Homing (3 page)

More water. Next to the jug was a small dish holding two wrapped biscuits. Digestives – the kind that Ray enjoyed with his tea. She pulled the cellophane off one, but her stomach rejected the thought as soon as she got a whiff of its mealy sweetness. It broke in her fingers, and once there were crumbs in her hand it was only natural to throw them to the carpet for the birds.

In an instant the boldest bird had hopped down from the minibar, legs outstretched and wings braking. The others piled in. They were shades of the same grey, birds and carpet, but the jostling animals’ colour was alive and various. Wings fanned and snaky heads jabbed at the crumbs. She broke up the second biscuit.

An extravagant thought came to her: room service. The phone was to hand, right next to the bed. She ordered toast, coffee, aspirin. More toast.

When the knock came, she went to the door and opened it just a crack to take the tray, ignoring the waiter’s knowing smile. As soon as he was definitely gone, she poked a hand out again to hang up the
DO NOT DISTURB
sign.

Crumbs on the carpet, on the credenza, on top of the
TV
cabinet, at the foot of the bed. Nona poured herself a strong coffee and settled back against the pillows to watch.

More birds hustled in through the window, shouldering each other, flapping and squabbling. Their claws scraped and ticked excitedly on the veneer cabinets, snagged in the bedspread. Every now and then one lofted into the air, wings clapping, before climbing back down into the skirmish. The carpet seethed. Once again, Nona was the still point in a moving scene. Her eyes grew heavy. There was a dusty, sweet smell of feathers and bird shit in the room, and a restful coo and rustle. She drowsed.

She dreamt she was walking in the hotel, down a long gold corridor, looking for a way through the building. A flight path. But there were no exits here, no clear routes. The birds were with her and they were trapped, battering up against glazed windows, winging down corridors into dead ends, tangling in elevator cables. She pushed at the walls with her hands, searching for secret doorways; but the hotel could not be unbuilt.

She woke and dozed, woke and dozed, drinking more water and using the bathroom. The birds were dozing too, perched on towel rack and headboard. She wanted to sleep with them for ever, suspended three storeys in the air.

It was late afternoon when she finally rose. The pigeons were gone, leaving only their feathers and the blots of their droppings.

Already she could see that the room – despite the soiling, the smell, the clothes on the floor – was shrugging off this brief habitation. When the carpet shook its nylon pelt, all trace of living things would be repelled. Soon the room would be dreaming again in its pristine blankness, thoughtless, faithless, without memory. Readying its cool, promiscuous surfaces for the next encounter.

She dressed quickly, packed her few things, put out a large tip for the cleaning lady and left the key in the door. Back down the corridor, into the elevator, across the carpeted entrance hall and out, avoiding the eyes of the red-jacket boys and girls.

Then down the long avenue of palms, rustling and stirring, with their own wild tribes of birds lodged like seeds in the cracks between the fronds. The grounds did not seem so enormous to her now. In every direction – beyond the flickering mesh of the tennis-court fence, past the rose garden – there was a wedge of pink wall blocking the line of sight. She left through the gates and walked the long way round, back home. The sun was low.

She was a block away when she heard the whistling. High and looping – not the birdman’s, but still familiar. Funny, that you could recognise the voice in a whistle.

When she turned the last corner, Ray was out in the alley, head cocked to the sky, seed in his outstretched palm.

“Home early,” he said.

She put down her bag. “Missed you, didn’t I?”

“They didn’t pitch up this morning.” He let the seed fall to the ground and wiped his hand on his trousers. Fretful, like an old man. “Didn’t come.”

“Oh, Ray. They’ll be back,” she said, taking his arm. “Those birds, they know which side their bread is buttered.”

She helped him into the deckchair and took her seat alongside. It was that time of evening, when the sun in the windows cast weak shadows at their feet.

“You think?” he asked.

“You’ll see.”

And so they reclined, Nona and Ray, their backs to the new hotel, saying a few quiet words to each other off and on. They watched the road and then the sky, and then the road again. That old road: altered but familiar, stolen from them and yet still theirs. Waiting, in that changing and mysterious light, for the birds to find their way.

