by Peter Rimmer
“She will if he’s rich.”
“How you know he’s rich?”
“Stands to reason. Why all the fuss? Papers don’t fuss over poor people. We’re goin’ blackberryin’ on Sunday.”
“Thought I was goin’ to London?”
“Wild goose chase. Anyway, I don’t have the train fare.”
The next day Len Merryl started his odyssey by catching the milk train to Chester. Regardless of what his mother said, he was going to find his sister. He had left his mother a badly written note under the teapot in the parlour. He felt like Dick Whittington off to be Lord Mayor of London, the only book he had ever read, struggling to the end.
He was frightened more than excited. When he got off the train at the old Roman city of Chester, in his pocket were two shillings. In his hand a small bag with a change of clothing.
While Len was working out how to reach London on two bob, Mrs Bowman, Jim Bowman’s mother, was talking over the fence of her narrow piece of garden to Mrs Green next door to hear the startling news that her son Jim was in the paper. Mrs Green had heard over the fence from Mrs Trollop who had heard from Mrs Snell who had been told by Mrs Merryl with the full authority of the vicar that Mrs Bowman’s son Jim was a hero. Jenny Merryl was his sweetheart and everyone was looking for Jenny including the vicar and his wife and the newspaper that wanted the picture for the story they were going to print. Mrs Merryl had also informed Mrs Snell over the fence that her Len had gone to London to find her Jenny to get the photograph for the vicar.
Mrs Bowman was still alone in the house as her son and sons-in-law were unloading the cod having come in with the shrimp boats on the eleven o’clock high tide. It was twelve hours after high tide and the boys were still taking cod out of the hold, gutting the fish, packing it into boxes of ice to go on the three o’clock train to Manchester. The deep-sea boat that had sailed three days earlier full of blocked ice had returned with full holds of fish. Only once before had every boat landed a full catch. The boys would be dog-tired but would still go straight to the Pig and Whistle to get drunk. She had sent down food to the boat twice since they landed.
“Didn’t know my Jim was walkin’ out with ’er Jenny.”
“Don’t think they was,” said Mrs Green. “You never know with youngsters these days. It was the war. Quite a thing bein’ in the paper. Hero, the vicar said. What did your Jim do to be a hero?”
“Never said nothin’. Made ’im an officer, I know that. Never said much my Jim.”
“Better read the paper Mrs B. The Daily Examiner.”
“You know plain well I can’t read, Mrs G.”
“Go and see the vicar.”
“I’ve a mind to go and see the vicar. Doesn’t Mrs Merryl do ’is laundry?”
“’Ow she ’eard… Did I tell you about the reward?”
“What reward?”
“Twenty-five pounds.”
“’Ow bloody much?”
“Go and see the vicar Mrs B.”
“I’ve a mind, I ’ave… My son in the paper. Well, I never. No one tells me nothin’, Mrs G.”
“I told you somethin’, didn’t I?”
“I’ll get my Terry to see the vicar. That’s better.”
“They’ll be drunk for two days. Did you get some of the money?”
“Told the fishmonger not to give ’em more than three bob each… Twenty-five quid, you say. What for?”
“Findin’ Jenny Merryl.”
“Doesn’t Mrs M know where she is?”
“Seems not.”
“What’s the bloody world comin’ to?… You better come round through the fence gate for a nice cup of tea.”
They both went into the small house with the small garden. There were ten semi-detached brick houses in the row. All exactly the same. The two women were talking at the same time, neither listening to the other. Mrs Green had her arm in Mrs Bowman’s. They were happy with their day.
4
Valley of the Horses, October 1920
It was the most beautiful country Jim Bowman had ever seen. From the dry, rainless winter came the colours of spring. Not young green on trees; tulips and daffodils in his mother’s garden; wild flowers in the woods over Neston. The trees, flat-topped as if pressed down by the African sun, came out in russet brown and russet red, the colours of an English autumn. They had travelled on slowly, day after day, never seeing a living soul.
