Seeing him from this unfamiliar angle, exposed as he was, Nona felt rebuked. She’d lied to him about this weekend, as she’d seldom lied in her married life. She’d used money from her own small savings to pay for the room, and told Ray that she was off to visit her sister. Now the cost seemed much greater than it had when she’d cut out the ad for the two-night special, or slid the credit card over the desk. These were pleasures owed to him, she knew. Poor Ray! So little luxury in his life!
But at the time of her decision – champagne cork still slightly damp in her palm – some action had seemed urgently required.
And perhaps he was glad that she’d gone, that she wasn’t there to disquiet him with her sighs and carping, her impatient rustling of the newspaper.
She dropped her eyes. Immediately below her window, peppermint grass flowed thickly to the base of the wall. There were parasols and camellia bushes and white garden furniture. You might sit down there of an evening, sipping a chilled drink, and never guess at what lay just an arm’s length away, on the shabbier side of the wall.
Yet another attentive shadow in a red jacket appeared beside her garden chair, this one with a drinks menu. Everyone working here was young and unobtrusively attractive: eyes that took note but did not linger, voices low, manner deferential yet flirtatious to a finely judged degree. The waiter leant forward, showing her the tops of his long eyelashes.
“Gin and tonic, why not?” she said.
All at once, Nona felt happy again. The ease was back, the sense of smooth movement, although she was sitting quite still – at the heart, in fact, of a profound stillness. She and Ray, she saw, lived backstage of a perfect piece of theatre. The lighting in the garden was impeccable: even and mellow, unaffected by the alleyway’s brassy reversals of glare and gloom. The only sound was a precise ticking in the air: the piston spritz of unseen sprinklers, or perhaps it was the hushed beat of luxury itself. The gin appeared, in a tumbler chocked with ice. She sipped, and felt the coolness trickling down into her belly.
Some things weren’t controlled, however. There were white and olive streaks on the battlements: sure enough, the pigeons had left their mark on this side of the wall as on the other. And across the table top, a line of ants negotiated the crevasses and cul-de-sacs of the lacy metal to a spill of sugar at its centre. She imagined, warmly, their tiny ant amazement at this manna. They made her think of Ray: their earnest, uncomplaining labour, their focus on the small satisfactions before them.
She bent down to trace the line of insects to its source. It disappeared into the lawn, and emerged again to doodle up the corner of a flower planter, along its edge and through a tiny crack at the base of the wall. So: lowlife ants from the wrong side, smuggling out the loot. Again she wondered: how long? For ants and birds and grassroots to level this wall again, speck by speck, to break open the path that had been blocked?
But she didn’t really want the wall broken down. What she wanted was for it to draw open and enclose her husband, their house, their life – put them on the right side, within this charmed perimeter of sugar and gin and shade.
She drank steadily, watching the ants come and go. Her glass emptied, and was filled. The evening light dimmed, while high above, the windows of the hotel started to shine – the angle oblique, the light more forgiving than it was at home. Small globes flickered on in the shrubbery, and the wall was bathed in dapples of rose and amber. Between the lights, the dusk seemed to soften and expand, becoming capacious. Patio doors opened and walls dissolved, making space for music, trays of cocktails, waiters, guests – such guests! Their clothes were precious and their scent was rare. Women leant at elegant angles, calves taut above high heels. Men shouted with laughter, gloriously assured. Half a dozen languages licked at Nona’s ears. More red-coated servers danced from the shadows, carrying ice buckets and bottle after bottle of champagne.
Nona did not speak to anyone. She was content at her table, letting the crowd wash around her. She tickled her lip with the silver bubbles in her constantly refreshed glass; she smiled at the dark-eyed waiters. She kept half an eye on the wall, but in all the flow and movement it stayed where it was; it didn’t crumble or sway. Nona and the wall were still.
