Patrick Flanery - Absolution

‘But the visits, and the photos of me — have I seen those photos?’

‘I never saw them myself. I imagine they must have been sinister, unrepresentative of the way things were. Because she came unannounced at odd hours, she often found — and eventually I understood that she knew she would find and expected to find — the house in some significant disarray. No doubt she hoped to catch you gnawing on a contraband copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover . In those early years of our marriage your father and I lived like bohemians. We had no servants to help us keep the place clean, and I was struggling to write and to look after you and to keep house while your father did little on the domestic front apart from dandle you and coo and pronounce you the most beautiful and intelligent baby that ever was. I accept that he was busy, but it did not make things any easier.’

‘So you never actually saw the photographs. You only assume they were sinister.’

‘I think I have grounds to assume as much. Not long after she started visiting, my parents, who had already moved down to Fish Hoek at that point, phoned to ask if all was well. They wanted to know if your father and I were coping. I said, with not a little shock, that we were certainly coping just fine. They wondered if they could come up for a visit one day. I told them they were welcome at any time, but reminded them that I was trying to work as well as be the housekeeper and mother. I thought it would end at that.’

‘But the photos — assuming there were any — didn’t end with Granny and Grandpa?’

‘This is the point where I became quite seriously unsettled — frightened even. I think the idea was to lay a certain kind of groundwork with your grandparents. Some weeks after they had phoned, your father’s head of department called him in for a meeting and asked if all was well at home, and made noises about creating the right kind of environment to safeguard a child’s welfare. He mentioned the importance of the moral as well as the physical environment, as if to suggest that in our case both might be in question. Your father assured him everything was perfectly fine at home and the next week we hired our first maid. I’ve forgotten her name — Pamela or Pumla. Your father built a well-camouflaged locker in the loft space above our bedroom and there I hid the risky books and papers, better than I had in the past. In a way Nora did us a favour. When the police did come knocking there was nothing for them to find. We presented an unremarkable bourgeois front that, on the surface, no one could question. We got our act together, thanks in large part to Nora’s harassment.’

‘But you don’t have hard evidence that she said anything against you to anyone. You just assume—’

‘You did not know your aunt, my dear. I must ask you to trust my version.’

‘It seems highly subjective and conjectural. It doesn’t sound as though you’ve anything apart from circumstantial evidence. Did your parents or Dad’s department head mention any photos?’

‘No, but—’

‘So it ended with that.’ Mark sounded as though he had heard more than enough. Clare wondered if he was as belligerent in the courtroom as he was with her. No wonder he was so successful.

‘No, it did not end there. A month after your father had the meeting with his head, a social worker of sorts came to visit me at home. She was unannounced, but everything was in order, clean, tidy, nothing amiss, a true vision of suburban perfection, achieved at great cost, mind you. The woman apologized and left after half an hour of chatting with me, playing with you, and refusing to answer my questions. A week later the police came, explaining that someone had phoned with a tip that we were endangering a child. They found nothing, bid us a rather menacing farewell, and then left us alone.’

‘And you assume it was Nora.’

‘It must have been.’

‘Might it not have been someone with a grudge against Dad, or against you, or even against Grandpa?’

‘I suppose it is possible. But Nora is the most obvious suspect. In any event, when none of these interventions had the desired effect she began trying to visit again, always dropping by at the most inconvenient times. By that point I had no reservations about refusing to let her inside, but I also became terrified that she would never stop until she had what she truly wanted.’

‘Which was what?’

‘Don’t you see? She wanted to dispossess me of my child, to take you from me, and have you as her own. If she couldn’t conceive her own child, she would have the next best thing. I began to understand that if I wanted to keep you, I was going to have to defend you at all costs. I was going to have to get rid of her. I had to make her disappear.’

As the kettle boiled Clare found a jar of instant coffee in the pantry. She had to read the instructions on the label and was uncertain what a teaspoon might be, whether it meant a formal cooking measure as her mother had once used, or an informal utensil of inexact volume that most people used. She assumed the latter and put two rounded teaspoons of the coffee granules in each cup — it was the way Adam took it, though he always wanted three sugars as well. The water boiled and she poured it, leaving room for milk in one of the cups. Her own coffee she preferred black. She searched the pantry for sugar but could find none, then thought to look in the cupboard next to the stove, but it wasn’t there either. Then she remembered there were canisters on the kitchen counter, and with insulting obviousness there was one marked SUGAR next to the kettle itself. She must ask Marie to start labelling cupboards with detailed inventories of their contents. If a library has a catalogue, so should a kitchen.

Finding two coasters in the corner cabinet in the lounge, she set down the cups on the coffee table. Mark was watching the news and had failed to look at her when she entered the room.

‘I hope it’s all right,’ she said, indicating the coffee. ‘I’m rather lost in a kitchen.’

‘Thank you, I’m sure it’s fine.’ He spoke without looking at her, his eyes on the screen. Not bothering to ask if he minded, Clare turned off the television.

‘Can’t you speak to me as though you were my son, and not just my interlocutor?’

Mark sighed, sipped his coffee, and put down the cup with a force that surprised Clare. ‘You’re expecting me to play too many parts, Mother. You seem to want me to be your confessor and judge, as well as your child. Sometimes I wonder if you even want me to be the last man in your life. I can’t be all of these things at once. If it’s a confessor or a judge that you most need right now, then I suppose that’s what I can be. But if you want a child I can’t play that part any more. You didn’t raise us to be warm. Is there more to your confession about Aunt Nora? Are there further horrors you feel you have to tell me?’

‘If you can bring yourself to listen to this old woman, there is yet only a little more, if you will hear it,’ Clare said, her voice brittle and off-key in her own ears.

‘Of course I can, Mother. That isn’t what I meant. I’m tired, and I’m sorry if I sounded brusque. It wasn’t my intention.’

‘What remains of the Nora saga is the exact circumstance of my betrayal, if it is possible to betray one who is already objectively one’s enemy. After her campaign against me—’

‘Such as you saw it.’

‘Fine, my sense of her campaign against me, or what felt like her attempt to have me declared an unfit mother — after that there was a change of events in my favour. As you know, Stephan was more than a rising star in the Party, but something like its hoped-for Messiah, and he was appointed to a diplomatic post that took him and Nora to Washington, DC. I cannot express how relieved I was to see them leave the country. At last , I thought, she is out of my life! Almost a year passed in great peace and then one day I heard from Nora herself that she and Stephan were returning, and would be in Cape Town for only a few nights before moving to Pretoria. Stephan was being promoted to a senior position in the executive, and all signs pointed to him being tipped for elected office, she told me. As you might guess, the prospect of Nora’s return, and of Stephan’s promotion, filled me with dread. I had visions of her doing whatever it took to remove you from my care, and as soon as I hung up the phone began planning for our own emigration, assuming that would be the only way to keep you safe from her.’