Issuu

CHAPTER FOUR

The sun shone full on the clearing. It picked out specks of dust on the dark green leaves of a mango tree, which swayed as a weight pressed down on its branches. Leaves rustled with movement. Joshua’s father approached, dragging behind him large palm leaves that left tracks in the earth. His shadow was only just ahead of his toes at this midday hour. ‘Where are you?’ he called. ‘Here,’ Joshua shouted from his perch high above. ‘Picking mangoes.’ His father let go of the palm leaves. ‘Pass them to me,’ he said, ‘then come down. I want you to go to the Gola Hotel. Tell Oliver I can take another pig tomorrow if he’s got one for me. Can you do that?’ ‘All right,’ Joshua said confidently. ‘I’d go, only I want to get on with the roof.’ The palm leaves were for the thatch. ‘Anyway, I’m sure you can manage on your own. Comb your hair first.’ Joshua didn’t bother with his hair, and his father didn’t check. He set off down the road that ran along the sea, past the sugar cane and the rubbish tip. He held

Chapter Four

his nose against the stench. About a mile further along he came to his convent school, a new concrete building, empty now that it was the holidays, apart from the few orphans who lived there with the nuns. The Gola hotel was nearby, beyond the jetty, overlooking the harbour. It was small – two storeys high – its wood painted pale green and white. He thought it was beautiful. He stood outside the hotel, suddenly unsure of himself. He’d never been here on his own before. A man in a smart cream suit saw him gaping. ‘What do you want, boy?’ Joshua jumped. ‘Oliver, the cook,’ he said politely. ‘My father sent me.’ ‘Go round the back.’ The man jerked his thumb. ‘That’s where the kitchen is.’ Joshua wandered on round, gazing up at the wide verandah on the first floor. Everyone said there were rooms up there for guests, but he’d never met anyone who had stayed there. He wondered what it would be like to sleep in one of the hotel bedrooms, so high up you could look down on the sea. ‘Mind where you’re going!’ He’d bumped into Oliver who was sitting on the kitchen steps, rolling a cigarette. ‘Sorry.’ Oliver licked the paper, put the cigarette in his mouth, lit it and inhaled greedily.

Just Joshua

Joshua waited. ‘Were you looking for me?’ Oliver asked at last. Joshua nodded. ‘Dad says, have you got a pig for him?’ ‘When for?’ ‘Tomorrow.’ Oliver leaned forward and straightened Joshua’s shirt, which had slipped sideways. It was too big for him. It had belonged to his father. He shook his head. ‘That’s too soon. I can manage the day after. Okay?’ Joshua shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’ ‘Would you like some pastries?’ Oliver’s pastries were famous. ‘Ooh, yes.’ Oliver stuck the cigarette back in his mouth and got up. Joshua followed him into the kitchen and watched him take pastries from a large tray and put them in a paper bag. ‘Here you go, one for you, one for your father. Don’t tell anyone.’ Joshua took the other path home, past the hospital. A hospital porter was coming towards him, his arm around a man, half carrying him towards the hospital building. Joshua almost dropped the brown paper bag. ‘Out of the way, you!’ The porter barked at him. Joshua took no notice. He was staring at the man. He was wearing a straw hat shaped like a cone and there was a blanket tossed over his shoulders. The blanket

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had a black crocodile woven into it. The man stared back at him. He was so close that Joshua could have touched him. Mountain man. ‘Didn’t you hear me?’ the porter said crossly. ‘Out of the way. Can’t you see the man’s in pain?’ A line of sweat trickled down the mountain man’s forehead. Joshua watched as another drop detached itself from beneath the straw hat and glided its way downwards. There was panic and fear in the redrimmed eyes. ‘Why don’t you take off the blanket?’ Joshua wanted to suggest, but he didn’t know the words in the man’s language and they stuck in his throat. The porter elbowed him aside impatiently and led the man past. He stumbled. He looked, Joshua thought, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Joshua reached out a hand to help. He touched grease on the man’s skin and recoiled. It was smeared on thickly and smelled rancid, like the pork fat his father gave away when it had been standing too long. In one hand the mountain man clutched a string bag that had lumps of blue-grey stone showing through. The man and the porter finally reached the hospital steps – ten deep steps, white and polished. Another porter hurried down from the building to help. The mountain man put one foot on the bottom step and paused, swaying and trembling. He looked back

