by Miles Gibson
‘What is it?’ said Polly.
The sailor was wearing a shapeless blue jacket and from the pocket he pulled a beer bottle which he carefully placed on the table.
‘A gift,’ he announced.
Polly pulled the tangle of hair from her face and stared at the bottle. There, through the green and cloudy glass, she saw a boat sailing in a crinkled sea. It was a strange, carved boat with many masts and tiny strips of rag for sails. She pursed her lips and frowned.
‘It’s made from bones,’ said Matthew Mark Luke Saint John.
‘Horrible,’ said Mrs Reynolds, leaning forward to peer at the curious skeleton.
‘I bought it from a trader in Grand Bassam and he bought it from a tribesman in Guinea. They say they’re human bones,’ he added, looking at her for the first time.
‘Is Mr Bloater a friend?’ she enquired.
‘He directed me to this house,’ said Matthew Mark Luke Saint John, as if that explained everything and Mrs Reynolds began to blush as bright as Polly.
‘Will you take my gift to Mr Bloater?’
‘Yes,’ said Polly.
Mrs Reynolds watched in surprise as her daughter took the bottle from the sailor’s hands. It was remarkable. She seemed suddenly to have lost her fear of the man. Or was it only the opportunity to own a bottle of bones for the morning that had lent her the courage? Well, it made no difference. She was glad that Polly had stayed with them for breakfast. It had helped to cover her own embarrassment.
She wrapped the bottle into the little saddlebag on Polly’s bicycle and stood at the door to watch her daughter pedal away down the esplanade. She looked so small and vulnerable, perched on the clumsy machine as it flew into the sunlight, that Mrs Reynolds felt her heart squeezed with love for the child.
When she went back to the breakfast room Matthew Mark Luke Saint John was sitting in an armchair, reading the newspaper and sucking his teeth. He paid no attention as she cleaned the table and, reluctantly, Mrs Reynolds retired to the kitchen.
The passion of the previous afternoon already seemed a remote and capricious madness. She took a basket of raspberries from the pantry and began to clean them. They perfumed the water and stained her hands as she rolled them around the bucket in search of maggots. Did he feel ashamed of his brief and rapturous assault upon her person? He had betrayed nothing at breakfast. The desire had flared and died in him, leaving nothing but silence and regret. She spread a cloth on the kitchen table and piled the raspberries in a purple pyramid. How she loved those dark and hairy nipples of fruit. As she walked back and forth she snatched at them, one by one, pushed them into her mouth and exploded them between her teeth. Polly would be gone for hours. She would exhibit the bottle of bones to her friends before she made the delivery on the Upton Gabriel Road. She was such a strange child. Mrs Reynolds plucked at another raspberry but it jumped from her hand and rolled across the floor. She stooped to retrieve the fruit when something warm brushed her leg and she screamed.
She struggled to straighten herself but, as she turned, her skirt flew over her head and buried her in darkness. She spluttered and cried for help. But a huge hand clasped her head, forcing it down against her chest, while clumsy fingers pulled at her thighs.
‘No,’ she screeched as she felt her underwear torn to shreds.
‘Yes,’ he growled as he lifted her from her shoes and carried her to the kitchen table.
‘No,’ she gasped as she folded against the edge of the table. Her arms were thrown across the wet fruit and her buttocks raised towards her assailant.
‘Yes,’ he roared as he fought with the buckle of his belt.
‘No,’ she moaned, bursting raspberries in her fists.
‘Yes,’ he grunted. And with her head still wrapped in her skirt and her buttocks spread in his mighty hands she was hardly in a position to argue with him.
When it was finished she capsized and fell to the floor in a puddle of bleeding raspberries. She was so shaken that she took to her bed. But he continued to prowl the house, huge, naked and defiant.
He could not satisfy his hunger. He attacked her in the bathroom, the pantry and the linen cupboard. He pulled her down when she passed his chair and used his teeth to crack off the buttons on her skirt. He made her crawl across the floor on her hands and knees with her breasts hanging loose from her dress. For two weeks she was kept a prisoner in her own house. He followed her from room to room, broke in upon her when she washed, pulled at her clothes when she dressed and crept to her bed while she slept.
