a Review: The Legacy by Katherine Webb

The Legacy By Katherine Webb (Published by Orion)

The legacy is about the Calcott family and it’s legacy of secrets, much of which surround a gypsy family that lives on their property during the summer seasons. The book unfolds these secrets as two sisters look for healing and want to break the vicious cycle of unhappiness in their family.

 It took me a hundred plus pages to get into this book. This is Katherine Webb’s first novel. I would have loved to love it.

Katherine Webb relied heavily on the reader being curious enough to find out the great family secret. There was sense in the detachment of her novel. I got it in the end. If Caroline was so detached to her surroundings, it wouldn’t have made sense to attach her emotions.

I didn’t much care for main character, Erica, she was “too” perfect. Erica’s only short coming was that she didn’t have a lot of responsibility. Her sister is depressed from a secret she’s been running from since she was twelve. She made her characters too fragile to be sympathetic.

Even though that this book took me a while to get into, it was very good at the end. She managed to grip me and to take her story forward. I will definitely read her next book, as this book held a lot of promise.

SHOE LOGIC

Today’s blog is about all the life scenarios that are just like shoe shopping. Different object, same excuse!

1.         You can’t wear comfort

Only men and women with really bad taste in shoes buy shoes merely because the shoe looks comfortable. There was a time in my life that I would buy a heel and wear it regardless of the fact that I needed to move from class to class with that shoe. It wouldn’t matter, the shoe looked good.

This is a typical woman syndrome. Where women suffer for beauty.  Have you ever tried to lose five kilograms? It’s really hard, tasteless protein shakes, raw fruits and vegetables and a hell lot of gym time. Who needs comfort when looking good is at stake? Hell, looking good is comfort!

2.    I’ll make a plan if it doesn’t fit

Ever found a shoe that speaks to your heart and it’s either too small or too big? Sometimes the discomfort is worth it. You can work with it.

I have a pair of heels that I’ve had to give away simply because they are way too big. I’ve tried stuffing them with all sorts of alien cushioning. They are still too big. I love these shoes but I can never wear them. I just had to let them go.

I bet you’ve had a relationship just like this. Where the guy looked good. Said all the right things. And yet he made you realise that that long list of requirements that you have isn’t really what you thought you wanted.

3.    I’ll make it work

You find a perfect shoe. You don’t have a single item of clothing that will match the shoe in style or colour. You don’t have an outfit that could ever live up or down to the shoe, yet you buy it anyway thinking that you can make it work.

For the next year of your life you become obsessed with finding an outfit for this shoe. You try everything, and yet nothing seems to work. You wake up one morning regretting why you bought the shoe, by then it’s too late to take it back. The shoe is stuck taking up precious space in your wardrobe. And you keeping holding on to the one day it will work out?

You might have wanted it (be it your job, your friend, your man) so much that you ignored all the faults and all the fundamental things that aren’t working out. I figure if it hasn’t worked out after a while it’s time to let it flow Toni Braxton style, accept that the risk hasn’t paid off and that sometimes one day never comes.

SHE HATED RED: A SHORT STORY

She stared at the wall. Daring it to change. Wanting it to change to what it had been before.

Was it a day before? It didn’t smell so new. She turned away from the offending wall. She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to look out of the window. She was, maybe, just a little scared. Just ever so slightly…

She wrapped her arms around her body to still the shaking. To stall the thinking, if only for a second. For that moment.

He’d asked her. She’d told him. Honestly. And yet, as he always did, did it anyway. He didn’t care that it would be weeks before she could change it. Longer still, for the memory of the horrid colour to fade.

She sat on the white tiles. Put together in perfect symmetry. The tiles had been her only input into this damned room. The only input in his life. She folded her knees. She wrapped her arms around her legs.

She would have to live here. She would have to, for days on end face the redness she detested just so that she could keep that little bit of him. That part of him which was contrary, rebellious. Foolish and so beautifully tasteless.

She buried her face between her knees. He should have…

Oh, she couldn’t hear her own thoughts in the loudness of this damned room. She felt too much here. In all this redness, that he’d chosen after she’d refused it. This redness which reminded her.

She jumped off the floor. Shaking furiously. She paced trying to calm down. She blinked back tears.

