Sarah Thornhill (29 page)

My feelings gone foreign to me, too. I'd longed for Jack all that time, then the longing had faded into something sad but faraway, and now he was back, and how I felt I didn't know.

There was something unhinged about hearing Jack and Daunt making themselves pleasant in the next room. I heard bits of what they were talking about, the whales that had taken over where the seals left off, Daunt wanting to know how long the harpoon was that you threw at the whale, and how many yards of rope on it, and how many barrels you might get out of a whale of ordinary size, and Jack returning the favour, how many acres, and how many sheep, and how many could you shear before you had to stop and sharpen the blades?

The meal was a strain, what with Sadie fidgeting and Maeve in and out to have another stare at Jack.

I had to stop myself staring, too. Not to marvel at the lines on his face, astonishing though they were, but to see what had brought him here to my door. I could not imagine, only knew that whatever it was, it could be no light thing.

A
FTER THE
meal, when Sadie was finally coaxed to sleep, we settled by the fire. Daunt fussed about, making sure I was comfortable, the bolster for my feet and a cushion for my back. His way of telling me it was all right. And of reminding anyone who might be watching that I was his wife, who had forsaken all others.

I found myself shy of Jack. He sat in my husband's chair, a man contented in his own skin, no matter how extravagantly that skin was decorated. He'd chosen who to be, and to show it on his face. This Jack had travelled into a different self. Another man had been carved out of the one I'd known.

I wasn't the woman he'd known, either. Sarah Thornhill was still here, because it was Sarah Thornhill he'd come to see. Sarah Thornhill was the one who'd shared that history with him. Whispered into his ear in the dark and kissed him, pressed herself so tight up against him that she'd felt his heart beating.

But day by day Sarah Thornhill had been replaced by Sarah Daunt. Sarah Daunt had no way to speak to Jack Langland, because she didn't know him, even though she could tell you how the last hair of his eyebrow grew.

These two men I knew so well could hardly of been more different. But both were the best of men. I was a lucky woman to have two men like them in my life. Luckier than ever I deserved.

I'd never used the word
love
to John Daunt. We didn't talk like that to each other. But I watched him with Jack and knew that I loved him now, as surely as Sarah Thornhill had loved Jack Langland.

Got to go back a bit, Jack said. To get to why I'm here. Bear with me, if you please, Mr Daunt, all this old history.

Indeed, Daunt said. All the time in the world, Mr Langland.

You remember the girl, Jack said.

For a moment I thought he was going to tell me she wasn't dead, only sent away, and Ma put it about that she was dead. I had it all laid out in my mind and the smile was coming to my face.

The New Zealand girl? Daunt said. Yes. A sad thing that she died.

Indeed, Jack said.

There was a little silence where I thought about miracles. A man might appear from nowhere that you'd thought never to see again. But no amount of wishing could bring back a girl who'd died.

It was me took her away, Jack said. Me brought her to Mrs Daunt's father. Not a day goes by I don't regret it.

Leaned into the fire so the light fell on his face. You could see every chip the chisel had made. Hard to think how anyone could stand what it took to mark that picture on their face.

You know my Ma was a black native, he said. There was a time, God forgive me, when I turned my back on that. Made out to myself like I was white. Well, Mrs Daunt's father wanted the girl with him. Wanted it worse than any man I've seen want anything, and I thought it was right. Let her grow up with her father's folk, I thought. Grow up white. Like I done.

He seemed no older and no younger than when I'd seen him last. The lines on his face rode over any of that. He'd be the same for the rest of his days, beyond age.

But I could of said no, he said. I see it very clear now. I should of said no. Time I saw it was a mistake it was too late. Mrs Daunt knows I couldn't take her back. But I could of stayed close, and I didn't. Had my own troubles. Left her there.

You're here to confess, I thought. I'm the only one can hear it, because I was there too. This is why you've travelled all the way from the Southern Ocean.

All that's between me and my maker, he said. Not what I'm here to tell you. Thing is, I heard the girl was dead. Then I get word, the girl's granny wants to see me. Old lady, not long for this world.

Her granny, I said. Then she was no orphan.

No such thing as an orphan among those folk, Jack said. Think I told you that, Mrs Daunt, back then.

He glanced at me. Remembered as well as I did that day in the cave, the sweetness of being side by side. But nothing in his look invited me into that private thing we shared.

For this old lady, he said, not enough to know the girl's dead. They got their ways, see. How to do things proper way when a person dies. Send them on their way, sing their life. Who they were, how they lived, how they died. This old woman can't go to her grave with that not done for the girl.

He looked at me and I wished I could brush away the marks on his face, so I could see what he was thinking.

You're the one was there, Mrs Daunt, he said. Only one now can say how it was.

No I can't, Jack, I said. I didn't see. Just one day a man come on a horse, told us she was dead.

That was a lie. I was there, as much as anyone was.

The old lady not wanting chapter and verse, Jack said. But of every soul still living on this earth you're the one knows most. Other than that woman, and I won't be asking her.

A single half-hour: me upstairs on the bed, Ma warping the shape of our lives.

Her granny would go to her grave with her heart eased, Jack said. To hear it from someone. To know someone was willing.

The crackling of the fire was like another conversation going along beside the one we were having.

Willing, I said. You mean, go there. To New Zealand.

Yes, he said.

Go to New Zealand! Daunt said. You'd come here and ask! Sit there and ask!

Not asking, Mr Daunt, Jack said. Laying it out, that's all. Up to Mrs Daunt.

But you've come here, Daunt said. To take her! You think I'd let her go?

He was on his feet now, standing over Jack, and if Jack would of stood up, Daunt would of struck him.

John! I said. Leave it now!

