Firesong (17 page)

‘Please,’ he said to them. ‘I need your help.’

Talking to himself
, said the big pig.
Don’t listen.

I’m not listening
, replied the smaller pig.
You’re the one who’s listening. Don’t listen yourself.

Both pigs fell silent, trying hard not to listen.

He’s stopped talking.

Then we can start listening again.

A short silence.

‘I can hear you,’ said Bowman.

The pigs looked at each other.

He said he can hear us.

But we’re not saying anything.

We are now.

We weren’t when he spoke.

Perhaps he meant we can hear him.

I can’t hear him. I’m not listening to him.

Nor am I.

There followed another short silence.

What if he’s listening to us?

Listening to us not saying anything?

Listening to us not listening.

‘I can hear your thoughts,’ said Bowman.

He says he can hear our thoughts.

We don’t have any thoughts.

I suppose that could be called a thought.

Do you think he heard it?

If he did, he’ll have heard nothing.

If he heard nothing, he’ll say nothing.

If he says nothing, it means he’s heard our thoughts.

They swung their snouts round to gaze at Bowman.

‘You’re talking about not having any thoughts,’ said Bowman.

He didn’t hear us! He can’t hear a thing! If he’d really heard us, he’d not have heard us.

There followed a longish pause. Then one pig said to the other,

I think we’ve gone wrong somewhere.

Bowman took this opportunity to move the dialogue forward.

‘I want your advice,’ he said.

He says he wants our advice.

We don’t have any advice.

So let’s not give it him.

‘Why does Canobius think he lives on an island?’

The pigs pondered this question. They found it interesting, and forgot that they were supposed not to be listening.

An island is a place you can’t leave. The captain can’t leave this place. Therefore it’s an island.

The big pig grunted with satisfaction. The point was neatly made.

‘It’s not really an island. He could leave it if he wanted to.’

Then he doesn’t want to.

‘Why not?’

Because it’s an island.

‘You mean,’ said Bowman, struggling to make some sense of this, ‘he wants it to be an island?’

Of course.

‘Why?’

So he can’t leave.

Bowman was silenced. The smaller pig turned to the larger pig with a reproachful look.

You’re talking to him.

It doesn’t matter. He’s very stupid. He doesn’t understand a word I say.

Bowman decided to try for some more practical information.

‘There are some graves near here,’ he said. ‘Do you know who lies buried there?’

Dead people.

‘How did they die?’

From not wanting to live.

‘Why didn’t they want to live?’

Too much happiness.

‘They died of happiness?’

Before he could learn more, there came a crashing of running feet, and Kestrel appeared.

‘Bo! You must come back! They’re having a vote, and pa’s so angry about it he won’t speak.’

Bowman jumped up at once and went with Kestrel back to the big glade by the hot spring. The two pigs watched him go with some relief.

I’m glad he’s gone. Talking to stupid people is such hard work. Let’s not do it again.

Bowman and Kestrel found that the vote had just taken place, and the majority had voted not to continue the journey. The marchers were already dividing into two groups. The larger number by far were clustering round the Stella Marie, where Canobius was busily preparing his feast, uninterested in the great schism. The smaller group, the Hath group, stayed by the wagon. Here were Hanno and Ira, Pinto and Mumpo, Creoth and Scooch, and old Seldom Erth.

Hanno looked up at Bowman as he joined them. His face was drawn with weariness and disappointment.

‘I don’t know what else I can do.’

‘The graves,’ said Bowman. ‘Ask Canobius about the graves.’

‘Oh, he’ll have some harmless explanation,’ said Hanno.

Bowman saw Mist, still curled up on the blanket pile, dead to the world.

‘What! Is that idle cat still sleeping?’

Sisi and Lunki appeared, laden with cobs of ripe corn for the wagon. They had removed themselves during the vote.

‘Are you coming with us?’ asked Hanno.

‘We’ll join you if we may,’ said Sisi.

