A WAY TO CATCH THE DUST..an Extract from Rum n' Coke It is a warm, tense night - lonely too
because there is nobody to talk to and the sound of the wind, and the great, starless emptiness above her makes her think of futile distances, of the irreconcilable vastness of the world, her own
smallness, and the place she feels she no longer has in it. Because a time does reach, she thinks, when a woman only hope for what cum after she: she chil'ren and de chilren dat will come from
dem - that would pass on and on and on, if not her name, then her blood and perhaps a memory of her; an acknowledgement that they were alive only because she existed, once. Dat, dat's what does
mek life worth someting.
Her hand is scratching her again and she thinks that perhaps it will rain. Her hand always scratches before it rains. She is slightly anxious. A low wind stirs the
air, shakes the trees above the houses and leaves a smell of cinnamon, swamp and charcoal over the village. As if this were a signal, she straightens up, steps out into the night. Full height,
she is much taller than most people have seen her, and she has lost her shuffle as she walks across the yard. She is as soundless as the shadows that moved throughout the early night to and from
Teestone's house, and just as silent when she climbs his steps.
She remembers the hole in the living room and avoids it. She carries a very clear picture in her head of the house and
everything in it.
The lamp is lit in his bedroom and he is asleep, rolled over on one side and snoring softly. He is naked. One of the girls lies curled up in front of him, naked also, the
young hips turned inwards, giving her a curious air of innocence. Sleep has also stripped away what remains of the womanishness she wears by day, almost like another garment, and has made of her
a girl again.
She kneels beside Teestone and he stirs, perhaps sensing her in sleep.
The jab wakes him. He erupts out of sleep, his hand clutching that laughing vein at the side of his
neck, but she is strong and she keeps him and the needle there until she empties it of her thousand dollars worth of niceness. Eyes wide, Teestone stares at her. His fist closes on her wrist. It
is the bad hand that he is crushing and it hurts. But she smiles that dark and beautiful and alluring smile, something wonderful to take with him, she seems to say.
He eases back on the
pillow releasing her and sighing the longest, most restful of all sighs, his face still incredulous, still profoundly outraged.
The girl has not stirred from sleep, and for that Norma Browne
is grateful.
She walks out of the house, turns and spits carelessly at the dark before crossing to her yard.
Before she goes in she pauses, turns her face up at the sky and sniffs. She
could smell the morning. But it is still dark.
And the world and the birds down there are very, very quiet. A Way to Catch the Dust: Mango Publishing, 1999; copyright Jacob Ross:
PO Box 13378, London SE27 OZN, England
ISBN 1 902294 08 4, Tel. 208 480 7771 |
