A Poor Season for Whales

Preamble

Margaret Crowley, handsome, clever and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly fifty-six years in the world with very little to distress or vex her. It was therefore hardly to be foreseen that in her fifty-sixth year she would kill a man with a kitchen knife.

*

Saturday 10 November 2018

Margaret met Jimmy on the day Benjy almost fell to his death. She was walking, as she did every morning, along the cliff path that ran past her house. Benjy had, ever since their first walk a month before, been warily interested in the dassies sunning themselves on the rocks, sometimes scurrying off at his approach, more often not deigning to move, having presumably by some evolutionary wisdom arrived at the insight that, given the shortness of their legs as compared to those of a large Doberman, not running was the safer option. On this day, however, a dassie, more nervous than its fellows, took flight when it saw Benjy approach; and Benjy, emboldened by the animal’s scampering retreat, gave chase. The dassie flung itself plumply but with surprising agility down one of the steep cliff faces onto a ledge below and disappeared into a crevice; Benjy, his normal caution overwhelmed by some atavistic hunting instinct, followed the little creature over the top of the cliff, and vanished over its edge. For a moment Margaret stood paralysed, thinking that Benjy had plunged to his death; then, peering over the edge, she saw him about two metres below her, cowering on a ledge barely wide enough for him to stand on, with a hundred metres of rock face and roiling breakers below him.

She called to him, not really thinking he could or would scramble up the sheer face, but not knowing what else to do; she had horrible pre­visions of the dog panicking, jumping, and falling to his death in the sea below. She had to fight a rising hysteria: she felt as utterly helpless as she’d ever been in her life, and the sight of Benjy trembling on the ledge filled her with terror. Trying to soothe him, she knelt on the edge of the precipice, nonsensically promising him that she would rescue him, that he was to lie down and wait, anything to keep her own panic at bay. But she was near to breaking down when a voice next to her said, ‘What’s the matter, lady? You having a problem?’

She was in such a state of heightened anxiety that she did not pause to assess the probable motives of the stranger: she simply said, ‘Oh heavens, yes, please, please, my dog’s down there, can you help us?’

‘Let me see about that,’ said the stranger, with a languid kind of sangfroid that she would under different circumstances have found irritating. He moved to the edge of the precipice, and knelt next to her to get a better view.

‘Please,’ she said, ‘don’t … don’t fall.’

‘Nope, I’m not scheming to.’ He looked back at her as he said this, with a sardonic smile that was oddly comforting. He seemed in total control of the situation, which she definitely was not.

‘I reckon,’ he continued, ‘if you pass me that lead, I can climb down and hitch it to the dog’s collar.’

‘But how …? I mean, how can you climb down there?’

‘I’ve done some rock-climbing in my time,’ he said. ‘So you just hang on to the lead, lady, while I go down, just so as to steady me – I won’t put my full weight on it, otherwise we’re all going to be doing doggy paddle with the whales.’

They both got to their feet, she rather shakily, he extravagantly self-possessed. He took one end of the lead she’d given him and gave her back the other end – fortunately it was a very long lead that she’d used in Cape Town in parks that didn’t allow dogs off-lead – and inched his way over the lip of the precipice. Benjy was staring up at him warily: Margaret hoped the dog wouldn’t panic at the approach of the stranger, and jump.

‘His name is Benjy,’ she suggested. ‘Perhaps you can, you know, calm him.’

‘Right,’ he grunted, and started a slow, low near-chant: ‘Benjy, boy, come, Benjy-boy, we’re going to take you back, boy, home to your bone and home to your bed, Benjy-bed and Benjy-bone, hey boy, Benjy-boy.’

Benjy seemed intrigued: he stood stock-still, his stump of a tail quivering tentatively, not quite daring a wag. Margaret was terrified lest an abrupt move on the man’s part might alarm the dog. The man seemed to sense this, too, and moved very slowly, changing hands and feet with extreme caution, not really holding on to the lead, just keeping it dangling down his shoulder, probably more as a psychological stabiliser than for actual physical support. He was wearing flimsy canvas sneakers; Margaret could only hope that the soles were more substantial than the uppers. His progress was agonisingly slow, and there were moments when she wanted to urge him on, but checked herself with the realisation that hurry could be quite literally fatal to both him and Benjy – who was, she was relieved to see, more fascinated than intimidated.

