Tidetown, page 19
‘Ah,’ I say. ‘They are like lions. Strong and majestic. They do not have a mane, but they have stripes. And like lions they wander the land. They are the lords of their domain. As with the lion, men revere them, but men fear them also. Just as the white lion guides you, my tiger guides and protects me.’
Another hand goes up. A young girl sitting at the back. She speaks gently, as her friends titter at her boldness.
‘She asks, what is the colour of the tiger?’ says Deni.
I smile to myself, look up to the night sky and the stars that glitter and shake.
‘Blue. My tiger will always be blue.’
In the captain’s cabin I am drawn to the globe on the ornate stand next to his desk. I trace my fingers along the journeys I have taken. Across oceans. Longitude and latitude. Mile after mile. Storm upon storm. Heading this way then that. By east, by west, south to north. One life’s journey, to and fro and fro again. Something comes to me. The thought that somewhere on the globe, a tiny speck marks the spot where my father’s boat went down with all souls lost. Then the door opens and there is Deni. I stop the globe from turning, holding the world in my hands.
‘What were you pondering, Oscar, when spinning the world?’ he asks. ‘You looked solemn beyond your years.’
‘My father,’ I reply, surprised at being so honest, so trusting.
‘Somewhere on the globe, is he?’
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘under the sea.’
‘Ah, the lot of the sailor. How many thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands could we find if we peeled back the oceans, turned back the tides?’
He spins the globe and the blues of the seas merge together in a world of water.
We have been becalmed for two days now. The wind is elsewhere, without the tiniest hint of returning our way. Up on deck we all gaze eastward and westward, as if the wind will show itself as a colour on the horizon: a purple or orange. We look and wait for the fresh lick on the cheek, a sign of what comes behind. And when not looking, not longing, we sit in the confines of our own minds, as subdued and stilled as the air itself.
Father, you always told me to fear nothing. Maybe it is nothing that is the one thing then to be feared. You who were so fearless. One time I heard you speaking to Mother. I was sitting on the stairs, listening. You were talking about a time, in a port somewhere, when you awoke from a haze of drunken madness and looked up at the wall. The room was totally strange to you; you could not even recall which town you were in, or what had happened the night just gone. But as you opened your eyes and looked up you saw a crucifix on the wall. You said that something about its quality, its peculiarity (even though you’d seen a thousand crosses in your time) disturbed you to the quick. “Terrified” was the word you used. That sounds like fear. It seems to me that what you were afraid of was fear of nothing. Nothing. And nothing at all.
Tonight the sky is alive with sharp and bright lights streaking across an inky canvas. I’m so mesmerised by the spectacular scene that I’m oblivious to Deni’s presence until he is standing next to me.
‘The night sky is festooned with wonder,’ he says. ‘Comets, meteors, stars, the wandering planets. The elders decree that when, like now, we see a meteor shower streaking across the heavens, the eternal forces are at war with each other.’
We both continue to look skyward.
‘Look!’ says Deni. ‘See there? A shooting star.’
I miss it, but then another flashes across the sky: a cipher, a brushstroke.
‘Beautiful,’ he says. ‘Fire is the symbol for light, illumination and enlightenment. Our ancients taught us that when these balls of fire plummet to earth they contain the essence, the enlightenment, the very breath of divinity. These shooting stars are gifts from the gods, to replenish us, to reinvigorate our beings.’
As if on cue, as if a firework display, the sky quietly explodes in a succession of moon-kissed eruptions.
THIRTEEN
‘Learning never exhausts the mind.’
– Leonardo da Vinci
The forty-five children are split into groups of fifteen led by Mrs April, Zakora and Brother Moses. Before the children arrived the three would-be teachers had met many times to enthusiastically talk over the task ahead of them.
‘Learning and fun,’ had said Brother Moses.
‘A scholar in the morning and a fisherman in the afternoon,’ quipped Mrs April.
‘The world through a seashell,’ added Zakora.
