Just Joshua

by Jan Michael

  ‘How much?’ Millie demanded, jiggling about. ‘I got two, so did Tom, Robert got one and Solomon three.’

  Joshua unfolded his fist. ‘Five,’ he breathed.

  ‘Wow!’

  ‘Let’s get some chocolate,’ he suggested. He was feeling generous and wanted to share his good fortune. He didn’t think his father would mind.

  Solomon beamed and began to nod. Joshua tapped Solomon’s head gently to stop it nodding, took his hand, and off they went, back towards the jetty and to the small shop at the crossroads.

  They clustered around the counter where a small display of sweets and chocolates sheltered in the corner furthest from the sun. The shopkeeper sat in the shadows, sipping his tea and keeping a careful eye on his young customers. Joshua’s hand hovered over the bars of chocolate, then pounced, picking up two of the same kind. He held out his money to the shopkeeper who relieved him of two coins.

  Turning away from the counter, the little group went into a huddle. Joshua pulled off the wrapper from the first bar and peeled back the silver paper. He broke off squares, one at a time, and handed them round. He waited till everyone had finished chewing and sucking and then shared out the other bar, keeping back two squares which he wrapped up neatly in the silver paper and put in his pocket.

  ‘See you later,’ he said and ran home. His father was still sitting on a stool behind the counter in the empty shop, exactly as he had left him earlier. There were no customers. Joshua went behind the counter and slid the chocolate along to his father.

  ‘Chocolate, Dad. Look.’

  When his father didn’t respond, he undid the silver paper and pressed it into his hand. He licked his fingers where the chocolate had melted.

  His father swung his head round and looked at him, the dullness in his eyes lifting for a moment.

  ‘You’re a good boy.’

  ‘Eat it,’ Joshua urged. ‘Before it melts. Go on.’

  Obediently, his father put the chocolate in his mouth. Joshua waited for him to ask how he had got hold of it.

  But his father didn’t ask. He didn’t seem to be interested. With a sigh, Joshua put the remaining three coins down on the counter and pushed them in front of him.

  ‘Good lad,’ his father said. ‘Fetch me some toddy.’

  Joshua didn’t move.

  His father’s voice tightened. ‘Hurry up. It’s in the corner.’

  Joshua knew very well where the toddy was kept. Since the riot over Pig, his father had been drinking it a lot. There was a mug on the floor beside the jar. He filled it and took it to him.

  ‘No customers?’

  What was left of the last pig looked forlorn in the counter. They had thrown some away the night before. Hardly anyone came to buy meat now. Not since the trouble.

  ‘None,’ his father answered. ‘We’ll have to get rid of the lot tonight.’

  Joshua went out of the shop, leaving him brooding. He breathed in deeply and began to hum, determined not to be miserable. The humming turned to singing, which gave him an idea. He went into the house, pulled out the box from under his bed and took rattles from it: one was a big matchbox containing hard, red seeds; the other made from half a coconut shell filled with small cowrie shells he’d collected on the beach, with a thin bit of wood nailed down over it. He shook the box and then the shell. The shell was louder and sharper, but both were good rattles, the best he’d ever made. At the doorway he hesitated, then went back inside, picked up the comb from the shelf and pocketed it, along with a thin piece of paper which he folded carefully.

  ‘I’m going to Robert’s.’ He put his head through the fishnet curtain and told his father quickly, running off before he could be stopped.

  Robert and his family were eating. Robert’s mother looked up and saw Joshua standing there. ‘Hello, Joshua. Come and sit down. Move up, Robert.’

  Robert shuffled along the bench, making a place for him. On his other side was Sister Martha, a teacher from the convent where they went to school. She and Robert’s mother were cousins. They even looked a bit alike, at least, from what you could see of Sister Martha, which wasn’t much – only her face and hands. Everything else was covered up by her nun’s white habit. She offered him a bit of banana from her plate and he took it eagerly.

  Robert’s mother noticed. ‘Haven’t you eaten?’

  He shook his head.

  She sighed. ‘Miriam, fetch another plate.’

  When Robert’s sister returned, she went round the table, taking half a spoonful of rice from one plate, a bit of fish from another, fried plantain from another, till Joshua had a plateful.

