by Jan Michael
‘Are you my aunt?’ he asked suddenly.
‘No.’ She looked at him. ‘Why? Did you think I was?’
He shook his head slowly. ‘Not really.’ He drew a circle in the sand with his big toe. ‘Have I got any? Aunts and uncles, I mean.’
This time she took more time to reply. ‘I’m not sure. I expect so.’
He looked up at her. He thought she was hiding something.
His gaze unnerved her. ‘Your mother’s family didn’t like her marrying your father. At least, I think that’s what happened. They never had anything to do with them after that. But you should ask your father about these things.’
‘Oh.’ He pressed closer to her, enjoying the feel of her fingers in his hair. ‘But you could be my aunt, couldn’t you?’ he asked dreamily.
Her fingers halted, then went on. ‘If you want me to be – well, yes.’
‘What was my mother like?’
‘Your mother?’ She thought for a moment. ‘She was fun. She used to make us laugh. She –’
‘Do I look like her?’ he interrupted.
‘Bits of you, yes.’
‘Which bits?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Your eyes, perhaps. Your mouth. You’re skinny like her, too.’ But she was getting impatient with his questions. ‘Now go on. Go and give Robert my message.’
He tore off his shirt and ran into the water, plunging through the breakers and out to the sea, kicking strongly, heading towards the boat. A gust of wind sent the boat swinging round on its anchor to face him as he approached. Two eyes, one painted on either side of the raised bow to guard it from evil spirits, seemed to stare at him as he drew near. He looked back defiantly but then thought better of it and swam away in a circle towards the stern, to haul himself up where the eyes couldn’t watch him.
Robert was baling with an old jam tin, filling it with water and sending it overboard in an arc. ‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Your mother says you have to go home and chop wood.’
Robert pulled a face. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I heard her. I’ll go soon. She doesn’t need it till later anyway.’ He reached for a second tin stowed under the bows and handed it to Joshua.
Joshua looked back at the beach but Robert’s mother had gone. He took the tin. Together they dipped their tins in and out of the water in the bottom of the boat. The sun glinted off the bits that hadn’t rusted, and shone through the streams of water that tumbled back into the sea. They fell into a rhythm and Joshua hummed as they dipped and threw.
Once they were satisfied that the boat was dry, Joshua balanced on the bows and dived in among the bright shoals of angel fish that flitted through the water. Robert followed him. They scrambled back over the side and dived again, staying underwater for as long as they could hold their breaths.
‘I’m going in,’ Joshua announced, perched for his last dive, toes curled over the edge of the boat. ‘You coming?’
‘I want to stay a bit longer,’ Robert said. ‘Tell Mum I’ll be back soon.’
Josua shrugged. ‘See you,’ he said, and dived overboard, striking for shore. Back on the beach he shook the water from his hair, pulled on his shirt and set off to the point where the path ran inwards to the centre of the village. When he reached the bend that curved round the graveyard he could hear loud and ragged shouting somewhere up ahead. Chickens scuttled towards him, squawking in alarm.
Joshua wondered what was up. Nearer the clearing, he noticed a roughness in the sound of the voices and he slowed down. There was anger, and something else. He shivered despite the heat of the day.
All the men from the village compound seemed to be gathered in the clearing, their backs to him. They were jammed so tightly together that he could not see what the source of the trouble was.
Joshua retreated to the high, bulging root of a tree. He stepped on to it, clutching the scratchy trunk for support, trying to see over their heads.
The men were facing the shop, his father’s shop. They shuffled back a step or two in unison, then tightened up again. There was no shouting now.
A cardinal bird sang brightly just above Joshua’s head and he looked up for an instant as the flash of red caught his eye. When he looked back, he saw that his father had come out of the shop.
A voice spoke. Joshua couldn’t hear what was being said.
His father said something in response.
The crowd answered with a swelling noise that sounded like growling.
His father didn’t move.
A man at the rear of the crowd jerked back his arm and threw something. There was the sound of stone on stone as it hit the wall near Joshua’s father. Another missile followed.
