The Black Joke

by David Bramhall

  Chapter 33

  He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds (Psalm 147)

  How good and how pleasant it is to dwell together (Psalm 133)

  Rosella lay on a bed of dry branches and bracken, with Pert's coat over her. Beside her a little fire burned fitfully, smoking slightly, and from time to time she would lean and put an extra twig on it, ekeing out their small store with care for it took Pert a long while to gather suitably dry material, searching in the leaf litter up the combe. Over her head the cave arched, with ferns dropping from crevices. Bats lived further in towards the back of the cave, and watching them fly out at dusk and back again at first light was one of her entertainments. She had lain thus for a week or more, slowly gaining strength.

  Their first meal in this place had been a grim experience. Pert had found some gull's eggs, and had tried to cook them by cracking them onto a flat stone heated in the fire. The result had been a leathery pancake of gritty substance that tasted of fish and feathers and made her gag, but it had gone down and stayed down and presumably done some good. They had experimented with raw egg beaten in the shell, and that had been even worse.

  The fire was a great triumph, and they were careful never to let it go out. It had taken many hours for Pert, hunkered down over a little heap of dry twigs and grass, to coax a spark from a stone when he struck it with his knife, and then to nurture the feeble flame until finally it caught. He had searched for most of a morning to find the right kind of stone, but he was discovering reserves of patience he had not suspected before.

  After a couple of days his patience had been rewarded in another way, when he managed to snag a rabbit. Further up the combe it opened out into a broad plateau where rabbits had made a colony. So unused to humans were they that Pert had been able to walk slowly among them and simply pick one up, but then had not known how to kill it. In the end he gritted his teeth, held it by the hind legs and swung it against a rock, and had nearly thrown up when he felt the legs stretching and moving in his hand long after it was dead.

  They had cooked it – or rather, Pert had cooked it, for Rosella could not sit up yet, let alone move about – by spearing it with a stick and holding it over the fire. The meat had been alternately burned to a crisp and practically raw, but again it had served its purpose.

  Water was a problem. They had plenty, for there was a small spring of perfectly fresh water a little higher up the hill, water that had fallen as rain at the top of the cliff and then spent weeks draining down through the rock to appear as a welcome trickle among the trees that relied on it. But carrying it was another matter. Folded leaves had been a failure, the water draining away before Pert could get it back to the cave. In the end he had taken his trousers off, soaked them in the rivulet and made Rosella suck the water from the cloth. If she felt revolted at the thought of sucking his trousers she didn't show it but had drunk ravenously and sent him back for more. Later he had stumbled on a piece of tin, thrown from the top or blown here by the gale perhaps, and had bent the edges up to make a shallow bowl after first scrubbing it clean with water and gravel.

  She lay back and sighed with content. Outside the breeze blew gently, whisking away the smoke from the fire. At the mouth of the cave there was a clump of foxgloves, and a bee was droning its way from one flower to another. She hoped it would go safely home before the bats stirred. She could see a patch of blue sky, and beneath it just a sliver of sea gleaming in the sunlight which would not reach the mouth of the cave until late in the afternoon. When the weather served, she and Pert watched the sunset, she lying back in her bed and he beside her, stroking her hair and not thinking of anything. She felt really happy then.

  The first night when he had found her lying head down in the tree was a dreadful time. He thought she was dying, that she had hung on just long enough for him to find her, and would now slip away and leave him so that he would have to go through the agony a second time. He had pulled her down to the ground with great care, but even so her face showed that every movement was insufferable pain. Then he had cradled her in his arms and done his best to keep her warm through the night, not sleeping himself but revelling in her weak warm breath on his throat. Every faint puff of air meant another ten seconds in which she had not died, and they were together. Since he was a little boy he had dreamed of holding her in his arms, but he had never imagined it would be quite like this, the cold wind rushing over them and the hard bright stars slowly wheeling and nowhere warm to go.

  He had tried to fix a wood splint to her leg, but she screamed whenever he touched it. In the end they had decided it was not really broken, just wrenched, for she could still move her toes and even her whole leg with a tremendous effort, her eyes screwed up with pain. Over the days there had been a small improvement, and the leg no longer looked so unnatural.