Two months into their lonely journey, the tops of the distant mountains came out of the moving haze of building heat, the prelude to the rains, the high mountains were blue above the shimmering heat. Colonel Voss brought them to where he was going by using the compass and following the Southern Cross that each clear night gave him due south to let them travel to the east. The Chimanimani range reached to heaven so high above the plateau.
Never once had they travelled more than twenty miles in a day. Hamlet and Othello put on weight, the rich, red of Hamlet’s coat shining in the blinding white of the midday sun. King Richard the Lionheart had taken on a whole new look on life and sat between them on the high bench above the horses’ rumps, surveying all before him. Except at snakes, predator cats, hyenas and wild dogs, he neither barked nor snarled, waiting patiently for the leftover meat and bones. Then with a full belly lay under the wagon to dream and snuffle through the night.
For Jim it was a time of deep comfort away from the pain. Whether they found the Place of the Legend was now of less importance. He was content, at peace with himself, free of the ravages of war. The days could go on to the end of time as they journeyed through the msasa trees, circling the tall red, peaked anthills, crossing small rivers running through the valleys that wound between the miles of woods and hills, peace on earth with the birds and animals. Even the one terrible sound of man, the gun, failed to frighten the herds of buck, the elephants, the buffalo and the tall, eye-catching heads of the giraffe above the flat-topped trees. Only the birds in the trees burst cover as if they knew something and had seen something, knowing then to fly away.
The days went on and still the great range of high mountains stayed far away like a distance mirage, lying above the haze of the African heat. Sometimes the two men talked, most often they journeyed on in silence, listening to the calling doves or in the day under the pressing heat of the noonday sun, they listened to the sound of silence. The two horses, the two men and the dog.
They had camped for the night next to a small river of pools, barely flowing, waiting for the new rain to rush the water along on the journey to the distant sea. Jim had collected the firewood for the night, enough to keep it burning to the dawn. During the long night they would wake in turn to feed the fire. The horses had gone to graze the new shoots of the grass. Later, Jim would tether them close to the fire. King Richard had gone off sniffing in the bush. Colonel Voss was skinning an impala ram with consummate ease. He seemed to Jim to be enjoying his task, the hunter in his ancestry playing out an old rhythm. The day was cooling at last, the sun blood-reddening the western sky, reflected in the river pools in front of them. Jim watched a fish rise and break the reflection of the clouds in the pool. A pair of warthogs came down to the water from the opposite bank and frolicked in the pool, ugly but beautiful.
Colonel Voss had taken his canvas chair from the wagon and was seated watching the colours of the setting sun with deep satisfaction. The old pipe with the bone carved in the shape of a crocodile’s head was being drawn at slow intervals, just enough to keep the tobacco alight. The smell would always stay in Jim’s mind. Jim whittled away at a stick that would skewer the venison over the embers of the cooking fire. As the meat roasted on the spit, they would carve the cooked meat on the outside. Near the fire stood an iron pot filled with wild spinach. Colonel Voss rubbed fresh leaves of wild sage into the meat. Jim put the heavy stick through the carcass and hung it over the fire and watched until it was starting to splutter small drops of fat into the hot embers flaring up in flames to singe the meat. Later Jim got up from where he sat
against the fallen log watching the meat and went to the wagon. In a second iron pot he mixed the maize meal he had ground from the corn that morning to make the pap. They would eat with their fingers, dipping chunks of cut meat into the pap and then the spinach.
The sun went down suddenly, darkening the bush. The pair of warthogs scurried away into the night. Jim turned the meat on the spit and placed the pot of pap under the spit where some of the fat would drip into the pot. Then he sat down again with his back to the log. He could make out the features of the old man in the last glow of the sunset.
“Did you really fight with Chinese Gordon?”
