The Woman Next Door (15 page)

A boyfriend. A holiday. Marion nodded to convey an understanding she didn’t feel. Her tongue wouldn’t move.

‘Will you be alright?’ Agnes asked and Marion nodded more vigorously.

Shaken, inexplicably angry, Marion took the short walk from the guest house to her own home, still worried about her choice of shoes, unable to erase the image of Agnes’s face from her mind. She fingered the jewel in her pocket, wondered why she wasn’t happier to have had it returned to her.

A man in a once-white shirt greeted Marion at her gate and said his name was Frikkie. She blinked – someone that black called Frikkie, come on! When they’d spoken on the phone, his English had been so good. She’d been impressed that an Afrikaans person could sound so Brit, she’d never have thought she was speaking to a black man.

‘Well,’ Marion said, stopping and standing, arms akimbo, at the bottom of what used to be the porch steps.

Someone had set up a ramp. There were two workers on-site. One man with his shirt tied around his waist was separating a pile of rubble. Useless and useful, Marion supposed were the two categories. She took a breath: that site-smell, dust and metal and sweat. She’d missed it.

‘We’ll spend today and maybe part of tomorrow preparing the site. And I ordered a portable. Should be here any moment.’

Marion nodded. She’d asked that her toilets remain off-limits, which seemed a reasonable request.

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here yesterday. I thought we could discuss the works now, if you have a moment.’ He indicated a bench and two chairs, some papers held down with stones.

‘Yes.’ Marion joined him at the makeshift office. ‘So this is
your
business?’ She’d owned a business once.

Frikkie nodded. Marion attempted to sit down on the low chair. She managed it, but not without some strain. Frikkie touched her elbow by way of support; she snatched her arm back and lowered herself.

Whose idea had it been to leave the practice? Marion wanted to heap the blame onto Max, but she couldn’t forget her own pressing need to prove herself as a mother. She was already two kids in and still working, when Selena’s difficult birth had put her in hospital, drugged and horizontal. The doctor’s ‘slow down’ coupled with the increase, over the years, of Max’s insinuations about her mothering quickly translated into two-day working weeks and ever shorter conversations with her partner, Harry Cumfred. Damned fool! Long before he bought her out, he’d already started referring to the company as Cumfred Architects. Baumann and Cumfred was no more. There was a time after giving up the practice when Marion thought she could still bully Harry into allowing her back in, then another bump appeared – Gaia. The result of careless sex, Max returning home after an extended conference, feeling guilty and eager to please. After the birth of her fourth child Marion’s head got fuzzy – four children shouting different things at you, the world creeping in, getting in through the holes. It became too much. By 1972, almost twelve years after launching her practice, Marion stayed home.

‘Hold on a minute.’ Marion rose to answer her cellphone, walked some distance away from Frikkie and dropped her voice. ‘Darling? I’m in a meeting … Yes at the house … We haven’t spoken about how long yet, we were just getting to his schedule. Honestly, though, I think it’ll take several weeks, plus the rain-days – just under two months, my guess … I understand you’re using your own money for the guest house … Yes, I realise you’re a stay-at-home mom … Marelena … Marelena, can I get a word in? No, I’m not suggesting your husband
bankroll
me … Two months is long, I realise. I wasn’t planning on being at the guest house all that time, by the way … Well, I could stay here the minute the roof is fixed, for instance … Yes, of course I see that … Yes … Well, goodbye then.’

What had set her off? Was it the over-assured Frikkie – why did she hate him so much? – or the spite of her daughter, once the size of a worm in her belly, completely helpless and dependent on her. Marion couldn’t decipher, but she dropped her phone into her handbag and placed her fingers over her face. Thank goodness she knew how to cry quietly.

The woman was crying. Marion the Vulture was crying. Hortensia strained her neck to see; she pushed her weight, through her arms, into the walker and stretched until the gentle cold knock of her head pressing against the window stopped her. Couldn’t have been an ordinary phone call to reduce Marion to such a puddle. Unless Hortensia had overestimated her adversary. She stayed watching. Such a long crier too – wouldn’t have guessed it. She was watching so intently that Hortensia didn’t hear Bassey behind her. He cleared his throat and she jumped.

‘You scared me.’

He walked to where she stood by the window. Took in the view. Marion had stopped heaving. She’d taken a mirror from her purse and was arranging her face. Hortensia swivelled her gaze between Marion and Bassey.

