‘Pardon?’ Hortensia said, turning the dial.
‘Sorry for the wait. We’re almost finished preparing him.’ She pushed her chair out and rose. ‘Be right back.’
Hortensia shrugged but not enough to be seen. This was another skill of her age: the infinitesimal shrug that let you pour heaps of blame, hopelessness and a sense of being victimised onto the world without having to contend with any resistance. Meredith – or was it Judith? – closed the door behind her, only to open it again a few minutes later.
‘Ready?’
The woman’s back was wide, and Hortensia felt like a child as she traipsed behind her down the passageway. It was safe, like being in a human slipstream. The mortician’s shoulders, and the shock of red curls that fell onto them, reminded Hortensia that she had to ask Malachi the gardener to trim back the ivy by the gate. Probably he hadn’t noticed, he was the kind of gardener that didn’t notice things. Then there was the continual problem of her concrete pots by the entrance steps. Hortensia had had the pots made, specially cast; she’d had the paint factory use an acid-based dye. Four pots, square-shaped because the entrance porch required corners, strong lines versus baroque curves. On each square pot was a white image, the silhouette of a bird with a delicate elongated beak that might suggest a hummingbird, but only if you looked closely. The birds, when the pots were arranged as they should be, ascended as if heading skywards. Malachi moved the pots around often. For instance, if he was turning their soil or if she’d asked him to plant something bright and pretty. Then he’d return the pots along the right-hand side of the porch, one for each step, but the birds would be jumbled, some facing east, some west, no skywards-effect. The suffering she experienced at the hands of a gardener without an eye for these things.
‘I’ll leave you for a few minutes. Take your time, Ma’am.’
Hortensia moved closer to the bed. She put her mouth in a line, surprised at herself, at the agreement she was making with her face that this was not the time for tears. She edged forward, took a look. Of course it wasn’t him. It never is. And, unable to stop it, the thought came that she too would lie down one day, not ever to get up, and maybe someone (the cleaner or the nurse in charge) would edge forward. Of course it would be the cleaner or the nurse. It wouldn’t (couldn’t) be anyone who actually knew her. It wouldn’t be anyone who would be able to tell that this wasn’t her; that, in death, she wasn’t herself. And wasn’t that somehow a failing – having no known-one there to witness? What could be more fitting than dying and having people who knew you from when you were alive; have them present to look into your casket and confirm that ‘It isn’t you’; that no, you were quite different in life; that yes, death had taken something, there had been something to take. Hortensia’s eyes wandered with her mind, she looked to the corners of the small wooden-panelled room, she looked to the ceiling. Imagine having people witness that, in death, you looked the same. And then her eyes fell to the dead body that was not Peter.
His face was grey-green and small. It had sunken in, as if he’d taken a very big breath, sucked all the air in and hollowed his cheeks, but not got the chance to breathe out again. She felt sorry for him. She reached out and touched his cheekbone. The skin was like wet, but it wasn’t. Damp somehow.
His hands were knobbled, in particular his ring-finger. The knuckle swollen, his golden band trapped in place. Hortensia moved her hand to the ring, to the cold of the soft metal. It was now too late. She sucked her tongue to distract herself – what was the point of crying now, whatever was the point? She turned to call the mortician back, tell the plank of a woman that she’d seen him enough. And just then Hortensia remembered that the paint-seller had called that colour, for the pots, ‘Magic Teal’. And after the pots had been delivered Hortensia had thought how unlike its name the colour looked. And, without any way of explaining it, she’d felt cheated.
After the viewing at the morgue, the tangle of arrangements started. Hortensia baulked both at the sympathy that spilled out from people and at the assumption that, at her advanced age, she had buried many already, that she understood how things worked. This produced a rather obscene casualness in the mortician, whom Hortensia now reliably recalled was a Ms Judith Mulligan. At their second meeting Judith had asked Hortensia whether she’d notified ‘the regulars’. And then later Judith had asked her if Peter had a Facebook page. It was a miserable time, not because her husband had died but because most of the living – people Hortensia had to associate with – appeared to be numbskulls.
