The Visitor (24 page)

Between
Wave Crest
and the old part of Morlanow many houses had grown. Roads had risen from the scrubby ground with new lanes sliding among them. Pearl was a little unsure of her way through these by dark – the unfamiliar walls seemingly changing their stance, shifting about – but knew that if she just kept going downhill, she must eventually reach the seafront.

Once in Carnglaze Lane the pilchards began to appear. The fish were carved into the granite walls and end posts of old Morlanow. They were set above lintels and tucked almost out of sight below gables. They were by place names and alongside guttering. In the past, building work had been haphazard, not like Pascoe's well-ordered angles now. Doorways hung in the middle of houses, sometimes with steps to connect them to the ground, sometimes without. Rooms had been built on wherever space allowed, making many secret, shaded alleys.

As Pearl stole through the unbalanced streets with their strange corners and pockets of darkness sounds of the trade stirred around her. She heard the jangle of a bit between a horse's teeth and the pull of a saw making hogsheads. Voices called out the price of mackerel and a bell began to peal. The smell of fish, warm and ripe, rose from the ground.

Pearl turned down an alley that ran between two shops. She was hurrying now, her slippered feet sliding on the cobbles as she neared her destination. Just round one more curve, down one more side street. She was close to the seafront. There was the pop of firecrackers as the sea was hauled over pebbles. Her breath came too fast and she began to cough. What would Jack think when he saw her pallor the next morning? She would have to slow down but air was harder to find and now she was so close she couldn't stop.

And there it was. Pearl stood still in the middle of the street. The scaffolding poles caught the light and gleamed eerily before her. Stone was piled at their feet, mallets and chisels lying alongside. Hiding the destruction was the layered dress of tarpaulin. Even from here Pearl could see how much of the palace had already gone. The shape of it, intimately known by so many generations of women who had been stowed within its bows, bulking and breaking out pilchards beyond number, was changed.

The scaffolding was set back from the road. The outer front wall must have been taken down. A rope was tied around the site, cordoning off the whole area. Pearl walked over and ducked beneath it. In front of her the tarpaulin hung like a pair of curtains. Her fingers found a gap. As she slipped between the layers, the sheeting caught her bare arms and for the first time that night Pearl felt cold.

It took her a moment to find her bearings. With the front wall gone she had stepped straight into the open air courtyard. The moon seemed to hang directly overhead, as if it had aligned itself with the ever wide eye of the palace's centre. Pearl took another step forward. Circling the central space were the various storage rooms with lofts overhead. The roof that had covered these, sloping inwards towards the courtyard, had also gone, but the thick granite pillars that had supported it remained: precious authentic relics that would be used to flank the hotel's grand entrance. But what else could be done with such a place?

Pearl walked to the middle of the open space, unwilling to enter the dim recesses of the storage cells. Rats and mice had always lived there. Without all the cats once kept to catch them she didn't like to think how many might have settled in. The pebbled floor sloped to the pit in the middle. She peered in. It was dry as driftwood with cobwebs clinging to the sides. No fish to fill these depths with oil.

She turned back to face the entrance, remembering the way the sun had pushed through the arch, flooding the messy scene inside with light strong enough to make you wince. Each scale burned its silver and each drop of oil winked. There had been days of rain too, drops the size of pennies firing off the iron roof. And nights.

Pearl closed her eyes and willed the memory on, wanting it to swallow her and return to her all that she had lost. But it was being taken away, this precious place, and with it the traces of her and Nicholas together. The bright light grew, throbbing white heat through the palace. What would happen when the fish returned? Pearl wouldn't be able to build them into salted walls alone.

‘I'll help you.'

She heard Nicholas in her head, closer than her own thoughts. A charge raced through her. The light blazed and slipped behind her eyes. Her temples burned.

‘Pearl, let me help you.'

Nine

‘Pearl, let me help you.'

As she leaves the palace Nicholas springs forward and takes the bussa jar from her, easily carrying the half-weight of salted pilchards that makes up her pay. His fingers graze hers. Free of the weight she rolls her shoulders, glad to be rid of the jar but reluctant to admit it. A fine mizzle threads the air, cooling her face and working its dampness into her stained clothes. He's been waiting for her.

They pick their way past carts and piles of crab pots and heaps of nets, stepping round puddles and knots of fishermen and fishwives. A gang of children run past, flicking up muck in their wake. And all the time she's thinking that he was waiting for her.

They walk in the direction of their street, neither wanting to hurry despite the light rain. A month has passed since the meeting about Sunday fishing and the seafront has become an uneasy place. Men she recognises from chapel stop work and whisper in twos, which soon become threes and then more. All those from other ports, including Govenek, don't talk with the Morlanow men as they once did. But in the cramped bustle of the seafront and harbour wall there isn't room for separate camps and fishermen are forced to pass each other close by.

In amongst those who go to sea are other strange men. One crosses their path now and Pearl has to look away. The man's face is too thin, making his eyes look huge and sunken as they desperately try to make contact with a generous soul, not that there are many in Morlanow who can spare anything. The tattered trousers the man wears are filthy and the smell rising from him turns her stomach. He moves away from them, heading towards the Master's hut.

‘He won't find help there,' Nicholas says. ‘Master can barely keep on who he's got now.'

There have been many of these poor thin men since news came that the Tillotsons have closed a mine. Another two are said to be failing. There's little left in the ground already opened to the light and there's no money to sink new shafts. Fresh advertisements for cheap passage to Australia, America and Southern Africa are pasted weekly on the seafront. They promise much.

Pearl keeps her voice low, aware now of the weight of some words. ‘Got nothing better to do than hang around here?' she says to Nicholas. Let him say that he was waiting, that she was worth waiting for.

