The Visitor (36 page)

When she opens her eyes again the daylight has all but gone, replaced by a lamp. The smell of pilchards lifts from the oil, a faint memory of their rotting stench. Her father is still seated by the bed, asleep himself now, his head tilted back, mouth open. Spittle glimmers at the join of his lips. Deep, sun-baked lines criss-cross every inch of his skin, packed with dirt and dried blood.

Pearl tests her chest, breathing in hard and fast to gauge the pain. It is still there, clamped across her ribs, but she feels more able to bear it. She will take nothing with her, leave no note. Gone is the heavy drag of guilt. She has done all she can here.

So practised now at hidden leaving she doesn't disturb her father's rest and pads past her parents' bedroom. Her mother must still be sleeping. Pearl doesn't stop to look in. The front door seals her going.

Nicholas might only be a wall away. As she knocks, the Polances' door swings open, revealing an unlit kitchen. Shadows stretch the room to odd proportions. Pearl steps across the threshold and picks out two figures huddled together by the empty hearth. They don't stir at her entrance and Pearl's first thought is that Nicholas's parents are asleep. She hovers by the table where two bowls of settled liquid lie untouched, each topped with a skin. Flies collect on a loaf of bread and a butter dish. The breeze from a shattered pane in the back window stirs them.

Annie Polance breaks the spell, speaking without moving from her seat, her face hidden in darkness.

‘What do you want, child?'

‘Is Nicholas here?' Pearl asks. In the gloom, she makes out Annie's shaken head.

‘He's lost to us,' Annie says.

‘Did he come here, in the fighting?'

‘No,' Annie says, finding some gentleness to ease the hurt of her words. ‘He didn't. We didn't see Nicholas, and now he's gone.'

Something inside Pearl is stretching, pulling to break.

‘Perhaps you missed him. I came and your door was locked. Perhaps—'

‘I was here, upstairs. I saw you. Nicholas didn't come, and he won't now. He left, Pearl. We heard this morning.'

‘No, he can't have done!'

Mr Polance gets to his feet then and comes towards Pearl. He's a big man, tall as well as broad, carrying his strength across his shoulders. The look in his eyes makes her back out of the house. He follows her to the doorstep.

‘Go home to your own family and leave ours be,' he says, shutting the door in her face.

Pearl leans into the wood and lets her lips brush its surface. Her tongue finds a knot and she thinks of Nicholas's mouth on hers.

A bank of cloud lies on the horizon, the sky pink behind it. The sun itself hangs ready to drop into the sea, a raw red. She keeps it in sight as she walks away from her street, resting every twenty yards or so, able to carry on if she pauses to catch her breath.

She has never felt this wisht before, not in all the years that her chest has troubled her, air suddenly petering out even as she gasped for it. Now, in the sag of her limbs, the weight on her back, she feels how much time is needed for her to mend. Nicholas will have to help her and she knows he will, in their new life beyond the sea.

But even as she thinks this, her chest gives a different, tighter twinge. Nicholas can't have spent the night on the drying field, surely, and his old place to sleep, the Master's hut, is a pile of ash and nails. Would he have come for her at her own home? Would her father have sent him on his way?

Coming to the seafront she smells the pilchards before she sees them. The stench is heavier today. The silver bodies have dulled overnight, their brightness leaching into the sand. They have seen all that has happened, lying still, waiting to be remembered. Not many have been taken for enriching the ground yet but the farmers will have their fill in the weeks ahead. Free to those who can carry them away and take the sight from Morlanow's eyes.

Signs of fighting litter the front. Smashed lobster pots. Stained, tattered pieces of clothing. Splintered wood – carts, hogsheads, and the remains of a familiar skiff, painted red. She stops briefly by the stoved hull lying in the road.

People mill about, gradually restoring order to the mess. Those she passes are themselves recovering, limping, leaning on roughly fashioned crutches, or just sitting, waiting for their wounds to heal. All are faces she recognises. The strangers have left, the artists and visitors keeping indoors.

