Black Mischief by Carl Hancock Read Free Book Online Page A

going on and Tom had been forced to march the pair of them down to the lakeside for a stern chat. The hour he spent with those bright eighteen year olds had been the highlight of his morning.
    He was home early for lunch. He did not go straight in for a beer with his father on the veranda. Instead he went ‘round to the back of the house, intending to spend a few minutes in the laundry garden. It was a favourite place where, sitting on a warm, sunny bank of mown grass he had often watched Rebecca and Angela working at the washing troughs.
    On one of those days, when her mother had gone into the kitchen to help the memsahib to prepare lunch, a delicious thought ran through Rebecca’s mind.
    â€˜Thomas, when we are married, you won’t mind if I want to help out with the laundry sometimes?’
    â€˜As long as you don’t ask for special pay rates.’
    He had not expected her to be there that late morning. It was her day for helping out in Hippo House, the play school on the Buckles’ land just beyond the parkland of Sanctuary Farm. He heard her before he saw her. She was singing ‘Broken Hearted Mama’, a favourite blues song written by Tony Wajiru. Tom waited behind the screen of the cei-apple hedge until she had finished.
    â€˜Thomas, I was just thinking about you and suddenly, how does your father say it? “Bob is your uncle.”’
    â€˜So, thinking about me, you sing a sad song.’
    She hesitated before answering, absently squeezing the white piece of washing she held in her hands. ‘You know that is not true.’
    â€˜But what happened about Hippo House? Are you feeling all right? Usually I can hardly drag you away.’
    There was another hesitation before she spoke, longer this time. ‘Thomas, I am afraid.’
    In a long silence they looked at one another across the sunlit garden until Tom said quietly, ‘Something that happened yesterday, isn’t it?’
    â€˜I wish they did not come.’
    Tom smiled wryly and shook his head. ‘Big mistake.’
    â€˜Sally wants good things. She loves her husband so much. She cannot see any fault in him. Their children loved it by the lake. When the hippos showed their faces above the water, they thought they had come ‘specially to say hello to them. They were happy and excited nearly all the way back. We were close to Big House when they heard their father shouting angrily. Straight away the fun went out of them.’
    â€Becca, there wasn’t a whole lot of fun stuff going on back here. Papa Rubai is a scary one, but the son and heir, I think he is crazy, bonkers, nuts, take your pick.’
    â€˜Thomas,’ she looked down at her washing and sighed, ‘that one, Julius’s brother, he looks at me so strangely. It makes me shudder. I think he would like me to be dead. He blames me, I am sure of it.’
    Tom moved quickly to the washing trough. He put his arm around her shoulder and led her towards the path that took them to the top of the bank. No words were spoken until they were standing under their acacia and looking out over the big waters of the lake. The afternoon haze hung down from the sky like the finest gauze so that Old Longonot and Suswa had lost their sharp edge and taken on a vague, mysterious outline.
    â€˜Thomas, how many times did we meet at this tree, when we were afraid to speak? Hiding here in the darkness, those nights seem so far away now. There was hope then and all our little dreams. Fear has come now. I thought the bad things were gone.’
    â€˜There is a dawa for all this.’
    â€˜Dawa for cleaning the mind?’
    â€˜Yep.’
    â€˜When we were in New York Monica and the other girls laughed about Freddie, Toni’s drummer. He was going to see, I think they called the person a shrunk. Monica said, “No wonder. Banging those drums every night has fried his brains.” So, was that a doctor of the mind?’
    â€˜Well, sort