‘Here I am, Benjy-boy, and there you are, and there we are, Benjy boy, here today and here tomorrow, no sorrow, no grief, my chief,’ the man chanted. ‘Now slowly does it, slowly does it, low and slow my bro, slow and low.’ Reaching the ledge, he sat down at first to reassure the dog, before sidling closer, putting out a steady hand and clicking the lead onto the dog’s collar. ‘There we are Benjy-boy,’ he crooned, ‘safe and sound’s an English pound, sound as a hound, safe and sound.’

He manoeuvred into position behind the dog and put his arms around his chest from the back. Benjy tensed up, and the man released one arm, scratched the dog’s head behind the ear, waited for him to relax, and then gently resumed his hold.

‘I’ll sort of lift him,’ he said, ‘and you hang on to the lead with every­thing you’ve got until he can find purchase for his paws.’

Find purchase she thought irrelevantly, when last did she hear that expression? She bit her lip and hung on to her end of the lead, while Benjy, who now seemed to get the idea, scrabbled and scrambled up the steep rock face, dislodging sand and pebbles, while the man, without the support of the lead, steadied him from behind. The collar strained against the lead with the weight of the dog, and Margaret dreaded that it would slip over his head; but it was a martingale collar, designed to tighten when under stress, and held firm. At last Benjy’s hind paws found a firm footing, and he leapt onto the level, next to Margaret, wiggling his tail nonchalantly, as if pleased with his own achievement.

‘Oh, thank God,’ Margaret breathed. She rubbed the dog’s ears, peering over the rim of the precipice, to where the man was positioning him­self for the climb back.

‘Do you want the other end of the lead again?’ she asked.

‘Naw, I’ll be okay. I got down here, didn’t I, I can get up again, don’t stress.’ He smiled up at her again, defusing the slightly patronising tone of his reassurance. His super-cool attitude was belied by the fine beading of sweat on his upper lip and forehead: partly exertion, she thought, partly anxiety, which he surely could not help feeling. She herself felt drained of all energy, of all volition. If the man hadn’t been there, she’d have collapsed in a heap next to Benjy.

The man scuffed his feet, creating a foothold, tested the rock face for handholds, and started a slow ascent, foot by foot and hand by hand. He had large hands, strong, long fingers, hands well adapted to climbing, and his arms were slender but wiry. The veins on his forehead registered his exertion. His lips were curled back in a snarling grimace of effort.

As he approached the edge of the rock face, he reached up, trying to hoist himself up, but he was still too far down to get a proper grip. He was wearing an expensive-looking watch, at odds, she found time to reflect, with the rest of his decidedly scruffy appearance.

‘Shall I help you?’ she offered, extending a hand.

‘No … yes, okay, if you could sort of grab this hand … I’ve got a good grip with the other. There …’ as she took hold of his hand, ‘steady now, don’t pull, just hold tight.’

Holding on to him, she felt the weight of him, felt the force of gravity dragging her down, but she held on, as, with a sudden exertion that nearly pulled her off her feet, he hoisted himself up, and came to a stop looming over her, still holding on to her hand. For a moment they stood like this, as if making sure of the ground firm under their feet: his heaving chest in front of her, the smell of his anxiety strong in her nostrils, sweat seeping through the fabric of his T-shirt.

‘Phew,’ he whistled through his teeth, ‘that was a bugger.’

She let go of his hand, but did not want to step back, did not want to seem to shy away from contact. ‘I’m so grateful to you,’ she said. ‘I was sure my dog was going to jump into the sea or do something stupid. But really … I didn’t want for you to risk your life.’

‘Oh, I can look after myself.’ He took a step back, wiping his face with the edge of his T-shirt. ‘I wasn’t really risking my life, was I?’

‘Oh, but …’ she started, but realising that he wanted to shrug off his own bravery, she interrupted herself. ‘Well, thank you very much all the same, and I’m sure Benjy would agree.’ She smiled down at the dog, who was in fact gazing up at the man with what seemed to be adoration.

‘You’re welcome,’ he said, patting the dog, ‘and you’re welcome, too, Benjy, anytime you need a leg up, hey?’

