فصل 13

Chapter thirteen

White shoes

Joyce didn’t know where she was. In her mind, confused by the poison from the stonefish and the drugs, she felt as though she was back underwater, but the water was very warm. Too warm… In fact it was almost burning her… Or maybe she had been out in the sun too long. You had to be careful with the sun in the hot season in Africa. She needed something to drink - she was very thirsty.

‘Mother!’ she called. ‘Father!’

They couldn’t be far away. Why had they put her to bed? Joyce decided to get up. She looked down… She was wearing her best dress, the one she had been given for her sixth birthday. And her new white shoes. But there was a problem with her shoes… she couldn’t remember what. She’d done something to them and her father was angry with her. And her foot hurt, her foot and her leg. Maybe the white shoes were hurting her.

‘Father,’ she heard herself crying.

She tried to get up but when she moved her leg the pain made her stop. She knew that something was wrong. She lay in the hospital bed, the sheet white against her skin, living again that last day in the small house in Zambia.

She’d gone out playing in her new white shoes. It was the rainy season and the road was muddy. She’d been playing with her friends and got red mud all over her shoes. She tried to wash them in a small pool of water by the road, but they just looked worse.

When she got home her father shouted at Joyce. ‘Your new shoes! Why weren’t you more careful?’ And then her mother came in and started shouting at her father. They didn’t notice the little girl go to her bedroom. They didn’t hear her crying herself to sleep.

In the morning her father had gone to work. But her mother had packed a suitcase and the two of them had travelled all day in the bus along the muddy road, back to Mungwi and her grandfather’s house. She never saw her father again.

Joyce opened her eyes and said to the doctor bending over her, ‘Are you angry? About my shoes?’

‘No-one’s angry,’ said the doctor. Joyce stared for a minute. ‘Who are you? You’re not my father,’ she said.

‘I’m a doctor. You stepped on a stonefish. You’re going to be all right.’ He looked at the computer screen next to her bed. ‘You need to rest. I’m giving you some drugs to help you to sleep. When you wake up you’ll feel better, and you can see your friends. OK?’

‘No… I don’t want to see anyone,’ said Joyce. She still felt confused, felt that in some way she’d behaved badly. She fell back into a restless sleep again, with the pain still there under the drugs.

When she woke up again she was on her own. The sun was shining through the window of her small private room in the hospital. The clock on her silver video screen said nine o’clock. The pain in her leg was not as bad, but she had a headache and she was very thirsty.

The door opened and a woman came in with breakfast. Joyce wasn’t hungry but she drank the orange juice. The sun moved around the walls of the hospital room. She slept a little. When she woke up there was a message on the computer screen next to her bed.

‘Joyce, I do hope you’re all right. Is there anything we can do for you? Call me any time, Fatima.’

But she didn’t want to see Fatima.

A nurse looked in but Joyce kept her eyes shut and she left. Confused memories came and went. Applause from an audience… a man’s angry face… someone carrying her.

The next thing she knew there were quick steps outside in the corridor. They stopped for a moment. Then the door opened. Joyce still didn’t open her eyes.

‘Joyce?’

It was a voice she knew, a man’s voice. She suddenly remembered the pain in the water. How someone had picked her up… She remembered this voice, soft but angry.

‘Yes… I should have been careful,’ she said.

She opened her eyes and saw Taka’s face.