‘And the library!’ chorused Mrs April and Brother Moses in unison.
And so the children’s days unfold on the Island of Good Hope, speckled with poetry, history, theology and art, dancing and swimming, playing and storytelling. They sit in the library or on the grass of the cloisters to enjoy morning air and the sky. In the afternoon they head to the beach or the fields.
It is nearing dusk. The thin layer of grass on the headland is tinged with an orange glow.
‘There’s a fire,’ shouts Jimmy, the cooper’s son, pointing to the cliff tops.
‘The sun has singed the earth to remind us that it will be back tomorrow,’ says Zakora. ‘That’s the story I was told when I was a boy.’
‘What was it like when you were a boy, Mr Zakora?’ asks Jimmy, as the other children gather around, huddling together against the setting sun. As the light fades and the air grows damp from the sea mist, Zakora tells his tale of lush jungle forests, wild animals, and panoramic skies.
‘We roamed free, inventing games and stories. The forest and rivers were our theatres. We were all the players, the actors, the directors. But we respected our parents. When they called us home we came. There were jobs to be done. And the elders in the village to listen to. They had so much to teach us.’
‘Like why the sun burns the grass at the end of the day?’ says Emily, the curate’s only daughter.
‘Yes, Emily, and where it sleeps at night.’
‘Where it sleeps at night!’ pipes up Frankie, the baker’s boy with the twisted leg.
‘Yes, indeed,’ says Zakora. ‘But that’s a story for another day. Time to get back. There are potatoes to be peeled.’
Carp wakes in the dead of night. She is exquisitely alone. Only her own breath she can hear. Only her own thoughts. No whispers. She looks around in the darkness, shadows beginning to come into focus.
‘Show yourself,’ she murmurs, her heart thumping at the audacity of her words. ‘If you are … then show me.’
She interrogates every shimmer, every flicker in the room. She sees nothing. She senses no one.
‘You are nothing,’ she says. ‘You are no one.’
Then she turns over in bed and goes back to sleep.
Dr Knowles and Professor Wells meet in secret in the back room of The Sailor’s Arms. The curtains are drawn and the door is closed and bolted from the inside. On the table before them is a platter of cold meats, cut bread, and a flagon of ale.
‘You are among the lucky ones from the capital not to have succumbed to the plague,’ says Professor Wells. ‘I assume you are not immortal.’
‘You assume correctly, good sir. Mortal, yet vaccinated.’
The men look at each other, both knowing where this conversation will lead. Dr Knowles had arrived on the stagecoach earlier in the day, completing the journey from Bray in record time due to the extra twenty crowns he had paid to the driver.
‘It comes down to a simple matter of scarcity,’ says Dr Knowles, tearing with his teeth the flesh from a chicken bone. ‘We have stocks of the vaccine to protect the people, but, as you know, not enough. So the provincial governor has given me the task of travelling through the land to build on the work of our sadly departed colleague, Mr Duke. My mission is to reassess the need for vaccine in relation to the paucity of supply …’ he pauses to use the point of his knife to pick some meat lodged in his teeth, ‘… and to calculate the demand.’
The Chief Medical Officer looks askance at his companion, aware of the implications of the remark.
‘And what is meant, may I ask, by calculating the demand?’
‘Scarcity comes at a price,’ says Dr Knowles, biting into a slice of roast beef.
‘To pay? For our lives?’
‘You can be sure,’ replies Dr Knowles, wiping the grease from his chin, ‘and the assurance comes from the governor himself, that the revenue will be put to good use.’
‘I’m sure it will be,’ says the other man, remembering the time the governor’s personal physician asked for ‘donations’ from doctors in the province to fund a new spa and health resort. Once all the ‘donations’ were secured Dr Knowles became the director of the resort and the governor took on the role as chairman of the board of trustees.
‘We will pay whatever it costs,’ says Professor Wells, casting the coldest of looks.
