Dada 135

His tone and his look of triumph as he glanced at me were so marked that I felt what I had not felt in ages. It was the same when my father had not shouted at me but took me quietly upstairs and beat me. My mother passed the room and caught my eye and said ‘there you are’ though she remained silent downstairs. I did not like to think about these things. I felt a foolish desire to burst into tears. For the first time I realised how these people loathed me as much as they did. After asking the jury and my lawyer if they had any questions, the judge heard the caretaker’s evidence from the home. On stepping into the witness box, the man threw a glance at me, and then looked away. Replying to the prosecutor’s questions he said that I’d declined to get them to open the coffin or see Dada’s body and that I had smoked and slept and drank black coffee and water. ‘He looked like he was out of it’ the caretaker said, ‘as if he had been to a party and come up here without any sleep.’ I felt a sort of wave of indignation spreading through the court room and for the first time I realised the fact that I might be guilty. ‘Am I to die because of the progeny of this island, ‘my dada used to say?