Some man telephoned about a tombstone for Peter. Yes, apparently Peter had commissioned his own tombstone. She tried to get rid of the guy but he was resolute. The man had gruff in his voice, the kind of voice you’d think a sculptor, someone who worked with stone, should have. I don’t understand why you’re calling me, Hortensia said, her already short temper at its shortest that week. But Peter must have prepared Gary – that was his name – for this encounter with his wife. After Gary’s protracted explanation, Hortensia relented and agreed to receive him and inspect the work of art before its installation. The stone was to be placed, adjacent to the buried ashes, on a snatch of ground Peter had purchased a year back. Hortensia had joked at the time that it wasn’t big enough to fit a car.
Gary arrived in a white truck. He hooted at the gate, which was unnecessary – there was a perfectly working intercom. He had a beard and eyes so squinting you could hardly see them. Hortensia wondered, with a small sneer, if he could see anything, if his work could be any good, but when he unveiled the stone she stopped – Gary, sun-beaten, leather-skinned Gary, had made something beautiful. The base was thick, and a thin slab projected out from it at an angle, all in white marble. Hortensia was surprised at the thinness of the slab. ‘Won’t it break?’ She was careful to sound disinterested. They were standing in the driveway, looking into the back of the truck. He shook his head. ‘Reinforced,’ he said. The slab was covered, meticulously, in a fine pattern of black dots, like tar bubbles. Hortensia wanted to run her hands over them (she could almost feel them already, the bumps) but she restrained herself. She found that she liked Gary’s design and she was worried that he’d notice. ‘Alright,’ she said and offered directions but he said he didn’t need them – he knew already where the plot of land was.
So much else was happening. It didn’t help that Hortensia kept forgetting things. The mortician wanted to know the name of the hospital, the doctor who’d signed the death certificate. It was all written down – why was she asking her? ‘I don’t know, Cathy-something,’ Hortensia had said. ‘Dr Cathy Marcus or something like that. Oh, there were many doctors, though. Oh, you mean the one who signed? Marcus … or something.’
Hortensia also forgot simple things. She forgot to ask Malachi to make a cutting of the bougainvillea for the vase on the bureau in the hallway. She forgot to tell Bassey, who was the only man large enough to fit anything Peter owned, to go through her husband’s things, take whatever he wanted. She forgot that Peter would want her to contact Unilever in Ibadan – who would still be there of the old crowd? Let them know about the death. The so-called regulars. She’d even forgotten to tell Zippy, who had phoned from London, all concerned to find out how Peter was doing. Hortensia felt like an idiot telling her sister, three days after it had happened, that her brother-in-law was dead.
‘Oh, my darling, poor thing,’ Zippy said, but who was Zippy’s pity directed at: her or Peter?
‘It’ll be okay,’ Hortensia said.
‘Should I come? I should come. Shouldn’t I? You sound so normal, why didn’t you call me the minute it happened? I’ll come.’
Hortensia let her baby sister carry on for a while, then she used all her powers to persuade Zippy that the funeral was nothing, rather come out for a longer time afterwards, when Hortensia would need the support. It sounded right, even though none of it was true. She listened a bit more to admonitions that were simply a younger version of the ones she’d received from their mother, before tel
ling Zippy there were things she had to attend to, and ringing off.
There’d also been a surprise. No death is complete without one. Hortensia placed her teacup down, taking small joy – a sense of the rightness of things – in the crisp clink-sound the bone china made as she set it on the saucer. A breeze blew up onto the patio and she looked out and noticed that the clouds were threatening rain. Hortensia could hear Bassey preparing dinner. Everything was normal, except that her husband was dead and apparently she was no longer the executor of his will. Someone else was, a someone she now had an appointment with the following day. Hortensia curled her lip; it was involuntary. If she were with company she would fight the urge, fight the way the corners of her mouth just naturally wanted to sink to the ground, but since she was alone she let them go. She picked up her cup again and took a sip of Earl Grey, prepared with Chinese Black Congou tea and not the usual Ceylonese. This small detail made the moment bearable.
