Umbilicus: An autobiographical novel

TWENTY-ONE

YOU'VE SPENT SO MANY years wondering about this moment, what it would feel like, and now that it's finally here, it's comfortably ordinary. She's just another human being, a woman, with a family, friends, possibly a career, and a life. Nothing odd or weird about her; the way she looks, the way she's dressed. She's the kind of person you'd casually walk past in the mall, or sit next to in a restaurant, and not even bat an eyelash. In the lead up to all this, you had been so desperate to make a good first impression. Your nerves were all jangly, like Johnny Marr's guitar. And now those first few moments of seeing one another have passed, so quickly, so organically, you feel quite calm and composed. You've hitched rides with dozens of strangers in the past, but being in this car, at this moment in time, feels very different. Familiar strangers, intrinsically connected.

'I haven't been in this part of town for a while now,' she says. 'Do you work in the area, Charlotte?'

'Um, yes. I'm busy waitressing and bartending at the moment. This is the cheapest and most convenient spot for me to live. It's so central. Everything's within walking distance, or just a short Mynah bus ride away.'

'How long have you been waitressing?'

'Since the beginning of the year. I did Graphic Design for two years, but it just wasn't working out for me. I probably should've done Journalism or Photography instead. I'm busy working full-time now, to save money to go over to London with my boyfriend Gray, and my flatmate Gretchen, in January.'

'Ooo, how exciting. I visited London, briefly, many moons ago. You are going to love it.'

'My mom was over there for a year, in 1966. Twiggy, Mary Quant, Carnaby Street, that era. Can you imagine being in London, at the height of the Swinging Sixties? Oh, and she was twenty-one at the time. Man, I think I was born a couple of decades too late!'

You both laugh.

'I didn't actually live there. I just visited for several days, in 1974. Not long before you were born, actually. I was also twenty-one.'

'No way! How's that. I'm also going over at the age of twenty-one. All three of us, headed to London, at the age of twenty-one.'

'That is pretty amazing, isn't it.' There is a hint of sadness in her voice.

A few moments of awkward silence follow as you pass the concrete monstrosity that is Technikon Natal's Berea Campus on the right, and Berea Inn's mock-Tudor façade on the left. She turns on the radio, to fill the void. It's tuned into Radio Five. Qcumba Zoo's 'Child Inside.' You can't stand the pretentious spelling of the band's name, the unnecessary bastardisation of the English language.

'And you, Beth? Do you work?'

'Yes, at Westville Hospital. I'm a midwife.'

The irony doesn't escape you. A woman who lost her own baby to adoption choosing to work around pregnant women and their new babies. Every. Single. Day. Get outta here! Of course you don't say anything. You've only just met.

'My dad's actually a paediatrician. He's in private practice at The San, specialising in treating kids with ADD and ADHD, but he also delivers babies and does ward rounds at all the hospitals.'

'How interesting,' she says, continuing up Berea Road.

In the first floor window of a flat you spot a Tank Girl movie poster and a Union Jack Prestiked to a bedroom wall, and on the light pole below, a newspaper headline about an imminent verdict in the OJ Simpson trial.