Lino

It was a big news day. We were going to look for a piece of lino for the back room. At least, that was the plan. Bageye had woken irritably in the morning to a strong reminder from our mother that he’d been promising that this was the day. ‘You start already?’ said Bageye. ‘Not even have breakfast and you start already.’ He rifled through a kitchen drawer, picked up a knife and began to peel an orange as his wife laid before him the inarguable fact that he couldn’t put off buying the lino any longer, especially as the health visitors were coming first thing next week to inspect the house following the arrival of baby G. She finished her piece and waited for him to speak. Bageye concentrated on the orange until all the skin was removed and the unbroken kiss-curl of peel dropped into the bin. She tried again: ‘You never hear? The government people did warn you once.’ Bageye didn’t blink. He took it all in as a newsflash that, until now, had been kept from him. He cut the top off the orange as some people cut the top off a boiled egg. Only when he’d munched his way through the entire orange did I see, through the crack in the door, that he was heading towards us.

Everyone assumed innocent positions on the floor or settee as his head came round the door. His eyes fell on the cracked, degraded lino. He scanned the room for culprits and half muttered to himself, half declaimed, ‘Not even six months and dem mash up the t’ing so?’ We children were careful not to catch his eye but at the same time trembled at the consequences of being caught looking away. He shouted in our general direction: ‘Carry on. You pickney gonna bury me and is bawl you will bawl when dem screw down the coffin lid.’ It was already nine o’clock, yet the heavy curtains, Bageye noticed, were not fully drawn, contrary to the rules. It could only mean that something was being hidden. He tugged at the curtains and exposed the crack and pebble-sized hole in the window, above the sill, that had still not been fixed but plugged with newspaper taped to the glass. A week had passed since that particular catastrophe. Bageye had forgotten about it, but he pulled back now from opening up this new avenue of discontent. He cast his sad bag-eyes over his offspring and singled me out to keep him company on the journey he was suddenly determined to make. He turned to those who’d be left behind: ‘And nah bother long down your mout’.’