Mountains of the Moon (11 page)

“Telliwison?” he says.

“Sheba—gone way,” I says.

His eyes is puzzled like twin bubbles.

“Sheba—gone way,” he says.

Lucky there int no kids, everyone’s gone to school. Next thing the Sandwich Man is back, brung a sharp spade with him. Hole comes deep quicker cos he chops and I scoops out. I make a bed of leaves in the hole fore we puts Sheba in. When we put the dirt back on her I wonders if I should be crying. I tries but there int none in me. The Sandwich Man and me get some stones for putting around. He sits down and rolls a cigarette; I make a cross from sticks and long grass. It goes cold and dark sudden, clouds is deadly nightshade but behind the sky is yellow. It’s a proper grave what we done, don’t know how come the dirt looks purple. Int no vultures going to get her.

“Shall we say a prayer?” the Sandwich Man arsts.

I throw the broke shovel in the stingers.

“Int no God,” I says.

Cabbige whites fly up, never seen so many.

“Int no Dog,” says Baby Grady.

Surprises me I starts crying, lucky cos the rain falls down like coming from a buckit.

I’m with Edith Piaf, in Paris, by gaslight, it’s gay; it’s so gay it makes me brave. The intercom bell blasts through the music. I turn the record down and answer it.

“Hello,” a bloke says. “I just saw your postcard in the shop window? It said to ring the bell?”

“Oh, brilliant. Come up,” I say, “second floor.”

I only put the ad there yesterday. It feels like a sure thing. As if by appointment Techno turns his music off and goes out, slamming his door, jumping down the stairs. I hear the bloke coming up. Will he pay the rent?—that’s the question. He doesn’t know how important he is to the plan.

“Ah!” he says.

He shakes my hand.

“Danny,” he says.

“Come in,” I say.

He will say yes. He will pay the rent. He has come to make it easy for me. He’s wearing a green denim jacket with an Aztec lizard panel hand-stitched on the back, though he’s not the least bit Latino to look at; he’s a golden type of bloke with faded jeans and silver jewelry.

“Fantastic,” he says. “I’ll have it.”

He has green DM boots. I’m not supposed to sublet.

“There’s no fridge,” I say. “You don’t need one—it’s so fucking cold in here.”

He doesn’t seem fazed. I lie down to show him where the warm strip
is under the floor. He lies down to see what I mean. He sees how if you cook your toast on the camping stove you can warm yourself at the same time. He checks out the bathroom like a clever and totally new idea; examines his tongue in the mirror. He moves like someone that can dance.

“There’s a twin-tub; I got it out of a skip.” I open the larder door to show him.

We settle down on cushions around the camping stove. He likes the painted landscape; asks me about it, talks about Turner’s use of light; the way the painted sun strikes the yellow bark, explains about the cubist nature of my painted thorn tree. There’s a fish skeleton printed on his T-shirt. I find myself in Machu Picchu, a place I’ve never heard of; in ancient civilizations in general, in hieroglyphics and rock engravings, in the weave of llama wool, in the filigree of silver work and methods they have of smelting. He rolls an elegant cigarette with beautiful hands, pinches a stray tobacco thread from his tongue. We’re on to Colombian pots.

“They burn a special kind of bark in the kiln, which produces the smoked black finish.”

I don’t think the way he dresses is fashion; more a collection of fond memories, everything about him is somehow original. Edith Piaf is still playing.

“Listen to this, Dan,” I say.

I turn the crackle and volume up. We listen to Piaf’s live applause in 1954. She warbles “Autumn Leaves” for us, and them, one verse in English, one verse in French. Danny seems at home. He’s been working in Colombia for six years, teaching, but now he’s doing an art foundation course.

“Everything is coming up
fish
,” he says. “I’ve got some savings; I’m working part-time at the Language School, teaching beginners’ conversation.”

Music to my ears.

“I love it. Today a lovely man from Italy came in. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘My name is six o’clock.’”

I see the woman in the mirror laughing.
Here—life is beautiful; zee girls are beautiful, even zee orchestra is beautiful.
She’s very animated.
Leave your troubles—outzide.

