The Woman Next Door (8 page)

‘Why do you lie?’ Hortensia asked.

‘About?’ Kehinde didn’t look up from cutting; she’d marked out the borders of the garment in white chalk.

‘Where you’re from. Are you ashamed?’ It had been boiling in Hortensia for a while now. They were both teased endlessly, Hortensia for being Barbadian, for singing when she spoke, for rounding words in a way that amused her classmates, for being dark; but mostly they spurned her for being a good designer, for the audacity of that.

‘I’m not ashamed. I just thought that would be the easiest way.’

‘To what?’

‘To give them something to muck about with.’

K’s strategy had puzzled Hortensia, who’d never even considered bringing a strategy with her to Brighton – perhaps a failure of her otherwise-robust imagination. On confirmation that she’d received the coveted British Council Art Scholarship (her teacher had practically browbeaten her into making an application), she’d celebrated with Zippy, enjoyed the proud gaze of her father, Kwittel, and endured a litany of cautions from her mother, Eda. It was really one cautionary remark repeated in various forms – Be careful. Eda, ever tightly wound to the possibility of coming troubles, predicting Armageddon, emboldened by the Bible, King James Version, whose first testament she had put to memory, with its smiting and endless tribulations. Hortensia had ignored her mother’s warnings, but soon, arriving unprepared for battle, regretted this. Regardless, she wrote simple letters home and received simple ones back. Eda’s shaky writing dominated the square pages. Hortensia wrote back in black, all-capital letters (she’d discovered a great capacity for penmanship), and told of a beach that wasn’t a beach, not the sea baths to which she was accustomed. Despite Eda’s repeated ‘Are you alrights?’, Hortensia left out stories of what she called ‘the freeze’. Hard stares from fellow students and lecturers alike; stares from people who looked through you, not at you; stares intent on disappearing you; and stares you fought by making yourself solid. People found it civilised to imitate the sound of a chimpanzee whenever they passed Hortensia or K in the corridors. They were not the first black students to ever attend Bailer’s and yet it seemed a riddle had to be solved each time a black person presented at the college. A boy once asked Hortensia how her brother was. I don’t have a brother, Hortensia replied. Oh, but you do, here – the golliwog on the Robertson strawberry-jam jar.

In 1950, a year after Hortensia arrived at Bailer’s, the rest of the Braithwaites boarded a ship, the
Spig-Noose
docked at Dover and they caught a coach to Waterloo Station. An older cousin of Kwittel’s, Leroy, had completed his service with the Carib Regiment; he’d been stationed in Italy, saw no action, but had a heart attack all the same (apparently hereditary); he’d chosen to stay on in England and, with Hortensia already in university, had encouraged Kwittel to bring himself and the rest of his family out. Leroy had offered London as a promise of better, and Kwittel had sold this to his sceptical wife. A few weeks after arriving in London, Kwittel found work as a postman. Hortensia’s classmates managed to divine this piece of information about her life. People who thought themselves funny asked her: if the black postman delivers the mail at night, wouldn’t it be blackmail? It was one of the few stings that actually hurt. Hortensia’s father was not only the closest thing she had to a best friend, but he was also the best person she knew in the entire world.

Kwittel Braithwaite had two furrows that ran on either side of the bridge of his nose. When his daughters, Hortensia and Zephyr, were young they liked to feel those furrows with their small spongy fingers. The grooves had formed over many years of studying, his wife liked to say, a tinge of awe in her voice. The wire spectacles that had been instrumental in creating this feature were the same ones Hortensia tried to describe decades later, to an assistant in the front room of her optician’s in Cape Town.

If her relationship with her father was filled with admiration, Hortensia’s relationship with her mother was ruled by restraint. The tension came from Eda’s need to dominate, and Hortensia’s to resist. Hortensia thought of her relationship with her mother as being governed by a repulsive force that sat between them and kept them, at any given time, at least a hundred centimetres apart. If, by some accident, they came any closer or even touched, it was only for seconds and then they glanced apart like two similarly charged black magnets.

