The rest of the meeting was dotted lines to sign upon and corners of pages to initial. Perhaps because of the intimacy of leaning over paperwork, or the sense of familiarity brought by the sharing of bad or, as he put it, difficult news, Mr Marx, at one point, loosened up enough to comment, ‘She’ll be one rich woman, that’s for sure.’
Hortensia thought this was crude of him. She’d so far been nice to him, which is to say she hadn’t been unpleasant. She wished she could take back her courtesies; in fact if she had had a weapon, she would have struck him. Except that the person, in that moment, she really wanted to hurt – to kill – was Peter and it pained her greatly that he was already dead.
Peter hadn’t been religious, but he’d had religious affectations Hortensia had never been able to fully decipher. He’d whistle ‘Morning Has Broken’ and then sing it, but get the words wrong, the song disappearing down his throat. He played golf on Sundays but wanted carols at Christmas. And now he dies and asks for a church.
Hortensia stood at the entrance of the church. A Land Rover crunched over the gravel and parked, irreverently Hortensia thought, beside the empty hearse.
The priest touched her on the shoulder. ‘Let me go and prepare,’ she said and Hortensia listened to her shuffle up the aisle. The priest, despite having a youthful cherubic face, had a laboured gait and Hortensia found it painful to watch her; she somehow felt guilty, as if it were her fault.
A stooped man and plump woman got out of the parked car and walked towards the entrance. The woman had the kind of fat on her body that had become familiar and would never leave. She looked comfortable. Hortensia studied them from behind her dark glasses and extended a hand when they came within reach.
‘Our deepest condolences.’
She nodded because there was nothing to say. Hortensia had never met them before. They stood there for a few awkward seconds and then walked on past her into the empty nave. She imagined they would find somewhere to sit.
Five more people arrived. A woman who said Peter had been her biggest client, a hedge-fund-looking woman, but Hortensia was too pissed off to ask.
‘I love Simon’s Town,’ the spike-heeled woman said, looking back towards the avenue of trees along the road that led to the church.
In place of condolences the woman spoke of her beautiful drive from Hout Bay, and Hortensia felt her mood swing, felt herself become a widow who required pity for the loss of her beloved and resented this woman who offered none.
There came an elderly couple who claimed Peter was the best golfer in their club. The man had also hunted with Peter, when Peter was still hunting, and he told anecdotes of little bokkies being dondered, which made the priest, who had returned to Hortensia’s side, give him a pleading look.
A man arrived late, after everyone including Hortensia had already sat down. At the end of the short saccharine service, while everyone else rose, he stayed sitting on the hard wood pew at the back for a few extra moments. Hortensia had been sitting too and when, at the end, she stood and walked past him, something in the way the man was holding his face with his eyes closed made her realise that he was praying.
She walked to the back of the church, where a stretch of snacks looked about to go to waste, and startled to find her neighbour’s face staring at her.
‘Marion, what are you doing here?’
‘I’m sorry about Peter. I wanted to pay my respects.’
She wanted to gloat. Hortensia was calculating how to walk past this nasty woman, perhaps walk to the tea table and bite into a banana muffin. She squeezed her shoulders in, as Marion took a step closer to her.
‘I really am sorry.’
Hortensia, from the corner of her eye, noticed the praying-man rise and walk out of the church. She felt bolstered; he’d prayed a prayer, perhaps she could float on the wings of whatever blessings he’d bargained for.
‘Marion—’
‘I know, I know. We’re not friends.’ Marion looked around as if expecting a chorus of agreement, but no one was paying them any attention. The cherub was inspecting a long koeksister and the husband-and-wife golfers appeared to be arguing. ‘I just thought to come. I just … I just thought to come.’ She raised her hands, then collapsed them to her sides, an exaggerated shrug.
‘Please, Marion. Let me get past.’
Marion, her face glum, shifted aside and Hortensia went in search of a muffin.
After the church, all the mourners (except Marion, Hortensia noted with relief) went to Peter’s patch of ground where the tombstone stood waiting. The ashes, collected in a simple wooden box, were placed into a hole. And, even though she could feel the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes, when a wiry man began shovelling the sand, there was also a part of Hortensia that wanted to tell him to stand back so she could spit.
FIVE