Angry spirit

Explosions, sparks and the acrid smell of burning wires filled our bedroom last night, startling Rob and me from the deepest of sleeps. At first we did not know what was going on – was someone scrambling over the electric fence, was the house about to catch fire? We called the security company, pulled the plug in the bedroom, the cable from which had partially burned through by now, from the wall, found a torch, and set out to inspect. A few minutes later Denton, who rents our  cottage, called us on his mobile: the switchboard, which is on the wall facing into our dining room, had emitted flashes, sparks and smoke, and plugs in the cottage had also flashed.

ADT, the security company, arrived shortly after, and John, the security guard, did a sweep of the property but found nothing. After a time the smell of smoke began to dissipate, and we began to calm down, the adrenaline draining slowly away. Then we began to assess the damage – every light in the house had blown; the one lamp that was plugged into the wall was flickering, and then that blew too. This morning I did the rounds again – it seems as if the TV decoder may have blown, possibly the TV also; and the power cord for my Mac sizzled, with that smell and frightful sound of electronics frying, when I plugged it into the wall. To my immense relief, the Mac itself powered up on its batteries, evidently undamaged.

I am cancelling my meetings this morning, to deal with all this – I need to phone Outsurance as soon as possible, to send someone round to assess the damage and let us know what they will cover; I need an electrician to get the lights going, at least, and then there will be the time-consuming hassle of trying to get electronics replaced.

I can’t possibly leave it to poor Rob, whose fears and alarms about this house seem once more to be confirmed. She has been angry with me for not getting in a sangoma – a witchdoctor, shaman, traditional healer – to cast out the spirits: she feels Eileen’s dismal presence, and fears it too. And last night it truly did feel as if it was Eileen’s spirit, angry, vengeful, that was hissing and snarling in the darkness.

It is time to call that sangoma.

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Home reno

In the bigger scheme of things (this is what people say to themselves when they are secretly appalled by something, but need to put on a brave face) home renovation is not the most important item on my agenda, but right now it has to be the most urgent. I have been living out of a suitcase in other people’s houses since last November, when I moved out of my small but cozy townhouse in Brookwood, Parkmore; so too has my ever patient and always supportive Canadian partner, Roberta (Rob), since her arrival here in Johannesburg early in December. By now we have both had more than enough of this transient life; we have imposed enough on the kindness and tolerance of friends and family. So we have set ourselves the goal of moving into the family home in Emmarentia, mine in terms of the divorce settlement, next weekend – at present, the place is simply uninhabitable.

Eileen (technically she is not yet my ex-wife; the matter will hopefully be set down for 5 February) vacated the house last November, having decided apparently that, as she was going down to Cape Town for Kathy and Gareth’s wedding in December  (a future topic for this blog, perhaps), this would be an opportune time for her to move back to the Cape, especially as a Settlement Agreement was finally in sight. Four and a half years of stalled settlement negotiations turned out to have translated also into four and a half years of total neglect of the property: when she finally moved out Eileen left behind  a house that reminded me, when I first set eyes on it again, of nothing so much as an abandoned family home in post-war Mozambique.

As I write this, I realise that for those families who actually lost homes in the civil war in Mozambique, this might seem a reckless comparison, insensitive perhaps, to their reality of conflict and loss; but it has an emotional truth, for me, nonetheless: the home I left needed attention, but was essentially comfortable, clean, liveable. The home I returned to was filthy, overgrown, and in a state of physical decay that shocked me to the core.

The heavy rains that marked this summer had turned the swimming pool into a green swamp, complete with wildlife and swarming insects. The once-landscaped garden was overgrown; high grass, rampant creepers and sprouting weeds had taken over everywhere. The rain, and the fact that the house had been standing empty for more than a month, were reason enough for much of this decay; but there were other, more troubling indications of long-standing neglect. At the side and rear of the house, wisteria had covered the walls, ripped through the eaves and gutters, and spread a mass of dank greenery over the roof tiles. On the other side of the house, outside the windows of what had been our children’s bedrooms, a tree had been allowed to grow through the eaves and roof. The damage to the eaves, gutters and roof was considerable; the roof, pillars and retaining walls of the front porch were cracked and disclocated by the roots of trees that had been allowed to grow unpruned and untamed for years. In the front garden, a fallen tree was in the process of being followed earthwards by two tall pines that now slumped, half-dead, against the garden wall. Everywhere were fallen branches, mounds of composting leaves, and creeper vines blocking out the light and obstructing the way. The ugliest cacti had multiplied themselves, colonising what was left of flower beds and open spaces.

