Said the Giant, “You’d think grown men would have better things to do.”
“Then you drape its chair very full, so that a little lad can hide under. You cry it out as ‘the Pig-Faced Lady’—we can call her Tannikin if you like—and when the folk have paid their money, you ask it a question, such as, ‘You are a lady of Limerick, I believe?’ Then the boy pokes it from beneath with a stick, and Tannikin goes grunt. Then you say, ‘How do you feel, that people describe you as the Pig-Faced Lady?’ And the boy pokes it twice, and it gives two grunts, very angry, and so you pretend to be the soul of consideration, and you say, ‘We’ll not talk of it,’ and the boy tweaks the bear, and she gives a little soft groan, as if she were pacified.”
“It seems to me,” the Giant said, “that the beast’s repertoire would be limited. I cannot imagine you would attract more than a low class of gawper.”
“It’s a clever thing,” Slig insisted. “I’ve seen it done.”
From their first visit to the Crown in Wych Street, the boys came home slewed and rolling. Constantine Claffey was sick on his waistcoat, but he wore it next day just the same. “When they go to the tavern these days,” Joe Vance explained, “they call the first bevvy their quencher. Then it’s their rouser, then it’s their cheerer. After that they don’t bother giving it names.”
Joe was a leaner man these days, and his eyes were mild as he sat by the fire with his book on his knees, and gazed into the middle distance. One day, when the Giant came home, he found that Joe had sold the siskins. Seated on the chair with the dint in its back, the Giant wept.
eleven
The landlord Kane called on them, in response to complaints. “Heavy treading,” Kane said, “that’s what I hear.”
“God damn,” said Claffey, “he’s a giant, what do you expect, fairy footsteps?”
Kane glared at Claffey. “Wrap it, skin-pate, or you’re out on your ear.”
“Claffey does have a point,” said Joe.
The Giant lay on his back on the floor and pretended to be asleep. He gave false snores.
“Them people below pay good money,” Kane said, “clients of mine. They say the freak is walking all day and night.”
“It is called pacing,” Joe explained. “He is restless and ill-at-ease. He is homesick, I think.”
“You ought to sell him,” Kane said. “What’s the good now? All novelty’s worn off. You could hire him out as a whole gang of labourers.”
“He’ll not do manual work,” Joe said. “Not that he is too proud, but he says his muscles are tearing off the bone.”
“Have you ever considered you could swap him?”
“I’d certainly swap him for a sapient pig, if one could be got.”
“I’ll tell you what’s a good act,” said Kane. “Tibor the Terrible Tartar.”
“Tibor,” said Slig. “I know the lad. His father’s from Cork.”
“Nothing between the ears,” said Kane, “but will bestride two horses at once, standing up, and catch an orange on a fork.”
“And is he for sale?”
“Only that one of the steeds is coughing and ready for the knackers, so he’s looking for finance, cut somebody in on a percentage. Think about it.” Kane looked down at the Giant. “What’s that his head’s resting on?”
“His money bag.”
“By the lights!” said Kane.
“There is one that still likes Charlie,” said Jankin, piping up from the corner.
“And who’s that?”
“The crocus,” said Jankin. “Anatomy.”
“Which anatomy?”
“Hunter,” Joe Vance said.
“Hunter, is it?” Kane rubbed his chin. On his way out he carefully inspected the chair with the dint. He frowned over it, wobbled it from side to side. He left, increasing their rent as he did so.
“So how was the Crown?” the Giant asked, a week later. “It’s your only haunting-ground, now.”
Pybus slapped his chest. “Brave and bloody,” he said. “We’re singing a song called ‘Sandman Joe,’ we don’t understand the words but it’s very vulgar, an ill-used horse is in it so Jankin went out of the room.”
“And who taught you this song?”
“Mester Howison, the surgeon’s man. He will drink with Irish, there’s no harm in him. Bully Kane was there, our landlord, and Con Claffey, and Bully Slig.”
“Oh yes?”
“Mester Howison asked after you,” said Claffey. “‘How is Charles Byrne these days?’ was how he put it.”
Nights sharp as a scalpel. Spring frozen, sap locked into the trees. Wullie Hunter has gout, an ailment he despises. Day and night he is in pain. The Giant thinks, if I die, how will they bury me? The ground is harder than a bailiff’s heart.
Wullie feels, within himself, an unaccustomed heaviness. He would mention it to his brother, if they were on terms.
