Tall Story - Candy Gourlay [7]
She woke up many days later and her doctor told her, ‘The good news is you are now immune to the dengue mosquito that infected you. The bad news is there are four strains of dengue fever. One down and three to go.’
Which would have been a hilarious thing to say had it not been for the fact that, unlike Mum, the husband named Bernardo had not woken up from the fever.
He was dead.
Mum said it was the worst time in her life.
She was ill, bereaved, with a tiny baby to look after.
And she was broke.
She had to borrow gazillions to pay the hospital bills. Nurses in the Philippines don’t earn gazillions and she owed gazillions. It was dire.
One night she saw a comet flashing through the sky and she made a wish. She wished she could earn enough money to pay back the debt.
The very next day the job in England came up.
Her wish had come true.
She left baby Bernardo with Auntie, thinking that she could send for him when the time was right. But it never happened.
Then of course she married Dad and had me.
She’s been trying to bring Bernardo over to England for as long as I remember. But it’s been a mission. Years of paperwork and overseas phone calls (most of which seemed to consist of Mum going, ‘Hello? Hello? Can you hear me now, Sofia?’). Mum will bore anyone willing to listen with the saga of getting Bernardo’s immigration papers.
So though her wish came true, it took Bernardo away from her.
Maybe that’s the way wishes work.
I wished for point guard.
Mum wished for a house.
We both got our wishes. But one good thing deleted the other, like a finger falling on the wrong computer key.
Oops.
5
Bernardo
It was almost midnight.
The chirping of crickets and the buzz of snoring from upstairs combined into the usual night chorus.
I sat at the kitchen table, postcard and pen in hand, staring at Mum’s photograph on the wall. It had been hanging there for so long the red of the London bus had been bleached to pink. I was racking my brains for something more intelligent to write than just wish you were here, even though that’s all I ever wanted to write because it was true.
I wished she was here. And Uncle William. And Amandolina.
Actually, I wished I was there more than I wished they were here. When Ma sent photos from London, Auntie often sniffed and said London looked too grand, too cold, too hurried, too posh. But I didn’t care. And it wasn’t that San Andres was too rough, too hot, too slow or too tired either. Home is wherever Ma is, and home was where I wanted to be.
Tap tap.
Who was that tapping at the window? It was far too late, even for Jabby. But then Jabby was perfectly capable of sneaking out at night on some crazy impulse. I cast a sidewards glance at the window and started.
It was wide open; the mosquito screens that Auntie usually kept fastened gaped outwards into the black night.
‘Psst. Giant Boy!’ The whisper wafted in like a slight breeze.
The voice was unmistakable. Mad Nena! What was she up to? I bowed my head, fixing my eyes on the postcard as if I hadn’t heard, hoping she would go away.
‘Psst. I know you can hear me.’
The casement suddenly swung hard against a nearby table. Goose pimples pricked the back of my neck.
‘So. Can you hear me now?’
I stood up.
In the shadows beyond the windowsill, Mad Nena’s head was a dark lump; the peering eyes watched me greedily, the way they watched me every day from around street corners and behind trees, following my every move.
I hurried over, glancing up the stairs. Should I call for Uncle and Auntie? But then what would Mad Nena tell them? She stood in the yellow square of light cast by my window, her bony arms hugging herself tight.
I cleared my throat. ‘Sister Nena … ma’am … my auntie will not …’
‘You know as well as I do that she’s gone to bed. Hero.’
I swallowed. My hands were suddenly cold, like I’d plunged them into a bucket of ice.
‘Please don’t call me that.’
‘Hero? But that’s what you are. Bernardo, who’s going to save our town from calamity.’
‘Please don’t.’
‘Do you