The Visitor (9 page)

Mr Tremain is looking over the shared wall into her yard. His face is as lined as her father's but it looks like anger on Mr Tremain, while her father just looks tired. Jack's father is dark-haired and with huge furry eyebrows that are frowning now as he looks at the pair of them. ‘Get in here,' he says, ‘that's woman's work.'

Jack backs away from the chickens and hurries into Pearl's house, without even saying goodbye. Mr Tremain goes inside his house and presently shouts drift into the yard where the chickens are scratching about, calm now. Pearl feels something tickling her cheek near the corner of her mouth. She puts her finger to it and finds blood. The chicken must have scratched her. Before she realises what she's doing she's got blood on her dress. Her mother will shout but it's Jack she's really thinking about. He has no mother to wash his clothes, or to soothe his father's temper.

Six

Jack woke her with a cup of tea and then sat close to her on the bed. He looked like he was trying to say something so she waited, sipping the tea which was too weak but at least he'd tried. There was that dull ache at her temple again. Had she been dreaming? Her face was cut. The chicken squawking. Jack's father shouting. She put her hand to her cheek but it was dry. Nothing.

‘You promised that you wouldn't go swimming,' Jack said. His voice was low and he said each word with cold precision. She put the tea on the side table by the bed.

‘I haven't. Whatever Mrs Tiddy's been saying—'

His curled hands tightened. ‘What's this then?' He gestured to the floor. There was one of her nightdresses, wet and sandy.

‘That's from before. I've not been in a long time, weeks. I don't know when.'

‘It's still wet, look!' He grabbed the nightdress in a bunched hand and pushed it into her face. The sudden stench of old seawater made her gag and then cough. He didn't wait for her breath to ease like he usually did but shouted over her, ‘For God's sake!'

‘Don't shout at me,' she managed to say. ‘You're just like your father.'

That silenced him. Jack went to the window. Its lean was worse. There was a gap between the sill and the wall at the bottom, and a squeak of fresh air pressed through.

She'd have to placate him somehow or he'd stay at home, keep watching her. He probably had it cooked up with Mrs Tiddy. They were thick as thieves, always had been. ‘I didn't go far out anyway,' she said, ‘just paddled below the drying field. A wave soaked me.' As she said it, it seemed to come true in her head. It sounded true. Perhaps that was what had happened.

He turned round to face her and he was a child again, afraid of the chickens.

‘Come here,' she said and held out her arm. He came and sat down on the bed. His eyes were wet.

‘I'm not like him,' he said. ‘I'm not.'

‘Shh. Don't fret. I bet Mother has left us something for dinner. You can come and eat in my house. He won't shout while Mother's there.'

He pulled away and looked at her as if she was a stranger. But he was the stranger. An old man with hardly any hair and a mouth hanging open in confusion was sitting on her bed. And yet there was something familiar about him too, someone she knew was hiding inside him. The man was getting up and she saw his poor hands were swollen and clenched. He was a fisherman, and then she knew him. Of course she knew him.

‘You're not yourself today,' he said.

She laughed. ‘Neither are you,' she said. ‘Who are we then?' It was a game. But where was Nicholas to join in? She wasn't to mention him. That she knew for certain. Perhaps that was part of the game too. Yes, she'd been playing that game for a long time and she was really good at it. She kept his name safe inside her mouth, felt it on her tongue hot and bad.

‘You're not well, Pearl. Can't you see that? You mustn't swim.'

She threw the bedclothes off and struggled to stand. Her head hurt and there was the bright light again, swinging round to dazzle her. Jack was trying to get hold of her, to manhandle her back into bed, but she struggled free. ‘Stop telling me what to do! I won't have it any more. I won't!'

‘Pearl…'

‘You let go of me, Jack Tremain. I'm not yours. Not ever.' She stumbled to the wardrobe and leant her forehead against its good dark wood. She heard Jack mumbling. She turned her face towards him. He was on his knees by the bed, his hands clasped together. His lips were moving but she couldn't hear the prayer. She was far away from him. She was with Nicholas again.

