The Visitor (32 page)

Finally there's the creak of the rear doors opening. She climbs over Jack in her hurry to get out into the fresh air. As she stumbles past, his fingers trace her bare shin and she kicks out, half falling into the aisle but then she's outside and free of those reaching to grab her. Pearl spreads her arms wide and throws back her head. The sky expands above her. She rolls her eyes to take it in. To be a bird lost in that space, to disappear over the horizon – Pearl flexes her fingers. Her feathers lift.

But she can't leave the ground. Something is wrong. People leaving chapel stand in groups murmuring to each other. They aren't looking at Pearl. They've noticed the change too. She lowers her arms then rubs her hands against them. It's cold. It hasn't been cold in so long. The air pressing against her face is damp and drifts around the broken congregation on a breeze. On its tail lies the smell of rain.

More and more people pour from chapel and none leave its narrow courtyard. Each body hums excitement. Their hope lies so close to the surface of their skin that they glow. The promise of rain is a gift, of sorts. Pearl should have seen its arrival, should have kept a closer watch on the signs, but she has been looking away from the sea and her wits have grown dull. The pilchards may well come but if they come today it will be a sore test of faith. There will be prayers to slow their approach, to make them wait just a few more hours so that Monday can be breached.

She sleeps deeply, without dreaming. The keygrim has retreated. Knowing that nothing can be done brings some peace and she's rested by the time she hears the sand against the glass, though it's muffled by the rain.

The front door bangs shut behind her but it doesn't matter. What's the sense in caution now? She's soaked within a few moments of being outside. It feels as if months have passed, or years even, since she started meeting Nicholas like this. So much has changed. She has changed.

The rain smashes down, pummelling the top of her head, clipping her ears. The space immediately around her is more water than air and for an instant she knows that this is what it would feel like to drown. She stands and lets the rain take on her shape. All water finds its way to the sea eventually. Each drop is called home. Pearl will go to it too, one day, but not now. Not tonight.

Barely able to see, Pearl runs to where the blur of Nicholas is crouched beneath an overhanging gable. Without a word she kisses him, fiercely. Beads of water streak his face and drip from his hair, but he doesn't feel cold to her. Heat steams from his clothes. Nicholas holds her. He understands her urgency, that they are themselves like these droplets of rain, lost within a downpour. They stay pressed together as they run through the deserted, sluicing streets, the rain making the surrounding buildings melt clean away.

The palace isn't locked. No one from Morlanow would steal from such a precious, shared store. Not that there is anything to take tonight except the empty hogsheads standing against one wall. Their bellies curve, brooding in the streaming darkness. They are waiting for a shoal to grace their black insides. And the rain could grant their wish. The pilchards may come to Morlanow tonight.

She leads Nicholas inside. The water races down the courtyard's slope, between the cobbles and into the uncovered pit where it slaps in the pool collecting there. Dawn can't be far off. Through the rain the dark is softening. The sky is hinting a wan yellow, revealing the undersides of heavy clouds that drag their burdens towards Morlanow. The huers will be aching for daylight, straining to see what has so often disappointed.

Nicholas stops just inside the arch. ‘We shouldn't have come here tonight,' he says. ‘The palace will be needed.'

‘Where else could we go in this weather? There's still time.'

If pilchards come, enclosing them in the seine net could take half a day if the shoal is spread wide. Everyone will be watching the crews edge their way around the fish, praying for the nets to hold. Her mother might wonder where she is but let her wonder.

They run under the roof that rings the palace courtyard. The rain is louder here, firing off the corrugated iron. Pearl's skirt is heavy and drags round her boots. Her worn old blouse, handed down from Polly, lies rigid against her as if stitched from ice. Pearl wants to take everything off and feel this amazing, terrifying rain on her skin. She and Nicholas stand and shiver together. He moves close to her and starts to unbutton her blouse. Pearl tries to do the same with his trousers but her fingers are jammed with cold. He kisses her neck. She wants him to hold her tighter, to press her into his skin. She wants him to never let her go. Wherever they are bound, they are bound together.

