‘Just … as in knowing things, noticing things I truly felt – scuse my ignorance – a blind person ought not to notice.’
Marion scowled, a quiet form of scolding. A hadida called out, loped and took flight from Hortensia’s garden onto Marion’s roof.
‘You glad you met her?’
Another hadida appeared, this one with coloured plumage, a pluck of blue feathers tucked in its wing like a handbag. It called out, flew onto the roof, its head bobbing.
‘I suppose that was the point. Peter’s point.’
‘Do you think she needs you? With the …’ Marion pointed to her eyes. ‘Think that’s what Peter was getting at?’
‘Oh no, Esme certainly does not need me. Maybe the other way around,’ Hortensia laughed. ‘And when she left, I wondered if I’d ever see her again. Worried. She phoned when she arrived home, can you imagine?’
‘Precious.’
‘Being around someone like that. I kept thinking: I’m just a bad person, Marion. I’ll die soon and I’ll go to hell.’
‘For what?’
‘For being nasty. I know it’s simplistic, but look at her, a person with every reason not to be and yet she’s so … kind.’
‘It’s okay.’
‘What do you mean, it’s okay. Who made you that? The O-kay-Sayer.’
Marion bristled. ‘I was thinking, that’s all. That we’re old. That it’s okay. What else is there to say at this late moment?’
Hortensia shrugged. The two women looked and saw that the birds had taken off, two specks in an empty sky.
‘So it’s hell for the both of us.’
‘You, Hortensia, scared of a little hell?’
‘Who said I’m scared? You’re the one whining about a ghost called Agnes. She’s not dead yet, by the way. If only she’ll outlive us both – I pray.’
‘Ever notice how it’s the good ones that die?’ Marion asked.
‘Hmph. I don’t know about that, Marion. More like no nincompoop ever dies – notice that? The second you die, you become a kind of saint. You’re absolved, your good deeds are dredged up and your evil pardoned, forgotten. When I die—’
‘You have a will?’
‘Yes. Yes, I do. Burn me in secret, throw my ashes in the gutter. Not a soul is to pronounce over my dead body … Not. A. Soul. No gatherings, no songs.’
‘Gosh! So austere. When I die, I want my children to be forced to say nice things. I want Stefano to sweat as he recounts just one lousy memory, just one thought of kindness towards his poor mother.’
Hortensia sucked her teeth.
‘I want Verdi playing. Nabucco.’
‘Goodness me!’
‘Candles. Incense. I want my face done up.’
‘What?’
‘Open casket. I want my face done up and …’ she whispered, ‘my toenails painted.’
‘Foolishness.’
‘Why not? Why not do what makes me happy?’
‘But you’ll be dead.’
Marion shrugged. She leaned back against the bench, put her hands on her stomach, which was folds of overstretched skin beneath a beige cardigan.
‘Life’s been pretty long,’ Marion said. She was feeling up the buttons on the cuffs.
‘That I can’t argue with.’
‘With not enough sex,’ she said.
‘Well.’
It turned into a still evening; a fine scent from the lady-of-the-night next door caught them. Hortensia pressed her cane into the warm earth and rose with a soft grunt.
‘Hortensia,’ Marion called after her.
Hortensia stopped but didn’t turn, too much physical effort.
‘I … uhm, I’m not sure what I wanted to say, now. It seemed right in my head. I guess I just … What I thought was …’
Hortensia shifted her weight. ‘Yes, Marion. I agree completely.’
‘No, but I really, I’m being serious now, I wanted to … try and—’
‘Yes, yes. I feel the same.’
TWENTY
HORTENSIA HAD NOTICED that some people delighted in designing the events that would take place upon their death. Now she had to admit to herself that she was one of them. People who’d felt they had little control over their lives so took solace in the form of wills and instructions, large sums of money, maps and secrets. Peter seemed to be one such, too. After all that had happened, Marx called and asked if he could visit, asked if he could give Hortensia something.
‘Your husband left this for you.’
Hortensia arched her eyebrow. However weak and frail her limbs were, her facial muscles were functioning fine.
‘Now? He asked that you give this to me now?’
‘Precisely,’ Marx said and he left.
It was a brown envelope, ordinary, with the flap unstuck. The paper was thick, creamy. He’d written the date in a shaky hand. The ‘6’ barely announced itself as a ‘6’. It was more of a ‘0’ that had lost its way. One page folded twice, evenly. A crooked date. And some scratches.
Hortensia tried to imagine it. He’d had a stretch of strength earlier in the year. Not strong enough to do much, but she’d seen one of the nurses scanning the bookshelf in Peter’s study.
‘May I help?’ Hortensia had asked.
‘He wants … “the staple”, he called it. The stable?’
The nurse had fair hair and wrinkles.