IN THE FIRST weeks the patriarch carried
the child about with him in little hessian hammock that he rigged to a length
of piping and he would hang the contraption from a convenient davit when he
worked on the maintenance of the solar panels that lit the few dim bulbs below
and fed the batteries for the lumbering solenoid that powered the lift. When
the boy woke, Delfan would sit him down in a patch of shade and continue his labour
and he came to know the small grunts and the frowns of interested concentration
which signalled the child’s evacuations.
He
would exclaim then and lay down his tools and take the boy up one-handed by the
ankles so that their heads were level with each other and the inverted Hob
would gurgle and chuckle and clench his little fists and wave his arms about. Delfan
carried a bucket with him and when the diaper was removed he would wash the
arse of the child most thoroughly with crude soap and cold and precious water
from the dew traps. At these times Hob would bellow in a fashion that gave
clear evidence his provenance. Delfan, as he stashed the diaper for later incineration,
would hold the offending garment distant from his nose and holler curses of his
own so that the whole vessel rang with the noise of the little family.
Sometimes
in the evenings when the sun was low on the horizon Jack Delfan would walk
about the deck with the child and on such an evening he discovered that the tyke
had an impulse to straighten its legs. He set Hob’s feet in his rough right
palm which he held before him at chest level and he supported the boy’s back
with his left hand and Hob straightened his legs. Delfan removed the supporting
hand and the boy was much astonished to find himself standing, and so high
above the world. He opened his eyes wide and bent his knees and dropped and his
father caught him as he passed his groin on his journey deck-wards.
Hob came to
enjoy the sensation however, and often enough at sunset Delfan would be found
marching about with the child balanced like a juggler's pole on his palm.
Delfan would shout out the poems he had learnt by heart in his youth and Hob
would ride before, bobbing and swaying like a figurehead on the prow of a
clipper.
She
was boarded
she was looted, chanted Jack Delfan, she was scuttled till she sank,
and the pale survivors left us by the medium of the plank.
The infant stood with his little knees locked
straight and he waved his fists about and he caught this father' rhythms and he
shouted, da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da.
Not
long after Hob's delivery, Delfan moved his belongings from the iron dungeons
below and into the captain's quarters below the bridge, and there he slung hammocks
and placed the primus stove that warmed their tins of beans and corn. It was Delfan’s
habit to read before sleeping and he found that sometimes the child complained
for lack of attention but he complained less when Delfan read aloud. And so Hob,
before he could understand the words, became intimate with the rhythms of the
book.
Now
King David was old and stricken in years, read Jack Delfan. And they covered
him with clothes, but he gat not heat.
Da,
said Hob. Da.
Wherefore
his servants said unto him, let there be sought for my lord the king a young
virgin.
Dada?
And
let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy
bosom, that my lord the king may get heat.
Da,
said Hob. And then he seemed to ponder a little. Ma?
Jack
Delfan’s eyes were drawn away from the text by this new sound in the infant’s
mouth.
Not
ma. I am your father. Dada.
Ma?
Said Hob.
No,
said Jack Delfan. Da.
Ma?
Said Hob.
Dada,
bellowed Jack Delfan.
And
he turned out the light and when Hob howled the patriarch took precious wax
from his stock of candles and he blocked his ears with it so that he might not
hear the child’s cries.
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