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Writing on Water look inside Flipbook PDF
A preview of Writing on Water, the new short story collection by Maggie Harris.
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Seren Short Stories
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CONTENTS
Sending for Chantal Like Lizards Ride Water The Other Side of the River Breast Sleeping Beauty Mouth Sugarcane for my Sweetheart Writing on Water Telling Barbie Moving On On Inhabiting A Country of Words
7 19 28 37 45 54 67 76 87 107 120
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SENDING FOR CHANTAL My mother voice growing old over the telephone. At first I thought was the line crackling, you know sometime reception ain good considering whether the voice have to travel under the sea or over the sky. Then there was also the business of her getting American. That one was a slow business. When pickney small is only so and so they does notice. Like how when Sunday come and we running up to Uncle Marcus house to hear the telephone and Granny complaining at me slow she say, slow, your Granny leg ain fass like yourn. And when we reach and the telephone ring Bringg Bringg! Bringg Bringg! and me one cyant control misself is climbing I climbing up high on Uncle Marcus kitchen stool. And when she sweet voice come tinkling down the wire like birdies singing or water down the drainpipe is the sound I holding on to and the words follow. Chantal! She say, Chantal! How’s my sweetheart honeychile Mummy chocolate fudge eh? Sometime she so clear is like she in the room and Granny say the first few time I drop the phone and was looking all round the house for Mummy and bust out one crying.Was like the time we puppy Smartie see he-self in the long mirror and start yapping and running behind the mirror for find the other dog. Other time her voice ain clear at all, she sound like she shouting through the drainpipe or like the boys on the dam 7
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WRITING ON WATER
fishing, cupping them hand round them mouth and hollering cross the water. Uncle Marcus shake the phone then and blow down it, and put it to he ear and he face getting vex bad. He have to cut the line he say cos it na good but he don’t cut it, he put it down and look at it and then it ring again after a long time when we getting fed up and then all of we jump and then laugh when Mummy voice come back on. The other thing I remember about the first sound was happiness. Happiness come jumping through the telephone wire like sunshine running on paving stone. Mummy laughing and calling me her chocolate fudge and how she was going to eat me up and blow bubble on my belly like she used to. She even sing me song. She sing me song from movie pictures from flims she know I see, like we off to see the wizard. She know I see it because she send me videos. At school my fren them jealous bad when they see I have new videos that ain even in the store yet. She know all the word of them song so good Granny say is like she memorise them. And is true they sound same same, maybe that was one of the times she start to sound American. The thing that confuse me is this: Mummy happy voice. Because even though I happy hearing her voice dancing on the telephone line, even though Sunday was fill up with all the preparation for that, was still six other days to get through. And a day was a long long time from brekfuss to night. From morning light when other people mummy voice breaking through the jalousie to night-time when them warning y’all come inside now before jumbie catch you. I not happy. I want my mummy, the smell of her, the feel of her arm wrap round me even when she push me off she lap and laugh. 8
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SENDING FOR CHANTAL
That day after my birthday when I was four, when I didn’t realise what happening, when the house fill up with uncles and aunties and some cousins from the river and my god-sister who eye turn up funny, when car horn blow and Mummy come out her bedroom with a suitcase and hise me up and wipe ice cream off my face with her kerchief and kiss me and squeeze me she say Chantal Mama gwine away for a lickle bit and Granny gwine look after you and Mama gwine come back soon and collect you ... that day still clear clear in my mind. Before and After not so clear. Before mix up with mornings and sunshine and Granny flinging dust out with the broom. Before mix up with Mummy have the radio on and going outside with her church shoes on. Before was smelling Mummy nice talcum powder smell after she bathe. After was Granny use it up till it all gone. After was me hollering and not eating and vomiting and kicking Granny. Was Uncle Marcus say Stop Crying! in he big man hard like rock voice. He say stop my stupidness as I nearing school time and they don’t have babies there. He take me out with he in the Govment car and point out the beggars in the street. He drive past the marketplace where the women have their babies under holey parasols in the damblast midday sun while they selling one two mangoes. He drive up the country where the naked skin children playing under the standpipe and he akse me if I want to end up like them.Then he drive me by the seawall and buy me ice cream and tell me my mummy working hard for send me to America. In school was a white lady teacher. Her voice jump up and down the classroom like balloon when air fizzing out. She teaching everybody to read but some of we like me 9
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WRITING ON WATER
find it hard. No cat don’t sit on no mat in we house. Smartie don’t sleep like no log, he sleep like dead dog. At home postman come with letters from America. Some have my name on them. I spell it out slow, with my finger. Granny read out the words inside and hearing Mummy words through Granny voice was a different experience to the telephone. She write the same things as she say about how she miss her chocolate fudge and how soon she gwine send for me. Sometime Granny slow down she voice and I feel she skipping what else Mummy say. Her lips move quiet then she say how Mummy working real hard, she have to scrub floors and lift heavy old ladies and she hardly don’t get any sleep because of Beck and Call. I don’t know who they is. She say how Chantal must write. She don’t understand writing not for me, I prefer talk to she on a Sunday. When I akse Granny when Mummy gon send for me she say soon soon. When I akse Mummy when she gon send for me she say soon soon. Come a time we go to Uncle Marcus house and wait but no telephone ring. We sit down a whole afternoon and no telephone ring. That situation last a long time. I know because rainy season come and go and every Sunday we walk down the road rain flooding the road from the trench. Uncle Marcus say he ain driving no Govment car to get stick up in mud. Day after day the postman ride past the house on he bike, raising he leg and cussing as Smartie take a liking to chasing he. Granny suck she teeth when he don’t stop and under her breath she say people tiefing everything these days. Granny start for warn me things is hard, and food get simple, she lining up in the Govment shop for flour and 10