Disgrace (19 page)

He tries to imagine her twenty years younger, when the upturned face on its short neck must have seemed pert and the freckled skin homely, healthy. On an impulse he reaches out and runs a finger over her lips.

She lowers her eyes but does not flinch. On the contrary, she responds, brushing her lips against his hand – even, it might be said, kissing it – while blushing furiously all the time.

That is all that happens. That is as far as they go. Without another word he leaves the clinic. Behind him he hears her switching off the lights.

The next afternoon there is a call from her. ‘Can we meet at the clinic, at four,' she says. Not a question but an announcement, made in a high, strained voice. Almost he asks, ‘Why?', but then has the good sense not to. Nonetheless he is surprised. He would bet she has not been down this road before. This must be how, in her innocence, she assumes adulteries are carried out: with the woman telephoning her pursuer, declaring herself ready.

The clinic is not open on Mondays. He lets himself in, turns the key behind him in the lock. Bev Shaw is in the surgery, standing with her back to him. He folds her in his arms; she nuzzles her ear against his chin; his lips brush the tight little curls of her hair. ‘There are blankets,' she says. ‘In the cabinet. On the bottom shelf.'

Two blankets, one pink, one grey, smuggled from her home by a woman who in the last hour has probably bathed and powdered and anointed herself in readiness; who has, for all he knows, been powdering and anointing herself every Sunday, and storing blankets in the cabinet, just in case. Who thinks, because he comes from the big city, because there is scandal attached to his name, that he makes love to many women and expects to be made love to by every woman who crosses his path.

The choice is between the operating table and the floor. He spreads out the blankets on the floor, the grey blanket underneath, the pink on top. He switches off the light, leaves the room, checks that the back door is locked, waits. He hears the rustle of clothes as she undresses. Bev. Never did he dream he would sleep with a Bev.

She is lying under the blanket with only her head sticking out. Even in the dimness there is nothing charming in the sight. Slipping off his underpants, he gets in beside her, runs his hands down her body. She has no breasts to speak of. Sturdy, almost waistless, like a squat little tub.

She grasps his hand, passes him something. A contraceptive. All thought out beforehand, from beginning to end.

Of their congress he can at least say that he does his duty. Without passion but without distaste either. So that in the end Bev Shaw can feel pleased with herself. All she intended has been accomplished. He, David Lurie, has been succoured, as a man is succoured by a woman; her friend Lucy Lurie has been helped with a difficult visit.

Let me not forget this day, he tells himself, lying beside her when they are spent. After the sweet young flesh of Melanie Isaacs, this is what I have come to. This is what I will have to get used to, this and even less than this.

‘It's late,' says Bev Shaw. ‘I must be going.'

He pushes the blanket aside and gets up, making no effort to hide himself. Let her gaze her fill on her Romeo, he thinks, on his bowed shoulders and skinny shanks.

It is indeed late. On the horizon lies a last crimson glow; the moon looms overhead; smoke hangs in the air; across a strip of waste land, from the first rows of shacks, comes a hubbub of voices. At the door Bev presses herself against him a last time, rests her head on his chest. He lets her do it, as he has let her do everything she has felt a need to do. His thoughts go to Emma Bovary strutting before the mirror after her first big afternoon.
I have a lover! I have a lover!
sings Emma to herself. Well, let poor Bev Shaw go home and do some singing too. And let him stop calling her poor Bev Shaw. If she is poor, he is bankrupt.

EIGHTEEN

P
ETRUS HAS BORROWED
a tractor, from where he has no idea, to which he has coupled the old rotary plough that has lain rusting behind the stable since before Lucy's time. In a matter of hours he has ploughed the whole of his land. All very swift and businesslike; all very unlike Africa. In olden times, that is to say ten years ago, it would have taken him days with a hand-plough and oxen.

