Long Lies the Shadow (2 page)

It is time to fetch Gin from the hospital. Viv stares at the mirror, pulls at the skirt that falls loosely about her angular hips. She has lost more weight, she notes absently. She touches her eyes briefly. Fine lines. So long, so long. So many years since Gin had truly been part of her life, so many years since they had been friends. Viv closes her eyes to block out the thought. What will Gin think of her now? What will she make of her life?

Viv pulls the car out too sharply, too quickly. A horn blares behind her, the driver throwing up his hands in exasperation. She waves him an apology and pivots her ankle on her high heel, pushes the accelerator to the floor. At the traffic light, she slows to catch the amber, and lights a cigarette on the red. She rolls the window down to the afternoon heat, and the smoke from her cigarette lifts and coils, sliding out, a cloud in the clear blue sky.

Jonnie. What to say about Jonnie?

A beep from behind. Green. Viv takes off more slowly this time, unwilling to close the distance between herself and Gin, her unexpected guest. It was natural that Gin’s sister would call her after the
accident. Natural that, as always, Issy remained oblivious to Gin’s feelings, still ignorant of any acrimony between Gin and Viv, still unaware it had been years since they had even spoken.

Viv turns into the squat concrete of the hospital car park and stubs her cigarette out in the ashtray. She turns the rear-view mirror towards herself, smoothes at her long brown hair. Lipstick. Somewhere. She fumbles in her bag. Scarlet is all she finds. Appropriate. She waits for the guilt and the hurt to overwhelm her again.

Jonnie
.

She smears the colour across her lips. Her mouth feels suddenly dry.

Gabe
.

She checks her appearance again, and sighs. Too many people lie between her and Gin. It is bad enough to look into Gin’s eyes and see Gabe’s eyes looking back at her. Now to meet those eyes again, with Jonnie’s name as yet unsaid.

Viv takes a deep breath, and gets out of the car.

“Hello, Viv,” she says again now.

Awake. But not alive, thinks Viv. Gin’s restless eyes search the room, as if she has forgotten something. A mind searching for what is unfinished. She turns to look at Viv.
Help me
, the eyes say,
help me
.

“
Hamba kakuhle
, Miss Virginia,” says one of the nursing assistants from the doorway.

Viv watches as the woman grabs Gin’s hand, wishing her to travel
well with the traditional Xhosa greeting. Gin leans forward and hugs the woman briefly.

“
Enkosi kakhulu
,” says Gin, thanking the woman in the same language. Their hands linger, pale white folded into rich black. Gin’s left arm is still bandaged, covering the burns of hot metal, where the mangled car had melded to her flesh. At the edge of white gauze, Viv can see pink skin, healing.

Nurses gather round to say their farewells. Viv stands and waits, holding onto Gin’s suitcase. Gin must have been an ideal patient, she imagines. Quiet, compliant, uncomplaining.

Eventually, Gin walks somewhat lopsidedly towards her. Viv is taken aback by the extent of her limp.

“I’m sorry to take so long, Viv,” whispers Gin.

Viv smiles at her, trying to convey warmth.

Gin takes her arm. “I need to lean on you a bit, if that’s all right – don’t let them see,” she pleads, her voice still low.

Slowly they wind their way through wide hospital corridors to the car park outside. Gin’s gait seems to straighten with the walk. Something bothers Viv about Gin’s appearance. It is not age or injury, she thinks, but something vague and undefined.

Viv turns the car into the late afternoon traffic on de Waal Drive. Cape Town sprawls below them through the haze of February heat, a blurred mix of beiged-out buildings, silvered motorways, blue sea and sky. The mountain retreats from them as they drive. The city speeds by, the verdant suburbs of Newlands receding to the brown edge of the Klipfontein plain.

Fruit and flower sellers litter the roads at junctions. Some of them rap at the car window to gain attention. “
Only ten rand, merrum, five joosey oranges!
”

Gin sits quietly, as if absorbing this city anew. Viv, having expected awkwardness, feels relieved. She lights another cigarette, rolls down her window, and switches on the radio.