‘Do you like dogs?’ she asked, incongruously, not knowing what else to say.

‘Yeah, sure. I like most animals. They’re not full of shit.’

‘Unlike human beings, you mean?’ she asked.

He grimaced. ‘Unlike some human beings, I guess.’

They stood like that for a moment, perched on the edge of a con­versation that was more solemn than the occasion required or could support. Then, visibly withdrawing from the latent interchange, he said, ‘Well, guess I got to get going. You going to be okay now?’

‘Yes … yes, of course. But can’t I offer you a cup of coffee or something? I live quite close by.’

He seemed to consider. ‘Tell you what,’ he said, ‘if you’ve got a spot of breakfast, a sandwich or something, that would be cool. I’ve had zilch to eat for bloody ever.’

‘Of course,’ she said, though in truth slightly taken aback. ‘That’s the least I can do.’

‘Or did you scheme to finish your walk first?’ he asked.

‘Thanks, but no thanks. To be honest, I’m still a bit shaken, and so’s Benjy, I should think.’

‘He’ll be okay. He’s clean forgotten about it already.’ And indeed, Benjy was running ahead as insouciantly as if he’d not just tumbled down a precipice.

‘What about you?’ she asked. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Sure. Except my jeans are showing strain.’ He pointed at his knee, where the fabric had indeed been scuffed, showing a bit of bare skin below, starting to seep blood.

‘Oh, you must let me replace that.’

‘Naw, it’s an old pair anyway.’

‘Still,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you a Band-Aid and some antiseptic for that graze. You don’t want it to get infected.’

‘I’m used to copping scabs and scuffs,’ he smiled, a sudden lightening of his intense features. ‘I’m a rough-and-tumble sort of oke. But sure, a Band-Aid will sort me out.’

Reaching the house, she unlocked the front door with the remote control, and gestured him in. He looked about him, she noticed, with keen interest, but he said nothing, for which she was grateful. She assumed that he was not used to the relative prosperity that even her minimalist house could not but signal, and felt oddly embarrassed at exposing him to it. He, however, showed no sign of discomfiture or, indeed, anything else, except if it was a sign of interest that, without asking her leave, he walked into the sitting-room area, still looking about him with his air of silent attentiveness.

Returning, he said, in a flatly factual way, ‘You’ve got some kiff paintings. That’s an Irma Stern, right? And a Gerard Sekoto?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We were lucky – we bought them long ago, before they became unaffordable.’

‘They must have been pretty pricy even then. And that’s a Hockney drawing? And a Marlene Dumas?’

‘Yes,’ she said, mildly amused at his evident enjoyment of showing off his knowledge of modern art. Or perhaps, to be fair, he was just interested in art. ‘Yes, they were pricy, for young people starting out. But we skimped on grocery money to buy paintings.’

He nodded. ‘Some groceries,’ he said laconically. He looked back at the room with the paintings, made a face that could mean anything, and turned to face her. ‘We?’

‘We?’ she repeated, puzzled.

‘Yes. You said we. Who is or was the other party to these transactions?’

Margaret’s first instinct was to tell this forward young man that the composition of her immediate circle was none of his business, but he seemed to be quite a confrontational young man, so she deemed it simpler just to say, ‘My husband and I. That is, my ex-husband.’ Then, to fore­stall any further enquiries, she said, ‘If you’ll just make yourself at home while I get you something to eat?’

‘Sure thing.’ He stood in the middle of the kitchen, relaxed and loose-limbed, but attentive, taking in his surroundings. Then he said, ‘If you mean that about making myself at home, d’you mind if I have a bit of a wash-up?’

‘Of course. I mean of course I don’t mind. There’s a guest bathroom just along there.’ She pointed to the door leading into the guest suite.

‘Mind if I have a shower?’ he asked. ‘I’m a bit smelly after that lot.’

‘Of course. Go ahead,’ she said, though once again taken by surprise. She’d never before had people coming for breakfast and asking to have a shower on the grounds of being smelly. Well, she had told him to make himself at home. ‘There’s a clean towel in the bathroom, and there’s shower gel in the shower, and shampoo.’

‘Cool. I’ll give it the works.’

‘I’ll start the breakfast so long. What kind of sandwich would you like?’

