Hortensia settled into Ibadan as if it were a neighbourhood in London. The new environment and the chunky accents around her were not strange, nor were the house staff, although she’d grown up making her own tea and mopping the floors.
They still had sex in those days. Next to the kitchen sink on the charcoal-blue Italian factory tiles that the supplier had given Hortensia a discount on; or Peter standing, pressing in, Hortensia’s hands spread against her favourite surface with the canna-lily wallpaper (last batch by the, now dead, textile designer). Peter went off to work, chauffeur-driven, and Hortensia worked in the shed she’d had converted, almost on arrival, into a studio. Her work was still being sold from the London studio, which she’d reluctantly surrendered to the assistant, with Zippy keeping an eye. Hortensia had seen yards of adire on a visit to Abeokuta and was in search of a local designer to join her in opening a boutique. At the end of the day Peter would come home and they would touch eyes over dinner. The heat was sticky and the love slippery, but Hortensia’s uterus didn’t take any notice.
Years passed. 1958, she was twenty-eight years old and her mother wanted to know why she wasn’t yet pregnant. Peter said nothing. The sexual clamour of their arrival in a new place died down, though, and Hortensia discovered the loneliness of marriage.
They began to argue about silly things and she discovered that he had a temper, rare but awful enough that, each time it erupted, the gap between them widened. Gradually it became a fact that Peter touched Hortensia very little.
In bed at night they slept turned away from one another and in the daylight, on the rare occasions they walked together, they did not reach for each other’s hands. Marriage was a disappointment. Colder than Hortensia had imagined, it was the sad end to her Sunday-school belief in the lore of Noah – that life was best lived in pairs. Instead, marriage had turned out to not be much after all. It was the tedium of little domestic details. It was negotiating the tiresome habits of another. Marriage also made Hortensia suspicious when she met new people. Where was the nastiness in this one? she would think to herself as she handed change to a trader or stood to be measured by a polite seamstress. She’d seen Peter cradle an injured bird so gently that the animal had managed to come to a state of calm. And, in the heat of one of his moods, she’d seen him smash a plate to the floor. Not just any plate, but the gold-leaf-painted Chinese porcelain plate that she’d spent months negotiating for and finally wangled out of a dealer in London. It had been her favourite, with four pheasants and four orchids arranged along the face, flecks of gold dancing between them like magic dust.
What happened? This was a common question she asked herself. And then Hortensia would work backwards through their time together, through the string of little and big arguments, offences taken, insults applied. Often the house settled into weeks of corrosive silence. The silence was easier than the booby-trapped mission of attempting conversation. But sometimes the silence wasn’t a relief, it was a form of punishment. The spells of silence could continue for days, but they always ended unceremoniously.
‘Did the paper come?’ Peter would ask at breakfast and Hortensia would answer in a clear sweet voice.
Or they would be in the bedroom, Peter dressing for work, the sounds of the driver singing as he completed the morning car wash, the tinkling of the housekeeper as she laid the breakfast table. Hortensia would already be dressed. She’d stand by the window and look out into the garden, the tennis courts beyond, the pool that the gardener fought with every day to maintain the chlorinated blue of cleanliness.
‘Harmattan is late this year,’ she’d say.
And Peter would nod and then, understanding that she couldn’t see him, with her back turned, and might take his silence to mean he intended to stretch the fight out, he’d say, ‘Yes, it just might be.’
Sometimes they did make love, but it was duty. Hortensia remembered her father telling her about hurricane scares when he was a boy. When the electricity was cut off, how to keep the eggs fresh: every few days turn them over. That was how they made love. It was a domestic task to keep something from rotting.
THIRTEEN
THE FEELING MARION was experiencing was not one she was familiar with.
She knocked on the door.
‘Marion,’ came Hortensia’s response – the woman could see through wood.
‘May I come in?’
She heard what sounded like a sigh, which was as close to a ‘yes’ as Hortensia was likely to come.
‘Sorry to trouble.’
Bassey was off and the house was empty.
‘I felt like some company.’
Hortensia pursed her lips, watched as Marion pulled a chair up to the bed.
‘Marion, with all due respect, I didn’t invite you into my home in order to offer you company.’
Always terse. Always so cutting.
‘I went to the library,’ Marion said in a bid to ignore Hortensia’s discouraging look. When she didn’t say anything, Marion bravely carried on. ‘I … I just felt like … Don’t you sometimes feel a bit …’
‘Marion—’
‘Just let me try and explain. I remembered something.’
‘Is this really necessary?’
‘Yes.’
Marion had remembered being in class.
‘At school, St Winifred’s, in Wynberg. Maybe you’ve heard of it.’
Hortensia nodded, her face was set, Marion faltered.
‘I … I—’
‘Marion, really.’
Marion smoothed her skirt and rose from the chair. ‘I’ll leave you in peace.’
