by Agnes Musa
Chapter 8
We hiked, biked, wined and dined. I like the sound of that. It’s true too. Joy will not stay indoors and, you don’t say no to Joy.
For one thing, she’s older. For another, she’s smarter, prettier, livelier and ethical.
Joy pays maternal and paternal dues. She sends birthday cards and gifts to everyone and I mean everyone in the family.
She helps out financially. When she visits Joy makes time to drop in on all family which basically means she knows more of what is going on in the family than all of us who are here.
We nicknamed her United Nations.
It makes all the difference to have Joy around. It’s good, really good. Of all my sisters, she’s the closest and best notwithstanding the fact that Joy is from mother’s first marriage and I’m a product of the second.
It was not always like that between us, Joy and me.
When my eyes, then those of a child, were functional enough to differentiate between who was who, there was this girl who looked out for me.
She played with me and showed me her things. That’s until another girl, a bigger one, came and whispered something in her ear.
Joy would change and be nasty to me. She was never cruel though and the nastiness lasted only until the other girl had gone.
David has been to see me again. The man is genuinely worried. It occurs to me that if David had paid me this much attention when we were married, I would never have become indifferent to him.
He was right about that, my being indifferent. To me, it was better than being kind or cruel.
You’ve to understand that David and I slept in the same room, ate at the same table, got out in different cars in the morning and hardly talked during the day.
We came back home, exhausted. He watched the news. We read different newspapers then finished the day the way we started.
Today, David brought me Clyderman. David who doesn’t have time for music, bought me Clyderman!
I must see this Dawn. I really must see the woman.
Graham said I listen to ridiculous melodies. He listened to mature music - jazz.
Yet Graham bought a blue suit, way back while still chasing me cause he knew blue was my favourite colour. Graham looked smashing in that suit, like he did in the brown tweeds, or the safari shirts.
Do you know for a fact that a kiss is delicious? So is fellatio, if you’re doing it with someone you love.
It’s possible to trace the outlines of an absent face, to remember the taste of the inside of the lip, the tongue.
You can listen to a voice until you know its resonance and timbre, know the start of a smile, the shape of the mouth, the lips, the curves, the way a smile offsets the rest of the face till the image is embedded clearer than any photographic image.
Graham, Graham, Graham!
Nazmin came to see me. She brought flowers pressed on a card. I thought I had seen and known the beautiful people of the world until I saw Nazmin.
She’s not beautiful just on the outside, like a whole lot of people are. There’s something about the girl - I got the word. Pure.
I don’t mean like a breath of fresh air, more, much more. I’ve never come across one like her before in either adult or child.
Nazmin is untainted, unaffected by the ills of this world. When you talk to her, you find out.
I was teasing when I said Hugh is smitten. That day, I didn’t really see the girl.
When I did today, she worked her magic wand on me, same as with my son.
I know that if time stands the test, my son will be an extremely lucky man. Nazmin is special, really, really special.
Weeping willows, acacias, gardenias, jacarandas, the garden, Joy and me.
Joy: “They’re both very old now. I didn’t notice at Christmas.”
Me: “Happy occasions are hardly the time to notice such things.”
Joy: “Nat got drunk, her first Christmas with them in years.”
Me: “I was surprised she came. At least she listens to you.”
Joy: “Did you hear the song she sang? Dad was amused but mum didn’t find it funny. ”
Me: “Natalie is crazy”.
Pause.
Joy: “Let her be, Lisa”.
I deliberately misunderstand.
Me: “I’ve not talked to Hope. There’s no reason to.”
Joy: “Her too Lisa, her too. I’m talking about mother. You’ve to understand. Grandma was not the best of parents.”
Me: “Grandma left grandpa for a richer man. Full stop. Grandpa wanted mother to stay but she wanted her new father because he had money.”
Joy: “Most children want relatives who come bearing gifts.”
Me: “So when the first one died, another came along and still she stayed with her mother. Grandpa asked her to come and live with him but would she? No. All her numerous fathers were more moneyed than Grandpa.”
Joy: “Is that what Grandpa told you?”
Me: “How could Grandpa have when he died the year I was born? Aunt Pessy told me.”
Joy: “Aunty Pessy! Of course. She never liked mum. She would say something like that.”
And here is Human News Network Ruth, come to ogle. She does, whenever Joy visits.
Ruth trembles before anyone coming from abroad, even after a short visit.
Now for someone like Joy who actually lives and works there, the woman gets a big O. Ruth expands.
You ought to see the way she looks at Joy’s mouth when Joy talks, the concentration!
Ruth makes her mouth ready, like someone about to receive a kiss from a lover, then her eyes dilate with pleasure. The sight amazes me again and yet again.
