Corriebush was a neat little town.
‘Shipshape is how we describe it,’ the women would inform visitors when taking them round to show off the sights.
And they certainly had reason to feel proud, for the houses were regularly whitewashed, or painted in pastel shades; hedges always clipped as straight as arrows; and every garden meticulously designed – with flowers blooming in circular beds, and birdbaths or jolly gnomes planted neatly in the centres. Each front gate displayed a street number in shiny, polished brass, and many had name-plaques: Ons Huisie, ‘Rest-Awhile,’ or a combination of the owners’ first names – like Charlie and Nellie, who called their house ‘Charnel.’
The council regularly trimmed all the trees lining the pavements, except for the jacarandas, because everyone loved the purple blooms that floated down and carpeted the streets. There were no litter bins, because nobody littered. It was a neat town.
There was only one house in the whole of Corriebush that was totally neglected. The women were discussing it over tea on Lily’s stoep.
‘A dreadful sore eye.’
‘Eye-sore, Sophia.’
‘Eye-sore. It gives the town a bad name.’
‘Lowers the tone of the place.’
‘I can’t understand why somebody doesn’t buy it. There’s lots of potential there, they could do it up very nicely.’
‘I wonder who built it in the first place?’
‘Servaas says it was a convict who escaped from England on a ship, but then he died, and now it’s haunted.’
‘Ag, Servaas and his nonsense.’
Certainly the house did look spooky, standing lonely and scarred in the middle of a forest of weeds and twisted trees. The shutters hung limply, whipped loose by years of shrill winter winds, while a century of sun had raked the plaster from the bleached, pitted walls. The windows stared blindly, all shattered and empty, with only a jagged pane here and there reflecting glints of blue sky. It was a dead house.
And then one day, a lorry rumbled down the main street, a huge lorry loaded with bricks, bags of cement and wooden beams. With a loud grinding of gears and a great deal of hooting and bumping, it climbed the pavement before turning sharply into Marigold Avenue, where it grumbled to a stop outside the old house.
No sooner had the driver pulled up the brake when Lily was there. Amelia was not far behind, untying her apron as she rounded the corner, followed by Anna and Sophia and Nellie and Maria. But Daleen – Corriebush’s estate agent – had beaten them to it, and was standing, notebook in hand, looking important.
‘What’s going on here Daleen? Have you sold it at last? You didn’t tell us anything!’
Daleen took some time to answer, first chatting to the driver, then directing him, waving her arm this way and that. ‘Swing this way! No, no, sharp left. That’s it. Now reverse. Slowly, slowly, that’s right, try revving a little bit now. There you go! Brilliant!’
‘DALEEN?’
‘Just a minute Lily. I’ll tell you everything later, when I’ve supervised the delivery. It’s a tricky job, you know, and I’m in charge. Cash client. A V.I.P.’
The lorry finally made it into the pot-holed driveway, coming to rest in a fog of dust and engine fumes. When everything had been dumped, Daleen sat down on a broken log.
‘It’s a rich lady from the coast. She made enquiries, top secret you know, and I posted her all the details and she sent an architect to draw up plans for renovation. Then she bought it on the spot – no, I’m a professional and I cannot disclose the sum. That wouldn’t be ethical, and if I’m anything, I’m ethical. The lady said she was buying it on behalf of a good friend, and she thought it would suit her perfectly.’
‘Well, that’s very nice,’ said Sophia, swatting the air with her hands. ‘But if that driver doesn’t get himself fitted with a new exhaust pipe I’m not coming again.’
Nevertheless, she joined the others as they eagerly watched the house mushroom into life: sash windows, two gables, a teak front door and a verandah all the way round with a view over the town and straight onto the mountain. The garden was cleared and planted with calendulas and nasturtiums, which surrounded a fishpond with a mermaid in the middle. After three months the job was complete. And then the furniture arrived.
‘Antique stuff,’ Amelia told Daniel, who knew about furniture.
