by Lynn Freed
In fact, going to South Africa turned out to be lovely for everyone but Gladdy. She spent her days at the hospital, where her grandson was dying. It was too late, she reported, for the doctors to help, even the expensive ones. And Bess had been right—he’d sold the pills Gladdy had bought for him over the years. Every day she zipped her money into some sort of contraption that she tied around her body, and caught two packed mini-buses to the hospital. There she’d feed him spoonfuls of soup from a can, or Coca-Cola. She washed him and changed the sheets because conditions in the ward were terrible, she said, terrible. Still, it was hard to tell what his death would do to her, what his life had meant to her either. If you mentioned his name, she just clicked her tongue and waved away any answer she might be expected to give.
Everything was difficult for her in South Africa, even breakfasts and dinners at the guest house. She sat straight-backed at the table, refusing to look at the menu, which she pushed over to Bess. “You do it for me, Bessie,” she whispered, and then pressed her lips into a dignified line to shut the subject down.
The truth was, she was lost there now, just as she’d known she would be. The two gorgeously overdressed black couples staying in the penthouse suites disconcerted her. Everyone disconcerted her, even the waiter who brought the glass of water she’d ordered on a silver tray. “What he needs a tray for?” she whispered furiously when he’d gone. “Why he can’t just carry it without showing off?”
On the weekends, Patience came to fetch her. She was large, very large, and as sullen as I’d imagined she’d be. If Gladdy wasn’t ready and waiting, she’d lower herself into one of the wicker chairs in the hall, and there she’d stay, her bag on her lap, responding to offers of tea or coffee with a sullen shake of the head. Perhaps she disapproved of the bargain her mother had made with domestic service. Or of the bargain that had been made for her. Had she been pleasanter about it, I’d have found a way to tell her that I didn’t blame her in the least for this. And I didn’t. But, as it was, I simply nodded to her and walked on.
“She’s always been like that,” Bess said. “She blames me, of course. And my grandmother. Poor Ma—I called her Ma, you know—I do wish I hadn’t named Agnes after her. But how was I to know she’d turn out to be a life coach, for God’s sake? Ma would turn in her grave.”
* * *
Hester #3 (HUGH)
The first time Hugh Stillington had brought me out to the bungalow, I hadn’t been ready for his world. I’d sat on the veranda thinking of things to say as he’d dismissed the servants in perfect Zulu and then poured me a sherry from an old cut-glass decanter.
“Do you imagine you’ll be comfortable in America?” he’d asked over his shoulder. With five generations of sugar behind him and a reputation for righteous reform, he was miles from the vulgarity of my own world and its contempt for anything local.
Everyone else had accepted without question that, with Oxford behind me, I was going to America to get some more degrees, a clever girl like me. I had almost come to believe it myself. The whole plan seemed to fit well with Clive’s green card, and with the way he kept apart from the sort of doctors ready to take a wife. Just as I stood apart from the sort of women who majored in psych and socio and announced their engagements just before graduation.
* * *
FOR TWO DAYS, I’D BEEN driving up and down the coast, looking for the road to Hugh’s bungalow. But it had gone—road, bungalow, even the old hotel. When I stopped for tea at one of the newer hotels and asked a grizzled old Indian waiter if he remembered it, he just shook his head. “People,” he said, “are always coming looking, and finding nothing, because nothing is staying the same, madam, am I right?”
I nodded, although, as far as I was concerned, he was quite wrong. All these years I’d told myself that the life I’d left behind was gone, place and people. But, despite the upscale lobbies and infinity pools, the high-rises and thruways and malls, here it still was—scones for tea and, out there, two fishermen on the rocks, the sun on the surf, frangipani and hadedas. Sitting there in the familiar afternoon light, I was as happy as I’d been for a long time.
And Hester? I wondered, pouring myself another cup. How much love had she wrested from the two hopeless men she’d driven into and then out of marriage? It was hard to tell. As far as I could see, her real love affair was with the father she’d never known, the life she might have had, the life he might have given her. Now that I was here, she’d begun talking winsomely of meeting me here herself—bringing Lily, perhaps, and what did I think?