Oh, she hated red. She hated it all. She hated it!

She threw herself against the wall. Had he painted this section? Had he laughed when he thought how’d she’d react when she saw it? What had he thought as the room transformed from white to this damned…

She ran her hand on the wall. She hated red. She hated red. She closed her eyes and saw him in the street in his Nike running shoes, his faded green shorts she’d promised she’d one day burn, and that old greyed white t-shirt that had been soaked red from the gun shots that had torn his heart apart.

She could feel his body lying on the pavement. The eyes of the passer-bys who only whispered amongst themselves in surprise in shock, in pity for the man’s family, in relief that it wasn’t anyone they knew.

He’d been such a good man, despite his horrid taste in colour. He’d been so stubborn. So…

She opened her eyes and looked at the window across the room. In here. Time had stood still. In here, his spirit lived on. In here, he would have the red he’d wanted. He’d have his mischievous moment of trouble and he’d laugh as she struggled to find furniture to match the wall colour.

She tore herself from the wall and walked to the window that overlooked the pavement where he’d taken in his last violent breath. People walked over his washed out blood stain. Already ingrossed in their own lives.

She turned away from the busy street and looked at the red wall that she would forever hate and love just because it had been the last thing he’d given her.

DISEASED

What is it about human beings that causes us to live in denial. Or maybe, sometimes, in voluntary ignorance? How many times do we need to hear the same message over and over again before it sinks in. Before we take notice and change?

We are a sick society. Very little is healthy about us. Our minds are sick, our emotions are twisted and our bodies are filled with all sorts of viruses.

You might be reading this and thinking I am not sick. Maybe you aren’t but someone you know is. Last year a woman who works for a TV production company had to research sexually transmitted illnesses formerly known as sexually transmitted diseases. Don’t start rolling your eyes.

She told me that South Africa is so divided that even the STIs we contract are somehow different. Where more black people get infected with HIV, more white people get infected with some or other STI that isn’t HIV. More of our society, black or white, than we are willing to acknowledge have or will be affected in one way or another by a sexually transmitted illness.

My girls and I were discussing STIs on the weekend. Listing all the ones we’ve heard of and their symptoms. Which ones are difficult to treat, and which ones go to “sleep”.  This was a scary conversation and too heavy for a Saturday. But what turned my blood to ice was the fact that none of these infections and viruses have visible symptoms in the beginning.

It’s easy to disassociate ourselves from sexually transmitted illnesses. A clear indication of this was a radio discussion a couple of years back when the DJ and newsreader were talking about how high school children have started having anal sex to prevent the possibility of pregnancy. In all that while the words HIV or AIDS were not mentioned.

There are many ways to get rid of an unwanted pregnancy (yes all you self righteous cringe), and you can cure most STIs, but there is no cure for HIV AIDS.

On  December every year the world goes on  HIV AIDS awareness mode. Knowing your status is encouraged and we are bombarded with information on this virus. Sexually active people are encouraged to be more responsible.

We hear. We know and yet for most of us, even those who are affected by the virus, still consider condoms to be an option and not a necessity. How many times do we hear of somebody who got an STI from someone else who didn’t even know they had it because the infection was inactive?

No one asks to get an STI or HIV. Before you and your partner decide that condoms are taking away spontaneity from your relationship ensure that you both go to a doctor and test for a full panel of STIs and HIV. You don’t want to be another statistic…

THE LETTER: A SHORT STORY

Khanyile stood the podium. The children looked so angelic that morning in their blue and white uniform. And the teachers looked sombre. She looked down at the piece of paper written in her daughters untidy scrawl.

They’d ask for the memorial service. It was as if they had cared. It was as if Thandi had been wanted here. She hadn’t understood. She’d thought that Thandi just didn’t want to go to school. She remembered Thandi the morning it happened, the way she’d looked.  Her  just combed hair was already ruffled and somehow her knees had become ashy.

She’d pushed around her breakfast, refusing to eat it. She’d taken what had seemed like an age, then, to get her bag so that they could leave. Khanyile wished in that moment that she had stopped and hugged her daughter instead of screaming at her. She wished that she hadn’t been filled with irritation when Thandi slammed her car door. She should have gotten out of the car and kissed her daughter goodbye.

