The Sun Between Their Feet: Collected African Stories Volume Two. Doris Lessing
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She did not take any notice of any of the gang after that, though before she was leader of the gang, even over the boys.
That was when she stopped being pretty again; she looked as she did before she left school and was working hard for her matric. She was too thin, and the curl went out of her hair, and she didn’t bother to curl it either.
All that dry season she did nothing, and hardly spoke, and did not sing; and I knew it was because of that minute when Greg and she looked at each other; that was all; and when I thought of it, I could feel the cold-hot down my back.
Well, on the day before the braavleis, like I said, Moira was on the veranda, and she had on her the dress she wore last year to the braavleis. Greg had come back for the holidays the night before, we knew he had, because his mother said so when Mom met her at the store. But he did not come to our house. I did not like to see Moira’s face, but I had to keep on looking at it, it was so sad, and her eyes were sore. Mom kissed her, putting both her arms around her, but Moira gave a hitch of her shoulders like a horse with a fly bothering it.
Mom sighed, and then I saw Dad looking at her, and the look they gave each other was most peculiar, it made me feel very peculiar again. And then Moira started in on the lemon cake, and went to the butcher’s, and that was when Dad said that about the braavleis being for the engagement. Moira looked at him, with her eyes all black and sad, and said: ‘Why have you got it in for me, Dad, what have I done?’
Dad said: ‘Greg’s not going to marry you. Now he’s got to college, and going to be a doctor, he won’t be after you.’
Moira was smiling, her lips small and angry.
Mom said: ‘Why Dickson, Moira’s got her matric and she’s educated, what’s got into your head?’
Dad said: ‘I’m telling you, that’s all.’
Moira said, very grown-up and quiet: ‘Why are you trying to spoil it for me, Dad? I haven’t said anything about marrying, have I? And what have I done to you, anyway?’
Dad didn’t like that. He went red, and he laughed, but he didn’t like it. And he was quiet for a bit at least.
After lunch, when she’d finished with the cake, she was sitting on the veranda when Jordan went past across to the store, and she called out: ‘Hi, Jordan, come and talk to me.’
Now I know for a fact that Jordan wasn’t sweet on Moira any more, he was sweet on Beth from the store, because I know for a fact he kissed her at the last station dance, I saw him. And he shouted out, ‘Thanks, Moy, but I’m on my way.’
‘Oh, please yourself then,’ said Moira, friendly and nice, but I knew she was cross, because she was set on it.
Anyway, he came in, and I’ve never seen Moira so nice to anyone, not even when she was sweet on him, and certainly never to Greg. Well, and Jordan was embarrassed, because Moira was not pretty that season, and all the station was saying she had gone off. She took Jordan into the kitchen to see the lemon cake and dough all folded ready for the sausage rolls, and she said slow and surprised, ‘But we haven’t got enough bread for the sandwiches, Mom, what are you thinking of?’
Mom said, quick and cross, because she was proud of her kitchen. ‘What do you mean? And no one’s going to eat sandwiches with all that meat you’ve ordered. And it’ll be stale by tomorrow.’
‘I think we need more bread,’ said Moira. And she said to me in the same voice, slow and lazy, ‘Just run over to the Jacksons’ and see if they can let us have some bread.’
At this I didn’t say anything, and Mom did not say anything either, and it was lucky Dad didn’t hear. I looked at Mom, and she made no sign, so I went out across the railway lines to the garage, and at the back of the garage was the Jacksons’ house, and there was Greg Jackson reading a book about the body because he was going to be a doctor.
‘Mom says,’ I said, ‘can you let us have some bread for the braavleis?’
He put down the book, and said, ‘Oh, hullo, Betty.’
‘Hullo,’ I said.
‘But the store will be open tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Isn’t the braavleis tomorrow?’
‘It’s Sunday tomorrow,’ I said.
‘But the store’s open now.’
‘We want some stale bread,’ I said. ‘Moy’s making some stuffing for the chicken, our bread’s all fresh.’
‘Mom’s at the store,’ he said, ‘but help yourself.’
So I went into the pantry and got half a stale loaf, and came out and said ‘Thanks,’ and walked past him.
He said, ‘Don’t mench.’ Then, when I was nearly gone, he said, ‘And how’s Moy?’ And I said, ‘Fine, thanks, but I haven’t seen much of her this hols because she’s busy with Jordan.’ And I went away, and I could feel my back tingling, and sure enough there he was coming up behind me, and then he was beside me, and my side was tingling.
‘I’ll drop over and say hullo,’ said Greg, and I felt peculiar I can tell you, because what I was thinking was: Well! If this is love.
When we got near our house, Moira and Jordan were side by side on the veranda wall, and Moy was laughing, and I knew she had seen Greg coming because of the way she laughed.
Dad was not on the veranda, so I could see Mom had got him to stay indoors.
‘I’ve brought you the bread, Moy,’ I said, and with this I went into the kitchen, and there was Mom, and she was looking more peculiar than I’ve ever seen her. I could have bet she wanted to laugh; but she was sighing all the time. Because of the sighing I knew she had quarrelled with Dad. ‘Well, I don’t know,’ she said, and she threw the bread I’d fetched into the waste-bucket.
There sat Mom and I in the kitchen, smiling at each other off and on in a peculiar way, and Dad was rattling his paper in the bedroom where she had made him go. He was not at the station that day, because the train had come at nine o’clock and there wasn’t another one coming. When we looked out on the veranda in about half an hour Jordan was gone, and Greg and Moira were sitting on the veranda wall. And I can tell you she looked so pretty again, it was peculiar her getting pretty like that so sudden.
That was about five, and Greg went back to supper at home, and Moira did not eat anything, she was in our room curling her hair, because she and Greg were going for a walk.
‘Don’t go too far, it’s going to rain,’ Mom said, but Moira said, sweet and dainty, ‘Don’t worry, Mom, I can look after myself.’
Mom and Dad said nothing to each other all the evening.
I went to bed early for a change, so I’d be there when Moy got in, although I was thirteen that season and now my bedtime was up to ten o’clock.
Mom and Dad went to bed, although I could see Mom was worried, because there was a storm blowing up, the dry season was due to end, and the lightning kept spurting all over the sky.
And I lay awake saying to myself, Sleep sleep go away, come again another day, but I went to sleep, and when I woke up, the room was full of the smell of rain, of the earth wet with rain, the light was on and Moira was in the room.
‘Have the rains come?’ I said, and then I woke right up and saw of course they hadn’t, because the air was as dry as sand, and Moira said, ‘Oh shut up and go to sleep.’
She did not look pretty as much as being different from how I’d seen her, her face was soft and smiling, and her eyes were different. She had blue eyes most of the time, but now they seemed quite black. And now her hair was all curled and brushed, it looked pretty, like golden syrup. And she even looked a bit fatter. Usually when she wasn’t too thin, she was rather fat, and when she was one of the gang we used to call her Pudding. That is, until she passed her J.C., and then she fought everyone,