The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q

by Sharon Maas

  On Sundays she attended her father’s services and more and more she knew that she was becoming that very person he warned against. The more he spoke of eternal hellfire for those who went against God’s Law, the more she knew that either he was wrong, or eternal hellfire was her own destiny, and, if it were the latter, the less she cared. Dorothea knew that her father’s God must be an oversized version of himself, frowning down on her with a whip in hand to keep her on the straight and narrow. Ma Quint’s God was by far kinder, gentler – a caring Mother rather than a stern disciplinarian, with Ma Quint Her executive and instrument.

  But then came the day when her father, God in miniature, really did stand there with whip in hand, or rather, belt. It was a Sunday afternoon and her parents were supposed to be out; didn’t they always go up to Guid Fortuin to harangue the natives on a Sunday?

  Not this one Sunday. It was the rainy season, and her father had braved the elements to drive up to the village – rain or shine, God’s work must be done. She, too, had braved the elements. A little rain would not keep her from Freddy, so she had donned a black raincoat, pulled up the hood, and squeezed through the palings as usual. The central gutter in the alley had long overflowed its banks under the ceaseless downpour, and there was only about a foot of muddy, squishy grass between the fence and the water for Dorothea to manoeuvre, barefoot, shoes in hand. Opposite the Quint fence Freddy had laid down two planks for her to cross the gutter.

  She loved the rain! She loved the thunderous downpour on the corrugated iron roof at night, roaring as if an ocean up in heaven had tilted and emptied itself on earth. She loved the sodden sky and cool wetness on her face as she raised it up, opening her mouth and closing her eyes to feel the stinging patter of rainwater on her tongue, on her eyelids and trickling in beneath her hood, through her hair roots, down her neck, under the tight white collar that was her Sunday Best.

  Now returning home two hours later, in good time as she thought, it was raining even harder. Through the palings she clambered, not even glancing towards the Bottom House where the car was parked; up the back steps into the kitchen, into the drawing room, peeling off the dripping raincoat as she walked, resolving to dry off the puddles of water she left with a mop. And right into Pa, standing there in the doorway, leather belt drawn tight between his two hands at chest level. Face like thunder. Voice like God’s.

  ‘And where have you been, Miss van Dam?’

  Later she was to find out that Guid Fortuin Village was so flooded the people could not leave their homes, not even for church; the church itself stood in almost two feet of water. Reluctantly, Pastor van Dam had returned home early, to an empty house and a missing daughter.

  Dorothea did not answer. She stood in front of him, jaw clenched tight in defiance, not even blinking. Never once had she looked at him in this way.

  ‘WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?’

  No answer. The livid Pastor grabbed her arm with one hand and with the other slashed at her with the leather belt, thrashing her across her back and her legs, again and again and again, hollering and roaring and calling down the wrath of God, of which he was the living instrument. The wild beast inside Dorothea leaped and snarled and pounced against the bars of its cage but Dorothea would not let it out. She would not scream at the pain, would not cry, and in the end it was Pa who gave up, locking her in her room for the rest of the evening.

  There were other punishments over the coming week, too many for her to count, some too silly for her to care, such as no more sugar in her tea and no more jam on her bread. The petty punishments only fed the wild beast.

  Pastor van Dam would not let her out of his sight, convinced she was whoring herself, which, in his definition, meant speaking to boys. He drove her to school on weekdays, kept her home on Saturdays, and on Sundays, forced her to attend the Guid Fortuin Sunday services once the floods subsided.

  Nevertheless, Dorothea found ways and means of meeting Freddy. She grew devious. And she learned to lie without fear of Hellfire.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  RIKA: THE SIXTIES

  There it was again; a glint above the treetops, the flare of a diamond. The woman was watching her. Sometimes, the sun glanced off her binoculars and it looked like jewels shining over there, in the top corner window of the house, above the treetops of the backyard. The first time she’d seen it, three years ago, she’d recoiled in shock and fear, but then she’d grown used to it and even enjoyed it. She couldn’t see who held the binoculars but she knew it was a woman; she could see the shadowy silhouette in the window. She didn’t really care who it was. Much more fun to make up someone, make up a story about her:

  The woman was mad, kept locked in that room (which was no longer a room, but a tower) by her husband, a tall dark man who rode a horse. The man was in love with her, Rika, only her name wasn’t Rika, of course, it was something far more romantic, like Isabella, and he was desperately in love with her, and Isabella with him, and Isabella wasn’t a gawky thirteen-year-old St Rose’s High School pupil: she was a very grown up twenty, and she lived in a romantic place like Cornwall or Scotland or even Spain; and she wasn’t brown and plain with wiry hair that knotted into thick uncomfortable mats if it wasn’t kept plaited: she had long flowing blonde locks, and the man wanted to divorce his mad wife but couldn’t, and it was all terribly tragic.

