The Visitor (28 page)

Her mother smoothes Pearl's hair from her face. ‘It's strange, isn't it, without her here.' They both look round the room, taking in the gaps where Polly's few possessions used to be: her hand mirror, her boots. ‘They must be nearly there now,' her mother says. ‘I'm sure there'll be a letter soon.'

And what good is a letter, Pearl thinks, but she nods. Anything to make her mother worry less.

‘Sleep then, my sweet,' her mother says. ‘It's hard on us all.'

Waves crash on Witch Cove and their spray, sent far into the sky, spins a fog. Pearl is trapped inside this cocoon of damp air, lost and alone, but walking. She hears her name. A bony hand catches her wrist and drags her into the fog.

‘Pearl?' It's her mother's hand on hers, her mother's face peering down at her. ‘You were dreaming, my sweet. Only dreaming.'

She's darning when Pearl comes downstairs and sinks into a chair by the hearth.

‘What were you doing last night, before we got home, to leave you looking as wisht as this?' her mother says. She'll have the truth even if it's dragged out. Pearl's lips are moving, unable to stop themselves.

‘I…'

The sound of the door saves her. Her father is back from a day waiting by the seine boats. Before saying a word, he takes her mother in his arms and kisses her. Pearl is struck with fascination and can't take her eyes from their tenderness. Unbidden, she can feel the press of remembered lips against hers and as she puts her fingers to her mouth the room begins to swirl.

Her father stares down at her hunched in the chair. Her stomach is a fist of nerves and she curls over herself to ease it.

‘Bit wisht, aren't you, my love?' her mother says. She puts a hand to Pearl's cheek. ‘Still warm.' And then goes to her father by the table, thinking Pearl won't hear, and says, ‘Swimming, do you think?'

Her father sits with her by the hearth. It's only when he's still and quiet like this that Pearl can see how he has aged. The weeks since Polly left have been hard on them all, wearing him out further. His once full head of hair has thinned and lost its hue, greying at his temples. His face, always scored with lines, is further marked by years in the sun, waiting for the pilchards. He has taken to cutting his beard much closer to his skin, which makes his face smaller, gaunt almost. Is this what Nicholas will become, if he stays in Morlanow for a lifetime? There is a spark in him now, as there was in her father once, and she doesn't want it put out.

‘What happened at the meeting last night?' she says.

Her father yawns. ‘The Council finally agreed that something has to be done and there were some strong words. To hear Jack-next-door speak against the east coast men like he did, fishermen like himself even though they do forsake the Sabbath, well.' Her father turns round to her mother. ‘He was like a different boy, wasn't he?'

Her mother is peeling turnip for a pie. ‘He was,' she says. ‘But he's not a child anymore, none of them are.' And she looks over at Pearl briefly, the knife motionless, before resuming peeling. ‘They'll take their own course, for better or worse.'

‘So what will they do, the Council?' Pearl says.

‘They restated the by-law against fishing on the Sabbath in Morlanow's waters and landing Sunday catches at our harbour. Council vote was unanimous.'

No wonder Jack isn't satisfied. ‘Will it be any use?' Pearl says.

‘It should be!' her mother says.

‘And there's to be a petition sent to the Fishermen's Committee in Yarmouth,' her father says. ‘It's to ask their members to respect the faith of those whose waters they're in, and their pockets too. Prices this month have been lowest I can remember. Oldest of the Tillotsons told the Master he's not to repair anything that needs serious work doing once this season's over. There's not enough of a profit to pay for it.'

‘How many boats will go then?' her mother asks.

‘Well, there's at least three seine nets cut to pieces, that I can think of, which means three more crews without wages.'

‘But if people here are suffering, shouldn't they go out on Sundays too? That way there'd be more money to repair the boats.' The words leave Pearl's tongue before she can haul them back. They are Nicholas's words. He has worked his way inside her.

