by Carol Birch
‘I know exactly what you mean,’ Tim said.
It was a funny thing with me and Tim. I don’t think we ever really had any proper conversations, not what you’d really call a conversation, not like I’ve had with others. Skip, for example. Now me and Skip, we could rattle on all day and night. Me and Tim now, we never talked. But we did know what the other meant.
We saw a figure dark upon the skyline, sitting on a high flat rock completely still and engrossed in what may have been a book upon his knee. Skip. Something seemed strange about him, and it took me a moment or two to realise it was the stillness. I’d never seen him still before. Skip was a jiggler. When he stood he swayed, when he sat he banged his knees together.
‘What you up to, Skip?’ yelled Tim.
Skip jerked.
Tim scaled the rock, grinning.
‘Fuck you.’ Skip said it like he said everything, quiet and controlled. ‘Creeping around like that! Why don’t you say you’re there? Creeping up on a fellow like that.’
‘Who’s creeping?’
‘You’s creeping, fuckhead.’
I followed Tim. It was nice on the rock, warm and airy. Crosslegged we sat, braves a-powwow.
‘What you doing?’
‘Drawing.’ Skip pushed the book towards us.
There was the island, looking in towards the volcano, a few grey, feathery lines that somehow made a picture.
‘Pretty,’ Tim said.
I turned back a page. There was the harbour, with Lysander in the bay, every mast and sail and spar of her. I turned the pages back and there we all were, our faces, our hands, our very ways of leaning against the rail or sitting at the kid – Yan’s high-planed face, Comeragh’s lanky stance, Bill, my sickmate, eating his dinner, the way his hair bushed about his head. Wilson Pride standing in the cookhouse doorway peeling a poatato
‘There’s Samson!’ Tim pointed.
I laughed. ‘There’s the captain to a T.’ Captain Proctor, chubby, eyeless.
‘There’s you, Jaf!’
Oh me, yes, it was me.
‘I never saw you do these,’ Tim said.
Skip shrugged.
‘Where’d you learn to draw like that?’
‘It’s a gift.’ He swallowed, a loud liquid clicking sound that must surely have pained his Adam’s apple. The sound of dogs barking in a yelping frenzy came from far inland, and he turned his head towards it. ‘I’ve always had a lot of gifts,’ he said pensively, holding his mouth in that weird stiff way he had as if he was carrying a mouthful of water. A funny thing to say.
‘What other gifts have you got, Skip?’ I asked him.
He drew his knees up towards his chin, wrapped his arms around them and started rocking backwards and forwards, smiling his awkward nearly smile. He had a funny face. From the front it was chubby and round, but his profile was odd. Straight as a ruler it set off down the bridge of his nose before the line turned all wavy, drawing to an exaggerated nodule at the tip and falling away into a vague chinlessness. His skin was bad, flecked with eruptions and bumps.
Tim looked at me, pointed his finger at his head and made a face to show he thought Skip was loopy.
Skip sniggered. ‘Whistling,’ he said in his clumsy, swallowing way.
We laughed.
‘I can whistle anything,’ he added.
It’s true, he was a great whistler.
‘What else?’ I asked. ‘That’s only two things.’
He looked at me, not speaking for a moment. ‘You wouldn’t understand,’ he said.
‘Did you know you were barmy, Skip?’ said Tim. ‘Really? Did you know you were well and truly roaring raving insane?’
‘No, truly.’ Skip laughed. ‘No joke.’
‘What are you drivelling on about, Skip?’
‘What wouldn’t we understand?’ I asked. ‘Do you think we’re idiots?’
‘Not idiots.’ He licked his lips. ‘Just normal. Normal people.’
‘So, aren’t you normal then?’
He smiled. His mouth was small, hardly there.
‘You’re an irritating prick,’ I told him.
‘Sorry.’ Skip closed his book and slipped it into his pocket. ‘It’s just that people don’t … people don’t …’ He concentrated, frowning. ‘Normal, no, I’m not normal, that’s true.’
‘First thing you’ve said that’s made sense.’ Tim lay down on his back on the rock and shaded his eyes.
‘It’s not a great matter,’ Skip said, pulling a half shrug to go with the nearly smile. ‘I have the second sight.’
‘Oh, well, that,’ I said, ‘if that’s all it is.’
Half the people in Ratcliffe Highway had the second sight.
