Black is ostensibly a Psychic and seller of bones, human bones. Less ostensibly he is a raiser of hopes, a crusher of dreams and a dealer in the macabre.

His shop is back from the main shopping precinct, located in a premises in a little alleyway that people struggle to recollect if asked. The building has a narrow frontage; it is as if a thin paperback in a packed bookshelf has been forced in between two larger volumes. As if to emphasise the narrowness as the frontage Black only has two items on display in the front window. A worm riddled oar placed vertically in front of a painting of an ancient whaling ship at sea. In the foreground two wooden boats packed with whalers cut through the scudding waves in chase of a solitary, bloodied sperm whale. Those of an inquisitive nature will stop and see that the brass plaque on the oar says it is from a skiff of the whaler Portland out of Nantucket in 1817.

I supply Black with old relics from all sorts of sources. House sales, downbeat auctions, items my deadbeat friends can scrounge from sources I care not to question. They all contribute to the jettison of the dead that Black seems to treasure so much. It just has to be bone, human bone. That is all that matters to Black. The more personal, the more traveled, the better. A Tibetan Mala, an African tribal nose ring, a pile of stained Waterloo teeth human head will all find a place on his dusty shelves. He almost jumped out of his whale bone seat when I managed to secure a Jivaro shrunken head for him. You may think things such things uncommonly rare but the testimony of his cluttered shop would take issue with you on that matter. The medical trade is grisly selective in its needs and specialist collectors uncommonly ghoulish in theirs.

I pass him a piece of a finger bone I have dug from the mud in the tidal reaches of the Thames. 'Ah yes,' he says portentously holding it up to the light,' a finger bone.' His eyes roll up like pickled eggs floating in brine and like a blind man his fingers test the jagged edges of the broken knuckle. 'A finger of a pirate hung from a cage at Tybourne docks and left to rot.' And for a moment his flicking eyeballs suggests he is reliving the rogues experiences, reaching back through time to tavern brawls, fights with customs men and the taking of Chinese treasure ships in the crystal waters of the Orient.

I sit and spin in Black's high backed chair, his throne. Found by Black in a tattooists it is made of whale skin, braced with bone rib and slightly waxy to the touch. He acquired it from a French tattooist for a price tag that would make the Queen of Sheba's Chief Eunuch wince. But it was worth every franc. Sit in it, close your eyes and your head fills with the dull flapping of fluttering canvas, hot tarred ships timbers and the cries of the wandering albatross.

Black is a gaunt, serious man, with a rumour of a smile, a goatee beard of whispery thinness and a way of assessing you as if for a coffin. His thin white arms poke out too far from his oddly unfashionable frock coat and his rickety fingers play incessantly with each other when he talks, which is rarely.

He places the finger bone carefully on his wooden workbench and returns to his whittling. Black is a great whittler of things, mostly bone. He sits on a high stool, bent close over his pieces as he works, as if the light is constantly fading about him. He hums as he carves and drifts off into a series of chants like an Indian shaman. Sometimes he whistles, sometimes he sings, flipping from language to language as he goes from dirge to hymn to sailors shanties. Odd things that are disjoined, like he is re-discovering the knots in the rope of time of his memories.

He pauses and lays his knife on the table and lifts his piece up to inspect it. 'I find myself caught somewhere between being a horologist and anthropologist,' he muses. 'There being no official name for a bone collector. I am, officially, outside the boundaries of scientific categorisation, bone collecting not being important enough to be a 'gist' of some designation, it appears my endeavours bear no official recognition.' He finds his smile and shows it to me through a row of broken teeth then hides it quickly away.

I nod sagely into the dust filled air.

'In less optimistic times when people had need for reassurance, these things.' He fills his shallow lungs to give himself voice and therefore more credence to his argument. 'These things, had true value. They acted as charms against evil spirits, for the courting of good luck and the warding off of diseases. I had... would have had,' he quickly corrects himself, 'been recognised as a master of my craft wherever I went, a man seen as unique among men for his skill and his knowledge.'

