Here is the thing about living a secret: you have to have the stomach for it. Some people thrive on the little charge they get from doing something illicit, something not even those closest to them would suspect. When Grace thought about it, she knew that her father must have been such a man. Grace, however, was not a woman who could live a secret. It was one thing to leave the past where it belonged, but when it came back in the form of letters and people? No. Those kinds of secrets were too heavy for her, and the thing at the bottom of her bag, the thing which had now doubled its danger with the scribbling of a few digits on its surface, gnawed at her. She could not quite believe David had said nothing when her face must so clearly have spoken of her guilt. The knowledge of what lay in her bag pulled her spirit down; made her wonder what the hell had possessed her to keep this thing, the defining thing about herself, from David. Her father was a murderer. He had murdered her mother, yet her husband had no idea. The father of David’s wife, the grandfather of his daughter, was a killer. What if this thing was genetic? What if Grace had it in her too—didn’t David have the right to know? Would David still love her if he did? There was not only that, the murder, but also the lie. She had told him that her parents had died in an accident. Even if she came clean about it now, what would it say about her that she had been with David for years and had not entrusted him with the truth? David was a lovely man, a gentle man. Grace had known, instinctively, that if she had told the truth before their marriage, it would not have changed his feelings for her. He loved her deeply, this she knew. The facts of her childhood would probably have made him even more protective of her. This struck Grace as his weakness: his goodness, and his belief in the innate goodness of others. David had not seen the ugly side of life as she had. The childhood he’d described to Grace was happy and uneventful. The worst trauma he’d experienced was his father dying at too young an age, of a heart attack. That loss had sealed his relationship with his mother, Gwen. She was one of David’s primary confidantes. He did not know the propensity for violence that lay just beneath the surface of every human being, even those closest to us; had no idea of the intimate cruelties that could inhabit the architecture of a life. He had not been hurt in that way, ever, by those he held dearest. It made him vulnerable. He trusted and depended wholly on Grace, a trust unreciprocated by his wife.
Although she loved David as much as she had loved any other person in her life, Grace had never fully surrendered herself to him. She carried within her the silent knowledge that she would be able to walk away from him at any moment if needed. Grace had had a backup plan since the day they promised fealty, a plan she could execute if she ever needed to leave: a bit of money stashed in a bank account he knew nothing of, extra sets of clothing for her and Sindi in a drawer she could empty in one minute with the sweep of a hand; ID book and bank card securely stored; cash tucked in an envelope at the bottom of another drawer. If needed, Grace could disappear with Sindi in less than ten minutes and never have the need to look back. Or so she thought. David was innocent of these things she kept in shadow. Although he was very much the head of the household, the back door from the marriage that Grace left ajar gave her a sense of control, a feeling of having the upper hand. A woman should always be with a man who loves her a little more than she loves him. Grace could still hear the authority in Mary’s voice as she’d imparted this bit of advice. Grace believed it, even though Patrick’s brand of love had gotten her mother killed.
Sometimes this need for control shamed Grace, but she needed it all the same. It gave her a measure of comfort with being owned, in that peculiar way marriage allows, by a man. Aunty Joan’s advice had contradicted Mary’s. As always, they had different approaches to the question of men. Joan had drummed it into her: never be dependent on a man. Make part of your life your own, so that you’ll be able to walk away if you need to. She didn’t have to say the unspoken, that Mary would still have a life had she been able to do this.
The weight of Grace’s old and new secrets grew daily, strangling what little vitality she had left out of her and waking her in the middle of the night. Should she tell David about her father? What would he think of her? And what about Johnny? In her mind, Grace’s life had been sharply delineated by her mother’s death. Everything she knew before that line had inexorably been drawn through it had disappeared or been taken away from her: her mother, her home, Johnny, even her clothes and little treasures collected as a child. On the other side, she had spent most of her life longing for these things: Mary, Johnny, a feeling of home. She had gone some way in creating a home and a family with David, but there was always the ache of some essential part of her missing. Her mother, obviously, but Johnny was tangled into that loss in ways Grace couldn’t always unravel. Now he was there. It was just like him to walk back into her life on an unassuming night. And although she didn’t want her life disrupted by what was done and buried, she longed to see him again. God, he had survived those desperate years. Grace wanted to know how. She felt an excruciating need to know his story and to share hers with him; to stand their stories side by side and enmesh them like the twin helix of a strand of DNA.
