Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight_ An African Childhood - Alexandra Fuller [76]
I watch Mum carefully. She hardly bothers to blink. It’s as if she’s a fish in the dry season, in the dried-up bottom of a cracking riverbed, waiting for rain to come and bring her to life.
Vanessa says, “Leave her alone, she’s depressed.”
Vanessa seems a bit depressed herself.
I say, “Anyone hungry?”
Mum pours herself another brandy.
“Aside from me?”
Since Thompson left, Judith/Loveness has been the only help in the house, but she can’t clean very well and she really can’t cook. I tell her to open a tin of baked beans and cook some bread on the wood fire to make toast for supper.
“With some boiled eggs,” I add.
When supper arrives I lay the table and shout, “Grub’s up!” but Mum doesn’t want to eat, and Vanessa pushes a few beans around on her plate before going back to her room. I am left to eat toast, an entire tin of baked beans, and three boiled eggs on my own.
Mum goes into the bathroom, where she wallows around in a humid steam for some time before emerging stupefied and reeling, wrapped in a towel. I have been entertaining myself, feeding the dogs the leftover supper one baked bean at a time.
Mum stands in front of the window in the living room, without music, swaying to nothing. I put the supper dishes on the floor for the dogs to lick and fish the Roger Whittaker record out of the Chopin sleeve. It seems better if Mum is swaying to music, even if the music is Roger Whittaker, than if she is swaying into the deep, animal-scampering, cricket-calling, moth-bashing silence.
“Ahm gonna leave ole London town, Ahm gonna leave ole London town. . . .”
I stand in front of her, in an effort to distract her. Her eyes slide glassily past me.
“Mum!”
She says in a low whisper, “You know they tried to kill Oscar.”
I say, “I know. You told me already.”
Mum looks over her shoulder and leans forward, almost overbalancing. “They think I’m unstable.”
“Do they?”
Mum smiles, but it isn’t an alive, happy smile, it’s a slipping and damp thing she’s doing with her lips which looks as much as if she’s lost control of her mouth as anything else. “They think I’m crazy.”
“Really?”
“But I’m not, I’m not at all.”
“No.”
“It was a warning.”
“What was a warning?”
“First Thompson, then Oscar, then Burma Boy . . .”
“But Burma Boy got horse sickness and tetanus. The managers had nothing to do with that.”
Mum’s eyes quiver. Her towel is slipping. “I’m next, you know.”
“For what?”
“But it doesn’t scare me.”
“No.”
The towel falls off completely. I retrieve it, and Mum clutches it over her breasts. “I know what they’re up to.”
“Oh, good.”
“No, it’s not good.”
“No.”
“A leopard a week. I see them. They think I’m crazy, but I see them. It’s illegal, you know.”
“I know.”
“Leopard are Royal Game. You have to have a permit.”
“I know.”
“They could go to jail.”
“I know.”
Vanessa comes out of her room; she turns off the record player and takes Mum by the elbow. “Why don’t you go to bed, Mum? I’ll bring you some hot milk.”
“Yuck.”
“Cold milk.”
“Yuck.”
“How about some tea?”
Mum allows herself to be led to the bedroom. Vanessa dresses her and puts her into bed. “Stay there, okay, Mum?” As she leaves the room she hisses at me, “Don’t let Mum get out of bed.”
“Right.” I sit on the edge of the bed, pinning down the bedclothes, and watch Mum, who is staring at the ceiling. “They invited me to a party,” she says in a dreamy voice.
“Who?”
“The managers. They had houseguests from town.”
“When?”
“You were away at school.”
“Was it fun?”
“They tried to poison me.”
“Oh.”
“Then when I was in the bathroom trying to throw up the poison, one of their guests tried to . . . to assault me.”
Mum suddenly sits up and I am scared of her, the way I would be scared of a ghost. I draw back, suppressing an urge to run away. She is behaving supernaturally. She is pale and drawn and there is sweat on her forehead and a thin mustache of sweat clings to her top lip. Her