Nation (13 page)

And that had been it for the butler. Daphne had been sorry to see him go, because he was quite kind and she’d very nearly mastered his waddle. Later she’d heard via the dumbwaiter that he’d met a Bad End. And all because of the Demon Drink.

On the other hand, she’d always wondered what the Demon Drink was like, having heard her grandmother talk about it so much. This particular Demon Drink was made very methodically out of a red root that grew in one corner of the Place; Cahle peeled it very carefully with a knife, and then washed her hands just as carefully in the pool, at the place where it overflowed into the little stream again. The root was mashed with a stone and a handful of small leaves was added. Cahle stared at the bowl for a moment and then cautiously added another leaf. Water was poured in from a gourd, taking care not to splash, and the bowl was left on a shelf for a day.

By next morning the bowl was full of a churning, hissing, evil-looking yellow foam.

Daphne went to climb up to see if it smelled as bad as it looked, and Cahle gently but firmly pulled her back, shaking her head vigorously.

“Don’t drink?” Daphne had asked.

“No drink!”

Cahle took the bowl down and set it down in the middle of the hut. Then she spat in the bowl. A plume of what looked like steam went up to the thatched roof of the hut, and the churning mixture in the bowl hissed even more.

This, thought Daphne, watching in a kind of fascinated shock, is not at all like Grandmother’s sherry afternoons.

At that point, Cahle began to sing. It was a jolly little song, with the kind of tune that sticks in your mind even when you don’t know the words. It bounced along and you just
knew
you wouldn’t be able to get it out of your head. Even with a chisel.

She was singing to the beer. And the beer was listening. It was calming down, like an excited dog being reassured by its master’s voice. The hissing began to grow less, the bubbles settled, and what had looked like a foul mess was actually becoming transparent.

Still Cahle sang, beating time with both hands. But they weren’t
just
beating time; they made shapes in the air, following the music. The beer-calling song had lots of little verses with the same chorus between each one, so Daphne started to sing along and wave her hands in time. She got the feeling that the woman was pleased about this because she leaned over, still singing, and moved Daphne’s fingers into the right positions.

Strange, oily ripples passed across the stuff in the bowl, which got a bit clearer with each verse. Cahle watched it closely, still singing…and then stopped.

The bowl was full of liquid diamond. The beer sparkled like the sea. A small wave rolled across it.

Cahle dipped a shell into it and offered it to Daphne with an encouraging nod.

Well, refusing would certainly be what Grandmother called a
Faux Pas
. There was such a thing as good manners, after all. It might cause offense, and that would never do.

She tried it. It was like drinking silver, and it made her eyes water.

“For man! Husbun!” said Cahle, grinning. “For when too much husbun!” She lay on her back and made very loud snoring noises. Even the Unknown Woman smiled.

Daphne thought: I’m learning things. I hope I find out soon what they are.

The next day she worked it out. In a language made up of a few words and a lot of smiles, nods, and gestures—some very embarrassing gestures, which Daphne knew she should be shocked about, except that here on this sunny island there was just no point—she, Cahle, was teaching her the things she needed to know so that she would be able to get a husband.

She knew she shouldn’t laugh, and tried not to, but there was no way to explain to the woman that her way to get a husband was to have a very rich father who was governor of a lot of islands. Besides, she was not at all certain that she even wanted a husband, since they seemed a lot of work, and as for children, after seeing the birth of Guiding Star, she was certain that if
she
ever wanted children she’d buy some ready-made.

But this wasn’t something she could tell two new mothers, even if she knew how, so she tried to understand what Cahle was trying to tell her, and she even let the nameless woman do her hair, which gave the poor woman some comfort and, Daphne thought, looked pretty good but far too grown-up for thirteen. Her grandmother would
not approve,
in italics, although seeing to the other side of the world was probably too much even for her beady eyes.

At any moment her father’s ship would come into view, of course. That was a certainty. It was taking some time because there were so many islands to search.

