by Jan Michael
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
In the shadows Swabber skulked, tail half raised. His wounds had healed and he was hungry. He licked his lips, staring into the pool of light. The smell of fried fish filled the air. He raised his muzzle and whined.
Joshua looked up from his eating. His father was watching him, as intently as a cat might a mouse, with an odd look on his face. His plate was full but he hadn’t touched his food.
‘What is it, Dad?’
‘Nothing,’ his father answered.
Joshua went back to his supper, spooning up a bit of rice here, a bit of mackerel there, some beans. The clinking of his spoon against the enamel plate sounded loud in the stillness. The last morsel was on its way to his mouth when he saw a spasm cross his father’s face.
‘Dad? ‘Are you all right, Dad?’
‘Yes.’ But his father’s voice was strained, tinged with pain. He pushed the untouched plate from him and it fell to the ground.
Swabber whined and crept forward.
‘Dad?’ Joshua stood up in alarm.
The dog flattened himself on the ground.
His father waved one arm in the air in an attempt at reassurance. ‘Not hungry,’ he said. ‘Feel a bit sick. It’ll pass.’ With that a grimace shot across his face. He folded his arms across his stomach and rocked backward and forward, groaning.
Joshua was at his side. ‘What can I do? Will I call someone? Mama Siska?’
‘No, no. I’ll be all right in the morning. Just help me to bed, there’s a good boy.’
Joshua looped his father’s arm over his shoulders and helped him to his feet. Together they staggered up the steps, his father leaning heavily on him.
Behind them, Swabber edged towards the plate. He sniffed it once, then wolfed everything down, licking the plate clean before he limped back into the shadows.
Joshua’s father got into bed fully dressed. ‘I’m cold,’ he said, shivering. ‘Make me some tea, will you, Joshua?’ He groaned as another stab of pain hit him. ‘Tea,’ he repeated.
Joshua half filled the kettle and lit the spirit heater. He squatted beside it, willing it to boil quickly, his heart pounding. ‘Let him be all right,’ he found himself praying with all his might. ‘Oh God, let Dad be all right.’
When he went back in with the tea he took the cotton cover from his own bed and put it over his father’s and sat with him while he drank the hot liquid.
His father smiled wanly at him. ‘I’ll be fine, Josh.’ He patted his hand. ‘You go to bed. Go to sleep. Goodnight.’ He pulled Joshua to him and kissed him on the forehead.
‘Goodnight, Dad,’ Joshua said, subdued. He lay down on his bed, still in his clothes. He decided to stay awake all night in case his father needed him. But after a short while he fell into a deep sleep. He woke in the middle of the night to the barking of a dog, the sour smell of vomit and the sound of his father’s moans.
He scrambled up. His father was half in bed, half on the floor. Somehow he managed to push him back in. His father was muttering something. ‘What? What did you say? Dad?’ Joshua bent closer to listen. ‘What?’ He shook his father gently. He didn’t understand the words; they sounded like another language. And his father no longer seemed to recognise him.
Joshua went back to his own bed and sat on the edge, not sure what to do. He got up and stood over his father. ‘I’m going for Robert’s mother,’ he said.
His father didn’t react. Joshua felt panic rising. He tore down the steps, across the clearing and up the steps to Robert’s house. He burst into the room, gasping, ‘Help! Please come! Dad’s sick. He can’t talk to me. Oh, please …’
Almost immediately Robert’s mother was at his side, pulling a dress over her head. ‘What’s this?’
He began to cry. She gripped him tightly. ‘Josh, what is it?’
‘Dad’s ill.’ he gulped. ‘I’m scared.’
Robert appeared and stood close to Joshua. Now the entire family was awake; in the background a baby cried and another voice soothed it. Leon joined them.
Robert’s mother had taken charge. ‘Robert, go and fetch old Mama Siska.’ she ordered. ‘Quick.’
Robert was out and away.
‘Now, Joshua, come with me. Leon, will you come?’ She raised her voice. ‘Miriam, look after the baby.’
‘You stay here.’ Leon spoke to Solomon, who was gazing at Joshua with enormous sleep-filled eyes, his thumb glued to his mouth.
