Charlotte Randall
THE BRIGHT SIDE OF MY CONDITION
Contents
About the Author
Part One: The Early Years
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Part Two: The Middle Years
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Part Three: Eternity
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Acknowledgements
Follow Penguin
PENGUIN BOOKS
The Bright Side of my Condition
Charlotte Randall is the award-winning author of seven novels. Her first, Dead Sea Fruit, won the South East Asian/South Pacific section of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for best first book and the Reed Fiction Award in 1995. Her much-praised second novel, The Curative, was joint runner-up for the Deutz Medal for fiction at the 2001 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. What Happen Then, Mr Bones? (2004) and The Crocus Hour (2008) were finalists for the same award.
Randall was born and raised in Dunedin, New Zealand, and now lives on Banks Peninsula with her husband.
ALSO BY CHARLOTTE RANDALL
Dead Sea Fruit
The Curative
Within the Kiss
What Happen Then, Mr Bones?
The Crocus Hour
Hokitika Town
For Al
The Bright Side of my Condition is based on the true story of four convicts who escaped on a sealing ship from the notorious jail on Norfolk Island. Unfortunately the sealing ship had insufficient food supplies to feed the convicts and they were deposited on one of the islands of The Snares (200 kilometres south of the South Island) to try their hand at seal culling. The captain promised to pick them up with their skins within the year. In the end, it was nearly a decade before they were rescued.
I learn’d to look more upon the bright side of my condition and less upon the dark side, and to consider what I enjoy’d rather than what I wanted; and this gave me sometimes such secret comforts that I cannot express them.
The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
Part One
THE EARLY YEARS
1
When the Captain find us stowaways and give us the choice between join the island or join the crew, all of us to a man cry island! island! So he put us ashore with a few provisions and a trypot and sail away. The ship weren’t even out of sight before our choice seem like a mistake. I dint say a word. Gargantua were already rubbing his lardy palms together and talking of a roasted albatross. He were as happy as I ever seen him, but he always done his thinking in his stomick.
Of course Gargantua aint his real name. It’s the name he were stuck with in Norfolk jail. We were all stuck with new names. But when we escaped somehow them names come with us. I’m Bloodworth. It aint a name I ever heared of before it were thrust upon me.
At first the island look hospitable. Probably that were just because we were used to prison walls, follered by the tight parts of a sailing ship. Then the Captain yank us out and we tumble onto the deck like we were one beast, all knees and elbows. Soon he start hollering there aint enough tucker for sightseers. That were when he give us our choice. Gargantua whisper he overheared it from the first mate there aint enough tucker for the crew even, it’s certain we all starve together. So our choice were the devil or the deep blue sea, and we choose the devil.
On the little beach I say to Gargantua, ‘Alright, I find the firewood and you fetch the albatross.’
Toper say, ‘Maybe we can start with something that don’t fly. What about one of them fuckers?’
We all look where he’s pointing at. A fat seal lie on the shore like a slug.
Then Slangam order, ‘Yer can all get some firewood. We gonna boil up some of this rice.’
That’s what were in the sack of provisions at Slangam’s feet. Rice, a quart of, and also half a bushel of potatas. Gargantua say he prefer his first island meal to be fried spuds, but Slangam say no, we have to plant all the spuds. He say we don’t know how long we’re here for.
Gargantua’s face fall – there’s a lot of it to do so – and he say he’s leaving on the first ship out.
‘Fine,’ Slangam say. ‘But we still planting all them spuds.’
Toper pull out two skins of rum he were hiding on his person. He pass one around and we all take a slurp. Then Slangam send us off to find the firewood. I go off by myself. It’s the first chance I get to be alone for a long, long time. We were put ashore on the east of the island and soon I see the east is a bit more sheltered. When I go over the brow of a hill, a gale from Terra Australis try to flense my skin off.
I look down and what I see stun my eyes. There’s the blue sea, the bull kelp and the rock pools, and everywhere penguins, penguins far as the eye can see. We mean to be sealers, that’s why the Captain give us the trypot, but now I think our pot fill up with penguin oil.
I crouch down for a smoke. It annoy me how Slangam appoint himself in charge. He aint agreeable. Why do it always turn out that way, the disagreeable making their selves the bosses? Mind you, at least we still have some potatas. If Gargantua were running the show, them spuds wud already be et.
‘Where’s yer firewood?’ Slangam ask when I get back.
I begin to tell all about the penguins I seen.
‘Yair, but where’s yer wood?’ he interrupt.
The fire’s already strong, with the rice aboil in our only cooking pot. ‘What yer need my wood for? Look like the others fetch enough.’
‘That aint the way we gonna do things,’ Slangam say.
Us three now stare at him. Seem all of us start considering if Slangam get to say how things is gonna be done. Slangam turn away and spit. All eyes fly to the frothing gob.
Gargantua smile and say, ‘Methinks the gods are already laughing at us.’
‘Methinks?’ Slangam repeat.
‘More’n one God?’ Toper ask, and cross himself.
