Sky Run by Alex Shearer Page B

doesn’t matter what any one proverb says, there’s always another to contradict it. She says proverbs are like people and their opinions – they seldom agree with each other.
    So Martin got on with the sky-fish – all the gutting and scraping and the rest – while I checked the sails and the course we were taking. It looked OK so I lay in the other hammock up on deck and watched the blue sky overhead, and when some clouds appeared I tried to work out what they looked like. But most of them just looked like clouds, and I couldn’t decide if it was they who lacked the imagin-ation or me.
    I must have dozed off, for when I woke again it was to the odour of cooking rising up from the galley and it didn’t smell bad either. Then Martin appeared, shouting, ‘It’s ready!’ and carrying a pot, and some bowls and cutlery, so we could eat up on deck.
    â€˜Smells good, Martin,’ Peggy said, and she waved at me to help her out of her hammock, as she had trouble doing that on her own, due to the old bones situation.
    I got her up and then went and poured us a glass of water each from storage. We were still good for water and had enough for a long while yet. Then we sat down to eat. It was sky-fish, oven-baked, with herbs and greens and rice and seasoning. But never mind three, there was enough for six.
    â€˜Martin –’
    â€˜Better too much than not enough.’
    â€˜It’s all going to be wasted.’
    â€˜I’ll feed it to the fish. They like leftovers.’
    â€˜I guess.’
    There was no pudding. You don’t get much pudding here. You can go weeks and months without pudding. Peggy said that when we got to City Island it would be pudding every day. But I wasn’t bothered. You don’t miss what you never have. I told Peggy that as far as I was concerned, pudding was just theoretical and academic – which was another of her sayings, and which my using made her smile. Maybe I didn’t use it right but she didn’t correct me, just smiled.
    As Martin had been stuck with the cooking I was stuck with the washing-up. Peggy offered to do it, as she believes in democracy, to which age is no barrier. But I said no, I would do it, as she was stuck with us and that was worse than the dishes. Which made her smile again. And she said no, she wasn’t stuck with us, but that the years she’d had us had been among the best.
    And that was the first time it crossed my mind that when we got to City Island to begin a new life, Peggy wouldn’t be starting one with us. She would be going back to her island, all on her own, and she might be lonely. And even old Ben Harley across the divide wouldn’t keep that loneliness away, as we’d been with her every moment of our lives for such a long time, and suddenly we wouldn’t be there any more.
    I felt sad and sorry then. It’s not nice to be old and lonely – or young and lonely either, come to that. And I thought that I would miss her. Or worse, I wouldn’t, as I’d have this new exciting life on City Island with proper boys (not just brothers) around the place, who might be distracting, and I’d never think of Peggy at all – which would be awful, after everything she’d done.
    There’d be other girls there too, my own age, who might be my friends, as I’d never even
seen
another girl, not for a long time, let alone made a friend of one. Martin and I hadn’t seen another living boy or girl for years.
    I tried to put all that out of my mind. But before I did, I vowed I wouldn’t forget Peggy, and I’d not let her be lonely, if I could prevent it somehow.
    I gathered up the dirty plates and bowls.
    â€˜What do you want to do with all these leftovers, Martin?’
    â€˜I’m going to feed them to the sky-fish.’
    So I handed him the pot and he scraped it out over the side.
    Which was a big mistake.
    See, you shouldn’t feed the