“Dolly? No, thank God,” said Chas. “Not a word for two, nearly three years. But I expect she’ll turn up like a bad penny. I gave her some money to stay away. It’s probably long since run out.”
“You didn’t get divorced?” asked William.
“Why should I? Divorce is ridiculously expensive. She wanted half of Midden House as well as half our place in town. The cheek of it. My family’s property. Never held a job down in her life. It’s not like we had any children. Having a child would have interfered with her sex life. Trollop. Did she sleep with you too?”
William was a little taken aback, uncertain how to answer in case Chas responded with one of his flurries of anger.
“Chas, you know how she was. It wasn’t just me.”
“I married the local bicycle, you mean.”
“She wasn’t really local,” said William. “She came from the East Coast.”
“Very funny. So you slept with her too? Spare me the details.”
William’s brow furrowed. He hadn’t been planning to share any details. He remained keen to pacify Chas. “The thing is, I have to take what I can get. I’m sexually underutilised.”
Chas laughed, which emboldened William to ask something that was on his mind: “I don’t suppose any of the ladies at your party wears an A-cup?”
“An A-cup? I don’t really think you can afford to be that picky, William.”
“No, I mean, I need a small cup bra. For my anemometer.”
“Ah. Well, you won’t get that size from our fresh-faced lass, Nina. I could check to see whether Dolly left any behind, but she didn’t really go in for bras.”
“No,” said William. “I remember that about her.”
Part Two
[Autumn of the same year]
In autumn, flowering ericas turned the slopes above Slangkop purply mauve. William walked on the mountainside in the near windless conditions that would persist, he knew, until the first northwesterly of winter made landfall.
He left the path and scrambled up through the scrubby bush to where a wide overhang formed a cave. Tens of thousands of years ago Khoisan people had squatted here, feasting on fish and seafood. The place was still inches deep in limpet shells. This was the prehistoric rubbish dump that had given Midden House its name.
What a lovely safe and sheltered spot it still was, William thought, with its generous canopy of a roof, its great length and many convenient ledges that could serve for seating perches and shelves. What did they talk about, the early people, as they sat here? What did their language sound like?
He lifted his binoculars and identified a Steppe buzzard hovering over its prey. Then he moved his sights downwards. Slangkop was deserted. The only figure he could see was Kobus, fishing from the rocks. He was probably hoping for galjoen, lured by a nice piece of stinky red bait, but the weather was too fine for galjoen.
Now he saw a caravan pulling in at the campsite. Something was wrong, because after a palaver at the boom, the driver was allowed into the park only in order to make a wide turn before heading back up the hill towards the ocean drive.
“What the …” said William, when he saw the caravan turn into his own shady driveway, disappearing into the milkwood canopy.
He hurried down the mountain path, almost stumbling on the stones he loosened in his haste.
An old Sprite caravan was parked outside William’s cottage, and on his tree trunk-bench, casually chewing gum, sat Dolly. Her strawberry blonde hair was matted, on its way to dreads, and her exposed midriff sported a belly ring.
“I’m trespassing, I know!” Dolly came forward to embrace him. Since she had no flesh to speak of, it was like being briefly gripped by a row of bangles and a whiff of patchouli. “Where is everyone?” she demanded.
“They’re all at the funeral,” said William. “Emmanuel too. Mrs Fawkes died. Did you know that?”
“How would I know? Nobody tells me anything! The old dinosaur’s dead, then? What did she die of?”
“Embolism,” said William. “She had a fall, but then died in hospital while they were treating her.”
“Let’s face it, she won’t be missed,” said Dolly. Her face brightened: “She told me once that she’d leave me her rings in her will.”
William didn’t speak, but Dolly soon thought of another benefit of Mrs Fawkes’s passing.
“Maybe Chas’ll let me stay at Midden House now that his mom’s pushing up the daisies! Can you believe it – they wouldn’t let me in at the campsite. The stupid guard said he wasn’t allowed to take in any casuals. ‘But I’m a friend of Neville and Sharon’s!’ I said. ‘They know me!’ This country, you know, it’s the land of ‘no’. Nice welcome I get after three years away. No one will even so much as give me enough water to make a cup of tea!”
William took the hint. “I could give you some tea,” he said.
“Or something stronger, if you have it.”
“Would you like to come inside?”
“I’ll just stay here and have a smoke while you fetch the wherewithal.”
William went inside. When he returned, he was carrying a bottle of vodka and a pot of tea.
“You’d think he could’ve texted me at least to say the old girl had died,” said Dolly. “Hell, she’s still my mother-in-law!”
“Where’ve you been all this time?” asked William.
Dolly stretched. As her arms reached upwards, so did her cropped top, briefly exposing her nipples and what looked to William like a slightly larger curve of breast than he remembered.
“All over. Sodwana, mostly,” she replied. “The climate suits me there. But I go wherever I please. I’ve hitched my wagon to the stars, as you can see. Been a bit of a bumpy ride, I might add.”
“Have you been working there?”
“Oh, I do a bit of this and a bit of that. Henna tattoos on the beach, walking people’s dogs for them. Mostly living off the money Chas gave me. But it’s run out now. To tell the truth, I can’t even afford to camp at Neville and Sharon’s place. I was hoping they’d let me in for mahala. I’ll just have to fall upon the strained mercies of my husband.”
They heard cars coming down the track, including the Karmann Ghia with its familiar Volkswagen roar.
“That’ll be them coming back from the funeral,” said William. He went down the driveway so that he could see the cortege more clearly. “They’re heading for Midden House. There’s going to be an afterparty. We’ll get a better view from my pole.”
“I’d forgotten the joys of pole-climbing!” said Dolly, pulling herself lithely up the lookout beam. “The usual suspects,” she called to him. “Plus some people I’ve never seen before.”
She came down, drained her glass and then balanced it on top of her head. William asked her if she’d like another drink.
“It’d be rude not to,” said Dolly. “So how’ve things been here? Chas still partying up a storm?”
“Not so much recently. I mean, not here anyway. Shutters have been closed for a while. They’ve been in town. Chas visiting his mom in hospital.”
“I think I’ll just go down and pay my respects,” said Dolly, getting up and adjusting her shorts, which hung rather loosely around her skinny hips. Pausing at the tarnished Toyota Corolla that pulled her caravan, Dolly