A Year of Marvellous Ways

by Sarah Winman

  25

  A week later, Marvellous noticed that the birds in the creek had become edgy and their songs rushed. A flounder had beached itself during the morning’s empty, given-up before sun up, it had, died in that cruel between-light. Crabs, too, had risen from the mucky ooze, looked about fearfully before thinking better of it.

  For days she had felt it coming but had said nothing. Had felt it in the mar of her back, the slow build-up of strange behaviours and unfamiliar smells, smells of the dark soul, she liked to call them.

  She stood by the mooring stone and studied the encroaching dark. Her barometer had fallen but not a cloud weighted the sky as yet. It was the pressure of expectation, that’s what it was, because that’s what happened during the Night of Tears. Her ears sifted the silence. When the dogfish barked that’s when the river rose. That’s when broken dreams escaped the mud and floated to the surface like bobbing wrecks.

  Once, Mrs Hard’s pram had floated wheels up and wedged itself in the eelgrass. The pram had never felt the weight of a child, only bread, and there’d been talk back-along of Mrs Hard carrying a child but whether it had entered the world breathing, no one quite knew. But Marvellous knew and knew that it hadn’t. There never was another child and the pram remained the dream she couldn’t quite let go of. That was when her name seemed to change from Heart to Hard, and Marvellous knew nothing good could come from a heart turning hard. It was Mrs Hard who had told Marvellous that tears ran out like women’s eggs. When you no longer bleed, you no longer cry. That’s what Mrs Hard had long-back said.

  Drake awoke suddenly to the light drum of rain and the sensation of a clinging wetness around his body. He opened his eyes, sat up. The room was moving, had become one with the river; a continuous plane of shimmering black. A shaft of moonlight snaked across the floor as strong as a lighthouse beam. Drake rolled out of his bunk and his toes disappeared into the chill salt water. Panic gripped immediately. He rolled up his trouser legs and waded across to the balcony door and looked out. There was no more riverbank, no mooring stone, the world was water. The tide had won.

  So cold he began to shake. He grabbed his oilskin by the door and stumbled out. A step to the right was the rising tide, a step to the left woodland. He stepped left and saw the light. It was just a flicker at first, hazy in the drizzle, but it got bigger and came towards him like a large firefly, and as the firefly drew near, so it turned into a candle, stuck above the brim of a dirty miner’s tull, worn by an old woman carving across the creek in a canoe, her stroke slow and majestic.

  Get in! shouted Marvellous as she reached his feet. Get in and paddle!

  And he got in nervously and did.

  He pushed away from the bank and let the vessel glide in the current around the island and the dark outline of the church. He looked back to where the white of the boathouse merged with the waterline at the balcony edge. The strange disorientation of it all. Trees were reaching out for the opposite bank, branches reaching up from the depths like fingers, everything reaching suddenly for him, and the image choked him and the first wave of puke shot from his mouth.

  An owl hooted, and the clouds pulled away. And suddenly, there was the moon, fat and orange and low, directly above the roofless church. Shafts of light poured from the broken windows like bright tentacles reaching out, highlighting the tops of the submerged headstones: Sacred . . . In Loving Memory . . . In Peace Perfect Peace.

  Drake stopped paddling and held tightly on to the sharp fronds of a palm tree.

  You all right?

  Yes, he said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. It’ll pass, he said, shivering.

  This way then, said Marvellous, pointing ahead.

  As the way became narrower, Drake used his hands to guide the craft towards the open door of the church. It was just wide enough to get through.

  It had been years since he had been in a church. Years since eyes of stained glass looked down on him and wept. His heart felt heavy as he ducked under the doorframe and entered a still world that time had long forgot.

  A lit candle rose from the submerged altar slab casting fierce light on to the crumbling walls, and what walls! They near took his breath away, for clinging there like crabs were model boats of every shape and size – yawls, cutters, gigs, luggers – perfect, every one of them, in care and detail, made from matchsticks and cork and whittled twigs.

