Dew Angels

by Melanie Schwapp

  “You have to be brave, girlie. Brave to take road alone. I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them, I will turn darkness into light before them, and make the rough places smooth!”

  Nola grabbed the sap-stained hands on the car door and choked “Thank you, thank you.” So, on her last night in Redding, instead of thinking of the mother and sister who’d stayed away, and the father who preferred her dead than alive, Nola thought only of that yellow smile and the pride in those eyes as they waved her away from her home.

  CHAPTER

  26

  When Nola and Slugga dismounted from the bus in Half Way Tree, everything seemed to be behind a watery haze, as if a curtain of vapour had been hung over the city. And the crowd! As Nola hustled behind Slugga’s rump in between the blaring buses and shouting pedestrians, she felt as if she’d entered the birthplace of all crowds.

  Slugga hailed a taxi and ushered Nola into the back as she shouted an address to the driver, and nodded pleasantly as Nola shuffled over so that she could fit beside her. The freckles glimmered on her sweaty face. It was so strange to see this new Slugga—no makeup, no mask, just the freckled brown skin of a regular person. She had shot Nola so many concerned looks on the bus drive from Nainsville that Nola wondered if it really was the headmistress who’d picked her up last night, or some dusky-faced imposter. A few times she had even patted Nola’s head, an action which Nola realized was the woman’s way of showing concern.

  She had remained standing behind Nola as she handed her the mirror to look at her face for the first time since the fire, and she’d held Nola’s shoulders firmly when she flinched at the face staring back—the eyes with their patchy eyebrows, the skin, dull and grey, tight across the cheekbones. But, those were not the things that had made Nola lurch away from the reflection. Not even the large mass of cracking scab on the side of her face had shocked her as much as the grin that greeted her. She was smiling. With no effort, with not even the slightest movement of her facial muscles, she was smiling back at herself. The spark that had sailed from the pink house and landed on her face had seared on it, a smile. A smirk.

  At first, Nola had shrunk away, then when Slugga had held her in place, she began to shake with laughter. That Dahlia! She tried to explain the humour to Slugga, but she couldn’t get the words out for the laughter, that Dahlia had gone and left her with something she’d always claimed that Nola hadn’t done enough of. “You know what your problem is Nola Chambers, you don’t know how to have fun and enjoy life! Always worryin’ ‘bout this or that! You need to just laugh! When you feel bad ‘bout tings, just make yourself laugh, and watch how you feel better!”

  Dahlia had left her with a smile, with just the right amount of sadness and just the right amount of glee.

  The taxi finally stopped in front of a two-storey building with an outdoor staircase leading from the garage up to the roof. Nola craned her neck through the taxi window to see where it led.

  There were concrete railings around the perimeter of the roof, like some kind of roof verandah.

  Nola followed Slugga slowly through the metal gate, holding Grampy’s towel close to her chest. Ahead of them was a garage, empty except for a clothesline stretching from one concrete column to the other. Hanging from it were a few white napkins, some tee shirts, and two white merinos. Beneath the clothing Nola could see that there was a closed door marking the entrance into the house, but Slugga ignored it and walked instead along a narrow dirt path at the side.

  It was dim in the backyard. Two huge ackee trees blocked out most of the sun. The air was cool and Nola stopped beneath the branches, appreciating the break from the ferocious city heat. She noticed that someone, or some others, had also used the trees as refuge from the heat, for a wooden stool and two plastic chairs had been arranged around a Red Stripe beer bottle bearing a half-burnt coil of mosquito destroyer.

  Nola gave an involuntary jump as her eyes focused on the mound beside one of the chairs. It was not a pile of dirt as she’d first thought, but a dog! Its coat was the same dark brown colour as damp soil, and it had fooled her eyes in the dim light. She was about to turn and gallop back to the front of the house when she spotted the chain leading from the animal’s neck to one of the tree trunks.

  Nola stopped nervously behind Slugga’s wide frame as the woman sang from the doorway. “Hallooo! Tiny! Hallooo! Tiny! It’s me. Aunt May! I’m here!” Slugga waddled further into the house, still calling for ‘Tiny’ in that strange, melodious tone.

