Tidetown (28 page)

‘There's a button loose on that sleeve of yours,' says Mrs M in a mock-alarmed voice. ‘It's dangling,' she says, shaking a pointed finger to emphasise.

Joshua looks down at his cuff, and, sure enough, there is the culprit, hanging from a single thread.

‘Give it here,' says Mrs M, as she reaches to a shelf above the pots and pans where she keeps her needles and thread (and balls of string, and empty greaseproof bags, old Christmas wrapping paper and assorted objects of potential future usefulness). ‘These may be trying times, but there are standards to maintain, Mr Barnum, standards.'

When Mrs April tells Brother Saviour about her ideas for the children he smiles and listens, yet says nothing. He continues with his pruning of the cherry tree, taking great pride in the care and attention he gives to each cut, knowing his handiwork will be reflected in the plumpness and succulence of next summer's crop.

‘I was reading about the first abbot's idea of “community” and thinking about our conversation on the beach. Brother Alphonso felt that religious groups were becoming too separate from the people. He must have known of the Desert Fathers, because he writes about their desire for separateness, exclusion, something he was clear would not be the ethos here. What Alphonso called for was an opening up of the monastery grounds. To let the townsfolk see what goes on behind the high brick walls. Especially for children who might be mystified or scared. Look at what he writes,' she says, opening up the small leather-bound volume. ‘Here it is. “How strange we must look to the children of the town, our cassocks and gowns. How frightened they might be to hear our chanting in the early hours of the morning. Let's open our monastery, our gardens, tell stories and have fun with them”. Did it ever happen, I wonder?' she adds. ‘I scoured the following entries for that year, but there's no record of such an activity. Brother Saviour, did you ever hear if any such event took place?'

He smiles at the synchronicity, looking up to the skies and the gathering together of the clouds.

‘You can guarantee that as soon as you touch the watering can the clouds will have a joke with you and give you a good soaking before you get to the vegetable patch. Would you believe me if I told you I was only yesterday thinking the very same thing? To hold an event. Once this cruel disease passes. And then this very next day you bring the idea from so long ago.'

‘Strange how things seem to tie together. That which Brother Alphonso imagined brought to life.'

‘Centuries later.'

‘Linking us all together. And we can start with the children we have with us here.'

Brother Saviour stands up tall, stretching his back, giving Mrs April that querying look she is becoming familiar with.

‘You needn't ask,' she says, looking skyward as an arrow of swans squawk and flap overhead. ‘I'd be more than happy to bring it all together. I think, divine intervention aside, it is what Brother Alphonso would have expected.'

It is at the dinner table that the mayor always hopes to connect with his daughter. When she was littler he would pull faces, pretend the food was poisoned, or make a paper dart out of a place card and fly it through the air from one end of the table to the other. She would always whoop and laugh at his antics and he felt so young, so vibrant. His wife, Angelica's mother, would look stern, unimpressed by such bad manners at the table.

‘That is no example to set a young lady,' she would say. ‘You are her father, not the court jester.' And Angelica would snigger under her serviette and the mayor would stick out his tongue when her mother looked away. He thought it would always be thus. But her mother died young, Angelica grew up and something indefinable shifted between them. Dinner together is now often a time of comfortless silence. So this night, with a storm raging outside and lightning flashing in and out of the room, it is a great surprise to the mayor when Angelica enters with a smile on her lips and a kiss for his cheek.

‘I'm so hungry,' she says, ‘what's for dinner?'

‘Um,' he says, so used to her slinking to her place and then sitting head down in a sullen mood.

‘Em … Anna,' he says to the maid, standing nearby. ‘What is on the menu tonight?'

‘Braised lamb, sir, with roast potatoes and garden peas,' she replies with the slightest of curtseys, for she too is seldom spoken to at dinner.

‘Yummy,' enthuses Angelica, a roll of thunder rumbling somewhere over the bay. ‘And how was your day, today, Papa?'

‘Oh, the plague. It's all about the plague and then we met to discuss the plague,' he says, but then shakes his head. ‘Not something to talk about over dinner, my dear.'

The food arrives and Anna places the platters of food in the middle of the table.

‘But Daddy, you told me about the children going to the monastery. When will they go?'

‘Soon,' says the mayor, ladling peas onto his daughter's plate. ‘There have been many delays. Procedural. Ethical. Complicated. But it will happen. Soon.'

‘I'd like to go too, to help out. To be useful.'

Angelica looks up for her father's reaction. She can read him well. The way he strokes his jowls means he's considering it. The slight shift of the eyes to the right shows he thinks it's a good idea. The tap with the fingertip on the side of the head means he's lodging the suggestion as one of his own. She need say no more about it.

‘This lamb is delicious,' she says, smacking her lips, her smile lit up by a sudden flash of lightning that brightens the room.

Perch is deep in thought. Angelica is opposite her in the back room (the Sacristy) of the croft, standing to attention, awaiting instructions.

‘So you persuaded the mayor that you can go too,' says Perch. ‘That is good. When will the children be sent? For how long?'

Angelica lowers her head, anticipating Perch's wrath, aware she does not know enough.

‘I'm not sure. He just said it would be soon,' she whispers apologetically.

Perch bites on a fingernail, a characteristic she has developed in recent days.

‘We cannot lose ground with these children. They are our future. They cannot disappear.'

She thinks harder. Bites her nail with more intent.

After Angelica leaves, Perch retreats to the Sacristy. For an hour she sits in quiet contemplation, waiting and praying for a visitation from the Archangel. Her mind wanders to thoughts of her absent sister, she who was so much part of all that Perch has striven for. A sense of loss wafts over Perch, but she pushes it aside.
There can be no distraction, no deviation
, she thinks.
The moment is close at hand
.

She reaches up to the top shelf of the bookcase and takes down the pile of handwritten papers that she and Carp had lovingly, painstakingly, compiled in their prison cell.
Even if Carp now thinks she never saw him, never heard him speak, these words came from somewhere. They came from him
. Late into the night she pours over the text, looking for new instructions, new directions. It is past dawn before she lies down on her bed, her mind and soul fortified, her resolve firmly realigned.

On the following day Angelica falls sick. As the doctor leaves her bedroom he is confronted by the mayor, who has been frantically pacing up and down the corridor.

‘Is it?' he asks anxiously.

‘No … no, it is not,' says the doctor, as he folds his stethoscope and drops it into his battered leather bag. ‘She has an influenza and must rest. Keep her indoors, warm as toast, and give her three pints of fresh cow's milk each day.'

‘Thank you, doctor, thank you,' says the mayor, as he guides his companion towards the top of the staircase, pressing two gold sovereigns into his hand.

‘Milk and rest,' repeats the doctor.

Back in the bedroom Angelica is delirious, dreaming of horses and broken glass vases and mudslides that slip out of reach.

Next morning Perch is by her bedside.

‘Perch,' says Angelica, surprised to see her.

‘Your father sent a four horse coach for me. He said you were calling out my name in the night. That you needed me.'

Angelica moves her hand to the outside of the blankets, but Perch makes no effort to hold it.

‘He says the children are now being readied to go to the monastery, but that you are not well enough to join them. That you must rest.'

‘I am so weak,' says Angelica, her fingers twitching for compassion.

‘There is no time for weakness. No time to lose. Carp will take your place. You will tell your father. Today.'

And then she is gone, as if she was never meant to be there.