ALICE

His visit with his mother had not been pleasant, the business of dying never is, and on his way home Steve decided that he simply had to see Michael. He felt surprisingly clearheaded and was, to even greater surprise, sober—he wasn’t often sober now.

 

This was how Bart might have written it down, had he been witness to the most recent happenings on Elizabeth Street. The evening of Michael and Simon’s dinner, the evening of Steve’s mother’s death, was where the whole tragedy had begun. From the moment Steve had shown up at Michael’s door, things had gone progressively downhill. Bart would have come up with a reason for the accident that followed so shortly on its heels—drunkenness, recklessness, spite—when in reality there was none.

But Bart wasn’t the one writing it down. Not this time. Bart was cruel with words and said a thing in such a way that it could under no circumstances be mistaken as kind.

Steve and Morné didn’t end up making it home from the Botanical Gardens, and Morné never would. Steve broke both his legs, a small price to pay, but his black eye had healed well. The black eye had been inflicted by Rita when she confronted him in the hospital following the accident. An accident, that was truly all it had been.

In the time that had passed since then, Alice had hardly left Steve’s side, Wesley helping with the tasks for which Alice did not have the strength. Wesley also supplied him with alcohol, and after leaving the hospital Steve drank as if it was medicinal, but Alice quickly put a stop to that. Had he forgotten how Silas ended up?

Steve steadily began regaining his own strength, and Wesley came around less often now. There were few visitors, but Alice had to muster a whole different type of strength in order to explain to Peter’s mistress that the boy was dead. A helmet had not been enough. His throne stood empty, and Alice no longer descended into the depths of the swimming pool now.

The mornings had grown chilly, and it was with dread that Alice accepted winter had come. The girl had come looking for Peter; he lived with her briefly before disappearing altogether, and she had knocked on the wrong door. A pretty girl who constantly fell in love with the wrong men was the impression Alice got.

“So I would say you knocked on precisely the right door, my girl. If you’d gone knocking about over there instead, I don’t think the poor woman would have survived. We haven’t seen Peter since the day she kicked him out, and I think it would be best if we don’t see you around here again, either. I’m sure you understand—”

“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

“Things rarely turn out the way we mean for them to. If you ask me, nobody meant for any of this to happen.”

“And what if—what if I’m carrying his baby?”

“I wouldn’t say that to anyone around here if I were you.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“God only knows. You have succeeded in robbing that woman of half of all that was ever dear to her, and now she has nothing left. If you ask me, you’ve done quite enough.”

Alice and Steve passed the days building jigsaw puzzles, each starting from one corner and then another on a tray of their own, only putting the whole thing together on the kitchen table when all the pieces had been used up. Alice sat for numerous portraits, and she sometimes read to him from her book, though never the story about Mavis Delport, and how she fell in love with Septimus de Klerk.

He kept the photographs he had taken of Morné in the swimming pool that day close at hand, and often laid them out on the covers as if they were puzzle pieces themselves. One day he asked Alice if she had a nice frame lying around somewhere. Not for a photograph, but for the resulting painting, which he kept hidden from view.

Was there any great difference between a painting and a photograph? The one merely captured a moment, he said, but the other held memories, and in it he had invested part of himself. What did he have in mind? He wanted to gift it to Rita, he said, though he wouldn’t blame her if she wouldn’t accept it now. Time, said Alice, would heal all.

If she had had a dream she could recall, she told him about it, and he told her about his nightmares in return. In one of her dreams, she took Evelina a pair of baby booties for her new granddaughter, but when Evelina opened the box there was only a tangle of yellow wool inside. She tried to say something, to speak, but no words left her lips.

And then there was the dream about the RIP being painted on the front window of Silas’s shop, Alice watching from the inside but still unable to identify the perpetrator. The window was a window, but a mirror as well, and Alice was busy fastening around her neck a string of large plastic pearls.

There was one more dream—sometimes she managed to dream even when she fell asleep for only a few minutes in the den—and in it the young man helping Dot to write her autobiography was peppering her with questions regarding events in her own life, names, dates, the color of a certain dress, whose answers she could not recall.

Sometimes she and Steve played the now familiar game of Confessions.

“It was an accident, Auntie Alice,” said Steve. Dozens of conversations had begun with these words.

“I know, Stevie. It’s all right.”

“I wasn’t going fast, I swear. It was an accident.”

