The Woman Next Door (23 page)

‘Pain?’

‘Huh?’

‘I saw you scowl.’

‘Hmm. Haven’t heard much noise lately. How are the works coming? Frikkie, the builder. Knows what he’s doing?’

‘Well. I suppose.’

‘Gordon is coming by this week. Thursday, I think. Late afternoon.’

‘Oh. I really like him.’

‘I know. That’s why I’m telling you.’

Hortensia, standing to pause for some beats, noticed Marion blush.

‘First darkie you ever had the hots for?’

‘Hortensia James, I don’t appre—’

‘Spare me, Marion.’ She started walking again.

‘I don’t see him as black.’

‘Of course you don’t. That’s what makes you racist.’

‘Hor—’

‘Marion! It’s too early to argue. I’m sick. And besides, we’re too old for all this.’

She reached the front door, spent several minutes swivelling. She cursed as she did so. Mama had promised she could start walking up stairs soon, but he’d also warned her not to push too hard. Time was a factor in the healing, not just the exercises. She grudgingly accepted that the mindless talking helped her ignore the pain.

‘So, tell me, Marion.’

‘What?’

‘You and Max.’

‘What of it?’

‘Mr Straight-Down-the-Middle.’

‘That how he came across?’

‘Mr Suit-and-Tie.’ Hortensia, her back to Marion, cackled. ‘Wouldn’t have thought you a Non-Black-Gordon-Mama type of gal.’

‘Hey!’

‘Just some fun, Marion. God! Just some damned fun.’

Hortensia got to the chair. She set aside the walker, lowered herself. Marion moved closer.

‘And the land claim? Dare I ask?’

‘Well, I … I’ve been thinking. Ludmilla called me.’

Hortensia grunted.

‘They submitted a dispute.’

‘Thieves!’

‘Well—’

‘You’re defending the Von Struikers, Marion?’

‘Did you read the article?’

‘What article?’ Hortensia started reaching for her walker.

‘In the
Argus
. On the whole case.’

‘No. Unlike you, I don’t need to see an article in the paper to recognise dog-shit.’ She got to her feet.

‘You don’t like me, do you?’ Marion asked, watching Hortensia leave.

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Then why did you invite me into your house?’

‘I was desperate … and possibly mistaken.’

Hortensia wasn’t always in the mood for Marion. She found there were days she could tolerate her and days she couldn’t. She honed her skills and counteracted most of Marion’s attempts to waylay her. Her current handicap was a disadvantage but, if she was careful, she could go a whole week without bumping into her. She admired Marion’s restraint at not simply knocking at her door, and continued to use her special powers to venture out only when the coast was clear. At other times, when the Vulture was about, Hortensia communicated with Bassey via his cellphone. Is this really necessary? the man had asked. Yes, Hortensia had responded.

Marion, well versed in being avoided, had her own skills to contribute to the game. She crept up behind Hortensia.

‘You’ve been avoiding me.’

Hortensia cursed under her breath. She’d taken a chance, desperate for some fresh air, and snuck out onto the patio, happy there had been no Marion in the hallway. And yet here she was. Bassey had helped set Hortensia into the chair and she’d told him she’d shout for him when she was ready to be moved again. She was ready.

‘I don’t understand this, Marion. Why is it suddenly so important that we speak?’

‘I visited the library the other day and—’

‘I do not care.’

‘I’m not denying the claim any more.’

‘I don’t care, Marion. And I’m not going to do this with you.’

‘Do what?’

Hortensia waved her hand, as if Marion were a pong she could dispel. ‘I’m not well. Please, leave me be.’

‘I remembered something, that’s all.’

‘I’m not interested.’

‘And maybe … all this time—’

‘Bassey!’

Marion startled at the loudness.

‘But why? I just thought you and I could talk.’

‘Talk about what?’

‘That … well, it seems what you’re always suggesting is … I guess I wanted to clarify that … I’m not really a racist.’

‘Oh, but you are. Where is he? – Bassey! And I’m not going to solve that for you or be part of your project.’

‘It’s complicated.’

‘I’m sure. I don’t care, by the way. I’m not trying to make the world a better place. I’m too tired. Bassey! For goodness’ sake.’

