10. Pretoria, 1988 - Boredom
In which Eleanor gets it very wrong. So very, very wrong.
Natasha’s bored. What to do? She envies Eleanor’s home life…but is their friendship stronger than the siren call of rebellion? 
Natasha
During recess, Natasha grabs Eleanor and they go and sit on one of the benches in the courtyard, heads together as they chatter. The period before was English. They’re reading Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton, and in class discussion today Mrs Williams challenged them to see the connections between what Paton was writing about in 1948, with what is happening now in 1988. They’d actually talked about current events. In school. In English class.
“Your Mum is amazing,” she tells Eleanor. “She’s one of the best teachers in the school. You’re so lucky.”
“Hmm. Maybe,” Eleanor says, picking at a fingernail. “Honestly I wish she were more like Mrs Williams, the teacher, at home.” Eleanor looks up, looking wistfully back towards the English classroom they’ve just come from. “At school she’s okay, at home, as Mum—” Eleanor’s voice trails off.
Natasha looks at her quizzically. She couldn’t give a crap about the other teachers. No, it’s more than that. She despises them. They are the usual self-righteous, small-minded, hypocritical, judgemental adults she’s found in every other posh private school her parents have forced her to go to. But Mrs Williams is different. She engages the girls in real discussions, challenging them with questions to which there are no obvious answers.
“Your Mum actually talks to us like adults,” she replies enviously, as she thinks of her own mother, who barely talks to her at all.
“At school, she does.” Eleanor makes a face, “You should see her at home. It’s just nag nag nag. Like I can do nothing right.”
Maybe Eleanor’s right. But that’s not what she witnessed when Eleanor invited her home for the long weekend. She’d envied what she’d seen of Eleanor’s home life. A stable, loving, family. Eleanor’s baby brother, Henry, 9 months old, a babbling joy. Pleasant dinners with actual conversation, not endless arguing that devolves into yelling. No sullen silences.
Eleanor’s family had felt blessedly ordinary and normal. An actual functioning family. Talking about real stuff. Talking about what was happening in the world. The concert in Wembley for Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday. The anti-apartheid protests roiling the townships. The Williams' disgust at the South African police response. In the Williams family there was no “us versus them”, the whites versus the blacks, the awful white superiority that makes her want to punch her parents' smug faces.
She had plucked up the courage to ask Mr and Mrs Williams why they think so differently.
“We spent two years in Berkeley, California,” Lionel Williams had explained. “Elle was actually born there,” and he’d looked at Elle with such obvious tenderness Natasha had felt a pit open up inside of her. “Mary and I experienced what it was like to live in a truly non-racial society. And you know what, the sky didn’t fall and the earth didn’t crack,” and he rolls his eyes as his finger wags and his accent mimics PW Botha, South Africa’s draconian State President.
She had noticed too how Mr and Mrs Williams talked to their maid—respectfully. Like she’s an actual human, valued for the work she does. When her father gets drunk—and he always gets drunk—his favorite topic is how blacks are like dogs who need to be kicked so that they know their place. She hates home. Hates, hates, hates it. And school is better only because it isn’t home. If Mrs Williams is a bit of a nag with Eleanor, at least she actually sees Eleanor, unlike her own mother, who seems to want nothing whatsoever to do with her, the disappointing only daughter.
As their friendship has deepened over the last nearly two years, Eleanor has become one of the only girls she feels she can just be herself around. Sitting here with Eleanor in the courtyard, she can drop the façade of could-care-lessness she so carefully cultivates in front of her gang of boarders. Eleanor is so different from all the others. She’s not obsessed with boys, and clothes and make-up. She’s whip-smart and prefers to talk about what’s happening in South Africa and the world, not the latest fashion, or movie, or celebrity gossip.
As she glances at Eleanor now, picking at her fingernails, her face thinking deep thoughts, Natasha is surprised to notice how fiercely protective she feels towards Eleanor. She sees how mean most of the other girls are to her—the snooty cool girls from money. With the gang Natasha hypes up her rebelliousness, puts on even more bravado, the satisfaction of being their fearless leader filling the aching emptiness inside, hiding the hurt and misery that is home. But with Eleanor she feels the strange pull to be less the demon child, more a young woman yearning for care and affection.
