Trouble

Abstract

Trouble Katherine Atkinson (bio) It is the beginning of the rainy season when you arrive with your mother and sister. The air is hot and thick. Rose shrubs bud pink and yellow against the turquoise of your grandmother's small, wooden house. There is the sweet-stink smell of fallen fruit in the air. Your grandmother looks smaller than she did when you last saw her. Her head is wrapped in a foulard, and she wears a thin, cotton dress. Her feet are bare, her soles spread and pale against the rest of her skin. She remarks how pretty your sister has grown, and looks at you from the side of her eye. She turns to say something to your mother in a Creole that you don't understand. Your mother answers her, but there is no energy in her voice. Her face is still swollen and purple as an aubergine. Gesturing for you and your sister to follow, your mother walks into the house behind your grandmother. ________ As your mother's bruises fade, so does her voice. She takes up her rosary and mouths fervent prayers. She begins to tie up her hair and wears a house dress like your grandmother's. You and your sister feed the yard fowl, sweep the verandah and hang the washing. It is your job to watch for rain and bring in the clothes. The house is quiet except for your grandmother's voice and the nightly news. A constant mutter vibrates from your grandmother's chest, directed at the cubes of dasheen she spears with a fork in the pot, at the slippery knob of blue soap in the wash basin, at the back of your head as you walk away. Sometimes the mutter issues as a shout so sudden and urgent, it seems to surprise her as much as it does you. Often it is a quarrel against the many sins of your father. Sometimes, it is a small domestic wisdom: "Wash the stain with blue soap, then leave it in the sun to bleach." Mostly she just talks at the crotons in the tins on the verandah, or the rose bushes by the steps. Sometimes, if your sister isn't pining for Seon Louisy, you and her walk away from the house to the river, looking for somewhere cool and quiet to go. It is by the river that you first see him, on the far cliff bank. He is wearing a pair of old dress pants cut at the knees and tied with cord, and he has one arm wrapped around the peeling trunk of the gommier tree, the other searching the air above the water as he balances. His feet are curled round the smooth roots, ready to launch. He looks at you just before he leaps, and makes a splash so big it wets your dress. Your sister quarrels in the timbre of an old woman, cursing him before he has even broken the surface. You say [End Page 80] nothing. There are more boys to follow his dare, and it is never quiet after that, those days by the river, but you don't mind. Your sister tells you not to talk to them. "Don't take on these coarse, neg boys, is only one thing they want," she warns. The only time you hear your mother's voice these days is when your sister speaks. You feel sorry for her because you know she hopes Seon will come to see her. Some days she stays behind, and when you come back, she is sitting on the verandah, waiting. ________ After a few days of meaningful looks, the boy from the river tries to speak to you. He asks, "Why you never go in?" You blush and say you can't swim. And even though he laughs at you, you feel like you've been dipped in the water. Each day the boy comes and performs a feat more impressive than the last, and all the village boys try to follow. You sit and watch and don't speak, but secretly you know each back flip is for you. One day, your grandmother mumbles that...