Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [304]
‘Yes,’ Paris said, ‘I hear you.’ The pain in his chest was better for the moment but he could not breathe deeply enough to get the air he needed. ‘I have taken a turn for the worse, I am afraid,’ he said. He saw Sullivan bend down and straighten up again quickly. ‘What are you doing?’ he said.
‘I want you to take care of this for me,’ Sullivan said. ‘I want you to keep it for luck. They would only take it from me, sooner or later.’
Paris felt the smooth metal of the button pressed into his hand and his fingers closed over it. ‘I have nothing to give you, Michael,’ he said.
‘You give me somethin’ beyond any price when you spoke to me that time aboard ship,’ Sullivan said. ‘Do you remember? I came to ask them to take the chains off the negroes because the noise of the rattlin’ was spoilin’ me music.’
‘I remember, yes.’
‘You spoke to me as if I was a man, an’ I have niver forgot it.’
Paris saw now that Sullivan’s eyes had filled with tears. ‘Don’t be concerned about me,’ he said. ‘If you get a chance tell Tabakali that I think about her. Tell Kenka to look after his mother. I’ll rest for a while now, I think.’
His sight seemed in some way obscured. He could not see clearly across the narrow space of the cabin. He heard the door close softly behind Sullivan. He fell into a doze, though without relaxing his hold on the button. After an interval that might have been hours or minutes he opened his eyes to see his cousin looking down at him. ‘I wanted to explain,’ he said, as if there had been no lapse of time. ‘When I raised my hand against Thurso it was not with the idea of leading a revolt against him.’
The words came between short breaths, noisy and irregular. He fell silent again now and closed his eyes. Why had he done it? He had a sudden memory of the rain-washed deck, the calm of that morning, the vast, indifferent sky. ‘It was against my profession,’ he said. But he knew that wasn’t the reason.
‘We shall arrive at St Augustine this evening,’ Erasmus said. ‘There is a doctor there, belonging to the garrison. We shall have you put to rights.’
‘I fear there may be nothing a doctor can do. I have seen this before, after an amputation or some violent accident … There is only one path from the leg to the lungs. I am afraid I have suffered some occlusion of the blood.’
‘You cannot die,’ Erasmus said violently. ‘Not in this hole-and-corner fashion, not after I have come halfway round the world to smoke you out. It makes nonsense of everything.’
‘You wanted something more spectacular, I know,’ Paris said with an effort. He was silent after this for a long time, then he asked for a candle to be lit, as he could not see well. The flame moved but the light from it did not spread. Someone was bathing his face again. In a sudden wash of colder, clearer light, he saw the picture on the easel, the Governor’s face fixed in its rigid sneer. ‘That fort was full of hammering,’ he said. ‘There was no order in it.’ The metal of the bars and the flesh of her limbs all one substance in the sunshine. His labouring breath came to his ears as from a distance beyond him. Nor on the ship, he thought. How else but in a state of chaos could such things be done? That was it, he had wanted to find order again, he had shouted up to the sky for order …
And now you will tell me that your hope was realized?
These words were strangely disembodied, like his breathing; it was difficult to be sure who had said them; but he knew it was for him to answer. In his eagerness to do so he started forward from the bolster that supported him against the bulkhead. He extended his right hand and something fell from it on to the blanket. ‘Yes,’ he said, glaring across the room. ‘As much as any hope can be.’ He did not know, as he fell back, whether