‘Bacon and egg and tomato, if you’ve got it. I’m bloody starving, if you really want to know.’

‘Of course,’ she said, wondering what exactly she’d brought upon herself. He evidently was a young man who knew his own mind. And who hadn’t eaten or washed for a while.

He took his time; she’d fried the bacon, but didn’t want to start the eggs and the toast before he was ready to eat them, so she felt at a loose end, waiting for him to reappear. She’d lost, she realised, the long-suffering patience every mother must cultivate if she is not to degenerate into a nag or a scold under the pressure of eternally waiting for children to get dressed, to get bathed, to get their school stuff together, just to get their act together; and now, waiting for a young man to complete his ablutions in her guest bathroom, she had to remind herself, in order to suppress an irrational impulse of impatience, that he’d saved Benjy’s life, at some considerable risk to himself.

At last, after a good quarter of an hour, he reappeared, perhaps, she thought, a bit over-casually still pulling his T-shirt over his flat stomach. He had not put his jeans back on, and was wearing only a pair of boxer shorts, and carrying his sneakers.

‘If you can get hold of that Band-Aid,’ he said, ‘I can put my pants back on.’

‘Oh, of course, I am sorry. It’s upstairs, I’ll just run up and get it.’

‘No sweat. I’m not bleeding to death or anything.’

‘We don’t want to take any chances,’ she said, relieved to get out of the room. In his boxers he was perfectly decent, but there was still some­thing disconcerting about the very nonchalance with which he’d made his trouserless entrance, his hair still wet, abundantly frizzed out with washing, and smelling of her shampoo. Where before, in her alarm at Benjy’s plight and her subsequent relief, she’d not been very much aware of the young man as a physical presence, she now had to acknowledge him as an individual: there was something about his bearing that seemed to demand it, quite apart from his not wearing pants.

In the first place, he was of mixed race, though that, too, had not really registered with her. In Cape Town, in her circle at any rate, race had ceased to be a marker of anything in particular: it was considered bad form to comment on or even notice someone’s race. And yet, of course, one could not not notice, just as one couldn’t help noticing whether someone was blond or dark-haired. And he … well, he was definitely coloured, or ‘so-called Coloured’ as she’d been taught to call it in her student days. He was, though, light-skinned, and his eyes were a striking blend of green and brown, his features clearly defined by the bone underneath the skin. His chin was strong, his nose small and pointed, the nostrils delicately flared. There was an alertness, a bright-eyed inquisitiveness, about him that reminded her of a well-adjusted dog, one of the long-legged wire-haired kind.

She went upstairs to her bedroom and found the Band-Aid and a tube of Betadine that she didn’t know she had: she must just have thrown it in with the rest of the contents of the medicine cupboard in the rush of the move. There was some cotton wool as well, which she took with her.

Coming downstairs, she found him standing in the middle of the kitchen, inspecting the control box of the alarm system. He’d placed his sneakers and his jeans on the kitchen counter.

‘Fancy system,’ he said, as she entered.

‘Yes, my friends insisted I should have a state-of-the-art system. For myself, I don’t have much faith in alarm systems.’

‘No, mainly they tell you there’s somebody in the house with you when he’s inside already.’

She shuddered lightly. ‘That’s a scary thought. And by the time armed response has arrived …’

‘Exactly. But long as it makes you feel safe, it’s worth it, I reckon.’ He turned to face her, and she noticed again how thin he was, but saw for the first time, now that he was indoors, how tall.

‘Heavens,’ she said, ‘I hadn’t realised how tall you are.’

‘You can take off at least six inches for my hair. But yeah, even without my crowning glory I’m tall – about two metres when I last checked.’

‘You’re not still growing?’ she asked.

‘I reckon I am. But I guess I’ll have to stop now. I can’t keep replacing my clothes.’

‘They say you grow till you’re twenty-four.’

‘If you want to know how old I am, you can just ask. I’m not shy.’

‘I’m actually not all that interested in how old you are,’ she said, taken aback by his presumption and stung by his implication.

‘Sure,’ he said easily, ‘no reason you should be. But for the record, I’ve just turned twenty-four. I got this watch for my birthday.’ He extended his wrist. ‘It’s a Jaeger-Le Coultre.’

