The Visitor (29 page)

The Master's wits remain but the once tall grace has gone. His sight and his Beatrice are lost and now he is hunched, as if he has spent his life at sea rather than only directing other men to go. It's a blessing he can't see the scarcely covered palace floors.

The Master, steered by Nicholas, goes back inside the office. Nicholas turns to give Pearl a low wave, all but lost in his sleeve, before he follows. It's enough.

The harbour is cooler without him. The wind has picked up and catches her hair. The east coast boat is still moored by the wall, her crew looking as if they are about to make sail. To get back onto the seafront Pearl has no choice but to go past them.

She breathes deeply to steady her quickening chest, holds her head up, and strides forward. She will founder if there are high spirits on their part. She keeps walking, trying not to break into a run as she nears the group of foreign men. Only a few paces away. One foot in front of the other, her boots beat on the uneven stone. She is next to the men. She is moving clear of them. Eyes lift from ropes and nets and glance across her. But that's all. No cat-calls, no obstacles in her path. They seem no more ready for a fight than her father's crew. They are just as weather-beaten, just as grimed. Even the man with missing teeth looks older now, tired and with hollowed cheeks.

She should have been at the palace by now, though given the lack of work there no one will upbraid her. The remaining palace maids are hunting chores from corners, waiting for a shoal. The last pilchards caught are still straining under the load of the pressing stones, but these have only one or two more days before they are released.

Pearl steps into the palace courtyard. Old Mrs Pendeen waves her over. There's no chance for Pearl to slip past unnoticed. No doubt the elderly woman will want to put in her two pennys' worth about the east coast men and Jack's nets. If Pearl's rude then old Mrs Pendeen will only tell her mother and that'll cause more trouble. Pearl resigns herself to hearing again how Nicholas has turned his back on Morlanow.

Old Mrs Pendeen is sitting on an upturned crate, her knotted fingers running across a net, searching for tears. They don't stop as Pearl approaches and she wonders how many times this net has been worked by old Mrs Pendeen this morning.

‘Your mother was here,' old Mrs Pendeen says, her jaw working even when she isn't talking, the bare gums reaching for one another. ‘Says you're to go straight home for your dinner. Straight home.'

Pearl helps her gather the net in her arms, surprised. ‘But it's not dinner time yet.'

‘It's getting there and she wants you early. Special day,' she says with a sly look. ‘Straight home, child. It's about time you did as you were told.'

When Pearl goes back out onto the street the growing wind claws at her skirt. Fishermen hurry to tie their pots together. The wind chases Pearl to her front door and slams it shut behind her. Inside, her mother whirls about the kitchen. The warmth of pasties fills the already stuffy lower floor – when was there last meat for pasties? There's a cloth on the table.

‘Where have you been?' her mother flaps. ‘Look at your apron. Go right up and change into your Sunday dress and tidy that hair. Go on, quickly.'

‘Why? What's the matter?'

‘Your father'll be back any minute. Get up the stairs.' Her mother shoos her with the back of her hand and rushes to set knives and forks. Four pairs.

Perhaps Polly's come back. Pearl's heart leaps at the thought but then falls. It's a foolish notion. Polly's gone. It's best not to think of her.

There's a hum of voices below. Her father has come in with another man. Plates are set. Pearl pulls on her best white dress, now bagging over the protrusion of her hip bones. She eases a comb through her tangled hair. With each stroke she whispers,
Nicholas, Nicholas, Nicholas
. She is still standing with him on the seafront. She is beside him at his desk. She is the breath in his throat. Could her parents have changed their mind about him? Could he be coming to dinner?

‘Pearl!' her mother calls up.

She's waiting at the bottom of the stairs, a tight smile pinned to her face. Pearl rushes down, ready to see Nicholas at her father's side, forgiven, but stops on the last step. Rising from the table, wearing his own Sunday best, is Jack.

Fifteen

A visitor. The tea stalk in her cup proved it. Nicholas would come to Pearl again. It was a question of waiting. Even now, though, it might be too late. To come back to her as this fleeting flicker of himself was torturous. Why come back if only to leave again?

The cold hit her face and surrounded her, soaking her clothes. She struggled to cry out but her mouth was filled with a choking sourness that made her gag. Pearl managed to lift her face from the smother and saw that it came from a puddle of dank water in which she was lying. She had fallen, but where? Her knee was throbbing and as she turned her head awkwardly to look down the length of her prostrate body she saw the dark seep of blood through her skirt.

A shriek and a sudden flurry of wings above. From where she lay Pearl couldn't see where the birds were but for a moment was certain they were just above her, about to tangle their beaks in her hair. She covered her head and lay still, turning her face so that the water didn't go into her mouth or nose, and waited until the sound was gone.

The puddle dragged her down but without the peace water usually gave her. This was dirty, not the clean, fresh tang of the sea or even the icy gurgle from the shared tap. Pearl breathed deeply to force air back into her lungs. Then she knew where she was. The wet reek of generations of rot was too familiar though she had avoided it since the day she thought she might die here, Nicholas having to carry her home, Jack screaming all the while.

She hadn't meant to come to Skommow Bay – would never mean to. There was a rattle in her chest when she breathed in. Her hands were covered in dirt and scratches. She hadn't felt any pain until she looked at them. Pearl laughed. To have Nicholas back was what she had always wanted and look what it was doing to her. A wretched old crow who was just as much of a mess as Alice had ever been, but the funny thing was – and here Pearl laughed again, hearing the rasp as if it came from someone else's mouth – there wasn't any dogfish left for her to gut. Even that had been taken away.

She reached for a twisted spar that loomed over her so she could haul herself to her feet. The softness of the wood made her recoil. This was a place of death. That the palace should disappear yet this part of Morlanow still remain made no sense. But then, even Pascoe wouldn't be able to make Skommow Bay an attractive proposition for the visitors, despite his honeyed tongue and the railway company's money.