Her mother drops her knife. ‘I know where you're getting these notions. Keep away from that boy, Pearl. He's no good.'

Pearl bows her head. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘The Sabbath has and always will be kept in Morlanow,' her father says, his voice close to a shout. ‘It is the Lord's Day and He will provide for His people.'

Her mother comes to stand behind her father's chair, resting her hand on his shoulder. ‘You must pray, Pearl,' she says. ‘Pray for fish and for the east coast men to see the error of their ways.'

Her father packs his pipe, knocking it against the wall to settle the baccy. From her mother's hands comes the chop chop chop of turnip for the pie. The clock ticks their lives away, louder with each second lost. Snaking into Pearl's thoughts comes the dismal certainty, clearer and sadder than anything she has ever thought before, that the pilchards are leaving. By kissing her, and touching her, as he did, Nicholas has handed Pearl a pair of spectacles. She can see Morlanow the way that he sees it and he's right. So now she has to see him. There's nothing else that can be done. He is where the future lies. He is her future. He has offered her a way out.

Fourteen

She wishes that on the night Nicholas kissed her they had both been drowned. Inside her a ceaseless wave drags her stomach over rocks. A morning with her mother, collecting cockles and mussels, comes and goes. She falls into the water many times and her mother gives up trying to hold a conversation. After three hours Pearl has barely half a pail of shells and supper will be lean again.

She wants to help find food, to ease the worry that leaves her mother sleepless, and to banish the soreness of hunger. But she can't set her mind to anything since that night in the boat. Her thoughts have become sinful. She will be turned to stone like the dancing girls who broke the Sabbath.

As if they belong to someone else, her feet carry her from the house, through back alleys and concealed passages. Only the sea greets Pearl's arrival at the front. Sunlight glances off its back. A breeze has risen from the heat and rakes the water into short-lived peaks that cut and cross one another on their way into land. Low banks of cloud scatter wandering shapes on the tilting surface. The morning's fish sale is coming to its close and there isn't much stock left on the slipway; not that there would have been much to start with, just what the east coast crews brought in. Morlanow's fishermen only have eyes for a red-purple stain rushing to shore.

Pearl's glad for the people milling about and for the faces she doesn't recognise; the artists with their canvases; the holiday visitors ambling past, taking in the sea air. The Master's wooden hut is smaller than those used by the visitors to change on the beach. When Nicholas is inside working, his head and shoulders are visible through the little window. Peering from the other side of the street, half-concealed behind a cart loaded with empty hogsheads, Pearl sees him. He doesn't lift his gaze from his pages. Is he thinking of her?

A hand cups her waist. ‘'Scuse me, 'darlin'…' A fisherman Pearl doesn't know steps round her from the alleyway behind. Stubble darkens his face and he reeks of stale tobacco. He grins, revealing half a set of blackened teeth. With his hand still on her waist he leans down at Pearl as if challenging her to resist.

‘Leave go of me!' She wrenches herself free and stumbles across the street, opposite the harbour wall.

Nicholas is bound to be short with her for having left him on the sand after their trip in the boat, and for keeping away since. She's hasn't formed the words to let him know she's sorry, that he's right. She isn't sure she will ever have them.

Nicholas stands in the open doorway of the Master's office. ‘Pearl? What's the matter?' He comes and takes hold of her hand and she realises it is because there's a tremor in it, throughout her body.

If she leaves now, all will be lost. The unspoken words will choke her. ‘I need to tell you something,' she stutters.

‘Now? I'm working, limpet-legs.' He can't be angry if he calls her that. She grips his hand. ‘What is it?' he says.

‘In the boat, when you… when we… ‘

But all that she has been practising in her head is lost in shouts coming from the far end of the harbour wall, followed by a crash of splintering wood. Nicholas pulls her to where a crowd is knotting.

A stack of hogsheads has been knocked over and in the midst of a broken barrel the stranger with the missing teeth is trying to get to his feet. Standing over him is Jack with a red stain on his cheek. Stephen and James Pengelley hang back behind him.