Ah, but it must’ve been the drink. Later she would barely remember leaving the party, finding her way inside, the walk along the hushed corridor. But she would retain the feel of everything: the textures of wallpaper, wood and carpet. (Had she stumbled?) All so rich and inviting, so lush to the touch. Was there a young man by her side, red-coated, bright-eyed, holding her arm? Perhaps. Certainly she felt accompanied, but it might’ve been the scented air of the place that was so solicitous, that took her weight and guided her hand to the proper door handle, that pressed it down.
The night was a dream of surfaces, sheathing her, pressing her down: luxurious friction.
Nona did not usually sleep naked, or on her stomach, but that was how she awoke. She was in a cool, dark place. She discerned the firmness of an unfamiliar mattress, and then – out of one eye – the grey field of a curtained window. With some popping of vertebrae, she broke the bed’s hold, rolled onto her back, wedged herself up against the pillows and took stock. The room was bleary and ruffled. Against the habits of a lifetime, her clothes were strewn on the floor. And something else. There were small but troubling shapes in the dimness beyond the foot of the bed. A breeze belled the curtain and something pushed through with a rustle.
She took a moment to let the scene develop. The curtains sucked back out against the open window, as if the air in the room were plumping up, and more grey light infused.
Hunched figures were arranged on the sill, on the desk, on top of the standing lamp. Six, seven of them. A fidgeting crowd of small, dour spectators. At the foot of the bed, one shook out its wings impatiently, stepped side to side and ejected a splatter of white onto the duvet. In their small eyes, their sideways but steady observation, she saw a husband’s chastisement.
Her head hurt. Nona leant over to the bedside table, poured herself a glass of water and drank deeply. The pigeons cooed and shuffled, turning their heads this way and that to follow her movements. She’d never thought of birds’ faces as expressive – or even as faces; more as carved heads set with bead eyes – but these ones certainly looked attentive. Expectant, in fact.
More water. Next to the jug was a small dish holding two wrapped biscuits. Digestives – the kind that Ray enjoyed with his tea. She pulled the cellophane off one, but her stomach rejected the thought as soon as she got a whiff of its mealy sweetness. It broke in her fingers, and once there were crumbs in her hand it was only natural to throw them to the carpet for the birds.
In an instant the boldest bird had hopped down from the minibar, legs outstretched and wings braking. The others piled in. They were shades of the same grey, birds and carpet, but the jostling animals’ colour was alive and various. Wings fanned and snaky heads jabbed at the crumbs. She broke up the second biscuit.
An extravagant thought came to her: room service. The phone was to hand, right next to the bed. She ordered toast, coffee, aspirin. More toast.
When the knock came, she went to the door and opened it just a crack to take the tray, ignoring the waiter’s knowing smile. As soon as he was definitely gone, she poked a hand out again to hang up the DO NOT DISTURB sign.
Crumbs on the carpet, on the credenza, on top of the TV cabinet, at the foot of the bed. Nona poured herself a strong coffee and settled back against the pillows to watch.
More birds hustled in through the window, shouldering each other, flapping and squabbling. Their claws scraped and ticked excitedly on the veneer cabinets, snagged in the bedspread. Every now and then one lofted into the air, wings clapping, before climbing back down into the skirmish. The carpet seethed. Once again, Nona was the still point in a moving scene. Her eyes grew heavy. There was a dusty, sweet smell of feathers and bird shit in the room, and a restful coo and rustle. She drowsed.
She dreamt she was walkin
g in the hotel, down a long gold corridor, looking for a way through the building. A flight path. But there were no exits here, no clear routes. The birds were with her and they were trapped, battering up against glazed windows, winging down corridors into dead ends, tangling in elevator cables. She pushed at the walls with her hands, searching for secret doorways; but the hotel could not be unbuilt.
She woke and dozed, woke and dozed, drinking more water and using the bathroom. The birds were dozing too, perched on towel rack and headboard. She wanted to sleep with them for ever, suspended three storeys in the air.
It was late afternoon when she finally rose. The pigeons were gone, leaving only their feathers and the blots of their droppings.
Already she could see that the room – despite the soiling, the smell, the clothes on the floor – was shrugging off this brief habitation. When the carpet shook its nylon pelt, all trace of living things would be repelled. Soon the room would be dreaming again in its pristine blankness, thoughtless, faithless, without memory. Readying its cool, promiscuous surfaces for the next encounter.
