Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [286]
‘What name you give him?’ Only now could this be asked: it was never divulged until the evening of the naming, for fear of the ill-fortune that could so easily come from premature and presumptuous mention of a name.
‘Him name Kavamoko.’ Neema smiled. She was happy. She knew she made a good appearance in her shell necklace and blue cotton wrap; the baby had been much admired and the party was going well. She nodded in the direction of her two men. ‘Dey two give him half piece one name half piece adder,’ she said indulgently.
Her eyes were as bright as the baby’s and Paris saw the reflection of the firelight move in them. Some touch of awe came to his mind. The seated woman, prepared and composed, the simple thatch behind her, the gifts before her on the swept earth, the regard of the baby that seemed full of some precocious knowledge … ‘I wish he live long an’ happy for you,’ he said.
‘Dis de fust man pikin,’ she said. ‘Dey two give de name.’
‘It a very good name,’ Paris said.
As he spoke the music ceased and Cavana stepped forward holding his battered pewter tankard, once the possession of the dead gunner, Johnson. Tiamoko meanwhile was making sure that everyone had enough beer to drink the impending toast. In his troubled preoccupation of earlier, Paris had forgotten a cardinal point of etiquette, which was to bring one’s own drinking vessel on occasions of this kind; now there was found for him one of the pumpkin calabashes held in reserve for the forgetful and for people like Calley, whose personal possessions did not extend even thus far.
‘De boy name Kavamoko,’ Cavana said, when silence among the guests had been achieved. ‘Dat de name we give him, dat de name he keep.’
This had been said very seriously: it was the official naming. Now Cavana paused, as if in search of some flourish of rhetoric. His face for the moment was sombre, dark red in the firelight. Suddenly he broke into a broad smile and raised his tankard. ‘We drink him health an’ happy an’ good long life,’ he said.
All the people present echoed this and drank. The orchestra struck up again with renewed vigour. Paris glanced round. As always, he looked first for Tabakali in order to know that she was there, and well. She was standing with Sallian and Dinka, tall and very beautiful to Paris with her smile and the proud movements of her head. He saw some of the parties to that morning’s dispute mingling together without apparent animosity. Hambo and Iboti and Billy were standing together in the same group. Kireku had at least deigned to make an appearance, though he kept apart, Barton as usual at his elbow.
Paris drank and felt the sourish beer spread a warmth within him. His mood lightened. He found hope in this enclave of firelight and mingling voices and din of music – a hope that was inveterate, perhaps ultimately beyond defeat, tenacious enough in any case to acknowledge that only the surrounding darkness conferred unity upon them. An accident then, perhaps; but they had met here together to celebrate the appearance of a new life; and that, surely, was also to affirm a future in which new life could grow without stunting …
Heated with his efforts, Sullivan laid down his fiddle and went to replenish his can. This brought him up close to Billy Blair, who was about the same business. Billy was in the best of moods, but he had drunk enough to make him slightly abrasive and Sullivan, to whom he was very attached, always roused his spirit of satire.
‘What fettle?’ he said. ‘ ’Tis a funny thing, but you havna’ changed one iota, Michael. Still scrapin’ away, just as you was doin’ in that whorehouse in Liverpool, the neet you an’ me come alongside all them years ago.’
Sullivan detected at once the note of disrespect for his music, but he was not much put out by it; he was in a particularly exuberant frame of mind this evening, due in part to the beer, but mainly to the encouraging glances he had been getting from Koudi, whom he had always