‘Leave me alone,’ she pleaded, waking at dawn in a tangle of sheets to find him sucking at her breasts.
‘You called me in your sleep,’ he growled, and she believed him.
She was consumed by the madness of the man. She was afraid sometimes that he’d stolen her soul and dragged her into slavery. She felt safe from him only when Polly was there and the sailor was forced to sit impatiently in his room, smouldering and silent. But these were brief interludes since Mrs Reynolds found excuses to keep Polly running errands while she, herself, contrived to stay at home. She thought she might remain the concubine of this wild and naked pagan giant for the rest of her life and noticed, with pride, that the shoes in her wardrobe were already gathering dust.
But there came a morning when hunger forced her into the streets in search of bacon, bread and fresh fruit.
‘I could murder a yam,’ he said wistfully, as he watched her prepare to leave the house.
‘I could look for a pineapple,’ she suggested.
‘No. Bring me a lobster and a basin of shrimps,’ he said. He pulled a leather purse from his pocket and dropped it neatly into her hand.
‘Thank you,’ she said. The purse felt so heavy she was sure it contained ducatoons.
‘Will it take long?’ he asked as she turned to leave. His great hands fluttered across her breasts, hesitated at her waist and disappeared in the folds of her skirt. His fingers rummaged anxiously for the naked heat of her legs.
‘I haven’t been out for weeks,’ she laughed, pulling away from his embrace and running into the street.
Chapter Sixteen
It was already late. The raw heat of the sun had softened the tar between the flagstones on the esplanade and the town stood, shuttered and exhausted, above a bleached and bubbling sea. She climbed up the cobbled hill to the high street, excited by the noise of the traffic and glad to be free from the house. She searched for yams among the sacks of carrots and potatoes in the empty supermarket. She looked at the fancy underwear in Modern Fashions. She passed the time of day with Horace, the fishmonger, and asked the health of his mother. On the corner of Anchor Road she paused to flirt with Oswald Murdoch through the curtain of hollow pigs he had strung across his counter.
‘I’ve got something for you,’ he grinned as he beckoned her into the blood-stained darkness.
‘And what is it?’ she asked innocently.
‘A nice, big tongue,’ he said and wiped his hands on his purple apron.
‘No, I don’t fancy it,’ she replied, wrinkling her nose.
‘They’re fresh,’ drooled Oswald Murdoch. ‘They’re still steaming.’ He picked one up and flopped it over his arm.
‘Do you have any chicken livers?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘But the pork is good and plump. Come here and I’ll let you squeeze it.’
Mrs Reynolds tossed her head and skipped back into the sunlight. She went up the hill as far as the Post Office and picked through the books and magazines.
But after an hour of walking she felt trapped by the little town. She was hot and tired. The Sheep stank, the paint was peeling from Whelk Pier and even the elegant sweep of Regent Terrace, with its fluted columns and dainty iron balconies, seemed tawdry and absurd. She had planned to visit Mrs Clancy, take a brandy and inquire about the next magic circle, but she felt impatient to be home again with the sailor. There, in the comfort of her parlour, she had learned to cast her own magic. When she snapped her finge
rs parrots flew into the air. When she raised her arms flamingoes danced on the carpet. When she opened her legs baboons screamed, panthers slunk forward on velvet bellies, drums began to vibrate across the length of Africa. She felt sad for her old friend, living her days without a man, spending her nights with the ghost of a husband.
Mrs Reynolds turned towards the esplanade and, with a lobster under her arm and a basket full of shrimps, hurried back to the house where Mrs Clancy’s demon king was held, a fierce and hungry captive.
When she unlocked the front door she noticed Polly’s bicycle leaning against the wall. She frowned as she unloaded her shopping in the kitchen. Polly had gone to Drizzle. What had happened to bring the child home so early in the afternoon? She walked into the parlour. Polly’s sandals were thrown beneath a chair. Beside the chair a plate of broken biscuits. Crumbs on the carpet at her feet. She stood among the crumbs and held her breath, listening for the sounds of life. The house felt abandoned. And then, through the ceiling, she heard a muffled groan. It was a queer, suffocated noise that stiffened the hair on her neck. Her legs buckled. Her skin went cold.
