Homemaking for the Down-At-Heart. Finuala Dowling

its chain,” he said.

      “I hope not,” said Helga.

      They ran on in silence. He would chat if she showed any inclination. But he would not leave her to run on her own. She needed his protection. At Danger Beach, they ducked under the subway arch. A big tide had caused sand to bank up against the railway walls and then collapse. Part of the concrete housing of the mountain-stream outflow pipe had floated away, travelled metres along the beach as if it weighed no more than a cuttlefish. He remarked on this, and added a thought about rising sea levels. Helga said she didn’t believe in global warming. Some people also doubted the moon landings, Margot had told him.

      They ran across the grassy outcrop and down between the bathing boxes onto the concrete pathway. Curtis made sure he ran on the inside lane, where the darkened subways opened onto the catwalk. He checked his Bowie knife in its sheath. Make my day, thought Curtis. Let some wasted loser with a tik-infused brain just make my day.

      The sun was rising over the sea on the right of the joggers, warming up the night-blue mountain range and its long, cold kloofs. As they rounded the back of Bailey’s Cottage and Muizenberg beach opened before them, Helga mentioned that she and her partner were planning a weekend away at a national park.

      Curtis could not understand his surge of jealousy. Who was Helga to him? Why did it matter to him that Helga’s partner was taking her away for a weekend? It must be the old rivalry that he had with all men. You could not trust men – they took women away to national parks. Even Leroy made his hackles rise occasionally. He didn’t like the way Leroy greeted Margot with a kiss. It was insinuating; it was leg-liftingly territorial. If he defended Margot from Leroy’s jibes, then Leroy said: “This is between Margot and me.” Curtis sometimes fantasised about getting the shorter man into an armlock until he behaved respectfully. It was even worse when it came to the triangle with Margot and Leroy’s daughter, Pia. If Pia became tearful when she left for an obligatory visit with Leroy, then it was only by reciting 1 Corinthians 13 in his mind that Curtis could refrain from violence. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. It does not mash short ex-husbands to a satisfying pulp. He recited the verses until the armlock longing eased.

      Pia slept with one arm and one leg clear of the pink bedclothes. Her bed was awash with crayons, books and discarded clothes. Like a drunk who can’t remember how he got into this scrape, Teddy sat propped on a pillow wearing a pair of floral panties on his head.

      Pia’s limbs were long now; she was almost the size of a small woman. Her flesh was unblemished, ignorant of trauma or wear. And all about the room, high and low, pair upon pair of eyes – glass, acrylic, felt and painted – watched over her cushioned progress. Trolls in dinner jackets stood alert beside their tented book homes; plush ducks and lions drove pulled-out drawers. Ken the lone male Barbie sat on a miniature dining-room chair, his broken leg – the one Curtis had replaced with a carved wooden prosthesis – stretched out manfully before him.

      Pia dreamt that she was at Mugg & Bean with her mother, but the restaurant offered nothing that Margot wanted. Somehow this felt like Pia’s fault.

      She woke up. Mornings always surprised her. She had woken up nearly five thousand times in her life, yet still she sat up with a straight back and blinked at the foreignness of it all. Apparently, someone had phoned in to Margot After Midnight recently to say that the world was going to end soon. Oh no, it wasn’t. She didn’t even have breasts yet, so how could the world end? Thirteen – she’d been a teenager for a month! But weren’t you supposed to be different at thirteen? You were supposed to stop playing. She looked at her trolls in the great metropolis laid out on her bedroom floor. Yesterday’s game had been good, and she could think of lots of things they could do next. She also needed to investigate a possible murder in Duignam Road and put the clues in see-through plastic bags. She would borrow Curtis’s magnifying glass. Hadn’t he said he would help her clean the shed and make it into a little house with cups and things today? Sunday rolled out before her like a red carpet. She would block out school until the last minute. If she could reach supper time without letting school in, then it would be a good day.

      Sunday supper time. Leroy came every second Sunday for a visit, usually in the late afternoon or evening because he slept late. Her tummy fluttered. She went to find her mother.

      Margot woke to the gentle boring of her daughter’s eyes. “Hello, darling,” she said from her pillow.

      “My dad’s coming today,” said Pia.

      Margot opened the bedclothes and Pia climbed inside. Margot put her arms around her daughter. “It’ll be okay,” she said, still trying to hold on to the sleeve of sleep. “He may be in a good mood.”

      “But what if he wants to take me somewhere?”

      “You might have fun. He might take you riding.”

      “But I’ll miss you. And what if he takes me to those skanky friends of his and makes me watch TV with their snotty brats?”

      “Then we’ll say you’ve got a test tomorrow.”

      “I can’t wait to grow up. When I’m older I’m going to tell him what I think.”

      “You could tell him now.”

      “But he might shout at me.”

      “He wouldn’t dare.”

      “I wish Curtis were my dad.”

      The two loves of Margot’s life converged into one great love. “Curtis would be really, really pleased if he heard that.”

      “But I feel sorry for my dad.”

      Margot wanted to say that she did too, when she didn’t feel like hitting him across his face. But then she remembered – be lovely. Live inside a flowery eulogy.

      “Leroy’s an incredibly talented man,” she said.

      “Where the hell did that come from?” asked Pia, pulling her head back from her mother’s chest.

      Curtis dished up the porridge and sprinkled in shavings of extra bran. He laid a cloth on a wooden tray. He spread caramel sugar thickly over the steaming surface of the bowl and poured a little cream around the edges. The sugar melted into the hot oats. He placed the bowl on the tray with a jug of milk and a heavy silver spoon.

      “What is it?” asked Zoe when he brought the offering to her.

      “Porridge,” said Curtis.

      “That doesn’t sound very nice.”

      “Just try it,” said Curtis. “It’s your favourite. It’s one of your recipes.”

      He ran his finger along the books beside her bed till he found the one Zoe had written with her friend Esther. Homemaking for the Down-at-Heart. He read to her: “There is always the possibility that depression can be cured with porridge, especially if you cover it with a crust of sticky brown sugar. Despite its name, a porringer isn’t the ideal serving vessel. You need a wide, shallow bowl so that the sugar or honey melts over the biggest possible area. The bowl should have a generous lip for resting the spoon in moments of thought between mouthfuls.”

      “Who wrote that?” asked Zoe.

      “You did,” said Curtis. “What do you think?”

      “I’m trying to drum up some enthusiasm,” said Zoe.

      “This book made you famous,” said Curtis. “Here, I’ll leave it beside you in case you want to read it again.”

      “Thank you,” she said, and reached for her glasses. While he pottered about her room, she pretended to read. She could still recognise individual words, of course. She’d read for that doctor, the fool. Read this word, he’d said, and given her a sheet with “TIME” printed on it. I ask you. Like getting a silly Pekinese to examine a wise old Alsatian. But strings of words, whole paragraphs, seemed like mere jabber to her now. She looked at the cover