  ‘There now,’ she said, presenting it to him. ‘Eat.’

  He put his rattles down on the ground and took it. ‘Thank you,’ he mumbled.

  ‘He’s drinking too much,’ he heard Robert’s mother mutter to Sister Martha.

  Joshua stiffened. He began to shovel in the food.

  ‘It’s a shame. At least he’d always been such a good father.’

  ‘He still is!’ he wanted to shout. He was pretty certain his father would have given him supper if he’d stayed. At least, he thought so. He put down his plate and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Hey, Robert!’ he called. ‘Why don’t we go and play to the tourists.’ He didn’t like to hear his father criticised. He wanted to get away. Now.

  Solomon leapt to his feet. ‘Yes!’ he cried and scampered indoors, Miriam and Tony close on his heels.

  Robert groaned when the three of them ran out with an assortment of home-made instruments, jars and bottles and a length of tin lids threaded on a stick. ‘Do you lot really have to come?’

  ‘Yes, yes!’ they cried, jumping up and down.

  ‘Take them, Robert,’ his mother said. ‘Sister Martha and Leon and I could do with some peace.’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ Robert agreed, grudgingly.

  ‘Yeah!’ Solomon cheered.

  Joshua was pleased. The more the better, he thought.

  On the way, they picked up Tom and Millie. Tom had a tin and a stick, Millie a stick with tins nailed to it that clattered as they walked.

  Some of the tourists were gathered outside the Gola, drinks in hand, smoking and chatting. Others sat on tall bar stools on the other side of the open windows.

  Robert took charge. ‘Sing your market song, Joshua,’ he commanded, ‘they won’t know.’ He took Joshua’s coconut rattle and began to shake it to mark time. He nudged Miriam who lifted a bottle to her lips and blew across it with a soft moaning sound. Joshua opened his mouth and sang just as he did in the market:

  ‘Ranel, koli-kuttu, anamulu, ripe bananas,

  caraboa, minnie mangoes and gundoo.

  Tasty tight tomatoes,

  tamarinds and paw paw.

  Passion peaches, mellow mangoes,

  bent bananas, buy these too!’

  Millie took up Robert’s rhythm with her stick of tin lids. Tom pushed his stick through his tin. Solomon blew his bottle then put it down and broke into a capering sort of dance. The tourists didn’t know that this was just a market chant, but they clearly liked the sound, so the children played it over again, beaming at each other, pleased at the strangers’ reactions. Joshua looked up at the windows of the hotel bar; the woman who had talked to him was leaning over one of the sills. She smiled and waved at him when he caught her eye. The man came into view beside her. She nudged him and pointed and they gazed intently down at Joshua.

  ‘Let’s do the river song,’ Millie said, ‘Can we, Josh? Josh? Will you sing it?’

  Joshua looked away from the window and nodded. It was a village favourite. He sang one verse, then put the comb, which he had covered with thin paper, to his mouth and blew. At that point the others joined in, one by one. They played an accompaniment as he sang the next verse. It was a slow, wailing sort of melody about a woman looking for her drowned lover. Joshua concentrated hard on the words. They were so sad, he felt his eyes begin to prick.

  Halfway through, the tu
ne changed and became lively. He stopped singing and swapped his comb for Solomon’s bottle and they both played, notes tumbling from them till even the tourists began to jig.

  Millie went around with her skirt held out in front and the tourists put coins in it. They finished up with a fishing chant. By this time Solomon was falling asleep and the tourists were fading away, heading for boats to take them back to the ship. Millie shared out the coins and they all went home.

  Joshua’s father was sitting on their step, one arm thrown around Pig’s neck. He stopped stroking it when he saw Joshua. ‘Been waiting for you,’ he said, his voice slurred from too much toddy.

  Joshua put the small pile of coins down on the step.

  ‘G’ boy,’ his father said. ‘You’re a g’ boy to me.’ He began to cry. He stopped and wiped his eyes. ‘’s time for bed.’

  ‘I know,’ Joshua said. He put a hand out to help his father. ‘Come on.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Sit. Move along, Pig.’ He pushed the carving along, making room, and patted the step. ‘First sit. ‘ve been making decisions. Want to tell you. Sit.’