  Nola lingered by the doorway, noting that they were in the kitchen. The smell was overpowering—overripe bananas and spoilt milk. Gingy flies swarmed to meet Nola at the doorway. She fanned them away with Grampy’s towel, but Slugga walked unperturbed through the flies, continuing through the kitchen and turning left through another doorway.

  “Tiny!” Slugga sang again, her voice echoing cheerily against the walls of the house. “Tiny! Aunty May’s here!”

  Then suddenly, she stopped. They were in a passageway that curved beneath an indoor staircase and led to another closed door. Beside the door was a young girl, fast asleep in a rocking chair. She couldn’t have been more than 17. Her face was plumped with youth, her dark hair so thick on her scalp that it seemed as if she were wearing a cap. Her mouth pouted in a juvenile expression of displeasure, as if she were having not-so-sweet dreams. Slugga watched the girl with a strange half-smile on her face.

  Nola stared at Slugga in amazement. She looked as if she were about to explode with love. Her face actually glowed, the freckles beaming like stars on the dusky skin.

  This was the sick niece that Slugga had told them about.

  Slugga bent over the girl and whispered, “Tiny. Tiny, my darling, wake up! It’s Aunty.”

  At first the girl’s lashes fluttered in confusion, then as they focused on Slugga’s face they widened with joy. She gave a broken sob as she jumped out of the chair and flung her arms around Slugga’s neck.

  “Aunty!” was all she said, her voice muffled in Slugga’s chest.

  “Yes, my dear, Aunty come. No worries, Aunty’s here now.”

  She must have been very sick, for Slugga’s voice shook with emotion. It was not until Nola shuffled her weight from one shaky leg to the other that Slugga seemed to remember that she was standing there. She gave Nola a stunned look before lifting the girl’s head from her shoulder.

  “Nola!” she exclaimed. “Tiny, this is Nola, the young lady I told you about. Nola, this is my niece, Tiny.”

  The young lady I told you about. Nola wondered what words had pre-empted her arrival. Had she told Tiny of the fire that her papa had started and of the two people who had burned to death? Or had she told her that she’d lived on the sidewalk for the past month, and that she, Slugga, had been forced to take her out of Redding?

  Tiny looked up from Slugga’s chest and Nola was washed with new shame when she saw the look of shock that marred the girl’s face.

  “Wha’ happen to …” Tiny whispered.

  “Remember, Tiny?” Slugga’s voice was soft and coaxing.

  “Remember I told you that Nola was in a fire. Tried to save two very good friends of ours.”

  Nola’s head shot up. Two very good friends of ours? Two? She hadn’t known that Slugga even knew Merlene Daley, much less to have considered her a friend.

  But Slugga just smiled at her shocked look and nodded. “Brave girl, very brave girl,” Then she turned again to Tiny. “Nola’s going to be staying with us for a while, till she’s better to go back home.”

  The girl tried to smile, but even though her lips moved, her eyes remained stiff with shock.

  She was very pretty. Not like Louisa, with her delicate prettiness. This girl’s beauty was more brazen—thick, dark eyebrows to match her cap of hair, slightly slanted eyes that hinted at a tinge of Asian heritage, and full, pouty lips which glistened as she licked them to conceal her surprise.

  “Aunty,” she protested, �
��Stop tellin’ people that my name is Tiny. It’s Petra! My name is Petra, you hear!” She gave Nola a firm nod. “Only Aunty call me Tiny,” she gave Slugga a playful pinch, her slender fingers sinking into the dough of flesh.

  “Tiny!” Slugga cradled her arms and rocked them back and forth as if holding an imaginary baby. “The tiniest thing she was! They brought this squealing little thing out of the hospital room and told me that she was my niece! You sure? I asked them. You sure it’s not a rat you picked up off the floor by mistake?”

  Petra laughed delightedly and pinched Slugga’s arm again.

  “Five pounds, two ounces!” Slugga continued, “but the loudest cry you ever heard in all your life! Not even a ten pound baby could have made that much noise!”