Black, the itinerant traveler has visited many places, his age belies him. He can, if he wishes, talk with confidence on any curious matter. Here, in his shop, he is the circus master amidst his circus of oddities which he marshals which some aplomb.

'Bones.' I say, 'arcane, bizarre. Such wonderful things.'

Alerted by the tingling of the brass bell over the door, Blacks attention switches from his work to the young lady who has just entered the shop. His head shifts and he stops his whittling and lays his piece of china white bone on the desk and nods to her. Confused, she hovers nervously near the entrance and looks uncertainly at the crowded shelves there. Now Black is on his feet, gliding up the shop to take her hand like a gentleman. Her attention is drawn by the infamous oar, gleaming dark in the shop front, stories of which she must have heard about town. Can Black tell her of its provenance she asks shyly.

'Picture this!' says Black, his wild hair thrown around his shoulders as he shakes his head dramatically as he launches into his tale. 'Alone at sea fifteen shipmates out of Nantucket. Far from home, around the raging water of Cape Horn they have traveled on their Whaler to the Pacific, leaving their loved ones more than a year before. And then disaster! The male bull whale they have been stalking turns up upon them. In bloody revenge for their assaults, the beast rams their study vessel, crushing the majestic hull of their floating home. And then, its wooden enemy mortally wounded the whale leaves the hapless crew to seep in their own despair. Where shall they go for salvation? The Society Islands where fearsome warriors are said to roam the shores preying on shipwrecked souls. Or to attempt the return trip in their tiny boats back past the torrid waters of the Cape? No! They will attempt to reach South America thousands of miles away to the East. A hopeless cause, a mission of madness!' he shouts theatrically pointing out toward a far off horizon.

The lady gasps and flushes pink, caught in the whirlpool of Black's dramatics.

'And so to sea, boys! Two boats, fifteen men and scarce supplies to see them for three weeks of their journey.' Black raises an emaciated hand and covers his eyes and searches the seas. 'But, poor fellows, after six weeks there is still no sign of land. So on and on they sail. On and on and as each day goes by their position becomes ever more tenuous and desperate.'

'Hunger, Miss. Hunger is what does them.' He suck his cheeks in until the trace his teeth appear through his pallid skin. 'It eats away your insides and crawls into your head like a monster, suggesting abominable things. You'd strip leather off your boots just to have a morsel to feed its insatiable greed. And that they did, ate their boots, their bags and even the very canvas that was helping push them toward land. And when that was gone, they knelt on their knees in the water filled bulwarks and prayed to our Lord to keep them alive.'

Black's lungs empty like a spent hurricane. 'Sixty four days later they are sighted by a passing schooner out of Valparaiso. They are down to one boat, the other being lost two weeks earlier. And as they approach, the horrified crew of their rescuer's look down upon the boat below.' Blacks voice cracks and he swallows hard. 'And what do they see? One man, scarcely recognisable as such, so much a wretch he has become. Surrounded by the bones of his dead sea mates. Bones covered in the gnawing of human teeth. The man is the Captain. Close to insanity they have to fight with him to get one of the crews legs back from his withered hands.'

Wild eyed, as if possessed by an inner terror Black spins around, his coat flapping in an imaginary sea breeze, his face white as sea-salt. 'Yes, the worse thing a man could do to a fellow man. Cannibalism!'

She is shocked. Wide eyed with flushed excitement she puts her hand to her fluttering heart. 'Yes, Miss a terrible tragedy, fourteen men lost all told, only the captain left. And here. Yes, yes, Miss, touch it. For this is all that's left of the Portland, the oar of the skiff the poor fellow was found in.'

'And what happened to him. The Captain?' She asks with a waving voice.

