Tidetown (5 page)

‘A mission,' he says again, urging a response.

Mrs M puts down her wicker washing basket, rubs the sweat from her forehead, straightens her skirt, then, in a measured voice, asks the expected question.

‘So, Mr Barnum, pray tell me more of the nature of the mission the mayor demands of you.'

Joshua rises to his full height, as if the sheets and skirts, breeches and towels waving in the blustery wind are members of his audience, eagerly anticipating the power of his oration. The washing remains suspended, but Mrs M sits on the three-legged stool she carries with her, realising a monologue of Joshua Barnum proportions is in the offing.

‘With ownership comes responsibility, Mrs M,' says Joshua as a prelude to the tale he has to tell.

That morning had begun much as usual. Joshua had waited, bugle by his side, its job done, its piercing note blown out across dale and dell. The hand that waved from the window had bid him to hold fast, to expect instructions. So Joshua had yet to descend to the pleasures of the kitchen and Mrs M's fare. The wind was wicked, even though the day was still young. His starched collar and neck scarf, waistcoat and dress jacket barely kept the cold at bay and Joshua's large ears and freckled cheeks stung from the wind's frozen kiss. But wait he must, as way down below, Mrs M creased her forehead, wondering if the simmering broth might overcook. Presently, Joshua heard the door at the top of the stairs open and close and there was the mayor, in full regalia: tricorn hat, ermine cloak, sash and chain of office.

‘Most becoming,' said Joshua, ‘most becoming indeed. The mayoral chain and all.'

The mayor ignored the comment; Joshua coughed and stood stock-still to attention.

‘Tell me, Deputy Mayor, Joshua Barnum, one of the inbreds of this town, what do you see beyond the turrets of this tower?'

Joshua squinted, as if a new focus, a new field of vision, would provide a fresh perspective.

‘I see,' replied Joshua, ‘a land of milk and honey. Our land. A Shangri-La of boundless, endless, possibilities.'

‘And who do you see, Joshua? Who is there?'

‘Our people?' suggested Joshua, who looked at the mayor, did a double take, then tried again.

‘Ah … your people … they are your people.'

‘And whose land, whose Tidetown?' asked the mayor.

‘Aha,' said Joshua, with growing confidence, ‘your land, your Tidetown.'

‘Twenty years the mayor. And twenty more years I intend to serve over this town. This town, much of which, as you so astutely acknowledge, I own. And with ownership comes responsibility.'

‘Indeed, indeed,' nodded Joshua, hanging on every word of his mentor, his hero.

‘And those with the heavy burden of responsibility need to know for what they are responsible.'

‘For what?' queried Joshua.

The mayor raised his hand; his deputy flinched, then the former thought better of it.

‘The election is upon us. I need to get the pulse of these people. To know what will keep some on my side; those who are not in my pay, I mean. And I need to know what will bring those to me who are neither on my side nor in my pay.'

‘Neither?' ponders Joshua.

‘Listen carefully, numbskull. I want you to inveigle yourself into the company, nay, the incestuous soup, of your cretinous cousins.'

‘My cousins, sir?'

‘Yes, your cousins, Joshua.'

‘Any cretinous cousins in particular, Your Honour?'

‘Sensible question, Joshua … incisive. Worthy of my deputy mayor. Mix in the midst of the sailors and seamen at the drinking dens of the harbour. Then report to me on the temperature of this town. You understand? Who they are for. Who they are against. And what it is they are for and what it is they are against. I need you to get a gauge of these simple townsfolk. I am their mayor and they are my people. And that's how I want it to stay.'

‘Inveigle with the inbreds,' pondered Joshua. ‘Consider me your inveigling barometer.'

The mayor sighed and looked to the sky as if for divine intervention. But all he could see was the gathering of folds of dark upon darker clouds.

Mrs M sits dutifully on her stool, listening to Joshua's lecture, quietly glad of the breather from the day's never-ending tasks.

‘So, Mrs M,' concludes Joshua, the washing flapping in accord, ‘there are the nuts and bolts of my mission, to move like a curious spirit amongst the inbreds.'

‘An inveigler,' she says.

‘There you have it, my good woman. Joshua, the deputy mayor, has a new string to his bow: Principal Town Inveigler.'

Joshua has one of those crumpled faces that makes it hard to think that he was ever a boy. It's a man's face that looks like it once belonged to a ferret (in this world) or a griffin (in another). His skin is leathery, lined and freckled, and although he is not a dirty man, he looks unwashed and unkempt. His hair is more matted than tussled and the look in his eye is one of surprise, connivance and uncertainty all at once. If you creep up behind him he acts alarmed, but do not be deceived, he knew you were there all the time. If you ask him a question he will weigh it in the air, look to left and right, then give the answer he thinks is best. He may act dumb, but be assured he is not. He is alert and alive and aware of all that surrounds him. His clothes (his tailcoat, his top hat, his cravat, his shirt and trousers) are always slightly oversized, scuffed, creased and slightly grubby. He is always a day unshaven and his shoes are always in need of a polish. The onlooker will view this as tardiness; but Joshua dresses carefully to disarm and confuse. The line of his shirtsleeve may not be sharp, but his mind is.

