Carnival for the Dead

by David Hewson

  There were two beds, both broader than normal single ones, as if someone couldn’t quite make up their mind whether to have a double or not. On the left lay a girl around his own age, eyes closed, fast asleep on the sheets. She wore jeans and a white tee-shirt bearing a picture of a grinning gondolier holding up his thumb. Her left arm was extended onto the bedclothes. On the inside, near the elbow, was a small sticking plaster enclosing a piece of cotton wool. There was a faint stain of blood on the fluffy material.

  ‘Not the only customer then,’ Jason said, realizing the idea cheered him. ‘You’re a busy chap.’

  Marco didn’t answer. He was doing something with the machine.

  Jason took the opportunity to look at the sleeping girl, more closely, more bravely than he would usually have dared.

  She had long dark hair that fell back onto the pillow in tresses as if it had been arranged, though that was obviously impossible. Her face was incredibly pale, almost pure white, and quite the most beautiful he’d ever seen. Like an angel or one of those impossible women in paintings, unblemished, unreal, without any of the flaws and visual imperfections that marked most of the girls back home. A few of the bakery tarts – their words, not his – were pretty. He’d watched a couple slyly in the early hours of the morning, noting the way they gossiped and cackled about boys and what had happened at the weekend. He used to think: I know that type. Coarse.

  Then he checked himself. This was a Cunningham family habit: judging people instantly, on their looks, a single word they said, anything really. It was wrong. He was glad his Auntie Flo wasn’t there at that moment. She’d have stared miserably at the young woman asleep on the bed next to him, tut-tutted at the sight of that full tee-shirt and let loose with all her foul-mouthed venom, at him, for his shyness, at the slumbering girl for her perfect beauty.

  Busty. That was one of her favourite words of condemnation. The girl on the bed was slim, tall, about his own height. But she wasn’t skinny, not all over anyway.

  ‘I prefer to think of it as full-figured,’ he said out loud. ‘Shapely.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  The doctor had a needle in his hand. It was long and attached to the machine by a snaking transparent tube.

  ‘S-sorry,’ Jason stuttered. ‘Me and my gob.’

  Marco appeared puzzled.

  ‘Camilla’s sleeping. Let’s not wake her, shall we?’

  ‘Camilla. Righteo, Captain,’ Jason said, making a little salute with his hand before he climbed onto the bed.

  It didn’t take long. It didn’t even hurt much. The mattress was so soft and the pillow so inviting. The funny machine whirred happily as something passed from him to it, got swirled around then sent back down the tube, the precious part removed he supposed, some of it anyway. Not that he looked when the blood started to flow. Marco advised that was for the best.

  Jason closed his eyes once and found himself drifting off into a pale white paradise, one that included the girl from the bed next to him. Camilla. No one ever got called that in Wakefield. She was smiling and talking to him and he didn’t feel any of that heat, the muckiness that came up out of nowhere back home with the bakery tarts and their dirty talk.

  He opened his eyes and checked his cheap LED watch, bought a couple of weeks before, two quid in the market. Six o’clock. He must have slept for three hours or more, which was odd because in the delightful dream nothing happened. Nothing at all.

  The needle was gone. He turned his head and saw there was a cup of milky tea on the table next to him along with a ham and cheese sandwich in that funny Venetian bread he’d come to recognize. The drink was still hot. Someone, Marco he imagined, must have woken him.

  Starving, he took a big bite and then a swig from the cup before realizing the young woman was awake too, propped up in bed against the pillow, staring at him.

  ‘Got to finish this,’ he said, pointing at the sandwich. ‘Could eat a horse.’

  She smiled and he saw she had the most perfect teeth he’d ever encountered, every one white and uniform like teeth were supposed to be and rarely were.

  ‘Oh my. So you’re English? I’m guessing.’

  Camilla had a soft, musical voice, with a touch of foreign in it that made the sound all the more engaging.

  ‘Yeah. Sorry. Jason Cunningham.’

  He held out his hand then stopped. She was still attached to the machine. The girl glanced at the tube joining her to it and shrugged.

