‘It is a question,’ said my Cannibal.
‘There is no telling how long that may be,’ said Jack.
The door swung inwards and a fair-haired young man presented himself, tousle-haired and out-of-breath.
‘Seen O’Neill?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Jack.
‘Fucking pot-licker,’ he said, and I felt abashed for having begged forgiveness for my far milder uncouth language. ‘Only took me awl.’ He bowed to my Cannibal and his father, and said, ‘Forgive me, O’Riordans. Pot-licker is not a favourable term.’
‘It is not,’ said my Cannibal. ‘O’Neill is in the wood.’
A shout from outside, a man’s voice: ‘William! Young O’Riordan!’
‘That is Mr Heron,’ said my Cannibal.
‘I am sorry I said pot-licker,’ the fair-haired young man said to me.
I had not heard this expression before, and simply nodded in what I hoped was a knowing, and forgiving, way to this young man.
‘You are William, then?’ I asked my Cannibal.
‘William, yes, O’Riordan, is my name. Did I not tell you?’
‘You did not.’
‘Do I know your name?’ he asked me.
‘No, you do not.’
‘Then it will be awkward introducing you,’ he said, and went outside.
‘There is an awl here you might use,’ said Jack.
‘Too big. I need me own awl,’ said the young man, and hitched up his shirt to show an expanse of hairy belly, and, below it, the rope holding his trousers up. ‘It’s better for mending belts.’
Unable to assist in that particular matter, I went outside to meet Mr Heron.
He was a man shaped like a slingshot, his giant bandy legs topped with a little torso. That was all I could see of him until he lumbered much closer. He was red-haired, with beard and whiskers trimmed and tidy. His clothing struck me as rather off for the situation, for he was dressed in a velvet frockcoat, frilled shirt and antique breeches. These items were well-made and well-patched. An outrageous top hat was pressed against his breast. The was something cringing about him, as he reached down to shake my hand, and he fumbled for the words to ask for my name, and then did not ask, for we had not been introduced.
‘My name is Fox,’ I said.
‘I am Heron! Thank you for not minding the niceties,’ he said. ‘I mean, thank you for telling me your name.’ He spoke with the accents of a Northerner; an English Northerner, I should say. There was a trembling about his voice, as though it came from an unsteady place within him.
‘We each have a Creature for a name,’ I said. ‘I wonder if there is something in that.’
‘What?’ he cried wildly.
‘Why, I am Fox, and you are Heron.’
‘Oh! Yes,’ he said, peering at me like I had said quite the queerest thing he had ever heard.
I looked down to avoid his bright gaze. By my boot, indifferent ants were dismantling a moth. It was likely I was going mad. I had passed one night here and was seeing it by day for the first time, but already I could sense the thick aspic of ennui solidifying the air and suspending the men in a drifting aimlessness. In the time since I had emerged from the slab hut, the beach had been populated, somewhat, by a straggling group of men brought together not by purpose, to my eyes, but impulse. It was clear in their slouching, and their long faces, and their hands like bundles of twigs. There must be some reason we all had gathered there, but I could not get to the heart of it. Oh, whaling, yes, and harpoons, and for me Maryanne Maginn, but these worthy pursuits seemed somehow irrelevant. The men on the beach looked half-transparent beneath their coarse garments, crouching around fire-pits as the sea stretched its fingers along the sand. Some of these men had an English look about them, and some an Irish, and others something else (Spanish, I feared), and one or two others were of the Black Men, yet all were idle alike, and stared alike. I could smell the stench of black oil and sea-rot in the roots of Mr Heron’s beard and the stalks of his eyeballs.
Mr Heron was then struck by a wave of social instinct. ‘Have you breakfasted, sir? Do you thirst? Are you warm?’
My heart welled with joy at the mention of breakfast, and the words I Am So Very Hungry and Thirsty Mr Heron that I Am Hallucinating Broccoli were rising to my lips, but the wave of social instinct washed away as inevitably as it had arrived.
