They were boys, though, and whether due to Peter’s size or Hortensia’s curses (she reined them in with screeches, spitting and raising her left hand, fingers spread, for effect), the hooligans seemed to catch a fright and eventually ran off. Peter asked if he could walk with her and Hortensia told him she’d be fine. It’s not you I’m worried about, he said. He grinned and shone all his teeth at her. This wide smile struck her as such a precious thing. She’d never fallen in love before.
SIX
THERE CAME A time when Hortensia did wonder who the person was. She played a game, thought up faces, dreamed them. There were moments where she thought very clearly that if for any reason she found the woman and was left alone with her, she would kill her. Then there were days she felt she had to meet, speak and reason with her, find her number in Peter’s book. But of course there was no such book. So it seemed natural, one day, to follow him. And it seemed sensible to get a disguise, so he didn’t notice that he was being followed. She would later hide the camouflage in the storeroom off the kitchen – a place she knew Peter would never look.
The woman was small and young. She wore strappy heels but still had to raise herself onto the tips of her toes to greet Peter with a drawn-out kiss. Her hair, curls of black, was so shiny Hortensia wondered if it wasn’t a wig.
She had a face that Hortensia had never seen before, not even at the Staff Club. She could be a new employee flown in, but the company had very few women engineers. Maybe a secretary?
Peter and the woman began walking and Hortensia walked behind them. Banga market was at its most crowded at midday. It was one of the older markets of Ibadan and, for some reason unknown to Hortensia, was unpopular with the expatriate community. The two ducked down an alley between a row of stalls and Hortensia followed, sidestepping litter and puddles from a short spray of rain. If it wasn’t for the clang of the grinders gnawing away at the skinned beans and the incessant call of traders, Hortensia thought she would be able to hear what they were speaking about. She felt brave. It helped that she blended in and they – oyinbos – were conspicuous. She wore scuffed Nikes and a dark-green tracksuit, but none of that mattered because she’d covered the whole thing in a black burkha.
A boy clutching a chicken pushed past Hortensia; he apologised but didn’t bother to turn around. They entered the wet-food section of the market. The woman pointed at a tray of cow hooves and Peter laughed at something she’d said.
‘Alhaja,’ a trader with peppers said to Hortensia. ‘Èwo l f?’
Hortensia shook her head.
The smells of Banga pervaded everything. Akara balls frying in oil, the air heavy with burnt residue; singed hair off a goat’s skin; wet chicken feathers. Nothing interested them, Peter and the woman, except each other and wherever it was they were bound for. They didn’t stop at any of the stalls, pressing on through the crowds. When the path narrowed, Peter, his spindly frame, walked behind the woman, his hand on the small of her back. Where the path opened up again they walked side by side and held hands. They turned a corner and the heavy base-notes of Banga receded; replaced by the innocuous scent of peeled oranges. The woman stopped to admire a tray of them, the fine-lined pattern left from the blade used to cut the skin away. Hortensia paused by the lady selling gari, rice and beans, two stalls away from the orange-seller.
‘Kí l f, Mà?’
Hortensia shook her head. They were close enough that she was worried that, if she spoke, Peter would hear, recognise her voice, turn around. She shook her head again at the trader’s furrowed brow, but stayed examining the dry goods.
‘Which one do you like?’ the trader pressed further, assuming the problem to be one of language.
‘No. Thank you,’ Hortensia blurted, panicked.
But Peter was distracted. Oranges forgotten, he was now bent forward, his ear near the woman’s mouth as she whispered something. His hand was on her neck, his thumb pressed just beneath where her earring dangled. He smoothed down her hair, which bounced and twirled along her back. Hortensia’s eyes stung, grew hot and cloudy, so she couldn’t see a passing trader proffering up her okros and freshly shelled kobiowus of egusi. Her knees were weak and to avoid falling down she leaned against one of the wooden poles supporting the stall.
‘ pl, Mummy. Are you okay?’
