Jamrach's Menagerie - Carol Birch [37]
“You’s creeping, fuckhead.”
I followed Tim. It was nice on the rock, warm and airy. Cross-legged we sat, braves a-powwow.
“What you doing?”
“Drawing.” Skip pushed the book towards us.
There was the island, looking in towards the volcano, a few grey, feathery lines that somehow made a picture.
“Pretty,” Tim said.
I turned back a page. There was the harbour, with Lysander in the bay, every mast and sail and spar of her. I turned the pages back and there we all were, our faces, our hands, our very ways of leaning against the rail or sitting at the kid—Yan’s high-planed face, Comeragh’s lanky stance, Bill, my sickmate, eating his dinner, the way his hair bushed about his head. Wilson Pride standing in the cookhouse doorway peeling a potato.
“There’s Samson!” Tim pointed.
I laughed. “There’s the captain to a T.” Captain Proctor, chubby, eyeless.
“There’s you, Jaf!”
Oh me, yes, it was me.
“I never saw you do these,” Tim said.
Skip shrugged.
“Where’d you learn to draw like that?”
“It’s a gift.” He swallowed, a loud, liquid, clicking sound that must surely have pained his Adam’s apple. The sound of dogs barking in a yelping frenzy came from far inland, and he turned his head towards it. “I’ve always had a lot of gifts,” he said pensively, holding his mouth in that weird, stiff way he had as if he was carrying a mouthful of water. A funny thing to say.
“What other gifts have you got, Skip?” I asked him.
He drew his knees up towards his chin, wrapped his arms around them and started rocking backwards and forwards, smiling his awkward nearly smile. He had a funny face. From the front it was chubby and round, but his profile was odd. Straight as a ruler it set off down the bridge of his nose before the line turned all wavy, drawing to an exaggerated nodule at the tip and falling away into a vague chinlessness. His skin was bad, flecked with eruptions and bumps.
Tim looked at me, pointed his finger at his head and made a face to show he thought Skip was loopy.
Skip sniggered. “Whistling,” he said in his clumsy, swallowing way.
We laughed.
“I can whistle anything,” he added.
It’s true, he was a great whistler.
“What else?” I asked. “That’s only two things.”
He looked at me, not speaking for a moment. “You wouldn’t understand,” he said.
“Did you know you were barmy, Skip?” said Tim. “Really? Did you know you were well and truly roaring raving insane?”
“No, truly.” Skip laughed. “No joke.”
“What are you drivelling on about, Skip?”
“What wouldn’t we understand?” I asked. “Do you think we’re idiots?”
“Not idiots.” He licked his lips. “Just normal. Normal people.”
“So, aren’t you normal then?”
He smiled. His mouth was small, hardly there.
“You’re an irritating prick,” I told him.
“Sorry.” Skip closed his book and slipped it into his pocket. “It’s just that people don’t … people don’t …” He concentrated, frowning. “Normal, no, I’m not normal, that’s true.”
“First thing you’ve said that’s made sense.” Tim lay down on his back on the rock and shaded his eyes.
“It’s not a great matter,” Skip said, pulling a half shrug to go with the nearly smile. “I have the second sight.”
“Oh, well, that,” I said, “if that’s all it is.”
Half the people in Ratcliffe Highway had the second sight.
“Can you tell fortunes?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Can you see into the future?” asked Tim.
Skip thought about it. “Sometimes,” he concluded.
“So what can you do then?”
“Read your mind!” I said. “Go on, what’s Tim thinking?”
“He’s thinking I’m mad.”
We laughed.
“They went to church,” Skip said.
“Who did?”
“Mr. Rainey. Henry Cash. Sam Proffit.”
“Did they now?” Tim sat up and rubbed his eyes.
“They went to church, but that isn’t where the god is.”
A soft breeze, flowery, gentle, rippled its finger ends upon the napes of our necks.
“Where’s the god then, Skip?” I asked. Tim and I exchanged a look. Skip just smiled. A tiny lizard skittered across the rock as if called, and we all laughed again.
“A sign!” cried Tim. “Oh, mighty lizard, bless me!”
“That’s what we’re going after,” I said, “only it’s a million times bigger.”