What I thought was that by the time she’d sorted out the details, I’d be back in Greece. I went to stand on the balcony, watching the last of the light on the sea. By all means, darling, I’d said, see what you can do.
* * *
à gg, Greece
One small cause of relief in being away from America is that no one either here or in Greece seems moved to declare love at the close of every telephone conversation. “Don’t forget the dry cleaning! Love you!” “No, you may not go to Sarah’s house today, you have homework to do! Love you!”
I have tried to work out when and how this plague began, but every time I ask American friends, they are either embarrassed—wondering, no doubt, whether they themselves have committed this folly with me—or they shrug. When I asked a student at a crime fiction conference why, at the end of every line of dialogue, she had her narrator adding the phrase like a tic, she looked at me as if I’d just spat on the flag. “But what if the other person’s actually murdered?” she said. “And no one’s told them?”
So, I gave up.
Bess’s daughter has taken up the tic with a vengeance. There isn’t a phone call between them that doesn’t have Bess swearing as she snaps her mobile shut. “Loves me!” she cries. “Do you think she’s being sarcastic? I mean, that might give me some hope. There I am, in the middle of telling her this life-coaching business is a toss, and she says, ‘Got to run! Love you!’”
I shrug, only glad that Hester hasn’t yet taken it up. Lily did try it out on me once, and when I didn’t join in the volley, was left a bit bewildered at the other end. She’s sixteen, probably trying out what she’s heard others say, and who better for the purpose than a grandmother?
But not this grandmother. I would have felt cheapened saying it, ridiculous, ashamed. Love, I could have explained, was a private, costly, complicated thing, full of uncertainties, full of hope. Between a grandmother and her grandchild there should be another word for it—something calmer, taking into account the charm of generation, the vagaries of chance.
I could have told her that in another era I might have been living in her mother’s house or she in mine. Whether we liked each other or not, there we’d be, making our peace with biology. After a while, her mother would have a commode brought in, special nappies, bottles of baby food. And when, at last, it was time for me to leave, and my hand—more like a claw by then—reached out for her to say goodbye, she’d shrink from it in terror, retreating to the doorway, lest I try to take her with me.
* * *
RETURNING ONE MORNING FROM TOWN, Bess plonked a box down in front of me. It was large and old and tied up with string. “You won’t believe it!” she said. “She locked it up in the bank!”
“What?” I said. “Who locked up what?” I was almost getting used to the way she landed in the middle of a subject, expecting others to follow.
“Ma!” She untied the string and lifted the lid. “Just look!” she said. “Money! And all sorts of other stuff. Open it!”
I looked and, yes, there, neatly stacked, was bundle upon bundle of banknotes, each tied up in its own piece of brown string.
“She left instructions that it should be given to me when she died, and the bank chap said they sent a letter, probably to the old address. And just as well I didn’t get it, I suppose, or the ex and late and unlamented would have put it into a trust fund for the children. Or Rex would have gone through it. Either way.”
She lifted out a bundle of notes. “Let’s count.”
“Bess,” I said, “you should put it in the bank. It’s dangerous to have this much money lying around here!”
“The chap at the bank said it was a shame it had been sitting there so long as it had lost half its value. Is there a room safe?”
I tied the string up again. “Even if there were, it wouldn’t be safe. And I seem to remember there are laws about taking cash out of the country. You need advice.”
“I know, I know. But isn’t it wonderful? And you didn’t even see the photos.”
“What photos?”
“Underneath. There’s a pile of them.”
I untied the string, opened the box again, and took out the bundles of money, lining them up carefully on the bed. And there at the bottom was, indeed, a stack of photos, and also a stack of letters—all, it seemed, written in the same bold, heavy hand.
“That’s not her writing,” she said. “They must be love letters. Let’s have a look!”
“First, we should put the money in a plastic bag,” I said. “Something inconspicuous that could look like lunch. Then I’ll drive you to a bank.”
