The Canary Keeper, page 6
‘It must be a hard life, whaling.’
‘Aye. All cramped up for weeks. Nothing to eat but salt horse and scouse. Rats crawling over your feet. Frostbite. It’s no fun being trapped in the ice.’ He shakes his head at the memory. ‘Are you resting in Stromness a wee while then?’
She nods.
The steward’s watery eyes search her face. ‘You’ll find the folk here somewhat queer.’
‘Queer?’
‘I’d be careful not to cross any of the womenfolk, if I were you.’ His eyes flit along the shore. ‘They’re known for their skills with black magic. Shapeshifters. They control the winds around these shores.’
He’s the second person who has warned her of the mysterious practices of the north.
‘Orkney is well known for it,’ the steward says. ‘There used to be so many women causing mischief, the magistrates had to do something, so they rounded them up, made them confess, and the guilty ones were strangled and burned.’
Birdie shudders; Orkney’s magistrates sound more dangerous than the witches. The steward doesn’t notice her discomfort.
‘They thought they’d got rid of them all, but they’re cunning women. Folk say their descendants carry the knowledge and still continue with their dark ways. The place is full of these giant stone rings that have been here since ancient times.’ He waves his hand at the misty hills. ‘Eerie places. Haunted. I’ve heard the stones dance in the moonlight and the witches gather there to perform their evil acts. I never venture beyond Stromness when I’m harboured here.’
She is gripped by a sudden sense of alarm; the steward appears to be a practical man who has survived the hardships of the Arctic, and yet he is scared to travel in Orkney. Perhaps there is some truth in the rumours of rampant witchcraft.
‘And the waters around here,’ he continues, ‘are where the Finfolk live.’
‘Finfolk?’
‘The sorcerers of the seas. You’ve not heard of them?’
She shakes her head and glances at the green swell.
He narrows his eyes. ‘They’re like the witches but in winter they live below the waves, then in summer they come ashore and snatch wee lasses and take them away to their kingdom in their canoes.’
‘Canoes?’
‘Aye. They have dark skins and black hair and they wrap themselves in fur.’
Her brow knots. ‘And they come from the sea?’
‘From the frozen northern deeps.’
A spit of water tickles her cheek and she wonders whether it was one of these strange Finfolk that dumped the body of Tobias Skaill on the shore of the Thames, and not an Esquimaux at all. The steward extends his hand, lets the drops splash on his palm.
‘Rain. There’s no shortage of that in Orkney.’
She smiles weakly and looks again at Stromness, shrouded now by dismal clouds, and she wonders what she’s doing here.
*
The Dog Star anchors in the deep water of the harbour; large ships can only come alongside the piers at high tide. The steward insists she disembarks in the bosun’s chair – many an incautious soul has been snatched by the waves here while transferring from ship to rowing boat. She would rather use the rope ladder. Still, it isn’t worth contesting; she is concerned her gown might rip if she has to raise her arms too high as she descends. And the steward’s tales of vicious Finfolk are still playing on her mind. She acquiesces. Though not without first insisting that she has to collect her birdcage from her berth. She doesn’t want to leave the parrot to be rowed ashore with the luggage.
She clutches the cage against her chest as the steward helps her into the canvas seat. She has grown fond of the parrot; she feels a certain kinship with the bird. The steward secures them with a yellow flag. She tries not to look down as she is hoisted over the bulwark and finds herself level with the fulmars. She swoops with them, gliding over the sea and harbour, and her gaze lands on the quayside gathering – a huddle all swathed in dark cloth as if in mourning; women draped in black shawls, men with black jackets buttoned against the wind. Even the birds hopping at their feet look as if they are dressed for a funeral; the grey crows sport black hoods over their heads.
The gusts rock the bosun’s chair alarmingly. She grips the rope with one hand and the birdcage with the other and is glad of the flag across her ribs. From the quayside, eyes in upturned faces follow the arcs of the swinging canvas chair. She sees herself through their careworn gaze; a curious circus act, all bedecked in black crepe and yellow pendants, a grey parrot in her arms. The flying widow. A tawdry spectacle dangling from a rope. She closes her eyes and tries to banish the image of her father twisting on the gallows’ noose.
