Bright Side of my Condition ePub

by Randall, Charlotte

  Toper stir his cooking pot with a grim look when I voice this opinion. I watch him and it do seem like he try out a lot of retorts in his mind, he scrunch up his little pinched face with the effort. Then he say, ‘If I were you, I’d start to think why I were sent here then. Otherwise yer might wake up dead in the real Hell.’

  ‘So yer agree this is jes like it?’ taunt I.

  ‘No, I do not.’

  ‘How wud yer ever know?’

  ‘There aint no fires. There gotta be fires.’

  ‘There’s plenty of salt water.’

  Toper shake his head.

  ‘Maybe the water put out the fires.’

  ‘Multitudes of raging fires,’ he repeat stubborn. ‘And anyhow, how can this be a punishment when I don’t have no memory of what I done?’

  ‘Don’t yer think that wud be the most sublime Hell?’ ask I. ‘Suffering for yer know not what?’

  Toper look taken by stupefaction.

  ‘Sublime?’ roar Slangam. He and Fatty have come to stand behind us and we dint hear them. ‘Yer wudn’t be saying it’s sublime here, wud yer Bloodworth?’

  Gargantua collapse by the fire and sigh loud and melodramatic. When no one take no notice, he sigh ever louder.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Slangam round on him. ‘Yer sound like all the air is coming out of yer.’

  ‘Artists like myself know a thing or two about the Sublime,’ say he with considerable petulantness.

  ‘Well, keep it to yer fucken self.’

  ‘Yer aint a artist jes because it take some creativeness to steal and sell,’ say I.

  ‘That’s right,’ Slangam agree with plain satisfaction. I never like it when he agree with me, he only want to do Art down and replace it with Work.

  ‘Benighted fools the lot of yer,’ Gargantua pronounce with a scorning sniff. ‘If ever yer learned about the Sublime, yer wud know it can contain horrors.’

  ‘Horrors?’ we echo as a man.

  Gargantua swell up like water take the place of air. ‘Everyone agree that …’

  ‘Everyone who?’ I interrupt.

  ‘Everyone that go across the Alps,’ return he, and at once confirm my suspicions that his ‘everyone’ is a tailcoat on a jaunt in the frozen landscapes of the Suisse.

  ‘What Alps?’ ask Toper.

  ‘The Alps.’

  ‘What yer mean?’ roar Slangam. ‘Is there only one lot of Alps in the entire world? I heared it said by the whalers in Sydney Cove there’s Alps jes over Fovo Strait. They start near the bottom of the island and go hundreds of miles to the tip.’

  ‘What island?’ ask Toper.

  ‘You heared wrong,’ Gargantua say unperturbed.

  We never get back to talking of divine punishment. Aint that still the way with our intercourse – every topic veer into a argument on matters related or unrelated or exactly the opposite. But on my walks I keep thinking about punishment. I been trying to work out what I cud of been put here to learn.

  Maybe to be different from how I am.

  Is that how it work? Am I jes being teached to bend? Teached to bow, lick the ground, grovel at Heaven’s hem? But how much do God love such resignation? Do I jes have to accept what come to me to be a good man? Is that it? I orta jes fold up and bow down and pray-mumble, I’m a good man, pour salt water over my head, pour blood, pour darkness, pour death?

  One spring night Toper make a special meal with extra large helpings of meat that come off some dead birds. He say he dint know exactly when they die, so he cook them all at once. We all stuff ourselves, but Fatty’s stomick turn delicate and he spew up his dinner in the dark bushes. He do this again and again and then he lie down groaning and raving. Slangam take on a look of disgust and go off to count the sealskins. Dunno if he think a skin can walk off when it aint got no legs, but he count them regular to make sure.

  Toper start cleaning his cooking pot and singing his Irish ditties, and I sit by the fire and have a phantasy about the isle of date palms. I been longing to go to there a long time now but it aint easy to get my hands on a bit of green spud. With all the attention they get gave, soon as a baby break out of his dirt blanket, there’s Fatty ready to tuck him in.

