Dew Angels

by Melanie Schwapp

  Nola’s hand flew to her mouth.

  “We took Petra to doctors all her life to try to put those terrible things out of her head—psychiatrists, counselors, even a doctor in Florida. That is the one who put her on the medication. You saw it—sometimes it helped, sometimes the memories were just too bad for anything to help. To tell you the truth, Nola, I loved Petra more than I loved myself, and I knew that child was getting tired of fighting … I saw it in her eyes.”

  The tears rolled freely down Nola’s face as the mystery of Petra unraveled before her. Aunt May reached across the table and gripped her hand.

  “She’s at peace now, Nola, that’s what I know in my heart.”

  “Is that …” Nola gulped, “Is that what stopped her from getting close to Kendra?”

  She squeezed Nola’s hand. “I don’t think she knew how, Nola. I don’t think Petra knew how to love something that she made, whether that child had been born perfect or not. In Petra’s eyes, nothing she did was ever good enough.” Aunt May blinked at Nola as if her own thoughts had suddenly shocked her. “I … I … think that Petra almost willed that baby to be born like that.”

  And yet, it was Petra who’d given Nola the reason to step off her own destructive path. Through Petra’s lost way, Nola had found her own path.

  Petra, dear Petra, you never lived in vain. You saved me! You were one of my angels!

  She felt Aunt May give her hand a final squeeze before she went over to the sink to rinse out her cup.

  “Aunt May,” Nola whispered as the woman turned to leave the kitchen. “Aunt May, thank you for taking me with you.”

  “Thank you for coming with me, child.”

  Come, Thou Holy Spirit, Come

  O most blessed light divine,

  Shine within these hearts of thine,

  And our inmost being fill;

  Where thou art not, man hath naught,

  Nothing good in deed or thought,

  Nothing free from taint of ill.

  Heal our wounds; our strength renew;

  On our dryness pour thy dew;

  Wash the stains of guilt away;

  Bend the stubborn heart and will;

  Melt the frozen, warm the chill;

  Guide the steps that go astray.

  On the faithful, who adore

  And confess thee, evermore

  In thy sevenfold gifts descend:

  Give them virtue’s sure reward,

  Give them thy salvation, Lord,

  Give them joys that never end.

  Hymn 156

  Church of St Margaret’s Hymnal

  Unknown author, Twelfth century, translated from Latin to English by Edward Cassell

  CHAPTER

  55

  They say that when you leave somewhere as a child, then return as an adult, the place always seems much smaller than you remember. That was not so with Calabash Street. The street had so widened that Nola descended from the bus and stood for several seconds, wondering if she had come off in the right village. For one thing, the road was beautifully asphalted, the pot holes replaced by the smooth gleam of tar. Even the bus stop beamed with a spanking new roof, this one asking the question in bright red letters, WHAT WOULD JESUS DO?

  The stop had been relocated further up the street from the school gate, in front of a pale yellow building which had the words REDDING POST OFFICE beaming proudly above its double front doors.

  It was as if the little town had spilled from its boundaries and was creeping down the fattened road. Even the undeveloped land which had once sat on both sides of the road leading to the highway, the area where Nola had sat and waited with Aggie, was now covered with an array of new buildings. Redding had certainly flourished with her out of it.

  She looked around at the faces that walked up and down the sparkling street. She recognized so many of them, but they did not give her a second glance as she descended from the bus. She was supposed to have been dead, so they would not have known to look at her and recognize the similarities to Nola Chambers.

  She was grateful for the anonymity. Her heart raced and her legs trembled too much to have to deal with the stares and questions of the villagers.

  Could she really do this? Could she really walk into this village, go up that hill, and walk into that house again? She took a deep breath and clutched her bag to her chest. She had no choice. Mama was calling.

  She walked up the new sidewalk, past the post office and into the busy street, holding her head down slightly so as not to make eye contact with anyone.

