Tidetown (22 page)

‘One point that seems to have emerged,' he says, ‘and this is corroborated by cases across the province, is that only adults have been stricken by this plague. No children have yet been reported to have died, or even to have become sick.'

Eyebrows, some quite bushy, most quite grey, are raised, as the members mumble asides to their neighbours.

‘What, good doctor, in your opinion, should we be planning?' asks the mayor, standing at the head of the table, the military strategist overseeing the war cabinet.

‘There is a rumour, more than hearsay I hope, that the province's pre-eminent scientists have developed a vaccine that will halt the spread of infection,' says Professor Wells.

He looks around, raises his own bushy grey eyebrows and then lifts his hands in resignation.

‘This plague strikes so quickly we cannot even isolate cases as they become infected. Mr Duke, as you know, is with us today. He is from the Provincial Medical Office and has conducted an extensive tour of the province. I give him the floor.'

Mr Duke rises from his seat. He is a young man who studied economics and not medicine. He knows the cost of sickness and death rather than their pain. His youthful, handsome good looks and easy smile belie a ruthless detachment and a calculating mind.

‘I have been sent here by the provincial governor to assess the need and readiness of our major towns to receive the limited and precious help that is available. It is clear to me that there is an emerging epidemic here in Tidetown that will have a critical impact on the productivity of the population. Tidetown's fisheries, its pre-eminence as a port, not to mention its rich agricultural hinterland, must not be allowed to deteriorate due to an unacceptable depletion of its human stock. By a great irony I shared the coach journey with an unfortunate lady who has since passed away as a result of contracting the plague. In short, the pestilence is among you.'

The mayor turns back to the window. He needs to think and he needs to hide his indecision. He looks out. The old lady has moved on. There's something about the empty space she has left behind that unnerves him. He swallows, feels the dryness in his throat, and cannot but help wonder if that itself is a symptom.

‘Of one matter I am convinced,' continues Professor Wells, raising his voice so all can hear, ‘the children must be moved to safety. I have had too much experience of these epidemics to be anything but cautious. The children seem to be immune, but a virus can change and so can its target.'

‘Where to?' asks the mayor on cue, moving away from the window. ‘Where is safety?'

‘I have a solution,' says Professor Wells, as if this has just occurred to him. ‘The most obvious refuge is the monastery across the causeway, where physical isolation, and maybe the hand of God, can provide protection.'

‘Into the care of the monks?' queries the mayor, stroking his chin, aware that the monastery on the Island of Good Hope is one of the very few locations where he has no influence.

Over the following days more and more adults are struck down. Visitors pass the virus to kith and kin. Once the disease erupts most die before the night is out. Some see the dawn, but all minds are racked with delirium and all bodies writhe in uncontrollable spasms. None lie quiet, and the screams and profanities common in the death rattle disturb even the closest and most loving of families.

‘The things coming from his mouth on his deathbed,' whispers Mrs Benn to her sister at her own husband's funeral, ‘you'd think were from the devil's tongue.'

‘He was not himself,' consoles Mary, her sister.

‘No, for sure, that has to be my only comfort,' sobs Mrs Benn as she watches the grave consume the man who only three days prior had swum into the fiercest of river currents to retrieve one of their best milkers.

‘Sadness heaped on sadness. Is this the work of Satan himself?'

The night before he is due to leave on the next stagecoach to Bray, Mr Duke notices a sore on the inside of his mouth and a swollen lump under his armpit. Lying in his hotel bed, he rues his decision of a week earlier to delay the offer of the vaccination in order to complete his tour of duty without being hampered by side effects. Come morning his handsome features will be hidden beneath raging sores, his place on the stagecoach will remain empty, and Miss Antoinette Cartier, his fiancée, will wear the widow's black before ever becoming a bride.

‘I can't see him, sister,' says Carp, so quiet, almost as if in a whispered prayer.

‘What do you mean? He's there,' demands Perch. ‘… There! …' she points, the beatific image in the corner of the room, so powerful, so enlightening, so present for her.

Carp looks into the shadows, feeling empty, utterly inadequate.

‘There's nothing there. I don't think I've ever really seen him. I've never seen him,' she mumbles, hardly believing her words, her defiance: her attempt at honesty.

Perch contains her shock, holds back her disdain. She casts an icy stare at her sister, suddenly seeing something in Carp that is not herself: it is traced with weakness, brindled with uncertainty.

She looks back to the vision: the Archangel Gabriel, so tangible, so majestic, inflamed in gold, diffused in reverence. She looks at her sister, casting her in a different light.

