The Visitor (14 page)

Pearl didn't know what to say. She hadn't planned on going into town. The errand would keep Mrs Tiddy from nosing about but now Pearl felt uncertain about the day, her earlier resolve gone. That was Mrs Tiddy's way, upsetting things. Pearl snatched the coin and spun round, striking out for the cliff path. Mrs Tiddy's distantly called goodbye only made her walk faster.

The cliff path led to the abandoned huer's hut where the men had watched for the arrival of pilchards. Here the path split: right, down to Morlanow and the seafront, or left, a mile or so along to Govenek. The neighbouring village was visible from this spot, as was its deep square harbour that appeared huge at low tide, like the remains of some ancient ruined castle. Except it wasn't ancient, not by any stretch.

Govenek was still a village, still small and without a railway station. The buildings were as ugly and industrial as they had been when she was a child, corrugated iron and brick. There was no wide, snaking seafront to stroll along and admire the sea. There were no carts selling ice creams and no shop windows with made-up boats. No visitors went to Govenek. But the narrow bay did contain one treasure: the large fishing fleet was dotted across the water. Pearl looked away.

Beyond the huer's hut stretched flat grazing land where a group of sheep pulled at the grass and bleated their contentment. Pearl looked at the horizon, as she had never been able to stop doing. As she turned from the water she saw a dance of white.

Gorse was clumped near the low walls of the hut and between two bushes she saw a small animal run, quick as a blink. Pearl kept her eyes fixed on the spot, willing the shape to show itself again. She clasped her hands together and thought of all the charms Aunt Lilly had used to bring things into view. But it was such a long time since she had heard anyone say them out loud that she couldn't make the sounds that swept through her head into the right words.

As she mumbled and sang all that she could remember of the old charms, the creature came into sight. Pearl stood as still as the huer's hut, making herself part of the cliff, and watched the animal hop forward. The white hare sat, tilted its long face. She couldn't breathe for shock. As rare as true love or gold cut from Cornish ground, a white hare was a message. A teller of storms and a vessel for lost love.

Fourteen

They can't sit on the harbour wall today. There are too many boats unloading. Not pilchards, not yet, but the weather has held so fine that there are plenty of other fish being caught: mackerel, ling, even rays. The east coast men are there, lots of them, come to get their share. It's not just the hustle and bustle that makes the three of them falter in the street by the harbour wall, deciding where to play, but the ill feeling caught up in it. The sideways glances and the short tempers. Even her father is cross as he winds his nets to store in the bottom of his boat, not speaking to either Mr Tremain or Mr Polance, who themselves are frowning and shoving their gear about.

‘Let's go to the drying field,' Nicholas says. He starts walking that way without waiting to see if she and Jack follow, but they do, of course. As they pass the open entrance to the palace she hears an uneven trilling coming from inside. Alice is there, in the shade of one of the storage sheds, gutting the dogfish. Her stomach stands out from her dress so you can see the baby even when she has clothes on. She's not allowed to work on the beach, looking like this. Jack grabs Pearl's wrist and hauls her after Nicholas.

On the beach on the other side of the harbour wall they come across Mr Michaels. He's set up his easel to face the sea and is mixing paint in bright whorls on his palette. Jack marches past him, heading straight up the slope to get to the drying field. Pearl stops to look at the canvas. There's only a blue wash on it so far but it's very lovely to look at. Mr Michaels hangs back from them, standing awkwardly on a shelf of pebbles, his hands still now. He looks a little afraid. She thinks he's going to say something but then he decides not to and just looks at them instead.

‘Have you got any barley drops?' she asks him.

‘Have I got any what? Oh, sweets.' He looks relieved. ‘No, no I haven't. Sorry.' He starts mixing his paint again, glancing round at them every so often. She and Nicholas follow Jack up the slope.

Jack seems to have brought the ill feeling with him to the drying field. He tears up the grass and throws it into the slight breeze. Nicholas has carried some pebbles from the beach. He examines the markings on each one – he only picks striking stones – then arranges them in little towers. Every so often he glances down to Skommow Bay on the field's other side, where the broken boats lie, and she's worried he'll go down there, with Jack, leaving her on her own, or, even worse, leaving her alone
with
Jack who's teasey and sharp today.

