by Gerda Pearce
She orders another coffee. The prices here astonish her. She divides her pounds by ten and finds her cappuccino still cheaper than London. She feels fresher now, calmer. Tired, but settling, waiting for the domestic transfer. Passing time, she enters Viv’s name and address in a competition to win a car, wills herself to quell the lingering suspicion that any information she supplies will be used to malintent. Is it Africa, or London, that has made her so edgy, so nervous of others and their intentions? Is it strangeness or familiarity that breeds this paranoia? The Dutch woman had remarked on her lack of accent, and now she finds herself adjusting to the heavy gutturals of home.
It is time to board. Gin struggles to stand, her leg numb and awkward. People look at her, the way she stumbles. After a while, movement will increase its flexibility. She finds herself trembling slightly at the passport checkpoint. Cape Town, its ghosts, lies ahead. The Dutch woman’s words come back to her: the end of the earth.
The flight seems to take forever. Was it only yesterday she left London, only yesterday Jonnie held her like brittle glass? They fly in low over the green plains, the ridge of mountains. She cannot but think of the last time she flew here, on her way to meet Simon.
Simon, making his way through the crowd. Simon, green-flecked eyes alight to see her. The same light in those eyes, dying. His hand, outstretched to her.
She wants to scream, to cry, to climb out her seat, smash the window, and breathe fresh air. Instead she sits, dumb, frozen.
Only when she has collected her suitcase from the rolling rubber rail, only when she has walked the length of the tiled arrival hall, only when she has exited through the automatic doors to see Viv standing alone at the barrier, only then do her eyes start to burn, and only when she is enfolded in Viv’s welcoming embrace does Gin start to shake uncontrollably, her body wracked with soundless, heaving sobs.
46. GIN
Issy’s house is in the valley beside the Nahoon River, as it weaves to the beach. Viv turns off the highway onto the old Nahoon Road that hugs the hill and crosses the narrow bridge.
After Gabe’s death, Gin’s parents had moved to Zululand, eager to get away from the Eastern Cape and its unhappy memories. But Gin’s sister Issy had stayed on in the coastal town where they had grown up. It is strange to see it again, this place she once called home. She knows Viv had suggested the trip as a form of therapy, for her to see Michael again, but it is also for Abbie. It is so Abbie can see Grahamstown, have a look around the university but, Gin suspects, Viv is also keen to have Abbie spend time with Gin and Issy, and reconnect with her father’s family. In the fortnight she has been back, Gin has interacted little with her niece. This long weekend is not only about Abbie’s future, but also her past.
They turn into Issy’s wooded drive, the sun unable to penetrate the canopy of conifer, and the ground is dark beneath the branches. Issy’s home is a large, double-storied house, with two outhouses, and a broad green lawn that slopes down to the river. Issy rushes out at the sound of the car, her face alight with welcome. She has cut her hair, her thick auburn curls are gone, replaced by a feathery cut that frames her face and highlights her freckles.
Over lunch, Issy explains that the children at the clinic had kept pulling at her hair and eventually the only solution was a radical one. Her sister is full of news and questions. She seems happy and Gin is relieved to see her so. There had been a time when her sister’s health had waned, and leaden circles had formed under her aquamarine eyes. Now she appears content, married to one of the radiologists at the hospital attached to the clinic.
“I thought Abbie might want to see some stuff of Gabe’s,” says Gin tentatively after lunch. She is well aware that the family burden has always fallen on Issy. It had been left to her sister to sort through their parents’ home after their dad’s death.
There is also the awkward question of their father’s ashes.
“I hope you don’t mind, Gin,” says Issy, “I put them in a wall in the cemetery where Mom is.” She sounds unsure, as if her actions are questionable.
Gin hates the thought of her father walled into some hole. She would rather have taken his ashes back to Britain and up to the Highlands; she would have brought her father home. Instead she says that this is fine, and thanks her sister for taking care of it.
Issy looks nervously at Viv, says loudly, “I kept Gabe’s ashes, Viv.” She chews her lip. “I thought,” and here she flicks a glance at Abbie, “I thought Abbie might want to decide what to do with them.”
