Tidetown (16 page)

‘Like no other,' adds her sister.

The pony club girl titters in excitement, as if she is about to be presented a ribbon at the county gymkhana.

The twins catch each other's glance. This is to be their destiny as decried by the Archangel Gabriel, whose vision appeared to them in the depths of their solitude in their prison cell. On those nights they whispered of the truth they were preordained to declare to the non-believers. ‘Do you see him, sister?' one would say to the other in the middle of the night. ‘Yes I do.' … ‘Do you adore him, sister?' … ‘Yes I do, yes I do.' Then by day, to the amazement of the wardens in the prison, they would write handwritten page after page, sitting silently in their cell. Unbeknown to any, they were writing down the Book of Remnantics, as decreed to them in vision and visitation. Deep and dark into the night, one twin would hear the other murmur, see the rapture in her sister's face. The whites of her eyes, the beatific smile, the muttering in tongues. In the morning, before speaking, the one twin would open the ledger to a fresh page and lay out the pencils they were permitted. The raptured twin would sleep longer, the exertions of the night having drained her. Her sister would sit beside her, mopping her brow, filling the jug with fresh water. Once she awoke, no words would pass between the two, not a sound. Then she would sit at the desk and write furiously, remembering all that had happened in the night: the revelations, the decrees and commands. Night by night the Book of Remnantics came to be written. And so it would be, each twin taking her turn, the awakened and the guardian. Words of guidance. Commands. Predictions. No more cheek turning; rather the wait for a sign to inherit the earth. And then the letters came from the child in Tidetown. Angelica was her name. The messenger.

How thoughts come up. Lost thoughts. Hidden-away thoughts. The very stuff of memory. Mrs April catches hold of a long-ago afternoon in the corner of her mind. And there, just out of vision, is the Reverend Simmons. Tall in the remembering. Strong and handsome, as she recalls. Her mind settles on a sunny afternoon, was it really so many years, even decades ago? She can smell the heat of the day. Feel the touch of her lover's hand on her shoulder. In the distance comes the sound of children, not hers, none for her. Would there ever be? They are playing a game: hide and seek, or peek behind the curtain? Boys and girls laughing and jostling, oblivious, as yet, to the pain of love lost and the thrill and danger of love but newly found. Searching out the nuances, the edge of her mind rekindles the day, pieces together the fragments: to recreate, reassemble, so that her thoughts inspire her feelings. Of love, of hope. Of lust, of longing. There he is: the first man to hold her close after the death of her sailor husband. Her husband, her darling man, drowned and taken from her before they could truly find each other. As she retells the story to herself, as she reimagines the moment, the Reverend Simmons lies beside her, so close that she can see the green speckles in his wolf-grey eyes. The grass is tall and dry, longing for the overdue rains of late summer. She reaches out as if to stroke his hair, relishing the intimacy, holding precious the moment.

‘It's not my place, I know, Mr Barnum, but I do not have a good feeling about the twins.'

‘And what might a good feeling be, pray tell, Mrs M?'

‘A good feeling,' she says, breaking apart the cloves of garlic, ‘would be one that endears them to me, in spite of the memory of what they did. I can forgive errant ways. Especially among the young. A good feeling would bring warmth to the house.'

‘And there is no endearment? No warmth?'

‘Yesterday,' she says, crushing the garlic under the flat edge of a kitchen knife as if hoping to ward off evil, ‘they appeared in the doorway. I all but shudder at the memory. I felt a cold draught on my neck. I turned around and there they were. Just standing and staring at me.'

‘They said nothing, Mrs M?'

‘Not a word. Of greeting or otherwise. They have brought no warmth to this house, Mr Barnum, not even a flicker.'

Perch and Carp sit facing each other less than a foot apart. They are holding hands and quietly repeating, over and over again.

‘Make yourself known, your will and your way, oh Master, your will and your way.'

There is a knock on the door. Then another knock.

Perch opens one eye, Carp another.

‘Madams,' comes the voice from behind the door. It is Anna, the housemaid. ‘You have a visitor. In the mayor's study.'

‘Yes,' says Carp.

‘What will I tell him?' asks Anna.

‘We will come,' replies Perch.

‘Presently,' adds Carp.