‘You say you have never seen him? Not even once?'

Carp gulps, the words scratching at her throat.

‘No, not even one time,' she utters, head bowed, in shame and sadness. ‘I tried to. I really did try to.'

‘All those times in the prison cell when you wrote down the words he sent you?'

‘I dreamt,' splutters Carp. ‘I dreamt them up. I wanted to see him. Truly, I wanted to see him.'

‘Then I am the one, the chosen one,' says her sister, standing over the shrinking figure of her twin. ‘And you will do my bidding. You will.'

‘Yes, sister. I will,' she says looking up obediently. ‘I will do your bidding.'

‘As fecund and sumptuous a row of baby marrows as I have seen in my lifetime, Mrs M.'

Mrs M need not get up from laying straw between the rows of cloches to know that the voice and sentiment belong to Joshua Barnum.

‘I am an orphan, Mrs M,' says Joshua in a casual voice. Mrs M looks up to see Mr Barnum pulling at the collar of his shirt, then tugging on his cravat.

‘When my father died,' he says, ‘I felt little. But my mother …' he looks around for meaning in the shrubbery, solace in the hedgerow. Mrs M frowns.

‘So sorry for your loss, my dear Mr Barnum. Ah, our mothers. God rest their souls,' replies Mrs M, crossing herself, the mud from her trowel marking her blouse. ‘From time immemorial. She who held us, fed us from the milk of her bosom. Stood between us and the ravages and dangers of the world. Whose lot it was to suffer for her children.'

‘How beautifully put, Mrs M,' says Barnum, his hat to his chest as if in church. ‘Yet such a cruel death. So brutal.'

Mrs M sighs deeply, makes another sign of the cross, then closes her eyes in silent prayer.

‘May God take your mother in his arms. There is no consolation. But find some solace in the fact that you are not alone, my good friend. Every day more of our townsfolk succumb to this terrible disease.'

‘Sweeping, sweeping,' says Barnum, his outstretched arms taking in the surrounds. ‘A grim reaper indeed.'

‘What to do? What to do?' adds Mrs M with a deep sigh.

As they speak, no more than a furlong distance, Mr Tolley the baker scratches a sore on his forehead. He feels the crack of the skin and the ooze of the pus. Tentatively he examines the sticky fluid on his fingernail. Come morning, another Tidetown family will be without a father and the master baker will take his place in the cemetery next to Joshua's mother.

When Perch sleeps, for even twins can sometimes sleep in solitude, Carp leaves the house, stealthily, noiselessly. Outside, the sky is a swarm of stars, no moon in sight. She walks barefoot, the cold grass caressing her feet and ankles. The earth is soft, she feels connected. There's a rustle in the leaves overhead, some movement, some scurrying from the undergrowth below. For the first time in her short life Carp feels a sense of being herself, yet at one and the same time being a part of all that surrounds her: the sights, the smells, the sensations.

Staring up at the swaying branches silhouetted against the night sky, almost trance-like, she becomes aware of another presence. Instinctively she turns around to see the outline of a boy at the edge of the copse.

‘It's alright,' he says, sensing her surprise, her fear. ‘I'm just out for a night walk myself. It's my favourite time.'

The boy walks slowly towards her, and, even though the night is dark, she recognises his silhouette.
It is the Spider boy
, she thinks,
the one they say is from the gutter
.

Spider reaches out an offering.

‘I have some berries. Would you like some?'

Against all she has learned of distrust, she picks a blackberry from the boy's hand and puts it in her mouth. The taste is exquisitely sweet, somehow more immediate with the cold night air mingling with her breath.

‘It is lovely to walk out at night,' says the boy, looking around, his outstretched arms taking in the woods, ‘to be a part of the world.'

Carp looks him in the eye, suddenly terrified at what marvellous truth he might impart. She turns from him, swallowing deep some darkness, breathing in some freshness. Then she lifts up her skirts and runs back towards the house, the taste of the berry in her mouth, a new sense of the world spinning through her mind.

Another night. Something wakes her. The flutter of a dream? The wind moving across the windowpane? Whatever the cause, she is wide-eyed and alert. She looks and listens, her head still on the pillow. Across the room she sees the shape of her sister, sleeping deeply. Carp rises quietly from the bed and walks to the window. In the garden below all is in shadow. Then there, leaning against the box elder, she sees the figure she recognises in an instant. Moving away from the tree, Spider looks up at her and beckons her to join him. Then he retreats, leaving a question behind. Carp looks beyond the garden to the smudge of the skyline and the hint of an answer.