  ‘Camilla Dushku.’ She nodded at the window, glancing at the closed blinds. ‘I come from across the sea.’

  Jason thought for a moment and asked, ‘Germany?’

  She laughed.

  ‘No. Dubrovnik. Croatia.’

  ‘Sounds nice. Why are you in Venice then?’

  She thought for a moment and said, ‘Why not? It’s beautiful.’

  ‘I got the sack, me. Took redundo and bought a ticket on the first plane going anywhere. I were a baker. You believe that? A baker. What kind of a world don’t want someone who can bake bread?’

  ‘Are you a good baker, Jason?’

  ‘That I am.’ He held his hands out in front of him and felt a slight twinge in the left where the needle had been. ‘My old dad reckoned there were magic in these fingers. He said he’d never seen anyone work a batch of loaves like what I can. It is magic too. You got flour. You got water. You got yeast. Don’t mean nothing on their own. Not till the right person puts them together and treats ’em proper. I can do that.’

  She was gazing at him. Her eyes were dark and kindly, amused, but not in the sarky way the girls had back home.

  ‘Then what happens?’

  ‘Then you mix them together, just right, and you put them somewhere warm, somewhere they’re happy, and they can talk to one another, yeast to flour and water and the like. And you watch, if you can, and they rise. Like Jesus did. They rise and they’re all warm and soft to touch, like, like . . .’ A thought came to him and he wondered if he dared utter it. ‘Like your mum must feel when you’re a baby. And you’re hungry. These fingers . . .’

  Jason Cunningham looked at his hands. They were fine and strong, not that anyone ever noticed.

  ‘There’s life in them, my old dad said.’

  ‘There’s life in you then.’

  ‘S’poseso!’ He took a swig of the tea and swung his legs off the bed. He felt wonderful after the sleep. ‘You want to come out and have a cake or something? Don’t know where. Don’t know Venice at all.’

  ‘I haven’t finished yet,’ she said, glancing at the tube again. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Seems a long time . . .’

  The girl smiled and said nothing.

  Marco returned, brisk and businesslike. He had an envelope with money in it, a voucher for a hostel, some museum tickets, and a very good map, marked with lines and arrows to make sure Jason found his way to places.

  ‘Thank you,’ Jason said. ‘I wish doctors back home were this helpful.’

  ‘No. Thank you. If you wish to come back in three or four days for more . . .’

  The offer surprised him.

  ‘Can you do that? Take blood from people like it’s . . . milk or something?’

  Marco’s bushy eyebrows rose.

  ‘I told you, Jason. I gave you your blood back. It was just the plasma I removed. Three or four days will cause you no problems at all.’

  ‘I’ll think about that, Doc,’ he said, taking the money.

  It was bitterly cold outside but there was no wind. From the moment he stepped onto the narrow little bridge that led to the promenade he could see the sky was full of bright, twinkling stars. He felt happy, settled, for the first time in ages. Jason looked at the map and realized it would be easy to find his way to the hostel. Venice didn’t seem so difficult once it had lines and arrows attached.

  Then he thought about the girl, Camilla. He could have asked how to get in touch with her. Tried to get her phone number, not that he had a phone. An address then. Shown some interest
anyway, since she seemed, unless he were dreaming, to show some interest in him.

  If she were at a loose end maybe they could do something. If only . . .

  ‘Sod it,’ he muttered to himself, and set off for the hostel, walking towards the shape of a lustrous full moon shimmering in its own reflection on the flat black surface of the lagoon.

  The next few days disappeared in a blur of sights and sounds and experiences. With Marco’s money and free tickets in his pocket Jason Cunningham visited places that seemed to come from a mad, wild dream. Great cavernous churches with dark dusty paintings that were unlike anything he’d seen in England: bold and violent and, on occasion, full of naked flesh and all manner of suggestive notions. Astonishing palaces so grand and majestic it was impossible to believe any ordinary human being could really have lived in them. And the markets. There was one near the funny bridge called the Rialto that had so much stuff he’d had to buy a postcard, a picture of all these strange fish and vegetables, in colours that would never have been deemed edible in Yorkshire. He sent it home to Wakefield with a message for the miserable old couple in Garibaldi Street: Am all right here don’t worry.