If you begin a story with a high building, it’s supposed to end with a fall. But that’s not where this story is going. In fact, when I remember that apartment up on the twenty-second floor, that summer before I turned nineteen – and sometimes it does still come into my dreams – the dread is not of a fall; the fear is of staying up there for ever, of never coming back down to ground.

It was one of those fancy blocks of flats they were building all over central Cape Town then – “New York loft-style apartments”, they called them. I was too poor for a car, so I took a minibus taxi to town and walked from the station – not easy in my new shoes, black leather with a heel. I was conscious of the dust on their soles as I stepped into the building’s cool lobby. The entrance was imposing but seemed hardly used; the people who lived here probably entered only through the underground parking, feet never touching ground from highway to home.

Certainly the porter at the front desk seemed brand new, his face less creased than his shirt, which still held its folds from the packaging. Did I look as green as he did, in my clothes bought specially? No doubt our tensely held expressions were much the same. We might have burst out laughing, if either one had let slip the first smile. But as it was, I was keeping my charm for someone else.

“I’ve come to see Mr Muller,” I said. “Mr Bernard Muller?”

He gave no sign of recognition, but swivelled the fat ledger around and pushed it across the counter. I hesitated, then carefully wrote in my name, avoiding his eye. He got up from his seat and passed an access card over a sensor next to the lifts.

The doors snapped open briskly. Like the rest of the building, this elevator was sparkling, new-made, as if it had never unsealed its brushed-steel doors before. I stepped inside, held my breath, pressed twenty-two. The machinery was quiet and there was no sensation of movement; but still I felt the dizzying speed of my ascent. Discreet amber numbers spooled higher – seventh floor, eighth … my heart winding tighter with every floor.

Alone in the lift, I examined myself. My reflection in the machine’s steel sides was clouded, a girl unformed. I bared my teeth, turned left and right. My body was pleasingly elongated. I’d pulled my dark hair back into a ballerina bun, and my head looked small, but long-necked and elegant, like a deer’s. I’d worn fitted dark clothes, those heeled shoes. Not my usual gear of jeans and sloppy
T
-shirts. I’d told myself they were working clothes: professional. But the shirt pulled tight on my breasts, the dark tailored trousers clasped my thighs, and underneath there was new black lace underwear, a little scratchy and tight. I put my hand on my hips, slung one hip higher than the other, feeling the point of my hip bone in my palm.

I’d been a plump child and teenager, and I was still getting used to these new bones. I couldn’t stop looking at myself in mirrors, discovering new angles. I felt raw to things, dangerously light.

Twenty? You seem much more mature, if you don’t mind my saying. And you write?

He’d touched my hand as he’d said it, looking up from signing my copy of his latest novel. Behind me, a long queue waited. His hair was greying but his eyes were alive with suggestion, causing the blood to rise up my neck to my cheeks. I wasn’t surprised; this was what I’d known would happen. What I had been imagining all through both his readings, which I’d been so lucky to get into; and for a long time before that, staring at that moody black-and-white photo they used on the back cover of all his books. The deep-set eyes, the half-smile, the black hair falling over his brow.

Of course I’d read all about him: the awards, the ex-wives and girlfriends, the public outbursts and rivalries. Everyone knew the stories. He had a temper, they said. I wondered what it would take to make him raise that deep, smooth voice. To make it break, or sigh.

Actually, I have a book, a manuscript. It’s not finished, but I thought, I hoped …

And I’d held out the fat envelope, trembling slightly. At that moment, I saw clearly what it was – a clumsy thing, adolescent, smudged – and nearly snatched it back in shame. But then Bernard Muller was taking it from me, was weighing it in his hands. He was looking into my eyes.

How wonderful. Come and see me this weekend – Sunday? Drop in, we can discuss your work in a more comfortable environment. My flat has great views.

And he wrote something in my copy of his book, under the signature: an address.

Later, shopping for clothes, I ran that voice back and forth through my mind, fingering it like a bolt of fine cloth. The voice guided me to sheerer fabrics, tighter fits. To the low-slung trousers, the slim-line shirt. New bra and panties. The shoes.

