Keys of Babylon (34 page)

No, west ain't best, the sailor is saying. Anything but.

It's our bread the strangers don't like. The loaves are old with a blue crust. They feel hot. But our beer is strong and there's yellow meat on the crabs. We're cooking shellfish in a pit under the fire. This isn't one of our usual camps, and we haven't taken the strangers home to the ravine. That's where our houses are, which can't be seen from the tops of the dunes or from the sea. That's also where our spring is. It's the perfect hidden place. Though it's true, we can't hide smoke. Instead, we've stayed close to the raft which is moored in the rocks. Now the tide is full with starlight in it and firelight in the pools. As my brother says, these midnight barbecues are our favourite meals. Really special occasions.

You know? says the man. I've been up and down this coast a score of times and thought there was no one here.

Looks like a desert from out there, says the woman. The back of beyond. You must like it like that.

Then she glances at me and smiles.

How can you live in all this sand? It's bad for the skin. And aren't there snakes? Long snakes?

Lots of snakemeat, smiles my father. And there's some of us wear snakeskin shoes.

Very trendy, says the man. Look, don't get me wrong. I've been worse places. Marshes with blue lights. Pools black with mosquitoes. We like it here. Might stay for a bit if that's all right.

What about your stone? asks that oaf, my father's brother.

That heavy bastard? Total nightmare. I've had it with all those stones.

We turn to where the raft is tied. The stone is a black treetrunk in the firelight. A fallen pillar. The only shelter on the raft comprises stakes bound together and an evergreen roof.

You know how many of us it took to bring that monster from the mountain? How many days? You know how many of us were needed to get it on the boat? And then you have to know how to sail the boat. How to steer. How to navigate the coast when sometimes there's no land at all and you're reading the stars and thinking about this useless cargo of a useless rock. How it might just slip you under a black wave. Like it did to Dogtooth, poor sod. Like it did to two of those labourers down west. Toppled straight off the wagon, didn't it? Broke their backs. Writhing about like squabs, what could we do? Had to stove their heads in. Couldn't leave them in pain. Good men apparently. And all the time it's just another stone for the bloody temple.

Temple? asks my mother.

For the gods. The bloody gods.

Everyone is silent. Then my brother sniggers. Someone snorts. Soon we're all laughing.

Hey, a toast, cries my father. To the gods! The bloody gods.

The bloody gods! we shout. And we all drink, even some of the girls, waving our cups.

The stranger brandishes a crab claw and continues.

Don't worry, folks. You can trust me. I've been everywhere. These gods are not so terrible. I mean, the so-called gods. Once down the coast I met these people that worship a whale's penis. That's right. This old cock the size of a totem pole. All the old men bowing down to a fish's pizzle. I ask you. Hilarious.

He takes a long draft.

And what temple? asks my mother.

Four days sailing east. Then two weeks on the wagons.

Big job, says the woman. Huge job. But it pays.

Dogtooth might not agree, says the man. But, yes, big earner. Got these engineers in, haven't they. Greaseballs and little dark types explaining to everyone how to build it. Can't understand a word. But talk about meticulous. What goes where. Drawing their lines. Measuring their plans to the titchiest blade of grass.

And the priests, says the woman.

Oh, don't get me back on the priests, groans the man, pulling his beard. Self important? Sanctimonious? Like who cares where the sun rises? I ask you. It's got to be somewhere, hasn't it? The sun has to rise. Is that really like… important? Droning on about the new maths. What's wrong with the old maths, my father would ask. Count up to ten and you're made. You're in business. Then there's all the others coming over. Smiths. Brickies. Astronomers. Those astronomers are a weird lot. And surveyors. Like what's to survey? Anyway, pass that flagon.

He belches out of the darkness. Then continues.

This other journey, last year, I was kipping in a cave down east. Nice and dry, big fire, and aye aye, I notice someone's been scratching shapes on the walls. Red deer they looked like. Maybe rhinoceros. So, I thought, right. I'm going to have a go. But no animal claptrap. I'm going to do a man. I'm going to draw myself.

He looks round.

Yeah. Myself. A self-portrait. Well, why not? The way I see it, I can do anything. Jack of all trades, that's me. So why not be an artist? And pretty good it was too, my drawing. I scratched it in and used some of the yellow ochre they'd been digging. There was an ochre pit just down the hill.

What happened? my father asked.

Didn't like it did they? Not one bit. Had to wash it off. One of the priests in a ponyskin got miffed. So I calmed him down. But then this silly old bugger with antlers on his head started a real strop. Offensive he said it was. Insulting. The bloody gods wouldn't like it…

The bloody gods! shouts my father. And, shrieking, we drink again.

So all night, says the visitor, as a kind of apology I had to sit around reciting that poem. You know. Endless long verses we all had to learn? Warriors and maidens and holding out for a hero? Maybe you don't have it in this desert, no disrespect. That poem about the deerhunt that goes on for two years?

The poem or the hunt? I ask, and everybody cheers.

And all the warriors die one by one? asks my father.

