Chiddy’s face was as round and shiny as a kukui nut. In one earlobe he wore a sparkling diamond stud. His voice was a magnificent, trumpeting instrument. “Helloooooooo, Bonesy!” he would call as he walked up the path, a greeting that sounded like fanfare for a prince. “What beautiful furniture do you have for me today?”
We soon realized that Chiddy served as the quality control expert as well as the driver. He carefully inspected each piece for imperfections before taking custody. To my great satisfaction, he never found fault, not a single flaw. Instead, he exclaimed over the sturdy construction and smooth finishes, “Workmanship as fine, fine as any I have seen.”
I supervised his examinations with what I hoped was a masterly squint while Uncle Stash stood by, nodding his approval. After Chiddy pronounced an item “fine, fine,” I helped him wrap the piece in a blanket and strap the bundle onto the dolly. He pushed, and I walked alongside with a steadying hand on the cargo. I didn’t mind that our squeaky passage through the village drew attention as we made our way past Captain Biggie’s, OK Bazaar, and Toolie’s one-man bicycle repair business. I felt proud to be a workingman who associated with a person as imposing and worldly as Chiddy. When girls my age turned their heads, I stood a little taller.
“The ladies find you quite attractive, you know,” Chiddy said one day as we trundled a chair to the lorry.
Because he said this without sarcasm or teasing, like someone reporting the news, I turned his words over in my mind with care. Did they? Was I? “I hadn’t really noticed,” I lied, casting a glance at a girl I knew from school.
She wore a pale dress and stood in a ribbon of sunlight that silhouetted her legs. I watched her lift a hand in a tentative, below-the-waist wave before disappearing inside the door of Swale’s Grocery Store.
Chiddy’s laugh was a thunderclap that startled a flock of sparrows into flight. “That one noticed you.”
Her name was Mima Swale. In grade school she had borne a passing resemblance to a dandelion. Now her long, lean frame curved in interesting new ways, and the nimbus of curls on her head had lengthened to a free-falling gloss.
“Her name is Mima,” I said, uncommonly pleased to shape the syllables with my lips. “From school.”
“I see.” He nodded thoughtfully, as though I had shared a profound truth. “You must take good, good care not to break her heart.”
Break her heart? The notion that Mima’s heart could have anything to do with me came as a stunning bulletin. “No worries, Chiddy,” I said, tossing another glance toward Swale’s Grocery. “No worries.”
7
ON DAYS OFF I LOADED my tool belt and went to help Roop repair Rotting House. Although home building pushed the frontier of my abilities, I was eager to practice and expand my trade. Roop and Granny Nobbs were grateful for any effort to patch up their crumbling abode. Until then, I had never gone inside Rotting House. My friendship with Roop was an outdoorsy one that had flourished on his front porch and the banks of the river. As a result, my initial inspection of the premises came as a shock.
Picking my way through the four decent-sized rooms, I discovered a tide of squalor worse than I had expected. The floorboards were spongy with decay. Dark stains mottled the walls. Doors were stuck open or closed. I spied frills of multihued mold, silky white spider nests, and a bedside umbrella Granny opened at night for protection against grainy smut that dropped from the ceiling. The house had a gamey mouse stench that even the odors of Lifebuoy soap and boiling chicken feet couldn’t hide.
Poor Roop did his best to keep things tidy and functional. He had swept the floor clean of chicken feathers and used Omo detergent to scrub away the mess created by Granny’s walkie business. Laundered clothes hung from a line in back. He had hammered wooden railings into the walls to help Granny move from her bed to the kitchen table and her chair on the porch. He showed me the pot reserved for her private motions and told me he emptied and rinsed it every morning.
What words could I use then? The effort my friend made to care for his aged grandmother left my throat thick with feeling. When I finally spoke, I tried without success to sound normal. “Oh, I see. Well.”