The quickest way out was to go straight along Skommow Bay to the road, rather than trying to climb back up the hill to the drying field. It would be dark soon. The thought of a night amongst the wrecks made her start walking.

She was somewhere on the right hand side of the bay, not far from the next cliff that marked its end, standing on a raised ledge of rock. Below was a large splintered hull. Pearl tried to stay on the higher ground; she didn't want to get lost in the maze of shattered pieces, but every so often a bigger obstacle stood in her path and she was forced to climb into the pit below. It was slow going. Her arms ached from climbing back onto the plinth again. Flies clustered and her skin was soon itching from bites.

All the heat of the day seemed to be here, swelling from the shattered frames in waves. Pearl's throat scratched with thirst and a headache ticked itself through her skull, becoming sharper with each step forward. She had to keep going.

This was more than likely the path that Nicholas had taken that day when he carried her home, though she hadn't been in a state to see. It had been his cruel words to Jack that had made her lose control of her breathing. The memory of her chest's pain pressed faintly at her now, though it was only that: a memory.

Pearl stopped to judge her bearings and rest her knee. She was back on the raised rock. There was the curious sense of someone stopping behind her. Not a noise as such, more of a change in the layering of air. She turned round but there was no one to be seen. An animal maybe, hidden from view. There were still cats around Morlanow, even without many nets to protect from mice. Pearl waited, but there was nothing.

She had perhaps two hundred yards until she reached the road into town; its surface gleamed like water in the sun. The way here was even more jumbled with wood and she was so tired, so thirsty. She wasn't sure how she would get through the last bulk of ruins but get through she must. There was no chance she was going to get trapped.

She limped on, her head throbbing and making her vision dance. If only she had a drink. The waves of heat broke and remade themselves around her.

There it was again – a shift behind her. Pearl turned round and this time the feeling that someone was there didn't stop, but moved towards her, the heat waves twisting and turning until they meshed to form the outline of a person she knew so well.

Nicholas came on, featureless but clear in shape; passing straight over the obstacles Pearl had struggled to climb. Closer and closer, until he was only a few feet away. Would he stop and let her hold him? No, he was still moving, he was going to pass right by her.

‘Wait, Nicholas! Please wait.'

She held out her arms, imploring him as he had implored her that night after they had gone out in the boat, but the shimmering shape didn't stop. As it passed there was a burst of scent: salt and gorse and pilchard oil all mixed together. Skommow Bay and all the years since Nicholas had left her disappeared; her chest was mended and a glowing sense of peace swept through her. But as soon as the feeling came it vanished and when the rich smell drifted away, just as the shape did, it was replaced by something else. A stronger, darker smell that filled her mouth and nose until she thought she would be sick: blood.

Pearl spun round to see where Nicholas had gone, convinced that once again he had left. But no, there he was, or rather there his outline was, still moving forward at the same steady pace. He was showing her a way out. Pearl scrambled after him, once more having to drop down from the shelf and losing sight of him as the shattered wood rose above her.

‘Stop! Wait for me, Nicholas!'

Those were Jack's words on that dreadful day here and all he got at home was a thrashing. She blundered on, tearing her skin on the spars. Her blouse sleeve snagged on a splinter and she had to stop and wrench herself free. Back up onto the shelf and she could see the glimmering Nicholas, now much further ahead but still showing her the way. Pearl hurried desperately to catch him, certain that if she could just put a hand to that slippery form he wouldn't leave her again.

Ducking beneath a half-snapped mast Pearl stumbled out onto the stretch of stones next to the road. Nicholas was nowhere to be seen. He had led her out but nothing more. Pearl dropped where she stood, ignoring the pain from her knee, and howled at the sky.

‘Come back. Please come back.' Her voice cracked in her dry throat. ‘Let it be over.'

Eventually the pain in her knee forced her to stand, shakily, with her pulse loud in her ears. She joined the road and began the walk back into Morlanow. At the bend where the road curved round to become the seafront, Pearl saw, through the haziness of tears and thirst, a familiar looking pile of pebbles.

It was on the old village boundary where a marker stone had stood before Morlanow expanded to become a town. There were no flowers poked into this cairn but otherwise it was identical to the others.

She heard the boom of something foreign. A force from behind knocked her to the ground. Her breath caught as the road's hardness jammed into her ribs. Pearl tried to refill her lungs and found in a panic that she couldn't. A shadow stooped over her. Nicholas had come to help her again. She reached a hand to him, trying to talk but finding she could only wheeze. He put an arm around her back and pulled her to her feet but Nicholas had a different face, crossed with a scowl and dislike.

‘What on earth were you doing in the road like that? Bloody danger this corner is. You shouldn't have been in the road.'

‘Clive! Don't shout at her.' Another face, concerned but with a drawn on mouth and thick ink on her lashes. There was the smell of cheap scent and drink. ‘Are you quite all right, dear?' A gloved hand on Pearl's arm.

‘It's not my fault, dammit,' the man said.

‘Clive!' the woman said again. Then to Pearl, ‘Here, sit down.'

The two of them lowered Pearl onto the passenger seat of the motor car. She had never trusted these machines. Now trapped in one she recoiled against the cool leather that squeaked against her calves. There were all sorts of levers and dials. She curled herself up so as not to touch anything.

She struggled against the two strangers. ‘I need to go home,' she said. ‘Let me out.'

‘Shh, shh,' the woman fretted. ‘We just want to see if you're hurt. Oh my goodness, there's blood – Clive, look.'

He held a cigarette to a shaking lighter. ‘It wasn't my fault.'

Nicholas would sort Pearl out. She just had to get away from these people and their awful vehicle.