Aminatta Forna - The Hired Man

By eight o’clock I was back at the blue house wearing a fresh shirt. To make more of the occasion I’d strung up some lights which made Grace very happy. There was something strange about her appearance and after a minute or two I put my finger on it. She had pasted a heavy layer of blue eyeshadow onto her eyelids, otherwise her face was bare: no mascara or lipstick. It gave her face a clownish look.

Matthew came down. ‘Hey, man, Grace says there’s going to be a surprise. Do you know what it is?’ He fetched two beers and handed me one. Laura appeared with a glass of wine in her hand; she wore a touch of pale pink lipstick and her lashes were dark with mascara. It seemed strange that she didn’t take her daughter aside and show her how to fix herself properly. When I was young I sometimes watched my sisters transform themselves. Once I’d even sat alone at the dressing table in the room they shared — lair of scents and secrets, where I loved to spy and eavesdrop — and brushed rouge onto my cheeks, found a stub of lipstick and applied it to my lips. I must have been eight or nine. Later I forgot this and when my mother called me for my tea I ran downstairs. ‘Eh, Duro!’ My mother clapped a hand over her mouth. My father looked up from the newspaper and began to laugh. Daniela — she had left school at sixteen and was already training to become a beautician — turned me around in my chair. With her thumb she blended the edges of my eyeshadow, pinched my cheeks and said, ‘There, you look beautiful. Eat your food.’

‘Grace said you were coming,’ said Laura. She came up to me and, for the first time, kissed me on each cheek. She turned those slanted eyes of hers on me and narrowed them so they wrinkled at the corners. The overall effect was extremely attractive. ‘I wonder what it is. But I bet you can keep a secret, Duro. Don’t worry, I shan’t bully you. I love surprises.’

Salad and pizza, made by Grace during her kitchen frenzy. Laura opened a bottle of red wine. In the quiet you could hear the sound of cars on the main road.

‘Something must be going on,’ said Laura.

‘Wedding reception,’ I said. ‘The season has begun. From now every Saturday there will be a big party at the hotel. It will go on late and everyone will be drunk. Then they’ll fight.’

We ate and drank. Coffee cake for dessert. When it was nearly dark I nodded to Grace and she slipped into the house and put on a CD. There was music. ‘Ah,’ smiled Laura. ‘Handel. Now I wonder what that could possibly mean.’ I stood up and threw the switch on the fountain. Water bubbled up and rippled down the sides of the sphere of stone. This part of the display lasted about a minute. Then from the sides of the pool frothy plumes of water shot up into the air, dropped down and rose again. Next I turned on the lights to reveal the mosaic. Underneath the water the fish appeared to move, the weeds ripple. What a spectacle! Cheering and clapping. More drink, we popped a cork and toasted the fountain. Laura allowed Grace a glass and Matthew helped himself freely. Grace sneezed and hiccuped. We sang ‘Jailhouse Rock’, which was being played on the radio a lot for some reason. Our singing subsided into chatter. Grace and Matthew began some kind of guessing game I had no hope of entering, as it seemed to rely on knowing a great deal about famous people. Laura joined in and then withdrew. Grace complained the game couldn’t be played with two people, but somehow she and Matthew carried on. Matthew changed the music. In this way it grew late.

Around midnight a car cruised by. It drove neither fast nor slowly. I watched it pass. Laura sat, her head tilted back, looking at the stars. At the end of the road the beam of headlights swept the field opposite as the driver turned, the fractious whine of the engine, tyres slipping on the gravel, whorls of dust rose in the cones of light. After a pause the car began heading back. Laura noticed nothing, sighed and drew her shawl round her shoulders. The headlights of the car switched to full beam. Now I rose from my chair. The vehicle picked up speed and as it drew parallel to the house slowed. The sound of a woman’s coarse laughter. The driver gunned the engine. A gobbet of spit caught the light as it flew through the air, an obscenity hurled in English was left echoing in the darkness and something else — a glowing arc which landed in the grass in front of the table and exploded with a sharp crack. Laura jumped and screamed. The car drove on.

At first nobody moved. Laura stood, her hands across her mouth. All of us stared in the direction of the car: the tail lights could just be seen dipping in and out of view as the car rounded the bends of the road.

Matthew said, ‘Fucking hell!’

‘Matthew!’ said Laura automatically.

‘Drunks,’ I said. ‘From town, probably looking for somewhere to smoke weed. Nothing to worry about. They’re not coming back.’

‘Why did they shout at us?’ asked Matthew.

‘They saw us sitting out in the evening having a nice time, so they tried to spoil it. Ignore them. It was just a firework. They think they’re being funny.’

‘They told us to go home, in as many words,’ said Matthew.

‘Because they guessed you’re foreigners. Some of the kids, they call themselves nationalists. They have no idea what it means.’

‘They didn’t seem that young,’ said Grace.

‘But still idiots, yes?’

Laura said, ‘I’m sure Duro’s right. We mustn’t take it to heart. Are you two OK?’

Matthew shrugged. ‘I guess.’ Grace nodded, her face pale.

‘Then let’s clear these things up. Come on, everybody carry one thing inside.’

We cleared the table together, after which Matthew said, ‘I’m going to hit the sack, I think.’

‘Me too.’ Grace followed her elder brother.

I said, ‘Goodnight, both of you. Hey, Grace, the fountain is great.’ I gave her a thumbs-up. She gave me a thin smile.

‘Thanks, Duro.’ And she headed up the stairs.

Laura turned off the music, whose beat had accompanied the incident and its aftermath. ‘That’s better. Now, there’s a bit left in the bottle. What do you say to a nightcap? Shall we have a last glass?’

We carried the remainder of a bottle outside, where the air was cool and soft. Laura went back inside and came out with a packet of Malboro Lights. She smoked one, drawing deep lungfuls of smoke. We drank without speaking.

In the silence you could hear, carried across the field from Gost, music.

‘I told you,’ I said. ‘Drunks from a wedding.’

‘Yes, I am sure you’re right.’

‘If you are worried I can sleep here — on the couch.’

‘Now that would be asking too much.’

‘It’s OK.’

‘I’d feel much more relaxed if there was a man in the house. I know I have Matthew but —’

I interrupted her. ‘Laura, it’s no problem.’

I sat on the edge of the couch and wound my father’s watch just as I did every night. Counted the revolutions of the winder between finger and thumb, stopped at ten, same as always. When I was eight my father bought me a watch and that first night he showed me how to wind it. He told me to remember to do so every night and be careful not to overwind it. The best way to do this was by winding the watch at the same time every night and counting the number of turns I gave the winder. Of course, left alone, I wound the watch as far as it would go and broke the spring.

My father looked at the stopped watch. ‘What’s the difference between apes and humans? Apes learn by experience.’ He had the watch fixed and gave it back to me. ‘See if you can make it last longer this time, chief.’

My father’s watch had a black face, a large 6 and 12. The chrome was pitted, the face water-stained. I should have it cleaned, but that would mean opening it up and, since the day I took it from his wrist, I’d never let the watch stop. I held it to my ear, and then in my palm, watched the staccato sweep of the second hand. I laid it on the floor and placed my head on the pillow Laura had brought down for me. I lay still and let the rhythm of my heart join the rhythm of the watch’s ticking. I thought of the three other hearts beating on the floor above me, three different rhythms, the walls of the blue house pulsating with them.