A Year of Marvellous Ways (9 page)

16

C
ome twilight, calm. Attempts to piece together
the
jagged puzzle of Time Lost between London and the boathouse.

He’d been so boozed he could barely remember crossing the wide estuary, the jolting movement of the train, leaving the destruction of Plymouth for swathes of green on the other side. How they’d let him on the train, God only knew, but he’d always been a trouble-free drunk, at least he had that going for him.

He’d hid inside the lavatory to drink. Nice. Came out only when visions of Missy had been coerced into oblivion, and then he took to standing in the corridor smoking cigarette after cigarette to dispel the stink that had lodged in his nose. He remembered a card game but doubted he would have played, he wasn’t that lucky any more. Not since war had made cards dirty.

He got off the train a stop too early and couldn’t find his hat; the beautiful
French
hat that made him look so handsome and a cut above what he knew himself to be. But when the train pulled away, there it was: waving from a window amidst a torrent of jeers.

And then he was walking, fields either side of him, with a vast horizon of nothingness ahead of him. And he begged for a sign and he was given a sign and the sign said: STOP HERE. So that’s what he did. And then there was silence. A drowning silence that poured through his ears and fell into his lungs. The sound of a heartbeat – his – distant and fading, until everything went dark and he had woken up in a wood. Being cared for by an old woman who he thought was an owl.

Marvellous slipped out into the rare dry night and left the young man sleeping. Instructions to take a glass of bitters had been left on the table next to his bed. She stripped at the mooring stone and glided over to the island. Pulled herself up the muddy bank and rested against a gravestone. Clouds raced east, driven by the briny Atlantic breath, and under a glimmer of stars her body glowed, as if she was a ghost rising for a last look – just one last look – to see what it had all been about. She stood up and brushed leaves from her bottom. She padded gently into the church, the matches already on the altar waiting. She cupped her hand around the flame as a gust blew through the broken window. She lowered the glass guard around the candle only when she was sure that light had taken hold.

She looked out towards the boathouse. Saw the shifting smudge of his shadow against the flickering orange fire-lit walls. Up at last. She felt anxious. She walked out into the heavy night, dived into the river, unsure who she was any more.

Drake sat up in the chill fug and pulled a sweater over his clothes. Orange embers pulsed faintly in the hearth. He rolled his legs slowly from the bed, the pain in his side not sharp but still there. On the table was the small glass of bitters the old woman had told him to take. He drank it and grimaced.

He held on to the wall and pulled himself upright. He felt dizzy immediately and clung to the plaster, clammy handprints marking his journey to the double doors that led to the balcony beyond. He peeled back the shutters. The joints were stuffed with paper to stop the rattling, and he pulled the scraps away and opened the doors on to a star-filled midnight sky. An owl hooted.

The smell of salt was strong and the water was high, lapping confidently against the pylons below. He noticed the flicker of candlelight in the church opposite. He thought he saw a shadow move past the window but realised it could only be the movement of the trees, no one could get over there now. Somewhere overhead a robin sang. Not that he knew it was a robin because to him it was just a bird, just as he didn’t know it was the old woman at first because she carved through the water like a creature. Only when the moonlight caught the white of her hair did he realise it was her. He crouched down and pressed his face to the rail. He watched her pass in front of the island, saw the pale shadow below the surface. She could have been a seal, there was a splash – like the whip of a tail – before she disappeared. He began to panic and stood up to see her better. He counted the seconds and thought of Missy. No, there she was. She had surfaced next to a boat wreck further downriver by a sandbar, now rested her head against its wooden side.

She swam back and rose in the shallows and that was when he saw she was naked. She pulled herself up on to the shore into the lamplight that bled upon the mooring stone. He didn’t look away. He studied her because he had never seen a body that old before with all its creases, all its wounds, all its flesh. He felt embarrassed, felt leery, but he couldn’t look away. He watched her raise her arms, dry her breasts, between her legs. She stopped, stood quite still in the cold night air as if she could smell his gaze. He wondered how many memories and years had nestled down in that flesh. Wondered who and what it had loved. Who had loved it? Wondered why she had never given up like he had. Why he had given up so readily. So fucking easily. His shame burned.

17

R
ain hadn’t stopped for days and nights and the
boathouse stank of salt and damp and Drake couldn’t get warm. He awoke to sounds: a crackling fire, a pan busy on its chain, an old woman’s night-time shuffle. He watched her cook but he didn’t move. The pot looked heavy and once he thought she might drop it on to the iron rest, but he didn’t move. He watched her ladle out the stew. Fucking stew again. She came towards him, a bowl of fragrant steam cradled in her knotty hands.

Here, she said, and took a spoon out from her jacket pocket. She sat on the stool next to his bed. You look better, she said.

He nodded and continued to eat. And you? he said, between mouthfuls.

Me? she said.

Yes.

I’m well.

Where am I? asked Drake.

In the boathouse.

What boathouse?

My boathouse.

And who are you? he said.

I’m no one, she said, quietly: a voice more breeze than voice.

What’s your name? he said, and she told him.

Marvellous what? he asked.

Ways.

Drake spooned a large dollop of stew into his mouth. That’s quite unusual, he said.

Apparently, she said.

I once knew someone called Banjo.

And could he play?

Not really, said Drake.

That’s even more unusual, said Marvellous.

That’s what I thought.

And he carried on eating and they fell back into a shared silence.

My name’s Francis Drake. People usually call me Drake.

