by Graham Joyce
I didn’t understand this, but I felt suitably reprimanded.
So Charlie had gone first, sitting inside the door. Just as she refused to come out, Khiem was adamant about not going in, so it was performed on the threshold. Khiem produced another jungle herb from his bag, crushing it to rub it on her skin. Some kind of anaesthetic, it didn’t stop Charlie from wincing when the first, aggressive, deep puncture was made.
‘You OK?’
‘Do you see me crying?’
‘Hey!’ I said. I was getting fed up with this. ‘What made you such a bloody hard case?’
‘Don’t worry, Dad. You’ve got it coming.’
And it did hurt. Of course it hurt; progressively less with each triple puncture, though I noticed that Khiem scraped up some other dark substance from among his gear before dipping the poppy incisor into the dye. I suspected it was opium, and that this was dulling the pain in my arm with each successive puncture, in which case I was slightly compromised.
Knee-high? Is that what I did? Try to keep them knee-high? Charlie’s words made me think again about the day I hit Phil. Not a slap or a prod or a push, but a stiff punch to the side of his jaw with a closed fist, and so hard that it knocked him off his feet. And not because he’d chopped up some book, either, but because I’d had a furious row with Sheila.
Sheila had said how the kids were taking up less of her time and how she wanted to go out to work, and though I’m ashamed to say this now, I said no. No, no, no. Charlie at that time was into everything, dance classes, drama groups, sleep-overs with friends, and she seemed to need us less and less. Phil too. He was twelve and had just discovered masturbating. I know this because I found two or three cunt magazines under his bed. And here was Sheila telling me she wasn’t dependent on me any more either. We’d had a blue-blazing row. And then this episode with Phil. Why did he get punched in the mouth?
Because of the cunt books, probably.
Not because I’m a prude. It’s only pictures. And what are pictures? And what if pages were wings? No, not because I disapproved, but because I hated their youth. Hated it. Because their youth meant that it was flowing away from me. All going. My little tribe. My tin-pot empire. Flowing away.
Oh Phil, I’m sorry for that wild punch. It swings back at me every day. How could you know what a child your father was?
And by Christ, Khiem’s tattoo did sting.
During the application of the tattoo, Phoo chatted away quite happily, and we learned some interesting things about both Jack and the dead man. ‘Tomorrow night Jack go cross mountain. Jack-nephew go missing. Big problem Jack wife-brother. Tee-hee-hee. Jack-nephew smoke much pipe. His fadder say oooooo! Jack, please take stupid boy, you can please knock him head, oooooh please! So Jack knock him head for brudder-law, oooh, don’t do that! Tee-hee-hee. So him nephew make own gang once say Jack.’
‘With Khao?’ I asked as Khiem scraped the incisor down my arm. ‘He was making a new gang with Khao?’
‘Shhhhhh!’ Phoo didn’t like Khao’s name to be mentioned. ‘Maybe nephew go now Jack-brudder. Make new opium-plan. Jack no like this. Oooooh! Him go cross hills, tomorrow, gone for two day, maybe three day. Maybe make peace, maybe make war.’ I winced and Phoo went, ‘Tee-hee-hee! Fuck-hurt eh? Tee-hee!’
‘You catching this?’ I said to Mick.
‘Oh yes,’ Mick said thoughtfully. ‘I’m catching it.’
When it was over, Khiem began putting his tools into his embroidered bag, but Mick rolled the sleeve of his T-shirt, offering his own arm. Khiem looked thoughtful and said something to Phoo.
‘You no daddy,’ Phoo laughed. ‘You no carry spirit for she!’
Mick didn’t move, still presenting his mighty arm for Khiem, staring him down.
‘I afraid for you!’ said Phoo. ‘You want hep you fren but spirit too heavy for you carry!’
Khiem seemed reluctant. He muttered a few sharp words to Phoo, who said, ‘You no have same daddy blood for she. Spirit make ’tack on you for you hep fren!’
Mick pointed theatrically at his arm. ‘I came this far, didn’t I?’
Khiem shrugged, unrolled his bag of equipment and set about Mick’s arm. He had to go to the inner biceps to find a clear space. If I thought Mick was taking it too lightly, I said nothing. In one sense he wanted a little souvenir to show the folks back home, yet it was also his way of displaying full support.
