Collector of Lost Things (25 page)

With my collar turned up against the cold air, I bent down to pick a variety of the flowers and folded them into the leaves of my notebook. I would give them to Clara when I returned to the ship. I would give them to her and I would tell her that she was as rare and as beautiful as anything I’d ever known. That she was as miraculous as these drops of colour that had grown from the Arctic waste. They would look pretty, set in her hair or hanging as a posy from her wrist. Beauty needs to gather in such a place as the Arctic. Among the sedge, I reached to pull some of the stems, and I smelt the damp scent of mud. Mud, and sodden vegetation—the hint of an English woodland. Not just a general smell, but one woodland in particular, I realised with a shudder, where the ground had turned marshy, where rhododendrons grew so densely they blocked out the light and, among them, the silent dark waters of a lake covered in lily pads.

I left the flowers where I’d picked them.

Down the slope, where the stream crossed the shore, I noticed French, standing naked, pouring a bucket of water over his head. His pale skin made him look like a candle set among the dark stones. I watched him slick his hair back with a comb, before he walked to the pile of clothes he had left on a boulder. For a while he stared, naked, towards the ship across the water.

There were half a dozen houses in the Esquimaux settlement beyond the brook, built with low rock walls and buried, it appeared, in the turf and grasses of their roofs. Thin grey lines of smoke rose from the buildings, and the ground surrounding them was worn away to bare earth. Several of the Esquimaux could be seen, tending to racks along the side of the largest house. From this distance they looked small and wide in body, moving deliberately and without hurry. Children played outside the dark doorway of one of the houses, throwing stones against a small cairn, and I heard the faint sound of the pebbles landing. The sound of each pebble vanished quickly in such a large landscape.

As I began to walk back to the whaling station, I noticed one of the Esquimaux children, standing in thick sealskin trousers and no jacket, waving at me. I waved back and held my arm in the air for a long time. I saw him point to the sky, then down at the ground. I copied his gesture. As he began to do it again, we did the gesture together—up at the sky, then down at the ground.

That evening we ate around a large fire that had been set on the shore, while the crew of the
Amethyst
and the Danish whalers mallymarked with dances and songs. They forgot they could not talk a common language, or had drunk enough Akavit not to notice. French had returned to the ship after his bathing, not wanting to mix further with the men. Unsurprisingly, we were offered whale meat. On a butcher’s table, a piece of flesh had been laid out, as long as a cow’s leg and consisting of the most remarkably dark and smooth meat I had ever seen. There was absolutely no gristle or fat to it, and hardly any grain. In the twilight it was as black and impenetrable as obsidian, yet to the touch it was as soft as butter, leaving an impression of my finger long after I had removed it. One of the Danish men cut it with a cruelly long carving knife into steaks, as wide and as thick as a man’s hand, which he then slapped onto a hot greased skillet. Each steak sizzled quickly, curling up in lifelike contraction, before the cook flipped them to seal on the other side. I watched, fascinated by the darkness of the steak, and struck by a meat that still recoiled from man’s touch.

I glanced at the row of men on the other side of the fire, who were watching the preparation of the meal. I had become used to the thickly bearded faces of the sailors and the roughness of their skin and clothing, but at that instant—lit by the devilish flicker of wild flames—these men looked ancient and harsh. They lived their lives on the frontiers of land and sea, and they resembled the rocks themselves, the craggy coastlines and isolated skerries that only they inhabited.

Johannes, with his smooth skin and fine hair, was looked upon by the whalers as something of a curiosity—a boy they could relentlessly mock and tease. Several times he was asked to do pointless errands, fetching articles from the sheds that were not required, being then told to put them back, and I saw him refusing to drink from one of the cups that was offered. These whalers had searched for amusement among their own, and Johannes seemed quite used to this role. He even sang, in a light voice that was not tuneful, but a little feminine, and I noticed several of my own crew beginning to laugh along at him. It had an edge of cruelty I didn’t enjoy, and stopped only when some of the Irish sailors broke into one of their shanties, about the Blood Red Roses.

When the shanty was nearly finished I leant forward and asked Captain Sykes the meaning of the words.

