The Woman Next Door

by Yewande Omotoso

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Hortensia said again. ‘I don’t know what else to say.’

  Agnes smiled. She was clearly weak, but also had that look of peace Hortensia had taught herself not to envy in others.

  A woman appeared at the door. Hortensia would later learn she was Agnes’s daughter, Niknaks.

  Marion greeted her and then they all left, so the mother and daughter could be alone.

  Toussaint offered Hortensia a lift home but she declined. ‘I’ll call a taxi when I’m ready.’ She turned to Marion, ‘Would you have tea with me?’

  ‘Well.’

  ‘I’d like to talk, Marion. Please.’

  ‘Okay.’

  They fell into step along the dreary hospital corridor. The pattern of their walking reminded Hortensia of the obstacle courses she’d navigated in her home with Marion looking on.

  There was a small cafeteria. There was no Earl Grey, but something the waitress referred to as ‘normal tea’.

  Marion frowned. ‘Tastes like wet paper.’

  Hortensia cleared her throat. ‘I’m sorry I hit you. I shouldn’t have done that. It was wrong of me.’

  Marion pursed her lips; it looked like she was thinking, and her lips seemed to be an instrumental part of that.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was just thinking how … I hate it when you apologise. It doesn’t last long enough and you never beg.’

  Hortensia laughed. Marion smiled and shook her head in a certain way, as if to say she was tired of herself.

  ‘I’m sorry I hit you, Marion.’

  ‘I heard you.’

  ‘The more I realised I’d never have children, the more I realised how much I’d really wanted to be a mother. Things weren’t okay between my mummy and I, and I thought I could fix that … you know … with my own children.’

  Marion sipped.

  ‘I thought, if only I hadn’t done it, lied to Peter. Ended it the first time. Like everything after was punishment. I shouldn’t have hit you. But … no one had ever done that before. Thrown it, my failure, in my face like that. All these years. Not even Peter at his most nasty. I’d never felt that before. When you said what you said – that feeling. Never felt it … out loud.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have said it. It was cruel of me.’

  Hortensia emptied another pack of sugar into the brown-coloured water.

  ‘I called Esme.’

  Marion nodded.

  ‘She’s coming.’

  Hortensia brushed her head with the palm of her hand. They drank bad tea as if it were gin, their teeth barred, the muscles in their necks tensed.

  Frikkie and his crew completed their work. When she’d left Hortensia’s, Marion had moved back into No. 12, enduring the dust and noise until finally the works were complete. Still, this was a temporary solution. The house was due to go on the market soon. Her children had mentioned two words that together gave her a fright – retirement and village.

  Niknaks called. She said her mother, Agnes, was asking for Marion. Asking how? She was in bed back home and she’d asked for Marion.

  Even with her scant grasp of religion, Marion knew what she was doing was a sin. What if this became the woman’s dying wish? All the same, Marion manufactured busyness, suggested plans to Niknaks that she reneged on. Asked for the address of Agnes’s home, then misplaced it.

  ‘What are you playing at?’

  ‘What do you mean: what am I playing at? And is there anything wrong with beginning a telephone conversation with salutations?’

  ‘I don’t have time for salutations, Marion. Niknaks just called me. I don’t appreciate being dragged into your affairs.’

  ‘What affairs?’

  ‘I said Niknaks called me.’

  ‘And I heard you.’

  ‘So you have no idea why she would call me? And why I would be calling you? Without salutations?’

  ‘Uhm—’

  ‘For God’s sake, Marion, go and see the woman.’

  ‘Heavens!’

  ‘Exactly. She called and had the temerity to be upset with me.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Niknaks. What a ridiculous name, by the way.’

  ‘I thought the same. It’s a nickname.’ Marion heard Hortensia sigh. She was worried she would drop the phone. ‘I’m hiding,’ Marion said.

  ‘I don’t care. Go and see Agnes. She’s not well. The suggestion seems to be that she is dying, but from my experience with Peter, that can take any number of years.’

