Mossy wakes to find Skinny squatting a few feet away from him on the floor. At first he’s confused. The room is bathed in a weird blue-white light that gives the smallest things shadows, making the dust and bits of tobacco and hairs on the floor appear to crackle like electricity. Skinny is dressed in some sort of robe in chequered red, black and white with symbols on it like an African mask. On his head is a wig, long black hair beaded with white shells. For a moment he is frozen, like a lion about to spring, then suddenly he’s in motion, going quickly round the floor. There’s something nasty about the movement that makes Mossy sit up on the sofa, because it’s fast and unnatural and a bit like a wounded spider, the way he’s half using his hands and half using his feet. The beads in his hair click together.
Skinny hisses, baring his teeth like a snake, but Mossy knows this isn’t for real: he’s watching a performance. It takes him no time at all to work out that it’s being done for the camera, which he sees has appeared in its sly way in the corridor. The gate stands open and that’s where the light is coming from – from a mini spotlight stuck above the lens.
Mossy knows who’s there. Uncle is behind the camera, and Mossy’s not going to draw attention to himself, so he tips his forehead down like he’s still asleep and rolls his eyes up to watch.
Skinny stops scurrying round the floor and takes from under the robes a small cloth bag. Mossy’s seen it before. Sometimes Skinny leaves it lying on the purple carpet – he says it contains his ‘divining bones’ but he’s never let Mossy look at them. Now he tips them out and hunkers next to them, waving his hands over them, murmuring under his breath.
Mossy can see them scattered on the filthy carpet, not just bones but other things too: shells, two playing-cards, a domino, a folded pocket knife, and a chunk of yellowish rind that Mossy thinks could be from a butcher’s. He watches in silence as Skinny points at the playing-cards, muttering something in a language he’s never heard before but brings with it the strong smell of Africa.
The performance goes on for a long time. When it is finished Skinny leaves the room and goes into the corridor. The gate is locked for a moment or two and he can hear muttering. The light goes out and after a while there is the sound of the far door opening and closing. Then Skinny is coming back into the room, locking the gate behind him. He comes to sit near Mossy. ‘You watch me?’
‘Yeah.’ He puts one hand on his forehead and peers at him closely. ‘I watch you. What the fuck was all that about?’
‘I throw the bones.’
‘You what?’
‘Throw the bones. I am sangoma.’
‘San-what?’
‘Sangoma. Diviner, guide, doctor. My bones are my guide – I can see into the future, I can find thieves. They give me the truth about many things, many problems of health and fortune.’
Mossy gives a hoarse laugh. ‘You telling me you’re a fucking witch doctor?’
‘It’s like witch doctor. Not the same, but almost the same.’
Mossy laughs again. ‘No, you ain’t. You ain’t no fucking witch doctor. That was the worst acting I’ve ever seen.’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘No, you’re not.’
Skinny looks at him for a long time. His eyes are sad. Then he goes to the gate. He peers through it, listens. Then, when he seems satisfied they’re not being watched, he takes off the robes and puts them in a pile on the floor. Underneath it he’s wearing old-fashioned Y-fronts and nothing else, and his slight body is dark and slick next to the saggy material. He comes to the sofa and eases himself on to it next to Mossy. He cups a hand round his ear and upper neck and presses his face close, as if he’s going to kiss him. But he doesn’t. Instead his hot cracked mouth comes up against Mossy’s ear and he whispers, ‘You don’t tell Uncle, you don’t tell him.’
‘I ain’t going to talk to him, am I?’
‘Me and my brother. We is runners in Africa. The gang we worked for – we took they money to come here.’
‘Runners?’
‘Trafficking. You understand.’
‘I know what fucking trafficking is. What did you traffic?’
‘Skins. Carry them through borders. They is taken in Natal or in Mozambique and they is sold in Tanzania.’
Mossy pulls away from him and drops his chin to peer at Skinny’s face. ‘What kind of skins?’
‘Of people.’
‘Human skins, you mean.’
‘Yes,’ Skinny says, as if it’s nothing. ‘That is our business, me and my brother. People skins. They make very powerful medicine.’
Mossy feels the watery vomit come into his mouth. He has to lean his head back and swallow while his stomach heaves. He’s heard of people selling their kidneys – a friend of his reckoned he’d sold a kidney in India to buy his airfare home, had everyone believing him. But all of that was supposed to belong to another world.
‘Fuck,’ he mutters, his body going hot and cold. ‘Fucking shit. Is that what you did with my blood? Is that what – oh, Jesus – what you want to do with my hands?’ He pushes Skinny off the sofa. He’s shaking now. ‘It wasn’t just someone wanted to watch me – it was you wanted to sell the fucking things?’
Skinny crouches next to him on the floor, his eyes bright. ‘Not me. Uncle. Uncle is the man who makes the money. Me – I don’t have no choice. I don’t have no proper visa – you know? Uncle, him tell me all the time, him can send police to me any time him choose.’
Mossy closes his eyes, and gulps a few more times, getting himself under control. He’s always thought that the world he inhabited meant he understood the sickest things people could do to each other. He thought he knew how bad people could get. But now he sees how dense he’s been. Now he sees there’s a whole universe out there, a universe he’s ignorant about, a universe of horror and despair darker than he’s ever dreamed possible.