Just Joshua (3 page)

Longboats were coming through the breakers. The boatmen jumped into the surf to steady them while other fishermen waded in from the beach to help pull them in. Joshua and Robert watched with the villagers, Joshua still clutching Oliver’s bag of pastries. The
fishermen
jammed rollers under the boats, wrapped ropes around their shoulders and hauled them high up the beach to where a small crowd waited.

Joshua turned away, and, with a wave to Robert, he headed home.

His father was still thatching the shop roof, laying palm leaves across wooden beams and tying them, making sure they overlapped so that rainwater would run off and not come seeping through.

‘Oliver gave me some pastries. Look.’ Joshua held up the paper bag, crumpled and soggy from being carried around all afternoon.

His father was concentrating on tying one long leaf to another and didn’t look down at Joshua till he’d finished.

‘Marvellous. Put them in the food tin and we’ll have
them with supper. What about the pig? Can he let us have one?’

‘Yes, but not tomorrow. The day after. Usual arrangement, he says.’

His father nodded. ‘Fine. That gives us another day to work on the shop. Perhaps that’s better. Now, I want you to make me a new fly swat, all right? The old one’s falling apart.’

Joshua went into the house and stowed the pastries in the tin, pushing the lid down hard to make sure it was sealed. When he came back outside he picked up one of the palm leaves from the ground. He cut a length of stalk and stripped off some side leaves. Then he sat on the new stone bench they had built outside the shop and began plaiting. He worked on the fly swat until the sounds of thatching stopped and he heard his father whistling as he began to cook their evening meal in the yard behind.

After supper he scoured the pan with sand. He rinsed the pan and the dirty plates under the standing tap at the door before bringing his father hot tea. He watched his father take out a small knife and begin to mark a piece of wood with it. The paraffin lamp behind him threw his shadow on the yard. Joshua waited for his father to start to whittle. Once he began carving he seemed to retreat into a world of his own. Joshua slipped away. He knew this was the moment to go.

When he got to the hospital he hesitated, then began to climb the steps. Another nun might be on duty and might let him through, he reckoned.

The entrance hall was empty. He pushed open the door and almost collided with the nun he had met
yesterday
. She recognised him.

‘You again? What are you doing here?’

‘I wanted to see if the mountain man wears his hat in bed,’ he made up quickly.

‘Did you now? Well, out.’

‘Oh, please.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ve told you already, only family can visit. Who are you anyway?’

‘Joshua,’ he answered, rubbing one foot against the other.

‘Joshua,’ she mused. ‘Where do you live?’

‘Back there.’ He jerked his head.

‘Now I know where I’ve seen you. Your father’s the butcher, isn’t he?’

He nodded.

‘I see.’ She stared at him. ‘That’s a bit different,’ she said.

He looked up hopefully.

‘I can see why you –’ she broke off. ‘Tell you what,’ she said. ‘If I say which windows belong to his ward, you could keep guard on the outside, couldn’t you?’

He hadn’t a clue what she meant, but he nodded.
Any information was better than none.

‘His ward is at the back of the hospital. There are six windows and his bed is beside the second window from the far left corner. Now go –’

He was already scampering away, eager to locate the window, running down the steps and round to the back.

He found the window and looked up for any sign of movement from inside the glass.

None came.

He waited. He counted to a hundred. Still nothing. He wasn’t even sure what he expected, but somehow he had the feeling that the mountain man would know he was there. He counted to two hundred, and then, very patiently, to five hundred. With a sigh he turned to go.

Something caught his eye. Something that gleamed in the moonlight near the oleander bushes. He bent and picked it up; it felt smooth and hard.

He carried his find round to the side of the hospital and stood in the electric light that shone through a window so that he could examine it more closely. It was a snake, carved out of blueish-grey stone. The carving was small and perfect, except for the snake’s head, which was missing a tiny chip above one eye. As he gazed at the carving, he remembered the stone in the mountain man’s string bag.