‘That’s quite a present,’ she said, though she had no idea how much a Jaeger-Le Coultre cost.

‘Yeah, sure. My mother gave it to me.’

This, as far as Margaret was concerned, was a bit of a conversation-stopper. All she could think of in reply was, ‘What does your mother do?’ but that might be taken to imply that she wondered how she could afford such a watch. So she just said, ‘That’s wonderful. It’s a beautiful watch.’

‘Sure. My mother’s got an eye for beauty.’

He seemed to want to introduce his mother into the conversation, but Margaret had no desire to be inducted into his family history. She realised that he was looking at her expectantly, and couldn’t figure out why, until he said, ‘D’you reckon I could have that Band-Aid now?’

‘Oh heavens, yes, sorry, of course.’ Flustered, she handed him the little box, but held on to the tube of Betadine.

‘I think we should disinfect that wound,’ she said.

‘Sure, thanks. Shall I sit down here?’ and without waiting for a reply he sat down on one of the bar stools at the breakfast counter. Placing the Band-Aids on the counter, he put his foot up on another chair and looked at her expectantly, evidently waiting for her to apply the antiseptic.

‘Do you want me to put it on?’ she nevertheless asked.

‘Sure. It’s easier that way.’

‘I suppose so,’ she said, although she couldn’t really see that it would be any easier for her than for him. She squirted a blob of the yellow-brown glop from the tube on to a bit of cotton wool and leant over the long leg resting on the chair. The abrasion was not particularly deep, but it extended across his knee and up his thigh.

‘This is going to sting.’

‘I know,’ he said, making a face. ‘Sting away.’

‘Hold on, here it comes.’ As she touched the cotton wool to his ex­posed flesh, the wiry thigh muscles tensed in response and then relaxed. She tried to concentrate on the wound, but was distractingly aware of the lean bare thigh, lightly covered in fine black hair, tapering into the sculpted hollow of his loins under the thin cotton of his shorts. The intimacy of it was disconcerting and disorientating: there was some­thing maternal about her function, but also, she was dismayed to feel, something erotic; and she sensed that he was acutely aware of her awareness. She dared not look up at his face, lest it established a kind of com­plicity between them.

‘Reminds me of dressing my son’s wounds,’ she said, wanting to de­fuse the tension.

‘You have a son?’ he asked. She was surprised at the real interest in his voice, not just a rote enquiry, and she was relieved at the modulation to a safe topic.

‘Yes, about your age, a bit younger, twenty-two. ‘He was an ace roller­blader, only tended to overestimate his own acrobatic abilities.’

‘So where’s he now, your son?’

‘In Cape Town. He’s at UCT.’

‘Cool.’ He made a face. ‘Or not, depending how you feel about UCT.’

‘Are you at UCT?’

‘Was. Left a couple of years ago.’

He didn’t elaborate, and she thought he might not want to be in­terrogated on the subject. Besides, she was wary of a free exchange of personal information.

She screwed the cap back onto the tube. ‘There, that’s done. I should think you could put your jeans back on now.’

‘How about the Band-Aid?’ he asked, not changing his posture.

‘Ah, yes. The box is right there, you can select the right size, while I see about that sandwich of yours.’ She kept talking almost mindlessly, just to keep the conversation going along impersonal lines. ‘Actually, it’s not a real sandwich, just a couple of slices of toast with bacon and tomato, and I’ll fry a couple of eggs. I didn’t think I could pile all of that between two slices of bread.’

‘Thanks, that’s cool, any old way’s okay.’ He got up from the stool and selected a plaster from the box. She sensed, or perhaps fancied, that he was trying to hold her gaze, but she did not want to face him, dreading the knowing half-smile she suspected she would find. The moment of sexual awareness that she was sure they had shared had not passed; it came to her, with a shock at the audacity of her imagination, that if she were to glance down at his shorts she would see the stirring of at least an incipient erection, and that he would make no effort to hide the fact.

She resolutely turned her back on him and busied herself with frying the eggs and making the toast. When she was sure he’d put on his jeans, she took out a plate and a knife and fork and a napkin, and said, ‘Won’t you set yourself a place wherever you fancy?’

‘Sure, no sweat. I’ll eat here at the counter, if that’s all right.’