Indoors, it appeared as if squatters had left the place barely one step ahead of us. The lounge, family room (Kathy’s former bedroom, which will be our office once Rob and I move in) and bedrooms were strewn with papers, abandoned utensils, items of clothing, shoes, bits of electronics and other flotsam and jetsam. The filth was indescribable: it was hard to imagine how anyone could have lived here, hard too to imagine how anyone with a shred of self-respect or respect for others could leave a place in such a condition. And, of course, the effects of the external damage were visible inside, too, in the form of sagging ceilings in places, damp walls and peeling paint, a rotting carpet in the stairwell, damp woodwork, cracks in the walls, a  dank pervasive smell.

So, as you might imagine, there is much to be done. Eve, our youngest, took it upon herself to call her mother and insist that she pay for cleaners to come in; two immigrants from Malawi spent an entire weekend scrubbing floors and countertops while Eve herself spent three days clearing the detritus from the floors and sorting out garbage from things that Eileen wanted packed up and sent to her in Cape Town. Rob busied herself getting quotes and hiring people; she had the carpet cleaners in last week, after Eve had finished her mammoth clean-up, and that alone made the place look more habitable. ADT is fixing the alarm system, which apparently has been non-functional for god knows how long (though I have been paying for the security service all along) and township contractors have spent two days clearing the garden (a subject worthy of its own post) and will be here for a couple of days more.

A quick run-down of approximate costs:

Building repairs: R140,000

Garden services; R10,000 (initial quote, from a professional gardening service, came to R50,000)

Security: R35,000

Gareth, my son-in-law, asked the other night whether I thought the damage and neglect was maliciously intended. I answered ‘no’. In the first instance, I think, it is the distilled expression of a lifetime of avoidance and head-in-the-sand denial of difficulties or challenges. It is also the sign of a deeply depressed and very unhappy woman. And yes, finally, I have no doubt there is at least an element of malice, not in the sense of intentional harm, but in the sense that, ‘well, it serves you right, if the place is a pigsty.’

Rob and I went out for a stiff brandy, after our first visit to survey our new domain, in December; and we were equally in need of a drink when we stopped by a second time, on our return from holidaying in Cape Town. The place still upsets and disturbs us, at times: we are agreed that we need to get in a sangoma, to cleanse the evil spirits! But, we are taking it as a challenge, and an opportunity, too, to make the place our own, to restore a once-loved family home, and to begin to build a life together. In the end, it’s only money. What matters is life, hope, renewal, and we have much to be grateful for.

The children, too, are happy for us, and positive that we will make this a home to enjoy and appreciate. I also suspect that, more than they might realise, the damage and decline of our home in Emmarentia has affected them no less than it has me: it will make them happy, I think, to see the house once more loved and lived in.

Watch this space!

Proof positive – pages from the novel

In my first post, I mentioned the novel on the stocks – why do I imagine the collective groan, the sigh of, ‘of course, everyone has a novel on the stocks!’ Here’s the start of mine: working title, ‘The Last Days of Doubt’.