There aint no plates. Slangam drain the rice and apportion it on the lid. We eat with our hands. Slangam talk about all the work that need doing. He say we need to plant potatas, we need fish or meat, we need shelter before winter, we need sealskins for our passage home when the ship come back. Toper pass the rum a few times till all that work seem like it get done in a dream, or by slaves that aint us.
Toper ask, ‘So what yer all done that yer weren’t catched for?’
‘Nothing,’ Gargantua say. ‘I dint even do what I were catched for.’
Toper laugh. ‘Yair, none of us did that.’
‘Why yer so proud of yerself?’ Slangam ask Toper.
‘What?’
‘You heared me.’
‘Aint proud.’
‘Then jes fuck up.’
We finish off our portions quick, and Gargantua and I go down to the sea to rinse the pot.
‘Why they call yer that?’ I ask as he labour at the starch. ‘I been wondering since I first meet yer. Yer aint all that fat.’
‘I were fatter before. When I first go into prison. And also because I know my Rabelais.’
‘Rabelay? What’s that?’
‘Poetry.’ He put down the pot and take a pose. He turn his feet out, clasp his hands together and recite:
These two did oftentimes do
the two-backed beast together
joyfully rubbing and frotting
their bacon against one another
Well, that make me laugh. It’s the first laugh I get since I step down on dry land.
/> ‘I know some of them dirty rhymes too,’ I say.
‘This were a whole book of them.’
‘How much do yer know?’
‘Not that much. Just enough to impress the name callers in the jail.’
Gargantua plonk his self down on the sand. I see Toper up by the fire, waving his arms.
‘Slangam probably want us back for work,’ I say.
‘Yair. It look like he plan to work us all the way to the bone.’
‘Least that’s a long way in for you.’
He laugh. He know I dint intend it mean.
‘Fuck,’ say I as we trudge back to the fire, ‘it sure a lot more colder than Norfolk here.’
‘Yair. We’re much closer to them icebergs.’
First night we sleep on the beach. It aint much of a size, but we’re fretful about the beasts in the wood. Slangam say we can’t be sure what’s in there. It’s summer and a fine night with many stars, so we’re lucky.
In the morning we have company. Seals all over the place. Slangam say we gonna club the fuckers after breakfast. But before we eat, a big fracas break out about Gargantua’s gods. Toper do his morning prayers and then ask the big man if his gods are laughing now. He don’t ask it like he really want to know, but this fact pass Gargantua by. He nod.
‘What do they find so funny?’ Toper ask.
‘Four convicts that escape to a island they can’t escape from.’
‘Yair,’ Toper say, ‘hilarious.’
But nobody laugh.
So Gargantua carry on blithe, ‘It aint funny like ha ha. It’s funny like hubris.’
Nobody say anything. Not a one of us seem to know what he’s talking about.
‘Where yer learn all this shit?’ Slangam ask after a while.
We dint club the fuckers after breakfast, we planted the potatas. It were one of them decisions of Slangam’s. Right after breakfast’s been et, Gargantua ask if we’re all in agreement that Slangam make himself the Govermint. He ask it mild but sarcastic.
Slangam say, ‘More shit,’ and knock him down with one punch.
Gargantua fall like a felled tree. Just clean over with no bending. When he get himself up, which he do real slow, he rub his cheek and just carry right on, ‘Because if yer gonna be the Executive, there orta be some rules.’
‘Rules for me?’ Slangam say, and his mouth hang open.
‘Executive?’ Toper repeat.
‘Yair. It mean …’
‘It don’t mean a fucken thing where I come from,’ Slangam interrupt. ‘So what we gonna do this morning is plant them potatas. Yer want a fight about that?’
Gargantua shake his head and the loose skin on his face wobble.
It don’t take long for four men to plant half a bushel of spuds, even if we do have to clear a bit of ground first. Slangam say he hear about the southern ocean islands before, he hear the woods is thick and close planted and there’s a spongy green moss on the ground. But for our planting we only clear an outer edge and the job’s easy. After the planting, Slangam say more firewood need to be fetched. I been looking forward to seeing the penguins again, so I go off speedy. I don’t want to hear the end of another argument about who the boss is.
The wind aint so cold today. I peep over the brow of the hill and there it is again, that bright scene of the sea, the bull kelp and the penguins. The sun’s coming hard on the ocean and it’s all adazzle. Today I don’t see penguin oil, I see the way them birds is bowing to each other. Then their white chests is almost touching, except their orange feet stick out too far. It make me think of a dance where the partners is all gentlemen.
I don’t go back and talk about penguin dances to Slangam. I learn a lot since yesterday. I bring a pile of firewood, throw it down with the rest. It turn out Toper’s gonna cook all the meals, as he were once a kitchen hand. I aint interested how this decision were reached. As he boil the rice, Toper talk a lot about the kitchen he once work in. He talk a lot about a man called Slapsauce who were the chief cook.
‘Were he a prisoner?’ I ask.
‘Why yer asking that?’
‘Aint no one really called Slapsauce.’
‘Yer know every name in the world, do yer?’
‘No.’
‘Well then. Happens it were a nickname. It aint only prisons that have nicknames. Kitchens have nicknames.’
Gargantua grin at me. It’s a grin which speak loud. It say, yair, look what we got to put up with.
