Sex and Stravinsky

by Barbara Trapido

  It was clear to him that what he needed to do was use a temporary return to his homeland as a way to help forge a career. And, given that in the new post-apartheid state, all institutions of higher education were evidently making strenuous efforts to increase their quotas of black academics, Jack was confident that he would have a good chance of finding himself recruited in some suitably junior capacity. Jack, who, in truth, had every wish to avoid a confrontation with his own past, was nonetheless resolved that this was the option he needed to pursue.

  His taking off was oddly precipitous and somewhat puzzling to his benefactor.

  ‘Sudafrica?’ Eduardo said. ‘But my dear Giacomo, why?’

  ‘Believe me,’ Jack said steadily in reply, ‘this is something that I must do.’ Then he said, as if merely to say it could make such a thing come about, ‘But I surely will come back.’

  And now, on the evening of the day on which he has collected his Vespa from the Durban dockside, Jack is approaching the studio – that soothing private haven from all the complexities of his homecoming. Yet even the studio in these few last days has seemed to him a little less private. Jack can’t quite put a finger on it, but his things have the look of things that have been looked at; maybe of having been touched? Something about the splay of his pencils in their jar on the silver desk. And then there are his clothes; a faint, unfamiliar, slightly almond odour – of shampoo, possibly? Or could it be perfume? Or body lotion? Then, yesterday, a single black hair between the pages of one of his books; a distinctly straight, non-Afro hair, quite definitely not one of his own. Could it be something to do with that rather weird girl, the blonde, who forever follows him with her eyes from what he takes to be a bathroom window? Is it his imagination, or has her hair changed colour?

  And then he hears the screaming. He sees that the studio lights are all on and that his door is standing open. In addition, as he hastily parks the Vespa on his illuminated terrace, he detects another sound below that of the screaming; a low, groaning sound, which is coming from close behind him. He turns to see that, in the narrow, shadowy gap between the end of the studio and the boundary wall, a derelict male person is lying on the ground; a shabby and malodorous person who looks to have taken a fall. Good God, what is happening around here? But first things first, Jack decides, and he strides in through his open door.

  Inside his violated green-glass bathroom, Jack sees that a tall bald man is cradling the weird girl, who falls silent the moment he enters. She is staring at him now, as if transfixed, her mouth standing half open. Her black jeans, he notes with distaste, are pulled down halfway to her knees. Alongside the tall bald man – and almost equally tall – is a beautiful, statuesque blonde woman in a marvellous gauzy dress. Tight-boned bodice. Theatrical. And, hanging back just a little, as if they were newcomers to the scene, is his landlady, who has her back to him, as does her companion, whom Jack nonetheless recognises as Josh Silver; Josh Silver, with fading, greyish hair. This is less of a surprise to him than it might have been, had he not previously noted Josh’s name among the conference delegates. All of them have their eyes fixed on the weird girl.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Jack says into the sudden silence, ‘but there’s a man groaning outside. I think he’s taken a fall.’ He gestures towards the wall, just above the weird girl’s head.

  Then he retreats to his living space. He pours himself a small glass of whisky, which he drinks, perched on the writing surface of his lovely silver desk. He begins to glance through the conference papers, just as Josh and the landlady pass right through his room and exit on to the terrace, towards the groaning man.

  Once outside, Hattie and Josh peer apprehensively at the stranger, who is now craning towards them and making efforts to speak. In the partial darkness of the narrow space in which he lies, they can make out that he is one of those homeless white losers to whom harsh sunlight has not been kind. His face is a mess of shiny red lumps and rough sandpaper patches. He is blue-black around the eyes. His hair and eyebrows are the texture of straw. His unkempt facial hair is yellow, though darkened with food stains around the mouth. He is missing quite a few teeth.

  ‘Thuthuthmee,’ he says, through the wheeze-box in his chest, his speech slurred, thanks as much to alcohol as to his absent front teeth. The man has evidently pissed himself and he reeks of old sweat and booze. ‘Thuth-uthmee,’ he says again.

  ‘What?’ Hattie says. ‘What is he saying, Josh? I can’t hear what he’s saying.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ says Caroline, pushing between Josh and Hattie. ‘Let me take a look at him. I know a bit about first aid.’ Then, having edged herself into position, she adds, ‘Josh, I won’t ask what you are doing here, but can both of you please get out of the light?’

