made a tunnel through the gorse that grew on the bank at the back of the bungalow. We worked for hours, our arms covered in scratches, slashing at the branches that snapped with tiny puffs of dust. On the third day we broke through to the other side where there was a quarry with stony banks, a lake of cobalt water at the bottom. I was glad to be with my mother because then I could watch her. Thwacking away at the gorse, she seemed to be happy, to have forgotten the town, the fact that my father did not have a job and the bank strike. But over the coming weeks she stayed indoors more and more, and I went to the quarry mostly with Elijah, who sat panting, blinking at the sun, while I dug myself into the shale, a peculiar weight in my chest, and let the sun’s light wipe me out. I replayed what had happened in the town. I turned it around in my head and looked for the hidden truth but it was like the water at the bottom of the quarry, which glittered, drew you in, but revealed nothing beneath the surface.
Time spent at the bungalow now felt like a reprieve. I felt sick whenever we went into town. I saw that I was wrong to think life would be bright and balmy on the island, full of the feeling of school holidays and weekends. In some ways it was worse than being in school. Father and Mother had thought I would be better off not mixing any longer with unbelievers. But with my being removed from people completely, I found any contact doubly intense. School had given me a skin of sorts, albeit a painful one. Now I had no skin, or I was shedding the one that I had. We all seemed to be shedding something.
My mother was glowing but restless. She cleaned out cupboards, beat carpets, made a timetable for schoolwork that we never got round to, sewed a new cover for our three-piece suite and painted the wicker furniture on the stoep, forgetting to cover the steps; then had a frantic few hours washing paint off before my father came back.
My father was leaner than I had ever seen him; his hair bristled with purpose, his eyes gleaming. I could smell his skin and his hair when he came in from sawing a fallen pine or from mowing the wild grass at the front of the bungalow with an old mower that tore the grass rather than cut it; I remember the vehemence with which he pushed it, almost tripping as the wheels shot forward. I saw him one day on the stoep with a look on his face that was feral, and when he caught my eye he shifted as if I had disturbed him and said, almost savagely: ‘All right?’ He was wearing a pair of bright blue shorts.
‘Yes,’ I said; I was going to say: ‘Are you?’ but thought better of it.
He set off around the side of the bungalow, the sinews in his legs taut and athletic, covered in virile blond fuzz.
Every day he went into town to see whether the bank was open, if he could find a house or find work. It wasn’t, he couldn’t, and there was none, but everything was ‘wonderful’, the roads not riddled with potholes but full of ‘character’; people weren’t rude but ‘gave it to you straight’; the water was the best thing he had ever tasted; the young people were respectful – two said ‘Good evening’ to him in town (I thought it might have been sarcastic; something to do with the fact that he was wearing a tweed suit and twirling a stick). To my father the island was still a paradise, and we were as good as on holiday.
It was true that those first two months at the bungalow had the loosely woven feel of a holiday, but it was a disconcerting one: time was dislocated and the story unravelling. Sometimes, when we could make ourselves, my mother and I did schoolwork. It was strange working for her. I wanted to try harder but often I tried less. Perhaps she had the same problem, because as often as we studied Pythagoras, we studied buttercups, as often made pies as pie-charts, as often wrote songs on a guitar with four strings as wrote essays – all while Elijah waited in the open door with his
Time spent at the bungalow now felt like a reprieve. I felt sick whenever we went into town. I saw that I was wrong to think life would be bright and balmy on the island, full of the feeling of school holidays and weekends. In some ways it was worse than being in school. Father and Mother had thought I would be better off not mixing any longer with unbelievers. But with my being removed from people completely, I found any contact doubly intense. School had given me a skin of sorts, albeit a painful one. Now I had no skin, or I was shedding the one that I had. We all seemed to be shedding something.
My mother was glowing but restless. She cleaned out cupboards, beat carpets, made a timetable for schoolwork that we never got round to, sewed a new cover for our three-piece suite and painted the wicker furniture on the stoep, forgetting to cover the steps; then had a frantic few hours washing paint off before my father came back.
My father was leaner than I had ever seen him; his hair bristled with purpose, his eyes gleaming. I could smell his skin and his hair when he came in from sawing a fallen pine or from mowing the wild grass at the front of the bungalow with an old mower that tore the grass rather than cut it; I remember the vehemence with which he pushed it, almost tripping as the wheels shot forward. I saw him one day on the stoep with a look on his face that was feral, and when he caught my eye he shifted as if I had disturbed him and said, almost savagely: ‘All right?’ He was wearing a pair of bright blue shorts.
‘Yes,’ I said; I was going to say: ‘Are you?’ but thought better of it.
He set off around the side of the bungalow, the sinews in his legs taut and athletic, covered in virile blond fuzz.
Every day he went into town to see whether the bank was open, if he could find a house or find work. It wasn’t, he couldn’t, and there was none, but everything was ‘wonderful’, the roads not riddled with potholes but full of ‘character’; people weren’t rude but ‘gave it to you straight’; the water was the best thing he had ever tasted; the young people were respectful – two said ‘Good evening’ to him in town (I thought it might have been sarcastic; something to do with the fact that he was wearing a tweed suit and twirling a stick). To my father the island was still a paradise, and we were as good as on holiday.
It was true that those first two months at the bungalow had the loosely woven feel of a holiday, but it was a disconcerting one: time was dislocated and the story unravelling. Sometimes, when we could make ourselves, my mother and I did schoolwork. It was strange working for her. I wanted to try harder but often I tried less. Perhaps she had the same problem, because as often as we studied Pythagoras, we studied buttercups, as often made pies as pie-charts, as often wrote songs on a guitar with four strings as wrote essays – all while Elijah waited in the open door with his
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