Hands reach up to steady her descent, grab the ropes, unknot the flag, and assist her to a bench on the rowing boat. The oarsman pushes off and the boat slips through the ranks of fishing craft with dun sails furled. The blades dip and lift. She warily surveys the approaching shoreline, with its crenellations of piers and slipways, and wonders how many of the women huddled there practise witchcraft.
She reaches for the hand the oarsman is kindly proffering, steps onto the slipway, enquires whether the waiting luggage porter can ensure her trunk is delivered to Flett’s Hotel and asks him to point her in the right direction. He replies in a barely audible voice that she should turn north when she reaches the street and walk a peedie way along.
‘Peedie?’
He gives her a blank stare and then says, ‘A wee way along.’
The rain is pelting so hard and cold it might as well be hail. She hurries along the slipway, reaches a stack of creels and a wooden shack, notices a torn poster flapping against its timbers and slows to read it as she passes.
£20,000 Reward will be given by Her Majesty’s Government for any party or parties, of any country, who shall render efficient assistance to the crews of the Discovery Ships under the command of Sir John Franklin.
She thinks of Franklin and his crew, their souls lost in the frozen wastes, and conjures up the picture of his widow’s haunted face, printed in all the newspapers; Lady Franklin racked by the years of torment, praying her dear husband might still be alive. And now the poor widow must feel more dismayed than ever; after all her efforts to find him, her hopes have been cruelly dashed by the report in The Times that the crew had starved and resorted to cannibalism. It is hard not to be moved by Lady Franklin’s predicament and impressed by the strength with which she maintained her faith that Sir John still lived. Birdie compares herself to Lady Franklin – they have both been widowed by northern oceans – and can’t help wondering whether she behaved with as much dutiful loyalty in the months after Patrick perished. She fears not.
She marches on, half blinded by the rain, salty water pouring off her bonnet and running down her neck. There is indeed only one street in Stromness; uncobbled, marked by rough-hewn steps and narrower than some of the back alleys of the Borough, barely wide enough for a carriage. Wide enough, though, for the flock of sheep that bleats and panics as she edges her way through the trembling wet fleeces. Shawl-wrapped women shelter in doorways, engrossed in conversation. They fall silent as she passes. A small boy shouts in a strange accent.
‘What kind of bird is it you have in the cage?’
‘A parrot.’ She replies with relief, glad it is the bird and not her that is the subject of discussion. Exotic birds are two a penny in London. Here, the bird is an oddity. The boy skips toward her.
‘Who’s a pretty boy then?’ the parrot shrieks.
A calloused hand shoots out, grabs the boy by the scruff and drags him back to the safety of the doorway. The woman admonishes him in an unintelligible dialect.
‘White hid noo! White hid thoo ill-answeran bairn.’
The boy answers in the same tongue and Birdie feels she’s in a foreign land. Though she’s used to feeling like a stranger even at home, she reminds herself; her visions have always made her feel abnormal, marked by a shameful secret she must keep hidden. You’re a changeling, Frank used to say when her eyes misted and she went into one of her trances. Or a lunatic, he’d add. Sometimes she thought he might be right.
She hoiks her skirt with her free hand and trudges the muddy street, runoff rainwater cascading along its course, flashes of silver sea to one side and, to the other, stepped alleyways cutting upwards. The strengthening wind roars around the corners and tugs her skirt. In London the weather feels man-made, the thick fogs dense with soot. Here the elements seem untamed and unpredictable. The air is alive with strange, sharp smells – seaweed and salt. And there is no clanking of cranes or pounding of factory hammers; instead she hears the haunting calls of curlews and the cries of the gulls. For a moment, she thinks she is not in a street at all, but in some deep river chasm that has carved its channel through a mountain of grey rock, and she wonders whether she has indeed been spirited away to an enchanted land of witches and sea sorcerers. A hooded crow plops in front of her feet and cackles, as if to confirm her fears about the unearthly nature of this place.
She hurries along, overcome by the unfamiliar, and is comforted to see the sign above the double door of a dour stone building. Flett’s Hotel; its exterior too stern, she tells herself, to be the work of some enchantment. She enters and finds a bony woman wearing a mob cap and a pinny behind a mahogany reception counter; her pleated brow and nervous glance suggest that despite her occupation she is not used to strangers. Her timid appearance hardly matches the descriptions Birdie has been given of wild witches and black magic. She says, in the quietest of voices as she eyes the cage, that there is a chamber available, though it might be better if the bird stayed in the courtyard. Birdie panics. She does not wish to be separated from her bird. The parrot comes from a hot climate, Birdie explains, and would perish in the cold. The woman assesses the parrot warily.