‘As I expected,’ says Dr Knowles, ignoring the glare of the other as he opens the notebook and licks the pencil, readying to make the calculations.
‘I can provide a rough estimate of the cost. Based on the surviving adult population. Be prepared for a considerable sum.’
‘The provincial governor’s services, of any description, have never come without a price, usually substantial.’
‘As we both know,’ adds Dr Knowles, without looking up from his book, ‘you will need to isolate those in the populace who show any sign of symptoms. And their adult family members. Drastic measures must be taken.’
Professor Wells had heard rumours from other towns in the province. Tales were circulating of houses where the plague had erupted being marked with a cross, and masked men appearing (vigilantes as well as provincial guards) to bolt, board up and secure the properties, leaving those inside to perish. There were stories of neighbour turning upon neighbour, and the healthy turning a blind eye to the plight of the blighted. But the good professor is a man of science as well as a father, husband and neighbour. As a student he had read about the Black Death, the speed and horror of its spread, the toll of death unabated. Some had viewed it as God’s retribution for moral decay: His polluting miasma sent forth on the wind. As the Black Death swept from country to country, outsiders were blamed and persecuted. Moneylenders were accused of poisoning the wells. They were tortured to confession and then death, giving the survivors an explanation for the inexplicable, while ridding them of their creditors into the bargain. When Professor Wells returns from his thoughts, Dr Knowles is looking up at him, waiting for a response and waving in the air the sheet of paper outlining the bill to secure the health and future of Tidetown.
‘And,’ he adds with something approaching a sadistic smile, ‘I have a troop of our guards billeted outside of town to help identify and barricade the dwellings of the infected.’
‘I hope,’ says Professor Wells, somewhat shocked, ‘that it will never come to that here in Tidetown. I’m sure we can devise an alternative solution. We are a very close-knit community.’
‘Precisely,’ is the reply, ‘and such caring proximity could be your demise. Unless you do as I suggest, vaccinating your healthy population may be compromised by further spread of disease.’
‘We will find a way,’ says the professor, acutely aware of the truth in what his antagonist says.
Over the coming days the plague moves through the town as a mist from the moors. Some fill their houses with sweet-smelling herbs to ward off the malignant vapours. Others turn to gods and mysteries from a long-forgotten past in the hope of salvation.
As Professor Wells and Dr Knowles enter the bank, its emptiness is eerie. No customers, no sign of staff. They walk to the counter and break the silence by ringing the bell. After a short pause a door opens on the other side of the counter and Miss Peacock shuffles over to greet them.
‘Ah, Professor Wells. And your companion. Come through, come through,’ she says, opening the barred gate, enthused as she is by these important visitors. ‘Mr James is expecting you.’
She leads them past empty desks and full in-trays to the bank manager’s office. There in the doorway is Mr James, short, overweight and billiard ball bald, with a welcoming handshake and a handkerchief at the ready to pat his sweating brow.
‘Sit down … please,’ he says, as he makes himself comfortable in the leather chair beneath the large arched window looking out on to the square and the bay beyond.
‘Now, I know what this is about,’ he says shuffling some papers on his desk and fishing one out, ‘on account of the letter you sent me. Of the thirty-first ultimo …’
‘The matter is simple,’ says Professor Wells. ‘On behalf of the town council, we need to transfer the sum noted in the letter to the nominated account.’
‘To the provincial governor’s discretionary account, I see,’ says the bank manager, in the officious tone he believes is required for such matters. ‘A considerable sum of money,’ he proclaims, with a raised eyebrow and a daub of the forehead.
‘And much needed for the health and welfare of the population,’ chips in Dr Knowles to ensure his voice is heard.
‘The account in question is the mayor’s stipendiary fund, one that he controls,’ says Mr James.
‘No longer,’ says Professor Wells. ‘As you know, due to the health crisis, the elections have been postponed … indefinitely … and the council will be disbanded as of next week. The mayor will at that time be out of office and he has already been relieved of his control of council funds. The authorisation from Legal Affairs will be with you in the morning.’