Within seconds of meeting the young lawyer, Hortensia knew she didn’t much like him.
‘Come this way,’ Hortensia said to him, noticing by the fluster in his eyes that he’d have preferred niceties before business.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said as he followed into her study.
‘Come, sit down. Sit over there.’
While he took a seat and arranged his briefcase, Hortensia pressed the intercom. ‘Bassey. Tea, Mr Marx?’
‘I’d prefer coffee, Mrs James, if it’s not too much trouble.’
‘Black?’
‘Thank you.’
She finished her instructions to Bassey and sat on her throne. She wouldn’t call it that for anyone else to hear, but it’s what she always thought when she lowered her posterior onto the leather. Hortensia smiled and Marx, carelessly, thought she wanted to be friends.
‘I am sorry for your loss, Mrs James.’
She tightened her lips, fixed her spectacles to her face and gave her let’s-get-to-business look.
‘Your husband,’ he said, ‘was … well, I wanted to … What I’m trying to—’
Hortensia raised a hand. Bassey knocked.
‘Come.’
He was a large man with breasts of his own.
‘Set it there. Thank you, Bassey. Never mind, we’ll pour ourselves.’
She began again after the click of the door.
‘I don’t want us to waste time. Apart from being old, I have some meetings to attend. I think you realise that my husband did not inform me of his change to his will. I think you understand what things must have been like between husband and wife for such an action not to be shared.’ She pushed her reading glasses down her nose, so she could look at the boy through her mud-brown eyes. She knew people found her eyes quite frightening. He didn’t disappoint her. ‘Now, what do we need to do? You have the paperwork in that briefcase of yours?’
She sat back, happy with the effect of her speech. She waited as Marx spread the papers on the desk.
‘Can I pour?’ Hortensia asked.
‘Thank you.’
‘Let’s get on with it.’
‘I know you weren’t expecting me.’ He was recovering.
‘When did he make the change?’
‘Three or four months back. I can trace the exact date if it matters.’
Hortensia shook her head. Peter had had one last surge of good health, lucidity, before falling into his final hole. He must have done it then.
‘I don’t need his money by the way. The house is in my name. This isn’t about that.’
‘Yes, Mrs James. I am aware that you are worth a large sum of money.’
‘I don’t like to put it that way.’
‘Mr James spoke a lot about you.’
Despite herself, Hortensia was interested. What might Peter have said? She had no notion. But she didn’t ask for Marx to expand and he didn’t seem to think there was any more to say on the matter. He placed a file on the table.
‘Well, as you now know, he made me the executor of his will.’
‘Did he take me off as a beneficiary?’
‘Oh no, you’re still a beneficiary.’ He was fidgeting; raised his cup but put it back down.
‘Is something wrong? With your coffee?’
‘It’s hot.’
‘I see.’
He cleared his throat. ‘I really don’t—’
‘Mr Marx, please proceed. I don’t have all day.’
‘You are still a beneficiary. Just not the primary one.’
Marx kept his head down. He managed a sip of his coffee, it brought colour back to his face.
‘So who’s the primary one, then? Did he go and leave his money to the hunting club? Idiot, I told him not to be foolish.’
‘Well, actually, Mrs James, there’s another beneficiary – a person.’
Hortensia waited.
‘I’m really sorry for the difficulty of the situation.’
‘Mr Marx, I don’t know you that well and you obviously don’t know me. This, I assure you, is not difficult.’
‘Yes, Mrs James. The other beneficiary, you see, is daughter to Mr James, so he informed me, and she goes by the name of Esme.’
