Nation - Пратчетт Терри Дэвид Джон - Страница 27

She tried to pay attention when Cahle showed her cookery stuff; the woman seemed to think it was very important, and Daphne tried hard to hide the fact that she’d never cooked anything in her life. She’d learned how to make some kind of drink, too, that the woman was… emphatic about.

It smelled like the Demon Drink, which was the cause of Ruin. Daphne knew this because of what happened when Biggleswick the butler broke into her father’s study one night and got Rascally Drunk on whiskey and woke up the whole house with his singing. Grandmother had sacked him on the spot and refused to relent even when Daphne’s father said that Biggleswick’s mother had died that day. The footmen pulled him out of the house and carried him to the stables and left him crying in the straw with the horses trying to lick the tears off his face, for the salt.

What upset Daphne, who had quite liked Biggleswick, especially the way he walked with his feet turned out so that he looked as if he might split in two at any moment, was that he lost his job because of her. Grandmother had stood at the top of the stairs like some ancient stone goddess, pointed at Daphne (who had been watching with interest from the upper landing), and screamed at her father: “Will you stand there doing nothing when your only child is exposed to such Lewdness?”

And that had been it for the butler. Daphne had been sorry to see him go, because he was quite kind and she’d very nearly mastered his waddle. Later she’d heard via the dumbwaiter that he’d met a Bad End. And all because of the Demon Drink.

On the other hand, she’d always wondered what the Demon Drink was like, having heard her grandmother talk about it so much. This particular Demon Drink was made very methodically out of a red root that grew in one corner of the Place; Cahle peeled it very carefully with a knife, and then washed her hands just as carefully in the pool, at the place where it overflowed into the little stream again. The root was mashed with a stone and a handful of small leaves was added. Cahle stared at the bowl for a moment and then cautiously added another leaf. Water was poured in from a gourd, taking care not to splash, and the bowl was left on a shelf for a day.

By next morning the bowl was full of a churning, hissing, evil-looking yellow foam.

Daphne went to climb up to see if it smelled as bad as it looked, and Cahle gently but firmly pulled her back, shaking her head vigorously.

“Don’t drink?” Daphne had asked.

“No drink!”

Cahle took the bowl down and set it down in the middle of the hut. Then she spat in the bowl. A plume of what looked like steam went up to the thatched roof of the hut, and the churning mixture in the bowl hissed even more.

This, thought Daphne, watching in a kind of fascinated shock, is not at all like Grandmother’s sherry afternoons.

At that point, Cahle began to sing. It was a jolly little song, with the kind of tune that sticks in your mind even when you don’t know the words. It bounced along and you just knew you wouldn’t be able to get it out of your head. Even with a chisel.

She was singing to the beer. And the beer was listening. It was calming down, like an excited dog being reassured by its master’s voice. The hissing began to grow less, the bubbles settled, and what had looked like a foul mess was actually becoming transparent.

Still Cahle sang, beating time with both hands. But they weren’t just beating time; they made shapes in the air, following the music. The beer-calling song had lots of little verses with the same chorus between each one, so Daphne started to sing along and wave her hands in time. She got the feeling that the woman was pleased about this because she leaned over, still singing, and moved Daphne’s fingers into the right positions.

Strange, oily ripples passed across the stuff in the bowl, which got a bit clearer with each verse. Cahle watched it closely, still singing… and then stopped.

The bowl was full of liquid diamond. The beer sparkled like the sea. A small wave rolled across it.

Cahle dipped a shell into it and offered it to Daphne with an encouraging nod.

Well, refusing would certainly be what Grandmother called a Faux Pas. There was such a thing as good manners, after all. It might cause offense, and that would never do.

She tried it. It was like drinking silver, and it made her eyes water.

“For man! Husbun!” said Cahle, grinning. “For when too much husbun!” She lay on her back and made very loud snoring noises. Even the Unknown Woman smiled.

Daphne thought: I’m learning things. I hope I find out soon what they are.

The next day she worked it out. In a language made up of a few words and a lot of smiles, nods, and gestures — some very embarrassing gestures, which Daphne knew she should be shocked about, except that here on this sunny island there was just no point — she, Cahle, was teaching her the things she needed to know so that she would be able to get a husband.

She knew she shouldn’t laugh, and tried not to, but there was no way to explain to the woman that her way to get a husband was to have a very rich father who was governor of a lot of islands. Besides, she was not at all certain that she even wanted a husband, since they seemed a lot of work, and as for children, after seeing the birth of Guiding Star, she was certain that if she ever wanted children she’d buy some ready-made.

But this wasn’t something she could tell two new mothers, even if she knew how, so she tried to understand what Cahle was trying to tell her, and she even let the nameless woman do her hair, which gave the poor woman some comfort and, Daphne thought, looked pretty good but far too grown-up for thirteen. Her grandmother would not approve, in italics, although seeing to the other side of the world was probably too much even for her beady eyes.

At any moment her father’s ship would come into view, of course. That was a certainty. It was taking some time because there were so many islands to search.

And supposing he didn’t come?

She pushed that thought out of her mind.

It pushed back. She could see thoughts that were waiting on the other side of it, waiting to drag her down if she dared to think them.

More people had arrived on the day after Guiding Star had been born, a small boy called Oto-I and a tiny wizened old lady, both of them parched and hungry.

The old lady was about the same size as the boy and had taken over a corner of one of the huts, where she ate everything that was given to her and watched Daphne with small bright eyes. Cahle and the other women treated her with great respect and called her by a long name that Daphne couldn’t pronounce. She called her Mrs. Gurgle because she had the noisiest stomach Daphne had ever heard, and it was a good idea to keep upwind of her at all times.

Oto-I, on the other hand, had recovered in the speedy way that children do, and she had sent him off to help Ataba. From here she could see the old man and the boy working on the pig fence, just below her, and if she walked to the edge of the fields, she could see a steadily growing pile of planks, spars, and sailcloth on the beach. Since there was going to be a future, it would need a roof over its head.

The Judy was dying. It was sad, but they were only finishing what the wave had begun. It would take a long time, because a boat is quite hard to take to bits, even when you’ve found the carpenter’s toolbox. But what a treasure it was on an island that, before the wave, owned two knives and four small three-legged cauldrons. Together, Mau and the brothers pecked away at the boat like grandfather birds at a carcass, dragging everything to the shore and then all the way along the beach. It was hot work.

Pilu swanked a bit about knowing the names of the tools in the box, but it seemed to Mau that when you got right down to it, a hammer was a hammer whether it was made of metal or stone. It was the same with chisels. And skateskin was as good as this sandpaper, wasn’t it?