‘It is a favourite in these parts,’ he said, ‘and a good tune to raise the topgallants. The “blood red roses” does have a meaning. It is the moment when a whale is slain, and its final blow from the spout is filled with blood’—he made a graceful gesture with his hands—‘resembling a bouquet of roses.’ He laughed at the macabre nature of his image. ‘But not a bouquet that one would present to a sweetheart!’

He held his look, waiting for me to smile, then repeated his gesture of the bloody flowers once more.

‘It’s a gruesome song,’ I said.

‘Very much. But not the worst I know.’

The whale steaks were passed around on tin plates, accompanied by slices of rough baked dough and a few spoonfuls of a pickled green vegetable. I tried this first, by dipping my finger, expecting it to be cabbage or samphire. But instead it had the most bitter and acrid taste, and within the little leaves were many wooded stems that clearly shouldn’t be eaten. Sykes noticed my tasting of the herbs and whispered, ‘From the shore, my friend. A foul concoction favoured by the Esquimaux. Some place it on the meat, as one might mustard, but I prefer to flick it into the fire.’

‘Yes. I think I might join you.’

‘Ear wax,’ he added, with great pleasure.

I tried the whale meat. It cut effortlessly, but inside it was bloody, and as soft as pate. It resembled beef steak, tasted of beef, and it was possible to convince oneself that it was, in fact, supplied by a regular butcher, except that occasionally there was a strong aftertaste of fish, similar to the dark meat of mackerel or buckling. In this respect, it tasted like beef that must be rancid, a most unpleasant sensation, and I doubted that I would be able to finish even a mouthful. Around me, the sailors and whalers were eating hungrily, without concern, and I wondered why I, among them, was the only one to show such reservation. I thought of the mother and calf whales that the
Amethyst
had steered towards. How they had been harassed and shot at and eventually rammed by the ship’s bow. How the calf had obviously been terribly wounded by such a senseless collision. I remembered how its tail flukes had pointed lifelessly at the sky, far behind the ship, as I had led Clara away from the commotion. And yet here I was, just a few days later, the memory fresh in my mind but now a chunk of whale meat in my mouth.

I put my plate down and looked to the ship, silhouetted on the black bay in front of a sky that never truly turned dark. Several petrels flew past it, skimming the water as if they were skating on its surface. A couple of lanterns had been hung from the masts, and I could distinguish further illuminations coming from Simao’s galley and the cabin quarters. I imagined Clara eating her supper, with French at the other end of the table, freshly bathed and with his hair oiled. Bletchley would be by the fire, not wanting to talk. Simao would be serving the meal, attentive and precise in his gestures. Clara would be tasting the food, pushing parts of it away with the flat of her knife, as I had seen her do before. French would have his eye drawn towards the candles, as always, with moth-like fascination, or would be dabbing the side of his mouth with the napkin, as if blotting an ink stain. Dabs of cologne on his neck. I had an overwhelming sensation of anxiety. That I was missing something. That events beyond my control were already presenting themselves, but unseen.

I thought of the great auk in its chamber and imagined how it must have been when the
Amethyst
had dropped its anchor this morning. All those iron links suddenly springing to life like the dreadful animated skeleton of a giant serpent, dragging in a deafening rush through the chain pipe, heavy and lethal, clouding the air with iron dust. Clara and French would have checked the bird by now, and I had an equally worrying impression of them, in that miserably confined locker, sharing such a small space. French had an awkward presence about him which became magnified in small spaces. A presence that demanded attention and could make your skin feel sensitive. He made you itch. With Clara, he liked to stand too close to her, as if he was deliberately inhaling a sweeter air. Or poisoning it.

‘Tell me, captain,’ I asked. ‘I was intrigued by what you told me of Mr French. He served in the navy, you say?’

‘Indeed. A master’s mate. Until he was thrown out.’

I was intrigued. ‘Was it inappropriate behaviour?’

‘Now, now, Saxby, I do not possess a wagging tongue,’ he replied, regarding me with amusement. ‘But I can tell you this—I do not know whether Quinlan French’s blood is unusually hot, or whether it is ice cold. Do you have a theory on this? No, I see you are afraid to speak your mind. Well, perhaps we should cut him to see.’ With that, Sykes deliberately turned away, as if to physically close the exchange.