  “And you, Aunty, look at you! You’re not anything near tiny! I thought you tell me that you was goin’ to lose some weight. Goin’ to stop eatin’ all that oxtail and dumplings, and start walkin’ for exercise in the evenin’s after school.”

  “Chu man, you don’t worry about me! One day when all the rest of you starving, Aunty going to be just fine. Plenty sustenance on my bones to keep me going when everybody else hungry!”

  The two of them cackled at Slugga’s joke, and Nola smiled hesitantly, wondering again if she’d jumped into the taxi with the wrong person.

  Suddenly, the smile faded off Petra’s face and her expression became sullen as she looked down at her waist. “I lose everyting except this.” She lifted her tee shirt and jiggled a fold of skin that flapped over the waist of her pants.

  Nola blinked at the wedge of flesh that the girl jiggled. It looked so out of place on her tiny frame, like she’d strapped a bicycle tire tube up around her waist.

  Slugga placed a hand on to the protruding flesh and gave it a little pat. “It will go Tiny, just give it time,” she said. “Just give everything time.” She gave a heavy sigh and patted Petra’s head.

  “I’m so sorry I couldn’t come sooner, but you know how things happen.”

  They all stood in silence, staring down at Petra’s belly. Beginning to feel a little shaky from a combination of the long trip, her strange surroundings and standing for so long, Nola shifted again from one leg to the other. She was just contemplating whether she should brush past them and collapse in the rocking chair, when Slugga said, “I want to see her. Nola, sit there till I come back, and then I’ll show you where you’re going to sleep.” She pointed at the rocking chair with one hand while she took Petra’s elbow with the other.

  They went quietly through the door beside the chair, leaving Nola to stumble to the rocker. She looked into the room as they opened the door, but nothing was visible within the darkness. She sank into the chair, folding Grampy’s towel on to her lap and trying to keep her mind alert by imagining what the rest of the house must look like.

  She leaned forward and peered out the sash window at the end of the passageway. She could see only one of the ackee trees from there, the one on the right that had been closer to the house. She hadn’t noticed the grill leaning against its trunk before. There was a bed of calalloo plants behind it, the leaves large and succulent in the coolness of the shade. Someone had obviously spent a lot of time tending the plants. Petra? No, the girl somehow didn’t seem that way inclined. Digging in the dirt didn’t seem the style of such an exotic looking thing. There were even tracks of a rake in the bared soil beneath the tree, smoothing the area into neat, symmetrical lines.

  Suddenly a shuffle at the top of the staircase sent Nola jerking backwards into the rocking chair. Someone was up there!

  She stared wildly at the closed door that Slugga had just entered. Should she run in there? Her heart raced at the thought of meeting another Kingstonian without Slugga there to explain the condition of her face.

  As the footsteps began descending the staircase, Nola pushed with suddenly strong legs, knocking the rocking chair against the wall behind her. The owner of the footsteps did not seem to notice, continuing down, slow and unhurried. They stopped at the bottom, shuffling around as if searching for something, then they continued again, but much to Nola’s relief, they faded away, through the kitchen and out the back door. Nola peered through the sash window, anxious to see who’d come down the stairs. Before she spotted anyone, another sound pulled her attention from the window.

  It was the soft mewing of a cat, and it seemed to be coming from the room into which Slugga and Petra had disappeared. Nola cocked her head closer to the door and listened carefully. The sound escalated, changing from a mew to a downright wail. Nola blinked. That was no cat! That was a baby! A very upset baby!

  However, just as fast as the sound had escalated, was as fast as it was muffled, as if something had been quickly put into its mouth. Nola heard Slugga’s voice, a gentle murmur behind the door, then Petra’s voice, a rushed whisper, then silence once again. Suddenly, the image of the clothesline in the garage rushed back to Nola. Those were no large napkins on the line. They were diapers! Diapers for that baby in the room! Slugga’s niece hadn’t been sick, after all, she’d simply had a baby! The reason for the bicycle tube around her belly and the bags under her eyes. A baby! Slugga had left Redding to take care of her grand-niece, not her niece!