She leans over and rests her head on Eleanor’s shoulder. Eleanor’s arm wraps around her, and they sit in companionable silence, while girls mill around in their usual knots and cliques during recess.
Natasha resolves to keep Eleanor separate from her constant rule-breaking. She doesn’t know why Mrs Williams seems okay to let her be friends with Eleanor. But she’s not going to question it. Eleanor is one of the few good things in her life.
“Please don’t do it,” Eleanor begs her two months later, her big brown eyes teary with distress behind her glasses. “You’ll get caught. It’s an hour’s walk in the dark—it’s dangerous. Something could happen to you all on the road. Please, please, don’t do it,” and she grabs Natasha’s hand, pleadingly.
Natasha kicks herself for even mentioning the plan to Eleanor. There is no way she intends to let Eleanor come if she asks. They will be traveling in a group, they’ll be fine. And they’ve all done it before. Eleanor would be alone. It was stupid of her to try to impress Eleanor with her daring. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She’d just felt the overwhelming need not to keep her friend in the dark on this one. But she’s committed now. As ringleader she can’t back out. And boarding school is so boring. Evenings are deadly. They’re all itching to do something.
The plan is to wait for an hour after lights out, then slip out of the boarding school, walk the four kilometers to St Stephen’s, St Anne’s “brother school”, and meet up with the boys there. The boys are getting the alcohol. Then they’ll walk back to St Anne’s and be back in the dormitory before the 6:30am wake-up bell. It’ll be fine. It’ll be a lark. Thumbing their noses at all the stupid rules. Having some fun with the boys. Making out. God St Anne’s is prissy. It’s like snogging is the evilest thing in the world and a bit of shag will send them all to hell. But killing black people in the townships—that’s somehow okay. Anyway, Mrs Vermeulen, the deputy headmistress and head of the boarding school, has it coming to her. Natasha has never forgiven her for the way she forced Natasha to remove her ear studs. It was downright humiliating. Mrs Vermeulen thinks she has the boarders under her thumb, but she’s clueless as to half of what goes on in the boarding house.
“We’ll be fine, Eleanor. Seriously. We’ve bunked out before anyway. And no-one knew anything. Seriously. Don’t worry.”
Eleanor
I stare at Natasha as she walks into first period math class the next day. Something is…different. Natasha weaves between the desks, putting her hands out against the chairs, as if to balance herself. She flops down next to me. And burps. Then giggles.
“Are you drunk?” it dawns on me, horrified.
“Um-hmm.” Natasha grins. “It was awesome. God I’m tired. I could sleep the whole day. I think I’ll pretend I’m sick and go sleep in the San1 for the morning. At least that will get me out of Biology and Afrikaans. Bleh.” She makes a gagging motion with her hand.
I look at her, flabbergasted. There’s no way Nurse will buy she’s sick. If I can tell she’s drunk, I’m sure Nurse can.
Before I can say anything, Mrs Springer, our math teacher, walks in and we all rise. Natasha is the last to her feet. She sways a little. I reach out my hand to steady her.
“Sit,” says Mrs Springer.
We’re nearly at the end of math period when there’s a knock on the door. Mrs Hugo, the school secretary, puts her head into the classroom. “Mrs Springer, a word please.”
“Carry on with the problem, please, class,” Mrs Springer says as she puts down her marker at the whiteboard. As Mrs Hugo shuts the door after her, Natasha slumps on her desk, puts her head on her arms and closes her eyes. I look around at the class nervously. Everyone else just carries on working quietly.
After a few minutes, Mrs Springer comes back in. I nudge Natasha in the ribs and she raises her head up, sleepily.
“Natasha, there’s a message for you. Mrs Hugo asks you to please go to her office.” She pauses, then adds, “Take your bag with you, I think. Then you can go straight to next period.” There’s a strange expression on her face. I feel fear rising. I swallow, a sick feeling in my throat.
Natasha puts away her stuff in her bag, rises and walks to the door. She stumbles on her way, and my heart lurches into my mouth. I look at Mrs Hugo. Her face is grim. Oh no, oh no, oh no.
I go to Biology. Natasha doesn’t come. She’s not in Afrikaans either. Nor are any of the others of Natasha’s close boarder friends. Shit, shit, shit. When Natasha isn’t at Art either, I know something is terribly wrong. Natasha would never miss Art.