He clasped the snake tightly with both hands. It was a sign, he thought jubilantly. He was right. The
mountain
man
was
trying to communicate.

He returned to the back of the building. Still no one there; no face at the window. He put his fingers to his lips and blew a piercing whistle, the way his father had taught him.

There was no response. Perhaps the man felt too ill to whistle back, he thought.

He raised his right hand high in the air so that the snake could look upwards. Just in case the mountain man was looking. So that he wouldn’t be lonely.

He ran home. At the entrance to the new shop he paused, listening, then went in, feeling for the small stack of paper bags his father had been given by Oliver for special customers. His fingers touched them almost at once. He drew out the top one and took it outside. He slipped in the snake and went round the back. His father was still whittling away.

Joshua didn’t want to show him the mountain man’s snake. He didn’t even want to show it to Robert. It was his secret, thrown out while he was there on his own. He went quietly indoors, lifted up the cloth that was draped between his mattress and the floor and laid the snake in the box under the bed where it would be safe and unseen; his father only swept under the beds after the rains. Then he went back outside. He squatted
close to his father, picked up a stick and began drawing fantasy creatures in the dust.

That night he turned over on to his stomach and felt beneath the bed. He edged the snake from its bag carefully so that the crackling would not wake his father. He closed his fingers around it and lifted it up to the moonlight. The snake’s head reared up from among the thick coils. Joshua ran his finger from the head down along the body and in among the coils; he went round and round until he reached the tip of the tail. The smoothness of the stone against his skin seemed
somehow
alive. He set the snake down beside his head on the pillow and tried to outstare it, fighting the sleepy drooping of his eyelids. He was sinking now; his back and his legs felt weightless. When his eyelids flickered open for the last time, the snake’s head seemed to have grown till it was as big as his own. He slept.

Old Mama Siska sat at her open door as she had been sitting every day, still as a statue, watching the shop opposite take shape. It was almost ready. In the last couple of days the butcher and his son had moved tables and a meat safe inside. Now her neighbour’s son, Robert, was helping. They brought the counter in from the house behind. The boys came out and fixed wire gauze over the window, then they hung a curtain of green fishnet over the doorway to keep out the flies. Now she could see nothing. With great force she spat her wad of tobacco on to the ground, got up and went inside.

In the shop, Joshua and Robert polished the counter till it gleamed, swept the concrete floor and helped Joshua’s father fix meat hooks to the ceiling beams.

Twice Joshua almost told Robert about the carving. Twice he shut his mouth again and said nothing.

The next day the pig arrived from Oliver and was killed. Half was set aside for the hotel. His father wrapped up big pieces in banana leaves and then in newspaper and put them in a round, shallow basket.

Joshua put the basket on his head.

‘Don’t dawdle today, will you. Come straight back,’ his father ordered.

Joshua set off at a steady trot for the hotel. He tipped the meat into the box Oliver held out to him and put the basket back on his head. If he was quick, he could go back via the hospital.

‘What’s the hurry?’ Oliver asked, surprised.

‘Our shop’s opening. Will you come?’

‘Sure.’

Joshua had barely waited for his answer before he was running back down the path, heading for the
hospital
. He ran round and stood under the window,
panting
. He counted to two hundred. He looked in the sand, under the bushes.

Nothing.

He ought to be going. He whistled. He counted one more hundred.

Still nothing.

By the time he got back, all was ready. His father had arranged the different cuts of pork on the wide shelf beneath the counter. There were sausages too, thick and shiny in their skins, and glistening liver and heart and kidneys, all laid out under a fine net to stop the flies getting at them. There were pigs’ trotters, tied together in pairs, and there was fat, which Joshua’s father had melted down and put into tins that Joshua had salvaged
from the rubbish heap and scrubbed thoroughly. It all looked so smart and new and exciting that Joshua forgot his disappointment over the mountain man.

‘We’ve done well, Josh,’ his father said. ‘Thanks for all your help.’