  After making arrangements with Niknaks, Marion called Hortensia and asked her to go with her to Khayelitsha, to the place where Agnes was living, a place she’d never been to. And Marion allowed herself the luxury of sentiment, allowed herself to notice that Hortensia gave no hesitation. Yes, she’d sighed, but she’d also said okay and what time, and did Marion have the address?

  They got into the car. Hortensia hung onto the strap. Marion gripped the steering wheel.

  ‘You can’t drive like this?’

  ‘Like what?’ She was sweating.

  ‘Marion?’

  ‘I’ll be fine. I’m just a little nervous is all.’

  ‘Of what?’

  Marion gave a fake laugh. ‘I don’t even know,’ she said. She caressed the wheel and put the car into gear.

  Hortensia navigated, the map open in her lap.

  ‘There must be an easier way. GPS or something.’

  ‘Don’t trust it. Turn here.’

  Niknaks had also given directions. After they took Baden Powell Drive off the highway, Hortensia used only these notes. Still they got lost. Marion panicked at Hortensia’s suggestion that she slow down and ask for help. They argued for several kilometres, Hortensia raising her voice, berating this woman sweating and working the foam of the steering wheel as if it were a length of dough.

  ‘You are being stupid. Slow down. Stop the car. Marion Agostino, I will never speak to you again!’

  The dramatic threat was effective. Marion pulled over. Her face was frozen. Hortensia had heard her draw in breath, but she hadn’t heard her expel it. ‘I think you’re a ridiculous person,’ Hortensia said as she buzzed down her window, stuck her head out.

  A young man with an earring and, as far as Hortensia could distinguish, his trousers on backwards, told them in firm words where to drive. They were close by, in fact they had been circling the place. Hortensia thanked him, waved her hand for Marion to proceed.

  As if death was taking roll call, there was a funeral next door to where Agnes lived. Marion struggled to get her car through the throng of people scattered on the short street.

  ‘Drive,’ Hortensia said.

  ‘I’ll run them over.’

  ‘They’ll move.’

  Marion was rattled by the dancing, the shouting. The smell of meat, spiced and steaming, gave her a feeling of hunger although she’d already eaten. The front yard of the house was a bank of sand. There was a narrow stoep and a yellow door ajar. Niknaks, with a baby on her hip, greeted and led them through a parlour where others sat, down a dark corridor and into a small room. Agnes’s eyes were open and her breathing laboured.

  Marion went to her and touched the blanket she was wrapped in. Hortensia thought, not without envy, about that special kind of authority dying gives one.

  ‘You can sit,’ Niknaks said.

  The baby started crying. Niknaks bounced her, but a man came into the room and took the child with him when he left. Marion sat beside the bed.

  ‘I’ll wait outside,’ Hortensia said and she left the room. Niknaks followed.

  Afterwards, Hortensia knew not to ask Marion what Agnes had said to her, or whether anything was spoken at all. They drove home quiet, both women subdued for reasons they couldn’t pin down but that were crowding them.

  ‘She said she’d wanted to be a teacher.’ They were still sitting in the car, parked on the side of Katterijn Avenue, between their respective homes. ‘That she wanted to teach the little ones. Numbers and letters,
she said.’

  Hortensia nodded. It was dark outside; there was not much to see in the quiet street – the people of Katterijn (forever impervious to Hortensia’s common sense) had expressly asked of City Council that no street lights be erected – it’s a conservation area, they insisted; street lights will only dampen our chances of seeing the stars.

  ‘She said about me that I could have … Well, she spoke about her home. Childhood memories. About cows.’

  ‘Cows?’

  ‘Cows. She liked the way they grazed. And she said about me that I am a hard woman, that when she was still young and new at my house she used to weep.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And then she said that she wanted to fly.’

  ‘Fly?’

  ‘I hadn’t heard properly. It was a bit embarrassing; I thought she’d said “die”. And I asked her. Can you imagine? But no, she’d said “fly”.’

  ‘Fly.’

  Agnes had also given Marion something.

  ‘Look there.’ Agnes had pointed to a corner in the room.

  Marion rose.

  ‘Inside the cupboard.’

