(2007) The Pesthouse

by Jim Crace

  He saw now that he or, at any rate, the mention of her family, now not whole at all, had made her cry. Full tears. Her cheeks were red and wet, and he felt better — no — relieved — for seeing them. Women are fortunate, he told himself. They are allowed to weep. They are encouraged to. That was how the duties of the world had been assigned. Crying for the women. Spitting for the men. Jackson could spit a fire out if he wanted to.

  'My brother wasn't frightened of anything,' he added under his breath. A curse almost.

  That aunt — the aunt who had strapped the healing pigeon to Franklin's feet when he was a sick boy — had not been very fond of Jackson and had judged his fearlessness to be infantile and foolish. 'Your brother's like a child, to be afraid of nothing,' she'd said, when Jackson was already bearded. Franklin had felt both ashamed and validated to hear her speak so disloyally. 'If his bed was on fire, he'd rather sleep with flames than run for water. Like a fool. If there was plague in the house, he'd rather die than cover his nose.' Franklin almost smiled to think of it. She was the perfect aunt for any nervous boy, because she had considered determination and bravery dishonest. (Although when she herself had died among the thousands during the Grand Contagion when Franklin was just starting on a beard of his own, she'd departed without a murmur of complaint, indifferent to death's indifference.)

  These moments with his wise, dead aunt brought Franklin's weeping to an end. Wishing her or Jackson back on earth again, wanting to return to Ma, fearing the future, would not solve anything. Regret would not reveal a route ahead, and fighting for his manly dignity would not help. Dignity does not provide a supper. But he would at least attempt to remain undismayed for once. He had to find the confidence to deal with their immediate problems. If he wanted to survive himself and also take good care of Margaret like a neighbor, like a suitor, he would have to toughen up and sharpen up.

  First, he'd need to understand the territory, to remember how to find his bearings from the pole star and the sun without his brother's help. And when the sun or stars were hidden by clouds or mist, he'd have to read direction from winds and birds and lichen. Only then could they decide a route that might take them to the drinking places and the beds, and the supplies of food and forage for travelers. What sort of welcome would they get now that they were among not their own people but 'the others' who might consider that they had no right to water or to go in peace or even to be alive? That they'd find out as they went along.

  Franklin listened to the forest more intently now. He needed its advice. He felt lighter, weaker, suddenly, less able to manage the barrow and its cargo. He had to stop and rest. It was almost too dark to go on anyway. He had already given up any hope of reaching a welcoming community with beds for hire for that night. They were still too deep in the woods. Besides, there could be no welcome for a woman as ill as Margaret would still seem to be to any strangers. He had held out a little hope, however, that there could well be a trapper's habitation among the trees where they might bargain the use of a shed or beg hot food. Or an unused night shelter, possibly. Or a woodsman's abandoned soddy where they could be as snug as they had been inside the Pesthouse what seemed an age ago. He worried that Margaret might not survive a night without some shelter or some heat, even with the barrow as their bed. And he could not imagine lighting a fire for her or constructing a dry, roofed refuge in such deep mud.

  In the end — the end of that day's light — they had little choice but to spend the night out in the open. There would be no habitations for a day at least, and Franklin was too tired to take another step. He did as much as he knew how. He let the barrow stand in open ground in water only ankle deep and as far from falling leaves and timber as was possible in such a busy wood. He gathered up their bulkier possessions — the clothes, the cattle skins, the coil of rope, the weighted fishing net — and made a pillow out of them at the head of the barrow. He stowed the valuables and the food, such as it was, in his own back sack and hung it from a branch that he hoped would prove inaccessible to animals. He suspended the water bags, too, and the flagons of juice.

  Now there was room on the barrow for the making of a double bed, with a blanket, the second tarp and his brother's goatskin coat as the coverings. Finally Franklin placed the pot of kitchen mint at the end of their bedding, just beyond the reach of her feet. He climbed in next to Margaret, his two knives at his side, the hunting bow and arrows within reach. He stretched out, fully clothed, trying not to miss his supper or feel the unexpected cold, as all too quickly the forest yielded to the darkness that it loves.

  Margaret was asleep again but breathing evenly. He joined her without difficulty. The day was failing, and there was nothing else to do. Either sleep, or lie awake and shiver. He should not complain that Sister Sun had denied him candles and warmth for this night when she had already provided so much daylight for free, and so much fine, unseasonable heat. And there they slept, back to back, the pale-faced shaven woman and the younger man, in their great wooden wheeled bed, between the canopies of trees, like children in a fairytale, almost floating, almost out to sea. So, finally, some happiness.