His father! They were throwing stones at his father!
Joshua jumped down from the root. He ran to the back of the crowd and tried to push his way through, but they were packed so tight that he could make no headway.
‘Take it down! Take it down!’ the men chanted hoarsely.
Joshua took a few steps back and jumped to try to see what was going on now. His father was setting the ladder up against the shop front.
Joshua ran back at the crowd, braver all of a sudden. ‘Dad!’ he shouted. He butted one man he had seen throwing a stone. ‘Dad!’ he screamed. The man stumbled and Joshua was able to squeeze past. Clawing and kicking, he worked his way through the crowd till he was nearly at the shop.
When they saw who it was, the last row parted in silence for him.
His father was at the top of the ladder and had reached the pig. He didn’t seem to have heard Joshua. He was fumbling at the brackets holding the pig in place. It was taking him far longer to unscrew them than it had when the two of them had fitted them together the previous night. A screw slipped from his hand and he tried to catch it. A stir in the crowd showed where it had fallen.
Joshua tried to catch the eye of the man beside him, and then the man next to that, but they stared ahead impassively. He turned to the person behind and nudged him. It was Simon. ‘Why …?’ he began, but when Simon looked down at him and Joshua saw the anger in his eyes, he fell silent.
The pig was free now. His father stood at the top of the ladder, cradling it in his arms, unable to move. Joshua knew how heavy it was.
‘Let me through!’ he shouted, his voice shrill.
Two men blocking the doorway to the shop stood aside for him.
Joshua went inside. He tugged at the wooden butcher’s table. It moved only a fraction. He tugged again. He could see his father’s legs on the ladder outside. They were shaking slightly. He pulled again. A shadow fell on the floor. He looked up. A man stood in the doorway. It was Leon, Robert’s mother’s boyfriend.
Together they dragged the solid slab outside and set it next to the ladder. Now other men came forward to help. The tension in the crowd was punctured by words thrown out here and there.
‘We can’t have a pig up there,’ Leon explained, avoiding Joshua’s eyes. ‘It wouldn’t die, you see, and then it would destroy our fishing. We caught very little today because of it.’
Joshua had hold of the fore-trotters. Now he took some of the weight of the carving from his father. It was a sad burden. He and Leon carried it inside.
‘Sardines mostly, and not a lot of them,’ Leon continued.
‘Dad will keep it in here,’ Joshua told him, touching the pig’s head protectively.
Leon nodded.
Joshua watched his father climb down the ladder, tired and bowed and old as he had never seen him before. He carried the ladder round the corner of the shop and laid it on the ground. Then he turned to face the men, his back against the wall. Slowly they drifted away. He sank to his haunches, gazing blankly at the ground. Joshua squatted beside him.
‘It’s safe, Dad,’ he said. ‘I put it inside.’
His father didn’t respond. Joshua swallowed; he felt cold inside. He began to chatter, about Robert, about the dinghy, how choppy the water was that day, anything that he thought would distract him.
‘Psst!’ Robert’s head showed round the corner, a blur in the gathering darkness.
Joshua glanced at his father. He was still staring into space, and had made no sign that he had heard. Joshua sighed and got to his feet. He felt enormous relief as he walked round the corner of the shop to be with Robert.
‘Leon told me what happened,’ Robert said. ‘Were you very scared? Is your father okay?’
‘Yes.’ Joshua nodded. ‘At least, I think he is.’
‘Where’s the pig now?’
‘Inside the shop.’
‘Good. Leon says you mustn’t mind,’ he went on. ‘He says it’ll be all right again now the pig’s down.’
Joshua scowled. ‘What’ll be all right again?’
‘Well, you know,’ Robert looked embarrassed. ‘About your father.’
‘What about him?’
Robert hesitated.
‘What?’ Joshua asked again.
‘About him being a mountain man.’
Joshua was shocked. ‘It isn’t true.’
‘Only mountain men carve,’ Robert pointed out.