She is pleased to get home, pleased the girls are away and there is none of their usual mess. They sit in the lounge, drinking rooibos tea while Gin tries to tell her about the accident. Gin’s blue eyes darken as she talks. Her gaze flicks from the floor to the framed photographs of Viv’s daughters and back again. Viv stays silent, making no comment, trying to make sense of the stumbled recall. She touches Gin’s arm when she seems to struggle for breath between sentences, touches Gin’s trembling hand as she apologises and starts again. Time appears to have warped oddly for Gin. She speaks Simon’s name quickly, lightly, as if to say it otherwise would be to taste it, to feel it on her tongue like salt from tears. Gin’s account of the accident itself is garbled and rushed. She shivers violently, and Viv imagines she remembers Simon, beside her in the burning car, dying.

The tea is cold and Viv rises to make a fresh pot. The kitchen is dark, the sun having already abandoned the rear of the house. She switches on the kettle, notes the lack of groceries in the house, but is thankful again for the absence of her daughters. They are with her mother and stepfather on the flat plains of the Klein Karoo. It will be easier for Gin, she thinks; it may give her the time and space necessary to heal, without constant reminders of past pain, past loss. And the presence of Viv’s children could not have failed to remind her.

The kettle starts to boil, and Viv busies herself with the new pot. She needs more tea, and the milk is low. Reaching for fresh cups in the half-gloom, she knocks the sugar bowl to the floor. She tenses, shuts her eyes, anticipating the noisy crash of porcelain, yet it falls almost gracefully, cracking cleanly. The crystals hiss out across the terracotta tiles.

She had been saddened by the news of Simon’s death, and slightly shocked at his being here in Cape Town, his being here with Gin. Gin’s presence in the country was not a surprise in itself. Viv had known she would fly out for her father’s funeral. Issy had told her that Alexander McMann had died, had asked if Viv would be coming
to the funeral. But Viv had declined, unwilling to upset Gin further, and, she admits to herself now, unwilling to face her.

She sweeps at the sugar. In the immediacy of helping Gin, she had hardly thought of Simon Gold. After all, she had hardly known the man. Even after her brief contact with him, when in desperation she had sought him out for help, she had known him no better for it. There was no further reason to stay in touch thereafter. They lived different lives in different cities. She remembers black hair, grave-dark eyes. He had been courteous to her, and patient while she had tried to explain he was the only doctor she knew who did not also know Jonnie.

Jonnie
. His name sits constantly between her and Gin.

Yes, Simon Gold had helped her. Because of Gin. But Viv suspected he would have helped her despite that. There had been a brief spark in Simon’s eyes when he asked about Gin. It had flickered out as abruptly when Viv admitted she did not know, and he had not mentioned Gin’s name again.

Viv throws the cracked bowl in the bin. Neither she nor Gin takes sugar so it is no loss. She wonders whether she ought to mention her meeting with Simon to Gin. But this will necessitate explanation, and certain pain, suppressed since Viv’s divorce from Jonnie.

Jonnie
. They must clear this, she resolves.

She takes the pot of tea to the lounge. Gin sits huddled in the armchair near the window that looks out over the lawn’s square expanse, the grass fresh and revived from the recent rain. The high walls keep the noisy neighbourhood at bay and the unintentional sparseness of her garden creates a serendipitous serenity. Gin smiles wanly at her as Viv pours and hands her another cup of rooibos. She hugs it between her hands. Looking at her, again Viv finds herself vaguely disturbed by something in Gin’s appearance.

“I haven’t even shown you your room, Gin. Come, bring your tea. I’ll take your things.”

Gin follows her. Turning at the top, Viv watches her take the stairs one step at a time, her knuckles white as she grips the banister for support.

“Thanks for this, Viv,” says Gin, as she is settled into the spare room. “It reminds me of my hospital room.” Then, as if realising the statement might offend, she adds hurriedly, “I mean, it’s light and airy… and I can see the mountain.”

Viv looks out the oblong of window at the mountain, now a dark purple in the fading light, almost a silhouette. From this angle, it resembles a recumbent woman, the one peak a shoulder, dipping to a waist, the swayed curve of hip covered lightly by a rumple of blanket.

