They had become friends, going to movies and having drinks when he didn’t have a girlfriend, or wasn’t trying to seduce the Japanese waitress who worked at his local bar. He had a massive pile of Japanese anime in his flat.
Stella hasn’t seen Timothy since Françoise disappeared. He had told her that he didn’t want to see anyone after that.
“Don’t be so dramatic, Timothy. She’ll come back. And if she doesn’t you will have to move on.” Stella had been irritated by his moroseness.
“You don’t understand how it feels to lose someone . . .” He stopped abruptly. “I’m sorry. I . . .” But it was too late, it was there hanging between them.
On a scale of one to ten, his love was one to her ten – a molehill to her mountain.
After ten days Timothy had sent her twenty emails saying he was sorry. She had ignored them all. Then he had disappeared. He hadn’t answered her calls for weeks. The people at the bookshop where he worked part time hadn’t seen or heard from him.
Now, standing at his doorway, she sees a light go on in the kitchen. She moves closer and peers through the window. A hand opens the top window a slit. The smell of cooking is released: garlic, ginger, lemon grass, coconut milk. He’s making Thai fish curry. It’s his Friday dish. On Monday he will grill haloumi cheese and eat it with seared rocket leaves and roasted seeds. On Tuesday he makes miso soup with tofu and seaweed. On Saturday, lasagne is on his menu. She tries to visit on Saturdays.
She can hear music, the lazy smoky jazz of Pharoah Sanders. Music that Timothy used to take each week to Ivor’s life drawing classes, but which Ivor never played. He preferred opera; heavy and dramatic music that he could sing or conduct along to with his paintbrush in one hand and a glass of red wine in the other. She shouts his name, but the music is too loud, or he’s ignoring her. She can feel someone’s eyes on her back, watching.
Although it is late afternoon it is still hot and humid in the city. Up on Table Mountain the clouds are massing. Summer storms are becoming more frequent in Cape Town. There are more still humid days with no wind. Climate change, Timothy had told her. “This,” he had gestured, pointing to the city basin, “will all be under water. We will have to move to your house on the edge of the Karoo.” Stella still can’t think of it as her house. It is her mother’s house. She doesn’t know if she wants to share it with anyone.
Stella loves electric storms – the charge that injects life back into the faded streets is tangible. The leaves drip wet and luminous in the early evening; the smell of the steaming tar rises after the downpour.
Once, when it had rained, she had stood in the middle of the garden of her communal house, the rain plastering her hair to her skull.
“You’re crazy, Stella,” her housemate’s tone had been derogatory and envious at the same time.
The music stops for a few seconds. In that time she hears Timothy whistling as he moves about the kitchen; the clattering of pots, a “shit”, the smell of burning, a tap running.
She looks at the invitation to Ivor’s exhibition again. Ivor must have found out where she worked and got her address. They weren’t meant to give numbers or addresses out. But Stacy on the switchboard was a sucker for charm and Ivor had lots of that. Still, it freaked her out. That’s why she was here. To ask Timothy if he had also had an invitation delivered by hand. At least then they could be freaked out together.
Why, when she had been “banned” from Ivor’s life drawing classes, had he sent her an invitation? Did it mean that he had forgiven her for the “forbidden” thing that she had done? Had he not done something far worse? She had never seen anyone so ashen as Ivor the day he had opened the door and refused to let her come inside.
A year has passed since then and she has heard nothing from him until this.
She bangs on the door again. But she can’t see Timothy in the kitchen any more. The music he was playing has changed. She knows he has gone through to the patio, where he eats his dinner, but there is no access to it from the communal garden. Pharoah Sanders has been switched off. Stella would phone him, but she has run out of airtime and she can’t remember how to send a plz call me.
“You waiting for Mr Timothy?”
She turns around to see a small pinched-up woman dressed in an overall. She is smoking and is propped up by a mop. Stella has seen her before, lurking around and watching like some evil goblin. She is the superintendent of the block of flats.
“I once caught her staring in through my bathroom window. She said she was trying to get a mark off the glass,” Timothy had told her. Now the woman coughs and clears her throat of phlegm.
“He’s always at home on a Friday.” She has a thick accent. “He always cooks that curry on a Friday. Stinks the whole place up.”
She gives Stella the creeps; she won’t go away, just stands there watching as Stella bangs on the door again.
“He won’t answer it.” The super’s voice is smug. “He’s not taking visitors. Loner,” she adds. And, when Stella doesn’t move, “You can wait there all evening but he’s not coming out.”
Stella avoids looking at the woman as she walks past her, out of the gates to the flats, and back on to the street. She is at a loss as to what to do. She had come here with such purpose, never doubting that Timothy would let her in.
Defeated, Stella walks slowly back down the street towards her car. As she is unlocking the car door her cellphone rings. It’s Marge, who works in DTP at Verve.
“Waiting Room?” Marge asks, eager for an after-work drink. Stella isn’t in the mood to go with Marge to a bar, but she has no plans now. “Fridays are horrible for singles,” Marge tells her. “No sulking around at home listening to those breathing tapes of yours.”
“Let’s order more margaritas,” says Marge after they have been in the Waiting Room for half an hour, eyeing out the talent in the bar. Stella wanted to go home as soon as she arrived, but after two drinks she doesn’t want to go home – ever.
“It was exciting then – the life drawing class.”
“So take up another hobby.”
“It wasn’t a hobby.” Stella can’t explain.
“Well, nothing is going to happen if you do nothing,” Marge lights a cigarette and scans the room. It is filling up after work.
How to take your day look into night, thinks Stella drunkenly. They had done a feature on it for the magazine. You could unbutton your professional shirt, clip on earrings, lose the jacket. There was something else, but she couldn’t remember what it was . . .
“Why are you staring at that woman? Are you drunk, Stella?”
Stella frowns at Marge who is definitely drunk.
“I’m glad you came out and didn’t go home and read.” Marge rests her hand on Stella’s knee. It’s warm. “You’ll never meet anyone if you stay home and read.”
“Buddhists say do nothing. Still your ego, wait with an open heart,” says Stella uncertainly.
“You’ve been doing that I Ching again. It’s a load of shit. Ask it a question and it always says the same old shit . . . do not be entangled by inferior things.” Marge exhales and the smoke pours out through her nostrils. “Buddhists don’t have sex,” Marge says, blowing a huge smoke ring.
Stella feels ill. She has drunk one too many margaritas. “I just need to speak to someone from the life drawing class. Because of this.” She fishes in her bag and puts the invitation to Ivor’s exhibition on the table between them. Marge spills her drink on it. Then she picks it up and squints at it. “Who is it?”
“It’s Françoise. She modelled for Ivor.” Stella suddenly sees something she hasn’t seen before. But maybe