The Shouting in the Dark Read Online Free Page A

a blue moon to Braemar but Ella picks out their throaty pirrup as soon as the ring begins. So far, these trunk calls have always been for the mother, even the ones back in Durban. A relative is ill, or dead; Oma in Oegstgeest wants to talk to her only living daughter, mark some special occasion, the birth of a Royal baby of Orange.
    Today, a Saturday, the pirrup breaks into her parents’ coffee time on the verandah, so she is the first to the telephone, calling over her shoulder, Trunk call, trunk call . She hears the strange whirring in the background you get because of the undersea cables, very tinny and grinding, and then the click, Hallo? Hallo? Wie is dat? Irene, Ella?
    â€˜ Ja, ja, met Irene ,’ her mother grabs the receiver from Ella’s hand but immediately looks crestfallen. It’s not her mother, not one of her cousins, but Har’s brother. ‘Jan,’ she mouths at Ella. ‘Call your father. Quickly .’
    But the father, too, is already standing by. During trunk calls he comes to stand by, his watch held in his palm.
    Ja . . . Ja, Jan ? The brothers don’t mince words, or rather Har doesn’t. Jan has a few curt lines to report. Ja, ja , the father says again, nothing more than Ja , frowning hard, then thrusts the receiver back into his wife’s hand. ‘Can’t make head nor tail,’ he says, ‘Can’t actually hear a thing either. You talk to them.’
    â€˜ Hallo , Jan,’ the mother says pleasantly but loudly, pressing the receiver up against her mouth, ‘Sorry, we must speak up, it’s a bad connection. Could be our wires, storms somewhere. Har, niet doen , the connection will go totally.’ The father has dropped to his knees at the skirting board. In his hands is a loop of white flex. ‘Har’s doing something, Jan, the loose wire – ’
    Ella hunkers down beside him. She sees his funny pad thing that her mother calls a truss bulging out at his side. She makes sure no part of her is touching it. ‘Nothing doing, nothing doing,’ the father murmurs, his glasses on the end of his nose, his callused thumbs massaging the loose wire loop, then suddenly gripping it tight, pressing it to the skirting board where the staples have come loose.
    â€˜ Ja, ja ,’ the mother says excitedly, ‘Yes, that’s clearer, yes. Har’s somehow playing aerial. Say that bit again, Jan.’
    â€˜Don’t you people get it?’ the father whispers at the wall. ‘We’re a long way away from one another, don’t you see? The string of sound connecting us to Europe will always be snagging at some or other point . . .’
    â€˜Your mother’s what-not, yes,’ the mother repeats after Jan, ‘In the attic, top drawer, small parcel with Har’s name . . . Contains teaspoons, from the feel . . .? Left them for him when he was in Singapore . . . Send them out to us, or hold? What do you think, Har, hold ?’
    The father’s fingers have begun to tremble, Ella sees, so tightly is he holding the wire, pressing it hard and tight to the skirting board. She sees the whiteness of his knuckles, the bloom of his skin-warmth on the wall. Through the receiver, through the wire, her uncle Jan’s voice still buzzes.
    â€˜ Ja ,’ the mother is saying, ‘I’ll tell him, I know he missed . . .’
    Hold ? Jan hollers back again, Hold ?
    Ella imagines the round word Hold whirling over from her Uncle Jan’s mouth to where they’re crouched here on the floor. She sees it rolling along the thin black cable laid on the sandy seabed of the Bay of Biscay, the Gulf of Guinea, the Skeleton Coast . . .
    Har! shrieks the mother, Har! He has dropped the wire and left the room, swearing something. Ella goes after him. She hears the mother return to the receiver, her murmured apology. From the door of the living room she sees the father standing at his desk, his hands arched