The Visitor (37 page)

‘Pearl, can you hear me?' Jack whined. He was always pleading for her to play games.

‘No hide and seek today, Jack Tremain. I've got to be sorting everything. Getting ready. Outside now, go on. Go down to the front.'

He stood and gaped, his swollen hands rising then falling onto the table with a dull thump.

‘Getting ready for what?' he shouted.

Someone knocked on the front door. Jack turned, his face pale, and she took the moment to go upstairs.

There was much to do. The packet was coming and they would board it together, as they were meant to. The wind was louder upstairs, clunking over the roof. Pearl wrenched open the wardrobe doors and began pulling out the contents, dumping them on the bed. Wool. Oilskin. A silky ribbon trailing. When every scrap of clothing was piled on the bed, she turned her full attention to the heap, making herself concentrate on the task in hand. She must keep focused. She mustn't forget.

She dug in the nest of fabric, pulling clumps out every so often and rubbing them on her face, smelling them to make herself remember the part of life they belonged to. She hadn't given anything away – George's first shoes were here, her mother and father's clothes – and she was going further back with each find. There was something she was looking for.

She heard Jack opening the door. When she turned back to the bed the reason for sorting through the clothes had slipped from her. She began from the beginning. Wool for her mother. Oilskin for her father. A ribbon for Polly. No, these weren't what she was looking for.

She had to be quick though, she knew that much. Jack would be coming to stare and make unhelpful suggestions. You shouldn't stare – her mother said. But Jack didn't have a mother so perhaps he didn't know.

Voices below. Words loud and angry enough to cut through the ceiling and find her. Nasty words they were. She didn't want to hear them so she sang to herself, which made sorting the clothes easier. Their owners came to mind more quickly. This was Polly's pinafore that she wore to the Sunday school treat. This was her father's belt, pitted by salt.

Ah, here they were. A navy skirt, its full length showing its age, and a blouse; worn-white, a high, scalloped neck and full shoulders tapering at the elbow. She remembered stuttering fingers pulling at the cold, wet buttons. Nicholas would know her in these clothes.

Rain began firing against the window and the glass was a melting square, the sea heaving greens and reds and blacks somewhere beyond. The clothes didn't fit. The blouse gaped across her chest and hung loosely from her arms. The skirt was tight at her waist, so she left it undone, pulled up as far as it would go. How could her body have changed so much?

It was better with these clothes on though. She was more certain. Despite their washing and long spell in the wardrobe, the clothes still held traces of that final night in the palace, the dead fish the next day, the gunfire. It wasn't a smell, or even marks – the past clung on deeper in the fabric.

The voices from downstairs were coming closer. A foot sounded on the bottom stair. George's voice called up to her, followed by Jack's retort: ‘What do you think you're doing? Coming in like this. We're fine.'

They came to the doorway of the bedroom. Jack put his arm across the frame, barring George.

‘I need to see Mother,' George said. ‘She's not well. Why won't you let me help you?'

‘We don't need any help,' Jack spat.

George pushed him out of the way. ‘People have been telling me she's not coping. Margaret Pendeen caught me on the front this morning. And I know what it is. Mother doesn't like this house, the palace coming down.'

‘How dare you tell me how to look after my own wife?'

‘I'm not. I'm only worried.' George lowered his voice. ‘The doctor needs to see her. I'm taking her to Adamson.'

‘You've no right.'

‘I've every right. She's my mother.'

‘And she's my wife.'

It was almost time. She sent clothes flying in an arc of black, grey and brown. There was no proper case to pack her things in so she dropped what she wanted to take onto the floor, ready to be scooped into her arms. A shawl. Stockings. A nightshirt. There hadn't been need for a suitcase until now. She and Jack had never been away. They lived in the land of other people's holidays.

George was gaping at her. ‘What are you wearing, Mother?' he said.

‘My going away clothes,' she told him.