She thought about how to welcome Johnny into their lives. Invite him for tea? Introduce him to David? The thought of them meeting was like a brick to her stomach. How would she explain Johnny? If she introduced him as a childhood friend, David would bustle with questions about what she had been like, what they’d done together, which parent she most strongly resembled. David had tried a few times after they were married to excavate some happy memory, surely she must have had some—but she refused to speak about her parents at all. The few pictures she owned of them revealed young, smiling faces unaware of what life held for them, entranced with each other. She had offered these reluctantly to David along with a portrait of Mary which had been prized while she was alive. In it, Mary shone. David had remarked on Mary’s beauty, stirring the old discomfort in Grace. There was the gold cross, Mary’s, which always dangled around Grace’s throat. David had never seen his wife without it.
If Johnny came onto the scene, old questions that had been laid to rest would start churning again, burning their way through the placid surface of Grace’s new life. No, she could not afford to let the two men meet.
But she needed to see Johnny again. She wanted to hear everything she’d missed, wanted to know whether she’d left a hole in his life the way he had in hers. A week after their reunion on the station, Grace felt herself digging in the bottom of her bag for the envelope, soft by now from her pawing. She had touched it often, feeling it again and again for some kind of reassurance that Johnny was real, that she had not just imagined him on that train. One afternoon she waited until after the work day, when everyone was gone from the office. She pulled out the envelope and smoothed it out. Then she lifted the phone and dialed the number that was written on it. A woman answered. Was it Rowena? Of course not—he wouldn’t still be living with them after all these years. The voice on the other end of the line called his name, and there were muffled sounds as distorted voices floated to Grace’s ears. She almost slammed the thing down. What was she doing? What did she want from this man? Then his voice came through, clear and immediate, and she smiled, happy to hear it.
“It’s good to hear from you,” he said, after preliminary greetings. “I was hoping to hear from you.”
“It’s good to hear your voice too,” she said.
Then what? They were happy to hear from each other, happy to once again be within reach of each other, but what else was there to say, beyond that? A tenuous past bound them, much of it belonging to the territory of the unspoken.
Johnny broke the silence. “It’s hard to talk like this. There’s a lot I want to say.”
Grace nodded in assent into the receiver, as if he could see her. She liked his directness.
“Let’s meet, Grace. Can you meet me for a drink one evening? Tomorrow?”
No, she couldn’t. Not so soon. Grace wanted to see him but needed time to think. All of a sudden, it felt wrong to be making arrangements for a drink with what was after all a strange man. “Next week then. How about next Thursday?” Johnny said.
She was surprised by his insistence after all the years of doing nothing to find her, but she agreed—next Thursday would be good. That gave her enough time to think about what she needed to hear from him and enough time to change her mind, even though she knew at the moment of agreement that she wouldn’t. They decided on a pub in a suburb close to her home. It would just be one or two hours, long enough to talk uninterruptedly and find what was to be found in one another. She would explain to him about David, how he didn’t know about her past and how she’d like to keep it that way, paving the way for an introduction of the two with her secret still intact. It didn’t occur to Grace that in setting this plan in motion she might be entering into a conspiracy of silence against her husband with another person.
Grace’s week passed in a flurry of work and caring for Sindi. The baby was teething and kept her up every night that week. David was preparing his students for the June examination and worked late into the night, often collapsing into sleep on the couch in the living room. Grace hardly saw him and their communication dwindled to truncated conversations over hastily prepared dinners. Exhaustion cloaked her shoulders, but resting her tired mind on Johnny provided respite—a sweet savoring of the anticipation of seeing him again. Grace was aware of a deeper stirring; this pleasure was not entirely innocent, but she convinced herself that it was okay to be happy about retrieving such a large part of her lost childhood. Wasn’t that what she wanted—to go back and rewrite her broken childhood? She shut off these meandering thoughts which became, after a few days, like treacle flowing through her brain, reassuring herself that it was her right to be happy to see an old friend. Grace smoked more, inhaling every doubt that crossed her mind with the diaphanous bands of smoke. Fear and guilt about Johnny and the past gathered into her throat, lungs and blood vessels, spreading like a drug through her body, along with the excitement at the thought of seeing him again.
