Yellowcake - Margo Lanagan [37]
‘I hate this place,’ moaned Dawn, stumbling at Mum’s side.
‘I know, my darling. Not for long, though. Not for long.’
Strange breezes bothered us, hurrying along the channel, dipping from above. The sea had become like a forest either side, with upward streaks like trunks and froth at the top, dancing like wind-tossed leaves. Shapes moved in it; these were what terrified Dawn. They terrified all of us, and we hurried; we ran when we could, but it’s hard to run with all your belongings bundled on your head, or dragged in a sack behind you, all the gold and silver you’ve talked out of the Gypsies.
Did you know there are chasms in the sea? Did you know there are mountains and deserts, just as on land? God had granted us a dry path across, but he had not flattened it out for us, had he? The worst had been where we were forced to make a bridge of cloths and clothing, over that bottomless cleft where things churned on ledges and fell away into the darkness, where those clam-like creatures had progressed across the walls, wobbling and clacking.
Dawn tore his hand from Mum’s and stopped dead. ‘I hate this place and I hate the prophet and I hate it that we left Gramp behind!’
‘You need a beating,’ said another mum, hurrying past, a child under each arm.
‘Move it along, son; don’t get in the people’s way.’ A gran swiped at Dawn with her stick.
‘Stand to the side at least,’ gasped a bloke bent under a bulging sack.
I ran back and scooped Dawn up. He fought me, but I held on. ‘We didn’t leave Gramp,’ I said. ‘He told us to go, remember? I hate it too, but look—would he have kept ahead of that?’ I pointed Dawn’s screwed-up face to behind us, where the channel was closing like a zip, fitting its teeth back together, swallowing its own foam and somersaulting slowly along itself.
The sight of that set him flailing worse. ‘Lemme down!’ he shrieked. ‘I can run! I’ll run, I promise!’
‘You better!’ I dropped him, and managed to smack his bum before he ran off.
Ahead of us Hickory turned, and quailed at the sight of the channel. ‘Hurry!’ he cried.
‘We are hurrying. Aren’t we, Mum?’ Mum was hurrying in a dignified, Mum-like way that wasn’t very fast.
Steadying the bundle on her head, she flashed me a smile. ‘Have faith, daughter; He hasn’t made this escape just to drown us all in it.’
‘Look at it, though!’ The advancing foam was tossing up shapes: fishy giants, trees of seaweed, something that looked very much like a cartwheel.
‘I will not look,’ she said. ‘I will only hurry and keep my faith.’
‘We are coming last, Mum! Come on!’
She laughed at me; I could only just hear it over the thunder from behind us, the roar of foam above. ‘I don’t care if I drown now!’ she shouted. ‘At least I will not die enslaved!’
I ran on, a little way ahead of her. Whenever I turned, there she was, proceeding at her own brisk pace and calm. The wall of green-white water caught up to her and tumbled behind her, churning sharks and rocks, dead Gypsies and horses, tentacled things and flights of striped-silver fishes, but never touching her, not with fish or bubble-wrack thrown from its thrashings, not even with a drop of water from the violent masses it had to spare. It towered over us, for we were in the deepest depths of the ocean now. But it did not hurry Mum or overwhelm her, but crept along behind her, a great wild white beast tamed by her tiny happiness.
{ Ferryman
‘Wrap your pa some lunch up, Sharon,’ says Ma.
‘What, one of these bunnocks? Two?’
‘Take him two. And a good fat strip of smoke. And the hard cheese, all that’s left. Here’s his lemon.’ She whacks the cork into the bottle with the flat of her hand.
I wrap the heavy bottle thickly, so it won’t break if it drops. I put it in