The Star of the Sea (25 page)

Authors: Joseph O'Connor

‘Merridith – ’

‘
My
father fought in the wars that ended slavery throughout the empire. Risked his life. Wounded twice. Proudest thing he ever did. Didn’t ponce on about it, just bloody did it. My mother saved thousands from starvation and death. While your servants were calling you “Little White Massa”. Write one of your imaginary novels about that, old thing.’

‘What the Hell do you mean – imaginary novels?’

‘You know very well what I mean.’

‘Are you calling me a fake, sir?’

‘Fake is a rather coarse American barbarism. More of a sickening liar, really.’

‘Is that right?’

‘Is it wrong? If it is, let me see it, why don’t you?’

‘See what?’

‘Your famous novel. Your great work of art. Or perhaps it simply does not exist. Like your right to lecture others on the crimes they have committed
in order to mask the guilt of your disgusting own
.’

Dixon became aware of the Chief Steward hauling him back. The powerful grip of a man trained in trouble. Two sailors had also come in and were standing behind him. Rain was running down their ragged oilskins. The lights were turned up to a stinging white dazzle. Merridith’s look of repulsion faded to a haughty smirk.

‘Caressed your little nerve, have I Grantley, old thing?’

‘Lord Kingscourt, sir,’ said the steward firmly, ‘I shall have to request that you enjoy yourself in a more peaceful manner.’

‘Of course, Taylor, of course. No difficulty at all. Just a little friendly discussion among fellow oppressors.’

‘We conduct ourselves in a certain manner in the saloon. The Captain feels strongly about standards and such.’

‘I dare say you’re right.’ He slumped back into the alcove and refilled his glass untidily, spilling a slop of port down the crystal stem. ‘Speaking of which, would you be good enough to ask Massa Dixon to vacate the premises immediately?’

The steward looked at him.

‘He is in breach of the rules. A tie is compulsory in the saloon in the evening. As any gentleman would already have known.’

Lord Kingscourt raised his glass and shakily drank, his free hand touching the table as though he thought it might disappear. Perhaps it was merely a trick of the light, but Dixon could have sworn there were tears in his eyes.

When the man with the club-foot had shambled away, Dixon entered the saloon and pushed closed the door to the gusting gale. Merridith was at the gaming table, cutting the cards; sharing a joke with the unsmiling Chief Steward. He was sitting on a stool with his back to the door but when he saw Dixon enter he beckoned in the mirror, still going at the steward like a bore on a train.

‘Do you see,’ he was saying, as Dixon approached, ‘with a very good word-puzzle, it is all in the way the material is composed. To me, the inventor of a pastime is a national treasure. I venerate him as I esteem Victoria Regina Magnifica.’

His face was haggard and he had not shaved. A taint of stale perspiration hung heavily around him, commingling with the odour of rotting meat. A speckling of dandruff lay on the shoulders of his evening jacket. But he was wearing a tie, as was Dixon himself.

‘Good-night, Mr Dixon, sir,’ the Chief Steward said. ‘Your usual bourbon?’

Lord Kingscourt touched Dixon’s arm to prevent reply and said, ‘Fetch up a bottle of Bolly, would you, Taylor old thing? The ’39 if there’s any left.’ He turned to Dixon. ‘The ’24 is preferable but there’s a bit of a drought on. Still, we shall make do as best we can.’

Dixon sat down beside him and looked at the gaming table. He noticed that Merridith had set out the cards not in hands nor in suits; and yet there was clearly a careful system to their arrangement.

‘I’m sort of designing a new set of rules for poker. Little hobby. Played under alphabetical values rather than numerical ones. Bit of fun. Don’t expect it will catch on terribly widely.’

Silence settled. He fanned out the cards.

‘You received my note all right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Decent of you to come. Rather expected you mightn’t. Thought we should sort matters out man to man, as ’twere.’ He gave a strained sigh and peered at the ceiling. ‘Bit out of hand last night, old thing. Surfeit of the demon jungle juice, I expect. I should like to apologise for being such a barbarian. No offence intended to your honourable relative. Quite unnecessary. I am very ashamed.’

‘I’d had a few drinks myself as a matter of fact.’

‘Rather thought you had. Looked positively whey-faced. You colonial sissies simply can’t take it, of course.’

‘You saw the Reverend?’

‘Rather saw me, I’m afraid. And scuttled the other way. Tell you the truth, few enough regrets on that score. Can’t abide them. Any of the crew. For Christ’s sake, where’s that bloody grog?’

‘You’re not a believer?’

His face cricked into a jaded yawn. ‘Might be something all right. Just don’t care for their activities in the unmentionable Famine. Prods capering about the countryside offering tenants tuck if they’ll convert. The other team saying they’ll burn if they take it. I say a plague on both their houses for a confederacy of omadhauns.’ He shot a bleak grin. ‘Irish word. Sorry.’

The steward brought the champagne, opened it and poured two glasses. Merridith clinked Dixon’s – ‘here’s to confession’ – and took a long, luxuriating mouthful.

‘What think’st thou of this poison?’ he asked, raising the glass to his eyes and staring into it suspiciously.

‘I prefer bourbon.’

‘Mm. Do you know – I sometimes wonder if they don’t just slap a vintage label on any old muck. Kind of confidence trick. Half the time we wouldn’t know the difference, I expect. Be sold a pup, I mean.’

‘Tastes all right to me.’

‘Mm. Good. Though I’m not so sure myself.’ He gave a small apologetic belch. ‘Still. Beggars can’t be choosers, after all.’

