The Woman Next Door (18 page)

‘Am I too early?’

‘Not at all. I have a break, now. After you.’

They walked along the Embankment. There was a building site nearby and the noise of drills, post-war efforts of remaking, gave a good excuse not to talk; Hortensia had nothing to say. People watched them walk, many turned around, and she decided that was because they looked handsome together. She moved closer to him and toyed with hooking her arm into his. Decided against.

‘You look … lovely,’ Peter said.

‘Pardon? Oh. Thank you.’ She checked the ground, watched her feet, watched the paving. She wondered where her courage had gone.

There was a tea room at nearby Charing Cross, Peter mentioned, and they turned a corner and walked towards the station.

He asked for coffee with milk and she said she wanted black tea. They sat in the corner of the cafeteria away from the window, from the stares of passing commuters. There were sconces along the cream-coloured walls and Hortensia fingered the cheesecloth on the table, the soft fuzzy skin of it on the tips of her fingers. It was warm in the corner, but she still rubbed her hands together as she sat. Finding her courage again, she started,

‘You look so … like a proper working man. It’s good.’

His eyes were a very grey-blue and sometimes, if he looked at you in a particular way, you could be fooled into thinking there was something green there too.

‘It’s not the best money yet, but there are prospects. Maybe they’ll send me to Africa.’

‘Goodness!’

The time they’d been apart seemed to have done something to them. She felt a woman and, finally sitting down together, across a table, he seemed a man who didn’t just happen to be wherever she was; it had been planned and arranged – on purpose.

‘How are the lines. The forms?’

‘Two more years.’

The conversation found its stride. It seemed easy to tell Peter that she had been cheated of a mark because she was black and a woman. He nodded, frowned and apologised as if he’d committed the slight. He knitted his eyebrows, which were a darker brown than his hair. She’d thought he would ask her to prove it, ask for a clear explanation. In fact she’d been afraid he’d do that, not only because it would mean he didn’t understand, but because she had no proof. She had only a feeling that she trusted and it meant something to her that he trusted it too.

They sipped their beverages, both warming their hands against the mugs.

‘And your parents?’ She was asking after their health, but inside she was asking: what are we doing and, if we do it, how will it all go?

‘The same.’ He smiled into his cup, took a gulp, set the mug down, looked around the teashop.

She walked him back to his office.

‘So, have you ever thought about travelling around. The world, I mean?’

Hortensia frowned. ‘Not really.’

‘For instance, going really far, somewhere like Africa, for instance.’

She smiled.

‘Well?’

‘It would be like going home. For the first time.’

He nodded. ‘True,’ he said, a little pink with embarrassment. He scuffed the underside of his shoe back and forth along the pavement. They stood to the side as his colleagues walked by. ‘I have to get back,’ he finally said and bent to land a kiss on her cheek.

It took her by surprise. Later she would tease him about taking a year to make up his mind.

‘See you,’ he said as he went in through the door. He didn’t look back.

They saw each other a few more times before Hortensia returned to Brighton, her address securely written in neat lines in Peter’s address book; his, put to memory in her mind. They wrote to each other and where before even their most friendly of meetings had maintained an air of formality, the letters were flirtatious, loose, even steamy. Peter had noticed a mole, black like the ink of his pen, just beneath her left collar bone. Distracting, he confessed. And two letters later he wondered about it, what it felt like to touch. Hortensia was initially more practical. She wanted to know whom he had exchanged letters with previously. Was he courting another? Her suspicions were there without having to be conjured – no doubt the result of growing up in the fog of Eda’s endless sense of present or coming injustice. As the year went along, the frequency of Peter’s letters, his jokes and his passion gave Hortensia the courage to allow love to bubble up, to scatter and pop along the surface of her life. He asked that she draw him pictures – their ready joke about forms, lines. Peter sent Hortensia scribblings of chemical compounds, which he would name and explain to her. Why the fascination? she once asked. His answer was cryptic in its brevity. He liked to study ‘combination’; he liked to dwell upon the science of it. She enjoyed this about his mind, the intensity with which it considered these scientific details that remained abstract to her. He seemed to apply the same intensity in studying her and, late at night, this thought made her skin hot.