  ‘Thuth,’ says the pissed-on tramp. ‘Uth-mee.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Hattie says sharply, fear rising in her voice, because it seems to her that the man’s bloodshot eyes keep locking on to hers. ‘What are you doing here?’ she demands. ‘And why was my daughter screaming?’

  ‘Quiet!’ Caroline says as, heedless of stink and Vivienne Westwood, she eases the injured party into the recovery position. The tramp, it appears, has had some sort of entanglement with an adjacent wooden packing crate. She guesses he’d been standing on it when it splintered and gave way. Caroline, having turned his head gently sideways, checks him for broken bones.

  ‘Try not to talk,’ she says to him, but he’s still twisting his head round and making efforts to speak.

  ‘Thuth-uth-mee,’ he says.

  ‘Who are you?’ Hattie says again, sounding louder and more shrill. ‘What are you saying to me?’

  ‘Get me a pillow,’ Caroline says to Josh, who is paying her no attention. ‘Just pass me one of those patio cushions. And can you tell your little friend to get the fuck out of my light.’

  Both Hattie and Josh are frozen to the spot as Hattie stares fixedly at the tramp and Josh stares fixedly at Hattie.

  ‘Thuth,’ says the pissed-on tramp. ‘Ith-MEE. Dthame-th. Ith mah-munnay.’

  ‘He’s saying “money”!’ Hattie says suddenly. ‘Josh, is he saying “money”?’ And then she has begun to claw at his sleeve. ‘Oh my God!’ she says and she’s suddenly shaking violently. ‘Oh my God! Oh no! It’s James. It’s my br-bro –’

  ‘Try not to move, OK?’ Caroline is saying to the tramp. ‘You’re going to be all right.’ She turns again briefly to Josh. ‘Get Herman, for Chrissakes,’ she says. ‘Get him to call an ambulance.’

  The tramp has begun to snivel. ‘Ah-cum-fuh-ma-munnay,’ he says. ‘Thath-all.’ He raises an arm briefly towards the space alongside the cistern outflow where one of the bricks is chipped loose. Then the arm falls feebly to his side.

  By now Hattie has completely lost it. She’s yelling at the stinking tramp with a volume so loud that Jack, inside the studio, has no difficulty in hearing her every word.

  ‘What “money”, you swine?’ she screams. ‘And why is my daughter upset? What have you done to her?’

  ‘Ah-puth-ith-un-vuh-wawl,’ the tramp is mumbling. ‘Un-vuh-wawl. Long-go. Un-a-om-valope,’ he says. ‘Uth-mine.’ Then he says, ‘Ah-NEED-vuh-munnay-thuth an’ now-uth-gonn.’ Then the tramp starts to cough. It’s a cough that can’t seem to stop.

  ‘Easy now,’ Caroline says. ‘Relax.’

  ‘How “long ago”, you bastard?!’ Hattie is screaming at him. Pennies are dropping thick and fast in her brain. ‘And did that “envelope” say “Gertrude”? Well, did it? DID IT?! WILL YOU ANSWER ME!’

  ‘Easy now,’ Caroline says again, as the coughing fit subsides.

  ‘Uth-mah-munnay,’ the man whimpers. ‘I-dunno-why-ith-thed-Gertroob –’

  ‘Because you stole it,’ Hattie is yelling. ‘You came by the ballet school and you stole it from Josh’s pocket. You miserable bastard! You absolute shit! How could you have done that to her? How could you, after what you’d already done to her? Because it was you, wasn’t it? It was you who got Gertrude pregnant, yo
u slimeball, you sleaze. And because of it, you made sure she got sacked! You hid Father’s fountain pen, just as later on you hid her money. All afternoon I’ve been trying to work it out. I’ve been thinking it was Father who’d got her pregnant. But it was you, you evil bastard! Yes, you! You were always skulking around the servants’ rooms. And there was I assuming that was merely to do with your drugs. And here you are again – Christ Almighty – more than twenty-five years on! Exactly where you should be. Lying in a drain. You’re a waste of space, brother of mine. You always were and you always will be. Not content with screwing up your own life, and leeching off mine and beggaring our parents – you then excel yourself and get the maid pregnant. You get her sacked. You steal from her. Well, fuck you, James! Fuck you! FUCK YOU! ’