Once Marion’s history teacher, Miss Siebert, wrote an address on the green board. Miss Siebert – they called her Queen Victoria behind her back, because her hair went down to her bum and her skirts to her ankles – told the girls that this was a place that sold books. And she said the girls should go and visit it sometime, that this was a good idea. And she taught the lesson and every now and then throughout the class as she gave information – something about the Hottentots, something about the British – she would mention the books in the bookstore. And then at the very end, and the class was memorable because it would be the last Miss Siebert would ever teach at St Winifred’s, at the end Miss Siebert said in a higher voice than normal: ‘I don’t know if I’ve really made myself clear, girls. You should go. You should buy this book.’ And she hurriedly scribbled the name of a book on the board. ‘Because you see, this,’ she indicated the orange textbook she’d been teaching from, the one Marion would later cram to score an A, ‘this is not really history.’
Miss Siebert didn’t come back. One of the girls told that Miss Siebert was a communist who had sex with her garden boytjie. The girl boasted that the book Queen Victoria had written up on the board was a banned book, and that her father worked with the council and she’d done a good thing and told him. The school board shivered that such insubordination could take place at St Winifred’s. A more suitable history teacher was found for the girls.
Marion took her confusion home to her parents. She told them about what Miss Siebert had said, about the bookstore, about real history. Her questions were swatted away, dampened. She felt the incident ripple but there was no one to ask about what was real history and what was not. Her parents weren’t in the business of telling these two kinds of histories apart; they weren’t in the history business at all.
Marion’s knock again. God, that woman!
‘Come in!’ Hortensia shouted. ‘What now?’
‘Actually I forgot to mention just now: the thing is, I’ve been considering that stain.’
Hortensia arched an eyebrow. There was definitely something wrong with the woman. One minute blabbering, the next going on about a damned stain. Hortensia rolled her eyes. ‘What is it, Marion? What is it that you want?’
‘The stain, you see. I wondered if you’d allow me to … try something.’
‘What makes you think I haven’t already tried something? I just need t
o get someone in, that’s all. If I wasn’t flat on my back, many a thing would be handled.’
‘May I?’ Marion decided to ignore Hortensia’s protests.
Hortensia sighed. Marion went back into the hallway and returned with a white square of cotton fabric and a saucer with some liquid in it.
‘Now, Marion—’
‘Don’t worry, don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.’
She removed the portrait and set it down, on the nearby desk, with more care than Hortensia thought necessary. To her horror, Marion spoke while she worked.
‘See, it’s a bit complicated. Because of the wallpaper you’ve used. One of yours? Anyway, so I guessed it started out as a grease stain,’ she began to get out of breath. ‘And then someone, Bassey perhaps, had a go at removing it, smudged the dye and maybe used bleach – reasonable choice, you know, but … Ah, you see … The wall’s at an angle by the way, did you realise? … There, just a … All done.’
‘I won’t even ask what was in the saucer.’
‘Don’t.’
‘I can’t understand why you care.’
Marion shrugged. ‘What should I do with this?’
The picture had been taken in a studio. The photographer had been stern, but then had suddenly become animated, saying, ‘Kiss her, you fool! Right there on the cheek’ and then he’d pushed down on the button.
‘Give it to Bassey. Ask him to throw it away.’
Slowly small pieces of information materialised. Her name was Valerie. She was British. She came to Nigeria every year, staying for a few weeks, and then returned to England. Exactly what she was doing there remained unclear to Hortensia. But in the weeks when Valerie was in Ibadan, a routine was established and Hortensia trailed them.
Once, on a Friday evening, she followed them down a road. They parked outside a motel and Hortensia returned to the house. Peter came back from his conference late on the Sunday evening.
Hortensia thought of them together. The motel was grimy. Peter was clearly avoiding the better hotels where he might run into someone from Unilever or some other multinational, someone from his circle.
One day, just after Peter announced another conference, Hortensia told him she would be doing some travelling, spending more time in Abeokuta with her potential business partner. It wasn’t a lie that she was going to go into business with a Mr Adebayo. They’d met at an art exhibition in a private home in Bodija, discovered their shared trade and made plans to meet again. They were not quite far enough into their plans to set up a shop, but none of their dealings required that she sleep away from home.
‘I see,’ he said. ‘Abeokuta is close enough – why stay over?’
‘Well, I know so little of the culture, really. I want to spend some time. Mr Adebayo will take me around. Even just more knowledge of the art. I know so little – it embarrasses me.’
He nodded.
For an unknown reason Hortensia continued, maybe in an attempt to revive something. In the beginning they had talked and talked.
‘I mean, technically this is where Picasso stole from, isn’t it?’
Peter frowned; they’d argued about this before. About the word ‘stole’. Back then he’d said ‘exploited maybe, but maybe not even that’, and so on. They were neither of them experts on art history, European, African or any other. Their arguments had been fiery: that Africa was reduced to a ‘period’; that the works Picasso was inspired by had been looted by the French; that Africa was a fad – exotic and, of course, dark. Hortensia regurgitated all this, as if the material of past conversations could be incendiary, as if love were a bonfire.
Peter was frowning at her, as if he could see through her, see the lie. Hortensia got up and walked to him, looked into his eyes.
‘I’m really excited about opening this boutique. I feel we could do something new. I know you don’t think much of—’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Well, I just want to be able to do a great job at this.’
