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that another one of that family in Fyrish drop down dead. That makes twelve altogether. You know how it start?’
    Millie took the boiling corn off the stove and put the curry back on the burner. She shook her head disinterestedly at the question. Christine was the only one of the family with work – as a clerk in the bauxite factory:
    ‘Well. This boy in Fyrish left his girlfriend with their baby and went away to Miami. When he came back he say that he goin’ marry another girl an’ he call this new girl his fiancée. The baby-mother sent this new fiancée a custard block and soon she dead. Then the boy dead. At first they think is the girl do it. Then she dead too. All the family keep dying. They call in a big obeah man – the very best from Surinam. They call him Jucka. Whatever it is he do, it can’t work. Cousins, aunties, one by one they keep dying. A policeman try to call at the house but when he reach the door he start shakin’ and he turn and run. The house is empty. Fowls and goats left to run loose. Nobody enters.’ Christine had taken over from Millie’s half-hearted efforts at the stove and was banging pots and shifting the steaming pans onto the sideboard as she spoke:
    ‘Now they say is Bakoo do it.’
    ‘What’s a Bakoo, Mummy?’ enquired Joanne.
    ‘It’s a thing they keep in a bottle,’ replied Christine, warning Millie with a look that the conversation should stop.
    The meal was served. Millie’s two elder brothers emerged from the back bedroom which they shared. Mrs Vernon took her place at the head of the table. Behind her head on the blue-painted wooden wall hung an anaemic picture of Christ. Strung below that on a nylon thread was a row of faded Christmas and birthday cards. Mrs Vernon said grace. The family bent their heads:
    ‘For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful. Amen.’
    The meal consisted of half a piece of bad corn each. Rice. Curry without meat. Some pieces of black pudding. A salad made from tomatoes and cucumber. Millie toyed with her corn. Just as she was about to mention her teeth, Mrs Vernon started up in her twittering voice:
    ‘That sewing machine can’t mend. The timing belt is gone. The Lord knows what will happen. The council has written to say if we don’t pay the back taxes on the house they goin’ put it up for sale. Fitzpatrick, Colin, you must go to Georgetown in the morning and look for work there if you can’t find it here. You can stay with Uncle Freddie.’
    ‘Don’ fret. We find the money somewhere.’ Colin was always full of empty promises.
    ‘Joanne,’ Christine lifted her daughter down from the stool, ‘run to the Chinee and beg a piece of ice for Granny’s drink.’
    Millie left the table. She took a candle and went to inspect her teeth in the cubicle that passed for a bathroom. Inside, there was a corroded tin bath and an ancient cranky shower attachment. No water. The water in the town had been turned off for nearly three weeks apart from the standpipe in the back yard. People put out pots and pans to catch water when it rained. Millie wrinkled her nose at the sour stench. She took the piece of broken mirror from the ledge and examined her teeth. In the uneven light from the candle she could just see the holes in the bottom back teeth. More serious was a brown patch, the beginning of a cavity in one of her top teeth right at the front. She felt sick. She practised smiling without showing her teeth. Underneath her feet, a hole in the floorboards allowed a glimpse of the ground below. Avoiding it, she slipped through the back way into the kitchen, scooped a cup of water from the big pan and returned to the bathroom to scrub her teeth obsessively. There was no toothpaste. Toothpaste and soap were in short supply in New Amsterdam.
    The boys had dissolved into the dark night. The family sat in the living area lit by the kerosene lamp. Four wooden pillars supported the sloping eaves of the house. Pictures of Christ