  The man’s name was … she’d tried several names but they were all far too prosaic. No name seemed good enough for him, but foreign names sounded better. She liked the sound of Jacques, but of course Jacques was merely ‘Jack’ in French and that wouldn’t do. Maybe something Spanish, like Roderigo? Finally, she made him Italian and called him Rafaello, and he was a count, heir to a vast fortune in – in Palermo. She liked the sound of Palermo. And they were planning to run away to Palermo, Rafaello and Isabella, and there Rafaello would pretend he wasn’t married, and, consumed with love, they’d live happily ever after. Just one more paragraph …

  Rika scribbled away furiously in her exercise book, wrote ‘THE END’ with a flourish, lifted the loose floorboard in the Cupola, and slid the book into the dark space down there, to join its many mates. The bell for dinner had rung at least ten minutes ago and the last two paragraphs were maybe a bit rushed, and it wasn’t as long as Jane Eyre, of course, but it gave her a nice warm satisfying feeling to have finished. She got up, pulled herself out of that cosy sense of accomplishment, and made her way down the steep spiral staircase of the Cupola.

  They were all around the table, Marion and the twins and Daddy and Granny, and Uncle Matt, and Ol’ Meanie.

  Today Ol’ Meanie was cross because she was late, but she’d expected that. She mumbled an excuse and slipped into her chair.

  ‘I hope you finished all you homework,’ Ol’ Meanie said, in that grumbling voice of hers. It was the only way Ol’ Meanie ever spoke to her. She never spoke to Marion or the boys in that voice. But then, Marion and the boys were Ol’ Meanie’s darlings, unlike her. Rika mumbled an answer without looking up.

  ‘Was that a “yes” or a “no”? And look at me when you speak!’

  Rika looked up and said, clearly, ‘Mummy, I finished my English essay but I didn’t understand the maths so I left it.’

  ‘And you spent all that time up there struggling with maths? Eh? Two, three hours?’

  ‘Dorothea, darling, leave her,’ Daddy said. Daddy turned to her. ‘Rika, if you want you can come to my study after supper and I’ll h-help you with the maths.’

  Rika looked up and smiled at Daddy. ‘Thanks, Daddy, I’ll come.’ That was Daddy; always kind, always helpful, the antidote to Ol’ Meanie.

  Rika wished and wished that she could be the daughter that Ol’ Meanie wanted. A whizz at school, and especially maths; hard-working, sharp-minded, ambitious, just like Ol’ Meanie herself – a shining star at school, and, later, a Pillar of Society, the kind of person they wrote about in the papers for all the important things she’d done. Ol’ Meanie was not only Founder and President of the GA
WU (Rika had no idea what the organisation did, but she knew it was important); she was also Deputy Minister of Women’s Progress, an entirely new Ministry created at her own suggestion (initially to be named ‘Women’s Affairs’, which seemed a little too ambiguous) for the day when the PPP came back to power, if ever. She had also founded the Women’s Rights organisations WOM, WAV and WAR; her name was constantly in the newspapers for some brilliant speech she had made or some new demand on behalf of oppressed workers or disadvantaged women. Ol’ Meanie was famous.

  Rika was supposed to follow in Ol’ Meanie’s footsteps, but she hadn’t. All her school reports identified her as a disappointment: Could do better if she made more effort. Doesn’t apply herself. Doesn’t pay attention. Intelligent but lazy. That was how they summed her up at St Rose’s; she was headed for Failure, with a capital F. And, knowing that she’d never live up to Ol’ Meanie’s hopes, expectations and ambitions, she’d found the perfect alternative, up there in the Cupola.

