The Black Joke

by David Bramhall

  Chapter 17

  The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas (Psalm 8)

  Seen from a mile out to sea, as it would to a weary seaman approaching land at the end of a stormy voyage, the town looked peaceful and benign. Pert thought how misleading that was. Distance lent an enchantment it didn't deserve. Walter Glibbery sat in the stern of the fishing boat Better Times, one arm draped over the tiller, while overhead the single sail slatted back and forwards as the boat rocked. Pert was baiting up, threading small pieces of fish on the hooks that hung one after the other from the long mackerel lines. Every so often he dipped his hands over the side to wash off the slime and scales.

  The water was cold, the sea still in the grip of winter. On land the first signs of Spring had come, but out here although the air was bright and the little waves sparkled in the sun, it was the coming equinox with its gales that waited over the horizon.

  Pert felt happy, doing something he was used to, something he knew he was good at. He smiled at the waves and the light wind lifting his hair, and looked shorewards. To his left rose Bodrach Nuwl, impossibly high, sunlit and serene with no cloud at its head. The sun on the sheer cliff face made the rock look almost white, and the lower slopes gleamed emerald green and fresh. To the right the cliffs swept down to sea level, and there was the entrance to the winding creek that led up to the quay, with the town sprawling up the flanks of the hill. This was a wet land, watered by the west winds that rose over Bodrach Nuwl and turned to rain or snow, soaking the heather and peat, gathering into tiny rivulets that joined together and carved out little channels for themselves, joining again and getting bigger, cutting their way down to the rock and tumbling towards the town, growing all the time.

  Soon they became the brawling river under the trees that Pert and Rosella had waded in, then down through the town sometimes in stone-walled defile and sometimes in arched tunnels with houses over the top, until it flowed through the little harbour and out towards the sea. Leaving the harbour it lost its momentum, meeting the salt tide coming the other way, and the two streams tussled in and out, first the fresh water gaining ground, but twice a day giving way to the sea as it carried the little fishing boats and larger vessels up to the quay. Its constant wrestling had over the years caused it to twist and turn, and where it met the tide it was forced to pause and drop the cargo of silt and gravel it had carried down from the hills, so that a broad plain of mud and sand had built up on either side. Here reeds and coarse grasses found a foothold, and water fowl nested.

  Pert finished the baiting, and began to put the lines over the side, carefully so they didn't tangle. As he did so, the old man hauled in on the sheet. The old patched sail filled with wind and Better Times dipped her venerable head as though to say “Here we go again, old man!” and began to forge ahead. A gurgle of running water formed under the forefoot, and the boat heeled slightly with the wind. Little waves slapped against the bow, and once or twice a cloud of silver droplets came over the rail and wet Pert's back. He shivered with joy and watched the lines trailing astern.

  Drunk or sober, Walter always knew where the fish were to be found, and Pert could tell that already the lines were twitching as mackerel drove in for the bait and found themselves hooked.

  “This is the life!” called Walter, and raised his bottle. “Nothin' better'n this, my boy!”

  Pert grinned back at him. Before long the old man would have finished the bottle and would nod over the tiller. Pert didn't mind. He knew the Better Times, he knew the fish, and he knew the winding channel that would take them home. He could do this single handed if need be, and would be happy doing it as the old man was happy to let him. If he was really lucky, the old man would sleep right through the landing, and Pert would take the baskets up to Trumbull Underdown's shed and collect the money. Then he would run to give some of it to Walter's wife before handing the old man his share for ale or rum.

  By mid morning the baskets were full of handsome blue and silver fish, sliding and twitching, and Walter was still awake.

  “Aye, a grand mornin's work, young Pert,” he said. “Let's go an' 'ave a little look in Stonefields afore we goes 'ome. We'll be needin' to think about crab pots soon. Big 'uns, an' all!”

