I had slept outside once before, back in Africa, with the stars above me and the moon looking down. I’d enjoyed it that time.
We celebrated my sports-day victory with a feast. I can’t remember my mother’s face, but I can remember what we ate on that warm evening: peanut and chicken soup, greens and beans, and a kind of mash stuff which my mum called Fufu and my dad called something that I don’t know how to write. I guess the food was easy to remember because Ruth made some of the same things, so I still saw them. But I hadn’t seen my mother’s face, not even a photo, in four years.
After we’d filled our stomachs, Em went to fetch water for the morning. He had been doing it on his own the past few weeks. I didn’t envy him – it was a hard job, dark too, just the moon to light his way back.
My jobs were much easier. I cleared away the bowls, taking them to my mother, who washed them whilst she hummed a soft tune. Then she took the eating mat outside and shook off any crumbs. I hung up one mat and got out our four sleeping mats.
With our jobs done, me and Em lay down. I could not sleep though, adrenalin rushed through me, with visions of billowing green. My legs continued to pump and my ears rang with the raised voices. I lay, my eyes still open.
Eventually I got up and crept outside, where I knew my parents would be sitting. As I reached the door I could hear muffled laughter, two deep snorts.
My mother’s low voice said, ‘Shh, don’t wake the boys.’
Outside I found my uncle Victor, his hand on my dad’s shoulder. All three were sitting on makeshift chairs of upturned pans.
‘Mum,’ I said. ‘I can’t sleep.’
‘See what you’ve done,’ she said, pretending to glare at my father and uncle. ‘Come here, Princey,’ she said to me.
‘The little champion.’ My uncle grinned. ‘I’ve been hearing all about it.’ I smiled in return. ‘You know I was a runner once too?’
I shook my head.
‘I was a champ like you.’ I reached my mother’s arms as Victor said this, and she folded them around me.
‘Here, my Prince,’ said my father. ‘Victor brought you this.’ He held out a brown paper bag. I knew exactly what was inside, nuts and sweets. Victor lived in town and, on special occasions, this is what he brought us.
‘Say thank you,’ my mother whispered.
‘Thank you, Uncle,’ I beamed.
He beamed right back.
My father fetched the sleeping mats and we lay down right there.
‘The fresh air will put you to sleep,’ my mother said. And she was right. With my father, mother and Uncle Victor whispering around me I drifted off.
Later, I came to know a very different Victor. He became a figure of nightmares, his face etched with anger. Many times I wished I could have my other uncle back, the one who brought me gifts, whose laughter filled a room. But he was gone, replaced by a looming shadow of violence that haunted my dreams.