by Gerda Pearce
Michael starts unstacking the boxes. He lays them neatly out side-by-side on the cold cement. He stands back when they are all at floor level, dusts his hands off.
“You’ve hardly unpacked anything. How long has this stuff been packed up anyhow?”
Gin bites her lip. “Ages. The removal company did it all. I threw in a few things. It was all such a rush. I just kept stuff out I needed most. You know, clothes and cups and plates and things.” She sounds apologetic. “I just couldn’t face it.”
He makes light of it. “Well, at least it’ll fill up this big empty house.” He pauses. “Right, you start that end and I’ll start this end. Shall we make piles of stuff for where it’s to go? Lounge, kitchen, linen, that sort of thing? Maybe once the first few boxes are emptied, we can label them and then put the stuff in there to take upstairs. And maybe a box for the charity store, things we don’t need.” He finds himself suddenly invigorated by the task.
They sift through, sorting. It is fairly tedious and routine until Michael opens a box that contains a CD player and cases of compact discs. He plugs the player into the wall socket, peers at the discs, pulls one out and holds it aloft, shaking it at her. “Ha! I knew you had my Peto CD.” He turns it over to read the back.
“Rubbish! That’s mine!” she laughs, grabbing it from him with dusty hands. “See… this is mine, it’s got a scratch right here, across the spine.”
He snatches it back from her, grinning. “You didn’t even know it was here!” He sticks the CD in the player and African drumbeats echo through the room. He sings along lustily to the chorus, watching her out of the corner of his eye, glad to hear her humming along softly. Progress, he thinks.
They break for cheese sandwiches and tea upstairs in the kitchen. He feels almost agoraphobic after the closed atmosphere in the basement. The late afternoon has brought a breeze.
“We’re almost there, Gin,” he notes, as they return downstairs. He slots more African music onto the player. “And now, of course, I’ve found all my missing CDs…”
Gin thumps him on the arm playfully and pulls another box towards her. The cardboard side of it rips as she does. Books, letters, and jewellery spill out onto the floor.
“Ah,” he says, full of mock gravity, “and those will be my missing books.”
Gin is picking up scattered pieces of jewellery. “And I suppose these are your missing earrings?” she flashes back, then stops. She makes a small sound.
“What is it? Have you cut yourself?”
Gin cradles one hand in the other, staring down at her hands. She does not look up. Michael starts to move over to her, but she suddenly extends her hand. “I’m okay,” she says, but her voice is thick, “Can you put this with the rest of the stuff for the charity shop?”
She turns from him and picks up a fallen book. Michael looks down at what she has given him. Glinting blue through the gloom of the basement is a sapphire ring.
“Gin,” he asks, after a pause to examine its brightness, “this is beautiful. Are you sure you want to get rid of it?” He turns from her, holds it closer to the light in the room. Facets fire back at him. “It’s probably worth something.” There is a brownish mark on the silver. “Oh, hang on, maybe not… it’s rusted, I think, so it can’t be silver,” he says. He scratches at it and the mark crumbles away beneath his nail. He examines the residue and says, pondering. “No, I’m not sure if it’s rust. Where did you get it?”
Gin has not made a sound. Michael turns back to where she had busied herself with another box. What he sees horrifies him. Gin is bent double over herself, clutching at her stomach.
21. VIVIENNE
“Van Hunks and the Devil are at it again,” says Nick. He makes a vague gesture out of the car window.
Viv is jolted out of a meditative lethargy. They have been driving along Rhodes Drive, alongside the craggy slopes of the eastern side of the mountain, and he is driving to where the road skirts Kirstenbosch gardens. She has been thinking of the work and care it must have taken, to plant almost every indigenous tree, bush, and flower there, and nurture it, make it thrive, in the Cape’s Mediterranean climate. From acacias to watsonia, the long-stemmed kanolpypie as it is known. She wonders idly if there is a plant starting with the last letter of the alphabet. There must be, she thinks, surely Nick will know.
“You’ve no idea what I’m talking about, have you?” he laughs.