  She was the last to finish eating but Daddy didn’t wait. He pushed his empty plate away, cleared his throat, and waved a page of paper at them all.

  ‘Children,’ he said. ‘There’s something we need to discuss. I received this letter today, from the solicitors Crosby and Knight.’ He waved the letter at them again. ‘It concerns you all.’

  ‘Pah!’ said Ol’ Meanie in disgust and got up. Ol’ Meanie made a disappreciating moue. There! She’d read that expression in a book recently, looked it up, which wasn’t so easy, as moue, she discovered, was French, and disappreciating didn’t even exist, and had been just waiting to actually see someone doing it; and this was it; a disappreciating moue. She’d be using it in a story sometime soon.

  Isis, who was the only creature Ol’ Meanie seemed to love, landed with a thump on the floor. Ol’ Meanie bent to pick her up, cuddled her and stroked her shiny ginger fur. Funny, that, how tender Ol’ Meanie could be with the cat. Cuddling Isis – who pushed her face into the curve of her mistress’ neck – Ol’ Meanie walked to the window and looked out, her back to the family. She obviously knew what was coming.

  Daddy looked at Uncle Matt. ‘Excuse me, Matt, just a bit of family business I need to attend to. It won’t take long.’

  Uncle Matt grinned his wide American grin and waved his hand generously. ‘Sure, go ahead, just pretend I’m not here. Or is it private? Shall I go away?’

  ‘No, s-s-stay,’ Daddy said, and continued, looking from one to the other of the children. ‘You all know that Mummy is estranged from her own parents, your grandparents. It’s a long story and rather sad but there it is; Mummy, being who she is, has always resisted a reconciliation. Over the years they have written her letters requesting some kind of a reunion, especially after Rika’s birth. They were very keen to meet you grandchildren but Mummy always refused. I thought it was a pity; children need grandparents. They belong together.’

  ‘They had Ma. Ma’s better than ten grandparents rolled into one!’ said Ol’ Meanie, turning now to face them. Everyone looked at Ma Quint, who smiled somewhat sadly and shook her head gently, as if in disagreement, even though she was being complimented.

  ‘The more grandparents, the better!’ said the little brat Norbert.

  ‘Yeah, grandparents give presents! Christmas and birthday presents!’ That was Neville.

  ‘But only if they’re rich,’ said Norbert.

  ‘Are they rich?’ said Neville.

  ‘Boys! Be quiet and listen to your father!’ Granny hammered her fist on the table, and the boys stopped their giggling and scuffling and turned back to Daddy.

  ‘As it so happens, the question of money has entered the situation. Unfortunately.’

  ‘Bah! Trying to buy the grandchildren!’ Ol’ Meanie walked up and down, still stroking Isis. Mildred, the maid, came in from the kitchen with a plate of fresh pineapple slices, which she placed on the table. Six hands reached out simultaneously to grab a slice, leaving the plate empty. Daddy paused with the slice halfway to his mouth, as if realising he couldn’t both eat and speak. He put it back on the central plate where it was immediately and simultaneously grabbed by Norbert and Neville. They fought over it for precisely two seconds, whereupon it broke into two more or less equal halves, thus solving the problem. If Rika had been Ol’ Meanie she’d have given the boys a slap each but of course she said nothing. Nothing was worse than spoilt eight-year-old twin boys.

  ‘The thing is, the four of you are their only living descendants. A few years ago, your grandfather’s elder brother, your Great Uncle Hendrik, passed away without progeny, leaving your Granddad a small sugar estate on the East Bank. He sold it to a neighbouring sugar estate, as he knew nothing about running a sugar cane estate; your grandfather is a pastor. You know that little church on North Road, the Church of the Second Coming? That’s his.’

  Ol’ Meanie, hovering in the background, muttered something which sounded like ‘narrow-minded old fart’.

  ‘Be quiet, Dorothea. D-d-don’t let your own resentment colour the children’s perception or spoil their chances with their grandparents.’ Daddy turned back to the children. ‘The fact of the matter is, your grandparents only had two children; your Mummy and another girl, your Aunt Kathleen, whom you’ve never met. Kathleen married several years ago and moved to Canada but unfortunately had no children.’

