‘I realise I have done you a wrong. Your house is in tatters, and that is my fault. I am sorry.’
Whether due to its brevity or, Hortensia hoped, its startling honesty, somehow Marion became angered by the apology. Maybe that’s true of all apologies, Hortensia considered, giving permission for the wronged party to rant. Maybe that was all the crane-driver had been avoiding. But she, Hortensia, was enjoying the fact that she’d upset Marion by apologising with integrity, it felt like a double victory.
‘… and we all know how that can go,’ Marion was saying. ‘I cannot afford to compromise the sale – everything must be perfect. And to top it off, forget the house, let me tell you. On the other side of that wall, by the way, was a painting. An original. Possibly somewhere destroyed.’ Marion raised herself up in her seat. ‘A Pierneef. So you can’t just blurt out three sentences and think you’re done with that. You have caused me so much trouble. So much.’
Hortensia had never been a fan of landscape art, but the expression on Marion’s face did not invite discussion on the topic.
‘Marion,’ she said, lowering her voice to the softest she knew how to. ‘I am truly sorry.’
Marion stood up. She’d only drunk about half of the lemonade, but Hortensia could tell she was now going to leave. And she did. The whole episode gave Hortensia a sense of longing that she had nowhere to put.
NINE
THE CONSTANTINOPLE HOSPITAL called to ask what had happened between Hortensia and the last nurse. Hortensia wished they wouldn’t. She had said, from the very first sniff of the suggestion, that she neither needed nor wanted a nurse. Well, the head-nurse huffed (a much more toned-down version of heffing), they were having some difficulty scheduling another nurse. And did Hortensia know that they’d never experienced this before and, well, they had to see to it, because they were responsible for her health and they were only trying to help. Alright, Hortensia said. Hoping the less she said, the shorter the call would be, the sooner the annoyance would end. Well, the nurse continued, she would have to go away and then come back. Okay, Hortensia ended the call, liking the first part of the woman’s statement and hoping the second would never come to pass.
In the meantime she devised her own plans.
‘Bassey!’ she called.
Bassey walked in.
‘Now,’ Hortensia started, ‘I am going to need a bit of … help.’
She had solved the matter of ablutions in two ways. The easier activity only required that Bassey place the low table and the steel bowl of warm water within arm’s reach. A clean sponge, white soap on a wooden tray. For the more private activity, Hortensia grabbed as much dignity as she could; she pointed Bassey towards the bedpan and explained to him what to do when she (thanks to the exercises she’d been doing daily since leaving the hospital) bridged and formed a gap between her bottom and the bed, through which he could slide the pan. Employer and employee came closer than they had ever been. An intimate smell embraced them.
‘I’m ordering a commode,’ Hortensia called after him as he walked down the hall to dispose of her waste. ‘And a nurse.’
She reached for the private-care brochures, dialled the number. As she waited for the receiver to pick up, she ran her fingers over the duvet cover. She’d missed her fortnightly call with the House of Braithwaite head-designers. As her age had advanced, Hortensia had grudgingly stopped insisting that all designs go through her for approval. When they’d moved to South Africa, she’d sold her share of the studio to her partner Adebayo and opened a Cape Town branch. In addition House of Braithwaite still operated out of the studio in London. It was only in 2000, seventy and tired, that Hortensia stopped going into work every day. Advances in technology meant she could conduct meetings from home and she prided herself on knowing everything that was going on in her company. Sometimes on the calls, though, she wondered if she detected a sense of condescension, as if her design staff were humouring her, a terrible habit the young have when relating to the old.
On the other end of the line, someone finally picked up. Hortensia cleared her throat. ‘Hello? … Yes. I’d like to order a nurse. About five-foot four-inches, 52 kilograms or thereabouts. Age between forty and fifty. Preferably unmarried. No children. I don’t want someone who ta—Hello?’
