Leaving Before the Rains Come by Fuller Alexandra

Author:Fuller, Alexandra [Fuller, Alexandra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2015-01-21T22:00:00+00:00

In July, Auntie Glug phoned from Scotland to say that my grandmother seemed irreversibly unwell. “I don’t know if she’s had a stroke, or what’s going on,” she said. “But she’s definitely lost the plot.” My parents had recently left the farm in Mkushi and were camping in a scruffy farmhouse in the district while Dad figured out what to do next. The upheaval had sent Mum into a deep depression. In part to save her mind further shock, we decided I should fly over to see Granny and report back with my findings. “And you can buy nappy rash cream while you’re at it,” Dad said. “Or whatever it is babies go in for.”

By then I appeared so hugely pregnant I brought a forged doctor’s note to the airport to prove that I was only seven months gone and therefore unlikely to give birth on the soon-to-be liquidated Zambia Airways—motto: “A Pleasure in the Skies.” The Zambian ticketing officers and the air stewardesses doubted the note and several of them put knowing hands on my belly. “Are you sure this date is correct?” they asked, waving the forgery at me. Frankly, I was beginning to doubt the calculations myself.

“Of course,” I said.

I landed in London, caught a train to Scotland, and took a bus to the village where Auntie Glug lived. My grandparents had been moved from their cottage in England to a bungalow here several years earlier when it became clear that they were becoming too vague to remember to eat regularly, or make sure the woodstove wasn’t smoldering before they went to bed. I dropped my bags at the door and followed Auntie Glug into the bedroom. The radiators blasted equatorial warmth. “All right,” Auntie Glug said, pointing to Granny’s bed. “Your turn to keep an eye on the madhouse. I’m going to put my feet up and have a cup of tea.”

“Hello there,” I said to the shape under the bedclothes.

“Nicola?” Granny pushed herself up on her elbows, her face alight with expectation. It was obvious Granny’s mind was taking its final shaky flight; it flittered around like an elderly butterfly, perhaps still capable of fancy and beauty, but mostly notable for landing without conviction and taking off with unsteadiness. Her work-worn hands, permanently curled to the shape of a milkmaid’s grip, fretted the bedclothes.

“No,” I said. “It’s Bobo.”

“Oh.” It wasn’t me Granny wanted. She sank back into her pillows, disappointed. “Where’s Nicola?” she demanded. “Where is she? Has she taken the horses out?”

“Yes,” I said. I pictured Mum depressed in her borrowed shack near our old farm. I knew her pattern well: she wouldn’t be riding, or taking the dogs for their afternoon walk, or much of anything. Her eyes would have lost their focus. “Yes, she’s out riding,” I said.

“I thought so,” Granny said, satisfied. After that, she rambled on for a while as if I were a potentially helpful stranger: Could I fix the oven? Someone had fiddled with the dial on her

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