  Her yellow dress, almost her only garment, had been torn to shreds in the fall. He had removed it from her, dried it in the sun with stones on it to stop it blowing away, and had even attempted some rudimentary repairs with a rabbit-bone needle and some thin roots pulled from the ground, but the result pleased neither of them. She had not complained when he took the dress. He had tenderly washed her wounds with water and a scrap of cloth, and had spat into some of the deeper cuts, having heard somewhere that there were things in spit that would hinder infection.

  But Rosella was young and strong, and she now had food to eat, however revolting it might taste, and clean water and fresh air. And she had Pert, her quiet, patient, determined nurse who loved her and never for a moment wavered in his care. Her face was still a mass of bruises and scratches, her left eye swollen almost shut, her cheek gashed, and her lips puffed and split, but he remembered her only as she had been that day on the hill, with the sun on her hair and the turquoise tails twitching.

  Pert returned, carrying more firewood and a dead rabbit. He was getting good with rabbits now, having found how they would die quickly if you just twisted their necks. He felt this was more seemly than bashing them on a rock. He had nothing against rabbits, benign and trusting creatures, and did not wish to subject them to more indignity than he had to. He had tried to catch other things, but without success. Bats he ignored as there would be so little meat on them, but he did wonder if a plump herring gull might make a meal, or perhaps one of the black and white guillemots, their long black feet so awkward on the ledges where they sat tending their solitary chicks. But they were all too wary, taking off long before he got close, and the idea of taking a helpless guillemot chick seemed unfair. What would the poor parents do when they came back to find the empty ledge? He could not bring himself to do it. He knew how he would feel if he came back to the cave one day and found that Rosella had vanished. She was his child now, and he could imagine their pain. Rabbits were different, they had lots of babies. In any case a guillemot chick would probably taste horribly of fish.

  One day he came back to the cave with firewood and eggs and found her sobbing in the bed, great tears rolling unchecked down her face. He put down his load and ran to her, holding her head. “Oh Pert,” she whispered, “I wet myself!” He kissed her and stroked her hair till the tears stopped, and then set about undressing her. He had thought so many times about her body, but when it came to it the pale limbs so wounded and twisted, and the lacerated skin of her back and chest and stomach, made it impersonal. He took water and a piece of cloth and sponged her, and pulled the bed to pieces and remade it with fresh bracken, and covered her nakedness with what dry material he could.

  “You're such a good boy,” she said. “I'm sorry to be a nuisance.”

  “You're not. You'd do the same,” he said gruffly. He spoke roughly because he thought he might cry as well. To make it right he kissed her hair again, and stroked her and whispered soothing words until she went to sleep.

  Washing Rosella became a daily routine, and Pert tried to be methodical about washing out scraps of cloth and rag he found, and drying them by the fire or in the sun. Each day he unc
overed her, and they sat together while he wiped and cleaned, and discussed each wound, saying that this one was healing well, and wondering when this other one would stop weeping or this bruise would fade. Her body became a familiar territory to him, her small breasts, the pale skin of her armpits, the lovely swell of her buttocks. She accepted his attention happily, and he enjoyed the intimacy and tried to put other thoughts out of his head. But he had favourite parts, like the downy hairs in the small of her back or the slim bones of her ankles. He often wanted to kiss them but did not, for this would have been taking advantage. Unless she were strong enough to kick him or push him away if she wanted, it wouldn't be fair, and somehow it wouldn't count. While he worked he was aware of her gaze on him, and hoped she understood his lack of affection.

  Day by day Rosella grew stronger. Soon she was able to sit in the mouth of the cave and watch the insects flying among the low growth of thrift and sea plantain. There was a blush of blue across the ground where spring squill was coming into flower, though she did not know the plant's name. Further up the combe where the little stream flowed Pert had found crowfoot and spearwort and other plants he did not recognise. He remembered his mother naming flowers when they walked, forget-me-nots, and ragged robin and willowherb. He wished he had paid more attention. Probably there were plants here they could eat, or put on Rosella's wounds for a poultice, but he did not know which. He nibbled leaves to see if they would poison him. None did, though none tasted nice either. He thought that later there would be berries they could eat.