She dressed quickly, packed her few things, put out a large tip for the cleaning lady and left the key in the door. Back down the corridor, into the elevator, across the carpeted entrance hall and out, avoiding the eyes of the red-jacket boys and girls.
Then down the long avenue of palms, rustling and stirring, with their own wild tribes of birds lodged like seeds in the cracks between the fronds. The grounds did not seem so enormous to her now. In every direction – beyond the flickering mesh of the tennis-court fence, past the rose garden – there was a wedge of pink wall blocking the line of sight. She left through the gates and walked the long way round, back home. The sun was low.
She was a block away when she heard the whistling. High and looping – not the birdman’s, but still familiar. Funny, that you could recognise the voice in a whistle.
When she turned the last corner, Ray was out in the alley, head cocked to the sky, seed in his outstretched palm.
“Home early,” he said.
She put down her bag. “Missed you, didn’t I?”
“They didn’t pitch up this morning.” He let the seed fall to the ground and wiped his hand on his trousers. Fretful, like an old man. “Didn’t come.”
“Oh, Ray. They’ll be back,” she said, taking his arm. “Those birds, they know which side their bread is buttered.”
She helped him into the deckchair and took her seat alongside. It was that time of evening, when the sun in the windows cast weak shadows at their feet.
“You think?” he asked.
“You’ll see.”
And so they reclined, Nona and Ray, their backs to the new hotel, saying a few quiet words to each other off and on. They watched the road and then the sky, and then the road again. That old road: altered but familiar, stolen from them and yet still theirs. Waiting, in that changing and mysterious light, for the birds to find their way.
Work in Progress
If you begin a story with a high building, it’s supposed to end with a fall. But that’s not where this story is going. In fact, when I remember that apartment up on the twenty-second floor, that summer before I turned nineteen – and sometimes it does still come into my dreams – the dread is not of a fall; the fear is of staying up there for ever, of never coming back down to ground.
It was one of those fancy blocks of flats they were building all over central Cape Town then – “New York loft-style apartments”, they called them. I was too poor for a car, so I took a minibus taxi to town and walked from the station – not easy in my new shoes, black leather with a heel. I was conscious of the dust on their soles as I stepped into the building’s cool lobby. The entrance was imposing but seemed hardly used; the people who lived here probably entered only through the underground parking, feet never touching ground from highway to home.
Certainly the porter at the front desk seemed brand new, his face less creased than his shirt, which still held its folds from the packaging. Did I look as green as he did, in my clothes bought specially? No doubt our tensely held expressions were much the same. We might have burst out laughing, if either one had let slip the first smile. But as it was, I was keeping my charm for someone else.
“I’ve come to see Mr Muller,” I said. “Mr Bernard Muller?”
He gave no sign of recognition, but swivelled the fat ledger around and pushed it across the counter. I hesitated, then carefully wrote in my name, avoiding his eye. He got up from his seat and passed an access card over a sensor next to the lifts.
The doors snapped open briskly. Like the rest of the building, this elevator was sparkling, new-made, as if it had never unsealed its brushed-steel doors before. I stepped inside, held my breath, pressed twenty-two. The machinery was quiet and there was no sensation of movement; but still I felt the dizzying speed of my ascent. Discreet amber numbers spooled higher – seventh floor, eighth … my heart winding tighter with every floor.
Alone in the lift, I examined myself. My reflection in the machine’s steel sides was clouded, a girl unformed. I bared my teeth, turned left and right. My body was pleasingly elongated. I’d pulled my dark hair back into a ballerina bun, and my head looked small, but long-necked and elegant, like a deer’s. I’d worn fitted dark clothes, those heeled shoes. Not my usual gear of jeans and sloppy T-shirts. I’d told myself they were working clothes: professional. But the shirt pulled tight on my breasts, the dark tailored trousers clasped my thighs, and underneath there was new black lace underwear, a little scratchy and tight. I put my hand on my hips, slung one hip higher than the other, feeling the point of my hip bone in my palm.
