Tandia by Bryce Courtenay Page A

forward brought both her hands up to cover her mouth. Tandia knew she ought to pat her on the back but she hesitated. She had never deliberately touched an adult female person before and now the idea frightened her.
    Mama Tequila glanced at her briefly between a spasm of coughing. Her eyes were teary from the coughing and her mascara had started to run; she seemed to be appealing for her help. Tandia took a deep breath and started to slap the large woman on her back. To her surprise Mama Tequila ceased coughing almost immediately. In a voice drawn thin after the paroxysm of coughing she said, 'Ain't nutting but coffin nails, them damned cigarillos!'
    She straightened up, dug into her handbag and produced an absurdly small lace handkerchief with which she wiped her eyes; then she held it to her nose and blew. She found a compact in her bag and proceeded to repair her make-up.
    Returning the make-up to her bag, she turned to Tandia, her face serious for a moment. 'This ai!,'t no place for a couple of high-class ladies, honey,' she rasped.
    Tandia instinctively liked the big woman. She wanted to go with her but her escape from Geldenhuis was still too recent. The idea of being tied to another human being she didn't know and whose motives she couldn't begin to discern, frightened her. 'Where we going to?' Instinctively she picked up Apple Sammy from her lap and clutched the doll to her chest.
    Mama Tequila didn't answer her directly. Instead she looked hard into Tandia's eyes. 'Look, kid, you a mess. You been beat-up bad.' She touched Tandia's face gently. 'Look what them mothers did to you!' She reached out and removed Apple Sammy from Tandia's grasp and placed the kewpie doll on her lap. Then she took both Tandia's arms, and drew them gently towards her. When she spoke again the toughness had gone from her voice.
    'You poor baby, them wrists, they are bad. We got to clean you up, honey. We leave you like this you going to have yourself a pair of permanent bracelets.'
    Mama Tequila placed Tandia's hands back on her lap one on either side of Apple Sammy. Then she rose slowly from the bench and began to tug at her skirt, pulling the tight satin back down to her knees. She adjusted her hat in an imaginary mirror, her hands fluttering around its rim, a small tug here and a little pat there, like two busy brown spiders, the ends of their fat legs dipped in brilliant scarlet. She took a few steps towards the entrance of the station, and pushing two fingers into her mouth she let go a piercing whistle. She turned to Tandia. 'C'mon, kid, let's kick the dust, we're going home to Bluey Jay.'
    In what seemed like a matter of moments a tall, very black man appeared. His head was completely shaved and a jagged scar ran diagonally across the top of his shiny scalp to just above his left eyebrow. It looked as though the skull had been cracked open and then clamped until it grew back together again. The eye directly under the scar was only half open, a condition which seemed permanent as the skin around the eye was puckered like the top of a leather drawstring purse. The tall black man smiled as he approached Mama Tequila and Tandia noticed that his two front teeth were missing but the incisors on either side had each been filed to a point and were made of gold.
    'This is Edward, King George, Juicey Fruit Mambo, honey. He is my driver. Just call him Juicey Fruit Mambo. Never mind your basin, he'll bring it.' Mama Tequila started to walk away. 'Now you just follow me, baby,' she called; she seemed to alternate the two endearments 'honey' and 'baby' as though she hadn't quite decided which suited Tandia best, though 'baby' seemed to be winning.
    Juicey Fruit Mambo grinned at Tandia. He reminded Tandia of a horror story she'd read as a small girl in a book she'd borrowed from the school library. It had been entitled 'Doctor Weirdwolfe's Tales of the Supernatural'. The scariest story in the book was about a monster named the Master of Evil who lived