The Murderer by Roy Heath

Author:Roy Heath
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McNally Editions
Published: 2022-05-03T00:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

The neighbour watched for the first opportunity to see Galton on his own, and when, that afternoon, Gemma went to the doctor he knocked on the door.

“Is the sugar; I come to bring it back.”

Galton had no intention of letting him in.

“I want t’ask you advice ’bout something, Mr Flood. Is ’bout me mother,” he declared.

Galton opened the door and said, “Go on, I’m listening.”

“You don’t happen to have a lil cotton seed oil, eh? She been groaning all morning and.…”

As Galton was walking over to the table where the tins and bottles were kept the neighbour slipped in and closed the door behind him.

“She don’t usually stay with me, but me sister gone to tek part in one of them self-help schemes. She’s a big government supporter, she and me mother. You dare not open you mouth and say nothing ’bout the government or she down you throat in labba time.”

Galton gave him a bottle with some oil in the bottom of it and said, “Here’s the oil. Now go and don’t come back here, please.”

“That’s one thing you mustn’t do, Mr Flood, throw a man out. I’m you guest and I did come.…”

Galton grabbed hold of his arm and tried to lead him to the door.

“I understand you wife treating me like a dog, but not you, Mr Flood. If it wasn’t for she you would let me in. You only spurn me in you own place—but is because of she. You ask she what a man does come hey for every Wednesday, then. Ah!” exclaimed the neighbour, when he felt the pressure on his arm decrease. “Ah! that wake you up, eh? Jealousy’s a terrible thing, eh? Terrible, Mr Flood. Every emotion got a value, excep’ jealousy. And when it creep in you house it don’t go ’way. My name is Harris; me mother name is Warren and me father was Mr Errol. You know, Mr Flood, the jealousy get knock out of me since I was a boy. I see in our bed me father, the landlord and the man me mother work for. Me mother is a real socialist, that’s why she likes this government.”

“My wife’s been going to work every day,” said Galton hopefully.

“If you say so, Mr Flood. But I home in the daytime and I hear all the noises in the house, the whispering, the groaning, the women crying ’cause their husbands don’t give them enough money. Y’know, if it was for me I would let women run the country. They do things in a big way—they got vision! Is a funny thing, whenever I get in a conversation I does steer it to women. I don’t know why. Is like a obsession. Women, they got what men in’ got: patience, a deep, voiceless patience; but when they strike! Oh, me God! Is like the floods every ten years that does cover the coast from Rossignol to Parika and lef’ a trail of dead cattle in it wake. You see, I not ignorant.

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