I WAS STANDING ANXIOUSLY outside Casualty when Dave drove in. Heat radiated up from the asphalt: autumn had scarcely touched the parking lot. Even the low-maintenance succulents in a bed outside the double swing doors looked wilted and dusty. I could feel a drop of sweat squirming down between my breasts, leaving a trail of itch in its wake.
Dave shepherded Mike towards me. He was holding a bloodstained towel to his chin, there were blood spatters on his white T-shirt and his hockey socks were crumpled round his ankles. Dave was carrying his sports bag and hockey stick. Suddenly Mike, who only a week ago had looked like a young man, was a vulnerable child again, his face streaked with blood and sweat. I phoned the doctor and told her we were at Casualty as I walked up to my son, aware of a look of faint alarm in his face. Surely I wasn’t going to hug him and make a scene here, in front of his hockey coach and other people?
I didn’t. I restrained myself, gave his hand a squeeze and thanked Dave. Then we headed in. A bored-looking nurse met us, and took Mike off to a cubicle while I dealt with the paperwork. God forbid that anyone should set foot in a hospital if they can’t pay. I produced the medical-aid card and filled in all the forms. By the time that was done, Samantha Naidoo had appeared, and we went into the cubicle where the nurse had removed the bloody towel and was cleaning the cut.
“Hello, Michael. Let’s have a look.” The doctor bent over him, her perfectly formed coffee-coloured breasts directly in his eyeline, and only just inside her low-cut shirt. Mike perked up immediately. As the nurse wiped his chin, I wondered if she was removing blood or drool.
“It’s not too bad – a couple of stitches will fix that.” Dr Naidoo asked him to move his jaw, and nodded. Mike was transfixed by her boobs, male hormones obviously undamaged in the fracas. She seemed aware of his interest but remained entirely unfazed by it, chatting cheerfully to him as she administered local anaesthetic and put in three neat stitches. The nurse stepped forward to dress the wound and give Mike an anti-tetanus shot.
“He’ll be fine. Probably a bit sore tonight, but nothing a couple of Panado won’t sort out.” She turned to Mike. “It may leave you with a sexy little scar, but that’s all.” She smiled at us, and was gone.
Mike slid off the bed and I picked up his gear. “Hey, Ma, that doctor’s cool!” he said as we headed out to the car. “I didn’t feel a thing.”
“Not surprising, chum. She anaesthetised you.” In more ways than one, I added under my breath. “Come on, Harrison Ford, with your sexy scar. Let’s get you home. You won’t feel quite so good when the anaesthetic wears off.”
“Sorry to mess up your birthday,” he apologised. When a teenager sheds that famed self-absorption for a moment, especially when he could legitimately be thinking about himself, it is particularly touching. Now, in the privacy of the car, I gave him a little hug.
“No problem, my love. Just don’t scare your ancient mother like that too often.”
Mike spent the rest of the day sprawled in front of the television. Normally on match days, he would meet up with some of his friends and they would do whatever it is that teenage boys do. I prefer not to think too hard about what that is. But, although he said he didn’t feel too bad, he was obviously going to milk the damage for the rest of the day and enjoy being waited on. Fair enough.
I was making him a cup of tea with a big slice of the chocolate cake my mother had made for my birthday and delivered when we collected the lime trees and which he felt he might be able to squeeze past his bruised jaw when my cellphone rang again. The two silent calls of the morning had slipped my mind in the more recent drama, but the prickles of fear returned as I flipped the phone open. “Private number.” I pressed the button.
“Hello? Laura Marsh here.”
“Mrs Marsh? This is Thabo Mchunu. You called me.” The voice was deep, slow and barely accented.
Mouthing to Mike that I would be back in a moment, I walked out into the garden.
“Thanks so much for getting back to me. As I mentioned in my message, I’m a friend of Daniel Moyo, and I’m very concerned about him. I believe you’re the person who gave him Mr Phineas Ndzoyiya’s contact details.”
“I am, yes.”
“Well, I wondered if …” How should I phrase this? “I wondered if you could tell me … whether either Daniel or Mr Ndzoyiya ever said anything to you, anything about their discussions? And what do you know about Mr Ndzoyiya’s ideas for remembering the victims of the Mendi? I believe you and he had a disagreement about it.”
“I don’t think I can help you, Mrs Marsh. I know Mr Moyo wanted to do some kind of painting about the Mendi. And I told him Mr Ndzoyiya had a wealth of stories, passed down from his grandfather. I gave him a telephone number. But that was all. I am not privy to any discussions they may have had.”
“But … you and Mr Ndzoyiya had talked about a memorial down in Pondoland. I wondered whether that could have had any bearing …” My voice tailed off. I was floundering. The silence grew, reminding me uncomfortably of the morning’s peculiar calls.
“I can’t see that any discussions I may or may not have had with Mr Ndzoyiya could be relevant to his contact with Mr Moyo. And certainly not to Mr Ndzoyiya’s murder – I presume that is what you are trying to investigate. I would suggest, Mrs Marsh, that you leave that to the police. They are the professionals. My relationship, if I ever really had one, with Mr Ndzoyiya is none of your business. I cannot imagine why you would think it is. Private meddling is not helpful. I would advise you to be careful. Interfering in matters that do not concern you could be dangerous. As you say in your idiom: if you do, it’s your funeral.”
Before I could stop myself, I said: “My Flash Funeral, you mean?”
There was what seemed to be a long, long silence. “Goodbye, Mrs Marsh.” And that was that.
I closed my phone, and stood for a moment, horrified by what I had done. At the start of the conversation Mchunu had sounded calm, not exactly hostile, but somehow formidable. And I had said the stupidest thing I could have. I regretted my call to him, furiously. He hadn’t told me a thing, and I had showed my hand, letting him know I had heard about his quarrel with Phineas Ndzoyiya, which presumably I could only have been told about by Paul.
And, what was worse, he was now aware that I knew about Flash Funerals, if they really existed – and if, in fact, they had something to do with the killing. If Thabo Mchunu had anything at all to do with Phineas Ndzoyiya’s death, I had alerted him to what I had found out and put him on his guard. If he had something to do with the attempted break-in at Paul’s house and the threatening phone call, I could now have put both myself and Paul at risk. Nervously, I pinched the leathery green needles of a rosemary bush between my fingers, releasing the lingering, pungent scent that for a moment seemed to fill the air. Rosemary for remembrance, said Shakespeare. Would I look back on this day with regret? I told myself not to be ridiculous, and, completely unpersuaded, made my way back into the house, wondering what on earth I should do now.