Her physiotherapist was a tall woman with short yellow hair that curled back off her forehead and around her ears. She had large feet clad in the plastic Crocs Hortensia abhorred. She – her name was Carole with an e – had a rough manner which Hortensia was grateful for. The woman, who looked to Hortensia like she was pushing fifty, had no sympathy for her patient’s condition. Rather she seemed annoyed that a stupid old woman had broken her leg – all this suited Hortensia.
‘I see we can’t seem to find you a nurse,’ Carole said.
Hortensia smiled to indicate her innocence in the matter.
The physio had been visiting three times a week, although she’d explained that these visits would wane as the fracture healed. Hortensia relaxed with Carole, allowed her to conduct her work of taking her body through a series of exercises. She especially obliged with the exercises, eager to be strong again and capable of doing things for herself.
The only hazard she had to endure with Carole was her insistence on explaining everything to Hortensia as if she were a child. It wasn’t as much what she said as how she said it, her tone dragging – all the easier for the dim-witted Hortensia to grasp.
‘We need to get to weight-bearing strength,’ was Carole’s mantra through all and any exercise regimen.
There was a set order to Carole’s visits. She arrived and, after no pleasantries but several questions as to the state of Hortensia’s leg muscles, they started the bed exercises. Usually, after the bed exercises, Carole would struggle along and manage to get her patient into a chair, but on the third visit she relented.
Carole hefted Hortensia into a sitting position on the bed, then after a few minutes she asked if the big black man who’d let her in could help get Hortensia into the armchair.
‘His name is Bassey,’ Hortensia said, with a tightness in her jaw as she pressed the button she’d had installed.
Bassey arrived and obliged.
Carole assembled the commode. Later she leaned against the wall in the hallway as Hortensia walked its length, manoeuvring the walker – a new addition to her routine. She hated it, found it offensive. A metal thing with no class.
‘See,’ Hortensia said as she walked along with great difficulty and little grace. ‘I don’t need a nurse.’
‘We can’t just leave you, Mrs James. It’s been bad enough that so many days have passed with little supervision. What about the night hours?’
‘What about the night hours?’
‘What if something happens? You fall, you need something. I asked, and the big … Bassey doesn’t live on the premises.’
‘I don’t follow you.’
Carole rolled her eyes. ‘We will be contacting you, Mrs James. Another thing: next week I won’t be here.’
‘Oh dear,’ Hortensia said and meant it.
Carole made a face. An attempt, Hortensia felt, at a smile.
‘It’s all rather sudden, but I’m getting married this weekend. I’m going on my honeymoon.’
‘How nice,’ Hortensia said, not meaning it. ‘So, what? I’ll hear from the hospital?’
‘Uhm, they should call, yes. All the best, Mrs James.’
The hospital did not call. Instead, Hortensia could hear the voice of … Dr Mama? She listened to the sound of two people walking down the generous passageway.
‘The doctor is here,’ Bassey announced and closed the door behind him.
‘Dr Mama!’ She was genuinely surprised.
He’d been Peter’s GP. She hadn’t seen him in almost two years.
‘Mrs James, what terrible circumstances, but … still it’s good to see you.’
He was bifocals-wearing, grey-hair-having. Hortensia put a smile on her face. She’d learned,
especially in Cape Town, that a smiling black woman was a dangerous weapon in its apparent innocuousness. It was what she thought of as a decoy, something to distract people with, while she worked out where their weak points were.
‘What a surprise!’
‘Well, news gets around – I had to come.’
‘Nonsense. How kind.’ Right then she remembered his voice. Explaining her husband’s disease, warning and preparing her.
‘You look too happy for someone with a broken leg.’ He came to stand close to the bed.
And the next surprise was that she found him handsome. Where had that come from? She hadn’t thought that two years ago.
‘I’m always happy,’ Hortensia lied and was pleased to hear her own laughter follow the preposterous claim.
Dr Mama laughed too. He had one dimple on his left cheek. His eyes were clear. His skin was dark and smooth and reminded Hortensia to add 85-per-cent Lindt to Bassey’s shopping list.