  Marion opened the door to a smell of mothballs, a stash of old newspapers, frocks on hangers. And a half-unwrapped painting she just then realised she really loved, a painting she would sell in order to live properly, but would be sad to trade. They’d picked the frame together: Stefano was four, Marelena was almost two and had marvelled at the gilt edges, Marion had agreed it was striking, Max paid for it.

  ‘I don’t understand how this got here.’

  ‘By error. I didn’t know until I started going through the boxes Niknaks had packed from the house. I didn’t even know what it was. And then, once I knew what it was … how can I say? I’d heard you talking about “the painting, the painting”. How much you needed it. So I thought … after the doctor said, “there’s only small chance.” I thought … maybe I should keep it. I was angry, somehow. With you. I can’t explain.’

  ‘No—’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what happens; a person should be true. Here is your painting. It’s safe.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Agnes. Agnes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Grudgingly, Hortensia agreed to look after the painting. The works at No. 12 were completed, snags done, insurances sorted. All the money Marion and Max had ever had was apportioned out to the many debt collectors, some in suits, some in vests, some in T-shirts, their sweat-rings ponging up the hallway. The house was going to auction. Marion was to stay at Marelena’s for the time it took to – as unsuspiciously as possible – find a buyer for the Pierneef. Marion fantasised about affording a modest flat; she’d attempted a spreadsheet to work out how many years she could go on living and keep getting her hair and toenails done. Marelena called with last arrangements about when Marion was moving in.

  ‘Hello, Marelena, how are you? … Good, how are the girls? … Yes, I’m okay. I was just walking through the house … Yes, and guess where I’m standing right now? In your bedroom … Of course it’s still your bedroom, don’t be silly … No, I’m fine – just that, I’ll miss it … Hmm? … Yes, midday tomorrow is fine, I’ll be next door … Okay, bye.’

  NINETEEN

  ESME CONFIRMED HER flight times. It was like waiting for the sky to fall.

  Marion came to visit. She let herself in. Hortensia hadn’t asked for the key back.

  ‘Your hair is growing,’ Marion said, watching her standing in front of the mirror.

  ‘As hair is wont to do.’ Hortensia had her head turned; her tennis elbow was acting up and she strained to reach the back parts. She cringed. ‘Knots,’ she said.

  ‘Do you …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can I help?’

  Hortensia paused, her hand stayed afloat in the air for a few seconds, then she brought it down to her side. She wanted to say something but couldn’t think what. She walked over to where Marion sat on the edge of the bed.

  ‘You … you need to stand. I can’t crouch. My leg.’

  Marion stood up and took the comb from Hortensia, who settled on the bed.

  ‘Comfortable? Your leg?’

  Hortensia nodded. ‘Be careful.’

  ‘Okay. Like this?’

  Hortensia’s neck strained, then loosened. ‘Alright,’ she said.

  ‘You know,’ Marion said, once she felt she’d found a rhythm, bringing the comb through in slow, gentle motions, ‘all these years and we never even … I wanted to invite you over once, to see my collection of Olivetti typewriters – I know you would have loved them so much. I had a 1950s “Lettera 22”.’

  ‘You just wanted to show off,’ Hortensia said.

  ‘Yes. You’re probably right.’

  They laughed.

  ‘Do you think things would have been different? With someone different?’ Marion asked.

  Hortensia winced as her short Afro snagged in the teeth. The grey hair parts were more tender, which was unfair because they were more coarse than the hair on the rest of her head, more prone to knotting.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Gently,’ Hortensia whispered.

  Marion laid the fingers of her free hand on Hortensia’s forehead. Her fingertips were cool and damp.

  ‘Sorry,’ she repeated.

  ‘I can take it from here. Thank you.’

  Marion relinquished the comb and watched Hortensia. For several seconds neither spoke and there was only the noise of Hortensia’s oldest clock, which sat in the hallway just outside the guest room. It was an eighteenth-century pendulum clock, wooden, with a tortoiseshell detail that Marion had teased Hortensia about. Not one for the rights of animals, are you? Marion had said. And Hortensia thought: not one for the rights of anything, really; but said nothing.

