Chapter Six

In which we learn what Man and Uncle Mjomba have been up to

The rest of our visit passed by in a blur. Someone who introduced himself as the duty manager said we must fill our trolley with whatever we wanted and he would accept no money for it. I told him that was good because I hadn’t any money, and when I offered him my so-called gold card, he declined that as well. I can’t say that I blame him; it seems such a tacky, worthless thing. Then Rebecca explained that we were getting our shopping for free as a reward for the capture of one of their most notorious shoplifters. That made sense.

The manager summoned a taxicab to convey us home. Carl and his workmates loaded up the vehicle with our provisions, which comprised mainly of fresh fruit and vegetables and several large plants in ceramic pots, and we arrived back at Edgar Street before we knew what was happening.

Baby was keen to get out and recount his tale of derring-do to his father and could barely wait until the conveyance had come to a complete halt. He sprang from the carriage like the darting tongue of a chameleon and hurried around to the rear of the house calling, “Dad! Dad!” all the way.

“I’ll help you get this lot indoors,” said Rebecca from somewhere among the plastic bags and boxes.

“Hmm?” was my response - I was consumed by thoughts of pride for my brave boy.

“The shopping. Some of it needs to go in the fridge.”

She got out, loading herself up with as much as she could carry. The taxi driver was giving me a stern glare via his mirror. I smiled as sweetly as I could in the face of such atrocious manners.

“If you’d be so kind, my good man,” I adopted a helpless tone. It took that and a couple of sighs before the silly man got the message. Muttering something I didn’t catch, he got out, slammed the door shut, before opening another so that I might alight. I stepped out, like liquid elegance. The street beneath my feet felt all the rougher after the cool smoothness of the supermarket floor. Barely had a minute passed before the taxi driver was carrying the rest of our things up the garden path and into the house, wobbling like a precarious termite mound fashioned from provisions. A termite mound with legs, that is. And - oh, well, I hadn’t time to improve the ill-considered simile because Rebecca’s mother, Mrs Lyons, appeared in my way like a cloud obscuring the sun.

“You’re back,” she observed keenly, barely moving her jaw as she spoke.

“And you’re correct.” I smiled but it was ineffective against her frowning face.

“Just in time, too.” She folded her arms as if that made her any more formidable. “I’ve phoned the police. They’re on their way.”

“The police?” I gasped. “Oh, my dear Mrs Lyons! Why? What has happened? Are you all right?”

Mrs Lyons sniffed. “All this carrying-on.” She was still too vague for to be comprehended.

“Mom?” Rebecca had emerged from the house and must have overheard our exchange.

“Get in the house, Rebecca love,” Mrs Lyons ordered without so much as a glance at her daughter.

“But, Mom!”

“Now, Rebecca!”

The child sent me an apologetic look and advised me to keep the fridge door closed so that things didn’t get spoiled, then she obeyed her mother’s command.

“Thank you, my dear!” I called over her mother’s shoulder because you don’t need a gold card for good manners. “You’ve been most helpful.”

My politeness seemed to infuriate Mrs Lyons. It’s funny how that works sometimes, isn’t it? One goes out of one’s way to frame one’s words carefully to cause the least amount of offence and people become enraged with you all the same.

“May I?” she managed to force out between her teeth. I began to suspect lockjaw or something of that nature. Perhaps she had been bitten by something with paralysing venom - I made a mental note to investigate the insects of Dedley. Mrs Lyons was gesturing towards the side gate and the back garden beyond.

“Lead on,” I smiled again, hoping to make a dent in the armour of her outrage. I followed her up the garden path. I could hear Baby’s voice, his words spilling out in a rush of excitement, and the occasional grunt of encouragement and enjoyment from my husband.

“What’s all this about?” I asked the back of Mrs Lyons’s head. Given the grim expression she was wearing on the front of it, this was the better view.

“Noise!” she barked. “And nuisance!”