Seven

Pearl's no good at telling the time from the clock's twitching face. She knows when to be home for dinner by the growl in her stomach. She knows when a new week's beginning because Sunday is a day like no other, for sitting quietly and praying, and is followed by washday. For the rest of the week hours nip past her, hiding their seams.

Today Pearl knows that a month must have passed since the early shoal was bulked into walls because the pilchards are ready to be woken up. Their bodies have sipped up as much salt as they can hold so that they won't rot on their long journey across the sea, or before they are eaten here in Morlanow and the rest of Cornwall.

Her mother and Polly go to the palace as soon as it's light, and Pearl joins them once she's fed the chickens and retrieved the eggs from the straw. The palace is nearly as crowded as the day the shoal came in, although there's less hurry today. The hands that bedded the fish with salt now break them out of their quiet rest and sling them in troughs of seawater at the back of the palace. Scales tumble and cover the floor with shining scraps of silver.

Pearl helps carry the clean fish from the troughs to the hogsheads, which are big barrels made just for pilchards. The thick lids are forced down by pressing stones, great boulders taken from the seabed. Today her mother and Polly are working with Aunt Lilly and old Mrs Pendeen to pack the fish. The barrels are the same height as Pearl; you have to have long arms to reach inside them. Everything about Aunt Lilly is tall and slim. When she leans into a hogshead to place fish at the bottom she lifts one leg for balance but she doesn't fall over. She looks graceful, like the herons Pearl has sometimes seen inland, by the river which flows into the sea at Morlanow.

Old Mrs Pendeen is grumbling as she leans over a hogshead, arranging the fish. She definitely doesn't look graceful, swathed in shawls and skirts and aprons, all browns and greys. She looks more like a heap of fishing nets.

‘The fish'll spoil at this rate,' she says. ‘Why aren't they here?'

‘Who?' Pearl's mother asks.

‘The children,' old Mrs Pendeen says, giving a fish a hearty thump as it joins the others in the hogshead. ‘There's a good few missing. And Alice Trelawn.' Old Mrs Pendeen sniffs. ‘Thinks she's too good for honest hard work, when that's what'll bring her back to the Lord.'

Pearl looks around the palace. Old Mrs Pendeen is right. Sarah Dray is missing, and some of the boys too. And Alice.

‘Where's Sarah?' her mother asks Polly. But Polly only goes red and doesn't say anything, shaking her head and keeping her eyes fixed on the fish.

Five hogsheads are now filled but they haven't got their lids on yet. Pearl wants to see what the fish inside look like. Her mother and the others move on to the next row of barrels; there are so many more to be filled, and so many fish to be locked inside. Pearl hooks her hands over the top of the barrel's sides and tries to haul herself up, her feet scrabbling against the wood. She can't quite see, though the smell of the fish is thick. Then there are hands under her arms and a chest pressing against her back, lifting her up.

‘Here you are, limpet-legs.'

She beams at the fish, picturing Nicholas' face behind her. He smells of cooking: indoor smells, house smells, and his body feels warm against hers. He holds her over the barrel. Her boots knock his shins but he doesn't mind. The pilchards have been packed in circles and the last layer is a star of fish with a centre of tails. The silver is so bright it hurts her eyes. She reaches to lay her hand in the light.

‘Get out of it!' shouts young Mrs Pendeen, rushing towards them. Nicholas lowers Pearl to the cobbled floor. She stays close to him. Young Mrs Pendeen is very stern and her arms are thick with muscle from working the press. ‘That lot's going to Rome,' she says, ‘and the buyer's always looking for a reason to get a better price. You two breaking the scales would be reason enough.'

Pearl and Nicholas back away. She can see he's as ruffled by the telling off as she is. In silence they pick their way through the maze of hogsheads that has replaced the walls of fish. There are oily puddles all around them. At the coopers Mr Isaac senior fashions the barrels with leaky staves on purpose. When the stones are pressed on the lids they force the oil from the fish. It runs into a gutter beneath and collects in the pit.

