Remembering Babylon Read Free Page A

now by so much levity. They could never have imagined their fathers, their mothers too, shouting and chiacking like this.
    Meanwhile, the man himself was hauling at imaginary sails, puffing his cheeks out, rolling his eyes up and shaking his wrists in a passion to have them comprehend. He clenched his brow and made little hissing noises through his nostrils while he waited for them to come up with a suggestion, and when they looked at one another, drew their mouths down and remained dull, grew fierce with exasperation.
    In his wish to make an impression on the grown-ups he had turned away from Lachlan; but seeing now that the boy was among the quickest of all at guessing what he meant, he fell back on what he felt was an affinity between them. He would, out of deference to the adults, make a sign in their direction, and when they failed to grasp it, turn to Lachlan; or someone in the crowd itself would. ‘What is it, lad? What’s he trying to say?’
    The boy, seeing his power restored in a new form, was determined to make the most of it.
    You see, the line of his mouth proclaimed, as once againthe fellow laughed and paid tribute to his cleverness with a slap of the thigh, Ah told ye Ah was the wan! Or he would deliberately hold back and make them wait, screwing his face up, pretending to be stumped, so that, with a shout of triumph and a little knock of his knuckles against his skull at his own stupidity, he could the more dramatically come up with an answer. ‘Yer a clever little bugger, ain’t ye!’ one of the older fellows hissed in his ear.
    But at last no more facts suggested themselves to the man. He looked about, uncertain; then, as a proof of what he claimed, tore away the cloth he wore round his middle and held it out to them. There were giggles and an embarrassed clearing of throats as one of the men, Ned Corcoran, took hold of the rag and in a gingerly way looked it over.
    It was the remains of a jacket. Salt-stained and stiff with dirt, it had once been blue, maybe royal blue, and still had a hint of colour to it.
    Ned Corcoran frowned. What was he expected to do with the thing? Holding it at arm’s length, he passed it to the next man. He too examined and passed it on. One of the women, offered the foul-smelling bundle, wrinkled her nose and turned away. Gemmy, his brow furrowed, had begun to skip about on one leg. Little whimpering sounds came from him.
    ‘He wants it back,’ one of the smaller children said dreamily out of her own experience, and looked about, suddenly shy at having spoken.
    ‘He does too. The bairn’s right. Give it ’im back.’
    Jock McIvor, whose hands it had come to, passed the rag back, and the fellow grinned and hugged it to his chest but made no attempt to restore it to where it would do most good. This was too much for Jim Sweetman. ‘For God’s sake, man,’ he exploded, ‘cover yourself.’
    Jim Sweetman, an ex-blacksmith, was a man who was accorded a good deal of respect among them. He was a big, stern-faced fellow who in all weathers wore a flannel vest out of which grey wire crawled. He disapproved of swearing and had only one oath of his own, which was ‘By Godfrey’, but was a dancer with the lightness of a man half his weight and half his age and was often seen with his three-year-oldgranddaughter on his arm, bouncing her up and down to the tune of a waltz. He did not impose his authority and no word of rebuke ever passed his lips, but there were few among them who did not shrink from the image they got of themselves when Jim Sweetman, with a look of sadness rather than scorn, fixed them for a moment with his gaze and turned regretfully away.
    He had taken no part in the guessing game – no pleasure either. A lot of grown men and women idling about, grinning and shouting while a plain savage, or marionette or imbecile, jigged about and played up to them. And all this with not a stitch to cover him! Bad enough if he was what he appeared to be, a poor savage, but