Summary
Beauty sees Bheki sitting at the kitchen table, which he has never done before. She sits in front of him and asks after UBaas and Looksmart. She boldly takes his hand. When he says he did talk to Looksmart, he takes his hand away, and she knows something has switched inside him.
Beauty is about to step back outside when she sees a figure standing on the step. It is UBaas. She decides to take him away, down to the unfinished house where she lives. She finds him a shirt and gives him the pink anorak. When he says he wants to go home, she tells him it is his home, but he does not appear to believe her.
Patricia
Patricia remembers when Richard came over from England to be the new manager for her father. He was handsome, sly, and oozed sex. He was awkward with the trappings of the rich man’s home. Patricia liked him for his vision, not knowing he’d already used it all up. She was intrigued, and they started to get to know each other over the next few weeks.
Back with Looksmart, it seems like his look of triumph is gone. She says she owes him an apology, but cannot change anything that happened. After a moment, and after asking her to say it again, he responds that the sorry is all he wanted and he hopes she will be sorry to the end of her days. She wonders aloud if he means to see her again. He says nothing. She says she hopes he can go away and make something of himself and have hope again.
He becomes querulous, and they squabble over whether or not he should be grateful. He bursts out that he wants darkness and guilt for her, to be haunted by it all. He slumps down on the other side of the room. Patricia tells him softly that she understands what he feels. She begins to tell him she only married Richard because she was pregnant, and even though he says he does not want to hear, she says she was only happy when Looksmart was around the house. He asks about the child, and she says it is none of his business.
Looksmart
He is angry and tosses a trunk across the room. He says he wants to make it his business; he wants to know about the child because once he thought she cared about him as a child. They begin to argue heatedly, which feels good. She says she gave him everything and he disputes it, saying she kept him in his niche.
Finally, he asks about her son, and she replies that it was a girl and she was born dead.
Patricia
Patricia’s daughter Rachel was born two months early and two days dead. She looked like she were made of wax, as if she were forever dead. Patricia has felt empty ever since. She was not able to have another child and all her hope fled.
She tells Looksmart how hard it was. When he asks how Richard took it, she replies that he did not take it well and was a coward. It seems for a moment that the deaths of Grace and Rachel have leveled the difference between them.
Patricia states sincerely that he was the only child to be happy in this house. Looksmart has a look of genuine pleasure on his face. She says he was like the sun—her son. But, she adds, she knew as he got older that he started to judge her, and was especially intrigued by that photo of Richard with the leopards. He seemed to judge all the objects in the house, and she hoped it was just adolescent behavior. The loss of him seemed to happen quickly.
She muses that she doesn't know if she connected his leaving with the death of Grace, but that after a while she began to think of him as another dead child.
Looksmart
Looksmart reflects on how intelligent he was as a boy and how Patricia intervened to get him into John Ford’s school. He knew about Patricia and John from the way they looked at each other. John was never kind to him, though, which brought about the first stirrings of his hate.
He is tired and wishes he could go sleep in one of the rooms, though he has never slept in this house. Patricia says that if he had come to her about Grace, she would have told him he could have done better. She wishes that she had not married Richard. He replies that he does not want to talk about Richard. She is not offended. She asks about his wife—Annabel—but all he can say is she is a good woman like her father was a good man. He does not want to say more.
He knew when he married Annabel that he did not love her, but he hoped he would. He has had a lover for the last six months, a white woman in Johannesburg. They both seem to be dipping into something forbidden. He has never been good at being loved, always suspicious of it. His daughters are the only exceptions, and he loves them as they love him.
He muses on how the old woman always wants people to tell the truth but she cannot face it herself. He has one more thing to do before he goes, so he takes out a paper from his pocket. He tells her his company is the one that bought her land. He explains he is not giving back the land to his people from whom it was taken, but creating a gated community for those fleeing crime in the city—fleeing people like him. He asks if she has seen the latest plans. She admits she has tried to avoid them but is interested now.
He lays out the plans and forgets what they once meant to him; what matters now is “that she apprehends the boldness of his thinking and award it a gold star” (175). She looks over the map and then asks about this house, hoping it will be taken down brick by brick. Surprised, he says it will be left at the top of the hill.
Looksmart realizes his whole speech was never for investors or builders–it was for her the whole time. He talks more about the plans, explaining how everything but the house will be transformed. She is engaged, happy; she says it sounds almost lovely, and they should have done some of it years ago. The trees are too thick; the boxes weigh everything down.
Patricia
She cannot help but be pleased to hear this plan, and how some of it is from her and that he is so attached to this house. Everything she did and her father did was not for naught. He admits that now he is here he feels a little differently about it all. For a moment she deeply wishes he will tell her he loves her, but she asks after his mother. He tells her his mother lives in a garden cottage at his place in Johannesburg.
