E-Book, Englisch, 320 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-77619-023-2
Verlag: Jonathan Ball
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
MICHIEL HEYNS is the author of eight novels: The Children's Day, The Reluctant Passenger, The Typewriter's Tale, Bodies Politic, Invisible Furies, Lost Ground, A Sportful Malice and I am Pandarus. He is also an award-winning translator of novels by acclaimed Afrikaans authors such as Marlene van Niekerk and Etienne van Heerden. He was previously professor of English at the University of Stellenbosch.
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Sunday 11 November
Taking Benjy for an early-morning walk, for the time being on his lead in case his aspiration to catch a dassie had not been quenched by the previous day’s near-disaster, she kept her mind on planning the lunch that she would cook for Frieda, her best friend since university days, who was travelling from Cape Town ‘for an on-site inspection’. Frieda was not yet convinced that Margaret could survive in Hermanus on her own ‘without becoming eccentric, nattering on about chakras and astral bodies or growing comfrey and catswort. Or marrying some retired British general who’s looking for a cheap housekeeper and eventually nurse.’ Frieda would, naturally, expect lunch: it was part of her good Jewish upbringing to believe that food was an essential component of any significant human interaction. Margaret, on the other hand, had grown up under the lax culinary regimen of her librarian mother, who regarded food as at best a necessity, at worst an inconvenience. Her lawyer father, for his part, was not exactly indifferent to food, but he belonged to the ‘plate-of-food’ school of gastronomy, and he accepted uncritically if unrapturously the unadventurous fare served up by his wife, now and again hiving off with colleagues and cronies to have a steak and a bottle of wine – or two – somewhere. As Margaret grew up and started experiencing other people’s food and other people’s criteria, it dawned on her that not everybody relished ‘plain but wholesome’ food, as her mother liked to characterise the food served at her table. But for herself, at first immersed in her architectural studies, then fully occupied as a trainee architect and later as a partner in a busy firm, food just never seemed to matter. So she’d mainly left it to her domestic, Rebecca, like much of the rest of the housekeeping. Rebecca had a weekly routine of dishes that she rarely varied, which simplified shopping and avoided surprises. As the children grew up, they did, it is true, grumble from time to time about the ‘same old stodge and starch’, as Carl, her son, characterised her offerings, but they accepted with good enough grace that exotic fare was not to be expected from their mother’s kitchen as presided over by Rebecca. As for Kevin, her husband, now ex-husband, having grown up with his own mother’s watery cuisine – she was the painfully prim-and-plain wife of an Anglican clergyman in Grahamstown – he did not seem to mind Rebecca’s unvarying routine – or if he minded, it was not like him to complain. Now that Margaret was on her own, she gave even less thought to the food she prepared, other than compiling what she regarded as a ‘balanced diet’, which a magazine article had told her was a mixture of fibre, vitamins and proteins; so on most days she had muesli for breakfast, fruit for lunch and an omelette for supper, with salad and the odd rasher of bacon for variety. Now Frieda’s visit confronted her with the need to think up something other than her usual repertoire; but thinking up in her case meant fishing for ideas in a rather shallow pool. Her first instinct was to take Frieda to a restaurant, but Frieda had stipulated that she wanted to visit Margaret in her new home – ‘and I don’t mean one of Hermanus’s overpriced restaurants’. Well, if Frieda wanted home cooking, she was going to get it, and what could be more homely than cottage pie? It was, at any rate, a dish that she could produce without mishap, and if it wasn’t glamorous, it was quite tasty, and, when served with a salad, nutritious. Returning from her walk, Margaret consulted the modest little shopping list she had drawn up the day before, together with the schedule she’d devised (9 a.m.: Shopping; 10 a.m.: Chop vegetables, etc.), and rummaged in her new kitchen cupboard for used carrier bags. (Kevin, an inveterate recycler, used to tease her for ‘always coming home with a new plastic bag’; it was oddly as if, now that he was no longer there to take note, she was more inclined to heed his strictures.) Benjy, alert as ever to any sign of imminent departure, scrambled to his feet and stood wiggling his tail at her hopefully. ‘Oh, okay, Benjy,’ she said. ‘I suppose it’s still cool enough for you to be left in the car.’ The dog, detecting the note of capitulation, rushed out to the car, which was parked outside because the garage was still full of building detritus, and took up launching position by the back door. Opening the door for him, she said, aloud, ‘You’re not much use as a guard dog, are you, if you’re forever being driven around?’ Turning to open the driver’s door, she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. Her neighbour, the aged Mrs Kennedy, was standing on the border between their properties, glaring at her. Margaret waved lightly and smiled, she thought, in a neighbourly sort of way, but the woman merely glowered at her, before shrugging expressively and turning her back. As she walked off, she muttered something that sounded very much like ‘squatters’. Mrs Kennedy was still nursing a grievance on account of Margaret’s building what she termed ‘a monstrosity’ next to her own more humble home – this in spite of the fact that she had without demur accepted the quite exorbitant amount she’d been offered by Kevin on Margaret’s behalf for the part of Mrs Kennedy’s land that Margaret’s house was now, quite legitimately, occupying. Oh well, thought Margaret, as she started the car, she’ll no doubt unbend once she felt she’d sufficiently demonstrated her displeasure. Or not. Either way, it didn’t matter much. She had never believed in being too close to her neighbours anyway. If she’d wanted neighbours she could have stayed in Cape Town. She’d hardly turned into the main road when she saw, next to the road, the young man – Willy? Jimmy? – from the day before, hitchhiking. For a moment she considered pretending not to see him, but he’d already caught her eye, and was making ‘Oh please’ gestures with his hands in prayer position. Well, it couldn’t do any harm, she thought, it was a longish walk to town, and he had, after all, saved Benjy’s life. She stopped next to him and opened the door for him. ‘Hop in,’ she said. ‘Thanks,’ he said, warding off as best he could Benjy’s ecstatic greeting from the back seat. ‘There, there, boy, I love you too,’ he said, and then to Margaret, ‘We meet again. Small world.’ ‘Well, the Hermanus part of it is quite small, especially out of season when there are so few people about.’ ‘You mean so few white people.’ She could feel herself flushing. ‘I mean people in this part of Hermanus, where you and I find ourselves.’ ‘Sure. It’s not an issue.’ ‘That’s what I thought.’ They were silent for a while. She was irked with him for trying to catch her out, and irked with herself for giving him the opening. ‘This is a big car for a single lady,’ he said, looking about him. ‘Yes,’ she replied, not liking the designation, but knowing by now not to say so. ‘But then, I wasn’t always a single lady,’ she added. ‘I guess so,’ he said. ‘Where do you want to be dropped?’ she asked. ‘Anywhere. Where you going?’ ‘Woolworths, probably.’ ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Why am I not surprised?’ ‘Why should you be surprised?’ ‘As I said, I’m not. But sure, thanks, Woolworths suits me as well’s anywhere else.’ There was another brief silence. Then, ‘You’re out very early,’ he said. ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I’ve got people coming to lunch.’ She thought he might comment on the likely quality of any lunch of her making, but he remained quiet, apparently lost in thought. She wondered what he was planning to do in the village on a Sunday, but did not want to seem inquisitive. She didn’t know, in any case, whether his directionless existence bore closer examination. If he was a drifter, by definition he drifted. Her phone, on the console in front of her, chimed the jaunty little tune that Carl had selected for her on account of its ‘recognition factor’. ‘That will be my lunch guest,’ she said, reaching for her phone, but before she could pick it up, Jimmy had grabbed it, flicked it on, and was holding it to his ear. ‘Mrs Crowley is driving and can’t take your call at the moment. She’ll call you back at her earliest convenience.’ There was a pause, followed by an agitated remonstration at the other end; then Jimmy said, ‘Sure. I’ll tell her. You’re welcome.’ He switched off the phone. ‘It’s somebody called Frieda. She’s running late, about twenty minutes.’ Margaret didn’t reply, trying to recover her self-command. ‘Look,’ she said, as calmly as her annoyance allowed, ‘I would say I appreciate your readiness to be of help, but in fact I really do not appreciate your taking over my life as if I were incapable of running it myself.’ ‘I wasn’t taking over your life. I was answering your phone.’ ‘And you don’t think I can answer my own phone?’ ‘Not while you’re driving, you can’t. At least not with me in the front seat and Benjy in the back. I didn’t rescue him off a ledge so you could write him off – not to mention the passengers in the car you connect while steering a monster vehicle with one hand on...
