Broken (24 page)

“
What
happened to the missing two thousand Rand?” Misses Hawkins
asked.

I stared down at the carpet at
my feet, sickened by the realisation that I had just ruined my
whole future. Hesitantly I told Misses Hawkins the whole story.

“
Oh, Cindy.”
Misses Hawkins said quietly. “Why didn’t you come and speak to me
first? I could easily have arranged for the company to lend you the
money.”

“
I didn’t
think that the company would lend me money to pay off my boy
friend’s gambling debts.” I whispered.

“
Cindy.
You’re a valued employee of the company with an impeccable record.”
Misses Hawkins said. “It’s none of our business what our employees
do with any money that we lend them.”

As I sat staring at the carpet,
I felt tears well up in my eyes and begin the trickle down my
cheeks. I wiped them away angrily with my forearm.

“
I really
wish that I could help you, Cindy.” Misses Hawkins said. “But
Checkers is a huge public company and it has very strict rules
about theft by its employees. And what you’ve done amounts to
theft, regardless of the fact that you intended to pay the money
back. The company cannot change its policies or make exceptions.
All I can do is try to persuade Mister Botha not to lay a charge of
theft with the police. If he agrees, he will have no alternative
but to dismiss you with immediate effect, deduct the two thousand
Rand from your salary for this month and pay back the contributions
that you’ve made into our pension fund. But you will leave here
without any reference and you’ll be black-listed in the retail
industry.”

I nodded and stood up. Misses
Hawkins came around her desk and put her arm around my
shoulders.

“
I’m going to
miss you, Cindy.” she said quietly. “You’ve been a pleasure to work
with. Please learn from what has just happened. We all make
mistakes, especially when we’re young, but the important thing is
to learn from our mistakes.”

I returned to my little office
and began to pack my few belongings into a small cardboard box.
Then I sat down at my desk and waited, not knowing what to do.
About an hour later Misses Hawkins came into the cubicle.

“
As I
thought, Mister Botha was very sympathetic but he can’t change
company policy.” she said. “He won’t be laying a charge of theft
against you so here’s your dismissal notice and your cheque for
this month’s salary plus your pension fund contributions less the
two thousand Rand. I’m really sorry that it had to end this way.
Take care and good luck.”

Misses Hawkins touched me gently
on the shoulder and walked away.

I had
experienced depression many times in my life; after each assault on
me by my father, after each sexual abuse of me by him and after the
manager of the department store had forced me to perform oral sex
on him. But I had never felt such deep depression as I felt that
Wednesday afternoon as I walked back to Garth
’s house after having been fired from Checkers. I found it
difficult to believe that I had been so stupid as not to realise
that all the teller’s cash registered would be linked to the main
computer.

I also
berated myself for not having had the courage to approach Misses
Hawkins with my problem. But I just hadn’t had the confidence to
believe that my problems could mean anything to others. I had
simply assumed that any request for a loan from the company would
be rejected. But Misses Hawkins had said that I was “a valued
employee of the company”. Could I really have been seen as someone
of value? I had always seen myself as someone that other people
used to serve their own purposes and that they regarded me with
disdain. And I had always assumed that I was helpless to change
this.

My depression
was deepened still further by my feelings of helplessness.
Throughout my life I had constantly felt that I was incapable of
changing the course of my life; that I was destined to be
manipulated and used by people more knowledgeable than I was. Even
though I realised that my helplessness was the result of my
innocence and lack of experience and knowledge I knew of no way to
change this. My lack of self-confidence prevented this. And even
though I knew that I needed to change my self-image I had no idea
about how to do this. If only I could convince myself that I was a
capable person; a person with value who could achieve by not
fearing failure.

Perhaps my
father had been right all along when he said that I was useless and
incapable of looking after myself. What had just happened to me
seemed to indicate this. I cursed myself for being so stupid and so
helpless. And if I was so helpless why hadn't I asked Misses
Hawkins to help me? Because I believed that I was too
insignificant. Misses Hawkins was a busy person with lots of
responsibilities. Why would she spend some of her precious time
helping me with my silly problems? But then her words "you're a
valued employee of the company" came back to me
again. Was she simply being kind when she said that so as
to ease my pain? Probably. And would anyone at Checkers even notice
that I was no longer there? I doubted it.

Misses
Hawkins had been right when she said that we all make mistakes
because we
’re human and that we should
learn from our mistakes. What she had meant was that it was only by
making mistakes that we really gained experience. Obviously she
wasn’t talking about silly mistakes that could easily have been
avoided by using common sense. But I knew that I didn’t have the
courage to test my capabilities. I had to convince myself that
failure was part of growing up. But if one didn’t learn from one’s
failures there would be no progress. Every failure had its reasons
and I had to find those reasons and correct them.

My immediate
problem though, was to help Garth out of his predicament. I had
grown to love him dearly and, even though he continued to display
indifference towards me, I knew in my heart that he would
eventually change. Like me, he had also experienced the horrors of
abuse and as a result had built walls around himself for
protection. And, I imagined, a large part of that wall was the fear
of showing emotion. I also struggled with this fear but I believed
that, as a woman, I was more capable of overcoming it. Emotions
seemed to play a much bigger part in women’s lives than it did in
men’s lives.

But how could I help Garth now
that I was unemployed? I wondered if I could persuade him to go to
the Child Welfare Department and tell them of the trouble he was in
and ask them for help. Did I have the right to do this though?
Wouldn’t he accuse me of interfering in something that didn’t
concern me? Would he become angry and draw further away from me as
a result? The old familiar feeling of helplessness descended on me.
I could feel my anger towards myself growing within me. Coupled
with this was my overwhelming frustration at my inability to find a
solution. If only there was someone that I could turn to for help
and advice. But there was nobody.