“I know, I know.” Often there were tears, and the first time it happened she reached into the pocket of her housecoat and handed him the first scrap of tissue she could find. It was Queen Elizabeth’s quote from the movie. She told him about her movie date with Silas, and how glad she was that she hadn’t then known it would be their last.

“I think I’m falling in love with him.”

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

“Not Wesley. The brother. The younger one.”

“But you don’t even know him.”

“But he’s so pretty. All I need is a little TLC from him, and I’ll be right as rain again in no time. You know, I’ve never really gone on a proper date. Dinner or a movie. It’s always dancing, and drinking, and then straight to bed, if there happens to be one handy.”

Alice sympathized where she could. “In my day we had drive-ins,” she might say in response, using the same confessional tone but often confessing nothing at all.

She did tell Steve about Frans Brink; she showed him the photograph she still kept hidden away. A more handsome man she dared anyone to find. She was selling flowers then, and he was buying flowers for his wife. She was given a second chance at motherhood when she became pregnant with his child, but he left her no choice, and very early in the pregnancy she had it terminated, sacrificing the love of a child for the love of a man.

“You must tell me when you’d like me to read you something from my book.”

“I’m sure Auntie Alice knows that book by heart by now. What happened to Gloria’s book?”

“Did I tell you I had a—a what-do-you-call-it—a dream, that I opened this book and it was blank? From the very first page to the very last. I don’t know what I would do.”

When Steve fell asleep, she bookmarked the page with the scrap of paper reading FORGIVENESS, also found in the depths of the pocket of her housecoat. She might use Morné Morné Morné instead, but never without a lump in her throat.

On one occasion she read to Steve and he said that he didn’t think Elizabeth Street as Bart described it ever really existed. He mustn’t talk like that, she said in response, that what was written in that book was what would be remembered about them in the end, when all was said and done, and Steve never dared utter such blasphemy again.

“If Uncle Silas was a grandfather, wouldn’t that make Auntie Alice a grandmother then?”

“I could be, who knows.” But she wasn’t talking about Silas or his grandchildren now.

“Have you seen the baby?”

“And where would I have had the time when I’ve been holed up here with you?” As if it was his fault she’d had no word from Deidre. She did hope that it was a girl.

After such an outburst she took time to herself, and her radio was nearly always by her side. She might go out into the yard and look up at the wall of widows rising from Hepburn Street, wondering if anyone was up there looking down. Steve was a young man who needed his own time and space as well, and often Alice returned with a snippet or tidbit she had heard over the airwaves, something they could discuss.

Dinah still came around, but Alice found herself growing increasingly frustrated with her knitting and no longer did so while she waited for the cat to come eat. Sometimes she merely sat brooding in the kitchen, hardly listening to the radio at all.

Who do you think is going to pay for this baby? Your mother and me.

She is not my mother, and this is not your child. It will never be.

Following such a declaration, surely that was what she had said, what could Alice have done but leave home? It was true that she couldn’t afford to keep it, but had she chosen differently she might have seen it—him—grow up. She would have been his sister, and when he was old enough to understand, she would have explained to him that she was in fact his mother.

In time he would have come to love her as his mother, and by now she would have seen him long married with children of his own. He might have grown up to be like Steve, and that would have been all right as well. There would certainly have been questions about his father, she would have answered them, and perhaps there would even have been some sort of search.

“Did you know that Silas had had a son? He died young. That was an accident, too.”

“We never did have that street party, you know.”

“We didn’t, did we?”

“We still could, once I’m rid of these things.” He continually asked her to write something on the casts on his legs, but she always declined with the excuse that she wasn’t creative enough for that. She was no writer, after all.

“No, no, the time for that has passed. Must I read you something from my book?”

“How about telling me something instead. A story.”

“You sound just like Morné now. Did I ever tell you how Silas asked me to marry him?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, I came into his shop looking for a present for my brother’s birthday—he’s high up in government, a very busy man. I was looking for a—an arm clock—you know, a really smart one. I stood looking into the case, and Silas stood looking at me, and suddenly he said, ‘It’s about time you and I got married, don’t you think?’”

“And Auntie Alice said yes?”

“I’m sitting here telling you now, aren’t I?”

“Just like that?”

“Just so. Not many now remember things as they used to be. Everyone’s moved away. Everyone’s moved on, and all I have left is this book. It’s become very precious to me.”

“I came back, eventually.”

“You’re not going away again, are you?”

“Doesn’t look like I’ll be going anywhere anytime soon.”

“You just mustn’t neglect Michael, do you hear? He’s a good man.”