Joshua stood proudly beside his father, waiting to see who would be first to visit the shop. It smelled
different
in here. Outside, the smell of the meat had mingled with the salty breeze from the sea, the hot dust and the scent of ripe fruit. Here there was cool stone, and the tang of newly laid morter made his nostrils tingle. There was no wind this morning; the fishnet
curtain
over the doorway hung perfectly still.

A figure appeared outside. Old Mama Siska. She
shuffled
in, pulling the curtain with her. As she reached the counter, the fishnet slid from her shoulders and swung back into position. She peered at the pair behind the counter and made the sign of the cross. Her eyes
flickered
over the shop, examining it, looking for changes made since the netting on the window and door had blocked it from her eyes. Joshua shifted his feet uneasily. He had never seen her smile, and she wasn’t now.

‘No meat for me,’ she said in a throaty whisper. ‘Can’t chew it. Anyway, I don’t like the stuff. Can’t think why you want to sell it.’ She paused for breath.

Joshua and his father waited. His father’s smile didn’t waver.

‘I’ve brought you something,’ she went on. Her hands fumbled at her long, wide skirt, plucking at the folds, searching.

‘Help her.’ Joshua’s father gave him a push in her direction.

Reluctantly, Joshua went round the other side of the counter and stood close to the old lady. Mama Siska was shorter even than he was and the cotton of her head-cloth was so old and threadbare that he could see her white hair through it. He thought she must be at least ninety. As she hunted, she mumbled something to herself.

‘Can I help, old Mama?’ Joshua asked.

She examined him through screwed up eyes. ‘Anna’s little boy,’ she said. ‘Yes, you’ve got her mouth. Pretty mouth. But your hair isn’t hers. Or your eyes.’

Joshua glanced at his father for reassurance. People didn’t often mention his mother to him.

‘She was a good girl,’ Mama Siska went on. ‘A good girl. Now, what was it I wanted?’

Joshua felt a nervous giggle coming on, but a frown from his father stopped it just in time. ‘You were
looking
for something,’ he prompted.

‘Ah, yes. ‘Here …’ She lifted a fold of her skirt towards Joshua. ‘You look for my pocket. Tell me when you find it.’

Joshua went round her slowly, holding her long skirt
out a little at a time, searching for a thickening in the seam that would indicate a pocket. On the third fold he found it.

‘Here, old Mama,’ he said, putting it in her hands.

‘Thank you, my darling,’ she said.

His job done, Joshua stepped back. He didn’t feel quite sure of himself with Mama Siska, never had.

With a flourish, her hands pulled something from her pocket and pushed it on to the counter. There was a rattle of glass. Joshua’s father picked up the offering. A round, lacy cover, with coloured glass beads hanging from the edges, dangled from his fingers.

‘I taught your Anna to crochet when she was a girl. About your Joshua’s age,’ she added, almost smiling at Joshua. ‘You have it now. It will be useful for the flies.’

Joshua’s father reached under the counter, moved aside a corner of the net sheeting and put the pretty cover over a container of fat.

‘Thank you, old Mama,’ he said, coming over and giving her his hand as she turned to go. ‘That is very kind of you.’

‘It’s for luck,’ she wheezed, looking up at him. ‘For her sake, mind. You’ll need it, meatseller.’

Joshua saw a shadow cross his father’s face. To the villagers, ‘meatseller’ was a bad word; if they used it at all it was as a curse. But Mama Siska had said it so gently that it had sounded more like a warning.

She turned and looked at Joshua. ‘Son of meatseller,’ she whispered. She crossed herself again, and went out.

He shivered and joined his father behind the counter once more. He opened his mouth to speak, but his father semed so far away that he decided not to and closed it again without saying a word.

A fly landed on the counter. And another. His father handed him the new fly swat. ‘They must have come in with her,’ he said. ‘Kill them.’