Hortensia blinked. Peter had said something funny. The woman stretched her head back and her mouth widened, her lips, the red of her tongue. He said something again and reached for her. She yelped, swung out of his grasp, upsetting a neat arrangement of plump tomatoes.
‘Ah-ah! Careful now,’ the trader said, then turned to mumblings in Yoruba to finish her insult. She bent to collect the muddied produce.
The admonition went unnoticed. The game of catch between the two continued, their tight little dance.
Hortensia moved to the side of the dirt road, watching. Two motorcycles went past. A man pulled a wheelbarrow stacked with white bottles and a gramophone on repeat, announcing the cures, the potions and miracles. Someone bumped Hortensia from behind, an old man on a bicycle with rubber piled up behind him.
‘ má bìnu. pl.’
She was unhurt, assured him of this.
When Hortensia looked again, Peter had caught the woman. Their chests, their bodies heaved from the exertions. She caught her breath. He put the tips of his fingers on either side of her face, along the sharp line of her jaw, and he tilted her face upwards; she licked her lips and he used the back of his hands to tickle them. Hortensia wondered what it felt like, the hard metal on his ring-finger moving along the soft wet skin.
An old woman sat watching, a wrapper around her waist, her dry breasts hanging, weary from use. She took a rag to her neck, damp with sweat. Swatted a fly. Peter and the girl stood kissing, oblivious as only white lovers in Banga market could be. ‘Awó!’ the old woman hissed. ‘Shio!’
In the weeks after Peter’s death, wondering about some child somewhere called Esme, Hortensia came to the realisation that the quality of her life would have benefited greatly from more anger and less resentment. Resentment was different from anger. Anger was like a dragon, burning other things. Resentment burned a hole in your stomach, burned your insides.
Peter and his lover had made a baby. How? Hortensia asked herself stupidly. When?
At night the house seemed to know there was one less person in it. Hortensia couldn’t sleep. Since Peter’s death she’d returned to their bed, which she’d vacated when his disease started taking up so much room. The sick and their medicines require surface area; when death rounded the corner, she demanded a lot of space. Being back in the bed was strange, back on her side of the bed, deferring now to a ghost. A ghost so real she was unable even to fling her leg across the middle of the bed, lie on his side. It didn’t feel right.
After turning several times to find an elusive comfortable position, Hortensia rose and attacked the pile of books by the bed. She’d moved the pile from the guest room and installed it back here, where she would sleep till she died. Towards the bottom of the pile were the design tomes. There was a stash of thick magazines, the page corners curling. Peter had once chided her for worshipping magazines with not one human on any page. Even the advertisements relied on images of things. Beautiful things, she’d retorted. And there was nothing wrong with that.
She fingered the spine of her beloved textbook. Hefting it out toppled the pile. The book sat like a boulder in her lap. She scanned the pages. The sweet rapture of a perfectly replicated pattern, the simple beauty of a design that was complete, that had everything already, too much and too little of nothing.
It had been days since Hortensia had been up to the Koppie. It felt good to stand high and look down. However, coming back, along Katterijn Avenue, her mood soured. There was Marion, puffing towards her with that damned dog at her heels.
‘I need to speak with you.’
‘What?’ Hortensia folded her arms.
Spring was still almost a month away but the days were longer,
the time between rains seemed to be lenghthening. Marion was showing off the results of a recent trip to her hairdresser. ‘What’s that truck doing there?’
Hortensia looked over to where Marion was pointing. A builder’s truck was parked just by No.10.
‘It’s parked.’
‘I know that. Don’t play with me, Hortensia.’
‘Marion, I am not in the mood. My husband is newly dead, I’m in mourning.’
Marion said nothing.
‘The truck is there because I contracted it to be. I have a meeting, in fact, and would rather not be late.’
‘You’re doing some work on … the house?’
‘Not that it’s any concern of yours.’
‘Well, you ought to have let us know at least. The committee. Good faith.’
‘Marion, there is no such rule. And you may not realise it, but Katterijn is not a block of flats and you are not the chairperson of the body corporate. That house is mine and, yes, I’m making some … improvements.’
