The Fetch. Finuala Dowling
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their way onto the stoep for a better view.
Mrs Fawkes’s bereaved friends, in contrast, were disturbed by her daughter-in-law parading topless along the back wall of the tidal pool and shouting up at the house.
“I should think she’ll catch her death,” William heard one old lady say to another. The two women moved outside to make a full assessment of the situation.
Their departure allowed the baby to see the table laden with biscuits and cakes.
“Deh, deh, deh!” He pointed and used his knees and feet to urge William in the direction of the confectionary. William handed the baby a lemon cream, which it sucked on with pleasure.
Sharon came in from the stoep with a pile of dirty cake plates just as Fundiswa returned from the kitchen with a fresh pot of tea.
“She’s not as toned as she used to be,” said Sharon.
“I never saw her before in my life, naked or clothed, so I can’t comment,” said Fundiswa, her mouth drawn down in disapproval.
“Her tits are looking a bit more droopy. And what’s happened to her hair? I said to Neville: ‘Has Dolly gone Rasta or something?’ Anyway, my husband is out there trying to save the situation.”
“Thixo! I think it’s a scandal to behave this way at a funeral!” said Fundiswa, pouring a cup of tea for William and placing it where he could reach it with his spare hand.
“Thanks,” said William. He looked out of the window and saw Nina moving from the stoep to the lawn. Her blonde hair looked pretty, spread out on the dark cardigan she wore over her sober funeral-going dress.
Nina studied Dolly’s nakedness, so different from her own very private plumpness. So that was the kind of body Chas admired, she thought. No wonder there had been no repeat of February’s kiss.
Some people were moving down the steps to get a closer look at the goings-on. She overheard a confused old gentleman asking his companion whether this was the latest thing, entertainment at funerals.
Nina didn’t join the throng. Even at this remove, she could hear Dolly’s tirade: “Yes, have a good look, everyone! It’s the outcast! The unwanted wife! The unwanted daughter-in-law! Not allowed into her own home! God, I’m so lonely!”
Emmanuel edged his way along the slippery pool wall towards Dolly, holding up a beach towel as if she were a guest needing help into her evening coat. Neville was approaching from the other side.
“I have nothing! See how he gives me nothing!” shouted Dolly.
To demonstrate her point, Dolly unzipped her shorts, let them drop to her ankles and flicked them into the pool with her left foot. Neville reached out, trying to intercept the flung garment, but lost his balance and fell into the water. He gasped at the cold and struck out for the shallows as quickly as he could. Emmanuel abandoned his attempt to swathe Dolly and went to Neville’s aid instead.
Dolly’s long, slender body with its larger-than-remembered breasts was now adorned only by a lacy red G-string. Like a gymnast on the balance beam, she seemed completely at home on the narrow wall.
“He won’t even let me in to fetch my clothes and CDs! His mother left me her diamond rings – I’m entitled to ask for them! He can’t chase me away – I’m only asking for what’s mine!”
Chas was standing a little way away from Nina, his body taut with fury. He wore a dark jacket, formal pants and lace-up shoes, an outfit that somehow made Dolly seem even more naked. When he could bear it no longer, he marched to the top of the steps and shouted down at his estranged wife.
“My mother’s body is hardly cold but you want to come in here, raking through her possessions!”
Dolly became tearful at this injustice: “That’s not true! All I wanted was my stuff. Aren’t I even allowed to attend a family funeral?”
“For God’s sake, woman, come off that wall. How dare you cavort there with your breasts hanging out! These are my mother’s friends! Have some respect for the dead!”
Dolly looked venomous. “You!” she cried. “How dare you tell me how to behave? You want to talk to me about respect! The things I could say about you, Mr Goody-Two-Shoes!”
She paced the wall, clearly thinking about the things she could say. Then it came to her: “You think you’re so beautiful and so perfect. But you’re mean and penny-pinching and your tongue hangs out during sex! Oh yes, Chas loves lots of lovely sex! He loves girls! He loves boys!”
Nina saw that Chas was weeping. She ran inside and addressed the tea drinkers: “Can’t somebody do something?”
William stepped forward. “I think I know what might stop her,” he said.
Carrying the baby onto the stoep, William passed Chas, who could only stare at the infant in his arms.
When the child saw its mother, it started to sob again.
“M-m-mama!” cried the boy, reaching out his arms.
“Did somebody actually invite a baby?” asked one of Chas’s friends.
“My child!” Dolly wailed. “Oro! My little Orrie!” She skittered off the wall, finally accepting Emmanuel’s offer of a large bath towel. Securing the towel above her breasts, she took her son from William.
All eyes turned to him, as if to query the connection. William looked away from Midden House, out at the beach where a cormorant was drying its wings on the yellow-lichened rocks and a gull was poking about on a pile of rotting seaweed.
Still watched by the mourners, William led mother and child away from the tidal pool and up the sandy track.
“Well, at least he’s done something useful,” said Fundiswa.
“Who calls their child Oro?” asked Sharon.
William walked ahead, wondering when Dolly would leave Slangkop – if she’d ever leave. Chas wouldn’t give her any money, not now, not after her performance, and she’d arrived without the wherewithal to even pay for a camping spot. Didn’t she have a home to go to? Yes, she did, and that home was currently parked very snugly in his driveway.
William was usually attracted by problems. He liked the way they made you pause and try to remember everything you’d forgotten, because you knew that somewhere in that disused heap of memories lay the solution. But the problem of Dolly did not appeal to him. She wasn’t like his grey-water project, or the game camera his client wanted to install near a black eagle’s nest. He loved to think about those problems. They could be solved with a section of PVC piping or a small plank and some brass screws.
Dolly was Chas’s problem, a problem he was temporarily solving for Chas by taking her and the child back up the hill to his cottage. Could he make Dolly and her child and her caravan go away? Or was he stuck with them? It made him feel tired to think about it. Oh, to be alone, to look at the camera and think about how it could become weatherproof if he did this or that with it. Going outside to have a smoke and think about how something as simple as a Tupperware lunchbox might do the trick. Then sitting on his tree trunk, smoking a joint or sipping vodka to celebrate the solution.
But that wasn’t how the evening was going to turn out. He’d have to entertain Dolly, feed the child. He wouldn’t be able to lie down, as he liked, across the threshold of his cottage, half in and half out, staring up at the night sky until the drink and the dagga did their work. He had to host Dolly, make sure she and the child had what they needed.
“He deserved it,” Dolly was saying. “It’s true I’m a bit tanked up; drink has loosened my tongue. But he got what was coming to him. My life! God, what a disaster! But fuck him! Let everybody know what he’s really like! He can’t just keep this madwoman in the attic! I’ll get legal aid and take him to the cleaners. Or he can just give me a lump sum. I’ve got to make his life unbearable. It’s the only way to get the moths to fly out of his purse.”
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