Joshua reached his father’s bed first. There was no change. He stood aside for her. ‘I don’t understand what he’s saying,’ he said.
‘They’re not words I know,’ Robert’s mother said, listening. She looked askance at him. ‘Maybe they’re mountain words.’
He stared at her. What if he was wrong after all? What if his father really was a mountain man? ‘Will he be okay?’
‘Where is Mama Siska?’ she asked, not answering.
‘Here I am.’ The old lady shuffled into the house. She looked once, piercingly, at Joshua. ‘Go and stand with Robert at the door,’ she ordered. He backed off as she bent over the figure in the bed.
After that everything happened very quickly. From the doorway he watched old Mama Siska prodding and talking, and saw her head nod at some suggestion of Leon’s. Leon pushed past them and Joshua didn’t dare ask where he was going. He came back with three other men. One was Simon. Joshua rushed over to his father and stood with his back to him, protecting him. ‘No!’ he cried. ‘You can’t take him!’
‘Don’t be silly, Josh,’ Robert’s mother said. ‘Let them get him out of bed.’
‘Yes. Hospital’s the best place. They’ll know what to do with him there.’
Joshua squirmed out from under their arms and blocked them. ‘Mama Siska!’ he appealed.
‘Simon’s right,’ she said gently. ‘It is your father’s only chance.’ But she avoided his eyes.
‘No-ooo.’ he howled, and head-butted a man who was approaching the bed.
The man batted him aside like a wasp.
Leon held him. ‘Listen, Joshua –’
‘No! You can’t take him to the hospital, you can’t.’
‘He’ll get care there.’ Another voice. Another pair of hands.
‘No!’ He bit the hand that was restraining him and it fell from his shoulders, the owner cursing. Joshua kicked and struggled. He had to save his father.
But it was no use. The men had his father now and were already bearing him from the room. He couldn’t fight any more. They didn’t understand. His despair turned to grief and he ran to Robert’s mother, crying.
‘He’ll be lonely. He’ll die,’ he sobbed, ‘I know he’ll die.’
She held him close and led him back to his bed. He closed his eyes. What would happen to him if his father died? Robert and Milllie and Tom had uncles and aunts and cousins. All he had was his father.
Robert’s mother stroked his cheek gently. He was glad she was there. Maybe he could go to live with Robert and her and their family. She had so many children; maybe there’d be room for just one more, he thought. ‘Don’t let Dad die,’ he prayed silently, ‘don’t let him.’
He felt her draw the cover up to his chin. She stayed with him till she thought he was asleep, but he was only pretending. There was a cold, heavy lump inside him that made him think he would never sleep again. After she left he rolled himself into a tight ball and prayed even harder.
When he opened his eyes again it was morning and Robert’s mother was back. Joshua sat up in bed and scanned her face anxiously. What news was she bringing?
She sat on his bed and held out her arms to him. ‘He died on the operating table, Josh. It was too late,’ she said.
Mountain man, he thought miserably. So his father really had been a mountain man. He should have stopped them. No mountain man came out of the hospital alive.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Joshua sat on the top step of his house, head down, his chin in his hands, a plate of food at his side. Behind him, in
the clearing, Robert’s mother approached, the younger children bobbing in her wake like ducklings. When she reached the shop she stopped, turned and shooed them away.
She was at the bottom step before Joshua noticed her. He smiled wanly.
She hugged him and he started to cry again. She held him close and rocked him till he grew calmer. ‘Couldn’t you eat your breakfast?’ She’d made it for him earlier before going off to look after her family.
He shook his head. ‘I’m not hungry.’
‘No? Well.’ She got to her feet and put out a hand to him. ‘Come on, let’s make some coffee. Show me where the things are kept. Come on, love.’
He took down the jars of coffee and sugar from the shelf, the spoons, his mug, then his father’s. She lit the stove outside. He brought water in the kettle and put it on to boil. The familiar movements were comforting.
‘Make enough for three,’ she said, bringing out the spare mug. ‘Sister Martha is joining us.’
