The Visitor (16 page)

Pearl's boots skid and slide as she tries to gain a foothold but the wood is slippery to climb and she has to grip with both hands. She catches her palm on a barnacle and its jagged edge breaks the skin. As she stops climbing to look at the blood appearing, she puts her foot in a pool of cold green water which floods her boot and makes her stiffen. Nicholas hasn't tried to climb up yet.

‘Come on!' Jack says. ‘Why aren't you climbing?' He's smiling now, the nets and his father and Alice forgotten.

Nicholas glances behind him at the army of broken boats. They seem to Pearl to have grown taller since they arrived.

‘It's getting late, Jack,' Nicholas calls up. ‘Must be nearly supper time, and I think it's going to rain.'

Pearl's relieved. Home to her warm house, her mother asking her what she's been doing, how she got so dirty, and her father laughing. She squeezes her hand into a fist to try and stop it stinging. Jack picks up a pretend oar and rows himself deeper into the wooden waves.

‘Time to go,' Nicholas says.

Jack scrambles higher up the lugger. ‘Not yet. We've only just got here.'

‘If we stay too long we won't see our way back,' Nicholas says.

This horror hits Pearl like a slap. She imagines Nicholas falling onto one of the treacherous-looking spars and clamps her lips together in case the thought should come out and be made true.

‘I don't care,' Jack says, his voice beginning to whine. ‘I'll stay here all night. I'm not going home.'

‘Jack, don't be foolish. You can't stay here.'

‘I can,' Jack says. ‘Go home, go on the pair of you. Leave me alone.'

‘You've got to come,' Nicholas says.

‘You can't make me. I won't.' Jack lets go of his imaginary oar and curls himself over the lugger's bow. Pearl thinks she can hear him sobbing. There's a drop of water on her arm, then another, and another. The cloud has finally caught up with them and its rain is sudden and hard.

‘I can't just leave you here,' Nicholas says, not with his usual confidence. ‘But you're stopping us all getting out. We'll get soaked.' Water drips from his hair.

Pearl uncurls her hand to show him the cut from the barnacle. He tilts it out of his shadow and winces when he sees the angry flesh, then closes her hand up again and says to her quietly, ‘It'll be all right.' Then to Jack, ‘Pearl's hurt herself. Come on.' At this Jack's sobbing becomes louder.

Nicholas's voice hardens. ‘You're being a baby. A big baby. Perhaps I
should
leave you here.' Jack stays hunched over the bow, unmoving. ‘No wonder your mother—' Nicholas stops himself but it's too late. He's said the one thing they're not meant to talk about. Jack's sobs become a scream, a terrible wailing that gets inside Pearl.

The rain drives into her face as she looks up at Jack who wails on and on. He'll be sick, Pearl thinks. He'll make himself sick and he has no mother to look after him yet because Alice has to hide. Nicholas is standing stock still as if he has decided to play a game of sleeping lions but not told anyone, then suddenly he jumps and makes a lunge at the lugger and, with his height, manages to swipe at Jack who's torn from the bow. Jack falls into the puddle Pearl stood in and his screaming stops, momentarily, with the shock of the water, before starting afresh, louder and shriller.

Nicholas pulls him to his feet. ‘I'm sorry,' he says, forcing Jack's arms to his side and holding them fast so Jack can't move. ‘I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. But we have to go home.'

Jack's screams batter Pearl. She's too shaken to cry though the feeling of wanting to makes her chest tremble the way it shouldn't, a fluttering as if a gull is trapped beneath her ribs. Her breath comes short and loud.

Nicholas' face crumples with worry as he hears her rasping. ‘It's all right, it's all right.'

She doesn't know if he's saying it to her or to himself. The pain in her hand is hot and tight, throbbing as fast as her chest. There's rain all through her clothes and her mother will be so cross.

Jack's screams shudder to sobs. The noise that ripped Pearl's insides stops gushing from his mouth but still her chest heaves. The shattered forms of the boats are stirring into life and leaning over her.