'Ah Miss, there my story ends. The Lord had saved him yes but he was forever tormented by the experience. He returned home and was said to have become the town's night watchman. Reviled by all he'd walk like a soulless Christian in the night trying to find some solace in the darkness under Gods great, star filled sky. And one day when the townsfolk woke he'd gone. He's said to roam the Earth seeking redemption but will be forever dammed.'

'But that's just the story, who can be sure how it ended.' Black ends his tale. 'I don't suppose you came here to buy a human skull, Miss, not such a ladylike personage as yourself. I fancy it's a consultation you're after. Please sit here while I prepare the room.'

Blacks consultations are serious affairs taken behind a curtain, in a tiny room at the back of the shop He dressed for the occasion, with a long coat and a top hat, he appears a lanky Abraham Lincoln, a throwback to a previous age, his look displaced in time. He uses for his divinations a set of bone fragments each inked with a runic symbol. Strangely, despite his showmanship his consultations appear unerringly correct judged by the number of people who revisit the shop and confer upon him some small token of their gratitude. He receives these gifts from the recently pregnant, or those that come into a small inheritance. Of those who hurry from the shop their faces bleached white with the colour of bad news, cursing Black under their breath, he hears nothing.

She is invited by a humble Black into his consultation room. He waves me out of the shop signalling for me to turn over the closed sign so he should not be disturbed with his charge. He takes her hand and nods reassuringly at her seat and pats the cushion with one white hand and then with a cursory nod at me that I should attend to his instructions he draws the curtain to with a snap of his wrist.

I approach the shop door but hesitate, with outstretched hand I reach up and flick the brass bell, as if to tell of my departure. But I linger.

Peeping through the curtain I watch Black light a candle and extinguish the light. His face moves eerily in the shadows. Through thin lidded eyes, polished bright as marbles he begins the reading.

His voice dips and swoops, like a hymnal, intoxicating, entrancing. Within moments she is enraptured, hypnotised, like a snake beholden to its charmer. He throws the bones again and again. Each time his voice becomes more fevered and wild, his body more animated as he throws out foretelling's like a possessed Greek oracle, wild and free. And then at its climax, he reaches across and grabs her hand in his and whispers feverously to her, his face aglow with gloss of sweat. As he touches her hand a white bone appears in his palm and like a magician he flicks it instantly away up his sleeve. And it is gone.

Suddenly I'm unnerved, a sense of the unnatural has crept into me. For a fleeting moment I study the girl, she is gazing entranced at Black but she seems not to be upset in any way. Black claps his hands and she, suddenly aware, gives him a nervous smile. It's with a sense of deep unease I head for the door and gently clasping the bells ringer between my fingers slip out into the rain worn street.

I'm back the next day, my sense of unease quelled slightly by the drift of time. Black is at his private specimen cupboard and despite the cold clink of the bell appears unaware of my presence. He shoves something back into place and quickly padlocks the door. My impression was he was inspecting something long and thin, a spear perhaps with a long wooden pole and thin metal shaft ending in a sharpened head.

'Ah, Ambrose,' he says softly. 'I did not hear you. A new piece for me?'

He examines what I have, playfully rolling the piece to and fro across the table. 'A nice piece but pray you did not pay too much, unfortunately it is not human. Walrus I should think.'

'Are you sure?' I did indeed pay too much, to a sailor down in the port, who will no doubt have left this afternoon with my wad of notes padding his pocket.

He looks at me sharply. 'No look, compare it to this, a female carpal lunate. Note its whiteness and the density of the bone.' He notes my look of disbelief. 'I know these things, I've been doing it for a long time. Trust me, it's not human.'

Seeing the freshness of the bone laying on the table sends a shiver down my spine. 'Your readings would be helping pay the bills I hope. How was your lady caller yesterday?'

Making a sound like windblown leaves he rubs his dry hands together. 'She returns today for a second reading. In a few moments in fact. I must be ready. Can you sit her down when she arrives? The pleasantries and all that. Good man.'