  Rosella was delighted by a little bird which arrived one day and took up residence in a narrow crack above the cave entrance. It was the size of a sparrow, but entirely black except for a patch of white on its rump. She watched it fly in and out, and followed it as it went down the cliff and out over the water, fluttering and brushing the tops of the waves, then turning and coming home again. It was a trusting little body and took no notice of her. There were other birds like it further down, but this was her special one. She wondered when its mate would come and they would start making eggs in their tight nest.

  She made Pert cut her a great stick to use for a crutch, and began making little forays from the cave, holding on to the stick and dragging her injured leg. “See,” she said, “I can move it this much!” and waved it in the air, supporting the thigh with one hand.

  “It's a very nice leg,” he said. “Pity you've only got the one boot.”

  “You could look for the other boot. It must have come off when I fell. Perhaps it's lying somewhere, and you could find it for me.”

  “I expect a mouse has found it and made a nest in it. We couldn't just turf all the little baby mice out. You'd have to wait until they moved on.”

  “You're a daft head,” she smiled. “What's more important, me or a mouse?”

  “You could wait. You're not ready to do much kicking yet. I know what Fenestra would say. She’d be on the side of the mouse.”

  Rosella sat back and smiled. “I don't remember falling,” she said, “well, not landing anyway, but I do remember before. I did half kick Grubb's shins! It felt lovely. I'd been so frightened, and she'd chased me and chased me and I couldn't get away, and then to turn on her and give her a good kicking ... it was the best thing I ever did! How she yelled!”

  “I thought you'd get away easy. She couldn't possibly run as fast as you.”

  “She just kept coming. She couldn't catch me, but she just wouldn't stop. It was awful. And the men, they were all round us. The pirates. And the others behind them.”

  “Who were the others?”

  “People from the town, I think. I don't know whether they were after me, or after Grubb, or after the pirates or what. I couldn't tell who was on which side.”

  “Why would they be after you?”

  “I don't know. I couldn't think. And I could hardly stop and ask them, could I? What would I have said? 'Excuse me, could we just take a minute to discuss who's hunting who, because I'm a bit confused?' I'd just have got thrown off the cliff.”

  “You were thrown off the cliff.”

  “No I wasn't. I pushed Grubb off the cliff. That's quite different. I have to go and sit down now. Come and sit with me.”

  They sat, and she snuggled into his side. “That's nice. What did you see? Tell me again?”

  “I saw you fall. I knew it was you, and I thought you were dead. And I saw Grubb. That was unbelievable. She flew, she actually flew. And then she hit the cliff, and then she just fell, and her

  head went pop on a rock.”

  “Serves her right. You know ...” she squirmed round and looked at him, “... you know I'm a murderer now? I killed her. I meant to, as well. When we go back they'll lock me up and send for the magistrate.”

  “So we won't go back, then. We'll stay here and eat rabbits, and raise a family of mice in your boots.”

  "They could be our children. I'd rather have both my boots, though."

  Pert did find her other boot, and there was no mouse in it. It lay half in the water, half out, a little way upstream from where she had fallen. He took it back to the cave and she greeted it like a long-lost friend. It took over two weeks to dry out, but after that she put it on.

  “It feels all stiff. I'll have to walk about in it and soften it up again.”

  “You look just like yourself now, with both boots. Mind you, that dress is a bit of a disaster. You're not decent. Don't you mind?”

  She looked down at herself, at her long bare legs, and the holes in the dress. “I don't if you don't,” she said shyly.

  “Of course I don't. But you'll be cold when the summer's gone.”

  “It hasn't even started yet. It'll be ages. We don't have to think about it. And I'll have you to keep me warm.”

  “I'll be cold myself.”

  “Then I'll keep you warm. We'll warm each other.”

  Pert felt a hot flush creeping up his cheeks, and a peculiar feeling in his stomach.

  “Yes, we will,” he said, and bent over the fire to hide his confusion. “I'd better go for some more firewood. Don't want it to go out.”