She turned and ran towards her daughter’s bedroom, her skirt ballooning, her legs leaping at the stairs. But when she burst through the door she stood, paralyzed with horror, unable to understand what she saw among the broken dolls and nursery furniture. Her mouth sagged open, a crimson wound.
Polly was sprawled naked on the bed, her arms and legs pinned beneath the weight of the massive, half-dressed sailor. She rolled her head from side to side on the mangled pillows, gnashing her teeth and forcing out the most terrible moans. The sound of her distress seemed to excite the sailor to greater extremes of violence, so that he took hold of her wrists and held them above her head, pressing himself against her belly, spreading his mouth against her teeth and sucking the breath from her body. She kicked out feebly with her legs and the groans were stifled in her throat.
The sailor wore nothing but a vest and with every thrust of his body he gave a dark and threatening growl.
‘Do you love me?’ gasped Polly as they struggled.
‘I love you,’ growled the sailor and pushed her wrists deeper into the pillows.
‘Will you always love me?’ she moaned.
‘I’ll always love you,’ muttered her assailant and sucked at her throat.
‘Forever?’ whispered the child hopefully. ‘Will you love me forever?’
‘Forever,’ he promised and stopped her mouth with his tongue.
Mrs Reynolds stormed across the room, grabbed a hairbrush from the dressing-table and held it like a dagger in her fist. She leapt upon the sailor’s back, held him fast with her knees and plunged the dagger between his shoulder-blades. He screamed in furious surprise and she stabbed him again, cracking the handle of the brush. He gurgled. He groaned. He tried to throw her off but she continued to ride him, twisted his head and dragged him to the floor.
‘For God’s sake, what’s happening?’ screeched the wounded sailor as he rolled over the carpet and clawed at his punctures.
Polly sprang into a crouch and stared with terrified eyes at the sight of her mother.
‘Help,’ she squeaked. ‘He tried to attack me.’
But Mrs Reynolds ignored the girl. She scrambled towards the sailor, grabbed a foot in her hands and sank her teeth into the damp and naked flesh. He kicked out and somersaulted against the wall, howling and gathering his feet against his stomach.
‘I’m bleeding to death,’ he roared, as he staggered to his feet.
‘What have you done?’ shrieked Mrs Reynolds, pointing towards the bed.
‘You’ve torn me to ribbons,’ bawled the sailor. He made a rush for the dressing-table and tried to inspect the damage in the mirrors.
‘I’ll kill you,’ screamed Mrs Reynolds.
‘I tried to stop him,’ sobbed Polly. She shook her head and burst into tears.
Mrs Reynolds, fighting for breath, picked up the hairbrush and hurled it at the frightened philanderer. The brush cracked one of the mirrors and caught the sailor a nasty blow against the side of his face. He raised his arm to his head and the entire room seemed to erupt. A rubber rabbit hit the floor, bounced across the carpet and flung itself at the window. A chair jumped from its corner. Sheets billowed from the bed. Polly was screaming. Matthew Mark Luke Saint John was scrambling into his trousers.
‘Get out!’ he shouted at Polly. ‘Get out!’ He picked up his shoes, sprinted down the stairs and finished dressing in the street.
Mrs Reynolds stared around the room in dismay. It was a nightmare. She felt humiliated and betrayed. She could accept Matthew Mark Luke Saint John’s many crimes of passion but she would never forgive him for stealing the innocence of a child. How she despised him! He had plundered every part of her own body with a loathsome greed, swift and brutal, as the mood took him, at every hour of the day and night, yet still he could not resist a pathetic little morsel like Polly. When she had opened the door, in the confusion of the moment, it had seemed to her astonished eyes that Polly was not trapped, struggling, under the weight of the brute, but had spread herself, swooning, beneath him. It was horrible.
She stared down at the naked pixie. The child looked so painfully young and brittle. Her arms were thin and her legs were narrow, elbows chipped and knees blue with bruises. It was a miracle that the beast had not killed her in the violence of his attack. Polly, avoiding her mother’s eyes, crawled away, folded up her arms and legs and squatted like a spider in a corner of the room. Mrs Reynolds bent and gently wrapped her in a sheet.
