Peter Carey - His Illegal Self

It was OK.

She was dumb enough to be hurt by his reticence. She was smart enough to know that it was dumb. She made a ratatouille but he was asleep before it was ready, his arm thrown sideways off his cushion, his wide red-lipped mouth almost exactly like his father’s. He was about a billion dollars filled with buzzing secrets and she told him, quietly, secretly, she loved him, and carried him off to the other hut where it was easier to get him into bed.

He said it was OK, but it was not. In truth the sun had been hot beyond belief. It burned clear through his shirt. He had dragged the sled backward and forward on that sawdust path about a hundred times at least, the load bucking and kicking behind him and the rope sawing across his chest and arms, as if it could slice away his feelings like lamb fat off a chop. When all the cauliflowers were mulched he went on to the next bed. How long this took he did not know.

Smoke-oh!

Sir?

We take a break.

The heat made Trevor look like no one the boy had ever seen in his entire life-a mud man, the trunk of a tree, a watermelon with no waist or hips. He smeared his red face with the back of his black hand and inspected the boy’s work. He did not say well done or thank you.

You want to wash?

The boy was not going to get naked here, no way. He said, What?

Trevor pointed to the shower, right out in the open in a kind of pit beneath a concrete tank.

The boy said, I’m OK.

Just the same he followed Trevor out of the sun, under the roof where it smelled of sawdust and dirt and something sweet and drunk like a burrow.

Trevor showered and came back in his sarong, his brown hair wet and doggy short, and he shook himself and sprayed the boy’s dusty skin with water drops. The boy would have liked a nice cold glass of milk. He asked for water but was told to use a garden hose which was black and beat-up and taped together. The water came out cold enough, and he let it spill down his legs on purpose and rubbed some on his face and wiped his muddy hands on his shorts.

Trevor asked him did he like watermelon.

I don’t mind, he said.

Sit up there. You know what that chair is?

The chair was strange and scary. He shook his head.

Don’t they have barbers in New York?

They have most things, he said.

Trevor was staring above his eyes. The boy knew his blond hair showed at the roots of his disguise.

Trevor asked, You don’t know what a barber is?

The boy just waited while he got looked at.

No?

Trevor set up a card table and on this he placed a watermelon and a loaf of bread and a bowl of olives. He held up a single olive between his thumb and forefinger and this made the boy think of his grandma and her six o’clock martini. He made the best damned martinis in Sullivan County. She said so.

You know what this is?

It’s an olive.

You eat it with the bread and watermelon.

The boy knew that was wrong.

So, said Trevor, with his face pushed deep in the melon like an animal. So Dial’s your mummy. What about your dad. Is he in America?

The boy took a big bite of bread and chewed.

I’m an orphan, Trevor said. He wiped his face with the back of his thick arm. You know what an orphan is?

The boy made himself busy with an olive. It was black, not green, and pointy at one end. He spat the pit into his hand.

It means you haven’t got a mother or a father. Do you know where I’m from?

The boy took a bite of melon, just to have his mouth full. He should not have been left alone with Trevor.

Trevor fed himself olives from the bottom of his fist. You’re a very lucky boy, he said at last.

The watermelon and olive tasted wrong and good, salt and sweet.

You sad at night?

What?

Trevor’s eyes were small but they were bright and sort of wet looking. He blew out his olive pits, fierce like spitballs. You sad at night, I said.

The boy stared at him, his throat burning.

Ask me about my father? Trevor demanded.

The boy was frightened now.

I haven’t got one, said Trevor. Ask me about my mother?

Don’t you have a mother?

Fuck them all, Trevor said. Don’t worry. Look at where I am. He pointed with his knife and they looked together at the piles of stuff, the view.

When this is done, son, this will be a fortress. I’ve got twenty thousand gallons of water in those tanks. I can have a bloody fountain in the middle of my house. I have fresh veggies, good dope. No one can touch me, man, you understand me. No one knows I even exist. They can’t see me with satellites. I am totally a fucking orphan. That’s the silver lining. Do you understand?

I guess.

So she split up from your dad?

He’s coming here, the boy said very quickly, he’s coming pretty soon. He’s working right now and he can’t come till that’s done.

What sort of work is that?

I’m not allowed to say.

He’s in jail?

What?

He’s doing time?

He went to Harvard, said the boy. He knew it was a powerful thing to say.

Trevor clicked his tongue and shook his head.

The boy said, We should probably get back to work now.

You want to do more?

I don’t mind.

So he was taught how to throw the watermelon peel in the compost and they worked a good while in the hot sun. Then Trevor decided it was enough so the boy had a shower and put his shorts back on while he was wet.

You want to see something good?

I don’t know, he said.

Say yes, said Trevor, it’s a gift.

As it happened the boy already had a gift, ten dollars he had seen on Trevor’s workbench. He slipped the bright blue bill in the pocket with his stuff. Come on, said Trevor, and the boy followed him through the fallen bark, carrying his gift, while the dry sticks exploded like angry fireworks beneath his feet.

Tit for tat you dirty rat, feed you to the old tomcat.

They set off along the saddle which was gentle enough at first but then became steep and rough with broken shale like scales, the spine of some old scabby dragon. Then they came out into sunlight and crossed over into a high flat field with feathery grass and purple seeds which shone like silver. Through the waving blades the boy imagined he could see paler yellow lines like grown-over paths or car tires, but maybe he was wrong. He listened to the swish of the seeds brushing against his skin. His eyes were mostly down, looking out for snakes.

What was he going to be shown? Something relating to his father.

Soon there was a barbed-wire fence. The posts were gray and bearded with pale green lichen. The wire was a chocolate brown except someone had added a few shiny new bits to make a puzzle of loops and levers so that the fence could be opened and closed like a boneless gate. After that the land fell away to a small flat where baby trees were growing, pale yellow flowers and tough old leaves that tore like leather.

Wattle, said the man.

The boy did not want to go any farther but he was afraid to be left behind and he hurried after Trevor until they came to a high sort of knob or wart about the size of a small house, and this was where the man stopped, retying his sarong, and sniffing around him like a dog.

What are we going to do now?

Trevor’s eyes were small and very blue and when they turned to look at him they were bright and glassy and the boy was afraid he would get caught for stealing. Without a word Trevor took his hand and led him around the base of the wart, through some snaky-looking grass, then to a pile of dead branches. He held apart the twigs and branches meaning the boy should go in. He did not want to.

Where are we going? His throat was kind of scratchy dry. He did not know what a man would want to show a boy.