He made himself busy, rifled unnecessarily through the papers in front of him.
Hortensia sat back in her chair. She needed a few moments; she held her face. Always hold your face – she usually knew how to. But this time something rippled, she felt the twitch in her right cheek, put her hand there to steady it. There was confusion first, then anger. Betrayal a close third.
‘I see.’ She smiled at Marx. ‘I understand. Well, okay,’ she said, more to herself than to the lawyer. ‘Well, we didn’t really have to meet for this. You could have sent me an email.’
Marx seemed unsure whether to return the smile. He chose not to, went on to explain the details. Hortensia had to get in touch with Esme, in fact meet with her. The will ‘expressly’ stated that no one was to notify Esme of her inheritance except Hortensia. Peter’s trickery.
‘Where’s the girl?’
‘She’s an adult, Mrs James. Forty-nine years old, by Mr James’s calculations. She lives in England. The minute you contact her, arrangements have been made for a ticket, accommodation, and so on.’
Like a play-date, Hortensia thought.
The rest of the meeting was dotted lines to sign upon and corners of pages to initial. Perhaps because of the intimacy of leaning over paperwork, or the sense of familiarity brought by the sharing of bad or, as he put it, difficult news, Mr Marx, at one point, loosened up enough to comment, ‘She’ll be one rich woman, that’s for sure.’
Hortensia thought this was crude of him. She’d so far been nice to him, which is to say she hadn’t been unpleasant. She wished she could take back her courtesies; in fact if she had had a weapon, she would have struck him. Except that the person, in that moment, she really wanted to hurt – to kill – was Peter and it pained her greatly that he was already dead.
Peter hadn’t been religious, but he’d had religious affectations Hortensia had never been able to fully decipher. He’d whistle ‘Morning Has Broken’ and then sing it, but get the words wrong, the song disappearing down his throat. He played golf on Sundays but wanted carols at Christmas. And now he dies and asks for a church.
Hortensia stood at the entrance of the church. A Land Rover crunched over the gravel and parked, irreverently Hortensia thought, beside the empty hearse.
The priest touched her on the shoulder. ‘Let me go and prepare,’ she said and Hortensia listened to her shuffle up the aisle. The priest, despite having a youthful cherubic face, had a laboured gait and Hortensia found it painful to watch her; she somehow felt guilty, as if it were her fault.
A stooped man and plump woman got out of the parked car and walked towards the entrance. The woman had the kind of fat on her body that had become familiar and would never leave. She looked comfortable. Hortensia studied them from behind her dark glasses and extended a hand when they came within reach.
�
��Our deepest condolences.’
She nodded because there was nothing to say. Hortensia had never met them before. They stood there for a few awkward seconds and then walked on past her into the empty nave. She imagined they would find somewhere to sit.
Five more people arrived. A woman who said Peter had been her biggest client, a hedge-fund-looking woman, but Hortensia was too pissed off to ask.
‘I love Simon’s Town,’ the spike-heeled woman said, looking back towards the avenue of trees along the road that led to the church.
In place of condolences the woman spoke of her beautiful drive from Hout Bay, and Hortensia felt her mood swing, felt herself become a widow who required pity for the loss of her beloved and resented this woman who offered none.
There came an elderly couple who claimed Peter was the best golfer in their club. The man had also hunted with Peter, when Peter was still hunting, and he told anecdotes of little bokkies being dondered, which made the priest, who had returned to Hortensia’s side, give him a pleading look.
A man arrived late, after everyone including Hortensia had already sat down. At the end of the short saccharine service, while everyone else rose, he stayed sitting on the hard wood pew at the back for a few extra moments. Hortensia had been sitting too and when, at the end, she stood and walked past him, something in the way the man was holding his face with his eyes closed made her realise that he was praying.
She walked to the back of the church, where a stretch of snacks looked about to go to waste, and startled to find her neighbour’s face staring at her.
The Woman Next Door Page 5
