by Miles Gibson
She was fourteen years old and wore nothing but shoes. Her hair was as black as seaweed and her tiny breasts twinkled like starfish. Between her legs her pubis glowed as pink as the curl in a cowrie shell. This half-wit girl was the single fruit from a dozen nights spent with a Chinese sailor. She would not speak a sensible word but liked to sing in a language she shared with the seals. When Tom Crow returned her gaze the poor child whimpered and tried to hide her face in her hands, so that the mother had to pick her up and carry her off to the big, grey bed.
Safe among the pillows the idiot girl forgot the lighthouse keeper and began to sing her strange, thin song. The woman untied the blanket at her throat to cover the child and then, seeming to ignore the man, walked naked to the hearth. He watched as she bent to throw logs on the fire and the marrow began to melt in his bones. Her great buttocks rolled like the swell on a heavy, winter sea. There were fine black whiskers around her nipples so that, when he looked at her breasts as they hung in the smoke, he imagined huge catfish sniffing for scraps. He stared until his bones had turned as soft as eels and then he unlocked the box and took out the necklace. He called to the woman and stood on his chair to lock the trinket around her fat neck. She laughed as she felt the prickling spines. She gathered Tom Crow in her arms and gently placed him in bed beside the sleeping half-wit child.
For months no one saw him. And then, one dusk, he appeared on the rocks to shout at the moon. When they learned what had happened, the people in Rams Horn felt ashamed that he had been forced to share the house of this monstrous woman and the lunatic child. For a time they supposed he had died of neglect. The butcher offered him a room with a bible, a caged canary and a proper cooked breakfast. Mrs Reynolds tried to tempt him next with private plumbing and savoury dumplings. But Tom Crow would only grunt and shake his head.
They were puzzled by his refusal to join them. They could not understand it. The stubborn old fool. Why did he want to live among pagans when they could give him everything? How could he resist clean linen, fresh cabbage and a Christian buriai? But Tom Crow smiles and says nothing.
Each evening, when the moon has lit the water, he goes home to the upturned tramp steamer and there, in the darkness of the blankets, he clambers aboard the enormous woman while her belly rolls like the vast Atlantic and the catfish jump and snap at his nose. He clings to the woman and catches the frightened idiot girl, pinching the little starfish breasts to make her struggle and sing her song. And when she sings he shuts his eyes and dreams he is dancing with mermaids.
Chapter Eleven
Long ago, before the lobstermen came to Rams Horn, when Britain was smothered in forest and bears lived in the mountains, Neolithic tribesmen settled on the hills above the Sheep. They grew crops, grazed cattle and stared at the stars in the clean, black sky. They were hypnotized by the movement of the heavens, afraid that the stars would fly down and eat them. For this reason they composed extravagant songs of praise to the sun at dawn. But the winters seemed eternal, the sun shrank and the stars blazed at noon. The little tribe was seized with melancholy. They burned their houses and slaughtered the cattle. On the sloping cliffs above the sea they built a stone burial chamber and covered it with a bank of earth. It was a long barrow of shingle and mud. A shield against the open sky. And, when it was finished, they crawled inside and died. The barrow concealed them and wild grass grew on its slippery shoulders.
When the Romans arrived the tomb had weathered into the rolling landscape. Before the hills had been claimed for Wessex, the daughters of Rams Horn were planting candles on the mound in a ceremony already so ancient that no one knew its origin. At Beltane in May virgins rolled down it. At Halloween fish-wives danced around it. Regency hypochondriacs slept on it. And the Victorians, hunting fossils, thought it a picturesque blister of earth and sketched it.
Sir Percy Wordsworth Wheel from the Isle of Wight was the first man to identify and excavate the barrow. He had seen the Bronze Age barrows at Winterborne Poor Lot and examined the prehistoric fortifications at Maiden Castle. But Sir Percy was searching for the men of Atlantis. He believed that the Isle of Wight Needles were the ruined Pillars of Hercules, Atlantis had sunk in the English Channel and survivors washed up on the Dorset coast. It was his belief that these survivors had erected megalithic tombs in which to hide the wisdom of their race and the barrows at Rams Horn contained the secrets of eternity.