  Who made these? asked Drake.

  I did, said Marvellous.

  When?

  I don’t know. I’ve had a long life.

  He manoeuvred the craft to the wall and read out some of the names of the boats: Gladly, Douglas, Audrey, Simeon, Peace.

  Peace, said Echo.

  Children I delivered, said the old woman. Ships of souls.

  The canoe drifted back to the light.

  They say Jesus came to this land as a boy, Drake. The old woman’s voice was measured, and echoed in the submerged ruin. He came with Joseph of Arimathea. They were on their way to Glastonbury. Imagine that, Drake! Jesus here. That’s why they call this land a blessed land, blessed by the tread of Holy feet. And people over the years have spent a lifetime trying to walk in the exact confines of that tread and people were so busy looking down that they forgot to look up. Forgot to see what it was all about.

  Marvellous took out her pipe, lifted the glass guard around the altar candle and lit it. She said, Where you are now was where the young Breton saint who founded this hamlet in the sixth century sat and fasted and prayed. He dragged a granite stone all the way from Penwith with a thick rope held between his teeth, and he walked in silence. And he placed the stone here and from this stone rose a church. From this stone rose the faith of thousands.

  Drake looked up through the broken roof. The sky was starlit and directly above him, the moon cast its beams directly on to his face.

  Once upon a time that would have signified you were the chosen one. Maybe you are the chosen one? What’s your story, Francis Drake? What stone are you dragging behind you?

  I don’t have a stone. Or a story, he said.

  Everyone has a story.

  Not me.

  Hmm, she said, looking at him disbelieving, and the drizzle turned once again to rain and carried moonlight with it.

  She said, The young Breton saint was called Christopher – or Christophe, I expect, as the French say. ’Course he wasn’t a saint then, just a hermit monk with great ambition. He couldn’t actually be Saint Christopher anyway because the Catholics had that one, so his name became corrupted just as he eventually did. One day he bartered a thorn from Christ’s crown for waters from the River Jordan – holy relics were like cigarette cards in those days – and he fasted and prayed and his prayers led him to pour the River Jordan into our river and it became a cure-all for those who swam. He went into the woods and cried and from his tears rose a spring – just up there beyond my caravan – of the purest, freshest water. I’ve drunk from that well all my life, Drake, and I’ve never had worms.

  Drake took out a cigarette and placed it between his lips. Marvellous dipped her head and he leant towards her candle and took a light. The brief sensation of warmth calmed him.

  You know, she said, even when the roof was long gone and the rain fell like this, they still held services in here. They became known as special services.

  What happened to the roof? said Drake.

  Blown away in a gale probably. Yes, it was, in fact, destroyed by the storm at the end of the last century. The Great Blizzard, that’s what they called it. Brought snow and wind and death to the Peninsula. I saw sailors stuck to mainsails out in the bay. Spread-eagled like this. Arms reaching skywards. Mouths frozen in prayer. No atheists at sea, Drake. When the waves are the size of mountains even the godless kneel.

  Do you think that’s what I should do? Kneel? asked Drake.

  No. To kneel you ha
ve to believe you might be heard. I don’t think you’ve ever believed that.

  Small spirals of smoke rose from her pipe into the moonlight. The rain had ceased and Marvellous dipped her hand in the water and watched a shoal of young mullet file slowly up the aisle.

  What was I talking about? she asked.

  The services in the rain, he said.

  Ah yes, the services in the rain. Yes. They liked the rain, that’s why they never bothered with a roof again, thought it was a sign of God’s grace falling upon them. And God was very important then because He’d blessed the Cornish Trinity – The Copper, The Tin and The Holy Fish – with prosperous and far-reaching breath.

  Who’s Jack? asked Drake.

  What’s that?

  The other night I heard you talking to Jack. Was he your sweetheart?

