Skellig (3 page)

AT HOME, THERE WAS A HOLE IN
the floor where Ernie’s toilet had been. It was filled with new cement. The plywood screen had gone. Ernie’s old gas fire had been taken away and there was just a square black gap behind the hearth. The floor was soaking wet and it stank of disinfectant. Dad was filthy and wet and grinning. He took me into the backyard. The toilet was standing there in the middle of the thistles and weeds.

“Thought it’d make a nice garden seat for us,” he said.

The gas fire and the plywood were down by the garage door, but they hadn’t been taken inside.

He looked at me and winked. “Come and see what I found.”

He led me down to the garage door.

“Hold your nose,” he said. He bent down and started to open a newspaper parcel. “Ready?”

It was a parcel of birds. Four of them.

“Found them behind the fire,” he said. “Must have got stuck in the chimney and couldn’t get out again.”

You could make out that three of them were pigeons because of their gray and white feathers. The last one was pigeon-shaped, but it was all black.

“This was the last one I found,” he said. “It was under a heap of soot and dust that had fallen down the chimney.”

“Is it a pigeon as well?”

“Yes. Been there a long, long time, that’s all.”

He took my hand.

“Touch it,” he said. “Feel it. Go on, it’s okay.”

I let him hold my fingers against the bird. It was hard as stone. Even the feathers were hard as stone.

“Been there so long it’s nearly a fossil,” he said.

“It’s hard as stone,” I said.

“That’s right. Hard as stone.”

I went and washed my hands in the kitchen.

“Today was okay?” he said.

“Yes. Leakey and Coot said they might come over on Sunday.”

“That’s good. You managed the buses okay, then?”

I nodded.

“Might be able to drive you there next week,” he said. “Once we’re sorted out a bit.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “Mrs. Dando asked about the baby.”

“You told her she was fine?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Good. Get some Coke and a sandwich or something. I’ll make tea when the others come home.”

Then he went upstairs to have a bath.

I looked down through the backyard. I waited for ages, listening to Dad’s bathwater banging its way through the pipes. I got my flashlight off the kitchen shelf. My hands were trembling. I went out, past Ernie’s toilet, the fire, and the dead pigeons. I stood at the garage door and switched the flashlight on. I took a deep breath and tiptoed inside. I felt the cobwebs and the dust and I imagined that the whole thing would collapse. I heard things scuttling and scratching. I edged past the rubbish and the ancient furniture and my heart was thudding and thundering. I told myself I was stupid. I told myself I’d been dreaming. I told myself I wouldn’t see him again.

But I did.

I LEANED OVER THE TEA CHESTS
and shined the flashlight and there he was. He hadn’t moved. He opened his eyes and closed them again.

“You again,” he said, in his cracked, squeaky voice.

“What you doing there?” I whispered.

He sighed, like he was sick to death of everything.

“Nothing,” he squeaked. “Nothing, nothing, and nothing.”

I watched a spider scrambling across his face. He caught it in his fingers and popped it in his mouth.

“They’re coming to clear the rubbish out,” I said. “And the whole place could collapse.”

He sighed again.

“Got an aspirin?”

“An aspirin?”

“Never mind.”

His face was pale as dry plaster. His black suit hung like a sack on his thin bones.

My heart pounded. The dust was clogging my nostrils and throat. I chewed my lips and watched him.

“You’re not Ernie Myers, are you?” I said.

“That old coot? Coughing his guts and spewing everywhere?”

“Sorry,” I whispered.

“What do you want?” he said.

“Nothing.”

“You got an aspirin?”

“No.”

“Thanks very much.”

“What will you do?” I said. “They’ll clear the place out. It’ll all collapse. What’ll—”

“Nothing. Go away.”

I listened for noises from outside, for them calling me.

“You could come inside,” I said.

He laughed, but he didn’t smile.

“Go away,” he whispered.

He picked a bluebottle from the front of his suit and popped it in his mouth.

“Is there something I could bring you?” I said.

“An aspirin,” he squeaked.

“Something you’d like to eat?” I said.

“27 and 53.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Go away. Go away.”

I backed away, out into the light. I brushed the dust and bluebottles and cobwebs off. I looked up
and saw Dad through the frosted glass of the bathroom window. I could just hear him singing “The Black Hills of Dakota.”

“Are you the new boy here?” said somebody.

I turned round. There was a girl’s head sticking up over the top of the wall into the back lane.

“Are you the new boy?” she repeated.

“Yes.”

“I’m Mina.”

I stared at her.

“Well?” she said.

“What?”

She clicked her tongue and shook her head and said in a bored-sounding singsong voice, “I’m Mina. You’re …”

“Michael,” I said.