He began to probe the barrow on 8th June 1923. He worked slowly, cutting a trench towards the centre of the tomb. After several days of hard and unrewarding labour he felt discouraged but when Mount Etna erupted on the fifteenth of the month he knew he had disturbed the gods. He stopped work and considered the risks of looting the dead. There was a curse upon those who had raided the pyramids. Who knew what to expect from Atlantis? But the chance to have his own name written into the history books proved too much for him. On the afternoon of the last day of August he had reached the inner sanctum and waited overnight to remove the great stones. The next morning he heard that Tokyo and Yokohama had been destroyed by an earthquake with the loss of 100,000 lives. Sir Percy blamed himself. He filled the excavation with rubble and fled to his house on the Isle of Wight.
Now the barrow is a lost and forgotten shrine. A long, green teat on the breast of a hill that is sliding slowly into the sea. Snails cluster on the stones, skippers dance in the sunlight and, in the shelter of the tangled grass, bee orchids thrust out flowers disguised as the dark and hairy rumps of bumbles. But at night, when gulls walk the hills and the bats are flying like cinders, Tom Crow climbs the barrow to stare at the stars.
The doctor first met Tom Crow one evening in the saloon of the Dolphin. The long, gloomy parlour was empty. Wooden chairs were huddled in corners. A cat lay curled on one of the tables, wheezing softly in its sleep. There were framed photographs of shipwrecks on the walls, a lifebelt and a Guinness clock.
The doctor was drinking a bottle of cider and staring at a slice of Rams Horn sausage when Tom Crow came in from the street. He was a narrow ghost of a man with bad skin and hair like barbed wire. He wore a leather coat, boots and gauntlets; and carried a pair of motorcycle goggles to protect his eyes from the wind and the rain. He looked dressed to survive in hard and treacherous weather, as if he were planning to sleep in a hedge. He glared at the doctor and ordered a large brown rum. The doctor watched him. He had heard stories of Tom Crow.
The intruder carried his drink carefully to a distant table. A canvas satchel hung from his shoulders and he had to struggle to unharness himself before he could sit in the chair. When he was free he sucked at the rum and sighed. The clock creaked. The cat sneezed. The doctor returned to his cider. And then a voice, calling through the glass screen that divided saloon from snug, broke the silence.
‘Are you going out on the hills again, Tom?’ called the voice with a snigger.
‘Yes,’ barked Tom without glancing up from his rum.
‘It’s a fine night for it,’ cackled the voice and there was a muffled roar of laughter from the snug.
‘Are you looking for something?’ asked the doctor as he smiled at Tom.
‘That’s right.’
‘Flying machines,’ boomed the landlord. ‘He’s looking for flying machines from another planet.’ He banged his fist on the bar, wiped the hand and sniffed his fingers.
The doctor stopped smiling and quickly finished his cider. ‘Do you see many?’ he asked as he cradled the empty glass in his hand.
‘I don’t expect you to believe it,’ growled Tom. ‘But when they arrive they’ll find me waiting.’ He gave the doctor a long, penetrating stare and slapped his gauntlets against the edge of the table.
‘Martians are the only people who want to listen to him, the daft bugger,’ growled Big Lily White.
The doctor, embarrassed, picked up a knife and looked at his plate of sausage. But the light, filtered through a red paper lampshade, gave the sausage a poisonous glow.
‘How long have you been waiting, Tom?�
�� laughed the voice from the snug.
‘We’ve been waiting for thousands of years,’ replied Tom, still staring at the doctor. ‘They wrote about them in the Bible. They built the pyramids as beacons for them.’
‘Why haven’t they come before?’ shouted Big Lily White.
‘They’ve been waiting until we need them.’
‘Who?’
‘Them,’ grunted Tom impatiently. ‘The voyagers from beyond the stars. They’ve been waiting, out there, on the edge of the galaxy.’
‘Have you ever seen them?’ asked the doctor.
Tom Crow sniffed and grinned. He picked up his glass and drained it. ‘I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe.’
‘Do you always watch from the barrow?’
