Call of the Undertow (24 page)

Maggie continued to prepare for her move. She gathered boxes, made sure the car would still run. She did a bit of work each morning, reported briefly on it to Richard to give
him the appearance she was making progress. But her ‘to do’ list – tax the car, get more boxes, take meter readings – lay largely ignored on the table with the Road Atlas
awaiting her decision.

She made it her priority to walk, often with a jagged rock of loss choking her throat; the sense that this might be her last time at each place.

She braved downpours, roaming the places Trothan had mapped as if she was saying goodbye to them; and perhaps through them, to him. She climbed Dwarwick Head to get the view of the pier below
and the whole length of the Sands backed by the pyramid-shaped dunes. She found for the first time the well at what had once been a nunnery; visited the cave where the greedy man was chained with
the Mermaid’s wealth; and she returned to the derelict farm buildings and the lair. She even beat her way through nettles and brambles to find the tree trunk they’d crossed over the
burn that day. And then she ignored a ‘private’ sign at the abandoned McNicholl church where she heard Brutus pacing and yelping inside. The paths she had helped to wear gave her some
kind of right to these places and made the territory her own, just as they had belonged to the child.

Back at the cottage, with days shortening, her remaining time pressing in, she wanted to capture something. She found the Rotring pens that Trothan had left behind with the map on his last
visit, chose the one with the 0.1 nib, noticing how its end was snagged by teeth marks. Experimentally she put it in her mouth, wanting to taste his salty life on it, and wondering if she would end
up with a great black blob of ink on her own lips.

Despite a still sore, bandaged hand, she took a fresh page and drew a bird’s eye view of Flotsam Cottage; put in a circle for the top of her own head. It felt strange to use a pen, to
physically draw, after so long using a computer. And to do so in this way, with no layering, no attempt to balance space and clutter. In slow circles around the cottage she began to fill in
details. She didn’t consult Trothan’s map; made this her own. It included the old reservoir and lade felled by age and gobbled by ivy, benches she’d sat on in the village, all the
places she’d been to in the last days. She described with the pen the beach and the great, wild sweep of the bay itself.

She gave herself up to the process, her mug of coffee cooling next to her, the evening dimming at the window now that autumn wasn’t far away. And with a free hand, not even resorting to
the ‘Letraset’ she would have used back in college days, she wrote things onto it, including a name for the road between the village and the bay where trees arched towards each other.
She called it ‘the tunnel’. She was surprised to see how densely marked she made her map of this ‘empty’ place.

The phone rang about a week after her visit to Saint Trothan’s. She answered it straight away.

‘Maggie?’

It was Graham.

There was a small coughing noise. ‘I thought you’d want to know,’ Graham said uncertainly. ‘They’re having a sort of “service” for Trothan.’

Maggie’s throat tightened at the sense of finality.

‘They can’t have a funeral, not without...’

‘No,’ Maggie said quickly.

There was a pause; then, ‘You’ll come, eh?’

‘I can’t, can I?’ Maggie said. ‘I’m not invited.’

‘Yes,’ Graham said. ‘George asked me to ask you.’

Maggie hesitated, unsure whether to believe this.

‘I’ll pick you up. We can go together.’

A white buttoned blouse and a collar too tight. Maggie could only breathe in short sips. When she and Graham arrived in the doorway of the roofless church and saw the packed
crowd in there, she stopped. Took a step back into Graham. He resisted, hands firm on her arms, gently propelling her. And then Nora saw her, stepped forward with an outstretched hand and a
welcome.

Maggie stepped in to join the mourners lining the inside walls. Latticed sunlight and bird chatter poured in. She’d thought Nora and George might choose the beach. But Saint
Trothan’s enfolded them all amidst its ivy-scrabbled walls and allowed no one to be snubbed. Faces and eyes had to open onto each other. Maggie tried to keep her head high, to be an adult
presence amongst these people who the wild running of her mind had told her were congregating against her. She stood shoulder to shoulder with them, Graham a buffer on one side.

Mobility Man was there, for once not in his fluorescents; a woman with hair the colour of Nora’s, a slimmer version of her with a cluster of children; Audrey and another teacher released
briefly from the school to pay their respects. Sally and Callum. And there were others Maggie half knew, half recognised.

