‘I’ll call back when you’re less agitated.’
She could not press the red button hard enough; she just managed to stop herself from flinging the phone. ‘Oh my God, you startled me. Don’t do that!’ She hadn’t noticed Marion come down the stairs.
‘Good morning,’ Marion said.
‘I suppose.’ Hortensia took the few steps towards the chair, where she set the phone down. She continued her walk, wishing Marion would leave instead of stare.
‘Was that the phone I heard?’
Prying.
‘No, it was the bells of Notre-Dame.’ This was pain. You live so long you think you’ve felt it all. ‘Excuse me, Marion. If you don’t mind.’
‘Oh, sorry. I’m in your way.’
Understatement.
‘What are those?’ Marion asked as Hortensia walked past her.
‘What are whats?’
‘On your legs.’
‘Stockings, Marion, what else could they be? Compression stockings, they call them. Damned nuisance.’
Marion stifled a laugh. The phone rang again. Bassey answered, grimaced and looked at Hortensia. He covered the mouthpiece and dropped his voice, ‘Him again.’
‘Take a message. No, tell him I’m dead. In the few minutes since we last spoke I … damnit … I kicked the bucket.’
Bassey took the cordless into the kitchen, he spoke in hushed tones.
‘Whoever could that be?’ Marion asked, her eyes wide.
Hortensia turned around at the front door, took a breath, eyed the length of the passage back towards her study. Her thumbs hurt from pressing down so hard. She decided to ignore Marion for as long as humanly possible.
‘And,’ the woman continued in a voice appropriate for reading fairy tales, ‘whatever could they want?’
‘Nothing. They want nothing. Now leave me be – out of my way.’
She laboured past, upset that Marion remained standing, spritely in fact – what was there to be so happy about? Hortensia had been looking forward to a beaten Marion, vanquished, come to drink at her enemy’s waterhole. She leaned forward to rest and stared back at Marion, keen for some kind of win, however small. Marion looked away first.
‘I see,’ Marion said. But then continued with that grating tone of joviality, ‘Well, while we’re talking, Hortensia, you missed the last committee meeting. Perhaps I could update you.’
‘The what?’ They were talking – there was the problem right there. ‘Marion, I have broken my leg. Do I seem to you like someone who gives a toss about your miserable committee meetings?’
‘Oh, Hortensia. And here I was, thinking we could mend fences.’
‘No. We absolutely cannot mend fences. I said you could stay, I didn’t say we had to make conversation.’
‘All I wanted to tell you …’
She nattered on. Hortensia made a point of not listening. The usual barbs didn’t seem to make a dent in Marion, and Hortensia experienced a wave of regret. The plan had seemed so good at the time, Trudy so thoroughly unbearable.
‘So what do you think?’
‘Marion!’
‘Just say “yes” or “no”.’
‘No!’
‘Darn it!’
Marion jiggled her arms in annoyance, but it was a non-committal annoyance. Hortensia panicked at the thought that she’d lost her ability to upset Marion Agostino. Maybe the woman was on drugs.
‘So you stand by your refusal of Beulah Gierdien’s request?’
‘Of course I do. And we’re not discussing it. Marion, you’re interrupting my exercises.’
‘Well, she wrote again, requesting a meeting this time.’
Hortensia clicked at the back of her throat.
‘And, while we’re on the subject, Ludmilla was at the last meeting. They have the lawyers involved. The Commission has now appointed a mediator between the Von Struikers and the Samsodiens. We’re hoping the whole thing gets thrown out.’ It sounded hollow. ‘And that the courts don’t get involved.’
‘Well, no surprises there. You and the other backward people of Katterijn are worried you’d get cooties, if the darkies move in.’ Aha – there was the glimmer of madness Hortensia was used to provoking.
Marion straightened the front of her dress. ‘Well, I see you’re in no mood for company. I’ll leave you be.’
God! If only Bassey was not just a chef but an assassin too, they could do away with Marion the Vulture. Dig a grave in the back yard. Forget burying the ashes of someone’s miserable grandmother – bury Marion. No one would look for her.
As if he could hear her thoughts, Bassey appeared.
‘Everything okay?’