‘That’s right. The hill has been charged with energy. When there’s a storm you can feel it vibrating under your feet. I think it’s a beacon. When they arrive they’ll use it to guide them.’
‘What makes you think they’re out there?’
Tom frowned. ‘There has to be something out there,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘He thinks they’re going to save the world,’ jeered Big Lily White.
‘He thinks they’re going to buy him another rum,’ called the voice from the snug.
‘It’s written in the Bible,’ said Tom with a shrug.
The doctor was silent. You couldn’t argue with old Tom Crow. He held strong views about the world. He had studied history and he knew there was nothing on earth that could save man from himself. And so he had turned to the heavens.
‘I’d like to come out one night,’ said the doctor, after his second bottle of cider. He was impressed by the simple, stubborn faith of the man. He wanted to know what he saw when he stood on the hills with his hair stiff with frost and his eyes full of moonlight.
‘There’s nothing for you out there.’
‘I’m a doctor.’
‘I never use one. I don’t believe in it.’
‘But they might need one when they arrive,’ said the doctor. It was a crafty argument and poor Tom was mad enough to believe it.
‘How’s that?’ he said.
‘They might suffocate in oxygen,’ said the doctor quietly.
‘Or they might injure themselves – the cliffs are dangerous at night,’ said Tom, squinting at the shipwrecks on the wall.
‘A doctor might save them.’
‘But we don’t know when they’ll arrive.’
‘That’s not important. Take me out with you one night. And then, whenever they arrive, you can call on me for help.’
‘You’ll be going out at your own risk,’ growled Tom. ‘I can’t be responsible for you.’
The following evening the doctor met Tom in the Dolphin and, at closing time, fortified with a flask of rum, they walked out along the cliff path to the barrow. The doctor was wrapped against the cold and armed with a heavy, rubber torch. Tom Crow marched ahead of him, impatient and excited, the satchel slapping against his shoulders. They followed the path up through the crumbling hills until Rams Horn was reduced to a phosphorescent puddle that flickered beneath their feet. When they reached the barrow a slice of moon gave enough light to help them climb the treacherous bank. They squatted, breathless, in the long grass and stared at the sky. The stars burned gently around their ears.
‘This hill was built thousands of years ago by men who came from across the sea. They didn’t have machines to move the earth. They used the power of their imaginations. That’s another secret we’ve lost,’ whispered Tom as he wrestled with the satchel. He unbuckled the bag and produced a small, brass telescope.
‘But think of all the secrets we’ve discovered,’ argued the doctor. ‘Look at all the advances we’ve made in medicine.’ He wanted to sing in praise of miracles manufactured in the laboratory, the skills of the specialist, the precision of the surgeon’s knife, but, since modern medicine in Rams Horn meant a bottle of Mrs Halibut’s elixir of life, he no longer had the faith to celebrate. ‘We live longer than our grandfathers,’ he added doubtfully.
‘Why?’
The doctor was silent. It was a question he had been trained to ignore. He had been sent into the world to stitch, glue, plug and bandage. Life was machinery that needed proper maintenance, fuel and spare parts.
‘We must cling to life,’ he said quietly.
‘Nonsense,’ snapped Tom. ‘God created the universe by simple arithmetic. The multiplication of dust. You can’t kill dust.’
‘But we must have made some progress,’ insisted the doctor, trying to imagine what men had achieved since they had left the swamp.
‘Boots, bayonets, bullets and bombs,’ said Tom. A cruel wind whipped at the grass and he pulled down his goggles. He looked like a marooned aviator and the doctor wondered if he might not be searching for his own, lost flying machine among the distant stars.
‘What do you think they’ll do when they arrive, Tom?’
‘They’ll explain everything. It has to mean something, doesn’t it? They’ll explain it.’ His eyes were anxious. His breath was a rushing cloud of steam.
Yes, thought the doctor, they’ll explain everything. Nothing is impossible. And he thought of himself sitting in Storks Yard, the door locked, the fire blazing and Mrs Clancy held naked under his healing hands. ‘Perhaps they’ll come tomorrow,’ he said. He peered up into the sky, half-expecting to see shadows against the stars, strange lights on the wind, faces staring down from heaven. He uncorked the flask and filled his mouth with rum.
