A Place of Meadows and Tall Trees (22 page)

‘Is in Wales.' Silas finishes for him meaningfully.

‘She found it difficult...'

‘But at least she didn't starve. At least her children didn't die.'

Edwyn doesn't reply. Silas waits. He cannot see his face any more; it is turned from him. His narrow shoulders are slightly hunched. Silas notices that his jacket is hanging from them as if a much larger man used to be inside. It quakes slightly.

‘Perhaps we can continue this discussion later,' Edwyn says, and without turning around he walks quickly to the cabin and shuts the door.

The next time Silas encounters the
Meistr
he looks drawn – in just a few hours he seems to have lost his colour and the skin under his eyes has darkened and sagged. The eyes themselves look at Silas sorrowfully and appealingly. Silas is careful not to feel pity. The man is a liar, he tells himself. A cheat. Nevertheless when Edwyn opens his mouth he listens.

‘Silas,' he says, ‘please think again. I need your support.' ‘Why? It seems to me you have everything worked out.'

They are alone at the captain's table. Edwyn's voice is quieter than Silas has ever heard it before, weak in fact, as if he is ill or very old. For a few seconds there is silence. The clock on the wall ticks.

‘Silas, I need a strong man on my side. A partner. Someone who is not easily swayed and knows his own mind.' Edwyn pauses a few seconds, tilts his head as he waits for him to respond but Silas says nothing. ‘The whole venture depends on you now,
brawd
. I need you to agree. Only if the decision is unanimous can we hope to start again in Chubut.'

The clock ticks again. Silas thinks of the cold Chubut river and then he thinks of the warmer gold-flecked Paraná.

Eventually Edwyn sighs and then clears his throat. ‘Silas, I have a proposal. Would you be willing to give the Chubut another nine months before coming to a decision?'

‘I've made my decision.'

‘But it's the wrong one, man!' His voice cracks. He looks down, rubs his forehead in his hands. ‘Just give it a little more time.'

‘We've given it enough.'

‘Please, Silas.'

‘No.'

‘At the end of it, if there is no improvement, I shall recommend that the colony is removed to Santa Fe. I shall put everything I have behind that instead. You will have my backing and you will have Dr Rawson's and the Emigration Committee's in Liverpool. I shall see to it. But please give the Chubut another chance,
ffrind
. Please.'

Nine months. So much can happen in nine months. Silas stands and looks out of the cabin window at the shore. There is a woman sitting at the door of her cottage, knitting.

‘Silas?'

He stands, walks the short length of the room and back again. A child comes running up to the knitting woman and she passes her a little wool to play with. The same scene could be repeated anywhere, even in the Chubut. In spite of everything, there have been moments of contentment, if not happiness. Another nine months. Perhaps they could survive. If they moved to Santa Fe they would have to start all over again. Find a space, build a house, and clear the ground. Tiredness moves up quickly from his legs. They couldn't do it alone. But even if he got a few people to come with them, without any aid from the government it would all end in disaster. He looks at Edwyn and nods once.

It is as if the sun has suddenly come out. Edwyn stands, smiles, and gives Silas a light punch to his chest. ‘Good,' he says, ‘I'll send Guillermo a message and let him know. He wanted us all in agreement. He sent me after you. The government had come to a decision to back us just after you'd all sailed: but if we couldn't all agree there'd be nothing for any of us.' Then, just as he goes through the door the smile changes to something more familiar and hidden.

That private smile. Silas feels cheated but he doesn't quite know why. He kicks at the table leg. It collapses at its hinge and the table thuds against the wall. Stupid. He throws himself down on a chair. The shimmering dream of happiness darkens and disappears into the widening void. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He thumps his head hard against the wooden wall. Nine months. How could he throw away his dream so easily? He thumps it again. Nine months in a wilderness, in the cold, in the wind.

On the shore the woman continues to knit. Nine months before he sees paradise. Somehow part of the fault is hers. It is as if Edwyn has told her to knit, told her to mesmerise him with her hands. Told her to trick him. If he could, he would reach out, snatch the needles from her hands, take her work and unravel it, row by row, stitch by stitch.