David invited us to dinner. A treat for Joy and me, he says. This is unexpected. I don’t know what to do.
If it had been Hugh and me, that would be different. Going out to dinner with a man you were married to, one who left, remarried on the quiet and then came to see and rescue you!
A man who proposes to take not just you but your sister as well to dinner?
David says that Joy and him were and still are good buddies so David sees no harm in the invitation. While that makes sense, I’m reluctant to go.
David presses, I tell him I’m uncomfortable. David coaxes, I confide to Joy that I’m undecided.
David skillfully arm-twists, I relent.
You get to know the little tricks, how to make them relent, the ones you walk out on after ten years of marriage then invite to dinner, plus their sister, after you safely marry another woman first.
We go to a good restaurant, Joy’s choice. David is relaxed, attentive and charming. Yes, David is charming.
I definitely must see this Dawn. The man has changed!
He listens, he acknowledges without criticism and wait for this, the man laughs – a beautiful sound, almost like Graham.
Graham laughs with the rare abandon only the truly alive can produce. And his smile, the way Graham licks the corners of his mouth, or purses his lips, or puts his index fingers together to emphasize a point, or crosses his hands on his breast when thinking or listening attentively.
David said something. I missed it.
He reaches for my hand under the table and presses it gently, briefly. David understands.
This Dawn or his Asabuhi as David calls her, I do believe the man is really and truly in love.
After dinner, when we get home, I take a shower. From nowhere I start to dance.
The water is just hot enough to caress. It falls on my head, washing my thoughts, runs down my spine and my breast, cleaning and cleansing my heart, continues down to my loins, caressing them then down my thighs to my feet making sure they’re not wobbly anymore.
This feels good. This really feels good.
I apply the shower gel to my body, gently. I massage where I can, do so softly, tenderly.
The water washes away the pain, soothes, revitalizes. Pity about
Jacob. He would have been the perfect masseur after the shower.
Joy: “Mother had to marry dad. Her other husband was no good.”
Joy says dad to my father, who is not her biological father, and mother’s other husband to her own biological father.
Me: “Did she love the other man?”
Joy: “Yes. I believe mother did. She loved him very much.”
Me: “Why did she leave him?”
Joy: “She didn’t leave him Lisa. He left her.”
Mother always told me that she left her first husband because he was no good. This is the first time to hear that it was the other way round.
Me: “The woman doesn’t love my father.”
Joy: “Mum likes dad.”
Me: “It’s not the same.”
Joy: “No, it’s not.”
Me: “What was it like for them, when they met, before we came along?”
Joy: “They looked happy.”
Me: “Looked happy? Were they happy?”
Joy: “Only they can answer that Lisa. To me, they looked happy.”
Me: “Must be hard to live with a man, call him father when your own father is there.”
Joy: “I don’t call dad that. He’s my father.”
Me: “Did they force you to call him that, my father and mother?”
Joy: “Dad has always been dad. I don’t remember him being different.”
Me: “What about your own father, did he love you?”
Joy: “We left mother’s husband when I was a baby. I don’t know how he feels about me and to me he means nothing.”
Me: “Babies see and know very little. It must have been hard on the others”
Joy: “They say so, they were older. I cannot be them or what they were or are, to dad, to mum or themselves.”
Me: “Joy, they were children.”
Joy: “I was already born when dad and mum started living together. I may not have been as old but I had the same eyes and ears.”
Me: “Is it true then, what mother says.”
Joy: “I cannot answer for her Lisa. I can only answer for myself.”
Me: “I heard them fighting the other time.”
Joy: “They still do that at their age? What was it about, the fight?”
Me: “The usual.”
Joy: “What does she say?”
Me: “It was him. Says of the six of us, only two are his.”
Joy: “Last time it was four.”
Me: “She says he’s certifiable.”
Joy: “He didn’t look it at Christmas.”
Me: “Christmas comes once a year and you come once in two. He’s not crazy. She knows it. He knows it. We all know it but he acts it.”
Joy: “He’s our father Lisa. You should not say things like that about him.”
Me: “I say what my eyes see.”
Joy: “Then close your eyes more little sister and talk to God”.
David came by. He brought flowers, chocolates and Anais Anais. Graham said if he were ever to buy me a gift, he would bring a book, to improve my mind.
He traveled a lot, Graham did.
Graham was life. He was the rivers, mountains, valleys and seas. He was rain, wind, lighting and thunder.
I shouted Graham’s name and the elements echoed it right back. I shared my love for him with day, sun, night and moon. Graham never acknowledged or wrote back one line of all the letters I wrote him.
Not a single line. Ever.
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