‘Did he hurt you?’ she whispered as she held the child.
‘No,’ sobbed Polly.
‘Thank God,’ muttered Mrs Reynolds. ‘Did he threaten you? What happened?’
But Polly could not speak. She buried her face in her hands and howled. Mrs Reynolds soaked her in a hot bath and searched discreetly for signs of damage. Polly appeared in the pink of health and this only confirmed her fears that the damage done was soul-deep and beyond repair.
She took the child to her bed. They did not speak but clung to each other and wept themselves to sleep. A chest of drawers, pushed against the door, kept them safe from the sailor. Mrs Reynolds heard him enter the house some time after midnight and stumble slowly up the stairs. He hesitated outside the door but did not try to force himself through the barricade.
She thought he might be bandy with beer. But long after he had gone to his room she lay awake in the dark, too frightened to sleep. It was obvious she had given shelter to a madman. For years she had entertained simple men, stupid men in cheap suits, money in their pockets and beer on their breath. The Hottentot was dangerous. He had taken control of the house and overwhelmed its women. And what did she know about him? He might have come to Rams Horn with secret plans to establish a harem. Tomorrow other women might appear at the door, black women with gold teeth and breasts shaped like cucumbers. He might be a cannibal. Yes, he might be squatting in his room with a bone through his nose, cleaning an axe and dreaming of meat. She thought of his mouth sucking at her flesh, hot grease on his fingers, a bubble of blood on his chin, and she began to cry. The tears rolled into her ears and soaked the pillow. She had to dispose of him before they were murdered in their bed. He had to be removed from the house, packed in a box, pushed from a cliff, thrown into the sea as a meal for the mackerel. And there was only one woman in the town who could help to evict him.
An hour before dawn she woke Polly and helped her dress. As they tiptoed from the room she half-expected the sailor to be lurking in the darkness of the stairs, waiting to leap at them, naked and laughing. But they reached the kitchen in safety and switched on the light.
While she brewed tea and cut a parcel of sandwiches she gave Polly instructions to pedal into the hills and stay away until dusk.
‘Why?’ demanded Polly. ‘What am I supposed to do with myself?’
‘I don’t care,’ hissed Mrs Reynolds, as she thrust the sandwiches into her d
aughter’s hand. ‘Break a window. Steal a baby. Set fire to a haystack. Do anything. But stay away from the house.’
Polly was puzzled but too frightened to complain. She hurried towards her bicycle.
The first light of morning was already beginning to creep through a crack between the sky and the sea. An early patrol of gulls was sailing in circles beneath the ghost of a stubborn moon. Mrs Reynolds stood on the empty esplanade to watch her daughter escape from sight. And then she locked the house and set out alone for Jamaica Road.
Chapter Seventeen
Mrs Halibut lived alone in her big, stone cottage and the cottage stood alone on Jamaica Road. Many men had tried to leave their boots beneath her bed but none of them had managed it. She didn’t care to have a man about the house. She was an independent woman.
She grew her own food and made her own clothes. Cutting sandals from rubber tyres, boiling soap from rabbits or broth from nettles were the simple skills of everyday life for Mrs Halibut. She could skin a rabbit, trap a starling or make glue from chicken quills. There had once been a goat she had kept for its milk but one bad winter she’d eaten it. Her favourite occupation was coaxing the natural medicines from fields and ditches. She could soothe sickness and burn out fever, knit bones and start women bleeding. Fruit pulp for bruises. Cobwebs for scratches. Nothing was wasted.
Mrs Halibut was blessed with the strength of an old martello but she looked as brittle as egg shells. Her hands were small and her face was dainty. She had a long neck, narrow shoulders and fat breasts. Her breasts rolled gently when she walked and pulled at the buttons of her shirt. When she worked in the garden she liked to soak them in sunlight. Whenever she slept she cradled them jealously in her arms. Men wanted to commit unspeakable acts of sex and violence between her breasts. Every night, in Rams Horn bedrooms, her breasts appeared in their dreams. But Mrs Halibut let no man touch them.
One day a man had called at the cottage. He was selling medical dictionaries: The Home Doctor and The Household Nurse.