‘A yellowwood dining table, two Paul Kruger chairs, a stinkwood riempie bench for the verandah, a four-poster bed, a French armoire and a linnekas and …’
‘Enough. There’s a story there. Suddenly a woman no-one has ever heard of, a total stranger with a lot of money, buys a dilapidated house in Corriebush, fixes it up, then dispatches a friend to come and live in it. Strange. Very strange. Tell Lily to go and find out more.’
Flora Lategan arrived on Wednesday of the following week, and the women knew immediately because they had been keeping a daily watch. On the Tuesday the house was, as Nellie said, up and running but as quiet as a mouse, and then on the Wednesday evening – right out of the blue – there was a woman sitting on the stinkwood bench on the front verandah.
‘We must call on her,’ Lily told them, when they had gathered in her kitchen after supper. ‘Tomorrow. With a few eats and maybe one of those fancy cards. “Wishing You Bunches of Happiness In Your New Home”. Something like that.’
‘I’ll bake scones,’ said Nellie.
‘I’ll take the jam,’ said Amelia.
‘Pumpkin fritters for me,’ said Sophia.
And so they arrived all together the next morning, lifting the new brass knocker on the front door, quite breathless with the joy of it all, for welcoming strangers to Corriebush was such a pleasure.
The woman who answered their knock was, they saw immediately, one of their own. Middle-aged and smiling. Kind, gentle face. Hair in a bun. ‘Goodness gracious me!’ she exclaimed, clapping her hands. ‘Isn’t this a surprise! Come in, come in!’ And she put out her hand. ‘Flora Lategan from up the coast, near Plet. But just call me Florrie. Everyone does. Sometimes even Floribunda. I don’t mind.’
One by one they shook her hand and introduced themselves.
‘Well now, do sit down. Where shall we go? The dining room is a bit dusty still, so maybe the kitchen is the place, if you ladies don’t mind?’ They were delighted, other people’s kitchens were always of great interest to them. Surprisingly, it turned out to be an old-fashioned sort of kitchen. Large deal table, an Aga stove, open wooden dresser hung with china cups. ‘I wanted a kitchen just like Martha’s,’ said Flora. ‘To remind me of her always.’
‘Quite so,’ they nodded, not understanding any of it.
‘Such a lovely lady,’ Flora went on. ‘All this that you see here is thanks to Martha.’
‘How very kind,’ they agreed.
‘It’s not every day that somebody gives one a house.’
‘With furniture and everything.’
‘Is Martha your rich aunt, then?’
‘Ag, I’m so stupid. Of course you don’t know Martha. But let me first pour the tea and butter these delicious scones you brought, and then we can ‘chew the fat’ as they say.’
Sophia couldn’t wait. ‘Never mind the fat, Florrie. We’ve all got enough of that. We’re just longing to know who you are. I mean, we like you very much and all that, but we don’t know anything about anything. And so on,’ she finished, losing her thread completely.
Anna came to the rescue.
‘What is your trade, Florrie?’
‘She means profession,’ Lily quickly corrected her.
‘I’m a district nurse,’ Florrie answered. ‘You know, I go round with my medical kit and visit sick people in their homes.’
‘And then?’ Sophia was back again, wanting to know.
‘Well, I try to help them, and sometimes my patients become my friends. It goes like that with district nurses.’
‘And then?’
Flora realised there was no stopping Sophia. She would simply have to begin at the beginning. ‘Fill your cups,’ she told them. So they poured quickly, and then sat back eagerly, waiting.
‘It all started in Plettenberg Bay. My agency sent me there, and one of my patients was a lady called Martha Foster. She lived alone, in a big house overlooking the bay. She kept to herself, seldom leaving the house, spending most of her time sitting on a bench in her garden looking out to sea.’
‘And so?’
‘Before my first visit I asked the people in the village about her. It always helps if you have a little background about your patients before you start. And they told me her story.’
Immediately the women fell silent. This was what they loved best, and the very air in the kitchen rippled with anticipation. Their tea grew cold, the scones lay crumbled, half-eaten.