She shakes her head, embarrassment tinged with relief at his amusement. Jonnie would not have been so nonchalant about her inattention.
Nick gestures up at the mountain again. “You must know the legend,” he queries, “about where the tablecloth comes from?”
Viv looks up at the thick roll of mist that is sweeping over the peaks. They are alongside Newlands forest now, heading out onto the highway that will take them eventually to Simonstown. Or, depending on their mood and the turn of the road, to Fishhoek. Manyanga has been banished to neighbours today, but she knows it is actually a treat for the dog, the company of others, and a long run in the park. Nick is at ease in the car, a confident driver, and she sits back. She spends so much time driving in the car herself, to patients, and endlessly fetching or ferrying the girls.
“I thought it was from the Cape Doctor,” she says, “I thought it brought the tablecloth along with the gales and drizzle.” She does not add that the strong south-easter also brings for her a gloominess that can last for days.
Nick tells her the story of a Dutch pirate, approached by a stranger while sitting on Duiwelspiek. He gives Devil’s Peak, part of the mountainous backdrop to the city, its Afrikaans name. Viv wonders if he feels more Afrikaans than English. A boasting match ensued between the two, he continues, ending in a smoking contest.
“What Van Hunks didn’t know was that the stranger was the Devil himself, come to see who was walking on his peak. Van Hunks won, and the Devil in a rage had him swallowed up in the smoke, and now when the cloud comes, people say they are smoking again,” he finishes, smiling.
Viv laughs. “I’ve never heard that one,” she says, musing once more at this man beside her. More and more he reminds her of Gabe. He would also tell her stories like this, she remembers. How Gabe would have loved such a yarn.
“Did he like stuff like that, then?” asks Nick, with a tender tone she has not heard before.
She blinks at him in surprise. “What?”
“Gabe.” He snatches a look at her. “You said he would have liked that.”
She had spoken aloud without realising it, without even hearing herself. What else would she give away to this man?
But she gathers her thoughts, and says quickly, evenly, “Yes, he did. He used to tell me stories. Myths and legends that his own father had told him. King Arthur, the Greek myths.” She pauses, thinking of Gabe’s favourite. The quest for the Grail. And only Galahad up to the task. Gabe had written his thesis on it. At the time, struggling with the inequality of the South African social justice system, Viv had thought it irrelevant, self-indulgent even. Now, she finds herself merely thankful Gabe had studied what he had loved, in what little time he had been given. “He liked African stories too,” she says, finally. “Did your father tell you them?”
“My mother,” he replies, checking his rear-view mirror and signalling to change lanes. “She was a teacher.”
“Oh. Does she still teach, or is she retired now?”
“She’s dead.”
His revelation is unsettling. For the first time in Nick’s company, she feels awkward. She supposes she ought to keep quiet, but says instead, “I’m sorry. And your dad?”
“He’s dead too.” Nick checks his rear-view again and speeds up slightly. She wonders why he has not mentioned this before.
“Oh,” she states, simply. This time she stays quiet, but thinks they cannot have been that old.
Again she feels his swift gaze.
“It’s okay,” he reassures her, “it was a long time ago. They were killed in a car crash just before I
decided to come to Cape Town. An Easter weekend pile-up outside Dutywa.”
She puts a hand on his arm, briefly. He flashes her a quick smile. As she takes her hand away, the feel of his warm skin lingers on her fingertips. Viv suppresses an urge to touch them to her lips, to touch the taste of him to her mouth.
“Did he ever tell you the one about the Guardians of the Earth?” asks Nick.
“Who? Gabe?” Viv looks out the window, half-expecting to see Gabe’s reflection staring back at her. She hardly ever speaks of him like this. You left me, she accuses him silently. You left me on my own to raise your daughter. Your daughter who has your eyes and your thoughts.
“No, he didn’t,” she says wistfully. It is Nick’s reflection in the window that turns towards her again momentarily, then back to the road.