1

He emerged from the splendid, hungry maw of Grand Central Station like the choicest human morsel, delivered up to her at last by the merciful gods. She had been standing for twelve minutes by the marble balustrade overlooking the Main Concourse, staring down at the teeming masses beneath the vast American flag, her eager glance scanning the crowds that hurried like columns of army ants in all directions within the quicksilver light that streamed through the tall windows opposite and reflected, gleamed, off the polished walls and shining floors. Her husband was waiting in the car outside, frowning she imagined as he ran a monitoring eye down the pages of the Wall Street Journal, but it was not the thought of his restrained, finger-tapping patience that made her restless, excited. She had been waiting for this moment for years. It was just literally true: over the past two years she must have written David a hundred times, first in Johannesburg, and then, when he had become gravely ill and moved to Cape Town to stay with his daughter so that Sara could keep a watchful eye on him and drive him to the clinic for the bouts of chemotherapy that seemed to leave him so listless and dispirited, her emails and phone calls had followed him there. She had not seen David for nine or ten years, at least: so far as she knew the last time he had visited New York had been seventeen years ago, in the year of George Orwell’s dystopia, 1984, and he was married then, the wife hanging about him like some tribal curse. He was free of her now, thank god; Meg had never liked the woman and was not surprised when she had abandoned David, leaving him to die, no doubt, for she had not a caring or a loving bone in that beautifully preserved but soulless body of hers. Come to me, Meg had implored; let me take care of you. She could easily afford it, certainly; but it was not about having the money. I have a large house, she had written, a Brooklyn brownstone, overlooking the East River and Manhattan. In the evening the setting sun lights up the skyscrapers opposite like a thousand triumphal fires. You will find it so beautiful, restful, not like New York at all! You will have a room of your own. No-one will disturb you. You shall have everything you want, everything you need. She might have added, and at one point she did, I have a big heart, remember? That seemed to provoke a response, for David had emailed her right back with a kind of tongue-in-cheek resignation, no-one could ever resist your big heart, Meg. You were always larger than life. And then he had added, a few lines later, perhaps I shall come, after all. And now, here he was. For a moment though she wasn’t sure. A frail figure detached itself from the mass, stood in a space on the gleaming floor that was suddenly open, and stared up at her, then lifted a hand in solemn salutation. She looked again, her heart in her mouth, and then she gave a shriek, and waved madly, and cried out, David! David! so that people turned and stared, but she didn’t notice, and if she had, she wouldn’t have cared. David! she cried again, leaping down the broad stairs with her long bare legs and darting into the throng. In a moment she found him, flinging her arms about his shoulders as he bent to set down his backpack.

‘I’ve been waiting for this moment,’ she crooned, crushing his body against hers, ‘it’s so good to have you here, baby.’ And then she added, patting him urgently on the back with the flat of her hand, ‘welcome to New York, sweetheart. There, let me look at you.’ Laughing out loud, she drew him to her again. ‘David, David,’ she said, ‘I’m so happy to see you!’

‘You’re just the same,’ David Honiman smiled, speaking for the first time, his voice muffled against her shoulder. He relaxed against her for a heartbeat as if giving in to a weaker impulse and then, extracting himself carefully, holding her by the arms as if to forestall any further embrace, he returned her gaze, his eyes searching hers out appraisingly. ‘You haven’t changed a bit, not a jot,’ he affirmed at last, as if he had been wondering. ‘It is good to be here, Meg.’ And then he added, simply, ‘thank you.’

Meg would have none of it.

‘There’s nothing to thank me for,’ she said briskly. ‘Come on, let’s get you to the car. Michael is waiting outside. He’s probably wondering what the hell has happened to us. I’ll bet he’s been told to move on three times already.’

And then she said, changing her mind, as if she saw that she needed to suck every last drop of sweetness from the moment, as if it were an orange, or a purple fig spilling out its sticky seeds, ‘Here, stand still a minute! I want to take another look at you.’

‘Meg, you are hopeless,’ David protested, halting abruptly. Someone stepped clumsily around them, muttering an apology or a curse.

Meg was undeterred. ‘Shut up, David,’ she said firmly.  ‘I want to look at you.’

Patiently, for already he knew better than to argue, he submitted himself again to her gaze. He saw the two of them, two small individuals standing apart in the great amphitheatre of the station, pitched against the scurrying masses; he was conscious of the gleaming vault, the huge Stars and Stripes hanging overhead, the inevitable and ubiquitous reminder, this is America. He fantasised for a moment: Meg Cohen, wrapped in the American flag, transfixed like the Statue of Liberty, holding aloft her torch: come to me, ye huddled masses. In truth, it had crossed his mind that he was making a terrible mistake, coming here; he was not prepared for kindness, he dreaded pity like the plague. For two cents, he would turn right around, and fly straight home. It was better to die in silence, better to crawl into a hole, dragging the darkness after like a shroud. He was parched, he felt faint, he needed to sit down. But he remained standing and allowed himself to return her scrutiny and saw in her look something soft, something dazzled. She was saying something, and he leaned slightly forward, shaking his head in puzzlement.

