Piccaninny

‘What’s that?’

Uncle Jan feels his forehead. ‘A mosquito bite, I think,’ he says.

‘Oh.’ It really is starting to get a bit boring here. The bucket’s empty again and Dieke doesn’t feel like asking Uncle Jan to fill it up. She doesn’t feel like doing it herself either, because then she’d have to think way too hard about which way to turn the tap off. The wet rag isn’t wet any more, it’s draped over a stone where it dried in a couple of minutes; she could see it getting lighter and lighter before her eyes. She walks around Uncle Jan until she’s standing right behind him. Unbothered, he keeps filling in the letters with white paint. He’s already finished one word and started on the next. There’s a bald spot on the back of his head. No, not bald, it just has less hair than the rest of his head. His T-shirt is still damp. Because it’s rolled up, of course. Her father doesn’t have a bald spot like that. Uncle Jan hasn’t said a word for a long time and now she has to do her best to follow what he’s saying.

‘Do you think it’s boring not having cows any more?’

At least he’s talking again. ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t like cows.’

‘Don’t you want to be a farmer when you grow up?’

‘Me? Of course not!’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know how to drive a tractor.’

‘You could learn.’

‘No, not me.’

‘Even I can drive a tractor.’

‘Really? Without a driving licence?’

‘On Texel, I drive one of those little tractors.’

‘Oh, that doesn’t count.’

He draws the brush back out of a letter, dips it in the paint and starts on the next one.

‘What letter’s that?’

‘This is an “l”. It says “little”. An “l” is easy, but the “e” is quite difficult.’

Dieke sighs. Very deeply.

‘Or would you rather work at a butcher’s? Like your mum?’

‘No, it’s smelly there.’

‘What do you want to be then?’

‘A painter.’

‘Like what I’m doing now?’

‘No. Paintings.’

‘Fancy.’

She sighs again and goes for a little walk. It’s like she can hear the noise from the swimming pool, far away in the distance. Shouting. What’s Evelien doing now? Is it no fun at the swimming pool because she, Dieke, isn’t there? Or is she not thinking of her at all and floating around next to Leslie with her water wings on? Maybe Leslie’s not thinking about her either? No, Leslie’s probably not at the pool anyway. When she arrives at the bench and sees her bag, she wonders what’s happened to her cup. Uncle Jan was going to fill it up again, wasn’t he? ‘Where’s my cup?’ she bawls.

It takes a while before the answer comes. ‘It’s still over at the tool shed.’

Oh no, does she have to walk all the way over there again? It really is boiling. She kicks the shell grit up as she goes. At the little house it’s a teensy bit cooler. The Jip and Janneke drinking cup is under the tap, but when she picks it up her arm feels funny, because the cup is still empty. ‘Ow,’ she says softly. And now? She walks a little bit further and looks around the corner of the house, where she finds a box, a fairly solid box. She picks it up, goes back to the front and puts it down on its side under the small window. Now she hardly needs to pull herself up on the ledge at all: the box is a lot higher than the bucket. There’s the bird. It’s spinning around in a very slow circle. What kind of bird was it again? A magpie. The kind of bird grandpa catches in a steel cage that’s already got one inside it. The decoy bird, that’s what Grandpa calls the other magpie. The bird spins back in the other direction, even more slowly. It’s dead. Dead as dead. But still moving. Otherwise there’s not much inside the little house. She can see a few shovels, some fence posts, a big wooden hammer and a kind of table with handles sticking out. She looks more closely at the magpie, sees that its legs are tied together, and follows the string up to the beam where it’s looped around a nail. Then she jumps down off the box, brushes the dust off the front of her dress and kneels down at the tap. First turn it on a tiny little bit, and then turn it off again straight away. Then a bit more and remember, with her hand on the tap, which direction’s off. When the cup is overflowing, she turns it off, clockwise, without having to think about it any more.

‘But you could marry a farmer instead. Then he’d drive the tractor.’

‘Nope,’ she says.

‘OK,’ says Uncle Jan. ‘I won’t mention it again.’

‘We have to leave.’

‘The farm?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who says so?’

‘Mum. She says the house is falling apart.’

‘Is that so?’

‘One day a bit of the balcony fell off.’

‘That’s dangerous.’

‘No it’s not. Nobody ever goes out on the balcony!’

‘Would you like to try to do some painting?’

‘After a drink.’ She drinks half the cup in one go. It would have tasted a lot better if Uncle Jan had said something about it. Oh well. She’s a bit scared to say that she wants to leave. She puts the cup down next to the grave and steps up onto the scraggly pebbles. Uncle Jan hands her the brush. Kneeling down, she notices that her hand is shaking. Quickly, she stands up again. ‘It’s too scary.’

‘That’s OK. I’ll do it.’

He picks her up under the arms and lifts her over to the dry earth next to the grave. Yes, she really does want to go now and she’s starting to get hungry too. A banana and an apple, that’s not enough to keep you going. Uncle Jan is sitting down again, painting again, he’s started humming. She wants to go so much, she wouldn’t care even if it was Grandma who came to take her back home. Then Uncle Jan starts singing.

‘Piccaninny, black as black, took a walk without a hat, but the sun shone bright and yella, so he put up his umbrella.’ He finishes a letter and starts on the next one without looking up. ‘Do you know that song?’

‘Nope.’

‘It’s about a little black boy.’

‘Leslie?’

‘Is he in your class at school?’

‘Yep.’

‘Then it’s about Leslie.’

‘He’s at the pool now. I think. Evelien too.’

‘And maybe now you wouldn’t mind heading over there too?’

‘Mm,’ she says. ‘Leslie’s got a really big dad.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Big. Tall.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yep.’ Dieke starts singing softly and drawing circles in the shell grit with the toe of her sandal.

‘I think Grandpa will come soon. Then you can go home with him.’

‘Hm,’ she says.