Jamrach's Menagerie - Carol Birch [102]
“Hold hands,” he said.
Tim grabbed my hand. His face in mine, wild eyed, smiling. “Jaffy,” he said, “old Jaf.”
“Together, boys,” Dan said.
The captain’s boat drew close.
“Haul to, haul to,” a voice said.
The sound of timbers striking timbers.
“Mr. Rymer!” the Captain hailed. “All’s well with you?”
“All’s well!” Dan replied.
“What’s this coming in, do you think? Storm?”
Dan sniffed the air like a dog. “Coming in,” he said.
The sound swelled in my ears and exploded. I was lying against Dan’s arm. His lips were next to my ear.
“Good boy, Jaf,” he said. “You lie down now and sleep if you can. Don’t worry about a thing. Soon be home.”
He made me and Tim lie down as if we were infants—we had to close our eyes and pretend to sleep to please him. It kept him happy. Dan was singing sleepily, pissing over the side of the boat. “When other lips and other hearts their tales of love shall tell …”
“What’s happening, Dan? What’s happening?”
“Nothing. It’s all right.”
I remembered Skip. Turned my face. “Skip,” I said, “you still sane, boy?”
He smiled. “Was I ever?”
“Here,” said Dan, and raised me up, put water to my lips. I peered over the gunwale. I saw the captain’s boat, dark against a red background. Slumped forms there, all sleeping in a coming night. No one keeping watch. That cannot be right.
Skip gripped my arm, hard, the forearm just below the elbow, sharp on the inside.
“Look!”
It was getting dark.
“Nothing there.”
“Yes, there is.”
“I don’t know. What?”
He saw things, of that there is no doubt. His claws, below the elbow. “Now! Now!” he said. “Now it’s turning its face this way.”
“Get off me!” I shook him off.
“Shut your stupid gob,” said Tim furiously. “It was you in the first place, Skip, you said it. You. What was it? You did? What?”
Skip covered his eyes.
“You did!”
“Boys, boys,” said Father Dan.
The Captain’s bread ran out, and the meat ran out. Boils erupted, our skin became volcanic. We waited for Wilson Pride to die. Yes, we did. We knew he’d be the next to go. That’s what we’d come to now, wishing it, hoping, as he lay there burning in his dry sweat, his blue-black tongue pushing through between his lips. Our cook, who used to make us stew and duff and barley broth, and the rice and peas of his homeland, spiced up with whatever was to hand, or just a bit of salt, a radish, a few green plucked herbs of a strange island. A little fried fish. Small fish, innards and all, heads and tails and eyes and everything. Oh, my belly, the great hollow of the world. Broth. Hot broth, savoury steam. Bright green leaves, blush-orange roots, silky leeks a-simmer, dancing gold liquid.
“My ma,” I said, “she used to make this broth. Ham bone if she could get it. Beans and peas. Turnips. Carrots.”
“You let the dragon out,” Tim was saying, “that’s what you did.”
“Well! So?”
“You did. You said. Let it out.”
“Leeks,” I said, “leeks are very important. You need leeks.”
Wilson doesn’t cook anymore. Wilson’s gone far away. His soul’s gone a-wandering, knapsack over its shoulder. I have been trying to talk to Tim about how I have no sense in me of right and wrong anymore, and how I’m stony and fire watery, turn and turn about, and how it seems I have many, many things to tell him, but can’t speak, can’t get the words off my tongue because it’s too heavy and stupid.
Silently the Captain removed the hot rag from Wilson’s forehead, dipped it in the sea and pulled it out freshly cold, gave it a squeeze, shook it hard and replaced it on the dying man’s head.
Wilson was talking or rather chuntering, making no sense. His big lips had withered inwards, and his eyes, when they were not closed, stared at the sky with a look near to humour.
“I sailed with him twice before,” the captain said.
“Did you so?” Dan scratched steadily at the scurf around his neck.
“Simon, will you shift a bit and give him more room? It’ll be over soon.”
Simon shifted, so Dag had to shift too, stiffly, wincing at his swollen legs, the