The Clearing by Dan Newman Read Free Book Online

wide and as she walked her hips seemed to move independently of her torso, such was their sheer size, and below them her skirt whipped to and fro in a magnified fashion. As Nate watched, it became clear that she was favoring one leg, and while she bore no evidence of it on her face, Nate was sure she was enduring pain of some sort hidden beneath her skirts and smiles. But despite her size and weight, her real defining factor was her booming voice. Ma Joop’s laugh was thunderous, and because of its oddly deep pitch, it struck Nate as funny, making him want to laugh, too.
    Nate watched Smiley and Ma Joop exchange remarks in Creole. Their conversation was easy and natural, and as he watched it became apparent that these were two old and dear friends. For a while they seemed to forget about Nate entirely, and their conversation went back and forth like a good-natured fencing duel, complete with parries, defenses, and retaliatory attacks – all with an easy familiarity. At one point they both reached that giddy stage where they both burst out laughing, and neither could collect themselves enough to say anything at all.
    Temporarily outside of the conversation, Nate focused his attention on the envelope sitting among the empty beer bottles. He turned it so the opening faced him, pulled out a small handful of papers and laid them on his lap; the very first one snapped him to attention.
    It was an obituary, cut from the local paper, announcing the untimely passing of Tristan De Villiers.
    â€œWhat?” Nate mouthed silently. He read the name again to be sure: Tristan De Villiers . Nate sat back heavily in the chair and scratched at the new stubble that was pushing through on his chin; it never occurred to him that Tristan might not be alive all these years later. But did it matter? He wasn’t sure, but there was a new and sudden hollowness there; first Richard, then Collette, and now Tristan, too? It seemed that over the years the De Villiers family had been torn apart. He looked up for Smiley, but the man was still deeply ensnared in a loud and laughter-filled Creole conversation with Ma Joop. There were a thousand new questions Nate wanted to ask, but they would have to wait.
    He dipped his head and read the obituary again, searching for details but finding scant few. It merely said that there would be a closed service for immediate family only. The obituary was dated at the top; it had run just over three years ago.
    Tristan is dead and gone? Christ , he thought. Certainly coming back here wasn’t about confronting Tristan – that was never the goal – but now that he was gone Nate sensed that something within him would remain forever unresolved. Maybe he had expected to see him; it wasn’t part of the plan, sure, but he admitted it was something he might have been secretly relishing. Of course, that would never happen now. His mind began to wander easily to the past, where a barefoot Tristan and a collage of images from his boyhood were waiting.
    But something in the tone of the conversation happening around him shifted suddenly, like a brief jolt of turbulence at thirty thousand feet, and snapped him back. He looked up again and found he was watching a strange and uncomfortable pause in the conversation between Smiley and Ma Joop.
    When the dialogue resumed a moment later, Nate thought he recognised a single word among the string of Creole words that Smiley was uttering. Nate saw an immediate change in Ma Joop. She broke away from the conversation and stood suddenly upright, placing her hands against the top of her buttocks. “Come again?” she said in clear English.
    Smiley’s reaction was both telling and instantaneous: no matter the language, his face was that of a man who had crossed an invisible line and either had, or had come very close, to offending a woman. A woman of whom he was at least a little bit frightened. His first defense was to wave his hands in that dismissive way