Fly Away Home

by Vanessa Del Fabbro

  “And you told me yourself that Zukisa wants to take on more responsibility for designing dresses in the shop.”

  Francina began to sob.

  “Why are you crying?” Hercules moved closer and put an arm around her shoulders.

  “I’m scared.”

  “There’s nothing to be frightened of. You’ve run Monica’s household, you run ours, you run a shop. You can run a small town with your eyes shut.”

  Francina cried even more then because her husband was so sweet.

  “Shh,” he told her, drying her cheeks with the palm of his hand.

  “I might be worrying for nothing,” she said brightly. “Richard could get more votes than me.”

  “Possible, but not likely.”

  Hercules was not one for open displays of affection, but since his mother and Zukisa were out, Francina reached up and kissed him on the cheek.

  “What’s that for?” he asked.

  “You know very well what it’s for,” she said.

  They heard footsteps on the stairs leading up from the shop, and Hercules pulled away. Francina was not offended. It was his way, to remain discreet even in front of family.

  “There are sixteen lampposts on Main Street,” said Mrs. Shabalala. “Zukisa and I counted them. We can put a poster on every other one and a few down in the park, so we should probably make at least twelve.”

  “You’ll have to tell us about your platform,” said Zukisa. Her tone was still reserved, but Francina could tell that she was being swept up by the excitement of tonight’s developments.

  “My platform?” asked Francina.

  “The issue you think is most important,” she explained. “What are you going to promise the residents of Lady Helen?”

  Francina smiled. “Not to wear shorts and show my legs in public?”

  “No, you know what I mean,” said Zukisa.

  In truth, there were no major issues dividing or threatening the town at this moment. Life in Lady Helen was so peaceful that Francina often wondered how Monica managed to find enough stories to fill the newspaper.

  “You’d be the first female mayor in the history of the town,” said Zukisa.

  Francina had not thought of that. “What are we waiting for? Let’s get to work on the posters.”

  While her mother-in-law went to collect markers and paper from downstairs in the shop, Francina confessed to Zukisa how she had tried to sign up Hercules as a candidate and, in doing so, become a candidate herself. “What I did was wrong, and I suppose I knew it, and that’s why I never told you,” she said.

  Mrs. Shabalala returned with the supplies and the family sat down at the dining room table to design the posters.

  When the residents of Lady Helen awoke the next morning, they learned that their beloved dressmaker was running for mayor and that, as the first female to hold this office, she would make the town even more beautiful than it already was.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  As part of her new health and wellness program, Monica had decided to walk to work if she didn’t have to go far during the day to research a story. The distance from her home to the office was not more than a mile, but she had not accounted for the late summer heat, and so she was relieved each morning to reach the shaded sidewalks of Main Street.

  “I think Francina will be good,” Nalini said to her one particularly warm morning. Nalini, who was originally from Durban and always wore a sari, was looking at a poster on a lamppost outside her gallery, which she had yet to unlock.

  Monica read the handwritten words on the poster and was shocked to discover that Francina was running for mayor. She had not said a word to her about it yesterday afternoon when Monica had arrived home from work. Why the secrecy? Nalini was correct in her estimation though; after putting up with Monica’s mother for so many years, Francina could handle anything. Monica could not wait to see her mother’s face when she found out that the lady who had once scrubbed her floors and washed her dishes might become the next mayor of Lady Helen. The relationship between Francina and Monica’s mother had changed since Francina established Jabulani Dressmakers. Mirinda Brunetti had never expressed an interest in Francina’s creations when she was making them in the tiny servant’s quarters of the Brunetti home in Johannesburg, but now that Francina had a list of clients as long as her tape measure, Mirinda couldn’t get enough of her former employee’s designs.

  Monica walked on, seeing Francina’s name on every other lamppost until she reached her office, and by then she knew that her first order of the day would be to set up an interview with the new mayoral candidate. In the three weeks before the election, there would, hopefully, be some newsworthy debates between the two candidates.

  Dudu jumped up when Monica walked in. “Have you heard?” she asked. “Zak just called.”

  “I saw the posters on the way to work.”

  Dudu came around to the front of the reception desk. “I meant about Max Andrews. He’s had a fall. The ambulance took him to the hospital. Zak said to tell you to come at once.”

  Monica did not bother going inside her office. Now, of all days, she needed her car. Dudu didn’t have one; her husband brought her to work.

  Fifteen minutes later, Monica arrived at the hospital, puffing and sweating after running all the way. Adelaide, a nurse Monica had interviewed years ago for a story on the hospital’s burn unit, directed her to the hospital’s one-bed intensive care unit. Daphne was just coming out.

  “Max’s son said you could go in,” she told Monica.

  Edward Andrews rose to his feet as she entered. Like his father, he had lost most of his hair except for a thin tufted row that ran around the back of his head from ear to ear, but Edward’s hair was not yet gray. The town did not provide Edward, its only lawyer, with enough business to earn a living, so he spent three days a week in Cape Town, working as in-house counsel for an international oil company. Max had moved in with Edward the year Monica became editor of the newspaper, and Edward’s wife, Ann, who had never been able to have children, had cared for her father-in-law as though he were a ten-year-old boy. In the beginning, Max had complained to Monica that he felt overwhelmed by her attention, but as his arthritis had grown worse and he was able to move about less, he had needed—and appreciated—Ann’s care more than he ever would admit.

