Shape-Shifter by Pauline Melville Read Free Book Online

adorned the walls. The nylon curtains tied with plastic hair-bows hung still in the airless night. Nobody spoke. Christine was dabbing methylated spirits on Joanne’s mosquito bites. Millie hoicked her legs over the arm of the chair. She could wait no longer. Her voice was croaky:
    ‘Mummy, I went to the dentist today and he say I goin’ lose my teeth unless I can give him one hundred and fifty dollars to save them.’
    Mrs Vernon frowned:
    ‘Oh dear, oh lor’. Millie I don’ know what you goin’ do. All I can think you must do is go to church and pray and by the grace of God, He will help you. I can’ help you.’
    Millie wished she’d never asked.
    ‘That’s all right, Mummy. I goin’ write to Evangeline to see if she can send the money.’
    ‘If you write to Evangeline,’ said her mother, ‘ask her please if she could send me a timing belt with thirty-five links for a Singer sewing machine, model 319.’
    That night, Millie could not sleep. She shared her bed with her mother. Her tossing and turning eventually obliged Mrs Vernon to get up and sprinkle her with holy water to let her sleep. In the morning, the sound of her mother sweeping woke her. Quickly, she dressed, plaited her hair and hung the mosquito net on the nail in the rafter overhead. Then she fetched a pen and paper and sat on the edge of the bed. The floorboards felt warm under her toes. She puckered her forehead and bit the end of the pen, staring unseeingly at the socks and panties hung on a wire across one corner of the room. Then she began:
    17 January, 1987
    My dear cousin Evangeline,
How are you? I do hope this letter reaches yourself in the pink of health. As for me I’m fine.
Evangeline, as you know I am not working yet and things are very tough in the home at present. Evangeline, I would be very thankful if you could send me some money to get my teeth done. My teeth has started to decay. I would be glad if you could send whatever you could afford. I know you would understand the situation, if I delay until next year I would lose my teeth completely, for when I went for the examination of my teeth the dentist told me, by the next two months if I don’t fill them I would lose them. I would hate to lose them.
Do you remember I told you I was waiting on my advanced typewriting results? I was successful but there is no jobs.
Evangeline, I am enclosing a dollar bill wrapped in carbon paper to give you an idea how to post the money.
It cannot be detected that way.
Care yourself, I would always remember you in my prayers.
    Your loving cousin, Millie.
    P.S. Please send mummy a timing belt (35 links) for a 319 Singer machine.
    After she had dropped Joanne off at school, Millie ran back down Main Street and cut up through King Street to the Strand, her thick plaited pony-tail leaping and flying behind her. The morning sun was extraordinarily bright, its corona dancing in circles. As yet there was not much heat. She flew past clumps of banana trees that leaned their tattered leaves over fences like common gossips. She posted the letter, turned round and bumped slap into Mad Max Marks:
    ‘Poop me loops, sister Millie.’ The mulatto’s green eyes sauntered lasciviously down her slim body and up again to her neck. ‘That’s a pretty necklace.’ Millie’s hands leapt up to where her blue necklace was fastened at the back:
    ‘How much will you give me for it?’ He scratched his ginger hair:
    ‘Three dollar. Pity it ain’ green. Green is obeah colour. People pay more for green.’
    She gave him the necklace and put the money down the front of her blouse. It’s a start, she thought, for my teeth money.
    Millie rounded the corner of New Street. Outside her house two women were arguing. One of them was Selma’s mother. A small group had gathered to watch as the two women circled each other in the yard:
    ‘Yuh lie! Yuh mad! If you lay one finger on my chile again I goin’ box you upside down.’
    ‘Is your chile put grease on the wall,’