Long Lies the Shadow (5 page)

“Did you tell the doctor?” asks Michael, when they are back at the house.

He has explored the house, unpacked his one leather bag, they have had tea, and he is peering despondently into her fridge.

“Yes,” answers Gin, but does not elaborate.

“Gin, there’s absolutely nothing in your fridge. Come on, let’s go out. I’m taking you to get a good breakfast and then we’re going to the market to buy some food for this sad, empty fridge.”

They are in the cool of the hall when the phone rings.

“Shall I get it?” asks Michael, already reaching for the receiver before she can say no. As he answers she motions to him that she
does not want to talk to anyone. “Miss McMann?” Michael is saying, looking at her questioningly. She shakes her head, mouths at him to take a message. Seamlessly Michael says, “She’s not here right now. Can I tell her who called?” He listens awhile, thanks the caller, puts the phone down.

Gin opens the front door to the warmth of the day. “Well?” she says when they are outside, “Who was it?” She locks the door.

“Someone called Nick Retief,” says Michael, affecting a strong South African accent as he says the name. He is expecting her to smile. “He said he’d call back.”

She starts to shake, so violently does her body jerk that she drops her keys.

“Gin! Are you okay?” Michael grabs for her.

She leans into him, steadying herself against his strength, trying to quell the shaking. Beneath the cotton check of his thin shirt, she feels the hardness of his chest muscles as he hugs her closely. She wants to cry, but no tears form.

“Do you want to go back inside?” asks Michael gently.

Gin tries to bend down to pick up the keys, but her action is awkward, her belly in the way. He stops her and picks them up, hands them to her.

“Thanks. No, I’ll be okay. It’ll be good to walk.”

She tells him briefly about Retief as they take the short cut through Victoria Gardens to Notting Hill Gate. The strange feeling is surfacing again, the feeling of culpability she had felt in the police station. How she felt Retief had almost accused her of causing Simon’s death. How she felt tainted, whorish. But she does not tell Michael this, reports rather on Retief’s visit to Viv. Michael is quiet when she
mentions Viv. They walk along the pavement, past the supermarket and the coffee shops and the cinema. It is early, but already the area beside the exit from the underground tube station is thronged. It will be busy at the market later. They cross the road, pass the bookshop and the bank, and enter the café on the corner.

Michael orders a full English breakfast. “But no bacon,” he says to the waitress. He looks at Gin, a smile forming, “It’s probably Danish,” he says by way of explanation.

Gin makes a face at him, orders toast and a pot of Earl Grey.

Over breakfast Michael tells her about Denmark, about how he had tried, faithfully, to fit in. He had learnt Danish, learnt to wrap his tongue around the throaty vowels. “It’s a lot like Afrikaans, Gin,” he explains, between mouthfuls of egg and beans on toast.

“Do you think you’ll go back?” Oh God, I might as well have added
to her
, she thinks.

He puts his fork down, pushes his plate away. “I don’t know. I really don’t know. Anyhow, this new job’s for three months, so I guess I’ll just see how it goes.” He smiles at her. “The school sounds good, and it’s only up the road. And mainly, it allows me some time with you.”

Michael, her childhood friend and twice now her saviour, sits back in his chair. “It’s been a long time, Gin.”

Her heart is too full to speak.

After breakfast they join the tourists heading down Portobello Road. Gin takes his arm. It is a warm day, the sky above so blue it could be Africa. They pass the silver merchants at the top of the road, the china and the antiques, and head down to where the road flattens at the bottom of the hill. Michael buys vegetables in abundance: fat carrots, succulent lettuce, firm peppers, potatoes still ruddy with soil. And fruit: rich red strawberries, spiky pineapple, a curved yellow baseball glove of bananas. Gin feels her appetite return with
Michael’s enthusiastic haggling. He barters with the stallholders as if he has never left. They pass outside their old flat. Michael pauses, looks up at the curtained windows.

“You know,” says Gin, “I think there’s still some of your stuff in the boxes back at the house.”

He laughs. “Well, I obviously haven’t missed or needed it in all this time.” He tucks her hand under his arm again, and they make their way back up against the wash of people. “Do you ever hear from Hannah?” he asks. His voice sounds suddenly strange.

“No,” says Gin, a sadness creeping in. She has, for the first time in as long as she can remember, felt happy. Now the strange sullied feeling is back. “She’s in Canada now. Has been for years. About as long as you’ve been in Denmark, I suppose. Three kids, two boys and a girl, I think.”

“And are they all healthy?”