‘Can you tell fortunes?’
‘It’s not that simple.’
‘Can you see into the future?’ asked Tim.
Skip thought about it. ‘Sometimes,’ he concluded.
‘So what can you do then?’
‘Read your mind!’ I said. ‘Go on, what’s Tim thinking?’
‘He’s thinking I’m mad.’
We laughed.
‘They went to church,’ Skip said.
‘Who did?’
‘Mr Rainey. Henry Cash. Sam Proffit.’
‘Did they now?’ Tim sat up and rubbed his eyes.
‘They went to church, but that isn’t where the god is.’
A soft breeze, flowery, gentle, rippled its finger ends upon the napes of our necks.
‘Where’s the god then, Skip?’ I asked. Tim and I exchanged a look. Skip just smiled. A tiny lizard skittered across the rock as if called, and we all laughed again.
‘A sign!’ cried Tim. ‘Oh, mighty lizard, bless me!’
‘That’s what we’re going after,’ I said, ‘only it’s a million times bigger.’
‘A million?’ Tim leaned back on his elbows. ‘God, I hope not.’
Skip lay down on his back and stretched out, closing his eyes. His eyelids were thick and heavy, china white. ‘This creature,’ he said, ‘this thing. This thing. Think you’ll find it?’
‘If we do we’ll be rich.’ I lay down too. It was hot.
‘No,’ Skip said. ‘You won’t. You won’t be rich.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I know.’
‘No, you don’t.’
‘I do.’
‘Huh.’ Tim lay down too. There we three lay under a hot sun. When I closed my eyes everything was orange. I don’t have to go home, I thought. I can go anywhere. The world’s endless. I could live here. I could live anywhere. It doesn’t have to be the Highway and the river and Spoony’s and Meng’s. I could live on a mountain. In a jungle. Where it’s all flowers. Miles of distance and nothing sure and nothing the same. I tried to say it, but it came out wrong, so I gave up.
‘Just think,’ Skip said, and chuckled as if he’d just thought of something very funny, ‘next second. Now! The mountain explodes.’
Tim laughed. ‘Boom!’
‘Funny, isn’t it?’ said Skip. ‘Any minute we could all be dead.’
‘Where you from, Skip?’ I asked.
He didn’t answer for so long I’d forgotten I’d asked, then: ‘Rochester,’ he said, ‘once upon a time.’
All the boats were fully laden and still there was a bit of whale oil left.
‘Think that’s sense?’ Rainey was barking at Simon Flower. ‘Giving it away? Hey! Boy! That what you were told?’
‘No, sir,’ said Simon, a dark-haired serious boy who gave Tim a run for his money when it came to beauty.
‘No more, no more. Tell them no more,’ yelled Rainey at John Copper, who was trying to drive away a gaggle of old beggar women as if they were geese.
‘How much is left, Mr Rainey?’ Captain Proctor, coming along behind, speaking mildly.
I don’t know about church, but Rainey had certainly had a drink. It came off him in a waft as he turned. ‘Not much,’ he said, tilting a barrel.
‘What do you think,
Mr Flower?’
Simon was blushing furiously. ‘Dregs, sir,’ he said.
Proctor thought for a moment then decided. ‘Drain them off. Let’em have what’s left. Damn little anyway.’
The old women rushed forward and mobbed the barrels, pushing each other about and shoving their cups under the taps. It was getting dark. Dan Rymer was sitting on the sea wall. Far out in the bay, the Lysander had lit its lanterns, and lights were appearing inland. Dan called me and Tim over. ‘This is your first real run ashore,’ he said. ‘Stick with me. There is no better guide.’
I didn’t know how old Dan was. He was wrinkled, but he acted like a younger man, and from time to time a slow boyish kind of smile would illuminate his ruined face: ruined because there was some handsome ghost still hiding in it, rarely seen and all but completely buried in its dried-up, ageing appearance. He’d always just been Mr Jamrach’s favourite supplier, a gruff, familiar, now-and-then presence, and since we’d embarked he’d not had that much to do with me because Gabriel seemed to have taken over my training. But that night in Horta was the night I started getting to know him.