At recess, word spreads like wildfire. Natasha, and five other girls have all been called into the office of Mr Johnson, the headmaster. Speculation runs wild. I hear “drunk”, “seen coming into the boarding house at 5am”, “St Stephen’s”. Shit. I stay quiet. Did someone snitch? Who saw them? What’s going to happen?
But I already know the answer. Knew the answer when I saw Natasha stagger into math class. Knew the answer when Mrs Hugo knocked on the door. Knew what would happen, but didn’t want to believe it, when Natasha first told me her crazy plan.
Later, after morning classes are done and when the boarders are released from their lunch in the refectory, it’s all over the school in five minutes. All six girls expelled. They’re being picked up by their parents today—as soon as they can get here. They’re packing up their stuff now. No-one is allowed into the boarding house. No one is allowed to talk to them. Boarders will be allowed back into the dorm at 3pm after afternoon classes.
And still no summons to the headmaster’s office come for me. I know I can’t be expelled—I’m not a boarder and wasn’t part of the bunk out, after all. But everyone knows Natasha and I are friends. I expect to be called in for questioning at least. But nothing. Silence. No summons comes. A pit settles into my stomach, waiting for the axe to fall. I’m desperate to see Natasha, to say goodbye, to see that she’s okay, to give her a hug, to tell her I’ll write, I’ll call, I won’t abandon her. To tell her it wasn’t me. I didn’t snitch. I would never, ever snitch. But nothing happens. Afternoon classes drone on. Teachers bark at us to settle, to be quiet, to “Pay attention, now!”
When school releases at 3pm, I wait anxiously in the courtyard—through which Natasha must surely pass. I see the other girls’ parents arrive and leave with their daughters, their heads all bowed, refusing eye contact with anyone. The courtyard is almost empty. I’m supposed to be at tennis, but I’m not going. I don’t care what the PE teacher might say. I have to see Natasha.
She doesn’t come.
At five, Mum finds me still sitting in the courtyard.
“We’ll talk at home,” she says. “I’ll explain and we’ll talk. And I have some questions too. But let’s go home first.” Mum’s voice is kind, gentle even. I was expecting her to be angry. Her kindness confuses me.
We drive home in silence and I head straight to my room, throw myself on my bed and stay there. Mum knocks an hour later.
“Come down for supper,” she says. “We’ll talk after, with Dad.”
I’m quiet at supper. It’s cottage pie, but it’s like I’m eating sawdust. I barely touch my food. Mum and Dad talk, ignoring my silence. This waiting is awful, can we get it over with already? Am I to be suspended, grounded? What’s going to happen?
Once the dining room table is cleared, and tea and coffee made, Mum calls me to the lounge. She pats her hand on the sofa next to her. I sit at the far end, refusing to sit next to her. Mum looks disappointed, but says nothing.
“You know Natasha and the others were expelled today,” she begins slowly. “They were seen by one of the night staff sneaking back into the boarding house at 5:30am this morning.” She pauses, gathering her thoughts. “Toby Sheppard, Katrina’s brother, was seen with them”. Katrina is Natasha’s chief “lieutenant” among her group of boarders. Mum sighs. She glances at me, an expression I can’t read on her face. Then she continues.
“Mr Johnson spoke with the St Stephen’s headmaster first thing this morning. Eight boys from St Stephen’s, including Toby, have been expelled.”
Mum looks at me directly now, her gaze steady, appraising. Her voice is Mrs Williams talking to me now, not Mum: it’s calm, controlled, clear. “Apparently Natasha and the other girls walked from St Anne’s to St Stephen’s by themselves at 11pm last night. Six girls, all under age, walking alone down Lynnwood Road in the middle of the night. It’s a miracle nothing happened to them.” Her look bores into me. I glance at Dad, but his face is unreadable. There’s no comfort from that quarter either.
“It seems like Toby was the only sensible one, realizing that the girls were too drunk, and it was too dangerous, for them to walk back by themselves at 4am. So he escorted them himself.” Mum’s calmness is unnerving. “He only got back to St Stephen’s at 7am this morning, after walking them all the way to St Anne’s and then walking back by himself.”
She pauses, looking down at her hands, which I notice now are twisting a tissue around and around. I remain silent. I don’t know what to say. I’m feeling mutinous, scared, and completely off balance. Is this Mum? Is this Mrs Williams? Is this something else?