‘Oh, I’ll call him for you.’

But Bassey appeared.

‘Please. Help me to my room.’

The problem with shame, Marion thought to herself, is that it breeds unproductivity. It is such a crippling thing, and even at a young age Marion knew this. Perhaps not to enunciate it as such (the way she was later able to explain it to her adult self), but she sensed it intuitively.

She came home and she asked her parents why. It was a question she knew they hated. It made her father sweat at his temples and her mother’s eyes grow narrow. It brought back history and unwanted memories. So they said different things depending on the day – how much energy they had. They said ‘because they’re different’, ‘because they broke the law’, ‘because they want to kill us’. They said ‘because they caused trouble’, ‘because they are not good people’, ‘because they want what we have’. They said ‘we don’t know’ sometimes. They said ‘that’s just how life is, that’s how things are – don’t bother about it’.

What Hortensia didn’t seem to understand was that sometimes we have to honour our ancestors and side with them. This meant we justified what was horrible and turned away from what needed scrutiny. This life of ignoring the obvious required a certain kind of stamina. The alternative to this was to set on a path to make rubbish of what had gone before us. This approach – of principles, activism and struggle – required stamina too. All the same, she’d chosen the other one.

‘I know I’ve made bad choices,’ Marion started in on the conversation, no warm-up. She’d caught Hortensia as she came out of the toilet, the best place she’d thought, but Hortensia didn’t look too happy about it.

‘May I? Can I at least walk? Can I get past the bathroom? Can I sit?’

Marion pinked. She let Hortensia walk past her and followed. Hortensia propped herself at her desk and Marion stayed standing; after several seconds when Hortensia said nothing, Marion sat down on the edge of the bed.

‘I thought we—’

‘Let me speak, Marion. I can’t absolve you. I don’t want to do this thing with you. This let’s-talk thing.’

‘I thought we were becoming friends in a way.’

‘I don’t know what that means and I prefer not knowing.’ Hortensia squeezed her eyes. ‘Do you hold yourself in high regard?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Do you think of yourself highly?’

‘I think I’m not bad, that I’m okay.’

‘Precisely. Well, I think very lowly of myself. And I am under no illusion that I am anything close to “okay”.’

‘I see.’

‘And what’s more, I don’t think you’re okay, either. I don’t hate you, Marion, I just think you’re a liar. And I can’t get involved. I don’t care enough and anyway I think it’s too late. I don’t want kinship with you. I don’t hate or like you. I don’t really consider you. I’m also dealing with things. But I don’t want any kinship. And we don’t have to get in a car and drive off a cliff or anything. You stay here. We keep out of each other’s way. Your house gets fixed, my leg heals, we carry on with our separate lives. I think, at this far-gone stage, that’s about as much as people like you and I can muster. Please.’

Marion stood up and left the room, her steps measured and heavy.

The conversation made Hortensia feel at home again. The worst had been said, she’d explained herself. She no longer needed to avoid Marion. She hoped she had cured her of any notion of any form of connection between them. With this sense of freedom, when evening came, she went to sit in the television room to watch the news – something she hadn’t done in a while and had missed. On account of it being the twenty-fourth of September, the pictures were full of South Africa’s history. A documentary was on, discussing Heritage Day, and its predecessor, Shaka Day. Hortensia wondered about Marion’s attempt at comradeship. Had she heard something on the radio, some call to humanity, the kind of thing that had lurked about in South Africa in the heady days of a new democracy?

After they’d arrived in South Africa, Hortensia had turned to Peter and said, this place isn’t well. The country? he’d asked and she’d nodded. And the people. The best of them know they are sick and are trying different medicines. Some know, but are inert. And the worst think they are fine, that they are in need of nothing.

Of course she herself hadn’t been well in years. And she hadn’t had the strength or the inclination or any sense of responsibility to promote healing either in herself or others. Not then and not now.

She went to bed feeling sorry for Marion. Sorry that Marion hadn’t found herself living in a better person’s home. Or at least a person more prone to delusions about the human capacity for real, lasting truth and reconciliation.

When she was already in her nightgown and pulling on her compression socks, Marion knocked on the door.

‘Come.’