Steve was silent for a moment and then asked if she was all right.

“Did Silas tell you to ask me that? I’m fine, just fine. No matter how things change, I’ll be here, always. Always Alice, almost Alice, like Queen Elizabeth on her throne. On Opal Street.” The days would certainly continue to grow bleaker, and colder still, but there was no denying winter had come.

 

 

Alice sat with the tangled mess of yellow wool in her lap and waited for Dinah to come eat. She could hear Steve crying in his room—he had every reason to do so—even after she had turned the radio’s volume up. She found she couldn’t remember the young man’s name, the one helping Silas’s sister with her book, but what good would it do her when she could hardly manage to remember her own.

Rupert, was it not?

She had not yet told Steve about Dot’s book. She had asked him if there was anything he would like put on his mother’s grave, since she would be making the rounds; perhaps that was why the tears had begun. No matter how old they were, all boys needed their mothers as much as all mothers needed their sons.

Out of the four graves that Alice visited, one had a headstone—the other three would need time to settle—and it was there that she allowed herself to rest. When she grew weary of talking, she began to hum, and it wasn’t long before the tune carried her thoughts into the trees, shaking loose a handful of leaves.

She found the author of her fate—an image of Bart as he had looked more than a decade earlier presented itself in her mind—living in the block of flats towering over Elizabeth Street. Number seven-one-four. In the lobby a note on the sliding doors of the elevator revealed that it was not in working order, and that her only alternative was to climb the seven flights of steps to the top. The first landing smelled of piss, and somewhere a baby could be heard screaming at the top of its lungs. Alice quickly moved on. The building had always seemed decent enough. Two, three (someone was banging on a set of drums), four, five.

By the sixth landing, she began to feel her age, and by the time she reached the seventh floor, she was already dreading the journey back down. But she couldn’t—wouldn’t, simply refused to—show up at his door huffing and puffing, and she composed herself as best she could before setting off.

The words of an old country and western song were trickling out beneath someone’s door, and when Alice reached the flat she was looking for, she reached through the security gate and knocked. The young man wasn’t long in answering.

Alice, what are you doing here?

I’m not disrupting anything, am I?

The young man looked as if he’d just tumbled out of bed. She’d assumed that he would know what her intentions were, and she was as caught off guard as he.

Were you sleeping?

No, no, though if I’m being honest, I’d probably have been better off. How did you find me?

Are you going to let me in, or are you going to stand out here in the passage so that the whole world can hear?

She wondered if he recognized the song. He wasn’t long in unlocking the security gate and stepping aside. Alice stepped into the first doorway on the left—it was the kitchen, the counters piled high with dirty dishes—and urged him to lead the way. The dark hallway opened up into a bright sitting room mere steps farther. Have you been ill?

Sick?

Under the weather. In which case I could excuse the dirty dishes. You know the one thing I can’t stand is a sink full of dishes.

I’ve been—yes. Under the weather.

The bedroom and bathroom were located opposite each other on the right, and at the far end of the sitting room there was another doorway, presumably leading to the bedroom as well. The far wall was nearly all glass and let in a great deal of light.

There were stacks of books on every surface and across the floor, and Alice’s initial impression was of a metropolis in miniature. He hurriedly attempted to clear a chair so that she could sit down—her cheeks must still be flushed—and in the process caused one of the towers to topple. A second crumbled as well.

Dominoes, said Alice, and made her way toward the windows. Look at that view. Like mice in a maze they must seem, always scurrying here and there, but then, mice were not often seen watering the hydrangeas. She could only imagine what it looked like in spring, when all the jacaranda trees were in bloom. Or during a thunderstorm when streaks of lightning lit up the heavens far beyond. She was merely playing for time, delaying the inevitable confrontation.

Against one wall stood a piano. From the piano bench he picked up an old paperback—the edges of the pages were a blueish-green—and began wobbling it in his hand.

How did you know where I live?

Don’t look so surprised. Or were you just going to pretend that I don’t exist now that you’ve finished with me?

That’s part of the problem—

You’re telling me. You’ve made a great mess of things, and you think simply slapping on “the end” settles it just fine?

Is that why you’ve come? Because you didn’t like the ending?

Well, is that any great surprise?

You didn’t find it poetic?

Poetic? What good’ll that do? I’ve got a long list of complaints. All the poetry in the world won’t help me now. May I step outside? Like a child unable to sit still.