“Have they – my dad, or Issy – kept in touch then?” Gin’s voice is hesitant as she talks of her family.

Viv does not turn around. “In the beginning more so. Less when… when I was married.” She pauses. She feels uncomfortable for the first time. “Your dad did more so than Issy. But not that much after your mom… since your mom died,” Viv talks quickly now, “and not since he got ill.” She turns around to face Gin, who is looking at the floor. “Issy rang about your dad. I’m so sorry, Gin.”

Gin nods. There is another awkward silence.

“And I’m sorry about Simon too,” adds Viv, as gently as she can.

Gin sits down heavily on the bed, leans back, and closes her eyes.

Viv takes a deep breath. “Ginny…”

Gin opens her eyes and looks at her, a direct blue gaze.

Gabe’s eyes, thinks Viv, a stab to the heart. “You know, about Jonnie and me…”

Gin looks away quickly. She rubs at her leg. “Viv,” she says, exhaling in a sigh, “it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter anymore. It was so long ago. I’m just really sorry it didn’t work out for you.”

Viv’s heart contracts. No doubt the aged pain of Jonnie pales against the raw loss of Simon. But she is relieved. She does not want
to talk about Jonnie either, but at least the effort has been made, his name said, the lingering spirit dispelled.

Jonnie. And all for nothing.

They both stare out of the window. Voices of children playing, shouting, reach the room. A siren sounds somewhere. Friday night in the nearby township has begun.

After a while, Viv turns from the darkening view. “I’ll let you unpack… I’ll get us some supper soon. Is there anything you fancy? Bunny Chow?” she smiles, referring to Gin’s old favourite, a scooped-out loaf of bread, the hole filled to overflowing with spicy meat curry.

Gin shakes her head.

Viv senses her displacement, a certain inability to connect. She touches Gin’s arm. “Just shout if you need anything. There are towels in the wardrobe. And a phone in the room next door. It’s my office.”

“Viv…” Gin rises stiffly, grabbing at the headboard for support. She moves forward and hugs Viv. “Thank you,” she murmurs, “for everything.”

Viv feels her own throat burn with sadness. For a moment they cling together, two wounded women.

Viv goes downstairs and takes the tea tray to the kitchen, closes the blinds, switches on the light. In the brightness, she notices some spilled sugar still on the floor. Reaching for the brush and gathering it up, again she thinks of Simon. They had met in his office, sparse contemporary rooms of high ceilings and designer art, at odds somehow with Simon’s manner, she had thought. He had been so kind to her, at a time when kindness had been so lacking in her life. Afterwards, Simon had sent her flowers. Yellow roses, remembers Viv. She still must have the card somewhere, a brief
Get well
followed by the simple sprawl of his initials,
SG
.

She takes a lasagne from the freezer and switches on the oven. She walks back into the lounge and lights a cigarette. The mountain
is black now; only a thin line marks the border between it and the descending night. She draws the curtains and sinks back into the couch.

It strikes her suddenly what has been bothering her about Gin’s appearance. Gin looks shrunken, realises Viv. Diminished somehow. She draws deeply on her cigarette. It is as if Gin’s loss is physical. Yes, thinks Viv. Diminished. We are diminished by death.

A week after leaving the hospital, Gin is summoned to the police station to make and sign her official statement. She walks up the concrete steps and finds it hard to calm her heart. This is the new South Africa, she reminds herself, it is February 2005, and the police are ostensibly no longer the iron fist of an apartheid government, but it is still difficult for her to walk down the cool, green corridor and believe this.

She announces herself to the young black policewoman at the desk. The woman is pretty, despite the heavy blue uniform. Gin waits in the wide sunless corridor with its polished wooden floors. She sits on the hard wooden bench and reads the notices on the board opposite. There are posters with photo-identikits of wanted criminals. Crime abounds, some of it horrific, and she is staring down at her hands, tired of reading about death, when Nick Retief comes to call her to his office.

