checked again, he'd disappeared into the night. Dickie emptied the agapanthus petals from her shoes into his cupped hands, and then flung them above his head. For a moment, in the firelight, there was a flight of butterflies before they fell like confetti and settled. He held out his hand.
"Come, let's dance round the fire."
She pulled the blanket over her face. "Dickie, I can't." But, when she peeked from behind the veil, his hand was still there, inviting. He pulled her to her feet. At first, stiff and sore from the day's walk, she could only manage a shuffle around the fire. But soon she was leading the way back to Nature, as they ululated and stomped on the sand floor. Their mingling shadows were daubed on the cave walls for others to search for in years to come. Then, they were together on the purple sprinkled blanket.
"But soon after that, I became pregnant with your brother. Dickie and your Dad fell out for good."
"What about?"
"Oh, politics I suppose. I never knew for sure." Dickie went to work in London. We had no contact after that. Later, I found out he'd died." For years, I imagined him alive, and every night I prayed that one day he'd come back to take us away – and yet, all the time, he was already dead. John knew. He had letters in his desk. He kept them from me, and I could never forgive him for that.
Mom's sigh is a brittle rasp, the trace of a scream her sons heard come from their father's study forty years ago. So shrill was this scream, it carried down the valley, and you might have heard it echo as far away as the caves at Bushman's Nek. Giles ran to his mother, but Brett was younger and scared. He went to find his father who was ripping Australian wattle from the stream to the farm dam. "They said he fell into the path of a tube train. Such a handsome and brilliant man to die so young." She lies back and closes her streaming eyes.
Brett checks his watch. He slaps his thighs and stands. "It's time. I've got to go, Mom." He squeezes his mother's hand. "I'll see you next Thursday."
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About the author
Jonathan M Barrett lives and teaches in Wellington, New Zealand. He has written plays, novels and short stories.
The Ball
Accident Report
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