Friday night, and Pa is having a go at Dlani, same old story.

I look at Dlani, so small and scared. Then something happens, and he’s not Dlani any more. He’s me, an earlier me, from years ago.

Stop. Like I don’t get enough of Pa in my present life. I don’t need Pa from the past inside my head as well.

“What sort of mark do you call this, you rubbish?”

He’s hitting and shaking Dlani. My stepmother and Azile cower in the kitchen. We all know how fast Pa’s anger can change direction and fall on the next person he sees.

I look at Dlani. His grey, strained face and twitching eyes make me think of Nkokone Maluleke.

I need to get out of here. I head for the tavern.

After a time, the heat inside drives some of us outside again. I see Wandile and his latest babe sloping off to the beat-up black skedonk he borrows from his brother.

I grab a plastic chair, and see my girls have followed me out of the tavern: Gabile, Unathi, a few others. Jodie is also hanging around.

“You don’t need that chair, so I’ll have it,” I hear someone saying, and I see Rhandzu Maluleke dragging a chair into position beside mine.

“So, Zwelo Ncongwane?” she says, and then she just looks at me.

I don’t know what she sees. My face with its bashed nose from when I started boxing, and my lip with its scar from when Pa’s fist opened it when I was a kid?

I look back at her. She’s wearing a sleeveless top with a low, round neckline. Her collarbones gleam in the light flowing out of the tavern, and it’s like tiny points of light are caught in her short hair. Her scent makes me think of cream-soda.

“So what’s it like there in Phalaborwa where you lived?” I say, all cool, so she won’t guess I’m uncomfortable.

“Hot.” She gives me her small closed-mouth smile.

“But what’s there?” I persist, because I’ve never been anywhere much in my life.

“The usual things. Our famous elephant tusks in the street. A stadium. A commercial airport.”

“Airport?” I’m surprised. “I didn’t know that.”

“Phalaborwa isn’t some dorp. There are daily flights to Gauteng.” She looks down and sideways, like she’s embarrassed. “I like to see and hear the planes, and imagine flying away somewhere exciting.”

“You’re kidding!” I can’t stop it bursting out of me, totally uncool. ‘I do the same when the planes from KMIA come over.”

What am I doing, telling her such an embarrassing thing? It’s all right for her, she’s a girl, they do dreaming and stuff.

Something changes in her face. The stern look has gone and her lips are slightly parted, as if she’s just pulled in a small breath.

“And where are you going when you imagine that, Zwelo?” she asks.

“Dunno,” I growl. “Just away.”

“So you’re flying away from something, but I’m always flying to something.”

“Big deal,” I say.

I don’t think she hears me, because she carries on. “I don’t suppose it will ever happen now.”

“What do you mean?”

“With my parents so … destroyed? How can I ever leave them? It’s … it’s selfish of me to even think about it.”

Her voice wobbles as she looks up at the sky, maybe letting go of the flight she won’t be on, saying goodbye.

Claudia comes bouncing over. “Come meet some awesome men, girlfriend,” she says.

“You’re forgetting Rhandzu’s mission,” I sneer.

“Right, the bully boys,” Claudia says, not really interested in talking to me.

Rhandzu doesn’t say anything, or even look at me. She just stands and lets Claudia pull her away.

***

Tell us what you think: At the beginning of this Red is a feeling – Chapter we saw how much of a bully Zwelo’s father is; do you believe that has something to do with Zwelo also being a bully?