Storm Warnings
Page 4
I don’t know what they did with Danny. No one back home now to want him. I’d like to go out and find Danny. My mate. Not like our granddads who got blown to shards in no man’s land then they gathered handfuls of wet pap and buried the stuff in the campaign cots the pap had slept in that last night.
So I’m on my strand. A long time back, all this, and it’s like yesterday, and somewhere round here there’s you, Tommo, who dragged my newborn bones over this very sand. And I sit here with the moon coming up and this bottle, and the rain is coming, and I wonder if it’s ended yet, or if it’s only begun, and how it began, and I think John G. Cassie can dismantle this very moon if he wants to because John G. Cassie can do anything. Anything!
I think I’ll make this my last night here. And I’ll watch the sea reflected in the metal yellow of the sky, and the sky reflected in the wet sand, and I’ll count the footsteps that meander from this rock to the sea’s edge where I had a piss, and back again a thousand times, Tommo.
I’d only ask you to remember John G. Cassie when he is gone away. Nine years a soldier, done everything for Her Blessed Majesty — and what unrequited love that turned out to be, eh? But didn’t I get the second Argie right in the middle of the forehead with the second shot? And sometimes I hear them, those Argies, and it’s like their candle’s barely out, like they are myself, two years old and trembling.
We are joshing about, Danny and I, and the guy with the smashed jaw hasn’t died yet because John G. Cassie has missed that first shot, and we are arsing about and saying, ‘Oh whoops, there’s been a slight accident!’ and these men are crying and bleeding and we finish it, and then, oh then, us still joshing about, eye off the ball and Dannie all misty-eyed about Cul Mor, and the shot rings through the wind and the sunshine from up there, or there, who knows. Dannie spins and drops his rifle, and his brains . . . thick rain. Sniper. And fuck knows I’ve had to live with that in my head for twenty years.
I’ve lived here on this sand for five of those years, and all those hours of seeing those Argie’s faces are like a chain round my neck that’s just getting heavier and heavier and I carry those dead men round like a stone, a dead weight.
I had a dream last night. I dreamed they came at me with dead eyes and you came at me, Tommo, and looked at me with your bones, and you asked me where was the house where I was born, and the light was ebbing, and it was so cold, and I said I was born in no house, and you know this, you dug at me with your claws.
Maybe it was the whisky, but the order of the heavenly bodies stood proud in the sky all done in the Royal Stewart, and in my mouth was the scent of bitter almonds, and the Argies came at me dripping and offered me cyanide for a quick end such as I had not given them. And they were speaking gibberish — Argie talk through shattered jaws — but they were still alive and floating across the moor at Goose Green or a mile of sea-scented beach.
Now I can’t think straight and it’s cold. What you’re hearing is full of loose ends and I wanted it to be my testimony — and it’s getting dark on this last day, and I will dig in, here, where the tide’s gone out. She’ll be back, the tide, for she’s a faithful consort, faithful and regular. And when this man is asleep he’ll have in a circle round him pipers in Royal Stewart, and Danny McGee complete with brains, and two handsome and whole Argies with eyes you wouldn’t forget, and you Tommo, old friend, bones and all.
The Wig Maker
THERE IS NO story here, only truth. I was taught the value of truth. I will start, therefore, with three truths. First, I am called Pearl. Second, woodpeckers never fly over the ocean. Third, bamboo is stronger than muscle.
I keep a pair of mother’s shoes where I can see them out of the corner of my eye, in my workroom. Only out of the corner, for that way her ghost can stand in her shoes and does not know I am watching. She wavers above those shoes like she cannot decide whether to be here or not. That is unlike her. She was so definite. So sensible.
Those who see the value of truth will see truth. This is what my mother taught me, and indeed it is so. It is not a comfortable thing, knowing the value of truth, for it weighs heavy, as heavy as the growling clouds that send us rain from their bellies.
I wonder about the truth in the sacks of black hair that wait under my workbench. I wonder about its blackness, its oiliness, and sometimes, when I lift a handful to my nose, I smell cooking, or perfume, or sometimes the fresh air from some mountain village.
I see the truth when I hook the hair into the silk caps that come from the west, with their little ribbons. Someone, I forget who, told me a long time ago that the wigs are for beautiful ladies who dance, or stand on wooden stages high above the people and recite long speeches that have the people mesmerised. I think this as I hook the hair through and over, through and over, each skein matching the last, my fingers working so fast now that they are a blur . . . and my mother rises up in the dust that wavers in the corner of the room, and stands there, squat, looking at the hair.
This room is made of bamboo. The walls are thin and ridged, and the wind whistles sometimes. But the rain doesn’t come through. The roof is good.
It takes me five days to make a wig, and the man in a suit with brass buttons comes in a car and takes them away every two months. He pays me enough.