Gin looks at him. What an odd question. “Yes, I suppose so.”

She wants to ask why, but Michael continues. “She married a lawyer or something, didn’t she?”

They emerge from the worst of the crowds into the clearing at the top of the road. Again, his voice sounds strange to her. Or does she imagine it?

“Yes, a lawyer. Remember Mikey, I went back for the wedding. That first year in England, you were still technically a refugee. And you couldn’t travel back then.”

Hannah’s wedding. Seeing Simon.

“I always thought she and Gabe would get married,” Michael is saying. He sounds sad. “It was a pity. You know, about her and Gabe.”

They are nearing the house now and Gin is glad. Michael seems so melancholy she feels an almost absurd need to cheer him. “I remember when I first knew there was something between them,” she says, hearing her own voice full of forced brightness. “I came across the two of them together one day. Wouldn’t have thought anything of it, you
know, just like they always were, but then they kind of leapt apart, as if they’d been caught doing something wrong. They looked so embarrassed. Hannah went all red, and Gabe just wouldn’t look at me.”

Michael says nothing. She wonders what he is thinking.

“You know,” she continues, “my grandfather used to say Hannah and Gabe reminded him of my mom and Hannah’s dad, Jacob, when they were children. He said they were always together, always close.”

“Isn’t that how your mom met your dad? Through Jacob?” Michael appears to focus again.

“Yes, Jacob studied surgery here, in Edinburgh, where he met my dad. When they qualified, Jacob invited Dad out to South Africa, and they set up the practice together. So that’s how my parents actually met.”

“So you kind of owe your life to Jacob then,” says Michael, with a short chuckle.

“I suppose. I never thought of it like that before.”

There is a pause before Michael says suddenly, “Until Viv.”

“What?”

“Ah, sorry, I was thinking aloud. I was thinking how Gabe suffered over Hannah. Until he met Viv.”

“Oh, yes,” says Gin. Then, quietly, “No, even after Viv.” She unlocks the door, and Michael brings the bags into the shade of the hall.

“God, that’s better. It’s so hot out there!” He wipes his brow.

The display on the answering machine shows one message. Gin switches it on as Michael walks through to the kitchen. Nick Retief’s terse tones invade her home. Gin had not doubted for an instant that the promised callback would come. Only not so soon, mere hours later, when she is not ready. The car, Nick Retief is saying, may have been a white Mercedes. Can she confirm this?

A white car. A white car.

“Are you okay?” Michael has come back into the hall. He stops Retief’s message in mid-sentence with a press of the button.

“Mikey,” she says, and she is shaking again, her voice tremulous, “it was a Mercedes. A white Mercedes.”

The mountain, tumbling to meet them. Pine trees angled up against the mist over Lion’s Head.

“Come on,” he leads her into the kitchen, sits her gently at the wooden table at its centre.

His hands, gripping the wheel.

“Tea,” says Michael, and fills the kettle.

“You’d think I’d remember a Mercedes.”

“Gin, we need tea. Where are the teabags?”

“I’ve something to tell you, Ginny, something I should have told you years ago.” Simon’s face, serious and sad. But a light in his eyes as he looked at her.

“Hmm? Teabags… oh, um, in that cupboard over there.” She points across the room.

Simon’s eyes as they made love. Those same eyes, later. The light in them dying.

“God, this kitchen’s huge. When did you last see Hannah then?” Michael is clattering cutlery, his head stuck in a cupboard. Gin comes over, reaches past him to the tin of teabags. He pulls a face. “Even the cupboards are too big.”

The kettle whistles. Steam rises from its spout.

“Leila.” Like a message.

“So, when was it?”

His hand, outstretched to her.

“What?”

“When was it you last saw her? Hannah.” Michael is looking at her intently.

Gin tries to gather herself. “Um, well, her wedding, I guess. And you?”

His voice has that odd tone again. “That Easter in Cape Town. That Easter with Gabe.”

Easter arrived. So soon the year had quartered. Her first year without Simon, her first year in Cape Town. Gin hungered to take the long drive north, to the mine-dump that was Johannesburg. Where Simon had gone.

After Simon had left, she had left also, drove the rusty Renault south. Left his flat, its walls already echoing, hollowed by his departure. No fixed plans, an internship somewhere. Somewhere, on the edge of Africa. She found herself beckoned by the Cape, the mountain a keloid scar curling protectively around the fragile skin of coast. By rote, by proxy, anything to not completely sever the tie between them. Here were roads that Simon would have walked while studying there.

