Read Online Dancing Lessons by Olive Senior - Free Book Online Page B

going all along, the four acres of family land he was given when we married, and I was only glad he didn’t want to bring the other woman there and throw us off it, for by now I believed him capable of that. No love of farming in him, I could see that from the start, so it was fortunate that I took to it, with help only with the hard work, the digging and hoeing and weeding. A boy to cut the bananas when they were ready and climb the coconut trees or dig the yams.
    He did try at first to help in a half-hearted way, but after the third child—Charles Junior—was born, and we were still so desperately poor, he got the job as a bookkeeper down at the sugar estate, keeping track of the men’s work and paying them, maintaining the records. He was good at that sort of thing. Suddenly having a regular income coming in made a big difference. He was able to extend the house, he bought the car, and for a while we were much better off than we had ever been. For the first time since we got married I could see a path opening before us.
    Sam had a good head on his shoulders and some education. He and his brothers had all been sent to a fine boys’ school—the same one that took Charles Junior—though how long they lasted there I have no idea. I can’t say he was at heart a wicked man, but he was a weak, vacillating one, hollow at the core, and I think that made him cruel. I think all of them had been injured too much by their father to really make a go of anything. But he did stick to this work, probably because it was so undemanding, and it gave him an excuse to be away from home.
    When he failed to come home that last time I knew where he went, don’t think I didn’t have my channel to everything that was happening. Millie who came to help out when I had the first child for some reason remained true to me all her life, and as she ironed or cleaned the floor, she kept me informed. She came from a family of hard-working women with their tentacles spread wide—one sister worked at the post office, two others worked for the best families in the district, and her mother was a higgler who went to the city market every week. Of course I had no way of knowing how much of what occurred in my own household made the rounds. But somehow, if I came close to trusting anyone it would be Millie, for she has known me better and longer than anyone else, and when I came to Ellesmere Lodge it was in her care that I left my house and land. Perhaps I trust Millie because she was the only person who seemed to prefer me to my husband. I could see it in the way she acted whenever he was around, and she was ever so sympathetic to me, always, though I wasn’t sure how much of it was simply out of opposition to her twin sister, Kay. Don’t ask me why, but those two girls had to disagree on everything, they were like night and day, and since Kay was a big fan of Sam’s, I think Millie was duty bound to despise him and champion me. So she kept track of his business, and could announce with glee one day that his new woman had thrown him out.
    It wasn’t even Millie’s day to work for me. By then I could only afford to employ her for two days. But she dropped by anyway, so urgent did she consider the news. When Millie went to work she went barefoot and dressed in a blue cambric shift with her hair in little plaits covered by a cap, and she assumed a manner to match. On her days off, when she had a tendency to wander around the district, Millie was a sight, for even in the middle of the week she could be seen dressed up in red boots that laced in front and a tight hobble skirt that showed off her bottom and a frilly blouse that showed off her breasts. Hair upswept, smelling sweet with the coconut oil she applied to her skin so it shone and the khus khus perfume she dabbed behind her ears, she walked with careful, rolling steps that showed off her finer points. In later years of course it would be hot pants,