The Takamaka Tree Read Online Free PDF Page A

hardness of the shell.
    Daniel watched. She was drawing unconsciously, as if she was unaware of what she was doing or the quality of the sketch she was producing. Her face was totally absorbed in the work. It became not merely a sketch for identification, but a portrait of the shell. She was shading it now, with feathery strokes that glided over the paper like thistledown. This was nothing new. She had done it before.
    “Very good,” he said carefully, not wanting to disturb what was clearly an avenue leading back to her life before the accident. There was a chance some thread of memory might be established if he could keep it open long enough. “We might be able to use cone shells for the pawns,” he added casually. “You know the kind?”
    Her pencil immediately began to sketch the smooth shape of the cone shell, accurately portraying the quite different surface and colour patches.
    She drew a whole family of cone shells, no two alike. She could remember different patterns and variations on the basic shape.
    “What’s this one called?” she asked, going back to her first sketch, adding a little more definition.
    “It’s a chiragra spider shell.” He wondered if her ability to draw included birds. “Remember the red-tailed tropic bird we saw the other day…”
    Her pencil was already flying over the other side of the cover. The bird’s body and wing span were exactly in the right proportion, a difficult task with its long streaming tail feathers.
    Suddenly she seemed exhausted and the pencil slipped. A jagged line ruined her sketch. There was no strength left in her fingers. She looked at the drawings as if they had been produced by another person. Daniel said nothing, half expecting some glimmer of recollection from her.
    It came as a shock to him to admit that he did not want to know who she was. If she remembered her identity, she would remove herself to rejoin her own circle of friends and family, and take up the threads of her life again.
    Sandy got up, a little unsteadily, and went down the veranda steps onto the soft sand. She was elated and excited and a little frightened at the same time. It was another person who had been drawing. Her previous self. Some of that other woman had washed over into this new life.
    She heard the scrape of Daniel’s chair on the wooden floor.
    “I want to be by myself,” she called back.
     
    She walked down to the sea shore, the warm breeze blowing her hair back from her face. Friendly little waves ran over her bare feet and she hardly noticed. Almost immediately she found a beautifully marked conch shell for her collection. It seemed like a good omen and she was nearly happy.
    The limpid shallows were a clear blue and she could see little fish darting this way and that. Their brilliant colours delighted her and she no longer thought of the sea as her enemy. She did not think of it at all, but stood fascinated by the flickering, fragile, gossamer-finned little creatures so bravely exploring the great unknown. Daniel was right. She would have to see them for herself, observe them more closely. But not today.
    She became aware of a man coming towards her on the shore. She could see that it was Leon. His reddish hair stood out like a brush. She had caught sight of him several times since the night he had crept into her room, but he always disappeared into the palm groves. He had been swimming. His coffee-skinned body was glistening with moisture, his ragged shorts clinging wetly to his loins. He was swinging a couple of rainbow-hued crayfish in his hand, their claws still waving feebly.”
    “For supper,” he announced.
    He was about eighteen, Sandy decided. Quite handsome to her eyes, for his features were more Western than African. What a mixture, she thought with a stab of pity. Kinky red hair, dark skin, and the straight flared nose and mouth of some roving European. It was a striking combination.
    “Good,” he added, holding up the wriggling creatures for Sandy’s