  Hattie has never screamed at anyone like this. Not in all her life. She has never, as far as she can remember, uttered the ‘fuck’ word out loud. Josh is staring at her in wonder. Even Caroline, for the moment, appears transfixed. And, inside the studio, Jack, listening intently above the beating of his heart, is gleaning something astonishing; something that bears significantly on his own life. The groaning tramp is the landlady’s brother. The landlady’s brother has, at some point in the past, got a certain Gertrude with child; Gertrude, the long-ago resident housemaid, who used to inhabit this place. This very place. The landlady goes way back with Josh, who once had an envelope intended for Gertrude; an envelope stuffed with money. And the landlady? Yes, of course! Why had he not taken note of it until now? She had to be the selfsame girl who’d come along with Josh on that rescue mission to his grandmother’s village all those years ago; the girl who had, on and off, been around on the set of that production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in which, in defiance of the race laws, he had played the little changeling boy.

  ‘And get this, brother James!’ he hears his landlady saying, and she’s still screeching like a fishwife. ‘Herman has been all over this wall; all over this whole building. So there isn’t an envelope anywhere in sight – with or without “your” money. You came by the ballet school and stole it. And then, for some stupid, muddle-brained reason best known to yourself, you decided to hide it in the wall. Well, clearly someone else has stolen it off you. So why don’t you just drop dead!’

  And then, suddenly, Herman is there, his voice booming into the night. He’s got Cat close beside him, her jeans by now hitched up and zipped.

  ‘Henrietta!’ he booms, standing there huge as Africa. He bawls her out in a volley of Afrikaans that all present can fully understand. That’s except for Caroline, though she doesn’t fail to get his drift. ‘Hou jou bek, jou lastige vroumens!?’ he bawls. ‘Is jy mal? Jy maak ’n verskriklike geraas! Bly stil!’ Then, in the silence, he addresses Hattie and Josh together, ordering them both indoors like two bad children. ‘Binne!’ he says. ‘Albei julle! Onmiddelik!’

  The pair retreat gratefully into the quiet and order of the studio. Once again, they pass right by Jack, who is still perched on the silver desk. They seat themselves side by side on the bed at the far end of the room.

  ‘My hero,’ Caroline says, into the merciful silence. ‘Well done, Herman.’ She’s aware that the invalid’s pulse is a little erratic. ‘Now that you’ve banished the children,’ she says, ‘would you call an ambulance, please? And ask if they can make it quick.’

  ‘Dad’s done it already,’ Cat says, smiling a little self-consciously at the beautiful lady in the fabulous dress; taking care not to focus her eyes on the smelly old dosser who is on the ground; the cause of all her distress.

  ‘Hey!’ Caroline says, and she smiles back at the girl. ‘Then it’s three cheers for your brilliant dad. Now, would you be one of the grown-ups, my dear? Would you please go back inside and get me some sort of a blanket?’

  ‘But that’s the ambulance,’ Cat says with relief, her sharp ears picking up the peculiar hum of the engine beyond the gate, because there’s no way she’s going back in there. Never. Not ever, as long as she lives.

  Inside the studio, Josh is wholly focused on Hattie.

  ‘Dearest girl,’ he says. ‘You’re so distressed. And I’m really not at all clear. What exactly was all that about?’

  ‘Don’t you see, Josh?’ she says. ‘The envelope that said “Gertrude”. It was her money. Gertrude’s money. The money from your jacket pocket. Your Gertrude was our Gertrude. I realised that this afternoon – just as soon as you said all that about the yellow polka-dot skirt. Pregnant Gertrude in the polka-dot skirt and the suitcase tied with rope. The woman you met on the road.’

  ‘God Almighty,’ Josh says. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘She’d worked for us for years,’ Hattie says. ‘But that would’ve been the very day my father gave her the sack. All that time James had been acting really weird. He was always coming from round the back of the sheds and the servants’ quarters. Gertrude was living there. Right here, as it happens. There was also an old gardener – Joseph – from Mozambique. It was two basic rooms with a washroom and some sheds. James used to do drugs in the sheds. I’d known that for a while. And of course I knew that he was mean and cruel. But all that summer, Gertrude – well – she was sort of shrinking from him. There was something different about it. I don’t know. Call it a hunch. And then one day I saw him make this gesture. He’d caught her eye when she was serving dinner. It was kind of horrible and explicit. And that little Jack of yours –’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Jack says, clearing his throat; not rising from the silver desk. Both of them look up and stare at him as though they see him there for the first time; the tenant in the Prada shoes.

