Close to the Wind (10 page)

Papa let the peeled skin drop to the floor. ‘They weren’t as cheap as they could have been, but he was doing good business. He’ll be busy till the ship leaves.’

Malik chewed on the soft brown nut and thought of the candied chestnuts they would eat at Christmas. These tasted just as good.

Papa put the chestnut into his mouth and winced as he chewed. ‘Hey, did I tell you that I saw the name on our ship? It’s called the
Samaritan
. It’s written across the back of the ship in big white letters. It’s a good name for a ship, don’t you think?’

‘The Good Samaritan.’

‘No, just the
Samaritan
.’

‘It should be the Good Samaritan. Like it is in the story.’

Papa weighed it up. ‘I suppose it should. Even so, it’s still a good name for a ship. They won’t turn people away. Not with a name like that written across the back in large white letters.’

Malik thought about the ship at the dock. ‘Do you know where it will take us?’ he asked. ‘Have you been there before?’

Papa nodded. ‘I have been there once. Yes. Only for a short visit. It’s a big country. Plenty of room for everyone. Plenty of space to stretch your legs. The people who live there like to say yes. They like new ideas and they like people who get things done. I think we’ll be very welcome.’

‘And will we have a nice place to live?’

‘I hope so. They have lovely houses. They’re big, but not too expensive.’ Papa leaned forward. ‘All the houses are made of white painted wood and every house has a front garden with a white picket fence and another garden at the back. They have big gardens there because they have lots of land. In fact, they’re so big that each house has a post box on a pole at the front gate so that the postman doesn’t
have to walk all the way to the front door. It’s a good idea, isn’t it? Because, I’m telling you, those gardens aren’t small.’

‘So he leaves your letters in a box at the front gate?’

‘Yes he does.’

‘And people don’t steal them?’

‘No, they don’t. That’s a good point. I hadn’t thought of that but you’re right – they could steal them if they wanted to but they don’t, so that makes me think it must be a country where people trust one another. It’ll be a new experience to live in a place that’s honest, eh?’

Malik thought about the pretty wooden houses with the white fences and the post boxes on poles. Mama would probably give him the job of fetching the post in the morning. That’s just the sort of thing she would do and he wouldn’t mind a bit. He stopped himself from dreaming. ‘But we don’t have the money for a ticket so how will we get on the ship?’ he worried.

Papa’s eyes gleamed. ‘Don’t you worry, Malik. We’ll be on that ship tomorrow. I met with the man at the dock and we have reached an understanding. He knows me and I know him.’ Papa touched the
side of his nose. ‘We have done a deal, Malik. We’ve shaken hands. There’s no way that ship is leaving without us.’

The arc lamp on the quayside lit up at twilight, exposing the ship against the darkening sky above the cottages. The people waiting at the dock knew that the ship wouldn’t leave today so some of them drifted away in search of shelter.

Malik and Papa watched from the upstairs window as the people came along the street. The women put their faces to the glass of the downstairs windows and the men put their shoulders to the doors to see if they would open. Some of their faces were lit by
handheld
torches or little nightlight candles that flickered from jam jars that they held up in front of them.

Papa brought the candle up to the windowsill of the bedroom so that people knew the house was occupied. In the cottage opposite their own, a man tried the door, found it opened and ushered his wife and children inside.

Malik took Papa’s hand. ‘Are these the people from this morning?’

‘I expect most of them are.’ Papa looked down at the pavement where a couple had stopped outside their cottage and were looking up at them. Their only luggage was a baby wrapped in a blanket. ‘Just one minute,’ said Papa, and he hurried from the room. Malik heard the front door open, saw the couple step towards the hall, and heard their voices from the room below.

‘I have given them the downstairs room,’ Papa told Malik when he came back upstairs. ‘Better to have a full house, and I don’t think they will trouble us. Let’s have something to eat.’

Papa brought his rucksack over to the mattress and they sat down next to each other. Papa halved the loaf of bread and opened the tin of tuna. He scooped out flakes of the fish with his knife. ‘Don’t give any to the cat,’ he told Malik. ‘There isn’t enough.’

But Malik couldn’t resist the cat’s longing eyes so he let a piece fall onto the floor as soon as Papa looked away.

When they had finished eating there were a lot more people out in the street.

‘We don’t need to be frightened.’ Papa watched them from the window. ‘We should go and meet
them. There may be people out there who know more than us.’

They went downstairs and stood at the open front door, nodding to the people in the street. Papa was a good talker. He smiled and said ‘Hello.’ He shook hands, laughed and slapped people on the back as if he had known them all his life. Malik liked Papa being so relaxed – it made him feel safe.

When a man offered them food, Papa went off down the street with him, telling Malik to stay by the door. Papa returned later with three bananas, eight segments of chocolate and a small slab of cheese wrapped in brown paper. He had also found three tins of cat food and an old metal saucepan. They went back upstairs and he laid everything out along the floor, the same way he had done with the contents of the rucksack when they had first arrived.

‘No one could tell me anything that I didn’t already know,’ Papa told Malik. ‘The ship will leave tomorrow just as I said. The troops have been sent to keep the peace around the port and ensure the ship leaves without any incident. We’ll be safe here tonight.’ He pulled the lid from a small flat tin and handed the cat food to Malik. ‘We should save the
rest of the food for tomorrow. Is that all right with you or are you still hungry?’

Malik broke the cat food into pieces with his penknife. ‘No, I’m fine. Thank you.’ He put the tin on the floor for the cat to sniff.