‘Come, come,’ he said, and led me by the arm from one sad husk of a place to the next, and never mentioned breakfast again. I was given to understand that now it was Heron who would try to sell me that which neither of us wanted. Ah—the Economy! The walls crawled with vines, creeping into the brickwork and sending spores into the wood, and coming away dead.
‘We occupy three chains of shore and two acres, some quarter—a farthingdeal in the old style, you know—forested with good trees for felling. It is now partly cleared, but I will show you, if you will be so good as to allow me. It is possible to build, although we have five buildings, which is certainly all you will need, unless you have the wish to expand: two slab huts, the stone house, which I can tell you is quite as snug as anybody might wish, the tryworks, which are widely regarded as the best of their kind on the eastern coast. And the whalecraft store, of course, whence you have just lately come. You might even sell the cleared land on to some ticket-of-leave man seeking Freedom from the Panopticon! Now there is a profitable notion. You might build a house there, sir, and then make the sale. The opportunities are truly endless for the correct kind of gentleman. The enterprising kind, sir, as I can see you are. There is a good freshwater stream. The store is well-stocked with an Infinity of convenient Objects, Tools and Items. And we have five good whaleboats. With a fine shear. See.’
Heron swept his hand in the direction of the boats, the other hand yet pressing his hat to his chest. A yellow-haired man and a native boy-child were sketching shapes upon a hull with their fingers. The child was speckled with green paint and held a paintbrush like a conductor’s baton. Tins of paint leant crazily on the sloping sand.
‘Is he someone’s son?’ I asked.
‘Well, yes,’ said Heron, giving me a searching look, as though inspecting me for physical signs of mental disorder. ‘Are not we all?’
‘I mean—is he the son of someone here at the station?’
‘Oh, indeed. Yes. His father is our smith.’
‘I confess I have never met a native.’
‘Robert Mochrie is Scottish.’
‘That lad is not a Scot!’
‘Ah! The lad’s mother was native. Robert Mochrie is his father.’
‘What are they doing?’
‘The American—yon man—has taken up the notion of painting eyes upon the boats. He says it makes for better hunting. Tam is taken with the idea. See there?’ And he brought me around to admire the boat they had already painted, with two big black-and-green eyes at the stern. It had an uncanny look to it, like a hollow fish. ‘Odd-looking,’ he said, in a low tone, while smiling encouragingly at the American and Tam. ‘It does not signify,’ he continued. ‘They can paint eyes and it does not matter. The boats are good boats. The line rides high when it goes. Each one equipped with sweep oar, lances, bails, boat spade, knives, seven or nine rowing oars, two tubs of manila. Not hemp, which becomes limp when wet—useless! All the appurtenances! Irons, of course. That is, harpoons. You will have seen them with Jack in the whalecraft store. Good harpoons. No guns, but you do not want guns, in my opinion. There is a rifle-gun in the house, but I will take that with me. And there are a few pistols for meat. No other guns. And the men are good able men, if you are firm. (Particularly with the Irish. They like to palaver in their own tongue and perhaps make seditious remarks. Popery, of course. Nothing a man can’t control.) Good fishing. Sometimes you see an albatross, and that is an auspicious thing.’
I scarcely need remark this persuasive speech was almost entirely Greek to me.
A pale woman in dark dress stood in the open door of the house. ‘My wife,’ sa
id Heron, and dropped his voice again. ‘She is ill. Quite ill, I fear. This life is hard on her. We wish to remove north. Warmer climes. Or Home—but that is colder climes, of course. Odd how it grows warmer the farther north you go, until you go so far you reach the Peak of Heat and it grows cold once more. We have been here some years, now. Some twenty years. She used to live in Hobart-town but grew lonely. And frightened. So she came here. It is bad for her health. She is so delicate. Mr Montserrat founded the station,’ he said, changing tack suddenly, turning to gaze into my soul with his blue eyes. ‘Mr Montserrat was a true Gentleman—a true one,’ he said gravely. ‘Very high. Lowered himself to buy the station, but they can be whimsical.’ (I took it he meant Gentlefolk.) ‘He hired me as Station-Master. And ran into a little difficulty. Personal difficulty. Not to do with the station—we were piling whale upon whale into the trypots. Couldn’t move for whale-flesh. Swimming in black oil. Drowning in it. I bought it from him. The station. And now my time here is ended. For the reasons I have told you.’
