The book of happenstance. Ingrid Winterbach
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That was no innocent gesture. It was a deed of aggression and intimidation. Does he know who I am, does he see through our bluff?
“Yes, mevrou,” the mother, Aunty Rosie, says. “It’s a terrible thing that came over us.”
Alverine pours the tea. “Hold the tray for Miss Anna and Miss Dolly!” she tells Jaykie. With exaggerated politeness he first draws two small ball-and-claw coffee tables closer for Sof and me. Then he holds the tray with tea, his bearing submissive. Without sniffing too obviously, I lean forward slightly to catch his smell again. But the moment is too charged – I cannot identify it. When I take the cup from the tray, I spill tea in my saucer. This man may have been in my house. Worse still, this man may know who I am. He has long since seen through our false pretences.
“Do you have any idea, Mrs Steinmeier,” Sof asks in her pastorie voice, “what exactly happened?”
I bite into a Lemon Cream. Jaykie sits with his eyes cast down, his hands pressed together between his knees, his whole demeanour betraying barely suppressed restlessness. I take a sip of the weak, milky tea.
“He was in trouble, mevrou,” Hazel-Alverine says, “we think he got mixed up with gangs.”
“Did he work in the city?” Sof asks.
“Yes, mevrou,” says the Hazel-sister, “then he mostly came home weekends. But the past few months not so often any more.”
The landscape in the gilded frame behind Sof depicts a peaceful scene with a stream, lush banks and shady trees in synthetic sea-greens and lurid, autumnal oranges. My eyes roam to the display cabinet with photographs in the far corner.
Sof clicks sympathetically with her tongue. She takes a delicate sip of tea. I dare not catch her eye.
“Show Miss Anna and Miss Dolly Patrick’s photo,” his mother tells Jaykie.
Jaykie jumps up, fetches a framed photograph from the cabinet, and hands it to me. Again our eyes meet for a moment. His eyes are roguish and cunning in equal measure. Cunning priest’s eyes. I have seen eyes like those in religious portraits. The eyes of saints or confidence tricksters. Swindlers. Or epileptics.
I study the photograph.
“It’s a picture of Patrick on his wedding day,” she says.
Head-and-shoulder portrait of the bride and groom. The bride has a stiff, obstreperous head of hair, one lock artfully brushed over her left eye. Her short veil, blooming behind her, is covered in confetti. Patrick wears a pale, sand-coloured suit. His hair is short and curly, like Jaykie’s, but he has a long nose, much longer than that of his brother. His eyebrows run to his temples in a strong downward arch. I strain to see a resemblance between this man and the photographs of the corpse that Constable Modisane showed me. I think I see something, a vague similarity. The corpse was also that of a tall, lean man, but I can’t remember the nose. The photographs were not particularly flattering.
That I have to deceive these trusting people like this! The man in the wedding photograph (which I am still holding in my hand) has nothing to do with the man who took my shells! Or with the photographs of the hanging corpse that Constable Modisane showed me. The constable was mistaken! There is a huge misunderstanding somewhere. This will not be the first time that the police have been misguided. What are we doing here, on a Saturday morning in Ladybrand, in Mrs Rosie Steinmeier’s house? If anyone here has anything to do with the disappearance of the shells, it is probably Jaykie, with his aroma of aftershave and his seductive fraudster’s eyes.
These thoughts go through my head as I sit on the sofa alongside the stuffed tiger with the glassy stare. While Sof keeps the conversation afloat, Mrs Steinmeier – the bereaved mother – wipes her eyes with her apron every now and then, and Alverine rocks the baby on her hip in the exact way Hazel would have done twenty years ago, in my parents’ house.
“He was a good man, mevrou,” the mother says. “He would not have harmed anyone. He was a Christian too. But he was led into sin! He was led into sin by crooks and skelms!”
“Skollies!” his sister says. “They made him do it!”
“Do what?” I ask. I am distracted, I am flustered. I am not certain of my case any more. I am overwhelmed by the resemblance between Alverine and Hazel. I am flooded with strange associations and memories. I have a sense of unreality.
There is a long moment of silence.
“They made him commit crimes, Miss Dolly,” Alverine says softly. “We think he got mixed up with gangs in the city.”
“It’s in the city where he was led into sin,” his mother says. “That’s where he lost the way.”
“Did he have children?” Sof asks. (My support and succour in this bewildering hour. How grateful I am that she accompanied me here.)
“Yes, mevrou, he has children, but his wife left with them long ago,” his mother says.
“We saw the photos,” the sister says softly. “The police came and showed us the photos. As they found him there.”
“Do you know for sure that it was him?” I ask.
“It was him, Miss Dolly,” Alverine says, and the mother wipes her eyes again.
“Up to this day we don’t know what happened, mevrou,” the mother says. “The police just came and told us.”
“And showed us the photos,” the sister says. “We don’t understand it, Miss Dolly! One day he’s still here, the next day the police bring us the pictures!”
I clear my throat. “Did it happen here,” I ask, gesturing vaguely with my hand, “here in the vicinity?”
“Yes, mevrou,” the Hazel-sister says. “There just before the turnoff to the highway, there mevrou will see a little brick building, that’s where they found him.”
Jaykie sits with his hands between his knees, moving restlessly on his seat. It looks as if he might jump up at any moment. I ask if I may use the toilet. The bathroom is a large room with an old-fashioned bath and an old-fashioned medicine cabinet against the wall. I glance into it rapidly. No sign of Boss aftershave. Nor of any shell. I sit down on the rim of the bath for a brief while. The photographs that Constable Modisane showed me, the recovered shells returned to me, the rest of the shells, the crime, my complex feelings of loss – all those have nothing to do with these people this morning in this house in Ladybrand. I am entirely on the wrong track. And that I have to lie to these unsuspecting people like this in the process! Except Jaykie. Him I don’t trust. If there is a link, it has to be this young man. The chances are good that he has some knowledge of what happened to my shells.
When I return, I ask if I may look around the room. There are more framed photographs on the display cabinet, as well as a number of plates décorated with painted pink flowers, a clock hand-mounted on a sawn-off section of tree trunk, two glasses with artfully folded blue serviettes, copper coasters, and two identical glass fishes supported by glass waves. No sign of a shell.
As we get up to go, I ask Jaykie if he also works in the city. Before he can answer, his mother exclaims: “Jaykie is the artist in the family, mevrou! Jaykie, go fetch your artworks, show the mevrou!”
Jaykie returns with a small art folder. Dutifully he presents his works of art. They are mostly pencil drawings, mostly of women, both nude and clothed. Jaykie is regrettably not very skilful with the pencil, and why does it not amaze me? Does he not find it difficult to sit still for any length of time, and did Sof not remark on his ineptitude even at handling the pen the previous evening? The drawings are decidedly sugary in theme and touchingly clumsy in execution – like that of a much younger person. In one of them a girl turns her eyes dramatically towards the heavens – Saint Teresa of Avila with a Barbie hairstyle. Sof and I make appreciative noises, but dare not look at each other.
“Do you study art somewhere?” Sof asks.
“No, mevrou,” Alverine says proudly. “He taught himself. He’s saving his