The Book of Human Skin by Michelle Lovric Page A

to her core and would allus shake leaflike if she were forst to be in the same room as him.
    Were Minguillo punisht for what he done to Anna? No. The insident were husht up like the grave from the outside world and put out in the household as an accident wernt it. Anna ud tripped n fell in the fire, twere said. She were thereafter keeped out o the public rooms so t’other nobbles wunt have to see her face. Insted she were set to cleaning the servants’ rooms hincludin that midden that were frankly my own, and lookin after Marcella n other work that keeped her generally out o sight.
    Nor were Minguillo punisht for what he keeped doin to Marcella.
    ‘For why ye do her that way, sir?’
    That were my partickeler phrase, for why ye do her that way? Course, since Anna’s face, I dint have the nessary number o guts to say it out loud. Instead I pranced with death, daring to let my eyes say it with knitty looks. Evry time she cried isn’t it.
    Weren’t scarcely bareable to watch, the bastert brother with the sister. Twere agin Nature, Chicken-shitting God! Ask pardon, ask pardon, sirs. Madams.
    I mumbled like preying, Kill the bastert, God, for why dunt Ye strike im dead n similar. And several times, to my shame, poor little Marcella overheared me, and lookt up at me in worrid wonderment. Then she runned strait oft n made me a drawin o her brother as a stiltylegged turkycock or some other ridikilus beast, with mesself drawed as a very stern farmer with a great big sheep crook. All my hatin turned to laffing in a second.
    The Mamma were condemnable too if ye askt me. There is times when a blind eye is an accessability to a crime. Blind eyes n deaf fucking ears too, when Miss Marcella wept or screamed. Ask pardon, sirs! Madams! For the dirty mouth on me. The memmary of it snagged the rein o my tong back there a moment.
    Ye see, Minguillo Fasan were niver a boy, not a natural child. Swear he were one o Nature’s erratas. One o God’s ferrule things, allus drummin his foot agin the floor under the table. So me, I got them old bull-horrors when my Master Fernando Fasan askt me to varlet for his son. Twere a grate rise from the kitchen, yet at a high cost to me in slaps to the head n dog’s abuse. In exchange for learning me my letters, I were sposed, sayed my Master, to ‘keep n eye’ on the Young Man. I stared at him – what were he thinking? I wernt but a few years older than Minguillo. And twould o took ten eyes to hold that one under proper surveylance, and me as ye know rather wanting in the brain.
    But my Master tipped me, got in a tutor for my poor hollow head. I would compost the laundry lists, I sposed at first. Then my Master sayed: ‘I must return to Peru. Write me when you can. Don’t be afraid, Gianni. You feel too much, young chap. You need to grow a tougher skin. And anyway, Minguillo does not need to know you can write.’
    Nor would he, not niver. That were the first thing I made sure on.
    And I doed as my Master telled me. Leastwise I tried. I grewed a skin thick nuff to hide my feelins, but I were niver grand nor nobble nuff to stop akshally having em.
    In fact, twas at that time I begun to have some feelins for women. At first I thought feelins was all you got, but I guest that there were summing o my Ma in me, because soon I got to touchings too. But I were niver a wanting like my Ma, and I dint never . . . not then leastwise . . . find a girl what could unnerstand my friendship with Anna, what was perfeck chaste, or who dint get gellous bout all my menshons of Marcella. Some girls was intimated by me been razed to varlet, and by me havin my letters. It goed on like that until . . . well, it were like that for yearonyear.
    I could read soon nuff, but to write – that were my tortshure. I could shape the letters n words, but nowise the sentences. To this day, picking up a quill gives me them old bull-horrors. Pen in hand, brains leave head, waving byebye. That’s me rule. A goat danced more greaseful