  I hear more spew coming out of the fat man and think, now’s the time to steal away and inspect the potata patch. I have a bit of a seal fat candle, it’s a poor thing and don’t throw a lot of light, not enough to see if a spud is green or white, but I’m determined to go to the date palm isle and it turn my vision green. Before I think what I’m doing, three or four little potatas is down my trousers.

  Now a frenzy for escape come over me, not a real escape of course, I aint a idiot, but jes escape like sometimes I have in Norfolk when a high fever take my thinking away. I take the spuds out of my trousers and roll them in my hands. Jes feeling them knobby tubers make me lose my reason. I take a big bite of the raw flesh like a whalefish eating a seal. When they don’t taste too foul I stuff them in my gob with both hands, chewing and spitting raw spud and jes about choking. Then I sit down and wait, wait for my date palm and camel, or, since I’m in the southern ocean, maybe I get a coconut tree and a hula girl.

  I wait and wait but nothing happen.

  I go to bed very disappointed. In the night I have a stomick ache, don’t know if it’s the old bird meat or the amount I et or the bellyful of raw potata. Them three felons stand over me while I writhe and groan.

  ‘Must of been them putrid birds,’ Flonker pronounce. ‘They made me spew my guts out.’

  ‘They dint smell and I cook them thorough,’ Toper object.

  ‘I et as much as any of yers and I feel good,’ Slangam add.

  ‘Yer sure yer dint eat anything else? No strange fruit yer find and keep all for yerself?’ Toper ask. ‘You were away a long time fetching the wood today.’

  I cry out no, leave me alone, and they shake their heads and snuff out the seal fat candle that were dripping on my cheek and shuffle off to bed.

  In the morning Flonker discover the kidnap of his babies. I hear him roar from his plantings. Jes like any mother, even if she have a hundred look-alike childs she know when some vanish in the night. The roar summon the rest of us, yair I do run to my own disaster, don’t the kidnapper always join the search? Flonker rage the top taters has all been stole, and indeed in the light their little dirt beds is empty. It do look bad in the light.

  ‘Two of us have a stomick ache last night,’ he roar. ‘But only one of us et some spuds.’

  Three men turn to look at me, I see their hands rise in the air, I see their fingers point in accusingness.

  ‘What yer even need a hallucination for?’ Slangam take his turn to bellow. ‘Aint it a fucken hallucination here? Do this look like any kind of real life to you? A ocean and freak-birds and a wood full of demons?’

  Aint no answer to that.

  ‘There have to be a punishment,’ Gargantua pronounce.

  Oh no. I been worried about divine punishment, now here come another taste of the human kind.

  ‘The dumb cell,’ Toper cry.

  ‘The what?’ ask I.

  Toper repeat himself.

  Slangam clutch his head and fulminate, ‘Yair, the dumb cell, yer dumb fuck. Dint yer ever go in it on Norfolk? It’s the place they try to drive yer out of yer wits. Nothing come into it, no sound, no light, it’s like yer been locked up in the no-place yer wait in before yer born.’

  Never do I see Slangam go so crazy.

  ‘We only got one hut,’ Toper say, scratching his head.

  ‘We can dig a hole,’ Gargantua suggest.

  I burst into a laugh and they stare at me.

  ‘Yer can’t put me in a hole in this weather,’ say I. ‘It might be sunny now but before long certain there’ll come a blizzard.’

  ‘Yer shud of thought of that before yer steal our spuds,’ Gargantua say.

  ‘They were my spuds much as yers.’

  Everyone stand looking at each other. It seem a crucial moment. They
know they don’t have to do nothing over a few green potatas, but do the temptation to put on the law’s white wig prove too strong? They never weared it in society, now on a island do the scalp prove too itchy?

  ‘Go and wait by the skins. We gonna have a meeting in the hut,’ Fatty now decide.

  So that’s what happen. They go in the hut and I stand by the fuckers that’s already been clubbed and wait for my own clubbing.

  Slangam come first out of the hut. Even if he dint go in there with his mind made up, he come out with it that way, I can tell by the grim look on his face. Course there aint no spade, so digging the hole’s going to be a lot of work, but who care about the sweat when they got justice to dispense? Aint it worth every drip?

  Gargantua and Toper come out and Gargantua come over to stand beside me. ‘It have to be done,’ he say.

  ‘No,’ say I. ‘It don’t.’

