He’d answered no to all the questions: children, wife, live-in. Over the years, Hortensia calculated that he could well be homosexual. She also had times she thought he was simply celibate, but not for religious reasons, rather something philosophical. Or perhaps a disregard for shared nudity, the exchanging of bodily fluids. She could not imagine him having any capacity for the carnal. If it happened at all, Hortensia thought, sex with him would be in straight lines. There was something eternally tidy about Bassey, held together. It played out in a mild disdain for herself and Peter, she had always sensed it. Not a dislike though, something else – not pity, either. She’d noticed it that very first day when he’d sat across from her. A discreet weariness in his eyes like a tired king. And while Hortensia had been confused by Bassey’s regalness, his haughtiness, she’d also liked him for it. He spoke as if his words were precious and he knew the person he was talking to couldn’t really afford them. His facial expressions bore signs of forbearance – the quiet, long suffering of those who tend to others.
Marion could not keep herself from fussing. At night while Hortensia slept she walked around No. 10. Checking. Like a mother, after a long separation from her offspring, looking for birthmarks. It had been her idea to expose the concrete lintels, adding grey to the palette, adding weight. And there: the wall, running from the entrance down the passageway. She’d come to site and it was up … and straight. It’s wrong, she’d told the builder. It’s supposed to be skew. He, a burly guy, old, had said he thought she’d made a mistake. And did she know what she was doing? He’d called her ‘girlie’. It’s supposed to be skew, she repeated, calling for the site drawings. Why? he’d demanded, his eyebrows twitching. The workmen were looking on. Because that’s how I designed it. It caught the view, it caught the light, it fanned out the hallway, making a perspective that she found delicate. He gritted his teeth. You need to redo it, she said. Do it again, do it skew. And they did. Marion grinned, remembering. There was a swell in her heart, a mound of pride.
Coming to No. 10 was what she’d always imagined. A feeling of rightness restored to life. All the reasons to fret forgotten. Marion slept as if returned to the womb. She was home.
This sense of ownership also stirred up an interest in the decor of No. 10. Hortensia was, thankfully, mostly out of the way, so Marion consulted Bassey, who was puzzled by her behaviour but polite. For instance, she asked him about the choice of curtains in the lounge.
‘A rather dirty yellow, don’t you think?’
He turned his head to the side and dropped it just an inch. He seemed to be waiting, then he carried on with his vacuuming.
Once she cornered him in the kitchen.
‘I’d played with the idea of a fireplace here, but I think this was the right decision, you know? The stove is a kind of fireplace really – that was my concept at the time. In the centre like this, the hearth.’
There were small details she’d not really forgotten, but filed away, and it brought her joy to notice them again. The views of the mountain from the guest bedroom upstairs. The wooden lattice of uneven squares separating the entertainment space from the lounge. A series of holes in the wall, filled in with coloured glass and little concrete shelves jutting out.
‘You could put something nice out. A vase or something, Bassey. If she has one. The idea was to catch the coloured light, refract it. The sun comes up that side – can you just imagine it?’
There was a knock on the door. Hortensia knew it could only be Marion because it wasn’t Bassey’s knock. His was urgent business. Quick successive knocks. Hers, three generously spaced-out raps.
‘Yes?’
Marion closed the door behind her and stepped towards the bed. ‘Sorry to trouble you, Hortensia.’
‘What is it?’
‘I’d just wanted to ask if someone could visit.’
Finally a contrite Marion. A grateful Marion. A seeking-permission Marion.
‘Visit you?’
‘Innes, my youngest granddaughter. We’re quite fond of each other.’
Hortensia doubted very much that anyone (perhaps apart from that ridiculous dog) could be fond of Marion, but she let it go. On account of how timid the woman appeared. She even seemed smaller, somehow. Cut-down. Hortensia smiled.
‘Why not? I mean, please, Marion, be at home here. Do as your needs dictate.’
At the door Marion lingered next to a portrait photograph, heavily framed, that Hortensia had been wanting to take down.
‘May I?’ Marion asked, which was silly. Asking for permission to look at something plainly visible.
She studied the picture. Hortensia didn’t mind so much. After all, they were young there, and still beautiful.
‘I’ve been meaning to take it down,’ she said.
Marion turned to look at her and they held eyes.
‘Thing is,’ Hortensia continued, but looked away, losing the stare-off, ‘it hides a stain.’
Before she left the room Marion reached and lifted the photograph to check. She noted the stain on the wall and nodded.
When Innes visited, Agnes was with her.
‘How surprising to see you,’ Marion said.
‘My sister hasn’t been well, so she asked if I’d take her place for a few days.’
Marion regularly forgot that Agnes had a sister, whom Marelena had hired soon after she got married and started having children of her own.
‘Oh.’
Innes hugged her grandmother at the waist. ‘Mum was busy, so Agnes came with me. I rode my bike and she rode Lara’s.’
Marion hadn’t noticed the bikes propped on the stoep. ‘You cycle?’ she asked Agnes.
Innes moved through into the hallway. ‘So this is the house. Grandma, show me around.’
‘No rush,’ Agnes said to Marion and went into the kitchen, calling for Bassey.
Dazed, Marion went after Innes, cautioning her to be quiet because an old, sick lady was sleeping.
‘I heard that,’ shouted Hortensia. ‘What do we have here?’ She emerged from her sickroom.
‘Good afternoon.’