So Charlie, Mick and I all had the same mark. Some kind of ideogram, I suppose. Not Chinese lettering but something quite like it; and with horns uppermost there was the crescent moon, presumably the slice that Charlie had stolen.
Later, when the two of us had a quiet moment to ourselves, Charlie said, ‘He’ll do anything for you, won’t he?’
‘Who?’
‘Who?’ she mocked. ‘Who might I mean?’
‘You mean Mick?’
‘Yes. Mick. He’ll do anything for you.’
I think I shrugged.
‘Must be incredible to have a friend like that,’ she went on. ‘Wonderful. To follow you into the jungle like this. Without question.’
‘It’s you he’s come to help.’
‘That’s crap, Dad. He’s here for you. To help me, yes, but for you. You told me he even put his savings at your disposal. He’ll fight your battles for you. He’ll even take that tattoo for you.’
I instinctively fingered the fresh scar on my arm. ‘So?’
She twisted her lips, and supposedly in imitation of my gruff tones said, ‘So? Is that all you can say: so?’
‘What do you want me to do? Jump up and down?’
‘You might recognise what you’ve got for a start.’
I didn’t like where this was steering. ‘What’s your point?’
‘I don’t have a point, Dad! I’m just saying how obvious it is!’
‘Obvious? What’s obvious?’
‘Mick. He’ll go with you anywhere. He loves you.’
I shot out a dismissive, barking kind of laugh at this.
‘You’re so blind, Dad. So blind.’
‘What are you saying?’ I cackled. ‘That Mick wants to get up my arse?’
Charlie was furious. ‘How can you reduce it like that? Even if it were so, how dare you sit there and reduce it so? How can you do that?’
This angry talk, or the tattooing, or both, had made me feel distinctly queasy, so I went outside. Plus the heavy incense smoke was beginning to get to me, and I needed to know what Phil was doing in the poppy fields. Mick wasn’t far from the hut. He stayed behind – we’d agreed not to leave Charlie unprotected after recent events.
Up on the hillsides I could see that the glory days of the poppy were beginning to thin out. I was losing track of time, and I had to count the days to find out how long we had been in the village. Incredibly, we had been there for only six days, and yet it seemed like a season.
It was the middle of the afternoon: the fields were empty and the harvesters had returned to the village. Many of the poppy pods had shed their petals and were incised and harvested. I guessed the short season helped Jack and the villagers: they could harvest quickly and shift the stuff rapidly. Jack had already told me that this village would then not be used for a season. He kept his men moving. It was guerrilla farming.
At first I couldn’t see Phil anywhere. He’d taken more and more to wandering the upper slopes of the poppy fields, so he could be closer to God I suppose. The thought of him going to and fro amid the poppies, talking aloud, wrestling with his conscience and looking for divine guidance was shredding my nerves. He was a ticking bomb. I knew I was going to have to do something extreme to get us all out of there, but what?
Some of the poppy pods still had traces of the brown juice where the pod had continued to sweat after the harvesters had passed by with their garnering tools. I broke a waxy crystal from one pod to examine it. Treacle-coloured sunlight fizzed at its surface. I sniffed at it and tried it on my tongue, but it didn’t taste of anything. I flicked the tiny nugg
et from my fingers.
As for Charlie, I was out of ideas about getting her to leave the hut. I’d pleaded with her. I’d talked to her about home until even I started to despise the phoney haven I was trying to make of it. I had no talk left. I just couldn’t reach her.
I heard Phil before spotting him. He was on his knees amid the poppies and praying loudly. Furious, I charged over to him, but something made me pull up short. Phil was almost shouting, over and over, the first line of the Lord’s Prayer, barely drawing breath. ‘Our father which art in heaven our father which art in heaven our father which art in …’ But his face and clasped hands were smeared red.
I cried out, thinking he’d hacked himself. It was a yelp of horror.
When I knelt before him he barely even seemed to see me. He was shivering and his eyelids fluttered as he prayed wildly. I looked for the source of the blood but couldn’t detect an incision anywhere. Not until I put my fingers to his cheek did I realise the red substance staining his face and hands was not blood at all, but betel juice. He’d smeared himself with the stuff.
