Читать книгу The Reject - Edyth Bulbring - Страница 6

THE PIRATE

I stumble out of the cabin onto the deck. Pain slices through my shoulder; the side of my head is caked with blood. I shade my eyes against the sun. There is no sign of land, only an endless stretch of black sea. Hot wind swirls across the deck.

Someone moans behind me. Gollum is curled in a ball around the mast. I kick him in the gut, grab his face and push it down. “Don’t breathe. Don’t move. One sound and I’ll make your face uglier than it is already.”

Tears bite my eyes as the bones grate above my breast. I ignore the pain and tie his hands and feet, and loop the rope around his neck. I wrench up his head and fasten the rope tight to the mast. It’s his turn to be trussed up like a slab of meat.

“Looks like you got hurt, Cow-Eyes. And from the way you’re huffing and puffing, it sounds like maybe you broke something.” Gollum swallows, and moistens his lips. “I need water. Get me some. I’m asking nicely now. Pretty please.”

I raise my arm and the movement makes me gasp. I press the tips of my fingers across my shoulder blade. It is tender.

Scanning the deck, I see that our water provisions are gone, probably swept overboard. Containers are upturned, rope and sheeting turfed out of their boxes.

Banging and muffled cries come from below.

I slam back the bolt on the door to Reader’s berth. He’s lying tied up on the floor with a jumble of books and clothing, staring blindly at the ceiling. I kneel and trace my fingers over the blue-and-purple bruises on his cheek. I think of Gollum’s stinking fists beating this old face. I think of all the things I am going to do to the Reject when I get above deck. When I am done with him, he won’t smirk at me with that broken-toothed mouth again.

Reader jerks. “Juliet, is that you?”

“I see you put up a good fight, old man. Lie still and let me untie you.”

“You sound breathless, Juliet. Are you hurt? Did that boy harm you?” Reader shakes his hands free of the rope and flexes his fingers, rubs his feet. He sits hunched over, his head in his hands.

“Stop fussing. The storm came just as you said it would. I thought it would crush our seacraft or we’d capsize. It’s stopped now, but I think it will be back.”

Reader lifts his head. “The boy took me by surprise. I tried to warn you but he was too strong. I could not bear to think what he was doing to you. I lay here like a foolish parcel unable to do anything. Did he hurt you? Did he?” Tears leak from Reader’s eyes and he sobs.

“I’ve dealt with the boy. He won’t mess with us again. Come, have some water. You’ve drained most of it from your body with all that wailing.”

We climb up on deck. The sea stretches forever. Black glass, cracking. The giant at the top of Jack’s beanstalk is smashing the surface with a hammer, creating sharp splinters and jagged peaks. Waves pummel the hull and the contents of my stomach rise in my throat. I lean against the railing and gag. Water and bile pours out of my mouth.

Reader turns at the sound of my retching. “Juliet, you are ill? Is it the sun sickness?”

I know those symptoms: a hot head, dry mouth, a bleeding rash on the skin. I touch my forehead. Not sun sickness: it’s the choppy sea playing pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake with my stomach.

Cries come from the mast: “I hear you, old man. I hear you.” Gollum’s voice is hoarse. “You’re going to have to untie me. The girl’s hurt. She’s useless. The storm has blown us far from home and you can’t sail this sloop without me.”

“That boy. He is still on board?” Reader moans. “And he says you are hurt. This is bad news, Juliet. I am old and there is little strength in these feeble bones of mine.”

It’s true that Reader and I are as much use as a pair of gloves to a fingerless Reject. I grip the rope around Gollum’s throat. “I could toss you overboard. It’s something I’d enjoy more than anything. But I’ve hurt my shoulder and we can’t sail without your help.”

Gollum arches an eyebrow at me. “Why should I? What’s in it for me?”

Reader groans. “Foolish boy. You must help us, otherwise we will bob around this terrible sea until our water and food runs out. That is if the next storm does not take us to a watery grave. Do you understand me? And when we reach the shores of Mangeria, you will go on your way and leave us in peace.”

Gollum closes his eyes and is silent for a few moments. “Okay. It’s not like we’ve got a choice. So let’s all play nicely until we get home. No tricks – I’ll be watching. Now get these bloody ropes off me.”

“Let the rascal go, Juliet. Then he must bind your shoulder before we set sail.”

The Reject will be watching me, but my eyes are sharper. I untie the knots around Gollum’s hands and feet, and loosen his neck from the noose.

He shakes himself free. “Water, where’s it?”

I point at the hatch and a few minutes later he returns, wiping his mouth.

“You said there was food, Cow-Eyes, and there’s sacks of the stuff. I’ll be eating all of it before we get back home.”

Nicolas stocked the galley with dried mango and banana and strawberry and pumpkin smuggled from The Laboratory. It was for our journey together.

“And from now on, matey, you must call me Captain Gollum.” Gollum salutes me. The cap on his head is embossed with gold braid and bears the emblem of the Guardian of Justice and Peace. He has changed out of his rags and is wearing Nicolas’s shirt and a pair of his trousers. How dare he!