Peter nodded.
Hortensia figured they would fuck while she was away. Peter would bring the girl into their bed and they would have each other.
On the Friday evening, she waited for him to leave for his ‘conference’, then she packed and climbed into a rented truck. She drove aimlessly for two hours, then doubled back to the house. The problem of Fola the housekeeper had been solved when Hortensia let her off for the weekend. The problem of Sunday the gateman had been slightly more tricky. Although the neighbourhood was renowned for its safety, Unilever took no chances – they’d hired Sunday to keep an extra eye on things. Hortensia surmised that Sunday would only take instructions from Unilever or, at the very least, from Peter, whom he referred to as his Oga. Hortensia resolved this by calling Peter’s bluff. I’m away, you’re away; just let the old man sit with his family over the next couple of weekends – don’t you think? The house is fine; all these pretensions when actually we’re safer than we would be on any London street. Peter had smarted at her underhand critique of their new-found wealth and the status it afforded them in Ibadan. But he’d also agreed. Sunday was given the two weekends off.
Hortensia needed something. Something deeper than a kiss in the middle of a market, something raw. She wanted to have a clear picture of what real, absolute and unequivocal betrayal looked like.
She parked the truck some way along their street, but she could still see the gate, see who came and went. She waited. They did not come. She was dressed in the burkha; she ate two oranges, then eventually around 10 p.m. she drove to a nearby inn, where she’d rented a room. She did the same the next day and on Sunday. The weekend passed. Peter got back from his conference. Hortensia returned from Abeokuta.
‘How’s it going? This Mr Adebayo, will I meet him sometime?’
‘Perhaps. He’s very busy at the moment.’ This was true. ‘When we launch the boutique, we’ll have a great big party. Maybe, then.’
The second weekend Hortensia tried again. Once in disguise, she parked the truck some distance along their street and observed from her post. Peter’s car rounded the corner, paused at the gate as it swung open, entered. He had the woman in the car with him. Like a cat who traps its mouse, then ignores it, Hortensia drove to the inn and slept. On Saturday she returned before dawn. They stayed in all day. Occasionally Hortensia would stretch her legs around the block. Her scheme was helped by a nearby mosque and a large community of Muslims in the adjacent neighbourhoods. No one asked her any questions.
Hortensia waited till the clock struck 9 p.m., then she let herself in through the gate. Peter’s car was parked in the driveway. The lights were off in the front portion of the house. None of the garden lights were on. Switching on the lights was the kind of thing she or the housekeeper would do, but would never cross Peter’s mind. The house was a long rectangular bungalow. A succession of rooms, each more intimate than the last. A low hedge had been planted right along the external walls of the house, a thick necklace of a bush with broad, deep-magenta – almost brown – leaves. She bent low, trailed her fingers through the plant, walked down the length of the house. At their bedroom window she gathered up the skirts of the black gown and pushed her body through the hedge, parting the soft branches. There were no curtains here. She’d decided not to have curtains on account of the high walls, on account of the lovely garden. A touch of lace would suffice, she’d thought, and there it was now. White, finely holed and incandescent, which could mean only one thing. When she’d asked the mercer for lace without metallic threads he’d gone ahead and ignored her. How had she missed it? The realisation distracted Hortensia for a few seconds but then she heard Peter’s voice.
Although the room was lit, it was difficult to see anything clearly through the lace. It was more like watching shadows. Someone was lying on the bed. She could see his back, the rounded cheeks of his bottom. Peter naked, an unfamiliar state. His voice again. But she couldn’t see the woman. Maybe there was no woman. Maybe she’d invented the whole
thing. But then she heard her voice. A figure walked into the room, said something, Peter laughed. He continued to laugh as she climbed on top of him, stretched out, flattened her breasts against his shoulder blades. Now it was her bottom Hortensia could see, her back. She said something again, he laughed again. Was that his laugh? Was that what it sounded like? They continued talking, his voice muffled by the bedding, her voice muffled by his skin. Hortensia needed to pee. Nothing more seemed necessary than to lift the abaya and squat. She did so, aiming, acquiescing to a little splatter on her Nikes. The release caused a sigh, but Hortensia was also thinking: what was the point? What was the use of marking her territory when it had already been usurped?
As she watched them it didn’t feel dirty. She felt righteous, she felt that she was conducting an important task that demanded rigour and integrity. Her job was to watch as closely as her situation permitted. She wanted to remember everything. She wanted to be able to recollect it, to be able to draw it, if such a time was ever called for. She wanted to see how Peter would hold the woman, how he would kiss her.
She stood almost through the night. All three rested very little. When light threatened to begin to show up in the skies, Hortensia crept away. Outside the compound, back inside the truck, she rubbed hard at her vagina until she thought it would catch alight. Then she lurched out from the truck door and threw up into the grass verge.
At the age of thirty-one Hortensia James started to hate. It took her some time, the way certain fads stutter before they really take off. She wrestled it for a while, resisted. She understood that hate was a kind of acid and she preferred not to burn. Also hate was unpopular and, back in those days anyway, she’d still wanted to be liked.
The Woman Next Door Page 15