  There were more cars, too. Not as many bicycles as before, but a lot more cars. The school looked the same. The windows still with their dark gashes of missing louvres. The yard was still dusty and barren, except for the faithful lignum vitae tree that stood in the middle like an old friend. The only difference Nola could see was that a chain-linked fence now circled the perimeter, already showing gaping holes for shortcuts into the school yard.

  She stopped by the gates and stared at the lignum vitae tree, an involuntary smile lifting her lips. School had finished for the day, but a few students lingered beneath its shade, laughing loudly at a magazine that one of them held in their lap. She remembered laughing under that tree at some nonsense that Dahlia had said. Laughing at the world that had laughed at them.

  She walked a few more yards, taking in the sights as if walking through a foreign country. Her eyes widened as she came to the Razzle Dazzle window. Gone was the glass cage that had showcased the headless mannequin in her various finery. In its place was a whole other building! Even Razzle Dazzle had grown!

  The extension had a higher ceiling, extending from the old structure like a large, ill-fitting appendage. It was a household section, Nola could see, its windows boasting shelves of crockery, multicolored clothes hampers and bath towels stacked like rainbows across the shelves. RAZZLE DAZZLE HOUSEWARE, the gold letters on the window said, and beneath those, smaller cursive letters read, WELCOME HOME.

  So Louisa had been speaking the truth. During one quick call, before that last call about her wedding, she’d gushed to Nola about how pleased Mrs. Spence had been with her innovative ideas for Razzle Dazzle, how fast the store was growing beneath her position as manager.

  Nola quaked as she stared at the old entrance doors, sealed now with a chain and padlock so that the patrons entered through the gold-lettered doors. She hadn’t realized how much she’d hated walking through those doors. She’d always felt so out of place amongst those sweet-smelling lotions and pretty clothes. Not Louisa. She’d found her true calling.

  Nola hurried away, dazed by her racing heart and throbbing head. By the time she got to the spot where Aggie’s stall used to be, she was almost hyperventilating. Calm down, Nola. You come this far! Don’t faint and make them see.

  Three vehicles were parked against the sidewalk where the shack used to be, all bearing license plates with the ‘P’ before the numbers, indicating that they were licensed for public transportation—Taxis.

  The area on the sidewalk where she’d once slept, where Aggie had lisped her life-saving scriptures, now bore a concrete building painted in orange and green with white fretwork over the windows. School children laughed raucously by the doorway, some holding the typical cardboard ‘box lunch’. COUNTRY HUT offered a variety of pizzas as well as regular cooked lunches.

  The left side of the building, the section of the grass where Aggie had boiled her soups and herbs, had been covered with gravel and now held four round plastic tables each with its set of chairs. Four school girls huddled over a game of jacks at one table whilst at another, three boys fought for forkfuls of food from one greasy box. Beside them, a man slept with his head on the table.

  The area was filthy, strewn with empty food and juice boxes. As Nola watched, one of the boys tiptoed over to the sleeping man and dropped a forkful of rice and peas onto his hat. Immediately, flies swarmed his head while the boys guffawed loudly. The man did not budge.

  Nola felt
the hairs on her neck rise, as if an electric charge had surged through her. She had to hold herself back from going over to the boys and emptying the rest of the contents of the box over their own heads.

  So even though the town had changed, the people had not—the joke was still on the helpless.

  Nola turned away, memories jolting her like a physical blow. She felt her eyes welling over, and she had to blink vigorously as she looked ahead for the two roads that had been the crossroads of her life—the one that had led her uphill to her beatings, and the other to joy at that pink house.

  Her eyes snagged on just one thing—the tree tops which had once been stripped barren by the fire were green again, lush and full. Like the rest of the village, they’d flourished.

  She decided to take a taxi up Macca Hill. Her legs felt too weak to make the walk she’d made almost every day for the first 15 years of her life.

  “How much to go …?” She stopped, a gasp swallowing her words.

