by Peter Benson
The woman stopped and stared towards the ruins. She turned and looked over her shoulder, and shielded her eyes, and I shielded my eyes towards her. The wind rustled the grass that grew all around, and larks rose.
She was wearing a black dress, a blue scarf and black shoes. These were unsuitable for the road. As she walked, one slipped off. She stopped and bent to put it back on. A gull dived, screeched over her head and disappeared. She waved her fist and I heard her shout. Her voice was loaded with shock and disappointment. She disappeared behind the ruins of the farmhouse then emerged again. She was holding her knee, and grumbling. She walked as far as the grass that grows above the beach, shielded her eyes again and stared towards the offshore stacks. The tide was flooding and racing to the shore. A flight of oyster-catchers was crying at the ocean, and running with the breaking waves. She opened her mouth to shout, then shook her head.
She turned and walked towards my house. When she saw my tools stacked by the front door she called ‘Hello?’ The word was caught by the wind, flipped like a pancake and laid on the ground. A pair of chickens crossed her path, and the cat. Now she was twenty feet away, and as she stepped up to the door I recognised her.
Elizabeth Green: at that moment in the spring my heart attacked me and refused to listen. I felt a pair of hands push me from behind and lift me up. All the blood in my legs rushed to my chest, and my fingers fisted with shock. I could not help myself. My head burst. I had to close my eyes. When I opened them again you were still there but I could cope. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Missing You is a great film. I remembered the first time I saw it, and the times since, and the people I took to see it. Your face, your eyes… Your face had lined but your eyes were the same, and your beautiful mouth. I had dreamt about that mouth. Once I had wished your lips on mine. My right knee began to shake. I gripped it and took another deep breath. My vision blurred. I rubbed my eyes.
Elizabeth Green stopped at my front door, touched her hair, said ‘Hello?’ again, and knocked. ‘Is anyone there?’ She pushed the door, and it swung open. She stood where she was and looked at the stuff in the hallway. There was a pair of boots and some lengths of planed wood, and a model sailing ship on a high shelf. There was the smell of dog and earth there, and the sound of a hissing fire. She took a step inside and as she did I relaxed. Gloria broke away and rushed her.
Elizabeth Green was surprised. The dog pushed her down the hall and into the kitchen, where she tripped over a basket and fell on to the mat in front of the fire. I came running, and when she saw me she put her hands to her face and screamed. The noise she could make was incredible. She was a small woman wearing a brooch that could buy Truro. I backed off, put my hands up and said, ‘Gloria!’ The dog backed off and went to a corner.
The scream was still echoing in my head when Elizabeth Green yelled ‘Call it off!’ at me.
I said nothing.
My cheek twitched.
‘Are you going to just stand there?’
I didn’t move.
The dog grinned and slavered.
I didn’t move.
She said, ‘What’s the matter with you?’, grabbed the top of the stove and pulled herself up. Her dress was torn. ‘God!’ She fingered the tear. ‘Look at this!’
I took a step forward but did not offer my hand. She had come from nowhere dressed as if she were taking a stroll down a city street and she was shouting in my house. No one had ever shouted in my house, and this was the first house I had ever owned. No one had ever been in my house. The kitchen suddenly felt very small.
‘Hey!’
She was yelling again.
‘Is anyone there?’
When I was apprenticed, this was something one of my captains used to say. My mind would be alert but my face would be blank, my eyes dim, my arms relaxed and hanging straight down. This captain used to worry about me, he thought I was going soft, too long on watch, too young to be so long at sea, too far from land.
Elizabeth stood up, grabbed the back of a chair, pulled it out and sat down. I moved to one side, steadied myself against the wall and said, ‘What are you doing?’
‘Ah!’ Now Elizabeth snorted and rummaged in her bag for a handkerchief. ‘You talk.’
I nodded.
‘But not much?’
‘Enough,’ I said, and, ‘What are you doing here?’
‘This is Port Juliet?’
I nodded.
‘Oh God.’
‘What’s the matter? Are you lost?’
‘Do I look lost?’
I pointed to her shoes. ‘Yes.’