The sweat on the bank manager’s forehead begins to flow in direct proportion to the realisation that his handsome management fee from the mayor will soon dry up.
‘But this will totally empty the mayor’s coffers,’ pleads the bank manager.
‘One might say,’ replies the professor, ‘that the coffers were never the ex-mayor’s in the first instance.’
Back on the street Dr Knowles turns to the professor, pausing as he seeks the right words.
‘You have been silent on the matter of isolating the sick and the carriers. I wondered whether you had considered further.’
‘I have, and I will advise the council that we should find an isolation ward, some distance from town. I cannot condemn these people to a barbaric and callous end to their lives. To board them into their own homes is inhumane and evil.’
‘Ah, words sprung from the heart of a man, sir. Not from the mind of a medic and scientist.’
‘Sometimes there is a place for the heart.’
All the children sit cross-legged and eager. Mrs April looks at the anticipation in their faces, an eager anticipation, almost a trance. She begins with those beguiling words, the ones that she knows have from time immemorial transfixed listeners, across ages, across space, across culture and creed. ‘Once upon a time …’
The idea for the storytime had come to her one night a week earlier. Outside, the wind and rain had rattled at the window. But inside, by the warmth and balm of the crackling fire, she sat reading one of the last of Brother Alphonso’s documents. The paper was yellowed and brittle, but the sentiments were fresh and vibrant. His words extolled the value of ‘the other’, ‘the outsider’. He bemoaned the ‘insularity and small-mindedness of the times’ and the need for ‘the people to look beyond their own shores and ways, to expose themselves to alternative visions of heaven and earth’. As she read these words she thought of the young children and their stay in the monastery and the chance to open their hearts and minds. A month or so earlier she had been sorting through a box of Oscar’s books when she came across some loose sheets of paper tucked inside a copy of Great Expectations. Written there was a lovely story telling the adventures of penguins and polar bears, beautifully illustrated in crayon and ink. What fun, she thought, after reading Brother Alphonso’s words, to tell the story to the children to brighten up a day. It was the twinkle in the eye of Brother Paul, when she told him of her plans, as he dramatically twirled on the spot and extended his arms, that gave Mrs April the notion that the story was ripe for acting.
‘The story can come to life,’ she enthused. ‘The children can act it out! The play will be the thing!’
Tidetown is a ghost town. Its streets are empty of people; the boats in the harbour shift impatiently on the tide, the rip beckoning, but no captain or crew in sight. Here and there a twist of smoke rises from a chimney stack, signalling a glimmer of life. Mrs M, as robust and ruddy cheeked as ever, sits by the hearth cradling a mug of steaming tea. Opposite her is Joshua, examining the backs of his hands.
‘No black spots for me, Mrs M.’
‘Nor me, I’m pleased to report.’ She stares into the flames, glad of the warmth, beguiled by the light. ‘What will become of our fair town, Mr Barnum?’
‘Who knows,’ says Joshua, ‘it surely is a sad and sorry state of affairs. Death is everyone’s companion. But this town’s seen many a black day and I know it’ll survive. Bricks and mortar, Mrs M. And harbour walls, cliff faces and woodlands. And history, Mrs M.’
‘Yes,’ she says, blowing away the steam and then sipping on her tea. ‘Harbour walls and history.’
‘A plague on this plague. If it had kept its pusy fingers away for another month I would be installed as mayor again. Instead, all that I’ve built is crumbling around me.’
Dr Knowles listens to the mayor as he rants and bangs his fists on the huge mahogany table.
‘What to do? … Is this God’s vengeance? … My properties … The end of order …’
When it became clear that Professor Wells would not support his plans to isolate the sick and infectious, Dr Knowles took it upon himself to petition a higher authority. With other towns to attend to, his men were getting itchy feet at their encampment by the river, and with the mayor’s days in office numbered, there was no time to lose.