The colonists are waiting for them, as promised, on the beach at Port Madryn. Silas sees their smoke as soon as they sail into the circular bay past the Pen
í
nsula Valdés. There are several fires, a collection of irregular dark shapes on the pale sand, and when they get closer, he hears them shouting and calling. The old
Denby
drops anchor where the
Mimosa
creaked two years ago. Everything looks the same. They row ashore and the colonists stream out to greet them, exclaiming at the sight of Edwyn.

Myfanwy's face is a miniature of her mother's. She holds up her arms to be picked up, first by Silas, then by Jacob.

Megan quickly kisses him. ‘I've missed you,' she says, curtly, ‘don't you dare go again.'

They are using the caves in the cliffs for shelter, and even though it is cold and wet, at least it is out of most of the wind and the rain. Some of the women and children have slept there while others have sheltered as best they can in crude huts, assembled from what remains from two years before.

Soon they are once more sitting by the fire on the beach roasting pieces of meat. It is already dusk. Annie Williams' baby grumbles in her arms and as she rocks him back to sleep she looks at the
Denby
. ‘When are the other ships coming?' she asks, ‘because we won't all fit on that.'

The mumbling of voices stops. Everyone looks expectantly at Edwyn.

‘There will be no other ships,' Caradoc says, ‘we're going to stay in Chubut. It is decided.'

Silas hangs his head. There is a short shocked silence.

‘You have spoken for all of us?' Mary asks incredulously, ‘what gives you the right to do that?'

‘All the representatives were in agreement,' Caradoc says coldly.

‘All of them?'

When he nods, she turns open-mouthed to Silas and says quietly, ‘And you too, Silas? I thought we could depend on you.'

Silas shakes his head. He can't speak. He can't explain. He looks at Edwyn with narrowed eyes and the man merely nods back.

‘Of course you can go somewhere else if you choose,' Edwyn tells Mary, ‘anywhere you like.'

Mary looks at him and snorts.

‘But I'm afraid you will not get any help from the Argentine government if you do,' he adds.

For a few minutes the colonists are silent.

‘But we've slaughtered our animals!' John says suddenly.

The man rarely speaks in public and it is startling to hear his voice. It is as if it wakes the people around him, and several of them start shouting out complaints.

‘And set light to our houses!'

‘And traipsed miles over the desert with the children.'

‘And how are we going to get back there again, anyway?' Joseph Jones blurts out.

Edwyn blinks. Silas notices that the man's fingertips are trembling. He turns to Selwyn. ‘Is all this true?'

Selwyn nods and Annie slips her arm around his shoulder. ‘It wasn't his idea,' she says, ‘everyone decided together.'

Edwyn sighs and shuts his eyes. He brings his fingertips together and rests his chin on his forefingers, and his head sways slightly. ‘There is a solution,' he murmurs. ‘All is not lost.'

They wait a few moments but the
Meistr
says nothing else.

‘I'm sure the Chiquichan will lend us a few horses, if we ask them,' says Caradoc quickly.

‘Yes, I'm sure they will, if we can find a way of sending word.'

But Edwyn doesn't seem to be listening. His eyes are shut and he is sitting motionlessly by the fire. The people around him start to murmur, but Jacob holds up his hands to quieten them.

‘But we can't go back to Chubut now,' Mary says, taking no notice. ‘I can't understand how this has happened. We were all agreed to go and start again in Santa Fe.'

‘We've been tricked,' Silas says, looking at Edwyn. He speaks as though someone has him by the throat.

Everyone is silent, looking slowly from Silas to Edwyn and back again.

‘We could have gone to Santa Fe, we could have gone anywhere we like, but somehow this man has stopped it.'

Everyone waits, but Edwyn doesn't stir. His eyes are still shut; his body still immobile, but underneath his beard his mouth is beginning to move. There are small flashes of white as his teeth shine through. Then, suddenly, he opens his eyes and rises to his feet. He goes to stand where the fire lights his face and smiles at them all.

‘My most beloved brothers and sisters, how very grateful I am to you. How you have greeted me so warmly! I have to confess I was a little apprehensive after all that had happened, but when I saw you all… when I saw that your spirit wasn't broken, despite everything… how very glad it made me feel – that I knew you all. That you were my people. How very proud! My people, I would tell Dr Rawson, again and again. I know them. They will not give up. They work hard. They have faith. They are stubborn and are not afraid of a little adversity.

‘Ah, my valiant friends, I can do nothing more than admire you all. The way you have learnt from the Indians! The way you have co-operated. It is unheard of. Unique.'