‘Heard anything?’ Hortensia finally asked, feeling dirty for prying.

‘What do you mean?’

This man, always the epitome of decency.

‘You know.’

‘I think there have been some … difficulties.’ He coughed. ‘Financial and what-have-you.’

The following day Hortensia heard the bell go.

‘Bassey,’ she shouted from her bed, simultaneously pushing the buzzer. ‘Bassey!’

His head appeared.

‘Call her in. Don’t look at me like that – call her in.’

Marion came in, talking, ‘Hortensia, I am not someone you can summon at will. I’m actually quite busy and cannot visit. I merely wanted a drink of water, which this kind man obliged me with.’

Bassey left them alone.

‘So?’ Marion folded her arms, jutted her chin at Hortensia.

Hortensia wished she was standing, felt too easy a target flat. Oh well.

‘I wanted to ask you something.’ Hortensia hated having to be careful with words. She was so bad at it.

‘What?’

‘Marion, I … saw you yesterday.’

Marion looked puzzled, so Hortensia gestured with her hand towards the window. Marion moved to the window and looked out into her garden. Probably regretting the low country-style walls. When Marion turned back to Hortensia her face was pasty. Hortensia longed for a bigger sense of victory. It wasn’t there.

‘So?’ Marion said, but her voice was quiet.

‘I hate gossip.’

‘Yes, well, if there’s no real reason for me being here, I’d better go.’ She moved to the door.

‘Marion. You should come here.’

‘What? What do you mean? I am here.’

‘No, I mean … to this house. You should come
here
.’

Marion stayed rooted.

‘I’m responsible for all the damage, the turmoil. You come here, you stay in your own quarters – the house is big enough. You don’t have to shuttle back and forth between the site and that dreadful, sorry excuse of a guest house—’

Marion snorted; at least they agreed on one thing. She opened her mouth to say something, but Hortensia raised a finger.

‘Think about it. Don’t answer now. We aren’t friends, Marion. I’m just—’

‘I’ll think about it.’

She left the room. Hortensia didn’t hear the front door bang.

To ensure her plan would work Hortensia called Dr Mama, asked if he would stop by. She felt she was bothering him but didn’t care.

‘Any complaints?’ Dr Mama asked after the initial physical examination was complete. It wasn’t why she’d called him, but Hortensia had played along.

She lowered her voice, ‘I don’t like Trudy.’

Mama smiled.

‘She’s a good nurse.’

Hortensia nodded slowly. Marion hadn’t called yet.

‘I mean, what does she really do?’ she continued.

Mama stood up and walked towards his bag. ‘No complaints then,’ he said and they both laughed.

‘Seriously, though. You said even just another body.’

Mama looked perplexed.

‘In case of emergencies.’

‘Hortensia, I hate to put it to you, but there is no one else. Trudy is actually one of the nurses from my own practice. I spoke with the folks at Constantinople – none of their people will come here.’

He looked the most serious she’d ever seen him and she was sorry to be the cause of it.

‘Gordon, what I’m trying to say is … what if someone
else
was available?’

He looked relieved at the thought. ‘A friend?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t quite call it that.’

‘You have someone that you’d like to come and stay?’

‘What if I did? Would that be … acceptable?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘As in no Trudy?’

Mama’s face relaxed and he shook his head. ‘You really don’t like her?’

‘It’s not personal, you understand. I mean, it’s more out of compassion. Such a nice child, Trudy. No one like that should have to look after me.’

‘But there’s another person.’

‘Oh, this woman is truly awful. Perfectly suited for someone like myself.’

Mama laughed.

‘Well, I’d need to meet her, this woman. I mean, I know I said “another body”. I was trying to be agreeable at the time. I’d run her through a few things. It isn’t a joke, you know, Hortensia. It’s your health. Your well-being.’

He was so earnest that for a moment he seemed younger than he looked. A little Boy Scout. A delicious one.

‘Grandma?’

It was the little one knocking. She’d phoned from reception. Caught off-guard, Marion had barely had time to straighten her blouse and refresh her lipstick.

‘Come in, Innes.’

