A NOVEL SET IN PREHISTORY
The Oak People
Chapter 25: Bidari takes Bo
Bidari
Bidari is sitting in the shade of an oak. It is the middle of the day and too hot to be out in the open. He works a piece of bark free from the trunk, rubs it between his fingers and sniffs. The smell reminds him of when he was young, collecting bark for tanning. There were always hides to be worked then: antelope, goat, even deer. Thinking of meat sets off a growling in Bidari’s guts. Soon, the drowsiness which seems to follow him now, like a shadow, creeps up on him again. He lies down. Sleep will take him far away from all his dark thoughts.
Bidari wakes to the sound of women’s voices below him on the slope. He sits up, peering through the canopy of leaves. It is Gashi and Ikomar and some of the children. They put their bags down under one of the pear trees. The children begin beating the lower branches with sticks, shrieking with delight when the pears drop to the ground. Hua is with them — she is running, squatting, waving the small, hard fruits in the air. Tears come to Bidari’s eyes. His body soft from sleep, he watches Hua drop fruit into the bag that Gashi holds open for her, then run off to collect more. For her, it is not work but play, and the familiar sound of her laughter drifts up to where he sits, hidden from view. At least he still has Hua.
She has seen something. With a cry of pleasure, she drops the fruit and begins to run. Her high voice easily carries up to the oak tree where he is sitting.
‘Ama! Ama! Come and see what I’m doing.’
Ama? Her mother has been gone all winter and spring, living in her own filth in that shelter. She must mean Bo. Bidari peers through the foliage and sees that he is right. Bo is climbing up to join the others, her gathering bag slung over her shoulder. Suddenly, he is straining forward to get a better view. He knows — all the men know — that her bleeding has come. The women have kept her hidden for days.
‘Ama!’
Bo sweeps the little girl up into her arms and swings her round. Seeing them together, anyone would think that Bo was Hua’s mother. She is a more of a mother than Ansa has ever been.
Bo kisses the little girl and puts her down. For the first time, Bidari has an uninterrupted view of Bo. She is squatting on the ground now and he can see the woman’s belt, the deerskin flap that covers her genitals hanging between her thighs. His eyes travel up to her firm breasts and then up again, to her face. They take in the forbidden sight: her shaved head, the newly grown hair a dark, exciting shadow over the graceful shape of her skull. No other man has seen her neck, her ears, her head, without the covering of hair. Every muscle tense, he watches as she takes up a stick to strike the nearest tree. Her back is towards him. Now that the woman’s deerskin obscures her buttocks, the itch to uncover them grows, till it has become an insistent desire.
Careful not to alert the women to his presence, Bidari follows every movement of Bo’s as Eshtu slowly moves across the sky. For the first time in many days, he is alert and full of energy, the misery of hunger and of what has happened to Koru and Nuno and Ansa, gone from his thoughts. Bo is not his woman to take, but there is no harm in just watching, imagining. Like the young boys when they stalk antelope for practice.
Hua and the other young ones soon grow tired of collecting fruit but the older children keep on till the bags are loaded down. They sit for a time in the shade, hunger forcing them to bite into the pears, though they are not sweet. When the other women start off for the path with the children, Bo stays behind. Bidari cranes his neck to see what she will do, but she just takes up her stick to rattle the topmost branches where a few pears remain.
After a time, she disappears from view. Bidari edges along the slope to a better vantage point. The lower branches of a pear tree heave and he realizes that she has climbed up to pick the fruit. She is sitting astride a thick, gnarled branch; he can see one of her legs hanging down. She reaches up to shake the branches and now there is a soft thudding as the pears fall to the ground. She tries to stand; he can see her back as she clasps the trunk, feeling for a foothold higher up. She moves on up the tree, till she is completely hidden amongst the leaves. Her movements startle a flock of tiny yellow birds in a nearby tree and they fly up, squawking.
Silence returns and Bidari begins to feel uneasy. Then comes a sudden swishing movement, a loud snap followed by a shriek, and a branch of the pear falls with a crash to the ground. He catches sight of a dangling leg and her foot reaching down for a foothold. Should he help? It is forbidden for a man to be with her — he should not even have laid eyes upon her yet. Suddenly, the shrill, bird-like danger call sounds from the tree. Still, he hesitates. Perhaps the women will hear and come back. He waits and listens, but there is no answering call.
Bidari scrambles down over the rocks. The branches sway but as he reaches the foot of her tree, they become still.
‘Bo?’
Her face appears amidst the leaves and, again, he is shocked by its new contours. Why has he never noticed her beautiful eyes before? Her cheeks colour under the brown skin.
‘I’ll climb up,’ he says, but she shakes her head. ‘Don’t be frightened. I won’t tell Esti.’
Bidari grabs hold of the lowest branch, where the trunk of the tree has divided, and pulls himself up. The pear tree is old and the branch thick, easily strong enough to bear his weight, and hers too. He positions his feet securely in the crook of the branch and, clasping the trunk with one arm, reaches up to her with the other. She is too far above to grasp his hand, but her foot moves tentatively down the side of the trunk. He takes hold of her ankle, then has a better thought and lets it go.
‘Work your way down till you feel my shoulders with your feet,’ he calls up. ‘It’s not far.’
The branches above him creak and rustle. A few more pears thud to the ground and, for some reason, Bidari laughs out loud. An answering giggle comes from Bo and then a shriek, as her foot finds, then slips from, his shoulder. Bidari grasps the tree trunk tightly.
‘Try again,’ he says, and then he feels the weight of her, pressing him down, one foot on each shoulder. She is half laughing, half whimpering with fear. He steadies himself.
‘Bo — listen now,’ he says. ‘You need to squat down — on my shoulders.’
‘I can’t!’
‘Yes, you can. Keep hold of the tree and bend your knees.’
Her weight is a digging pain on his shoulders but then her knees are bumping against the trunk and her deer skin cloth is over one of his eyes and he is supporting her with one hand and clinging to the tree with the other, as she somehow clambers and slides down beside him. Bidari gives a whoop of triumph and pushes a branch away from her face. They are wedged together and she is giggling with relief; he can feel her body shaking. Both her inner arms are grazed where she burned them on the trunk. Without thinking, just as if she were Hua, Bidari brushes the sore skin gently with his lips. Realizing what he has done, he drops to the ground below. He turns to help Bo, catching her around the waist and lifting her down in his arms, her breasts against his chest. She is shorter than Ansa and softer to touch.
Bo’s face is flushed but she looks up into his eyes without flinching or turning away. He kisses her lips, uncertainly, feeling his way. Astonishingly, there is no resistance. She is pushing her body closer to his, nestling into him. He tries to think clearly. If I take her, what will happen? Koldo will be angry and Bakar, her foster-father. But the thought fades as he kisses her again. It is like the first bite into melting honeycomb — the pleasure almost takes his breath away. He pushes her gently up against the tree and, as he bends to find her nipple with his mouth, he can feel her warm breath coming quickly in his ear.
Thank you for reading. Chapter 26 coming soon …
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