Everyone is quiet now. Several are smiling almost as broadly. Silas sinks back onto his heels and groans. The man has so many tricks.

‘It has been hard everywhere, a strange unusual time of drought and everyone has been suffering – but Dr Rawson says that none have coped as well as the Welsh. He was talking of sending someone down to Patagonia to learn from you. You can't give up now. Today is the twenty-eighth of July 1867,
brodyr
a
chwiorydd
. Two years to the day since we landed here. As Dr Rawson remarked, it takes a special people to make a desert bloom. And the Welsh are those people!'

‘Amen,
brodyr
!'

Several people cheer.

‘Are we going to do it? Are we going to work together and show the Argentines what we can do?'

‘Yes!' Several of the men are standing now, clapping and cheering. Silas looks at Megan, and even she is smiling. Silas shifts on his haunches, and goes to stand, but a hand clamps down on his shoulder. Mary. She shakes her head at him. ‘Not now,' she mouths.

Silas looks around him. The only eyes that meet his own are Selwyn's, Mary's and Megan's. His wife's smile slides from her mouth then she reaches out, tries to touch him on the arm, but he walks away up the beach. All lies. He wraps his jacket around him and shivers in the wind. The wind – it is needling his eyes with dust and sucking away moisture from his throat. He swallows but the hurt in his throat will not go. That man has destroyed everything. He reaches one of the dilapidated sheds and beats at the walls with both fists. He cannot stay here. He will take Megan and Myfanwy and whoever else who wants to come with him and walk across the desert up to Patagones if he has to, and if no one will leave with him he will go on his own.

‘Dadda?' A small hand reaches into his own. She has run after him. He reaches down and picks her up and sobs into the soft cushion of her hair.

The houses are remarkably intact; the roofs destroyed of course, but the walls and even some of the furniture still untouched. The colonists immediately start to work on them; the wind sweeping through, helping them get rid of the smell of ashes. When the Indians had realised that the fort was empty they tried to continue what the colonists had started – re-lighting roofs that had become extinguished, and throwing on more fuel where they could in an attempt to make the houses uninhabitable. The
Galenses
had turned out to be welcome neighbours; the
Cristianos
, however, were not. But then the rain had come and put out everything.

Silas' own house had required just some repair and then some cleaning. They had swept it out, and made more crude furniture from driftwood on the beach. Then he had repaired the stove and mended the doors and windows using timber from the old wreck in the river. Within a few weeks it was better than it had been.

Even though it is November and the middle of spring, Silas and the two older Jones boys have decided to go out looking for game. They are still waiting for the promised supplies from Buenos Aires and the stocks of food are low. Everyone is a little hungry and foraging for anything they can find. The guanaco and rhea have migrated inland to the breeding grounds of the west and the Indians, of course, have followed them. There is little left near the coast but a few of the smaller mammals and birds. It is hard work catching anything but every day he, Joseph and Ieuan manage to catch some small animal to eat. The rest of the colonists are busy clearing and turning over their ground, but Silas doesn't bother. He hunts to feed his family now but he is doing nothing to prepare for the future. Just five months left now and they will go to Santa Fe.

The sun becomes hotter as the summer approaches – a burning smouldering light with no clouds to filter it. He remembers last year, how he'd worked so hard with the hand plough, how he'd laboured with Megan pulling up weeds from the fertile-looking stretch of land near the river, how he'd sown seed and the land had been green with seedlings, and how at first they'd grown and everyone had been happy – and then they had all withered and died. No, he decides, there is no point labouring again if they will be gone from here in a few months. The thought of leaving lightens his step. He watches the rest of the colonists at work by the river, bending, pulling, and then bending again. Every back aches. Each pair of hands is rubbed raw. For nothing, he thinks, nothing at all.

Silas walks to the edge of his plot and looks at it; like all the other plots it consists of a dry dead-looking part and a more fertile-looking portion beside the river. If seed comes back from Buenos Aires he will plant it, but he will waste no time preparing the ground near the river. Instead he will plant the seed in the ground that is clear already because nothing grows there – the earth is pale and cracked with long deep fissures. This, at least, will be easy to dig. He tests the earth with his spade – it is soft and easily worked. He looks at the patch and considers it – yes, this will do. It will not be much effort but at least no one will be able to say he hasn't tried at all.