She arrives. She is handsome, in an outdoorsy sort of way. Yesterday she appeared well fed and luminous with life. But today she looks a little peaky to me. Her cheeks faded like the last of rays of the sun over the sea.

Black comes back, dressed in hat and tails and welcomes his charge and gives me the nod that tells me I must leave. I re-enact yesterday's charade and returning from the front of the shop peer through a crack in the curtain.

I hear the murmuring of his voice. She is bent forward, eyes glistening like a puppy eager to hear to her master's command. Black knows his voice is more favoured than before, he rides her feelings with its tones, up and down, up and down, a warm, sultry sea swell carrying her with it. His bones flip and bounce across the table, large as dragon's teeth. As he talks, her head, nods to and fro and suddenly her body lurches forward.

As she swoons, he moves swiftly up from his seat, rests his hand on her shoulder, and in an instant I see a flash of porcelain white between his fingers. He quickly flicks it through his fingers and secretes it in his sleeve. Then he looks up and through the slit in the curtain our eyes meet. His razor mouth omits a scowl that bites my soul and cuts me so hard that I instantly avert my gaze.

And then she is awake. Her face blanched, a little breathless she clutches her arms to her chest and one hand reaches up to feel her shoulder where Black had his hand. Black smiles geniality, collects her coat, receives his commission and escorts her to the door. He scrapes a short bow. 'Another reading perhaps, tomorrow? Good, same time? I'll see you then, Miss.' He closes the door and flips over the shut sign. 'Well,' he says turning to me. 'Things are looking up.'

I aim to leave. Black is not a man I wish to upset. 'I'm sorry, I should not have stayed. It was... inopportune.'

'No, don't go,' as he approaches his wiry frame seems to widen and fill the passage between the shelves. He ushers me back and hustles me into the cavernous whale chair. 'Sit sit, my friend.'

'Look,' he says pulling a bone from his sleeve. 'A new piece, a female human shoulder blade, a clavicle. I'll do something interesting with it,' he winks. 'Perhaps a new collection of throwing bones, to fix a vision upon the little lady.'

I get up to leave, my skin crawling. But he kicks the edge of the seat sending it spinning, I catch his universe of white bone stars tumbling past.

He stops the chair with a sudden jolt and pats me on the shoulder. Then on the table he drops a bone, new fresh. 'Ah!' his says in mock surprise. 'Well I never, I have a pair. Male and female. Whatever next.'

I go to get up, suddenly I find I cannot abide the man. 'Ah ha, not so fast.' He runs his spidery fingers over my chest and pushes me back.

'Why! Stay a little while, Ambrose.' In his hand appears a clutch of white bones. I'm immobile, slack jawed. With a clatter he spreads the bones on the table in from of him and studies them like omens. 'What have we here....we have the base of a jaw bone, the axis bone, a thoracic and lumbar bone from the spine. Well there's a thing. Sit and watch me work. I have need of you.'

I struggle in my seat, my head flops sideways like a scarecrow with a broken frame, and my body turns to straw. He flicks the bones across the wooden table with a clatter and picks one up, inspects it closely and throws a sideways glance at me. Picking up a rasp he grates over its surface, powdered grains of white bone drift down to the table top.

'When I've finished this young, Mr Ambrose, I'll read your fortune, but I fear I know the prediction; your days are numbered. But let's not predispose that we know, eh? I'll finish this and throw your bones and we will know for sure.'

I babble intelligibly.

He smiles his wistful smile, slips one of the bones into his mouth and noisily sucks it like an aniseed ball. Then he picks up one of the lumbar bones and starts whittling.

A bit of a horror story based loosely round the story of the Essex, the ship that inspired the novel Moby Dick. Oddly enough there are bones in your body you can do without - the clavicle (shoulder blade), the olecranon, the head of the radius, the carpal lunate (in the hand), the head of the fibula and the patella are among them.