by Lucy Wood
They were walking up a long, residential street. The town had spread back from the harbour; the roads got wider and the houses got bigger. Reuben Gray, who was out messing with his car, called to the droll teller as they passed, but the droll teller didn’t turn around. He pretended not to have heard. He didn’t want anyone to give him away and a lot of people lacked subtlety. He’d known Reuben’s grandfather: he’d been the first person in the town to own a car. He and the droll teller had rolled down the cliff in it, and crawled out of the window with one broken finger each. Reuben’s grandfather said that only two events flashed through his mind as he was rolling, and they weren’t the ones he was expecting. He wouldn’t say what they were. For the droll teller there had been none at all, only a sudden stillness and quiet.
The woman looked at her watch and then announced, ‘She should have landed by now.’
Her husband nodded. ‘She will have landed.’
The woman looked at the droll teller. ‘Our daughter, Lily,’ she said, as if he had asked. ‘She’s gone off teaching and backpacking in Indonesia.’
‘My wife thinks it’s dangerous,’ the man said. ‘It’s not dangerous.’
‘For a year,’ she said. ‘A whole year.’
‘Everyone’s doing it now,’ he said. ‘It’s not dangerous.’
Their voices spilled out suddenly, falling into an old argument.
‘You’re more likely to be killed by a donkey than in a plane crash,’ the droll teller said. Something Harry had told him. He stopped and looked at a small scrap of wasteland behind the houses. There was a ‘land for sale’ sign up, a huge gull perched on top. Gulls would steal anything off you if you weren’t careful. The earth was trampled and there were nettles and sloes at the edges. He could taste rust and flint, could feel something sharp digging in behind his shoulders, some old, distant pain, maybe not even his own. He tried to dredge something up but there was nothing.
The couple hovered behind him, looking where he was looking, expecting to be told something. They scoured the ground for clues. There was a heavy silence between them now. The man lifted his arm up, as if to touch his wife’s back, let it drop. He put his hand in his pocket, looked at his wife’s back.
‘Nothing here,’ the droll teller said. He trudged ahead, feeling an immense tiredness. He wanted a long rest, to lie down somewhere very quiet. He could still taste rust, like blood in his mouth. The sharp pain nestled in between his shoulders. Not his pain; he didn’t want it. He tried to shake it off.
Since when had there been so many houses? All these houses and streets seemed to have appeared overnight, hundreds of them. The droll teller tried to picture what had been there before but he couldn’t do it. Things had happened there, before the houses were built. He had been at the very centre – now where was he? He skirted the edges of the development, trying to find a way through, guessing each turning before he found the small town square and knew where he was again.
There was a statue of a man on a horse in the middle. The droll teller hadn’t been into the square for a long time. The shops had changed round. No more blacksmiths. No more video shop – Mick had disappeared. He’d heard that Mick had last been seen wading out into the sea, although someone else had said he’d moved to another town with cheaper rents. There was a Chinese takeaway by the hardware store. The droll teller had a huge craving for Chinese takeaway – fried rice, sweet and sour sauce, the kind that made your heartbeat change its rhythm. He also craved the cider they used to sell on the stalls around the square, and that stew, so thick you could almost cut it, and older tastes that he could barely remember – saffron maybe, or another, richer spice that you couldn’t get hold of any more.
The couple went up to the statue and looked at it, walked all the way round. The statue commemorated a local soldier who had fought in the Napoleonic Wars and been made a general. The thing was, the droll teller had met the man and he had been a real arse so he didn’t want to talk about him. He had a cruel face, you could see it there in the bronze.
He ignored the statue and glanced around the square. He used to wake up there a lot after heavy nights, with people walking past him as they went between stalls and shops. They used to move him into the shade while he slept, but as years passed, no one moved him, and his face would blister in the sun.
A leaf skidded past him, and then another, and then the droll teller saw more leaves piled up in drifts. They were oak leaves, turned copper, from an oak that used to stand in the middle of the square. He looked away and when he looked back the leaves had gone. He thought he could smell gas lamps and hear the hiss of them. Over there: a small hand waving out of the pub window; over there: a man in a black coat, handcuffed, howling like a storm wind. He could hear the storm wind and the howling, and it took him a few seconds to realise that it was still the same quiet, clear day it had been before.
‘A man howling,’ he said.
‘What was that?’ the man asked, coming over. ‘Sorry, we weren’t ready.’
The droll teller bent over a deep chip in the wall of the butcher’s, felt the rough edges. ‘Look,’ he said.
‘What’s that? A bullet hole?’
‘A bullet hole,’ he said. It probably was a bullet hole, or maybe a truck had clipped it. ‘Yes. Bullets. Smugglers. Whisky, leather, chocolate. The town was poor, full of poor men, and it was extra money. The leader of the gang was a brutal man. His name was,’ he paused for a second – the name was a blank. They’d want to know it. The butcher’s family name was Bickle, it was up there on the sign, but hopefully they wouldn’t notice. Bickle’s daughter owned the shop now. He’d known the grandmother, and the one before that – maybe he’d been in love with one of them. He’d known his share of women, love came and went. ‘Bickle,’ he said. ‘Harry Bickle. One dark and stormy night, something happened.’ It had been a dark and stormy night in the last story, but sod it. ‘A gunfight. Shots missed and hit the wall.’
