Tidetown (39 page)

Judge Omega and the colonel are tied and bound together, locked in a woodshed deep in the forest. They are exhausted, slumped on the ground, back to back on either side of a thick wooden post, uncertain as to what might happen next.

‘I think we've said all we have to say,' whispers the judge.

The colonel, head slumped on his chest, sighs as he runs the images of the attack through his mind, over and again, wondering what he might have done better.

‘No. Words can't help us now,' he murmurs.

Outside all seems still and quiet. The two, each in his own thoughts, in his own sense of himself, listen out nonetheless. Tiredness and the need to forget take over and in time they find a way to sleep.

When the colonel drifts away, his dream whispers the lost thoughts of the hussars. Appearing from the mist. Young faces. Eyes longing. Lives that will never live to an age.

‘Evil is a colour,' says one, his wound sighing a blooded sigh
.

‘When my baby boy is born I will call him Baptiste, with curly blond hair,' cries the death pang of his comrade
.

‘My horse is my lover, nostrils that flare and steam,' reminisces the first cavalryman to fall
.

The dreaming colonel steps down from the carriage. The door creaks on its hinges. He looks left, right, seeking out the man in the bearskin coat; the man with the bark of a silver birch for a face. But the fringe of the forest is empty of men. Three gigantic wolves look out from the foliage, eyes on fire, ears pricked, ready to spring. The colonel has a bow and arrow, but the pain from the musket shot lodged deep in the socket of his shoulder disables him. Try as he will, he cannot raise his arm to aim. He glances down. The earth is covered in straw that wriggles with lice and fleas. When he looks up the wolves are gone. The forest is gone. There in line, in dress uniform, is his troop of hussars, flanked by his father and grandfather
.

‘Attention, Baptiste,' says his father
.

‘Charge!' yells his grandfather, now in the saddle of his famous grey stallion, ‘I will scythe them down like wheat in the fields,' galloping forward, brandishing his sabre. The wolves reappear and the old warrior chops and slices at them until they meld into a heap of bloodied flesh
.

‘By the left,' chants Corporal Lorenzo Ardilles, ‘quick march!'

The hussars stand, in full regalia, facing the colonel. Each has an arrow protruding from his heart
.

‘No blood,' mouths the young colonel silently, tears flooding down his face
.

‘Blood to blood,' says Corporal Lorenzo Ardilles, holding his smiling baby boy at arm's length. He kisses the baby's bare tummy and the infant giggles and laughs
.

‘Evil is a seamstress,' says Lorenzo
.

‘I will hold the world at bay,' shouts a trooper
.

‘My sister is an ocean,' whispers another, his lips upon the colonel's ear
.

Then all enfolds and the colonel is back in the carriage. It is stuffed with foul-smelling straw. He feels as if he is suffocating; on the brink of expiring. He knows the judge is somewhere close by, elsewhere in his dream
.

He hears his muffled voice. ‘The heart is a butterfly,' softly, pleading
.

‘Evil is inaction,' is what the colonel hears, is how the judge accuses the world
.

He wakes to the sound of the fire crackling through the wooden walls of the shed. He is choking on thick smoke. Judge Omega looks at him. His expression is that of resignation, acceptance.

‘Is this evil?' asks the colonel, gasping for air, precious few breaths left.

‘Evil is as evil does, my friend,' says Judge Omega, himself close to the end. ‘Let's hope these flames are short-lived and not eternal.'

In his palatial bedroom Mayor Bruin lies among the satin sheets, staring up at the ceiling. Although the dreaded sickness has eluded him, he is plagued by thoughts of his future. Around the bed he has gathered the wealth he has squirrelled away in chests and trunks. There are property deeds, bank bonds, debtors' notes, eight gold bars and his collection of antique pocket watches. He reaches out and lays his hand on the cold metal clasp of one of the boxes. He grips it tight. He recalls the townsfolk who owe him money and favours. He sees their wan and wasted faces, covered in sores and spots, and wonders if he will ever redeem the debts due him. In despair, maybe even in hope of his own redemption, he calls out, ‘God, save us from devastation. Save me.'

As she walks past the summer house behind the monastery lawn, Carp can hear a whimpering. She moves closer, her footsteps crunching on the gravel, and the soft cries become more distinct. When she slowly opens the door and looks inside, the small child in the corner yelps and turns to face the wall.

‘What's wrong?' says Carp, edging towards the child who she recognises as Florence, the hatmaker's daughter.

‘No!' cries out Florence, her face pressed against the wall, ‘… the angel!'

Carp takes a step back.

‘What is the matter, sweetheart?' she asks gently.

‘I only wanted the cake and lemonade,' sobs Florence. ‘I never wanted to see the angel. But Angelica said we would … and so did you. And now you are here and it will come with you.'

‘No,' says Carp with a deep sigh, measuring her words with the greatest of care. ‘There is no angel.'