He was born and lived out his childhood in a tiny hamlet, deep in a valley between the Tarrant River and the Barrier Hills. Joshua was the youngest child born to James Barnum, a man who had previously fathered six strapping daughters, each one of whom was the match of any male in the county. When the midwife brought the scrawny boy for its father's scrutiny Mr Barnum screwed up his eyes and commented on the weaselly look on the baby's face. ‘You call this a boy?' was his first remark, one that he would often repeat in one way or another as Joshua grew up. The boy could do little right in the eyes of the father. ‘Not like that,' Mr Barnum would scowl without offering to show Joshua how to. ‘Were you born useless?' he would chide every time Joshua dropped a nail or spilt the milk in his attempts to be helpful.

And so Joshua grew up saddened by the absence of a father's pride and love. Without knowing why, he would always seek validation from stronger, older men. At school it would be the bully. Once he moved into service it would be the head footman and later on, the butler. He soon realised his role in life was to aspire to rise to the role of the offsider, the second-in-command, the beta male. It was following in the tailwind of a strong and persuasive older man, when Joshua was twenty-eight, that would change the course of his life. Tobias Smythe, for such was the older man's name, was a sailmaker and merchant who had sold his wares at ports the length of the coastline. Though late in life and a self-professed bachelor, he had fallen hopelessly in love with an innkeeper's daughter on a visit to Tidetown. She had an invalid mother, and insisted, if she were to submit to his charms and become his wife, that Tobias buy a mansion nearby, house them all and set down some roots. Barnum was working as an under-butler at Tobias's uncle's house, and had an obsequious manner and eagerness to please that were noted by Tobias whenever he visited. ‘I could do with a man like your under-butler when I move to the coast,' he said to his uncle on Easter Monday. ‘My good fellow,' said his uncle, as magnanimous as half a bottle of port always made him, ‘he's yours … take him as a going away present.' And so, as if he were a shiny pot to be given away from his master's kitchen, Joshua found himself on the cart of Tobias's possessions heading to a place called Tidetown, a destination to which he had never before journeyed.

Over time, his hard work and attention to detail ensured that he rose in Mr Smythe's household. His regular intelligence from the loose and drunken talk in the smoking room of The Sailor's Arms became an invaluable source of information for his master, enabling his various businesses to flourish. Within a couple of years Joshua was plucked from domestic chores and butlering to be office manager and general second-in-command at Tobias Smythe Mercantile Enterprises. He acquired a shiny pocket watch (in lieu of a gambling debt owed him by the commissioner of oaths) with which he would check the punctuality of the staff and the expected arrival times of ships and cargo. He soon became a respected figure on the wharf, drawing the attention of Mayor Bruin, who saw even greater potential in Joshua. One day he took him aside, and told him that his future could be one of power and wealth. Within a month he was the mayor's right-hand man, a position he has held ever since.

Soon after the trial Mrs April was asked to leave her job at the Tidetown library. Although not directly implicated in the murder, when it came out that she was the married man's mistress her reputation was irrevocably tarnished. The library committee stated that it had been a difficult time for them all and her resigning would be in everyone's best interests. In recognition of her exemplary service she received a small life-time pension and a watercolour print of the harbour. Not being one to idle away her time, she became more and more drawn to the monastery on the Island of Good Hope. First it was to visit the Brothers, especially Brother Moses and Brother Saviour, and to reminisce about Oscar Flowers and the time he had spent in their care under the terms of his acquittal. Her weekly visits became more frequent and soon she found herself helping Brother Moses in the library, dusting down the old volumes and checking those in need of repair. One day she asked Brother Moses if he had ever thought of bringing some kind of order to the collection. He scratched his head, looked around at the piles of books on floor and shelves and said he knew where they all were. ‘Hmm …' replied Mrs April. ‘Exactly,' laughed the Brother, keenly aware of his own mortality and the knowledge that would depart with his demise. So the task began, and between them they devised a simple yet adequate cataloguing system based on categories and the alphabet.

This rainy afternoon they are busy clearing a long-neglected corner of the library stacked high with old leather-bound tomes of theological thought.

‘Each one of these,' says Brother Moses, lifting one of the volumes chest high, blowing the dust from its cover, ‘is a beloved friend.' He reads the spine, sighs and recalls. ‘Ah, Brother Ricardo. He studied the ascetics. He put what he learned into practice in his everyday life, and then, in the last three years of his time on earth, he wrote it all down. And here it has lain, all these decades later. I remember him as if it were just yesterday. I was a young monk, he was in his declining days and there he would sit, scribing away, dawn to dusk, in case death would catch him before the ink dried on the page.'

He passes the book to Mrs April. She feels the worn leather of the cover, running her fingertips over the embossed contours, content that Brother Ricardo's work and wisdom will find a place in the new annals of the monastery.

‘Ah, there's Zakora,' she says, spotting the tall figure through the window making his way across the lush lawn of the cloisters.

‘I hope he can find some happiness here with us,' says Brother Moses.

‘And a purpose,' replies Mrs April, watching him entering the small chapel at the opposite corner.

‘Ah, yes, Mrs April. There's no true happiness without purpose.'

Carp is unusually alone in the small communal area where prisoners spend an hour before being locked in their cells for the night. Sometimes she and Perch sit together in a corner alcove. But tonight Perch has returned to their cell with a headache. The governor, on her nightly walk through the block, sees Carp.

‘Can I sit beside you?'