By the time the water was boiled, Sister Martha had arrived. Joshua handed the women their coffee and sat on the step between them, nursing his mug. For a while no one spoke.
‘What’s going to happen to me?’ he burst out finally, turning to Robert’s mother. ‘Can I come and live with you?’
She opened her mouth but it was Sister Martha who answered first. ‘You’re going to come to us,’ she said.
His head swivelled round to her.
‘At the convent,’ she went on. She was smiling gently. ‘We’ll take care of you.’
‘With the orphans?’
‘Yes,’ she answered briskly. ‘Would you like that?’
He turned back to Robert’s mother. ‘Am I an orphan?’ he appealed to her.
‘Yes,’ she answered.
He digested that.
‘Why can’t I come and live with you?’
‘We haven’t got room for another, my love. But you can come round and see us as often as you like.’
Sister Martha put her hand gently on his arm. One short hair on her forehead had escaped the tight white band of her headdress and was fluttering in the air. She was smiling. Joshua decided that he liked Sister Martha. ‘Can Pig come too?’ he asked.
‘Of course he can.’ She put down the tin mug. ‘Now, I have to go back. I’ve got things to do. I’ll see you soon, all right? Come when you’re ready.’ She leaned over and kissed him on the top of his head, then went down the steps and left them.
Robert’s mother sighed, then smiled brightly at Joshua. ‘You’ll be fine,’ she reassured him. ‘Come on now. Let’s get your things together for the convent.’
He trailed inside after her. He didn’t have much: his rattles, his book of fruit, his spare pair of shorts and a shirt, a tatty vest, his enamel plate and mug.
When she asked if she could have the other plate and mug – his father’s – Joshua nodded dumbly, and said that she could have the spare mug and the good glasses too, and anything else she wanted. But he took his father’s best shirt and his cracked leather belt.
‘Then I’ll give Leon his shorts,’ she said, ‘they’re far too big for you.’ He knew they were, and he nodded again.
They took the sheets and pillow cases off the beds and used one of the pillow cases to put his things in.
‘And Pig,’ Joshua said. Pig was in his usual nighttime place at the door, his back shiny from being leant against and stroked.
Joshua took hold of one leg and pulled Pig out of the doorway and on to the top step. Bump. Another bump, and he was on the ground.
‘Hold on.’ She took hold of another leg. They carried the wooden animal awkwardly across the clearing.
Robert and Millie ran up. ‘I have a job for you two,’ she said. ‘Help Joshua take his stuff to the convent, and then come back here. I’ll make some chocolatey biscuits, the ones you like so much, as a treat. Sister Martha will let you come too,’ she added, seeing Joshua’s face fall again. ‘Tell her I asked you.’
Joshua woke up drowsily to the sound of water slapping on stone and a light breeze across his face. For a moment he had a fantasy that he was in the bedroom with the balcony at the Gola hotel, but when he opened his eyes and saw another bed next to his and one beyond that, he remembered. It was his second morning waking in this bed. He closed his eyes again. He and the six other orphans slept together in a dormitory beyond the nuns’ quarters, at the tip of the L-shaped building. One side of the room was open – just like the classrooms – and an open-air corridor ran alongside it. There were glass sliding doors, but Marius, who slept in the next bed, had shown Joshua the rusty runners and told him that the doors were never pulled closed. When the rains came, the beds on that side were simply pushed into the middle of the room. Between the convent and the classrooms was the school playground, and beyond that lay the sea. The sound he heard had been the sea hitting against the sea wall. High tide, he thought.
He didn’t mind being in the orphanage. It was safe. He liked having his own locker at the side of the bed. He’d put his clothes in it and his book. Pig spent the night within reach too, in front of the locker door, and in the daytime he guarded the foot of the bed. Joshua planned to go back and pick up the carvings – he hadn’t wanted to when Robert’s mother was there – so that he could put them in the locker as well.