My father knows about bamboo. So does my mother. I believe she is in heaven, and when it rains it is she who shakes the clouds so they cannot hold their water. She was a good woman, as my father was a good man.
He was a good man, but he did not always do as he was told. He went a long way away, to a place he did not belong. The truth is, woodpeckers do not, ever, fly over the ocean, and there is a good reason for this. They cannot know how to be when they get there.
It was a bad time. My father was a good man and he believed in the truth. He sold the truth to those who would pay.
I cannot help but think of him when I hook the hair through and over through and over, watching it flow like silk through my fingers — and the truth that bamboo is stronger than muscle. And stronger than my mother.
How strong is a man, when all said and done? As strong as his woman? What did they do when the wrong ‘they’ needed more than the truth from my father?
They did this: took my mother and laid her on the ground naked, pinioned, spread-eagled. They tied my father where he must watch but not reach her.
He told me, ‘Pearl, I thought the men would . . . and I said nothing, for your mother shook her head. That was the first day.
The second day, it rained a little. I thought this was a good thing. That she would be glad of the water, as I was, and I turned my head to the sky, mouth open. Your mother turned her head away from me. She could not move her body. She was pinioned arms and legs.
The third day, your mother was not still. All round her the grass was growing, and we could not speak to each other. I thought the grass was beautiful. Soft for your mother, like a good mattress.
But they were listening all the while.
The third night her body moved, pulling at the ropes that held her arms, her feet. And all the while the grass was growing, growing taller. I had never seen such growth.
The fourth day she bit her lip, and the fifth day a little blood ran onto the earth. The grass was not grass.’
I make my wigs, for the west, and my fingers blur and bleed. I must make more wigs this month. The man with the brass buttons told me he will not pay as much as last month, and I must feed my father. Who will feed him if I do not make wigs?
My mother stands in the corner, and out of the corner of my eye I see her planted and pierced through with bamboo. My father said it took two weeks. The bamboo grew straight through her, and lifted her body up off the ground, until it was bowed up and straining at its leashes like an eagle about to take flight.
The truth? What was the truth? My father did not say. I do not know it. I only know the three truths I have already told you,
and I must work now. The women in the villages sell their hair, and I must do them justice.
Maiba’s Ribbon
ON HIS MATTRESS, Takundwa draws a green line round his left arm above the wrist with a pen from the schoolhouse. He found the pen on the floor, under the lockers. Not that the lockers are any use now. The doors hang off broken hinges. The whole thing looks drunk. Like the old men who slouch against walls rubbing their toes in the dust as if they were going to draw something rude and call out, ‘Come and see!’
Hondo is asleep on the next mattress. Takundwa can hear his breathing, even, and a huh every so often and a scrabble as he turns over. It’s not easy for Hondo to turn over now. But at least he doesn’t shout out any more in his sleep, or swear at Takundwa, ‘Get over here fuckwit and turn me over!’ because his arms are healing. The skin is knitting where they cut off his hands.
It’s not so easy to draw a green line round the right arm. Takundwa is right handed. They told him that at the school. They said he had one strong hand and one weak hand, and the stronger always told the weaker what to do. ‘Like a big brother tells his little brother what to do, and the little brother follows . . .’
Takundwa asked whether it was better to be right handed or left handed, and the teacher laughed and said it didn’t matter.
Last night, Takundwa tied string round his left arm, tied tight, pulling the knot strong with his teeth. And he lay there while his hand throbbed and ballooned, and he thought it might burst.
Hondo can still feel his hands. Takundwa knows this is true, because he’s seen Hondo going to unzip. Then banging his head against the wall. Or reaching for a cup, and his arm just swinging past in the air.
Hondo doesn’t snarl any more when Takundwa gets him dressed. Takundwa does, when the other boys in the camp snigger. They only do that once, and it’s usually the ones who are too young to feel it in their heads, but too old to stare.
Before the lockers were broken, Takundwa laughed from behind the schoolhouse. Before the tables were burned in the open, the last time he was a naughty little brother and ducked under Hondo’s fist and ran away. Hondo was being grown-up and important; the teacher had given him a badge, and he’d worn it all day when the school house was used for the elections. And then he was wearing the badge every day in school and Takundwa said, ‘You think you are President!’ and Hondo swung with his fist.
Takundwa ran for ages, ducking behind the huts, giggling, hiding under the floor of the church building, watching the sun coming through the floorboards, playing with a ribbon he found down there. Still tied in a bow, a pink-check ribbon. Maiba’s.
Takundwa untied it slowly, making plans to tell her he’d give it back if she gave him a real kiss, a grown up kiss like Hondo did with the girls.
And then he’d heard engines. Loud ones, trucks, not cars. and instead of excited shouts, there were cries. Screams. And he’d stayed under the church and somehow Maiba’s ribbon had found its way into his mouth.
There were engines again, then silence, and then slowly, sounds came back. One low moan. Then another. Then ululation, but it started low and built up in waves until it sounded like the whole village was crying.
