Free The Bell-Boy by James Hamilton-Paterson Page B

family?’
    So Laki told him about the village by the sea in Saramu Province eighty miles away; about the fisherman father, the siblings, his own banishment in order to earn enough to send money home. The bell-boy was not unsubtle; he never mentioned the word ‘poor’. Instead he described how when he lived at home his kancha had played its part in the family economy, how his skill enabled them to eat morsels of meat.
    ‘Don’t you want to go home?’ Jason asked.
    ‘Sometimes I go. Very nice place, very quiet. I am happy to seeing my family. But here in Malomba is better. I want to making progress. I’ – he lowered his voice and glanced at the closed door – ‘I want to leaving this hotel, find better job. But please please, you not tell Mr Muffy.’ He just avoided urging the boy to be sure and mention it to his mother. To his slight disappointment Jason swore with great solemnity never to tell a soul. He seemed to relish being given a secret for safe-keeping. ‘You and me the same. We both boys long way from home.’ A sadness came into his voice. ‘But you to going home soon, I guess. You go home very happy. I stay here Malomba very lonely.’
    But once more Jason slithered away. ‘I don’t particularlywant to go home, as it happens. Actually I hate it there. It’s so boring. I’m sick of goats and sheep and gurus and healing. I want to go to school like the other boys down in the valley. In three years I’ll be fifteen. No education, no exam certificates, no job. In Italy they always want to know your school record, even if it’s only for a job as a street cleaner. I’ll be stuck in Valcognano for the rest of my life making cheese for the Community and getting milk for the groupies who swan in to learn about magic plants and oils and meditation. I’m not allowed one of those,’ he flicked at the catapult Laki had nearly mended. ‘Mum’d have a fit if I killed anything. Look at all the things you can do. No wonder you’re called Lucky.’
    Laki, noting the rush and distress of these words while not by any means understanding everything, was not to be outdone.
    ‘But to travelling is good. Very nice, going to everywhere in the world. All my life I am to two places, my home and here.’
    ‘At least you don’t have to drag around behind your sister and your mother.’
    Jason had lain back on the pallet in exhaustion, blinking at the riven ceiling. In the fragments of blue sky between the vine tendrils he could see the flicker of birds high and far off, swifts dining off the midges carried aloft by the sun’s convections.
    ‘How long you stay here?’ asked Laki anxiously.
    ‘Oh God, at least until next Thursday. That’s when she’s seeing this surgeon guy. Her back’s bad. Then perhaps he’ll need to see her again. We could be stuck here ages.’
    The bell-boy was still unclear who ‘she’ was. The notion of Zoe as a nobly suffering princess was one to which he was increasingly attached. At the moment, though, there was manifest upset closer to hand and the urge to console came over him, for he was a kindly boy. ‘I show you things in Malomba,’ he promised. ‘I show you place to swimming inriver, near to town but very clean. Only boys use for swimming. No washing cows or animals.’
    ‘Really?’ Jason’s voice was still weary but there was interest in it as well. ‘What else?’
    ‘One thing I am wanting,’ confided Laki recklessly, reclining on an elbow beside him. ‘I am always wanting to go inside Lingasumin. Maybe we are trying.’
    The name was familiar. ‘Isn’t that one of the temples closed to visitors?’
    ‘Yes, closed. Very closed. Because they not wanting people to seeing what they do. They doing like this,’ and delightedly inserted a brown forefinger into a circle made by the fingers of his left hand.
    Jason raised his head. ‘Fucking, you mean? Actual screwing?’
    ‘Oh yes. Very many people doing like that together in temple.’
    ‘What, inside a temple? I