Burning Boy (Penguin Award Winning Classics), The by Maurice Gee Page A
Authors: Maurice Gee
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And Nescafé with bloody tadpoles in it.’
Lex grins again, though Sandra reminds him of his wife. Sometimes he’s not sure which one is speaking.
‘Want to come and help me put them on?’ He threads the yokes on his arm.
‘No, I don’t.’
She watches him climb the fence and go sure-footed up the sliding shale above the house. The goats browse at the top of the hill, underneath a beetling row of pines. She looks at the trees and curls her lip. Sandra is an enemy of pines and she scowls harder as she looks up and down the valley and sees that foreign tree ranked on the hills. The goats are foreign too, land-killers too, but she has to admit they look at home. Their white and black and tan backs move in the bracken. And Lex is at home, he fits in. She hasn’t seen it so clearly before and she grows confused and feels she does not know him at all. She goes into the house, finds a glass, pours wine, and puts the cask and chicken in the fridge – where there’s nothing except a bottle of milk and a slice of luncheon sausage curling on a plate. The message from Lex’s wife, written with felt-tipped pen on the door: ‘Close the fridge door please.
Please!
’ has its usual effect of making her cross. No woman should have to plead like that. The one on the lavatory cistern: ‘Lift the seat before you pee!’ pleases her more. It has a tone she approves of. But she knows it’s invisible to Lex. Invisible wife, invisible message.
She takes her glass of wine outside and sits in the sun, watchinghim catch goats and strip the old yokes off and put new ones on. He pats and strokes them, sits in the bracken with one like a friend, holds another, picking something off, and Sandra guesses that he’s catching lice. ‘Jesus,’ she says, and goes inside and refills her glass. People say his nanny-goats fill in for his wife and she wonders for a moment if it’s true. (It isn’t true, it hasn’t crossed his mind and never will, but we shouldn’t blame Sandra for thinking it. There’s a relationship he has with goats.)
He comes leaping down the hill, skidding in the shale, raising dust. The bottom fence leans as he runs into it and he lies on it a moment before struggling off and pulling it upright. Sandra, hot with sun and flushed with wine, wants him
now
. But when he touches her she recoils. ‘God, you stink. Go and have a shower.’ He smells of sweat and goats. Goats is too much.
‘Sure,’ he says, and turns away, stripping off his singlet. ‘Inside or out here?’
‘Inside.’ There are goat eyes watching from the bracken. She puts a clean sheet on his bed. The sheets only get changed when Sandra visits. He comes in with wet hair, smelling of soap – Sunlight, but a better smell than goat – and stops in the middle of the room because he knows she likes to look at him. Lex is a man with a big square chest and heavy shoulders and muscular arms. He narrows at the hips and has what Sandra calls a mingy bum but his legs are in proportion with chest and shoulders and the ‘big beast’ aspect of him excites her every time. She makes him stand up hard by looking at him, then they fuck on the wooden bed, whose headboard leans away from the wall more each weekend and threatens to close on them like the cover of a book. Fuck is a word Sandra insists on, she’s contemptuous of make love and of slang and scientific terms. Fuck and cunt and cock are honest and exact, they neither dress up nor debase. (Lex finds this old-fashioned. He thinks of Sandra as a sixties girl, and rather sad.) They fuck three times, into the evening. His virility delights her and she’s not too disappointed that he does very little with hands or mouth. With her hands and mouth she touches and caresses him all over, has her usual Sunday obsession with Lex, but is not clinging when it’s over. Other women can’t have him but that’s a matter of hygiene more than possessiveness.
She showers in his grotty bathroom – mould on the ceiling,
Lex grins again, though Sandra reminds him of his wife. Sometimes he’s not sure which one is speaking.
‘Want to come and help me put them on?’ He threads the yokes on his arm.
‘No, I don’t.’
She watches him climb the fence and go sure-footed up the sliding shale above the house. The goats browse at the top of the hill, underneath a beetling row of pines. She looks at the trees and curls her lip. Sandra is an enemy of pines and she scowls harder as she looks up and down the valley and sees that foreign tree ranked on the hills. The goats are foreign too, land-killers too, but she has to admit they look at home. Their white and black and tan backs move in the bracken. And Lex is at home, he fits in. She hasn’t seen it so clearly before and she grows confused and feels she does not know him at all. She goes into the house, finds a glass, pours wine, and puts the cask and chicken in the fridge – where there’s nothing except a bottle of milk and a slice of luncheon sausage curling on a plate. The message from Lex’s wife, written with felt-tipped pen on the door: ‘Close the fridge door please.
Please!
’ has its usual effect of making her cross. No woman should have to plead like that. The one on the lavatory cistern: ‘Lift the seat before you pee!’ pleases her more. It has a tone she approves of. But she knows it’s invisible to Lex. Invisible wife, invisible message.
She takes her glass of wine outside and sits in the sun, watchinghim catch goats and strip the old yokes off and put new ones on. He pats and strokes them, sits in the bracken with one like a friend, holds another, picking something off, and Sandra guesses that he’s catching lice. ‘Jesus,’ she says, and goes inside and refills her glass. People say his nanny-goats fill in for his wife and she wonders for a moment if it’s true. (It isn’t true, it hasn’t crossed his mind and never will, but we shouldn’t blame Sandra for thinking it. There’s a relationship he has with goats.)
He comes leaping down the hill, skidding in the shale, raising dust. The bottom fence leans as he runs into it and he lies on it a moment before struggling off and pulling it upright. Sandra, hot with sun and flushed with wine, wants him
now
. But when he touches her she recoils. ‘God, you stink. Go and have a shower.’ He smells of sweat and goats. Goats is too much.
‘Sure,’ he says, and turns away, stripping off his singlet. ‘Inside or out here?’
‘Inside.’ There are goat eyes watching from the bracken. She puts a clean sheet on his bed. The sheets only get changed when Sandra visits. He comes in with wet hair, smelling of soap – Sunlight, but a better smell than goat – and stops in the middle of the room because he knows she likes to look at him. Lex is a man with a big square chest and heavy shoulders and muscular arms. He narrows at the hips and has what Sandra calls a mingy bum but his legs are in proportion with chest and shoulders and the ‘big beast’ aspect of him excites her every time. She makes him stand up hard by looking at him, then they fuck on the wooden bed, whose headboard leans away from the wall more each weekend and threatens to close on them like the cover of a book. Fuck is a word Sandra insists on, she’s contemptuous of make love and of slang and scientific terms. Fuck and cunt and cock are honest and exact, they neither dress up nor debase. (Lex finds this old-fashioned. He thinks of Sandra as a sixties girl, and rather sad.) They fuck three times, into the evening. His virility delights her and she’s not too disappointed that he does very little with hands or mouth. With her hands and mouth she touches and caresses him all over, has her usual Sunday obsession with Lex, but is not clinging when it’s over. Other women can’t have him but that’s a matter of hygiene more than possessiveness.
She showers in his grotty bathroom – mould on the ceiling,
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