The Woman Next Door (28 page)

‘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 down 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.

‘Milk?’

‘Thank you.’

Toby sat by Esme’s feet. Hortensia did not like dogs, but calling Toby a dog seemed inadequate. Or perhaps she had never understood the word, the creature it described.

‘Are you not accustomed to dogs?’ Esme asked, again surprising Hortensia with her observations.

‘Well, I have a neighbour who has a … what do they call those? Always yapping.’

Esme smiled. ‘Chihuahua?’

Hortensia set the tea down. ‘No, a sausage dog, they call it.’

‘Dachshund. Nice.’

‘Can I ask you some questions?’

‘Please.’

‘I’m embarrassed. You should be the one with the questions. About Peter, your father. If you have any, I would do my best to answer.’

‘What did you want to ask?’

‘Were you born this way?’

‘You mean blind?’

‘Sorry. Yes, I meant blind.’

‘Yes, I was. Makes it easier, I think. I’ve never known any different.’

‘And your … your mother.’

‘Did you know her, Mrs James?’

‘Hortensia.’

‘Thank you, Hortensia.’

‘No, I didn’t know her. I never met her.’

‘I understand this might be hard, but … she was a wonderful person, Hortensia. I miss her so much.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know she’d passed away. I mean she – they … I noticed that they no longer interacted, but I had no way of knowing what had happened.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know, either. I’m sorry if you thought I could provide you with answers.’

‘Not at all. I’ve had no answers all my life – why would that suddenly be important?’

Esme finished her tea.

‘She never mentioned Peter?’

‘She married when I was a few months old. It was many years before she told me who my real father was.’

‘And? What did she say?’

Esme shrugged. ‘That she had been young and careless.’

‘She used that word? Careless.’

‘Yes. She said she had written to Peter, not when she was pregnant, but much later; perhaps when I was ten or so. She wrote to the only address she had for him, in Nigeria. She wrote three times. She told him my name and she sent him our whereabouts, our address, and so on. By then she had divorced my father. My mother said she wrote to Peter and told him that she still loved him and that if there was any chance of being together, he should come and find us. She never heard back.’

‘I—’

‘We didn’t suffer, Hortensia. There is no need to apologise.’

‘He found you in the end, though.’

‘Hmm.’

‘In a way. He was much, much too late, but I suppose this was his way of finally writing back.’

It became a thing that Hortensia and Marion met daily at the bench underneath the Silver. It was cool beneath the tree. A car rolled past, she heard only the purr of the engine.

No one comes to see us, Hortensia thought. ‘How’s Agnes?’ she asked.

‘Sick.’

‘I mean, you said you’d go visit her again.’

‘Yes, I called Niknaks. She sounded diplomatic, but my guess is Agnes doesn’t want to see me.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘I tried to say sorry.’

Hortensia snorted.

‘What? I told her I was sorry.’

‘Okay, Marion.’

‘You should have seen her eyes, though, when she … “I was angry with you,” she said. And her eyes, Hortensia.’

‘She’s sick, and her life – the majority of which she spent cleaning after you and your children, polishing your home – feels finished. I understand it. She blames you.’

‘No! It’s worse than that – she
doesn’t
blame me. She doesn’t have to blame me … She’s just … watching.’

Hortensia looked thoughtful.

‘She’s going to die.’

‘We all do eventually, Marion.’

‘I’m worried she’ll die and come to haunt me, you know?’

‘Ah, I see. Trust you to find a way to be the star of someone else’s death-scene. She’s the one dying, but you’re who we ought to be concerned for.’

‘You know what I mean, though.’

‘Well, yes, that is a possibility. She might die and she might come and haunt you. It’ll serve you right.’

‘Thank you.’

‘What? Were you not despicable? Someone will write a book about it.
The Haunting of Marion
.’

‘Stop.’

‘But I’m serious, Marion. And we all know Agnes would make a terrific Haunter.’

Marion shook her head. ‘She’d have been a good teacher, wouldn’t she? She would have, wouldn’t she?’

‘Maybe. Please, stop shaking your head.’

‘I’m in so much trouble. She knows all my peeves. Dripping taps. Tablecloths spread, but not ironed. Oh,’ Marion gripped Hortensia’s forearm, ‘she could strangle me with the laundry – that was always our biggest quarrel.’

‘You’re ridiculous. I give up.’

‘Let’s change the subject. How’s the girl?’

‘Who, Esme?’ Well adjusted was the term that came to mind. ‘She’s okay. I guess I expected her to be angry or something. Instead she’s … lovely. Oh, guess what?’

‘What?’

‘She teaches piano. No small wonder her hearing is superhuman. She kept catching me out.’

‘How?’

‘Just … as in knowing things, noticing things I truly felt – scuse my ignorance – a blind person ought not to notice.’

Marion scowled, a quiet form of scolding. A hadida called out, loped and took flight from Hortensia’s garden onto Marion’s roof.

‘You glad you met her?’

Another hadida appeared, this one with coloured plumage, a pluck of blue feathers tucked in its wing like a handbag. It called out, flew onto the roof, its head bobbing.

‘I suppose that was the point. Peter’s point.’

‘Do you think she needs you? With the …’ Marion pointed to her eyes. ‘Think that’s what Peter was getting at?’

