Leopold Blue Read Free Page A

could make out the pecanut tree, its spindly, bare branches reaching up into the night. The watchman. It marked the unofficial end of the garden, even though, like the other two houses in our road, our land stretched five acres down to the river. Dad had strung up a chicken-wire fence behind it when we were little in a fit of parental diligence, to keep us from wandering off and getting into trouble. Then it had seemed like a dare: to climb over, to go beyond. These days it represented a battered frontier line, a weak attempt at keeping the advancing wilderness at bay. The magistrate’s property next door was by contrast the essence of order and control. Past the rolled lawn and neat flowerbeds lay a large vegetable garden and beyond that pastureland, where up until two years ago the magistrate’s wife had kept a cow. This wasn’t legal, but as the cow had kept the houses along our road in milk and butter, and as the magistrate’s wife was a sensitive woman and uncommonly attached to her cow, it had been overlooked. But when her beloved Bessie was bitten by a cobra and had to be shot, she let it be known that she blamed our ‘English wilderness’ next door. She and Mum had not since exchanged a word. But the name had stuck – Dad was very much taken with the idea of the ‘English wilderness’. He used it regularly to refer to the general chaos of our house.
    The air in the kitchen was heavy with roast chicken and onions and sweet potatoes. Dad and Beth were already seated at the table. Mum carved the chicken at the counter next to the stove. I ruffled Dad’s hair as I passed. It was thick and dark and somehow always carried the sharp, lemony smell of boegoe [*] leaves. He winked in reply. Dad was a man of the earth. His natural habitat was out in the mountains, studying his precious rock formations. There his conversation leaped about, trying to keep up as his mind raced on ahead. Inside he preferred to keep his thoughts to himself.
    The kitchen table was the centre of our family. The history of our lives was etched into it with our crayons and scissors and pens. We had chiselled out crevices on the side deep enough to stash forbidden bubble gum or a Brussels sprout.
    In the corner of the kitchen, on the old black and white TV, a newsreader announced another weekend of violence and death.
    â€˜Where were the police in all of this?’ Mum demanded of the newsreader. ‘The so-called peace-keepers!’ She kept talking, as did he, neither of them interested in the other’s reply.
    I looked at Dad. He raised his bushy eyebrows in a way that made me giggle.
    â€˜This is
exactly
,’ Mum waved the carving fork at the TV, ‘the kind of reporting that incites violence. And hatred.’ She jabbed again at the unfortunate TV reader. This time she was going for his heart.
    â€˜Turn off the TV before your mother sends her fork through it,’ Dad said to Beth.
    â€˜It’s downright irresponsible,’ said Mum to the suddenly quiet room, as she delivered the butchered chicken and vegetables to the table.
    â€˜Yes, Vivvy.’ Dad looked tired.
    â€˜It is,’ she insisted as she sat down.
    As we began to eat, she sat up and glanced at the yellow clock above the door. She pushed her chair away from the table and looked at Dad. ‘It was exactly a week ago.’
    â€˜I know,’ he replied. He put down his knife and fork and closed his eyes.
    â€˜What?’ I asked into the silence. When no one replied, I repeated: ‘
What
?’
    Mum turned to me. ‘Don’t be obtuse, Margaret. The St James Church killings. When those men burst in on the evening service, spraying bullets across the church, killing eleven people. Did any of this tragedy register with you?’
    â€˜Yes,
Mother
, it did,’ I said. Of course I knew about it, it was a shocking thing to have happened. It was terrible. But what iota of difference could Mum make to the