The tin roof leaked through rusty, razor-edged gaps that promised tetanus. I owned only one pair of work gloves, so I kept the right-hand one and gave the left glove to Roop. A board placed between two kitchen chairs was all the scaffolding we needed to survey the patched, corrugated mess that served as a lid for Rotting House. Wild creepers had taken hold in some of the mossy, dirt-clogged gullies. Bat guano chalked the dirt beneath the eves. A scorpion plump with poison popped out of an inch-wide gap and scuttled to safety.
I stepped down and removed my glove, stalling. Roop said nothing, watching me like a patient getting ready for bad news. Clearly, the roof had to come first, but I hadn’t the slightest idea how to fix it. To me, the patient was terminal. “We have to replace the roof, Roop. The whole thing,” I finally said, guessing a new roof was the simplest solution. “Tear this one off and start over.”
He blinked.
“We’ll use leftover roofing from the shop. It won’t cost a thing.” Stash had encouraged me to take surplus materials accumulated in the dark recesses of the workshop. A cleanout was long overdue. More to the point, our growing furniture business needed more space. “You’ve got to start with a good roof. Otherwise, repairing the rest is a waste of time.”
He swallowed hard, unused to big decisions. “Granny can’t be exposed to the night air, you know.”
“Of course not. We’ll do it in one day. Remove the old tin, caulk the beams underneath, and lay on new metal sheeting. How hard can that be?” My bravado impressed even me. “We won’t inconvenience Granny at all.”
This was a scenario Roop could not refuse. We spent the rest of the afternoon measuring. He held one end of the tape while I reeled out the other and recorded the measurements on a scrap of cardboard.
Granny woke from a nap to sit and watch. She looked as frayed as an old rope, but when she smiled, her eyes were liquid with affection. “You boys are good to me. Without you, I’d have only the chickens.”
“And the bats,” Roop reminded her, aligning the tape to recheck a dimension we had already measured twice. Laying sheets of corrugated tin on a structure as imperfect as Rotting House hardly required such exactitude. But I was a semiprofessional now, and although I had never swapped out a roof, I did know how to measure.
“Your sister stopped by yesterday,” Granny said, waving a broom at an Ovambo that had taken an interest in my ankles.
“My sister? Zola was here?” I looked at Roop.
He looked as surprised as I was. “I didn’t see her.”
“Her boyfriend bought her a walkie.” Granny smiled her checkered grin. I couldn’t tell whether she was happy to have made the sale or pleased by the romantic gesture.
“Boyfriend?” My voice rose in pitch, incredulous. I realized I sounded like an idiot. Zola was nineteen years old. Not a few girls in our village were wives and mothers by that age. I looked at Roop. “Did you know Zola has a boyfriend?”
“News to me.” His shoulders slumped as if yoked by a great weight. I noted this and stored the image in a corner of my mind to reconsider later.
At the moment, all I could think about was Zola’s boyfriend. Who from the dubious pool of young manhood in our village could this suitor be? “Who was she with, Granny?”
“I don’t know his name. The chickens go mad whenever he comes.”
“He’s been here before? With Zola?”
“Once or twice.”
Life often surprised me, but seldom in a way that made me feel so ridiculous. Had I expected Zola to stay cooped up at home forever, a surrogate mother caring for our family? The shameful truth: I had.
Roop and I didn’t say much after that. We finished measuring and made a plan to transport roofing material from the shop to t
he yard in front of Rotting House.
Before I left, Granny handed me a bag of walkies. “Don’t tell Zola I gave you these free.”
I walked slowly, chewing, rattled by the news I had just heard. Zola had a boyfriend, a life I knew nothing about? Her secrecy seemed an impossible betrayal, so unexpected that I began to doubt the whole story. Maybe Granny had gotten it wrong. Maybe she had mistaken another girl for my sister. Or maybe Zola and a guy did show up to buy walkies, but they weren’t really together.
The hammer hanging from my carpenter’s belt thwacked against my hip. I hardly noticed. My mind leapt forward to the day Zola would leave our house to marry and start her own family. How would Baba, Hannie, and I manage then? Sheepishly, I remembered that I once had assumed she worried about me leaving home. Life could be very unsettling, I thought as I bit into a walkie. The reflections so consumed me that I didn’t see Mima Swale coming the other way until we stood almost shoulder-to-shoulder.