‘David, David,’ Meg was saying. ‘My poor boy. Your eyes are so blue, just like I remember them, like the sea off Clifton. You must remember that? I remember everything so clearly. My memory is perfect, let me tell you, one hundred per cent recall. That intense azure. I’ll never forget the salt and seaweed smell, the feel of the cold sand, wet beneath my bare feet. Seagulls, robber-gangs of them, taking off into the wind. How they balanced on the tips of their wings, their feet paddling the air.’

She threw her head back and laughed out loud.

‘I loved your eyes, my sweetheart; so gentle and true. You were always my first love, you know that? My true love. Except that you didn’t have any money.’

She snorted, rolling her eyes.

‘My mother could never forgive you for that.’

She was talking to him, but she was talking to herself too, her voice tinged with wonderment, sadness perhaps.

‘You’ve lost a lot of weight, my darling.’

And then she shook herself, as if to break free of her thoughts.

‘Where are your bags, my baby? And why on earth did you want me to meet you here? Why wouldn’t you let me pick you up at JFK? When did you get in? What have you been up to, you bad child! You must tell me everything!’

It was in the grain of David’s character to deflect these questions. He had an instinct for privacy that was in part the carapace that soft-bodied creatures develop for self-protection; partly it was a sense of propriety, manifesting less as decorum than as an indefinable reserve. Now that he had become ill and vulnerable, changed through some vile mutation from the living human being that he had been into something less whole, chemically and physiologically less stable, less intact, it was all the more important to him that he should be able to preserve this sanctuary, a place that was not open to the probing lights and instruments of medical people and the hypocritical smiles of friends and sympathisers. Most decidedly, too, he was quick to resent any appearance of being called to account; though he understood that this was not Meg’s intention. Yet his reticence now was a reflection of nothing more complicated than the fact that he was exhausted. He was too tired for questions. Explanation would have demanded too much of an effort and besides, he did not imagine that Meg expected an answer.

If David prevaricated, Meg scarcely noticed. Having extracted from him the information that he had bags at The Roosevelt, Meg made for the grand staircase, gripping David by the wrist and cutting a path through the throng that flowed in all directions, until they arrived, Meg triumphant and David white and out of breath, at the tall brass-trimmed swing-doors that led outside onto the covered driveway and out from the shadows into narrow Vanderbilt Avenue where the yellow cabs nosed forward like New York barracuda and Michael Cohen, with the dignity and indifference that derives from dollar-denominated wealth, sat waiting unperturbed at the wheel of his black SUV.

He must have been watching out for them in the rear-view mirror, for as soon as Meg and David emerged onto the sidewalk Meg’s husband opened the door of the big BMW and lowered himself heavily to the ground. Coming round the back of the car he stuck out a bear-like paw and said with an All-American grin that belied the wariness behind his soft brown eyes, ‘Hello David. Meg is so glad you could finally make it. Welcome to New York.’

That was the second ‘welcome to New York’ he had heard in ten minutes; in twenty years, David thought, as he extended his hand, fully expecting it to be engulfed and crushed.

But Michael Cohen took his hand as delicately as if it had been a woman’s, gripping him meaningfully by the forearm with the other.

‘Our home is your home,’ he said, looking, to David’s discomfiture, directly into the other man’s eyes.

‘I want you to know that.’

Then, glancing down, he saw the battered backpack at David’s feet.

‘Here, let me take that. Why don’t you get into the car.’

Turning to his wife he said firmly, ‘Meg, you ride in front. I’ll help David up here.’

Was this, now that she was settled in the car with her cherished, her long-awaited captive in the seat behind her, the epiphany she had been expecting, was this the reason she had been counting the months and days?