Patricia remembers how angry he always was with his mother, even before he was angry with her. She says his mother was always proud of him, which he says he knows. He seems a little dismissive, critical of the earth—and the flesh and blood—he came from. She tells him a white lie of how his mother and her would talk about him and read his school reports.
For a moment Patricia thinks of how everything she loves leaves her, and nothing ever comes back. Yet the other day she saw yellow butterflies among the changing landscape and thought that “there was an altogether different way of viewing the world: as an inexhaustible source of renewal and growth” (181).
She asks if he would ever come and visit her at the sea. They joke about taking the old Rottweiler for a walk. She wants to tell him to bring his family, that she will be lonely. But it is too absurd. She also wants to admit she is going to be afraid, surrounded by new darkness.
After she quietly thanks him for coming and letting her know him a bit, which he refutes. He says their relationship of her as mother and him as child has no place in the future of this country.
Richard
This must not be his house because the black girl would not be here, he thinks, but he can tell she means him no harm. He is confused, not knowing what he has done; it is like he is dancing and does not know the steps. The girl’s voice is comforting but it is also filled with lies...yet, at the same time, she must know him.
If he has been here before he must know how to get out of here. He sees the spade and reaches for it, but it is a stick. There seems a magnetic pull to Rachel’s heart, and he must follow it.
Beauty
UBaas is gone, and there is no sign of Bheki in the house. She knows he has defected to Looksmart but does not know what it means. She hears laughter from the house, which is confusing, but it tells her UBaas is not there.
Richard
He has been looking for this spot for as long as he can remember. There is not much time; it will all sink into the ground and that girl is looking for him. He begins to tear up the earth but realizes there is nothing there; she has seeped back into the earth.
Patricia
The developers told her they would leave the bloodwood grove, but there is no sign of it on the map. She asks about the garden and Looksmart says they will keep it as is. She decides in the morning she will ask Bheki to dig up the coffin; she is not going to leave her child alone on the hill.
For a moment they joke about Looksmart remembering to maintain the garden as she taught him.
Richard
Finally, he has found the house as he remembers it. He does not really notice the silver car. He steps in and sees a black man in a suit talking to his wife. They seem happy, like young lovers.
He asks what Patricia has done. She tries to stand as the man moves away and asks what is in his hand. He says he saw the house burning and was digging in the dark. He thought something terrible happened and that they are all dead. She replies they are not all dead. The black man makes a sound like laughter. Richard asks who the hell he is, and she says it is the land surveyor and he is leaving.
Patricia
She knows Beauty is in the kitchen, listening. Part of her wants whatever will happen to happen. But when she calls out to Beauty, her tone is steady.
Looksmart
The old man’s pale blue eyes are still dead-looking, and he is washed out. Yet he is still the same man. Looksmart realizes he has given Richard very little thought, only contemplating the old woman. He steps forward and announces himself, but Richard does not remember him. He asks why Looksmart is wearing a suit. Then, Richard says Looksmart reminds him of his Uncle Pete; he tells a nonsensical story of this Uncle Pete confessing he went into Richard’s daughter’s room to have sex with her, and then Richard said he put the peanuts in the sherry trifle. It is meant to be a joke, but before he can laugh, he has a coughing fit.
Richard says there was a time he would have had Looksmart whipped. Looksmart wipes his hands on the old man’s anorak, and it seems like he might kill him. Richard does nothing to defend himself, maybe offering himself up. Looksmart says he will leave him to his wife.
Richard has ruined everything, as he always did. Looksmart says goodnight to Patricia. She asks if he will come to the beach, and he lies and says yes.
Bheki
He watches Looksmart prepare to leave. The dog looks at Looksmart, both of them appearing as if they want to attack the other. But the dog puts her head back down.
Patricia
There is no change in the room after Looksmart leaves; they are in the same places. Richard asks why the man said he knew him. Patricia does not respond because she sees a rock in Richard’s hand—a rock that was placed on Rachel’s grave. Accusingly, she says he better not have dug her up. Richard looks cowed but says there was nothing there, that the “lying bitch”, or the “it” was not there. Patricia demands he say her name, and when he refuses to say “Rachel” she asks him to say “Grace.”
To Richard's surprise, Patricia stands up and tells Richard she knows he recognized Looksmart, and maybe he isn’t as mad as he seems to be. He steps forward menacingly and insults Looksmart. Patricia asks him to tell her what he did to Grace. Richard is babbling on and she does not understand what he is saying. For a moment she wishes she could go to sleep and not wake up; Durban has always been a dream anyway.