‘Of course you can,’ said Kestrel quickly. Sisi flashed her a grateful smile, and putting the palms of her hands together, interlocked her fingers. Kestrel made the same sign in return.

‘We’ll get more corn,’ said Sisi. She and Lunki departed again.

‘What was that, Kess?’ said Bowman.

‘Our secret friends sign.’

‘They set us a good example,’ said Hanno. ‘There’s work to do.’

While the men of their little group set about trimming split timbers into snow runners, and the women packed the wagon, Bowman crossed the glade to talk to Captain Canobius. The information he had obtained from the pigs had been virtually meaningless, but he was sure that the graves held a secret that would present this paradise in some new and darker light.

The fat man was filling his large clay pots with vegetables. The main ingredient was chopped palm hearts. To the palm hearts he had added cane juice, lime leaves, ginger root, and dried sweet potato. He moved from pot to pot, stirring, tasting, adding a little more ginger here, a sprinkle of ground peppercorns there, to satisfy his palate. As he worked he sang softly to himself.

Who is as happy as me-ee-ee?

Who is as happy as I?

Happy as happy can be-ee-ee

Hippy-de-happy-de-hi!

He greeted Bowman with a wooden spoon dipped in the mixture.

‘Taste that.’

Bowman licked the spoon.

‘It’s delicious.’

‘Of course it is. And not even stewed yet. Once the pots have stood in the hot water overnight, the different tastes will soak into each other, making new tastes. But still the original tastes will remain, alongside the new combinations. Even now, you see how the nutty tang of the palm heart mellows with the ginger alongside it? I think of it as voices in song. Catch the right notes, and they make a chord, a new note altogether.’

The fat man seemed so truly happy in his work that Bowman began to wonder if there was no dark secret after all. But he pressed on.

‘I wanted to ask you a question, Captain. About the graves.’

‘Ah! My poor companions!’

‘You know the people who lie buried there?’

‘No one lies buried there, my friend. Though my companions are dead, I’ve no doubt. You touch on painful memories.’

‘I’m sorry. Would you rather not talk about it?’

‘No, no. It’s good to remember. Why else did I build the graveyard? It’s my memorial to them. I go there from time to time, and imagine they lie there, at rest. I say a few words. It eases the loneliness.’

This sounded convincing enough, though it was an unusual idea.

‘The graves have no bodies in them?’

‘You could call them markers, perhaps. I would have buried them if I could, but where they died, the ground was frozen hard as rock.’

Puzzled, Bowman reached into the fat man’s mind. He found there a quiet aching sense of loss, which matched the saddened tone with which he was speaking. But then, pushing a little deeper, he was startled to find a much stronger emotion: a terrible howling desolation.

I am doomed
, he heard the captain cry, deep in his heart.
I am doomed.

Bowman was bewildered. This was the man who lived in a little paradise, who loved to eat, who sang that no one was as happy as he. What could be the cause of such anguish?

‘You will be wondering what became of my companions,’ said Canobius, quite unaware of Bowman’s discovery. No terror sounded in his voice, and as he spoke he continued stirring and tasting and refining his marinade.

‘Yes,’ said Bowman.

‘We were a ship’s company, the crew of the Stella Marie. We went down in a storm off the Loomus coast. Our poor ship was driven onto the rocks, and pounded to matchwood. We came ashore, twenty-three of us all told, and swore never to sail the western ocean again.’

‘You were the captain?’

Canobius looked round and lowered his voice.

‘I was the ship’s cook. Forgive a lonely man his little vanity.’

‘You’re certainly the captain now,’ said Bowman.

‘So I am. Ah, poor fellows! Our ship was gone. We set off to cross the hills, heading for the kinder waters to the east. We proposed to offer our services to shipowners there. But winter came early that year. We were poorly clothed. We suffered.’

He shook his head, and nibbled at a spoonful of stew.

‘All I really miss is salt,’ he murmured.

‘They died in the winter?’