The following year, in May, Kwittel died. Hortensia attended the funeral but returned to Brighton and stayed through the summer, unable to face London. She felt guilty, but couldn’t find the courage to return to a home without her father sitting inside it, reading. Peter drove down to see her. He came to comfort her, to hold her.

Marion hadn’t got around to the library. She’d told herself that Beulah Gierdien was in the unfortunate position of needing something from Hortensia James, which she would never get. The spite that had initially motivated Marion’s need to vindicate Beulah’s request had diminished. In its place Marion found herself curious about Hortensia, about her strange regard for history, her solitary life.

At the end of the last committee meeting Marion had stressed to Ludmilla the importance of keeping her informed. It was that self-contained Scandinavian quality of Ludmilla’s that had made Marion nervous, made her worry that her committee meetings would be sidelined.

Instead of an update, Ludmilla called and asked if Marion had been to the library already – if not, could she please look up some details for them. She was interested in the history of the Koppie and its surrounding lands, since it was looking possible that the case would settle out of court and the Samsodiens would be granted a parcel of land, within Katterijn, as compensation. I doubt we can stop them, but you never know, Ludmilla had said, and Marion had the uneasy sensation of feeling both nauseous and flattered. She agreed to go.

When Marion told Hortensia she was going to the library, she also thought, in a rare moment of care, to ask if she could get her a book.

‘From that sorry excuse of a library, with countless Wilbur Smiths pouring from every crevice and not a single book by Walcott, Lamming or Aidoo?’ She sucked her teeth. ‘Ignoramuses.’

Marion took that as a ‘no’. She gathered her book bag and walked, enjoying the sun on her neck, the fact of not needing a scarf. She missed Alvar, but when she’d raised with Hortensia the possibility of having him at No. 10 – out of the question, she’d said, shaking her head for extra emphasis.

On account of its three gables, Marion assumed the library building had once been a wine cellar although Beulah’s note said ‘stables’. Its foundations dated back to the eighteenth century. The thatch roof had since been replaced by slate, but the entrance still had the original stone floor.

‘Agatha.’

She was a woman with the requisite brown bun on the top of her head, a white-bone comb holding it there, and thick glasses that made her eyes look like large black-and-white buttons.

‘Afternoon, Marion. Returning?’

Marion pushed her stash forward. The Jilly Cooper was forgettable. Her cheeks grew warm as Agatha scanned the three Wilbur Smiths. She hadn’t had the strength to challenge Hortensia on that.

It was midday on a Tuesday, the Katterijn library was empty, but then again Marion had rarely seen it full.

‘Here are the magazines you requested.’ Agatha moved a pile of glossies along the counter. ‘You taking out some more? I can keep these here for you.’

‘Thanks, Aggie. I’m actually here for some research, but … you know, I was also wondering, where do all the books come from?’

‘The collection? Donations, really, Marion. And some funding from Council.’

‘And the ones that get bought – who buys those? I mean, who decides for the library?’

‘I do. And I take suggestions as well, based on what people around here would like to read.’

‘I see and … do you have anything … diverse.’ There was really no need to whisper.

‘You mean black?’

‘Aggie.’

‘We have a special section. In the corner over there.’

Marion nodded. She was picturing Hortensia being sent to
a corner
for the authors she preferred.

An old woman and a little boy came through the swing door. She had a cane and the boy dragged his school bag behind him, like a dog on a leash.

‘Hello,’ Agatha greeted them and they walked past the counter to the children’s section. ‘You were saying, Marion?’

‘Research. The historic materials. Remember I mentioned I’d come through … for the Beulah business. I thought I better get on with it.’

‘Yes, of course. It’s nice to have some interest. I stumbled on the materials when I took over and tried my best to sort them out.’

Agatha seemed excited. She rose off her chair to come around the counter. She had the walk of a heavier person, her steps suggesting a weight her bones didn’t carry. She put a hand to Marion’s arm by way of leading her.

They walked through the main room of the library, with its runs of benches and a few reading alcoves with dormer windows. The back room, a large storeroom, smelt of dank and mould. It was dark despite it being a bright day outside. There were two high square windows, but apart from that no natural light got in. One desk and a narrow chair waited for Marion.

‘You can sit here. Some are in files and some of the stuff is back there still in boxes. Wait.’ Agatha’s tone was hushed.