She waved her handkerchief at me. ‘I’m not,’ she said, and, ‘This is it?’
‘Yes.’
‘There’s nothing else? Just this?’
‘I like it.’
‘But I was expecting… I don’t know. A port?’
‘Were you?’
‘Of course!’ She yelled again, and her eyes swivelled towards the door. ‘Wouldn’t anyone?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t meet many people.’
‘You surprise me.’
‘I’ve got Gloria.’ At the sound of her name, the dog got up and stood by my side.
‘Wolfhound?’
‘Yes.’ I rubbed her head.
‘I thought so.’
‘She didn’t mean to jump you.’
She put out her hand and Gloria moved forward and licked it.
‘So you…’ I wanted to tell her I loved her. I felt that confident.
‘Yes?’
I stared at her hair. It was beautiful.
‘Hello?’
And her eyes were deep blue, stormy at the edges, wide, staring at me.
‘What’s the matter with you?’
I said, ‘What do you want?’
She did not answer straight away. She looked around the kitchen, then out of the window. She could see the ruined roofs of the weavers’ cottages, and hear the sea. The sun was sinking. Rooks drifted home, and gulls watched the tideline. A kettle was steaming on the stove. The fire smoked. She whispered, ‘I don’t believe it.’
How many things do I want to ask you? ‘What?’ I said.
She looked directly at me and her eyes had me and knew it. There was nothing I could do. It was unfair. I tried to tidy my hair but could not. Her lips were too red and her mouth was like a flower slowly opening. At that time she was seventy-five years old, and had been married three times. She should have died forty years before, then she could have lived for ever; you cannot carry a face like that for so long. Hair like a storm. She said, ‘Do you know who I am?’
I said, ‘Missing You’s one of my favourite films.’
‘Is it?’
‘Yes.’
She dabbed at her hair. It was very fine and light, and feathered through her fingers. ’My mother was born here.’ She looked out of the window again. ‘I came to see the place she wanted to leave.’
‘Did you?’
‘Yes.’
Once I had her photograph pinned over my berth, and another in my pocket. For years she was my woman aboard, the one I had when I was alone. I left her when I went ashore, but I always went back to her. I loved her, I wanted her, I held her face in my gripped fingers.
She said, ‘How long’s it been like this?’
‘Like what?’
‘Ruined.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘And you’re the only person here? There’s no one who could tell me anything about the place? About the old days. Mother didn’t tell me anything.’
‘There might be someone in Zennack.’ My voice slipped.
‘That’s where I just came from.’
I cleared my throat. ‘How?’
‘Cab.’
‘Where is it?’
‘I let him go.’
‘Didn’t he ask how you were getting back?’
‘No.’
‘Then how are you?’
�
�I’ll give him a call.’
‘You can’t. Not from here.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I haven’t got a telephone.’
‘What?’
‘No phone.’
She laughed. ‘I don’t believe you. Come on!’
I shook my head. I felt bad.
‘Everyone’s got a phone!’
‘I haven’t.’
‘Please.’ She was pleading, her voice trembling. ‘Please, it can’t be happening again…’
‘What can’t?’
She put her hand over her mouth, and sagged. ‘Then…’ she mumbled.
‘Want a cup of tea?’
‘Got anything stronger?’
‘Whisky?’
‘Never mind.’ She looked in her bag again and pulled out a bottle of vodka. ‘A glass?’
I fetched one.
She poured and drank. ‘Okay.’ She touched her lips with her fingertips. ‘Okay…’
I went to the cupboard, took out a cup and saucer, and a teapot.
‘Okay… What’s your name?’
‘Michael.’
‘Michael.’ She said it slowly.
‘And you’re Elizabeth Green.’
She nodded. ‘Yeah.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
She narrowed her eyes. They were unforgiving.
The kettle boiled, and I spooned some tea into the pot. I poured on the water, then sat down. Elizabeth’s scarf had come undone, and the top button of her dress. She did not look comfortable but she looked warm. There was colour in her cheeks.
‘Tell you what…’ She sat up. ‘I’ll pay you to give me a lift back. I’d like another look round the place, but whenever you’re ready…’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t worry.’ She took some notes from her purse. ‘I can pay.’