His lips move to her ear. ‘The
Isabella
's here. She leaves tomorrow.'

They have stayed too long. Not sleeping, but not awake, curled together on a torn piece of sailcloth. Pearl is roused first by the quiet – the rain has stopped – and then by its disruption. Shouting, feet pounding past on the other side of the wall. She jerks to a kneeling position, Nicholas with her. The only way out of the palace is through the door to the street.

They are rigid, waiting. The sky is washed clean of darkness but no sunlight takes its place. Fog curls through the air. They hear one more burst of running feet and then silence. Pearl flails for her clothes.

‘What are we going to do?' she whispers.

‘Go, now.' Nicholas helps her into her damp skirt, the weave dripping against her legs. ‘Come on, quickly.'

They creep to the door. He puts his ear to the wood. She tidies herself, knotting her hair and covering her limp blouse with her shawl.

‘Do you think the fish have come?' she says.

‘Must have,' he says. ‘All this fuss.' He puts his finger to his lips, opens the door a crack, peers up and down the street, and then turns back to Pearl. ‘Go straight home. I'll wait and then go the other way. If your mother asks where you were, say you went straight out when you heard the huer's call.'

She nods then follows him into the milky street. She can't see more than a few paces in front of her. ‘The packet – when will we go?'

‘I'll come for you, over the yard wall. Be ready.'

He kisses her briefly, distracted. She will have to pass by the seafront and her heart beats faster as she nears it, anticipating the sight of seine boats spread before her, of her father taking the weight of the net in his hands and dropping it into the water on the huer's signal. If this catch is good it will be some comfort to her parents when she has left them.

The fog is thick as whitewash. She hears shouting again. It grows louder with every step. They aren't shouts of joy or relief. What she hears is closer to a cry and there are many crying voices. People and gulls, filling the air with noise. She turns and sees Nicholas coming back down the street towards her, drawn by the sound.

The keening rids Pearl of her fear of being caught with him. She takes his hand. They walk into the fog together. A sour taste nips the back of her throat then fills her mouth and nose. She knows this smell so well but not like this, not like this stench.

Pearl stops. The sea lies before her but it has no waves. It has appeared from nowhere, butted high against the seafront and frozen in its silver bed. People drift into her vision. They are pointing at this sea of stillness, they are crying. Nicholas lifts his hands to his mouth.

This sea isn't made of water, it's fish. More pilchards than she ever thought could exist, piled in banks against the front. Up and down the beach, as far as she can see through the fog, there are drifts of fish. Men and women clamber between them, falling over and disappearing behind peaks. Some rush about, trying to fill gurries and shouting to others to do the same, but most people can only stare, as Pearl does.

The Master is a few feet from her, looking down at the fish as if he can see them through his blindness. And perhaps he can. Even with the fog so low the pilchards gleam with some strange light. Their silver could pierce any darkness. But to see so many dead – in the palace, even when the largest shoals came in, the numbers were manageable. The fish were kept alive, and fresh, in the moored seine net until there were hands free to tend them on land. There was no waste. This morning that is all there is.

The sky is littered with gulls that drop to the pilchard tide, beaks open to gorge. Pearl's stomach pitches and the seafront skews sideways. She drops to her hands and knees and coughs up hot, yellow liquid. Her legs quiver then cramp. She grips the stone edge of the seafront and heaves nothing. Nicholas is at her side, his arms around her, but she can't let go of the ground. Too many accusing, glassy eyes stare up at her.

Eighteen

Heat dug its way through her knee. She flexed it and felt flares of pain, muffled. Lifting her skirt she saw the joint was wrapped in a clean strip of linen, hiding the cause of the discomfort. There was a stain on her skirt. When she tried to brush away what she took to be dirt, there was damp warmth. Pearl bent and breathed in: blood. That she couldn't remember where it came from didn't make it any less true, laid there in front of her.