Abbie has been sitting quietly through lunch but now a look of alarm crosses her face. She looks at her mother, and Gin is reminded how young her niece is. So young to already be thinking of heading off into the world, to make her own choices, of career, of life, of loves.
Viv’s previously composed face contorts with conflicting emotion. She reaches a hand across the table to Issy, who takes it between two hands. “Thank you, Issy.”
They prepare to leave the next morning after a breakfast that neither Gin nor Viv can touch. Abbie and Issy in contrast eat heartily, aunt and niece chatting easily. Abbie tells her about school, about how she wants to study English literature and psychology at university.
“Michael’s there now, Issy,” interjects Gin, “don’t know if you knew.”
She tells her sister about Michael’s appointment.
“Well,” says Issy, lathering marmalade on a piece of toast, “Abbie may end up as one of his students then.”
Abbie nods, forks more scrambled egg onto her toast.
“It’ll be good to see him again,” says Gin, looking at Viv, who sips her tea and smiles agreement. Gin imagines it must be hard for her to be surrounded by Gabe’s family, his two sisters, his daughter, and not be plagued with memories. The previous evening, Issy had pulled out photographs of Gabe, and memorabilia, from his life before Viv that must have hurt. Hannah is in so many of the photographs. Gin is unsure of how much Viv knew about Gabe and Hannah.
As they pack the boot of the car, Issy produces a cardboard box for Abbie, filled with Gabe’s albums, trophies and certificates. At last, thinks Gin, something for Abbie of her father. Then Issy brings another box.
“Some of your stuff, Gin,” she says, “From before you left.” Issy squeezes her sister’s arm.
They had spoken alone the night before, an upsetting conversation about Ellie.
Gin cannot think what she had left behind. The box is closed with tape, marked in felt tip pen with her name, and she is not going to open it now. She packs it in the boot beside the suitcases. They exchange hugs, say their goodbyes, make promises that will not be kept, and make their way back out through the shadowed driveway of gnarled and ancient trees.
Once they have wound their way out of the built-up areas, Viv puts her foot flat on the accelerator and guns the stubborn old car inland. Abbie slumps sleepily on the back seat, her box from Issy beside her. Gin relaxes after the unfamiliar roads of exit. The new highway is not the road she remembers, but soon the tar fades to a familiar hue, and the countryside is once more unchanged from twenty years before. Past the outlying shantytowns, sun gleaming off tin shacks, past the shiny hospital where her sister works, and onto the sliver of road that will take them to King William’s Town and then beyond. Beyond to Grahamstown and her past.
Once in King, again the wind of road directing them out of the town is unfamiliar.
“They built a bigger bridge and a different road,” explains Viv, “the floods washed the last one away a few years ago.”
They cross the new one. Gin can see the remnants of the old further down the bank, a broken frame of rusted iron. Beyond it, there is a turnoff, signposting a memorial to Steven Biko.
“Isn’t it amazing, Gin, that now there are memorials to men like Biko. Amazing! And there were times we never thought we’d live to see the day. And I have to remind myself sometimes that Mandela has already been president,” she pauses, continues, “I saw him once.” And then she glances in the rear-view mirror and stop
s, seemingly reluctant to continue.
Gin wonders whether it is something in Abbie’s expression that has stopped her, but says nothing. The rise of the road towards Grahamstown has already brought an ache to her throat and she cannot speak.
They make good progress and soon the russet hills give way to the high plateau before the downward drop to the Great Fish River, the age-old border between the British settlers and the Xhosa tribes. Everywhere, thinks Gin, everywhere are parts of my history. She feels the blood tie of her birth reach down into the core of this land, deep into the earth below, beyond these immovable mountains.
“Viv, can you pull off at the top, before we go down to the river?”
Viv glances at her, slows, waits till they are past the prickly-pear sellers before she idles almost to a stop, pulls the car gently off the tar. Even so, it rattles and bumps and red dust rises.