And supposing he didn’t come?

She pushed that thought out of her mind.

It pushed back. She could see thoughts that were waiting on the other side of it, waiting to drag her down if she dared to think them.

More people had arrived on the day after Guiding Star had been born, a small boy called Oto-I and a tiny wizened old lady, both of them parched and hungry.

The old lady was about the same size as the boy and had taken over a corner of one of the huts, where she ate everything that was given to her and watched Daphne with small bright eyes. Cahle and the other women treated her with great respect and called her by a long name that Daphne couldn’t pronounce. She called her Mrs. Gurgle because she had the noisiest stomach Daphne had ever heard, and it was a good idea to keep upwind of her at all times.

Oto-I, on the other hand, had recovered in the speedy way that children do, and she had sent him off to help Ataba. From here she could see the old man and the boy working on the pig fence, just below her, and if she walked to the edge of the fields, she could see a steadily growing pile of planks, spars, and sailcloth on the beach. Since there was going to be a future, it would need a roof over its head.

The
Judy
was dying. It was sad, but they were only finishing what the wave had begun. It would take a long time, because a boat is quite hard to take to bits, even when you’ve found the carpenter’s toolbox. But what a treasure it was on an island that, before the wave, owned two knives and four small three-legged cauldrons. Together, Mau and the brothers pecked away at the boat like grandfather birds at a carcass, dragging everything to the shore and then all the way along the beach. It was hot work.

Pilu swanked a bit about knowing the names of the tools in the box, but it seemed to Mau that when you got right down to it, a hammer was a hammer whether it was made of metal or stone. It was the same with chisels. And skateskin was as good as this sandpaper, wasn’t it?

“All right, but what about pliers?” said Pilu, holding up a pair. “We’ve never had pliers.”

“We could have,” said Mau, “if we’d wanted to. If we’d needed them.”

“Yes, but that’s the interesting thing. You don’t know you need them until you haven’t got them.”

“We’ve never had them to want to need!” said Mau.

“You don’t have to get angry.”

“I’m not angry!” snapped Mau. “I just think we manage all right!”

Well, they did. The island always had. But the little galley of the
Sweet Judy
was annoying him in ways he didn’t quite understand, which was making him feel even worse. How did the trousermen get to have all this stuff? They’d piled it up where the low forest met the beach, and it was
heavy
. Pots, pans, knives, spoons, forks…there was a big fork that, with the simple addition of a shaft, would make the finest fishing spear
ever
, and there were lots like it, and knives as big as swords.

It was all so…arrogant. The wonderful tools had been treated by the crew as if they were worth hardly anything, thrown in together to rattle around and get scratched. On the island, a fork like that would have been hung on a hut wall and cleaned every day.

There was probably more metal on this one boat than there was in all the islands. And according to Milo there had been lots of boats in Port Mercia, and some of them had been much bigger than the
Judy
.

Mau knew how make a spear, from picking a shaft to chipping a good sharp point. And when he’d finished, it was truly his, every part of it. The metal spear would be a lot better, but it would just be a…a thing. If it broke, he wouldn’t know how to make another one.

It was the same with the pans. How were they made? Not even Pilu knew.

So we’re not much better than the red crabs, Mau thought, as they dragged a heavy box down to the beach. The figs fall out of the trees, and that’s all they know. Can’t we be better than them?

“I want to learn trouserman,” he said as they sat down to rest before going back inside the stifling, smelly heat of the wreck yet again. “Can you teach me?”

“What do you want to say?” said Pilu, and then he grinned. “You want to be able to talk to the ghost girl, right?”

“Yes, since you ask. We talk like babies. We have to draw pictures!”

“Well, if you want to talk to her about loading and unloading and pulling ropes, I might be able to help,” said Pilu. “Look, we were on a boat with a lot of other men. Mostly they grumbled about the food. I don’t think you want to say ‘This meat tastes like you cut it off a dog’s arse,’ do you? I know that one.”