Neither of Marelena’s girls had Baumann in them, not the way their mother did. They looked – one simply an almost exact but miniature copy of the other – like their father: dark hair, fine eyebrows. Lara was prettier in that beauty-magazine kind of way. And Marion noticed how Lara was the one who wanted Barbie dolls, make-up kits, and Innes, with thick glasses, her hair cut short, her nails clean but unpolished, asked for books. As if life itself was a cliché.

‘Where’s Lara?’ Marion guessed the older girl was exercising her disgust by staying away.

‘She dropped me. She’ll phone on her way back from Grandpa.’

Marion frowned for a second, then relaxed. She kept forgetting that the kids still had a rather dull-looking paternal grandfather. He lived in a neighbouring suburb – she forgot which.

‘Ah, I see.’

Marion indicated for Innes to sit on the hastily made-up bed while she took the chair. One leg was wonky. Guest house indeed. As she balanced her weight, Marion watched Innes take in the room. Their eyes met and Marion smiled. She could only imagine the chutzpah Innes would have needed in order to be allowed to visit. The stories she’d have had to endure from her mother, specific recollections well suited to showcase Marion’s ineptitude as a parent and possibly as a human being.

‘Can I use the loo?’

‘Over there.’

Doubtless big sister Lara would have butted in with some first-year lawyer-speak. Human-rights-type stuff. She disapproved of Marion’s treatment of Agnes. Always had done.

‘What’s this?’ Lara had asked one day while visiting, many years back.

‘Utensils. Cups. Plates,’ Marion responded, eyeing the large Tupperware that Lara held aloft.

‘Why are they packed away like this, Grandma?’

‘They are for Agnes,’ Marion had said, her mouth set. ‘For Agnes.’

And Lara’s eyes widened. She went crying to her mom. It might not have been so bad if a few days before (this was when Marelena still visited) Lara hadn’t run to the pantry to replace a roll of toilet paper and returned with the one-ply.

‘That’s for Agnes,’ her grandmother shouted, before muttering, ‘Why on earth is she keeping her stuff in my pantry?’

The child looked confused. Why was her grandmother buying two different kinds of toilet paper? ‘Because,’ Marion said.

Because two-ply was more expensive and, considering her station in life, it seemed perfectly reasonable to expect Agnes to manage with one-ply. The child was asking questions about things Marion had never had to reason through, but there you were – there was your reason.

But the damage was already done. Lara was upset, Marelena was upset. She comforted her daughter and pursed her lips at her mother. ‘I thought, after all this time, that you would have stopped with such things.’ Marion was judged. Bitter about being misunderstood, she took it up with Agnes.

‘Why are you keeping your toilet rolls in my pantry, Agnes? When the shopping comes in, when you unload the bags, take your things and keep them at the granny-flat.’

‘No, Ma’am.’

‘What?’ Agnes seldom had cause to use the word ‘no’ when speaking with Marion. In fact Marion couldn’t remember a time she’d ever heard her use it.

‘This is not my toilet roll, Ma’am. I buy my own.’

‘Why do you buy your own?’ Marion asked. Whatever could have changed? She’d been working there for decades and understood the rules.

Agnes, wiping down the speckled marble kitchen counter, shrugged. ‘I needed something better, Ma’am.’

One day, soon after this conversation, when Agnes was distracted with laundry, Marion stole into the granny-flat to inspect the bathroom. There was the offending toilet paper. Three-ply. It turned her cheeks crimson and (never to be outdone), on her next trip to Woolworths, Marion selected a large supply of white three-ply toilet roll for herself.

After all that, Lara took Marion on as a project – her untransformed grandmother. Marelena was doubtful, and Marion even overheard her one day explaining to Lara not to expect too much from Marion. Why not? Lara had asked. She was around twelve at the time. Because she is old and stuck to old, bad ways. Marion would always remember that sober summation her daughter had given of her. Old and stuck.

‘Tea, dear? Rooibos?’

Marion rose towards the kettle.

‘Thanks, Grandma.’

‘Some cookies.’

Each night, in an unnecessary and ineffective pretention, a pack of biscuits was placed on her pillow. Brown in see-through plastic. They looked vile, but she hoped Innes would like them.

‘Sorry I missed your birthday, love. I was just …’

‘I know. It’s fine, Grandma.’

‘Twelve suits you. Milk?’

‘Yes, please.’

Marion pulled the bedside table closer and set the tea on top. She sat back down. Innes had a chip on her front tooth. Marion put her hand to her heart, remembering the day the little girl had fallen. At the park.