‘Of course. I think the toast’s just popped, will you get it? And the butter’s in the fridge.’

‘Thanks. Don’t fry the hell out of the eggs, I like them runny.’

‘Not a problem,’ she said, wondering anew at the liberties he was taking. Was he just unaware, a spoilt brat, or was he testing her, seeing how far he could push her? Perhaps a bit of both; well, she wasn’t going to let on that she was fazed by his presumption. Her own children had on occasion challenged her authority, all children did it, but they’d out­grown it along with their teenage pimples.

She placed the open sandwich in front of him. It didn’t look too appetising, but there was only so much one could do with the breakfast basics, and she’d never really learnt to fry eggs so that they didn’t ooze all over the plate. In truth, she’d never really fried eggs: that had been very much the province of Rebecca, her imperious domestic aid.

She thought he might comment on the uninviting aspect of the meal, but he merely said, ‘Thanks,’ and started eating.

‘Coffee?’ she asked.

‘Mmm,’ he said, through a mouthful of bread and egg.

‘I’ll take that as a yes, then.’

She boiled the kettle and made herself and him a mug of Nescafé. Kevin had given her a new coffee machine as, she supposed, a kind of parting gift, but she’d glanced at the voluminous user’s manual with its incomprehensible Italian-inflected English, and decided she didn’t really need crema-rich espressos. She had grown up with Nescafé, and had never, at university, discovered the coffee sub-culture.

She placed the mug of hot liquid in front of the young man, along with sugar and milk and a teaspoon. He looked up from his meal, critically peered at the mug of coffee and sniffed at it.

‘If you don’t mind my asking,’ he said, ‘is this instant coffee?’

‘It’s Nescafé. I have a coffee machine, but I don’t have beans. Is that a problem?’

‘Not having beans is a problem if you want to use the machine, obviously. But only having Nescafé is not a problem. As long as you don’t confuse it with coffee.’

‘Then we don’t have a problem,’ she said. ‘Because no, I don’t confuse it with coffee. But it’s all I’ve got, and I’m sorry if it doesn’t meet your standards.’

‘Cool, no sweat,’ he said, taking up his knife and fork. ‘I’ll wash down the breakfast with it.’

Margaret did not trust herself to reply. She felt sure now that he was seeing how far he could push her – but why? Was it a race thing? Or just a young person testing the limits of adult authority? Either way, if he was trying to force a confrontation, she wasn’t going to give it to him.

‘Cheers,’ he said, as he resumed eating. He chewed in silence for a while, then he looked up at her and said, ‘And so how old are you?’

Margaret had trained herself to be unselfconscious about her age: coy­ness about one’s age, she believed, showed a fundamental refusal to face facts. Still, she had seldom had the question flung at her in quite so unadorned a fashion. She walked to the sink and rinsed a cup to deflect her annoyance. ‘Fifty-five,’ she replied, she hoped as matter-of-factly as he’d asked the question.

‘Okay,’ he said, not looking up, getting back to his breakfast. ‘So you’re fifty-five.’

‘Why do you ask?’ she asked, determined not to back out of what seemed to be for him a battle of wills.

This time he did look up, visibly assessing her. ‘No real reason. Idle curiosity, basically.’

He did not deign to explain any further than this, once again con­centrating on his breakfast.

He had not exaggerated when he’d said he was hungry. He worked his way through the two slices of toast, two eggs, two rashers of bacon and two tomatoes before she’d half finished her coffee. Having done so, he wiped his mouth and hands on the napkin, and looked about him as if, she thought, he expected her to offer him seconds. But her gratitude, not to say her patience, was wearing thin: Benjy’s rescue had been repaid.

So she asked instead, ‘Where are you staying in Hermanus?’

‘In my mother’s house. She’s got a place overlooking Grotto Beach.’

That would explain the expensive watch. ‘She lives here?’ she asked, though she wasn’t really interested in his mother or her whereabouts.

‘No, she lives in Joburg most of the time, just comes down here for holidays and the odd weekend.’

‘And you?’ she asked.

‘And me?’

‘What do you do when you’re not rescuing dogs?’

He inspected a scab on his elbow and picked at it absent-mindedly. ‘Nothing, basically. I’m between jobs.’

She guessed that this was a euphemism for sponging off his mother, so she