‘I wasn’t sure if you’d still be awake.’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m not okay.’

‘Yes.’

‘I just wanted to say that … to you.’

‘Alright.’

She started to close the door.

‘Marion, wait. You want to know things? Past things? You really want to know? I was thinking of this story my mother told me. You remind me of her, by the way. But, anyhow, I was thinking how, before she died, we didn’t get on very much and before she died there was this thing she told me. How she regretted leaving home, leaving Barbados for England. They took an Italian boat, which stopped off at Tenerife and Genoa en route. Docked at Dover, then took the train to Waterloo. She told me she’d wanted to come back even before they docked. There’d been a few of them travelling from the Islands. They’d stayed in the section of the ship for the workers, they shared sleeping quarters with some of the ship’s greasers and female entertainment, should we say. I was along already. I’d won a scholarship for school and gone ahead, but Zippy, my sister, she was travelling with my parents. There was a young family on the boat with them, husband, wife and a baby of a few months old. Apparently there was this debacle that took place. My mother, Zippy, the woman, with her baby in her arms, were walking on deck. The baby was light-skinned. There came these white women, they saw the child and decided that she had been kidnapped.’

Marion put her hand to her neck; there were no pearls to hold on to.

‘They seized the baby from her mother and wouldn’t return the child until papers were shown, proof sorted out. My mother said she knew immediately that she was going in the wrong direction, towards the wilderness, away from civilisation.’

‘That’s a terrible story.’

‘Yes, it is. And there are many more – too many.’

‘Why did you tell it to me?’

‘Because I want to upset you.’

‘You think I don’t know that people suffer? That life is unfair, unequal?’

‘I don’t know what you know. But here’s what I think: that you want to convince me of something. That you want to talk to me and talk around what is true, circumnavigate whatever horror you prefer not to address. And I’m not here for that. I’ve got my own horrors.’

Marion made to leave.

‘There was a time,’ Hortensia said, ‘when you didn’t give a damn. I liked you much better when you didn’t care so much what I thought.’

‘Yes. I liked that time when I didn’t care. I liked that much better, too.’

MARION HAD NOT
meant to eavesdrop and yet here she was, at the top of the stairs listening to what was clearly meant to be a private conversation.

‘God Almighty!’ Hortensia said, putting the phone down.

‘Is everything okay?’ Marion asked.

‘No, everything is not okay.’

‘You were shouting.’

‘This is my house. I can shout if I so wish. You want to know what that was? Here’s some nice juicy information for you. My husband had a lover.’

‘Oh no.’

‘Oh yes. And he had her for several years – that’s not the news, though. You know what he and his lover did? They made a baby and, what else, that baby is now a woman and heir to Peter’s inheritance. And I’m supposed to call her up and let her know that, so his money can go where he wished it to. In fact he wants me to meet her – can you imagine? And that person on the phone that you heard me, rightfully, shouting at is an idiot lawyer by the ridiculous name of Marx. I—’

‘Hortensia—’

‘No, let me finish. I am worn out. Between Peter and his cryptic will, you and your prodding, your Thelma-and-Louise bullshit, some woman somewhere with my husband’s blood running through her. I’ve …’ She walked and sat down. ‘It’s too much. I am – what are you doing?’

‘Just coming to stand a little closer.’

‘Well, don’t.’

They stayed quiet in the hallway.

‘That was supposed to be my child.’

‘Pardon?’

Hortensia was whispering and Marion had never heard that before.

‘That was my child.’

‘I’m not really—’

‘I was supposed to have children. Many.’

Marion’s legs felt tired, but there was only one chair in the hallway and Hortensia was sitting on it.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Many. And they come after me. A nursery of ghosts.’

‘Like a haunting?’

‘Every day.’

Marion bent down, her bum found the floor. She didn’t mind appearing inelegant. She stretched her legs out in front of her; they wouldn’t stay flat, hadn’t done so in many years.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You said. Did Max leave a will?’

‘He left a bill.’

Both women surprised themselves with laughter. They seemed startled, like newborn babies, surprised that a joke could live in such dark waters.

‘Seriously, though. You should read it. As if Peter … as if he … I don’t know, I actually don’t know what he was thinking.’