Nicholas gathers Pearl into his arms. He begins to run but the haunted boats are running alongside to keep up. Water splashes all around. He drags Jack with him, through the ruined boats in the direction of the low wall next to the road. Wood splinters as they crash forward; they slosh through rock pools and puddles; and Jack's sobbing climbs with every step closer to home.

They reach Jack's house first and Nicholas bangs on the front door. He turns to go, leaving Jack on the doorstep but having to prise Jack's hand from his.

‘No, no! Don't make me go in,' Jack pleads. ‘I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Nicholas. It's my fault, Pearl… Father will…' His voice breaks off into wails again.

Pearl has one last glimpse of Jack before her own door opens and she's rushed inside; Jack stands in a pool of light cast by the lamp his father holds. He squirms in its glow, twisting his wet shirt in his hands.

Sixteen

She gasped, certain of her chest's desperate need for air, of its frightened closing. But there was no constriction, no panic. She breathed in and out easily. The sensation was gone. A dim memory of something known, but too far away to feel.

Skommow Bay faded, the ruined boats replaced by the holiday visitors around her. Chatter, laughter. Seagulls swooping for stolen chips. She was outside Eileen's shop. That was something, at least.

David Pendeen was at the counter. He was arguing with a striking-looking woman in a tight, printed dress. A visitor. They had such front.

‘Don't you give me that,' the woman said, elbowing David out of the way of the till. ‘It was three shillings, not two.'

‘For God's sake!' David said, but he didn't try to stop her.

The woman wrenched the till drawer open. Pearl was astounded. What was this stranger doing in Eileen's till? Why wasn't David stopping her?

‘Now see here,' Pearl said, reaching round the counter to lay a hand on the woman's arm. The woman's skin felt soft, warm, but her arm was tensed holding the till. Pearl could feel the anger in the muscle. ‘This is Eileen Pendeen's shop,' Pearl said. ‘You get out of there.'

The woman frowned at Pearl. Pearl felt the woman's arm relax.

It was Margaret, Pearl realised. Eileen's daughter. She felt the blood rush into her cheeks. Her palm, still against Margaret's arm, began to sweat. She jerked her hand away. Margaret looked confused. She turned to David who shook his head very slightly. Pearl couldn't think what to say. How could she have forgotten Margaret? She'd watched the child for Eileen. Given her dinner when the shop was busy, before David was even born. Margaret had a terrible sweet tooth. Pearl could remember that. A sweet tooth but hated liquorice.

Fortunately Eileen appeared then. She'd been clearing space at the back of the shop, she said, to stock picnic hampers.

Eileen ushered Pearl into the little office behind the counter. Before Eileen could follow Pearl in to sit down, Margaret caught her, drew her back into the shop. Pearl's heart was pounding. She felt jittery, embarrassed. Margaret was whispering then Eileen said loudly, ‘Get on! She's fine. And don't think I didn't hear you and your brother fighting. I'm not dead yet. This is still my shop.' And with that Eileen whirled into the office and slammed the door shut behind her. ‘I ask you,' she said to Pearl, ‘your George doesn't give you any of this, does he? Fine lad he is.'

‘Eileen, I didn't know—'

‘Don't you worry,' Eileen said. ‘Margaret's never here long enough for you to see her these days. Comes in when she likes, giving David a row when he's the one helping out. She's got the kiddies, I know, but still. We managed, didn't we?'

Pearl nodded, grateful. She smoothed down her housecoat. Something hard caught her fingers. She rummaged in the pocket and pulled out a coin. Margaret had been talking about shillings. Was this hers?

‘Oh,
I
see,' Eileen said, smiling. ‘Just come for your shopping, not to see me. Well that's charming.' She really was very pretty, and of course Pearl could see now, Margaret looked just like her. How had she not known her? ‘What is it today then?' Eileen said. ‘Got a list? I'll ask David to fetch things for you. Save you getting up for a bit.'

Pearl couldn't remember. Had they butter at home? There was butter on the tablecloth. The stain wouldn't come out. Soap then, for washing. She told Eileen, but as she said the word she wasn't sure. But nothing else came. It must be soap.