‘Perhaps you could consult the manager,’ Birdie suggests.
‘I do all the managing here meself,’ she snaps, and Birdie is reminded of the steward’s warning not to cross the womenfolk.
‘I’m sorry, I…’
‘My husband has no time for the business,’ the woman continues. ‘He’s away fishing most days.’
Birdie sees her opportunity to recover the situation, even though it involves lying.
‘My husband went to sea as well. He brought the parrot back with him on his last voyage. Or, I mean, the last voyage he survived.’
At the mention of her husband’s death at sea, the woman’s expression changes from suspicion to sympathy. She shifts her eyes from the cage to Birdie’s face. ‘Does it make a noise?’
‘Not at all. And he’s clean.’
‘Aye, very well then, thou can keep it in thy room.’
Birdie is about to go when she sees a copy of The Orcadian lying on the counter. The sight of it makes her uneasy; do the pages contain a report of Tobias Skaill’s murder? The woman notices the direction of her gaze.
‘Take it,’ she offers. ‘’Tis old news.’
A young chambermaid guides her up the stairs. The room is airy and painted white. A walnut dressing table is neatly laid out with a comb, brush and nightcap, a jug and bowl for washing and a small mirror fixed on the wall above. A pair of slippers nestles underneath. A dim lamp glows by the narrow bed and a window overlooks the street. The chambermaid indicates the bedpan.
‘The closet is on the far side of the yard.’
Birdie nods. She doesn’t want to encourage further conversation. Apart from anything else, the speech of the Orcadians perturbs her; they have their own language they use with each other but even when they are speaking English it is hard to decipher what they say. It isn’t so much their accent, but their murmuring voices. The men whisper so quietly, she can hardly hear them. The women twitter softly like Da’s canaries.
She moves the nightcap and places the cage on the dressing table.
‘Well,’ she says to the bird, ‘it might be cold and damp here, but I bet you’re glad I brought you with me.’
The parrot lifts one claw, shrieks, ‘Skin for a skin,’ and cackles. She cringes; the bird’s mimicry of Frank is vexing. Still, it’s not the bird’s fault; he’s merely repeating what somebody else has said. She wishes, though, he’d stick to the less alarming phrases in his repertoire. She looks for the twist of seeds, which she managed to purchase in Aberdeen, pokes some millet through the bars of the cage; the bird clucks contentedly. She turns and spreads the copy of The Orcadian on the counterpane. It is indeed old news; the paper is dated Saturday 5th May and it is now the 29th. At least there cannot be a report of Tobias Skaill’s death, for he was still living at the beginning of the month. The top half of the front page is filled with a report of the war in the Crimea. She flips the pages and casts her eye over the notices, and one of them catches her attention.
Situation vacant. Book-keeper. Must write a good hand. Complete master of figures and accounts. Experience of shipping agents essential. Apply to Mrs Margaret Skaill of Albert Skaill’s shipping agents. Narwhal House. Stromness. Testimonials required.
Mrs Margaret Skaill. She reads the name twice. Surely, Margaret Skaill must be related to Tobias Skaill; she doubts it’s a common name. Though it seems to her this is such a small place everybody must be related to everybody else. She shivers, touches her forehead and wonders whether she has caught a chill from exposure to the cold and rain. But no, her head is cool; she is simply bothered by the sense that there is some inescapable pattern here, some force of fate drawing her together with the murdered man. She recalls their one encounter – that is to say the one with him still living – the evening before he died. He was drunk and his behaviour lewd, although initially not so very different from the behaviour of any tar out on the razz in the Borough. But he had been persistent. Usually one of her demonic stares or caustic putdowns would be enough to deter the casual gropers. Not him, though. She had given him a mouthful, told him to get lost in no uncertain terms. He hadn’t desisted. He had shouted, pursued her down the street. Insisted he knew her name. Said he had a message for her. She had assumed he was pissed and rambling. Was she too hasty in her judgement? Perhaps he did have a message for her after all. She shakes her head. She doubts he did know her, but it seems they are certainly connected now; shackled together by the Thames Division, keen to pin his murder on her because she is the daughter of Gerald Quinn.
