The Ripmender

Chapter 11

"What are you chuckling about?" Aldytha asked Zama.

It was early on Sunday morning. Tenley had gone on her usual run, but the rest of us were content to laze in our beds and greet the new day with inertia.

I had actually slept well the night before. Having four people in a room, and not much floor space, meant that Nathan would have found it very difficult to sneak inside, even if he was a champion lock picker.

"There's some really funny stuff going around on Twitter," Zama said. "Oh, and Thamasanqa sent me a video on Youtube. I'm just getting to it ... "

She giggled, then passed me her phone.

"Maybe that's really what he had in mind when he asked you on a date," she said as Aldytha peered over my shoulder to watch the video.

It was Nathan Jake, in the varsity dump site, scratching helplessly through piles and piles of stinking garbage.

"Hey, you're awake," Tenley said as she walked into the room and flopped on her mattress. "What are you guys looking at?"

I handed the phone to her. She watched it, then whistled.

"Things are really bad," she said. "After his bodyguard pulled him away from the dump, he almost had a panic attack."

Part of me felt a sense of satisfaction at seeing his pathetic and futile hunt through the garbage. The other part felt a twinge of sadness. He used to be so confident, so strong, so marvellous.

"Maybe it's drugs," Zama said. "They all get into that eventually."

"Whatever it is, he won't eat or sleep," Tenley said. "There's a crowd outside his flat. They've sent for an ambulance."

"Let's go and see," Zama said, jumping upright.

I didn't really want to go. If he was suffering a meltdown, I would rather not be there to see it. It was just depressing.

The crash and burn of stardom; I supposed they all ended up that way eventually. I decided to go with the girls though, just in case he was only pretending to be out of action.

"Crap, I'm starved," said Tenley, coming back into the room. "These are all I could find."

To my horror, I saw that she was holding my hiding place.

"I'll open them for you," I said quickly. "You go and shower so long."

"Hey thanks," Tenley said, tossing them to me.

"No time to shower," said Zama. "Let's get a move on."

I just had time to grab the phone before Tenley took the box of biscuits back. I slipped it into my shorts pocket.

"Come on Cathy," Zama said impatiently.

I walked out of the room with the others. The phone should be safe with me. Nathan was probably tied up in one of those straitjackets on his way to the nearest psychiatric facility. I wouldn't have to worry about him getting hold of it again.

Tenley hadn't been exaggerating when she said that there was a crowd in front of Nathan's apartment. The ambulance arrived just as we did, but the crowd made it impossible to see what was happening.

I broke away, and went around the edge of the seething mass of people. I don't know why Nathan would choose to live on campus in one of the visiting lecturer flats, when he could have his pick of any hotel or mansion in the greater Durban area.

Maybe it was because security was tighter in the varsity grounds than in the outside world.

Everyone else was watching the front door, so no one but me saw the side entrance swing out slowly, and a familiar face glance furtively through the opening.