I realize Danny Fish has been here several hours. We’re on to Doctor Dolittle, via llamas and push-me-pull-yous.

“I shared an apartment with a doctor once,” he says, “a plastic surgeon.”

“Could you tell he was a surgeon from the way he carved his meat?”

“No—but when the fish arrived, it did look
remarkably
like Cher.”

There’s mischief in the set of his teeth; I imagine one fang, but there isn’t one. Piaf sings a tightrope walk, and a flying trapeze, no safety net, the accordion worries about underneath. Danny picks up the small brown phrase book.

“Jambo,” he says to me.

“Jambo,” I reply.

“Mzuri?”

“Mzuri Sana.”

“Jina lako nani?” he asks me.

“Ninitwa Louise,” I say.

“Karibu Louise,” he says, “hakuna matata.”

“Hakuna matata?”

“No worries,” Danny Fish says. “I think it’s amazing what you’re doing.”

“One chance, Dan,” I say. “One fritterable amount.”

He’s interested in the map.

“Five feet by seven feet,” I say. “Thirty-five square feet.”

Same size as my cell.

“PADAM, PADAM, PADAM,” Piaf kicks arse in a circus parade. “DADA DUM, DADA DUM, DADA DUM.”

I reckon the Sandwich Man done them for me. Wooden blocks, bashed up with nails around the back of beech tree number 4, in the bushes where no one can see, less you looks proper. The wooden blocks work like steps up to where the trees get busy. Beech trees is the beautiful-ist. Green leaves going gold around the edges, minds me of Pip’s eyes and the
bark is smooth and gray, not silver, not slippy like the silver birch. Beech trees is easy now, up and up and then long. They was planted close together and some of the arms has growed together. Sometimes has to jump a bit, can get from one tree into the next. Int scared.

Mum and Auntie Fi is hiding in the bedroom, case Uncle Ike comes. Mum’s bedroom comes true in the sun, sactly as we magined. Don’t know how many reds there is, bossed with gold on the wallpaper. Must mit it was a bastard, never wanted to stick on the ceiling. Furnitures was all different so we done them the same with hogany varnish. I done all the gold leaves swirling around the handles cos I is good at careful and edges. We was trying for
Boodwaa
cept the curtains turned up jumble-sale satin, in black-and-white stripy. Then Mum got a good idea so stead we done it
Monay
with mirrors and pink paper peonies for clashing. We had crêpe paper left from
Carousel
, when Mum done it at Pip’s school. I try to member where we was, in the olden days, fore Bryce. Don’t know if we done
Carousel
in Bedford or Taunton or Norwich, I spects the place with hydrangeas.

All the winders is open cos it’s last chance warm. Auntie Fi’s laughing. Baby Grady’s learned to stand up, holding on to the chair with his chubby feets in the
fuck-me
shoes what Mum got from Marilyn Monroe. They done him a feather boa and sparkly boob tube. His face is lipstick and black massacre. Mum puts on the short black wig. Then comes black gloves, she unrolls them up her arms and sits on the chair the wrong way around. Uh-huh. Girlfriend known as Elsie. Mum sings big so the gods and Liza Minnelli can hear it.

“SHE WASN’T WHAT YOU’D CALL A BLUSHING FLOWER, AS A MATTER OF FACT…”

“SHE RENTED BY THE HOUR…” Auntie Fi sings like a choirboy.

They hold on to each other cos laughing.

“BUT WHEN SHE DIED THE NEIGHBORS CAME TO SNICKER…”

“THAT’S WHAT COMES FROM TOO MUCH PILLS AND LICKER.”

“BUT WHEN I SAW HER LAID OUT, LIKE A QUEEN…”

Auntie Fi, quick, lies down on the bed being Elsie dead, but I can only see her legs.

“SHE WAS THE HAPPIEST CORPSE I’D EV-ER SEEN…”

I never wants to go like Elsie. Mum’s got all of the song. Auntie Fi gives up, finds Mum’s mauve dress in the pile on the bed and strokes the silkiness and tries to put it on but it won’t go cos of big bones. She’s stuck; caterpillar in a cris-lis. And Mum int even looking cos high kicks is coming up. Baby Grady copies Mum, that’s how come a fuck-me shoe goes flying out the winder.

