Niknaks called. She said her mother, Agnes, was asking for Marion. Asking how? She was in bed back home and she’d asked for Marion.
Even with her scant grasp of religion, Marion knew what she was doing was a sin. What if this became the woman’s dying wish? All the same, Marion manufactured busyness, suggested plans to Niknaks that she reneged on. Asked for the address of Agnes’s home, then misplaced it.
‘What are you playing at?’
‘What do you mean: what am I playing at? And is there anything wrong with beginning a telephone conversation with salutations?’
‘I don’t have time for salutations, Marion. Niknaks just called me. I don’t appreciate being dragged into your affairs.’
‘What affairs?’
‘I said Niknaks called me.’
‘And I heard you.’
‘So you have no idea why she would call me? And why I would be calling you? Without salutations?’
‘Uhm—’
‘For God’s sake, Marion, go and see the woman.’
‘Heavens!’
‘Exactly. She called and had the temerity to be upset with me.’
‘Who?’
‘Niknaks. What a ridiculous name, by the way.’
‘I thought the same. It’s a nickname.’ Marion heard Hortensia sigh. She was worried she would drop the phone. ‘I’m hiding,’ Marion said.
‘I don’t care. Go and see Agnes. She’s not well. The suggestion seems to be that she is dying, but from my experience with Peter, that can take any number of years.’
After making arrangements with Niknaks, Marion called Hortensia and asked her to go with her to Khayelitsha, to the place where Agnes was living, a place she’d never been to. And Marion allowed herself the luxury of sentiment, allowed herself to notice that Hortensia gave no hesitation. Yes, she’d sighed, but she’d also said okay and what time, and did Marion have the address?
They got into the car. Hortensia hung onto the strap. Marion gripped the steering wheel.
‘You can’t drive like this?’
‘Like what?’ She was sweating.
‘Marion?’
‘I’ll be fine. I’m just a little nervous is all.’
‘Of what?’
Marion gave a fake laugh. ‘I don’t even know,’ she said. She caressed the wheel and put the car into gear.
Hortensia navigated, the map open in her lap.
‘There must be an easier way. GPS or something.’
‘Don’t trust it. Turn here.’
Niknaks had also given directions. After they took Baden Powell Drive off the highway, Hortensia used only these notes. Still they got lost. Marion panicked at Hortensia’s suggestion that she slow down and ask for help. They argued for several kilometres, Hortensia raising her voice, berating this woman sweating and working the foam of the steering wheel as if it were a length of dough.
‘You are being stupid. Slow down. Stop the car. Marion Agostino, I will never speak to you again!’
The dramatic threat was effective. Marion pulled over. Her face was frozen. Hortensia had heard her draw in breath, but she hadn’t heard her expel it. ‘I think you’re a ridiculous person,’ Hortensia said as she buzzed down her window, stuck her head out.
A young man with an earring and, as far as Hortensia could distinguish, his trousers on backwards, told them in firm words where to drive. They were close by, in fact they had been circling the place. Hortensia thanked him, waved her hand for Marion to proceed.
As if death was taking roll call, there was a funeral next door to where Agnes lived. Marion struggled to get her car through the throng of people scattered on the short street.
‘Drive,’ Hortensia said.
‘I’ll run them over.’
‘They’ll move.’
Marion was rattled by the dancing, the shouting. The smell of meat, spiced and steaming, gave her a feeling of hunger although she’d already eaten. The front yard of the house was a bank of sand. There was a narrow stoep and a yellow door ajar. Niknaks, with a baby on her hip, greeted and led them through a parlour where others sat, down a dark corridor and into a small room. Agnes’s eyes were open and her breathing laboured.
Marion went to her and touched the blanket she was wrapped in. Hortensia thought, not without envy, about that special kind of authority dying gives one.
‘You can sit,’ Niknaks said.
The baby started crying. Niknaks bounced her, but a man came into the room and took the child with him when he left. Marion sat beside the bed.
‘I’ll wait outside,’ Hortensia said and she left the room. Niknaks followed.
Afterwards, Hortensia knew not to ask Marion what Agnes had said to her, or whether anything was spoken at all. They drove home quiet, both women subdued for reasons they couldn’t pin down but that were crowding them.
‘She said she’d wanted to be a teacher.’ They were still sitting in the car, parked on the side of Katterijn Avenue, between their respective homes. ‘That she wanted to teach the little ones. Numbers and letters, she said.’