‘It’s not that.’
‘Then what is it?’
‘I haven’t got a car.’
Now Elizabeth Green’s jaw dropped. She stared at me and I stared back. Her hair had collapsed, and her eyes were fading. A vein in her neck stood up. I looked away.
‘I don’t believe this.’
I shrugged.
‘No car?’
‘No.’
She stood up and went to the window. She stared out. The sky was darkening, and spots of rain were flying against the plastic. ‘What am I going to do?’
‘I don’t know.’
She turned and looked around the kitchen. There were bags of cement stacked in one corner, and the remains of a meal on the sideboard. There was a hole in the ceiling. The wind began to whistle around the door and suddenly I was struck by the state of the house. For fifty years of my life I had lived in strict order, shipshape and Bristol. Made bed, polished desk, clean bathroom, scrubbed sink. Decks washed, rust chipped and rails painted. No short-cuts. And when I was on the road I kept my pack neat. Now I was talking to the first visitor in the first house I had owned, and the place was a mess. I was ashamed. I wanted to go outside and breathe deeply. I said, ‘There’s no excuse,’ to myself, and her.
She shivered. ‘No phone. No car. It’s impossible.’ She hugged herself.
‘I’m sorry…’
She shook.
‘You could…’
‘Where’s the nearest house?’
‘This is the nearest house.’
She slapped her forehead. ‘You call this a house?’ She was yelling again. ‘This is a construction site! I need a house where…’
‘There’s one on the road to Zennack. About three miles away.’
‘You’re kidding!’
‘They haven’t got a phone either.’
Elizabeth relaxed now, suddenly, and completely, and a strange smile crept on to her face. ‘I was right,’ she said. ‘It is Baja. Baja again. God…’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Port Juliet.’
‘Sure,’ she said, and now she took a swing at me. I caught her arm at the wrist and held it. Her fingers were inches from my face. Her knuckles were white. She wore a diamond ring. Her nails were perfect. I wanted to hold them to my face, and trace their outlines. She tried to struggle. ‘Watch it,’ she said. I let go quickly, and held my hands up, palms to the front.
Her eyes were popping and her tongue was darting in and out. I thought she was about to flail wildly at the mess in my kitchen and foam at the mouth. She was trying to find something to say or something else to do, but she could not. The air around us sucked, and the fire smoked again. I tried to move, but couldn’t. We were standing two feet apart. She looked at her hands, then buried her face in them and howled.
8
I left Elizabeth Green staring at the fire, smoking a cigarette and drinking vodka. She stopped howling, wiped her eyes and said a short prayer to the hole in the ceiling. The plastic over the window snapped, and the wind blew down the chimney and puffed more clots of smoke into the room. She coughed.
I stood by the door and rubbed my hands. She didn’t look at me. Between sips and puffs she rubbed her wrist, and took deep breaths. She was very small and lost and all I wanted to do was tell her how much she had meant to me years ago, alone in bunks in the South Atlantic and the Tasman Sea or Gulf of Guinea. Her face had been faithful to me; it had never failed me, or turned me down. Once she had been mine and she knew nothing about me. I wanted to know what that felt like, and if she ever thought about the lonesome things men had done with her picture at sea.
The wind gusted through the house, and rattled the stove. I said, ‘I’ve got things to do,’ but she didn’t care about me or say anything at all. I called Gloria, and we went outside.
We walked away from the house, and up to the chicken coop. The birds were settling for the night, scratching straw and arranging themselves along their perches. I bent in to count them and they made bubbling noises at me. Their eyes were bright and healthy. I had not clipped their wings. They had laid me three eggs. I put them in my pocket and shut the door. Then I turned and went down to the beach. Gloria hung back and watched me carefully with one eye, the other on the way ahead.
I stood on the sand. The rain was heavier now, stinging through the air. I loved it. This was was my weather, my time. I swayed with the wind, I slipped into it. I saw myself at sea, deadly and young. Force Nine, Strong Gale. ‘In which a full-rigged Ship would probably carry closed reefed Fore and Maintopsails, reefed Foresail and Forestaysail. Close hauled; in other words, head reaching…’ I learnt these words but never knew why. Like ‘The sharper the blast the sooner it is past’. I saw waves breaking over the bows of an old ship, and I saw a steady course ruined by a thief.
