There is a hole in the brass chest, on top of the swelling ribs. But the metal man's fingers aren't curled tight against the pain.
They stretch out, open and loose, still as prongs.
He shivers.
Why does she keep a dead man nailed on the wall?
Ask her Claro. But keep the smile on, Claro.
He keeps straight, and he walks well, and he smiles in case she comes round any of the stony bends.
But there's no-one upstairs.
The fire is out.;
Ah hell, no-one cares.
He stalks over to the dropleaf table.
There's this bottle on it, full of shivering gold drink. Pale gold, sunlight shot with silver.
The smell comes lazily out, sweet and compelling.
He listens carefully.
No footsteps. No noise.
Besides, she doesn't mind if he has a drink, she's given him plenty of glasses.
So, into the cupboard, squinting over the cups… that's the small orown mug with the blue sigs?… urn, listening carefully to his head, situations whatever the hell they are.
He's had it before. It's the right size, tika size, fitting his hand.
It'll do.
Methodically, he pours a cup, drinks it down steady in one long heady breath, and pours another. And five cups after, he's feeling fine, thank you, easy in the stomach and pleasantly relaxed in the shoulders and back. Only trouble is, the bottle's about shot.
A marine, says Kerewin, throw that marine away.
He wanders to the cupboard, and looks the full bottles over.
That squat and bulbous one, full of green… stuff. Grass juice, maybe?
He screws the cork out of it. The sides of the cork are sugary and they grit as it turns.
And if that's grass juice, spit spit urrkk, it's not the clean healing smell of grass.
It's a rank bitterness, something decayed then pickled.
I'll try anything once, but that's had its chance… how could she possibly drink that? Maybe someone swapped the real drink for rat poison. Cat's milk, piss, like Piri says… something horrible, anyway.
He moves on to the next bottle, and swigs a sample.
Too sour. His tongue is numb under it. He purses his lips and spits the mouthful back into the bottle.
This?
Another gold drink, a darker gold, the yellow of dry gorse flowers nearly. It smells as musky as gorse. He rather likes gorse.
I sat in the middle of that bush one whole afternoon, and nobody could see one damn thing of me-
("Simon! You don't come here censored immediately. I'll I'll I'll….")
They couldn't get in. They would have got scratched to pieces getting through that hole, I did.
Haven't gone there for a while, Clare.
Too wet.
It's a place strictly for summer.
So he pours a cupful of the gorse drink, tastes it… slightly sour, but it only tingles on the lips and tongue… and it goes down smmmoooooth… could stand more of that, Clare.
So?
You got that berloody cup, boyo hokay? Why does she always hokay okay?
It's sokay hokay okay ay? he sings in his head. And tokay… that was another one, tokay.
A drink fit for kings, she says. The Sun King especially. And no, you can't have any. Youth needs juice neither for longevity nor aphrodisiac. Sun king maybe, sunchild no way.
I'm the sunchild, because of my hair… he shuffles his free hand through the length of it.
Struth mate, that mop needs cutting. Six inches more and you'll be treading on it, hah!
… and there'll be another fight.
He shudders.
I can't help it, it's too much… there can't be a fight. I won't. This time, I won't. I'll ask her to say she cut it.
He went to turn round and bumped into the cupboard door. Sat down involuntarily on the floor. It doesn't hit him as bad as he thought it would.
Claro?
Echo.
I think you're getting drunk… the voice that says it recedes through his head back out into… he tries following the voice with his eyes, looking backwards and up into his head until it hurts. Caint be that drunk, stuhupid Clare… he croons, an audible outside singsong to the inside talk.
When you're really full, you don't hurt anymore, and you don't care anymore, says Joe. That's why, tama. Even though you gotta come back for tomorrow, for the night you're safe and sound.
Sound?
Listening carefully, There's no sound.
C'mon, she comes home, you'll get a thick ear or something.
So what's new?
He splashes more of the gorse drink into the cup. Most of it's pouring on the floor, but he keeps going, wobbly as hell, until enough gets into the cup to fill it.
That all tastes rather good. Especially good. Bloody good. He smiles happily and blearily for quite a while, and then frowns.
Why am I happy?
Joe don't get no happy.
Joe gets bloody mean.
Shitty's the word, he thinks sourly. He gets sooo berloody shitty… stop crying, you. I can hear it.
It's me. I always do the wrong thing. I don't, I don't try to, it don't matter what I do, it's always wrong.
He sniffs through a maudlin stage to a realisation that the bottle he's cuddling is empty.
He goes to stand, and slips in the puddle of gorse juice.
That's strange… I'm floating-
It seems to go on for minutes, and then Thunk. Hard on his hip on the floor.
Godbloodyshitandhell.
It hurt. It hurt him a lot.
He picks up the fallen bottle and snarls, I'll show you, throwing it away with all his strength.
A fierce crack! somewhere, and then an odd muted splintering sound, like ice ringing on stone.
Jesus oath, says Simon to his heart, what was that?
Frightened to look, but looking anyway, twisting his head off the floor until his neck creaks.
But there's one hell of a blur hereabouts. . caint see no thing Claro.
Shrug, shrug, kneeling up, and shuffling on his knees to the cupboard, hip aching like it's fresh hit. That's beer. I don't want any damn beer. Sniffs in the next bottle he pulls a top off.
Again. Delicious.
He nurses this bottle carefully to the cup's rim, and pours a bit
in.
Chocolate. Thick and syrupy and sweet.
So clink! knocking the bottle, cheerful again, here's to you Kere and to you Joe he says kindly, silently, sprawled against the cupboard held by his arm, clink, and that's for me eh Clare, and he drinks to them all.
Kerewin stares.
You wouldn't believe it. You couldn't.
You come in, feeling clean and straightened out and high on holiness, and what awaits?
One drunken kid, lying hunched and untidy all over the floor. Snoring like a bluebottle.
Two bottles overturned, and alcohol rife through the air.
O hell, look at the window!
She shakes her head in disbelief.
Two hours and he does this much damage?
Man alive, a six year old debauchee-
Her heart mourns the window (but I can buy another one).
She walks across to the cupboard, avoiding the puddles (O tatami, you weren't got for this… to be good and golden for bare feet not to be… I hope that's drink… still, if the worst comes to the worst, I can always turn it over…) and digs him in the ribs with the toe of her foot.
No response. Not so much as a blink or an off key snore. He dreams on oblivious, sound in his stupor.
It would be kind to let him sleep it off. I'm not kind.
So she picks him up, her heart kicking with a kind of misgiving at his lightness, and climbs the spiral to the shower, and turns the water on at needlespray and coldest. For a minute he lies under the blast, limp as a skin in her hold.
Then he jerks, and screams.