The Woman Next Door (26 page)

‘Afternoon, Mrs Agostino.’

‘Frikkie.’

Marion was struggling, hitting up against something.

‘Can I walk with you?’ he asked. ‘Then if you have any notes.’

Marion nodded. Frikkie opened the front door, let her pass. She walked, placing each footstep, afraid she’d fall, but actually the real struggle was metaphysical.

‘Should we start in the kitchen?’

She’d once been watching a TV recording of her favourite opera –
La Traviata
– when, in trying to adjust the picture, she pressed the wrong button and landed on a channel she didn’t know existed. There was a young black girl on the screen – dressed wonderfully in fuchsia – and she was complaining. It was some kind of youth programme, the kind that began choking television after ’94. Black youth, this and that. Anyhow the girl was deciding to move from Cape Town to Johannesburg and her sole reason was the absence of a black middle class. It was all quite strange, the way such things were always strange to Marion. The girl referred to Cape Town as ‘closed’.

‘I’m sick of being an oddity in my own country,’ she’d whined.

She cited the fact that on visits to restaurants the only other black people were there to take her order and wash the dishes. ‘Cape Town, the last outpost’, she’d said in a mocking tone.

The whole thing had stayed with Marion. The girl’s earnest account of a problem Marion had been unaware of. What struck her the most was that the complaint seemed inaccurate. For Marion there were black people everywhere – too many even.

‘Do you like it here, Frikkie?’

He looked startled. ‘You mean?’

‘In Cape Town.’

He frowned. ‘I’m from here.’

‘Oh.’

‘Well, the Eastern Cape originally but, yes, I grew up in Langa.’

‘I see.’

‘It’s difficult to say “like”. But Cape Town’s my home.’ He had a smile like lightning, all sparkle and flash.

Marion nodded. She didn’t feel she could say much. With a look of bemusement, Frikkie continued the inspection. He invited Marion to study the stringer for the grand wooden staircase that had collapsed. And, considering she’d gone on about it, asked that she give a nod to the winders too.

‘I like Frikkie.’

Hortensia frowned. They were sitting in the lounge on the extra-length couch. The TV was on but silent, a female chef was preparing one meal after another for a television audience. Neither woman was watching. Marion was trying to read the
Mail & Guardian
, Hortensia was knitting, explaining how knitting helped her relax. How she hadn’t done it in years and was unable to remember why she’d stopped.

‘Thought you said he was a cretin?’

‘I said that?’

‘That he didn’t know his business and was trying to steal from you.’

‘Frikkie?’

Hortensia pursed her lips. ‘Yes, you like Frikkie the way you like Mama!’ She giggled.

‘You’re laughing at me.’

Hortensia continued giggling, shook her head.

‘Well, if you must know, I do like Mama. Upstanding man – so few about.’

Dr Mama had visited recently. He’d mentioned that soon Hortensia would be sufficiently recovered, Marion free to return to No. 12. The house next door was almost ready, but even once complete, it would be back to the settling of accounts, putting the house up for sale. For a few seconds all the harassments came back. Although Marion hadn’t thought about it in a while, she now remembered the Pierneef, disappeared, not even a trace. Her time at No. 10 had been an excuse not to think about all this, but soon enough she would have to.

‘You should call him.’ A cheeky glance up from her knitting was the only show that Hortensia was being mischievous.

‘Who?’ Marion pulled herself from her troublesome thoughts, relieved that, at least for the next short while, she didn’t have to deal with them. ‘Call who?’

‘Mama.’

‘What? Really?’

‘Go on.’

‘Well … he’s a bit young for me … don’t you think?’

‘I thought you’d say he was a bit black for you.’ Hortensia snorted loudly, her joke exposed.

Marion looked hurt.

‘Oh, come on, Marion. I mean you’re almost a hundred years old – what the devil would you do with Dr Mama, if you called him?’

‘Hortensia, you obviously, in breaking your leg, broke your ability to count. I’m nowhere near a hundred years old.’

Hortensia grunted.

‘And just because I’m slightly old doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate some male company every now and again.’

‘I suppose so, yes.’ Hortensia darted her eyes again. ‘You ever think of, you know, seeing somebody? After Max.’

‘Well, who, quite frankly?’

‘Slim pickings?’

‘Very much so. Mostly it’s just big bores out there. Old and mean.’