  The man had turned around at the sound of her voice, bringing his face into full view. Jasper! Clars the plumber’s eldest son! She held her breath, waiting for the recognition and disgust to strike the man’s face. He’d left school a couple years before her, joining his father on his jobs in order to learn the plumbing trade. Surely this was not his taxi? She’d heard Clars boast many times in the churchyard that his son was a natural, and was going to make an even better plumber than himself.

  “Unjith” he said, using his tongue to expertly flip the cane in his mouth.

  “What?”

  “Unjith! Un-jith!” he repeated, and flipped the cane again.

  Nola cocked an eyebrow. “One hundred dollars to go up Macca Hill!”

  Jasper stopped chewing, his cheek bulging with cane trash as he cocked his head. “Roath bad!” he said. Then he spat the trash on to the pile by his feet. “Better you walk, then baby! That road too bad for my vehicle! Pot hole won’t mash up your foot, but it will knock my car tyre clean off, and me sure you not goin’ buy my car tyre back!”

  Macca Hill still had its pot holes.

  “Okay,” Nola nodded, eager to get off the street. “Chambers’ house,” she said, and climbed into the back seat.

  “Chambers,” he repeated as he started the engine, “Come to see Miss Sadie, eh? I hear she soon dead.”

  As Nola’s heart jolted, he spun the taxi into the road and screeched towards Macca Hill.

  They passed Shamoney Leach, her hands gripping her back as she trudged up the hill, pregnant.

  They passed Pastor Pepper’s house. Louisa said he’d moved from Redding shortly after the scandal with Sister Norma. She wondered if anyone lived there now, but as she spotted the garden, she realized that someone certainly did. The garden was pristinely manicured, the beds of lantana and hibiscus so straight that they seemed to have been lined off with the aid of a ruler. It was a beautiful garden. The Haden mango tree still stood magnificently in the centre, now surrounded by an impressive bed of giant-leaved Spathophilum.

  There was Miss Cicely’s house, beside its field of cabbage and lettuce. And the churchyard had about ten or so young children chasing each other around some broken church benches.

  “So, which parts you come from?”

  Nola pretended not to hear over the noisy radio.

  The hillside was green and lush with its undulating fields of cabbages, lettuce, scallions, watermelon vines, and, of course, the tall spokes of yam vines that Grampy used to call ‘the watchmen of Macca Hill’. The wild guinea grass and the prickly privet that had given Macca Hill its name still dominated the steeper and stonier areas, and along the shady roadside, ferns clutched the bank like a fluffy layer of cotton.

  Nola had forgotten how beautiful the hillside was. That was the thing about the smudged sketches—they smudged the good along with the bad. She’d not remembered the awesome wonder of Macca Hill, with its the varying shades of green, punctuated every now and again by the vibrant reds of sweet peppers and tomatoes, or the bright yellow bonnets of the scotchie peppers.

  The car slowed for another crevice by Mass Tackie’s house. Nola did not know if it was her imagination, but the house actually seemed lower down the hill than when she’d left. However, the area which had once been bald and smooth now held several patches of green where hardy grass had fought its way up from the soil. Nola’s heart sank with sadness when she realized the significance of the growing grass—the soil was no longer being swept.

  Her house looked so small there off the side of the road. It seemed to have shrunk, like a coolie plum seed left in the sun. The dying thumberga vine was completely gone now, but the wall still held the imprint of the roots as they’d peeled off the paint and stained the concrete with their sap. The house resembled some sort of skeletal remains, like the lizard bones she used to find by the river within the rotting roseapple leaves.

  She paid Jasper the hundred dollars through the window, and as he took the money, she felt his sticky fingers linger on hers.

  “What you doin’ later tonight, sweet ting? Me woulda like show you a ting or two ‘bout Reddin’.” He winked, his lips puckering suggestively.