  Now, Ann sat crying quietly in the corner of the ICU.

  “How is he doing?” Monica asked Edward.

  “Not good. Your husband told us to say our goodbyes.”

  Zak never placated a patient’s family with half-truths, because time was so precious when death drew near.

  “Dad asked me last night to invite you over for lunch on Sunday. He wanted to give you his memoirs to read.”

  “He finally finished?”

  Edward nodded. “Yesterday. He fell during the night when he got up to use the bathroom. Ann was always telling him not to go by himself, to call her to help. She’d even given him a bell to ring. But Dad never wanted to wake us.”

  Max stirred in the bed and Monica stepped back to let Edward go to his father’s side. Max’s eyes were shut. When Monica had first met him, his bright blue eyes and strong jaw had made her believe that he had been handsome in his youth. Now, after he’d had all his teeth replaced by ill-fitting dentures, his jawline had softened, giving his face a less rugged quality.

  Monica leaned forward and touched his hand. His skin felt cool and dry. There was a bandage around his head, covering the injury he had sustained in the fall. An IV dripped slowly into a port on his wrist.

  Max had not wanted to look at her portfolio of work on the day she’d come to interview for his job as editor of the Lady Helen Herald. He said he’d seen her on In-Depth and that her talent was indisputable. The reason he had wanted to meet her was to judge her character, and after she’d defended the profession of public relations against Max’s unintended insult, he told her that she’d won his respect. He did not know then that the boys Monica had brought with her t
o the interview were the sons of a woman who had been a public relations officer, or he would never have said what he had.

  During Monica’s first year as editor, Max had infuriated her by hanging around the office, keeping an eye on her. But when she’d realized how hard it had been for him to give up the newspaper, she’d tried to keep him involved. He saw through her pleas for help with various projects, but gave it all the same. Now she wished she had visited him more often.

  “Those are his memoirs,” said Edward, pointing at a brown folder on the nightstand. “We brought the manuscript from home this morning, knowing you’d be here.”

  Monica opened the cover. On the first page, Max had written by hand, To Monica, with respect, Max.

  Edward saw the surprise on her face. “He printed two copies. This one is for you.”

  She fanned through the pages. There were four hundred in all. These four hundred pages had kept Max busy for the last six years of his life. While Monica had been raising her boys, running the newspaper, falling in love and getting married, Max had been sitting in front of his computer, dusting off his memories.

  “We’d still like you to come to lunch,” said Edward. “You and your family.”

  Monica thanked him and promised that she and Zak and the children would be there.

  “Once my father is gone, I will be the only one left of our family,” said Edward. “I hope you never have to experience what that feels like.”

  Max’s face was almost yellow against the bleached white pillow slip. Although Monica had not always been the best protégée, he had been an excellent and kind mentor. Over the past few months, Max had seen the newspaper he’d started degenerate into a community newsletter, full of frivolous stories, typographical errors and advertising, but he’d summoned Monica to his home only once, and then had quickly realized that reprimanding her would only exacerbate her depression. Instead, he’d offered his services to Dudu, but Dudu had been too polite to give work to an elderly man who was practically bedridden.

  Monica wished that Max could read the latest issue, due out tomorrow. It would be the first decent one in months. But it did not appear likely that he would see it.

  She bent over him and whispered, “I’m sorry, Max. It won’t happen again.” Then she looked at him in silence for a few minutes. The world was about to lose an honorable man; she was about to lose a dear friend.

  It would feel strange going back to her office—his old office—now. He had taken his orange couch away, but there were still reminders everywhere of his ten years at the helm of the Lady Helen Herald: the light patches on the wooden floor where his filing cabinets had once stood, the masthead design that hadn’t changed since the newspaper’s inception, the letters to the editor page that he said should always contain the rantings of irate readers, if she was doing her job properly.

  “Goodbye, Max,” she said quietly. Tears coursed down her cheeks.

  Edward handed her a tissue. “Thank you,” he said.

  “For what?” asked Monica.

  “For keeping him involved. You will never know how much that meant to him.”

  Monica said goodbye to Ann, who was still crying in the corner. She waved at Zak on the way out.

  She had not put things right with Max in time, but it was not too late to patch up her friendship with Kitty. Before she went back to the office, she would stop at Abalone House. Perhaps she and Kitty could sit on the porch with a cup of coffee as they used to. This time, Monica would ask to hold Kitty’s baby, Jimmy, although now that he was walking, he might no longer be interested in occupying her lap.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Francina was in her shop, sewing the final fifty beads onto Gift’s dress, when the bell over the door jangled loudly.

  “You won’t believe what I’m going to tell you,” said Mrs. Shabalala. She put her hands on her knees and breathed deeply. “I ran all the way from the bakery.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was ordering the bread Zukisa likes, with the raisins, and Mayor Richard came into the store wearing a pair of red shorts. I’m not joking.”