“General Gordon? Yes, I think so. At my age so many things blend together. The memory and the story. I don’t think it matters. Yes, I think so… Did we really score that hundred runs at school or was it only thirty? A good score for a young boy. At the time a fine, fine innings. Later told by an older man and not a boy, thirty would sound a paltry affair. So we adjust, I think. To gain the same impact on our listeners. In truth a lie but right. Yes, I fought with Gordon of Khartoum though it might have been on the River Nile and not the Yangtze. He rescued the Chinese emperor… You won’t remember all your battles, dear boy.”
“Oh yes, I will.”
“They’ll look very different in forty years.”
“They are burnt on my mind.”
“So thought I, dear boy. By the time you tell your grandchildren there will be more than one German on the end of your bayonet. It won’t change your bravery, or your fear.”
“So we all embellish our deeds?”
“I rather think so. Human nature. Sam’s rather a dull boy so we have to do something about it. Make a life seem worth the living. You can’t tell a grandson about watching that sunset. Though you should. You’ll tell how the lions’ roar in the night and King Richard shivers under the wagon and the horses snicker with fear. Then you’ll have him listening. But not about a sunset… You’ll remember me for that later on and I shall be alive again in your memory. I thank you in expectation. My word. I’ll be well over a hundred.”
Jim heard the old man chuckle with gleeful anticipation of the memory. A patch of sky turned from duck-blue to black as he watched the last of the sun now sink below the horizon.
“Have you ever been married, sir?”
“Why this ‘sir’, all of a sudden?”
“The question is impertinent from a man of my youth.”
“Ah, youth. Someone said youth was wasted on the young. Oscar Wilde, I think. Or Bernard Shaw… I don’t think so. Not everyone. Depends what you do.”
“Were you married? Do you have children?”
“Are you the surrogate son? All that kind of thing? Yes, you are in a way. I prefer youth to old men. They have a future. Old men just sit and suck on a pipe.”
Only the fire gave them light. Jim got up again to tether the horses. Hamlet and Othello had come back with the fading light. King Richard the Lionheart was back sprawled near the fire watching the meat. In the pool, now dark, an elephant was squirting water over its head. Jim could tell by the echo of the falling water off the elephant’s back… The crickets were singing in a low key, dulled by the heat of the day, woken by the cool at the beginning of the night.
“She was very beautiful. And she died. She gave me a son. He died. I’m sure. More sure than I am of General Gordon.”
“Did you love her?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Where did you come from?”
“Two months and now the questions! Really, Jim.”
“I’ve told you everything.”
“There wasn’t much to tell.”
“Will we find the Place of the Legend in the mountains?”
“Probably not. You needed a rest. The soft balm of the African bush… So did I.”
“So we’re on a wild goose chase.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Does it matter?”
“Not really.”
“Now you have buried something. The times we accomplished nothing are also important.”
“Have we accomplished nothing?”
“You can only tell yourself that. Did that man with your ten pounds accomplish anything? I think so. Did I with your ten pounds, Jim?”
“Oh yes.”
“Then you see what I mean.”
“Did you ever marry again?”
“No, but I loved another woman deeply. We don’t write to each other, but we have a daughter.”
“Do you write to your daughter?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I, Jim. So am I.”
“How old is she?”
“About your age. Older, I think. Though I mostly try not to think of her. It’s not easy for a father to think of his daughter without being able to give her protection.”
“Why not, sir?”
“There is that ‘sir’ again. Look at me. I can’t protect myself. Look for young immigrants to give me a grubstake. Do you think a daughter would be proud of a man like this?”
“There’s more to being something in life than money. You told me that.”
“Well it’s not true in society. Here, yes, when wealth is a gun and a pair of horses. You won’t get far in England with a gun and a pair of horses. People are very cruel to the poor. They despise them. A daughter would not like that. They want to be proud of their fathers. The truth can be as cruel as poverty… And you’d better turn the spit… With the fire so low I can see three layers of stars through the branches of the trees… Are you going to marry your Jenny Merryl?”