  The old woman sucked hard on her pipe.

  Yes. He was my love. My great love.

  Was he your first love?

  No, he was my third love, my last. My first love was a lighthouse keeper: unexpected, that was. Then came Jimmy: that one was expected.

  Why expected?

  I saw him coming.

  In a dream?

  No, in a glass.

  In a glass?

  Are you repeating things just to annoy me again?

  No. Sorry.

  And then came Jack.

  So was he expected or unexpected?

  Good question. He was neither. He was my always. I have had three loves, Drake. At the time I thought it was enough, but looking back I think there might have been room for more. I’ve seen life expand like a womb to accommodate love.

  Love, said Echo.

  One was my beginning, one was my middle and one became my end.

  Drake looked down at the still water.

  So it all started with a lighthouse keeper? he said.

  Yes, I suppose it did, said the old woman. All love starts with the flicker of a flame.

  26

  I was in a taproom in Fowey by the water. My eyes were set on the pages of my book, but even though my eyes were occupied my ears were not and I heard a fisherman talking about an old sea captain he once served under, a man he dearly loved, a man who now kept light on the Eddystone Rocks. And the fisherman said the lighthouse keeper was close to death and needed help, and even though I was young I found the image distinctly profound.

  I followed the fisherman out on to the quay and introduced myself. The fisherman explained that he was looking for someone to witness the ending of the lighthouse keeper’s life. The old sea captain, he said, wanted to die peacefully in his tower and be buried at sea, so no doctors were to be called. However, his two children who kept light with him were fearful to dispose of his body in case they were later accused of murdering him. I said I’d be the witness and help his passing, and days later we were in his boat waiting for the weather to turn.

  The first morning we headed into a strong south-easterly wind that turned into a gale and sent us scurrying back with our hearts in our mouths. But then April arrived and the first morning of that month brought us a steady north-westerly breeze, which was the most favourable wind for a landing, and with sails full and hope billowing, we set our course for the famous tower in the sea.

  I sat at the bow and focused my telescope on the horizon, that incandescent line that tugged at me as strongly as the moon tugged the earth. I was seventeen years old when I spied my first love standing at the base of the Eddystone light with a fishing rod in hand and his cap pulled low and us still a mere speck in his peripheral sight.

  With an hour’s journey left to go the sea became as smooth as glass and the men rowed the remaining miles with seals at our side and gulls at our heads, and what was once a fissure on the horizon soon became the lighthouse itself. I never took my telescope away from that young man fishing on the rocks. Closer he came, closer, until the lens became a face and the face looked up and the man became a girl.

  Hello! she shouted.

  You’ve caught a fish, I said.

  I’ve caught three!

  We anchored the boat fore and aft and then I jumped. And she caught me.

  The lighthouse keeper was days from death. He was in between worlds, sleeping mostly, but then he would wake suddenly, staring, as if he was looking back to his world from a very distant shore. The son never said a word. He stayed next to his father like a loyal dog, slept next to him too. Three little bunks in a simple round room: one small one, one medium, and a large one. I chose to sleep with the mice on the kitchen floor below.

  As dusk approached the weather turned rapidly and the winds picked up and we had just enough time to bolt the door when the first wave hit us from the south-east. The lighthouse shuddered and rocked like a tree, and a wall of water hit the window and obliterated any daylight that still remained.

  The daughter took my hand and led me up the stairs to the lantern gallery. It was a small room, with iron cross-bars at the windows. We cleaned the windows and lit the oil lamps as the waves pounded and the lighthouse shook. We were so high up and the night stretched out before me desolately. Every minute felt like an hour as the Channel swallowed the tower and the wind shrieked in joy at my terror.

  And that night I never left the light and she never left me. It was so hot up there and it stank of oil, and we unbuttoned and sawdust and grime stuck to our clothes. And we listened to the lamps turn and the boom of waves and the squeal of the wind, and she halted my gasps of fear with a kiss, and I never stopped her. It was my first kiss. It lasted till dawn.