As nightfall descended, as much as it was possible in those latitudes, I watched the distant clouds to the west as they deepened into cobalt blues and lichen grey. Veins of light tunnelled through them, illuminating them with a fire unlike that of any sky I had seen in England. Held between forelands that were as dark as a blacksmith’s pliers, parts of this strange light were reflected briefly on the sea, as if a shine was emanating from beneath.

Captain Sykes had begun to tell the whaling commander about the great auks, his voice lost in the simple pleasure of a boast as he related the events on Eldey as an adventure, an outrageous gamble. He had secured a fortune from nothing, he was claiming.

‘You must have them skinned,’ the commander said, speaking in good English. ‘Then soak them in alum and salt.’

‘I have them cooled and in good condition. They are too valuable to cut.’

‘The Esquimaux will do it. They are better knife-smiths than you have in England.’

Sykes considered it. ‘Well, we shall see. Personally, I don’t trust an Esquimaux with a knife. I have seven birds. Their sale will allow a new refit for the ship. Next year, I shall be dressed as a sea lord, Jesper, just you wait. I’ll have none of your whale muck on my boots, thank you.’

‘I cannot wait, captain,’ the commander replied, taking his strange leather cap off and running a hand through goatish hair. He looked at me with a curious glance as if I had been the subject of a previous conversation, before replacing his hat.

Sykes reached into a canvas bag he had set in the rocks by his side, and passed the commander his nearly completed needlework image of the auk. In the firelight I saw the familiar profile of the bird, standing heroically on its bare rock, an unfinished sea behind it.

‘An ugly creature with a big nose,’ Sykes said. ‘Very much like Mrs Sykes. I shall hang it by her dressing table and be secretly amused.’ Sykes laughed loudly at his joke, until he began to cough, and could not stop. It was the commander of the whaling station who, at that moment, voiced something that had not been mentioned before.

‘You are ill, Kelvin,’ he said. He spoke it as a statement from a man whose duty it was to notice illness before it became a problem.

‘
Pah!
’ Sykes responded, brushing the issue aside with a wave of his handkerchief. ‘No, no. Not ill at all.’

‘I hear it in your chest.’

‘Merely the rattle of old bones, Jesper. I am cursed by all this journeying into the dampest and foggiest part of the world.’

‘I think you have had enough of the
Amethyst
. Am I right?’

Sykes treated the question seriously. ‘One should never be outlived by one’s ship.’

We rowed back to the
Amethyst
in near darkness, across water that was as smooth and black as Indian ink. I thought of the grim clouds of whale flesh billowing beneath us, now invisible. Those parts of fins and flukes that I had seen wavering in the tide earlier in the day were still there, and the fact that I could no longer see them made their presence all the more terrible. The night is a great obscurer. Looking back to shore, I saw the fire burning claret red among the rocks, and some lanterns shone brightly from inside the sheds. They were not short of lamp oil, that was certain. Behind them, the valley slope and crags had vanished into a solid blank depth without definition. The Esquimaux settlement had sunk into this impenetrable blackness without any illumination, in the same manner that the sound of the pebbles landing on the cairn had vanished in such vastness. I thought of the child I had waved to, asleep in some dark corner of the stone house, with an unwashed face and a smoking fire near him. And moving across the shore towards where the whales had been tethered, I thought I could see the pale outline of Johannes, his hair as ashen as a wandering ghost.

Back on board I knocked lightly on Clara’s cabin door, even though it was past midnight. For reassurance, I needed to see her; my sense of foreboding was difficult to overcome.

She opened the latch almost immediately. ‘I’m glad you are back,’ she said.

‘And I am glad you didn’t venture onto the shore,’ I replied. ‘It was a vile and horrific place. I fear I might stink of it …’ I stepped into the cabin. ‘What is wrong?’ I asked, urgently.

‘Eliot,’ she said, quickly and short of breath. ‘It has been such a long day, you must never leave this ship again—I have been counting minutes until you came back—but a clock moves so slowly, doesn’t it? When you look.’

‘What has happened?’

‘I thought I heard the oars in the dark, an hour ago. But it was nothing—there’s nothing out there but emptiness.’