Thursday arrived, and Grace was ready. She had told David the night before that she would be meeting friends from the office after work, a development he found odd, but didn’t say much about. Grace was not one for finery, but on this night she wore her most flattering skirt with a fitted blouse buttoned to the throat. And as always, her throat was guarded by Mary’s cross. She found some long-forgotten lipstick in her desk drawer, carefully applied it at the bathroom at work, then wiped it off again with a tissue. She left the office with a mixture of dread and delight running through her veins.
Johnny wasn’t in the pub when she arrived. Grace got a small table and waited with her back deliberately to the door, so that she wouldn’t appear to be desperately scanning each person who entered. For a moment, she prayed that he wouldn’t come—that would solve her secrecy problems and relieve her of a growing sense of unease. She could go home, pretend that none of this had happened, that she hadn’t met him on the train, hadn’t arranged to see him behind David’s back, hadn’t lied to her own husband. She could get up out of her seat at that very moment and still walk away from a situation that would be difficult to explain were David to find her here. She looked up and Johnny was there, smiling, and it was as if he’d never left her side.
Over beer they closed the distance between then and now. They reminisced about how things were, remembering the neighbors, remembering how they used to lounge in the back yard when Johnny took a break from his garden chores to eat the sandwich Mary made him; Mary and how stern she was—funny recollections of being kids in an irretrievable, but still-present place. Johnny reminded her of the fun part of her life then, the innocence of the games they played and their grumblings about chores. He took her back to a place which was surprisingly sweet, reminding her that there had been more to life than just violence and chaos. He shared details about Mary Grace had forgotten. In that pub he resurrected Mary for a brief but magnificent spell, making Grace see her through eyes she thought she had lost.
“Don’t call me aunty!” He did a bad impersonation that somehow had the right tone.
It was the first time Grace had spoken about Mary, had said the words “my mama” out loud in years.
Johnny teased her about her shyness as a girl, while confessing his awkwardness too, their laughter followed by silence as each one’s memories jogged private recollections.
“Your father was very good to me,” Johnny said. “The only man, besides Tim, who took an interest in me and, you know, guided me.”
His tone was reverent, like a boy remembering a beloved, departed uncle.
“And what possible good advice could you have gotten from a murderer?” she said.
Silence fell between them in the space where just minutes before laughter had bubbled. Fury crept up Grace’s throat, but she swallowed it.
After all the years, there was still the instinct to cover up, not to air the family’s dirty laundry.
“He just snapped,” she said. “I never understood how he just snapped like that, Johnny.”
He faced her squarely.
“It’s me, Grace. You don’t have to pretend. I know what happened in your house long before your mother died. Everybody knew.”
“Why didn’t they help us then?”
“Well, it was your parents’ private business. No one has the right to interfere between a man and his wife.” He paused. “But no one thought he had that in him. I mean, if it was so bad, why didn’t your mother just leave him?”
Grace remembered the question from childhood. Ouma, when they met that one time without Patrick’s knowledge at the Wimpy for breakfast: “Why don’t you just leave, my child?”
Mary never had an answer then, and Grace didn’t have one now. She did try to leave, over and again, but see what had happened when she made her final move, once the divorce papers were signed? Grace felt the shame of it all, fresh as if it had happened yesterday, rise to her face.
Johnny ordered another round of drinks and changed the subject. He talked about Tim and Rowena, telling Grace how they’d saved for years and had finally moved out of the crowded garage. He still saw them, though they, like everyone else, were getting on in years.
Grace smiled, grateful for the change in topic. She realized they hadn’t actually talked about his life, about the things that had happened to him during that terrible time when he went missing. She had no idea what Johnny had gone through. She was not the only one who suffered during those years.
“When you disappeared, what happened? What did they do to you, Johnny?”
Johnny’s eyes clouded over. He took a deep gulp of beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. A low, bitter laugh escaped his lips; his eyes refused to meet hers. Hurt lay shallow there. Grace regretted having asked the question, so soon. They’d only just found each other again. They faced each other wordlessly, the happy reunion now riddled with memories they’d both fought hard to forget. Grace wanted to know, and she didn’t. She also wanted a smoke, and Johnny was happy to oblige. They moved outside and both lit up.