Takundwa holds his arms up. He spreads his fingers out and tries to imagine. But he can’t. He keeps hearing Mama’s voice outside the window — and yesterday, he thought he saw his father nailing a plank back on the church roof — but people who are taken away in the trucks never come back.
Once, he asked Mama why he and Hondo had such different names. Why he had to be called Takundwa — the one who accepts defeat — when his big brother had a man’s name, a warrior’s name, strong and brave. She laughed and said it didn’t matter. Just like the teacher laughed when she said being right or left handed didn’t matter. But Takundwa knows that it does. And he curls on his side, away from Hondo, and stuffs Maiba’s ribbon in his mouth.
Letters from Kilburn
901 Essex Heights
Kilburn
London
United Kingdom
October 15
Dear Your Majesty,
I hope you do not mind that I am writing. It is about the water pipes at Essex Heights. The water is brown and I am worried. I have asked the Immigration Office many times but they say the pipes are old.
I am still worried.
I have seen you in the newspapers and on TV. I hope you can help me. Please forgive my bad writing.
I am yours,
Karim Hussein (Mr) (Aged 18)
Buckingham Palace
3rd November
Dear Mr. Hussein,
Her Majesty has asked me to convey her thanks to you for your recent letter.
As you will appreciate, she is unable to respond personally to the many hundreds of letters that arrive every week, but she is always most interested to receive them.
Yours faithfully,
Sarah Williams
(Deputy Secretary, Correspondence.)
901 Essex Heights
Kilburn
London
November 7
Dear Your Majesty,
I am very pleased to receive today a reply to my letter about the water pipes from Sarah Williams Deputy Secretary of Correspondence. I am deeply affected that you are most interested to receive letters.
That is why I am now writing again. It is still about the water pipes. The water is still brown. I am still worried.
The water is brown sometimes in water pipes in my country, Iraq, but not always. Sometimes, since the fighting, there is no water at all and we have to wait.
It is very hard to be clean for prayers in brown water,
I am yours,
Karim Hussein (Mr) (Aged 18)
Buckingham Palace,
19th November
Dear Mr Hussein,
Her Majesty has asked me to convey her thanks to you for your recent letter.
As you will appreciate, she is unable to respond personally to the many hundreds of letters that arrive every week, but she is always most interested to receive them.
Yours faithfully,
Sarah Williams
(Deputy Secretary, Correspondence.)
901 Essex Heights,
Kilburn
November 24
Dear Your Majesty,
I am humbled to have two replies from Sarah Williams Deputy Secretary of Correspondence.
There is still brown water in the pipes at Essex Heights. However, I now buy clear water in big plastic containers from a shop. I use this clear water for cooking, drinking and washing before prayers, so I have finished with one problem. The containers are expensive, (£3.75p) but I will no longer bring my pipes to your attention.
I have travelled a long way to arrive in your country. I have arrived because I want to be a medical doctor. It is not possible for me to learn to be a medical doctor where I lived until recently. (Please see PS).
I have seen you on TV. There is not a TV here at 901 Essex Heights. You were on TV in the window of a shop in Kilburn High Street. You were putting red flowers on the ground, and were wearing a black hat. I think you looked very nice.
This letter is too long. I must not waste your time as you have many hundreds of letters to read. I hope it is not a burden, and I hope it does not make you tired.
I am yours,
Karim Hussein, (Mr) (Aged 18)
PS: Our University Medical School is not in very good repair since the fighting.
Buckingham Palace,
1st December
Dear Mr Hussein,
Her Majesty has asked me to convey her thanks to you for your recent letter.
As you will appreciate, she is unable to respond personally to the many hundreds of letters that arrive every week, but she is always most interested to receive them.
Y
ours faithfully,
Sarah Williams
(Deputy Secretary, Correspondence.)
PS: Mr Hussein — I would also like to add my thanks for your letter. SW.
901 Essex Heights
Kilburn
December 7
Dear Your Majesty,
It is also a great honour to receive a Post Scriptum from Sarah Williams Deputy Secretary of Correspondence.
I have attended two meetings about medical school, and I am very hopeful. But it is easier to write English than listening and speaking English. I have a friend here who is helping me write. You have many different accents, I cannot hear the words sometimes. I am learning, however, in two books from Kilburn Library (Mrs Anne Fitzpatrick, Chief Librarian).
This morning I attended a third meeting about medical school. I do not have qualifications, and certificates. (Please see PS 1). This is another problem, but not for Your Majesty.
Your newspaper face today is tired. I hope I may be permitted to observe this. If I am your medical doctor, I would tell you to have a holiday. (Please see PS 2.)
I am yours,
Karim Hussein, (Mr) (Aged 18)
PS 1: I did not carry any papers. My brother Hassan had a wallet round his waist with our papers and my examination certificates. They are all lost.