop at a run-down garage and Johnson drives round the back. Mbuga jumps out, leaving the door open and letting in a strong smell of cat pee. He knows I won’t do anything stupid because of Sukey. He hurries over to the back door and thumps on it until a skinny young man comes out. They put their arms round each other and there is much loud and jolly talk.

Mbuga leads the young man over to the car and introduces him to Johnson, who gets out of the car.

“What’s this?” the young man asks when he notices me in the back of the car.

“This is the valuable cargo I told you about,” answers Mbuga.

“But uncle, what are you doing? It’s dangerous to be on the national road in that taxi. The police will find you.”

Fortunately, the young man is of a generation who speak English more easily than Afrikaans and I can follow the conversation. They walk round to the front of the car, talking loudly.

“That’s what I want to speak to you about, George.” Mbuga points to the roof above the windshield. “Can you take that TAXI sign off and re-spray the car?”

“What now? Impossible, uncle. You don’t want to believe everything you see in the films. Even if I do a crap job — no sanding and only rough masking — you wouldn’t be able to sit in the car for more than half an hour without being overcome by the fumes. And every time you touched the paintwork it would come off in your hands. This gunmetal gray is a good color. It’ll blend in with the road.”

“So what can you do to help us?”

“I can take off the TAXI sign and change the license plates.”

“We’ve already changed those. We did that first thing.”

I cross my fingers and sit on them, hoping that they won’t remember that Kate could have taken note of the fake number. As I shift on the seat, I release my knee hold on Sukey and she climbs up from the floor to sit on my lap and look out of the window. Her movement attracts George’s attention.

A look of terror crosses his face and his skin goes gray. “Uncle,” he stammers. “You can’t seriously be thinking of traveling all the way to Joburg with that little child in the car. You know the police are cracking down on the transportation of children. If they catch you with her, they’ll make an example of you.”

Johnson surges forward. “I told you so, Mbuga. She’s dynamite. How are you going to explain away a little child like that, and a white child at that? She can hardly be your granddaughter or niece, can she?”

“What do you suggest I do? Bump her off? Leave her by the roadside?” shouts Mbuga.

That’s enough for me. I push Sukey off my knee and slide across to the open door. They’re so taken up with their argument I’m out of the car and standing next to the three men before they notice what I’m doing.

I put my hands on my hips, brace myself, raise my chin and, summoning up as much attitude as I can, I say in a cool, deliberate voice, “Let me remind you, you oafs. You touch a hair on her head and you’ll not see a cent of your promised pay-off. The man you’re working for is my ex-husband.”

That’s as good a lie as I can think of at short notice.

That shuts them up. Mbuga grabs hold of me and frog marches me into the back of the garage. The smell is overpowering in here. This has to be the local haunt of all the feral cats in the district. I struggle and hang back until I see that Johnson is bringing Sukey along behind me. Mbuga pushes me down onto a rickety bench. Johnson dumps Sukey next to me. George picks up a chain and advances towards me. Mbuga tells him it’s not necessary. I won’t run because of Sukey.

“I’m not taking any chances, uncle. This is my town.” George answers. He fastens the chain around my waist and attaches it to the wall.

Sukey’s crying. Mbuga and Johnson have moved back to the door and are now involved in another fierce argument.

George stamps his foot and hisses, “Uncle, you must shut up. People will hear all this noise and come and investigate.”

Mbuga and Johnson quieten down. They seem to defer to George’s youthful knowhow.

“Now what?” George asks.

“We want to stay here until dark. Then we’ll drive through the night. Probably get as far as Bloemfontein, that’s a little over 500 miles away. We can do it if we drive fast. The road is good. We’ll hide out there with friends during the day and continue our journey tomorrow night.”

“Right. Johnson helps me,” says George. “Uncle, you can go and fetch some food from the tuck shop down the road.”

Good, we’re getting some food. Well, I hope we are. I hope it’s not only for the three men. However, I have a more desperate need.

“Please mister,” I call out to George. “I need the bathroom.”

He looks at me as if I’m a cockroach, but he comes across and unfastens the chain and pulls me outside to a small shack at the back of the yard. Sukey comes running across with me. She doesn’t want to be left behind on her own in the stinking garage. George flings open the door. A hellish miasma belches out. I take one look round the door and turn aside heaving and retching. I’ve never seen anything so filthy.

“I can’t use that,” I say when I’ve got my breath back.

He tows me back into the garage, attaches the chain to my waist again and picks up an oily sump bucket from beside one of the ramps. “Use this.”

I carry it behind a broken down truck at the other side of the garage, trailing my chain behind me, and manage as best I can.

Mbuga calls out that he’s coming in with the food and they unlock the door and let him in. To my amazement, the food is delicious. Some kind of ground beef dish with rice and a piquant apricot jam on the side. Odd but tasty. Sukey loves it and asks if we can have it when we get back home. But the thought of home makes her teary again, and she begins to sniffle.

“Keep that child quiet,” shouts out Johnson.

Of the two of them, he’s the one with the trigger happy disposition.