  Only a lunatic or a landlubber would ever think of approaching the edge of the Stonefields when any sea at all was running, but today it was bright and calm and the onshore wind was light. Walter Glibbery knew these crags and rocky outposts as well as any man, and Pert was calm and confident as they made their way in. He was anxious to learn. He had been here several times before, but there were miles of twisting channel to know. A boat could get lost in here, and never be found, for the tumbled slabs of rock rose forty and fifty feet in the air in places, way above a fishing boat's mast so it would not be spotted from land or sea.

  Although the sea was calm there was a deep underlying scend under the wavelets, remnant of some long-forgotten storm far out on the other side of the ocean, and as the rocky walls rose around the Better Times the waves died and only an oily swell was left, heaving and sucking at the seaweed fronds and making the boat pitch uncomfortably. The wind went out of the belly of the sail, but there was still a breath higher up and Walter slacked off the sheet so the sail could find it. In times of storm and tumult this deep defile would be a maelstrom, a hell of huge white waves breaking and crashing and drawing back, only to meet more breakers coming in so that the two would meet and send plumes of spray a hundred feet into the air. The noise would be heard miles inland, and no boat could live on the water and no man could live on the rock.

  But today was peace, and sombre shadow. Onwards they drifted and the swell grew less. White and grey limpets covered the rocks in their thousands, and at the margin goose barnacles nodded on their flexible stalks, and little yellow crabs crawled among the bladder-wrack. Above them Bodrach Nuwl filled the sky. Now that they were close to him, he seemed to lean over them, teetering and about to fall. Halfway up his sunlit flanks the seabirds wheeled and cried, but down here they were in deep shadow.

  On their left an opening appeared and Pert found himself looking across a lake of dark placid water. Walter pushed at the tiller and Better Times wallowed round, sail slatting gently, and drifted into the entrance. They were in what would be a rock pool anywhere else, but here was a vast cistern of still water, dark and clear. Pert leaned over the side and saw patches of sand, and fish darting from one weed to another. He thought of the box he had given his mother, with the little fish in it. On rocks clung huge dark red sea-anemones, their little tentacles waving as they sifted food from the water, and once he thought he saw the quick movement as a moray eel, startled by their shadow, drew back his head. The Better Times cast a black shadow on the sandy bed, and Pert watched it undulate with the shape of the bottom. A crab saw them pass, and stopped and raised its claws threateningly. It was the size of a dinner plate.

  “We'll put some crab pots here,” said Walter, “after the big storms have passed through.”

  “They'd better be jolly big ones,” said Pert.

  Walter put the helm down and the boat turned slowly round. There was little wind left, and Pert got out the oars, settled them on their pins and began to row gently. They passed out through the entrance to the pool and turned left again towards the cliff.

  “We'll go a little further in, since it's quiet,” said Walter. “I saw a boat in here once.”

  “What, another fisher? Surely we aren't the only people who come here?”

  “No, no, I means a wreck. All smashed and stove in, she were. An' old. Real old,” Walter replied. He reached into his pocket and began to stuff his pipe with tobacco from a greasy pouch.

  “Where was this?” asked Pert.

  “Well, if I'm honest ...” Walter struck a match and sucked at his pipe, “... if I'm honest I'm not too sure if it happened or not.” He sucked again, and blew smoke out. Pert rested on his oars and Better Times slid on under her o
wn momentum.

  “See, I'd had a bottle or two, like. As you do when the weather's quiet an' the fish aren't keen an' yer wife's been 'ittin' you with the chair leg ...” He smiled fondly at the memory. “Ah, she's a grand ol' girl, so she is. Anyways, I were jus' sculling in all peaceful like, and singin' to meself, an' I jus' kept goin' in and in, and there she was.”

  “On the bottom?”

  “No, sort of 'alf an' 'alf, as it were. 'Er bows was up on a little beach, on the stones, an' er stern was down under water. Not a lick o' paint left, all grey and silvery timbers, an' a few shred o' sail. Just sittin' there peaceful under the cliff, like she bin there an 'undred years.”

  “Where was this?” Pert's mind was working frantically. Could this be the remains of the Bight of Benin, Grandfather Mascaridus's old ship?