‘Martha Foster was a lovely girl. Tall and slender with gypsy-dark eyes and long, wavy black hair. Sometimes she drew it back and tied it with a red ribbon, but usually it swung free and shining, the colour of midnight, and when she walked in the wind it wrapped round her like a cloak. She and Edward Bellamy made a striking pair and the villagers always turned to look as they passed, for he was as fair as she was dark, and they were young and in love.
‘Ag siestog,’ said Sophia.
‘The wedding was set to coincide with Martha’s eighteenth birthday and, once the engagement had been announced, the small community hummed with excitement. This, everyone knew, was to be a memorable wedding because Martha Foster was no ordinary village girl. She had been only four years old when her parents had been drowned in a shipwreck. Sailing to England, the Crusader had run aground in a storm near Algoa Bay, and Martha’s guardian had brought her to live with her great-aunt Dora.’
The women were leaning forward now, elbows on the table, eyes fixed on Flora. Romantic stories were their favourites.
‘Dora Foster was an artist, a spinster who had settled in a small cottage in the village, because painting seascapes was her speciality. Finding that she was suddenly in charge of a four-year-old child came as a big shock. She wasn’t at all sure how to handle the little girl, so she simply sent her off each morning to spend her days with the other village children. And so Martha grew up barefoot and free, a child of the wind and the water just like the rest of them.
‘Until the day Aunt Dora told her about the money.’
‘The money?’
‘Now there’s a thing.’
‘I knew there was a twist coming.’
Florrie ignored the interruptions.
‘It was the morning of Martha’s tenth birthday. Aunt Dora called her to come to her studio – a small, dusty room, slanted with sunlight and splashed with easels and paint. Stepping back from the canvas on which she was working, she cocked her head to one side and said, ‘You should know, child, that on your eighteenth birthday you will inherit the Foster fortune.’ That was all. The old lady dipped her brush into the purple paint-water and, head, still on one side, returned to her easel.
‘The villagers said a few of them had been listening at the open window while Dora was speaking, and that Martha had stood quite still in a pool of sunlight. The child was probably having a wonderful vision of bags and bags full of gold coins. Then she skipped out of the room and down the sandy track to tell her friends. The children told their parents, and the news rippled through the village. The child was an heiress. She would be a very rich lady. ‘But whom,’ they asked, ‘will the poor little thing marry?’
‘Ag shame.’ Sophia could not help herself.
‘Not one of their sons, they decided sadly. Not a mere fisherman’s son. No, her groom would have to be a man from the city, or even a foreign country, not a poor fisherman’s son. And from that day Martha was set apart. Not unkindly; the children still played with her as they had always done, but she gradually became aware that she was no longer one of them. The fact of the matter was that she was an heiress with a destiny far beyond that of the average village child.’
‘Florrie does use big words,’ whispered Nellie.
‘Shhh. She’s not a district nurse for nothing.’
‘They watched as Martha grew from a sunburnt, leggy waif to a slender beauty. They watched while the other girls of her age were pairing off with boys, and Martha was never approached. The local lads were friendly enough, helped carry her school books and so on – but they never kissed her round corners the way they kissed the other girls. They knew her story. She was too grand for them. And Martha began to feel really lonely and bewildered. Until the day – the memorable day – that Edward Bellamy arrived in the village.
‘It was a crisp, clear morning in the middle of winter, when the sand squeaked cold underfoot, and the waves – navy blue, winter waves – splintered on the beach like ice on stone. The men were out in their boats on the bay, their wives busy mending their nets, spread out like giant cobwebs on the silky sand. Striding along the water’s edge came a barefoot and bronzed young man, kitbag in hand, long blonde hair down to his shoulders. Edward was a sailor. No-one knew where he had come from, but he turned up that winter’s day and before the sun had set in the evening all the women were clucking with excitement. Here was a stranger, a romantic and handsome stranger, and there was Martha, as ripe and ready to be picked as the juicy pomegranates that grew in every garden – perhaps, perhaps at last …
‘Ooh, now I’ve got gooseflesh,’ said Anna, wrapping her arms round her shoulders.