‘They did. One by one. I thought I would die too. But even then I was a stout fellow. I’ve no doubt it was my fatness that kept me alive. By the time I found the island, I was the last one standing.’

‘How long ago was that?’

‘Oh, years ago. I’ve lost count. There are no seasons here.’

‘And since then?’

‘Since then, as you see. Loneliness, but happiness.’

He beamed at Bowman. There seemed no more to say, so Bowman returned to the wagon. There his gaze fell once more on the sleeping cat.

‘I’ve never known Mist sleep like this,’ he said to himself.

He knelt down and put his head close to the cat’s head. He heard Mist’s even breathing. Gently he touched the cat’s ear. The ear flickered, in automatic response, but the cat didn’t wake. He stroked Mist’s back, running his hand all the way down from the neck to the tail. Still he didn’t wake.

Concerned, he leaned his head closer still, and reached into the cat’s mind. He found no thoughts there, not of the kind that can be expressed in words; but he found a feeling, or the dream of a feeling. It was the oddest combination of two quite separate sensations: one of happiness, a great happiness that filled all the cat’s mind; the other a dwindling, as if the cat was growing smaller and smaller, or moving further and further away.

Bowman found he was quite unable to wake the cat, so he whispered into his ear,

‘Don’t leave me, Mist.’

The cat’s ear flickered again in response, and he slept on.

10

Captain Canobius’s feast

T
he two groups, made shy by their different choices for the coming day, slept apart from each other that night. Sisi and Lunki lay close by the Haths’ sleep huddle. They slept without blankets, because in the steamy air of the valley the temperature dropped very little after sundown.

Bowman dreamed confused dreams, and woke in the night, and could not get back to sleep. His mind was troubled by the feeling that there was something bad in the valley, something he was missing. He wanted to warn his friends who had chosen to stay behind, but what could he tell them? Canobius was concealing some terror, he was sure of it; but he couldn’t give it a name.

There was no light in the cloud-capped valley; not so much as the faintest glimmer of a star. Bowman could open his eyes, and then close them, and detect no difference. Perhaps because of this, his other senses were more acute. He could hear the steady sleep-breathing of each member of his group, and could follow each small movement they made as they slept. He could also sense how far they were from him. It was through this sense that he became aware that he was not the only one awake.

Someone had sat up. He heard the exhalation of a breath. In such a darkness, a single breath was as recognisable as a voice.

‘Sisi? Are you awake?’

‘Yes.’

‘What is it?’

‘Nothing. I often wake in the night.’

‘This is more than night. I’ve never known darkness like it. I can’t even see my own hand.’

‘Do you mind?’

‘No.’

They were speaking very softly, aware of the others sleeping round them. It was comforting for both of them to hear the other’s voice. It gave form to the darkness.

‘I like it,’ said Sisi. ‘I like it that you can’t see me.’

‘Why?’

‘You know why.’

‘Because of your scars?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re wrong, Sisi. You think your scars make you ugly. They don’t.’

‘You only say that to be kind. I’d rather you were truthful than kind.’

‘I am telling you the truth.’

There was a silence. Then Sisi spoke very low.

‘Ah, Bowman. If I was still beautiful, you’d love me as I love you.’

Bowman hardly knew how to reply. It was strange, this darkness. It made it possible to say things that could never be said in the light.

‘You’re still beautiful,’ he said at last. ‘More beautiful.’

‘But you don’t love me.’

Bowman was silenced.

‘It seems strange to me that you don’t love me,’ said Sisi after a while. ‘People have always loved me. And I love you. How can there be so much love in me, and so little in you?’

She spoke with no reproach in her voice; only genuine perplexity, and sadness.

‘I can’t love you, Sisi. I told you. Someone will come for me soon, and take me away, and we’ll never meet again.’

‘Why not? Where will you go?’

‘To a place called Sirene.’

‘And never return?’

‘I’ll die there, Sisi. Before the winter is over.’

‘Die?’ Her voice changed. ‘You can’t love me, because you’re going to die soon?’