'Yours, Lucy.'
That is their exchange; that is Lucy's last word.
The business of dog-killing is over for the day, the black bags are piled at the door, each with a body and a soul inside. He and Bev Shaw lie in each other's arms on the floor of the surgery. In half an hour Bev will go back to her Bill and he will begin loading the bags.
'You have never told me about your first wife,' says Bev Shaw. 'Lucy doesn't speak about her either.'
Lucy's mother was Dutch. She must have told you that. Evelina. Evie. After the divorce she went back to Holland. Later she remarried. Lucy didn't get on with the new stepfather. She asked to return to South Africa.'
'So she chose you.'
'In a sense. She also chose a certain surround, a certain horizon. Now I am trying to get her to leave again, if only for a break. She has family in Holland, friends. Holland may not be the most exciting of places to live, but at least it doesn't breed nightmares.'
'And?'
He shrugs. 'Lucy isn't inclined, for the present, to heed any advice I give. She says I am not a good guide.'
'But you were a teacher.'
'Of the most incidental kind. Teaching was never a vocation for
me. Certainly I never aspired to teach people how to live. I was what used to be called a scholar. I wrote books about dead people. That was where my heart was. I taught only to make a living.'
She waits for more, but he is not in the mood to go on.
The sun is going down, it is getting cold. They have not made love; they have in effect ceased to pretend that that is what they do together.
In his head Byron, alone on the stage, draws a breath to sing. He is on the point of setting off for Greece. At the age of thirty-five he has begun to understand that life is precious. Sunt Iacrimae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt: those will be Byron's words, he is sure of it. As for the music, it hovers somewhere on the horizon, it has not come yet.
'You mustn't worry,' says Bev Shaw. Her head is against his chest: presumably she can hear his heart, with whose beat the hexameter keeps step. 'Bill and I will look after her. We'll go often to the farm. And there's Petrus. Petrus will keep an eye out.'
`Fatherly Petrus.'
'Yes.'
'Lucy says I can't go on being a father for ever. I can't imagine, in this life, not being Lucy's father.'
She runs her fingers through the stubble of his hair. 'It will be all right,' she whispers. 'You will see.'
NINETEEN
THE HOUSE IS part of a development that must, fifteen or twenty years ago, when it was new, have seemed rather bleak, but has since been improved with grassed sidewalks, trees, and creepers that spill over the vibracrete walls. No. 8 Rustholme Crescent has a painted garden gate and an answerphone. He presses the button. A youthful voice speaks: 'Hello?'
'I'm looking for Mr Isaacs. My name is Lurie.'
'He's not home yet.'
`When do you expect him?'
'Now-now.' A buzz; the latch clicks; he pushes the gate open.
The path leads to the front door, where a slim girl stands watching him. She is dressed in school uniform: marine-blue tunic, white knee-length stockings, open-necked shirt. She has Melanie's eyes, Melanie's wide cheekbones, Melanie's dark hair; she is, if anything, more beautiful. The younger sister Melanie spoke of, whose name he cannot for the moment recollect.
'Good afternoon. When do you expect your father home?'
'School comes out at three, but he usually stays late. It's all right, you can come inside.'
She holds the door open for him, flattening herself as he passes. She is eating a slice of cake, which she holds daintily between two fingers. There are crumbs on her upper lip. He has an urge to reach out, brush them off at the same instant the memory of her sister comes over him in a hot wave. God save me, he thinks - what am I doing here?
'You can sit down if you like.'
He sits down. The furniture gleams, the room is oppressively neat. 'What's your name?' he asks.
'Desiree.'
Desiree: now he remembers. Melanie the firstborn, the dark one, then Desiree, the desired one. Surely they tempted the gods by giving her a name like that!
'My name is David Lurie.' He watches her closely, but she gives no sign of recognition. 'I'm from Cape Town.'
'My sister is in Cape Town. She's a student.'
He nods. He does not say, I know your sister, know her well. But he thinks: fruit of the same tree, down probably to the most intimate detail. Yet with differences: different pulsings of the blood, different urgencies of passion. The two of them in the same bed: an experience fit for a king. He shivers lightly, looks at his watch. 'Do
