The Housemaid's Daughter (38 page)

‘Go and sit in the non-European waiting room,’ the lady said without looking at me, and briskly turned the roller at the top of her machine to feed the paper through.

So I did. I waited quite some time until the doctor had seen all the people in the white waiting room.

‘Yes, what is it?’ Dr Wilmott was old, now, as old as Master had been when he died. ‘Why, it’s the Harrington maid. What seems to be the problem?’

‘It is my Madam,’ I said. ‘She is sick, sir, but she does not know it.’

He looked at me, and I wondered if he remembered that he was the one who delivered me in Cradock House, and he was the one that closed my mother Miriam’s eyes in death, and that I was the one who had borne Master’s child.

‘She helped during the flood, and she doesn’t want to get up.’

‘Well then, she should take all the rest she needs. Now,’ he made to return to the white waiting room that was filling up once more, ‘I have many more patients. The floods, you see.’

I could tell he didn’t believe me because in his eyes I was only the Harrington maid. He also didn’t know that I was all that was left of Mrs Cath’s family, for Miss Rose had never called even when the telephones had started working again, even though the floods had been on the radio news. But I wouldn’t let him go. Doctors are not always right. After all, he was the one who believed Phil was no longer ill.

‘You must call and see her. Or I will have to take her to the hospital.’

He stared at me, his face reddening, his hands fiddling with the buttons on his white coat, his thin hair standing up on his head as if in outrage at my behaviour, my rudeness, my insistence. My sin.

‘You will do no such thing,’ he boomed, like he’d boomed at my dear young Master. ‘Now leave. I will call on Mrs Harrington during my afternoon rounds.’

* * *

‘Who is this?’ There was no mistaking the quick, annoyed voice. I could almost see her tossing that beautiful yellow hair, rolling those slate-blue eyes.

‘It is Ada, Miss Rose. From Cradock. Ada Mabuse.’

‘What is it that you want? Where did you get this number?’

I waited for a moment, not for the purpose of negotiation, but to remember the words I’d practised in my head for I am not used to the telephone. I have no need to use it because no one that I know possesses one. I would have no one to call.

‘Ada? Just get on with it, please.’ Miss Rose’s voice was as crisp – and as cold – as the frost beneath my bare feet in winter when I fetched the milk from the gate.

‘It’s Mrs Cath,’ I said. ‘She is not well.’

There was a pause from the other end.

‘Was the house damaged? In the flood?’

‘No. But Mrs Cath helped to save other houses, and now she is ill.’

‘Why hasn’t Dr Wilmott phoned me? Why does he get the maid to call?’

I flinched at the withering note she put on ‘maid’. Mrs Pumile was right. She always said Miss Rose would never grow out of her rudeness.

‘Dr Wilmott thinks Mrs Cath will get better.’

There was a pause.

‘Then why are you calling? Do you think you know more than the doctor?’

I waited, this time to let some silence grow, and to hope that within its boundaries Miss Rose might wonder if she’d been too quick. Like Auntie was too quick to throw me out.

‘Well? Ada?’

‘I thought you should know, Miss Rose. Your mama is tired. I have seen such tiredness in others before. It is not something that is cured with sleep.’

I heard her shallow breath in my ear, as if she was panting.

‘I’ll try to visit. But it’s not a good time for me.’ Her voice became wheedling, as if I had the power to keep her mother well until such time as it suited Miss Rose to visit.
Will you iron my petticoats, Ada? I’ll buy you peppermint creams
…

‘Thank you, Miss Rose. Mrs Cath will love to see you. And Helen, too.’ For Helen must be sixteen by now, and although Mrs Cath had visited her in Johannesburg, Helen had been to Cradock only twice.

I waited. There was a click at the other end. Miss Rose had put down the phone.

Chapter 53

I
 must fight for the return of my daughter, for this dancing in Johannesburg will only lead to trouble. And I must fight for Mrs Cath. I know Dawn and Mrs Cath are only two souls, rather than the thousands in Cradock that deserve help, but it is a fight that my ailing head can manage, a fight that I can get my arms round, a fight that I have a chance of winning. For my head is struggling to keep up. Or perhaps it is not the fault of my head alone, but the demands placed on it since I left jail.

Speak at the rally, Ada!

Insist the new school gets built faster!

Talk to the newspaper about flood relief, lost Passes, feeding schemes, class sizes, about babies dying from dirty water …

It is your duty. It is your struggle now. Your revolution.