Gin leaps out the car, almost runs to the bend of road, to the edge where the road starts its plunge towards the river, cut beneath the shadowed bank on one side, the steep fall on the other. There has been rain recently, and the river swirls a full and muddied brown. Normally flat and sluggish, now it thunders its way over the rocks, along its tortuous path to the Indian Ocean. Her gaze follows the course of its muffled roar to the curve of its disappearance between the distant hills. A long time ago she had climbed the ridge opposite, with Gabe and Michael, Hannah tagging along behind as usual, on some school hike to the coast.
Waiting for Hannah, they had fallen behind, until Gabe had seen a short cut through the clinging brush to where the rest of the team steadily climbed their way to the crest. It had been slippery and sheer. She had turned to pull Hannah up over a smooth boulder and had never forgotten the sight. The view behind, beneath, had filled her with fear, yet also a type of elation, a headiness at their height, pitted up against the mountain’s edge, at the overbearing blaze of sun above, the generous expanse of sky, and the rush of the river below.
“Merrum, are you okay, miss? Have you broken down?”
Gin turns. A motorist has pulled up near the car. Viv sits smoking, the driver’s door open to the heat. Abbie appears to be sound asleep in the back. Viv waves her cigarette amiably at the man, shakes her head, thanks him, exchanges pleasantries. He drives off in a puff of dust, his bakkie expelling gusts of black smoke. Gin watches him descend the winding road to the bridge below.
His reference had been to the car, yet she thinks with a kind of harsh humour how she had thought for a moment he was referring to her, how she could have answered: Yes, I have. Inside she is broken, healing scarredly.
She turns back to the car, her limp suddenly cumbersome to her step.
47. GIN
Viv drives with an unusual caution, following the now-distant bakkie to the concrete bridge. After the narrowness of the road, it feels huge. Wider and longer than Gin remembers. Shifting to a low gear, Viv urges the car up the steep rise of the other bank, into what Gin always thinks of as the home strait. She is glad it is still early. Too many times she remembers taking this stretch against the blinding sunset. Her eyes burn from memory.
There are buck alongside the road. One of the herd lies dead, has been laid to one side of the tar, cleaved gut spilling carrion for flies and vultures. She had forgotten the cruel wildness of this land.
Once they are past the uphill heave of it, the road rises to Gin’s favourite part of the journey. Here the tall trees and verdant farmland are testament to a lusher rainfall. But ahead of them they see a thick smoke rising. The rain has not been enough to dampen the easy flare of bushfire and the fog of it envelops the road.
Viv drives slowly and they do not speak. Emerging from the worst of the smoke, fine wisps of grey still caressing the car, a sudden elation takes hold of them both, and they chatter away madly, happily. Their noisiness does not wake Abbie or if it does, the girl pretends to sleep still. Laughing, Viv speeds up.
A mile or so later, after a slow bow in the road, their mood disintegrates as a uniformed man steps out ahead of them, his hand raised. Abbie sits up as Viv brakes, cursing. The lone policeman is black, and Gin is suddenly acutely aware of a new and alien vulnerability. They have been speeding, he informs them, officious to the point of rudeness. She finds herself wondering if he relishes this power over a white motorist. Can he jail them? But Viv appears calm as if for her this is an everyday occurrence. So Gin stays silent and watches Viv’s beauty beguile the man, listens to her mellifluous voice talk him out of issuing a fine, or worse. A car behind squeals to a halt, caught by the bend. The policeman relents, smiling, either at Viv or the thought of another victim. Gin lets out a huge sigh as they ease off. Viv gently chides her nervousness, her foreignness, and soon they are laughing again, their good mood restored by relief.
It is not long before they reach Grahamstown. Yet again, she is unfamiliar with the road to reach the centre. A huge highway unfurls before them, and a concrete curve of it swings into the old Port Alfred road. No longer do they enter through the winding Raglan Road she had taken all those years before, that last time with Simon. Viv and she had exchanged glances at the turnoff to the farm. Viv’s slight shake of her head enough to signal to Gin: no, not yet.
Instead they sweep in through pretty houses lined with bougainvillea and thick trees, with shaded verandahs and painted walls. Down the road to her beloved Cathedral. They are all silent now, Abbie looking out of the window, obviously intrigued by this part of her own history, while Viv and Gin are quiet, invaded as they are by the inevitability of memory.
