CHAPTER 8
The next morning, I was in my car, driving towards Willow Bay. I’d spent the whole nightnotsleeping, and I lay awake just thinking until my body and brain were unable to do so anymore. I’d plied myself with every single justification I could think of for doing this, until I almost believed them all. And then, at around three in the morning, when the fear of being caught out for doing this hit, I went off on another train of thought. It was clear that these letters were never meant to be seen, and they had been written so long ago that whoever wrote them was probably not around anymore. And if they were, it seemed unlikely that they would step forward and claim them, since they were such a secret. So, if I plagiarized them, I would (logically) get away with it. And these were the originals and I doubted any copies would exist.
Okay, don’t hate me for thinking that; I hate myself enough already. But I could almost feel the pressure of the gun against my temple, forcing me to do this.I was that desperate!
I’d left the cold, grey buildings of Johannesburg behind about an hour ago and I was now heading into South African no man’s land—those big, open spaces that exist between towns and cities that seem to stretch on forever. It was all so beautiful, the autumn sun was rising and the roads were lined with fields of pink and white cosmos flowers. Cosmos were a staple here in autumn, and as a child I always associated their pink and white spray with Easter. Easter eggs and bunnies and colorful cosmos all blurred together to form one of my favorite childhood memories—possibly the only good one. I swallowed as my throat tightened just thinking about it.
As you can imagine, the days, weeks and months following my birth were hard for my grieving mother. So hard, in fact, that my grandparents stepped in to look after me, and this is where my merry-go-round childhood all began. Being passed around from family member to family member in those moments when my mother was too depressed to look after me, and when finally my grandparents were just too old. From aunts and uncles, to cousins, and even to the neighbors on a few occasions. I was never really in one place long enough to form any kind of attachment to anyone, never at a single school for long enough to do well at anything, make any kind of a mark or make friends, never in one house long enough to be able to call it a home. I was this little lost girl with the lost sloping line, going round and round in a tumble dryer until I didn’t know if I was up or down, left or right, who I was or where I belonged. I longed to be with my mother as I spun around on this never-ending carousel—until, one day, I was. Just like that, she came back into my life and we were going on holiday together.
It was a particularly warm autumn, that year. The cosmos were brighter than I’d ever seen them. The Easter eggs were sweeter, the moments spent with my mother on the beach were funnier and more joyful. The nights that she tucked me in bed and sat there reading to me, taking me away to magical worlds with her, were some of the happiest I’d ever had. And, for the first time since my birth, I felt like I belonged somewhere again and that I knew who I was. I was someone’s daughter, and I thought it would stay that way. Only it didn’t. After the holiday, I was back on the carousel; I reminded her too much of my father, you see. It was too painful to look at me every day, and just too hard to be a single, depressed mom, raising a daughter. I was better off with someone else, they all said. Funny thing is that no one ever bothered to ask me where I wanted to be. Perhaps I wouldn’t have known, though, since I barely knew myself by then. But what I did know—the only thing I really knew—was that I was clearly not good enough to be looked after by my mother.I was not good enough.In my small, childlike brain, the one that saw the world in black and white, I decided that I would need to become good enough in some way. I would need to show her, and everyone else, that I was worthy of being with her. But no matter what I did, who I became, how good I was, it was never enough. Still isn’t, really.
I spent my entire childhood floating around, untethered. Like a balloon being blown around in the breeze. Being pushed and pulled around by external forces, never in control of my own destiny. One day I was here, one day there, and the next day I could be somewhere else entirely.
And I could sense that I was an imposition everywhere I went, even though they never said it directly to me. So, to be less of a burden, I tried to fit. I tried to be the person that they wanted me to be, so they would keep me. I worried about everything I did, I worried about what they thought of me constantly, always trying to be the perfect person, but never really feeling like I was. The only real constant I had in my life was the songs and stories that had always filled my head. I’d always turned to them when things got tough.
I sighed as I thought about it all. I knew I couldn’t blame all that for who I had become and the wrong choices I was currently making. Those were all very much mine, no one else’s.
The more I drove, the less I saw of humanity and civilization, which suited me. There was nothing here other than open grasslands that stretched to the horizon, with the odd rusty windmill to break up the monotony. I continued to drive as grasslands gave way to mountain ranges that stretched across the horizon like the backs of sleeping dragons. I’d done a bit more research on Willow Bay and discovered that it was a unique small town, situated both on the banks of a river and the coastline. The whole town seemed to sit perfectly on a small hill, which was so out of place with the rest of the flat landscape around it. One of the local folk tales tells the story of a great big turtle who liked living in the river and the sea. And, because he couldn’t decide where he wanted to be, he stopped right there, so that half of his body was in the fresh water and the other half in the sea. I liked that image. I liked the idea that a whole town was built on the back of an indecisive turtle.
The small town was now a bustling tourist hub and seemed to attract a lot of artists and creatives. Small pottery studios and art galleries and craft-coffee shops seemed to line their one main road. And, when I’d tried to book a room, I discovered that most of the hotels were fully booked; I’d managed to get one of the last available places.
Because I’d set out early, I got there before lunchtime, luckily for me. My stomach was rumbling like it hadn’t seen a snack in days.Oh, there’s something else you should know about me. I can go from zero to more-starving-than-I’ve-ever-been-in-my-entire-life-and-I-will-eat-my-own-arm-if-necessary in a few seconds. I’ve always been like that. The second I get hungry, Ineedto eat. Clearly, I must have some kind of speedy metabolism, because, for the most part, I am slim. But then there’s my ass. It seems that my body decided to deposit all my fat cells there. Thank God for the shift in beauty standards in the last several years, so large asses have actually become quite a hot commodity. Because, if that hadn’t happened, I might not have ever gotten laid. Not that I got laid an awful lot, and not that I liked the word “laid,” either. It always makes me think of a chicken on a nest. No, as far as sex went, I’d had enough to know what was good and what was bad, but not enough to truly know what I wanted yet. As far as relationships went . . .the same. Enough to know what a lying cheat looks like, but not enough to know what I want from a relationship yet—or, more to the point, to know what I deserve from one.
