The Visitor (15 page)

White hares carry more magic, it's said, though Pearl has never seen one. At night she whispers to the calico hare, asking her to bring a white hare out of the gorse.

Fifteen

The summer stretches on. She has no sense of how many weeks have passed since the seine boats were launched. There's been no rain and the seafront feels thick with dust and sand. Everything needs a good wash. And the rain will bring the pilchards.

The fish at the sale lose their freshness quickly in this heat, their fins drooping and their eyes clouding. Today's sale is well under way as she passes with Nicholas. Each morning fish are laid out on the slipway, their heads up and their tails down. The Master's in charge even though pilchards aren't sold this way. He's in charge of nearly everything. His big boots step clear of the fish beneath him as he paces the slipway, shaking hands and ordering men about with one finger.

‘Stevens, we need more ice. Get Jenner to bring three buckets from the store. Where's the ling from
Two Brothers
? A hundredweight, get that down. Good morning, fine day for it. Yes, a good catch. Have you seen the sole? Beautiful.' He waggles his hands above his head while his assistant scribbles in a pocketbook.

No matter the season, the smell of fish is thick. It's ripe today. Pearl only becomes aware of the stench when she returns after leaving Morlanow and that doesn't happen often. When she goes inland and returns by the cliff path she becomes aware of the ripeness of fish. It's strange, she never notices the smell leaving her nose when she goes away from Morlanow but coming home it is suddenly there, all through her mouth and her throat and her ears. She has to swallow and swallow to get used to it again. Her father says it's to do with the way Morlanow huddles against the cliff; the bad air is trapped.

Miss Charles strides past Pearl and Nicholas who are dawdling, not sure where they're headed as long as it's not home. She picks her way through groups of fishermen and buyers, holding her folded parasol high above her head to guide the students who hurry to keep up.

‘The best light in the entire country,' she calls, waving at the sea with her other hand. ‘Morlanow is, as I'm sure you've all noticed, almost surrounded by the sea. The bays on either side of the village reflect the sun magnificently, making it quite picturesque.'

Pearl stops in her tracks and stares hard at the village as she hears this. Is the rest of the world duller than Morlanow? True, she has seen the newly arrived artists climb down from the train and straight away they pinch their noses. They're all green at first but the smell must be worth putting up with for them to stay so long, painting the sea. Mr Michaels has been here for years. And new visitors often lurch as if they have been drinking, this brilliant light and the smell of the fish pressing in on them. They linger in the palace's open doorway. When the pilchard oil catches the sun it looks like a river of slow gold seeping towards their boots.

It's afternoon, long after the fish wrapped in newspapers have been taken from the slipway. Jack, Pearl and Nicholas sit on the headland by the huer's hut. The men keeping watch for the pilchards, including Nicholas's grandfather, Mr Jenner, are talking half-heartedly while they keep their gaze locked on the water.

From here the sea runs on and on. On clear days Pearl can see the rest of Cornwall curving away into haziness, swooping in bays and inlets and caves with no end in sight. Sometimes she thinks she might see things that aren't to be held in the eye, the way Aunt Lilly can see. It's as if Pearl can dive beneath the surface, from her place on the cliff, and make out the Bucca picking over the wrecks hidden at the bottom of the sea and mermaids making their supper. She doesn't let herself see keygrims. All this is a different sort of seeing; seeing that is knowing first and making the picture second.

At the other end of the sky a cloud is fluffing into shape, trailing grey in its wake. There is all the sea between Morlanow and the cloud, and Pearl wonders who's beneath it now, feeling the air dampen.

Jack turns from looking out to sea. ‘One day, I'm going to be in charge of the fish sale.'

‘Where?' Nicholas doesn't shift his gaze from the distant cloud.

‘Here of course,' Jack says.

‘Don't you want to go somewhere else? Don't you get sick of here, sometimes?' Nicholas asks.

‘That's a wicked thing to say.'

‘I want to cross the sea in a ship that can take me to the end of the world,' Nicholas says, addressing the cloud.