‘And what are we? Sweet as pie?’

‘Well, we’re not that bad, Hortensia. At least we’re better than some of those other wenches. Some of the old women you see today.’ Marion shook her head. ‘I was at the mall the other day and saw one that had clearly been under the knife a few times. It looked like she would find it painful to blink.’

‘Painful enough to just breathe at our age – why complicate things further? Bring the lines, I say. Bring the damned wrinkles. I mean, how much of a coward do you have to be, to be afraid of a few crow’s feet?’

‘Well, there are all the pressures. It seems unfair, you know. We women get the raw deal.’

‘Hmm.’

‘Although, now that I think of it,’ Marion leaned forward, ‘Sarah Clarke troubled me once with a story. Apparently there was a man, I don’t think he lived in Katterijn, can’t recall now. Anyway, Sarah claimed she found out through a friend whose son was a doctor who had a friend whose boyfriend was a plastic surgeon.’

Hortensia snorted.

‘So, the story goes that this man – he was in his seventies, I think – married someone considerably younger. Not terribly young, as in twenty, but in her fifties, perhaps. And he, the man, went to have his … strut sorted out.’

‘Marion, is there something wrong with the word “penis”?’

‘I prefer “strut”. It’s a cleaner word.’

‘A strut is a piece of building. This is biology, not architecture.’

Marion shrugged.

‘Tell me what Gordon Mama says when he realises his date can’t properly identify his anatomy.’

‘Oh, Hortensia. Who said anything about a date?’

Hortensia rolled her eyes. ‘Anyway.’ She went back to knitting. ‘I didn’t mention he’s taken a cruise.’

‘What?’

‘He’s taken a cruise … with a lady friend.’

‘How do you know?’

‘He, being a gentleman, called to let me know that I could switch to a cane soon. He mentioned Trudy would be attending while he was away. Me being … interested, I asked where he was going.’

‘Ah.’

‘You sound disappointed.’ Hortensia was smiling.

‘Well. His loss!’

‘That’s what the young people say.’

‘And they’re right.’ Marion rubbed her wrist. ‘I’m too old anyway. I can’t date. I’ve got aches and pains. Too many.’

‘That’s it, though.’

‘What?’

‘This. Getting old. More and more aches.’

Marion scowled. ‘And trying to fix everything.’

‘Does it work?’

‘What?’

‘The trying to fix?’

‘Not really. I have four children, Hortensia. Three I haven’t spoken to in almost a year. I never see them. Marelena, my oldest daughter, she calls, but I always get the sense, when we speak, that she’s holding a gun to my head. And that I’m holding one to hers.’

Hortensia set her needles aside.

‘No, the fixing doesn’t work. I’m a terrible mother. There’s no fixing that.’

‘Why is it like that? Like a death sentence?’

Marion tried to find a way to explain. She had teeth in her heart. Marion knew they shouldn’t be there, but there they were: teeth in her heart.

‘I wasn’t happy as a child. I know that sounds so pat but … I think I was angry with my parents.’

‘Why?’

‘I wanted them to be different. Be stronger. Which is crazy, because I wasn’t any of those things. When the time came with my own children, I wasn’t those things.’

Hortensia picked up her needles again. Marion played with her fingernails, she felt exposed.

‘You think I’m ridiculous.’

‘No, it’s not that. It’s just: what are you so scared of? Face your children. Face them!’

Marion shook her head.

‘What?’

‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. Just that … you’re lecturing me on family. You?’

‘I’m not sure what you’re getting at.’

‘Come on, Hortensia. You’re hardly the person to tell anyone anything about
family
.’

Hortensia had never slapped anyone and now, over eighty, she had discovered how adept she was at it. After the whack, Marion’s two hands – one atop the other – stayed against the cheek. As if she was holding the pain of it in, or maybe keeping it at bay, Hortensia couldn’t figure out which.

Marion left the lounge and, under half an hour later, she dragged her small suitcase down and let herself out the front door. Hortensia marvelled at herself, at her sense of offence that Marion had not even bothered to say thank you and goodbye.

NO MATTER HOW
much rage Hortensia had felt in her life, she did not know herself as someone who wrought violence. Whatever it was, Hortensia – a woman who had frightened many many people in her life – had finally succeeded in scaring herself. It was enough, she thought. It was done.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello, is that Esme Weathers? Ms Esme Weathers?’