Jack is trying to catch his breath but the rage in his throat all but chokes him. ‘Think you can do whatever you please, you people.'

Pearl tries to stop Nicholas but he steps forward, only feet from Jack. The other man wipes his hand across his face, smearing blood that drips from his nose. ‘You should be more careful,' the stranger says to Jack. ‘Nets were left in our path.'

Pearl recognises the broadness of his speech and her stomach sinks. East coasters. Jack leans down and grabs the man by his jersey. ‘You ripped through my nets deliberately,' Jack says. Nicholas opens his mouth to speak but Jack raises his hand to stop him. ‘Keep out of this, Polance. You've no place to interfere.'

The Pengelleys push close to Nicholas. Stephen, the taller of the two, gives his shoulder a shove. ‘We all know where your loyalties lie,' Stephen hisses.

Nicholas stands his ground. His voice doesn't waver. ‘This is the Master's business and I'm the Master's eyes. What I see, he sees. What's the matter with your nets?'

Jack spits on the floor. ‘I went to haul them in this morning, my drift nets, and they were rent through. Look.'

Tattered clumps of net lie dumped on the ground. All the hours spent breeding them, the women crouched in bad light, the ends of their fingers growing hard from the heavy, blunted needles. Destroyed in an instant.

The stranger staggers to his feet and spreads his hands wide. ‘It was an accident. Sorry for your loss but it weren't our fault.'

Jack puts his face close to the other man's so that their noses are all but touching. ‘It's wicked enough that you defile the Sabbath,' Jack says, ‘but that you should stop decent men going out the rest of the week—'

Nicholas slips his thin frame between the two bristling men and pushes them apart. ‘Jack, there's no way to prove it wasn't an accident. Nets get caught all the time, you know they do.'

The east coast man swaggers back to his crew who wait where their boat's tied up. He calls to Jack over his shoulder. ‘Ain't our fault you lot don't like hard work. And you should listen to your friend, mate.'

‘No friend of mine,' Jack says quietly, looking Nicholas in the eye. ‘How can you side with them? What about us?' The two men stand and stare at one another then Jack remembers the blow to his cheek and puts his hand to the pain, before turning and marching away. The Pengelley boys are at his side but not before Stephen has jammed his elbow into Nicholas's ribs. Pearl goes to him, catching a flurry of skirts at the corner of her eye. Sarah Dray has broken from the blurred wall of those watching and is following Jack from the seafront. The rest of the crowd wanders back to work, whispering.

Nicholas steadies himself on a hogshead, one hand holding his side. His head is down. ‘Jack's a fool,' he says. ‘Anything could have torn through those nets. The hake.'

Pearl grabs his chin and pulls his gaze to meet her own. ‘You shouldn't get involved.'

‘And what would have happened if I'd let them get at one another? You saw the Pengelleys itching to join in and the rest of the men from that east coast boat. There would have been a brawl.'

‘Yes, and with you at the centre. I don't want to see you get hurt. I couldn't bear it.' She doesn't need to say any of the words she's been rehearsing. In the slight inclination of his head, in the colour that has returned to his face, she sees that he understands. ‘What shall we do?' she whispers.

He squeezes her hand. His skin against hers sends fire to her toes. The sea is loud all around her.

‘There's a packet expected,' Nicholas says. ‘She'll take us.'

A rising voice breaks into Pearl's ears.

‘Nicholas? Where are you?'

Nicholas turns away from her, letting go of her hand. The voice calls again. The Master is feeling his way down from the step of the office hut, his arms outstretched. Nicholas jogs over and takes his elbow.

‘I'm sorry, I shouldn't have left you,' Nicholas says close to the Master's ear. ‘There was a scuffle. Some nets have been damaged.'

‘Nets?' says the Master. ‘There's more than nets to worry about, my boy.'