The children looked up expectantly. Thandi’s classmates were in the front rows. They were all crying. She looked behind her. Thandi’s class teacher was dabbing a tear. How could she start. How would she start.

Khanyile was suddenly filled with anger, she clung on to it.

“Thandi left a letter,” Khanyile said looking at the school, “in her bedroom. The day she died.”

She ignored the flashing light of a press photographer’s camera.

“You see, I am a working mother. I leave home with Thandi in the morning, drop her off at school and I come home long after her. Sometimes I get home long after she’s gone to bed.

“I didn’t listen when she told me what was going on in this school. I didn’t see when the light left her eyes. I, like many parents, didn’t hear the change in timbre of her laughter.”

Khanyile looked at the school children. These innocent looking children had caused her child so much grief. There was no justice in the world. They lived when her child died. Their parents still came home to the sound of their children laughing in front of the TV all the while her home was quite. Too big for only her.

“Thandi wrote a letter. Hoping that I’d understand. She was only twelve.

Dear Mom

Things haven’t been good lately. I’ve tried talking about it, hoping it could get better. But the longer I go on the worse it becomes.

I want to laugh again and really laugh. I am tired of being hurt, of being a failure and of everyone hating me.

Last week Mrs Shaw told me that I must such a disappointed to my parents. Two days ago, mom, you said the very same thing.

I’ve been afraid to go to school. My class mates push me down the stairs and the teachers just watch and they blame me.

On Monday Philip spit on my book and Mr Andrews laughed and told me to wipe it off. I spit in Philip’s book too, just to get back at him and I got thrown out of class.

I remember when I was young. How we’d go to Durban and I’d dig a hole with dad and climb into it and dad would fill the hole until only my head showed. I found that so funny then, but now I want to be buried whole. Never to have to wake up again. Never to hear my classmates calling me names.

I’d give anything to remember how it feels like to have a friend. To have people smile at me and mean it.

I’ll miss you mom.

Thandi

Khanyile looked up from the tear soaked letter. She looked behind her at Mrs Shaw and Mr Andrews. They looked shocked. She looked at the principal. She looked back the school filled with children who had chosen to hate her daughter.

‘Who should be held accountable for my daughter’s death. You?’ She pointed at Mrs Shaw, “you?’ She pointed at Mr Andrews. “Maybe you?’ She pointed at the principal, ‘for letting this go on and not doing anything about it.”

‘Who’s Philip. Stand up Philip and look at the mother of the child you’ve just killed. Be tough, just like you were when you spat at my daughter.”

Philip didn’t stand.

Khanyile drew in a deep breath. ‘Or maybe, I should be blamed. For not taking her out of here. For being too busy to listen.”

She closed her eyes and remembered Thandi, not as the twelve year old who had become withdrawn but as the baby who would cry her lungs out. In that moment she just wanted to hold that warm, noisy baby to her heart and promise her to be the best mother the world had ever seen.

She looked at the sea of blue and white before her. In a week, maybe by tomorrow, Thandi would be forgotten. Some would pray to God for forgiveness, and for her daughter’s soul. Others would tell their spouse that her daughter had always been unstable. And the children would grow and forget. Maybe find a new child to bully. Ultimately, nothing would change. Thandi would still be dead and no one would be held accountable for it.

DREAMS

Tell me your dream? What is it you see at night long after you’ve closed your eyes?

Tell me your dream? What is it that wish for in the depth of your soul that you have never shared with anyone else?

Tell me your dream? When you gaze out of your office window, where is it that you go?

Tell me? What is it that you want so badly that it scares you sometimes. It is scary isn’t it? The wanting, I mean. Well, it scares me. A lot really.

I wish I didn’t have dreams. Mine are ridiculous. Yes, I do sometimes dream of you. Sometimes they are good dreams. Sometimes not. I write entire movies and books in my dreams. I do. And maybe that’s what is ridiculous, I know how hard it is to get there. But when I’m not here, that’s where I am.