A story will help. As long as it's not about keygrims. ‘Tell us the story about mermaids,' she says to Jack. ‘You're always going to and then you never do.'

He uses both hands to tear up a big patch of grass, the soil coming up with it and scattering across his legs. ‘I hate mermaids,' he says. ‘They eat their babies.'

‘No they don't,' she says, feeling suddenly sick. The picture of a mermaid eating her baby is lodged in her head. She can't shake it away. ‘They can't do.'

‘They love the taste of each other more than they do fish,' Jack says. Nicholas doesn't say anything but smiles as he arranges his stones. ‘It's because they're wicked and sinful and go to Hell,' Jack says. He gets up and runs down the hill to Skommow Bay. Nicholas shrugs and follows him. His last tower of stones slides into a heap. They know she doesn't want to go but they don't care. She watches them disappear between two upturned hulls then turns back towards home. Jack can't be right. Aunt Lilly will know.

Pearl finds Aunt Lilly outside her house, hanging rays to dry in the sun. The smell makes Pearl's eyes water and her nose hurt. She tells Lilly what Jack said. Aunt Lilly bends to her knees and looks Pearl straight in the eye. Aunt Lilly sees what others can't.

‘Well, my dear, I'm afraid that what young Mr Tremain told you is true, but he's wrong to be scaring you. The people of the sea only eat their young if they've nothing else to hand and the women of that kind, they always have something ready, just like your mother does for your father.'

This doesn't help Pearl at all – would her father eat her if her mother didn't have the fish cooked by supper time? She wants to go home, climb the stairs without anyone noticing, and roll up in bed as small as she can make herself.

The front door's wide open, as it usually is when the weather's hot like this. She doesn't want to see anyone, not least her father. In her head she sees him with a long, scaly tail and teeth made from kitchen knives. But there he is, at the kitchen table, his head in his hands. Pearl waits outside the door. He's meant to be at sea. She saw him getting his gear ready. Is he hungry? Is he here to eat her?

She hears her mother's voice from behind the open door. ‘He'll have to marry her,' her mother says. ‘You'll have to see to it that he does.'

‘He's set firm he won't,' her father says.

‘I don't care what he says, he's going to marry Alice and that's the end of it.' Her mother comes into view then, pacing the kitchen and throwing her hands above her head. ‘He's leading us all to sin.'

Her father sighs. ‘He's been shifty for weeks now. Cut himself with a hook this morning he was so absent-minded. Blood everywhere. When I went to help him he gave me a terrible row and then came clean. He asked her to leave, offered her money – more than he has – but she wouldn't go. Said she'd told Mr Taylor who it was, that she wants to marry Peter.'

Pearl gasps. Peter is Jack's father. Her parents look up and see her. There'll be trouble now for eavesdropping, but instead of shouting her mother only looks sad, tired. She sits down at the table.

‘Come here, you sneaking little thing,' her father says, but in a kind voice. ‘Jack's going to have a new mother. Isn't that nice for him, eh?'

Alice is Jack's mother? Mr Tremain who lives just next door is the sinner Mr Taylor talked about in chapel? The sick feeling that started on the drying field gets worse and she's cold and shivery too. Alice is going to have a baby that will be Jack's brother or sister but she might eat it, or Mr Tremain more likely because he's always angry and there's never any food in Jack's house. She runs past her parents, up the stairs to her and Polly's room, and buries herself under the blanket. She stays very still for a long time, hoping it will all turn out to be a dream. But she doesn't wake up.

Reaching under the rope mattress on her side of the bed, Pearl's hand searches for the soft parcel of comfort she keeps hidden there. Her fingers close on a pad of fabric just bigger than her palm and she pulls it out. It's a scuffed and blackened calico hare with mismatching bead eyes. She has to keep it hidden because not only would Nicholas tease her but Jack would be sad, and her father might be angry.