  Slangam start a hole that a man can’t climb out of, and even though he work like a demon it take a age. Gargantua and Toper have a meeting over the spuds and loudly decide some can go in a brew. This is another punishment for me. Before I try to steal a hallucination, Flonker wud not ever give up his babies for a gin. Then they go off together, Fatty’s arm around Toper’s shoulders. I wait like a willing victim, then I get bored. If I gotta be in a hole for a day or two, might as well see the side of the island that’s in the light. I slip away and no one seem to care or notice.

  The penguins aint all home yet. They aint done their families, there’s jes the gentlemen back. They stand about clattering their beaks under a roiling sky. It’s like a marble that turn liquid, it have long streaks of sunlight breaking through, and when one fall on my face and hands it light me up like a angel. As I watch the gentlemen slipping about on the rocks, I recall a drunken argument the felons have early on.

  ‘Aint a penguin a bird?’ Toper ask. ‘Why do it get called a fish?’

  ‘It’s a fish because it can swim under the water,’ Fatty reply.

  ‘That aint proper swimming. It’s a bird.’

  ‘Water make it swimming,’ Fatty argue. ‘Only air make it flying.’

  ‘Yair, that’s right,’ Slangam declare final. ‘It don’t do no air flying. So it’s a fish. And shut the fuck up.’

  When I get back the hole’s been dug and all of them is at the edge looking in.

  ‘I got a idea,’ say I. ‘Jes agree to bring my share of the food and I go and live alone on the other side of the island for a while. Then I don’t bother yers.’

  ‘Alone? For how long?’ Gargantua take on a scowl.

  ‘Your share of the food?’ Slangam ask and his eyes turn into mean slits. ‘What’s yer share when yer don’t do no work?’

  ‘Alright, I still bring the firewood.’

  ‘What do I dig that fucken hole for then?’

  ‘Yer can’t mean to put me in the hole jes because yer dig it!’

  Slangam’s face show he do have that intention.

  Now slow old Toper work out what side his bread have the seal fat on and say, ‘How do he bring the firewood when he’s down the hole? I aint got time to collect the wood and cook all the food and …’

  ‘Yair,’ I agree quick. ‘Yer gonna feed me down there, aren’t yers? How I earn my food in the hole?’

  No one say anything. It come to me my own mouth start the evil thinking that food aint necessarily owed.

  Unlucky for me, Gargantua also now get his bread up the right way. He aint no sloth between the ears and work out pretty quick that my departure skew the scales of power.

  ‘A man in the dumb cell get fed even if he do nothing for it,’ he pronounce. ‘But a man who run away from his punishment have to find his own food.’

  Everyone but me nod for his own different reason. I do a calculation whether I can find enough food living alone. Do they let me take my seal club and a seal knife? But no one give me a chance to ask. Without further ado I get bundled down the hole.

  How long I been down here? The sky were blue for a long time after them clouds roll away and I were quite cheerful. The hole make a change from the arguments. I cud of made a plan to climb out, but what were the point? One of the others jes push me back down. Each take a turn on patrol, he walk around the edge and now and then look down on me. It do seem quite a game. When Slangam look down I inspect the dirt under my fingernails. When Gargantua look down I glare at him so he know my displeasure. And when Toper look down I ask him about the dinner. He aint meant to talk to me, it aint a dumb cell if anyone talk, but he look round furtive then tell me what he’s cooking.

  But now the blue’s draining out of the sky and the dinner don’t come. The boredness feel like it’s overtaking my brain. It’s one thing being a lazy man that look down on the penguins or the albatross flying school, it’s a whole nother thing staring at the sides of a hole. And it begin to worry me how long they plan for my punishment. I don’t recall anyone saying how long, I jes presume a day or two is all they bother with.

  Suddenly Gargantua appear at the lip of my prison with our only bowl, the one I stealed from the sealing ship. Carefully he get down on his knees, then lie down on his blubbery stomick. When he reach down and I reach up, my finger jes manage to curl round what he offer. It’s a liquid with a grease slick on top.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Soup.’

  ‘What? Do Toper boil up a bit of fat in sea water?’

  ‘It’s got a bit of fish in it.’

  ‘Somewhere.’