He refilled both glasses, produced a cigar from his breast pocket; tapped it firmly on the pea-green baize of the table. For a while it seemed to Dixon that he was going to say nothing more. He wondered if he was supposed to bring up the subject himself. Perhaps that was the way these matters were approached in England; the adulterer being expected to open the conversation with the husband. England was a place of many mysterious rules. Even its cuckoldries were choreographed.

‘Merridith, you said in your note that there was a reason you wished to see me. A certain important matter you wanted to discuss.’

Lord Kingscourt turned to him and smiled placidly, though his eyes were weary and streaked with redness. ‘Hm?’

‘Your note.’

‘Ah. Sorry. Miles away.’

He reached into his pocket and placed a book on the table.

‘You left it on the bar. Last night. When you departed. Thought you’d rather like to have it back.’

He flipped open the cover and removed from the frontispiece a folded-up banknote that had been serving as bookmark.

WUTHERING HEIGHTS
by Ellis Bell

T.C. NEWBY
&
CO
.
1847

‘The prodigal returns to his master,’ he grunted, through a dense mouthful of deep grey smoke.

‘That’s all you wanted? To give me a book?’

Merridith shrugged listlessly. ‘Whatever else did you think?’

‘Keep it.’

‘Wouldn’t want to deprive you of aesthetic pleasure, old thing.’

‘I’ve read it already.’

‘Mm. Me too.’ Kingscourt nodded gravely as he pocketed the volume. ‘Half-way through in one sitting. Last night. Damn near made me weep at times. And then it put the willies up me so much I couldn’t sleep. Sat up till nearly dawn this morning devouring the
rest. Gifted bloody blighter, this Bell cove, ain’t he. The darkness and so on. It’s quite preternatural. Rubs the words together till the sparks quite fly.’

‘How do you mean?’

He gave a stare of bemused curiosity.

‘Well you know – just that it’s magnificent. Didn’t you find? Work of bloody genius, if you want an illiterate’s view.’ He took a long drink and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. ‘My God, I found it simply – I don’t say that all the critics will care for it. Probably they won’t, jealous little peasants. One or two of them fuelled by their own failure, of course. You know the type I mean, I expect. But they shan’t ignore it, not one of them in London. New York either, if it comes to that.’

Merridith’s eyes stared at him from above the rim of the glass: unblinking. He put it down slowly and pulled on his cigar. Again he picked up the cards and began to shuffle them.

‘Christ the
stoniness
, do you know. The nothingness. Well it’s so clearly Connemara despite the clever way it’s disguised. Connemara, Yorkshire, all poor places. And yet it’s something else again. A kind of universal philosophical state. Keatsian in a sense. Didn’t you feel? The recurring motif of landscape as almost sentient; the way he’s
characterised
it, I mean. Where a second-team man would merely describe, like some Grub Street lush with the ability to raid a thesaurus.’

‘Merridith – ’

‘Know him at all? The talented Mr Bell?’

‘No.’

‘If you ever bump up against him, you must tell him he has a devotee. You might do, mightn’t you? In your literary ramblings?’

‘I’m given to understand it’s a pseudonym, actually.’

‘Aha. I thought so.
In vino ventas
.’ He chuckled and brushed the cigar ash from the sleeves of his jacket. ‘Just waiting to see if you’d own up to your baby.’

‘Own up?’

‘I know when I’m licked. I take it all back.’ Lord Kingscourt put down his glass and grasped Dixon’s right hand – ‘You’re a better man than I had you down for, Mr Bell. Many congratulations. You’re an artist. At last.’

‘Merridith – ’

He gave a curt laugh and shook his head. ‘And do you know, I always thought you were simply an idiot, Dixon. You know, one of those amateurs just out to impress with mediocre short stories and cliché-ridden hackery. A dabbler who would stoop to any depth to be admired, even to using the agonies of the dying to set yourself up. But now – well, now I see the full truth of exactly what you are. The clouds have entirely lifted from my eyes.’

‘Look, Merridith – ’

‘Such an extraordinary insight into the female psyche, too. And of course – we both know whom your heroine is based on. A remarkably loving portrait; I thought so anyway. You’ve captured her quite uncannily. You don’t mind if I give it to her, do you? Or perhaps you’d rather give it to her yourself. She’d enjoy that even more, I dare say.’

‘Merridith, for God’s sake, I am not Ellis Bell.’

‘No,’ smiled Lord Kingscourt icily. ‘You’re not, old thing, are you?’

Dixon felt the splatter of champagne in his face before he had even seen him lift the glass. By the time he had managed to wipe his smarting eyes Merridith was standing behind him and drying his cuffs with a napkin. He was trying not to shake, but his rage was making it difficult. When finally he spoke, his voice came hoarsely.

‘Come near my children’s mother again and I’ll cut your throat. You understand me?’

‘Go to Hell. If they’ll have you there.’

‘Go where, old love?’

‘You heard me, you bastard.’

The punch smashed Dixon clean to the floor, spattering blood and saliva down the front of his jacket. The Chief Steward came running over and Merridith shoved him away. Picked up Dixon’s glass and drained it dry. Tremblingly placed it back on the bar.

‘Nugget of advice if one might, Little Bwana. Next time you play with the devil, try to have a good hand.’

And he spat; the Earl. He spat on his enemy. And his enemy wiped the spit from his face.

Dear son, I loved my native home with energy and pride,

Till a blight came over all my crops; my sheep and cattle died.

My rent and taxes were too high, I could not them redeem;

It’s not the only reason why I left old Skibbereen.

For it’s well I do remember that bleak December day,

When the landlord and his sheriff came to drive us all away.

They set our house on fire, with their cruel, foreign spleen;

And that’s another reason why I left old Skibbereen.

Oh father dear, the day will come in answer to the call,

When Irishmen both brave and bold will rally one and all;