Just Joshua

over his shoulder and caught Joshua’s eyes and held them with his own. He kept his head trained on Joshua as he was helped slowly up the steps, one by one. Joshua could not tear his gaze away. He began to lift a hand to wave goodbye but found that he couldn’t. He was trapped in the man’s pleading eyes. It wasn’t until the mountain man was swallowed up by the dark hospital entrance that Joshua felt able to move. Then he ran. He ran round the corner of the hospital, down the dusty path at its side, across the flat stretch of grass where coconut palms grew in stately rows, back to the road and on to the edge of the clearing. He stopped outside Robert’s house, panting. ‘Hey! Joshua!’ He turned and saw Robert under the jamalac tree, helping two of his younger brothers to build a miniature house with broken-up branches and leaves. ‘Watch out,’ one of the small boys warned crossly as Joshua sat down beside Robert. ‘It isn’t very strong yet.’ ‘What’s up?’ Robert asked over the small boy’s head. ‘There’s a mountain man,’ Joshua began and stopped. He wasn’t sure exactly how to explain a feeling with facts. ‘They’ve brought him in to the hospital. I saw him. He … looked at me.’ Robert was puzzled. ‘So?’ ‘His eyes … I thought he was asking for help.’ ‘Help? But he’s a mountain man. You just said so.

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You can’t help mountain men,’ Robert said scornfully. Joshua nodded, then shook his head. ‘Maybe this one can get better.’ ‘Don’t be silly. They never do. Mum says government medicine’s wasted on them. The only way they come out of hospital is lying down, in a coffin.’ ‘Yes, but I thought –,’ Joshua shifted on the hot ground. ‘I mean, let’s go back and see if we can do anything.’ Suddenly the words were rushing out. ‘Maybe mountain people die because they’re lonely here and it’s strange. And this one had a crocodile on his blanket, like the man in the market. It might be the same man, you see. Maybe we’re the only people who know him.’ Robert considered. Then he nodded. ‘Okay.’ He turned to his younger brothers. ‘See you later.’ He got to his feet. Five-year-old Solomon let out a wail. ‘What about our house?’ Robert cuffed him gently. ‘You finish it and you can show me when I get back. Build a wall of stones around it so the chickens don’t peck it over.’ Solomon beamed. He liked building walls. He was already starting to gather stones as they left. The whitewashed hospital gleamed in front of them. They drew closer, looking up at the tall windows. Unlike Joshua’s house and most of the house in the village, these windows had glass in them, and you could

Just Joshua

push down the top halves to let the air in. There were ten windows on each side, but they were too high for Joshua and Robert to see in. They prowled around the building, heads craned upwards, gatching glimpses of the black mountains that brooded threateningly behind the hospital, making it look small and vulnerable. A curtain fluttered in the breeze, but no mountain man came to the window. ‘I really thought he was trying to tell me something,’ Joshua said. ‘But how can he if he doesn’t know I’m here?’ ‘Let’s go and tell him then,’ Robert suggested. They stared at each other. ‘Do you think they’ll let us in?’ Joshua asked. ‘Come on. We’ll find out.’ They went round to the front of the building, Robert leading the way. They started up the steps. Joshua stopped and rubbed one foot against the other till he was sure the dust had fallen off. Then he ran to catch up with Robert and together they went into the entrance hall. It was empty and cool. A staircase ahead of them went up to a gallery. The fan set high in the ceiling ruffled their shirts. Joshua stamped his foot and whirled in the wind below it, arms spread wide. A nun bustled through a door and paused when she saw them. ‘What are you two scamps doing here?’ she scolded. ‘Are you sick?’

Chapter Four

Joshua stopped in mid-whirl and grinned at her. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We’ve come to see the mountain man.’ ‘Have you indeed?’ ‘We want to visit him,’ Joshua said stubbornly. ‘He wants us to.’ She opened a drawer in the desk near the door and took out a file. ‘Are you family?’ They shook their heads. ‘He’s very ill,’ she told them gently. ‘Only family can visit him, it’s the rules.’ She opened the file and began to study it. ‘Off you go then,’ she said firmly, seeing them still standing there. ‘Is he dying?’ Joshua asked. She stared at him. ‘Didn’t you hear me?’ she said. This time she sounded cross. ‘Yes. But is he? Dying?’ Joshua stood his ground. ‘Of course not. Now out, both of you. Scram!’ Joshua looked at Robert and they turned. ‘Do you think she was telling the truth?’ he asked Robert as they went slowly down the steps. Robert shrugged. ‘Not really. Do you?’ ‘I do,’ Joshua said, but even as he spoke, he wondered.