‘No, no list,' she said to Eileen. ‘Never needed them.'

It took her a long time to walk back up the hill. She fell asleep in the kitchen, having only sat down to take her boots off. She was woken by the sound of the front door opening and then being gently closed. It could only be George. Jack didn't shut a door like that. There was a cup of clouded tea in front of her. She put her hand to the cup. Stone cold. It must have been there for days. George was leaning in the doorway.

Looking into his eyes she felt that he was adrift at sea somewhere, rocking on the swell and waiting for a breeze to carry him to where he was meant to be. Not that he was unhappy, as far as she knew. He had friends and as a child had played the same games that she, Jack and Nicholas had played. He had swum in the sea and sailed model boats. He was a good fisherman and a good husband to poor Elizabeth.

George shifted his weight and Pearl felt a smile creeping to the corners of her mouth. When he was born, she had found herself smiling all the time. When he woke in the night and cried out, she went to him smiling. Just knowing he was there to be loved, that she could go and look at him, drink in every detail, was enough. George was the line between what was lost and what was kept.

‘You're getting a bit ahead of yourself if you've come for Sunday supper,' she said.

George bent and kissed her cheek then took the other chair. She wasn't sure what the time was, whether or not he should have been at sea. There was a fair bit of wind today but not enough to stop him going out.

‘Is Elizabeth well?' Pearl said. He nodded. ‘So what's the matter then?' she said. He raised his eyebrows at her in mock annoyance. ‘Not that it isn't lovely to see you,' she said quickly.

George ran a hand through his hair. ‘I was passing.'

‘You were passing? On your way to Govenek, were you?'

He smiled and said, ‘Can't a boy see his mother now, got to be a reason?'

But there was, she knew, and she would have to watch her tongue. George was looking round the kitchen, frowning at the water stains on the walls.

‘It's not right that you're living like this,' he said. ‘A wonder you've not been ill. I don't mind, you know, having a look at the roof. Father'd have to let me first of course.'

‘Don't get on that,' she said.

‘I'm only saying. I hate to see you all the way up here. You sure you're all right? You're looking pale.'

George rubbed his arms and went to the window. Pearl saw with surprise that it was wide open, the curtains flapping.

‘Here, let me shut this,' George said. ‘Weather's a bit more seasonal today – aren't you cold?'

‘Can't be doing with the stuffiness of this place,' she told him. ‘I've got to have some fresh air in.'

Yes, she remembered; she had wanted to hear the sea better so she had opened the window and then she had made a cup of tea because her father would be back soon; he had just gone to check over the seine nets. She was waiting for him but had got lost somehow. Nicholas had found her and brought her home. He was here now to speak to her, it was important. Look how he frowned at her. She reached to smooth his brow.

George caught her hand. George.

Pearl moved to tidy her hair, then stood up. ‘You'll have a cup of tea?' she said. ‘And I've saffron buns, you'll have one?' She busied herself with the cup and plate, feeling his eyes on her back, following her movements. Her hand shook. She dropped the plate.

In a moment he was by her side, steering her back into a chair.

‘You are ill, aren't you? I thought you weren't right on Sunday. Father not looking after you? Should've known.'

‘I'm fine, really. Bit tired, that's all. Didn't sleep well last night. Worrying about you.' She gave him a smile and he looked away. Pearl put her hand on his arm. ‘Why don't you make a fresh pot of tea. Mine's gone cold anyway.'

George got up and filled the kettle, set it on the stove then rinsed the cups. He was such a beautiful boy, those dark eyes, his face freckled by the sun. He went to sea so many days each year. Pearl was grateful for the Sunday fishing rule only because it meant George could come for supper, when poor Elizabeth was well. It wasn't an easy life though, always hard to make the fishing pay and now the gear was costing so much. People seemed to want to eat fish that came from tins, those that Eileen sold, rather than fresh out of the sea. If George's nets were mauled by hake or ripped by storm tides, there was no one to help. Everyone was looking out for themselves and couldn't afford to be kind, but George was working hard and getting by on his own.