Against this new Petrus what chance does Lucy stand? Petrus arrived as the dig-man, the carry-man, the water-man. Now he is too busy for that kind of thing. Where is Lucy going to find someone to dig, to carry, to water? Were this a chess game, he would say that Lucy has been outplayed on all fronts. If she had any sense she would quit: approach the Land Bank, work out a deal, consign the farm to Petrus, return to civilization. She could open boarding kennels in the suburbs; she could branch out into cats. She could even go back to what she and her friends did in their hippie days: ethnic weaving, ethnic pot-decoration, ethnic basket-weaving; selling beads to tourists.

Defeated. It is not hard to imagine Lucy in ten years' time: a heavy woman with lines of sadness on her face, wearing clothes long out of fashion, talking to her pets, eating alone. Not much of a life. But better than passing her days in fear of the next attack, when the dogs will not be enough to protect her and no one will answer the telephone.

He approaches Petrus on the site he has chosen for his new residence, on a slight rise overlooking the farmhouse. The surveyor has already paid his visit, the pegs are in place.

‘You are not going to do the building yourself, are you?' he asks.

Petrus chuckles. ‘No, it is a skill job, building,' he says. ‘Bricklaying, plastering, all that, you need to be skill. No, I am going to dig the trenches. That I can do by myself. That is not such a skill job, that is just a job for a boy. For digging you just have to be a boy.'

Petrus speaks the word with real amusement. Once he was a boy, now he is no longer. Now he can play at being one, as Marie Antoinette could play at being a milkmaid.

He comes to the point. ‘If Lucy and I went back to Cape Town, would you be prepared to keep her part of the farm running? We would pay you a salary, or you could do it on a percentage basis. A percentage of the profits.'

‘I must keep Lucy's farm running,' says Petrus. ‘I must be the
farm manager
.' He pronounces the words as if he has never heard them before, as if they have popped up before him like a rabbit out of a hat.

‘Yes, we could call you the farm manager if you like.'

‘And Lucy will come back one day.'

‘I am sure she will come back. She is very attached to this farm. She has no intention of giving it up. But she has been having a hard time recently. She needs a break. A holiday.'

‘By the sea,' says Petrus, and smiles, showing teeth yellow from smoking.

‘Yes, by the sea, if she wants.' He is irritated by Petrus's habit of letting words hang in the air. There was a time when he thought he might become friends with Petrus. Now he detests him. Talking to Petrus is like punching a bag filled with sand. ‘I don't see that either of us is entitled to question Lucy if she decides to take a break,' he says. ‘Neither you nor I.'

‘How long I must be farm manager?'

‘I don't know yet, Petrus. I haven't discussed it with Lucy, I am just exploring the possibility, seeing if you are agreeable.'

‘And I must do all the things – I must feed the dogs, I must plant the vegetables, I must go to the market – '

‘Petrus, there is no need to make a list. There won't be dogs. I am just asking in a general way, if Lucy took a holiday, would you be prepared to look after the farm?'

‘How I must go to the market if I do not have the kombi?'

‘That is a detail. We can discuss details later. I just want a general answer, yes or no.'

Petrus shakes his head. ‘It is too much, too much,' he says.

Out of the blue comes a call from the police, from a Detective-Sergeant Esterhuyse in Port Elizabeth. His car has been recovered. It is in the yard at the New Brighton station, where he may identify and reclaim it. Two men have been arrested.

‘That's wonderful,' he says. ‘I had almost given up hope.'

‘No, sir, the docket stays open two years.'

‘What condition is the car in? Is it driveable?'

‘Yes, you can drive it.'

In an unfamiliar state of elation he drives with Lucy to Port Elizabeth and then to New Brighton, where they follow directions to Van Deventer Street, to a flat, fortress-like police station surrounded by a two-metre fence topped with razor wire. Emphatic signs forbid parking in front of the station. They park far down the road.

‘I'll wait in the car,' says Lucy.

‘Are you sure?'

‘I don't like this place. I'll wait.'

He presents himself at the charge office, is directed along a maze of corridors to the Vehicle Theft Unit. Detective-Sergeant Esterhuyse, a plump, blond little man, searches through his files, then conducts him to a yard where scores of vehicles stand parked bumper to bumper. Up and down the ranks they go.