  ‘Well, do you?’

  ‘Different how? With you and me?’

  ‘No, with Peter.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Hortensia said. ‘Do I think things would have been different? They weren’t. I’ve tried this so many times. Look where it got me. Things weren’t different – that’s all I have.’

  ‘You picking her up?’

  ‘I couldn’t bear it. I’ve ordered a taxi, they’ll come straight to the house.’

  Marion nodded.

  ‘I do try to remember one thing. About what you were saying before. I keep remembering how Peter and I stopped speaking – as in actually talking to each other about important things, not just the “hello, how are you, fine” things. That must be how you know it’s finished.’

  Before she arrived, Esme called Hortensia one last time.

  ‘I thought I ought to mention this. It’s not something I can imagine any differently, but sometimes it helps to manage reactions from people.’

  ‘My dear, I have no idea what you are talking about.’

  ‘I am legally blind, Mrs James. I travel with a guide dog, his name is Toby.’

  This was a gift. She knew it was cheating, but Hortensia felt relieved at the prospect of not being seen. To be excused from scrutiny. She relaxed. She waited.

  ‘Peter – your father – he …’ Hortensia couldn’t find any memories to share. There were some, tender, that she liked to keep for herself, and all the rest were linked to complaints, arguments. ‘I forgot what I was trying to say,’ Hortensia mumbled.

  They walked side by side down a dirt lane, the vines stretching to their left and a grove of oaks to the right, between them and the rest of Katterijn. Hortensia looked to the girl on her left, studied her, assuming she could sneak as many looks as she needed.

  ‘Do I look like him?’

  ‘Well.’ The truth was she didn’t. She was her mother. She was all her mother. Except for the height maybe. ‘Peter was tall like you. You do it a lot more gracefully, though.’ Hortensia wondered why she wanted the girl to like her.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘So, what did you say his name was again?’

  ‘Toby.’ Esme slowed do
wn and patted the neck of the brown collie as she said this, without losing hold of the specialised leash, without tripping, without missing anything. ‘A lot of squirrels about.’

  Hortensia didn’t bother to ask how she knew, she preferred not to expose how inexperienced she felt, while walking with a tall beautiful forty-something-year-old who seemed, by some magic, to have retained all the really great qualities of being a toddler. As if it was the having of sight that made one grow old and jaded. She’d arrived, almost supernaturally, without bitterness, without recrimination – like an apparition taunting Hortensia, showing her up, embarrassing her and her foolish notion that sight required seeing. Esme didn’t miss much.

  A sorrow worked itself through Hortensia’s body. A deep sorrow that, despite all the sadness she had already experienced, she had never encountered before. She slowed her walking, then stopped altogether and reached for Esme’s hand. The girl, the child (Hortensia couldn’t help referring to her as that, although she was evidently a very grown and mature woman), gave her hand willingly. And even though Hortensia thought she finally knew what to say, her tongue stuck in her mouth and it was the girl who said, simply: I can’t tell you how surprising all this is. But still, I am happy to be here. After holding hands for a few seconds more, they walked on in silence, to where Peter’s ashes had been spread. To the tombstone, which Hortensia described to Esme.

  Esme let go of the leash and Toby stayed close to her as she put her knees to the soft ground, covered in leaves the size of a baby’s hand, and felt the slab of stone. As she watched, Hortensia’s mouth dropped open. Although she’d missed this until that very moment, the slab that Peter had commissioned was clearly a message to a child he knew he would never meet.

  Esme’s fingers moved over the rough surface, expert. Hortensia took only a second to realise that the girl was reading. ‘My goodness,’ she said.

  Esme moved her hand back and forth over the message her father had left her.

  The tombstone had remained a mystery to Hortensia. And now she realised that Gary’s artwork was in fact some kind of letter. Had he known as he chinked away at the stone that he was writing in Braille? If so, he hadn’t let on; in fact he’d given nothing away about the nature of his relationship with Peter. Hortensia now wondered whether they’d been friends. It felt sad to not know, it made Peter even more of a stranger.