It was hard to say. For she had felt in that first rush of emotion, that first instant of physical contact, nothing but her own excitement, the joy coursing like Moet in her veins, and David’s fragile body yielding awkwardly to the strength of her embrace. Of his emotions she knew nothing, she had barely seen his face until, gripping him by the shoulders and taking a deliberate step back she had stared unabashedly at him for the first time. Now she swivelled around in her seat to look at him again, reaching out a hand to grasp his thin wrist, stroking the back of his hand with a slender forefinger, the nail a little ragged where it had been chewed, the purple varnish chipped at the edge.

‘We’re going to have a good time, you and me,’ Meg smiled, her voice light and caressing. ‘Just like old times. You’ll see.’

David was settled back on the black leather seat at the rear of the big BMW, his hands on his knees. It had all happened with unsentimental efficiency; a helping hand under his elbow, another guiding his hips, and before he knew it, his host was reaching around him to fasten his seatbelt, asking him if he wanted a rug to spread over his legs.

‘No thank you,’ David had protested under his breath, even though, despite the brightness, the late afternoon was cool, and he had felt keenly the wind whip around his legs as he and Meg had crossed from the shadows of Grand Central Station into sunlight. It was all too much, this solicitousness, the generosity, the almost too-friendly welcome; leaning back, he closed his eyes for a moment, and felt the car rock as Michael Cohen climbed up into the driver’s seat and pulled the door closed with a solid clunk. Now, when he opened his eyes, Meg was turned around, holding his hand, and saying something to him.

He smiled in reply, uncomprehending, and Meg, glimpsing suddenly in his darkened eyes and hollow cheeks the spectre of his vulnerability, quickly released his wrist and turned back, saying to her husband, ‘Michael, we’ve got to pick up David’s bags at The Roosevelt.’

‘You serious?’ Michael asked testily. ‘In this traffic? You gotta be kidding. Just kidding,’ he repeated, more loudly this time, looking back over his shoulder.

David closed his eyes again and waited until he felt the car glide powerfully out from the kerb, and then he opened them, feeling faint, conscious of his shallow breath. He stretched out an arm along the upholstered door, against the cold glass, as if steadying himself, and after a few moments he said, in a voice that was intended to be jovial, but was more of a rasping whisper, ‘This is very good of you, you know.’

Michael Cohen tilted his head, and studied him briefly in the rear-view mirror.

‘That’s okay,’ he said.

Life begins at 56

Life begins at 56.That, at any rate, is the idea. To call it a plan would be stretching things; to say it is a firm intention would be to provide  a hostage to fortune. But it is a hope, nonetheless.

Children out of the house, divorce (after four-and-a-half years of separation and low-intensity conflict) all but done and dusted, new relationship posing some new (do I move to Canada?) and some old (should we live together, should we get married?) questions, a fork in the road signposting quite different options and risks on the work front, a budding novel sitting untouched on the stocks – oh, and a house to be renovated. Does this sound familiar to anyone out there? Not in the details, necessarily, but in broad outline?

The world must be full of 56 year old survivors of life’s ups and downs trying to figure out the opportunities – or straighten out the mess, depending on how you look at it!

So why write about it? Is it not better to keep quiet perhaps, and try to figure out for myself what happens from here?

But, I wonder, where are the maps and markers? Where is the set of instructions?  This package doesn’t come with instructions; nor can it be returned for exchange. The only way is forward. The consequences will  only become clearer later, when it is too late to change direction.

If I lack a map, so I suspect do others. Perhaps the only map then is the map provided by those who are travelling a similar road. If this is the case, perhaps there is a responsibility to share one’s notes from the journey, for the entertainment if not necessarily the enlightenment of one’s fellow travellers.

Adherents to the cock-up theory of history will suspect that the journey I am about to begin is not exactly the logical next step in a well thought-out plan, an epiphany on some flower-strewn path to self-actualisation. They would be right, but not entirely.

The fact is, I took some decisions. I can’t say I foresaw all the consequences, but I can’t say either that I leaped blind. I knew what I was doing. I just didn’t know – won’t know, actually, until after, where it was taking me.

This journal will tell the story, as I go along. Whether anyone else will notice, or pay attention, remains to be seen. That, too, will be part of the story I guess. So here goes.