The Specimen (24 page)

“I don’t quite understand. Rot, insect damage—these a little, perhaps. We manage to keep on top of it, just. The problem of rust is no more or less trouble.”

“You admit that rust is a problem though. You must beware of rust.”

She laughed, uneasy at his serious face, thinking that he was far more peculiar than she had imagined. “We keep everything well oiled, you may be sure, Mr Coyne.”

“You do understand my meaning?”

“I think I do.”

“Fine then, that’s settled.” He peeled his orange. “Mrs Scales, I would have loved to see you in English society, hosting one of those ‘at homes’ which people
seem to go in for.”

“I doubt you would have enjoyed yourself, Mr Coyne, even if I had. I think you would have found yourself in rather boring company.”

There followed an awkward pause and then he said, “What do your family make of your leaving England for such noble causes as art and science?”

“I have only a sister. She thinks very little of any of it.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to open wounds.”

Gwen had been avoiding his gaze; now she glanced at him, “You haven’t.”

The morning was fresh as they set off along the road. Gwen tucked her arm into Maria’s and they walked like that all the way.

Maria bought bread, dried saltfish, bacon, a jar of oil, tomatoes and peppers. Gwen stayed at her side trying to catch phrases and words of what was said, but she was distracted. Being part of a
crowd again after her quiet months with only Edward and Maria for company made her edgy, alert. She was thrilled at the variety of different faces, all absorbed in their own errands or
conversations. Her gaze darted, unable to rest on a single thing or person for very long. Her arm was growing tired from holding the basket of Maria’s purchases, but there was nowhere to put
it down safely. The ringing of church bells filled the air as it had on her very first morning in Pará: some festival was going on that week, Maria had told her. Would she like to go to one
of the services? Gwen had been unsure but now she thought that if Maria mentioned it again perhaps she might, after all.

“Mrs Scales, may I?”

She started at the sound of his voice and turned. Gwen looked up into the smiling face of Gus Pemberton. His pale linen jacket, newly pressed and reflecting the light, made her shade her eyes
with her hand. She let him take her basket.

He said, “Are you here alone?”

“Mr Pemberton. How well you look. I came with Maria, I fancied a walk.” She was conscious of herself beginning to babble. She was blushing. She teetered on the heat of it, and chided
herself for being so pathetic.

“I always get the day’s provisions myself. I can’t be sitting around in the morning waiting for my breakfast. I’d much rather go out and buy it myself.”

Gus Pemberton’s talk was easy and he smiled again. She felt stupid under his gaze. Gwen saw that he had some packages under his arm. “I was under the impression—” She
felt confused; he didn’t seem like someone recovering from an illness at all; certainly not the malingerer that Vincent had reported. She said, “I mean, it’s very lively, for such
an early hour. We have a rather more sedate existence.”

“Yes. I do prefer it after the detachment of an excursion. Will you have breakfast? You can enjoy the scene from my windows without having to be in the middle of it.”

Gus Pemberton’s apartments were on the corner of a long row of imposing but dilapidated buildings near the port. Its first-floor windows gave an aspect out over the port and across the
streets. Gwen looked down at the market vendors in the sun and the sharply contrasting shade cast by the buildings. She could see how easily Mr Pemberton would have spotted her parasol in the
crowd; how quick he might have been in going down there to buy himself a loaf of bread before accosting her. The smell of toast, bacon and coffee mingled with Mr Pemberton’s cigarette smoke
and drifted around her. It was not an acrid smoke but pleasingly sweet; not the tobacco smell she was used to. Gwen’s stomach rumbled loudly. She was glad that he had no servant. His
preference, not a circumstance. His preference then, had given her the opportunity to compose herself.

There was something about his unspoken experience which left her feeling even more intimidated now that she was alone with him. And she did not want to admit that Vincent had been to see her.
She looked over her shoulder towards the open door. There was nothing about the man to suggest that he was capable of malingering. He was whistling a tune. Though perhaps malingerers whistled: she
did not know. Something complicated, and too high for his mouth and tongue to register. Perhaps it was part of an aria from an opera; and a giggle rose uncontrollably in her throat as she recalled
the amateur operatic ladies’ performance. She was reminded suddenly of the surprise she had felt, a long time past, it seemed now, when she had learned that female voices could break. And the
remembered surprise could not be dissociated from the look of bewilderment on her mother’s face. Gwen let her mother’s face slide away. She had not said yesterday to Vincent that her
mother would have revelled in her daughter’s desire to travel; nor had she said that her mother would have made it impossible to leave Euphemia behind. She told herself Euphemia would never
have come with her, even had she been asked. Had she been different.

