Love Tastes Like Strawberries. Rosamund Haden

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      “It’s a friend.”

      “You don’t have friends.”

      “Yes, I do.”

      “Who? Name one?”

      “Chantelle and Vincent from work. And Nadia and Brigitte in room five and . . .”

      Sometimes she and Brigitte and Nadia go to KFC together when there’s money, or have their hair done. She has been to the wedding of a relative of Vincent’s.

      “It’s a job.”

      “What job?”

      “Nothing. I don’t want to talk about it.”

      “I have a job too,” says Dudu.

      “Your job is to pass matric next year,” says Françoise.

      “I’m going to buy a car and drive it up to Lubumbashi. You get good money for cars up there.”

      “Dudu, you can’t. How can you buy a car? How can you drive to Lubumbashi? That’s crazy. That’s suicide.” She hopes Dudu is just winding her up.

      After supper Françoise listens to her voicemail. “Hello, this is Ivor. Come around to 54 Kingston Road, Observatory, on Friday at six fifteen – I’ll try you out.”

      That was all. She didn’t even know where Kingston Road was. But she could find out. What should she wear? What did an artist’s model have to do? Suddenly she feels fear and excitement mixed together.

      After she has washed the dishes, Françoise joins Dudu on the mattress. They watch the fuzzy black-and-white TV together. She closes her eyes hoping she can fall asleep. It is only if she is really tired that she doesn’t dream and wake up with her heart pounding, in a state of panic. If she is tired enough she will sleep like the dead. Dudu holds her hand in the dark. It’s something they started doing in the forest and they have never stopped. They are too scared of what might happen if they do.