“African legend has it that when the earth was formed, the Earth goddess Djobela turned four giants into stone, into mountains, to look after the four ends of the earth and protect them from the sea dragon. And the greatest of these was the one in the South. Table Mountain.”
“What are the others?” she asks, curious now.
“I don’t know,” he grins, “it’s a local legend, after all. But that’s the old name for Table Mountain. Umlindi Waseningizimu.”
She looks at him questioningly.
Nick slows, “Fancy a tea?”
She nods, and he puts on his indicator, pulls the car off into a broad sweep of gravel that is a parking lot outside a café she had hardly noticed. It is set back from the road, surrounded by the forest. The roof is wooden, and overhangs a wide verandah.
The rain in the air is palpable as they get out of the car.
“What does it mean, the name?” asks Viv.
Nick looks up at the mountain, far behind them now. Viv’s eyes follow. It is almost covered in the smoky swathes.
“The Watcher,” he says.
His eyes are dark as he turns to her, and to Viv something ominous sounds in his tone. Involuntarily she takes a step back from the car, from him.
“The Watcher,” he repeats slowly. “The Watcher in the South.”
22. VIVIENNE
When they are seated at a table inside the café she asks him to name a plant starting with a ‘z’. The place is brightly lit, with a counter selling sweets and crisps. The table is covered with a red-and-white-checked vinyl tablecloth. On top stand salt and pepper shakers, a ribbed glass container of sugar, and a plastic red tomato filled, Viv presumes, with tomato sauce. Aside from an auburn-haired woman at the counter, they are alone.
Nick shows no surprise at her question, but his look is intent. “Ja,” he answers after a moment’s pause, “Zantedeschia.”
Her look is questioning.
“The lily,” he explains.
A young woman emerges from a door behind the counter. There is no exchange between her and the woman at the counter. She takes their order of two coffees with downcast eyes.
“What makes you ask?” he smiles at her, when the young woman has returned to the kitchen.
Viv shakes her head dismissively. “Just wondering.”
Rain splats heavily at the window.
“Not good weather for walking on the beach,” notes Nick.
Viv asks if they can just carry on driving. That is, if he doesn’t mind. She remembers her daydreams of driving up Africa, Cape to Cairo. At one stage she had even managed to persuade Gin to join her. An impossible adventure, given their situation and the travelling restrictions on South Africans in an Africa understandably hostile to the Nationalist government. They would have been turned back, at best. At worst, imprisoned or shot.
“No, I don’t mind,” Nick is saying. “I like driving, in fact.”
The coffee arrives, steaming, in thick white mugs. Nick sips at his almost immediately. Then he reaches for the sugar container, pours a generous amount into his mug.
Viv toys with her own mug, pushes it back and forth between her hands. It is too hot to hold. “Do you like travelling?” she asks.
He sits back, regarding her. “Ja, I do.”
She asks him which countries he has been to, determined to keep the conversation light and focused on him.
“Europe,” he answers. “Some of the surrounding parts of southern Africa, the usual. And you?”
She takes a sip of the scalding drink. So much for keeping the conversation on him. “The same,” she nods.
“Did you like it?”
She takes another sip, although the roof of her mouth burns with it. Europe. With Jonnie. It had been their happiest time. “Yes and no. I liked seeing the place. But I missed the girls.” As she says the words, she curses herself for giving him reason to probe further. Again, she has let him in.
Inevitable that he asks, “You left them here then? When did you go? With your husband?”
She wishes suddenly, stupidly, that he’d said ex-husband. The way he said husband makes her feel as if she is still married. Attached. Out-of-bounds. But she cannot bring herself to correct him. It will sound petty.
When the girls had been old enough to be left with her mother, they’d taken the trip, she tells Nick. She does not tell him it had been her belated honeymoon, replacement for the one they hadn’t had, in the euphoric glow after Jonnie’s release, and before the awfulness had begun. She does not tell him, simply sips at her coffee, now cool enough to drink, and looks at the window splattered with rain. She realises that she holds an odd and abstract affection for Europe and the places they had been. Except for London. She had known through Michael that Gin was there. And Gin was lost to her at that time. Like Gabe, she had thought. And indeed, it had felt like a death, the loss of her friendship with Gin. Unexpected, and as yet ungrieved.