‘Slapsauce teach me everything I know about cooking,’ Toper say proud.
‘Do he teach yer to prepare seals?’ Gargantua ask. ‘How to stuff and roast them, the proper sauce?’
‘No. He teached me many ways with fish.’
‘Southern ocean fish?’
‘They jes the same. The sea aint got walls.’
The second night we sleep on the beach, and the third. The black starless night shut down upon us and the wind howl. What animals live in that strange wood? It aint a kind of wood any of us ever seen before. Each man have a fear that go deep in him.
‘Owls,’ Slangam shudder. ‘Giant owls.’
‘Moon snakes,’ Toper foller with.
Gargantua laugh.
‘What yer laughing at, Fatty?’ ask Toper angry.
‘No such things as moon snakes.’
‘Yer been everywhere, have yer?’
‘No, but …’
‘Yer been everywhere around Terra Australis Incognita? Happens that’s where the moon snakes live. Yer know why? Because it’s a fact that Incognita is half a year without the sun. No fucken sun at all. Only a moon.’
‘The snakes wud freeze up then. Wud not be able to even move.’
Before Toper ask him if he know everything about snakes, I ask Slangam why he so fear the owls.
‘Yer aint afraid of owls?’ Slangam say astonished. ‘Yer aint afraid to hear the death screech?’
On the beach in the dark, the men snoring, muttering, calling, what is it in them woods I’m most afraid of? It aint moon snakes or owls, or any of that kind of thing.
Maybe it’s the wing beat of the Incognita albatross.
What do I know about Albatross Incognita? I hear it’s a giant, and white, with huge wings. It sound like a angel. What man fear a angel? I tell yer: a man on a island in the southern ocean, a man who don’t know nothing about what’s around him, in the waters or the woods or across the sea atop them icebergs of Terra Australis. A southern ocean angel cud be a upside-down creature, it cud be a fiend that drag us all to Hell.
It’s a fact about daylight that proportion get restored. Owls and moon snakes shrink, the albatross turn into a large seagull. Slangam’s there to rescue us with work that aint dainty. We take our clubs down to the seals on the beach and smash in their heads. Some of them seals rush at us barking, and Slangam take it personal. He go wild. He go raging and smashing like a madman.
Standing in the middle of them strewed and bloody carcasses, he line us up for a lesson on skinning. It make me feel queasy to see the dead beast at his feet and I step back, but he order me in close to learn the correct use of the blade.
‘First off, yer can’t leave the carcasses lying about while yer malinger. They have to be fresh, see? Not jes because of the stink, but because we don’t want the skin to get the taint of decay. So soon as yer clubbed the fucker, the skin’s got to come off. Now, yer have to hold the blade thus, and the beast like this, and great pains have to be took. Great pains. Watch and learn. See how I do it? First rule is don’t pierce the skin, on no account pierce the skin, it make the price go down severely. Second rule is, unlike Fatso here, no fat or flesh can adhere to the skin. Not a skerrick.’
I don’t know how long it take Slangam to skin the seal, no doubt he done it with efficiency, but even as the blood and squidgy fat fly at my eyeballs I contrive not to see. And from all the blood and guts that spill upon the sand I contrive to be absent, even if my feet is still planted firm where I stand. The marble sky shut upon us and a gal
e buffet us and the sand begin to eddy, and I wud of said we were in a place where the only things that lie flat are what’s held down by spilt blood, except Slangam don’t permit no talking. And now he stand before us red and sweaty, flourishing the pelt.
‘Where yer learn to do that?’ Toper ask in amazement.
‘From my Papa. He work on the whalefish.’
‘A whalefish aint done like that,’ Fatty object.
Slangam round on him. ‘Yer think a whaler can’t skin a seal? What, if yer can read a stupid poem, yer can’t read a fucken broadside?’
Fatty roll his eyes but don’t reply. Maybe he think the skinning lesson hold up lunch if he don’t shut his gob.
‘Now,’ Slangam continue, ‘the job aint full finished till yer trim off the parts about the eyes and ears, thus. And if it have legs, which it don’t, jes in case you idiots dint notice, that have to go too.’
‘Why do it?’ Toper ask.
‘Because jes like on yer ladies, them flappy bits is a fucken nuisance.’
Well, I don’t know if he done it right or not and I don’t care, fact is a skin’s now lying separate from its innards and we all can get out of the gale and the grit and the despair. This last aint a thing a man orta feel, I know, but it come up from my stomick even if I don’t summon it.
We trudge back to the fire for our meal and discover Slangam’s brung the skin with him. Take it away! we all cry to a man, but he say it have to be pertected, yer can’t jes leave it lying on the beach, a beast might come out of them woods and steal it. He say what we have to do next is build a rough shelter to pertect it.
Toper find he has a temper about such things. ‘I been standing in a freezing gale half the bloody morning and now I’m having a hot sealfish soup, like it or lump it.’
‘Hot fish soup!’ shout Fatty.
‘Hot fish soup!’ shout I.
Slangam’s weatherbeat face glower, but he sit down and fuss with his skin while Toper put some sealfish in the cook-pot.
Bright Side of my Condition ePub Page 1