Aboard the SS Pangaea out of Hamburg bound for Guayaquil and Valparaiso with a cargo of engine parts and washing machines: this was my first voyage as a deckhand. No more apprentice, no more sleeping under the captain’s companionway. I was a man. I could shave and roll a cigarette with one hand. I had seen a dead body floating in the dock, and been with a woman called Steffi from the Herbertstrasse. She was big and when she put her arms around me I got lost but didn’t panic. I told myself that she was one type of port. She wore leather, and offered to turn me over and hit me with anything I wanted. A length of electric cable? A rolled-up Catholic newspaper? A canoe? Also, if I wanted, she would put vegetables and other foodstuffs up her. I thanked her but shook my head. I wanted the regular treatment, no extras. Straight, no chaser. I felt the roll of notes in my pocket and she stroked the top of my head. I was a man, and I had bought myself a new pair of boots.
Brown boots and envied. I wore them on board, and wore them for dog-watch, and when I was relieved I hung them by their laces from the end of my bunk when I went to sleep. I looked at them as I drifted off. They swayed me to sleep, and all I dreamed of was boots and Steffi armed to the teeth with a canoe and Steffi and boots and the two of us walking the Reeperbahn in boots and I was gone.
In the morning the boots were gone and the force nine was blowing. I didn’t care about the weather. I
asked my crewmates and searched the ship but could not find them. I went to see the mate. He was sitting with his feet on his desk, sucking a pen. He was wearing my boots. They still had the price stickers on the soles. He said, ‘I didn’t know you’d bought new boots.’ He tossed the pen down, grinned and showed his teeth. They were black. ‘We must be paying you too much.’
I stared at my boots. They were very comfortable and had strong laces. I wanted them very much. I touched my cap and the mate looked at it. He was smaller than me but had frightening eyes, dead skin and hadn’t shaved for a week. He was called Clews and liked to have relations with bound animals.
I pointed at my boots and opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out. The Pangaea was caught broadsides, groaned, and we lurched together. I could have taken Clews’s neck in my hands and killed him in that cabin, dragged him on deck and tossed him to the halibut, but I did not. I turned instead, and left the cabin.
The captain was drunk, the second mate was seasick and the crew were afraid. I was not afraid but I was disappointed. I had thought justice would be done, but Clews was wearing the boots four years later, and he lived to be eighty-nine.
As the night came, I lit an oil lamp and put it in the middle of the kitchen table. It spluttered. I adjusted the flame and lit another.
Elizabeth Green hugged her shoulders and shivered. ‘Why do you live like this?’
I put some logs on the fire. ‘I like it.’
‘It’s prehistoric.’
‘You think so?’
‘Yes.’
I poked the fire.
‘You’re not on the run?’
‘No.’
‘This is…’ She looked around the room. ‘… your choice?’
I nodded.
She said, ‘What a country.’
‘It’s my country,’ but I didn’t know what more to say about it. Standing on the beach had not cleared my head. Elizabeth Green had known Cary Grant, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre. Robert Mitchum was her friend. I had read about their relationship in a magazine. He had stood by her during the seventies and eighties, when her career had collapsed, the parts had disappeared and she had spent her time flailing. When no one returned her calls, invited her to parties, or sent a car to collect her, he had been a brother to her. When Shirley MacLaine asked him what time it was, it was because that was the only way she could get a straight answer out of him, but MacLaine never had Elizabeth’s class, or her persuading eyes. I remember him, his sneer and his tattoos in The Night of the Hunter. ‘Lord, you sure knew what you were doing when you brung me to this cell at this very time. A man with ten thousand dollars hid somewhere, and a widow in the makin.’ He was evil in that film, and a week before that moment in Port Juliet he might have taken Elizabeth Green’s hand in his and said, ‘Hope you find your ma’s place.’ Now she was sitting on the edge of my chair, shaking, with a cigarette in one hand and the vodka going down quick.