‘Oh no, Esme certainly does not need me. Maybe the other way around,’ Hortensia laughed. ‘And when she left, I wondered if I’d ever see her again. Worried. She phoned when she arrived home, can you imagine?’

‘Precious.’

‘Being around someone like that. I kept thinking: I’m just a bad person, Marion. I’ll die soon and I’ll go to hell.’

‘For what?’

‘For being nasty. I know it’s simplistic, but look at her, a person with every reason not to be and yet she’s so … kind.’

‘It’s okay.’

‘What do you mean, it’s okay. Who made you that? The O-kay-Sayer.’

Marion bristled. ‘I was thinking, that’s all. That we’re old. That it’s okay. What else is there to say at this late moment?’

Hortensia shrugged. The two women looked and saw that the birds had taken off, two specks in an empty sky.

‘So it’s hell for the both of us.’

‘You, Hortensia, scared of a little hell?’

‘Who said I’m scared? You’re the one whining about a ghost called Agnes. She’s not dead yet, by the way. If only she’ll outlive us both – I pray.’

‘Ever notice how it’s the good ones that die?’ Marion asked.

‘Hmph. I don’t know about that, Marion. More like no nincompoop ever dies – notice that? The second you die, you become a kind of saint. You’re absolved, your good deeds are dredged up and your evil pardoned, forgotten. When I die—’

‘You have a will?’

‘Yes. Yes, I do. Burn me in secret, throw my ashes in the gutter. Not a soul is to pronounce over my dead body … Not. A. Soul. No gatherings, no songs.’

‘Gosh! So austere. When I die, I want my children to be forced to say nice things. I want Stefano to sweat as he recounts just one lousy memory, just one thought of kindness towards his poor mother.’

Hortensia sucked her teeth.

‘I want Verdi playing.
Nabucco
.’

‘Goodness me!’

‘Candles. Incense. I want my face done up.’

‘What?’

‘Open casket. I want my face done up and …’ she whispered, ‘my toenails painted.’

‘Foolishness.’

‘Why not? Why not do what makes me happy?’

‘But you’ll be dead.’

Marion shrugged. She leaned back against the bench, put her hands on her stomach, which was folds of overstretched skin beneath a beige cardigan.

‘Life’s been pretty long,’ Marion said. She was feeling up the buttons on the cuffs.

‘That I can’t argue with.’

‘With not enough sex,’ she said.

‘Well.’

It turned into a still evening; a fine scent from the lady-of-the-night next door caught them. Hortensia pressed her cane into the warm earth and rose with a soft grunt.

‘Hortensia,’ Marion called after her.

Hortensia stopped but didn’t turn, too much physical effort.

‘I … uhm, I’m not sure what I wanted to say, now. It seemed right in my head. I guess I just … What I thought was …’

Hortensia shifted her weight. ‘Yes, Marion. I agree completely.’

‘No, but I really, I’m being serious now, I wanted to … try and—’

‘Yes, yes. I feel the same.’

HORTENSIA HAD NOTICED
that some people delighted in designing the events that would take place upon their death. Now she had to admit to herself that she was one of them. People who’d felt they had little control over their lives so took solace in the form of wills and instructions, large sums of money, maps and secrets. Peter seemed to be one such, too. After all that had happened, Marx called and asked if he could visit, asked if he could give Hortensia something.

‘Your husband left this for you.’

Hortensia arched her eyebrow. However weak and frail her limbs were, her facial muscles were functioning fine.

‘Now? He asked that you give this to me now?’

‘Precisely,’ Marx said and he left.

It was a brown envelope, ordinary, with the flap unstuck. The paper was thick, creamy. He’d written the date in a shaky hand. The ‘6’ barely announced itself as a ‘6’. It was more of a ‘0’ that had lost its way. One page folded twice, evenly. A crooked date. And some scratches.

Hortensia tried to imagine it. He’d had a stretch of strength earlier in the year. Not strong enough to do much, but she’d seen one of the nurses scanning the bookshelf in Peter’s study.

‘May I help?’ Hortensia had asked.

‘He wants … “the staple”, he called it. The stable?’

The nurse had fair hair and wrinkles.

‘Or the steeple?’ She had rings on her fingers.

Well enough to call for a book, but not well enough to pronounce its title clearly. Well enough to request pudding, but not well enough to keep it down. Well enough to ask for Hortensia, but not well enough to go and find her when she refused to come. And when the nurse had begged and said ‘He’s asking for you again’, Hortensia had told her to leave her alone.

Was that when he’d called for paper? Having already arranged his will, was that when he sought to unburden himself? The date. That’s as far as he’d managed.

She ran her fingers over the page. He’d made attempts at words, at the shape of words. His hands would have been shaking.

At first it had felt to Hortensia that Peter was just being vindictive. The tombstone covered in Braille had shocked her. The delicateness of that. And now an empty letter. He would have scratched at it with his over-expensive fountain pen. Struggled to form the shapes. And yet, he’d gone all the way, folded the letter and enveloped it.

Hortensia called Marx.

‘Was there not some other letter?’

‘Pardon?’

‘The letter, the letter. Is there another one? A proper one.’

‘I’m sorry, Mrs James, I don’t understand.’

‘Because this one is a dud. Empty. Did he not leave something else? Something clearer?’