‘What will be at the end of the world?' Pearl asks, but Nicholas doesn't reply. Perhaps he doesn't hear her, or he doesn't know the answer.

Pearl isn't even sure what's truly at the end of the railway line. She knows Morlanow like she knows her prayers, like she knows the pattern of lines on her father's face. Down the cliff path, over the hill beyond Govenek, is a wild land to her, and she has no real need to leave her home. But Nicholas wants to leave and the thought of him going uncurls like a rock pool flower in her stomach, stabbing her insides with its spines. Perhaps he's just saying it to show off or to make Jack cross.

Before an argument can start, Nicholas stands up to watch a boat rounding the lighthouse. Just a bobbing spot but becoming plainer with each wave it clears. Jack moves closer to the cliff edge to get a better look.

‘That's the coal boat from Cardiff,' Jack says.

Nicholas put his hands on hips. ‘No it isn't. It's not big enough. Look, only one mast.'

Jack peers harder. ‘Is it a crabber? Are the Frenchies back?'

‘No, I think she's the Genoa boat,' Nicholas says, and points as another, smaller smudge rolls into sight, dipping and rising clearer and clearer over the waves. ‘An east coaster. Must be bad weather coming in.'

Nicholas can recognise all Morlanow's fleet and most other kinds of boat. Usually Jack joins in trying to guess them but now he's silent. His parents met in a fried fish shop in Lowestoft when his father's boat was sheltering from a storm.

Another shape has rounded the lighthouse. Nicholas puts his hands on his knees and leans forward, eyes narrowing on the boat.

‘It's Father's,' he says.

Jack's father will have been out in this boat too. Will there have been talk of Alice? The wedding will be soon. Pearl's not sure when, she only knows she isn't allowed to go. Neither is Nicholas. She wonders if Jack's looking forward to having a mother again. He's staring hard at the sea and she doesn't want to ask him in case it makes him cross. When Alice is there he won't have his dinner in Pearl's house because Alice will remember about him and make him his own meal. Pearl realises she'll miss seeing him at her kitchen table. Perhaps she'll be able to have her dinner at Jack's house. She's never been inside. Her mother says it's a disgrace, so untidy and unwashed. Pearl will see Alice more, though she's not seen her much recently. Will her mother be nicer to Alice when she's married? Alice will have a baby then and women usually help one another with babies. Aunt Lilly is the one who goes for births. Alice shouldn't be alone when the baby comes.

Without a backward glance, Nicholas careers down the cliff path to reach the seafront as the boat comes in, dust rising from his heels. The men have been out overnight to drift for mackerel and now they will gently but quickly lift the tabby-skinned fish from the nets, though they're too late for today's sale. The mackerel will have to wait until tomorrow to be laid on the slipway and by that time they will have begun to spoil and their price will be lower. As the boat comes closer still, Pearl hears the gulls that have followed it into harbour circling overhead, hoping for a chance to pick off a fish.

Pearl and Jack walk down the cliff path and along the seafront to where the boat has come in. She feels Jack's reluctance grow with each step closer and she takes his hand. There's the barest hint of a smile before he lowers his head again.

Nicholas is with the two men, helping to unload their gear. Mr Polance has his arm around Nicholas's shoulder and his mouth close to his son's ear. Nicholas laughs and then they jog up the slipway together, carrying a basket of mackerel between them. Jack hovers on the seafront.

Mr Tremain sees him and inclines his head. ‘Give me a hand, boy.'

Jack goes down onto the beach and his father thrusts him an armful of nets. Pearl stays on the seafront. She has a mussel shell in the pocket of her dress. She turns it over and over in her fingers, the ribbed underside a kind of charm against the worry she has for Jack. He can't hold the tumbling mess of the nets and as he tries to walk they slip from him, his foot gets caught and he trips.

‘Watch it!' his father shouts.

She wants to go and help him but is rooted to the seafront. Mr Tremain would shout at her and Jack wouldn't want to be helped by a girl, not in front of his father. Jack picks himself up, untangles his foot and gathers the nets into his arms again. He struggles up the slipway with the nets trailing behind him even though he keeps tugging and pulling them back into his arms.

