for you in a jiffy.” He walked off without a backward glance. Back within the fold of his brethren, Ian watched him relate their encounter with much flair and gesticulation. The group of men lapped it up, looking across in grand amusement and shaking their heads.
Ian grabbed his belongings from the car, simmering with anger and embarrassment. He hadn’t meant to grandstand like an ass, but appearances mattered, something for which he’d evidently just been judged. The WI couldn’t afford to be a reminder of its predecessor, and under no circumstances was it to conjure up images of rank-smelling rooms with sparse supplies in darkest Africa, which would surely happen if construction wasn’t speeded up. A hypercritical eye was necessary to ensure nothing marred the facility’s debut. Ian’s pride overrode his irritation even as he thought about it. After all the networking and elbow-greasing, the payoff would be worth every haggard day and sleepless night.
Ian shut the door of the BMW X5, savouring the meaty sound. That was the sound of a good car, as far as he was concerned, that thick, coming-together “clunk” of expensive doors. The sound associated with cars from his childhood had been too loud and metallic, a death rattle of abused doors that lacked rubber siding in the frames to hold essentials together. Both his daughters, conscientious as they were, thought the vehicle a waste of money and murder on the environment, but he noted with a smile their distinct lack of complaints at the comfort and legroom on long trips. His son, bless his heart, couldn’t wait to be allowed to take the wheel. Geared up, Ian strode down the path and in through the automatic double doors of the main entrance.
“Good morning, Dr Fourie.”
He turned towards the deep bass voice, the best part of his day. Behind the security desk a tall, dark-skinned man in uniform was on his feet, smiling warmly. Patriotic as Ian was, he secretly believed the best service in town almost invariably came from foreigners – his wife excluded. Etienne Matongo, a Congolese getting by in a job he wouldn’t be doing in better times in his own country, always had a cheerful greeting every morning he was on duty. Matongo had remained dedicated to the establishment from its infancy to the final stages of bloom, and was now the deputy in charge of security and surveillance. He and Ian exchanged pleasantries about the weather and their families before Ian boarded the lift to the second floor. Hoping to avoid his personal assistant and the deluge of morning messages, faxes and appointments, he sneaked into his office, vainly hoping that none of the other PAs had seen him. The first moments of peace in the mornings were worth killing for.
It lasted about two minutes before the phone went. Let it ring, he thought as he leaned back in his chair, pressing thumbs into tired eyes. But knowing better, he reached over and answered. It was Tamsin from Paediatrics, who breathlessly informed him they had only two doctors available and the place was a meat market. She knew it wasn’t his responsibility, but she’d tried Doctor several times on her beeper, cell and home land line and still no answer. Could he perhaps . . . ?
Ian hung up with a sigh. Without needing to glance at the wall calendar or the smaller flip-over version on the desk, he knew the date. Obviously that was why Carina wasn’t at work yet, and why she was not intending to turn up at all. He knew which anniversary the date signified weeks before it arrived, announcing itself every year with the same dank, heavy presence that crept into his heart and home. Every member of his family became more subdued, and no one looked each other in the eye for days, not to mention the frequent inexplicable absences from home. Having slept at a nearby bed-and-breakfast the previous night, he was hardly setting the best example.
All the same, he’d expected this well-coordinated, sombre dance around the unspoken to have petered out, if not through the passage of time then at least from how exhausting it was for all involved. He was unable to suppress an image of himself at his mother’s kitchen table, wearing different clothes over the years, but with the same confused hangdog expression. The years had yawned between them, and neither had been able to submit to the grief of losing a husband and father. Food and denial became substitutes for communication. Anything could petrify into tradition if people gave it enough respect.
Ian picked up a framed photograph and felt a tightness in his chest. The smiling face of his son looked back at him, a face almost exactly like his own thirty years ago. In a green shirt splashed with a jaunty print that made him look even younger than his fourteen years, Sean grinned as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Wherever he was now, he likely had no cause for cares. Even with the barest fuzz of hair and lighting that hardly compensated for a sallow complexion, it was hard to tell he was a sick child with only months left to live.
Ian removed the frame and drew another snapshot from behind the first, peeling them apart. With the frame concealing it, no one would ever have guessed it was there, which was what he wanted. The photo showed a young girl in a T-shirt and blue jeans, framed in a doorway with hands in pockets and shoulders raised as she laughed into the camera. Same smile, sameish nose.
They could be brother and sister, he thought absurdly. Which they were, and would have acted like, had he allowed it in the short time they’d known each other. “2 September, 2002” was written on the back of the boy’s photo – seven years ago to the day – while “17/03/07” was scrawled on the girl’s.
Two children lost to him in less than a decade, frozen forever at ages fourteen and seventeen. Two grieving mothers hating his fucking guts for the rest of his life: one whose smouldering contempt he swallowed every day, the other whose leaden silence and ability to freeze him out of every line of communication were more effective than any physical blow.
Ian picked up the phone wearily. The next number he dialled was his wife’s.
* * *
The knife carved a slice off the carrot, and the tip of a finger almost followed as well. Carina swore and stuffed the digit in her mouth. The metallic taste of blood began on her tongue and then amplified, filling her mouth and nose. It made her think of the operating theatres of her internship, of someone lying prone with their life in her capable hands and relying on her skill to see them through. It reminded her of many smells she couldn’t face today: baby powder, full nappies or vomit. She couldn’t face the combined aroma or sight of babies living and being, no matter how much she was needed at the hospital. I can’t face much of anything today, she thought as she squeezed her eyelids together and took gulps of air. Today I see myself through.
It was pointless. The tears would come no matter which way she played it.
Carina dwelt for a glum minute on her personal classification of mothers. Some women, most women, were born to do it. Others were self-made, morphing into the role as their bodies plumped and they realised they’d intended to do it anyway and now was as good a time as any. Others were just resigned to the prospect. She had no idea where, or if, she fitted into either of the latter two groups, but she definitely didn’t fit into the first. She’d never fancied the idea of mothering, most likely because she hadn’t given it much thought, preferring to think of things only when they were immediately relevant. She had very much liked the idea of being part of a couple. The better half of another.
Once married, she’d had no clue why the first pregnancy had surprised her. She hadn’t gone out of her way to prevent it, and the thought of a termination had repulsed her almost as soon as it had come to mind. Not on any moral or religious grounds, but purely on the principle that she always completed anything she began. Her own mother would not have been shocked had she known that her daughter’s first reaction to the news had not been delight. From childhood, Carina felt she’d always been accused, wrongfully in her view, of being too sleepy in her decision-making in some places and too headstrong and impulsive in others. This from the woman who, after all these years, still doubted that her daughter’s decisions – to study medicine, leave Germany to practise in Africa and marry a man who wasn’t white – were all carefully considered. Which of course they had been.
Four