The narrow lanes were fragrant with flowers. The walls of the houses were patterned, coloured. To a tavern – or was it a house? – I’ll never know. A golden light spilled through a door. A woman was singing. Her dark voice came out into the night and it sounded like heaven. Blossom billowed down the walls, hung over the narrow street, purple and white. We came to a room full of good will, the walls full of saints, the tables of men who laughed, and women far finer than the whores of Ratcliffe Highway. These women – these dark foreign women. Their black eyebrows, their brown skin, their complicated way of moving. A rich aroma opened the pores beneath my tongue, sweet herbs and meat juices. There was a fire on the ground, a pot cooking on it.
I was at a table, my back against a wall, Tim to one side, Dan across the table in front of me. I drank something strong and dark and red out of a round leather bottle. A handsome friendly woman, who spoke fast foreign all the time, gave us stew and potatoes and I had never tasted anything as delicious. I thought I must come and live here, take my chances with the volcanoes.
‘You see,’ said Dan, wagging his spoon at me, ‘I know the places to go.’
‘Damn right,’ said Tim. ‘Don’t know what we’d do without you.’
‘Without me,’ said Dan grandly, ‘you’d be like all the rest. Uncle Dan knows everything.’ He had a slight lisp. He poured freely from the leather bottle and we drank. A girl with braids and a red bandanna sat on some wooden steps and played a mandolin, and I fell in love with her on the instant and knew that I would never leave this place, that I had found my true home at last and would now be happy for ever. The voice of the mandolin was a pealing cascade, unbearably sweet, making tears swell in my chest. There was singing, the mellow singing of happy drunken men. A very small kitten clawed its way up onto my knee, a sweet purring thing that nuzzled into my armpit and commenced suckling. Dogs big and small roamed the shadows, under the table, in and out the door. Chickens, stalking, under and over, talking with their mad sharp beaks ajar. Tim was gone. I looked around for him, but the room span, lovely, colours, the fire, the red bandanna, the blue cloaks. Dan was still there, peering at me humorously, a U-shaped grinning mouth, small close-together eyes set well back under a low, furrowed brow. Resting on an elbow, he leaned over the table and looked me in the eye. ‘Here’s something, Jaf,’ he said. ‘Never forget.’
When Dan Rymer drank he became his true self. His eyes twinkled, his lips puckered, his limbs loosened up.
‘What, Dan?’ I laughed, made mad and bold by the strong red wine. It had a metallic edge and reminded me of that thin taste blood has when you bite your lip or your teeth bleed. ‘On with the words of wisdom!’
‘That’s it,’ he said, ‘just that. Never forget.’
‘Never forget what?’
He was smoking a long brown cheroot and he waved it elegantly, creating eddies of startlingly bright blue smoke. ‘That smoke,’ he said seriously, ‘never forget the sight of that smoke as long as you live,’ and he hummed ‘Tobacco’s But An Indian Weed’.
They brought us more wine, and some small cakes, very sweet and moist, bright yellow.
‘These are good,’ he said, tucking in, and we gorged ourselves, ‘these are the ultima thule of cakes. These cakes are what you were born for.’ He grinned. His arm gestured in a loose circular movement. ‘Have you seen the Madonna?’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked stupidly, draining my glass and immediately wanting more, grabbing the bottle and pouring, spilling a few drops. You couldn’t see how much was in the bottle, but it was good and heavy. The kitten was dislodged from my armpit and slithered to the floor with a disgruntled mew.
‘The Madonna,’ Dan repeated, ‘come and see, she’s over the stairs.’ I didn’t want to get up, but he’d risen and gestured me over to where the angel with the mandolin still produced heaven from the tips of her brown fingers.
I followed.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘one of the most beautiful things you’ll ever see.’
I looked up. The real girl, the mandolin girl, was on my left-hand side. Her music had faded now, she twinged and twanged the instrument in a random, desultory manner. There was a painting at the top of the stairs, painted right on the wall, the Madonna spreading out her cloak, sheltering the world. How they do it, those paintings, some of the ones you see. You can’t see her eyes, but you know what they’re like, you just know.
‘You know,’ Dan Rymer said, breathing warm booze breath on me, ‘I have a wife.’
‘I know,’ I said.
‘I love my wife.’
That tall fair woman with babies at her skirts, in her arms. Greenland Dock. London. Dear London. Oh, Greenland Dock. Oh, fried fish and grey skies and the smell of the market on Watney Street as a new day dawns.
