Ways to Come Home by Kate Mathieson

Author:Kate Mathieson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ventura Press

I WAKE unsettled back at Lake Bunyonyi. I hadn’t dreamt of anything at all but when I wake, just before the alarm, something feels off. Amiss. Strange.

The alarm clock reverberates against the tent and pounds my head like a gong. Before I even unzip my sleeping bag the cold eats at my bones and makes my knees creak. The alarm goes off again, reminding, punctuating, striking.

Lake Bunyoni is pitch black at 4.30 in the morning. The dock creaks somewhere in the inky blackness and the lake’s tide brushes the sand in rhythmic strokes. We throw backpacks into Matilda’s belly and our own bodies, still soft with sleep, huddle under open sleeping bags on the faded seats.

It’s not even dawn and too cold for hellos. There are many miles to cover today – our longest route of the entire trip. There’s no time to even stop for breakfast. Matilda jerks quickly out of the camp. Her wheels sliding on the muddy banks and the unmarked roads out of town.

Everyone dozes except for me. Have I forgotten something? I mentally check everything – toothbrush, clothes, backpack, tent. Yes, all stowed below. Diary, head torch, pens, iPod. Yes. The world whips by below. We reach a corner and the driver slams on the brakes. We take it too fast, like a rally car.

Pip is jolted awake. She leans towards the window and watches what I am watching – outside is a blur. We must be doing at least a hundred. Another corner. Why aren’t we slowing down? We look at each other and without words I know we’re thinking the same thing. Too fast. I pull the doona over my head, blocking out the views, and try to sleep. We’re going too fast. A gnawing in my stomach.

There is nothing I can do so I cross my fingers, and my legs and my toes, and just hope we get where we are going safely. I hope my prayers will make a difference.

I doze, and when I wake the sun is almost up. There is something about the light that makes things less scary. Pip smiles at me.

We start to unload the food at the back of the truck for breakfast. Bruised apples are passed out. Stale bread that needs lashings of butter to be edible, and even then, it’s still rock hard. Shamil grabs the knives, walks down the aisle, handing out.

We bump over a pot hole in the road. We jar and shudder. Simon hits the brakes. Some grab onto seat armrests like we’re going through strong turbulence in a plane. It’s over as quickly as it began and we smile at each other. Shake it off. It was just a pot hole, after all.

Shamil hands me a knife. And then, seconds later, Matilda loses her grip on the Ugandan roads and starts to slide out of control.

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