Fancy that, said Marvellous.

I’ve heard the jokes.

What jokes? said Marvellous.

That I’ve never gone far and I hate water.

I don’t think that’s very funny, I think that’s a pity, quite frankly, said Marvellous. You know, it’s a dying art, naming well. My father gave me my name. He travelled far, and he travelled to places where names mattered and he brought my name back from across the sea and put my name in this shell box together with my calling.

And she lifted a small box away from her chest for him to see. Here, she said. It was my mother’s. My mother was a mermaid.

Drake stopped eating. Oh Jesus, here we go, he thought, his ears suddenly alive to the wind outside hurling the rain against the smooth slats. He rested the empty bowl on his lap. He was deliberate with his actions, anything so as not to look at the old girl’s face. He reached for his cigarettes and lighter, he blew a stream of smoke towards the ceiling, aware that the old woman’s eyes were locked on to his. A mermaid, eh? he eventually said.

Yes, said Marvellous. Apparently she was so beautiful that even waves drew back to look at her, and Marvellous got up and took his bowl back to the hearth.

I don’t think I’ve ever met a mermaid before, said Drake.

How would you know? They don’t advertise, said Marvellous.

What else do they do? he said.

Who?

Mermaids.

What do you mean what do they do? They
swim
.

Don’t they sing and comb their hair?

I think you’ll find they’re rather more accomplished than that.

That’s what the books say, isn’t it?

Rumour.

Luring sailors to their deaths?

Rumour
, said Marvellous a little more emphatically, and she filled two mugs with warm rum and ale and shuffled back to the bed.

Here, she said.

Drake took the mug and drank gratefully. Where do you live? he asked.

In the caravan. Out there.

Drake craned his neck towards the window. It was a tarry tarry night.

You won’t see it, said Marvellous. It’s too dark for your eyes. You’ve still got city eyes.

Drake fell back against the pillows. He took a drag of his cigarette and flicked ash into a scallop shell the old woman had left for that use. Did your mother come from round here? he asked.

No, no, no. She lived off the coast of Lady Island in South Carolina.
America
, she said with emphasis. My father went to a house one night for a ball, and she was standing in a nearby street surrounded by men. He said it was as if she punctured his skin and entered his veins and swam directly to his heart. I don’t think he got out much.

Marvellous lifted her mug and steam rose and misted her glasses.

Did they stay there? asked Drake.

No. My father brought her back to London where he thought differences could be hidden. They took a house by the river and lived in a world that straddled the two, half dry half damp. Over time, though, my mother became unhappy because the Thames was dirty and people said she was dirty too. She became sad and lonely and took to midnight swims amongst the tugs. Her eyes became infected. I think she probably cried too much.

Marvellous finished her ale. Are you all right? she said.

Drake nodded. Smoked the last of his cigarette and stubbed it out.

You look very pale, said Marvellous. Seem tired all of a sudden.

Maybe, said Drake, and he shifted down the bed. Marvellous leant across and adjusted his pillows. She pulled the blanket up to his neck and made sure his feet were tucked in at the bottom. She had a vague memory of someone doing that for her when she was small. She began to button up her jacket.

Where are you going? he asked.

Back to my caravan.

Don’t go. Stay, he said.

Three words, beautiful. The old woman sat back down. So? she said into the silence.

Drake placed his hand across his forehead. Just keep talking, will you?

What about?

Anything, said Drake.

What sort of anything?

Your parents. There you go.

What about them? she said.

Did they stay in London?

Oh no. My father gave my mother a hand-drawn map of the Cornish Peninsula and said I’ll meet you here. Well, my mother arrived before him, of course, because she was half fish, and when she came across this sheltered creek and saw ramsons and bluebells sprouting from the mud, she knew instinctively that it would be her home.

Days later when my father arrived at the confluence, my mother leapt out of the water with her hands across her rounded belly and said, She’s coming soon! – Me, obviously. She knew I was a she by the way I swam inside her. Boys swim in circles.

Drake nodded wearily.

My father had money and bought everything he could see – land, river, chapel, too – and he built this boathouse, and they collected food from the shore and every high water night or day, that sacred time when the river stills, they swam; because
that’s
what mermaids do. And then sometime in – and Marvellous thought hard for a moment – in 1858, I believe, I slipped out like an eel and surfaced in a ripple of light, where my first breath was scented with the sweetness of wild honeysuckle. I had feet not fins, my father’s brow and my mother’s eyes. But, more importantly, I had my mother’s heart. I never met her, though. She was shot just after my birth. I think someone mistook her for a seal.

Jesus, said Drake.

Marvellous shrugged. You should sleep, she said.

No, wait a minute, he said. Tell me. What did your father do when your mother died?

What did he do? He stopped breathing, said Marvellous.

He died?

No, he stopped breathing.

Died?

Are you doing this on purpose?

Doing what?

I said he
stopped breathing
. There’s a difference, you know. It was as if a blade had shucked his heart like an oyster and stolen the beauty within. He said his heart never started beating again, it just started working and I never understood the difference, not until I was much older anyway, when I learnt that coming back from the dead is not quite the same as coming back to life. Know what I mean?

And she stuffed her thinking pipe with black twist and held a match above the bowl, and said nothing more. She waited for night to take him and it took him swiftly and deeply. His head tilted back and snores became soft growls. She rested her hand across his brow and whispered good night. She didn’t leave straight away, sat and watched the rise and fall of his sleep.