Where Bones Dance: An English Girlhood, An African War

Beach

253 Beach O n the beach she lies with her mouth open. Her lips are wet, as if she has been licking them in her sleep. Bill and Dad are far down the beach. I can see the kite, a red diamond in the blue sky with a yellow tail. I know the string I can’t see leads down into their hands. I can’t see them either. My father ran down the beach on his long hairy legs, the kite stumbling behind him till it swung up into the air, and Bill ran too. I can hear the waves, I can hear her snoring, the breath catching in her throat. The hairs on her lip are pale yellow. One arm is behind her head, the skin in her armpit pale and naked like chicken skin. Her eyes are very still under the eyelids. She smells sour and heavy, like milk that’s gone off. She doesn’t know I’m here. Her breasts point in two different directions. They lean away from each other. Her legs are covered in short sharp hairs like little spines. Her belly shivers when she breathes. More hairs climb out of her bikini bottoms. I’m going to hit her. I see my fist above her, ready, my fist going down into her belly, sliding in and in, up to my elbow. I have to pull it out but I can’t. She is sticking to my 254 skin. She’ll swallow my hand if I hit her. There’s a piece of chicken in between her teeth. After meals she takes a piece of cotton, wraps it around two fingers, pulls it tight. She saws in between each tooth. I feel sick. She’s a whale, her belly’s the mouth. All the food in the ocean goes into her mouth. She puts her mouth over the whole ocean and sucks and there isn’t anything left in the sea, the water is thin and empty. “You’re disgusting,” I say to her belly, “you’re dirty. I hate you.” Her eyes flicker. They open. “Hello darling.” She reaches for the tube of Ambre Soleil. I screw the cap back on the tube. My hands are greasy. I wipe them on my thighs. Sand sticks to my hands, my thighs. I can’t get it off. In the sky the kite is turning and turning. “Thank you, darling.” Her voice is muffled. She’s lying on her belly now. The sand is white under her head. Her hair is black and the sand is white. It is like a cloud, thick, moving, the sand, like steam. I can’t stop looking. Something’s happening to the sand. I have to see. I see the dark between the grains, thousands and thousands of dark pores in the sand. It’s breathing, swelling and sinking, the whole beach a skin, hot and salty, the waves breathing harder. Dada dada. Come home. Dada come home. Dada. Mummy in bed warm mummy salt smell mashed potatoes belly big and warm mummy playing castles. Mummy pushing up and down, hairy scratch on my tummy. Let me go, Mummy, Mummy. She is crying funny. Fists on her belly, fists. Mummy let me go go down drown breathe her skin Mummy in. She cries out. She lies still. She lies dead. Mummy. Mummy. I am running down the beach. The kite is laughing at me, high in the sky turning figures of eight. My feet sink in the sand. It burns. Burning. Dirty. Dirty. I run until my feet touch the wet sand. I run. Each time my foot touches the sand, it pushes me forward and up into the air. My feet are running, I am standing still. C y c l e 4 The wind is in my hair, the roar is in my ears. I run until my stomach hurts then I dig a hole in the ground and I lie in it. I pile the sand back over me. My toes stick up. When I wriggle them the sand crumbles. I want the sand to look smooth, as if nobody is there but it doesn’t. I run again in the opposite direction. I feel something sharp in the sand. I look behind me. There’s blood in the sand. I run looking back, there’s more blood, there’s blood everywhere...