‘How’s the pain? Is this the medication you’ve been taking?’ He perused the medicines on the bedside table – a collection of Celebrex, the anti-inflammatory, paracetamol and an analgesic.
‘What pain?’ Hortensia said, laughed again. She was enjoying the laughing; there was seldom a reason, but Dr Mama seemed a good enough one.
‘You know what they say,’ he continued. ‘At our age, if you awake with no pain you’re probably dead.’
Again laughter.
‘On a more serious note, I’m sure you’re a strong woman. But if the pain’s too much, it’ll affect your rest. How’s your sleep?’
Hortensia rearmed herself. Doctors were not as bad as nurses, but still, you had to be wary. If he even so much as glanced at her in a …
‘Hmm?’
‘Pardon, sorry I didn’t catch that.’
‘Sleep, Mrs James.’
‘Hortensia, please.’
‘Hortensia, do you go for eight hours unbroken – seven at least?’
She laughed, this time with mirth. ‘I haven’t slept for seven hours straight since I was a design student. Come on, Doctor.’
‘Gordon.’
‘Gordon.’
‘Okay, well, we’ll need to do something about that, then.’
‘I won’t take sleeping pills.’
‘I understand, I wasn’t going to propose any.’
‘Good.’
‘Maybe some relaxing thoughts before bed? Do you find you sleep during the day?’
‘Sometimes. Not much else to do.’
‘Try and avoid this. I think of it as saving up the hours for the night-time rather than spending them in daylight.’
She smiled, a clean one with no malice.
‘I’ll also change your pain-medication. And I’ll prescribe some probiotics. Who’s been administering the daily injection – the Warfarin?’
‘Ah, highlight of my day. Carole showed Bassey how to do it.’
He nodded. ‘So, I’ll take these away …’ He juggled things, replacing bottles with bottles as far as Hortensia could tell. ‘You’ll keep taking it at the same times – here, I’ll leave you this label. I’ll explain to the gentleman before I leave.’
She’d never really looked at him. She was too busy being married to Peter. But there was something ‘messy’ about Dr Mama. It was strange because this was the last thing you might want in a doctor. Except what Hortensia detested most about those in the health industry was the way all the things they knew built up between them and you, like a mountain. Dr Mama – Gordon – had none of that. He seemed to somehow be a doctor by accident, as if it wasn’t his fault and he was sorry about it. He seemed helpless but intelligent all the same, nonchalant that he had happened to know some stuff, so they made him a doctor; he didn’t look like he’d ever have to shove that in your face. He was more the type to get you to forget.
‘Okay. Now, anything else? How’s the movement? – bowels, I mean.’
‘I beg your pardon.’
‘I understand. Just find a respectable way to let me know in the case of constipation, would you?’ He winked.
Hortensia relaxed some more but her guard wasn’t totally down.
‘I’m confused, are you my doctor now? Did the hospital send you?’
‘Not quite. I’m here as a concerned friend.’
‘Liar!’
‘Carole is your physio, am I correct?’
‘Ah, Carole. Good girl. Decent.’
‘She told me about you,’ Mama said.
‘Bad things?’
‘Not at all, but she did explain the “difficulties” they’ve been having with you at Constantinople. I agreed to … well, I said I’d come and see you,’ he smiled affably. ‘I think they hoped you’d like me.’
‘I see. And was all this at the secret doctor-sect meeting?’
‘Still so funny, Hortensia. I remember you as being very funny.’
No one found Hortensia funny. Caustic, yes, but not funny.
‘And I also wanted to say: I’m sorry for your loss. I heard Mr James passed away some weeks ago.’
She reached back for her smile, her armour. Hortensia held her face. Holding was something she was good at. Holding was a way of staving off being ambushed by the kindness of strangers.
‘… you call me,’ he was saying.
Except Hortensia couldn’t work out if he’d just said she could call him for sex or if he’d asked her out to the theatre. She nodded.
‘Then there’s the final matter of the care-nurse.’
‘I can take care of myself, Doctor. Gordon.’
