The following is the fifth in a series of seven excerpts from Carol A.N. Dunn's novel, The Mountain of Inheritance, a gold-medal-winning book in the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission Writing Competition. The series continues tomorrow.

WITHOUT BEING conscious of it, Lois had waged war with her femininity all her life. As a child, she saw herself as being no different from her brother. She hated the frilly little dresses Miss Annie made for her and tore out the ribbons and clips used to adorn her hair as soon as she was out of the house. As often as she could, too, she would try to get away with wearing caps, and years later, when low-cut hair became the fashion among women, she would be among the first to adopt this style which she wore defiantly for close to a dozen years.

It was somewhere around her 11th year that Lois' body began to betray her. Her breasts began to sprout indecently and her hips behaved in like manner. Not even loose clothing could camouflage what nature had done, and when boys began to take notice of her, she grew uncomfortable and felt ashamed.

Worst year of her existence

The worst year of her entire existence, however, was when she turned 16 and J.J. went away to England. Although she had grown to have a rather pragmatic and resigned approach to life, J.J.'s departure had affected her greatly because he was the closest person in the world to her. After that, things were never quite the same at home. It wasn't hard to see that both Papa and Miss Annie were distraught over J.J.'s absence, too.

Sometimes, Lois would go down to Old Fisherman's Pier and gaze out to sea and picture J.J. being on the other side, just beyond the horizon, looking out the same way, too. It would be four years before she saw him again, when their father arranged for her to visit him in England.

Common knowledge

Ever since she had gone to live with Papa, he had been to her the father she had always hoped to have and he had never once brought up her dubious status, which was common knowledge among the people of Riley's Mount - and no doubt once the subject of much debate before they moved on to the next salacious item on the district menu. Still, Lois was touched at his interest in her career path, and his generosity. Then she reasoned that with J.J. no longer around, she had become a kind of substitute for him. And when her brother returned from England, he came to live with her in the town while looking around for employment opportunities close by, until one opened up in Cornwood, less than half-an-hour away.

In due course, Joel bought the nursery where he worked and started building a house in Cornwood. And then he got married and moved away.

When she had first met Laurie Harvey, the young lady, with her fine, delicate features, appeared to Lois to be made out of porcelain and rather like something that should be on display in a showcase. Plus, Lois found her crisp manner of speaking quite irritating.

"Why she can't just act natural?" Lois asked Joel.

"She act fine to me. But if is a problem to you, at least try and keep it to yourself."

"Joel, I'm sorry if you're vexed with me. It's just that it's easier to see her with somebody more polished than you. No offence."

The spark of a smile on Joel's face replaced the frown he'd worn seconds earlier. "So what wrong with that? You never have a man who different from you, bad bad?"

"Who said I ever had a man at all?"

"Not even a little fellow who hold you hand and you kiss-kiss up with him sometimes?" he asked cheekily.

Blooming mad

Lois gave her brother a look of pure distaste. "You must be blooming mad if you think I would make any man take step with me that way," Lois said with a scowl.

"What! You don't mean to tell me say you intend to go back to God as how Him send you?"

Only Joel would have had the audacity to ask her something like that. But what her brother had jokingly suggested was indeed true in Lois' case, as problems that had developed with her ovaries were, to her, God's way of confirming what she herself had known all along: that she was not cut out for the usual type of relationship that inevitably led to cohabitation of some sort and the rearing of children. At the time, though, she had not been immune to that impression of finality that came from knowing that nothing would ever be able to grow inside of her.

Tomorrow: Trouble on the home front.