So people were upset. He’d been drunk the night before. In no shape to defend himself. The rope that had killed him was horsehair – I remember how people talked about that, as if it was important, though I didn’t know why at the time. But they’d found horsehairs in Gin’s neck .
The old women who shared a house on the corner, three of them, seemed to be looking at us again and again – we were outside, listening to everybody talking, all those emotions running high. Ma was white as plucked down. Da was on the bench beside the shack’s door. He’d gotten a rash on his hands and was slowly melting a lump of lard between them. There’d been a strange look in his eye, but for once he wasn’t offering any opinion on the matter .
Horsehair. A tradition among the outliers, the wood-cutting camps east of the city. ‘How adulterers are hung, aye?’ And the old women nodded. ‘But old Ginanse, he ain’t never—’ ‘No, couldn’t, y’see? Got burned down there – was on a ship that caught fire when they took Falar Harbour. He couldn’t do nothing .’
The drunk seducer with nowhere to take it. How shit-fouled miserable is that? Breaks the heart .
And he’d always a kind word for Ma, when she went to him to get the one knife we owned sharpened. Hardly charged a thing either. ‘That blade a mouse couldn’t shave with, hah! Hey, boy, your ma ever let you shave a mouse? Good practice for when one shows up under yer nose! Few years yet, though .’
‘ So,’ said someone in the crowd, ‘a jealous man – no, make it a jealous, stupid man. With wood for brains.’ And a few people laughed, but they weren’t pleasant laughs. People were working up to something. People knew something. People were figuring it out .
Like a bird in a thorn bush, Ma slipped inside without a sound. I followed her, thinking about poor old Ginanse and wondering who was gonna sharpen Ma’s knife now. But Da got up right then and went in a step before me. His hands were dripping melted fat .
I don’t remember exactly what I saw. Just a flash, really. Up close to Da’s face, just under his huge, bearded jaw. And he made a gurgling sound and his knees bent as if he was about to sit down – right on me. I jumped back, tripped in the doorway and landed in the dust beside the bench .
Da was making spitting sounds, but not from his mouth. From his neck. And when he landed on his knees, twisting round in the doorway as if wanting to come back outside, the front of his chest was all wet and bright red. I looked into my father’s eyes. And for the first and only time in my life with him, I actually saw something alive in there. A flicker, a gleam, that went out for good as he slumped on the threshold .
Behind him, Ma stood holding that little knife in her right hand .
‘ Here y’go, boy, hold it careful now. It’s sharp enough to shave a mouse – Bridgeburner magic, what I can do with decent iron. Give us another smile, sweet Elade, it’s all the payment I ask, darling .’
‘ Well now, recruit, y’ever stand still? Seen you goin’ round and round and round. Tell me, was your old man a court clown or something? ’