On sunday father was rested and ready to return to the port and his troublesome workmen. We stood on the veranda to wave goodbye.

Every time I prayed to god that he’d die before next friday.

57

TEN

I stood in a pool of my pee in john’s bestroom unable to take in what he was saying. The warmth of the liquid around my feet was soon gone. I didn’t hear him when he said that he would never hurt me and that I mustn’t be afraid of him. He just got angry because he didn’t want to show his pictures before they were ready. He didn’t want to scare me. All he wanted was for me to understand.

I asked if I could leave now and he reluctantly let go of me.

He offered to show me his painting but there was nothing more I cared to see. I pulled his vest off and let it fall over the puddle.

Then I went back to the kitchen to find my own clothes.

They had been folded and put on a chair. I dressed quickly. Pocketed my mobile noting that it was already twentyfive to seven.

He was moving around me. Stroked my back and wherever else he could reach. Tried to make things better and said how sorry he was and that he had never met a woman like me.

The clear morning air felt liberating. I jumped into the jeep and turned the starter key. Turned again and still nothing happened. The engine didn’t come to life.

The bonnet rose with a click. I tugged at a few random leads hoping that some inexplicable gap might close again. Tried the key. Nothing.

Ill luck he said as he bent over the innards. He too tugged at a few leads. Twisted a lid and told me to try to start it. 58

Nothing.

It’s the battery. I’ll drive you. We’ll use the tractor.

Or I could walk I said thinking that I ought to phone work.

He walked down to the tractor shed and I slouched after him.

What was it with me that made me always bend to the will of others.

It was an elderly machine and the cabin was narrow. The only way I could squeeze in was to sit between his spread legs just as in the past father had taught me to drive while I sat with his belly pressed against my back.

John’s hands stayed on the wheel and even though we were so close I sensed the warmth of his body as if from a distance. I had created it. What with the bestroom and the painting and peeing myself and john. Notes of oldfashioned genuine disappointment were ringing out in the tractor cabin.