I don’t know. Don’t you think that wishing is foolishness? It’s like a meant to be. How do you really know, you know? I don’t either. It’s crazy. I wish, here I go again. I can’t tell you that. You won’t understand. Most people don’t. You’ll think I’m possessed. I sometimes think if I talk about it, it won’t come true. I am even too afraid to think of it.

That is where I go. Most times, I mean. That is where I run to with spread out arms. I laugh more, when I’m there. It’s a good place to be. It’s not that I don’t like this place. But that place is where I think I’ll be happy most. Never mind, you don’t get it. Not really.

Yes, I know. We all have dreams. We all want stuff. I’m no different, and maybe that is what truly scares me. The fact that I might just be like everyone else. I don’t want to be invisible. I don’t want to be that person who dies and a few months later no body remembers you. Not really, any way.

You right. We do sometimes wish to be so different that we end up being the same. But how come so many of us want the same damned things. Why can’t they want something different. Why don’t I?

If I knew that I wouldn’t be here. Talking like this.

Hey, where you going? You can’t leave, you haven’t told me your dream yet…

Regret Is A Sign Of A Life Well Lived

The biggest lie we tell ourselves is that we have no regrets. About anything. And if we could do it all again, we wouldn’t change anything.

I suppose if you are in your teens, you haven’t lived much, this sentiment is honest. Yes, I know a lot of teenagers go through stuff that I never will and have had a lot more life than I. But can you really have no regrets? No “if I knew better than I would have done better” moments?

Yes, I have regrets. A lot of them related to people I put in my life that I shouldn’t have. Some to do with choices I made that weren’t the best thing for me. And a few to do with how I’ve treated people.

I suppose what regret is, is that choice you make that isn’t the best thing for anyone and you are either ignorant of the possible repercussions or in that moment, you just didn’t care. Or maybe that choice you made that you felt was the only choice you could make and wished it weren’t after you’d made it.

I’m big on choices and I suppose when people tell me that they have no regrets the thought that enters my mind is that this person in all their life they have never had a difficult decision to make that led to losing a friend, or even a tiny little bit of their innocence. 

I suppose the reason why I dislike memoirs and autobiographies is that the life you’ve lived is often dulled by the story teller explaining away all their bad decisions. Very few writers of these works ever admit to making bad decisions. Or admit that they would rather change a certain chapter in their life so that it didn’t happen at all.

We make decisions on a daily basis. We are good a lot of the time. Bad sometimes. We make right decisions frequently, and the occasional bad decision. We are not perfect, and yes we might get to a point in our lives where we don’t need to justify or explain ourselves. But I suppose we all look for exoneration and redemption from our bad doings by claiming ignorance or the fact that a certain decision was necessary.

Maybe it is too much to hope for that the next time someone tells their life story they’ll include the backstabbing of family and friends. The lies they felt compelled to tell. And yes, the stolen ideas.

I just think that regret is the biggest sign that you are apologetic. That you still have a seed of empathy. And that as successful as you are, you acknowledge that you are merely a human being who has lived a lot of life and have rarely ever backed down from making the hard decisions that got you where you are. 

The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna (published by Bloomsbury)

The story is initially about a man, who feels like a part of him is dying and he feels himself disappearing in his life. This man, Adrian, decides to go to Sierra Leone soon after its civil war end to “help” broken people get restored. He meet’s a man who is about to die, Elias Cole, who wants to share his life story but is really looking for redemption. Then Adrian befriends a young local doctor named Kai, who has been greatly affected by the war and harbours a secret which has caused him to lose the great love of his love.

Adrian falls in love with  a local woman and somehow in her he finds hope and falls in love with war-torn Sierra Leone.

The story has a lot of twists and turns and is a beautifully written story. However, some parts of it are forced and there are too many coincidences. It is bleak and humourless. What humour is in the book is slightly forced. I feel where Aminatta Forna could have left me, the reader, to assume some things she explains them.

I particularly found the end of the book interesting. By the end of the book, what I would have thought was Adrian’s story becomes Kai’s story. I suppose what really confused me was whose journey was she writing.

The book was a slow read. It isn’t a high paced, can’t put down book. It’s written to evoke emotion and thought and therefore you can’t speed through it.

Overall, it was a good book and is definitely on my recommended summer reading list, and if you belong to a book club then this will be a good pick.