The woman nodded, smiling, expecting more.
‘They hit the wall,’ the droll teller said again and pointed at the mark. A group of geese caught his eye and he looked up and watched them. It sounded like their wings were creaking. He watched the geese flying over. The couple looked up and watched them too.
‘Can you remember that time all those geese landed in our garden?’ the woman asked her husband. ‘There were about ten of them. They just landed there for a couple of minutes and then at the same time they all looked up and flew away again. They just lifted up.’
‘I don’t remember that,’ he said.
‘You were there.’
‘I don’t think I was there.’
‘You were standing right there. It was before Lily. We watched them out of the window. You said they looked like they were wearing stockings over their heads, like they were going to hold up a bank.’
‘Are you sure I said that?’ he asked.
‘You said that,’ she replied quietly. ‘But it doesn’t matter.’
They were all still looking up at the sky even though the geese had passed. The droll teller used to feel himself swooping in with the geese, seeing the map of the land from their eyes – he’d known every bump and curve of it. He watched the empty sky, remembered that a man had once looked up for so long his neck had locked and he had to look up for ever. He looked down again and rubbed his aching neck.
‘Better get to the mines,’ he said. It would all be over soon. He would mash something together on the way up, spin them something, then he could find Harry and go to Meg’s. The night would pass easily at least. He reached into his pocket, checked the money was still there.
They went through the square, back through streets with houses on either side, maybe the same ones as before, maybe not.
‘Do you, I mean, are we going the right way?’ the man asked. ‘Aren’t we going to end up at the harbour again?’
The droll teller nodded. ‘Forwards and back again,’ he said.
Reuben Gray was ahead, still out with
his car. He was whistling something; he had a loud, beautiful whistle that travelled miles.
‘Wait here,’ the droll teller said. He walked ahead to talk to Reuben, find out the way to the mines.
‘Did you blank me earlier?’ Reuben asked.
‘Sort of,’ the droll teller said. ‘The mines. Are they right at the harbour, or left?’
‘Left,’ Reuben said. ‘It’s a hike. Steep. You hit those hundred steps before you get there.’ He reached into the bonnet and wiped a dirty cloth around.
‘Hundred steps?’
‘Who are those people you’re with?’
‘Giving them a tour. It’s good money.’
Reuben nodded. ‘That other tour has a minibus to get up there. It needs work. I said I’d sort out the clutch but he hasn’t got back to me.’
‘A minibus.’
‘Yeah. The clutch is screwed on it.’
‘I’ll give you a fiver for a lift up,’ the droll teller said. He felt bitter parting with five out of the twenty, but it was going to be a long, steep walk otherwise.
‘I can’t,’ Reuben told him. ‘My car’s knackered.’ There was a bumper sticker on it that said, ‘I’m only speeding because I need to take a dump.’ The doors were rusty and peeling. His whistle followed the droll teller down the road.
‘We might go over the hour,’ the droll teller said when he got back to the couple.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ the woman said. ‘No hurry.’
‘How much over?’ the man asked at the same time, his voice trailing off like vapour at the end.
Left at the harbour, across a stony beach, up along the path. The hundred steps were there in the distance, a thin snake coiling up the cliff. The droll teller hadn’t walked this far in a long time. He had a stitch but he trudged on, one foot in front of the other.
The landscape was low, dreary, windblown. Gorse bush followed gorse bush, stone followed stone. The droll teller kept stopping to make sure he was heading towards the steps. He used to be able to locate exactly where he was, used to be able to move from place to place, town to town, without even thinking about it. The stories were embedded in the landscape and he followed them, from that cove to that hill to that ruin – it was all mapped out. When he looked around him now, he saw only flickers: in that stone shaped like a giant table, in that gnarled tree, nothing more than flickers. The grass and the sea stretched out in all directions. It was as if he had spilled water over a map and the lines had blurred and shifted into each other.
‘I didn’t know it would be this far,’ the woman said. She ran a hand over her face, unwrapped her thin scarf. ‘Are we almost there?’
‘At the top,’ the droll teller said. He pointed up the steps, which were carved into the cliff, centuries old, part earth and wood, part concrete, part stone.
‘Up there?’ the man asked. His hair had been pulled out of shape by the wind and was all knots and twists.
They started climbing. The droll teller took each step carefully, hoisting his weight up slowly. The steps were uneven, and he stumbled once or twice, caught himself. As he walked, he started to feel that he knew the shape of the next step before he took it. Halfway up, he was finding a firm hold every time. On one step: a faint footprint in the concrete that exactly fitted his own, the cross-hatch of his boot tread.
