Tidetown (7 page)

Sitting on the cold flagstone floor of the monastery library, the catalogue open on her lap, Mrs April hears the soft footsteps of Brother Moses coming down the stairs from the depository above, puffing and blowing as he struggles with the load he carries.

‘These old books can be very heavy,' he says, carefully placing his cargo on the ground.

‘Indeed,' she says. ‘Who was it spoke of the weight of history?'

Brother Moses scratches his head, his wiry ginger hair standing stiffly on end.

‘Not I, said the sparrow,' he replies with a laugh.

‘Whose bow and arrow?' smiles Mrs April.

‘With my bow and arrow. I killed cock robin.'

‘The things we remember,' sighs Mrs April.

‘The things we forget,' says the Brother.

‘But then we all have different versions of a story to tell, ours or anyone else's,' considers Mrs April.

‘Talking of which,' says the monk, pointing to the pile of books, ‘I think that's the last of the batch.'

‘Excellent,' says Mrs April, smiling brightly, ‘now I truly know the size of the task.'

When she was first approached to chronicle the story of the monastery's founding abbot and his arrival at the Island of Good Hope, Mrs April was unsure she had the skills to undertake the job. A librarian she was, with over two decades' experience at the helm of Tidetown's library. But a historian? A biographer? Brother Saviour, recently installed as the monastery's twelfth abbot, had convinced Mrs April to take on the task. A tiny hidden room had been uncovered behind one of the walls when the builders were probing for rising damp. Picking away at the brickwork, one of the labourers discovered a cavity. On closer inspection it was found that a closet had been bricked in and there on its shelves were rows of books. When Brother Saviour opened the volumes he was amazed and enthralled to discover the unread writings of Brother Alphonso, the founder of the order and the monastery itself.

‘We dearly want someone who knows and loves the monastery,' said an impassioned Brother Saviour to Mrs April one afternoon as they walked together in the quiet surrounds of the cloisters. ‘We discussed this amongst ourselves and a number of the Brothers offered your name. Spontaneously, without any prompting. I may be unorthodox for a monk of our order, and probably best you keep this to yourself,' he said, leaning over and whispering into Mrs April's ear, ‘but I don't believe in divine intervention.'

Mrs April smiled and feigned shock and horror.

‘A liberal, a humanitarian, in monk's clothing,' she joked.

‘Precisely,' he added, ‘but I'm happy for some of the Brothers to believe that God put your name forward. If it convinces you to take on the task then I'm prepared to dispel my own judgement and defer to a higher authority. What say you, madam?'

Mrs April walked on a little, enjoying the quiet beauty of the cloisters, pondering the notion that the first abbot, so long ago, would oft times have made this circuit, deep in thought or else counselling a novice or Brother. She imagined sitting in the monastery library, opening up the first volume of the wise old man's writings and being the first to bring to light his private thoughts, his deep reflections. She turned to Brother Saviour and smiled.

‘With you and the Brothers confident in me,' she said, ‘and maybe even God endorsing my candidature, how can I be any other than humbled by the offer?'

‘Can I take that as a yes?' asked Brother Saviour.

‘Indeed you can, in the hope that I will live up to your expectations.'

The books now stacked in front of her, dating back centuries, some heavily bound and metal clasped, were to become her challenge and her refuge.

‘It's like the old abbot has been resurrected here before us,' says Brother Moses, ‘all his diaries and thoughts that have been hidden away for centuries suddenly appearing.'

‘A labour of love, it shall be,' replies Mrs April.

‘Not love's labour's lost, then?' jokes the monk.

‘No, we hope not. “Our court shall be a little academe, still and contemplative in living art”.'

‘Beautifully put, Mrs April,' he smiles.

‘Someone before me, methinks.'

‘Isn't it ever? Nothing new under the sun, but beautiful nonetheless in the recounting.'

She looks out the arched window across the cloisters. The sun is setting, casting a long shadow across the deep green of the lawn. The heavy wooden door of the chapel opens and there stands Zakora, framed in the doorway. Their eyes meet: she smiles and he smiles. She waves and he waves back, both caught in a shared moment.

Mrs April came from an unlikely home, but one bristling with potential and open minds. Her father was an eminent astronomer whose wonder at the mysteries of the universe turned him into an astrologer before Mrs April was born. His amazement at what he saw through the end of his telescope began to translate to patterns and destiny. By the time Mrs April was a toddler he was telling her stories of the alignment of stars and planets and how these would shift and shape the course of world events and individual lives.

‘Do the stars tell us what to do?' she asked one clear night as she peered skyward.

‘Not quite,' said her father, his long white beard caressing her cheek as he bent down beside her, ‘but they send out star mist that wafts around us to guide and protect us through each day.'

‘I can feel it,' her enthusiasm emphasised by her arms waving in the night air.

Her mother was a poet, inspired by the Romantics in an era sorely lacking in romance. She was a perfect match and foil for her stargazer husband. On many a night they would sit on a rug high on a hilltop, their baby daughter between them. Together they would seek out the night sky: he looking for signs, tracing orbits; she imagining mystery, composing beauty. Each in their own way waxed lyrical on the movement and characteristics of the celestial bodies. Their baby, then toddler, then child, drank in their words as elixir itself and grew to wonder at the world and the stars and the poetry and language to phrase it all.