‘Oh I was just passing, on my way to court some young lovely, when I saw my dear friend Pearl struggling.' He gives a mock shrug and raises his eyes, his voice loud, unabashed.

She hides her disappointment and punches him playfully on the arm, then realises there's pilchard oil covering her skirt and apron and that her hair has half fallen down and is clinging to her face with sweat and rain.

‘I must look a state,' she says.

‘No more than usual.'

It's true. The season is in full swing and six days out of the past seven Pearl has worked in the palace, alongside her mother, Aunt Lilly and the other women. This is Pearl's first season as a palace maid proper and it's different from being there as a child. There doesn't seem to be quite the same pace to the work. The walls of fish look lower. Pearl tells herself that this is simply because she's older. But she can't escape the knowledge that the shoals have come less often. She knows too that she's lucky to be taken on at all, but when a shoal does appear not a fish must be lost due to lack of hands. It's hard work, long days and often nights, cold floors, and the air fouled by the pilchards constantly brought by the gurry men. There can be no complaining though: catches mean wages and food.

The last three years have been poor and many bussa jars have been empty. As much good pilchard stock as came in was sold to pay wages and to repair the seine boats, though there are far fewer now that go out. Each spring following a bad pilchard season there are more who believe the promises of the advertisements, leaving home to try their luck across the sea. Their faces are soon replaced though. Visitors step off the train into Morlanow's famous sunlight and not many of them come to paint.

Today wouldn't make a good picture anyway. There's no sun. Thick cloud lies over the village. It's late morning and the catch has finally been bulked. Gazes are once more fixed on the sea, waiting for the next shoal to come. She knows it's wrong but Pearl hopes there's a little while before they come again. She needs to sleep.

‘I've not seen you all week,' Nicholas says. ‘Fish more of a draw than I am?'

Pearl laughs. ‘They're wonderful company. Give no cheek, no teasing.'

They round the corner onto their street. Nicholas stops and shifts the awkward jar in his arms. ‘Come out later. I've got something to show you.'

Pearl sighs, the week's work heavy in her arms, her back. She has barely slept since the shoal was caught; sent home for a few hours each morning when the sun rose and a woman came to replace her, having taken rest herself. All Pearl wants to do is fill the tin bath with scalding water and steam herself clean of the palace, then go to bed for days. But that will mean fetching water from the pump and boiling pans on the stove. That will take effort she hasn't got. Perhaps she will just sleep where she falls, coated with scales and oil, but too drained to smell herself. Nicholas is waiting for her to speak. His eyes are full of eagerness and he's smiling that smile that makes Pearl forget everything other than him.

‘All right,' she says. ‘Just let me get washed.'

They walk on until they reach her doorstep. Nicholas sets the bussa jar down. That he won't bring it inside for her is unspoken. Nothing has been said to Pearl directly – after all, her father and Mr Polance are still in the same seine crew – but there has been a shift in how Nicholas's name is greeted: her father's dry cough and her mother's clattering of plates. Pearl can't imagine how his parents have reacted to him speaking up for the east coast men.

As Nicholas is turning away the front door of the Tremain house opens. Jack bowls out.

‘Bleeding useless, why don't you clean this place up, you little– ' his father's voice calls after him before Jack slams the door.

Pearl can hear Samuel crying. Jack doesn't stop to talk. There are deep pits under his eyes and his clothes flap around him only half pulled on. He nods to Pearl but makes a point of ignoring Nicholas before stomping in the direction of the seafront.

‘What was that about?' she asks Nicholas.

He continues watching Jack's retreating back. When he speaks his voice is low. ‘The blasted Sunday fishing. This damn backwardness will lead to ruin.'

‘Nicholas! Mind your language, please.'

‘Sorry. But they won't see sense. I heard it all again this morning, this jaw-ache about the east coast men landing here. No one'll listen to reason. Jack was there, unloading. We, well… we had a bit of a run in, you might say.'

Pearl feels her body sink lower, tiredness and dread weighing her down. ‘My father says Jack's planning his own course to deal with the east coast men,' she says.

‘That'll do no good, not in the long run.' Nicholas's lips are set in a grim line. Then he brightens, throwing the worry aside. ‘Come to the bottom of the cliff path,' he says. ‘I'll meet you at nine.'

Pearl nods then lifts the bussa jar over the threshold. As she closes the door he winks at her. Her heart soars.

By the time she goes out again the earlier mizzle has dried but left thick mist hanging on the seafront. The gas lamps flicker and spark, their flames managing only a paltry glow. Most of the seafront is shrouded in gloom. Gradually, she becomes aware of a small light moving ahead of her down the seafront. She quickens her pace to catch up with Nicholas on his way to the bottom of the cliff path, but as she gets nearer she sees that the person carrying the lamp is shorter and has fair hair. Pearl stops. It's Jack.

The light keeps moving. He hasn't heard her. She lets him widen the gap between them. She has no wish to speak to him though she's curious where he's going. The mist has probably stopped him putting to sea to set his lines but why then isn't he tucked up inside, enjoying a rare rest? Even as she asks herself this she knows why. Jack is trapped like Polly is trapped. He has nowhere to go either but his home doesn't have the welcome of Polly's. Alice and Samuel have one another. Jack only has his father, which is worse than being alone.

Pearl walks on again, keeping Jack in sight without getting too close. He reaches the end of the seafront and stops. She hopes he hasn't run into Nicholas. Jack seems to be waiting for something. She drops down onto the sand below the seafront. With all the bad feeling about Sunday fishing Pearl's instinct is to keep out of it, to stay hidden from view, though she's not sure why. It isn't a crime to walk along the seafront of an evening. But still, she's meeting Nicholas, alone and after dark, and there's a need for caution, of keeping an unsteady boat on an even keel.