I was greatly
relieved when I reached home and Garth assured me that
he
’d paid the two thousand Rand to Mister
Bogdanovic and that he now had a week in which to find one thousand
nine hundred Rand to pay the second instalment. I had been frantic
with worry that he might use the money to gamble on the horses in
the hope of winning enough money to pay back the whole
loan.

“
What will
you do now?” I asked as we sat at the kitchen table.

“
I don’t
know.” Garth replied. “How much will you be able to contribute
towards the repayments?”

“
I won’t be
able to contribute anything.” I said. “I’ve got bad news. I’ve been
fired. My boss found out about the two thousand Rand that I took
from the cashiers’ takings. So now I’m unemployed.”

I had thought that Garth would
express some sympathy towards me but once again all he showed was
indifference.

“
I thought
that might happen.” he said. “But you seemed so sure that they’d
never find out; so I let you carry on.”

“
I suppose,
now that I can’t contribute towards our living expenses you’ll want
me to leave.” I said.

“
No.” Garth
said. “Anyway; where would you go? Surely not back to your
parents.”

“
No.” I said.
“The only thing that I can do is try to find another
job.”

“
That would
help.” Garth said. “What kind of job will you look for?”

“
At this
stage; anything.” I said. “I could start by trying to get a job as
a waitress or as a bookkeeper in a small company. There’ll probably
be a lot of ads in the smalls section of The Star
newspaper.”

Even though I
had expected it, Garth’s indifference towards what had happened to
me jolted and hurt me deeply. But again, I came to his defence. The
abuse that he’d suffered as a child had surely caused him to reject
any type of emotion except for anger and hatred. Emotions like
sympathy and love were a weakness to him. But I strongly believed
that, with time, he would overcome this lack of empathy. Until
then, I was prepared to live with it.

Garth stood up from the table
and went to the fridge. He took out a beer.

“
Would you
like one?” he asked holding out the can.

“
Thanks.” I
said. After what I’d been through I needed a drink.

Garth opened the can and handed
it to me. He took out another beer for himself, opened it, and sat
down at the table.

“
The
immediate problem is to find the money to pay the next instalment.”
he said.

I took a deep breath.

“
May I make a
suggestion?” I asked.

“
Sure.” Garth
said.

“
Before I do,
Garth, I want you to understand that I’m only trying to help.” I
said. “If you think that I’m interfering then please say so. I
don’t want to make you angry.”

“
Go ahead.”
Garth said.

“
Garth. As I
understand it, you’ve still got enough money in your investment
account to pay back the money to Mister Bogdanovic, as long as you
pay it back now.” I said trying to keep my voice from trembling.
“If you did that you would save thousands of Rand in interest and
you’d be free of the man.”

Garth shook his head.

“
I can’t do
that.” he said. “It wouldn’t work. Firstly, I would be too
embarrassed to tell the Child Welfare people that I’d lost the
money through gambling, especially as I’d assured them that I would
stop gambling. And secondly, I don’t think that they would help me.
If I went to them now they’d laugh at me.”

“
I don’t
think that they’ll laugh at you.” I said. “If you go to Misses
Phillips and admit that you’ve made a mistake and tell her the
truth and show her how much money would be saved if you paid back
the loan now, I’ve no doubt that she would understand. After all,
she’s a human being and she’s also a trained children’s counsellor.
Besides, what have you got to lose? If she doesn’t agree to help
you, you won’t be any worse off than you are now. And I believe
that she will help you. It’s her duty to help you.”

“
No.” Garth
said stubbornly. “I just can’t do it.”

“
So, what are
you going to do?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” Garth said. “But
I’ll think of something.”

There were
several job offers in THE STAR newspaper smalls, but one of them in
particular seemed most suitable as far as my qualifications went.
It was a small retail dry-cleaning business in the suburb of
Kenilworth on the western side of Rosettenville and only five city
blocks from where I was living. The owners of the business were
looking for a young enthusiastic person with a basic bookkeeping
knowledge. The advertisement gave only a street address. From the
information in the advertisement I deduced that the business
probably didn
’t have a computer system
and that everything was done manually. I also guessed that the
business dealt mainly in cash and that the work would involve
keeping records of the cash inflow, banking the money and paying
accounts as they fell due. I would also probably have to keep a
ledger.

Fearing that the job would be
taken before I got there, I walked to the address given in the
advertisement early the next morning. The shop was already open
when I got there I assumed because many of their customers probably
dropped off their clothing on the way to work. I stepped into the
shop and approached the elderly woman standing behind the
counter.

“
I’m here to
apply for the job advertised in THE STAR newspaper.” I said. “Has
it been filled yet?”

“
No, it
hasn’t.” the woman replied. “You’re nice and early and, to me,
that’s a good sign. I just need to call my husband to take over
from me here.”

The woman disappeared through a
door behind her and returned a short while later accompanied by an
elderly man wearing a brown suit.

“
My husband
will attend to the customers while you and I talk.” the woman said.
“Please come into the back office.”

I walked round the counter and
followed the woman into the office. It was surprisingly large with
three wooden desks arranged along one wall, a row of four steel
filing cabinets along another wall and a small wooden table with a
kettle and a coffee percolator against the third wall. A small
white enamel washbasin with a towel hanging from a rack above it
was fasted to the wall in one corner and several large colourful
calendars hung behind the desks. Two long fluorescent lights hummed
quietly on the ceiling above the desks. The room had a pleasant
homely atmosphere.