Patrick Flanery - Absolution

‘It’s not so different in New York these days, or London,’ Sarah says. ‘It’s not a matter of one place or another. These are not just problems of place.’

The man reached out his hands, removing a pair of thin leather gloves. Squinting into the light from the corridor, Clare recognized him all at once. It was no one she might have expected.

‘Heavens!’ she cried out, her heart leaping about against her ribs. ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing here?’

‘You knew I was coming,’ her son said, taking off his jacket. ‘You told me to let myself in.’

‘I did nothing of the kind, Mark! I’m minded to phone the police.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Mother. I’ve come for the week, as you must remember. What are you doing in bed so early? It’s not even ten.’

‘You call that early? I have no memory of inviting you to visit.’ Clare watched as Mark slumped on the taffeta-upholstered chair nearest her bedroom door. Propping herself up against the headboard, she turned on the bedside light. Her son looked tired, his skin bluish, claws of wrinkles deepening at his temples. How irritating it was to be interrupted in this way. She knew she would never get back to sleep, and feared that the entire week, which should have been one of intense, undisrupted work, would be lost to the demands and petulant whims of her son.

‘I didn’t realize I needed an invitation to come home,’ he said, loosening his green silk tie and unbuttoning the neck of his shirt to expose a ruff of chest hair that repulsed Clare. The law, which had kept his father and maternal grandfather lean men, had given Mark Wald a paunch he could ill afford.

‘This is my home, not yours. The old house on Canigou Avenue, the house you and your sister grew up in and stormed through and abused in your way, that house might yet have been your home, but this house is mine alone and no one else’s until I die. I sold your home at a considerable profit and for the sake of my own security. Any home you might now have must by necessity be of your own purchase and deed and responsibility. How did you come by a key to my house?’

‘You made me a copy the last time I was here.’ He sounded as tired and short-tempered as his mother. ‘In case of emergencies. You wanted me to be able to get in. At least that’s what you said then.’

‘How short-sighted of me. And why do you trouble me and not your father and stepmother?’ It was a way the two of them had, this needling banter, half-play and half-contretemps, the two of them thrusting at the same time they wished only to tease.

‘Dad’s doing renovations. It wasn’t convenient for me to stay. I can see what you’re thinking but really there isn’t anything else to say about that. You can’t expect me to gossip. Can I make you a cup of tea or something?’

‘I should not presume to know what you can or cannot do.’

‘ May I make you a cup of tea?’

‘Allow me the courtesy of offering refreshment in my own house. You realize that because of your intrusion I won’t be able to sleep all night. You’ve disturbed my rest, which is hard won at the best of times,’ she said, swinging her legs out of bed. ‘I suppose since you offer me tea that you want food or drink yourself.’

‘If it isn’t too much trouble.’

‘It is a terrible imposition, but let us see what we can find. Marie left behind a banquet in the freezer. You can eat, and I shall watch.’

Clare found bread and cheese, chutney and mayonnaise, and made her son a sandwich in a way that she had not done for many years. When he and his family came to visit they usually stayed with Clare’s ex-husband, because Mark’s wife Coleen complained that staying with Clare made her nervous, and Clare, who saw little of interest in Coleen (a believer in what the woman described as ‘traditional feminine roles’), made no objection to the arrangement. The twin grandchildren were too small to be reasoned or conversed with and were themselves chiefly interested in swimming pools, ice creams, and long visits to the aquarium. It was only when Mark came alone to Cape Town on business that he sometimes stayed in his mother’s house.

‘Why are the shutters closed?’ he asked, pouring a glass of wine from the box in the refrigerator.

‘Aren’t you going to ask if you may have any wine?’

‘Don’t change the subject, Mother. The shutters. Has something happened?’

‘You do ask irritating questions. Don’t you want to offer your mother a glass of her own wine?’

‘Would you like a glass of your own wine, Mother?’

‘No, thank you, it will only keep me awake, but do help yourself,’ she said, and winked at him.

‘The shutters, Mother,’ Mark insisted, trying not to smile and swallowing half his glass of Stein. ‘Why do you drink this appalling stuff?’

‘Marie likes it. The shutters are closed because, if you must know, I was feeling vulnerable. Is that what you want to hear? Without Marie here, for the first time since we moved to this country-club fortress, I felt an old woman alone in the world with nothing but fragile glass between me and those—’ for a moment she nearly stopped herself, and then without completely fathoming the implications of what she was about to say, continued ‘—between me and those who would wish to visit their recriminations upon me.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Nor do I, perhaps. In any case, raking over the past is something best left for daylight,’ she said, rising from the table. ‘If you wish to stay up, stay up. Watch the television if you can find anything decent at this hour, listen to music, whatever you do to make your own nights pass.’

‘Thanks, but I’m exhausted.’ Mark rubbed his face, which had once been so taut and pale, and was now thickening into a pasty blob. ‘I’ve been going since five this morning. There was a hearing at ten and I got the last flight out this evening, which was delayed by an hour. I could sleep for twenty-four hours if I didn’t have commitments tomorrow.’

‘Client meetings?’

‘Meetings, yes. I’ll need to be up early, but I was thinking that maybe we could have dinner together. Would you like to go out somewhere? I could make a reservation. We could even go up to that restaurant in Franschhoek.’

‘I don’t relish the idea of a night out, or being on the roads after dark.’ In fact, Clare had to admit, she no longer wished to be outside her own locked and gated property after sunset. On the rare recent occasions that she had received evening invitations she turned them down, excusing herself with the lie that neither she nor her assistant could see well enough to drive at night. ‘And in any case, Marie left plenty of food and her cooking is good enough for me. My taste buds are not what they were, so your fine dining would be wasted. You know where the guest bedroom is. No one has stayed here since you last came to visit, so any dirt on the sheets is your own. If it is too disgusting there is clean bedding in the linen closet. I trust you have not been so spoiled by servants that you have forgotten how to make a bed.’

She stood in the doorway for a moment and wondered if she was meant to hug or kiss her son. They had never been demonstrative and after a score of agonizing seconds they both nodded and Mark turned out the light.

Clare was up before dawn the next morning. Too tired to swim she instead went to work before emerging from the study adjoining her bedroom. That was perhaps the greatest advantage of this new house — being able to move from bed to desk before the spell of night had completely lapsed, and without having to encounter anyone but her own reflection, which was disturbance enough on some mornings. Marie knew not to knock before eleven if the door remained closed. Mark was not so well trained.