Dr Mama was buckling the brown leather bag he’d walked in with. For that bag alone, the elegant cut and the audacious red stitching, Hortensia felt she ought to kiss him.
‘I understand that, Hortensia. But there’s something about the care-nurse that wasn’t explained to you.’
She straightened up.
‘The care-nurse is something we doctors put in place that is not really for the benefit of our patients.’
‘What!’ Hortensia laughed in disbelief.
‘Well, of course it is to the patient’s benefit. But in cases like yours where a doctor cannot see you every day, cannot monitor you, that nurse is more for us than for you. He or she will help us ensure that we give you the best treatment possible. There are too many dangers otherwise.’
Hortensia had listened attentively. She liked Dr Mama, he had a soft way of talking. She realised he was only telling her what she needed to hear, but appreciated it nonetheless.
‘So you really think I need a nurse.’
‘Absolutely, Hortensia.’
She puffed.
‘I hate nurses.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
She looked out the window and got annoyed that her building works were on hold. Blast!
‘So will you assure me? No more ill-treatment of your nurses? They mean no harm, Hortensia.’
‘You just want someone here with me, is that right?’
‘That’s right. Someone with some ability. Even just another body for … well, in the instance of an emergency, for example.’
Hortensia nodded. She’d already asked Bassey. He’d declined in that way that was annoying but that she respected; she did not own him, he did not owe her.
‘There’s a great nursing sister – I’ve had the chance to work with her before. Trudy.’
Trudy? What kind of name was Trudy? Hortensia forced what she hoped was a smile. But she felt helpless, put-upon.
‘So, is that settled? You happy with that? She’ll come in from tomorrow and, at least for the first week, I’ll have her stay nights. Then we look again – how’s that?’
Hortensia flicked her fingers, a sign of defeat.
‘I’m glad we could work something out.’
She felt nauseous for the rest of the day.
The unfortunate person named Trudy was black. She said she was Zambian, spoke with an American accent and was so short and pudgy that after the first
week Hortensia felt Trudy was the perfect comedic foil to Bassey’s largeness. Put the two of them onstage and laughter would happen spontaneously. Trudy was also disappointingly young. After her first day Hortensia called Dr Mama.
‘You sent me a Lilliputian.’
He laughed and Hortensia pointed out that she wasn’t joking.
But it was Trudy or nothing – there were no more nurses. And perhaps her youth helped. Hortensia disagreed with the prevailing wisdom that the young were somehow quick-witted and savvy. On the contrary, in her older years Hortensia had discovered young people (generally speaking) to be cocooned in a special fluff of obtuseness, which made them immune to the world and could easily be mistaken for intelligence, but only if you, the onlooker, were a little less than sharp in your observations. Trudy had this coating, which was just as well because Hortensia’s bite had little effect on her.
‘And that name of yours?’ Hortensia had started in on Trudy within hours of her arrival.
‘I hate it,’ Trudy had said in a whine that wore on Hortensia like wire on glass.
There the volley ended. Hortensia, for once, without a response.
On the bottom floor of No. 10, apart from the common areas and Hortensia’s study that had now been converted into a sickbay, there was also Peter’s study, which he hadn’t used since his illness. There too was a laundry room that led out to a granny flat. Bassey stored his day-bag there and Hortensia threatened him with it as a place to live if he agreed to stay nights, but in all the years he’d worked for her this had never happened. Adjacent to the laundry room was a small en-suite guest room, which is where Trudy slept.
Without knocking, Trudy walked into Hortensia’s study. ‘You slept later than normal today, it’s almost nine a.m. Wonderful progress.’
Hortensia wished she could reach her to slap her. Where did these people find these tones of voice? That particular lilt that could only mean they thought they were talking to someone they considered mentally deficient.
‘What do they teach you?’
‘Pardon?’ Trudy was constantly hard of hearing, which was both good and bad.
‘What, are you deaf?’ It was bad because Hortensia actually wanted people to hear her, but good because it allowed her extra room for particularly rotten insults.
The Woman Next Door Page 10