‘I’ve been waiting a long time,’ said Tom, glancing at his luminous wristwatch. ‘Perhaps it’s too late.’ And he looked so sad that the doctor wanted to wrap his arms around him for comfort.
‘Do you think there’ll be a war?’
Tom shrugged. ‘It makes no difference. We poison everything we touch. We don’t need a war to destroy ourselves. That’s progress. I’m old. I’m glad. I won’t be here to see the end.’
They never saw the flying machines and perhaps, after all, the barrow was no more than a common grave full of farmers’ bones. But it was enough for the doctor to be standing on that great, black hump of earth, drinking rum with Tom Crow and watching the stars, while the sea whispered, soft as the rustle of women’s skirts, below in the darkness.
Chapter Twelve
‘Beyond Weymouth is the ancient town of Rams Horn, whose inhabitants catch lobster, mackerel and other fish. There is little to recommend Rams Horn to the traveller. But here you may find an uncommonly fine sausage. The local people use pork scraps for the purpose, seasoned with pepper, walnuts, onions, sage, and thickened with blood. The sausages have a dark, distinctly speckled appearance and a very strong flavour, similar to the venison sausages of the New Forest. They are sold in long links and traditionally eaten cold with potato pie. When pork is unavailable the poor wives of Rams Horn use chicken, rabbit or rook meat, softened in cider. These sausages are generally boiled and served with eggs and cabbage. But a number of the older women continue to hang them in smoke, leaving them often until they are rotten and fall from the chimneys in strings. They have a queer smell and a wrinkled appearance, although many in the town have a taste for them and like to eat them with bread and a glass of young beer.’
A Rustic Guide to England and Wales, 1924
Chapter Thirteen
Matthew Mark Luke Saint John felt at home in Rams Horn. He liked the smell of the big, grey sea as it rolled against the esplanade and the stewed smell of bladderwrack and mussels when the water drained from the piles of the pier. He liked the way the sunlight smoked through the net curtains of his little bedroom, the colour of the rosebud wallpaper and the sight of his suitcase tucked securely under the bed. He liked the silence of the house.
For the first few days he rarely left his room, appearing only briefly at breakfast and supper to smile shyly at Mrs Reynolds and demolish a lobster, a rabbit or pineapple pie. But Mrs Reynolds encouraged him to sit with her after his meals, read
the newspapers and talk of his adventures.
She liked to have a man in the house: the tread of boots on the stairs and the smell of shaving soap in the bathroom basin. There was something about the size and shape of the man that made her feel deliriously dainty. When Matthew Mark Luke Saint John sat on her sofa he looked so clumsy among the tiny, embroidered cushions and lace antimacassars that she felt a mere ornament beside him.
She noticed, with surprise, that the effect on Polly was less exhilarating. Her daughter, who was usually so wild, seemed intimidated by the big, black sailor. She ate with them in silence, hardly daring to glance from her plate and at the slightest excuse tried to lock herself away in her room.
‘Sit down,’ Mrs Reynolds would shout when the truculent child tried to slip away and pouting Polly would rush from the house, her face flushed and her eyes shining with tears.
‘You must excuse Polly. She can be difficult sometimes,’ apologized Mrs Reynolds as she offered her guest a plate of biscuits.
‘She’s young,’ said the sailor as he snapped a biscuit with his thumb.
‘She’s sixteen,’ said Mrs Reynolds.
‘A child.’
‘I wish I could believe it,’ sighed Mrs Reynolds. The girl was a mystery. Her breasts had sprouted beneath her vest and yet she refused to give up the secret society of children. She wore socks with her skirts and slept with a one-eyed bear.
‘It must be hard without a man,’ said the sailor sympathetically.
‘You never married?’ she inquired.
Matthew Mark Luke Saint John shook his head. ‘The sea is a cruel woman,’ he said. He tossed the broken biscuit into his mouth and crunched it sadly.
‘Yes, I can imagine,’ said Mrs Reynolds. The sea is a cruel woman. It sounded like wisdom from a Christmas cracker.