I pressed my hand over his mouth. ‘Phil. Phil. You’ll give us away, son. You’ll give us away.’
‘You can’t help me,’ he said, his voice flat.
I spat on to my hand, trying to rub the red dye from his face. He shrank away from me but I pushed him down in the dirt. I had to kneel on his chest to hold him down. I didn’t have enough spit. He struggled underneath me. I spat and rubbed at his cheeks, desperately trying to clean him. Tears squeezed from his eyes, mixing with the spittle from my fingers. I could taste the salt of his tears as I tried to lick the stains from his face, frantic to get him clean. I pinned him down and licked his cheeks again, using my T-shirt to rub his face.
He seemed to come round. ‘I’m all right,’ he said.
I was panting heavily, where he seemed suddenly calm. ‘You can’t let anyone see this, Phil.’
‘I’m all right. I won’t give you away, Dad.’
He wanted to stand but I didn’t want to let him go. Finally he pushed me off roughly and scrambled to his feet. ‘Let’s go back to the hut,’ I said.
‘Leave me. I’m all right. I’ll get cleaned up. I’m sorry.’
He didn’t want me. He jogged away in the direction of the village.
I stood quite still amongst the tall poppies. I couldn’t see any way out of this. Events were getting worse, not better, and I had no resources and no ideas. It was while I stood there despairing that one of the plants suddenly shed all its luxurious red petals. I don’t know why, but it made my skin flush. Then it happened to another, nearer this time, the petals falling to the earth with a dry whisper. Finally a third let go its white flower, very close to me. A kind of static parted the hairs on my forearms.
I had the bizarre and quite ridiculous notion that the poppies were communicating with me; or that some invisible being, some unseen presence, was drifting towards me through the crop, tentatively, a few paces at a time, in order to stand next to me, dislodging the petals as it passed. I felt a lick of fear. Then instantly I relaxed.
This presence I recognised.
Amid the splendid, tall poppies, under the hazy sky and the diffuse yellow sun, I had the clearest of insights. I knew exactly what I had to do. I had to go to the realm where Charlie was, to stand next to her.
I had an appointment with the Dark Interpreter.
35
‘Complete and utter madness,’ Phil seethed from his corner of the hut. ‘This is insanity! This is exactly how it starts.’ He seemed to have recovered from his seizure in the poppy fields. He’d washed the smeared juice from his face and hands at least.
‘I hope you know what you’re doing, that’s all,’ Mick said.
I shot him a look intended to say of course I don’t know what I’m doing but what other action is there? Mick’s objections were of a different character to Phil’s: he was uneasy about being marginalised by my actions. Banished to the role of onlooker, he didn’t like it. If I’d asked him, he would have joined me – no question – but what would have been the point of that? Anyway, I needed him straight.
Nabao had been recruited to administer the thing. She arrived with her gear and, obscurely, a pile of banana leaves. I’d tried to make her understand what I intended to do. She looked solemn, seeming to intuit what was necessary. Anyway, I gave her a pile of Thai bhat and she wasn’t going to object.
Out of all of them, the one most unnerved was Charlie, exactly as I’d anticipated. ‘Trying to prove some kind of a point?’ she said scathingly as she watched Nabao lay out her gear. Charlie wrung her hands, massaging her fingers as if trying to peel off a layer of skin. ‘Is this your big statement?’
‘Think of it as me coming to join you, Charlie.’
‘Don’t. Not on my account.’
Khiem’s rituals had been faithfully repeated at intervals. Candles flickering out in the hut had been renewed, as had the smoking bowls of incense. Meanwhile Nabao rolled a piece of opium between her fingers before impaling it on a pin. She lit a spill with a plastic cigarette lighter and flamed the ball of opium.
‘You’ve beaten us, Charlie. We’re stuck. So if I have to stay here, I’m going to be with you in spirit as well as in body.’
‘Lovely. But it won’t make me change my mind.’
‘I don’t expect it to. I just have to see things from where you stand.’
‘You’re about to make a big fool of yourself.’
‘Can’t improve on nature, Charlie. How many pipes do I have to smoke before I could call myself an addict?’
‘Dad, you are so fucking ignorant. It doesn’t work like that. It takes a while to get addicted.’ She cracked her knuckles, and added cynically, ‘You have to work at it.’
