A Beautiful Family Read online

  ***

  The waif was tugging at Alan’s sleeve. ‘Alan, how much longer is this going on? I’m really not feeling well.’

  It was starting to get dark and even colder. Annette felt a tiny frisson of pity for her.

  ‘Not much longer. I heard someone say he was on his way. Then we’ll just listen to his speech and leave.’ Suddenly, Alan waved at someone in the crowd. ‘Come on, there’s one of the guys I met at the ANC offices last week. Let’s just go over and say hello. We want to team up with them for our next fundraiser, so be nice to him, okay?’

  He guided Brenda through the throng of people; she followed with Charles. They stopped at a group of young black men.

  ‘Hi, fancy meeting you here,’ Alan said.

  The men looked at him blankly.

  ‘Alan Silverman. We met last week, you know, from WOAH.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Sorry. Didn’t recognise you. One mlungu looks pretty much like another,’ one of the men said.

  Alan laughed. ‘Well, good to see you again. Just wanted to say hi and I’ll see you next week.’

  She didn’t hear their response because the crowd was starting to chant. A tall black man was making his way onto the platform. The crowd fell silent. The man started talking. Brenda sneezed again.

  ***

  Annette held out her cracker so that Alan could pull it with her. It snapped loudly and a ring fell out. If only. Brenda pulled her cracker with Charles, and sneezed. She obviously hadn’t managed to get rid of the cold she’d picked up at the Trafalgar Square demonstration, and that had been weeks ago. Alan looked concerned.

  ‘Sweetheart, you must go back to the doctor after Christmas. Those antibiotics he gave you clearly aren’t working,’ Alan said.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I’ll get over it eventually. It’s just that I’m always cold and it’s so damp in London. I wish it would snow. That would at least make the cold worthwhile.’

  Charles looked up from carving the turkey and smiled at her sympathetically. His nose was also red and chapped.

  After lunch, they opened their presents. Alan seemed delighted with the book she’d chosen for him – Biko, by Donald Woods – and Brenda thanked her nicely for the bath salts. Alan’s present to her – well, the present from Alan and Brenda – Johnny Clegg and Savuka’s Third World Child, was exactly what she wanted. Charles wrapped the warm scarf they’d given him around his neck and planted a kiss on Brenda’s forehead. They settled down to listen to her new album and the waif climbed onto Alan’s lap. She always did that. Like she was a child, or something. Alan didn’t seem to mind, though.

  ‘You should have seen Brenda’s end of year concert,’ he said. ‘How she got all those kids to dance together was bloody amazing.’

  ‘They’re sweet children,’ Brenda said. ‘They learn fast. I’m so lucky to have got the job with Patricia. And now that I can exercise regularly at the community centre, my knee is getting so much stronger. Perhaps, one day, I’ll get to dance at Covent Garden.’

  Yeah, right, who did she think she was? Fonteyn?

  ‘You should have seen the dance she put on with some of the older kids,’ Alan went on. ‘She was brilliant. Even the Shapiros were impressed. What was it, sweetheart? Something from Swan Lake, right?’

  ‘Yes, we did the dance of the cygnets. It isn’t a particularly difficult dance, but it looks lovely. I taught it to some of the ulpan guys back on the kibbutz. We were going to call it Duck Pond, but...’ She flushed and looked quickly at Alan. ‘Anyway, it was a great achievement for the girls, because it was their first performance on points. Their parents loved it.’

  ‘We all did. And you were brilliant. You should have seen her. I had no idea my girl was so talented.’ Alan kissed her.

  Annette went into the kitchen to make coffee. She couldn’t bear watching the two of them. They were like bloody adolescents with their hormones in overdrive. She was pretty sure Brenda knew how she felt about Alan. She could see the pity in her eyes when she looked at her. She hated it – she didn’t need, or want, the waif’s pity. She had so much to be thankful for – a meaningful job with WOAH, a beautiful – if tiny – flat, a good man who loved her, and a great family; even if her parents did live thousands of miles away, their unwavering support sustained her. They’d always supported her, even when they disagreed with her tactics. It couldn’t have been easy for them, having a political activist for a daughter.