The room is windowless, and posters similar to those in the hall adorn a huge noticeboard behind his desk. He thanks her for coming and she wonders, with all this crime, why he bothers with a car accident. But he tells her what he requires, what she needs to tell him, and how her statement will then be typed and if she could wait to sign it he will be grateful, it will speed the process some. She wonders what process, but does not ask. An echo far below sounds to her like a cell door slamming. Gin realises she cannot relax in this country. She deals with it as if it is the same place she left almost two decades ago. So she keeps silent, asks no questions.

Detective Retief switches on a tape recorder, and asks for her home address. He seems surprised that she lives in London and Gin in turn feels unsettled by this. Her experience of the police hails from a time when they knew all, before they hauled one in for questioning, when they would use their knowledge as power. She remembers the insults she suffered the last time she was in a police station, waiting for her dead brother’s body to be released.

She had kept quiet then too.

“Miss McMann,” says Retief, “If you are from London, and Mr Gold from Johannesburg, how come you were both here in Cape Town?”

“My father died, Mr Retief,” she says, and then thinks she does not know if the
Mister
is appropriate. Perhaps he must be called
Detective
or
Sergeant
all the time.

But he does not comment on her lapse, if indeed it is one. Instead he asks, persistent, “And Mr Gold?”

Simon
. Pain now, and she feels a spear of it.

“He… I… we, we arranged to meet here, Mr Retief. We knew each other a long time ago. Our families, well, his grandfather and mine were business partners.” She coughs.

“Would you like some water?” he offers. He has already risen to get her some before she can reply.

“They owned a jewellery store,” she continues. “They were friends,” she adds, lamely. She does not know why she feels the need to explain this to him.

But Retief has moved on, apparently uninterested in her family tales.

“Mr Gold is – was – married.” He says this firmly, flatly, putting a heavy glass of water in front of her.

Statement, not question. She nods.

He looks at her, an intent gaze. “You were lovers?”

She baulks at this. “A long time ago, Mr Retief.”

“But you met up here again, this time, after all these years, in Cape Town,” he insists.

She nods again, looks down at her glass of water but he has carried on, relentless. “You stayed together, at the Mount Nelson, in one room.” He has been looking at some papers, but he looks up at her now, “Expensive hotel.”

She does not know what to say to this, so she keeps quiet.

“Mr Gold was a surgeon, I see.
Doctor
Gold, then.”

She does not correct him, does not explain the small vanities of the medical profession that dictate surgeons return to
Mister
, an accolade to their prowess with the knife.

“Plastic surgery. So he could afford that kind of hotel, then.” Sergeant Retief says this almost to himself, as if taking notes into the recorder. “His wife did not know he was with you.”

Statement again, so Gin does not answer. The way he says it implies that Simon’s wife is now aware of this fact. That he, Retief, has told her, inadvertently or otherwise. Gin does not know why he
asks her this, what this has to do with their accident. She feels guilty, as if the act of merely sitting here, in a policeman’s airless office, and allowing herself to be questioned, means she is guilty of something. Perhaps, she thinks, he is accusing her of causing Simon’s death. That, through their adultery, she has somehow caused it.

She and Retief spar back and forth for what seems to Gin like hours. Her leg is stiff as she rises from the hard-backed chair to follow him out of the room. She waits in the cold hallway again, while somewhere a clerk types up the words they have exchanged, turning
Simon’s last hours into a bleak and formal statement. No doubt their two days together will translate into a sordid little affair, as cheap and worthless as the paper she will have to sign.

When she has limped down the concrete steps and across the street to a compact café, she wonders at what motivated a man like Retief to join the South African Police Force, with its chequered past, its ignoble history. The café is hot, glass windows allowing the sunlight to flood across the black-and-white vinyl tiles of the floor. Gin orders tea while she waits for Viv to fetch her and stares across the road at the imposing building she has just left. Nick Retief is younger than her, but not by that much. It is sixteen years since she left. Gin wonders if even this amount of time would have been sufficient for her to have changed her outlook on the police, on the many government institutions of this country that was once her home.

She remembers leaving. That last day, leaving. Simon.

Simon
.

Always Simon. Through him, she is forever bound to home.