‘Now, please let my driver know that I am ready,’ Hortensia directed, meaning, to anyone who could overhear, that the interaction was over.
On departure she opted for the motorised wheelchair, mentally arranging that she would now occupy the east-facing study on the ground floor, at least until after the eight weeks the doctor supposed it might take her to climb stairs again. On the drive home, ignoring the mountain as well as the beggars, Hortensia rearranged the furniture in her study; she placed the Imbuia four-poster bed where the sun could reach it. She moved the writing bureau where the curtains would shield her laptop from the glare. She would buy another bar fridge. She wondered if she’d left the window to her study open, if the room would be freshened by crisp air or cloistered when she wheeled herself in. Maybe she would move some of the books into the hallway, use the glass cabinet that had stood empty since she’d donated the porcelain lamps, acquired at a Turkish auction, to St Winifred’s Girls’ High School. Hortensia had always adored the antique lamps, until she walked past them weeks ago and, inexplicably, experienced deep offence at the crudeness of their design. That was old age, Hortensia thought, drawing her attention back to the scene around her as the driver made a jerky turn onto Katterijn Avenue. Then, pulling up the driveway, regret flooded in as Hortensia realised she’d spend the next few weeks staring at the egg-cracks in a fresco she hadn’t got around to restoring. For the second time that week the circumstances surrounding the injury were more upsetting than the injury itself.
SEVEN
‘AM I DEAD?’ Marion asked the glare of light she could just make out through squinted eyes.
‘Marion Agostino, can you hear me?’
‘I’m not dead.’ She couldn’t keep the disappointment from her voice. Her head hurt. There was noise. ‘Where am I?’
‘She’s come to. She’s fine.’ The man had turned away from her.
‘Where am I?’
‘You’re on a stretcher, Ma’am. We’re outside your house. There has been an accident.’
What accident, she thought, but then the events slowly came back to her.
‘The painting?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Where’s the painting?’
‘Something about a painting.’ He’d turned away from her again. The manners on these people.
Marion made to move and a pain shot through her.
‘Ma’am, you need to stay lying down for a while. You’ll be okay, but just stay down for me, please.’
Marion wanted to hit him but found her muscles uncooperative, her body like jelly.
‘The painting,’ she said one last time and woke up hours later inside a dreary room at the Katterijn Guest House.
In a daze Marion phoned reception, half-expecting them to reassure her that the painting was fine, but instead a woman’s voice explained that Marelena had checked her in. Marvelling at how she had no recollection of all this, Marion phoned her daughter.
‘Darling … I see … Not good enough for your own house, I suppose … Don’t start what? … I’m just saying … And I can’t afford here, by the way. Anyway, I can’t natter on, do you have the painting? … The painting … The one from Dad, the … Yes, that one. Tell me you have it … So you didn’t see it? Wrapped. Well, did you check in the … Yes. Well, this is very important, I need you to … What? … Alright, alright, but call me back as soon as you’re done.’
Marion wasn’t an expert and Max hadn’t been one, either, but a friend had advised them. Investment art, he’d called it. They’d purchased the Pierneef some twenty years ago. A genius, the dealer had said. And look at this colour here, the light just in that corner. It was of the land, Northern Transvaal. Charcoal-blue mountains in the backdrop, a line of trees through the valleys, yellow-green grass, shadows and dirt. They had thought of it as a backup plan, but now it was to be her salvation.
The painting didn’t hang on a wall in the house. It took a tour of the cupboards until Marion, first checking with Max that it could really be worth that much one day, wrapped it in paper and string and bundled it into the attic.
Marion checked her phone to make sure it wasn’t on silent, that she hadn’t missed Marelena’s call. It was important that she confirm the painting was safe and whole.