“Take those clothes off,” I hiss.

“They’re mine now. Fit for a captain.” Gollum struts on the deck. The shirt hangs loosely and the trousers are held up by a piece of rope. “Come, let’s have a look at that shoulder of yours.”

I pull my shoulder back and stand upright while he rips canvas from an old sail.

“Strip. I need to see what I’m working with here.” Gollum has a hard glint in his eye.

I take a deep breath and fix my gaze on the two devil horns on his forehead. I yank off my dress and stand naked in the warm air. Nicolas is the only boy who has ever seen me without my clothes, or touched my skin. And now this Reject.

He stares at my bare chest and colour rises in his face. He touches my shoulder and feels along the bone above my chest. The skin on his fingers is rough, but he probes gently.

“It’s your collar bone. I’ve seen the same kind of injury on the Pulaks.”

The Pulaks of Mangeria are harnessed in pairs and pull taxis squashed full with passengers. Most of the Pulaks are not able to serve in their trade for longer than seven years. Then they are taken to the Reject dumps, broken and crippled.

Gollum knuckle-taps along my bone. “You’re lucky. Those poor buggers never get a chance to heal. This isn’t such a big deal. In a couple of months the bones will knit good as new.” He stands behind me for a moment, and then laughs. “So, you’re just a smelly old drudge! The Machine decided you’d wipe Posh kids’ arses and scrub their floors.”

I fold my hands over the numbers at the base of my spine. I am no longer a drudge – the mark on my spine is dead. But this boy will always be a Reject, a nothing. He was never meant to be anything.

He twists the canvas around my back, immobilising my shoulder. He makes a sling and straps one arm against my body. He pulls on my dress, leaving my other arm free.

“Come now, Captain Gollum,” I say. “You must set sail away from the sun. And tonight Reader will tell you how to plot a course home by the stars. I’ll go below and cook some food. You can trust that it will be most tasty.”

And when I can manage this sloop on my own, I’ll poison you and watch you rip your guts to ribbons, vomiting to death. You won’t have the chance to sell me to the Locusts when we get home.

“Yes, of course I trust you, Drudge.” Gollum laughs.

The days drift into each other, a pattern of unrelenting sun and vicious storms. The sloop is tossed between the wind and towering waves in a spiteful game that often blows us off course. Some days there is not a whisper of a breeze, and the seacraft bobs stagnant in a sea smothered in a mass of plastic.

Plastic bottles and packets and containers for as far as the eye can see on the dead sea. Bubbling blankets of plastic mush. Rotting green and black and yellow, a lifeboat for the flies that feast on its trapped filth.

Back in Mangeria, everything is made of plastic. The air smells of plastic. My food tastes of plastic. When I sweat, my skin is coated with abnormally shiny beads. And here on the sea we are besieged by the old world’s plastic legacy.

On these calm days, we take the oars and try and free the sloop from the prison of plastic. But it is useless. So we wait for a wind to rise and fill our sails.

I have made it my duty to cook breakfast for Gollum at sunrise when he ends his evening shift. Boiled oats, a spoonful of spit and a sprinkling of spite. The food is ready for him on deck once he has set the sloop on its morning course, and is done washing himself.

Under the blistering sky, he scrubs his hairy body with our precious water, singing bawdy songs that infect my ears. He keeps his captain’s cap on when he bathes, never removes it. During the long, hot days, he sleeps restlessly, sprawled out over the hatch to the galley where our supplies are kept – a rat guarding its food.

If I surprise him while he is washing, he never covers himself. He does not care if I see him – his scarred back, legs all knees, thin body. It has grown in terrified spurts and formed weirdly in places. When he catches me looking at him, he sings even louder. He is more Savage than any person I have known. I envy his defiance. Mine is sapping away with the endless days on the sea.

He eats with a ferocious appetite, shoving food into his face with dirty fingers as though he suspects someone might steal away his bowl before he is finished. “Is there any more porridge? A slab or two of mango? You can’t expect your captain to only eat banana for breakfast.” His stomach is never full.

I do not eat with him. I tell myself that the sight of him guzzling our food disgusts me. But food repels me now, especially the smell. When I was an orphan in Section O, I could not stop stuffing my face. How Kitty would laugh if she could see me now, gagging at the sweet smell of my favourite strawberry.

Maybe Kitty is free now, feasting herself fat on mango.

Maybe my beautiful friend is missing me too.

My sickness is worse in the morning. There are days when I have to turn away from cooking breakfast and race on deck to hurl into the sea. I am an empty sack; my energy has leaked from my bones.

“You never eat, Drudge. Are you sick?” Gollum shovels porridge into his mouth. “When I slaved at the pleasure clubs for one of my masters, I saw girls and boys like you who also never ate. Some pleasure workers had the sickness, a grubby gift from their Posh patrons.” He runs his hands together. “The rub-a-dub-dub, they called it. They were fit only for the dumps. Diseased and useless.”