Nora and George stood where the altar had presumably once been, puffed-up with a strain almost visible in George’s too close shave which had left a rash and Nora’s great breasts
stretching a pale green dress at its bodice. Next to them stood a young blonde woman who with practised calm held a folder clasped loosely in her hands.

‘You’re going to go?’ Carol had asked on the phone. ‘You sure that’s a good idea?’

‘Why?’

‘You’ve no obligation, have you?’

‘Carol, I spent a lot of time with that child. It meant something.’

‘I meant to his parents. They’ve not exactly made life easy for you, have they?’

Maggie hesitated. ‘I’m not sure.’

‘Really?’

‘Whether I got it right.’

Carol had let out a great sigh then. ‘Up to you. You’ll be leaving that mess soon anyway, I guess.’

Once everyone had shuffled into place, almost giddy with the intimacy, the young blonde woman spread open the folder, looked over it at the circle of faces and began.

‘Friends, we’re here today because...’

Maggie’s control was ripped from her. She bowed her head, felt Graham make an awkward grab at her wrist which he patted and then dropped. She rode the rest of the short service in an inner
wrangle with tears and the broken beat of her breathing.

She forced away the young woman’s words, listening instead for the echoes embedded in the stones, feeling the openness to the sky. No one would be able to hide anything here. Perhaps that
was the point of a church; that all was revealed, to each other, to a god. She imagined a terrible explosion of truth blowing the roof clean off its rafters to leave the congregation staring at
each other in sudden recognition as if the wind had stolen their clothes.

When she was calmer, she allowed in a little more of the speech until another nerve flared and the tide flooded again.

She pictured the saint in mute-coloured robes, a benign face and sandals; floating over the North Sea on a millstone. The image was clichéd but soothing.

‘We are the ones who are left and naturally we are sad,’ the voice said, quietly ringing between the walls. ‘But let’s concentrate for a few moments on our own special
memories of Trothan. Let’s send him on his crossing knowing that his mortal friends have not forgotten him.’

They were asked to join hands. She felt Graham’s Scottish reserve bristling against this to her left. He looked at her quickly, sighed, then looked away as he snatched up her hand, holding
it in his calloused one as he might the handle of a shovel. Everyone else uneasily obliged, turning side-on if necessary to allow the linking, shuffling their feet and avoiding eye contact. Maggie
was pushed back, pushed
herself
back,out of the main circle into a corner, still hanging onto Graham’s hand. But to her right a woman she didn’t know looked over her shoulder
and reached out to Maggie as if summoning a dance partner. An older woman with knotty knuckles and a gold ring on her wedding finger, smiling.

Maggie wiped her palm on her coat and stepped forward.

Seeing the bandage the woman said: ‘Don’t worry – I’ll be gentle.’

Maggie felt the careful contact of the woman’s warm, dry skin, and was suddenly reminded of her mother’s hand. Walking to school on a summer’s morning. The shuffling over, the
circle stabilised; joining up the random fragments of Trothan’s life. Despite the muddle of her pain Maggie felt a sudden lightening and looked up for a moment towards the sky and the
branches that interlocked, parodying eaves. In between them the white spaces still spread above her. She breathed deeply.

‘Hold on to him in your thoughts, talk of him often, repeat things he used to say. And let your love and regard show to Nora and to George.’

The walls hugged their backs, held Maggie in a moment of silent reflection, her head bowed now like the others. And into the midst of it something fell onto the grassy floor with a
‘plop’. It was followed by a trumpeting call, keening from above. Maggie ducked, then shot a glance up. A huge white gull was heckling down at them from a perch on the church wall. It
threw its head back, opened its bill and wailed.

‘Bloody mawkies,’ muttered Graham, leaning towards her to whisper. ‘That’s herring gulls to you by the way.’

Then the gull’s cry broke up into raucous laughter before it glittered into creaky flight and abandoned its attempt at breaking open the shell. The shock broke the congregation into
nervous laughter; hands were dropped, dissolving the tension of the circle. Audrey Thompson caught Maggie’s eye and smirked.

Maggie and Graham joined the drift of people across the shadowy lawns to drive to the hotel for beer and sandwiches.

Once they’d joined the convoy for the short journey in Graham’s car, he yanked open his collar and breathed out heavily. ‘“The crossing”, what was that all
about?’

