‘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 s
eized 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.’
SIXTEEN
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.’
‘Do you know where the child is? Does he expect you to go out and find her?’
Hortensia shook her head. ‘It’s all there. Marx gave an email, a phone number.’
‘I don’t mean to … Tell me if it’s none of my business, but why do you think he put all this together like this, Peter?’
‘I can think of two reasons. One, because he hates me and wants to punish me. For what, I cannot imagine. Control the scene, boss me around?’
‘And two?’
‘Because he wants us to meet. He loves me and he loves her, and he’s sorry.’
‘Are you worried you’re doing the wrong thing?’
‘I want her – the child – to not exist. Why would I want to send her an email?’
‘To tell you the truth, I don’t know what I’d do, either.’
‘But then I think: what if she’s destitute? I can’t imagine it – never knowing my own father, his love. What if this is her chance to know that he thought of her?’
Marion couldn’t help it when her jaw slackened. Hortensia, for just some seconds, resembled a soft-hearted woman; she could bake cookies and smile at Girl Scouts. It felt naked and made Marion uncomfortable. ‘I feel like I’m forcing you to talk.’
‘Oh, come off it.’
Someone blasted a horn and Marion suddenly missed her binoculars, felt blown off her perch as Queen of Katterijn.
‘One thing,’ Hortensia started again. ‘One thing I’ll always hate him for was this time in Brighton. My father had died and I couldn’t leave Brighton. I don’t know – I just couldn’t go home. As if going home would make his absence permanent. Normally I’d work in Croydon over the summer, but that year I stayed on in Brighton and Peter came to see me. His effort was so … tender. I was already in love with him but, somehow, this gesture did something. Anyhow, one day he suggested we go to the beach. You realise I grew up on the best beach there is; Brighton was a joke to me. I’d been several times alone but never with him, so we went. A picnic. It was his idea to watch the sunset. We had a blanket, Peter draped his leg over me. I remember that I struggled to breathe but didn’t say anything. Having the weight of his leg on me seemed more important. It grew cold and we spread another cloth over us, night came. He proposed to me. “I want to take care of you,” he said. Can you believe that? “I want you to know that you can depend on me.” Depend, he said.’
Marion grunted her understanding.
‘And there is where I shall never forgive him. Because, you see, I really heard him that day. With something deeper than ears. Maybe you can listen with your spleen, or your pancreas. Because it felt like that, Marion. I heard him deep in some part of my body.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Of course he couldn’t have meant it. Not with the way things turned out. And then I made a joke about the whole thing to myself. Decided marriage was like ordering in a foreign-language restaurant. Thinking it’s fish, too embarrassed and proud to confirm in English. And then your heart drops when the waiter puts a plate of something bleeding and unrecognisable in front of you. Something you are absolutely certain you are not going to be able to eat, no matter how hard you try.’
Hortensia sat in a chair, she leaned forward to pull on her skirt, lifting one buttock and then the other, feeling tired even though it was morning. The strain of getting dressed – who would have thought. She also felt annoyance at having unburdened to Marion. She had no interest in it, no inclination. She rejected in herself the urge Marion displayed. The need to talk, the need to have someone listen. Her nose scrunched up. Those who talked and those, like her, who calcified. All those years in Ibadan, stalking lovers, all that time spent grieving, this was the direction her broken-hearted logic had led her in. It was not wise, but it was, like a fossil, self-preserving. She’d survived. The machinery of her body had kept going, hatred’s venom for oil; her skin was taut, no one ever guessed her age. Surely if she’d lived that other life, a life of unburdening and revelations, if she’d stayed delicate, run after him, begged and pleaded, she’d have let life use her, not the other way around. And used things grow old. She had Peter to thank, then, for her flawless complexion, her beauty.
Hortensia stood. She eyed a jumble of shoes in the bottom of the closet. Of course beauty had not been what she was after, nor agelessness. She had wanted love. She f
itted her feet into a pair of loafers, brown suede, not striking, but not repulsive either. Unqualified love. She reached for the walker. She’d had such a time; a time when she’d loved him, his tongue in her mouth, along the grooves of her teeth or his hand cradling her neck. Soft times. When she’d allowed softness. Remembering such a time made her feel foolish. She’d felt foolish back then too. Hoodwinked. She remembered deciding to be tough, hardening, making the trade between fulfilment and not being duped. She would use all her powers to have him endure her suffering, and by proximity he would suffer too. They went on to have an okay marriage, an okay life. Like an okay house, with just that one room you don’t go into. Not because it’s unfurnished or ugly, but because it’s haunted. And there are no haunted rooms, really, only haunted houses.
Still, snivelling Marion was upsetting a really good system that, up till now, had been working.
Hortensia entered the kitchen. She left the door ajar so she would see when Marion came down the stairs; she intended to call out to her.
Marion had woken up with a crick in her neck, and she knew that the pain was not there because she had slept in a bad position. It was there because it was the nature of pain to show up whenever it liked.
She felt shy about seeing Hortensia, felt she ought to hide from her. She had nothing to compare this feeling to, except her wedding night, pulling the covers to hide her thighs from her husband; needing the bathroom, being scared to mention it.
When Marion got out of bed and looked around for her slippers she felt light-headed, she’d bent down too fast. She showered and wore a camel turtle-neck, feeling chilled despite the good weather.
‘About yesterday,’ both women said, paused. ‘You first,’ they both said, paused. Sighed in unison. Marion moved from the doorway and sat opposite Hortensia at the kitchen table. Ever-discreet Bassey, stacking the dishwasher, left the task incomplete and excused himself.
‘You were saying?’
‘I was just going to say that – I don’t know how to put it – I was thinking of what it must feel like, to have read Peter’s will … Thinking how I would have been.’ That wasn’t what she’d wanted to say.
The Woman Next Door Page 18