Richard says cryptically that there was no name for “it.” Patricia responds by saying he unleashed the dog and murdered Grace. He laughs with disappointment and says it is a lie. When Patricia says she cannot look at him, he criticizes her for being puffed up and curses her. She shouts loudly for him to get out of her sight. There is more rage in her body tonight than there ever has been.
She wonders if Looksmart is still here; it has not been long since he left. She calls for Beauty for help with the wheelchair, but she makes it onto it herself. She sees through the front door Looksmart’s rear lights. All she wants to do is summon him back, even if they talk of nothing of consequence.
Beauty comes next to her, and Patricia hears false sympathy in her voice. Patricia sighs that she wanted to thank him, but in her head, she thinks she does not know what exactly happened or what it means. As Beauty guides Patricia away, she says he will understand.
Beauty
Beauty’s words pass by, neither woman paying attention. She leads Patricia to the bathroom so UMesis can do her business. She takes UMesis to bed and thinks of all the things she is doing for the last time in this house. She has told herself she is looking forward to Durban but wonders if it will be “nothing more there than treading the same path, but in a different place” (208).
She urges UMesis to sleep for the long day tomorrow.
Analysis
The Dream House was adapted from Higginson’s play The Dream of the Dog, and it is no accident or caprice that led him to keep the five-part structure. In most plays, the five acts are divided into 1) Exposition/Introduction 2) Rising Action/Obstacles 3) Turning Point/Climax 4) Falling Action 5) Conclusion/Resolution. As with a play, here in the novel, the third part was the most overall climactic section, and now the last two will be about dealing with, resolving, and moving on from the issues brought to the fore. Higginson explains this in an interview with English Experience: “The novel has a five-act structure, which is something more associated with plays than novels, but the five-act structure is a shadow that underlies all storytelling. You have the world as it is (Act One), the inciting incident (Looksmart’s arrival at the house, which triggers Act Two), and then the accumulation of dramatic events or narrative ‘turns’ (or ‘rising action’) that usually culminates by the end of Act Four. Act Five is about the characters licking their wounds and beginning to imagine a new future for themselves.”
Part of the “falling action” of this fourth section is the burgeoning reconciliation that is taking place between Patricia and Looksmart. It is halting, painful, and confusing, but it is happening nonetheless. After Looksmart says his piece and Patricia sincerely apologizes (even though she is still unclear about all the details because it was so long ago and there were things she never wanted to see so she repressed them), talk turns to children—Looksmart as a child and Patricia’s child. She tells him truthfully that “it was only…when you started to hang around the house, that I was—that I was happy again for a bit” (161). After she tells him about Rachel, even though he feebly protests he does not want to hear it, she thinks she can “sense a change in him now. He looks like he’s given up on her—or given up on this particular fight. Perhaps he’s not so sure what the differences between them are anymore” (167). And when she says he was the only child to be happy in this house because he was “like the sun…My son” (167), he has an expression “of pleasure” (167).
This does not mean the rest of their conversation is smooth sailing. Looksmart is still convinced Patricia has trouble facing up to the truth even though she always told others to, though he wonders if this is “simply that she never valued her own life enough to want to scrutinize it?” (174). When he prepares to show her the proof that he works for the development company that bought her land, he is glad to see apprehension on her face. But even this long-awarded moment of triumph is quickly replaced by a different feeling: “He forgets what the plans once meant: that they were intended to destroy all evidence of her forever, that they were an attempt to make coherent what he once called his hate. What seems to matter far more for the moment is that she apprehend the boldness of his undertaking and award him a gold star” (175). When Patricia hears of the plans, she is not angry at all but instead part of her “is pleased by this evidence of his attachment to the house, her house, her father’s house” (178). Despite the complications of their relationship, and the very real and justifiable nature of Looksmart’s grievances against her, the two of them cannot relinquish their former mother-son bond.
The rest of the section consists of the two of them navigating what to do now that they’ve acknowledged, however obliquely, their indissoluble bond. They reminisce about memories from the old day, agree, and indulge in laughter. Patricia haltingly imagines a future in which Looksmart and his family come to visit her at the beach, and he too seems to want that. Yet he says that this relationship of theirs cannot exist in the world as it is now, and while it would be lovely, it does seem impossible.
The final evidence of the coming-to-terms with the unearthed secrets of the past is Patricia’s confrontation of Richard. She tells him what she knows, lets her fury go unchecked, forces him to confront the memory of Rachel, and, though the reader doesn’t know it quite yet, decides that when she gets to Durban she will put him in a home. None of this is easy for her, and it might be too little too late, but clearly, she is changed by the encounter with Looksmart.