  A COLD NIGHT had burdened the trees in frost, the season's first, and stiffened the standing water and the pools of mud with a glazing of ice. The couple had slept well. Margaret was the first to stir. She woke alarmed. All she remembered at first was that everything was either dead or up in flames. She could not remember what had happened the previous afternoon, after Ferrytown, or how they'd ended up enveloped by such unexpected woodland. It took her a moment to focus her eyes as usual. The distance always looked as if it needed a wipe, and she had trouble telling faces from afar. But she could soon see and appreciate what Franklin had set up for them the night before: the clearing in the wood, the barrow as a bed, the tarps and coat that kept them warm, the familiar pot of herbs at her feet, still flourishing in spite of everything. She sniffed the frosty air. Her nostrils were clear. Her body seemed to ache a little less. Her hands and throat were reassuringly cold.

  There was a moment of unease, or at least apprehension, when she saw Franklin at her side, in bed with her to all intents and purposes. She'd never even been kissed by a man other than a relation. Until a few days previously, when Franklin had massaged her feet, she had hardly been touched by one. She understood that these were pressured times when conventions and proprieties didn't count for much. She felt, as well, that Franklin was most likely a man to trust. His laugh — how it shook his whole body down to his knees and fingertips, rather than simply creasing his face, how it seemed to loosen him and soften him — was attractive and unexpectedly womanly. She had seen him weeping, too, the day before, and that had been heartening in ways she could not begin to understand. He was a decent boy, she thought. A little nervous, possibly, and kinder and more gentle than his size might suggest. She probably owed her life to him. He had become her plague-removing pigeon in her imagination. And she allowed that she might owe her future life to him. But these were only daydreams and too comforting. For the moment, at least, she needed to be tougher, to chasten herself as coldly and as bluntly as she could, and to acknowledge how grave her situation was, Franklin or no Franklin. Ferrytown was history. Her family were ancestors. Her home was ash. Any chance she had was in the east, beyond the ocean. Most of her countrymen and countrywomen had already realized that. Her journey there had already begun. That was clear, and non-negotiable. She'd have to make the best of it.

  Margaret pulled on her sandals and swung her legs over the side of the barrow. She ought to test her strength, she had decided, before her fellow woke. The trees were noisy with a rising wind and the susurrus of leaf fall. The ground was soft and reluctant to bear her weight, but she succeeded in taking a dozen steps around the barrow, touching anything she recognized. The pot of mint was heartening. She was relieved by how strong she felt: not strong enough to walk a great distance, perhaps, but sufficiently robust to busy herself around the clearing, checking what provisions they had got, what clothes he'd
brought for her, what food and drink there was. There was no sign of her cedar box with its three talismans. Franklin had put it somewhere safe, no doubt. She was surprised only to find the platters and the silver wedding cup, touched to see that he had packed a comb and brush for her, and glad to discover the flagons of juice. This was juice that she had squeezed herself from apples and berries.

  By the time she'd drunk more than her share from one of the flagons — her thirst was still not satisfied — Franklin was awake and sitting up in their shared bed just watching her.

  'I've decided,' she said, resolving as she spoke that she would, at the very least, take him as a brother.

  'Decided what?'

  'Decided that I'll call you Pigeon. That's my name for you. Franklin sounds too dignified.'

  'You think that I'm not dignified?'

  'Not with that limp. How is your knee today?'

  'It's better than it was

  'And I'm better than I was as well, so, then... you see?'

  'So, then, what should we do?'

  'We eat, of course. You have a bow. Shoot something for our breakfast. Suddenly I'm starving.'

  While Franklin was out of sight in the forest, though hardly silent, Margaret stretched their coil of rope between two trees and hung the net from it. She would fish for birds and with any luck would have food already cooked when he returned. His catch could be their supper. She found the spark stone and the pouch of tinder, but there was nowhere dry enough on the ground for her to start a fire. So she emptied the mint plant from its pot, that doorstep friend from her old home, and replanted it in the heavy silver cup that had been a showpiece heirloom in her family for a hundred years and more but never used before. Now the plant had to be the best-appointed mint in America. She firmed it in with extra, muddy soil around its tangle of stringy roots, then smelled her hands. That made her even hungrier.

  The empty plant pot was big and strong, and glazed enough to withstand heat. Margaret was an old hand at striking fire. Soon — a dozen chit-chits at most — she had a flame and then a smoky oven in which to cook their breakfast. She was an old hand at fishing for birds as well, although the first few captives were too small to pluck and cook. But by the time the sun was high enough to offer some heat to the day in exchange for a little steam, Margaret had netted a fair-sized quail and a bird that she could not remember seeing before — a dappled brown and black — but fat and edible. She broke their necks and snapped off their wings, trying not to think either of home or of her dream birds. She split the carcasses open with Franklin's knife. It was not easy or pleasant to pull out the bones or tug away the skin and feathers. Rather than spoil the breakfast with down and fluff, she threw away good meat among the inedible waste. The forest is always glad of carrion. The remainder, all clean breast, she wrapped in the greenest leaves she could find. Now she had only to construct a spider trivet out of twigs and hang the bird meat from it over the pot fire, where it could cook in smoke.