Simon. If she arrived on his doorstep, would he let her go again? But while she argued with her pride, Gabe arrived suddenly. Distracted, dishevelled. He seemed so preoccupied, blue eyes troubled. He was loath to talk, yet seemed at the same time to yearn for it.

Gin had found a yellow house to rent, at the end of a T-junction, with a patch of bare grass at the front and a barren apple tree at the back. The sun poured strong into the kitchen, warming the wooden floors. There was a fireplace of blackened iron and two rooms too many, but a cluster of shops sat cheerily across the bridge and it was close to the children’s hospital, and the work she found within its gate.

“Gabe,” she asked eventually, “why did you come?”

He shifted to look at her; they had both been staring in silence at the flames in the grate. The logs burned brightly.

“Well,” he said at last. “I wanted to see you, and I want to see Han… Hannah.” His voice caught in his throat, and he cleared it.

Hannah. Always Hannah with him.

Gin felt irritated with him, but was aware it was her own ire with Hannah also. Hannah was there too, in Cape Town. A year behind, she had chosen a shorter course, and ultimately finished at the same time as Gin. But the years of distancing and disapproval had taken their toll, and Gin saw her rarely. This was how it happened, how you lost the friends you thought would last a lifetime. It had stung, and she had felt each of Hannah’s deliberate snubs. She realised she did not even know if Hannah was in town that long weekend, so seldom had they spoken. It was Passover also, and Hannah might be away or back at home.

“Where’s Viv?” she asked, and did not know whether she diverted his attention for his sake, or her own.

His girlfriend, he said, had stayed on the farm, she was tutoring that year, and had marking of assignments to finish. He hesitated. Then he told her he was thinking of quitting his degree, going to the Army.

He faced the choice of all young white men in this country. In truth, it was no choice at all. Conscription or leave. Here in intolerance there was no room for conscientious objection. They both knew Gabe was more fortunate than most. Through their Scottish father, he had the means to leave, to live elsewhere. But exile was a lonely choice, and long. There was no return. One must leave the land of one’s birth, one’s family and friends, all one held familiar, to face uncertain futures. By virtue of her sex, Gin was free of this decision. University had allowed Gabe, and Michael, a period of grace, but the Army would not wait forever. She had seen its destructive force, seen it reach out and ruin young men’s minds. Knew the stories of brainwashing, of cruelty. How it broke a sensitivity of spirit, turned it instead to an unfeeling, unquestioning obedience of authority. It perpetuated the system, and only the strong or compliant survived. Simon had told her this, his own term done and served. But he had been luckier, sent to the Navy, and based in the Cape. The Navy and the Air Force were both more sought after than the Army. More lenient, more English. The Afrikaners in their hordes 
ruled the Army. And they denigrated and humiliated
die Engelse,
the English speakers, if they could. Irrespective of origin, one was classified by language. Africa, it seemed, this huge and seething land, remained firstly, and foremostly, tribal.

Michael arrived the next day. He dismissed her surprise. He had changed his mind, he said, decided to join Gabe and see her after all. A simple explanation became fussy, over-elaborate. Gin looked at Gabe; he looked at the floor, and seemed not himself. Her brother was upset at Michael’s presence. Something disturbed these men, these friends.

It was an awkward weekend. On the Saturday they took the wine route, driving the meandering roads beneath the mountains of Stellenbosch and Paarl, from wine farm to wine farm, from
Dutch-gabled homestead to rolling vineyard. Gabe was monosyllabic, his usual cheerfulness absent. Michael and he smoked incessantly, and drank too much. Gin drove, confused by the atmosphere, and resentful of it. It was an odd intrusion after the many months without them. On their return, dusk lengthening shadows, Michael made an unfamiliar gesture. He ruffled Gabe’s hair, and was shaken off with an angry shrug. They drove on in silence.

It was the need she saw in her twin that made Gin swallow any wounded pride and call Hannah. Hannah was surprisingly friendly, effusive almost, and Gin was thrown, vaguely guilty. Perhaps there had been a certain neglect of friendship on her part also. Hannah’s voice was shriller, off-key, when Gin mentioned Gabe.

Sunday morning, they met at Camps Bay. Despite the religious holiday, Blues restaurant was open but not yet crowded. They spent a happy day together, the four of them. Any tension seemed to have eased between the men and Hannah was vivacious, ebullient, at her sociable best. She had put on weight but it suited her, gave her face a softness. She had always had a stunning smile and she bestowed the light of it on the three of them like a benediction. Gin noted a shine in Hannah’s eyes, not unlike the glint of tears, as she hugged Gabe. Hannah did not cry easily, 
and Gin felt a fist tighten around her heart. There was a poignancy in the four of them meeting again and Gin had a strange foreboding that it would be their last.