  “Right in close, I thinks. I looks up, like, when I sees 'er, and realises that I've come in too far under the cliff. She's loomin' over me, like as if to fall on me 'ead, and there was little stones droppin' down every so often. Dangerous in there, bits of cliff fallin' on yer 'ead. Whole lot could come down any minute. So I backs water and gets out o' there as quick as I could. I don't know nobody as goes that close in to the Ol' Man, 'e don't like getting' 'is toes trod on.”

  “So probably no one knows about this wreck.”

  “Ah, prob'ly. Like as not she's lyin' there still, less'n she's been squashed.”

  “And nobody knows about her. Can you tell me how to get there?”

  “Jus' don't turn”, the old man said. “I seen 'er, right up the end, tucked nice and tight between two big rocks. Years agone, it were.” He was getting vague, the drink fuddling his old wits. Pert used the oars to turn Better Times around and began sculling towards the sea.

  “Go on,” he urged. “Don't turn, is that all there is to it? Are you sure?”

  “I thought I seen 'er, anyhow, but I might've dreamed it, being in licker, like. But it might be there. You goes on past the crab pots, and when you sees a big red rock what sticks up, the main channel turns to the left but there's a little one what go straight. Well, don't turn, take the narrow way and don't turn, just keep goin' straight till it gets all high and dark, and there she'll be. There she might be ... perhaps ... it were a long time ago ...” The old man sucked on his pipe, and his eyes closed.

  Pert rowed on through the looming rocks until the boat began to lift to the swell, and the top of the sail filled with wind. He shipped the oars and took the tiller from Walter. The wind came from seaward and they were travelling to seaward against it, so he made a fine game and a challenge of tickling her along, sheeting in when the puffs swung favourably and the boat could get some drive, and letting the sail flap so she could drift under her own momentum in between. In this slow way he reached the end of the rocks, put the helm up so the sail could fill properly, and enjoyed a sparkling beat to windward until the mouth of the creek opened up. Then he put the helm up with one hand, grabbed the whole sheet in a bundle with the other, gybed the sail across with a bang and ran up the creek with the wind behind him. He felt happy, and proud that he could do this so well and without help, and pretended that he was the skipper of his own craft returning from a voyage of adventure. He wished that Rosella could see him, and was waiting anxiously for him on the quay.

  Gliding up to the quay he threw a mooring line to one of the fisher boys who were always hanging around in the harbour. The boy slipped it through a ring and tossed the end back to Pert so he could make it fast. That way when you wanted to slip out of harbour again you didn't need any help from the shore. The same boy seemed happy to help, so between them they hauled the baskets of fish up to the quay. The boy ran to bring a little two-wheeled cart and together they hauled the catch to Trumbull Underdown's shed. Pert haggled with the foreman, who he knew would try to pay him less than the fish were worth. He thought that had he been older he might have got a few pence more, but on the whole he was content that he had been only slightly cheated. He gave the boy a threepenny bit, earning a grin and a cry of “Thanks, guv!” and hurried to Mrs.Glibbery's little cottage in the street behind the sea front.

  “Walter's sleeping in the boat, missus,” he said when she opened the door. “Here's the money from Trumbull's. I kept a bit back for Walter. And I brought some mackerel for your supper, fresh caught.” The old woman looked at him suspiciously, then realised who he was.

  “Eh, you're growed, young Pert,” she said. “Look at you, you're all sunburned and growin'! You not at school any longer?”

  “No, I pushed the teacher over and I had to leave,” he said.

  “Ah, I 'eard something about that. That's my boy, I said to meself, that's the boy to stand up fer 'imself! An' that girl, that pretty Rosella, she was in it too?”

  “Yes. I was trying to protect her.”

  “Well, what I 'ear she needs some protectin'. That Grubb'll get 'er soon, so you wants to get 'er out o' there, you do, mark my words! Nobody get fat and flourish in Grubb's 'ouse. I remember when Grubb were younger. She were always objectionable, like. She spoke coarse, an' she looked coarse, an' she acted coarse, always lookin' fer a fight to pick or someone weaker ter pick on. And her dad, that were a rum business an' no mistake. One day he were 'ale and 'earty, big gruff man 'e were, but people respected 'im. An' the next day he were an invalid an' took to his bed, an' she stood guard over 'im an' no one ever saw 'im alive again. She din't even let Vicar read 'is Last Rites! Now, I got to go an' polish my chair leg fer when Wallie gets 'ome. 'E expects a proper welcome, does Wally!”