Suddenly she looks up, her face looking pained and drawn. Her voice becomes kind, entreating. “Eleanor, did you know about this? Did you know they were going to do this?”
Her entreaty catches me off guard. I stay silent, and pull my knees up, wrapping my arms around them. I can’t look at my parents.
“Eleanor,” Dad says something for the first time. “We know how close you and Natasha were. Did she ask you to join them?” His voice, too, is ominously kind.
I shake my head no.
Mum continues. “Mr Johnson says that even if you knew, you won’t be suspended or anything. You didn’t break any school rules. Natasha, the others, they all said you didn’t know. And Toby and the boys didn’t know anything about you when they were questioned either.” I see her glance towards Dad. “But as your parents, Ellie, we want to know—we need to know,” her hands are really twisting the tissue now, her voice low and entreating, “did you know? Please, Ellie, can you tell us, did you know? We’re not going to punish you either, but did you know?”
I nod my head yes.
A look passes between Mum and Dad. Mum looks so sad. Dad looks concerned.
“Elle, why didn’t you tell us?” Dad’s voice is soft, his questioning gentle. I’ve been holding my body rigid expecting harshness. I’m struggling to know what to do with all this gentleness. “What the girls did was extremely dangerous. It’s not even about bunking out of the dorm, or the alcohol, or being with the boys and doing whatever they did.” He leans forward, elbows resting on his knees. “Walking by themselves. Down Lynnwood Rd. At night. Six young girls. All alone.” His hand’s slow emphasis of each phrase pounds into me. “Elle, anything could have happened to them. They’re extremely lucky nothing did. Please, Elle, why didn’t you say anything to us?” He looks fixedly at me. Not angry. Not mad. But disappointed. I can’t hold his glance. I feel terribly small.
“I don’t know,” I mumble into my knees.
Mum and Dad stay silent, waiting.
The silence drags on.
I lift my head. They’re just sitting there, looking concerned, not angry. Angry I could deal with. Angry I could fight back with. Angry and I could yell at them that they just don’t understand. They just don’t understand how Natasha was the first real friend I ever had at St Anne’s and I would never ever betray her. Not ever.
But now I see how my silence betrayed her. If something had happened to her— If the girls had been— I can’t think it. Won’t think it. I’m wracked with guilt. I was so consumed with my hurt that Natasha hadn’t even thought to ask me, it had never occurred to me to say anything to my parents. I was so wrapped up with Natasha, and her world, and my need to belong.
“I just—” I stammer. I really don’t know what to say. “I’m sorry, Mum, Dad. I should have— I should have said something. I just— I just couldn’t—” I am groping for words in the blackness that has descended on me. “I just didn’t think— I just didn’t think.” And I burst into tears.
“Come here,” Mum reaches out her arms. I go over and she wraps me in her embrace. She stays silent while I sob.
“I know how much Natasha means to you,” she says softly over the top of my hair, as she gently strokes my head and back, consoling me. “We’ve seen you really come out of your shell. I had truly hoped you would be good for her too. She’s had such a hard life. Her family— her parents— she’s been bounced around from country to country, from school to school, left in boarding schools while her parents—” her voice trails off. She gently turns me to face her, cupping my face in her hands, “But Ellie, not saying anything to us? You know we care, you know we would have helped you, Natasha. Now it’s too late,” and her hands drop to her lap, where they worry the tissue again. “Her parents arrive tonight and will take her back to Zimbabwe. Natasha had a real shot at St Anne’s,” her voices catches. Is Mum about to cry too?
“Ruth, Pamela, some of the other teachers—they really saw her brilliance. She was starting to settle down, really do well academically. I don’t know why she needed to do this,” she looks off into the fireplace in front of us, gently shaking her head as if in disbelief. “What devil got into her that she would risk everything for this?” she asks the fireplace. “It’s like she doesn’t even believe in herself. It’s like she wanted to throw it all away. It’s heartbreaking.” She turns back to me, resting a hand on my knee. “And it’s heartbreaking for you too, Ellie dear, because now you’ve also lost a friend. Do you know why you couldn’t tell us?”
“I— I— I thought you would make me end the friendship if I told you,” I mumble into my lap.