They hadn’t always been that way. Before the age of twelve, things had been different. But then they had one of their many arguments. It started as something quite regular. Eda was plaiting her daughter’s hair and Hortensia was sitting between Eda’s thighs, wincing and complaining about the style her mother was fixing. Hortensia, who felt she had a better understanding of what suited her and what didn’t, wanted something different and she was telling her mother so. Occasionally she got a knock on her head for twisting and complaining too much. Perhaps that day she had received one too many knocks, because something settled in her, some kind of resolve. When Eda was done and released the child from between her bony tight-lock thighs, Hortensia excused herself to the room she shared with Zippy. When it was time to prepare food and Hortensia was called, there was suddenly a lot of screaming. That evening there was no dinner.

Hortensia had not only undone the plaits her mother had prepared, she’d found a pair of scissors to cut the hair as short as possible. Then, still unsatisfied, she’d sought out her father’s blade and managed not to draw even a spot of blood, but achieve a soft, smooth and very close shave. She looked, Eda shouted, like some bug-eyed alien and she threatened to swat the thing back into outer space. Hortensia was saved by her father who, she suspected, would forever lose some of his wife’s affection for having shielded her from Eda, for siding with her. That evening war was declared. Hortensia noticed that Eda had become injured with a wound that would never heal. A wound that even after many years, despite Hortensia’s own disappointment in her marriage (a sadness she never managed to hide from her mother), would prevent Eda from offering her eldest daughter – her precious person – comfort.

Soon after graduating from the Bailer’s Design College, Hortensia travelled from Brighton up to London. It was 1953. She moved in with her mother and Zippy in Holloway.

Defeated by cancer, Hortensia’s father had passed away one year before and it felt strange to be living without him. To not see him beneath a lamp, a book in hand. He’d never completed high school, but treasured history and taught himself much of what there was to know about the world. Many evenings were spent instilling the same curiosity in his daughters. Paramount to him was teaching them from where they came; in this way he taught them pride.

Before he died, Kwittel admitted to his wife that he had been sick before they boarded ship. In fact he knew he was dying but thought this rush northwards, via the Atlantic Ocean, would be good for his family. And when he was dying and Eda mentioned going home, he made it clear to her that he wanted to be buried in England. He was being devious; he knew his remains in London would ensure Eda stayed put, ensure Zippy could finish school and make something of herself. He knew superstitious Eda, itching to go home as she was, would never dare leave his grave to be tended to by strangers.

He died quickly and Eda bore his death as if she’d read of its coming in the clouds. She infected her daughters with her subdued grieving, and none of the three ever fully recovered from the sombre shadow Kwittel’s death cast.

The home at Holloway was two rooms. Eda and the other residents of the house all cooked on the landing and shared the bathroom facilities. At night Hortensia sat, missed her father and suffered her mother, who was proud of her daughter but concerned about her marriageability. Zippy was fourteen years old, the sisters were not quite friends, but there was conviviality and genuine warmth between them; a fierce sense of protection from Hortensia and a persistent curiosity from Zippy. She never tired of rifling through Hortensia’s drawings.

‘I like this one.’ Zippy pointed to a sketch of a series of chairs.

‘You call the number I give you?’ Eda asked, looking up from her ironing. She ran a small laundry and ironing business from home. Her face was worn, her lips always downturned since her husband’s death. She also drove trains for London Transport.

‘You look tired, Mama.’

‘You call?’

‘No. Not yet.’

‘Well … call. The boy waiting.’

Hortensia sighed.

‘And this one.’ Zippy had a special ability to zone out their mother’s nagging, perhaps, Hortensia thought, because the nagging was seldom directed at her. She watched her sister flick through her sketchbook.

‘I’m going to start selling my own designs,’ Hortensia said, looking at Zippy although the statement was intended for Eda. She’d started getting her documents together for the registration of House of Braithwaite.

‘Your own designs?’ Eda asked, lifting the iron and taking a moment to glance at her firstborn.

‘Yes.’

What Hortensia didn’t tell Eda was that she had no need to call ‘the boy’ Eda was trying to fix her up with. Instead, she and Peter were in the last stages of their courtship. He had asked for her hand in marriage and she’d said yes.

