Ingrid, holding several large Bloomingdale’s shopping bags, stepped out of the yellow cab on the upper east side of Manhattan where she was comfortably settled into a privileged world of old money, even though she was a relative newcomer.
The doorman tipped his hat and held the polished glass door open for her. “Afternoon Mrs Forsythe.”
Ingrid ignored him, flicking her bouncing ash blonde hair as she strode past. She kicked the door to her third floor apartment shut behind her and dropped the shopping bags onto the sofa. Her apartment was in Yorkhill near the corner of Lexington and 77th, not far from Central Park Zoo and her favourite department store. The heavily framed mirrors, cream high–backed sofas and brushed aluminium lamps revealed her taste for Bloomingdale’s classic styles. She prised off her Ralph Lauren heels and flopped into an armchair still wearing her fur–lined coat. The phone rang.
“Oh God!” she mumbled.
She watched the phone with a disdainful look until the answer machine eventually clicked in.
“Hi Ingrid, it’s Otto. I’m not sure if you’ve been getting my messages…”
“Shit!” Ingrid muttered as she heaved herself up and strode towards the phone. “Hi Otto.”
“Ingrid?” Surprise in Otto’s voice.
Ingrid glanced at her gold wristwatch. “It must be very late in England, little brother.”
“Yes, it is… quite. I really need to speak to you.”
Ingrid picked up the phone and dragged the lengthy cord with her to the sofa where she resumed her original pose.
“Sorry, Otto, it’s been hell here.”
“Did you get my messages?”
Ingrid hesitated, examining her nails. “Yeah. Look, Otto, I don’t know what I can do. I haven’t spoken to Mum since…” Ingrid lifted both feet onto a cream pouffe and crossed her ankles, wiggling her painted toes. “She never did approve of my… lifestyle.”
Ingrid remembered the men she had brought to the house: successful, rich, usually divorced and universally disapproved of by both Mother and Father. In the end she married Frederick, who had taken her to New York. Ever since she considered that things had never been the same between her and the rest of the family again.
“How is Maurice?” Otto asked.
Ingrid pulled a face. “I divorced him six months ago.”
“Oh, sorry. No–one tells me anything.”
“Don’t be sorry, Otto, I got his lovely apartment,” Ingrid said with a smile as she glanced around the spacious living room.
“I thought you got Larry’s apartment?” Otto said.
“I got his money, and so I should have for putting up with the bastard. No, it was Newman, my second husband’s apartment that I got, but this one is better so I sold his. That really pissed him off.” She snorted.
Otto sighed. “Can we get back to Mum and this business back home?”
“That is not my home any longer, Otto; hasn’t been for a very long time. But I did get your message about finding a body or something. What the hell’s that all about?”
“We don’t know yet?”
“They identified the body?”
“No. It’s been sent to forensic labs in… er… Windhoek, I imagine.”
Ingrid raised her waxed eyebrows. “I can’t help you with this, Otto, and Mum certainly hasn’t called me about it,” she said, sounding indifferent and cold. “As she pointed out to me after I married Larry – or was it Frederick? – we all have our crosses to bear.”
Otto sighed irritably. “Ingrid, Mum has suffered a massive stroke.”
Ingrid’s feet dropped off the pouffe as she sat forward. “Stroke?”
“Yes. Quite a bad one, I’m afraid.”
“Why? How?”
“The stress, I expect. The discovery of the body really affected her.”
“Did she tell them anything?” Ingrid’s voice was suddenly a semitone tauter.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” Ingrid said, trying to sound nonchalant.
“I’m flying out tomorrow to see Mum. I’m really worried about her. I think Dieter is coming too.”
“Did Mum phone him?” There it was again: that insecure, bitter edge to her voice. She seldom referred to Dieter by his name, not since he had called her a gold–digger when she met Newman and divorced Larry. That was years ago, even before Father died.
“No, Ingrid, I did, the same day I left my first message for you.”
“Is Mum really that bad?”
“Yes. She’s in hospital in Swakopmund and she’s not waking up.”
Ingrid managed to cradle the phone against her ear and bury her face in the open palms of both hands, her eyes staring over her fingertips into her past.
“Will you come out and join us?” Otto asked.
Ingrid took several deep breaths, feeling her eyes twitching. In the background a distant NYPD siren filled the silence.
“I don’t think I can go back there. Lüderitz is such a dump and that house is filled with too many—”
“Come on Ingrid, we haven’t all been together for… I can’t even remember when last it was,” Otto pleaded.
Ingrid snorted. “Together? What’s ‘together’ about our family, Otto?” she said sharply.
“Let’s not get into this now. Mum needs us.”
“I have nothing to say to Dieter, you know that.”
Otto tactfully ignored the Dieter issue. “Let’s not have a repeat of Dad’s funeral. Come out this time, before it’s too late.”
Ingrid’s chest rose and fell with bottled–up emotions. “You really think there might be a funeral?” she said eventually.
“It’s a distinct possibility I’m afraid.”
Ingrid rubbed her temples. “I don’t know. What’s the point? The past is in the past.”
“Mum – your mother – may well die, Ingrid, that’s the point. Perhaps you could see her one last time, even speak to her. Eventually you will be free from the past that you seem to so despise, and then you can get on with your New York lifestyle unhindered.” Otto’s voice rose, a sudden loss of composure.
“Don’t lecture me, Otto, you of all people. You don’t know the half of it,” she replied venomously.
“Well then, after all these years of sniping and bitterness, come and explain it to me. I’ll be there from tomorrow night.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“You’ll be pleased afterwards if you make the effort,” Otto said, sounding much softer again. “It’ll be good to see you.”
Ingrid emitted a derisive nasal sound. “I wish I shared your optimism. Where the hell do you get it from, Otto?”