  They’d pretended not to notice the clicks and buzzes when the security police bugged their home telephone. Mom even joked and said she was relieved her daughter was being followed by the cops, because then she knew she’d be safe when she went out at night. Plus, they’d been there, waiting for her, each time she’d been released from jail. She couldn’t wait to see them again when they came to visit in May. She was sure they’d like Charles. She wondered what they’d make of Alan. And Brenda.

  PART 3

  BRENDA

  CHAPTER 1

  Israel, 1985

  Brenda jumped. Who on earth was that? She’d been on the kibbutz for a week and no one had come near her.

  She hauled herself off her bed, clumped across the concrete floor in her over-sized work boots and scraped the door open. It was him – the guy from the dining room. The one she’d seen the very first day when Noni had instructed Linda – American Linda, not London Lynda – to show her around. You couldn’t miss him, not with his blond hair – or the crowd around him. Usually girls, but guys seemed to like him too.

  ‘Down, girl,’ Linda had muttered. ‘That’s Alan – the ulpan gigolo. I think he’s one of yours. African.’

  Now here he was. In her doorway.

  ‘Hi. Have you got any cotton wool?’ he asked.

  Why, oh why, hadn’t she showered and changed out of her work clothes when she had finished her shift in the laundry? However, after five hours of feeding sheets through the giant ironing machine, it was just too much effort to change. She tried to brush back her hair with her fingers, but she could feel that it was all curly and wild from the steamy humidity. Her rolled up workpants were dragging on the floor and the army jacket Noni had found for her reached almost to her knees. Noni had hacked about a foot off the sleeves for her, but she still looked like Sad Sack.

  She stared at him. Had he really asked for cotton wool?

  ‘You know. The white, fluffy stuff you girls use for whatever. You are South African, aren’t you? You do know what cotton wool is?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, ja, of course.’ She scampered across the room, ignoring the pain in her knee, and tore a large piece of her precious supply of Johnson’s from the roll, then handed it to him with shaking hands. She tried to focus on what he was saying, but she could barely hear him over the thumping of her heart. She chewed her lip.

  ‘Hey, aren’t you a little young to be doing ulpan?’ he asked.

  Everyone always thought she was younger than she actually was. She hated it.

  ‘I’m eighteen.’ Well, it wasn’t exactly a lie. She’d be eighteen next month.

  ‘Sorry, I’m being rude. I’m Alan, from South Africa.’

  As he grasped her hand, the big blister from the ironing machine popped. She didn’t flinch.

  ‘I’m Brenda. From Jo’burg.’

  ‘Hello, Brenda from Jo’burg. Nice to meet you. Thanks for the cotton wool. See you around.’

  She couldn’t let him leave, not yet! ‘What class are you in?’ she blurted. She knew exactly which class he was in. American Linda was quite a font of information when she wanted to be. So she knew that he had been on the kibbutz for a few years, first as a volunteer and then he had joined the ulpan, although apparently he was already almost fluent in Hebrew. She didn’t need Linda to tell her that he was the most popular guy on the kibbutz – any idiot could see that. Apparently some of the younger women kibbutz members thought highly of him too, Linda said. Also, he didn’t have a specific girlfriend – at least not for long.

  ‘He doesn’t want to deprive any of us of his many charms,’ Linda had explained. She’d probably been one of his girls, but Linda denied it vehemently. ‘Not my type,’ she’d insisted. ‘Too pretty for me.’

  ‘I’m in Kitah Gimmel. You?’ he asked.

  ‘Kitah Aleph – I… I’ve never learned Hebrew before, you see.’

  ‘Well, if you need any help, you know where to find me.’ He waved vaguely in the direction of what was probably his room.

  ‘Ja, okay, thanks.’

  She dragged the door closed and collapsed onto her bed. Oh God. He probably thought she was an idiot. He must know she knew he was in Kitah Gimmel. Oh God, he’d probably never speak to her again.