“Oh Ellie, my dear sweet girl, no.” Her hands pats my knee. “I was angry when she introduced you to smoking.” I look up, surprised. The corners of her mouth are lifted in a wry smile. Mum knew? “You do know how you reeked of smoke when you got into the car that afternoon?” I didn’t. “But you looked green at the gills and it didn’t happen again, so I let it be. Sometimes you’ve just got to try some things to figure out that they’re not all that they’re made out to be.” She gives Dad a quick smile. “We would have helped you. We would have helped Natasha. We would only have wanted to keep her, the others safe.”
“Can I talk to her?” I ask.
“I don’t know. Do you know how to contact her?” Mum asks.
“No, I don’t have her address or phone number. I never needed to ask her.” I’m bereft. “But surely school knows,” I brighten.
“They wouldn’t tell me and I can’t ask,” Mum says, releasing my knee. “It would only raise more suspicion. Which brings me to Mr Johnson.”
I pull away and look at her, Dad. “What about Mr Johnson?” I tremor.
“He can’t let you off the hook entirely, as you knew and didn’t say anything. Well, he suspects you knew.” Mum’s mouth pulls down in distaste. “And I’ll have to confirm it. I can’t lie to him about that. But his options for punishing you are extremely limited. It’s not like you actually broke any rules—as I made sure he very well knows.” She looks hard at me again. “And no, he doesn’t know about the smoking in school uniform and I didn’t say anything about that either.”
Mum has a determined, set look on her face. I’m amazed at her. My mother—my mother!— the head English teacher, defending me, protecting me like this. I know she doesn’t like Mr Johnson much, but this is something different.
“He just saw Natasha, some of the others, as trouble. Trouble with money.” She lets out a sigh, pressing her lips together. “But we—Pam, Ruth—we just saw troubled girls who needed all the help and support they could get. Sadly, they gave him no choice with this stunt. The other parents, the board of governors, would have had his head if he didn’t expel them. He’s furious and looking for someone to blame.”
She looks hard at me again, “And he’d love to blame you, but he can’t. And I made sure he knows it. But he’s determined to extract his pound of flesh from me for that.”
She leans back and looks over towards Dad. She pauses, then something unspoken seems to pass them, and she turns back to look at me. “You’re not supposed to know this—but you were on the list for consideration for head girl. But he certainly won’t appoint you as head girl now. And he won’t make you a prefect in the first round either — which will be announced next week. Natasha would have been made a prefect too.” A look of pain and sadness grays her face. “Pam and I had pushed hard for that, we knew it could be the very thing she needed. But of course, now—” Mum’s voice is so sad. “You’ll have to wait until second round, you’ll be made a prefect then.” One hand reaches up under her glasses and pinches the bridge of her nose as she closes her eyes. Mum’s characteristic “I have a headache coming on” gesture.
I’m stunned. Natasha, a prefect? Me, under consideration for head girl? It doesn’t make any sense. I’m not popular. I’m not connected. I’m just Eleanor Williams, brainy teacher’s kid. Misfit.
“Who else was on the list,” I ask, curiosity getting the better of me.
“Heather, Rose, Christine. My guess is it will be Heather. Her father is Chair of the Board. He’s campaigning hard for her. He’s probably also dangling a donation in front of Brian.”
“Harrumph,” Dad growls from his chair. “I notice there are no black or Indian girls on that shortlist.”
Mom sighs. “I know Lionel. We’ve put what pressure we can on Brian. But he thinks it would smack of tokenism, as we are still a majority white school. But definitely there will be non-white girls who are made prefects.”
Dad grunts. “St Anne’s better watch out or it risks being behind the times—not ahead of it.”
I try to take it all in. The way Mum is talking to me, what she’s explaining, what I’m hearing. It’s all too much. Natasha is gone. I don’t know when or if or how I will ever see or talk to her again. She would have been a prefect. I took that away from her. Mum and the other teachers were trying to help her. I betrayed Natasha by not saying anything to Mum and Dad. Mum defending me to Mr Johnson. Mum and Dad not being angry with me.
My world has turned upside down. Nothing is as I thought it was. I got it all so wrong.
So very, very wrong.
Book Club #1: Apartheid South Africa
Saturday, November 9, 10am ET (US) 5pm South Africa
Mandela has walked free. But before we follow Eleanor as she comes of age just as South Africa starts its transition away from apartheid, let’s take a moment to more fully explore together.
Sanitarium—the school nurse’s office