Read Online The Boy Who Taught the Beekeeper to Read by Susan Hill - Free Book Online
Authors: Susan Hill
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he, but I saw that he was crying. His old man’s face was wetand his eyes were red. He looked like a sad, very old baby. His nose was running and he wiped it on his coat sleeve.
I didn’t understand, and then I felt suddenly sick and giddy, so that I would have fainted if I hadn’t sat down on the steps of the van next to him. I took some breaths. The world righted itself.
Little Midge smelled of tobacco and musty clothes. I sat there next to him for ages while he went on crying, but I couldn’t stand him wiping his nose on his sleeve so in the end I gave him my handkerchief and he used that.
The racket went on all around us. Kids and dogs and drums and horses and van doors opening and shutting. It seemed to have nothing to do with us. We were cut off from it all, sitting on the steps of Rosa’s van, having a queer, unspeaking need for one another.
The punishment
The punishment
‘Goddit,’ Deano said. ‘We’ll shoot the crucifix.’
They froze as stiff as the plaster saints then and the silence was terrible, as they pictured it in their minds.
‘Goddit,’ and he banged his fist hard against the breakwater behind them. But he had scared himself as well, they knew that, with the enormity of the idea and that it had come out of him.
The tide was out and there was the usual mean wind.
They looked at the lime-green seaweed smeared over the rocks and the rusty railing sticking out of its sheared-off concrete slab, like a broken bone out of an arm, at the dull sky and the dull sea – anywhere but at each other as what Deano had said sank down into the part of them so deep it might never be reached.
They were already old men, it seemed, by the time Mick bent forward to pick up a pebble and chucked it away from him. The sound when it fell was hardly anything and it made them start as if they werealready there and had done the thing, heard the crack of the shot, the church door slam, a sudden voice.
It woke them up though.
‘We could,’ Deano said, as if they had been shouting him down. ‘Simple.’
Mick picked up another pebble. They were only here for him, they were all trying to think of what to do, for him, and because of Charlie, but he was the most fearful of them, that was understood. On the other hand, Charlie had been his brother.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Why not?’
‘You know.’
‘The worst thing we could think of, you said, except for killing someone, and it’s the worst thing.’
‘Something might happen.’
‘Yea, we’d shoot it and it’d smash to bits.’
It was Sluggy who said the obvious. Sluggy who scarcely spoke, because of the hole in the roof of his mouth that made him sound like an idiot, which he definitely was not.
‘No gun.’ It came out differently but they never had any trouble understanding him.
‘Catapult then.’
‘Yea, well.’
But Mick knew when to give in. ‘It wouldn’t make any noise.’ They looked at him. He had given permission. They would do it. He would.
The mean wind blew little pins of rain that stung their faces. Far down the beach, the tide turned.
They got up and went slowly back, not speaking, kicking at the shingle, and the lumps of sand and marran grass beside the path.
‘See yer.’
‘See yer,’ at the usual corner. Only nothing was usual or ever would be again, whether they did it or not. But they would do it. It was as if it had already happened and become a fact, in his life, his past, history, not just a might, and in the future.
‘Goddit.’
There was a great hollow, like one of the caves at low tide. It seemed to be just at the back of Mick’s mind or behind his head. He dared not look into it. He had to. It had begun to grow from the bubble that had formed there the moment Deano had said it. ‘We’ll shoot the crucifix.’ And Mick had known at once that they would.
Everything filled it as it grew, it became crowded with thickening, shifting shapes. Hellfire, though, strangely, there were no flames. A stench,
I didn’t understand, and then I felt suddenly sick and giddy, so that I would have fainted if I hadn’t sat down on the steps of the van next to him. I took some breaths. The world righted itself.
Little Midge smelled of tobacco and musty clothes. I sat there next to him for ages while he went on crying, but I couldn’t stand him wiping his nose on his sleeve so in the end I gave him my handkerchief and he used that.
The racket went on all around us. Kids and dogs and drums and horses and van doors opening and shutting. It seemed to have nothing to do with us. We were cut off from it all, sitting on the steps of Rosa’s van, having a queer, unspeaking need for one another.
The punishment
The punishment
‘Goddit,’ Deano said. ‘We’ll shoot the crucifix.’
They froze as stiff as the plaster saints then and the silence was terrible, as they pictured it in their minds.
‘Goddit,’ and he banged his fist hard against the breakwater behind them. But he had scared himself as well, they knew that, with the enormity of the idea and that it had come out of him.
The tide was out and there was the usual mean wind.
They looked at the lime-green seaweed smeared over the rocks and the rusty railing sticking out of its sheared-off concrete slab, like a broken bone out of an arm, at the dull sky and the dull sea – anywhere but at each other as what Deano had said sank down into the part of them so deep it might never be reached.
They were already old men, it seemed, by the time Mick bent forward to pick up a pebble and chucked it away from him. The sound when it fell was hardly anything and it made them start as if they werealready there and had done the thing, heard the crack of the shot, the church door slam, a sudden voice.
It woke them up though.
‘We could,’ Deano said, as if they had been shouting him down. ‘Simple.’
Mick picked up another pebble. They were only here for him, they were all trying to think of what to do, for him, and because of Charlie, but he was the most fearful of them, that was understood. On the other hand, Charlie had been his brother.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Why not?’
‘You know.’
‘The worst thing we could think of, you said, except for killing someone, and it’s the worst thing.’
‘Something might happen.’
‘Yea, we’d shoot it and it’d smash to bits.’
It was Sluggy who said the obvious. Sluggy who scarcely spoke, because of the hole in the roof of his mouth that made him sound like an idiot, which he definitely was not.
‘No gun.’ It came out differently but they never had any trouble understanding him.
‘Catapult then.’
‘Yea, well.’
But Mick knew when to give in. ‘It wouldn’t make any noise.’ They looked at him. He had given permission. They would do it. He would.
The mean wind blew little pins of rain that stung their faces. Far down the beach, the tide turned.
They got up and went slowly back, not speaking, kicking at the shingle, and the lumps of sand and marran grass beside the path.
‘See yer.’
‘See yer,’ at the usual corner. Only nothing was usual or ever would be again, whether they did it or not. But they would do it. It was as if it had already happened and become a fact, in his life, his past, history, not just a might, and in the future.
‘Goddit.’
There was a great hollow, like one of the caves at low tide. It seemed to be just at the back of Mick’s mind or behind his head. He dared not look into it. He had to. It had begun to grow from the bubble that had formed there the moment Deano had said it. ‘We’ll shoot the crucifix.’ And Mick had known at once that they would.
Everything filled it as it grew, it became crowded with thickening, shifting shapes. Hellfire, though, strangely, there were no flames. A stench,
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