Little Stones by Kuiper Elizabeth;

Author:Kuiper, Elizabeth;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Queensland Press
Published: 2019-05-03T02:20:28+00:00

21

‘How do i look?’ mum asked Gogo and me, doing a quick twirl as she showed us her outfit: a pair of black slacks matched with a white silk blouse.

‘Do up a button, madam. Is too low. Is far, far too low.’ Gogo reached over and did up the second button down from the top of the shirt.

‘I’m not a teenager, Ruth,’ Mum said, as she undid the button again but also pulled the fabric up to cover her cleavage.

‘Yes, yes. Far too old to be teenager,’ Gogo agreed, before moving behind Mum to help her put on her pearl necklace. Mum had told me this necklace was expensive, but her pearls were tiny compared to the ones that Gogo wore to church.

The intercom let out a quick ping.

‘Okay, he’s here,’ Mum said, heading out the door. ‘Bye, Ruth.’

It was the day of Jeanine’s wedding. Greg, a friend of Mum’s who I had never met, but whose name I had heard with increasing frequency in the past few weeks, was driving us to Nyanga and back.

‘Did you pack your dress?’ Mum checked with me as we scurried in the heat down the driveway to reach the black car that was waiting outside the front gate.

‘Yep.’

‘Toothbrush, hairbrush?’

‘Yep, yep,’ I said, desperate to climb inside the back seat where the air-con would be on.

‘What book are you bringing?’

‘I’ve got The Chamber of Secrets.’

‘Alright then, let’s skedaddle.’ Mum said and eased herself into the passenger seat.

I got into the back, where I would remain for the arduous three-and-a-half-hour journey up to the Troutbeck Resort, which was probably why Mum double-checked that I had brought along some reading material.

The first thing I noticed about Greg was his hair, or lack thereof. Greg was bald, which was weird because he seemed about as young as my mum and the only bald men I knew were Grandpa and Grandpa’s friends. Greg caught my stare in his rear-view mirror and mentioned that he shaved it once for swimming in varsity, liked the feel of it, and had continued to shave it since. Mum said it looked great, but I thought that the shape of his hairless skull and his narrow, green eyes made him appear rather like a snake.

The drive with Greg was long and dull. He spoke a lot: about himself, about the rental-car business he owned, and about the fact that he was good friends with Andy Flower.

‘Who’s that?’ I asked.

‘Andy Flower? He’s a cricketer. The best. You don’t know Andy Flower? What are you teaching your daughter, Jane?’

Andy Flower sounded like the name of a boy in one of the books Diana and I would read in school. I wrote it down on a piece of scrap paper, resting on the flat surface of my book to keep it steady.

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