The Porpoise by Mark Haddon

Author:Mark Haddon
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2019-06-17T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

. . .

They enter the city proper at Cripplegate and walk south down Little Wood Street. It seems to George like any other London day. The Walloons are sitting in a semicircle waiting to be shaved at the sign of the Pheasant. A dirty ragamuffin with a tame squirrel sitting on his shoulder is begging for money. At the corner of Silver Street a woman throws water over a vagrant lying beside her front door. He seems untroubled so she hits him with the bucket and still gets no reaction. It is entirely possible that he is dead.

“Where are we going?” asks George.

“I do not know,” says Will. “We will doubtless find out when we get there.”

“Christ’s teeth,” says George.

“In a general sense I assume that I am escorting you out of this world.”

“Enough,” says George. “Enough.” He comes to a halt and rubs his face.

A man is walking towards them carrying a small cage containing a pair of songbirds. He has powder-blue stockings and a square-cut ginger beard. George waits until the man is passing then grabs hold of his upper arm. The man’s arm feels wrong, too soft, too insubstantial. Nevertheless, the man stops. He seems confused. He looks at George. No, that is not quite right. He looks through George. He wears the expression Mrs. Brokehill wore when she both saw and didn’t see the two of them in the bedchamber. The man smells of lavender and nutmeg, and he is frightened now. The cage clatters to the ground and rolls over several times in the mud. The man is completely unaware of this. The birds chirrup, their little wings drumming on the fine willow bars. The man starts to tremble. George has seen this look on weak men walking to the scaffold. A woman with a brace of rabbits slung over her shoulder stops and stares, wondering whether she should help this troubled man in his ridiculous stockings or walk away as quickly as possible. The man is weeping now, tears running down both cheeks. George lets go and the man sinks to his cornflower-blue knees, the splashed mud spattering George’s own nightgown.

George turns to Will and narrows his eyes. “What are you?”

Will shrugs. “I am as surprised to find myself in this situation as you are.”

Two boys have run off with the caged birds. Some ragged cove is helping the bearded man theatrically to his feet and will doubtless seek payment for the service.

“Follow me.” Will turns and continues towards Cheapside. What he said to George is not the whole truth. He has not the remotest conception of the route they are following, but when he puts one foot in front of the other he knows that he is travelling in the right direction. It is a strange but pleasurable sensation. The fact that he is dead seems of little consequence. George reappears at his shoulder.

They cross Cheapside. There are geese and capons for sale, there are parsnips and melons. There are oranges arranged in a pyramid on a large velvet cushion.

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