* * *
THE LETTERS WERE MARVELOUS, FULL of elephants and natives. If I had found them before I gave up on the Stefan Gripp series, I could have used them there. So what if I brought him back to life somehow? I thought. Now that I was so at sea? The column counted for nothing against the great maw that faced me day after day. Less than nothing, in fact. Even Bess had her shopping, and Dania had her phone calls. In fact, Dania, of all of us, seemed the most content with this time of life.
Writing to her, I didn’t mention the money Bess had found. Although it was in the bank now, there was still some question as to how she’d get it out of the country without paying a ridiculous forfeit. There was also the funeral of Gladdy’s grandson to pay for; it couldn’t be more than a week or so off. And after that, Bess said breezily, we could just come back again every year—she, Gladdy, and I—until the money was all used up.
* * *
WHEN THE TIME CAME, BESS hired a van and driver to take Gladdy, Patience, herself, and the grandson’s body up to Gladdy’s village for the funeral. It was a ghastly experience, she said—appalling hotel, heat, noise, cockroaches—and as for the funeral itself, all that wailing and screaming, and Patience, who hadn’t even bothered to visit him in the hospital, loudest of all—well, only Gladdy had really wept, so full of sorrow and true misery, and why, Bess kept asking, why, when all Gladdy had ever had from the boy, start to finish, was trouble?
“Everything she’s lost was there,” I suggested. “Everything she could have belonged to.”
“We’re all lost,” Bess said. “What could be more lost than me living with Agnes? In America? What could be more lonely? No money, no lovers, no glamour, nothing. All that’s left is Gladdy.” She sat up. “And I don’t want to read those letters,” she said. “I knew Ma the way I knew her, and I don’t want to know now what I didn’t know then.” She tossed her hair. “She had all sorts of lovers, you know, your grandfather was only the first of them. That’s probably where I got it from.”
I laughed. I knew she thought I could do with a lover or two myself. “It would cheer you up,” she kept saying. “Look how Dinny cheers me up. It’s like having a small heifer following me around. Do you know he calls me ‘Gina’? For Gina Lollobrigida?”
I smiled, wondering who I might have been to Finn. Every now and then an e-mail still came in from him, probably after a few glasses of wine or because he was at loose ends. And sometimes there would, indeed, be a pang for what was gone out of my life—what, in fact, I didn’t even want back—except for the lovely sense of being seen again by a man, longed for, loved. When I watched men watching women now, all I could think was how biological it all was—this need, this game—and a shiver of the chill of death would run through me.
“I have another idea,” Bess said. “Why don’t you write one of your columns about Dinny and me?”
I laughed. “Why don’t you do one yourself?”
“Me? Don’t be mad!”
“But, really, why not? It’s only about a page and a half. Just write whatever you like.”
She laughed happily. “But where would I begin?”
* * *
à gg, Greece
Bess here. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about being fat, and that, when it comes to men, fat has never had anything to do with it. It’s your face they’re after, and your happiness they want for themselves. They also want praise, of course, but we all know how to play that game. Just think of a dog. Because, really, they’re just dogs, dying for a bit of a pat, and when you’re my age it’s the old dogs you’ll get, sitting there, wanting something to wag their tails at.
Talking’s another thing that has nothing to do with it. If Dinny had been able to talk to me properly—I mean more than, You like? You okay, dulleeng?—it would have spoiled things. Anyway, I didn’t want to know his story, I’ve heard quite enough of men’s stories already. I knew he had a wife, of course, but that’s only a good thing because when men have wives then you don’t have to wake up to their groping and bad breath. You just have the candles and the wine and an hour or so later they’re looking at their watches and dressing to go home.
It all goes fine, of course, until the wife finds out, which they always do because the husbands want them to know, even if they don’t think they do. They’re so proud of themselves, you see, and for years the wives have hardly even noticed them as men. So why not give them something to be sorry about?
