Tidetown (11 page)

And Blue Monkey who guided me, who comforted me when there was no comfort to be found, when all was lost for me, when all was at its darkest. I thought that if I was a tiger I would be so strong that I could do combat with the fiercest of men. That I would be invincible and in some way, which I knew nothing of then and barely know much of now, I would feel nothing, be apart from this world of boys and girls, mothers and fathers. It's different now. The sense of it, moving through the world away from the littleness of home, seeing more, being more. I know but a portion, but it is enough to sustain, enough to give me courage, enough to give me purpose. And time has taught me to be satisfied with life on life's terms. A short life so far, but a life good enough.

Before she died Mother spoke of you, my Father. About forgiveness, about acceptance. That helped. Helped me to make sense of the senseless, to understand the story of our lives, how it was lived out. The last time I visited her she was so calm, at peace. She spoke of you as the man she loved and I came to believe in you both; I came to understand how things were with us all. Our family. Our one family in the midst of all the others.

I lie in my bunk. The ship rises and falls in the waves, carving a steady course across the high seas, a trade wind at its helm. My thoughts drift among the creaking timbers of the cabin as the light of the new day waits to insinuate itself through the porthole. What does it mean this growing to be a man? I know who I am, but I'm not sure who I was.

I have seen some sights, these years at sea. Wondrous, dangerous, salty sights. When I think back, looking up at the sky awash with clouds of stars, it seems as if I have left my twelve-year-old self far behind, far away in the past. The image of that young boy is there on the quayside with Mrs April as she waved the galleon out of the bay. On that morning, I stood on the deck and watched her standing all alone on the jetty, her white handkerchief fluttering in the breeze. A part of me stayed with her. It was that part that was the child, the part that had lived out a life in a family destined for sadness, striving for love. But tonight all is calm, the ship is steadily on course, the sea is flat and the wind is at ease. My thoughts can drift with the gentle shift of the waves. Tidetown seems a short lifetime ago. Thinking back, so many images jostle for attention, for reflection. As they so often do, the faces of Carp and Perch Fishcutter come to the fore. Standing in the village hall, their father tied and tethered. The eager, expectant look on their faces as I do the deed desired of me: I light the pyre that will send him to his death and the certain hope of resurrection. Then the courthouse comes back into view: the trial, the judgement and banishment. Scenes and thoughts that have returned ever since those days. But there are others. Of brighter days. Memories that nurture. And so to an image of Mrs April, kite flying, and my little dog running here and there. Sensations of lightness, playfulness. Another in the strawberry patch in the monastery garden where the court sent me: the smell of fruit, the feel of soil on the palms of my hands. And the huge ship coming into the bay: its beckon and call, my chance to take to the wind and the tide and the future unfolding. Now in the hour before dawn, I look up to the sky and the stars that observe the hustle and tussle of the little lives of men.

From noon to dusk to dark (as it is now), Mrs April has sat at her allotted desk in the monastery library piecing together the story of a life. Brother Alphonso is taking shape before her. Once, as a young librarian, she was given the task of collating the obituaries of those considered to be Tidetown's most prominent residents. Back then she tracked her quarry (almost entirely men of the ruling elite: politicians, clergy, merchants) from the back pages (brittle with age) of the
Tidetown Chronicle
, taking copious notes of outstanding events, dates and achievements. Yet, more often than not, what would hold her attention in the obituaries were the little details: a passion for crossword puzzles, building a replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa from matchsticks. She loved to gain a sense of the private person. Her favourites were those that told the whole story from birth to death, a life in the twinkling of an eye: a column or two of newsprint as a summation of what it means to be a human. And then the final short paragraph, those left behind (to grieve, to have and to hold: the widow, the siblings, children and grandchildren, to live and to love until their own time arrives).

She looks through the small window above her stall. On the horizon is the flickering light of a fishing boat heading out to the sound and the fields of halibut, bream and cod. The single light fades then glows again at the behest of wave and tide. As the boat dips from swell to trough Mrs April charts its progress to the open sea. Looking back down at her piles of handwritten notes and the open books spread out on the table, she conjures an image of her man. No paintings, no sculptures, no drawings remain, but she sees him as tall and strong, with thick curly hair, dark brown eyes and an olive complexion.

No one knows the exact date of Abbot Alphonso's birth, but it was sometime between the reigns of Queen Scarletta and the Prince Regent Claude. What is known is that he lived an itinerant life. His father, a dashingly handsome man, was called Valentino. He had five children, but Alphonso was his only son. His mother, Isabella, the local beauty and daughter of a stonemason, had taken on more than she could handle with her bohemian husband. Busy with four girls and a dreamy boy, she, unlike all the other women around and about, was oblivious to her man's philandering. The day before Palm Sunday, the year of Prince Claude's assassination, a close cousin appeared with a three-month-old baby. The infant had piercing sky-blue eyes, the likes of which had first attracted Isabella to her husband. She gave her cousin 400 crowns on the condition, sworn on the Bible and her child's life, that she would mention the visit to no one and never contact the household again.

