Free I Am Not Esther by Fleur Beale Page A

than being prayed over.
    At eight o’clock I was told to go and wake Maggie. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to let her sleep?’ I asked.
    ‘Do not question your elders. Please go immediately.’ I reckon if she hadn’t found me so useful, I’d have been dumped in the discipline room.
    I woke Maggie, scared in case she was off in another world where I couldn’t reach her like yesterday. But she smiled at me. ‘Hello, Esther.’
    I hugged her, ‘Hello, Maggie.’ Should I talk to her about Miriam? Damn it, why not? I wished they’d talk to me about Mum, let me read her letter, tell me why she left. Maggie might feel the same. Or she might have hysterics again.
    I pulled her out of bed, tumbling her on the floor and tickling her. She squealed with a hand over her mouth so her father wouldn’t hear. ‘Do you remember about yesterday?’ I asked, picking her up and sitting her at the dressing table so I could brush her hair.
    She sat very still. ‘Miriam,’ she whispered. ‘I saw Miriam’s ghost.’
    I hugged her tight. ‘You thought it was her ghost because you thought — and so did I — that she was dead. But she isn’t, Maggie. She just had to leave. And she loves you. Remember? She said to tell you.’
    She twisted in the chair and stared up at me, frowning. Finally she said, ‘I do not like God if He does not like Miriam painting.’
    Oh, sweetheart, I couldn’t agree more! ‘For chrissakes don’t let your mother or father hear you say that,’ I whispered.
    But she was okay for the rest of the day. Not brilliant, but okay. We trundled off after lunch to the Circle of Fellowship. It was in the next street so we could walk. Abraham stared at the low stone wall healways walked along when we went to the park, but today he kept to the footpath.
    The Circle of Fellowship was the pits. Aunt Naomi introduced me to the five women, starting with the one whose place we were at. ‘Sister Dorcas, this is Esther.’
    I muttered something and stared at her. She was older than Aunt Naomi and had a well-worn look about her. Dorcas. I was quite pleased they hadn’t called me Dorcas.
    Then there was Leah who turned out to be a bossy cow, Dinah who had the most gorgeous-looking kids including Damaris, who was the most gorgeous of all. Charity’s mother was called Hope and she had a baby, and then there was Thomasina who was very young and very pregnant. They called each other sister, and us kids called them aunt.
    First we prayed. Then the six women took it in turns to read the Bible and talk about it. A girl a bit older than me with buck teeth and pretty, dark hair said, ‘I would like to read the word of the Lord too, if you please, Aunt Dorcas.’
    Dorcas smiled and said, ‘Praise the Lord! Of course you may, Beulah.’
    Beulah! And buck teeth. And she was the bossy cow’s daughter.
    The kids sat still and the room got hotter and hotter. Each of those women, except Thomasina, must’ve had around four or five kids with them.
    After a million years, Dorcas said, ‘You older girlscan take the young ones outside.’
    We filed out, the girls automatically reaching for their head scarves. Beulah stayed where she was. There were trees in the back garden and the younger kids raced for them and scrambled up into the branches. That was when I had a most riveting conversation with Damaris and Charity, the two girls who’d be going to school with me.
    ‘I suppose you will take Miriam’s place now that she is dead,’ said Charity, flopping down in the shade of an apple tree and whipping her scarf off.
    ‘She’s not dead,’ I snapped. ‘I saw her yesterday.’
    ‘She has broken the Rule,’ Damaris said. Her scarf was off as well. ‘My father told us that Uncle Caleb said he would pardon her and receive her back into the bosom of the family if she repented.’ She flicked the scarf at a fly.
    That was news to me. ‘What good is that, if he isn’t going to let her paint?’ I demanded. It was so good to talk about this