House of Stone by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Epub3
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

We were both startled by the sound of the gate squeaking; it was eerily loud. And then my surrogate father’s red Peugeot 405 farted into the yard. Dammit! Abednego, why does he have such bad timing? Just when we were getting along really well, my Mama Agnes and I.

‘Goodnight,’ Mama Agnes said curtly, gathering herself and slinking out of Bukhosi’s room before I could say anything.

No matter, we managed to pass huge hurdles. She even let me sleep in the boy’s bed! I have Abednego to thank for all of this. If he hadn’t … No, that’s no way to think at all. But still, it’s just, I’ve been wanting so long to connect with my Mama Agnes and now—

I heard him come in, staggering down the passage that leads from the back door to the sitting room. Where was he coming from, anyway? He paused by Bukhosi’s door; I could hear his laboured breathing. I held my breath. I feared he would come in. I didn’t want him to find me there, in the boy’s room – he would surely kick me out. He stood by the boy’s door for what felt like forever. And then, he shambled on, and I could hear him stumbling into Mama Agnes’s bedroom. His voice reached me, a dull, mumbling, slurred speech; had he been drinking? I sat up and listened; would he beat her again? I would readily comfort her. But all I heard was grunting, and the sound of clothes being slipped off, and then, the next moment, raspy snoring.

I lay back in bed. I didn’t want him to hurt Mama Agnes again. Of course not. I just wanted, I just wished … I had enjoyed our talk, that’s all. It had felt so good to be there for her and have her open up to me.

I found I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed for a long time, thinking of what had transpired. I thought of Mama Agnes and how she must have felt meeting my surrogate father. She was sixteen then and he was, what, thirty-three? I can see how to a girl of sixteen he would have seemed incredibly old.

I can imagine her dragging herself reluctantly to her father’s hut to meet my surrogate father on the fated day. Her mama flanking her on her left, Nto on her right. Dressed in the white, frilly dress she is wearing in the wedding photo hanging on the sitting room wall next to the portrait of baby Bukhosi. Her hair having been fried with a hot comb to get it to stand in those thin, curled rolls, like half-fisted hands. She looks so frightened in that photo.

My surrogate father would not have gone to meet her alone; he would have needed someone, a male relative, to accompany him; someone like Uncle Lungile.

Was it really so easy for him to move on from my Thandi, just like that? I feel as though I shan’t ever be able to move on from her, as though I can never love again.

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