Mr Heron was growing cadaverous before my very eyes, and his wife was turning invisible.
I looked towards the tree line, where the fog was rising. I seemed to see myself appear, as I had the night before, from amongst the misted trees like an ink stain on paper thickening into clarity.
‘What a well-situated aspect,’ I told Heron, and he agreed most heartily.
‘Indeed, sir, indeed,’ said Heron. ‘Easterly—best for whales. The head yonder is an excellent natural lookout. There—now, see? Pendle is watching. There is always a man there, watching. Always equipped with the telescope—a sturdy brass Item—which I bought near-new from a Naval Lieutenant of good reputation.’ Heron raised a hand to Pendle, who was too far or too occupied scanning the sea to respond.
A few more men had approached, gathered about in some unpolished and silent welcome party. I found I was so disorientated I could not but be honest. ‘I have become quite lost,’ I told him quietly. ‘I ought not have come. I—this place has nothing to do with me. I have gone thoroughly astray.’
‘Astray from what?’ asked Jack, who I saw had approached, one of my harpoons in each hand.
‘From my Purpose,’ I said.
‘Yes, you mentioned a Purpose. And not the irons.’
‘No indeed! I do not care about those. You may keep them. I must return to Hobart-town. I am looking for a Woman.’
‘And—the sale of the station—’ said Heron.
‘Sir—’
I saw the knowledge roll over Heron that I could not buy his station. We cast our eyes together to the clouds and saw the heavy bulk of the absent whales.
‘What woman?’ asked Jack.
‘I beg your pardon?’ I asked, but I kept my eyes skywards.
‘Who is the woman you seek?’
‘Ah—her name is Maryanne Maginn,’ I told him. ‘She was transported here some thirty years ago, and would now be in her middle forties. Her family wants her.’
‘What was her crime?’ he asked.
I tore my gaze from the clouds and stared at him. Remarkable question! ‘I had not thought to ask,’ I said.
‘She must have been very young.’
‘Indeed. Just a slip of a girl. Perhaps she was innocent of—whatever it was.’
‘Or perhaps she was guilty.’
‘Only God can say.’
‘God, and whatever judge convicted her, and she herself, I suppose.’
‘I suppose so.’
There had been a breeze so little I had not noticed it until it died.
If I and everyone I knew were mad, did that not mean all were quite typical Specimens and therefore sane? And it was the right-minded man who was truly the madman, for he was unlike all others?
I once more spied the dim figure of Pendle, watching from the cliff-top.
The fair-haired man without a belt went by. ‘O’Neill is exonerated,’ he told me. I supposed the men there had need to be fluent in the language of Justice. ‘Pendle has me awl.’
‘Please forgive Mr Cook,’ said Heron. ‘He is rough, but he is a good one.’
Jack was intruding upon the painting of eyes at the whaleboats. He vaulted neatly in, my clumsy harpoons delicate in his hands.
‘Got a story for me to-day, Jackie?’ Tam asked Jack. ‘In fact, the fact of it is, I would like a story, if you have one.’
‘No stories to-day,’ said Jack.
‘You can tell me one to-morrow then,’ Tam said. ‘Well, if you can think of one, which, I hope, that you’re able.’
Jack did not respond, but unspooled a length of rope from somewhere within the boat.
‘What is Jack doing?’ I asked the child, or anyone who would listen.
The old man, my Cannibal William O’Riordan’s father, said, ‘Putting your harpoons to line.’
I nodded politely, none the wiser, as with all answers I received in that place.
What is the opposite of a vanishing? Mrs Heron un-vanished in the doorway of the stone house, and proceeded down the sand to the tryworks, carrying a lightless sun in her hands. Tam saw her and cried, ‘You did not bring the box!’
There was a kind of galvanic quality to the air, signalling that something must occur.
‘What is the lady doing?’ I asked, but no one was near me. I saw again the little sun that had arisen above the trees to light my way the previous night when it was so dark and I had become so lost.