She re-reads the notice for a book-keeper. The purse of guineas from Solomon won’t last forever; if she is to stay here a while she needs to earn her living. Whether it is good or bad luck that Margaret Skaill is searching for a book-keeper, she cannot tell, but she resolves to find Narwhal House first thing in the morning and enquire about the situation.
Chapter 5
Tobias lies on the foreshore, his copper hair a gleaming halo. She leans over his face and sees his coal-black eyes, his skin spangled with mud and freckles. The circle of flesh gouged from his curved cheek. Suddenly, he sits upright, opens his mouth and groans. He grabs her arm and pulls her to him. Birdie, save us from this terror, he implores. Don’t let them die.
She awakens with a jolt. A man wails and for a moment she is unsure whether she is still dreaming. Her heart is pounding. Wide awake now, and reluctant to return to sleep in case Tobias comes back to haunt her, she listens to the noises from the street. The familiar sounds of harbour life are reassuring. Ribald songs of rowdy sailors, brawling men and drunkards sobbing to the gutters. Men from the Company’s ships still anchored in the bay, she supposes. She stands, edges to the window, pulls aside the velvet curtain and is surprised to find the night is not black but shimmering gold and red, as if lit by a huge fire beyond the furthest hills. She briefly wonders whether it’s the blaze of witches gathering around the ancient stones – flaming torches held aloft – before she realizes it’s the sun, which dawdles in the summers of these northern latitudes and barely dips below the horizon. Even at this late hour, the rooks chorus as if it were dawn. She returns to bed, slumbers fitfully, and is stirred by the call of a curlew and the splatter of rain against the window.
She rises, dabs herself with a wetted flannel, gasps – the water in the jug is freezing – glances up and thinks she catches a flash of Solomon’s face in the clouded mirror. She smiles to herself; the image reminds her of an icy Sunday he stood waiting for her on a Southwark street corner, his breath smoky in the cold.
‘It looks like snow,’ she said.
As she spoke, a white star drifted and landed on his shoulder, gleamed for a second before it melted. He held out his hand, caught another flake. Flurries filled the air. They laughed as the dirty pavements and smutty roofs were glazed white. London rarely appeared so innocent. Only the robins and sparrows kept them company in the twilit streets until the lamplighter appeared, paused to doff his cap, then continued along his way.
‘I should walk you home,’ Solomon said.
They strolled through deepening drifts, leaving dark footprints in their wake, their breath mingling in one frosty cloud. St George’s struck the hour of five. Unexpectedly, he reached for her mittened hand and held it in his for a moment before he let it drop.
‘I have to go,’ he said.
She watched him walk toward the river, stamping her feet to keep warm, wondering what mysterious business called him away so suddenly. She suspected the lamplighter gave him a secret signal as he passed them in the street; Frank was forever warning her that London’s lamplighters were in cahoots with the cops. It took her a moment to realize he had left something in her hand. She held it up and examined it in the glow of the street lamp – a tiny yellow brooch in the shape of a canary; a reminder of the first time they met. The glass even had a small crack on the bird’s crown that resembled the two black feathers of the Little Prince, Da’s precious songster.
*
She rouses herself with a splash of freezing water from the jug and pushes thoughts of Solomon aside as she rubs her face with the flannel. Her more pressing concern is the vacant situation at Albert Skaill’s shipping agency and her less than pristine appearance. She assesses the state of her clothes. She purchased the half-mourning black bombazine, crepe-trimmed skirt and bodice from Jay’s in Regent Street three years ago to replace the full mourning she had worn for well over a year. The skirt, in particular, now looks the worse for wear; the escapades of the last few days have left the trim torn and hanging loose below the hem. She could attempt to repair it or she could remove it – after all, it is perfectly acceptable for a widow to slight the mourning and detach the crepe after a year or so. She tugs at the manky black strip and finds it comes away quite easily. The skirt will be less cumbersome without it, she concludes, and will undoubtedly smell less offensive minus the Thames-dragged trim. She decides to abandon the bonnet and veil as well. She packed a black wool cape and she’ll wear that, and then she’ll look more like the shawled women of Stromness.
