Jamrach's Menagerie - Carol Birch [111]
“Oh, Jaf,” he said, “you got the worst of it.” But he was smiling.
“I can’t take this,” Dan said. “We have to stop now.”
“No. Do it quick. Now, Jaf.” Tim tried to push the gun into my hand, but I pulled away with a shudder. I felt sick.
“I don’t care,” Tim said. “I don’t mind anyway. I can’t see any more point in hanging about. Come on.” I looked deep in his eyes. They were dancing, full of fun, magnified by tears. “You got the worst of it, not me. I’d rather go. Honest.”
Me and him and Ish, up and down the Highway. Smell of it. I was all choked up. He put the gun in my hands, gently. I shook my head.
“Please, Jaf,” he said. “Just do it.”
His eyes.
“Don’t think about it,” he says.
“Can’t do it, Tim.” My voice all cracked.
Dan says: “No. No, no, no, no, no, boys, no. Please listen.” Bent and impossibly aged by the sea, he leans forward, pulling us all in. Skip’s just there, wide eyed, scabby, watching. “I’ll take it. I’ll take your lot, Tim. Then you two draw for who does it.”
“We agreed,” said Tim.
“Boys, I can’t have you do this. I wouldn’t live with myself.”
“Look, this ain’t easy for anyone,” Tim said. “Let’s just fucking get on with it.”
He lumbered up, breaking the circle and drawing me after him with one bony bird of prey claw embedded in my shoulder. Dan crying, Skip staring, me with the gun and Tim to the other end of the boat, the mild grey horizon going up and down.
“This is just me and you now. Tim, I can’t do this.”
Tim pulled me close then, and we hugged. “It’s all right,” he said. “It’s happening, that’s all. We drew fair and square.”
“Aren’t you scared?”
“I’m always scared. I’m fucking terrified if you must know. Best if we do it quick. We all agreed and we got to stick by it.”
We separate, awkward. A warm breeze blows in my face from the south. The gun is in my right hand, my left in his.
“All square between me and you, Jaf?” he says.
“Course.”
“You take care, Jaf. If you get back, say—I don’t know, tell them not to worry, you know …”
“This is mad.”
“Mad.” He laughs.
“Are you sure, Tim?”
“No blame, Jaf,” he says. “I’d do the same for you. You’re my best friend. You know what to do?”
Of course I do. All of us do. He lays down with his head on a coil of rope, curls up and closes his eyes as if he is going to have a sleep. Nothing and everything is real. I cock the trigger and put the gun next to his right temple, not quite touching.
“Tell me when you’re ready,” I say.
“When you are.”
I shot.
I had to look, make sure he didn’t suffer. His eyes clenched as the pistol discharged. Nothing else moved. The red running all over his head, down his face and neck. Nothing else moving. Side of his head sticky and flat.
We got on well for a few days. There was a steady breeze to bear us on, a steady rolling sea, constant as a pulse. Always in my mind the sights I could never forget, never unsee. Still now, and as long as I live, always there. Dan told me not to look, but it had gone too far for that to matter.
My ears sing. His hands shake as he cuts off Tim’s head, lets it fall, holds the body so as to pour the spouting blood straight into the bucket Skip holds. It’s still Tim’s body, arms out straight, shiny, hairless chest, graceful, filthy feet. His head I can’t see anymore for the bulk of Dan. Then, still and headless he lies, bleeding into the boards. Dan gives a great sigh, turns aside and drops something over. I can’t help it, I run see, but there’s nothing, it’s sunk like a stone.
They cut off what was left of his clothes. It wasn’t him anymore. Dan worked dispassionately, mouth a straight line, fallen cheeks ghastly under pebbly eyes. It was a lot for one man to do. We helped, me and Skip. No one spoke. We helped with the cutting up, that was hard, there were things like moles and scabs and small hairs on the skin that showed it was him. I felt my head begin to swim and Dan sent me away. I sat and hugged myself, watching the rise and fall of the waves and thinking how peculiar it would be if a ship now hove into view. If it did, I thought, that would prove that God