The Dust Diaries Read Online Free PDF Page B

relatively well off, at least compared to the native passengers, who were restricted to the open deck accommodation.
    He had taken a look at their quarters on the second day out of Aden, and was disgusted at what he found. The men (they were all men) were Somalis picked up to work on the Rhodesian railways. They were crouched beneath an ageing green canvas stretched above them as an improvised roof. The rain, spray and sea wind all blew through holes in the material, giving the cramped collection of dark arms, legs and heads a persistent skin of moisture, slick on their bodies. The area was completely inadequate, the space having been reduced to make room for extra cargo, and he went straight to the German captain of the ship and complained, demanding he take some action to improve the conditions for these men. To his credit the captain listened and agreed with him that something ought to be done, though Arthur was aware of an irritation in his manner running beneath the smooth surface of his words. When he returned in a couple of days the canvas had been replaced, and a number of the men had been moved to other quarters further along the starboard side of the ship. But the situation still frustrated him. The divide in comfort was a gross insult and Arthur made sure to take half his food there every day for the rest of the voyage. And he made sure the captain knew that he did.
    The man beneath him was still having a restless time of it, not just coughing now, but turning on the axis of his sleep as well. With each shift of his weight the flimsy bunks rocked and creaked, and the loose screws holding the bed to the wall of the cabin slid in their worn holes. The man, whose name was Joseph O’Connor, was younger than Arthur, more of a boy than a man. He was thin and pale, sent on this voyage by his father to follow in the wake of Rhodes and his pocket-fuls of diamonds. From what Arthur could make of it his father had booked this voyage for his son because he wanted a new world for him. London, he had told him, was no place to start a life now, not when there was so much of Africa to make your own, to build your dreams in. He himself had travelled from Ireland as a boy to follow his dreams in England, and now his son would follow his to Africa. And that was what the boy seemed to be travelling on: dreams, borrowed dreams, not even his own. But then who was he to dismiss Joseph’s borrowed dreams? Wasn’t he, after all, travelling on dreams himself? Towards them and away from them, pushed and pulled, by borrowed and broken dreams alike.
    He knew his decision to leave England had caused pain. He thought of his mother’s distress, her worries for his safety and his promise to her to stay in Africa for just two years. But then he thought of his brother too, William, how he had glanced ai his pocket watch as the train pulled out of the station, as if even then he wasn’t leaving quickly enough. He knew his brother loved him as much as his mother, but he showed it in a very different way. And he would, there is no doubt, be feeling some relief now his troublesome younger sibling was so far away, now that things could finally be allowed to settle. Except of course, lying there looking at his damp patch of ceiling, Arthur knew they would never settle entirely; not in him or, he found himself hoping, in her. What had he done, leaving like that? Maybe he should have taken the risk and, like Orpheus, not gone on, but should have turned back instead. And if he had done, then maybe she would, after all, have still been there, waiting for him to turn. Waiting for him to come back to her, for the touch of his hands on her face, the sound of his voice in her ear and the taste of his breath on her skin.
    Joseph O’Connor’s dreams obviously weren’t going to let Arthur return to his, so, swinging his legs off the edge of the bunk, he let himself down onto the floor of the cramped two-berth cabin. He reached for the khaki suit he had bought