  When the door finally opened, Slugga emerged alone. She waved to Nola to follow her back into the kitchen and took her through the mesh of flies to a door which Nola had not noticed before.

  It was beside the fridge, hidden by the cumbersome appliance. Slugga had to turn sideways to get her body through the obstructed doorway.

  “This is where you will sleep, Nola.” Slugga was still whispering, as if her mind had remained inside the darkened room. “We rent out all the other rooms in the house. Tiny and I will share that room by the stairs. You will use this one.” Her eyes stared straight ahead and took a deep breath. “When my brother passed on, it seemed such a shame to waste all this space, so we advertised the rooms, and they filled up before we could even shut the newspaper.”

  The room was as dark as the one under the stairs, the curtains drawn tight over a single window. When Slugga flung the curtains open, dust particles spiraled agitatedly through the new light, and a sash window similar to the one in the passage revealed her new home. It was a tiny space, with just a single cot against the wall and a warped formica night table.

  “Tiny has clothes that you can use till we get you some of your own.” Slugga said, fanning the dust from her face. She clicked the latch on the window and gave a hefty pull, lifting the bottom half upward with a resounding crack. A draft of cool, soil-scented air entered the room, sending the dust into another vigorous whorl up to the ceiling. The mixture of ackee, damp earth and plant growth reminded Nola of the hillsides of Macca Hill, when the soil had been plowed and seasoned with seeds and young saplings for a new crop.

  “Nola,” Slugga continued to stare out of the window, “You’ve been through a lot, I know … And I know that I’ve been the cause of most of it. But … I’m not going to go into all of that, now. What’s done is done. This is your home for as long as you want to stay.” She waved a hand at the little bed, then she turned to face Nola again. “Remember what I told you about that bundle of sticks?”

  Nola nodded.

  “Well, this is my bundle.” Slugga pointed towards the reeking kitchen. “And now you’re a part of it.”

  Nola blinked hard and tried to swallow the wedge of emotion that blocked her throat. It was so hard to adjust to this new Slugga speaking to her in this whispering, gentle tone.

  “You need to stop doing that,” Slugga said. “When you want to cry, just cry. When the time comes to smile, for the tears to dry up, they will. But you have to get it out Nola. All that pain has to come out, so you can move on.” She nodded gently, as if coaxing Nola’s tears to come, but Nola just looked down at her feet, blinking vigorously.

  They stood there for a while, then Slugga sighed, gave Nola a final pat on her head, and backed precariously out of the door.

  The sp
rings creaked in protest as Nola sank wearily onto the bed. She clutched Grampy’s towel to her chest and peered out of the window. She could see the dog happily wagging its tail. She leaned forward, curious to see what had miraculously roused it from its slumber, and gasped. A dew angel! Its hair as white as the clouds, its skin as pink as a pomegranate. It was rubbing the dog’s head and murmuring softly. As Nola watched in awe, the angel removed something from its pocket and gave it to the dog. Then it unhooked the chain from the tree and Nola heard the click of its tongue as the dog followed it around the side of the house.

  Nola sank back against the bed. Was Aggie right, that she would come to Kingston and hear the Mighty One’s voice, and be visited by his angels?

  She got up and pushed open the door beside the bed. A bathroom. A cubicle with a white plastic curtain around it that Nola supposed was a shower, a toilet and a mirrored medicine chest sitting over a sink the size of a small mixing bowl. Nola stared at her smiling reflection. The scab was almost all gone, the skin beneath shiny and warped, like the wrinkled skin of a dog’s underbelly. She traced the shape of the scar with her bald finger. Yes, she was supposed to be here, that was why she’d been given this smile.

  Slowly, she covered the mirror with Grampy’s towel and went back into the room. She pulled the pillow from beneath the bedspread, dropped it to the ground and lay on it, breathing in the smell of the linoleum floor. Musty and cool. It reminded her of the pungent blanket of Mad Aggie’s stall, of the yellow-toothed cackle and soothing chants. Immediately her body began to relax into the hard floor.