Nicholas goes over and peers in. She won't go near it. It's deep, set into the floor and full of the thick, foul oil. A square monster which might drink children. She takes a deep breath, grabs Nicholas' hand, and pulls him away, back towards her mother and old Mrs Pendeen.

‘Stop pouting, Pearl,' old Mrs Pendeen calls. ‘Be thankful for the Lord's bounty. Lamps of London are lit with that oil.' Her mother smiles and nods. Polly is looking towards the open entrance of the palace, not listening.

The thick oil is like the Papists' holy water and most of it leaves Morlanow just as the pilchards do. Pearl can't imagine what London is like, or where it might lie. It hangs in her mind as a grey space, empty but for thousands and thousands of street lamps sizzling fish oil into the cold night air. The railway line connects the two places, the great city and its source of light, but London seems as far away as where the Papists are, and it takes a ship to get fish to them. She has a sense of the place the Papists live though. The railway company pastes pictures at the station. They're brightly coloured and nice to look at. Nicholas is good at reading. He's helped her follow the letters underneath the pictures so she knows that some of the pictures say that Cornwall is the same as Italy, where the Papists live. That makes it easy to imagine.

Nicholas lets go of her hand and moves to the entrance. Timothy Wills is standing just outside, gesturing to Nicholas, asking him to hurry, his eyes flicking between the palace and the street. His crooked teeth stand out in his nervous smile. Nicholas looks to where his mother is rinsing fish, her back to him. He grins and goes over to Timothy. They leave, and Pearl knows that there's a secret. Something inside her that's wicked burns to know it, to be with Nicholas and not to be left out. Polly has seen the boys go too and stands twisting her filthy apron in her hands. Her mother is walking to the rinsing troughs, old Mrs Pendeen leaning on her arm. Pearl runs to catch Nicholas.

The sunlight stuns her for a moment but when she can see again she spots Nicholas and Timothy further down the seafront. She goes after them. Polly grabs her hand, pulling her up short.

‘What?' Pearl says. ‘Do you know where they're going?'

Polly hesitates, bites her lip. ‘Don't go with them,' she says. ‘They're going to see a bad thing. We mustn't look.'

Now Pearl wants to know even more. She slips free of Polly's hand and runs to catch Nicholas. She begins to cough but she doesn't care. She has to see what it is. The boys disappear down an alley that cuts from the seafront to the street behind. She follows, her boots slipping on the cobbles. When she reaches the street she sees them on the right, halfway down. They're at the back of the old net loft used by Miss Charles. There's a rickety set of wooden steps to the top floor. Nicholas and Timothy reach the platform that runs the length of the outside wall, joining Jack and James Pengelley. And Sarah Dray, Pearl sees with a stab of jealousy. Why has Pearl been left out of the secret? That's not fair. She's nice to Jack all the time, even when he's being sulky. She told him the story about the Bucca and he didn't tell her about whatever it is that's happening in the net loft, though Sarah Dray is here. Pearl will just have to look for herself, that's all. Keeping secrets is wicked.

Everyone's taking turns to peer in the small window next to the door, trying not to make a sound. Everyone except Jack. He hangs back, closer to the steps. He doesn't meet her eye but curls his hands into fists. She climbs the steps then pushes her way towards the window. James and Timothy move to let her through, too caught up in hushed sniggering. Sarah has her face close to the glass and her hands on each temple to block out the light. Nicholas is doing the same. There's a scrap of sailcloth hanging across the window inside the loft but it has half fallen down and has tears in so if she angles her face she can see into the room.

At first it's difficult to see anything and she wonders what all the fuss is about. There's only white that might be sailcloth. Then she sees that the white is in squares and arranged tidily. Canvases, empty ones. Next to her, Sarah gasps and draws back from the window. Her mouth hangs open and her dark eyes are wide. She puts her hand over her mouth and goes to the other end of the platform, by Jack. Pearl moves to where Sarah was looking, where the sailcloth has fallen. The only sound is gently breaking waves on the other side of the loft.