They had been courting in secret for three years. Later, when Peter would tease Hortensia for her love of beautiful things, what he couldn’t have known was that he’d been that for her once too – a beautiful thing, perfect and in need of nothing. The year they met, Hortensia’s first summer in England, Peter was tutoring in Pure Mathematics and Statistics at Croydon College. Hortensia was on vacation from design school. Mr List, the same enthusiastic teacher that had introduced fashion to Bailer’s, had noticed Hortensia’s talent and invited her to join him as his assistant. He ran a summer pattern-making class at Croydon College. Accustomed to being received coolly at Bailer’s, the young teacher’s interest in her work had surprised Hortensia. She accepted the offer, keen for the extra money. She moved in with her Uncle Leroy. Her mother sent a letter with the details of the family’s imminent arrival.

Within days of starting her job at Croydon, Hortensia had observed Peter from afar; he was distinctly tall and difficult to miss. Up close one day in the cafeteria, Hortensia saw that he had freckles on his face, they were dark brown and she found them pleasant. She smiled at him and he stammered a greeting.

Almost on arrival Eda found something to worry about. She didn’t like the hours Hortensia was keeping, the journey into Croydon. She said as much to Hortensia who, as usual, didn’t pay her any mind. And as if danger follows worry, one night, after staying late in Croydon to enjoy a drink with some of the students, Hortensia began her journey home. She was dressed in high heels, which was unusual despite her short stature. She wobbled in the heels, walked slowly, shivered from the cold (how could this be summer?). One came up on her left and another on her right. A hand pressed against her back meant someone was behind her too. Teddy boys were always spoken of but, up till then, she’d never encountered any. In the early days of their marriage, when there was still laughter, Hortensia would claim she had had all three boys on their backs by the time Peter showed up. He’d respond by saying, ‘If on their backs means standing with their fists jabbing the air, then yes.’

They were boys, though, and whether due to Peter’s size or Hortensia’s curses (she reined them in with screeches, spitting and raising her left hand, fingers spread, for effect), the hooligans seemed to catch a fright and eventually ran off. Peter asked if he could walk with her and Hortensia told him she’d be fine. It’s not you I’m worried about, he said. He grinned and shone all his teeth at her. This wide smile struck her as such a precious thing. She’d never fallen in love before.

THERE CAME A
time when Hortensia did wonder who the person was. She played a game, thought up faces, dreamed them. There were moments where she thought very clearly that if for any reason she found the woman and was left alone with her, she would kill her. Then there were days she felt she had to meet, speak and reason with her, find her number in Peter’s book. But of course there was no such book. So it seemed natural, one day, to follow him. And it seemed sensible to get a disguise, so he didn’t notice that he was being followed. She would later hide the camouflage in the storeroom off the kitchen – a place she knew Peter would never look.

The woman was small and young. She wore strappy heels but still had to raise herself onto the tips of her toes to greet Peter with a drawn-out kiss. Her hair, curls of black, was so shiny Hortensia wondered if it wasn’t a wig.

She had a face that Hortensia had never seen before, not even at the Staff Club. She could be a new employee flown in, but the company had very few women engineers. Maybe a secretary?

Peter and the woman began walking and Hortensia walked behind them. Banga market was at its most crowded at midday. It was one of the older markets of Ibadan and, for some reason unknown to Hortensia, was unpopular with the expatriate community. The two ducked down an alley between a row of stalls and Hortensia followed, sidestepping litter and puddles from a short spray of rain. If it wasn’t for the clang of the grinders gnawing away at the skinned beans and the incessant call of traders, Hortensia thought she would be able to hear what they were speaking about. She felt brave. It helped that she blended in and they – oyinbos – were conspicuous. She wore scuffed Nikes and a dark-green tracksuit, but none of that mattered because she’d covered the whole thing in a black burkha.

A boy clutching a chicken pushed past Hortensia; he apologised but didn’t bother to turn around. They entered the wet-food section of the market. The woman pointed at a tray of cow hooves and Peter laughed at something she’d said.

‘Alhaja,’ a trader with peppers said to Hortensia. ‘Èwo l
f
?’