Damien Broderick - Strange Attractors Original (pdf) (novels to read in english .TXT) 📖

mark on his right forearm: the star in red and blue.

‘M r Hill?’ I whispered. ‘Hilo?’

He heard me well enough, wriggled his scanty eyebrows, drew in

his trailing leg and sat in a more hum an posture. I questioned.

How did he come back? Where had he been? Could he say his

name? He bent his head a little, stiffened his neck and wagged his

chin from side to side. I might have been talking to a mud wall.

Then he cocked his head to one side and directed the gaze of one

bright eye. The guitar.

I took it up and began to play. I played softly and sang and played

again. At last I played the shanty, the old favourite that I had just

rendered for the suffering sailor-girl down at the Old Glory. I

wanted to see a tear roll down the old man’s cheek. Certainly he

looked sad; there was a creaking and clicking on his throat, he

uttered a long, woolly collection of sounds as weird as his music.

He turned to me and said in a rusty voice:

‘You Ruby’s gal?’

‘No sir,’ I said. ‘I’m Catlin Kells, balladmaker. Fan Kells is my

auntie.’

118

Cherry Wilder

I pointed to his tattoo and said again:

‘Fan Kells, the skin artist. Do you remember?’

‘Dag Raam was here!’ he said. ‘O . . . protect me! Who’s coming

next?’

I had lost a word, a soft whistling word.

‘Who . . . what . . . should protect you?’

He repeated the word and I tried to get it. Ha-hwoo-dgai. When I

said it he looked at the sky, touched a finger to the tip of his nose

and laughed once, a sharp guttural bark of laughter.

‘Shall I play some more?’ I asked.

W hen he laughed at the sky I could see the inside of his mouth,

discoloured, almost black, and his teeth, still strong and white.

im a I said, sharply.

He did not fall for it. He looked at me again, did his slow blink

and said distinctly: ‘Hirro. Hirro. Hrrr.’

The last sound was nothing but a roll of the r following the heavy

H. I repeated the sounds and for the first time he was pleased. Fie

smiled a sweet normal smile and smoothed his blue cotton poncho.

Suddenly he leaned sideways, snaked out his right hand and

grasped my wrist.

‘Gal,’ he said, ‘make sure no one knows. Make sure. She might get

wind of it still. . . ’

‘Who? Who is this you’re afraid of?’

But he had gone far away. He stuck out his leg again, balanced a

curl of dried jocca leaf between the fingers of his right hand and began to make his music. I waited for some time and then left his garden enclosure.

I found her standing outside the trellis, watching him intently

through the vines. Ruby Hill Mack was about forty years old and I

could see at once how the old man had recognised her. She was a

beautiful woman; her name suited her rich colouring. She had

creamy skin, blue-black hair and speaking brown eyes. She was a

nice lady too, distraught, vague; she had a way of moving her hands

that I’ve often seen in the ladies, the chatelaines of Moon Lane but

rarely in sailors or parmel drivers.

‘Oh what do you think?’ she asked. ‘Is it . . . Can it be . . . ?’

I lied. I believed already that this wily, weird old person was Hilo

Hill and no other, but I said:

‘I’m not sure, Mam.’

‘Oh you did so well . . . Catlin is it? I never saw him so moved

. . . Could you . . . ?’

The ballad o f H ilo H ill

119

‘I’ll come again,’ I said.

Not a word about balladmaking, about news, invasion of privacy

and the money we paid for it. Not a word about the fact that by

mentioning the name ‘Hilo Hill’ I could bring every balladmaker at

the Songfabrik to her door, plus a horde of independent hacks and

gawpers. Perhaps she was a bad manager, perhaps she was simply a

lady who trusted me. We went back through the rundown mansion

and at the front door she said: ‘About Rayner . . . I wonder . . . ’

‘Wait,’ I said. ‘He’ll understand, M am. Believe