Happy to have landed a lasting blow, Hortensia sidestepped the woman and her mutt.
‘What sort of improvements?’ Marion called after her.
‘Obvious ones,’ Hortensia responded.
The truck was there because it was a welcome distraction, a sensible alternative to thinking about Peter and this child.
Initially, especially when Hortensia had not yet realised that No. 10 was designed by Marion, she viewed the house favourably, or at least she thought it acceptable. It cost an obscene amount of money, but they had that much and many times more. Copious interior and exterior pictures had been sent to Ibadan by the estate agents. There were of course permits to apply for and papers to sign – whenever are there not? They signed them, they came. And soon enough Hortensia heard through the Katterijn ramble of gossip that No. 10 had been Marion’s first-ever design. Apparently Marion had been vying to own it herself. This explained the kind of reception Hortensia had received from Marion when they first arrived.
It was a hot day and the walk up the Koppie had left her thirsty. Hortensia chatted briefly to the builder, explaining her ideas. After she left, Hortensia sat in her study and asked Bassey to bring her a glass of ice cubes. She liked to dip her fingertips in and run them along her temple.
The heat was welcome, though, as was the lack of rain. The weather was encouraging for the works that were about to commence. The fewer rain-days, the better. No delays, no gaps leaving room for all the thoughts she was trying to keep at bay. The building works were to be Hortensia’s opium. To this end, ever since the idea had occurred to her, she’d been busy with it. Knocking down walls would mean new plaster. The chore of trying to match a new can of paint to the existing was hopeless. So new paint it was. A few sheets of wallpaper for special places. She took the samples to bed. During the day Hortensia made labelled and dimensioned sketches for the contractors. Today she was preparing a work schedule; it gave no consideration to rain-days.
She sat back in her chair, looking over the drawings she had made, her plan showing exactly what needed doing.
There were certain problems with the design of No. 10. Not an infinite number. In fact just one problem repeated several times, at least according to Hortensia, and she regarded her own grasp of design with unwavering certainty. No. 10 had many windows onto things that Hortensia didn’t think needed seeing, and none onto the things she thought were important to notice.
She would direct the builders to start with the bricking-up of certain windows, two specifically. One, in the lounge, looked out onto Katterijn Avenue, but what was the use of that? And the second in the upstairs guest bedroom looked appropriately towards the vineyards but, by just a few centimetres, avoided the view of the old Katterijn well.
After the bricking-up, there were three windows Hortensia wanted added to her home. The first was a view, from her kitchen, into the garden. The second a window one could look through as you climbed the staircase, to notice the old church and its cemetery. And lastly she wanted a view of the Koppie from her study desk.
And while she was at it, why not put in a pool? Hortensia, despite being born on an island, did not much care for water. No, the addition of a pool was to tip the insult to Marion and her design from red to flaming.
Amidst the preparations, Marx called. Two of his gently prodding emails had landed in Hortensia’s inbox before she trained her Gmail to relegate them to Spam. Now he’d tracked her down. Perhaps Mrs James had not quite understood her duties as per the will, he’d begun in a tone that made Hortensia want to swat him. She’d understood perfectly. Had she contacted Esme? No.
He’d sighed. He sounded older on the phone.
‘Mrs James, I appreciate this is … all rather strange. I’ll tell you, it’s certainly one of the strangest wills I’ve ever handled.’
Strange was the right word. A man who had spent the last year of his life immobile and mute suddenly had a voice, clear instructions, power – all from the grave.
‘Are you there, Mrs James?’
‘Not for long, I hope.’
‘I appreciate—’
‘I know, you said that already.’
He sighed again. Hortensia was accustomed to being sighed at.
‘I must go, Mr Marx.’
‘Will you be contacting Esme? The thing is, there are implications.’
‘You made that perfectly clear.’