‘You must,’ urged Dina, on my first day back at school. ‘You’re famous!’

The new school in Lingelihle was not yet ready, so we had moved to St James, where the young teachers were determined to recruit me. They told me of a new thing called black consciousness, words that I’d never seen paired together before. They spoke of Steve Biko, who taught the idea, and who was drawing supporters away from the jailed Mandela. I am cautious with such new words. They take time to arrive in a dictionary, just as the ideas they describe take time to root in the mind. But this was not the way of the younger teachers. For them, the time for caution had long gone.

‘The police are watching me, I can’t risk being caught again,’ I insisted to those who wanted to use me to further the revolution. ‘I can only offer my music.’

‘But they let you out! You survived! You’re the face of the struggle!’

But it is too much for me. It is Dawn and Mrs Cath that I must save.

From Johannesburg, Dawn writes every week, as she promised.

I am dancing, Mama! They have places here where people come to watch dancing – and I am the best! People ask for me!

I get paid every night by the owners of this place, and I also get paid by the people who watch me.

And what of your studies, child? I write back. Do you study when you are not dancing? When you are too old to dance, you will need an education in order to get a proper job.

I don’t need to study any more, Mama. I can earn enough by dancing. Now tell me about the flood. The papers say that Bree Street was destroyed – even the jail. Is this not good news?

Lindiwe says she has heard that Dawn dances not only for black and coloured people, but for white as well. No good can come of this.

Mama was right. However much you might believe you have been accepted and can sit in the chairs meant for whites, it will never be the case. And it is even more the case for Dawn, my child who belongs nowhere, my child who falls in between, like the brown waters of the Groot Vis once divided white from black until the flood tore everything apart.

And Mrs Cath remained in bed.

‘I have made butternut soup.’ I offered a spoonful to her where she lay against her pillows, gazing outside. She loved to watch the garden beyond her bedroom window, the sunbirds flitting among the orange Cape honeysuckle, the pampas grass waving its feathery plumes.

‘We’re so lucky,’ she murmured. ‘I can still see Maisie’s ruined place.’

‘Have some more soup, Mrs Cath,’ I urged, ‘then you’ll be strong enough to help Mrs Maisie start a new garden.’

She took one more spoon then set it down on the tray.

‘We had lilac, back in Ireland. I’ve never got it to grow here. Edward wasn’t interested, you know, Ada. He left the garden to me.’

She glanced at her diary lying on the table next to her bed. Not the red velvet one of my youth, but a slim book covered with soft brown leather, closed with a silver button clasp.

‘A little Chopin, Ada?’

And so I began to play the entire set of Chopin nocturnes for Mrs Cath. Twenty-one in all. I think of each one as a jewel, a precious, shining gift. Twenty-one gifts for my Madam as she rests upstairs …

* * *

Miss Rose arrived today. She arrived by hire car from Port Elizabeth. It is now possible to fly in an aeroplane from Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth and then borrow a car for money, and drive up to Cradock. I fear this will one day mean the end of our railway line.

Miss Rose jumped out of the car and made a fuss of rushing inside, calling to Helen to take out the luggage. Miss Rose was as smart as ever, with a tight striped jersey over a long skirt with a slit down the side. She did not greet me as she went by. Helen, getting out of the car more slowly, turned out to be as tall as her mother, with the same yellow hair, but without the biting tongue.

‘Hello, Ada,’ she said shyly, reaching for my hand. ‘I remember your piano.’

‘Welcome, child,’ I replied, feeling her young skin, wishing I could hug her as a reminder of my own daughter. ‘Your granny will be so happy to see you.’

‘Is Dawn here?’ the girl asked eagerly, looking about her.

‘No,’ I caught my breath, ‘she lives in Jo’burg, near Soweto township.’

‘Oh.’ She glanced towards the house where her mother’s shrill voice could be heard. ‘I wish I’d known. It would be good to see Dawn, and we could send news of her, couldn’t we?’

I looked at her eyes, soft as Mrs Cath’s, and found myself fighting down sudden tears. I hadn’t wept in jail, I hadn’t wept when I returned to Cradock House, but with a few words this surprising girl had touched me.

‘Perhaps,’ I said, recovering myself, ‘but the laws don’t make it easy.’