They turn into the gaunt lane. Gin’s heart pounds against her ribs. She is afraid. A few feet ahead lies the turnoff to the flat. This is the haven, the home that exists in her mind. There before her will be the purple jacaranda, the three stone steps to the wooden door. Her safe place, her sanctuary, where she travels when all else overwhelms her. She has not seen it since the night of Gabe’s funeral, the night she drove here with Simon.
And inside, meaning to her life. And inside, love.
Viv takes the corner into the uneven cobbled driveway, parks at one end of the courtyard. Gin gets out the car and walks deliberately to the opposite end.
She can hardly breathe. It is not as she remembers, nor even as she saw it last, that terrible day. She stares up at the sandy yellow of the building in front of her. It is changed. Gone are the white linen walls, refuge against the African heat. This desert colour makes it look parched. Once it had a leafy promise of shade, of respite. Her throat catches. The jacaranda tree is no longer there. In its place, a fronded palm unequal to its height.
Oh, Simon.
Images are shifting, memories moving like lava in an uneasy growing heat.
That last week, that last week together, Sunday afternoon. Desperation in the love they’d made.
She stares up at the bedroom window, no longer overshadowed by the lilac leaves, no longer bathed in dappled light. No purple droplets, like wine at a papal offering. A pall of emptiness descends.
He had cried the short, strangled sobs of men who do not weep.
Simon, she thinks, I let you go with an acquiescence that outwardly, to you, must have merged with indifference.
It feels oddly right that the tree has gone. That, like Simon, it no longer physically exists. Perhaps it is fitting it was part of their time only, as if it could not go on, living another life without them. Yet there is sorrow also at its passing, unnoticed. Its presence might have been a comfort, a blessing almost, standing there still like some sort of unchanged monument, steadfast and unforgetting. A testament to their existence, to their lives, to their love.
Africa, as ever, moves slowly on.
She is aware of Viv and Abbie, patiently waiting outside the car, outside what must be Michael’s flat. How long she has been standing there she does not know. It could be minutes, but it feels like years. Years on hold. Standing on the outside, looking in.
And inside, once, meaning to her life. And inside, once, love.
&nbs
p; To the left of the entrance, the lounge in cream. They would drink the semi-sweet white of a summer dusk with the French doors flung wide to the warm evening, or the dry dark red of a Cabernet before the grate, drapes drawn thick against a winter night. It had been her world, their world, a whole new world.
If one followed the wave of sun as it broke in the morning to fill the lounge, then by afternoon one would be through the sliding doors to the darkened dining room, where the light would splash lightly in one corner. Come the evening it would retreat like foam off the wave to the beach of garden at the rear of the flat. How well she remembers their dinners at the oak table. Was it still there?
To the right of the entrance, the yellow kitchen. Afternoon light would stipple the counter. She remembers mess, and happy evenings, how he would put his arms around her from behind, and hug her tightly to him. And then the wooden stairs.
Round and up they travelled to the three rooms and the pale bathroom. Her study had lace curtains and sitting at her desk she looked over the lush garden, stone-walled and thick with jacarandas, a pagan-orange coral tree and a green cane-shooted bush.
“The far end of your mind, Ginny,” he had said to her once, “lives there.”
She had been so soon his.
She could go inside now, the flat is hers, her gift from Simon. But she needs to preserve the interior intact, at least for now, for a while. The exterior so changed, barely recognisable, disturbs her. Whether she will live to regret this inaction, she will not know. For now, the outside is enough. The three stone steps are still there.
Gin walks back. She looks at Viv, who returns her gaze with compassion. Gin knows Viv’s own memories must be surfacing. Gabe is never far away. There is a solemn heaviness in the air.
“Shall we go in?” asks Viv, “or do you need more time?”
Simon, laughing. His deep, delightful laugh. Simon, cooking. Smiling at her, pouring her a glass of wine while they talk. Simon, smoking in the chair. Simon, standing naked from the shower, drops of water on his chest. Simon, deep in a book. Simon, strong hands on the wheel.