“Hi, Bonesy,” she said, her smile radiant. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Uh, hi. I’ve been working. At Roop’s. And my uncle’s shop.” I sound like a dope. “Want a walkie?”
She reached in. “Thanks.”
“They’re from Granny Nobbs.”
“Yum. Hers are good.”
Zola’s secret life fled from my mind as Mima and I stood an arm’s length apart, chewing, crunching on walkies. I found myself acutely attentive to the shine of her hair, the arch of her lips, the thudding in my chest. “I’ve seen you at the grocery store,” I said.
“I work there now. With my mother.” A shadow crossed her face. I recognized the feeling that hung between us then, the weight of it. Her grief was almost palpable.
The story of her father’s recent death had flown through the village. One night Mr. and Mrs. Swale—Kate and Bastian—were driving through the bush when they stopped to reclose the rattling tailgate. Mr. Swale got out and walked around to the back while Mrs. Swale sat and waited. A minute or two passed in silence. Mrs. Swale called to her husband, but he didn’t answer. She stepped out to have a look. He was gone. She never saw him again.
Most everyone agreed a cat must have taken him—a lion or leopard that had gone straight for the throat. Apparently there were drag marks in the dust, but no one had found any sign of Bastian Swale, not even a boot.
I hesitated, searching for words. “I’m sorry about what happened.”
“Thank you.” Her eyes glistened. “It’s hard, you know, that he just disappeared. It might have been easier to see him dead.”
I wasn’t so sure about that, so I looked away and said nothing.
She inhaled, an audible suck of air. “Oh, I’m sorry. Seeing your mother … it must have been awful.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
Her voice was a whisper. “Did you get to say goodbye at least?”
“No.” I cleared my throat. “When my father carried her into the house, he told me to stay away. Trying to protect me, I guess. When I did see her, she was already dead.” I realized I had just admitted I was present when the cobra bit my mother, something I had told no one. I waited, looking at her.
“I’m sorry,” she said simply.
“Me too.”
We were quiet then, but our silence didn’t feel lame or awkward. There was comfort in simply standing next to her. Her calm sympathy fostered a closeness I felt in every channel of my being. I was conscious of breathing the same air as she, of feeling the same breeze that pressed her skirt against her legs. When she lifted her face to say goodbye, I was in the grip of something new.
* * *
Replacing the tin roof on Rotting House turned out to be a bigger project than I had anticipated. Fortunately for me, Uncle Stash intervened early, when Roop and I were rummaging around the shop for supplies.
“Do you have enough roofing felt?” he inquired.
“Roofing felt?”
“To lay between the plywood and the metal.”
“Plywood?”
And thus began my lesson in roofing. Stash helped sort and remove the surplus materials from the shop: sheets of corrugated tin, offcut plywood, nails, wood screws, and even an old roll of roofing felt. Where quantities fell short, he quietly ordered and paid for more. Grandpa Nobbs had been Stash’s friend since childhood. Granny Nobbs had babysat for my cousin Squeak. Stash even managed a good relationship with the Ovambos. For some unknown reason, the flock simply wandered away, letting him pass without assault, when he limped across the yard.
Once we had assembled all the necessary supplies, Roop and I actually did complete the job in one day. Following Stash’s advice, we ripped off the rotten metal in dim, predawn light and by sunrise had exposed the entire termite-chewed mess underneath. Our early start diverted the resident bats coming home to roost. They circled and dived and, finding their quarters demolished, flew off in search of new shelter.
Stash arrived shortly after dawn bearing a large jug of Aunt Letty’s homemade soup and a loaf of bread warm from the oven. He showed us how to cut plywood to replace the ruined sections and then lay roofing felt in overlapping strips. At midday we took a break for soup and bread, sitting on the porch with Granny. Roop and I spent the afternoon cutting and laying sheets of corrugated tin, while Stash and Granny laughed and reminisced, and my uncle kept an expert eye on the work in progress. By the end of the day, Rotting House wore a shiny new roof, and I could claim a useful new skill.