  ‘Say,’ Josh says. ‘Isn’t that my father’s desk?’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Jack says again.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Hattie says, remembering herself. ‘I’m really so sorry about all this. I hope you can forgive us. We’ve all invaded your space. Josh, this is our tenant, Giacomo Moroni. Giacomo, meet –’

  But neither Jack nor Josh is listening to her.

  Josh is suddenly on his feet and he’s approaching the tenant in strides.

  ‘Jack?!?’ he says. ‘Jack Maseko?! You’re Giacomo Moroni? The Dario Fo thing? Oh my God, Jack, it’s really you!’ He is laughing as he crosses the room and he has his arms outstretched. He envelops the tenant in a hug. ‘You disappeared from the planet,’ he says. ‘Jesus, can it be you?’

  ‘Long story,’ Jack says, and he leaves it at that. He considers it expedient to allow himself to be hugged. He does not stiffen, as he usually does, in the event of physical contact. And, given that he’s a whole foot taller, he is able to look over the top of Josh’s head towards the landlady, who, as Josh releases him, appears to be preparing herself for speech.

  ‘Let me look at you,’ Josh is saying. ‘You look so different. Well, maybe you don’t. Maybe you look just the same?’ It is as Josh says this that he notices the ears. Jack has Hattie’s own dear little ears; those ears with almost no lobes. And could it be that these same darling ears are to be seen attached to the head of the odious James? James Alexander Marchmont-Thomas, who stole his guitar once, at school? ‘But how the hell did you get to be so tall?’ he says. ‘Good God, how did that happen?’

  ‘DNA,’ Hattie interjects. ‘My father and my brother are both very tall. My mother’s family as well. I’m the blip; the aberration. Foetal disadvantage. We’re twins, you see. James and I are twins. And once we were born my mother reinforced the disadvantage by always feeding James first. She did it without thinking.’ Then she pauses and she smiles at the tenant. ‘Giacomo,’ she says, ‘forgive me. I’ve actually met you before, but it was so long ago that you wouldn’t remember. This has been the weirdest day, but – please don’t think me too objectionable – I have reason to believe that I’m your aunt.’ Her words are met with general silence. ‘My brother’s son,’ she says.

  ‘Yes,’ Jack says.

  ‘What?!?’ Josh says. ‘You mean Jack is –? Christ Almighty, how weird!’ Then, after quite a while,
he says, ‘Since we are talking weirdness right now – can anyone explain to me how Caroline comes to be here?’

  ‘Who’s Caroline?’ Hattie says.

  And then the paramedics are at the wide French windows, with Hattie’s brother on a plastic stretcher. They move briefly indoors, into the light, in order to examine him before conveying him to the ambulance. Hattie, as the next of kin, agrees to travel with her brother. Josh and Jack, on the pistachio-green Vespa, follow the ambulance close behind. Each has his own separate reason for making the journey to the hospital. Josh cannot bear to leave Hattie to cope with the ghastly business on her own. Jack, dreaming of an EU passport, is in hopes that his moment may have come. His landlady, without a doubt, has ‘settler English’ written all over her. He is confident that there will be a paternal grandparent born within the British Isles. And the stinking drunkard – God willing, his own male parent – is just as surely on his last legs, so Jack doesn’t wish to waste time. He is reassured because, given that the drunkard and the landlady are twins, her DNA will probably serve his purpose, should the drunkard breathe his last. He knows that he needs to choose his moment with care, but he’s determined to approach her within the hour.

  In the peaceful aftermath of the hospital party’s departure, Herman, Cat and Caroline have made their way back to the main house, where the two women sit down at the kitchen table.

  ‘Well,’ Caroline says with a smile. ‘That was a bit of excitement. So the wino turns out to be family?’

  Herman hisses quietly through his teeth as he sorts out glasses and drinks.