By the end of the morning there were lots more flies to contend with; they sneaked in every time the curtain was pulled aside. But there were still far fewer than there would have been outside at the table. Joshua was kept busy swatting them and flicking them on to the floor, in between wrapping up pieces of meat – a bit of liver here, a chop there, a large lump of stewing meat.

Business had never been so brisk. Some people had come to buy, others just wanted to see and admire the new shop. And once they were there they stayed to gossip, enjoying the novelty. It got so full that Joshua was almost suffocated in the press of people.

Someone brought a jar of toddy. Someone else
produced
five glasses, which were shared out among the crowd. Robert arrived with his mother.

The party spilled out of the shop and into the clearing. A drum was produced, Leon, Robert’s
mother’s boyfriend, began to play a homemade fiddle. Old Mama Siska shuffled forward from the edge of the crowd and was the first to begin dancing, her wrinkles almost relaxing into a smile. The threadbare ruffles at the bottom of her skirt flounced to the swaying of her scrawny hips. More toddy appeared and was passed around.

Children came running into the clearing, including some of the orphans from Joshua’s school. Joshua waved to them. Simon, the old fisherman, produced a bamboo flute and began a haunting, lilting tune that the fiddle and drum followed. Another drummer joined them. The band swelled and soon everyone was dancing.

Mama Calla sashayed over to Joshua. ‘Give us a song, Joshua.’

Her large body shook and swayed to the music. ‘Let’s have it then,’ she said encouragingly.

He wasn’t sure which song to sing, but as soon as he opened his mouth the voice and words just came. The musicians and dancers picked up the tune. Joshua grinned, stamped his feet, weaved and ducked,
clapping
his hands to the beat.

He halted in mid-turn. The priest was coming across the square, an aspergill of holy water hanging from his hands on a chain. He had come to bless the new building, as was the custom.

Joshua ran over to his father and grabbed his arm. ‘Dad,’ he said urgently. ‘Father Peter is here. Dad!’

His father hastily wiped his lips. He signalled to the musicians to stop and went forward to greet the priest.

‘Thank you for coming, Father.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Father Peter said, waving the thanks away. ‘Is that toddy you’ve got there? Good. I’ll have some of that later if I may. Come along now. Show me this shop of yours.’ He headed purposefully for the shop entrance. Joshua ran in front of him, pulled the curtain aside and stood back to let the priest in first. His father followed and the crowd squashed in behind. Joshua could feel their breath hot on his neck and the smell of their sweat was strong from the dancing.

Father Peter took the sprinkler from the bronze aspergill and flicked it in one arc, and then another, making the sign of the cross. Drops of holy water flew through the air. ‘Bless this shop,’ he cried.

Marius, one of the orphans, sneezed and everyone laughed. It was a good sign. The priest dipped the sprinkler in again and flicked water expertly in the direction of each corner in turn. ‘Bless this corner; bless the counter,’
flick, flick
, ‘bless the window,’
flick
, ‘bless the door and those who come through it,’
flick
. Drops fell on the onlookers who hastily made the sign of the cross. The chant swelled. ‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.’

Father Peter put the sprinkler back in the aspergill and set them down on the counter. ‘Right. That’s done,’ he said briskly. He looked round. ‘Now where’s that toddy?’ he asked, bustling towards the door. ‘And music. Let’s have more music!’

The crowd surged back outside, Joshua too. He turned and looked back at the shop. Something was bothering him. He went over to the priest. ‘Father Peter,’ he said, tugging at the priest’s sleeve. ‘Father Peter.’

‘Yes, Joshua, what is it?’ The priest turned from his conversation and bent down to him.

‘You forgot to bless the outside.’

The priest smiled and started to answer him, but a woman came up and interrupted him, and whatever he was about to say was lost.

Joshua waited patiently for the woman to finish, but then more people came and engaged the priest in
conversation
. The music had his feet tapping and he could no longer remember why blessing the outside of the shop had felt important, so he went back to the dancing.