Jack's father catches him up and roughly takes the nets from him. ‘Give me those. Useless,' Mr Tremain says.

His elbow knocks the side of Jack's head as he yanks the nets from his grasp. Standing awkwardly on the slipway Jack loses his balance and drops to the ground where he crouches and doesn't get up.

Mr Polance is standing above on the seafront and watches all this happen. Jack totters, trying to stand. He shakes his head as if to throw off a fly. Mr Polance's mouth is fixed in a thin line and his forehead is tightly wrinkled. He calls down to Mr Tremain on the slipway, folding the net.

‘Peter, why don't you come in for bite to eat when we've sorted this lot? Annie will have something made, I'm bound. Been a long night.' He says this in a flat voice.

Mr Tremain stops folding the net. He doesn't answer straight away.

‘All right,' he says eventually. He climbs up onto the seafront and the two men take the nets between them. Both fishermen have deep shadows under their eyes and weariness seeps from their bodies. Mr Tremain still has his back to Jack as the nets are wound and folded. Mr Polance gives a tiny, secret nod to Nicholas who goes down to Jack as his father steers Mr Tremain towards their street. The two men don't look back.

Nicholas helps Jack to get to his feet and for a moment the two of them stand together, before Jack pulls away and straightens up. His face is pale and he has sand in his hair. Nicholas looks up at Pearl and gives her a smile.

‘I feel like climbing,' Nicholas says. ‘What do you say, Pearl?'

He means a trip to Skommow Bay. She nods even as her stomach lurches at the thought of the smashed frames. Nicholas's smile widens. He's smiling for Pearl because he knows she's afraid. She's doing a good thing for Jack who loves Skommow Bay, but to see Nicholas smile like that she would do anything.

It isn't far from the slipway. They could go through the streets so that they skirt the steep hill of the drying field, then over the low wall, but that never seems like a proper way to get to Skommow Bay. It is more of an adventure to scale the drying field and roll down its other side, getting to the shelf by going through the sagging cabin of the big wreck that sits at the bottom of the hill.

So that's what they do. Once there, the boys go to choose a boat with Pearl trailing along behind. It always seems darker here and the air's colder, making her feel as if they're miles from home. She hates it, but she knows it's a useful place all the same.

When Morlanow's own little boats are beyond going to sea the men bring them here. Some bigger ships have ended up at Skommow Bay too, having been wrecked off this part of the coast. The largest ships, most often foreign and from far away, don't come here; they're left to break up where they beach. The sea can have them, once anything valuable has been taken safely home.

If a fisherman needs planks to mend a hull, or a new mast, or a wedge to plug a leak, the wrecks on Skommow Bay are waiting, left for anyone to use. The ruins pile up against each other at strange angles. It's odd to see boats like this, upside down or splayed over another's hull. Everything is back to front. The wood is covered with barnacles and splintered fingers point to the sky. The boats lie on a narrow shelf of black rock that's pitted with dank pools. No matter how warm the sun is, this water is freezing.

Jack leads the way across the wrecks. The three of them duck the twisted spars and crawl through holes rent by the waves. Pearl's dress is soon damp and dirtied. Her mother will be livid. Jack's clothes were mucky even before they arrived and he has dirt behind his ears as well. It's taking him a long time to choose a boat and she shivers. The afternoon's slipping towards evening and now dusk's creeping around them. The far off cloud seen from the cliff top has stretched further across the sky, promising rain. A breeze whistles through the wrecks. It sounds like a person. She clamps her hands over her ears in case she hears her name called.

Finally, Jack makes for the front end of a lugger whose broad bottom has been ripped in half, leaving only the bow. It's pitched almost vertically against a rock and will be a good place to watch for imaginary enemy crews. Jack immediately launches himself at the boat, scrabbling up the side. Below him, looking up, Pearl sees how worn his boots are. He manages to climb the remains of the boat to reach what might have once been a seat, where he perches and surveys his sea of hulks.