She would have liked to ask Gus Pemberton things that she had not thought to ask Captain Swithin. But, in between sips of coffee, black and punchingly bitter, she was still paralysed by this
shyness. He smiled at her. Gwen consumed her breakfast in a state of extreme hunger. It was difficult not to appear ravenous as she bit into the crisp toast and salty bacon. He squeezed oranges
over a greenish glass tumbler on the table. He pushed it over to her. “Mind the pips, you can spit them out onto your plate.” Gwen gulped the juice, swallowing the pips.

He said, “I admire your tenacity.”

She laughed, dispossessed finally of some of her shyness. “For not spitting?”

“For not staying in England; for following your husband in his work. And, I may say, for your reputation. It precedes you, Mrs Scales.” Gwen blanched a little at the connection of
Edward to work. It had not occurred to her that what he was doing was associated with the word. A vocation. “Of course,” he continued, mistaking her discomfort for something else,
“it is yours as much as his. I have known couples whose combined efforts would have amounted to nothing without the female part of the equation.”

“In our case that remains to be seen.”

“Forgive me, that did not sound as I intended it. I don’t mean to cast any doubt over your husband’s own tenacity. But do not take this the wrong way. As amateurs you have set
out on an equal footing. You have an enquiring and, I believe, determined character, Mrs Scales, that I know already. And talented as you are with the paint-box, I cannot imagine that your part of
the venture will ultimately be restricted to such.”

“Mr Pemberton, may I ask you a personal question?”

Gus leaned back in his chair, and crossed his ankle over his knee.

“Have you ever had malaria?” She watched his face for a sign.

He uncrossed his ankle and reached for the coffee pot. “Fortunately, not for a long time. You mustn’t worry about contracting it here, if that is what the question is
about.”

She watched his hands and then met his gaze. “It wasn’t.”

“I was wondering if you might mention the rather famous tussle over your microscope.”

“Famous?” Gwen was at once mortified and confused.

“Oh, perhaps not famous—you mustn’t worry about it. You are held in very high regard here, you know, for standing your ground. Marcus Frome was never an easy person to get
along with.”

“You know him?”

He paused. “Ah . . . not as such. I don’t think anyone could ever have known him, really.”

“Well, I am glad that he went back to England.”

“Mrs Scales, did your husband not tell you? I’m sorry to have brought it up. I thought you knew.”

“Knew about what?”

“Marcus Frome went missing from the ship. No one can be sure of the precise point of the voyage, but, two weeks out, some other passenger was in need of a doctor and—he simply
wasn’t to be found.”

Gwen gazed at Gus Pemberton in mute disbelief. It seemed too ridiculous. She’d thought of him sometimes, and wondered if he really had been as desperate as he had seemed. “Mr
Pemberton, I’m—thank you for telling me.” Gwen sat in stunned silence for a moment.

“I came with the news on Old Year’s Night,” he said gently. “I had thought that your husband would have wanted to tell you as soon as possible.”

Gwen recalled the excuse Mr Pemberton had used to get Edward to go outside. Fumigating the amphibians.

“A lot of news escapes my attention, Mr Pemberton.
The Times
frequently has sections missing before it comes to me.”

“That’s—regrettable.”

“I can’t believe that a man would do such a thing over—such a
dreadful
thing to do, Mr Pemberton, over a microscope of all objects.”

“Please, you must not think for a minute, Mrs Scales, that it was for want of a microscope that the man threw himself overboard.”

“Well, whatever am I to suppose? He made it very clear that he believed—”

“What Marcus Frome believed and what was fact did not always sit harmoniously; you must not dwell on it.”

“I can’t help but dwell on it. Mr Frome was convinced that he was on the point of a momentous discovery.”