Joshua stands at the crossroads, where once, in darker days, the gibbet stood ready for miscreants and the condemned to be dangled for all to see and be forewarned. Waiting for the stagecoach to arrive with letters for the mayor, he recalls a childhood memory of a distant cousin hanging by the thread of his neck as the crows picked at the soft tissue of his face. He shudders and slaps his leather gloves against his cheek to bring himself back to the moment. He hears the sound of a horse's hooves approaching and then recognises the sizeable girth of Angelica sitting astride her True Beauty as they turn the corner and come into view. He doffs his cap and bows.

‘How charming and elegant a sight. A graceful, and may I be so bold as to say, beautiful young lady and her ride.'

The horse stumbles then finds its feet and balance under the considerable weight of its charge.

Angelica turns up her nose at the sycophancy of this man she abhors. The horse neighs and rears up, nostrils flaring. If she had her way she'd like to see the full force of the animal come crashing down on this stupid man's head. “What a terrible tragedy, Papa”, she would say, “and such a fine and noble fellow”. Rather, she pulls on the reins, turns a semicircle and then urges True Beauty to surge forward and leap the hedge into the freshly ploughed field beyond. Secretly hoping the horse would clip the privet and send the spoilt brat of a child to a cracked skull and a coma, Joshua smiles and waves them on their way. He flips open his fob watch to check the time, and precisely as he does so a rumble of thunder rolls in from the hills to the east. A single drop of rain falls onto the glass of Joshua's watch. He wipes it away with his glove, puts the watch back in his waistcoat pocket and turns his collar to the weather. A sheet of lightning illuminates the spot where the gallows once stood and Joshua makes the sign of the cross in remembrance of his executed cousin. The rain begins to fall more heavily and through the deluge he hears the unmistakable clatter of horses and the wheels of the stagecoach. Joshua straightens his cravat, adjusts his hat and stands to attention, eyes fixed ahead.

The stagecoach rattles to a halt at the crossroads, steam of perspiration vying with the rain on the horses' backs. The packages and suitcases tied to the roof shift and settle as the wheels find purchase on the muddy road. Joshua nods to the driver and his offsider as the door opens and the postmaster gestures for him to step forward.

‘Punctual as ever, Mr Barnum,' he says, ‘come hell or high water.'

‘Whether hell is yet upon us is still a matter for debate and conjecture,' replies Joshua, the rain running off the rim of his hat. ‘But we can confidently predict high water this day.'

The postmaster, a man of middle age, born and bred in Tidetown and renowned for having never misplaced a letter in his forty years of service, steps down from the coach and takes Joshua by the arm.

‘Come this way,' he says, leading Joshua away from the prying ears of those seated in the stagecoach, ‘I have the mayor's packages and despatches, but I want you to take a message to him. In strictest confidence and secrecy.'

‘Of course, of course,' entreats Joshua, ‘you can be wholly confident in my adherence to secrecy.'

The postmaster hands Joshua a small sack.

‘Here is your master's correspondence etcetera, but the other matter to impart is of gravest concern.'

Thunder claps and lightning strikes on cue.

‘There are,' says the postmaster, whispering in Joshua's ear, his warm breath a welcome relief from the fierce coldness of the day, ‘confirmed cases of the plague in the Greater Province.'

He stands back waiting for Joshua's reaction. Joshua purses his lips, takes a deep breath, then does his own whispering.

‘The Black Plague?'

‘Show me a plague that isn't.'

‘And this one?' asks Joshua.

‘The blackest,' is the reply.

By now two heads have appeared at the stagecoach door window, wondering at the cause of the delay.

‘So,' says the postmaster, for all to hear, ‘please pass on my best wishes to the mayor and be sure he receives all the messages.'

At that he waves to the driver, climbs back into the coach and they set off on their way to the next stop. Joshua watches the stagecoach climb the hill to the edge of town, wondering if its cargo might harbour more than exotic spices, fancy cloth and the mail from Bray, the provincial capital.

THREE

‘Hear ye, all persons! Ye people as many as ye are! I have done things according to the design of my heart.'
– Hatshepsut

Walking on the pavement, confident of his place in the social order, the mayor is recognised by all. On approach, his most noticeable and distinguishing feature is his rotundity. As he gets closer the onlooker is taken by his sideburns. They are white and curly and fulsome: mutton chops, so called; though his huge belly loves not only its fill of mutton, but of venison and partridge, wild boar and pigeon, and all that the woods and hills around have to offer. If, as he passes close by, you were to bid him good morning, you may well be surprised by his rummy-red eyes and the broken veins on his bulbous nose. Too much fine wine, you might think, and you'd be correct. It is a favourite pastime of the mayor's, to walk among his people; for caps to be doffed and greetings voiced. But this morning the mayor has yet to leave home for his daily promenade up and down the High Street. Standing at the top of the main stairs he is thinking that soon Mrs M will have finished preparing breakfast and he can revel in the repast before taking up the responsibilities of the day and the joys and chores of office. Behind him he hears the shutters of the bedroom being opened and the shriek of his daughter, chastising the maid for her intrusion.