The harbour wall comes clearer before her. Some masts still cluster on the returned tide but fewer than the day before. The visiting fleet has gone. And the packet too? There is still the chance. Always the chance.

Her breath runs short again so she stops and leans against a cart abandoned on its side. A man limps by her. Timothy Wills. His gaze is fixed on the ground and he's shivering.

Pearl touches his arm. Timothy jumps. There is blood across his shirt and his usually narrow eyes are staring.

‘Timothy, do you know what visiting boats are left?' He gazes at her blankly. She gestures towards the harbour wall, wondering if he can hear her. ‘Do you know which have gone?' she asks.

He shakes his head. ‘Any with sense.'

‘But which – which have gone? There was a packet from Naples, the
Isabella
.'

‘Why do you want to know?' He curls his lip. ‘Doubt many foreigners are still here and I wouldn't go hunting them out neither. Few constables are still abroad.'

Timothy lingers by her. She feels his gaze sweep across her body. The need to ask if he has seen Nicholas swells through her but before she can ask, Timothy is opening his mouth.

‘It's funny,' he says, ‘what men will fight over.' The pitch of his voice makes her shrink back and clamps her tongue. ‘One man's prize is another's folly, eh?' he goes on, becoming more certain. ‘Got nothing to say, Pearl? Quiet as when we were in the schoolroom. Always hard to know what you were thinking but you'll lead a merry dance. Oh yes, been dancing all over the place, haven't you?'

‘Timothy—'

‘Never look at anyone else though, would you? No one but that back-sliding Polance.' Timothy coughs then spits on the ground. When he speaks again his voice has lost its edge.

‘The Frenchies and an Italian boat have gone, I know that much. Left without their cargo but in one piece, which is more than can be said for some.'

Again that strange new twinge in her chest. But she stands tall, her shoulders braced. It isn't done yet. There were many boats in port, waiting out the fog.

Pearl walks away from Timothy and keeps on towards the harbour wall, the thin forest of masts blurring as her eyes smart then stream.

He calls after her. ‘You'd best go home, Pearl. There's nothing for you here.'

When she is at last out of earshot and certain he isn't following her, Pearl stops and rests again, wiping the tears from her face. Some part of her knows but she needs to be sure before she lets go and gives in. It's too important to have doubt.

The approaching harbour wall is a wet mess of wood and stone, boats and land. A familiar face is in front of her, a face with a smile, but not the one she wants.

‘Come here, come here,' says Sarah Dray, wrapping Pearl into her thick hair. Polly's old friend holds her while she sobs, Sarah all the time murmuring into Pearl's cheek. ‘Shh, shh. There now.'

When her eyes have cried themselves dry, Pearl pulls back and tries to straighten herself, catch her breath. Sarah kindly looks away, out to sea, for once her smugness gone.

‘Sorry,' Pearl says. ‘I'm not myself today.'

Sarah turns back and nods. ‘I know. I'm the same. To be expected. All this.' She puts her hand on Pearl's arm, steadying, reassuring. ‘You look proper wisht though, Pearl. Shouldn't you be in bed?'

Pearl shakes her head. ‘I need to find a ship, from Naples.'

‘The
Isabella
? She's gone. One of the first.'

The new twinge comes again but this time lengthens into a long note of pain. Pearl wraps her arms around her chest, holds her heart as her lips quiver words into the air, barely holding back their spasm of fresh sobs.

‘And on it? Do you know who was on board?'

‘Well, the crew I'm guessing they were, and…' Sarah takes a deep breath. ‘And one other. It was a dash to get out to sea before they were boarded.'

‘Who was it that left with them?'

Sarah hesitates then grips Pearl's elbow, looking her dead in the eye. ‘It was Nicholas Polance that left with them. He's gone, thank the Lord. He was a sinner, Pearl, and you're best off without him.'