The engine houses loomed over. When they reached the top, the couple stopped to gulp in air. The droll teller wanted to keep walking, although the stitch was tearing through his side and into his ribs and his breathing had turned to gasping. He went through the empty car park, across the grass and the rocks and the thrift. The mining buildings were scattered all around: chimneys, engine houses, pump houses, old frameworks. At first, it looked like a place that was still active, that was filled with voices and work, but then there was the stillness, and the quiet and the fallen bricks.
There were two more engine houses further down the cliff, perched on the edge like seabirds’ nests. There was a strong wind. It hit the droll teller full in the face and it felt good – it reminded him of the times when, after a long story, he would escape the heat and the smoke to stand slap bang in the night, lifting his face up to the moon and the stars.
A voice and the muffled boom of a church bell worked their way through the wind towards him. He stood still, listening. The bell tolled again, quiet and muffled. The line ‘A man had a premonition’ went round and round his head but he didn’t know the end of the sentence.
He looked over the edge. The rocks down there were like teeth. The water broke itself apart on them, turning into foam and spray. There was a ship down there, leaning on the rocks. It hadn’t been there before, but the droll teller saw it now: it appeared suddenly and clearly. He could hear the boards creaking as it rose and fell in the tide. He could hear people shouting. It was a bad wreck, and among the crates and boxes there were bodies washing up on to the sand.
‘Annie Jones,’ the droll teller muttered. ‘Jamie Jones.’
‘What was that?’ the man asked, coming closer. He beckoned to his wife.
‘Seamus Morley, Peter Trelawney.’ The names came back to the droll teller easily. ‘Thomas Chapel, Toby O’Sullivan.’ He saw each of the bodies and he saw the crates spilling out hundreds of oranges on to the sand. Everyone in the town had eaten oranges for weeks after, it was the first time anyone had ever tried them. He could taste their sweet sharpness and feel the juice on his lips and fingers.
He looked away, and when he looked back the ship was still there, creaking and groaning.
‘Spain,’ he said to the couple. ‘It came from Spain.’
He told them about the wreck, about the creaking boards, about how it had been a dark, still night – so still that no one knew how the ship had found itself on rocks. He told them about the bodies and the oranges. He tried to describe the taste of the oranges – how sweet they were, how he was tasting them again now. He could feel his drenched clothes and skin as he hauled bodies on to the beach, his arms almost yanked right out of their sockets. There was no story yet – it was just a taste, just the feeling of soaking, heavy clothes. He realised he was muttering it all, muttering and speaking too fast, trying to get all the details in, trying to make them see the actual ship, the image of it right down there now, on the rocks.
‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘Never mind. Over here.’ There was more. There were more images and memories just out of reach, half-glimpsed and crowding in.
He moved towards the railway tracks which cut across the site, and followed one until it disappeared into a mine shaft. The shaft was steep and black and impossible to see down into.
‘They go under the sea,’ the droll teller said. He remembered a tunnel under the water, small and tight like an artery, the drumbeat of waves.
The woman shivered. ‘Think how dark it would be,’ she said.
‘The water would sound like a heart,’ her husband said suddenly.
She looked at him and nodded, then reached up to tidy his knotted hair.
The droll teller could hear something in the mine, something knocking, something moving around deep inside it. He thought it could be one of the mine spirits, shuffling, going about its slow business. Mine spirits were pale and blind-eyed, sensitive to light. They would find tin for the miners if the price was right. They were hunched and sleepy and weak-kneed but could smell tin or copper through solid earth from miles away. Was that what the story was about? Mine spirits? A man had a premonition. What was that bell doing, tolling quietly in the back of his mind?
He sat down on the grass and waited. The ground felt good, it was good to sit down – the grass was springy and there was thrift and clover tangled in it. The couple sat down next to him and waited. They wrapped their coats tighter. They sat quiet and still. The engine houses stood over them and it seemed that, at any moment, smoke would start pouring out of the chimneys again.
No sound except the waves and then geese, as another skein flew over.
The tapping st
arted again and got louder. It sounded to the droll teller as if something was climbing up out of the mine. His senses sharpened, knitted together. It could be a deep tapping, or it could be that bell, tolling. Was the bell in the mine or in the sea? He remembered a bell sunk in a shipwreck that still tolled underwater. A man had a premonition. Tap, tap. And then there was shuffling, movement. He could hear the story creeping out of the mine towards him. It was backing out slowly, hauling itself out bit by bit. It was taking its time. There were waves. There was a train carriage. There was a lamp swinging in the dark. The bell tolled louder and now here he was beginning again; somehow, despite everything, he was beginning again.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to my agent Elizabeth Sheinkman and my editor Helen Garnons-Williams; thank you to everyone at Bloomsbury; Sam North, Philip Hensher and Andy Brown at the Centre for Creative Writing and Arts, University of Exeter; Michel and Eva Faber; Guy Bower; Emma Bird; and Ben Smith for his endless encouragement and support.
Grateful acknowledgement is also due to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding my MA in Creative Writing, where this collection of stories began.
A Note on the Author
LUCY WOOD has a Master’s degree in Creative Writing from Exeter University. She grew up in Cornwall. Diving Belles is her first work.
First published in Great Britain 2012
This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © 2012 by Lucy Wood
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