I returned the next morning to help Roop haul away the debris we had piled in the yard. The Ovambos clucked and pecked at it, getting in our way. Cleaning up proved almost as much work as the roofing job itself. We sorted metal from wood, picked up rusty nails, and raked the yard clean of splinters and small bits that could injure bare feet. I was dumping a handful of rakings into a barrel when something shiny caught my eye. It fell into the depths before I got a good look, so I almost let it go, imagining a shard of tin. But before I dropped in the next handful, I leaned over to peer inside. It was small and silvery, almost undetectable among the metal scraps: a key.
“Roop. Look what I found.” I reached in and retrieved the small treasure, brushing away dirt and crud. Something might have been etched in one side, but the writing was worn and hard to read.
He shrugged. “Probably carried in by a rat. Ask Granny.”
She was dozing in her chair on the porch. When Roop gave her the key, she blinked and turned it over a few times, frowning. “I can’t think where …” She paused. “Unless …”
“What?”
“My old jewelry box.” Her face brightened. “That must be it.”
“Jewelry box?” Roop looked at me. I knew we were thinking the same thing: Granny didn’t own much jewelry.
“Grandpa gave me a jewelry box the year we were married. When you opened the lid, music played, and a ballerina twirled in a circle. He thought I’d like that.” Her eyes misted. “As a little boy, your father liked to wind it up, Rooper. Kids are hard on things, you know. After a few years the box fell apart.” A sweet, faraway smile softened her features. “It had a lock and a key.”
The mention of Roop’s father—another dead parent—tugged at me. Even if the key Granny remembered was long gone, the one I had found gave her the pleasure of a happy memory. I fished out the cord that hung under my T-shirt. “I keep this key with me at all times. I could put yours on a necklace for you too, as a memento.”
She touched my hand. “I’d like that, Bonesy.”
On my next visit I found her asleep in her chair. Not even the screeches of the chickens woke her. I tiptoed up the stairs and, moving her head just a little, slipped on the necklace with its newly polished keepsake.
* * *
Work with Uncle Stash turned out to be a constant, eye-opening journey of learning and discovery. With practice, I became adept at turning chair legs on t
he lathe. Then I managed to shape a few only slightly irregular bowls for Zola and Aunt Letty. Stash taught me the art of scribing—making new materials that are a square fit against old materials that aren’t, an essential skill for the ongoing repairs at Rotting House. I became conversant in shoptalk and spent hours discussing with Stash the relative merits of wood types, sanding techniques, and various joints. When was the half lap preferable to the rabbet? The doweled butt to the mortise and tenon? My head swelled with new words and their meanings. The language of carpentry became familiar and empowering, and more than once I was reminded of my mother’s respect for a rich and vibrant vocabulary. She couldn’t have imagined the words I knew now.
Chiddy walked up the path calling, “Helloooooooo, Bonesy,” with increasing frequency. Demand for our furniture was robust and growing. Chiddy delivered to more than one store now, and he liked to tell Stash and me about the customers who purchased our wares. “She was very fine, this missus, very fine,” he reported, circling his arms as if to embrace a barrel. “Also very beautiful. And married.” He winked at me. “This one needed your strong, strong bed.”
He told us about shy, expectant young couples picking out their first cradles, about growing families in want of bunk beds, about grannies with canes testing rockers—“cradles for the aged,” he said. He reported that our “limited edition” wooden bowls had caught the eye of an exporter. And one morning, he brought the best news of all.
“I have a very special order,” he announced, handing Stash a typewritten sheet. “Six bedroom suites.”
“Six? From one buyer?” Stash looked dubious. He held out the paper so I could read along with him.
6 king-size beds framed to support mosquito netting
12 bedside tables, each with one drawer and a shelf
6 wardrobes fitted with hooks and shelves for clothing
6 small desks, one drawer each
6 desk chairs
6 occasional armchairs paired with 6 small coffee tables
The Story of Bones Page 8