Depending on how you come across them, they can bode well or ill, but hares shouldn't be named directly as that's a sure way to curse the day. If they must be mentioned, they're given different names to ward off the ill luck they can bring. Cat of the wood. Dew beater. Stag of the cabbages.

Jack's mother – his real mother that nobody talks about – sewed animals from old clothes and gave them as presents. Pearl remembers her in pieces; a delicate pair of hands with long fingers, always sewing; clean aprons; and hair as yellow as the good sand near the drying field. Pearl can't remember her name as it's been so long, so she has given the pieces of woman a name that sounds like the memory of what she was called. Clara. Clara Tremain who came to Morlanow from Yarmouth and was always sad with a faraway sort of look.

Pearl was given the toy hare for Christmas. Everyone had just returned from the evening service at chapel and her mother had invited the Tremains and the Polances inside for a slice of heavy cake. Polly was given a green cat with a white ribbon tail, and Jack was already clutching a sky-blue horse with wool for its mane. Pearl has forgotten which animal Nicholas got. Then Clara came over to Pearl by the hearth and pressed the hare into her hand with a smile. Then there were shouts as her father, who had been watching, realised what it was. Pearl remembers seeing the fear rush up his face and stain it deep red.

‘Are you trying to send us all to the bottom of the sea?' he shouted, snatching the hare from Pearl's grasp, the air forced out of his lungs with
huffs
.

Clara's lower lip twitched as her beautiful hands fussed at her hair. ‘I'm sorry. I didn't mean any harm.'

Mr Tremain coughed. ‘Get your coat on, Jack.'

Clara tried to put her hand on her father's arm. ‘It's only a bit of cloth,' she said, ‘a little hare—' As soon as the terrible word escaped her mouth, her father threw the toy into the remains of the fire.

He turned his back on Clara, staring down at the fire. Her mother looked to Clara as if she wanted to speak, and then looked away. Pearl didn't know what to do so she stayed very still, trying to disappear into the shadows by the side of the hearth.

There was silence from everyone and Clara ran from the room, followed by Mr Tremain and then Jack trailing meekly behind. When they had left Mr Polance cleared his throat.

‘She's a funny maid, that Clara. What was Peter thinking, bringing her back with him? I don't know what those east coast fishermen get up to but their women aren't like ours. Right old time the east coast men must have.' He was halted by a look from his wife. ‘Well, we'd best be off then.'

Mr and Mrs Polance went to the front door, followed by her mother and father to show them out. Just as he was about to follow the grown-ups out of the room, Nicholas spun round and stuck his hands behind his head, waggling them as if they were long ears. Pearl ran to Polly and buried her face in her sister's skirts so she couldn't see.

With the Polances gone, everyone in Pearl's house went to bed, without a word about the hare or Clara. For some time, shouts came through the wall that was shared with the Tremains. When she was sure her own family were asleep, Pearl crept downstairs and found the hare at the side of the grate. It was scorched and smelt of cinders but Pearl wiped it as clean as she could and sneaked it back up to bed.

Not long after, Clara wasn't next door anymore. When Pearl asked Jack about her he clutched his blue horse to his mouth and went very strange, pulling at his hair, harder and harder, trying to tug clumps out of his reddening scalp. His cries brought her mother to the yard at the back of the house where Pearl and Jack were sitting amongst the chickens. Her mother took Jack in her arms and cooed and shushed him, then told Pearl to go and play indoors while she took Jack home. When she came back they had a grown-up conversation and her mother said Clara had gone away and wouldn't be back and that Pearl was not to ever mention her again, to anyone, or she would be in proper trouble.

In bed, hidden under the coverlet with her calico hare, Pearl thinks of Jack who will have a new mother, of Alice, and that stops her thinking of the mermen eating their babies.

There are times when she is up on the cliff path by herself that she becomes aware of another living creature nearby, and if she stays very still, a brown hare will come into sight. Everyone knows that hares can hold souls, like seagulls do for sailors, and Pearl wonders if perhaps that's where Clara is, her long fingers filling the delicate paws. Hares are houses for witches too, giving them fast legs to sprint away from those they have ill-wished. Maybe Clara was a witch, maybe that's why she left.