how is your mother? And you? What have you been up to all these years?”
“I want you to start in the lounge.”
She opens a door off the passage and switches on the light. “Use the rolls of bubble wrap and make sure each item is secured with tape. I don’t want any breakages.”
I look around. Ornaments, figurines and crystal glasses fill a mahogany cabinet, and vases and crockery are stacked on the floor. As if someone emptied out the cupboards and dumped everything here.
“Begin with the cabinet and then move on to the rest. Make sure that everything is packed snugly so it doesn’t shift around.” She points at the bookshelf. “Books don’t need to be wrapped, simply place them in boxes. When you’ve finished, seal the boxes and mark the contents on the outside with the black Koki pen.”
“When I’m finished? This is going to take me all year. Where did all this stuff come from?” I edge past a faded floral couch to open the curtains. The chandelier in the centre of the room is missing most of its bulbs, and the room smells musty.
“If you are going to take a year to do just this one room, I will have to consider hiring someone else who works a little smarter.”
“I can work smart. Watch me,” I say with a smile.
“I think not. I’ll be upstairs in my bedroom.”
I’m halfway through my second box when there’s a thump above my head. I glance up at the pressed-steel ceiling. Fine dust floats down from a crack. Another thump. And a crash.
I leave the room and race up the stairs. Two at a time, counting as I go. Twenty steps. At the top, my shoe snags the carpet. I face-plant and scramble to my feet.
“Aunt C-C, is everything okay?” The passage is dark, and a table stabs me in the thigh. I hit back, and a telephone topples onto the floor.
A door opens and a face peers out. “What are you doing up here?” A sheen of moisture glistens on her skin and she’s breathing in gasps.
“I heard a noise,” I say. I can’t see past her into the bedroom. She clutches the doorframe with both hands, trying to hold herself up. Blue veins bulge on the back of pale speckled hands.
“Go back downstairs to your work and don’t stick your nose where it’s not wanted.” Her voice is harsh, her mouth tight.
So much for: Thank you Jenna, I appreciate your concern, but I was simply practising my pole-dancing moves.
It’s an hour later, and I’ve filled five boxes. I stretch my arms above my head. If I have to touch another piece of bubble wrap I’ll eat my left hand.
I cross the threadbare Persian carpet to the bookshelf. My fingers trace the gold-embossed print on the red spines of the leather-bound books. The kind of books no one’s ever read, they’re just for show. Among them are some photograph albums, maybe with a photograph or two of Holly from the time she lived here and knew my father.
Holly posts her photos on Facebook: Holly and Mike, Holly and Sizwe, Holly the fun-loving gal having the best time ever! Holly’s one of my seven hundred and twenty-two friends on Facebook, one of the few I’ve actually met. But Facebook’s for old people, and I don’t often post. I’m a lurker.
I reach for the albums and find a spot on the floor. I open one, and dust and silverfish flutter from the pages. They’re filled with dead people. From way back. The photos are arranged on black paper, each held in place with white corner pieces. Captions are written in white ink, in longhand. Pretty cool.
The first album begins with a wedding. David and I on our wedding day. Emmanuel Cathedral, Durban, 6 November 1943. The bride couldn’t have been older than eighteen, about the same age as Holly when I was born. Her plump face is framed by a gauzy veil, and a tiara sits on her head. Totally over the top! She rests her white-gloved hand on the groom’s arm. His moustache is carefully trimmed and his army uniform ironed to within a crease of its life. Older than her by maybe five years, he has the hint of a widow’s peak. They stand outside a fancy church, squinting into the sun.
The next ten pages are filled with wedding photos. The dimpled bride poses alone in the cathedral garden. Mrs David Channing-Court at last! Some group pics. The maid of honour: Darling Beatrice! And the best man: Look, Frank in a suit! My great-grandfather Frank, the bachelor farmer, long before he got married. Flower girls: Dearest Gilly and Babs all the way from London. The mothers, each with a handbag dangling from an arm, glaring at each other like they’d both won the booby prize. The bishop in white robes shakes hands with the groom: Well done, David! Ellie is a fine young woman!
I turn the pages. Honeymoon. Victoria Falls, the bride ecstatic, her mouth wide open as spray rains down onto her upturned face. Then she’s petting a baby elephant: Ellie and Baby Ellie! Too adorable! The groom with a gun, next to a dead lion: Take that, Simba!
The newlyweds in their first home. The wife sits on the lawn under a tree, one hand resting on her stomach, an uneasy smile on her face: Under the jacaranda tree at our new home. 24 Pembroke Street, Johannesburg, June 1944. (The blooms will be glorious in October!)
Baby photographs. The new mother holds a bundle in her arms, the long christening robe draped over her forearm. The father hovers, a little awkward, but proud: Lucy two months old. Baptism. The Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church, Johannesburg, February 1945.
Lucy turns one, then two. I flip the pages filled with photographs charting her life. And then: Happy eighteenth birthday, Lucy, with pearls from Grandmother Heloise! Sitting stiffly in virginal white, her skirt a frothy mass that forbids even a peep of an ankle, Lucy looks daggers at me from the page, the pearls like a noose around her neck.
Why are you so angry, Lucy Channing-Court? Did your mother lie to you too?
I page through to the end and open the second album. Another baby! So cute. Margaret’s baptism. The Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church, Johannesburg, April 1954. The baby is wearing the same christening robe as her sister.
Baby Margaret turns one. The candles on the cake flicker below her howling face. She doesn’t seem to like the clown grinning over her shoulder. A maid’s apron is captured in a corner of the frame.
A toddler pats mudcakes: Oh, Margaret, what a mess! Same kid on a bicycle, with the tip of a shoe behind a wheel: Daddy teaches Margaret to ride. A smiling face: Margaret receives second prize at Sports Day for the egg-and-spoon race. Then the photos fizzle out.
As I suspected: not a single pic of Holly. I slide the albums back onto the bookshelf. I need to look somewhere else.
Perhaps the chest of drawers? I open the top drawer. A silver-framed wedding photo – like the one I’d seen in the album – lies face down in the drawer. Maybe someone couldn’t bear to see it any more. I put it back, face down.
The second drawer is empty except for an old fountain pen, a few paper clips and an unopened pack of extra-strength man tissues – the ones that don’t disintegrate after the first blow.
The bottom drawer is stuck. I tug at the handle. Come on, open! Drawers often stick when it rains, but this one seems to be locked. I glance at the open door. It’s a risk, but a locked drawer has never stopped me.
I look around, grab a paper clip, straighten it, and slip it into the lock. I kneel down, twist my head to be eye-level with the drawer and
