Nadine Gordimer - None to Accompany Me

— Sounds like something to do with the feed. — She saw how he liked to be consulted. — If you give me the keys I’ll take it out this afternoon and see what’s what. Could be just a small adjustment, you don’t need the garage charging you through the neck.—

Give him the keys; he was devious, this boy, taking advantage of the ease between them at this moment to suggest he should be allowed to drive again. She smiled on closed lips, in doubt: we understand each other — And if you bump into someone? Insurance won’t pay and you’ll be charged with a criminal offence. —

— Oh how could anyone know about the licence business, back in Britain!—

— Because you’d have to produce it. Wasn’t it confiscated? Or if you have it, isn’t there an endorsement?—

— I’ve got an international one they didn’t ask about. I’ve got that right here with me!—

Vera did not want to lose touch, be punitive, the lawyer too correct to be amused in recognition of shady initiative. — Compounding your culpability, man!—

— I wouldn’t fail the Breathalyzer, would I? You and Ben never offer me a drink, do you? I’m going to turn into a guava.—

Vera was still laughing. — No, Adam, no, whatever contingency plans you have … it’s not a good idea.—

He was looking at her openly, so young, beguiling, set aside as a nuisance by those other adults — his parents, her son; knowing how to make himself irresistible. — Vera, I want to take somebody you know and like very much to a jazz festival out of town, what’s the place called, Brotherstroom—

— Broeder stroom?—

— Well whatever. I need a car to take Mpho there on Saturday, you don’t go to your office that day, Ben’s home and you could use his car?—

He was amazed at the change in her face and the disposition of her body in the chair.

— Where have you seen her?—

He laughed in deliberate misunderstanding, as if at her lapse of memory. — In your house. When she came with her parents.—

— I mean since then.—

— She came into the shop a couple of weeks ago. Turns out she’s keen on the same groups I like. — Adam had found a job for himself and left Promotional Luggage. The knowledge of all the variations of pop music he showed as a customer led to his being offered a place at the CeeDee Den. He believed, quite correctly, that Vera privately approved the move towards some sort of independence, a freeing from the authoritative chain father-grandfather, while Ben’s acceptance was an unexpressed sense of desertion.

Vera appeared to be struggling with some formulation, whatever it was she wanted to say. He watched with impatience. Who could understand people as they leave youth further and further out of sight. He and she were getting on so well, and now she had disappeared before his eyes into some domain he might reach in fifty years or so.

— You should keep away from her — Mpho. — After all that preparation what came out was blunt.

— But why? She’s a damn nice kid. We have a good time together, what’s wrong with that? Why keep away, all of a sudden?—

— Because I ask you.—

The lame reason lay between them.

There must be something more to it: his look interrogated her, without response. Suddenly, he was again amazed: —Because she’s black. Because she’s black!—

She lowered her head and looked up at him from under her brows.

Then what was it, what was it, Vera knew as well as he that she would not and he would not accept ‘Because I ask’.

— Because she’s trouble. Yes I’m very fond of her and she’s a particularly attractive girl, a charmer, but it’s better not to get mixed up — not to be involved there.—

— Better for her, for me? Who?—

— I don’t know how well you know her, how much she may have told you about herself—

— We’ve been out a few times, a disco and club, we don’t have any heavy sessions explaining things. — He had had enough of his own family problems; couldn’t older people understand there were other interests in life if you were young.

— Her parents have been my friends for a long time and I was drawn into some trouble they had with her. Over a man. — No point in treating him like a child; he’s also a man. — It was a painful business for everyone. The young man was a close friend of mine, too. He’s dead.—

Dead.

A death, the idea, so distant from any sense of it at seventeen, drew him level with Vera’s interpretation of the significance of his going about with Mpho, even if he did not understand this. — She hasn’t said anything. I mean she’s such a great girl, happy and all that.—

— It’s just that her parents had a bad time as much as she did, and they’re people with all sorts of special responsibilities, any more personal trouble is something they shouldn’t have on top of everything else. You know that her mother’s on the hitlist. There are people who want to kill her.—

— Is that really true? My God, I can’t imagine knowing anyone at home in London who was being shadowed by hit-men. It’s something out of a movie.—

— It’s not a movie, here.—

— I see. — A confusion of dissatisfaction came over his face; perhaps he was wondering what he was doing there. Why he was sent by the collusion of adults.

— If you were to start something with her, Adam. If you were to sleep with her. I have to tell you, Sibongile and Didymus would hold me responsible — for having put her at risk again, emotionally — and in every way. I know you’re grown up, you have to live … but this would be a drama you shouldn’t get into. And if you have — if you’re sleeping with her—

The frankness drew some sort of clandestine confidence between them. To him she was not so old, after all; to her, he was not so young.

— Not yet, but I can see she’ll go along with it, I mean she’s ready for anything. She rather likes me … of course I’m keen on her. Who wouldn’t be.—

He began touching the keys of the computer again as one might run a hand over a piano.

His apparent submission affected her, she began further explanations. — You know I’d never have done this if it had been any other girl you want to sleep with. It’s not that I’d be blamed, it’s not that which matters. It’s the Maqomas.—

— What complicated lives you people lead. — The curiosity and superiority of distance, youth.

Vera was watching the screen with him. — And in London?—

— Oh in London there’s only my mother and the Hungarian to worry about — for Dad.—

— Look, it’s doing that same thing again …!—

Their eyes moved in duet across acid-green signals glowing and disappearing on the screen. Meanwhile he began to chat. — D’you know, I’ve been meaning to ask and I always forget, did Dad ever remember to tell you? He bumped into the man you were married to before. He was in Sydney at one of those business conferences where everyone wears dog-tags with their name, a man came up in the bar and said, you’re Vera’s son, aren’t you. It was crazy — he said like he was introducing himself, I’m her husband.—

Vera’s eyes did not leave the screen but he felt her attention there cut out, a current suddenly switched off.

— Well he was.—

And then the boy began to see with fascination something he didn’t think could still oecur in — ever be needed by — older people, real adults, who had no need to fear the power of authority: an instant alert wariness quickly dissembled into indifference. Without that recognition of a route of escape he knew too well, he never would have had the nerve to press her. — Must be ancient history.—

Her shoulders lifted and fell.