‘How many pipes could you go in one session?’ I asked her. ‘Ten? Fifteen? Twenty-five?’
‘Twenty-five pipes would kill an elephant,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you stop playing games? This does nothing to my head. You’ll only end up hurting yourself.’
Phil suddenly exploded. His face was distended and almost purple with anger. It made me think of the carved face of a Thai puppet. ‘I refuse to have anything to do with this!’ he said, thumping a fist into the open palm of his other hand. ‘I won’t take any responsibility for what happens from now on!’
His impotent rage was actually quite funny. ‘What are you shouting about?’ I said. ‘Sit down and put your head in a prayer book.’
Further provoked he said, ‘Mick, do you know why he’s doing this? Jealousy. Did you know that, Mick? He’s always been jealous: jealous of our opportunities; jealous of our education; jealous of our independence from him.’
‘Rot,’ I said.
Phil hadn’t finished. ‘When I went to university he was jealous, but he couldn’t say so. Then when Charlie went to Oxford he was even more upset, because Charlie was his little girl, and she was outstripping him, cleverer than all of us. The only way he could speak to us was by mocking us. Mocking Charlie’s boyfriends, mocking my lifestyle. Endlessly mocking. He’s spent the last half of his life in a jealous rage. You see what he’s doing here, now? He’s competing with Charlie.’
I’d had enough of his woe, and of his spirit-depleting manufactured suffering. ‘You know what, Phil? I’m sick of your misery. I’m sick of your whining. In fact I’m sick of your face—’
‘Shut it, Danny!’ Mick said with surprising force. ‘Leave Phil alone.’
‘Look, if I want to say—’ I tried.
‘You hear me? Just get off Phil’s case. Leave him alone and get on with what you’re going to do.’
The sharp note in Mick’s voice warned me to let the matter drop. I looked to Charlie for support. She folded her arms. ‘Phil’s right, Dad. Why do you always think we’re in some kind of competition?’
By now Nabao had the first pipe heated and smoking, but as she passed it to me Phil intercepted it. ‘Here, I’ll do it for you, shall I?’ He took a deep tug on
the pipe. His eyes watered but he held back the smoke without coughing. I shrugged. If Phil wanted to join me I wasn’t going to argue. In the event, Mick stepped forward and gently took the smoking pipe from Phil and gave it to me.
Phil collapsed on to a mat in the corner of the hut, head in his hands, defeated.
Though the mood had soured I wasn’t going to let it stop me. I stretched out on my sleeping bag and got comfortable. I took a deep draught on the pipe and held the smoke in my lungs. Nabao plucked a banana leaf and tore a strip from it. This strip she placed beside her, and proceeded to prepare a second pipe.
I puffed away at the pipe until I realised that the thing had gone out. There was a tiny twist of ash in the brass bowl. Nothing was happening yet, though I was aware of how seriously I had become the object of everyone’s attention. Mick sat back quietly, puffing instead on a Marlboro. Charlie regarded me with her lip curled. Nabao, intent on preparing the pipe, flickered glances at me from time to time. I noticed Nabao had refused to make any eye contact with Charlie.
‘Satisfied?’ Charlie said. ‘Not much to it, is there? Made your statement? Anywhere I can go you can go better.’ I’d stolen from her the armour of defiance, of youth, and I’d reversed the roles. She didn’t like it.
Nabao passed me the second pipe. Again I pulled the smoke deep into my lungs and held it. Nabao tore another strip of banana leaf and placed it on top of the first.
After the third pipe Charlie said to Mick, ‘Are you going to stop him?’
‘I don’t see what I can do. I can’t stop him,’ Mick said pointedly, ‘any more than he can stop you.’
Phil still held his head in despair. I suppressed a snigger.
Charlie stood up. ‘I’m not going to stay here and watch him get wrecked just to prove a point.’
‘Fine,’ Mick said. ‘Where, exactly, are you going to go?’
It was a good question. I puffed my pipe and looked at Charlie. Our eyes locked. I chose to say nothing. Charlie shook her head slowly. ‘I never really knew how bad it was in him,’ she said, ‘until the day he waved me away to university. If he could have done, he’d have packed his bag and come with me and sat in on my lectures. Just so that I wouldn’t know more than he does. He can’t stand it.’