But the words are fading in Pearl's ears, replaced by a scream, sharp as a diving gull and pouring from her throat. It isn't true. Nicholas wouldn't go without her. He loves her, he loves her. Though he never said, she knows.

Sarah who has told such a wicked lie is trying to gather her up.

‘Leave me be,' Pearl says as the coughing starts. She stands, somehow, and turns away. She walks back in the direction she has come, swerving, stumbling, just to get away from the lie. Nicholas is here, hiding. He doesn't know that it's safe now, that the fighting is over. She just has to find him and tell him. Sarah doesn't know him, how would she know where he is? No one knows him like Pearl does.

She doesn't cry – her lungs can't manage the effort. She crosses the road and feels along the wall of the buildings for support, looking only at her feet, thinking only of Nicholas. She will search every alley, every building. She will go to Witch Cove, to the palace, to the drying field. He can't have left her behind. He must be waiting for her.

Past the last doorway, about to turn the corner and strike away from the seafront she catches sight of a figure on the opposite side of the road. Her eyes are sore and scritched up. She trips over her own feet with a cry, trying to get to him. Then the figure raises an arm to her. Jack's light hair and stocky build bleed into the person she imagined, hoped, she could see.

Neither she nor Jack move. He is ten, fifteen yards away and his face, the way he stands – he doesn't bear any obvious signs of injury. In fact there is some grace in the way he holds himself, some pride stretched across his shoulders, up his straight spine. The east coast men have gone, Sunday fishing is over. Jack has had his way.

As the last curve of the red sun slips over the horizon, Jack turns and walks up the cliff path, towards the huer's hut. Pearl watches his retreating back until he is hidden by the gorse crop.

The seafront darkens. A single star pierces the deep blue of the sky. The dead fish gleam a strange light on the sand. Beyond them, the sea slaps the shore, black and cold. It disappears into the night, stretching further than she wants to understand.

Twenty-Two

‘I'm not going anywhere,' Jack said, addressing the back of the chair. ‘You can't be left on your own and I can't very well take you down to the front with me, can I? Right state you're in this morning.'

He took a step towards Pearl. She took one back, keeping the kitchen table between them. Outside, the wind was rising. The window rattled in its frame. A cool draught stroked her legs.

‘No, no, no,' she said, striking the table with each word. ‘You can't be in here with me. Not today. I've got too much to do.'

Nicholas was coming and she was meant to be getting ready. Had Jack guessed? He was pointing and looking cross.

‘Oh yes,' he said. ‘You've plenty to do, all right. House has gone to ruin in the last month.'

She looked around her. Jack was right. The house was in a mess, but it could only just have happened. Couldn't have been like this for a whole month. Someone had come in and roughed it about, dirtied it up. She would never have let such filthy dishes grow into tilting piles or left the milk bottles cloudy with un-rinsed milk. The sink was caked in grease and dirt lay scattered across the floor.

Pearl peered down. The dirt was white. She bent and ran her fingers across its roughness. Salt. The kitchen floor was laid with salt and a fair bit at that. It was ready for the shoal.

She looked hard at the kitchen, trying to see beyond the trickery of time; of days, weeks, years gone by and snuffed out like bedtime candles. Spreading from the corner of the room was a pile of stones. Each stone was roughly the same size – to fit in a palm – and each bore a distinctive mark. These stones were familiar but she was sure she hadn't had anything to do with bringing them inside. Nicholas's work again.

He had come to see her. The visit flared and swallowed the kitchen. Nicholas, dripping wet and walking towards her. The deep cut on his head.

How could it now be morning and Nicholas gone? She could feel him by her side but just out of sight. Each time she turned her head to see him, he slipped from her. Her skin was clammy and a shiver stole across her back, as if she had been out in mizzle. It was too dark for morning to have charged in. It was still night, surely. She went over to the window and saw that the darkness came from clouds as black as seine boat paint.