By all means. Feel free. As soon as she opened the glass door, Alice was enveloped by the noise of the city from below. Sirens, traffic. An ambulance passed on the street. An ashtray held two half-finished cigarettes.

Do you smoke?

I tried, thought it might help pass the time. Listen, Alice. I’m sorry, and I do understand how you feel. Believe me. But it wasn’t up to me to determine when our time came to an end, and it’s not up to me to determine how you spend the rest of yours.

So that’s it? You leave the two cripples saddled with one another and wash your hands clean of it all? It’s almost as cruel as that invitation I never received.

That was out of my hands. Michael’s his own person. How could I have helped it? And I don’t see anything wrong with your legs.

And with my mind? You couldn’t have had Simon intervene?

Listen, you think it’s been easy for me? Huh?

Are you depressed?

No. Maybe. A little.

What have you got to be depressed about? You’re young and full of life. The world is your—she cupped her hands on top of each other—oyster. Do you know what an oyster is?

Alice looked at her small square house down below. Silas had been right—Elizabeth Street curved at a perfect angle around the empty block. There really is no better spot from which to keep an eye on things. Was I merely a matter of convenience? Is that why you chose me? Because you could keep an eye on me from up here.

I didn’t choose you.

No? Well, I certainly didn’t have a say in the matter.

I found you.

Oh, is that so? Excuse the hell out of me. Found me like some—like some—did you? Alice found it exhausting to put up such a stern front and did not feel that she was very convincing in doing so. She had trouble knowing what to do with her hands and rather wished that she was holding a cigarette between her fingers.

You don’t understand—

You have a responsibility is all I’m saying. If you had children, you’d understand. But what am I saying? What do I know about children? Who’s going to look after me? My husband is dead, or have you forgotten? He’s the only one who might possibly have looked after me. What am I going to do when Steve packs his things and goes? Where am I going to go?

I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know why you think I have the answers you’re looking for. I suppose you’ll have to go into a home.

A home? You suppose?

A care facility.

Oh, a care facility. And what’s going to happen to me there? Are you going to pay for it?

They’ll look after you, take care of you.

You couldn’t have given me cancer, like Steve’s mother? In that case, I’d already be dead.

And what if Silas had survived? Do you think he would have been able to live long without you?

Alice hadn’t thought of it like that, but then the young man did have a way with words. The image of her mother hanging by her neck from the limb of a tree flashed through her mind again, but she did not dismiss it at once.

You couldn’t have sent my son looking for me?

How do you know he isn’t out there somewhere looking for you? What control do I have over that? And why didn’t you go looking for him?

Can’t you lead him to me?

If he is out there looking for you, he’ll have to find you himself. I don’t have any say over that.

There seems to be an awful lot you don’t have a say over.

Would you like to come inside and have some coffee? Tea? Alice didn’t think he had a single clean cup.

Don’t you have a name for me? Just a name is all I ask.

I’m not psychic, Alice. Don’t you think I would give you these answers if I had them? Don’t you think I want you to be at peace as much as I long to be at peace? You’re not the only one who feels anything, you know. And you’re not the only mother ever to have lost a son. Alice reached out and clung to the railing, for lack of something better to do with her hands.

And am I now to be tossed aside like yesterday’s breakfast? She could feel herself growing increasingly flustered.

Last I checked, you did manage to survive for most of your life without me.

What happened to the memoir you were helping her to write?

She wasn’t interested in the words. She was interested in the past and in trying to relive it in the present. Is that a yes or a no on the tea?

I don’t want any tea. Thank you.

How about a board game?

Is that your idea of a joke? I’ve never been good with words.

I don’t know how I’d live without them.

I’ll wash your dishes, if you’d like. But you have to dry them—I’m not your maid.

If I’d known you were coming, I’d have cleaned up.

What’ll you do with your time now that it’s all said and done? Now that the fat lady has sung? Now that the writing’s on the wall, or what have you.

Catch up on some reading, perhaps. Ever read The Girls of Slender Means? Tell me, Alice, how would you rather have your story end?

Can’t it be just the effects of old age?

And what about your grandfather? Or was it just a case of getting old?

In that respect, he did have a point, though she wouldn’t have said as much to his face.

And what if I simply take a flying leap? Right here over the edge of the balcony. It’s not unheard of, you know.

That would be a little overdramatic for an ending, don’t you think?

A little overdramatic indeed. It wasn’t one of Dot’s soap operas, after all. She wanted to ask if he still played the piano, but did not get the chance.