‘He’s from here, from the village,’ retorted Joshua.
‘But is he?’ Robert’s voice rose. ‘After all, he’s not a fisherman, is he? He’s a –’
Joshua glared. ‘Don’t say it!’
‘I wasn’t going to!’ Robert snapped. ‘I was going to say butcher. But he is different, he’s not like us. He must be a mountain man!’ he finished triumphantly.
‘He is not!’ Joshua said stubbornly.
‘Of course he is. You’ve only got to look at his hair. It’s straight. So’s yours.’
Joshua reached up and felt it. He knew his hair was straight, but the significance of it hadn’t occurred to him before.
‘Mine’s curly,’ Robert said. ‘And everyone else’s is too.’
Robert sounded so superior. Joshua didn’t like it. He flew at him, butting him in the stomach.
Robert gasped as the air was knocked out of him. He fell to the ground, bringing Joshua down with him.
Joshua tried to punch, but Robert was quicker and grabbed hold of his hands. Joshua struggled to free them, but couldn’t. One moment Joshua was on top. The next he suddenly found himself on the ground beneath Robert.
‘Mountain man! Mountain man!’ Robert taunted him.
‘He is not!’
They rolled over and over in the dust. Joshua kicked and made contact with a shin bone.
‘Ouch!’ Robert shouted.
Joshua was glad it had hurt. He had wanted it to hurt. ‘Take it back! He’s not a mountain man. Take it back!’ Joshua was on top now. He and Robert had never fought before. At least, not like this. This felt serious.
He wished Robert would hurry up and say he hadn’t meant it. He wanted this fight to end. But first Robert had to apologise. ‘Take it back,’ he urged again, raising his fist.
‘All right! All right! I take it back.’
Joshua waited for a moment to make sure that Robert wouldn’t go back on his word, but all Robert did was stare up at him. ‘Say you’re sorry,’ he demanded, and instantly regretted it. If Robert refused, he would have to fight him again.
There was a long silence.
‘Sorry.’ The muscles of Robert’s face didn’t even twitch.
Relieved, Joshua got off.
Robert scrambled to his feet and brushed the dirt from his shorts.
Joshua held out a hand.
Robert ignored it. Seconds passed. Then, reluctantly, he reached out, clasped Joshua’s hand and shook it. ‘See you around,’ he said curtly and turned to go.
‘Rob …’ Joshua began, but then changed his mind and decided to say nothing. Maybe it was best to let Robert go.
He sloped inside, lit a candle and held it up to the small mirror that hung from a nail in the corner. He gazed at himself. His pointed chin was different from his father’s broad face and his eyes weren’t deep set like his father’s. But his hair – dark, strong and very straight – was his father’s hair. It flopped over his eyebrows, except when he’d been in the sea and could slick it back from his forehead with his fingers. He was shorter than Robert too, but that had never bothered him before. He reached up and felt his hair. Robert was right. He was different.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Out at sea a cruise ship lay at anchor, white and gleaming, a gangway lowered down the side. Figures descended the gangway to the boat waiting below. When they were all in, it drew away from the ship and crept across the bay, heading for the jetty where Joshua and Millie, Robert and Solomon sat patiently, legs dangling, watching it approach. It was the last day of the holidays.
The boat nudged the bottom step. Tom was waiting. He took the rope his father threw him and tied it fast to a ring. Then he held it still while his father helped tourists up the wet steps and on to the jetty.
There were eleven of them, large men and women, cluttered with hats and cameras, bags and sunglasses. They climbed carefully up the steps, looking around and calling out to each other. They moved slowly down the short jetty in a group. Tourists were always a welcome sight. They didn’t come often and they never stayed long.
Tom came scrambling up the steps. ‘Come on.’ He beckoned his friends to follow. One man in long, tight shorts looked back, saw them tagging along and pointed a camera at them.
Millie began to giggle.
‘Don’t,’ Robert said sternly.
She put one hand over her mouth, then the other, but the giggles wouldn’t stop. Tom was the first to catch them from her, then Solomon and Joshua together, and, finally, Robert.