“She doesn’t even know I exist.”
“A young man liking a young girl never gets unnoticed.”
“You DON’T think that newsman will talk of Jenny?” Jim said in alarm.
“You said they never printed the article. I hear publishers buy books and never publish them. Happened to Jane Austen. When she wanted the book back for another publisher, she had to buy it back.”
“You think I should return the money?”
“Only if you want to give the story to someone else.”
“Do you think she noticed me?”
“Oh, yes.”
Jim got up, cut a slice of meat with his hunting knife, waited for it to cool and chewed.
“It’s the wild sage and the salt you rubbed on. Marvellous… Will you dine, Colonel Voss?”
“I shall.”
“Are you really a colonel?”
“Are we back on that tack? What difference does it make?”
“It might to your daughter.”
“That’s unkind.”
“What’s her name?”
“Justine.”
“That rings with the truth.”
Jim cut thin slices of the meat onto a plate. Red blood oozed from the uncooked meat closer to the bone. He pulled off the pot of spinach and pap and sat down with the venison at the colonel’s feet. Pulling the end of his log around he sat down in the silence.
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Old wounds still hurt… Oh, how they hurt.”
Jim had turned the spit, exposing the uncooked meat to the flames. Juice sizzled onto the fire. King Richard the Lionheart watched patiently. Jim could see the reflection of the red embers in the dog’s eyes.
“That dog’s learnt some manners,” said Colonel Voss. Often they thought of the same thing. “How awful to always be waiting on someone else for what you want. I like being able to take what I want… Some people can wait. Some people wait all their lives and never got anything.”
“Justine is a very beautiful name.”
“Yes it is.”
“We had better find the Place of the Legend.”
“It’s too late now. Once when I had money and stayed in Mr Meikles’s hotel I thought of going home. But it wasn’t enough. Just a flash in the pan as they say. You need a great deal of money to cut a dash in London society.”
“So that’s where you come from!”
�
�Not me, oh dear, oh dear. Not me.”
“Then she?”
“Maybe she.”
“Your lady?”
Colonel Voss made a display of smoking his pipe to stop it going out.
“Please cut more meat and stop being impertinent,” he said sharply.
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“I know you are.”
Jim cut the meat onto the communal plate and sat down again on the end of his log. They dipped pieces of meat into the pots using their fingers. It had been a young impala ram, and the meat chewed easily. The dog was still watching him. The night around them was as quiet as a mouse. The elephant had gone off away from the river. Even the crickets had fallen silent.
“The worst thing in life is for someone to feel sorry for you,” said Colonel Voss. “Especially when you’re old with nothing left you can do to change your life.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Please never say that to me again.”
Jim cut four plates of meat during a leisurely supper. The old man had a good appetite. Jim would have asked him his age but knew he had gone far enough for one night… Justine! He’d have the story out of him in the end. ‘My word I will,’ he thought smiling to himself. ‘The old dog. With a daughter my age.’ Far away a lion roared. King Richard the Lionheart began to shiver. They could both see the dog shivering in the light of the fire. Another lion roared from behind them in reply.
“More than a mile away,” said Colonel Voss. “We’ll keep the fire banked up tonight… That poor dog’s gone off under the wagon without its supper.”
“He can eat in the morning. Nothing will touch the carcass close to the fire. Not even the ants.”
Jim got up and put a pot of water on the fire. Later he made the tea. The lions had been quiet after the one frightening exchange.
“They’re hunting,” said Colonel Voss.
“What are?”
“The lions.”
In the night they all woke to the terrible cries of a dying animal. The animal took a long time to die and then there was silence all night. Once the old man forgot his turn and Jim stoked the fire before going back to sleep. They both slept on the ground round the fire. King Richard the Lionheart had come out from under the wagon. Jim had cut him a chunk of cold meat and the dog had smiled at him with his eyes.