Dub Steps by Miller, Andrew Page B

Smuts’s tarmac, challenging the dominance of hundreds of years. Soon it would be the tar that was repressed, and rare and alien. I knew the forest would end in less than a kilometre and we would emerge in the glassy shine of Rosebank. Still, I searched for breath.
    ‘Jesus’ was all I said to Babalwa. ‘A complete fucken forest.’ I felt like a twelve-year explorer, previously bulletproof, suddenly lost, realising the true worth of my meagre experience and supplies. ‘It can’t have closed off completely,’ I added, ostensibly to comfort her, but really speaking to myself, the one with the memories. I pressured the accelerator, urgent in my need to get us through the few hundred metres to Rosebank. Babalwa gawked happily at the hadedas and loeries, shrieking properly when she spotted a zebra grazing next to the road. ‘Must be from the zoo,’ I said.
    She commanded me to stop so she could look at it properly. ‘Never seen one before,’ she muttered, her chin resting on the half-raised window. ‘Check how fat its ass is. That’s wonderful. Really wonderful.’ She laughed and her little paw came out again and patted me on the knee. ‘Thanks for bringing us, Roy. This is fun. Much better than PE.’
    We burst through into Rosebank, which had all the hallmarks of a conventional concrete jungle.
     
    We entered Eileen’s apartment like we were returning from some kind of prolonged holiday. Me, the father, carrying our baggage and supplies up the staircase from the basement. Babalwa running up the stairs to see if she could find a view of the smoke column, then running back down past me again, yelling about not being able to find it. I dragged the bags and the boxes of food, grumbling to myself. We had become an odd pair. A husband and a wife. A father and daughter. A mother and her lost, toothless son. My tongue slipped through the gap again, seeking out the sharpestedge, playing with the idea of blood.
    ‘Absolutely fuck all!’ Babalwa thumped up the last steps to land next to me as I left Eileen’s flat for the last load. ‘Can’t see a damn thing. Maybe it was just a natural fire. Like on Survivor , before they get given flint.’
    I grunted and turned for the basement, soothed in a strange but significant way by her chatter.
    ‘Can I go in?’ Babalwa half stepped over Eileen’s threshold.
     
    I dumped the last box (canned beans, long-life milk, canned tuna, canned tomatoes) on the kitchen counter and heaved. As strong as I had become, the carrying had still taken it out of me.
    ‘Who was this chick, anyway?’ Babalwa bounced into the kitchen. ‘Girlfriend?’
    ‘Office associate.’
    ‘Not very creative though.’ Babalwa hoisted her narrow ass onto the counter. ‘Check out this flat. It’s like she was still sixteen and her mom did it for her.’
    ‘In many ways she was,’ I replied. ‘Look, it’s pretty dark now. We need to decide what we’re gonna eat, how we’re gonna heat it. We’ve got shit to do.’
     
    Babalwa grabbed me by my hair, pulled me into her and locked her legs behind me. ‘You need to chill the fuck out, baba. There are no deadlines here.’ She kissed me carefully, like a wife, probing my mouth with her tongue, reassuring me with her hands and her legs and her grip. Just as I began leaning in, she slipped her tongue through the hole in my front tooth and burst out laughing, pushing me back, the heels of her palms against my chest. ‘Sexy!’ She laughed, looking me in the eye. ‘Sexy like a meth addict. Sexy like a crack pipe.’
    I pushed her back, harder than I intended, almost slamming her head against the corner of Eileen’s smoke extractor. ‘Fuck you. You’re in Roy country now. Show respect.’
    ‘Pretty hard to respect a man with a gap like that in his teeth, mister!’ Babalwa slid off the counter, hugged me quickly and trottedinto the lounge. ‘Seriously?’ she called out. ‘You woke up here, in this flat? Must have been freaky. Seriously freaky.