Gollum’s eyes slide over my body.

“Girls weren’t always sick, mind you. Just gone down the river. They ate very little during the first months, tried to hide the swelling. But their bellies grew until they got rid of their burden. Another of my masters dabbled in that line of work. A lucrative trade. Then, if the Locusts didn’t catch the slaggets under the bridge, they came back to work at the clubs. The lucky ones.”

I touch my stomach. “I like to wait until Reader wakes. He prefers not to eat alone.”

Most of the days are calm; the storms come at night. Reader and I huddle down below in our berths, bolts drawn against any treachery. Gollum stays on deck. He says he likes the storms. I cross my fingers and hope he gets swept into the sea.

He watches me watching him. And takes to wearing a waist harness attached to the mast when the sea is rough. And hides the galley knives. I keep a broken bottle under my mattress. And wait for my collar bone to heal. Plain-purl. Plain-purl. Plain-purl. Faster, faster. Knit those bones.

Reader spends the early part of the evenings instructing Gollum where to sail and, when the course is set, the old man leaves him to get some sleep. I hear them, sometimes, as I toss about in my berth trying to ease the burn in my chest.

“Tell me how the stars are arranged against the sky so that I can direct you. I have an excellent star chart in this travel history by a brave fellow called Joshua Slocum, who navigated these oceans in a sloop just like ours hundreds of years ago. What do you see tonight, my captain?”

Reader has told me he merely humours Gollum, calling him “my captain”. But as time passes, I sense he says it out of respect. He tells me Gollum is a fine sailor. As a young boy, Gollum was bonded to a Reject master who worked for the Scavvies. Then he moved on to various other trades, some dark and terrible. Our captain has perfected many crafts. I do not want to hear about his horrible talents.

At first Gollum scoffed at Reader: “What can those stupid dots in old books teach me about navigating the sea? They’re rubbish. You’re hurting my ears with your gab-gab-gab.”

But as the days and the sea stretches before us, and every morning brings no sight of land, Gollum can do nothing but trust the knowledge from Reader’s blind books.

“There’s a cross of stars that marks the sky tonight. And a belt that draws a circle around a dagger. Should I helm a little to the west, Master Reader?”

Master Reader! Gollum knows how to charm the old fool.

On calm nights, Reader teaches Gollum the alphabet. My old teacher is more patient with the pirate than he was with me. Gollum uses a piece of coal to make the letters on the deck, and Reader has taught him the alphabet song. Gollum’s voice sinks and rises in the air: “Ela-menna-pee. Queue-are-ess, tee-you-vee …” Over and over. I could scream.

Gollum is quick to learn the twenty-six letters and Reader teaches him how to write his name, and short sentences. To encourage his progress, the old man has given Gollum a journal he found in the Guardian’s trunk. At the end of each day, Gollum writes an entry into what he calls his “captain’s log”. It records all the important occurrences on board, the weather, the navigational details and, of course, the captain’s keen observations of the sea. He keeps the book in a pouch strapped against his stomach. Only the captain may make entries into the log, Gollum tells me. So smug.

Reader says Gollum is the smartest student he has ever taught. “Yes, even smarter than you, Juliet. I wonder how it is possible that this fine mind belongs to a Reject.”

Soon Gollum will be able to read, beginning with nursery rhymes. Reader has already taught him some songs, and Gollum buckles his shoe (one, two), knocks on the door (three, four) and follows Mary and her little lamb all the way to school until I want to slaughter him and his woolly sheep. They are my rhymes. Mine.

And now his. Next Reader will tell him fairy tales, and before I know it, this Reject thief will have stolen all of my stories.

During the day, when Gollum sleeps, I take the helm and keep the seacraft’s course. Today, as the sun begins its descent in the bloodied sky, Reader joins me on deck.

He places a bowl of mango and a cup of water on a crate. “Eat something, my lovely. I stewed the mango as I know you like it, with some chopped strawberry.”

At the sight of the food, bile rises in my throat. My stomach twitches, a tumbling movement. My insides rearrange themselves. Another movement, like feathers dancing in my gut. I place my hand on my stomach and pull myself up onto the railing.

“Perhaps, if you are not hungry, my young captain will have some mango. The rascal is always ravenous after his sleep. I declare his legs are hollow,” Reader says.

I stare unseeing into the shimmering water and count back the days, the weeks and the months to the nights I spent with Nicolas on the roof of the warehouse, waiting to set sail. His soft hands on the base of my spine, my head on his chest. The smell of his hands in my Savage hair – strawberry and the bark of my tree. Love-in-a-Mist. Our sweat drying under the cool gaze of the one-eyed moon, the stars blinking shyly away.

I know then: I am not sick. I am gone down the river. I have tracked the path my mother took sixteen years ago, with a different twist: I fell in love with a Posh, and in a few months I will have his child.