‘Where did you find it?' he asks Esterhuyse.

‘Here in New Brighton. You were lucky. Usually with the older Corollas the buggers chop it up for parts.'

‘You said you made arrests.'

‘Two guys. We got them on a tipoff. Found a whole house full of stolen goods. TVs, videos, fridges, you name it.'

‘Where are the men now?'

‘They're out on bail.'

‘Wouldn't it have made more sense to call me in before you set them free, to have me identify them? Now that they are out on bail they will just disappear. You know that.'

The detective is stiffly silent.

They stop before a white Corolla. ‘This is not my car,' he says. ‘My car had CA plates. It says so on the docket.' He points to the number on the sheet: CA 507644.

‘They respray them. They put on false plates. They change plates around.'

‘Even so, this is not my car. Can you open it?'

The detective opens the car. The interior smells of wet newspaper and fried chicken.

‘I don't have a sound system,' he says. ‘It's not my car. Are you sure my car isn't somewhere else in the lot?'

They complete their tour of the lot. His car is not there. Esterhuyse scratches his head. ‘I'll check into it,' he says. ‘There must be a mixup. Leave me your number and I'll give you a call.'

Lucy is sitting behind the wheel of the kombi, her eyes closed. He raps on the window and she unlocks the door. ‘It's all a mistake, he says, getting in. ‘They have a Corolla, but it's not mine.'

‘Did you see the men?'

‘The men?'

‘You said two men had been arrested.'

‘They are out again on bail. Anyway, it's not my car, so whoever was arrested can't be whoever took my car.'

There is a long silence. ‘Does that follow, logically?' she says.

She starts the engine, yanks fiercely on the wheel.

‘I didn't realize you were keen for them to be caught,' he says. He can hear the irritation in his voice but does nothing to check it. ‘If they are caught it means a trial and all that a trial entails. You will have to testify. Are you ready for that?'

Lucy switches off the engine. Her face is stiff as she fights off tears.

‘In any event, the trail is cold. Our friends aren't going to be caught, not with the police in the state they are in. So let us forget about that.'

He gathers himself. He is becoming a nag, a bore, but there is no helping that. ‘Lucy, it really is time for you to face up to your choices. Either you stay on in a house full of ugly memories and go on brooding on what happened to you, or you put the whole episode behind you and start a new chapter elsewhere. Those, as I see it, are the alternatives. I know you would like to stay, but shouldn't you at least consider the other route? Can't the two of us talk about it rationally?'

She shakes her head. ‘I can't talk any more, David, I just can't,' she says, speaking softly, rapidly, as though afraid the words will dry up. ‘I know I am not being clear. I wish I could explain. But I can't. Because of who you are and who I am, I can't. I'm sorry. And I'm sorry about your car. I'm sorry about the disappointment.'

She rests her head on her arms; her shoulders heave as she gives in.

Again the feeling washes over him: listlessness, indifference, but also weightlessness, as if he has been eaten away from inside and only the eroded shell of his heart remains. How, he thinks to himself, can a man in this state find words, find music that will bring back the dead?

Sitting on the sidewalk not five yards away, a woman in slippers and a ragged dress is staring fiercely at them. He lays a protective hand on Lucy's shoulder.
My daughter
, he thinks;
my dearest daughter. Whom it has fallen to me to guide. Who one of these days will have to guide me.

Can she smell his thoughts?

It is he who takes over the driving. Halfway home, Lucy, to his surprise, speaks. ‘It was so personal,' she says. ‘It was done with such personal hatred. That was what stunned me more than anything. The rest was . . . expected. But why did they hate me so? I had never set eyes on them.'

He waits for more, but there is no more, for the moment. ‘It was history speaking through them,' he offers at last. ‘A history of wrong. Think of it that way, if it helps. It may have seemed personal, but it wasn't. It came down from the ancestors.'

‘That doesn't make it easier. The shock simply doesn't go away. The shock of being hated, I mean. In the act.'

In the act. Does she mean what he thinks she means?