After her first meeting with Marx and on studying the paperwork, Hortensia had concluded that Peter had drawn up this last will and testament to play some sort of game. She couldn’t quite work it out, but hated him for it all the same. Not only was his will his means of breaking it to his wife that he was a father, but he’d clearly stipulated that Esme was not to be contacted by anyone but Hortensia. Peter had apparently never revealed himself to his daughter in life, and it was Hortensia who was to now communicate to this person who her father was, and so on. His estate would then be apportioned out in varying fractions to herself, Esme, a distant cousin in Sussex, the damned hunting club and a constellation of charities. But he hadn’t stopped there. If Hortensia did not contact Esme, her inaction would render his will invalid. He would be regarded as dying intestate (at this point Marx had elucidated her on the meaning) and the South African Law of Succession would proceed. After paying whatever debts he had, the law would divide his remaining estate amongst his beneficiaries, of which Esme, having never been legally recognised, was not one.
‘The implications are that the girl will get none of his money.’
‘Mrs James, I don’t assume to counsel you on what is good and proper, but—’
‘Thank you for that, Mr Marx. For not assuming. If that’s all.’
‘I will be in contact, Mrs James. We shouldn’t delay. The whole process can be quite lengthy. I’d prefer to really get going with this. You need to start, though, I cannot make any moves until Ms Esme is notified. I hope you understand this?’
Hortensia explained to Bassey: if Marx calls, take a message.
On the appointed day, Hortensia waited on the kerb for the works to start. An excitement caught her, a fever of energy. Marion too was about. Hortensia nodded a greeting that was met with a scowl. The builder, a woman with no eyebrows and the name Hannie, arrived and stood with Hortensia for a few minutes. They compared schedules, then Hannie went inside to prepare, her workers following. The brick delivery truck arrived and parked. Hannie came back outside and had a brief conversation with the driver. Hortensia, standing close by, had the sense not to attempt to understand what was being said – Afrikaans (apparently a simple language to learn) had always eluded her. Not that she’d tried much. While they talked Hortensia walked up to the truck to study the crane used for lifting the pallets of bricks. Hannie went back to her workers.
Funny how many bricks such a small job involves, Hortensia thought as the operator cranked the crane to start depositing the bricks by the roadside. Then, much later when she woke up in hospital, she had to retrace t
he events to make sense of the pain in her leg.
She didn’t like thinking of herself sprawled on the Katterijn Avenue pavement, Widow James Knocked Down by Delinquent Crane. But most of all she hated the piece of news she was given by the nurse. That not only had she been knocked unconscious, the fall further damaging her already-weak leg, but the damned crane that had caused all this had also swung a blow at No. 12. Part of the front of her neighbour’s precious home was in rubble. Hortensia had once heard Marion complain that the façade of her home was too near the street – might she now take some comfort in having been right?
Agnes had a piece of debris glance off her cheek and was stitched up. Marion, who had been in the back garden at the time, had fainted from the turmoil but had, otherwise, been uninjured.
The Constantinople Private Hospital staff didn’t take long to fear Hortensia. She’d arrived at the hospital on a stretcher but, on waking, had immediately managed to insult the paramedic. Within hours she was in theatre. The brakes of the truck had failed, or perhaps they had not been fully engaged. The truck had slid down the gentle slope and Hortensia, this yellow mass coming towards her, had scrambled and fallen. The machine had continued careening, made twigs of Marion’s fence and jammed into her home, the crane arm pivoting and slapping into the façade. Hortensia had broken a femur. She also had several gashes, the biggest of which was on the side of her head, above an eyebrow – it would leave a scar and a particular sensation of a headache approaching.
After the operation the surgeon explained that she’d performed an open-reduction internal fixation, words that meant nothing to Hortensia. Fancy word for a pin, she presumed, but she didn’t care enough to confirm. She liked the part of the explanation that promised quick mobility. She didn’t so much appreciate the ‘person of your age’ comment, which was used to explain the lack of a cast; it would be too heavy for her, impede mobility, and so on. They’d given her a minimum of twelve weeks for the bone to heal.
The Woman Next Door Page 7