Marion pulled the chair out and balanced her weight on it. Agatha shuffled towards an arrangement of bookshelves and sealed boxes.

‘I hardly ever come here any more,’ Agatha said, breathless with pulling files off the shelf. She set them on the desk. ‘Careful,’ she said catching Marion’s eyes. And then she left.

Marion shook her head. Agatha was known for being dotty, an odd sort. The files left a film of dust on the tips of Marion’s fingers and her eyes watered from it.

Beulah’s dates – the deaths of the babies – matched the documents Agatha had produced. There was no mention of a Jude, but there was a pile of medical records as well as death certificates. Marion leafed through and her fingers remained light, unaffected, until she realised she was leafing through pages documenting the death of children – so many. Annamarie’s children, if Beulah was to be believed, could be amongst these. Marion felt ashamed. A woman wanted to perform a ritual ceremony, fulfil her grandmother’s last wish, and here she was fingering through history with no purpose. She wasn’t here to corroborate Beulah’s story – she didn’t care enough to – and she wasn’t here to refute it, either. Ludmilla had wanted her to sniff around, find some reason why the Samsodiens shouldn’t be granted land in Katterijn. Marion suddenly felt tired, unfit for the tesk.

In another pile of documents there were some maps, hand-drawn and labelled in what must have been Dutch. A file of just numbers, some kind of ledger. Another with names, with the odd sheet of paper in Arabic script. At the bottom of the pile were a series of drawings. There was a sketch of Katterijn vlei. A diagrammatic map of the whole neighbourhood with some of the buildings labelled, in English this time. Marion’s eye searched for Katterijn Avenue; there was No. 10 on that stretch – the original manor house, which had burned down. There was the post office which used to be a barn, the Katterijn well that City Council wanted to reinstate as a monument; and there must be the library, except it was labelled as the slave quarters for one Van der Biljt farm. How many incarnations could one building have? There was a series of maps showing the topography and another with all the trees numbered. There was a moth-eaten map of the Koppie, but it wasn’t labelled the Koppie. Almost three hectares of farmland that ran down the hill and abutted the Vineyards. There was a page with names, the script unclear, smudged. Marion read through some sentences at the bottom. Her teeth came together in her mouth and she tasted something unpleasant at the back of her throat. There were sketches of the different contraptions, straps and turning wheels. In a neat hand someone had explained how far to turn the handle before the first bits of bone would start to break. She folded the map over, annoyed that her hands were shaking.

Back at the front desk, Marion couldn’t find a voice to bid Agatha goodbye in.

‘Got all you want – information, I mean? Not taking out anything, I see.’

Marion didn’t move. She fixed her stare at the cross that hung from Agatha’s neck – silver, too large and trendy-looking for a woman like Agatha. She turned to leave.

‘There’s blood here, Marion.’

Marion walked; she heard Agatha call out about the magazines but decided not to turn back – she’d get them some other time. Outside she took five deep breaths. Everyone knew Aggie was a few keys short of a bunch, but Marion couldn’t stop trying to fix her hair even though it was already neat; she straightened her rings but the gems were facing outwards, straight already. She walked back towards No. 10, and twice she stopped to look over her shoulder.

When Ludmilla called to find out what Marion had discovered, Marion told her the truth. That the documents were old and tattered, that if Ludmilla wanted to conduct proper research she should drive into town, visit the archives. Marion was unusually short with Ludmilla on the phone and she could sense the woman’s confusion. She herself was perplexed.

They planned it, practically had the conversations marked out onstage with electrical tape. Hortensia would graduate, they’d tell Eda first (Peter wrote his intentions down in a letter) and then they’d, together, visit Peter’s parents. With all the nerves, the rehearsals and the overwhelming dread, the actual conversations were an anticlimax. Eda, convinced her daughter had been destined for spinsterhood, didn’t even mention that she would have preferred a black son-in-law, a Bajan at that. They’d been prepared for a bigger fight from Mr and Mrs James. Peter had not had to say anything explicit for Hortensia to realise his parents would disapprove. While affronted at that first meeting, at their appraisal of her, she’d also imagined, fantastically, that there would have been spitting and hissing, swearing at the least. The civility of their prejudice, the cunning, had left a polite wound. Beyond that they seemed resigned to their misfortune – Hortensia’s blackness and the brown grandchildren she would give them.