Florence, still pressed against the wall, looks over her shoulder. ‘But you said; so did your sister. That night when we waited for the cake and the lemonade. With Simone and Angelica.'

‘Yes, we said … I said.'

‘But I saw it. That night in my bedroom,' says Florence, her voice cracking at the memory. ‘He was huge, like the biggest crow and black … and his teeth were sharp … and he laughed at me … and he'll come here.'

‘No,' says Carp calmly, moving close the young frightened child. ‘It's alright. There is no angel. No big crow. I have never seen it. Ever.'

‘But you did say?'

‘Yes, we say things. Sometimes things we want to believe.'

‘But your sister.'

‘Yes, she believes in many things. Things that are not true.'

‘Is she the devil then?' asks Florence, allowing Carp to hold her, to enwrap her, in her arms.

‘No, not the devil.'

‘Is she evil?'

Carp sighs again, feeling the tears and sadness, so long held deep down, rising inside her.

‘No, Florence. She is not evil.'

And so, embracing the small girl whose dreams have been wracked by the flutter and swoop of dark enfolding wings, Carp holds her tight, then she herself sobs and gulps and heaves and cries.

SIXTEEN

‘The life-blood streaming thro' my heart, or my more dear immortal part, is not more fondly dear!'
– Robert Burns

The coastline calls me home as the ship heads for the rip and the opening to the bay. There is a familiarity in the air. I can smell and sense a flavour of home that is indefinable yet uniquely knowable. Land appears as but the faintest smudge on the horizon, but it offers comfort and reconciliation. There I will find the bay. Before me the cliffs will rise out of that empty, endless sea that has been my vista this long journey through. A shoreline to which I once never anticipated a return. With each wave breached the shore grows closer, more real, more immediate.

A solitary seal greets us as I steer the boat into Alphonso's Bay. His head pops above the water and then disappears to the depths and the promise of fish. Everyone is up on deck to get a first glimpse of this new land. The weather has been kind, with a silky breeze encouraging the clouds to ferry across the face of the sun. We drop anchor a short distance from the shore and then lower the lifeboat to carry the passengers to dry land. Soon enough a fire is built and a temporary camp is set up in front of the caves that have been hewn into the cliffs by weather and wind. The crew, having unloaded the last of the provisions on to the beach, haul the lifeboat up to the sand dunes where it will be safe from the tides. Last night the helmsman spoke to me as I came on deck to relieve him from the watch. “Me and the crew, we've been talking”, he said, being a man of few words. “And we want to stay too. Keep the boat and be fishermen”. I said they were welcome to the boat and that fish were plentiful in the waters around. He looked pleased as he made his way to the hold and the comfort of a welcoming hammock.

In the darkness, waiting for sleep to come, it is the waves that I hear, the salt that I smell. The sea that has been my home these five years past, the more I know of it, the less I know, its intensity, its ferocity, its capacity to hold. Maybe I'm speaking my thoughts, for Stigir seems to be listening to me: the way his ears twitch and his eyelids open. Or maybe it's the sea he also hears.

The following day, I begin my journey to the monastery. With the promise that I will return as soon as the arrangements are made, I wave farewell to my companions. The way inland from the inlet is barely distinguishable. Stigir, who barked excitedly when he sensed I was on the move, is at my ankles with just his head above the weeds and undergrowth. We struggle on until we reach a copse at the top of the headland. The path has all but disappeared, but I know which direction to take from my days of roaming this countryside when I was at the monastery. Stigir seems to too, as we make our way between the tall trees and through tangled shrubs and bushes.

‘There was once a road here, eh Stigir? Weather and rain have undone it again and now you would never know there was once a road through the woods!'

The way is dense and dark as we get deeper into the forest. After a few tiring hours we stop to rest and I share my dried meat and biscuit with my little dog. We press on until the light fades, but the undergrowth is dense and our progress is slow. We rest again and finish off the last of our provisions. Sitting with my back against an old elm tree I notice smoke rising from a chimney in the near distance.

‘Hey, Stigir, let's stop by and ask for some fresh water. There might even be a cow or a goat for some milk.'

The house is unwelcoming. There's a darkness about it. No windows are open and all the curtains are drawn. ‘Come on Stigir,' but the little dog holds back as I open the gate that leads to the garden path and the front door. I pick him up, close the garden gate behind us, then put him down on the grass. Immediately, he runs to a hedge in a border and scurries for shelter. ‘Okay, you wait there. I'll see who's in the house,' I say as I walk up to the front door and ring the bell that hangs from a wall in the porch. Gradually, a silhouette emerges behind the frosted glass.

‘Who is there?'

It is the voice of a woman.

‘My name is Oscar Flowers. I'm walking this path and would welcome some fresh water for myself and my dog.'

There is the sound of a key turning and a lock being unbolted. Slowly the door opens.