Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [38]
‘An’ well she might. I expect you show her a good length, don’t you?’
A moment of inspiration came to Calley. ‘Like a horse,’ he said. He saw with delight that the other was laughing at this and he began laughing too.
‘That’s a good ’un. Listen, I have took to you, an’ I want to do you a favour. I am mate on a fine new ship that is bound for Africa an’ I have got the idea that I can obtain you a berth on her by exertin’ my influence with the captain. I wouldn’t do it for everyone, but we are mates, ain’t we?’
Calley smiled. His mouth shone innocently with mutton fat. ‘That’s right,’ he said.
The mate pushed the bottle over. ‘Have another swaller,’ he said. ‘Africa, there’s a place for you. Sunshine, golden beaches, as much palm wine as you can drink, trees loaded with fruit, thick with it; all you have to do is reach up an’ take it. I tell you, it is a earthly paradise. An’ the wimmen! Bigob, they are hot.’ He kissed his fingers with an extravagant gesture and a smacking sound very fascinating to Calley. ‘Sable Venus,’ the mate said. ‘They will do anythin’ you want. Hot – they are always on fire. It is the diet, all them peppers, it is the climate, it is their nature.’
‘Sable Venus,’ Calley repeated softly. Neither of these words meant anything to him, but pronounced together they had a deeply suggestive sibilance that fell on his ear like music. He drank some more from the bottle. ‘What will they do?’ he said.
‘I am goin’ to tell you somethin’ now that I have varrified from personal experience. They have got these highly developed muscles in their cunnies, they can fuck you just by squeezin’. They are trained up to it from earliest infancy.’ He paused for a moment, observing the effects of the brandy. Then he said, ‘You can try them wimmen if you want, Dan’l. Why don’t you come along with me? You gets twenty-five shillin’ a month an’ your vittles. You can leave that harness standin’ there agin the wall an’ come along with me. You will stand up like a man, you will not go creepin’ about with a saddle on your back.’
‘Not like a horse.’ Eagerly Calley waited for his friend to laugh again at the joke. ‘I got two legs, not four,’ he said.
The mate got to his feet. ‘Let’s be goin’ then,’ he said. ‘You needn’t fetch an’ carry for them bastids any more.’
Calley got up too, caught in a wave of enthusiasm. ‘Them bastids,’ he said. ‘They can carry their own sacks o’ turnips.’
‘No more sheep guts for you,’ the mate said. ‘They can get someone else to do it.’
‘Someone else can do it,’ Calley said. He was still laughing but rather uncertainly now.
‘You come along with me, I will see you all right.’
But the mirth had left Calley’s face, to be replaced by a look of anxiety. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I can’t come now.’ He felt unhappy to be disappointing his friend but he had thought suddenly of Kate and the treacle tart.
Barton was a sensitive man in his way and he had noted the change of expression. He put an arm round Calley’s shoulders. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said. ‘We are only out in the stream. You come along with me now an’ look the ship over. If you don’t like what you see, you can be back again within the hour.’
The knowledge that Deakin was worth money had been in Jane Britto’s mind for some time, but she did not know that she intended to sell him until he spoke of leaving.
She had been waiting in the cellar where they lived for her husband and Deakin to get back, standing half stupefied in the steam of washing, with the gasping cries of the baby in her ears and no drink and no money to send out for any. But it was only when she heard them that she felt the clutch of rage at her throat.
First came the scrape of their boots in the alley above, then the clatter down the cellar steps. The two of them came through the door, filling the low room with their voices and bodies. Perhaps the rage sprang from this, the intrusion, though there was little here she could have wanted to defend, in this dank place with the mangle and tub against the wall, smells of rank bacon and tallow fat, the sick baby,