‘She was born in the marshes,’ he said, ‘out of town.’
‘I saw her.’
‘Saw her?’
‘On the quay.’
‘Of course,’ he murmured, ‘of course you would have done.’
We gazed in a trance at the Madonna. I looked sideways and saw the mandolin player idly regarding me with no interest at all. I needed another drink. Back at our table I filled my glass near to the brim. I might be sick, yes, but it was far away, not yet. I didn’t care.
‘Oh, when I was your age,’ Dan said, sitting down once more opposite me, ‘oh when, oh when, oh when …’ and waved the hand that held his drink, slopping some over his fingers.
A broad-faced woman sat down beside him and kissed the side of his face. A tiny key hung from a blue ribbon about her neck. He put an arm round her waist and began to sing, throwing back his head and closing his eyes.
Western wind ablow,
Small rains rain.
My dear darling in my arms
And a warm sweet bed again.
God, he had a voice. Not your average voice, but a voice. I got the tears again, my stupid drunk heart. From the corner of my eye, I saw Tim and a girl slip through a door. My heart gave a sigh, a sinking fall. My sweet warm bed was nowhere. The kitten had returned.
‘Her name is Alice,’ Dan said.
‘Alice,’ I echoed.
‘Alice.’
Alice, oh, Alice. Where is my Alice? In my lap the kitten vibrated.
Dan Rymer’s eyes crinkled with laughter and his lips turned down. He poured me more of the strong red drink and hoicked up his collar. The woman beside him closed her eyes and laid her head on his shoulder, and he wore her like a cloak. When he leaned across the table, she came with him like a fox’s face on a rich lady’s stole. Speaking in a low and confidential tone, he said, ‘Did I ever – did I ever – ever tell you about the time I saw an angel?’
I shook my head. God, I was full. The firelight in the hollows of his face made him very old, shockingly old.
‘It was in Valparaiso.’
It was almost a w
hisper, and I leaned forward to hear, the movement causing a lick of nausea to stir faintly in some unspecific place.
‘I was lying in the gutter,’ said Dan, ‘and a small dog had just pissed upon my shoulder.’ He took a drink. ‘“Dear God,” I said. “Thank you. Thank you, my God. It could have been my face.”’
I spluttered. The kitten stood up and started walking round and round, digging its claws into my knees.
‘Truly, truly,’ Dan said, and the woman shifted on his shoulder, ‘thou art merciful.’
The room began to lurch about. Thin needles of kitten claw shredded my breeches and pricked my knees. Out in the night, voices played counterpoint. Someone somewhere was having a quarrel, but it didn’t sound serious.
‘The moon was laughing down at me,’ said Dan, getting into his stride, ‘sniggering from a canyon of swollen cloud.’ He squared his shoulders.
I’m going to be sick, I thought. Oh no, not again, no.
‘I shouted at the moon,’ said Dan. ‘“Who you laughing at?”’ Throwing out an arm. ‘“Fat Face? Come down here and laugh, I’ll show you what’s funny!”’
Dan jumped up, knocking the table skew-whiff. A bottle rolled. The cat leapt down and the woman slid sideways.
‘“Come down, you old Pantaloon!” I cried.’
He stood, long coat gaping, wild head raised, a grim muzzlish look upon him.
‘And it was then,’ he said, sitting down again and speaking in a low voice, ‘that the angel came. Eight feet tall, I don’t know, a very tall creature anyway. Barefoot. Silver feet! Can you imagine that? Real feet of silver, alive. And his wings. They touched the walls on either side of the street. And do you want to know what he said to me?’
‘Very much,’ I said.
Dan leaned towards me, lowering his voice and speaking very seriously. ‘He said, “Get up out of that, you fool of a man. Get your bleeding arse out of it and shut your stupid bloody mouth before I shut it for you.” And then he kicked me.’ Dan grabbed his own wrist, jutted his lip. ‘But I grabbed his silver ankle! It was cold to the touch. And up he flew, away, up with me still hanging on, and off away back to my ship with me, and the town lights all spinning round below and the wind rushing in my ears, and the ships in the harbour all spinning round.’ He sat back, picked up his drink. ‘And he put me down on the quarterdeck, gentle as a leaf. “Count yourself in luck,” he said. “Next time I’ll drop you in the drink.” And he turned the size of a gnat and flew away. And that was that.’
