raisins!”
“Yes, can you believe it? And then Dolly climbed into the back of the police van and said: ‘Take me away! See how little my husband cares!’ ”
Another oil painting depicted a gardener leaning on his hoe and chatting to a housekeeper who was halfway up the steps of a homestead. The woman leant over the balustrade; she wore a knotted headscarf. In the distance, beyond the side of the house where this cheerful encounter was taking place, a row of Lombardy poplars stretched towards purple mountains. The Free State, thought Nina.
“Family heirloom.” Chas had come up behind her. “The artist was a friend of Great Uncle Ernie’s. I’m sure it must be worth something.” He pointed at the signature in the bottom right corner: M C Wilmot. “Ever heard of her?”
“No,” said Nina and waited to be enlightened.
“Neither has anyone else,” Chas said. “It’s called ‘The Workers’. ”
“Do you think she meant it to be ironic?” asked Nina. “I mean, they’re clearly workers, but they’re also clearly not working.”
“Maybe. A bit of colonial wit. Come,” he said, “there’s someone who’s been dying to meet you.”
Nina hoped everyone saw how their host put his arm around her and drew her along with him, away from the gossiping friends. Chas led her to a quiet sunroom, part of the stoep that had been enclosed with glass, where an elderly man was reading on a sofa. His paunch, white locks and beard made him look like one of those men shopping malls hire to play Father Christmas. His connection with innocent childhood was reinforced by the presence, on the wall behind him, of a painting of a golden-haired boy, praying in a white nightshirt.
“This is Harry,” said Chas. “Harry, this is my neighbour, Nina. Well, I’ll leave you two to it.” With another “Hello, hello, hello!”, Chas made a hasty sea-crossing into another conversation.
“Hello,” said Nina, trying to take in her predicament.
Why had she been introduced to this man? Why had she been left alone with him in a confined space? How could she possibly be of any interest to him? Perhaps he’d been blacklisted for overdue library books. She did that kind of thing every now and then – helped defaulters.
“Is that another of the family heirlooms?” she asked, desperate to start any kind of conversation.
“The angelic boy? That’s Chas himself, you know, in the days when he was godly. Have a closer look, my dear, lean right over me if you need to.”
Instead of leaning over him, she drew back a little and sat on a chair next to the sofa that held Harry’s considerable weight. “No, thank you,” she said, “I can see it from here. So … how do you know Chas?”
Harry laughed. “He works for me. Well, he’s supposed to. I never see him on Mondays, or on any day before ten. And I spend a lot of time putting out fires for him.”
“Putting out fires?”
“Like the time he wrote that someone’s play was ‘impenetrable rubbish’ after sleeping right the way through it. With the playwright sitting behind him. My God, Chas just about had his head in the man’s lap!”
“So you don’t review things yourself?”
“Well, Chas doesn’t know much about art, though, of course, he pretends to, so I do a lot of the exhibitions. And, as you can see,” he said, looking down at his stomach, “I do the restaurant reviews.”
“That’s nice,” said Nina blandly, looking out of the window. The woman with the flimsy sarong was massaging Chas’s shoulders. Nina heard his laugh, the deep rumble of his voice. “Chas said you wanted to meet me – is it something about books or libraries?”
Harry looked perplexed. “Oh no, my dear. It’s just that I’m not fit enough to circulate at parties any more. I said to Chas: ‘Bring me someone young and juicy to chat to.’ So, what is it that you do with books and libraries?”
“I’m a librarian at one of the local branches.”
“Is that your life? You must be in your mid to late twenties. Do you at least have a boyfriend? Don’t you ever go out?”
As he leant over towards her, his paunch sagged and one knee came close to the ground. He looked like a supplicant.
“No, never,” she said quickly, trying to pre-empt the question she felt was coming.
“You look so Victorian,” he said. “Your skin is so lovely. You look like a milkmaid.”
Nina looked out of the window again. She’d heard these kinds of things before. You longed for someone to notice you, the real you inside, the one that had ideas and feelings, but people kept returning to your appearance instead, forcing it upon you, saying: “This plump milkmaid is the real Nina. She is not glamorous or fascinating or clever, but she would look good on a milk cart, surrounded by her churns.”
On the lawn outside, beautiful young non-dairy people were laughing, shrieking, hugging. The moon caught the white water crashing into the tidal pool. A clearly drunk party-goer was standing on the back wall in a pair of swimming trunks, trying to resist the force of the incoming waves. How utterly charmed other people’s lives looked.
She heard the tinkle of a wine glass breaking on the floor of the stoep and Chas’s voice saying: “Well, we’ll just get another one.”
Miracle of miracles, their host came into the sunroom. Had he come to rescue her? But he did not even look in their direction. Instead he moved over to a sideboard, opened it and collected five glasses, threading their stems through his fingers. He smiled at Nina as he escaped again.
“Actually,” said Harry, when they were alone once more, “it’s your bust. I love your bust. I can say that, you know, at my age. At my age I can only have a physician’s interest in your breasts. But I’ll get your number from Chas. Perhaps you could help me review a restaurant sometime.”
“Chas doesn’t have my number.”
“Then you could just give it to me yourself.”
“I-I don’t know it off by heart.”
It was a pathetic excuse. One day she’d learn to say: “No. I don’t want you to call me.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” said Harry, pulling himself back onto the sofa so that he no longer seemed to be genuflecting before her, “what a silly girl you are.”
Something like a riposte welled up inside her, but she could not say it aloud.
“I’m sorry. I have to go. Excuse me,” said Nina.
There was no point in trying to enjoy the party now. She went to the kitchen. Emmanuel was there, washing wine glasses. “Is it alright if I go out the back way?” she asked.
He followed her outside to make sure the back gate was unlocked.
“You can’t go without saying goodbye!”
It was