  Like they would.

  Everywhere he went he kept his eyes peeled for Camilla. But he never saw her. There were lots of people in Venice. Locals crammed into the little alleys, heads down, never looking you in the eye. Tourists wandering around aimlessly, lost like him a lot of the time, getting in everyone’s way. Nowhere among them was the lovely slim pale-faced figure he’d hoped to see. Not that this surprised him. Jason Cunningham never thought of himself as lucky or special, except when he was in the bakery, casting a spell over the loaves-to-be.

  He travelled on the busy little boats that wove their way down the Grand Canal. Then he discovered those that sailed even further, out onto the open miniature sea that ran like a silvery hem around the crumbling, ancient skirt of the city. After a little while he didn’t even ask where they were going. He didn’t understand the answer anyway, and his ticket meant he could catch any he liked. This was, he came to understand, not a real place at all. More like a little universe of its own, without cars or motorbikes or most of the trappings of the modern world, its boundaries marked out by nothing more than the chill, lazy waters of the lagoon.

  The hostel was all right too. And the food after a while. He even found something called sarde en saor which turned out to be just like the soused herrings his dad used to make: cold pickled fish in vinegar and spices, dead delicious.

  He took to buying them from a little shop near the Zattere waterfront, getting a bit of bread from the cheery woman in the bakery next door who spoke a little English and took a bit of a shine to him when he told her he was a baker too. Then he’d sit hunched up in the cold on a bench by the Giudecca canal, watching the boats and ferries go to and fro, eating with gloved hands. The bread was good. They knew their stuff in Venice.

  Yorkshire wouldn’t leave him entirely though. And the memory of that last row, after they cashed their cheques and came home from the bank flush with money.

  ‘What you going to do with that little lot then?’ Arthur asked eagerly, unable to take his eyes off the envelope in Jason’s hand.

  ‘Still thinking.’

  Auntie Flo came out from the kitchen with three cups of tea, took a big gulp and announced, ‘Ooh . . . I’m spitting feathers.’

  She wagged a long finger at him.

  ‘No point in leaving it with men in suits, Jason. Is there? Not when they might go belly-up any moment. I don’t know. If you can’t even trust the Yorkshire Penny Bank . . .’

  ‘I never trusted them,’ Arthur declared.

  She made a rasping noise, as she usually did when she heard something she thought ridiculous, which was often.

  ‘Pah! You never trusted no one.’

  ‘Not except family,’ Arthur replied. He glanced in Jason’s direction. ‘That’s what it’s all about in the end, int’it? Family. Who else has your interests at heart?’ His foxy eyes narrowed. ‘All that dosh is burning a hole in your pocket, eh?’

  ‘No. I thought mebbe next week I’d go see the bank and ask ’em if I could get a loan to start me own bakers.’

  They laughed. And then they laughed some more, holding each other, slapping their fat sides, wiping imaginary tears from their eyes.

  ‘You’re a one, I’ll give you that,’ his uncle said when he got his breath back. ‘You? Start a business? You? On two months’ redundo?’

  ‘I said I’d get a loan.’

  ‘Our Jason knows his baking,’ Flo declared, in a way that told him there was a sizeable ‘but’ coming. ‘His dad always said that. Best bread man in the family. Shame no one’s interested in that kind of thing any more. Not when you can get it sliced and wrapped down Tesco for half the price.’

  ‘That muck’s not bread.’

  Arthur pulled his sourest of faces.

  ‘Tell that to the punters. You think them shit-fer-brains know the difference?’

  ‘Language, Arthur,’ Flo scolded him.

  ‘Well he’d make a parson swear, he would. Look at him. Nineteen years old. Got some brass in his pocket at last. And what’s he want to do? Turn the clock back. A . . . bakers.’

  ‘It were good enough for me dad.’