The night was damp, swirling with a centuries-old Cape Town sorrow. She leaned against Johnny’s car, savoring the fragrant smoke and its calming effect on her body. Johnny paced before her, tracing an invisible line with his feet. He reminded Grace of a dog on a chain being pulled repeatedly back into his allotted space. He was so different and yet so similar to the Johnny she had loved many lifetimes ago. He looked up from his pacing and caught her studying him. They both smiled.
“I’m so happy to see you, Johnny.”
He walked over to her in one giant step, encircled her with his arms and kissed her. Grace didn’t fight it or feign resistance—she wanted this, wanted him. His body against hers, his lips on her skin felt like a homecoming, a sacred entry into a place toward which she had been journeying her whole life. His embrace unlocked her body and spirit. She opened to the world she had worked all her life to keep at bay; felt the energy of a million stars vibrate and flow through her. A weight flew off her.
They remained locked in an embrace long after the kiss ended. Grace realized that now that she had found Johnny, she didn’t want to let go of him. A lonely car, lights dimmed by fog, crawled past them in the narrow street. Despite the cold, Grace’s skin flushed. Finally, she broke the spell.
“I should get home. Please, let’s go.”
They went back inside, where Johnny paid for their drinks.
In the light of the pub, Grace couldn’t bear to look at him.
Once outside again, he unlocked the car door and held it open for her. They made the short drive in silence, with Grace speaking only to give him directions. The car stopped outside the house which contained David and Sindi, Grace’s whole life, everything she loved, and Grace felt something tear inside of her.
Can I see you again?” Johnny asked.
“No. No. We are never doing this again.”
Grace jumped out of the car and slammed the door, damp air cutting into her skin. She ran up the steps to the front door, taking them two at a time, not stopping to look back.
In the warmth of the living room, David was crowing at Sindi, who was still awake way past her bedtime, while his mother, Gwen, looked on. Great! This was all she needed—her mother-in-law. Gwen loved lingering conversation, always asked how she was and genuinely listened to the answers. Tonight, Grace just couldn’t. David and Gwen looked up and smiled as Grace entered and Gwen rose from her seat to kiss her.
“Grace! I haven’t seen you in such a long time!”
As she kissed Grace’s cheek, she instantly recoiled. For a few seconds her eyes held Grace’s, filled with bewilderment. She looked Grace up and down until Grace could feel her skin burning under the older woman’s gaze. Was it the cigarette smoke that clung to her, or the smell of another man? Gwen seemed to see through her. Had she guessed what had transpired just a few minutes ago?
“Are you feeling okay, Grace? You’re burning up.”
“No, Ma Gwen. I don’t feel good. I think I’ve caught some bug.” The two women had always adored one another. After Aunty Joan had died, Gwen was the only mother Grace had known. On the day she and David married, she had welcomed her into the family by calling Grace her daughter. The title sat uneasily with Grace, yet the affection between them was heartfelt, in many ways sustaining Grace as she moved from young woman to wife, to mothering. Grace admired the way Gwen had raised her son. David’s steady, calm way was a testament to his mother’s love and discipline. To be caught in such a sordid act by Gwen would plunge Grace into a place beyond shame. But here she was, full of love and concern, draping a tender arm around her daughter-in-law’s shoulder and ushering her into the bedroom. Grace didn’t deserve this.
“You’re burning up, girl! Let’s get you into bed with something to drink.”
David stood in the doorway, uncertain, as Gwen undressed Grace like a baby, folded her clothes, and slipped a nightgown over her head. Being fussed over by an indulgent mother was not an altogether unpleasant feeling, but what did her body reveal to Gwen about her encounter with Johnny? Mothers always know.
“David,” Gwen chided, “don’t just stand there—make Grace some tea. With honey.”