That's it.

And they meet a magician?

You got it.

And a sea monster?

Well, I'd say it was a basking shark, most likely, says the man.

And everyone gets pissed?

For a whole year, says my father's brother.

Predictable, isn't it, says the man.

Too pissed to fight? laughs my father.

Completely wasted.

Yeah, we got that poem too.

Goes on a bit, doesn't it?

I'll say.

But some good lines.

Oh yes, some good lines.

When I look up again the fire's still burning but everyone's asleep. A moth with eyes on its wings is floating around. Both the visitors are spark out. That's what usually happens to boozers. Oblivion. They're very trusting, I must say. The shorthaired woman was carrying a rawhide bag and it's here at my feet. Carefully I look inside. Her dyes, her powders, her contraceptives. Some shreds that might be hashish. Nice knickers. A different top. Knife with a turtleshell handle. Cuttlebone necklace she's dyed pink. Probably used madder. And a drawing, a map it looks like, scored in bark. Where the temple of stones is, I suppose.

Yes, I might wish to be like the shorthaired woman. I think she must have a great heart. Free to roam, and a sailor too. Tough and skinny and a scar on her belly. Maybe they pulled a child out of her. Tomorrow I must ask her name. She is quiet but she listens to all. And yes, I am learning from her. She told me she speaks three dialects. That she once saw a woman whipped with nettles for taking her food first. A soupbone. But perhaps that woman was starving. Perhaps the bone was for her children. It's still so primitive, she says. Not only bears hurrumphing round the world. Men too. Men eating their own fleas. Men scratching their scabby balls. Makes me cringe. Like mother says, men's minds are made of mud.

Silently I slip away and go to the raft, placing my hand on the hemp bands, the stone itself. The sea is not far off now, glittering like birch. But these summer nights are never really dark. The worst they get is that colour at the far edge of a rainbow. It can still be light enough to forage, if you're brave enough.

Already the stone is dry and warm. I like the man too, boaster that he is. Taking up all the air, all the room, the firelight on his face. But I like storytellers and if the woman goes with him, and a woman such as that, he must be, what? Honest? Brave? No, something else. But I don't have that word either. That dark edge to the rainbow.

Perhaps they will stay and the stone will rest on the shore. And perhaps they'll decide to build their temple with the rest of the new people and we will wait for a higher tide to free the boat. Perhaps I will go with them. And perhaps not. The sea frightens me. From the ridge I've seen the storms. Once I watched as a black wind, spinning like a spindle, travelled from the other coast. It smashed ashore here, swept through the inlet and raced along the ridge. It was full of bird voices, birds imprisoned in its black branches, birds falling exhausted from its prison. And there was lightning, white as coral, growing out of the sea. And thunder all around, its sulphur in my throat sickly as medicine. That's why we hang holly at our door. Mother has planted it above the ravine and it is our guardian tree.

I'd miss everything I know. The curlews at dusk, their cries the saddest cries, the happiest too, because they are calls to home. Come to the fire, they say. Come home from the dark. And the lichen that grows on the grey stones. Yellow as eggyolk, its tiny leaves. I'd miss that.

This sand is home, the sand that hides so much. What did he say? A portrait of himself? Trust an ugly man to decide that. Haven't we always drawn in the sand here with our sticks and watched the seawater bubble up in our footprints, washing our tracks away? The girls draw the boys. The boys draw themselves carrying spears. My mother sharpens a holly stick and draws the moon for planting, the moon for harvesting. My father draws the whale that once came to the bay, its waterspout tall as a tree.

Drawing started in the sand, not in caves. But we have an understanding with these visitors. We could cut their throats. Or they could cut ours. Father said we were watching their boat a long time before it came ashore. Because we only drum if a boat lands. This time we decided to show ourselves. There was no danger.

So I'm borrowing the woman's handbag. I'm going to use her lipstick. Such a colour she paints herself. A mauve, a purple. She must be a gaudy orchid when she has the need. There are rocks all around where I might draw. But here, the surface of their temple stone is smooth enough. I might picture the wolf, of course. Here she is, snapping at the sand fleas that jump out of the weed, her pelt pale as driftwood. Sand people know that any fool might draw, might make their mark. But what can my painted finger make? A bird, a boat? Myself? And what's a rhinoceros anyway?

Robert Minhinnick works for the environmental charity, Sustainable Wales, and is co-founder of Friends of the Earth Cymru.

A new edition of his
Selected Poems
(Carcanet) is due in 2012, together with a critical book and appraisal from Seren.

He has twice been awarded the Forward Prize for Best Individual Poem and twice the Wales Book of the Year for his collections of essays.

His other books include
Fairground Music: the World of Porthcawl Funfair
(with Eamon Bourke) from Gomer;
Sea Holly
(Seren) shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize;
The Adulterer's Tongue: Six Contemporary Welsh Poets
(Carcanet).

Robert Minhinnick is glad to acknowledge a Creative Wales award that has enabled him
to undertake the writing of
The Keys of Babylon.