  I expect him to leave but he take a seat by the edge. ‘Looking to be quite a fine night,’ he say.

  ‘Yer aint very good at this dumb cell charade, are yer Flonker? Yer aint meant to converse.’

  ‘What yer complaining for? Yer must be bored as fuck. And it is a fine night. Better than sitting down a hole in a hail storm.’

  ‘Why I have to sit here at all?’

  He don’t say nothing for a while. The dark has come full by now. Then he get to his feet puffing and blowing. Before he leave he say, ‘We been discussing how long yer have to stay down there.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I suggest a week.’

  ‘A week!’

  ‘I take the long view. I dint want to seem partial.’

  ‘So yer go the other way?’

  But now Gargantua has went off in the dark.

  While I wait for sleep to come I think about the penguins. They do act very partial to their partners in the dance, yer don’t find a penguin taking the long view. They do seem a very moral fish.

  Lucky for me it don’t squall in the night and turn my hole into a pool. But I wake up stiff. It weren’t jes the cold, it were the shortness of the hole. Slangam dint waste no effort making room for a man to lie down in. Soon as I wake up, a gloom come down upon me. I were quite happy yesterday when I dint know the longness of my punishment. Or perhaps it’s better to say when I think it were going to be short. The sky’s as blue as yesterday but the threat of a week down a hole chill my heart. It aint jes the boredness, it’s the solitary aspect. I never been a man that can take the solitary.

  Toper come to the lip of my confinement with the breakfast bowl. When he pass it down it hold some fried patties made from mash potata.

  ‘Manna!’ exclaim I.

  ‘Don’t wet yerself.’ Seem it’s very hard for a man not to answer another man that address him.

  ‘Speaking of that, where I gonna shit?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I aint a penguin fish. I aint sitting in my own foulings.’

  Toper screw his face up like he already detect a dung.

  ‘Yair, yer never think of all them things, do yer? Even the turnkeys in Norfolk were more up with the necessaries of punishment than what you are.’

  Now he scuttle off, probably to tell them others I soon foul my hole unless they do something quick. And quick they do appear. Soon a audience of three stand above me.

  ‘I demand a latrine,’ I shout up at them.

  ‘He demand!
’ mock Slangam.

  ‘Get him out,’ Toper say in a icy voice I aint ever heared before. ‘How can I do my prayers if I leave a man to shit himself down a hole?’

  They let me go in the bushes and don’t foller. I do my business and don’t even think of running without my sealing knife. When I come out, I have to listen to a long argument about whether I go down the hole again. Gargantua give me a look that say, why don’t yer jes jump in the hole voluntary, that way there’s less trouble for the rest of us. But why wud I care to make less trouble for him? I dig my toes in.

  ‘We cud do a noyade,’ Gargantua say. I been staring at him and the look in his eye don’t change. He keep the same look when suggesting the new punishment as he do when he try to persuade me into the hole to keep the peace.

  ‘I aint wasting good stakes jes for a pretend drowning,’ Slangam growl.

  Gargantua’s look say, why pretend? But them others don’t notice.

  Toper say, ‘I vote he go back in the hole and come out every meal time for the latrine.’ Now he have a smile on his face. He’s pleased he find a way to mesh the punishing with his prayers. Slangam agree pretty quick and now Fatty don’t get a look in with his special brand of lenient.

  Down the hole again. I jump in quick as a wink when Slangam and Toper take sides against Gargantua. Now a sleet come. I huddle into the muddy side and try to sleep. But every time I drift off a girl in a white veil come upon me like a apparition. She have red-gold ringlets and a pale face and big blue eyes, and she come to remind me there were once a time when I feel even more bad than this. She appear to me over and over and I soon realise her veil is my own suffering that boil off her like a steam. Then I jerk awake and there aint no girl or veil, but the steam hang about, though it aint got no heat any more, it’s cold like a miasma.

  The name of this girl were Mary and we were sweethearts. We were the kind that carve their names in oak trees, who pledge all manner of promises that make a monk of Carthuse look fickle, who spend so much time pressed into each other our skins grow together. Indeed, that were when it grow uncomfortable for me and I try to wrench apart. That were when I learn the pain of tearing skin.