“Good.”

Then she jumped back and I heard her land in the lane.

“Nice to meet you, Michael,” she said through the wall; then she ran away.

WHEN HE CAME DOWN FROM HIS
bath, Dad started moaning that there was no bread and there were no eggs, and in the end he said,

“I know. Let’s have take-out, eh?”

It was like a light went on in my head.

He had the menu from the Chinese round the corner in his hand.

“We’ll get it in for when your mum gets back,” he said. “What d’you fancy?”

“27 and 53,” I said.

“That’s clever,” he said. “You did that without looking. What’s your next trick?”

He wrote it all down.

“Special chow mein for Mum, spring rolls and pork char sui for you, beef and mushroom for me, crispy seaweed and prawn crackers for the baby. And if she won’t eat them, we will, and serve her right, eh? She’ll be back on boring mother’s milk again.”

He phoned the Chinese, gave me the cash, and I ran round to collect it all. By the time I got back again, Mum and the baby were there. She tried to make a fuss of me and kept asking me about the journey and about school. Then the baby puked over her shoulder and she had to get cleaned up.

Dad belted through his beef and mushroom and the seaweed and prawn crackers. He said he was all clogged up with Ernie’s dust and he swigged off a bottle of beer. When he saw I was leaving half of mine, he reached over with his fork.

I covered it with my arm.

“You’ll get fat,” I said.

Mum laughed.

“Fatt
er
!” she said.

“I’m famished,” he said. “Worked like a bloomin’ slave for you lot today.”

He reached out and tickled the baby’s chin and kissed her.

“Specially for you, little chick.”

I kept my arm in front of the food.

“Fatso,” I said.

He lifted his shirt and grabbed his belly with his fingers.

“See?” said Mum.

He looked at us.

He dipped his finger into the sauce at the edge of my plate.

“Delicious,” he said. “But enough’s enough. I’ve had an ample sufficiency, thank you.”

Then he went to the fridge and got another beer and a great big lump of cheese.

I tipped what was left of 27 and 53 into the take-out tray and put it in the outside bin.

I SAW MINA AGAIN LATER THAT
evening.
I
was in the little front garden with Dad. We stood there in the thistles and dandelions. He was telling me as usual how wonderful it would be—flowers here and a tree there and a bench under the front window. I saw her further along the street. She was in a tree in another front garden on the same side of the street as us. She was sitting on a fat branch. She had a book and a pencil in her hand. She kept sticking the pencil in her mouth and staring up into the tree.

“Wonder who that is.”

“She’s called Mina.”

“Ah.”

She must have seen us looking at her but she didn’t move.

Dad went in to check the cement in the dining room.

I went out the gate and along the street and looked up at Mina in the tree.

“What you doing up there?” I said.

She clicked her tongue.

“Silly you,” she said. “You’ve scared it away. Typical.”

“Scared what away?”

“The blackbird.”

She put the book and the pencil in her mouth. She swung over the branch and dropped into the garden. She stood looking at me. She was little and she had hair as black as coal and the kind of eyes you think can see right through you.

“Never mind,” she said. “It’ll come again.”

She pointed up to the rooftop. The blackbird was up there, tipping its tail back and forth and squawking.

“That’s its warning call,” she said. “It’s telling its family there’s danger near. Danger. That’s you.”

She pointed up into the tree.

“If you climb up where I was and look along that branch there you’ll see its nest. There’s three tiny ones. But don’t you dare go any nearer.”

She sat on the garden wall and faced me.

“This is where I live,” she said. “Number Seven. You’ve got a baby sister.”

“Yes.”

“What’s her name?”

“We haven’t decided yet.”

She clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes toward the sky.

She opened her book.

“Look at this,” she said.

It was full of birds. Pencil drawings, lots of them colored in blues and greens and reds.

“This is the blackbird,” she said. “They’re common, but nevertheless very beautiful. A sparrow. These are tits. And lovely chaffinches. And look, this is the goldfinch that visited last Thursday.”

She showed me the goldfinch, the greens and reds and bright yellows in it.

“My favorite,” she said.

She slapped the book shut.

“Do you like birds?” she said, and she looked at me like something I’d done had made her cross.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Typical. Do you like drawing?”

“Sometimes.”

“Drawing makes you look at the world more closely. It helps you to see what you’re looking at more clearly. Did you know that?”

I said nothing.

“What color’s a blackbird?” she said.

“Black.”

“Typical!”

She swung round into the garden.

“I’m going in,” she said. “I look forward to seeing you again. I’d also like to see your baby sister if that can be arranged.”