Janita Lawrence - The Memory of Water

“I was wondering if you could help me,” I say, in my Polite Voice. “I’m doing some research for a friend of mine.” The desk fan against the wall slowly rotates to face me, causing all the papers on the wall to flutter.

“What can I do… to help you?” she asks, breathless. I’m guessing it’s because of her size, not my good looks or sense of style.

“If you could allow me access to previous class lists from the early 1990s I would appreciate it. I assume you have a… system,” I say, and look in the direction of the dinosaur PC.

She shakes her head. “We haven’t archived that far back.”

I wait for her to offer another solution but she just stands there and looks at me.

“Right,” I say. The papers pinned to the wall are whispering again.

“Do you have the lists as hard copies then, in a file, in the library perhaps?”

Again she shakes her head.

“Old yearbooks? School magazines?”

She narrows her eyes at this. She does everything unhurriedly. It’s irritating. She takes a few steps towards the phone and punches the keys with the back of a pencil. An old secretary trick, so that you don’t ruin your nails, but her nails are short and square. Maybe she learnt it from a movie, or maybe she has given up wearing nice clothes and having nice nails. Maybe someone broke her heart. After chatting in what sounds like baby-Afrikaans she hangs up and says that I can go to the library and look at the old school magazines. She tells me the way, I thank her and I walk away. She calls after me: “I can’t promise you’ll find what you’re looking for.”

Story of my life, I think, without turning around.

The library is cool and neat, apart from the wall-to-wall bald blue carpet. The librarian is expecting me and shows me to a seat and a pile of books. She is ancient and tiny, a pocket granny. She’s very talkative for a librarian, and for someone without any of her real teeth, but when I ignore her she doesn’t seem to take it personally. I start whipping through the books, starting with 1993 and going backwards. Eve wasn’t in matric in ’93 or ’92, but a photo in the 1990 magazine catches my eye. Standard seven class, it says, above a messy collage of athletics, science projects and fun days, and right in the middle is Eve, smiling shyly at the camera. Bingo. I check the subsequent editions again but she has disappeared. I page to the standard seven class list and there’s her name: Evelyn Shaw. I check all the other classes but there is no Denise Shaw. I take the magazine up to the librarian.

“How long have you worked here?” I ask.

She seems thrilled at the prospect of a conversation.

“It’s coming up for thirty years,” she says, fingering the gold chain around her neck. I guess she had limited career opportunities.

“Is there any chance,” I say, “that you remember the Shaw girls? They were here in the early nineties.”

“I’ve seen thousands of children here,” she clucks. She smells like baby powder.

“The Shaw girls,” I repeat, “Evelyn and Denise.” She closes her eyes and breathes through her nose. I show her the picture of Eve in the magazine. When she shakes her head at it, I pull out the family photo I have.

“Oh!” she exclaims and gives a little jump. “The Shaws! Of course I remember them… Mister Shaw was the most famous man in town.” Then she drops her voice: “More famous than the mayor.”

“So you remember the girls? Eve and Denise?”

She looks confused. I’m sure her memory is not what it used be, being a century old, and all.

“I remember the daughter. She was called the golden girl. They were a prominent family. Mister Shaw was the manager at AuruMine.”

Yes, I think. Aurumine and the Golden Girl. I jot it down in my Moleskine.

“She has – had – a sister, Denise,” I prompt.

“No,” she says, “That girl was an only child. That’s what made it so hard, you know.”

“Made what so hard?”

“Pardon me?” she says.

“You said that’s what made it so hard. Made what so hard?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, pulling on her chain.

“The Shaw family,” I say, “What happened to them?”

“I don’t know any Shaws,” she mutters. “I’ve seen thousands of children here.”

I can see she is agitated but I need an answer. I jab at the photo with my finger. “Mister Shaw,” I say, “More famous than the mayor?”

She cowers, bewildered, and I realise I have raised my voice. I take a step back. She shakes her head, mumbles something to herself, has tears in her eyes. I walk back to the table and rip out the pages I need, put them in my pocket, and stalk out.

Out of the school buildings I see the grey Datsun parked under a pine tree a little way down the road. I get into my car and slam the door. I take out my phone and Google ‘Aurumine, Shaw’. Nothing. A knock on the window makes me almost shit myself. It is the turquoise receptionist. I wind the stubborn thing down.

“I took the liberty,” she drawls, “of calling someone about you.”

Fuck. It’s always the quiet ones you have to beware of.

“Who did you call?”

She rests her fat forearms on the car door as she leans in.

“Mrs X,” she whispers, then gives me the benefit of her horsey smile.

I feel I am in a particularly bad episode of an outdated local soap opera.

“Mrs X.” I sigh. Of course.

“She said that she would see you.”

“Nice of her,” I say. “Who is she?”

The woman hands me an address scribbled on the back of a photocopied work sheet. Geometry.

“She likes to be known as The Oracle.”

You have to be kidding me.

“But we sommer call her the Town Gossip behind her back.”

I look at the crouching car in my rear-view mirror and put my foot down.

The address is in the suburb of Sub-Nigel, which makes me think there is a whole parallel-universe version of this town: deeper, darker, stickier. Sub-Nigel. Sub-human. Creatures which have chosen to inhabit the other side of the tracks and perhaps only come out at night. I drive past houses with pre-cast front walls that wouldn’t keep anyone out, some shaped like picket fences, some like mining wheels and painted pink or aquamarine. Houses with their fronts falling off, watermarks on their walls like muddy waterfalls, rusted steel roofs and peeling concrete planters holding on to their long-ago perished plants. Sunsleeping dogs, broken down playsets and feral-looking barefoot kids who stop playing to look at me as I cruise past.

I use the GPS on my phone to find my way. When I arrive at the address I see the house I have been looking for since I arrived. It is the size of a mansion and looks like it was designed and decorated by someone whose wealth is indirectly proportional to his or her good taste. On top of the high walls, on watch and ready to swoop, are statues of eagles, painted gold. The walls themselves are embellished with every pre-cast detail you can imagine, and then some. There are concrete ties and bows and bowls of grapes. I ring the bell and as the giant black gates swing open I see a water feature on the front lawn the size of the Trevi fountain. I can’t help smiling.

A tall black gentleman with high cheekbones walks out to greet me. I stick out my hand.

“Mister X, I presume?”

The man smirks and leads me inside. It turns out he’s the butler. He purses his lips at the shirt I’m wearing, then hands me a jacket off the coat rail. It’s the right size. The interior décor is as deliciously hideous as the exterior. Italian renaissance meets Parisian whorehouse. The walls are covered top-to-bottom in maroon brocade damask wallpaper. The pattern is broken up only by the over-lit Roman statues and mirrors framed in golden waves. If Francina ever won the Lotto this is how she would decorate her house. The butler (A butler, really? In Sub-Nigel? I couldn’t believe my luck) escorts me down a long passage. I try to walk slowly so that I can peek into the adjoining rooms but he will have none of it and I have to hurry to keep up with him. I have the distinct feeling that I am a hare hurrying down the rabbit hole. There are paintings of toy dogs on the wall and the carpet pile is so lush it seems as though I’m tripping. Eventually the dark passage brightens and the butler disappears. I pick up my pace and get to the spot where I saw him last: there is a velvet-curtained entrance to a drawing room. I duck inside.