“Suppose then, that he had been. Giving him your microscope would not have helped him. He would have needed to borrow everything you have, and more.” He leaned forward on the edge of
his seat, resting his elbows on his knees. “And, frankly, Mrs Scales, he was not a lucky man. Do set your mind at ease.”

She wanted to change the subject. “I have been —” she said, her voice rising. “I was led to believe that you were very ill.”

Gus threw himself back into his chair, “Ach, this is about Vincent. I knew he had been to see you yesterday. I think you came into town to find me?”

Gwen shrugged her shoulders. “Perhaps I did.”

“Whatever he has told you, you mustn’t feel let down by his inconsistencies. He means well, I can assure you of that.”

“You are not hurt that he has lied about you.”

“He meant no harm by it. But I feel I must be straight with you. He and I have come to blows over the direction of our own travels. We have agreed to go our separate ways.”

“Then why did he not tell me that?”

“It may have been my fault. I told him to say what he liked about me. That he only cites me as being ill is reassuring.”

“Your disagreement was serious.”

“In the light of day, on a morning such as this, it would sound petty in the retelling.”

Gwen was surprised that a man like Gus Pemberton would admit to describing a disagreement like that. His openness pulled her in. “I feel deceived. I feel now that I have spent hours
talking to an actor.”

“Well, we are all actors, Mrs Scales—whether we think it or not. Even as our truest selves, even when alone with our thoughts.” Gus Pemberton took up a piece of rind and
nibbled off a small portion. He played it around his mouth for a while. Gwen waited. After some time, he said, “In essence, it was about our authority, as outsiders, to disregard boundaries.
I, I should say no more about it.” His smile was apologetic.

“I’m sorry.”

“Ach, no need to be.” Gus Pemberton paused. Then, “He and I were not simply exploring. We were prospecting. Diamonds, gold. That is our business. Partnerships like ours, they
come to blows sooner or later.” His tone was light. “It is no great tragedy.”

“What will you do now?” Gwen felt small in the light of his candid speech. A man can be more than one thing if he chooses, she thought. He does not have to define himself by his
means of survival.

Gus said, “I am undecided. There is some property in Scotland, which I must dispose of, and then, after a suitable period, perhaps take my stick to pastures new. Maybe New
Zealand.”

“And what do you think Mr Coyne will do, without you to guide him?”

Gus Pemberton hesitated. “I think he should go back, precarious as times are. Perhaps in twelve or eighteen months he will be ready to return if he wishes.”

“Mr Pemberton,” she said.

“Gus, please. Call me Gus, won’t you?”

“Gus. Mr Coyne has said that he will help me find someone.”

“Indeed, he has.”

“I don’t know how to put it, but I don’t wish to find anyone. And I don’t quite understand how.”

“How?”

“I have never mentioned anything about finding any person, ever, to anyone at all. Not a soul. And as far as I know, neither has Edward. And so—”

“He’s talked to me, on occasions, at great length about this. I have understood that it has been widely known.”

Gwen’s hands fluttered at her throat and then fell back down to twist in her lap. “Mr Pemberton, Gus. If I tell you something, I believe you will preserve the integrity of that
thing. I don’t know you at all, but I have to tell you that this person, the search, is just a fabrication. No one needs to find her. In fact, I don’t believe she even exists. At least,
not in the temporal world.”

“I can see that it upsets you. Would you rather not speak about it?”

“I merely wanted one other person to know.” She searched his face for any glimmer of amusement. There was none. “Gus, how could Mr Coyne possibly have come to believe anything
so ridiculous and so specific?”

“That, I can’t pretend to know the answer to.”

“He is your companion. You must know each other very well.”

“Mrs Scales, please understand. I will keep this to myself, I fully comprehend your anxiety—but Vincent, he . . . Look, we met, quite by chance, some few years back in Australia, and
I took him on. He had a letter of recommendation from a fellow I used to know. We travelled, prospecting, and then later here, in Brazil and after, we parted ways—I had thought for
good—until we met again, quite by chance in the spring of ’59 and—it really isn’t important. What is important is that Vincent will be leaving again, quite soon, and so you
will have no need to bother about anything but your work.”