Meadowland by Thomas Holt

Author:Thomas Holt
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789085241522
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 2004-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

TEN

‘What’s he been telling you?’ said Kari. ‘Whatever it was, don’t believe a word of it.’

I smiled at him. ‘He was telling me how you both came to join the third—is it third, or fourth? Anyway, the expedition led by the man with the funny name.’

Kari sighed, all the way up from the soles of his ancient boots. They were rather too large for him but had been, at one time, extremely magnificent; and I had my suspicions about them. At the very least, I guessed, their previous owner hadn’t parted with them willingly ‘You mean Thorfinn Thordsson,’ he said.

‘I think so,’ I replied. ‘Eyvind just called him Bits.’

Kari let out a rather forced laugh. ‘Wonderful language, Greek,’ he said. ‘Me, I’d translate it a bit different: Scraps is more like it. Like, a pile of offcuts left over from other jobs, and your workman’s looking to make a bit on the side putting them all together and passing them off as the genuine article. That’d be more like it.’

I scratched my chin. ‘So you didn’t like him much?’

‘You could say that,’ Kari said.

I glanced over my shoulder. Eyvind had gone off to the stream for his daily wash. The Northerners are obsessive about washing, and I believe that’s why so many of them look older than they actually are. As I see it, the human skin is just soft, thin leather; if you’re continually getting it wet, sooner or later it’ll start shrinking and shrivelling. If they used oil and a scraper, like we do, their skins would stay supple and they wouldn’t end up looking like dried figs by the time they turn thirty. But there you are.

‘He’d just got to the bit where they found you hiding in the charcoal barrel,’ I said.

Kari looked blank. ‘What charcoal barrel?’

♦

Don’t ask me why he told you that (Kari said). The truth is, Thorfinn kept on and on at me to join up, because he needed one of the old hands from the earlier trip, but nobody wanted anything to do with it. I told him to get lost, but he was one of those aggravating little men who won’t take no for an answer. Then he told me he’d kidded Eyvind into going, so I gave in. I knew Eyvind’d expect me to go along if he was going. We’ve been around each other so long, he’d be lost without me.

Now I think about it, I can see where he’s got that charcoal—barrel thing from. See, I wanted it to be a surprise for him, me joining up after I’d sworn blind I wasn’t going to. So I snuck aboard the ship before everybody else and hid behind a big cask in the hold—behind it, mind you, not in it, there’s a difference—and once we were under way I hopped out and said, ‘Look, it’s me!’ or something of the sort, I don’t remember what. Anyhow, he pulled a long face like he wasn’t glad to see me, but that’s just Eyvind mucking around.

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