We turned the corner and I was able to see for myself the probable cause of her complaint.

Uncle Mjomba was squatting on the roof of the shed. He was holding a length of garden hose and drenching the ground below. I saw there was a trench, about four inches deep, running the length of the garden. It certainly hadn’t been there when I left this morning. The ground within this trench was slick and muddy. Man and Baby were standing nearby but were absorbed by the tale of the morning’s heroics.

Mrs Lyons must have perceived the little frown that signalled my confusion.

“You don’t know about this?” There was an accusatory tone to her voice that I didn’t much care for.

“I can assure you -” But before I could assure her of anything, there came an almighty shout and a misshapen figure that seemed to be comprised entirely of mud, ran up the trench with a whoop of delight. This mud man threw himself forwards, sliding on his not inconsiderable belly to the rut’s end. Man and Baby paused in their storytelling to give the mud man’s progress an appreciative nod and even a smattering of applause. Uncle Mjomba chattered and screeched in approbation.

Mrs Lyons was aghast. The mud man peeled himself off the ground and stamped his way toward us, wiping mud from his eyes, leaving streaks of pink among the brown.

“Hello, your ladyship,” said Mr Lyons, for it was he. “How did you get on at the supermarket?”

“Hello,” I grinned. “It was a triumph.”

It wasn’t the answer he might have expected.

“Brian Lyons,” his wife was incandescent. “Get in that house this minute and get in the shower.”

Mr Lyons looked deflated. He reminded me of Baby when I tell him bedtime is now and not in five minutes. He tried a different tactic.

“You should have a go, love. It’s brilliant!”

“Brian!” Mrs Lyons squawked like a macaw on fire. “How can I complain to the police about the neighbours disturbing the peace when you’re out here joining in with them?”

Mr Lyons opened his mouth to speak but decided against it. As far as his wife was concerned, his name was already mud.

“And you dare traipse muck up my stair carpet...” she warned him, leaving the dire consequences to the imagination.

“Hello?” said a voice from the gate.

“Hello, hello?” said a second.

The heads of two police officers had appeared. I recognised them at once.

“Hello, hello, hello,” I welcomed them to my garden.

“Hurrah!” said Baby, leaping over the trench in a single bound to join us. The policemen shook him warmly by the hand. To the utter bewilderment of Mrs Lyons.

“Excuse me,” she struggled to get their attention, “but I phoned up to complain.”

The policemen barely looked her up and down. One of them ruffled Baby’s hair.

“Regular little hero you’ve got here, your ladyship,” said one.

“I reckon anyone would be proud to live next door to such a brave little soldier,” added the other with significant emphasis on the ‘anyone’.

“Of course you don’t know, Mrs Lyons: my brave boy defeated a shirt-lifter.”

“Shoplifter, your ladyship.” The policemen stifled a giggle, for some reason.

Mrs Lyons was dumbstruck. It suited her. The policemen gave the trench their appraisal.

“Water slide, is it?” ventured one.

“Best water slide,” said Man. They shook his hand. He put his arm around me. I could tell Mr Lyons thought he should perhaps do the same to his own wife but Mrs Lyons shot him a don’t-you-dare look that could probably be seen from the moon.

“May we?” said the policemen in unison. Man made a magnanimous gesture and they began to pull off their boots and peel off their socks. As they rolled up their trousers, Mrs Lyons let out a roar of disgust and stormed back to her house. She encountered her daughter coming the other way and when she saw Rebecca was sporting a swimsuit and carrying a towel, she fell suddenly silent.

Mrs Lyons went indoors, probably to sit and stew in her fire-damaged kitchen and, as I joined in the slippery, sliding fun with the others, I couldn’t help thinking the set of her jaw and the dip of her forehead reminded me of an idol I stumbled upon once carved from stone. Kisasi, god of vengeance, he was called. Given the choice between him and my new neighbour, I know whose wrath I would rather face.