‘Yes, this is she.’

‘Good evening, Ms Weathers. My name is Hortensia James. I am the widow of Peter James.’

‘Oh.’

‘Perhaps you know who that is. I don’t know, and I’m sorry to call you like this. The circumstances require it.’

‘Okay.’

‘Peter died almost two months ago and he wanted me to contact you. He left a will and … I didn’t know you existed, he wanted us to … know about each other.’

Hortensia gave the girl some seconds to comprehend everything.

‘I’m sorry to pressure you, but his estate is being concluded. It’s rather,’ she wanted to say ‘vindictive’ but understood that was inappropriate, ‘… particular, but he’s included a return ticket. His last wishes were that we meet.’

Having made the call, Hortensia now fussed: how would it be to meet Peter’s child? Trudy came by and brought a cane. Mama was back from his trip, he phoned and it was nice to hear his voice. Marion was living next door, she supposed, far away, somehow, and unreachable.

‘Ma’am,’ Bassey came to stand in the hallway as Hortensia tested out the stick. It was made from a strong but indeterminate wood, varnished dark and gleaming.

‘What do you think, Bassey?’

‘Agnes is sick.’

‘Oh dear. Is it bad?’

‘Cancer.’

Hortensia walked beneath the Silver. A slight wind at her cheeks. She touched the trunk and traced the place a person (so long ago some thought it ought to be forgotten) had carved. Scars, long and deep, one two three – people were dying and someone was counting. Hortensia experienced a swell of sadness as she thought of her sister. She missed Zippy, but realised phoning her would not assuage the feeling. She missed their childhood, the lost opportunities they’d had for real friendship. And then Hortensia tried to imagine Beulah’s grandmother, Annamarie, but her mind veered from that too. Then she thought of Peter. She thought of the already dead.

It was unpleasant to be back in a hospital, but Hortensia was glad to be on her own two feet and not flat on her back on a stretcher, at the mercy of others. Bassey had mentioned he would be visiting Agnes and Hortensia asked if she could go along. A young man picked them up from the house; Toussaint his name was, dark with bright eyes and a French turn to his accent. They drove to Red Cross Hospital. Cape Town looked strange to Hortensia from the back seat of the Renault. There were men at the robots with window-wipers and white bottles squirting soapy water. Hortensia asked Toussaint to roll down her window.

‘It’s stuck.’

‘Apologies. Child-lock.’ He drove on when the light changed.

‘I’d wanted to give them money,’ Hortensia said, rueful.

Toussaint and Bassey spoke in French. Hortensia felt left out, which made her listen closer, lean in. Toussaint’s voice, the intonations, the way he pronounced ‘Bassey’, almost leaving off the last syllable; he had a familiarity with the name, the shorthand of intimacy. Bassey in the passenger seat stretched his hand and placed it on the back of the driver’s headrest. All this was a small window into something Hortensia had never wanted to see. She didn’t want to make friends with her house-help – that could too easily turn her into Jessica Tandy’s Miss Daisy, a do-gooder, and all the complications of that. She wanted a clipped relationship, professional, a respectable exchange, good money for good service.

The man at reception said there was someone there already, so when they peeped through the door and saw Marion sitting on a chair, her back to them, Hortensia felt prepared. Agnes was sitting up, propped by a family of pillows.

‘Mrs James.’

‘I’m so sorry, Agnes.’

Marion turned around. Bassey and Toussaint went towards Agnes and the way they greeted each other brought again that sensation, like she Hortensia had missed out on something. She placed the flowers she had picked from her garden amongst the other vases and teddy bears that cluttered a small table. Agnes looked groggy from the operation.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Hortensia said again. ‘I don’t know what else to say.’

Agnes smiled. She was clearly weak, but also had that look of peace Hortensia had taught herself not to envy in others.

A woman appeared at the door. Hortensia would later learn she was Agnes’s daughter, Niknaks.

Marion greeted her and then they all left, so the mother and daughter could be alone.

Toussaint offered Hortensia a lift home but she declined. ‘I’ll call a taxi when I’m ready.’ She turned to Marion, ‘Would you have tea with me?’

‘Well.’

‘I’d like to talk, Marion. Please.’

‘Okay.’

They fell into step along the dreary hospital corridor. The pattern of their walking reminded Hortensia of the obstacle courses she’d navigated in her home with Marion looking on.