‘Champagne?’ Bassey asked into a puddle of silence.
Hortensia shook her head and he retreated, closing the kitchen door and leaving them without the comfort of his background bustle.
‘Well.’ Mama arranged strawberries on top of a pancake. ‘This is lovely.’ He criss-crossed honey and sprinkled cinnamon.
‘Do you have children, Dr Mama?’ Marion asked quite suddenly. Hortensia coughed.
‘One. A daughter.’
‘How nice. How old?’
‘Thirty-six. A young woman, really. I don’t get that, though. I see her and I still see the child who wanted me to look under her bed. Check for monsters.’
They all smiled.
‘And yourself?’ He asked Marion. ‘Do you have children?’
Marion grimaced. ‘I do. I have four.’
The space was shallow for a while again. Cutlery scraped. Marion looked into her orange juice, feeling as if Bassey really had added champagne. She touched her neck, looked from Mama to Hortensia and then back into her juice. Was time here, she thought, in the room with them? Had time sat down for a short while?
‘I think it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, ever failed at.’
‘Marion, don’t start with your—’
‘No, really, Hortensia.’
Mama left his cutlery balanced on the plate and listened.
‘I … I had Stefano and then Marelena.’ She looked at Mama. ‘My husband was Italian. Then I had Selena, and Gaia is my last child. I don’t know. I thought giving birth would be the hard part. I don’t know where I got the idea, but … I thought I’d be good at actual motherhood. I had no idea how hard I would find it.’
‘Hortensia, you’re lucky you never had any.’ Mama sounded as if he was testing out a joke. Hortensia smiled on one side of her face, a practice-smile.
‘I even started praying after I had children.’ Marion put a piece of a strawberry into her mouth, worked it.
‘Why?’ Mama asked.
‘Marelena. She was toddling about at the time, a small thing. And she fell. I was away from her and I heard that girl cry like … someone had poked her eye out. The kind of scream I’d never heard before. I ran to her, wishing I couldn’t run, wanting to reach her but also not. I searched her body. Of course there was just a scratch – nothing really. I can’t explain it, I felt so upset. Cheated, but I couldn’t tell of what.’
‘And then you prayed?’ Hortensia said.
‘I prayed. Me. Well, I hadn’t prayed since I’d lived in my mother’s house. My parents were Jewish. Or, rather, my parents were Not Jewish.’
Mama frowned. ‘And you?’
‘Well … I observe nothing.’
‘But you prayed?’
‘Yes, yes. I found a reason to pray again. Marelena fell. My children fell over and suddenly I needed God.’
Mama gestured and Hortensia poured him a glass of water. A slice of kiwi escaped into his cup, splashed the cloth, darkened it.
‘I think I know what you mean,’ Mama said.
They ate and Hortensia thought about how intimate eating with someone was. How you might not ever really know a person until you took soup with them, listened to them slurp or try not to slurp, listened to them swallow.
FOURTEEN
PETER CAME HOME and whistled. At breakfast he whistled. The ditties were unrecognisable, characterised mainly by the happiness they conveyed, a bouncing tune, something light and transcendent.
‘I can’t concentrate,’ Hortensia said.
He stopped, but then started again after only a few minutes had passed.
‘Peter,’ Hortensia lowered the newspaper, letting the page rest on her half-eaten grapefruit.
‘Sorry – habit, I guess.’
He smiled to himself and Hortensia wondered if he was remembering some detail of his lover’s body. Perhaps a mole on her upper back, maybe near her spine. When he breathed heavy, Hortensia imagined that he was smelling the woman, ingesting a memory of her through his nose, the smell of her lips or her eyelids.
‘How’s work going? The project you mentioned.’
There was no project, or there was one project and she was of middle height with paw-paw-sized breasts and milky skin.
‘Good. Fine. It’s a lot of travelling but … I manage.’
‘Yes, that you do.’
‘And the boutique? Do you have an opening date yet?’
‘No, but soon. We want to launch with a whole range of decor items. Make a real impression.’
‘Hmm. And how is … everything?’
Hortensia wasn’t sure what he was asking.
‘I’m okay. I’m—’
He checked his watch. ‘Yes?’
‘You’ll be late for work, you need to go.’
‘No, no, I’m listening.’
‘I’m fine. Just … I was thinking maybe I should see someone, you know? Someone else. Dr Momodu has said one thing, but a second opinion is usually recommended.’
‘Ah,’ he scraped his chair out from the breakfast table. ‘Did you have someone in mind?’
‘Or have you given up, Peter?’
‘Horts, that’s not what I said.’