Papa gave Malik a straight look. ‘Do you want to use the toilet before bed? I don’t want you using the bathroom in the night. Not now there are other people in the house.’ He put the saucepan down by the mattress. ‘You can use this if you need to go in the night.’

Malik knew there was no way he was going to use the saucepan. ‘I don’t want to. I’ll be fine.’

‘Are you ready to sleep?’

Malik shrugged. He wasn’t ready to sleep. ‘You haven’t shown me the magic trick today.’

‘You haven’t practised. There’s no point in me showing you if you don’t practise.’ Papa was smiling. He showed Malik the coin in his fingers, then held it up close to Malik’s eyes. ‘Sleight of hand,’ Papa said. ‘This is how you do the French Drop. I make your eyes watch what I want you to watch …’ He flourished his free hand toward the coin in his fingers. ‘And the coin disappears.’

Malik touched where the coin had been, all the
time knowing it was in the hand that Papa stretched out toward his collar. He caught Papa’s other hand, opened it out and saw the coin palmed at the base of his thumb. Papa closed his hand up, reached behind Malik’s ear and produced the coin in his fingers.

‘There’s no such thing as magic, Malik. Just trickery and the practice it takes to pull it off.’

Malik took hold of the coin. He flourished it, held it up, then made the switch. The coin dropped onto the floor at his feet. He ran, picked it up and tried again, only for the coin to drop as before. ‘I can’t do it, Papa. It’s too difficult.’

‘You can do it. It took me two days of practice and it will take you the same.’ Papa put his hand out for the coin and pocketed it. ‘Perhaps you will learn more quickly than I did. You’re a bright boy. Now settle down and get some sleep.’

Malik lay down on the mattress and pulled his jacket up across his shoulders. He watched Papa settle himself on the floor by the door, so that he would be woken if anyone came in the room. He saw Papa wince when he pressed his hip against the wooden boards, and again when he put his cheek to the rucksack, which he used as a pillow. Papa turned
onto his back and closed his eyes. He was asleep before Malik.

Malik couldn’t sleep, despite being tired. He lay awake imagining what it would be like tomorrow, meeting Mama at the dock and going on the tall ship with all these other people. He had that fidgety feeling in his stomach that meant he was excited.

Or scared. One or the other, it was difficult to know which.

In the morning, Malik woke first. He stood over Papa and watched him sleep. The bruising had spread across Papa’s cheek so that it looked like a map, deep patches of purple and red with a pale yellow outline that had seeped into the socket of his eye.

Malik didn’t want to be late for the ship. He shook his grandfather awake. ‘Papa! Papa!’

Papa groaned and rolled onto his side. ‘What time is it? It must be too early to get up.’ He opened one eye slowly and then the other. ‘I never seem to get to sleep until the moment before you wake me. Why is that?’

‘You’ve been snoring,’ said Malik.

Papa put his weight onto one elbow with a moan. ‘I have aches where I didn’t think I had bones.’ He caught his breath, pulled his knees up to his chest and rolled over onto his front, took another breath then pulled himself into a sitting position, his knees still folded up beneath him. ‘If I wanted to do yoga I would have had some lessons by now, don’t you think?’ He stretched his arms out in front of him. ‘And I don’t snore. Please don’t insult me before I’m properly awake. It’s not fair.’ Papa yawned, wincing at the pain it caused him. He lay his forehead back upon the floorboards. ‘And even if I did snore, it would be very rude of you to let me know. You should suffer in silence.’

‘When can we leave for the ship?’

Papa checked his watch. ‘We have a little time yet. We should have something to eat.’

Malik watched the cat sniff at the empty tin of food. ‘I bet the cat won’t like being on a ship.’

‘You can’t take it with you, Malik. They won’t allow it.’

Malik’s eyes widened. ‘But I can’t leave it. It hasn’t got anyone to look after it.’

Papa got to his feet slowly. He folded his arms and waited for Malik to give in.

Malik folded his arms the same way. ‘I won’t leave without it.’

‘But they won’t let you on the ship with a cat. Think about Mama. She’ll be on the ship. You wouldn’t let her sail away on her own, would you?’ Papa stretched backwards, one hand pressed against the bottom of his spine.

Malik could feel the panic rising in his chest. ‘But Papa, I can’t leave the cat here. It doesn’t have any food and there won’t be anyone to look after it. It
has
to come on the ship.’

‘Oh, good grief.’ Papa walked across to the window and looked down into the street. He held his beard as he thought about it. ‘Of course, there is a well-known way. It’s sailing close to the wind, but it might work.’ Papa turned back to Malik with a glint in his eye. ‘Surely I don’t have to tell you how it’s done? No?’ Papa came and put an arm around Malik’s shoulder. He almost whispered. ‘You have to smuggle a cat on board a ship. That’s the way it’s always been done – it’s a seafaring tradition. No one ever allows a cat on board a ship, but if you can smuggle it on, then once it’s there and the ship has set sail – well, that’s a different story.’ Malik listened to Papa carefully. ‘When the cat is finally discovered, you must
go and see the purser. He’s the proper man to decide. On a ship the purser’s word is law.’

‘Not the captain?’

‘The captain decides everything to do with the sailing of the ship, but it’s the purser who makes it run smoothly. He will know that everyone loves a cat. It catches mice and keeps the men happy. So although it’s officially forbidden, the purser will allow it. And anyway, what choice does he really have? I’ve never met a man who is so heartless that he would throw a cat overboard.’