David nodded and bounced off to the kitchen, and Grace found herself in bed, with Gwen administering a damp cloth to her forehead. When David returned with her cup of tea, she tried to smile a thank you at him, but her face was stiff and unwilling. He looked remorseful, as if he’d caused whatever was going on with her. Grace stifled the urge to shout it all out, come clean about the man she had seen that night, about this man’s connection to another: her personal set of Russian dolls—each harboring a secret that could end life as she knew it. Grace wanted to beg David’s forgiveness and plead with him to help her make sense of all of this, to fix things so they could go back to the life he did not yet know was shattered, but none of the words churning inside of her seemed adequate. She couldn’t find an entry point into her own story; didn’t know how to neatly slice it into beginning, middle, and end. What would David think of her? And Gwen? Could they ever forgive her? Would they love her the same as they loved her now?
Her thoughts clung to the air like pockets of mist before a strengthening sun. She looked at David. She could hear his mother clattering around in the kitchen and talking to Sindi. He came over to the bed and kissed her on the top of her head, imploring her to get better soon. Grace wept, which made David fuss over her even more.
She slept fitfully that night and awoke some time before dawn, drenched in sweat, her body on fire. She ripped off the bedclothes to get some relief, dumping them in the space next to her where David usually slept. Her parched throat ached for water, but the glass swam out of reach as she tried to grasp it. The room contracted, spinning before and around her; its walls menacing closer, then jumping further back. A gust of wind out of nowhere, and there she was, Mary, next to the bed, looking down at her daughter. Grace tried to call her name, tried to reach out and touch her, but she couldn’t move. Language had been snatched from the hollow of her tongue. There was no sensation in her limbs, just the burning, burning, while her mother wailed: “Talk to me!” Then Mary turned her back, gliding out of the room, gone, again. Grace found her voice: “Come back!” but it was David who appeared through the door. He rushed to her side and sponged her down again after wringing out the cloth in the bowl next to the bed. The night passed with Grace consumed by fever.
When she opened her eyes, they welcomed daylight, not fresh, tinted, new, but wrung-out, middle-of-the morning light. The house held itself in that singular, quiet way that signaled no one home—all she heard was the low hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen. She sat up in bed. Her nightgown was damp, and there was a metallic taste in her mouth, but her head was clear. She felt awake, alive. She got out of bed and padded through to the kitchen, where she filled up the kettle and turned it on for tea. Then she jumped under a cold shower while the water boiled. Under the painful thrust of water, she scrubbed herself pink, as the plug-hole drained the dregs of her secrets. A great deal of dead skin was shed. As she stepped out of the shower, drying her body until it tingled, Grace felt reborn. Once dressed, she threw open the French doors and stepped out into the courtyard.
This was it. A second chance. No more lying, no more secrets. A fresh mountain wind caressed her body, tugging at her wet hair. She sat down on the wooden bench in the yard and took in the magnificence of the mountain—why did she not come out here more often to glory in its shadow? Table Mountain was showing off, just for her, its lush peaks jutting up against the sky. On a crisp winter’s day like this, it was dazzlingly beautiful and so close she felt she could reach her hand up and stroke its contours. She closed her eyes and imagined the woolly texture of the mountain against her palm—like touching the face of God.
She retraced the events leading up to her illness and found them light years away, so distant she felt unsure that she had even met Johnny. Perhaps he had been part of her febrile dreams. She felt sick just thinking of what had passed between them—a kiss on a pavement outside a seedy bar in Cape Town. She shifted the thought aside. This morning was new. Her body had been renewed. She grabbed the bright promise of the day and made a silent vow to herself, with Table Mountain as her witness: no more lies.
Grace sat for a while sipping her tea and savoring the solitude of the courtyard. Soon her stomach called her back to the real world—she was starving. By the time David walked through the door with Sindi, she had roasted some chicken, along with vegetables and rice fried with onion and tomato. She ran to them and threw her arms around both husband and child, never wanting to let go.
David was delighted. “You’re better! You were down for days!”
That’s how it felt, like she’d been gone for days, and now Grace was back and she didn’t want to leave him or miss one second of their life together. She brushed his cheek with her lips; he smiled his puppy dog smile. They kissed some more, playfully, as they’d done in the early days before marriage vows and Sindi. Her silent promise to herself flashed through her mind. She would tell him the truth—everything. But later. Now she wanted this moment, his grateful smile, his strong arms around her, his hands traveling up and down her back. She would tell David later.