Smoking Poppy by Graham Joyce (the read aloud family .txt) 📕

he adopted the posture of a Thai boxer, punctuating his high-pitched curses with a number of swift jabs and kicks at the thin air. But Mick had clearly terrified him, because none of his thrusts landed within six feet of where Mick stood. Moments later this ineffectual whirlwind was joined by Khao and another bandit, both of whom instantly drew pistols.

One of the pistols was levelled at Mick but Khao, snarling, brandishing his gun, marched directly past me and into the hut where Charlie was sleeping. I followed him, three paces behind. Inside the hut he walked directly up to Charlie, pushed the barrel of the pistol into the side of her head and cocked the trigger.

I had never before been faced down with a gun. It’s an instructive moment. For that period of time you are utterly in the power of the person wielding the gun, and you are afraid to move half an inch to right or left should your minimal movements provoke some action. I remember, though, that it seemed important to appear unafraid, and this I think I did. Though I felt fear. I felt it in my liver.

Gouging the gun into the side of Charlie’s head, Khao shrieked at me, his face contorted, rubberised. He was totally out of control. Charlie was awake, wide-eyed, shrinking from the pistol bruising her temple, her terrified gaze flickering from Khao to me.

Khao screamed a question at me, a question I didn’t understand. I couldn’t guess whether the correct answer was yes or no. He had gone directly to the point of my greatest weakness. He hadn’t levelled his gun at me, but at Charlie, and yet the action was directed at me. Khao knew that if he threatened Charlie, he threatened everything I was there for. I had no place or purpose there without her. He understood that if it came to a choice I would always say take me instead of Charlie. He had instinctively touched my deepest wound, the way only a killer of his nature can. And I could only stand there, motionless in that stifling hut, feeling a fat, oily globe of sweat run from my brow, down the bridge of my nose and into the corner of my mouth.

Nabao appeared from nowhere, flinging herself at Khao’s feet, wailing softly, rocking, imploring him. It did enough to unsettle the gunman, and a couple of minutes later Khiem and three villagers from the fields were on the scene, standing at the door, everyone shouting at once while Nabao rocked gently back and forth on Khao’s feet. I sensed that Khiem possessed a strange authority over the bandit. With Khiem standing at the threshold, a noisy argument broke out between them, and with that I felt the dangerous moment had passed.

Khao spat in my direction and re-holstered his pistol. The shouting and back talk went on for some time until Khao and his men walked away; but not before Khao had pointed his finger, first at Mick, then at me. After they’d gone Khiem waved his arms, palms downwards, and then turned with the others back towards the fields.

Nabao, who had intervened at the crucial moment, remained behind, rocking Charlie like she was her baby, clucking and shaking her head.

We had to tell Charlie what had caused the fracas. She said it happened often; that in a state of half-sleep she would sense intruders but was too sluggish to wake to see who it was.

‘You’re lucky,’ I said, still shaking, ‘that they haven’t raped you.’

‘They have,’ she said coldly. ‘Until Jack put a stop to it.’

I could only look at her. And as I did so I was aware that Mick and Phil’s eyes were not on Charlie, but on me. Charlie had just said this terrible thing and the pair of them were staring not at her, but at me.

I was a husk. I was a sack of skin barely kept upright by bone. Even the breath that might make me speak evaporated in my throat, until I heard my tiny voice say, ‘The one with the beard?’

‘Him. And the other one.’

I wanted to know more, but there are some things a father can’t ask his daughter. Phil said to me, ‘We have to put this behind us.’

‘Are you all right, Danny?’ Mick added.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m all right.’

‘No he’s not all right,’ Phil said darkly. ‘I know him and he’s not all right. He’ll try to do something stupid.’

‘I said I’m all right.’

‘Argue it out between you, boys,’ Charlie said. ‘I’m the one who was raped.’

The incident left Mick with a strange, undischarged energy. ‘Fix up,’ he said, clapping his hands together. ‘We’re going to fix up round here. This hut’s a fucking shambles. Phil, get a broom off Nabao. I want this place swept out. Danny, that filthy fuckin’ sheet Charlie’s lying on: get off your arse and wash it or burn it, one thing or the other. As for you Charlie, I’m going to wash your hair.’

‘No you’re not,’ Charlie said.

‘We’ll see about that,’ Mick said. He went out and returned dragging the water drum inside the hut. He squeezed half a bottle of shampoo into the palm of his hand. ‘Get over here. Mick’s in the chair, and we’re fixing up!’

Charlie meekly submitted. As did Phil and I. While Mick had Charlie stooped over the water drum, Phil swept and tidied the hut. I took Charlie’s bedding outside and I burned it. In future she would have to lie on one of my shirts.

Mick thoroughly soaped Charlie’s hair and rinsed it and combed it free of knots and lugs. Throughout all of this he looked furious. I knew why he was doing it. He was carrying my anger. He had to do something with it.

Later we were utterly exhausted from these exertions. Charlie, smelling of shampoo, squatted at the threshold of the hut while we three sat just outside, trying to breathe, trying to extract some air from the oppressive heat.