I’d been a plump child and teenager, and I was still getting used to these new bones. I couldn’t stop looking at myself in mirrors, discovering new angles. I felt raw to things, dangerously light.
Twenty? You seem much more mature, if you don’t mind my saying. And you write?
He’d touched my hand as he’d said it, looking up from signing my copy of his latest novel. Behind me, a long queue waited. His hair was greying but his eyes were alive with suggestion, causing the blood to rise up my neck to my cheeks. I wasn’t surprised; this was what I’d known would happen. What I had been imagining all through both his readings, which I’d been so lucky to get into; and for a long time before that, staring at that moody black-and-white photo they used on the back cover of all his books. The deep-set eyes, the half-smile, the black hair falling over his brow.
Of course I’d read all about him: the awards, the ex-wives and girlfriends, the public outbursts and rivalries. Everyone knew the stories. He had a temper, they said. I wondered what it would take to make him raise that deep, smooth voice. To make it break, or sigh.
Actually, I have a book, a manuscript. It’s not finished, but I thought, I hoped …
And I’d held out the fat envelope, trembling slightly. At that moment, I saw clearly what it was – a clumsy thing, adolescent, smudged – and nearly snatched it back in shame. But then Bernard Muller was taking it from me, was weighing it in his hands. He was looking into my eyes.
How wonderful. Come and see me this weekend – Sunday? Drop in, we can discuss your work in a more comfortable environment. My flat has great views.
And he wrote something in my copy of his book, under the signature: an address.
Later, shopping for clothes, I ran that voice back and forth through my mind, fingering it like a bolt of fine cloth. The voice guided me to sheerer fabrics, tighter fits. To the low-slung trousers, the slim-line shirt. New bra and panties. The shoes.
But now, looking at myself in the lift door – thirteenth floor, fourteenth – I wavered. The clothes were too much, too after-dark, too obvious. A blush pushed to my cheeks and I laid the side of my face to the steel. I have thin skin; the blood shines through, so treacherous. I fastened my top button. And then the doors sucked open and I stepped into the brightness of the lobby beyond. No retreat.
Perfect carpeted hush, the light
steady and diffuse. I picked up a low hum of some electrical system, and the sound tightened my heart another turn. The door was at the end of the corridor, beyond a stairwell. I walked up to it, knocked and waited, not sure how to arrange my legs or fold my arms. I unbuttoned the shirt again, slouched a leg. Sucked in my cheeks just a little, tried to soften the clench of my jaw. Slouched the other leg. I was about to knock again when the security peephole went dark. Then came a series of clicks and scrabbles on the other side, as if of many complex locks and latches; whole minutes seemed to pass. At last the slide of a bolt.
It was a woman who opened the door. Very tall. Her cream silk dressing gown, which she held tight around her body, emphasised a fine bust, hips, a long waist. Thick gold hair fell unkempt to her shoulders. She smelt both tawdry and expensive, of crumpled sheets and perfume. The long fingers that held the gown closed were tipped with perfect oval nails, shell pink. I wasn’t good at putting ages to people, but I knew she was much older than me: in her forties, perhaps. She leant her head back to look at me over broad cheekbones and a fine strong nose. The face of an eagle.
“Christ,” she said. “Now this.”
Was this the right flat? Before I could ask, she’d turned and walked into the dim room behind, letting the silk fall open and billow from broad shoulders. She had a very straight carriage, but as she walked away I saw she favoured one side. In fact, she was limping.
“Take your shoes off at the door,” she said over her shoulder. A flutter of pale silk as she turned into a room halfway down the passage.
I checked the number on the door again, and entered uncertainly. Against the wall was a neat row of men’s shoes: polished brogues, sandals, tennis shoes. To save the floors, I supposed; they were gleaming wood. There was also a pair of knee-high leather boots – crocodile skin, needle toes, spike heels – which had been tossed aside. I took off my own black shoes and saw how cheap and dull they looked, and how much smaller.
Homing Page 2