‘Pearl, you're not going anywhere.' Jack held his hands out and open, like the pictures of Jesus at Sunday school. ‘Don't fret. I won't let anyone take you away.'

‘It's not up to you.' Her voice was shrill, gabbling out. ‘I want to go.'

‘You see!' George rounded on Jack. ‘She knows she's not well.'

‘She's better off here with me,' Jack said. ‘I can look after her best. No one can take her away.'

‘You mean she can look after you. That's what this is about, isn't it?'

Pearl went and stood by the window. The rain was falling. Nicholas would throw sand soon, to let her know it was time to come down. She put her ear to the glass. It was damp with condensation. The vibration of the wind soothed her. The storm was rising. On its tail would come Nicholas. Her chest pulled at the thought.

Jack pointed at George with a shaking finger. ‘This is your fault, interfering, getting in between us like always.'

Pearl covered her ears. Her lips stumbled into song.
And my heart is dead with sorrow for the lad I love the best.
Quiet came into the room.

Jack and George stood over her, their brows furrowed. They almost looked alike. She laughed. George knelt by her. He put his hand on her shoulder and smiled. A smile of bad news. She kissed his cheek.

‘You mustn't frown so, Georgie. You've nothing to be sad about.'

‘I know, Mother, I know,' he said. ‘But you'll come with me, won't you, to see Dr Adamson? He'll sort you out.'

Her chest was hurting. That was why she had to see the doctor. Maybe he would put the cold metal to her ribs and say she had to stay in bed. That wouldn't do. She would have to slip away, out into the street in the dark, where Nicholas would be waiting.

‘No, my sweet,' she said. ‘I can't, not today. I've too much to do.'

‘Well how's about I get him to come here, then? You can get on with… what you need to be doing.'

She gave him her brightest smile and nodded. George sighed and looked relieved. There was such a mess of clothes on the bed. She would have to tidy it away before she left. Wouldn't do for her mother to see this.

The front door slammed shut. Rain beat on the roof. George had been here. That was him going. Pearl's breath was furred and loud. He would do all right without her. He had Elizabeth.

Jack slumped onto the bed, the clothes crumpling beneath him. He covered his face. Pearl went back to the window. She pressed her forehead against the glass. The rain was still streaming down. She could feel the wind less than an inch away.

Jack was speaking but she hardly heard him over the noise of the rain. ‘I know that's what you want,' he was saying. ‘No one else. Just me and you, Pearl.'

He came and stood by her, put his swollen hand on her shoulder, and pulled her back into him. His jersey smelled of tobacco and earth. It scratched her neck. She screwed her eyes shut. The rain pounded the glass, desperate to let her out and carry her to the sea.

Twenty-Three

She sees so much from up here, her own lookout point; everything, except what she longs for.

The huers have abandoned the hut and returned to their wives for the winter. No one is certain there will be wages for them next year when pilchard season comes again. No one is certain of the fish now.

The hut isn't a comfortable place this time of year. There's no glass in the slit windows. The wind blows in a chill straight off the sea. Two narrow shelves serve as beds and a broken-backed chair clings to a table that has mossy legs. There's a hearth but any fire smokes and the heat soon vanishes.

Each morning, her mother brings her food. At first, she tried to convince Pearl to come home, with kindness, then threats, and finally Pearl's father dragging her down the cliff path. But Pearl returned to the hut the next day, and the day after that when her parents tried to force her home again. If they mention Jack she refuses to speak.

She sits outside the hut long before the sun rises and only retreats beneath the lintel if the rain comes. Some days she doesn't even notice it. She never closes the hut's broad, wreck-timber door. Though she hasn't found Nicholas in the waves yet she sits and stares at them until night falls and they are only noise below the cliff. There has to be an answer in their endless tumble. There has to be something for her.

He wasn't in the village, keeping his head down in a net loft or sheltering in the palace. At Witch Cove the sea mocked her as it raked the empty pebbles. The drying field held only the memory of goodbye. Maybe he had no choice but to board the
Isabella
without her. Sarah said the boat was nearly taken by those waving their fists, shouting their blood-foolishness. He had to save his own skin and then he would come back. He told her to wait.

