Doctor Who_ Halflife - Mark Michalowski [1]
He heard most of their fights: in a house this small and this far away from the noise of Saiarossa city, even a cough became thunder. Sometimes he ran to the old stables, crumbling and disused since the last of the horses had died, climbed up into the rafters where the flies didn’t go, and held himself tight, praying to Our Lady for Ma and Pa to stop shouting. But Joshua reckoned Our Lady had more important people to listen to, because she never answered his prayers. Maybe it was because he was doing the praying outside of church.
Father Mateus said that church was God’s house, so Our Lady had to live there too, didn’t she? Or maybe, once upon a time, God and Our Lady had shouted at each other and Our Lady had left. Wherever she’d gone, Joshua didn’t see much sign of her around here.
Ma’s voice had settled into a pattern, a steady thump thump thump beating in Joshua’s head and in his heart. Only the odd swearword stood out, and he knew Ma must have been really angry with Pa to have used some of those words. He flapped the sheets around him, trying to cool down a little, but they stuck to his chest and his belly and thighs like Aunt Maia’s plump, sweaty hands.
With a sigh, he peeled back the sheets and swung his feet on to the rug.
1
He watched the curtain, twitching weakly in the half hearted breeze from the window, and padded to the door. Ma’s voice faded as he went out on to the landing.
He wanted to look at it again, the thing that he knew Ma and Pa were arguing about, although Joshua suspected that she was more angry about how Pa had got it, than what it was. It had been stupid of Pa to even show it to her, Joshua thought.
But then what had happened last night didn’t make any sense either, did it?
Cautiously, he crossed to his parents’ bedroom. The door was open, the light out. It was at the back of the house where Ma and Pa wouldn’t be able to see, but he didn’t want to risk it. He left the light off, and paused for a moment, letting his eyes become accustomed to the amber gloom, spilling over his shoulder and around his feet from the landing. The dresser sat in front of the window, fat and ugly, laminate peeling from its corners. Pa had said that it had been one of the first things to be made on Espero, when the colonists arrived, but Joshua didn’t believe him. Plastic didn’t last 270 years.
That was just stupid. Nothing lasted that long.
He crossed to it and pulled at the bottom drawer. It slid open reluctantly, catching at one side so that it jammed, askew. Joshua swore a bad swearword and instinctively crossed himself, reflexively looking upwards as he did so.
He didn’t know why he bothered if Our Lady wasn’t around. Maybe Baby Jesus was on listening duties tonight. He liked Baby Jesus, reckoned he was probably a bit more easy-going than Our Lady. He was a kid, Our Lady was a grown-up. It made sense. Besides, Baby Jesus probably didn’t know what swearwords were, anyway.
Joshua quickly rooted in the drawer, and pulled back his hand as he found it, nestled in Pa’s socks. This is bad, thought Joshua, suddenly overcome with guilt. He clenched his hands into tight little fists and ground his knuckles together, like his Pa did when he was puzzled or angry. It seemed to work, because suddenly Joshua didn’t feel so bad about the thing in the drawer.
He tried to tell himself that it was the thing that had brought him into his parents’ room, talking to him, but deep down he knew it wasn’t true. Taking a step forwards, he peered into the drawer, pushing Pa’s socks aside. The thing lay there, looking up at him. Joshua reached out and touched it. . . and remembered last night.
‘Where you going?’ asked Ma, in the tone of voice she usually reserved for
‘where you been?’ when Pa staggered in late after a night with the boys. She always knew full well where he’d been, but Joshua knew that she liked to keep him on his toes. He’d heard Ma and Aunt Maia laughing in the kitchen one day when he’d come back from school. Ma