Her face was fixed with so much concentration that she barely acknowledged him. She was strange, and he didn’t understand the first thing about her. As far as he knew, she was a cleaner, and gleaning what he could from her earlier shouting match with Mama, she’d been in trouble with the police more than once. That made her highly unsuitable in his mother’s eyes and someone he shouldn’t be spending any time with.
His mother wasn’t there though, and he didn’t have much choice as to his companions at the moment◦– and neither did they. He probably wasn’t the kind of person Mary would hang out with, either. They’d simply have to make the best of it, no matter what.
She wanted to help forage. That was good. It was a change from earlier too, but he’d rather have it that way than the shouting or sullenness.
He straightened his back, and watched the distant others for a moment, returning in a long, stretched-out line of orange figures. By the set of their shoulders, they’d been less than successful and less than satisfied with the state of affairs. They looked beaten, in fact: all except Stanislav. He seemed to still be walking with purpose.
‘This’d be easier with a net,’ Mary said, not taking her eyes off the river between her feet.
She was right. They didn’t have one, though. Could he could make one?
He was used to wires and circuits, motors and controls. A net wouldn’t need more than a forked piece of wood, and a bit of thin cloth. Still cross with himself over his earlier failure with the torch, he thought about construction without suitable tools as he went back out on to the estuary to look for more nests, and more eggs.
He had supposed there was going to be a main channel to the river, but he blundered into it to above his knees before he realised. The wide stretch of water was rippling as the tide ran up against the downstream flow.
The fish, which on the edges of the estuary wafted their tails lazily, had to swim hard against the current. Their sail-like fins and gleaming backs flashed as they broke the surface, scattering light and water.
There was a sudden roar, and an eruption of white foam. Dalip fell back into the reeds, and a black shape with scales the size of shields leapt up and lunged forward. The wave hit him hard, and the backwash dragged at his boilersuit. The creature shook its head, spray flying from its closing mouth, pin sharp teeth ivory white against its skin.
It ducked back down. The water slapped closed over it, and the waves subsided.
He scrambled further back, using his feet to push him away. It took him a moment to realise that he was whole, and another to realise that the first rush of water had been more fish than river. They flapped and wriggled, eventually squirming into the nearest channel and darting away.
The sea serpent was so much bigger than he’d expected. He sat up in time to see the tip of its tail churn the water with a v-shaped wake. A moment later, upstream and swimming hard, it burst out again, mouth wide and full of prey.
Mary was running towards him. What she thought she could do escaped him, and he quickly waved her back, while setting off at a jog towards her across the braided streams and sandbanks. He was soaked, and must have looked more like a drowned rat than anything else, breathing hard, heart hammering in his chest.
He finally turned and tried to see how far the serpent had gone upstream. From where he stood, both it and the deep channel were invisible.
‘Are you all right?’ Mary called.
‘I’m fine.’ He bent over, his hands on his knees, puffing. ‘Did you see that?’
‘I saw it.’
‘Good. Because I don’t think I’d believe me.’
‘Did it go for you?’
‘No. I don’t even think it knew I was there. It was after the fish.’ When he reached her, he sat down and wrestled with his boots, unlacing them and emptying them of water.
While he was sorting out the second, Mary picked one up to inspect it.
‘You made a fucking mess of these.’
‘We had to run through molten tarmac. They’re,’ and he made a face, ‘uncomfortable. There’s no give in them at all.’
‘What’re you going to do when we have to set off up the river?’
‘I’m just going to have to cope.’ He took his boot back off her and peeled off his socks to wring them out. ‘It’s not like I’m going to find another pair soon. If ever.’
‘The wolfman had boots. They must make them here, somewhere.’
‘Cobblers,’ he said.
She snorted. ‘Well, fuck you.’
‘No, they’re people who make shoes. Cobblers.’
‘Fuck you anyway,’ she said, and smiled. ‘Your feet aren’t that big. One of the others is probably the same size as you.’
‘Won’t they need them?’
‘Not if they’re dead.’
‘I am not killing someone for their shoes! I’m not killing anyone.’
‘I’m not saying you have to. Just if something happens, you can take them.’
‘I can’t do that either.’
She counted the number of fish she already had. ‘All I’m saying is that you won’t get far in those. Have you sorted out that net for me yet?’
‘I… Yes. Give me a bit of time, and I’ll try something out.’
‘Get on with it, then. The others are coming back.’
Dalip walked barefoot for a little way, before putting his thick socks back on. She was right; the soles of his boots were barely hanging together. There was already a crack that traversed the width of the left one, which when he flexed it, showed the construction deep inside.
At some point soon, he’d need to replace them. The bottoms of his feet were soft and coddled, vulnerable to pea-sized stones that felt like bricks. The forest floor wasn’t harsh to walk on, though, and he quickly hunted out a clearing where a mature tree lay rotting on its side, and saplings competed with each other to climb towards the circle of light.
Getting one of those saplings to break at the base was another thing entirely. They were supple and strong, and they fought back. He used his kirpan to dig a ragged notch in the bark, then further into the wood beneath, and eventually he managed to get enough leverage. The trunk snapped unevenly, and not all the way through. He still had more twisting and bending to do before it came away from the ground.
Hand-sore and tired, he sat down with the y-shaped tree, and undid his turban.
He suspected that his parents would tell him he was committing a terrible sin, ruining his pagh and breaking his vows simultaneously. They were strict, and above all, proper. Outward behaviour was a discipline. It trained the mind and the body to obey until rightness and decency became an ingrained habit, difficult to break and impossible to forget. That still mattered to him. But he knew there was more to being a Sikh than just following the traditions: justice, mercy, compassion and, yes, feeding everyone.
The cotton cloth of the pagh was a long strip, folded, folded, folded and folded again. He wouldn’t need much, and his subtraction wouldn’t even show. He used his kirpan to start him off, forcing the blunt point hard through the material, then tearing it along its length. When he judged he’d gone far enough, he made another cut, and tore from the side.
He’d been a Scout, and could even remember some of his knots. Nicks in the cloth allowed the forked tines of the sapling to interweave it, and he tied it off using the spare material. There: possibly not as deep as he’d wanted, but perfectly serviceable as a scoop. If his kirpan had more of an edge, he’d have been able to fashion a fish spear, like the Inuit, or the South Sea islanders used. Not that he knew how to use one, but form followed function. He knew how it ought to be used. After that, it was all practice.
He stopped, and leaned forward and hugged his knees. What was he doing? Making nets and thinking about spears? There was a monster in the river, and he’d just avoided being eaten by it. Just for a moment, he’d had nothing to worry about, and he’d let his mind wander. Despite him saying that this place wasn’t paradise, he’d believed it was safe. Even the wolfman’s wolves, chained and controlled, had seemed benign in the end.