Читать книгу The Hum of the Sun - Kirsten Miller - Страница 8

In December at the end of that year, Ash walked the gravel road at dusk. He veered off a certain bend in the river and leopard-crawled through thick bush. Dominic’s Hilux sat beside the large double-storey house that fronted the tea-coloured water. There were other vehicles beside it that he didn’t recognise. All around was quiet and still. He imagined they’d gone off for a walk, or were taking a rest in the soft bedrooms of the house’s upper storey.

He returned later after supper and sank beneath a bush while he listened to a group of people laugh and talk and drink on the wide veranda. The stranger’s voice dominated – familiar. There was the clink­ing of ice, of glasses connecting. A woman laughed, joined in by the others. Ash stayed hidden until the peripheral voices were gone. An hour later, only the stranger’s voice and the laughing woman remained. Ash watched the two walk hand in hand down the steps of the house. He crouched, ready to run, but something stopped him. The pair crossed the wide stretch of grass. She wore a fitted green dress. The braids from her weave reached her waist. When the stranger stopped to kiss the woman’s full lips, the image silhouetted against the moon’s light on the river burned into his mind. It was only when they off took their clothes and entered the water that Ash crawled out from under the bush and sprinted home.

They revered the clouds when they came, because with clouds there was thunder, the lightning, and thickness of sky – and then came rain. The drops hammered their heads, soaked their thread-worn cotton clothes. They danced in the storm, mouths open and thirsty, while mud ran in rivulets down their skin. Women ran to get buckets and tins and basins. Men stood with their hands in the air as though they’d known all along that it would happen eventually. They couldn’t walk inside without wading through the dark sludge that dried grey around their ankles. Soon the houses were full of it, the children’s chests damp as the walls moulded. Everybody coughed for a long while after it dried days later. It was a long time before the rains came again.