Downstairs is Mr Osprey, the solicitor. He is arranging his papers on the desk in front of him. Satisfied that everything is in its place, he reclines in the high-backed leather chair and imagines himself as the mayor (who is presently out of town on council business). He gesticulates to an imaginary audience, nodding sagely, ready to impart wisdom and the orders of the day. He looks around at the room, which is dominated floor to ceiling by shelves stacked with rows of identical leather-bound books. Gold lettering on the spine of each tome denotes the volume and date of its contents: planning applications, committees and subcommittees, bylaws and regulations. Turning around he is startled to see Perch and Carp standing across the table from him. He shuffles the papers to compose himself and takes a fountain pen from the breast pocket of his jacket.

‘Yes, good afternoon,' he says in his most officious voice, trying to mask the discomfort he feels in the presence of these identical young women with a notoriety that precedes them. The peculiar essence they exude is totally unfamiliar and unknown to him.

‘Well, Miss Fishcutter and … Miss Fishcutter. I imagine you are curious as to why I am here.'

They say nothing. Mr Osprey clears his throat, picking up a sheet of paper from the closest pile.

‘Well, let me tell you then. Here I have a copy of a decree from the Crown Court, dated one year after your trial and sentencing.' He pauses, looks up in expectation of a reaction: maybe of surprise, maybe uneasiness or embarrassment at the mention of crime and punishment. But the twins are unmoved.

‘Let me get to the point,' says the solicitor, taking a handkerchief from his pocket and wiping his brow. ‘Mrs Fishcutter, your stepmother, left Tidetown shortly after the trial and the banning of the cult to live at the Bethel, the headquarters of her religious group.'

‘We know what the Bethel is,' says Carp.

‘What has become of her is of no interest to us,' says Perch.

Mr Osprey looks up, both relieved and unsettled at hearing the voices of the twins.

‘That aside, you might be interested to know that she renounced all worldly goods and that subsequently the Crown has held in trust the estate of Mr Fishcutter, passed from his wife and now to you, his surviving children. All property was sold and assets combined into a trust fund. Now that you are,' he pauses to choose his words, ‘… back in the community, these funds are at your disposal.'

The solicitor sits back in the chair waiting for a response.

Perch takes the paper from the desk.

‘Our decree?' she asks.

‘Yes, yours,' says Mr Osprey, expecting further instructions.

‘Then we will take it with us. Now,' says Carp.

The twins look at each other, turn their backs on the man who is of no more use to them, then leave the room.

The mayor peels an apple with his small paring knife. The skin curls and coils around his fingers in the shape and fashion of a snake making its way from a tree to the jungle floor.

‘So what have you to report, my good man?' he asks of Joshua, who stands to attention on the other side of the huge mahogany table. The mayor is seated, offering nothing to his deputy from the plate of fruit before him. He pops a grape into his mouth, then quarters the apple. Joshua notices a bead of juice shimmer on the edge of the blade. It drops onto the mayor's wrist, trickles and disappears.

‘The ruffians, your worship.'

‘The ruffians?'

‘Yes, the ruffians,' repeats Joshua. ‘It is they who are troubling our townsfolk. As I reported to you the captain's main concern is on the levies and commissions. But the talk of the ruffians comes from all quarters. The sailors, the merchants, the fisherwomen. They, the ruffians, insinuated themselves into my inveigling, always popping up one way or another, in one shape or form.'

‘And what, pray, is it about these ruffians that bothers the people of Tidetown so?'

‘Ah,' says Joshua, warming to his subject, never happier than when he feels himself to be useful to his lord and master. ‘These are ruffians and scallywags who live on their wits, who come out from their cave in the middle of the night and grab what they can. One day it'll be bounty from a shipwreck washed up on the reef. And I assure you the men down at The Sailor's Arms, even the old captain himself, are mighty unhappy about losing out on what they see as rightly theirs.'

‘My commission notwithstanding,' corrects the mayor, just to make matters clear.

‘Goes without saying, Your Honour,' agrees Joshua, nodding his head and pulling at his collar.

‘And others in town, how do the ruffians trouble them?' asks the mayor.

‘I hearsay, but have seen none of this myself, that they steal from the fish market, throw stones at children in Sunday school, jeer at the constabulary and blaspheme in the town square. They are a scourge and an encumbrance. In short, they give our town a bad name.'

‘Give a dog a bone, is what I say,' quips the mayor.

‘A bone?'

‘Yes, a bone … to the electorate … to keep them happy. That, dullard, is why I am mayor and you will always, at very best, be deputy.'

Joshua smiles and bows, basking in what he will take as a compliment.

‘Then my election promise will be to rid the town of this scourge that bothers all sections of our fair and caring townsfolk.'

He pops a slice of apple in his mouth, knife poised, deep in reflection.