Smoking Poppy by Graham Joyce (the read aloud family .txt) 📕

‘Yes.’

‘I can’t do this. Really I can’t.’

‘Coincidence, Phil. It has to be coincidence. We’ve got to keep up.’

We reached the burial spot and Phoo seemed to slow and fiddle with his belt. Phil stole a glance at the covered grave, and I did too. Behind the leafy mound a grey figure moved in the moon shadow.

An animal, fleet in the moonlight, nothing more.

We passed the spot without event, and Phoo directed us along a smaller path descending the side of a ravine. We were already breathing heavily, making slow progress down the steep ravine, though the huge moon floodlit the jungle affording good visibility. Even so I slipped from the path, but Phil’s sharp reflex action caught me by the shirt and tugged me back.

After almost an hour I heard water rushing from below. We’d arrived at the river. A bamboo raft awaited us. Identical to the one on which Mick, Phil and I had journeyed with Bhun and Coconut, it was rigged with a stout tripod to keep our packs dry. Phoo immediately busied himself with lashing the packs on to the tripod. I looked around uneasily, certain that Jack and his cohorts were about to spring. The moon made the swift-flowing water ripple like a bolt of silk. Everywhere else the jungle was still.

‘So far so good, pal,’ Mick said.

‘Will that raft take all of us?’

‘He seems to think so.’

‘Shoes!’ Phoo said after fiddling with the packs. We took off our shoes, and he laced them over the packs at the top of the tripod. ‘We go!’

There were poles for each of us. Phoo said he wanted Mick to take up the rear position. Charlie slotted in between Phoo and myself, with Phil in front of Mick. We pushed off, gliding sweetly into the middle of the jade-green, moonlit river. The brisk current took us in and we made steady speed. The river was faster here than when we’d come with Coconut and Bhun, but wider, too, and less strewn with obstacles. Phoo made motions to right or left when he wanted us to punt to either side; otherwise he was piloting from the front.

‘How long?’ I shouted to Phoo once we were properly underway.

‘Five, six hours,’ he said.

It was a long time to spend on a raft with your feet washed by cold, snake-infested water, but I felt exhilarated to be moving, and overwhelming relief in putting the village behind us. What’s more, I’d got a full cargo of passengers, a complete inventory. But I also felt small and vulnerable, a straw riding the flow.

The river continued to move us at a sprightly pace, and though the water lapped across our feet, the bamboo raft gliding just under the surface seemed remarkably easy to control. Phoo twitched his pole against the riverbed to correct the drift, occasionally holding up his arm to indicate for us to help.

Pretty soon Charlie got tired on her feet. There was nothing for it but for her to kneel in the water, gripping the tripod. The green river wound through miles of ghostly verdant jungle and we proceeded in silence. On the steep-sided banks at either side, miraculously spindly trees rose above the upper canopy of the jungle. A midnight mist smoked the leafy canopy itself. We drifted by herds of water buffalo bedded down in the mud for the night. We also passed small settlements where no one stirred; we could have been ghosts in their dreams.

In places we shot through gaps between smooth, white boulders where the water foamed like churning milk, and where the bamboo underside scraped alarmingly. But the raft stayed secure. For two hours we journeyed in an ethereal silence, each of us mesmerised by the alien splendour of the moonlit river, the raft stately in its progress. Then we reached some treacherous rocks. Without warning Phoo leapt into the water, guiding the raft by hand around the rocks. Mick and I had to do the same to help him. Eventually everyone got wet, half floating, half portering the raft across the boulders, until we got beyond the rocks and the white water. It jolted us from the trance of the river. Charlie was with us in flight, battling to do her share. Another herd of water buffalo wallowed and snorted at us from the muddy bank.

We got back on course, drifting a little slower now. I dipped my pole in the water and then heard a tiny sob behind me. I turned to see Phil squatting, and weeping. ‘Phil!’ I laid down my pole. ‘What is it, Phil?’

He shook his head. I glanced at Mick but he didn’t want to make eye contact with me either. He pushed hard on his pole, training his eyes on the riverbank. I squatted before Phil and took hold of his hands. He gazed at me, his eyes full of tears. ‘I’m in hell, Dad. You can go home but what about me? I’ve put myself in the darkest quarter of hell. You’re clean, but there’s blood on my head.’

The truth dawned on me. How could I have missed it? How could I have been so stupid? All that time when Phil was in torment in the poppy fields. I looked up at Mick for confirmation and Mick, seeing what I’d worked out for myself, gave me the briefest of nods.

‘Oh God,’ I said. ‘Phil, oh God. I never knew.’

There was a brief cry of alarm from Phoo at the front of the raft. We were approaching another stretch of white water, and suddenly everyone had stopped punting. I stood, picked up my pole, dipped it in the water and, despite the gash in my hand, pushed hard. We all did. We guided ourselves neatly between the smooth boulders in an S curve, and when I glanced round again Phil was back on his feet, pushing on his pole with a grim determination.

At a later point in the journey we passed another settlement where a dozen rafts were drawn up