CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Naledi had tried to
ignore the adoration of the crowds and concentrated on the police and their
questions instead. It didn’t look
like they would need her for long and, once a nurse had finished cleaning her
knee and he had given her the once over, she was pretty much free to go. She refused money from the grateful
cyclist and only discovered he’d slipped some into her pocket anyway hours
later, and let the police drive her home, aware that they had already called
Mum to tell her where her daughter was and why.
Naledi had gone over
the accident and near-miss again and again in her head and thought of her mum’s
reaction upon returning home several times, too. She imagined tears, a bit of embarrassment, probably over
the top appreciation.
The one thing she had
not imagined she would get was anger, but as soon as the police car pulled up
outside her house and she saw the look of fury in her mum’s eyes, she knew that
screaming was on the cards.
Naledi’s mum said the
bare minimum to the police, nodding at the appropriate moments and agreeing to
watch out for the telltale signs of shock and making sure she said “Thank you”
when they had to go. Naledi hung
back and slowly, quietly, followed her mum back into the house.
The door clicked shut
and she pretended to be having difficulty hanging her jacket up on a coat peg,
feeling sick with tension as her mum prepared to shout. Eventually, Naledi stopped pretending,
closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath, and looked up to face her.
“Well,” whispered her
mum. “Well.”
“Well?” Naledi
questioned, feeling nerves turn to nervous anger.
“Naledi Jameson. You
utterly, utterly selfish bitch.”
Naledi felt like she
had been punched: “What?”
“How dare you? You stupid little girl.”
“I saved a man’s
life!”
“You could have been
killed, you idiot! You could have died!”
“I saved his life!”
shouted Naledi, not holding back, direct in her mum’s face.
Her mum did likewise:
“I don’t care, you stupid bitch!”
“What? You wish he
had died?”
“He is not my
daughter, you are! Don’t you dare do something so stupid again!”
“It was not stupid! I
was a her–“
“A hero? Oh, grow
up!”
“Mum!”
“Don’t you dare,
Naledi! Don’t you dare!”
“I can’t believe
this…”
“If you want to rebel
and get pissed because I’m with Clive–“
“What?!” Naledi
spluttered.
“–then go and get
pissed or ignore me like any normal person would do, but don’t you dare ever
try something like this again. Don’t you bloody dare.”
“This is not about you and Plant!” Naledi felt
tears sting behind her eyes. “I was doing the right thing! This is not about
bloody call-me-Clive at all, you stupid–“
“He is trying his
best!”
“He is not my dad!”
Naledi was screaming now. “They buried him and you couldn’t bloody wait, could
you? You couldn’t wait to–“
“I was done waiting,
you stupid little girl!” Naledi’s mum was shaking now. “You have no bloody
idea.”
Naledi said nothing
for a while. She let a tear roll away and then, almost silently, asked: “What
do you mean?”
“You have no idea,”
repeated Naledi’s mum and walked away. Naledi watched her go into the kitchen
and shut the door, then angrily ripped her jacket off the coat peg, shoved it
on and left the house, slamming shut the door as she did so, hearing things
rattle inside as she clenched her fists and simply stopped and screamed. She had thought she was going to walk
away, but she couldn’t even do that.
She just stood and looked up and screamed and screamed and screamed
until she was done shouting. She
let out a breath and walked, slowly, away, lost in her own fug of thought and
confusion and exhaustion. Her knee
pricked and her hands shook as she walked to a nearby park and rested up
against the bark of a tree, its whorls digging in and depositing tiny pools of
water from rain earlier across the small of her back.
Angry, tired,
confused, in pain, damp: Naledi, the hero.
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