  Fenestra was waiting when he got home, full of secret self-importance. “Here!” she said, pushing a piece of paper at him. “May drew it. She showed it to April at playtime and they agreed it was right.”

  It was a piece of paper torn from the front of a schoolbook. On it was a childish drawing of a house, complete with a curly stalk of smoke coming out of the chimney, and a dog with only three legs standing in the flower bed. But the windows were well and accurately placed, and in one very small one upstairs there was drawn a sad face.

  “Now, listen,” said Fenestra. “May says that Rosella shouted at her father, and threatened to jump out of the window, so he got a hammer and nailed the window shut. But she's allowed to go to the bathroom, and the window of that opens. But it's too small to climb through.”

  “I don't think I'd got as far as getting her to climb out,” he said. “That would make things worse. And where would we put her? I was just going to talk to her.”

  “Well anyway, she can't get out. But her bedroom's the one next to the bathroom, and has a door to it. And listen, May says everything's really strange in their house. Their mother just locks herself in the dining room and won't come out most of the time. And Urethra Grubb keeps coming in. I think that's what makes Mrs.Prettyfoot hide, probably. I would, if it was me. And Mr.Prettyfoot just stays in his study and when he comes out he talks funny. And no one is looking after them, and April's having to do it and she can only make jam sandwiches. And April found the key and tried to let Rosella out, and her father heard and smacked her over his knee and she daren't try again, and he's hidden the key anyway. Now, did I leave anything out?”

  “I think that's enough to be going on with. Crumbs, what a mystery. All this over one afternoon bunking off school? It doesn't seem right. There has to be something else. And what's it got to do with the Grubb?”

  He sat and puzzled over it, but no ideas came. This was yet another item to add to the eight imponderables he already had on his list.

  Pert waited until the house was asleep, dressed and crept downstairs. Outside it was a gusty night lit by a fitful moon, which would allow him to see where he was going at least. He trotted quietly up the Alley and round to the paddock. The horse was still awake, and came to greet him. He wished he had brought an apple or a bit of bread for it. It seemed a nice horse.

  He found a place where the stone wall had almost completely collapsed, and slithered down the bank, stinging his wrists w
ith nettles and getting caught up on brambles. Goodness knew what his mother would say about the state of his clothes in the morning.

  He followed the sides of the lawn, keeping in the shadows as much as possible. Reaching the wall of the house, he stopped and listened for a long while. The house seemed silent and dark. He went to the flower bed and picked up a handful of earth and pebbles, and threw them at the window next to the bathroom, his heart in his mouth. What if he'd misunderstood the drawing, or if the little girl's knowledge of architecture was wrong?

  Nothing happened for quite a long time, and then there was movement at the window. A pale face peered out. Then it disappeared, and the little bathroom window was raised a few inches.

  “Pert? Is that you?” came a whisper, so quiet he almost missed it.

  He stepped out from the wall and looked up. “Rosella?”

  “Oh Pert, they took my boots!”

  “Who did?”

  “Father and that woman, Grubb. She's in the house half the time now, and she shouts and shouts, and when she goes, Father shouts at Mother. I don't understand what we did so wrong?”

  “Nor do I. Do you think we could get you out of there?”

  “I don't see how. Unless I just smashed the window with a chair and jumped.”

  “Don't do that! You'll hurt yourself, and there'll be glass and everything.”

  “All right ... Pert, I think there's someone moving about downstairs. You'd better go!”

  “All right. I'll try to come again.”

  “Pert, I'm glad you came.”

  The window was closed, and Pert fled across the lawn and up the bank and didn't stop running and scrambling until he felt the horse's hot breath on his cheek.

  “Hallo, horse,” he said, patting its long nose, “I wish I'd got something for you. I hope you're having a happier time than I am.”