‘A mystery,’ Maggie said. The image of the crossing seemed appropriate though; the boat, a journey of some kind, surely the sea.

‘You know, Maggie, it is about time you spilt the kidneys.’ Graham said.

‘You what?’

‘The beans, the beans,’ Graham said.

There was a brief silence as they drove into the village back streets and found a place to park. He turned off the engine and neither moved.

‘You’re like an over-inflated beach ball. I was afraid you were going to explode in there.’

‘Messy,’ Maggie said.

‘Aye. Beans, gases...’

Maggie stared ahead at the hotel wall. ‘Okay,’ she said.

Sitting opposite Maggie in his favourite Oxford restaurant, Richard raised a wine glass and she raised hers in reply.

‘We did it,’ he said. Must be the quickest turn-around in publishing history.’

They clinked glasses.

A copy of the West Africa Atlas lay next to her elbow on the restaurant table. She’d leafed through it very quickly in the meeting with the Head of Humanities and the Distribution Manager,
but as ever, she wanted to check that her contributions had been reproduced well and that no corruptions or inaccuracies had crept into the captions since she checked the proofs.

She flicked through the pages now, let it lie open at her eccentric graphic about Lagos’s growth, and pushed it slightly in Richard’s direction, waiting to see if he would comment.
He didn’t.

‘What did you think of this one?’

‘Quite creative,’ he said. ‘Where did you get the idea?’

She looked down at the page. ‘From a colleague.’

‘Oh?’

His tone pulled her eyes back up.

‘A cartographer up there I don’t know about?’ he said.

‘I thought you might veto it.’

‘You’ve made Lagos seem quite extraordinary.’

‘It’s a riddle of a place.’ She tipped her head back, took another sip of the wine that unfurled a few more inner feathers as if to release her into flight. ‘It’s
been intriguing me for a while now. Perhaps I’ll go there, see if I can answer the riddle.’

‘Are you serious?’ He frowned slightly. ‘Bit dangerous, isn’t it?’

She tried to picture him in the sweat and scrum of Lagos, still wearing his chunky polo neck. She shrugged.

‘Why did you think I’d veto your graphic?’

‘A wee bit unconventional?’ she said.

He smirked at her.

She stared back. ‘What?’

He imitated her, ‘a wee bit,’ and then laughed. ‘How’s the Pacific going?’

She ducked her head. It was only early September, and because the deadline was the end of November it hadn’t yet felt urgent, even though she knew there was weeks of work in it.

‘It’s on my list,’ she said, taking a long sip of wine; floating now.

He grinned back at her.

‘Nice wine,’ she said. ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve been somewhere like this. Makes me feel like a grown-up.’ She looked around at the Italian suavity of
the restaurant. Headlights flashed in through the plate glass next to them and tyres sizzled faintly on the rainy street. People strode the pavement, catching at each other’s umbrellas.
Inside they were dry, warm, soothed by wine, smiled on by the kindly waiter who now delivered a plate of bruschetta to the table. Maggie breathed in the aroma of tomatoes, garlic, Mediterranean
sun, and wriggled slightly in her seat.

‘It’s not quite like this up there,’ she said, indicating the North with a backward nod of her head.

‘No foodies?’

‘Bag of salt and vinegar in the pub if you’re lucky.’

She bit into the crisp bread, tasted the soft topping, fresh basil. She closed her eyes as she chewed and swallowed. When she opened her eyes, Richard was chewing without much obvious relish,
smiling wryly at her.

He held her gaze. ‘What about it, then?’

‘About what?’ She grabbed a second piece. ‘Sorry about my manners. Can’t help it. It’s so delicious.’ Her words were lost in the next bite, just as good.

‘You must realise that Jean was asking you to apply,’ Richard said.

She reached for a sprinkle of fresh parmesan, scattered it lavishly on the next piece. ‘How many have you had?’ Her third hovered near her mouth.

‘It’s fine,’ he dabbed his mouth with the serviette. ‘Your need is greater than mine, I think.’

There was another pause and then he prompted her again. ‘So?’

‘What?’

‘Are you going to apply? Then you can be a Commissioning Editor like me, come back to Oxford and eat like Cleopatra every night.’