“No, but it would be nice to be able to talk to her without asking you for words all the time.”

“Cahle is saying the ghost girl is learning to speak our language very well,” Milo rumbled. “And she makes better beer than anyone.”

“I know! But I want to talk to her like a trouserman!”

Pilu grinned. “You and her all by yourselves, eh?”

“What?”

“Well, she’s a girl and you are a—”

“Look, I’m not interested in the ghost girl! I mean I—”

“Leave it to me—I know just what you need.” Pilu rummaged in the heap of things they had already taken from the wreck and held up what looked to Mau to be just another plank but, after Pilu had banged at them and hammered at them for a while, turned out to be—

“Trousers,” said Pilu, winking at his brother.

“Well?” said Mau.

“The trousermen ladies like to see a man in trousers,” said Pilu. “When we were in Port Mercia, we weren’t allowed to go ashore unless we wore some, otherwise the trousermen women would give us funny looks and scream.”

“I’m not going to wear them here!”

“The ghost girl might think you’re a trouserman and let you—” Milo began.

“I’m
not interested
in the ghost girl!”

“Oh, yeah, you said.” Pilu pulled at the trousers for a moment and then stood them on the beach. They were so encrusted with mud and salt that they stayed up by themselves. They looked fearsome.

“They’re powerful magic, they are,” Milo said. “They’re the future, sure enough.”

Mau tried to avoid crunching the red crabs when they went back along the track to the wreck. They probably didn’t know if they were alive or dead, he thought. I’m certain they don’t believe in little sideways crab gods, and here they are, after the wave, as many as ever. And the birds knew it was coming, too. We didn’t. But we are smart! We make spears and trap fish and tell stories! When Imo made us out of clay, why didn’t he add the bit that tells us that the wave would come?

Back in the
Sweet Judy
, Pilu whistled cheerfully as he levered up planks with a long metal bar from the toolbox. It was a jaunty tune and unlike anything Mau had heard before. They used to whistle the dogs when they were hunting, but this sounded…complicated.

“What is that?” he said.

“It’s called ‘I’ve Got A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts,’” said Pilu. “One of the men on the
John Dee
taught it to me. It’s a trouserman song.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means I’ve got a lot of coconuts and I want you to throw things at them,” said Pilu as a piece of the deck began to come free.

“But you don’t have to throw things at them if you’ve already got them down from the tree,” Mau pointed out, leaning on the toolbox.

“I know. The trousermen take coconuts back to their own country and stand them on sticks and throw things at them.”

“Why?”

“For fun, I think. It’s called a coconut shy.” The plank came up with a long-drawn-out scream of nails. It was a horrible noise. Mau felt that he was killing something. All canoes had a soul.

“Shy? What does that mean?” he said. It was better to talk about nonsense than about the death of the
Judy
.

“It means coconuts want to hide from people,” Milo volunteered, but he looked a bit uncertain at this.

“Hide? But they are in the trees! We can
see
them.”

“Why do you ask so many questions, Mau?”

“Because I want so many answers! What does
shy
really mean?”

Pilu looked serious, as he always did when he had to think; generally he preferred talking.

“Shy? Well, the crew said to me, ‘You’re not shy like your brother.’ That was because Milo never said anything much to them. He just wanted to earn a three-legged cauldron and some knives, so he could get married.”

“Are you telling me the trousermen throw things at coconuts because coconuts don’t talk?”

“Could be. They do crazy things,” said Pilu. “The thing about the trousermen is, they are very brave and they sail their boats from the other end of the world, and they have the secret of iron, but there is one thing that they are frightened of. Guess what it is?”

“I don’t know. Sea monsters?” Mau wondered.

“No!”

“Getting lost? Pirates?”

“No.”

“Then I give up. What are they afraid of?”

“Legs. They’re scared of legs,” said Pilu triumphantly.

“They are scared of
legs
? Whose legs? Their own legs? Do they try to run away from them? How? What with?”