Marius snuffled in his sleep and Joshua turned over. Vincent was on the other side; he was only four, and all you could see of him was the top of his head peeping out from under the sheet. The three girls were in the row on the far side of the room. Catherine, Marius’s older sister, lay sprawled out on top of the sheet. She said she preferred it that way. Joshua was the oldest of all the orphans. Out of school hours he could play with his old friends, Sister Martha had said; they didn’t have to be from the convent. No harm, she said. Anyway, they had two weeks’ holiday now.
In some ways, life wasn’t so different from before, Joshua thought. Except that he misssed his father so much. It was strange not to hear his father’s snores and grunts from the other side of the room, not to hear the rustling of insects and lizards in the palm leaves above their heads. Memories of the night his father had died came rushing into his head.
Perhaps if he hadn’t kept the carvings his father would not have died. Or – he thought back further – maybe if Father Peter hadn’t forgotten to bless the front of the shop none of the trouble with Pig would have started, and his father wouldn’t have become ill.
No, it wasn’t that, he thought miserably, punching a fist into his pillow; it was the carvings. His father had told him quite clearly to throw away the carvings and he hadn’t. That would have been important if his father was a mountain man. It was all his fault.
He burrowed into his pillow.
‘Up, Joshua! Come on now!’
Sister Martha. He opened his eyes. He must have fallen asleep again. The others were up and waiting for him. He scrambled out and stood beside his bed.
‘Ready, sleepyhead?’ Sister Martha asked.
He joined his hands together and closed his eyes.
‘God bless to us this day,’ she said.
‘And ourselves to His service, Amen.’ They all replied in unison.
‘Breakfast in ten minutes. Hurry up now.’
There were three wash basins at the end of the dormitory, with running water, and lavatories that flushed. Joshua put the plug in one of the basins and wet his face half-heartedly. After breakfast, he resolved, he would go back to the shop and pick up the carvings.
‘Move over.’ Marius nudged him. ‘It’s my turn.’
Joshua grinned wickedly and hit the water with the flat of his hand, spraying Marius, who splashed back, even harder.
‘Hey!’ Catherine protested from the next basin along as the water hit her. She cupped her hands in her basin and sloshed back, just at the same time as Joshua. They both caught Marius.
Marius didn’t think it was funny any more. Joshua and Catherine ran headlong out of the room, giggling, with Marius in chase. A
t the bottom of the stairs Sister Mary was waiting. ‘Is that the way to come downstairs?’ she chided them as they landed at her feet in a tumble. ‘Good morning,’ she greeted them.
They straightened themselves quickly. ‘Good morning, Sister Mary,’ they chorused and fell in behind her, walking sedately to the refectory.
After breakfast Joshua went back to his house. As he jumped up the steps a sudden hope flared in his heart – perhaps his father would be there?
He wasn’t, of course. Joshua stood in the middle of the room, taking in the scene: the beds with no sheets, the bare shelf, the single rickety chair. Someone had taken down the cotton curtain over the door. The place looked empty, unlived-in. He swallowed to fight the lump in his throat and blinked hard. It was home no more.
He trudged round to the shop, mechanically reaching out to pull aside the fishnet curtain. That too had been removed.
Nothing else had been touched. A knife lay rusting on the table where his father had left it, and there were still a couple of fish beneath the counter.
‘Whew!’ Joshua pinched his nostrils tight. The fish stank. He went to the carton at the back of the shop and looked in. The box with the carvings was still there! He lifted it out and set it down on the corner of the chopping table. He took out the snake and the four-legged creature, pulled his shirt out of his shorts and used the bottom of it to polish them. When he was satisfied, he put them back in the box, picked it up and looked around.
He spotted the crocheted cover that old Mama Siska had said his mother had made. He reached in over the smelly fish and plucked it out. He stuffed it in his pocket and left. He didn’t look back.
Millie and Tom materialised out of nowhere. Then Robert, and Solomon and Miriam. It was as if they’d been waiting for him. But Joshua didn’t want to be distracted, and he went on walking. Robert and Millie and Tom fell into step with him, and the other two tagged on behind.
‘Where are you taking that?’ Robert asked, noticing the box.
‘He’s taking it to the convent, silly,’ Millie said. ‘We’ll come with you, shall we, Josh? Then we can play.’
