Silvery Blue
A metre and a half above me, as I kick off from the sandy bottom with my flippers, the surface of the water is living silvery blue. I turn onto my back and see the luminous underside of the small waves through my goggles. At my approach the small fish silently flee into the coral on the sea bed. It’s over. The summer holidays have come to an end. We’re going to drive my elder sister Alison to Kilimanjaro Airport – she’s catching the plane to England. In a few days I’ll be back at boarding school; without Alison. I kick my way to the surface and suck in air. The world is noisy. I remove my goggles and blink under the water. Salt water – so that no one can see I have been crying.
I walk up the slope. Baobab Hotel is shrouded in silence – the main building with the reception area and the restaurant; bungalows scattered between the baobab trees. We don’t have many guests. Alison is at home packing. She’s going to live with my father’s sister and study hotel management at a school in Birmingham for six months, after which she will do her practical training at a hotel. I lean against the door frame to her bedroom.
‘Are you going to leave me all alone with the codgers?’ I ask.
‘Yes,’ says Alison.
‘They’ll do my head in,’ I say.
‘I’ve got to learn something,’ Alison says. Dad passes in the corridor. I turn my head after him.
‘I haven’t seen England for three years. We’ve lived here for twelve – I’ll end up as a Tanzanian,’ I say aloud. He continues on down the corridor.
‘You’ll get to England soon enough,’ he says without looking back.
‘I bloody need to go now,’ I say. Dad pulls up and eyes me.
‘Calm down now,’ he says. ‘I told you not to swear at home. You can go and visit Alison next year.’
Leaving Home
Mum serves lobster for supper, and afterwards Alison bakes crepes suzette and flames them in Cointreau at the table.
‘The first chick’s flying the nest,’ Dad says to Mum.
‘Yes, it’s sad,’ Mum says with a smile – a bit tipsy.
Alison puts her arm around my shoulder.
‘I hope they behave while I’m away,’ she says. I nod.
‘Who?’ Dad asks.
‘You two,’ Alison says.
‘But I’ll be at school most of the time, fortunately,’ I say.
‘We’re not that bad,’ Dad says. I pinch his cigarette from his hand and take a drag.
‘Samantha,’ Mum snaps. ‘Oh, leave her be,’ Dad says.
‘She’s only fifteen,’ Mum says.
‘I did worse things when I was fifteen,’ Dad says.
‘Yes, but we don’t want her to be like you, do we,’ Alison says to Dad.
`Samantha’s a tough cookie, like her father,’ Dad says, looking at Mum: The children will soon have gone. Our job is done. So we can each do our own thing.’
‘Dad,’ Alison reproved.
‘Why do you have to be so boorish the whole time?’ Mum says.
‘Tsk,’ I say.
Mum starts sniffling.
Africa
I wake up early with blood on the sheet, a headache and aching limbs. I can hear the girl in the kitchen. We’re leaving mid-morning. I crumple up the bed linen and chuck it in the laundry basket. Walk into the sitting room. Alison is standing in a big T-shirt in the middle of the floor, looking sleepy.
‘Where’s Dad?’ she asks.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. I look outside – his Land Rover has gone. The only clue: missing toothbrush, toothpaste and weapon. Without saying a word, leaving a note. Just gone. For how long? Who knows? Mum is sitting and drinking coffee on the veranda.
‘He can’t bring himself to say goodbye to Alison,’ she says.
I leap down the slope and into the boat house, sail out and go fishing, with just a mask, snorkel and harpoon. I hover three metres down, and it’s beginning to rain, even though the short rainy season is several months away – it’s frightening. The surface water is lashed into a lather. I hurry upwards. Grey on grey.
Mum is still sitting on the veranda. The rain has stopped.
‘Aren’t you going to do something?’ I ask.
‘Why?’ she asks.
‘Because …’ I say.
‘You’ve almost left home, and Douglas is away all the time, and I’ve been chasing the employees every single day for years to tell them the same things time and time again. And they don’t take any notice – only if I stand over them. I’m tired. I’m tired of the humidity, of the mosquitoes, of the hotel, of …’
‘Of Douglas, of us,’ I say. Mum looks shocked.
‘Not of all of you,’ she says. Alison appears in the sitting room doorway:
‘You’re tired of yourself,’ she says.
‘Yes,’ Mum says. ‘And Africa. Africa is killing me.’ She looks up at me: ‘If I go to England, will you come with me, Samantha?’ she asks.
‘Do you mean on holiday?’ I ask.
‘No, to stay.’
‘In England?’
‘Yes.’
‘No,’ I say. England. What would I do there?
‘We’re off in a minute,’ Alison says.
Translated by Don Bartlett
