Half-Sick of Shadows Read Online Free Page A

bed in case she opened them.

3
    Sophia’s Promise
    Poor Mother.
    Mother rose before dawn even in summer when dawn came early, and we ate breakfast with sunlight streaming through the kitchen window and making the marmalade glow like orange jellyfish.
    Every pre-dawn, Mother hurried downstairs in her high-neck blouse, V-neck pullover, cardigan, woollen socks, long skirt, and invisible green Wellington boots. She had ballet feet and a ballerina body. Either I saw her hurrying downstairs in my dreams or I’ve muddied her haste with images from books and movies: Jane Eyre, Blanche DuBois, Tank Girl, and the blind daughter in
Little House on the Prairie
whose name never made as much impact as her hair – which was like Mother’s after she washed and dried it.
    Sophia had similar hair. They were great, troubled women – not Mother and Sophia; they were just troubled – Jane Eyre, Blanche DuBois, Tank Girl and the blind daughter in
Little House on the Prairie
whose name never made as much impact as her hair. I became familiar with television years later. The Manse had no aerial in those days, nor television to connect it to.
    Every day, Mother built up scrunched newspaper, firelighters, sticks and coals, and put a match to protruding paper ends. She watched the firelighters catch and flames embrace the sticks, then put the fireguard on the hearth. She smiled her first and often only smile of the day. Daily, she hurried to the kitchen. If the gas for the stove was too low – she could tell by the hiss – she pulled on her coat and hurried to the outhouse where the bottles were stored.
    This morning, the gas had a strong hiss. Mother put the kettle on the ring to boil. Boiling took ages. Heat had first to change water from solid to liquid. Mother washed soot off her face and hands at the sink and dried them with a towel. She did this while spooning tea into the pot, a juggling act, like patting her head while rubbing her stomach. By the time she had stale bread – all the better for toast – on the board to slice, and the pan on the heat ready for oil, bacon, sausages, eggs, soda and potato bread, Father had resurrected himself upstairs.
    Father, as usual, knelt at the side of his bed and thanked God for His gift of another day and plentiful bounty from the land. I heard him giving thanks and asking forgiveness through the thick walls and across the corridor. He prayed at listeners on the far side of the planet, and to a god I had a notion wore a hearing aid.
    Mother cooked continuously, baking bread for future meals when she finished preparing imminent ones. The fire in the living room gave off a sweltering heat when lit, but most of the time the hearth sat black, like a hole in the wall. The bedrooms had fireplaces, but Father kept them empty to spare expense. He said sinners should never get so warm and comfortable they forget their need to repent.
    When we repented, our teeth chattered.
    The worst thing about the Manse was the toilet – a hole in a plank in a coffin-like box across the courtyard beyond the outbuildings, and a large bucket under the hole. Mother had the pleasure of emptying it daily, and twice daily when we were all blessed with freely moving bowels.
    Father suffered from the need to perform excretory functions like the rest of us, which meant he suffered like the rest of us. Therefore, he prayed long and hard about what to do about our old-fashioned outdoor toilet. It served six needs and often had a queue. The Lord had given him permission to have a modern toilet built indoors, but the Lord had yet to give him a date and enough money. Father had spoken to builders and sought planning consent from whichever authorities had the power to grant or withhold it. I prayed for a positive verdict. We all did. An indoor toilet: we would truly praise the Lord for that! It would mean an end to bare cheeks frozen to the seat and fingers liable to snap off as we wiped our bums.
    Six people go through a small fortune