‘I know,’ she whispered, leaning closer to me, not unlike Dawn in one of her intense moods. And then she said, ‘I hate those laws. Mum doesn’t, but I do.’

I stared at her. We hardly knew each other. She would have heard of me from her mother, and that would only have been unfavourable.

She smiled, awkwardly, and shrugged. ‘Mum and I don’t agree on much.’

I smiled back. ‘I’ll tell you a secret: it was the same between your mama and Mrs Cath. Now run in, child.’ I nodded towards the house. ‘Go and see your grandma. She’ll be waiting for you.’

That night, we had dinner in Mrs Cath’s bedroom. I made a leg of lamb with roast potatoes and Karoo vegetables to celebrate Miss Rose and Helen’s return, and an omelette for Mrs Cath, who found eggs easier to eat. I carved in the kitchen and took their food up on trays laid with cream linen from Ireland.

‘Where is yours, Ada?’ asked Mrs Cath.

‘I was going to eat downstairs, Mrs Cath,’ I replied, with a sideways glance at Miss Rose. ‘You haven’t seen your family for so long.’

‘Nonsense!’ she said with a flash of her old spirit. ‘Bring yours upstairs like you always do.’

It was a strange meal, one that I would have relished if we had been on our own, for the lamb was fragrant with wild Karoo
bossies,
while the vegetables were tender and the roast potatoes crunchy, just as Mrs Cath used to like them. We would not have needed to say much. From beyond the bedroom window came the heady scent of jasmine newly unleashed by the waning heat, and the last bokmakierie call-and-answer of the day, while in the background the Groot Vis dawdled gently, as if trying to convince us of its docility.

Instead, Miss Rose dominated, although she said very little of importance. There was talk about the latest theatre shows, the quality of the shopping in a place called Illovo, the difficulty of getting acceptable help in the home. She asked no questions about Cradock or the floods, or Mrs Cath’s life and well-being. As ever, Miss Rose was occupied with what happened to her, rather than what affected others. She didn’t appear to notice the good food, or the perfumed twilight.

Helen shrank into her seat and contented herself with her dinner. Mrs Cath gazed out of the window at the growing night.

‘Jo’burg is so busy now, there’s never any parking when you need it. And I won’t go into the city centre, too dirty, too many blacks.’

I ate the last of my lamb. There was a beat of silence.

‘Did you see the flood damage on your way in?’ Mrs Cath turned from her window and attempted to steer the conversation away from dirt and blacks and how they belonged together in her daughter’s mind.

‘Oh yes,’ Helen put in, quick to pick up the new thread. ‘We saw the damage along Bree Street. Were you frightened?’

‘Yes, a little. It was so noisy, you see. A great roaring,’ said Mrs Cath. ‘Tchaikovsky – the
1812
– with cannons.’ She glanced across at me. ‘Ada likes to think of things in musical terms.’

‘We don’t get floods in Jo’burg. Our climate’s much better, far more stable.’

And so it went on; Miss Rose taking the conversation in her direction, Mrs Cath trying to find a way to return it to the rest of us, Cradock House observing the tussle.

A bat streaked past the window. There are bats in the township, I saw them as I waited for Lindiwe after Auntie threw the newborn Dawn and me out of her hut. Some people say that bats are evil spirits. That they are the dead coming down to spy upon the living.

I brought up the dessert, homemade granadilla ice cream, made from the purple fruits that grow so well on our granadilla vine. Helen ate up her bowl and asked for more, like Phil used to with Mama’s jam sponge pudding. Mrs Cath lay back on her pillow, her hands motionless on the covers. She wasn’t getting downstairs to play very often. Her fingers were surely lonely for the piano.

Miss Rose paused for a moment in her one-way conversation.

‘Thank you, Ada,’ Mrs Cath murmured. ‘Delicious meal.’

I gathered up the trays. I could see her weariness. Whenever she sees Miss Rose, she hopes it will go better, but it never does.

‘I think I’ll rest.’ Her gaze lingered on her granddaughter. ‘We’ll talk more in the morning.’

* * *

But there was no more talk in the morning. When I went up at seven o’clock with Mrs Cath’s tea and buttermilk rusk, she was lying on her side, arms stretched towards the window, beautiful strong fingers curled in her palms. She had used some perfume before she went to sleep, for a faint scent lifted the close bedroom air.

‘No!’ I found myself crying, as I set down the tea so hard on the dressing table it spilled. ‘No! Not yet!’