Her chest troubles her, the hard, new pain lodged there since the day Nicholas left seems embedded. The effort of breathing, of moving around, tires her. She sleeps fitfully, in short bursts, and can't untangle her dreams from the days.

She doesn't know how long she has been sitting here, looking out to sea. She guesses that it has been many weeks, perhaps a month, or even two, because much has happened in the village below.

The bay was empty of boats at first. Word must have spread as no visiting ships came and of course the east coast men were gone. Morlanow's own dwindling fleet kept on shore, as if the men were afraid to re-join the usual pattern of days, as if too much had altered around them. But the draw of the harbour and the train has brought the foreign boats back. The hope of full nets and the cries of hungry children have reawakened the local men. The sea is clustered with craft again. Today two big ships are moored off the harbour wall and familiar boats pepper the waves. Jack's little boat is bobbing its way out. He will be setting his drift nets over the wreck of the
Mary Ann
where the ling gather. He will wait there all night, rocking on the swell.

The east coast boats returned a few days ago. The waters off this coast hold some riches, even if pilchards are scarce. With their bigger boats and their long, scooping nets, they can strip more from the sea. And they do. They work all hours of daylight, all days of the week, dropping and lifting the mesh. But they keep their distance from Morlanow's shore and her boats, staying clear of anger. When their nets are full they don't risk losing their catches. They head for Govenek. Even without a proper harbour or a train to take the fish to London's deeper pockets it gives a good welcome. There is no violence, no Sabbath fury. The east coast men are among friends.

Many nights Pearl has woken, certain Nicholas is with her. Tonight, in the last hour before light, the sea calls to her with every wave. She rises from her curled cramp on one of the beds and stands in the doorway. The sky wears a tender blue, hinting at dawn. Spread before her, the sea is a maze of colour; deeper water snaking navy amongst the shallower greys and greens. The purple line of the horizon is as absolute as ever. There is peace in the space it encloses and she finds herself walking towards the cliff edge, to see it better. She teeters there, her bare feet on the last of the ground.

It would be so easy to give in. In daylight's unforgiving stare she doesn't allow herself to consider the future. He will come back. This is a mistake. He has only gone to escape the trouble of that day and now it's over it's safe for him to return. But at night it's harder to stay so sure.

Autumn has well and truly settled on Morlanow, blessing it with showers and thin sunshine. There is frost some mornings. The waves squabble, foaming over the rock. Pearl huddles against the wall of the huer's hut, wrapping herself in the blanket her mother brought her and for which she is now grateful.

The sickness has stopped. In the last day or so she has felt more able to eat. When it began she blamed the lingering smell of the fish on the beach but the farmers soon took their spoils and the dead shoal has gone. Pearl is ill but not wholly because of her chest, as her mother endlessly suggests. If only that were true. She has been a fool. She sees that, up here with the dark sea spread before her. Not for loving Nicholas but for not waiting. Her trusted means of marking time, her regular clock, has stopped its tick. There is a separate warmth in her, far greater than that provided by the blanket. And it's getting warmer.

Her father's crown appears from the cliff path and he climbs into view. He stands by her though doesn't speak at first. He joins her looking out to sea. Eventually he squats beside her.

‘You'll not come home today, Pearl?'

She shakes her head, never lifting her eyes from the sea in case she should miss the flash of a sail on the horizon. Every time he comes to the hut he asks the same question and she gives the same answer, and he accepts it today as he did yesterday and the day before. She knows it's hard for him and her mother, back in the heart of Morlanow. The questions. The sniggering pity for their soft and sinful daughter. Being ignored at chapel. She will end it soon and come down, making it right. But not yet. She has to wait just a while longer. To be certain. She will know when Nicholas's ship crosses the horizon. She will be able to feel him coming home.