‘Pass me my writing paper, it’s in the second drawer. It’s not locked. My pen is over there.’
Dear Mrs Agostino
Hortensia crumpled the paper and started again:
Marion, I know I’ve caused you some difficulty. I would prefer to speak in person. I would come to you if I could, but I think you know I am confined to my bed. It is unreasonable, but still I thought to ask – will you please come, so that I may apologise to you in person?
HJ
Hortensia wondered if Marion would see this as Hortensia’s comeuppance – come and see a weakened Hortensia, come and see her grovel. Or would she be incensed that she was being summoned? Or some strange combination of both? Would she come? The nightmares continued. For many days no reply arrived.
EIGHT
IT WAS GOOD to be at a committee meeting without Hortensia the Horrible around to snap and carry on. Marion waited while the minutes from the last meeting were passed around to be signed. It was also good to be out of the dreary guest house and to forget her financial hassles for a couple of hours.
‘Sorry I’m late, Marion, everyone.’ Ludmilla took a seat.
When they’d bought in ’64, the Von Struikers had already been living in Katterijn for a couple of years. Marion remembered envying them at dinner parties. Jan (Jannie), tanned, with a flick of blond hair falling forward into his left eye; Ludmilla certainly stout (and she’d got stouter) but contained, apparently in no need of making a good impression. Because she didn’t like them, Marion had made them her friends, attended all their soirées, noticed that behind the money their marriage was a sham and took comfort from this.
‘Jan not joining us?’
‘We decided I’ll handle this.’
‘Okay, well, we should focus on the claims, but first, Agatha, you said another letter from the Gierdien woman arrived?’ Agatha was in charge of checking the post-office box.
‘Yes, this time she’s requesting a meeting.’
‘Really we should just put her in direct contact with Hortensia, Marion,’ Sarah Clarke said. ‘Let them have it out. It’s got no legal ramifications, unlike the Samsodiens, which we really ought to be focusing on.’
‘Could you pass the letter, please?’
Agatha leaned across the table and handed Marion the envelope.
She scanned it. Marion still harboured hope that she could torment Hortensia with this Beulah Gierdien business. She didn’t feel like simply handing it over just yet. ‘I’ll hold onto this.’ She put the letter in her purse. ‘Agatha, do you still have that section in the library with the history of Katterijn? Maybe I’ll come round, check on the validity of Ms Gierdien’s story.’
‘Can we move onto the Samsodiens’ claim? After the first mediation our lawyer has advised us on how to proceed,’ Ludmilla said, impatient. That she thought the committee a nonentity was no secret. In fact she only ever referred to it as ‘the club’, giving Marion the impression that she thought it was a place old women gathered to gossip.
‘Lawyer?’ someone asked.
‘But it’s still at the Commission stage, Ludmilla,’ Marion said.
‘I know. But just in case it gets to the Land Claims Court, we want to have all our ducks in a row.’
‘What does your lawyer say? Do they have a claim?’
‘They do have a claim, but we can refute it.’
‘They have a claim?’ Marion couldn’t hide her shock and then blushed when she saw the pity in Ludmilla’s eyes. As if Ludmilla had looked at her, seen a child who understood so little of the world and felt sorry.
‘But we can refute it,’ Ludmilla repeated. ‘The Samsodiens have a lawyer too. The Commission is proposing monetary compensation, but it looks like they’ll refuse. Very likely we’ll end up in court.’
Ludmilla spoke about the strategy going forwards. Marion only half-listened. She was disturbed by the possibility that the Samsodiens had a claim.
‘How did you acquire the land?’ Marion asked.
‘Auction. They were desperate and needed the money. We bought it fair and square.’
Marion only nodded.
The nurse was heffing; it wasn’t really a word but it was a term Hortensia used. Maybe her mother had used it? It certainly described the kind of thing people did around Hortensia a lot. She’d say something – something simple, more true than offensive – and the person would heff. For some, heffing involved physical traits like a downturning of the mouth to show displeasure or a shaking body to show general unhappiness.
‘I expect an apology, Mrs James. No one talks to me that way.’
For others, their heffing meant they said things like that. Demanding apologies with no regard for how difficult they were for Hortensia to manufacture.