The Pink House at Appleton Read Online Free PDF Page A

Mama’s titties in the lily-scented bedroom on a hot afternoon. He didn’t know when he stopped sucking Mama’s titties but it wasn’t long ago.
    On that day the roses hung ripe, soft-fleshed, and so mouth-watering that he had simply fallen upon them, the music alive in his head, his skin hot and tingling. He thought of pink tongues and lollipops, and then warm, firm titties, full for sucking. The warmth of the earth rose up and smote him and all around flowers of every colour spread a path for his approach. The hibiscus came first, unwrapped lollipops to be taken in the open, translucent, exotic in the sun, silky and wet upon his tongue.
    The first time tonguing, he did not hear Mama. She called him ten times that day and got no reply. But she was not cross with him when he finally entered the house, fresh from the garden. She was relieved. She saw the dark stains on his lips and judging that he had been gorging himself on otaheite apples again, pointed straight to the washstand where the pink Lifebuoy carbolic soap lay.
    â€˜Wash out your mouth,’ Mama said then.
    But there were other times. Mama did not say
wash out your mouth
when the rain tongued him, falling hard through the trees upon the grass, like horses on the rampage. He remembered the first day in it. The noise of the rain was like voices and music, Christmas paper torn and rustled, filling his ears. It was Mama’s voice calling, but obliterated amid the rushing crystal-clear water. As the skies opened up, he had dashed out the back door, hidden in the violence and whiteness. It was shocking, joyful, making his heart churn.
    â€˜Boyd, get out of the rain!’ Mama shouted frantically from the verandah, spying the small dripping shape, the first time it happened.
    â€˜â€™E’s soaked right through, ma’am,’ the maid said, unbelieving, not understanding, grasping at him as he entered the kitchen.
    Barrington said in code,
Stop acting like a fool, you. You’re just asking for Papa to give you a beating.
    â€˜Boyd, why did you stand in the rain?’ Yvonne asked, genuinely concerned, as he was towelled down, and Bay Rum applied hurriedly and liberally about his body. She helped with the towelling, to prevent him getting pneumonia.
    He only gave a half-smile, inhaling the Bay Rum. The question was impossible. Maybe when Yvonne was eight years old she would know the pleasure of rain, know what it was to be suspended in the universe, at the centre of things, with the mad rushing in the ears, yearning fiercely, deeply seeking, senses fired up, passions like red hot sunsets.
    * * *
    That night, following Mrs Moore’s visit, he could not sleep. It was because of the new house smell, a trembling, delicate pink scent; the new feelings and the waiting for Pepsi. It was because of the moonlight silver on the verandah, the new dog asleep somewhere outside and the little slaps and cries from Mama’s room. Mama and Papa had stayed up listening to the radio, the WINZEE station from America, and talking. He heard when they struggled off to bed in the late hours, when the sky was grey-blue. And he listened at Mama’s door, as he often did, to the whispers and the strange sounds. He could see them clearly through the slit in the door. The moonlight came through the window and splashed the sheets on their side of the room. Papa was on top of Mama and fighting her, slapping her, hurting her. Mama was not fighting back. She was moaning deep in the sheets. He trembled barefoot at the door. He had thought that coming to Appleton would put a stop to it. He’d seen it happen many times at Worthy Park and wanted it to end. Now he knew there was no end to it.
    He went back to bed. But it wasn’t long before he walked dreamily out into the garden, into magnolia. The sun warmed his face and hands and he felt the urgent tug of the music, heard the voices whispering hush, hushh, hushhh.
    When the music called, from deep in