  Red shorts were unusual, but that wasn’t likely to cause a woman to run all the way home from the bakery, especially if she was, to put it politely, not built like an athlete.

  “I hope his shirt matched his shorts,” said Francina. The mayor’s clothes didn’t always coordinate.

  “It was white with large yellow frangipani flowers, so no, it didn’t match. But that’s not my news. Mayor Richard said that last night, just after you entered the race for mayor, there was another entrant.”

  Francina put down her sewing. “Who?”

  “Oscar.”

  “Oscar wants to be mayor?”

  “Apparently so,” said Mrs. Shabalala, now recovered from her exertion.

  Oscar had been Francina’s first tutor, back in the day when she was studying for the grade nine School Leavers certificate. The first thing he’d told her about himself was that he’d been named after a famous English playwright. He’d never read any of the man’s plays, however, because Oscar didn’t like stories that were set in one room. Oscar was an adventurer. He had sailed around the world and returned to the place of his birth after the end of a love affair.

  It had been Hercules who had pointed out to Francina—incredibly—that Oscar was in love with her. That had been on a night when the two men had almost come to blows. After that, Hercules had become her teacher, and she rarely saw Oscar again. He’d offered his condolences after her father died, and at that time he’d also urged her to complete high school. Now, she could feel grateful to him, since she had that smart green matric certificate hanging in her home, next to the grade nine School Leavers certificate.

  She and Oscar might have to debate each other in the run-up to the election. That wouldn’t be a comfortable situation for either of them, or for Hercules. Francina had often wondered why Oscar had never gone off again on his travels. He had no family to keep him in Lady Helen, and the odd jobs he did—such as the fences he’d built around the cemetery, the statue of Lady Helen and the San paintings he’d discovered in a cave on the koppies—were often unpaid and voluntary. She’d heard that he spent his weekends tramping around the countryside, looking for the grave of Lady Helen, the founder of the town, who’d freed her husband’s slaves and escaped from Cape Town with them in a stolen wagon. Many of the graves in the cemetery were marked only by piles of stones, but Oscar was sure that Lady Helen’s would be clearly identified.

  “So we have a three-way race,” Francina said to her mother-in-law, whose incredulous expression suggested that she did not think Francina’s reaction worthy of her sprint from the bakery.

  Francina did not know that Hercules had told his mother about his altercation with Oscar all those years ago, but it was clear that she believed Oscar was not an ordinary competitor for Francina.

  “Perhaps I should go from door to door to persuade people to vote for me,” she said. “Oscar is popular around here.”

  “And I hear he fights dirty,” said Mrs. Shabalala.

  That was untrue; when Hercules had arrived in Lady Helen and made it clear that he intended to win back Francina’s affection, which he had lost because of his depression over his late wife’s passing, Oscar had dropped out of her life and never tried to get close to her again. From her mother-in-law’s behavior now, it might be forgivable to think that Oscar was still interested in her—an impossible notion. Or was it? Had her mother-in-law heard something on the grapevine?

  “Oscar is a perfect gentleman,” said Francina. Romantic as it sounded, no man would love a woman from afar for years, especially if she was married.

  “A perfect gentleman doesn’t—” Mrs. Shabalala stopped herself.

  “Doesn’t what?”

  “Nothing. I’m going to finish the marketing now. I just thought I’d tell you this news before you found it out from someone else.”

  “Thank you, Mama,” said Francina.
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  When Hercules came home from school with Zukisa at lunchtime, he, too, had heard of the new development. “You have more to offer as mayor than Oscar does,” he said.

  Hercules was never unkind, and so this comment revealed his true feelings about the matter. He was upset.

  “Perhaps he’d make a better bureaucrat,” said Francina. “He has more time on his hands.”

  “You have to start thinking like a winner,” said Hercules. “You can beat him.”

  This kind of talk was not at all in Hercules’s nature. Had her husband and mother-in-law taken too much sun recently, or did he, too, know something Francina didn’t? At least Zukisa was acting normally.

  “I have detention tomorrow afternoon,” the girl announced.

  “Detention? You’ve never had detention before. What happened?”

  “One of the boys in my class said that a dressmaker has no business being mayor, so I stapled his tie to his backpack.”

  “You did what?” Francina was wrong; her whole family was acting strangely.

  “He insulted you.”

  “But Zukisa, we’ve taught—”

  “Dad has already given me the lecture. You have to win this election, to show everyone.”

  Francina found it touching that her daughter would rush to her defense, but not by ruining a boy’s property. Zukisa, of all people, should know the damage a staple could do to fine fabric.

  “I think you should start getting out there and campaigning,” said Hercules. “A block a night and you’ll have covered the town by the time of the election. I’ll devise a route map.”

  “I could bake cookies to give out,” said Mrs. Shabalala, who had come down to the shop to call them to lunch.

  “And I’ll sew your name on little flags to give out,” added Zukisa.

  Francina put up her hand. “Do you really think this is all necessary? People know who I am.”

  “Oscar will be out there shaking hands and kissing babies,” said Hercules, in a scornful tone that made it seem a disgusting practice.