‘Edward had a pack of adventure stories to tell. Day after day he would sit on the beach, a far-away look in his deep blue eyes, and spin tales about elephants in Ceylon and giant snakes in South America; of glistening white icebergs and massive killer whales; of Oriental silks and precious jewels and of storms at sea when the waves rose up like dark glass mountains.
‘The simple village folk listened in wide-eyed disbelief. The children leapt with questions. They asked to hear the stories over and over again, and so the days became weeks, and the weeks became months, and by the time Edward had been accepted and assigned a regular place on a fishing boat, he and Martha were engaged. The villagers were overjoyed.
‘As soon as the wedding date had been set and the banns drawn up, they started improving the little church for the occasion, repairing the roof, hammering together new pews. At last this wedding – this wonderfully romantic wedding – would perfectly complete the story of Martha.
‘But even as they sawed and planed and plastered, even as Martha put the finishing touches to her wedding dress and Aunt Dora started painting her portrait, Edward was desperately trying to explain to her that he needed to go on just one more voyage. He was a sailor, and he loved the sea as much as he loved her. He wasn’t ready yet, he said, to settle down as a fisherman. ‘Please, please try to understand,’ he pleaded over and over. ‘I have to go just once more. A few months – and then I’ll be back forever. We’ll be married, and I’ll build you a house right on the beach.’
‘Ag no,’ interrupted Lily. ‘I just knew he was going to put a spanner in the works. It always happens.’
‘Well, on the day that Edward sailed for Spain, Martha stood on the shore until the sea lay empty; until the little ship with its cluster of taut, white sails had edged round The Point and slowly dipped below the horizon. And then, anxiously twisting her hair into a coil as she walked, she returned to the village and to Aunt Dora’s little whitewashed cottage – to wait.
‘Each day Martha went down to the water’s edge and looked out to sea. Through the dazzling blue summers and the wild, tossing winters she waited, while her gaiety grew old and died. The villagers stood by mutely, watching in dismay as their romantic dream faded. And when eventually the first streaks of grey threaded her long black hair, Martha used some of her inheritance to build the house on the cliff. For Edward.
‘And there she waited – in the house on the cliff – the great white house that shimmered in the heat of the summers, shuddered in the winds of winter, and glowed gently at night with the light of a candle burning brightly in a window, like a beacon. Her lovely face became sad and lined; her graceful figure became thinner and wasted. And still she waited.’
Now Florrie stopped to take a sip of her cold tea. Some of the women had tears in their eyes. They clucked their tongues, shook their heads, completely overcome by the thought of Martha’s heartache.
‘Now this,’ continued Flora, ‘was when the agency sent me to Plettenberg Bay, and one of the patients on my list was Martha. She had had a bad fall and injured her knee and I was to go and see what could be done.
‘When I first knocked at the door, there was no response. Then I heard a soft voice asking “Who is it?”. I turned the knob and, finding it unlocked, went inside. Martha was sitting in an old armchair, knitting. She looked quite frail, but her face was still lovely, and her hair carefully swept up. She looked at me with those dark eyes and said nothing. I examined her leg – it was only badly bruised – so I bandaged it, and offered to make her some tea. She was so grateful, and I started visiting her every day, cooking a hot meal, and staying for a chat. Soon she was no longer just a patient, we became friends.
‘Shame. She must have been so lonely until you came, sitting in that big empty house all alone.’
‘No, no, it was beautifully furnished. Comfortable sofas everywhere and paintings on the walls – but she always sat in the same chair next to the same little table. On it stood a framed photograph of a young blonde sailor. She did not know that I knew her story, and I never referred to it. But one day an incredible thing happened.’
Just then there was a knock at Flora’s front door. It was Harry the postman, and while she left the kitchen to receive her post, the women sat like statues, speechless for once, unable to anticipate the next chapter.