  Ol’ Meanie cackled, but there was no mirth in her laughter. ‘Darling Kathleen, she of the milky-white skin and soft hair! I bet they found her a nice white husband. What a disappointment; they could have bred out all that dirty black blood!’

  ‘Forgiveness, Dorothea, forgiveness.’ Granny sighed and shook her head as if this was an old, old bone Ol’ Meanie was picking dry. Which no doubt it was. Ol’ Meanie tended to hang on to grievances, never let them go, bring them up again and again at the most inconvenient times. But she’d never spoken of her own parents and this ‘Darling Kathleen’ before, not in all the thirteen years of Rika’s life. Which, of course, made the whole thing intriguing; there was a story behind it, and Rika always loved a good story.

  ‘To make a long story short,’ said Daddy, ignoring Ol’ Meanie, ‘The f-f-four of you are their heirs. Your Aunt Kathleen will inherit half of everything and have the right to live in the house till her death, if she wants to, and the four of you get the other half, and on Kathleen’s d-d-death, everything comes to you. But only if they are allowed contact with you. If not, then, it all goes to Kathleen and on her death, to the Church.’

  ‘Buying the children! You should have returned that letter shredded into small pieces!’ That was Ol’ Meanie, of course.

  ‘Dorothea, as a solicitor I have the d-d-duty to make the children aware of their rights. If you want to, you can talk to them and tell them the whole story of your quarrel with your parents, and see what they think – if it was worth ignoring them for almost twenty years. Otherwise it really is not your d-d-decision to make. You’ve kept them away this long, but it really is up to them to decide. They’re old enough. Even the twins.’

  ‘When they going to die?’ asked Neville.

  ‘How much money they going to leave us?’ asked Norbert.

  ‘What you going to buy? Me, I want a Rolls Royce!’ said Neville.

  ‘Pah! I want a Cessna aeroplane! I going to be a pilot!’

  ‘Children! Let me finish! It so happens, actually, that your grandfather has been diagnosed with cancer, and it’s terminal.’

  ‘What terminal mean?’

  ‘It something at an airport!’

  ‘What an airport got to do with cancer?’

  Here, Rika spoke up for the first time. ‘“Terminal” means “fatal”. It means he’s going to die!’

  Rika already knew part of this story. She knew her mother had parents she had quarrelled with and never saw; she knew she had grandparents she wasn’t allowed to visit. She even knew they lived just around the corner, in Waterloo Street. Daddy had pointed out the house a few times, and she had wondered about the old people l
iving inside it. But she wasn’t really interested in old people, not even her own grandparents. You couldn’t really write stories about old people. So those grandparents had never been more that a fleeting thought.

  But now, quite suddenly, it clicked. The woman in the window! The Mad Lady! This was it: the Mad Lady was her own grandmother! Her Mad Lady fantasy had been so real, she simply hadn’t bothered to work out the actual, physical details of the house and its occupants. Her estranged grandparents had never even occurred to her; she never thought of them.

  ‘I think that’s so sad,’ said Marion. ‘The poor old people, not having any grandchildren. And our own grandfather, going to die! I want to go and visit them, soon, maybe tomorrow. You coming with me, Rika?’

  ‘You’re all going,’ said Granny firmly. ‘The boys, too. It’s time we ended this nonsensical standoff. Really, Dorothea – you should have sent them over long ago. Now it really looks as if it’s all about the money, and it isn’t that at all. It’s about compassion, and caring.’

  ‘But money’s good too!’ said Norbert.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with money,’ said Granny, ‘work hard at school, get a good job, and earn some yourself.’

  ‘I’m going to be a millionaire when I grow up!’ said Neville.

  ‘I’m going to be a billionaire!’ said Norbert.

  ‘Daddy, what’s richer; a billionaire or a trillionaire?’

  And the discussion turned to jobs and careers and what each of them was going to do. Marion, of course, was going to be a nurse, and the boys would be big businessmen. And Rika? They didn’t ask. Rika was the dreamer of dreams.

  * * *

  If they had asked Rika what career she wanted, she’d have said ‘Novelist’ as first choice, and ‘Philosopher’ as second; but of course she’d also find Romance. She wasn’t quite sure how or where she’d ever meet her own special Raffaelo if she spent her time in the Cupola, but she’d cross that bridge when she got to it; she was, after all, still only thirteen.