‘It is a Balloon?’ I said to myself.
It was quite clear to me what was indeed about to happen—I was not so foolish that I could not read the future in the molecules of the air about me! I thought that I would open my heart to it, when it came.
The watchman Pendle, tiny on the head, was waving his arms. The whistle from afar curled dreamily into my ears. There was a too-far shout. I looked about and back at the head—now empty—and Pendle bloomed into view, bellowing what he would always have bellowed.
‘Whale nor-east!’
The men mouthed calls at one another. Heron immediately forgot me and sprinted roaring on his enormous legs with the American for the whalecraft store. The Tam lad sped here and there, all in a dither of excitement. In his haste, he kicked a tin of paint, which knocked over another. A swathe of blue and a swathe of yellow speared down the slipway and slid shivering onto the water. These two colours spread on the pulsing waves and converged, making a ripple of green betwixt them. I saw the image of my miniature of Susannah so vividly in the air before my eyes that I did not need to withdraw it from my breast pocket to confirm the following thoughts: it was not, as I had supposed, that the Artist had not made the painted-Susannah’s eyes green because he had no green paint. For her hair was yellow, and her dress blue, and I beheld the phenomenon of the confluence of the two in the paint spilt before me. Artists! They are full of spite. He might have mixed some green paint and depicted her eyes accurately. I made a mental note to pursue a return of the sum I had paid him upon my return Home, or at least to have him paint over the eyes.
The fog closed over. The men had forgotten me, busying themselves, flying into boats. I allowed myself to be carried with the impetus of the place towards a boat myself, the image of Susannah wavering before me. I was glad that I might see a whale, even were it an apparition of our shared consciousness, like an imprecise portrait.
MEASURELESS TO MAN
Three boats were launches, for it transpired the station no longer employed sufficient whalers to man all five. Ours was last of the three. The freezing waves pushed against my legs and seeped with tortuous slowness through the fabric of my trousers as we waded into the water. I looked up to see the boats that had gone ahead dissolve into the fog. We were left quite alone. I climbed over the side of our whaleboat and seated myself upon a bench. My sensation was, as last night the world had been subsumed by Darkness, now all Creation was being covered by billows of cloud, and our solitary whaleboat was the final outpost of man. It seemed that Pendle had espied the whale just in time, before
the great carpet of fog unfurled across the sea.
Heron stood in the stern, his hands tight on a long pole like a gondolier’s.
It was so cold I had become numb, which was marvellous. I took my oar and, with the men, began to row into the desolation.
Heron’s eyes passed over me, and then passed over me, and then saw me. ‘How long have you been there?’ he asked me.
‘Since we departed, of course,’ I said, between gasps of exertion, for the water was like toffee, and my arms water.
‘Why? Where is Mochrie?’
‘I do not know, sir. I simply took an oar.’
Heron gazed above him. His servile aspect was entirely gone, in the boat.
‘I do apologise if it is an inconvenience,’ I said. ‘I had thought you had noticed me from the start. I was beside you when we ran the boat in.’
‘No,’ he said, and then, ‘No sun. It rises over the water, here, and rolls across the sky, and sinks behind the far hills. Not to-day.’
I did not know how to respond to that poetical interlude, and so remained quiet, other than my huffing breaths.
Poor Mr Heron abandoned his impromptu observations about the sun to indicate mournfully how excellently outfitted the whaleboat was, as though he still hoped that I might yet buy the station. There was an excellent lance, and the oars were excellent, the manila he had previously mentioned was also excellent, coiled in an exceedingly well-made barrel, well-fastened now to the American harpoons I had supplied, which were quite the thing, he was sure. And so on. I politely did not listen. He had a compass in his breast pocket, which he had checked once or twice, but now his knuckles were white from clutching the pole.
I was seated starboard with two others. Directly before me was Pendle, who had raised the alarm. I could almost count the lice on his head, pressing themselves close to the coarse black hairs, circling his white bald patch. Before him was Byrne, a young man, not Irish as you might imagine, but brown-skinned, his hair a black mop. Four were larboard: Jack, the old O’Riordan, and two others.
A Treacherous Country Page 7