  He was the most gorgeous man in the world. Nothing like the boys from school. He was so tall, over six-foot for sure. His hair was amazing, not really blond-blond – more reddish blond. Her mother would freak at his ponytail, but it looked fantastic, not at all girly. And his eyes. Oh God, his eyes! Up close, they were even more, more… wow! Paul Newman eyes. Better than Paul Newman’s – deeper blue. And those lashes. Those long dark lashes! On any other man, they’d look queer, but he was definitely not queer. After five years at the Johannesburg School of Performing Arts, she had a built-in queer-alarm.

  ***

  Brenda limped across the muddy pathway between the ulpan prefab houses to the communal bathroom. If she hurried, she might just get to see Alan in the dining room – and he might just smile at her, or at least acknowledge her existence.

  The water in the shower was freezing – again. Noni said the solar geyser – sorry, the “water heater” – worked really well in summer. However, it certainly didn’t do well when it rained, and rained, and rained. She shivered through her drip shower – there was no water pressure in the girls’ bathro
om. The boys’ was apparently better and she’d seen that some girls used it, but what if she went in and some guys came in while she was undressed? It was bad enough when girls saw her showering. Yesterday, big Australian Emily had shouted to her friends, ‘There’s a boy in our showers. Oh, no, my mistake, it’s a girl!’

  Brenda wrapped her threadbare towel around her. Her mama hadn’t let her pack any of the huge, fluffy towels she’d always used before. ‘You’ll forget to bring it home again and I can’t afford to lose a good towel.’ Mama had never complained before, not even when she’d left towels in backstage dressing rooms all over South Africa.

  She put on her work jacket and boots and hurried back through the rain to her room. Quickly pulling on her jeans and T-shirt, she added her only cardigan and slipped her feet into her sandals. She wished she’d thought to bring her winter clothes with her. They were hanging safely in her cupboard in summertime Jo’burg. Who knew Israel would be so wet and cold in January? She’d have to ask for permission to go into Jerusalem to buy a jersey and some closed shoes. Her mother would never pay to send her warm things over. It had been okay, so far, if she wore her work jacket and boots to class and the dining room, but now that Alan knew who she was... she’d rather freeze than let him see her masquerading as Sad Sack outside of working hours. She tried to dry her hair with the damp towel in front of the weak flame of the neft heater, and then squelched to the dining room, her hair dripping in rat’s tails down her back.

  Drawing a deep breath, Brenda pushed through the big glass doors into the huge room, big enough to seat all one thousand kibbutz members at long Formica tables. She glanced up and there he was, sitting with his fan club at a table right at the door. Usually, they sat at a table near the back.

  ‘Hey, Belinda,’ he called.

  So much for her making an impression. Brenda lifted her chin, walked briskly to the serving cabinets and helped herself to salad and juice. Coffee would have been nice. South African coffee, not the disgusting stuff that left you with a mouthful of black mud if you forgot and drained your cup, as she always did. Gross. She found an empty table and sat down, peeking towards Alan’s table, but dropping her eyes when she saw American Linda glaring at her.

  ‘Hey, wat’s fout? Hoekom groet jy my nie?’ Alan was standing in front of her.

  ‘Sorry. My Afrikaans isn’t very good. What did you say?’

  ‘Ja, you’re a Jo’burg girl, all right. Why can’t Jo’burg girls speak Afrikaans? I asked you why you didn’t say hello to me when I called you just now.’

  ‘Oh, were you speaking to me? I thought Belinda was one of your girlfriends. I’m Brenda.’ Brenda surprised herself with her sharp response.

  He turned a chair around and straddled it, supporting his chin on his crossed arms, and watched her. She put down her fork before she choked. She could feel American Linda and her gang’s eyes boring into her. She didn’t care. Alan, the most gorgeous guy on the kibbutz, had not only greeted her; he had actually come over to sit with her! Until now, all her meals had been solitary affairs. The ulpan girls obviously didn’t like her. Girls never liked her. Boys also didn’t. However, Alan wasn’t a boy. He was a man, and he seemed to like her. At least a little.