After lunch, they walked on the beach. Gin sat on the rocks with Michael, watching Gabe and Hannah walk along the shore, voices low, for each other only. Even if the wind had allowed it, they made sure they would not be heard, a habit formed from when they were children. As girls, perhaps she and Hannah should have been closest, thought Gin, but Hannah chose always instead to confide any secrets to Gabe. Gin wondered if Gabe discussed with Hannah his dilemma and, if so, what would Hannah say. Would her opinion sway Gabe in his decision? Hannah had always been so steadfastly unconcerned by the politics that raged around her.

Michael faced the same fate, yet unlike Gabe, Gin assumed he had little choice. She realised how little she knew of Michael, these past four years, of how university had shaped and changed him. She knew nothing of the structure of his life. Michael and Gabe had been studying the same course and staying together in the large commune on the farm outside Grahamstown. Gin had been glad of this; at least they had stayed close. Michael had sat quietest, listening, smoking, absorbing Hannah’s tales. And, like Gin, watching Gabe’s hungry eyes follow Hannah’s every move, every gesture, her slender fingers glittering with rings, and nails of immaculate frosted pink, hands fluttering as she talked.

Gin felt guilty again, as if the fault of wayward friendship lay firmly at her feet. Had Simon distracted her so from all she loved and knew? Yet this could not be true. She tried to remember. Had Michael called, and had she ignored him? Had Gabe visited, and had she cut him short? She had no recollection of this. She felt the sharp pain of missing Simon. No one had mentioned him, nor even asked.

A frigid wind whipped off the waves, reached them on the rocks, and she shivered. Michael smiled at her, his crooked, secret smile. She thought it secret because it seemed to hide a knowledge that he would not share.
There was an odd awkwardness between them, and she mourned the loss of closeness.

They returned, Gabe and Hannah, a handsome couple huddled closely as if for warmth. Hannah made to go. She must, she said, be elsewhere that evening for dinner. Such false gaiety, thought Gin, and hated it. She saw pain in Gabe’s eyes. He blinked, turned his face to the sea. Gin knew her twin’s reactions were like her own. They said their farewells, Hannah kissing air beside Gin’s cheek. But as she hugged Gabe, those long nails left marks in his arms. Another sunset. Darkness, always lurking.

While Michael fetched beer from the car, Gabe blurted words at Gin. He had decided to do his army service, “Get it over with.” These were the words he chose. This was the decision he had made, he told her, the beach grown lonely and bleak.

Gin could see Michael searching in the boot of her car for something. No doubt the opener was lost. White haze around her vision, around her world.

No more putting it off. No more leisurely years putting off the inevitable. He’d had his chance, his lazy days of being a student, lying beneath the great leafy oaks on the cricket lawns, reading Macbeth and Tennyson. Waiting. The Army had been patient. Also waiting. Time to exact its price, take its toll. It would take him, shave his hair to spikes and dress him like all the others, in sand-soaked brown. It would give him a helmet; it would give him a rank; it would give him a gun. At nights he would sleep on hard sheets in a single bed. The Army would wake him before dawn, make him run, make him sweat, make him suffer, drive him mad.

Would she write to him, he’d like that, asked Gabe. The sun was setting orange on the water. Why did she notice the sand stuck to wet pebbles, a small crab scuttling to the edge of foam? When her world was crumbling, when all she had known was changing, her attention would be caught by the most inconsequential detail, fogging her memory for later recall.

When Simon had left, she had watched the drop of falling purple, jacaranda blossom tumbling to the cobbled courtyard, whisked about to curls of lilac, or sticking wet, smeared indigo on the ground. She heard the hum of a neighbouring washing machine, smelled woodsmoke strong in the spring air.

Would she write to him, Gabe was asking again, he’d like that. The horizon glowed. And that was how she learned to hate the twilight. Beyond yawned the black void, sucking, devouring, taking all she loved, taking people from her yet again.

She took his hand, said nothing, in silence held it fast, linking again with him as they had as children. They sat in quiet communion. Remembering how the summer sun brought freckles to their pale faces. Remembering Michael’s perennial pageboy haircut, Hannah’s happy laugh.

But what else they spoke of that day upon the water, she would not remember. Could not remember! How it would feel, later, how she would betray his memory, when later she could not remember the last words her brother spoke to her, that fading orange twilight on the beach.