“Except for London what?” His voice interrupts her reverie.
Appalled, Viv realises she has spoken aloud again, telling him this. I have been too long alone, she thinks.
“I like Europe. But not London,” she recovers.
He drains his mug. “Me neither. I just wanted to get home.”
“Oh? You’ve never thought of leaving?”
This time she has surprised him. No, he says, why would he want to leave. How young he is. Leaving had been something so many of her generation spoke of or considered. Like Michael, to avoid the Army. Like Gin, to get away. She wishes Gabe had left, got away. At least he’d be alive. Would her life be different? Would they be together? The infinite unanswerables. She sighs heavily.
“What’s the matter?” It is said with kindness.
She looks at him, feeling old and wearied. “Just the rain,” she says as lightly as she can. “The mist makes me gloomy.” She expects him to laugh. It sounds silly, trite, even to herself.
Instead, he reaches across the table, and takes her hand in his. He holds it lightly, his thumb rubbing her fingers. Her awkwardness rises, but she forces herself to let her hand rest in his for a while before she takes it away and reaches for her handbag and the calming comfort of a cigarette. She flicks the lighter, hoping Nick does not notice the slight trembling of her fingers. She can still feel where his hand touched hers. The imprint burns like the end of her cigarette.
They drive for several hours. Nick takes the slow route around the peninsula. He stops the car on the side of the road past Kommetjie, and they watch the rain pelt waves that are impervious to its assault.
Suddenly he says, “You’ve never seen my place. Would you like to? It’s not far from here.”
Viv expects him to turn off into the lower-lying area of Hout Bay, but instead Nick continues, heading up and along the curving tar that will take them back to the city. She is intrigued when he slows outside a Clifton townhouse, one of the compact flats cut into the side of the mountains that lie along the coast, the land plummeting to the churning sea. It is one of the most expensive areas, outside the city. Surely policemen do not earn enough to afford this, she thinks, but does not comment. He turns left into a short paved driveway and parks outside the closed
garage door. The smell of the sea is strong as she gets out of the car, brine brought on the breeze. The rain seems spent now, a few errant drops splash her as she follows Nick to the front door. Viv feels slightly disappointed at the lack of any garden. Pebbles, shells, driftwood, lie scattered alongside the sandy flagstones that make up the path. And this from the man whose eyes shine when he talks of plants.
The view from the inside makes her breath catch. The short hallway leads into a large lounge. Huge glass windows on two sides of it look out over the precipitous landscape that drops to the ocean, and ahead is the endlessness of the icy Atlantic. The room is otherwise as she expected. Clean, comfortable. A large woven rug stops the stone floor looking cold, and on the one inside wall is an open fireplace, stacked with fuel. There are two neatly filled bookshelves on either side of the chimney breast. Beneath one of the windows is a couch, the leather worn and cracked into softness.
The rain has stopped, and Nick leads her through French doors on one side, out onto a steep path cutting through the bedrock that is the foundation of the house. It is then she sees the garden, planted between rocks. Red-hot pokers stand stiff and tall, arrowing towards the muted sky. Viv recognises the blue umbels of agapanthus on pillared stalks. In between is a graceful, arching plant, which looks too fragile for anything but a sheltered position. She turns to him in wonderment to find him watching her.
“Nick,” she breathes, “this is spectacular. Did you plant this all yourself?”
He nods shyly, that troublesome lock of hair falling across his forehead. “The wind is the enemy of a seaside garden,” he says, sounding to Viv like an antiquated reference book. He gestures towards the pokers. “The kniphofias are unbeatable for wind and salt tolerance. Do you know they grow on the most inhospitable coastlines?” He talks quickly, passionately. She wants to laugh at his boyish eagerness. “It’s a formidable plant,” he continues and then, as if realising she is amused, he ends, “from a gardener’s point of view, that is.”