  The son paced round and round the room and the lighthouse keeper continued to fade. I gave him water that rested on his lips and placed my hands across his heart, and under my palm I felt the last rhythms of life play out, the last bar of a song brought to its end by the half-time beat of a solitary drum.

  And with his final breath the lighthouse keeper said: He is the light of the world. Whoever follows him will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

  We buried him at sea, as was his wish. In return, the sea gave two weeks of calm for the sacrifice. The gales abated and the sea lowered, and the birds were busy overhead, cawing and diving into the fertile depths, and that sun flickered brightly across the crests of waves like young promises of love.

  The grimy lantern gallery became our bed, and as the wind shrieked so did I. In the depths of night I would stand outside on the balcony with sawdust stuck in my hair. I held tight to the rail and watched the sweep of light carve through that infinite blackness seeking something greater at the horizon edge. And sometimes migrating birds, stunned and disorientated by the glare of beams, would smash into the glass and fall dead on the balcony floor. My girl would take the birds down to her brother to give him something to love.

  We were the centre of that liquid universe, for we were the night sun and we said to ships, Do not come too close, we have rocks at our feet. And the crash of waves sent white spray flying, and I am scared and exhilarated and a little bit in love too. I gripped the handrail and inched slowly around the balcony searching for that small channel of calm on the opposite side to the wind, and she came out and did the same – in the opposite direction – and we met at the back and there was no room to stand side by side, so we stood face to face until it became face on face until the only breeze there was, was warm, and came from her mouth, and smelt of sweet china tea.

  She was the one who taught me to smell the air. So high up the air is clean and undisturbed, and when a strong south-westerly wind blew fierce, my senses bristled as it deposited sounds and smells from America, from another time, from my mother’s time. And there was a lament on the breeze as the songs rose up from the rivers and fields.

  Two days before I was due to leave, the sky was cloudless and as blue as I had ever seen it. The sun was so warm, my arms
were out, my trousers rolled high. The wind stirred fresh and a ground swell sent waves billowing over the rocks at low tide depositing frothy spume that, from such a height, looked to me like fallen clouds. The boy hadn’t moved from his bunk. He slept with grief surrounded by dead birds. She left food and water by his bed, then took my hand and led me up to the gallery.

  I watched her smell the air. She was like an old-time fisherman scanning the sea for the dance of fish, feeling for the mood of the currents. The sea was her mistress – not I – and she would never leave her mistress. That’s why I never asked her to. Everything has its time. Ours was fourteen days of nights and tides.

  She brought out a large kite. It had a metal frame and was covered by heavy white canvas. The tail was a thick cord a good fifty, sixty feet in length and attached to the cord was a dozen or so hooks ready and baited. She secured the handling rope around the balcony rail and when the wind was in the right direction she launched the kite off the balcony and guided it beyond the reef and steered it like a craft so that the tail and the hooks dipped into the sea. Up it swooped, down it swooped, and that bait came alive to fishy mouths.

  It didn’t take long for her to shout and for me to help pull in the kite, and on my word, seven fish were hooked and flying through the air towards us. Oh the weight of it, Drake! But we pulled it in and unhooked the fish, and an hour later the kitchen was filled with the smell of cooking and the son lifted his head off the bed and out of grief to the unmistakable smell of freshly caught sea bass cooking over a burning stove.

  The morning the boat came to pick me up, she gave me a coin. It’s always with me. I have it here, somewhere in my pocket. Wait a moment. Here, and she handed the coin to Drake.

  An old penny, he said.

  Yes.

  Why a penny?

  But she didn’t answer him straight away. She said: When I got in that boat, Drake, I never looked back. I couldn’t. I was seventeen and I loved her. And I had had my first taste of sex and it was wonderful. Even now I still shudder. She was wonderf— Now, why have you just turned away from me?