  ‘So,’ Alan said. ‘Brenda who’s from Jo’burg and is eighteen. Where’d you go to school?’

  ‘JSPA. The performing arts school in Jo’burg. And I’m not really eighteen. I will be, next month. And you? You’re not from Jo’burg – or Cape Town – are you?’

  Alan frowned. ‘I didn’t realise I still sounded like such a rock.’

  She was horrified. She hadn’t meant to offend him.

  ‘I never said that. I just thought you didn’t sound, well, like the boys I grew up with. Are you Afrikaans? I didn’t know Jews were Afrikaans. Anyway, you don’t really sound Afrikaans.’

  ‘Actually, I’m a Free State boy. From a dorp called Driespruitfontein. And I used to sound a hellava lot more like a rock than I do now. I had intensive elocution lessons at varsity. But let’s talk about you, seventeen-year-old Brenda. You’re an actress?’

  ‘No, a dancer. But I don’t dance anymore.’ Tears welled up in her eyes.

  ‘Hey!’ Alan reached over and squeezed her hand. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. Why don’t you dance anymore?’

  ‘Sorry.’ She gulped. ‘I don’t know why I still cry about it. I should be used to it by now. But you’re being so kind and, and…’ She burst into tears, pulled her hand free and ran out of the dining room, back to her solitary ulpan room.

  ***

  Noni had said someone would be put in to share with her. ‘This isn’t a holiday resort,’ she’d told her. ‘Everyone has to share.’

  She wasn’t sure whether she would like a roommate or not. She’d never shared a room. Not even with Mama, and Mama always insisted that she have her own room when the school company travelled out of town for competitions or performances. ‘Brenda needs her sleep,’ Mama had told the teachers. ‘She’s a light sleeper and must have her own room.’ Brenda was pretty sure Mama had had to pay extra for the privilege, but – back then – Mama had never begrudged her anything, never refused her anything.

  Except that once. When the school had chosen her to go on tour to France and Germany to compete against other junior companies from all over the world. They had had a grant from the City Council and everything. It wouldn’t cost her mother a cent, the principal had said.

  But her mother had gone ballistic. ‘No daughter of mine, no family of mine is ever, ever going to set foot there. Never again. My daughter is never going to perform for those people! Never again! You hear me?’

  Brenda had stayed home and practised harder than ever.

  ***

  Brenda was lying on her bed sobbing when Alan walked in and insisted that she tell him the whole stupid story about how she’d hurt her knee in rehearsals and how they’d operated, but it couldn’t be fixed properly and that she’d never be able to dance again. Not at a professional level.

  ‘There. That’s it. Now you know. Not much of a story, is it?’ she said.

  But she didn’t tell him everything. She couldn’t tell him how her collapsing world had crushed her mother. About how Mama had dragged her from one specialist to the next, one physiotherapist to another, had tried every useless, painful treatment she could think of, had rubbed in gooey ointments and bound heated pads around her knee and leg, even burning her skin a few times. How Mama, face grim and accusing, had forced her to exercise her leg until she’d wept in pain, and how Mama grew colder and angrier and more remote until she wasn’t there anymore.

  One day, if she got to know him a lot better, she might tell him the whole story, but not now. Not yet. He’d think she was a drama queen, and she couldn’t bear that.

  ‘Shame, you poor little thing. Is it sore? I noticed you limping just now.’

  ‘No, it’s okay most of the time. Just if I turn suddenly. But the doctor gave me something for pain, so it’s fine.’

  He looked at his watch and stood up. ‘We’d better get to class,’ he said.

  They walked together up to the ulpan, her heart singing.

  ‘I’ll see you later, okay?’ he said at the door of her classroom.

  More than okay. Much, much more.

  CHAPTER 2

  Alan swung Brenda up into his arms and carried her into his room. She was sure he could feel her heart thumping. She couldn’t believe it was happening – she’d fantasised about this since she’d fallen in love with Mikhail Baryshnikov when Mama had hired The Turning Point and they’d watched it together, flickering on the lounge wall. Alan was a thousand times more handsome than Baryshnikov. She shivered.