  Suddenly, an uncontrollable rage welled into her chest and she bit her lip hard. She knew herself well enough now to know that anxiety and rage always made her reckless, so she knew that poor Jasper was going to pay the price. She leaned through the car window and put a seductive smile on her lips, staring into the pleased eyes.

  “Jasper …” she whispered, and his tongue flicked eagerly over his lips. “Jasper, ‘memba when you came to this house with your papa to connect up the tank, and Nola was shellin’ cocoa pods on the kitchen step, and when you thought nobody was lookin’, you chew up some of them seeds and spit them right in Nola’s face?”

  The shock on the man’s face was so rewarding that Nola could have stopped right there. But, she didn’t.

  “Well, Jasper,” she leaned so close to him that she could smell the cane juice on his lips, and when she saw the sudden recognition hit his face, she said, “You can’t show me nothin’ ‘bout Redding that I don’t know, Jasper!”

  And she spat straight into the man’s paling face.

  When the car screeched down the hillside, it left a cloud of red dust circling in the air, and a hundred dollar bill floating to the ground. Nola put her hand to her mouth in realization of the lewd act she had just committed, and discovered that she was shaking violently. The humiliation that day when Jasper had spat at her had been unbearable. She’d run all the way to the river and dunked her head under the icy water till her lungs had threatened to burst open, but the pain in her chest had done little to ease the burning shame.

  Now she stood at her gate, not believing that she had done something so vile. It was just as she’d thought—Redding brought out the worst in her, made her lose control and become just like that trapped animal once again.

  “No need to fight, no more,” she mouthed into her hand, “them can’t hurt you no more, Nola. You have your own school, your own family, now. Them can’t hurt you no more!”

  CHAPTER

  56

  Only one half of the gate was there, leaning open on its broken hinge. The mongrel must have died, for if it had been alive the gate would have been closed to prevent it racing out to chew up people’s goats and chickens.

  Nola picked up her bag and walked through the gateway, her legs shaking violently as she stepped onto the walkway. The last time she’d seen this walkway it had carried Ellie’s blood away in a rusty stream.

  There was the coolie plum tree with its circles still etched into the trunk, and the spot where Elllie had looked into Nola’s eyes and taken her last forgiving breath; and there was the pen, like another skeleton, its rotten roof sagging defeatedly inward, its sides gaping open where planks of wood had fallen out, no doubt the result of the large termite nest that sat on the upper corner like a big red sore.

  Nola’s hand involuntarily flew up to her face, to the spot that now tin
gled on her lip as if the memories were resurrecting the sore. Even after all these years, her lip still smiled slightly in that spot, the nerves forever frozen by Dahlia’s spark.

  There was the kitchen window and Mama’s face was not at it. Under the window, the spot where Nola had stooped so many times, was a clutter of Mama’s large pots. There was a sheet of newspaper on the kitchen step, covered in the bald seeds and split skins of guineps. A few flies pitched lazily on the seeds, but were not frenzied since the seeds had been sucked clean of their silky pulp.

  Nola stepped over the paper and knocked on the kitchen door.

  No answer, but she could hear the faint sound of something being pushed across a floor. She turned the knob and the door creaked open as if objecting to her entry.

  She was in Mama’s kitchen! Gone was the smell of onions. Nothing except the precisely clean scent of Savlon. It seemed to permeate the entire house. Gone were the jars and the pots and the chopping boards. The only things visible on the counter were a round plastic tray covered with vials of tablets, and, beside that, a black thermos.

  The room seemed so tiny. Could this little place have really produced so many jars of chutneys and jams? Mama had always wanted to extend her work space. It had been her dream.

  “Hellooo …!” Nola put down her bag and called towards Mama and Papa’s closed bedroom door.

  Footsteps immediately tapped towards the door and there was another creak as it was partially opened. A woman peered out, her face glowing with a film of sweat. It was not a face that was familiar to Nola, and returning Nola’s confused look, the face blinked questioningly back.