“AND AS FOR ME. AND AS FOR ME…”

A parcel man turns up in a van. And he’s going to ours. He waits by the front door, puts the parcel down on the step and then he picks it up gain. Mum does a
Cabaret
finish and he don’t know if to knock or clap. He knocks hard. Auntie Fi can’t side where to hide; Uncle Ike int happy cos she’s been doing Escort Agency in the afternoons. He don’t want her working with cars. Mum looks out the winder. Then she opens the front door still in spenders and takes the parcel in, I spects it’s from the catalogue, stupid shoes for going back to school. The court says gain,
I has to go.
I wishes they int black patent. My feets is good as leather, could just draw the laces on and shine them up with polish. Bare feets is made especial good for climbing beech trees. I has to learn every tree and sactly how they is.

I find a way to the next beech tree easy where the branches kiss. The Baldwins’ house is different from ours cos the bathroom is at the front. It int proper watching Mrs. Baldwin, she’s like a dressing gown hanging on the back of the bathroom door, looks like crying. James went to Portsmouth to die. No one knows how come Portsmouth. Mr. Baldwin is mowing his side grass, it’s more greener than anything else; the end triangle grass is dead cos of football and it still int rained. It int rained. Spotty hyena from number 96 lies down all the time on Sheba’s grave and he won’t get off. The Hump grass has gone all yellow and shaggy.

The last beech tree is older, bigger and fatter than all the others. The branches spread out and open wide. Africa fills my eyes. The Masai Mara grass is rolling, golden, golden over golden; running way from the wind, don’t know how big it is. Pip said one time he found a manhole cover with a big empty sewerage underneath. Magine, a manhole cover in the Masai Mara grass, big sewerage underneath it. Somewhere this side close by the hedge and the wire. Pip said he couldn’t find it gain and I can’t find it niver, I spects he dreamed it, a manhole cover in the grass. The Rift Valley lakes has dried up, showing all the bones. Dirt is red and the sky is pink, more bigger than anything else. Sometimes the sun makes me blind. Africa goes on forever. The Jackal is in the Mara, don’t know how come he int at school. I spects he’s been sniffing at the top of the cliff, wants to get down on Big Grin. I seen him cos I stalked him fore, he even lifts his leg to piss. He goes down over the edge but then he comes up quick, too scared to jump the crack. But every day he gets more braver. Feeling says move my camp, my book and everything. Sides the dirty Jackal, I got Baby Grady all the time and I can’t go to Big Grin with him. I look at this end beech tree, its arms is strong and out like welcome. I sees Mum on the doorstep. She blows the whistle for me to come in, sounds like a penalty, lucky the kids int playing football.

Uh-huh: a parcel is on the table with brown paper ripped off it. Definite shoebox. I see the writing on the label. Surprises me, says
Zulu-Lulu
. Grandad learned Pip how to write copperplate. Post office stamp says
Powys.
It int proper Mum opened it.

“It’s from your brother,” Mum says. “Traitor.”

She goes upstairs with Auntie Fi cos Baby Grady’s screaming, too loud for noring.

I open the shoebox. It int shoes. Pip’s made me binocliars! He’s done them good with toilet roll tubes. They got bits for turning and a string for hanging them around your neck. I look through them at the sky. Eagle! Eagle flying on one lens! And he’s done me something else, wrapped up
small in tissue paper. Conker number eleven, beautiful, and even the hole is drilled ready. Looks like he done me a card; envelope is ripped open and not even nice. He’s done the drawing with felt-tip pens; giraffe is saying:
Happy Birthday
. He’s done me words in a letter. Reckons they got six sheep dogs but they int so good as Sheba. New sisters int so good as me, that’s how come he sent me binocliars and the conker and five pounds. I look in every place, can’t find no five pounds. Mum, I spects. It int proper, it int, I needs it for razor blades and stamps. Least now I got Pip’s address, place name like an alphabet. Auntie Fi has come downstairs, forgot her glass of wine.