Millie began to imitate one of the women. She pranced on pretend high heels and peered through imaginary sunglasses. The boys rolled in the road, laughing and squirming for joy.
Millie and Tom’s father overtook them. ‘They’re going to the shop,’ he told them, jerking his head.
Millie was the first to pull herself together. They followed the tourists into the smart part of the village, beyond the market, near the Gola and the hospital. Millie still succumbed to the odd snort of laughter.
They reached the part where the road was swept every day. You could still see the patterns left by the brooms that morning. A little further on they came to the stone shop that sold local crafts. The tourists crowded inside. The children sat down under a tree to wait, all except Millie who went and stood on a newly painted bench under the window to look in.
‘Josh! Come here!’ She beckoned furiously.
Joshua and Robert jumped up beside her on the bench. Since the night of their fight and making up, they’d become somehow closer, and they’d never talked again about mountain men.
Inside, the tourists moved from a display of lace to a pyramid of hand-woven baskets to a selection of pottery …
‘You see?’ Millie hopped excitedly. ‘Our animals.’
There was a glass shelf full of familiar bluey-grey stone creatures.
‘Wow!’ Robert breathed. They had never seen so many together. And none of these were broken.
The shopkeeper looked up and glared at them. He waved his arms crossly, motioning them to get down. Millie stuck out her tongue at him.
Joshua tugged at her dress. ‘Come on. Down,’ he said.
They went and stood at a little distance from the open door, staring in. They couldn’t see the stone carvings any more, but they could see that the tourists were bringing things to the counter to be wrapped carefully in shiny paper and tied ceremoniously with string. Singly and in twos and threes the tourists emerged into the sunlight.
The children were ready. Each darted to a different target. Joshua headed for a woman wearing a short dress the colour of cut watermelon.
‘Carry your parcel, Miss?’ he asked, making carrying movements with his hands so that the woman would know what he wanted.
She looked down at him. ‘Oh my, aren’t you sweet? Walter …’ she plucked at the sleeve of the man beside her, ‘Walter, isn’t he sweet?
’ Two pairs of sunglasses gazed down at him. Two mouths smiled, showing large, even teeth.
Joshua couldn’t understand the words. He smiled hopefully back at them and touched the parcels in the woman’s hand. ‘Carry them?’
‘No, that’s okay,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘They’re not heavy.’
Joshua stood his ground.
‘Give them to him, Marguerite,’ the man said. ‘I think it’s expected.’
To Joshua’s delight, the parcels were handed over.
The group reformed and moved off towards the old leper hospital, with the children in tow. Joshua looked across at Millie who grinned triumphantly at him. They had all managed to get something to carry, even little Solomon clasped a box carefully and proudly to his chest.
From the old leper hospital they trailed to the harbour building and then to the Gola Hotel at the water’s edge, where the tourists stopped at the bar for a drink. Joshua gazed up at the winding iron stairs that led to the top floor and its shuttered bedrooms.
‘Here.’ A hand reached down and took the parcels from him.
Startled, he released them. Just in time he remembered to hold out a hand and smile.
The man raised a camera and it clicked in his face.
‘Oh, Walter,’ the woman said, ‘he is lovely, isn’t he. Just look at those eyes. What do you think he’s called?’
‘Ask him,’ the man grunted, turning to go.
She bent down to him, pointed at herself and said, ‘Marguerite,’ very loudly. ‘I’m Marguerite,’ she repeated, stabbing her chest with her finger.
She pointed the finger at Joshua.
‘Joshua,’ he told her, understanding.
‘Yoswa,’ she repeated. It sounded more or less right, so he nodded, his hand still held out, palm upwards.
‘Oh, of course. I’m so sorry.’
He heard her speak, saw her fumble with the clasp of her handbag. She pulled out a purse and took some coins from it and dropped them in his hand.
He closed his hand over them, grinned at her and ran off to join the others who were waiting impatiently.