I was half-laughing in my fear and confusion to see him shaping up to Jack when surely it was a muddle of some kind, surely in heaven Jack had not really meant me to go with him to New Zealand!

You'll not go! Daunt said. I'm telling you now, you'll not go!

He'd never in all the time I'd known him had that shake of rage in his voice. In the harshness of it I knew his love, as I'd never truly known it in his softness.

Think of it, he said. Those seas, the gales in that ocean. Your brother drowned in those same waters, or have you forgotten that?

I'd hardly understood what Jack was asking, but Daunt had seen the whole thing clear in an instant.

Sit down for God's sake, John, I said. There's been a stick got hold of by the wrong end here. Jack don't mean that.

But I do, Mrs Daunt, he said. That's why I come. I've said my piece. Now if you'll kindly show me, Mr Daunt, where you'd have me sleep, I'll leave you be.

Daunt sat down, stood up again.

I come to ask, Jack said. That I had to do. Up to Mrs Daunt now. And yourself.

But Mrs Daunt had something of a chill in her marrow, because now she could see what was being asked of her, and she was not equal to it.

In an awkward silence we pushed the chairs back, got the rugs to make a shakedown in front of the fire. When it was done we all looked down at it, the rugs and the pillow spread out where Jack would sleep.

The sand on the floor of that cave was like silk through your fingers.

Yes, Daunt said. Goodnight, Mr Langland.

In the bedroom every sound Daunt and I made getting into our nightclothes was as loud as the only sound in the world. In the bed we lay well apart. He blew out the lamp but neither one of us settled for sleep.

To even think of it, he said. To ask! When it might leave a child motherless! Not to mention your husband a widower! And for what?

Hoarse with wanting to shout but having to whisper, because on the other side of the wall Jack lay with the firelight flickering over his face.

A sad old woman sitting by a fire in that place I couldn't imagine, breathing slow through all the days of Jack making the journey here. Waiting for Mrs Daunt. Mrs Daunt, her lucky life that stood with its feet in other peoples' sadness. I had to go, because this was a hand held out to say,
Here is this chance. Take it.

But surely I could not go. Leave my child! Have her grow up with a dead drowned mother who'd gone off with a man come out of the past!

The girl was gone. There was nothing of her left in the world. I could barely remember her face, wondered if I'd ever seen it clear. I'd never thought to ask myself the thing this New Zealand granny wanted to know, how it had all come about, how it had been at the end.

I didn't even know where she was buried. There'd be a headstone somewhere.
Rachel Thornhill
, it would say, and that would be a lie, but there was no one to know any better. That was another kind of shame.

I'd never known the people sleeping by the lagoon. The shame of what had happened there was mine only because of the blood I carried. But the girl was known to me. She'd withered under my eyes while my mind was somewhere else, and that shame belonged to me.

Daunt was asleep, lying apart from me, but a foot found mine in his sleep. I could feel a tremor through it now and then, as if his body was still storming inside. Sadie sighed and rustled in her cot. I slid out of bed, felt my way over to her. Picked her up, she made a little asking noise. Her hand brushed over my face, her head pillowed itself on my shoulder, she slept again.

I stood with her for a long time, feeling her breathing against me. My most precious gift, that I had not earned.

I woke as sudden and complete as if someone had jabbed me. Daunt was still asleep, folded into himself but with one foot still touching mine. The sun had laid a stripe along the dresser. I knew that stripe, watched it every morning as it moved across the doily, shone into the mirror, slid away along the wall. The sun would go on rising out of the hills, making that moving stripe, until the doily and the mirror and the wall were all crumbled away to dust. Even then it would go on rising and setting and shining on other walls, other women, until Sarah Thornhill was forgotten, not even a name in anyone's memory.

I could hear the birds outside, all those tiny lives not knowing they had such a short time to find a mate, make their nests, hatch the chicks.

They didn't know, but I did. Life was not for ever.

You could put a number on the sunrises I'd had. It was a big number, three hundred and sixty-five for every one of the twenty-three years I'd been alive. I was planning on having a good number more, but no one could name that number. Not yet. When I was dead someone would be able to say exactly what that number was. Big or small, it was a particular number.

Every moment that passed, while I lay and watched the sunlight move round the room, was a moment that would never come back.

I counted them. One, two, three. Every one, gone forever.

The stripe of sun got thinner, cut off by the wall. I will go, I thought. Otherwise I'll be dead and it not done.

When Daunt woke up he lay still for so long I thought he must of gone back to sleep.

Sarah dear, he said. I'm frightened to have you go. The thought of losing you to the cold sea. Can't live with that thought. It happens, you know it does. Every day of every week, somewhere on the ocean.

I'll hear him out, I thought. Then I'll tell him. There'll be no arguing. I'll make it clear, my mind's made up, I can do no other. Only go.

If I loved you less I'd forbid you, he said. Tie you to the bedhead and fight that man.

He made a grimace half smile and half wince, picturing that unequal contest.

He was a dear man. I was sorry I'd have to go against him.

But this thing, he said. I can only say to you, this is your choice to make. If you go I'll be in a fret of fear every minute and pray God every day for you to come back safe. But Sarah dear, I'll not stand in your way.

I nearly laughed or wept then, because these were the old words from out of the past.
He told me to tell you, he won't stand in
your way.

PART FOUR

W
HAT A
smelly dirty thing that boat was. The first week at sea was all right, calm seas and sunshine, but then the storm came down on us. Every wave swelled up and broke at the top, the spray flying out ahead of itself, the top of the wave smashed off into foam, and when the boat upended and headed into the hollow between two waves we were so far down the wind fell silent. Didn't know what was worse, the nasty silent thing down in the trough, the water stretched and mottled like a caul, or the scream of the wind on the crest, the boat heaving and shuddering and the foam flying into our faces.