The Other Language(69)
“With this heat we can’t wait around too long, you see. As you know, refrigeration is a big problem here.”
Part of her coveted moments like this. She had always maintained that, living in Africa, one always had to be prepared for anything to happen. And though perhaps it was wrong to feel this way in light of what had happened, she was now secretly enjoying the fact that she’d stopped being invisible to them, and that, even for a short interlude, she was needed again.
Two days later, the whole Christmas crew reappeared at their parents’ home, their faces bloated from too many hours of travel, still faintly tanned from the holiday they’d spent there only a few weeks earlier. Mark and Tim cried, in a manly way—silent, with a few sniffs—holding their mother in turns. She was sent to bed with another pill, as she was completely helpless, given the state she was in. Ruth and Tara were disoriented and jet-lagged, the children seemed frightened by the eerie atmosphere. The two brothers wandered aimlessly around the house—a house that was foreign to them, of which they held no memories—as if searching for an answer to what had happened so unexpectedly and so unfairly. They seemed resentful, as though their father had played a trick on them. Mrs. D’Costa watched them with sympathy. She knew well how one could get angry when an unexpected death occurred.
“There was nothing wrong with his heart. He was in perfect form for seventy-two. Absolutely nothing wrong,” Mark kept saying, his voice raging with hostility toward anybody who rang to offer condolences.
Tim sat in the kitchen fiddling with his laptop while Mrs. D’Costa put the kettle on and spooned the expensive French roast into the pot. Once again she’d been the one to take care of the logistics: dealing with the British High Commission, getting the death certificate from Dr. Singh, straightening things up with the police and looking into the laborious paperwork needed to return Keith’s body to Sussex.
“Are you sure you want to take him to England?” she asked Tim in a soft voice. “Your father lived in Kenya most of his life, why not put him under that beautiful baobab at the end of the property?”
“Because Mummy cannot possibly live here all by herself, so we’ll have to sell this house,” he answered bluntly, without lifting his eyes from the screen.
“Will you? I’m so sorry to hear that.”
There was a moment of silence, but for the sound of Tim tapping on the keyboard. She waited till he was done.
“And where will your mother go from here?”
Tim rubbed his eyes. He looked exhausted.
“We’ll have to see. Probably with my brother in the U.K. for the moment? I don’t know, Mrs. D’Costa. We haven’t had the time to think about it, to be honest with you.”
The kettle started its furious whistling. Mrs. D’Costa took it off the stove, then she put both her fists on her hips and turned to Tim again. She wanted to sound determined in what she was going to say.
“Tim, I want you to know that I’m perfectly happy to look after Margie if you are concerned about her being alone. I could even move in here for a while if you think that would help. At least in the beginning. What will she do in England now? She doesn’t know anybody there other than your brother.”
“That’s out of the question. My mother won’t survive here on her own. She’s never lived alone a day in her life. Mark and I were always against buying this house anyway. We knew it was a mistake.”
“But I could—”
“It’s spooky,” he went on, without listening. “Someone told us there’s a spell on the coconut plantation at the back. The coconut trees keep dying no matter how many times they get replanted. This whole place is jinxed.”
Mrs. D’Costa stopped pouring hot water into the French press and put the kettle down.
“Where did you hear that?” she cried.
“One of the men at the gas station down the road. He worked as the watchman for some of the neighbors who left. He said that’s the reason nobody has bought property around here in all these years. All those abandoned houses along the beach? Owners were either broken into or got into accidents. I hate the energy of this house. My brother felt it, too, the minute he set foot here.”
Anne wouldn’t have it. She pushed her shoulders back and replied, with as much resolve as she could summon, “What utter foolishness! That’s a piece of ridiculous superstition! I’m surprised you took that seriously.”
Tim ignored her and grabbed the kettle, taking over the coffee making. Next door a child was crying and they could hear Ruth soothing him. Tim poured himself a cup, stirred in an artificial sweetener and prepared another mug.
“The Wiltons first. Then Dad. It’s enough deaths, as far as I’m concerned. Please excuse me, Anne, I have to take this to my wife. She needs a shot of caffeine, it’s been a very hard day for her as well.”
Tara and Ruth wanted to get the children out of the house. Too much talk of death upset them, so that evening Ruth asked Mrs. D’Costa if she might take all of them over to her place the next day, while the grown-ups dealt with more phone calls and paperwork.
“I’ll bring some food, you don’t have to worry about anything,” she offered.
Ruth was a good-looking girl of about thirty, with strong muscular legs, a smooth complexion and long hair of an astonishing strawberry-blond color that fell in thick ringlets on her shoulders.