Bernard MacLaverty Secrets and Other Stories (pdf)

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were what she had remembered most, romantic smells that were nearly bad smells, in the
small back streets of the town. The peeling walls and shutters, the wrought iron balconies
of the hotels in the old section draped with bathing suits and towels and the boys,
brown and beautiful, slapping along the streets in loose sandles and shorts, their shirts
open down to the waist, smelling of sun-tan oil as they passed herself and the other girls
sitting drinking Campari on the piazza of the hotel before lunch, laughing among
themselves. The way they looked at you nobody had looked at her like that, before or
since. She gave a little shiver and a smile as she remembered.
She had to wash up what remained of the breakfast dishes before she could use the
basin for peeling the potatoes. She could never get the sequence of things right. Day after
day she would start the washing up and only then see that the bread had to be put away.
The plastic lid of the bread bin would slip away from her wet fingers and clatter onto the
floor and its crack would creep another inch towards the edge. She started peeling the
potatoes. On the window sill in front of her stood a milk bottle full of tadpoles which
John had collected for the children. She had watched the dots lengthen day by day,
watched them change from stillness into life. She wondered if they lived on the jelly
which surrounded them and what they did when they had eaten their way out of the egg.
They were all wriggling and writhing now with their fully developed tails.
A screaming match had started up in the front room between Michael and Jane, and
Nan had to rush in, her hands dripping wet. She settled it by giving them all a glass of
lemonade even though it was too near dinner time.
Dr Kamel had been a great man for a glass of lemonade. She was surprised at herself
remembering him now, as she stood over the sink. He had asked her out many times and
even though he didn t mind her drinking, he was very strict with himself. His religion
didn t allow alcohol, so he sat in the bars with her, his black face shining and sober, over
a glass of lemonade. It was his manners that she liked. He always stood up when she
came into the room, walked to the outside on the pavement, lit her cigarettes for her even
though she sat at the far side of the room. He opened doors for her, held her hand coming
down steps and a thousand other gestures that made her feel nice. John had been a bit like
that before they were married but it was all gone now. He barged into rooms in front of
her, had forgotten even to introduce her to new people, the few times they d gone out
together lately. At week-ends he refused to shave and would slop about in his oldest
clothes and what she hated most was when he lay in bed, his hair tousled, almost till mid-
day. Saturdays and Sundays he was more of a hindrance than a help because her whole
routine was spoiled when she couldn t get the beds made in the morning. Whether there
was anything wrong with it or not, weekends he would work at the car and come in
leaving oily marks in the sink and on the towels. Once she even had to clean the bar of
soap after he d washed his hands. With Kamel it would have been different.
The baby came crawling out to the kitchen and pulled at her leg to be lifted. She wiped
his snuffly nose with the tail of her apron and carried him back into the front room,
scolding the elder ones for letting him out. She stirred the murky water looking for the
half-peeled potato. With Kamel it all might have been different.
The one and only time he had been to her home was the night he had proposed to her.
Her mother had come in startled from the door and said that it must be somebody for her.
Nan had gone in to the front room and Kamel was there, springing nervously to his feet.
He had asked her to marry him, she had laughed, but then, when she saw how much this
hurt him she became serious. He said that he was going back to the Sudan in a month s
time and that he could wait a week for her answer. The gulf between their cultural
backgrounds, he said, would be the main obstacle but that it would be an adventure for
her to try and cross this gulf. To live in a new country, a place where it was sometimes so
hot that it was necessary to soak one s clothes to keep cool to sit and eat with her
fingers out of the same bowl as the rest of his family. She could learn Arabic which he
himself would delight to teach her. On Sundays it was necessary to wear the Jalabis, a
long white garment similar to a night gown. Would not all this be an adventure?
Although she already knew it, she said she would give him his answer by the end of the
week. That night, as she lay tucked in behind John s back, Kamel s black face kept
appearing, pleading, pointing to the deserts and the pyramids.
The next morning, after she had got John out to work and washed the breakfast dishes
she phoned her neighbour two doors up and asked her if she could take the kids off her
hands for an hour or so at eleven only two of them. The baby would go for his sleep at
that time. The soot and dust might affect Michael s A.S.T.H.M.A. She watched the boy s
blank face remain blank as she spelt the word. Anyway they would be terribly in the way
. . . She would take them all morning. That was far too kind of her. Nan packed them off
up the street and began tidying.
She went out to the shed to get some old newspapers. Just as she was covering the
china cabinet she remembered that she might need some glasses. She carefully lifted out
two champagne glasses with floral gold rims, a wedding present from Ward Ten, smelt
that they were musty and took them to give them a wash. She lifted the Campari from
behind the pickles and set it with the shining glasses.
At a quarter to eleven she put the baby up for his nap and, when up the stairs, decided
she would change. She looked in the wardrobe and walked her fingers over the squeeze
of dresses. There were things there she hadn t had on for ages. Dress frocks that she d
worn to formals at a time when they went to formals winter dresses, summer frocks.
She picked a white dress, very plain except for the slightest silver border round the
neckline. She could wear it, now that she was getting her figure back. Standing side on to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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