Voices in the Dark by Catherine Banner Read Free Book Online Page A

There was glass in my hair, and a faint line of blood was running across the back of my hand. I rubbed it off absently. Hot oil was spilling out of the lamp, ruining what was left of the varnish on the table. My mother cleaned it off with a pile of rags and threw the glass-encrusted potatoes into the stove.
    ‘Well!’ said my grandmother. ‘I think after that performance, Jasmine, you should spend the rest of the day in your room.’
    ‘It’s not her fault,’ said my mother.
    ‘Maria, the child did it on purpose. She wilfully broke that lamp!’
    ‘She didn’t do anything wilfully, Mother.’
    ‘I did!’ said Jasmine through her tears. ‘It was my fault, wasn’t it?’
    ‘I don’t know why you tolerate it!’ said my grandmother, getting to her feet. ‘The child’s behaviour is already out of control. If poor Julian was here—’
    ‘Poor Julian doesn’t come into it!’ said my mother. ‘Jasmine, go outside and wash your face.’
    ‘Papa, come with me,’ Jasmine murmured.
    I got up and followed them too. When Jasmine came back out of the bathroom, my mother and my grandmother were arguing loudly enough to rattle the loose side window. Leo lit a cigarette and exhaled slowly with his eyes closed. Jasmine sniffed intermittently, and we waited.
    ‘No one trusts them. She will come to a bad end unless she stops this nonsense!’ my grandmother was shouting. ‘If you would just
discipline
her, Maria—’
    ‘How do you discipline powers out of a child, in the name of heaven?’
    ‘She runs about doing exactly what she likes. Letting her eat under the table—’
    ‘She’s upset. We are all upset. It’s been less than a month since Uncle—’
    ‘It’s long enough. And as for Anselm, I can tell that boy is going to go wrong. I’ve been telling you so for years.’
    ‘There is nothing wrong with Anselm. Don’t you dare talk like that about him!’
    ‘They need firm treatment. You are their
mother
!’
    ‘I have brought up my children in the way I see fit!’ my mother said, her high-class accent catching up with her. ‘Just like you did.’
    ‘What is that supposed to imply?’
    ‘Nothing. I’m not implying anything—’
    ‘If you are not careful, Maria, they are going to turn out exactly like you!’
    There was a silence. Then my mother shouted something else, but Leo spoke quickly over her. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s leave them to get on with it.’
    Jasmine gave a token smile and put her hand in his. We crossed the street and sat down on the bench in front of the pharmacist’s shop, where an old tree cast its spindly shade across the pavement. Starlings were settling in the branches, though it was still early. Outside the empty shop on the corner, the pharmacist’s two small sons were playing soldiers in their Sunday clothes. Leo lit a cigarette and watched them clutch their chests and expire in the mud of animaginary trench. Since the newspapers had been full of rumours of war, they had developed an obsession with fight-ing. ‘Can I go and play with Billy and Joe?’ said Jasmine.
    ‘Go on,’ said Leo, ruffling her hair. ‘But not soldiers.’
    ‘Not soldiers. I know.’
    We watched her cross the hard mud of the street, walking very elegantly, the way my mother did, as Billy and Joe broke off their game and came to meet her. There was a pause; then they began throwing stones against the wall, ducking every time and shouting, ‘Freedom! Death to the old regime!’
    Leo shook his head and lit another cigarette. ‘Not soldiers,’ he said. ‘Revolutionaries. I don’t know where they pick these games up.’
    The gusting wind carried a few words to us:‘So bloody-minded!’ came my mother’s voice, and ‘You are a fine one—’ came my grandmother’s. As we sat there, Michael appeared at the corner of the street. He ducked to avoid Billy and Joe’s stone throwing, patted Jasmine on the head as he passed, and crossed the road towards us. He was wearing an old hat of his