The Memory of Water - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Janita T. Lawrence (40 BIRDSONG) #51

⁴⁰ BIRDSONG

I walk for hours until a car picks me up. They speak urgent Afrikaans to me, pointing to my bleeding ears and blackened face. Their voices are muffled. They want to take me to the hospital. They want to take me to the police station. I say no and try to get out of the car but they peel my hands away. They want to take me home to clean me up. I don’t have a home, I want to tell them, but my mouth isn’t working. I lose consciousness.

I wake up in a strange house. I am lying in a child’s bed, my feet hang over the edge. The walls are pink and there are fairies and decrepit stuffed toys. I can’t possibly imagine where I am. I close my eyes again. The memories come to me in startled flashes. The man wearing my watch. The young kid in the torn shirt. The blinding crunch of the bomb blast. Tears burn my eyes and leak down my temples, staining the pillow. I can’t help wishing I had been in the car. At this stage, death would be sweet oblivion. My body convulses and everything hurts, then I am again dragged away by sleep.

I wake up to birdsong. It’s difficult to move but I manage to swing my heavy body out of the miniature bed and try to open the bedroom door but it’s locked from the outside. The Deliverance song banjos my brain. Taking fright I rattle the doorknob and shout. Perfect, I think, to be kidnapped by the Deliverance Gang. What’s next? Hallways of chicken bones?

The door is unlocked by a woman I don’t recognise.

“Sorry for that,” she blushes, “we just locked it for safety.” She hands me a tray of breakfast food and leaves. Fried polony and margarine on white toast isn’t my thing but I can’t remember when last I ate and I inhale the plate in minutes. The coffee is instant and over-sugared but it is one of the best cups I’ve ever had. When I’m finished I take the tray into the kitchen. Everyone stops what they are doing to stare at me, including two cereal-mouthed, saucer-eyed children at the breakfast table. I look down to make sure I’m wearing clothes. My limbs are blackened so I guess my face is too, apart from the lines the tears left. One of the men gives me a threadbare towel and shows me where I can shower and, afterwards, on the way out, points me in the direction of the bus station. He tries to give me cash, some pink fifties, but I refuse, showing him my wallet.

I’m astonished at their hospitality. This would never happen in Jo’burg. The criminal climate just doesn’t allow for it. As I limp towards the station my breath is shallow. I wonder if I have broken a rib. Perhaps there is something to be said for backwater towns after all.

Once I am on the bus destined for home I feel safe, cocooned. I wait for the pylons to turn back into trees before I take out the letter from Mrs X and hold it in my hand for a while before opening it. It’s a little bent and marked and the gold wax is cracked. I think: This had better be good.

Goldfields Manor

49 The Straight

Sub-Nigel

Dear Mister Slade Harris

Mr X and I apologise for our hasty departure. We had some urgent business to attend to. Okay, that’s a lie. We’re off on a shopping jaunt in Aspen and thought we’d practice our alpine skiing while we’re here. Mr X was taken by a sudden fancy for fake snow and so we had no choice but to leave immediately. I am sorry that you will not get to taste Cook’s pigeon but the universe obviously has its reasons and who are we to quarrel with the stars?! Dasher is most disappointed. He took a liking to you, of course, but it is his dismay at missing the pigeon dinner I am referring to. These Royal Dogs are very sensitive! Perhaps the next time you have The Mark Of Death you can pop by and we can try to accommodate you once again.

Butler is packing my clothes as I write, the sweet man. I don’t know what Mr X and I would do without him and Cook. And Gardener, of course! And Maid. But now let’s stop with the idle chatter and address the reason why you came to see me today and why you are reading this letter!

Here’s the thing: you wanted to know what the Shaw family attempted to hide from this town twenty years ago. But you should know by now, Mister Harris, that no one hides anything from Mrs X. Oh sweet! Dasher is barking like a rabid dog. He must know it is to you that I am writing. Okay Dasher darling, calm down, Mommy needs to finish this letter so that we can jump in the chopper! Now settle down and here, have a treat. Good boy.

The truth is that the Shaws caused an absolute scandal here back in the 90s. It is a sad story and this is how it goes: Dasher! You naughty thing! You’ve just laddered mama’s stockings! Butler! Butler! Where were you, I’ve been calling you for centuries! I need new stockings. Yes. I don’t care, just get them! Yes, I’ll have another Buck’s Fizz, thank you. Dasher knows that Mama needs her medicine.

Miles Shaw was the mining manager at AuruMine here in Sub-Nigel. It’s closed now but when he was running the show – and believe me he was a man that was large and in charge! – it simply churned out a fortune of wealth. It made the town rich and so Miles became a bit of a local hero, despite being English. He had a trophy wife, a real poppie, a little stick insect who used to be weighed down by all the gold Miles used to give her. Oh God, what would I do without Buck’s Fizz? Bottoms Up!

They tried for years to fall pregnant, and then one day Miles announced that they were going to have a daughter the whole town was behind them! And that daughter was born healthy and beautiful and kept growing more and more beautiful and she was the poster child for Nigel. So you can understand that when what happened, happened, it was shame on a drastic scale! I take it that you knew this daughter and so you will know what it was that caused the uproar. But what you won’t know is Miles was so outraged, so disappointed, so shocked – he was English, but had the moral values of an Afrikaner! – he banished Eve from town. She was only fifteen when he kicked her out with nothing but the dress on her back. We never heard from her again. And of course the other family was disgraced! After that Miles slunk into a deep depression and within the year, he had gassed himself in his home garage. All because of an illicit love affair! Can you imagine?!

So that is what you wanted to know, Mister Harris, I hope I have helped you in your quest. What the tragedy of the Shaw family has to do with you I can only imagine. I wish you good luck but I must also warn you that you are in grave danger. Nothing is what it seems, Mister Harris. If you can just manage to stay alive for the next few days you will outlive the shadow that is upon you. Now I must run, the chopper is here and Dasher seems determined to choke on a fur ball.

Ciao!!

Mrs X

PS. You mentioned a Denise Shaw, sister to Evelyn? She doesn’t exist. At least not in this particular universe! Toodle doo, darling.