craning their necks and babbling. To each Frenchman, there was one corpse, and in the dissecting chamber there was an aura of studious calm. The French are a frivolous nation, and deeply mistaken in many of their inclinations, but in this vital matter they have the right of it.’
John got to work dissecting the arms. Later, he castigated himself for a jimmy idiot—bursting out like that in front of Wullie, as if it should matter where limbs came from. Still, he couldn’t help wondering, speculating in his mind: making up a life to fit the possessor of the fibrous, drained muscle. It was matter, no impulse to drive it; only half its nature was on display, structure but not function, and he knew this was less than half the truth, for how can you understand a man if you don’t see him in action? He couldn’t help thinking of Martha, when he himself lay down at night: he saw her narrow and flat and yellow-white against the bed linen, and Wullie puffing above her, his shirt scooped up, and he heard the little chattering cries of pleasure escaping her non-existent lips.
‘Slig!’ said Joe Vance. ‘Hearty Slig!’
They were standing in some alley. Vance clapped the man on his shoulder. His head indicated a low door, half-open, from which the man had just emerged: behind him, steps running down into the earth. ‘Can you lodge us?’ Joe asked. ‘One night only. Tomorrow we move on to greater things.’
Slig gnawed his lip. Two pennies each,’ he said.
‘Slig! And yourself an old friend of mine!’
‘Be reasonable. I have to cover the cost of the straw. And fourpence for the big fella. I shall have to turn two away if I’m to let him in.’
‘But it’s a privilege to have him under your roof! Besides being huge, he can tell tales and make prophecies.’
‘Fourpence,’ Slig said. ‘Liquor’s extra.’
Sighing, Vance disbursed the coins. Pybus and Claffey were heroes about the steps, striding down into the cellar as if they had been doing steps all their lives—though there was a moment of nervous hesitation from Claffey at the top of the flight, and the manner in which his frown changed to a cocky grin showed that he had harboured some anxiety. Jankin could not be persuaded to put his first foot forward, even though Pybus ran up and then down again to show how easy it was: eventually, the Giant had to carry him.
The room was low and filled with smoke. There was straw underfoot, and men and women sitting, convivial, their pots in their hands, and nobody drunk yet; rush light on exiles’ faces, the sound of a familiar tongue. And a grubbing sound from the shadows, a snorting.
‘Jesus,’ Jankin said. ‘We have touched down among the rich. These fellows have got a pig.’
There was a moment’s silence, while the people considered the Giant; an intake of breath, and then applause rang to the roof. Men and women stood up and cheered him. ‘One boy of ours,’ a woman said. ‘The true type.’ She stretched up, and kissed his hip. ‘Giants are extinct here for hundreds of years.’
‘And why is this?’ the Giant asked—for the woman, who was not young, had a look of some intelligence, and the matter puzzled him.
She shrugged, and with a gesture of her small fingers pulled her kerchief down, modest, hiding her rust-red curls. ‘It may be that they were shut up and starved, or hunted with large dogs. The Englishman craves novelty, as long as it will pack and decamp by the end of the week. He does not like his peace disturbed—it is the English peace, and he thinks it is sacred. He magnifies his own qualities, and does not like anyone to be bigger than himself.’
‘This bodes ill for my projected fame and fortune,’ the Giant said.
‘Oh, no! Your keeper was right enough to bring you. You will be the sensation of a season.’
‘At the end of which, I shall still be tall.’
‘But I expect you can tell stories? Giants usually can. Even the English like stories—well, some stories anyway. The ones where they win.’
‘This is not what we were promised,’ Claffey said. He looked around. ‘Here, Joe Vance! This is not what we were promised! But for the breath of the mountain air, we might be back at Connor’s.’
‘No, Vance,’ the Giant said. ‘It’s not what I’d call commodious.’
‘Contain yourself in patience,’ Vance said. ‘Give me the chance, will you, of a day to prospect for some premises for us.’
‘I’d have thought you’d got it already fixed,’ Claffey said. ‘That’s what it means, being an agent, doesn’t it?’
‘Being an agent is an art you will never acquire, Bog-Head.’
‘Now, Vance,’ said the Giant. ‘Temperate yourself.’
‘If you don’t like it, you know what you can do,’ Vance said.
‘Claffey, have patience,’ Pybus said. ‘Joe will get us a place tomorrow. One with a pagoda.’
‘Did we agree on a pagoda?’ the Giant said. ‘I still favour a triumphal arch.’
‘A triumphal arch is timeless good taste,’ said a man squatting at their feet. ‘Whereas a pagoda, it’s a frivolity worn out within the week.’
‘It’s right,’ said the red-headed woman. There’s a whiff of the vulgar about a pagoda.’
Vance spread out his hands, smiling now. ‘Good people! He’s a giant! I’m a showman! Don’t say vulgar! Say topical! Say it’s all the buzz!’
‘Tell that giant to sit down,’ said an old man, who was leaning against the wall. ‘He is disturbing the air.’
‘He is blind,’ said the squatting man, nodding towards the speaker. ‘Strange vibrations bother him.’
The Giant folded himself stiffly, and sat down in the straw. Pybus bounced down beside him. Jankin was admiring the pig. Joe Vance looked easy. Claffey looked peevish.
‘We saw pigs on our way,’ Jankin said. ‘Skinny brutes. Not a one that could hold a candle to this. Why, at home, he’d be the admiration of a parish.’
‘All of us own this pig,’ the blind man said. ‘He is our great hope.’
A young girl with an open face, slightly freckled across the nose, reached up and plucked at the Giant’s sleeve. ‘Would you oblige, and cheer us now with an anecdote? We are, all of us, far from home.’
‘Very well,’ said the Giant. He looked at Claffey, at Pybus, at Joe Vance. He stretched out his legs in front of him; then, seeing he was taking too much floor space, drew them up again. ‘Here’s one you’ll know or not, and you may make your comments as if we were at home and gathered at Connor’s.’
He thought, there’s only this earth, after all. The ground beneath us and God’s sky above, and we will get used to this, because people can get used to anything, and giants can too.
The young girl looked down, smiling in pleasure. She had long fair hair, almost white even in the cellar fug: like a light under ground, O’Brien thought, Persephone’s torch made from a living head.