  Joshua sat.

  ‘No more pig,’ his father said, ‘but plenty of fish, plenty. Most days,’ he added. ‘I’ll smoke whaz over. Smoke it and sell it. I’ll talk to whaz-his-name tomorrow – you know, to …’

  ‘To Leon?’ Joshua asked, guessing.

  His father nodded. ‘Leon. Thaz right. Thaz the man. Going to talk to him ‘bout it tomorrow.’

  He did too. In the morning, through one half-opened eye Joshua watched his father get up and dress. He even walked part of the way to school with Joshua. When they reached the beach he peeled off, calling to Leon.

  Out in the bay, the cruise ship hooted and began to sail away majestically.

  When Joshua came home in the afternoon, he gave the shop a wide berth, not wanting to find his father slumped over the counter again.

  ‘Hey! I’m in here!’

  He halted and retraced his steps. The counter was empty.

  ‘I’ve had a busy day,’ his father told him, reaching up and vigorously cleaning a meat hook.

  Joshua stared. The shop gleamed as it hadn’t for weeks. There was only the faintest trace of a meat smell in the air.

  ‘Leon’s agreed to sell me the surplus fish. I’ll smoke it. I’ve got a big metal drum to do the smoking in. And I’ve been to see Oliver at the Gola. He says he’ll buy dried fish. Fetch me some fresh water, will you?’

  You’ll be a kind of fisherman. And you aren’t drunk, Joshua thought happily, taking the bucket his father held out to him.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A page torn from an exercise book lifted in the wind and was blown back and forth till it finally settled in a patch of cracked, curling whitewash on a flat stone roof. The ink on the page was smudged and faded. Sounds of chairs scraping on hard floor, of chalk tapping on the blackboard drifted up from the row of classrooms beneath, each one open to the verandah that ran alongside. In the third classroom along, Joshua brushed his hair out of his eyes and fidgeted. He put the point of his pencil into the wood of his desk, his mind only half on the lesson.

  ‘New tribes came up from the south in about 1800 …’

  He dug the pencil in and drew it along the grain of the old wood. He pressed it harder and pulled the pencil down towards him, then up again until it formed a leg.

  At his side, Robert nudged him and pointed at the blackboard where a nun was chalking lines and arrows on a map. Joshua copied them quickly into his exercise book, then returned his attention to the wood. He drew a line to the left, bumping over the grooves of an earlier carving of someone’s name.

  Robert leaned across and continued the picture.

  Joshua took over again, beginning to draw a robe. He sniggered quietly.

  ‘Joshua? Well?’ The nun was looking straight at Joshua, her eyebrows raised.

  Joshua looked up uncertainly at his teacher. He put the pencil down very carefully. ‘Er, you asked … I mean …’ He was floundering.

  ‘How many … migrations … were,’ hissed the boy on the other side of the aisle.

  Joshua looked helplessly at him. He’d only heard a few of the whispered words. He tried to answer the nun anyway. ‘Er, two, Sister.’

  The boy shook his head and mouthed something.

  ‘Three,’ he said, changing his answer.

  Sister Mary looked at him steadily. ‘If you’d been listening instead of defacing school property, you would have known the answer. Can anyone tell him?’ she appealed to the rest of the class.

  ‘Five, Sister,’ called out a few voices.

  ‘That’s right. Five, Joshua,’ she repeated to him. ‘There’s an empty desk up here at the front. Perhaps you would care to fill it? On your own, without Robert, so that you can attend to the lesson?’

  Joshua sighed heavily and got up, gathering his books together.

  ‘And no more decorating desks, young man.’

  Joshua drew up the chair at the desk she had indicated and nodded, chastened. He hadn’t thought she’d seen.

  ‘Now,’ Sister Mary announced, coming down from the teacher’s platform, ‘I’m going to give out the papers for today’s test.’ They always had a test on their first Friday back at school after the holidays

  A sheet of questions fluttered on to his desk. He put out a hand to stop it and began to read.

  ‘You have half an hour to answer the questions. Do your best.’