  ‘Yer dad’s dead!’ Arthur shouted. The room went quiet beneath his sudden outburst. ‘I’m yer dad now and I’m telling yer some home truths. It’s the twenty-first century, Jason. This country is about selling stuff, not making it. Not any more. Consumer electronics. That’s the thing.’

  ‘I don’t know nothing about electronics.’

  ‘You don’t need to. Them Koreans do all that. You just have to sell it. Now . . .’ He went over to the sideboard and took out something that looked like a shiny metallic matchbox. ‘I’ve been meaning to bring this to your attention. Can I interest you in the latest personal entertainment centre direct from the manufacturer? This little beauty does MP3 and video and you can watch telly on it too.’

  Arthur thrust the thing under his nephew’s nose. Jason refused to touch it.

  ‘Telly? I hate telly.’

  ‘I can get these from some bloke in Leeds for thirty quid a pop. They go for a hundred and fifty in the shops. We flog ’em to suckers on eBay for a hundred and we’re rolling in it. There’s lots more crap like this besides. All you need do is move four or five a day and you’re making more than you ever did in that bakers. Don’t need to get up at two in the bloody morning either.’

  ‘I like making things. Giving ’em life.’ Jason stared at the stupid little gadget. ‘Where’s the joy in that?’

  Auntie Flo sat down in the big armchair by the fire and placed her tea cup on the small nest table next to it. This was always a sign events had taken a serious turn.

  ‘Jason,’ she said with a very grave face. ‘Listen to your uncle for once. These are hard times. Families need to stick together. Blood’s thicker than water, y’know. We need to back each other up ’cos no one else will.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  Arthur took over.

  ‘Businesses need capital, lad. I can’t get me margin on these things without paying for them upfront. I need you in with me. As a partner. Fifty fifty. We’ll clean up, no problem. Provided I’ve got the dosh to get us going in the first place. Which on me own I haven’t. So . . .’ He held out his hands and made a grasping, familiar gesture with his fingers, one he used every month when it was time for Jason to pay for his board and lodging. ‘Make with the readies, eh?’

  Arthur was a big man. He often got into fights down the pub. A couple of barneys had got him in court.

  ‘This is my money, Uncle Arthur. Not yours.’

  ‘Our money. And lots more of it to come.’

  ‘No,’ Jason said simply, then thrust the brown envelope into his trouser pocket and folded his arms across his chest.

  Flo and Arthur exchanged baleful glances.

  ‘We’ve talked about this,
’ his aunt said.

  ‘Not with me you haven’t.’

  ‘We’ve talked about this,’ she continued, as if he’d never said a word, ‘and we’ve come to an agreement. We’ve looked after you like we was your own loving parents since your dad died . . .’

  ‘I paid you.’

  ‘And frankly,’ Flo went on, ‘it’s been a thankless task. You’re an odd little sod. Should have known something was up when Kathleen died having you. Like she knew what were coming and didn’t want nothing to do with it.’

  The red heat of embarrassment rose in Jason’s head. They threw this at him from time to time.

  ‘Wasn’t my fault.’

  ‘She’d still be here if it wasn’t for you, wouldn’t she? Like I said . . . you’re an odd little sod, and it’s not been easy looking after you since Ron left us. We’re both agreed, Arthur and me. If you won’t support your own family now, after all we’ve done, you can sling yer hook. We don’t need an extra mouth to feed especially if it’s one that don’t know how to say thanks.’

  Arthur was holding out his hand and making the grasping gesture.

  ‘So make with the readies,’ he said again. ‘Where else are you going to go, eh? Got no one in the world except us two, have you? Not a living soul.’

  Jason thought about it for the best part of a second then went upstairs and got out the rucksack he’d bought for the brief holiday he’d taken the previous year, camping on his own in Keswick. He packed the money and found his passport. It had been used just once, when they made him come along on a package deal to Fuengirola, which he’d hated, and not just because it seemed to cost an awful lot of his money. He picked out his favourite clothes and folded them neatly into the rucksack with his passport. The cash went into a nylon belt with a big pocket that he’d bought for Spain.