‘What happened,’ Florrie resumed, sitting down, ‘was that one day a sailor, a young blonde sailor, with his kitbag over his shoulder, came bounding up the old steps and hammered on the front door.
I saw him, through the window. Of course I answered his knock, and opened the door. And there on the doorstep stood the young man in the photograph.’
‘Ag no Florrie! That’s impossible!’ the women gasped. ‘Now you’re telling stories. How could it be?’
Flora smiled. ‘The young Edward Bellamy had none of his Spanish mother’s dark beauty; he was big and blonde like his father. He had come to visit Martha, he said, because his father had told him all about her after his mother had died. “My father is quite an old man now, living in Barcelona. It was here that he met my mother when his ship was in port for a few weeks. My mother was very beautiful, and he says he completely lost his heart. But Father never forgot his first love. And he said if my travels should ever bring me to this place, that I should please visit her and tell her he would always remember her, and to give her his fondest wishes.” And he moved forward, as though to step inside.
‘Quick as a wink I jammed my foot into the doorway. And I told him, I said, “Listen here, young man! If you think you’re going to just march in here and upset Martha Foster you’d better think again. No, no, NO! I have news for you. You’re going straight back to your Spain, and you’re going to fetch your father. You’re going to bring him here with you – and then – and only then will I let you into this house.”
‘Well, young Edward Bellamy just stood there and looked at me for a long time. I think he was shocked. But he stood there for so long that eventually I stood aside and he saw past me to where Martha was sitting, the sun was shining on her face and hair and she was looking out of the window at the sea. I think that was when he made up his mind.
‘It wasn’t more than three months later that the two of them walked up the steps together. Martha and I were playing a game of cards when I glanced up and saw them coming. I waited for them to knock. ‘I wonder who that can be,’ she said. ‘If it’s the baker, tell him two loaves, please.’
‘Well, I rushed. Flung the door open and stood aside, and in they walked. First the father, and then the son.’
‘And then?’ asked Sophia, wringing her hands.
‘Ag ladies, don’t ask me to describe what passed between those two people in that emotional moment. I just turned and looked the other way, both the son and I. Then we walked into the garden and stayed there, looking at the sea for a long time, before going back inside.’
‘I can’t stand it,’ wailed Amelia. ‘What did they do? Did they speak? Did they cry? Hold hands?’
Flora shrugged. ‘Who’s to know? But what I can tell you is that the two old people live there together now. The parson read a marriage service and she wears a ring, and every day they walk together on the beach, and the villagers – those who still remember them – smile and wave as they pass.’
‘Oh my, oh goodness me, what a story! It’s just like a book!’
‘It makes me quite sad, it’s so lovely, I mean that she got him after all.’
‘But I still don’t know how you come to be in Corriebush.’Sophia tapped the table-top with one finger. ‘Here. How do you come to be here?’
‘Listen, then. Martha found out that I was the one who had arranged their meeting. Edward told her. She insisted on giving me a huge amount of money and when I refused to take it she took matters into her own hands. She and Edward consulted estate agents, chose an architect, and had this house re-built for me; they even had it furnished with these lovely pieces. But she instructed the architect to keep the kitchen old-looking because we had had so many happy meals in hers, and she wanted me to remember.’
‘What an angel.’
‘And she chose Corriebush because she knew I had grown up in the Karoo and always longed to return.’
‘So how did she tell you? I mean, one can’t wrap up a house like other presents!
‘She asked me to come to supper one evening, she and Edward, and they handed me the title deeds. I cried then.’
‘Shame, Florrie.’
‘You see, I had worked all my life, and I had very little money, and she gave me my freedom. I can never thank her enough. I’ll visit them often, of course, Martha and Edward. Yes, I’ll keep an eye on them, take them photographs of the house, and rusks and venison and figs and other Corriebush things. But this is my home now.’
‘Oh yes,’ they repeated, all misty-eyed. ‘This is your home now.’
Sophia had the last word. ‘Ag what a beautiful story, Florrie. Just like a fairy tale.’
And for once she had got it right.