  Joshua knew the answers to the first two questions – they were easy. Quickly he wrote ‘green’ and ‘head, thorax and abdomen’. But he wasn’t sure about the next one: what is the definition of an isthmus? He chewed a bit off the end of his pencil and spat it out quickly, remembering. But in his hurry to get down the answer, he pressed too hard on the paper and broke what was left of the point.

  He pushed back his chair and stood up. ‘Please may I sharpen my pencil?’

  Sister Mary nodded.

  Joshua crossed to the other side of the classroom. The folding doors that ran along the length of the classroom were opened back so that there was plenty of air. By the front pillar was an oil drum where they put their pencil sharpenings and other rubbish. He took one of the two razor blades from the shelf above, pressed it carefully into the wood of his pencil and began sharpening the tip with steady, outward strokes.

  ‘Psst!’ Robert appeared on the other side of the bin. He reached up for the other blade. They grinned at each other.

  ‘Do you know the answer to number eight?’ Robert whispered.

  ‘Number eight? Haven’t got there yet. What is it?’

  A voice came from the teacher’s platform: ‘Joshua! Robert! No talking, please. I don’t want to have to tell you again.’

  Joshua wrinkled his nose at Robert and they went back to their sharpening. But they weren’t concentrating. Robert jabbed his blade hard at the pencil. It came away at an angle and sliced into Joshua’s elbow.

  It happened so fast that Joshua didn’t notice the blade going in. He felt no pain. Not until he saw Robert staring at him and saw the blood drip into the waste paper and shavings below.

  ‘Sister Mary!’

  The nun looked up at Robert’s cry, realised what had happened, and pushed back her chair.

  ‘Oh, Joshua! How could you be so careless, that’s what comes of talking at the bin. You know you shouldn’t …’ She was bustling down from the dais, talking all the while. ‘We’ll have to take you to have it cleaned and stitched. Maybe they’ll give you an injection; you might get lockjaw or blood poisoning or something. Come along, we have to bring you to the hospital.’

  At the word hospital, Joshua dropped the pencil and blade in the bin and was out of the classroom before anyone could stop him, running for dear life, down the steps and across the yard. Sister Mary in her long habit had no chance of catching him. He was terrified. He didn’t want to die. He ran out on to the path and headed for home.

  ‘Whoa!’ his father said
as he rushed by him. ‘What’s up with you? Why aren’t you at school?’ Then he caught sight of the blood crusting Joshua’s elbow. ‘Oh, Josh, what have you done?’ He turned away from the old oil drum where he’d been smoking fish and took Joshua’s arm to examine it.

  ‘Ow.’ Joshua began to cry. Now that he was standing still, the wound had begun to throb.

  ‘That’s a nasty cut. How did you get it?’

  ‘Robert cut me. By accident. We were sharpening our pencils.’

  ‘Couldn’t they bandage it up for you at school?’

  Joshua shook his head. He didn’t want to tell his father about the threat of hospital.

  ‘Well, we’d better clean it up, hadn’t we?’ He put a sacking cover over the drum and went to wash his hands at the standpipe. ‘Come on.’ When Joshua hesitated, he added, ‘We need to go to the sea.’

  ‘Not to Mama Siska?’ Old Mama Siska often took care of the villagers. ‘Or to –’ he avoided the word.

  ‘I don’t think so. Good, clean salt water will be enough. Almost.’ He went inside and brought out the small box of salve that he made himself and they went to the beach, Joshua still sniffing.

  Joshua flinched as the salt stung the wound. ‘Hold still, it won’t take much longer.’ His father dipped his hand in the water again and the shoal of tiny fish that darted in the shallows divided and then regrouped as if the giant interruption hadn’t happened. ‘Now, bend your arm so I can see into the cut.’

  Joshua did so.

  ‘It’s very deep.’ His father smeared salve around the wound, then took a handkerchief from his pocket, worn but clean, and tied it tightly around the elbow. ‘There. That’ll do.’ He cupped water in his hands and pressed it to Joshua’s face. ‘Better now?’ he asked, stepping back.

  Joshua managed a smile.

  ‘Come on, then.’ His father put an arm round him and led him home. ‘Here.’ He gave Joshua half a mango and brought Pig outside. ‘Sit quietly with Pig for a while and eat this.’

  Joshua rested his arm on Pig’s back as he slowly chewed the juicy mango.