From then onwards Isabella insisted Alphonso accompany his father on his trips to the far-flung corners of the kingdom. She reasoned that having a young boy at his side would curtail her husband's infidelities. But frequently Alphonso would be left in a courtyard to amuse himself, sometimes for minutes, often for hours, and once for two full days and nights. On one such occasion he found a ladder lying in the shrubbery. Aiming it at an open window, he climbed to the top rung. There, amidst a writhing mass of sheets and brightly coloured coverlets was his father's bare back and a tangle of limbs. He knew that something was wrong and that this knowledge would give him some indefinable power over his father. From that day onwards, whenever his father asked him to wait in a courtyard while he conducted his business, Alphonso would ask for money so he could buy sesame seeds and dry fruit from the street hawkers.

The moment he had hairs on his chest he told his parents he was leaving. ‘Where to?' was his mother's plaintive cry to her only son, going so suddenly and with no hint of warning. ‘Somewhere else,' he replied without even a cursory glance back over his shoulder as he closed the door behind him.

Like so many who eventually find the path to enlightenment and spirituality, his journey was not without detours. He married women and left them. Found other women and left them too. He abandoned children crying in their mother's arms. He gambled on the turn of a corner. ‘Man or woman? That includes boy child or girl child,' he would say to anyone who'd listen, ‘who'll be next to appear around the corner of the street? Fifty doubloons says it'll be a woman. Who will take my bet?' He could settle nowhere. For years, for decades, he wandered the continents, not even aware he was on a quest, with no sense of where any of his ventures were heading. He drank the liquors, sampled exotic plants, slept with every woman who acquiesced. He thought of little but pleasure and took immeasurably more than he ever gave.

Then on his fiftieth birthday, in a small town in the depths of a country he barely knew, he found himself sitting in cafe. It was winter and the ancient cedars were laden with snow. Alphonso wore a thick sheepskin coat he had won in a bet in Sverdlovsk with an opera singer over how many grains of salt were on the tip of his little finger. There was only one other person in the cafe, an intense young man with olive skin and thin sharp features, half Alphonso's age. Alphonso had just been thrown out of his most recent lover's bed for whispering into her ear the name of her sister (an innocent enough mistake, as he protested in vain). He was sipping on a glass of the local red wine when he caught the eye of the earnest young man and they nodded to each other.

‘What has brought you here?' asked the young man, looking Alphonso in the eyes with a stare and confidence that defied his youth.

‘Wandering feet and the need of a bed.'

The young man looked up and smiled, as if he had been waiting for this very answer.

‘Then you need wander no more. You are welcome to live in my house and we will unravel the meaning that has thrust us together.'

Alphonso, used to the strangeness and unpredictability of life, did what was so much a part of his nature: he picked up his bag and took what was on offer. Little was he to know that the following six months would set him on a path he had never dreamed of. The young man, a Prophet no less, made it his mission to imbue Alphonso, the older and more worldly wise of the two, with the knowledge he felt it was his bidden duty to impart.

Years later, Alphonso, as the first abbot at the newly built monastery on the Island of Good Hope, would often repeat the words of the young man from that faraway land. He liked to use a favourite saying of the Prophet's as something of a riddle on the night that novices first arrived at the monastery.

‘“God has skin on”, the Prophet said to me one night. He was a wise young man from the Middle East who died far too young.'

The abbot would always pause and look around at his novice monks to see if any understood.

‘God has skin on,' he would more often than not repeat. Mostly his words would be greeted by smiles of uncertainty. He would pause for a while, then explain his own riddle.

‘By that, he meant that God speaks to us, to me, to you, through people. It is through people, and not through some amorphous, divine, unknowable entity, that I come to understand what is good, what is right, what is the loving action. I remember my first night in the house of the Prophet. His sister, Marianna, was a humble dressmaker who worked hard to support her brother, knowing he had special talents. They were alone, these two, as their mother, older brother and sister had all died from pestilence. I saw something of the power of the human spirit in that house and it changed how I viewed the world. I lived with them for a year. I learnt humility and kindness of spirit from Marianna. From the Prophet I learnt the importance of being teachable, of constantly seeking. After that year I set off on a spiritual journey that took me to many places and to sit by many wise people. Eventually, I settled here. A windswept outcrop of cold weather and crashing waves. It was just a rock when I arrived and now we have a community, a monastery, a history and a succession of teachable men with skin on.'

Mrs April reads on, taking notes, piecing together a life that came to touch so many. Out of the small window she sees that night has fallen. The sea has a sheen of spilt ink, glassy and still. Two fishing boats head to the horizon, one following the other, in unison and singleness of purpose.

The mayor takes his place in the Inner Circle. In his right hand he holds the heavy metal orb that denotes his office as Elective Chief Oddballian. His left trouser leg is hitched above his knee, exposing a hairless, milky-white calf. There are five other men in the Inner Circle. Each is dressed identically in long, flowing, purple-hooded robes and full face masks. Yet the mayor knows each for who they are: not anonymous strangers, but the most notable and powerful men of the Province. And tonight it is the Director of Provincial Gaols, standing to his left, who is especially on the mind of the mayor. The ceremony unfolds. Each repeats the ancient promises and performs the secret rituals that bind them close together: blood and prayer, symbols and signs that cement the continuity of influence and wealth. The thick walls of the Sanctum, covered in mystical ciphers and images, absorb the words and pledges. The carved statues of mythical forms and creatures look down from the ceiling. All that can be seen of the men in the circle are the eyes that dart back and forth behind the masks. The mayor catches the gaze of the Director, denoting that there is business to be done.