I look at the beautiful young girls in the mall and around the pool, with their skin, their hair, their laughing, and I feel like all the men in the world looking at them, and also all the girls in the world being looked at, including the girl I was when men first started looking at me. So, you see, it doesn’t really matter that I’m a fat old cow now. It all just makes me want to sing.
* * *
Ruth, dear, marvelous idea to have each of you do some columns. This one from Bess is a really good start. I’ll send the edit. Sxx
* * *
“WHAT?” BESS CRIED. “Just tell me why ‘wanting something to wag their tails at’ is worse than ‘wanting someone at whom to wag his tail’? Mine’s better! Miles better! I mean, what’s she after with ‘at whom’? I hate ‘at whom.’ Would you say ‘at whom’? I wouldn’t, not with a gun to my head.” She huffed around in her chair. “‘At whom’! I ask you!”
I laughed. She was even more possessive of her prose than I was of mine. And, anyway, she was right: hers was better. And I loved her for it.
“And why did she put in ‘and I’m not unhappy with that’ after ‘I’m a fat old’—WHAT?? She changed ‘cow’ to ‘woman’! How can she do this? Did you tell her she could do this? Well, just tell her I want ‘cow’ back! And who said anything about being unhappy? And no! NO! I will not explain why it makes me want to sing! Is the woman so stupid that she can’t work that out for herself?” She flung up her hands. “Listen, Ruth: Is this what you have to go through every time? Because if it is, no wonder you hate it. It would drive me around the bend.”
* * *
à gg, Greece
Greek coffee—or Turkish coffee as the Turks would have it—is one of the delights of life in Greece. It isn’t hard to make, but you will need what they call a briki—a small pot with a handle, preferably copper. And be sure to buy Greek coffee, which is very finely ground for this purpose.
Using a small demitasse as a measure, fill the briki with cold water for the number of demitasse you need. Then add one or two large teaspoons of coffee grounds for each two-ounce cup of coffee, depending on how strong you like it. If you like it sweet, add one or two teaspoons of sugar per cup. Heat the briki over medium heat, stirring to mix coffee and sugar. As the coffee heats, foam will rise. When it almost reaches the top, remove the briki from the heat, using a mitt or a cloth (the handles are not insulated) u
ntil it subsides. Let this happen three times before turning off the heat. Then allow the coffee grounds to settle.
To serve, pour a little foam into each cup and follow with coffee. Serve with a glass of cold water. The coffee should be sipped very slowly, like a liqueur.
The miraculous thing about this coffee is that, although it is every bit as potent as regular coffee in America—more potent, I am told—it does not keep me awake at night. When I ask Dionysos about this, he just gives me his broad, charming smile. “It is because is Greek,” he says. “Everything Greek is good!”
* * *
WE’D BEEN BACK ON THE island for a week, and it was as if we’d just arrived again—Would you mind? and, If it’s not too much trouble? Even Gladdy couldn’t seem to relax back into the way she’d been before. Certainly she wore the aprons and made the early morning tea, but her cheerful bossiness was gone, and more than once I heard her click her tongue when Bess called out for her. Still, when I suggested that perhaps she should have had time at home to mourn, Bess just shook her head. “It’s not home for her anymore,” Bess said. “No sooner was the funeral over than she started nagging me to leave.”
“Maybe she just doesn’t want anymore to be here a slave?” Dania suggested.
Bess shrugged. She knew by now that Dania wasn’t being provocative. In fact, Dania reported that she’d been turned into a slave herself when Yael came to stay. “Every morning, six a.m., the children came so Yael could get for herself another hour of sleep, can you imagine? And, oy, the shouting! The fighting! They’re adorable, of course, but around the corner comes June and they’ll be beck! Thanks be to Gott Noam is phobic about flying or for sure he’d be coming, too, and Esther in her sheitel, and those children, can you imagine?”
“Would you consider doing a column on that?” I said. “You’d make less than you do for an hour on the phone. But it might be fun.”
“You’re kidding me! You don’t put in print things that will come back to bite you.”