The skirt needed a soak in cold water else it would be ruined. She could never bear waste. It was wicked to be careless the moment times were easier. Those who readily forgot what it was like to go without deserved the hardship that would no doubt follow. Lean months would always come.

She had known hunger too well, had been kept awake by it for many nights, but George hadn't starved. He was too precious to risk losing and he had thrived on her shared rations. Never one for coming down with anything was her George.

Look at him there, fetching a shawl to keep this tremble out of her. He was a good lad, taking care of her, and poor Elizabeth. The two of them had a cosy little place here in the loft. A low slung bed where nets had once been piled. Shelves planed to fit the unevenness of the walls.

Elizabeth stood in the doorway, twisting her hands. She was a frail thing and the way she wore her hair made her look all the worse. It was too thin to be clamped to her scalp with pins like that. And that loose dress bagging about her knees. Her daughter-in-law was like a shapeless piece of sacking. But George loved her, so Pearl must try. She watched her son bustle round the room. She settled back in her chair. It was good to come visiting like this. She should do it more often.

She gave Elizabeth what she hoped would be a warm smile. ‘And how are you keeping, my dear?'

Elizabeth skirted Pearl's look. ‘Well. I'm well, thank you. And… and you?' Elizabeth frowned and dipped her shoulders. ‘How
are
you?'

‘Oh, I can't complain,' Pearl told her. ‘Bit of stiffness in my hip most mornings but I soon walk it off. There's others worse I shouldn't wonder.' George and Elizabeth looked at one another. ‘What's the matter with you pair?' Pearl said. ‘It's only a bit of an ache. If I was still swimming it wouldn't trouble me. Shall we go now, to swim?'

Yes, that was what she needed. She was filthy, dirt all up her legs, horrible stain on her skirt – she should get it in some cold water – and she could feel the early itch of sunburn.

Pearl stood and struggled with something laid over her shoulders. A shawl – why was she wearing that when it was so warm? Who had put that on her? Some foolishness on her mother's part, no doubt. Always cosseting, even when the sun was high. If Pearl crept out quietly she might get to the sea unnoticed. Nicholas would swim with her to where the seabed shelved, make her laugh and swallow water. When the cold finally got the better of them they would lie on the sand, drying one another. Except that there was something wrong with the beach. It was covered by a spread of silver and it stunk to high Heaven.

A girl was staring at her like Sarah Dray used to stare. Pearl shrank back under the shawl. There would be no swimming today.

The girl fumbled for the front door latch behind her. ‘I'll leave you to it, I think.'

And she was gone. Not one to be relied on, poor Elizabeth. No backbone, and no effort with anything. She had given George no children. The precious life he carried in his blood would turn to dust with him.

George came and knelt on the floor in front of Pearl's chair. He took one of her hands into his own and held it firmly. ‘Mother. I think… we think, Elizabeth and I, that it mightn't be a bad idea for Dr Adamson to call on you. Just for a chat. He's a good man. You'd like him, I know you would.'

‘He doesn't need to go wasting his time with a tired old thing like me. He should be seeing to the little ones. They need him, wretched things without a bite to eat.'

‘What are you talking about, Mother?'

‘The babies! The babies need seeing.' She could hear her voice rising above her, sending her words to the ceiling where they shifted until she couldn't recognise them as her own.

He was shaking her hand, wrenching it. ‘No one's starving. Listen to me, Mother. No one is starving.'

‘But there's nothing to eat. The catches have stopped. It's too late. You were there. You saw the beach covered with fish. You saw it, Nicholas. Nicholas?'

He dropped her hand and stepped back. She saw that it was George, hunching himself in his arms.

‘I don't like asking this of you when you're not yourself but I can't bear it.' His voice was barely hiding its cry. ‘Why can't you just tell me? I need to hear it from you.'