But now, looking at myself in the lift door – thirteenth floor, fourteenth – I wavered. The clothes were too much, too after-dark, too obvious. A blush pushed to my cheeks and I laid the side of my face to the steel. I have thin skin; the blood shines through, so treacherous. I fastened my top button. And then the doors sucked open and I stepped into the brightness of the lobby beyond. No retreat.

Perfect carpeted hush, the light steady and diffuse. I picked up a low hum of some electrical system, and the sound tightened my heart another turn. The door was at the end of the corridor, beyond a stairwell. I walked up to it, knocked and waited, not sure how to arrange my legs or fold my arms. I unbuttoned the shirt again, slouched a leg. Sucked in my cheeks just a little, tried to soften the clench of my jaw. Slouched the other leg. I was about to knock again when the security peephole went dark. Then came a series of clicks and scrabbles on the other side, as if of many complex locks and latches; whole minutes seemed to pass. At last the slide of a bolt.

It was a woman who opened the door. Very tall. Her cream silk dressing gown, which she held tight around her body, emphasised a fine bust, hips, a long waist. Thick gold hair fell unkempt to her shoulders. She smelt both tawdry and expensive, of crumpled sheets and perfume. The long fingers that held the gown closed were tipped with perfect oval nails, shell pink. I wasn’t good at putting ages to people, but I knew she was much older than me: in her forties, perhaps. She leant her head back to look at me over broad cheekbones and a fine strong nose. The face of an eagle.

“Christ,” she said. “Now this.”

Was this the right flat? Before I could ask, she’d turned and walked into the dim room behind, letting the silk fall open and billow from broad shoulders. She had a very straight carriage, but as she walked away I saw she favoured one side. In fact, she was limping.

“Take your shoes off at the door,” she said over her shoulder. A flutter of pale silk as she turned into a room halfway down the passage.

I checked the number on the door again, and entered uncertainly. Against the wall was a neat row of men’s shoes: polished brogues, sandals, tennis shoes. To save the floors, I supposed; they were gleaming wood. There was also a pair of knee-high leather boots – crocodile skin, needle toes, spike heels – which had been tossed aside. I took off my own black shoes and saw how cheap and dull they looked, and how much smaller.

I stood listening, although I could hear very little over the panic of my heart, the shock of entry. Where was he?

I was in a large, high room, but dark. Tall orange curtains lined the room to the left. The morning sunlight lit them with glowering colour, but did not penetrate. In the dimness I sensed disorder: a sharp disturbance in the air, a suspended energy, as if a very loud noise had just stopped.

“I need a cigarette,” the woman called.

She was in the bedroom. Slumped back on the cushions of a double bed, her gown hanging open. I looked away from the heavy globe of one exposed breast. Smooth, strong legs were crossed at the ankles. She had an extraordinary body, like a voluptuous doll, long and full, but there was something strained in her pose.

“Cigarette,” she said.

“I don’t smoke.”

“Here.” She nodded at the bedside table, and I went close to pick up the pack of smokes and the lighter and pass them to her. She fumbled, and at last gave up with a cry, letting the unlit cigarette fall into her lap and curling her hand into her chest. There was something wrong with it, with both her hands. She tried to push herself up on the pillows but whimpered again, and fell back clumsily.

“Oh dear,” I said. “Are you okay?”

“So you’re here for Bernard, I take it?” she said, talking over me. “You’re the new one?” She looked at me sideways, almost sly. Hair fell across her mouth and she blew it away.

“Maybe I should go.”

“Well, Bernard
was
here,” she said. “Look – see.” She held up her hands to me, laughed. “Look at the size of it. This one’s broken, I think.”

One wrist was badly swollen; the knuckles of the other hand were red and scuffed and she held them stiffly. One of her fingernails, I saw now, was snapped off.

“Do you want … should I call a doctor?”

She snorted, scornful. She looked at my bare feet – white, with pink lines where the seams of the new shoes had pressed; then moved her cold gaze up my body to my face. I stood quite still. The only movement I couldn’t control was that of the blood into my cheeks, again.

“I just came to pick up my manuscript,” I said.

“Did you, darling?” she said. “Now please would you light my fucking cigarette. I can’t do it myself, you see.”