  Franklin didn't come back empty-handed, but he hadn't found the chance to use an arrow either. Rather than disappoint Margaret, he had spent too much time and effort lifting fallen logs to see if anything tasty was living underneath. The logs were mostly light and flaky, but the overnight frost had iced them in and made them almost unshiftable. He'd had to rock them free. But all his efforts did not produce as much as a snail. He had mushrooms, though. Mushrooms he could trust as safe. And a few nuts. He was disappointed to have failed as a hunter, while she, evidently, had managed so easily to trap fresh meat.

  They sat together on the barrow, eating breakfast off carved ceremonial plates. They talked about the day ahead. They were almost eager to get on. 'I've heard,' Franklin said, trying to joke away his failure in the woods that morning, 'that on the far side of the ocean, no one uses bows and arrows. Hogs run through their woods ready-roasted with forks sticking out of them. All you have to do is take a slice whenever you're hungry.'

  'But first you have to make the pig stand still,' Margaret replied. 'And that's not easy.' She liked it that he treated her as if she were a girl, easy to amuse.

  'These pigs are trained. They come to you like a pet dog, if you whistle, if you know the proper whistle. And then you tell them, Sit. And then you put a little salt on them and dine like gods. That's what I heard.'

  'That's what you hope.'

  'That's what we have to hope.'

  'You're a booster, then. A good luck man?'

  'Well, yes,' he agreed. He liked the thought of that, to be her optimist. 'I always hope that the best has yet to come. I think that this...' He spread his hands to take in everything, from the sunlit forest to the mint, newly settled in its silver cup. He flexed his recovering knee. '... all this bodes well for us. We'll be lucky.' He didn't add that nothing could be worse than yesterday. It wasn't wise to challenge fate.

  Franklin's mention of good luck reminded Margaret of her missing cedar box.

  'You have to wear the necklace,' he said, getting up to find it for her, but also fearing he might not. 'I can help you put it on.' An odd offer for a man, she thought. But even though they hunted high and low among their few possessions, checking every bag, shaking out their clothes, examining the ground underneath their barrow, neither the box nor any of the three talismans was found. Margaret could remember touching them when she'd been at the Pesthouse. She could remember pushing the box under her bedclothes there so that Franklin's large hands could do no more damage to her piece of fragile, ancient cloth that he'd been rubbing with his thumb. But since? No, everything had been so hurried and disrupted. There had been no since. But she was angry with herself, nevertheless, and her loss was such an ill-timed setback, coming just when their improving fortunes seemed assured.

  'It must have dropped out on the other side,' he said. 'We'd not have noticed it. It's just a little box.'

  'Where? On Butter Hill. When I was on your back?'

  'Perhaps. Or maybe in the orchard where I left you, below the bridge, by that fishing platform,' Franklin suggested, his optimism under pressure for a moment. He blushed. He knew in his heart that the loss of the box had been his fault. Perhaps he hadn't even packed it when they left the little hut. 'I'm sure we can't have left it in the Pesthouse, Mags,' he said.

  'Do you remember bringing it?' Margaret looked childlike suddenly. Her eyes were huge. He'd called her Mags, and that was melting her.

  He nodded, shook his head. He wasn't sure. 'I'll go back if you truly want me to. I could do it in a day,' he said. He meant it, too. He'd run each step of it. He'd be glad to reunite her with her things and earn her gratitude. Then he remembered what had happened — what he had done — to the wooden bridge. He couldn't do it in a day. Maybe he couldn't do it at all. Maybe the river was uncrossable. But actually it wouldn't matter either way, crossable or not. Much to Franklin's relief, Margaret wasn't looking angry or tearful or childlike anymore. Her eyes were small again, and she was smiling at him now, a smile worth any box of treasures. She was not so greatly troubled by her loss but happy that a man would offer such a thing to her, that he'd go back, he'd do it in a day, if only she said yes.

  She said, 'You can't go back, Pigeon. You'll have to be my good luck charm from here.' I'll run you through my hands, she thought, I'll rub and stroke each piece of you.

  9

  NEITHER MARGARET nor Franklin had seen or imagined such a straight and broad road before. People here must have land to waste, they thought, although there wasn't yet much evidence of people. They'd not encountered any settlements or signs of active farming since they'd descended from the forests after their three days of rest. The country was discarded. It had been abandoned long enough ago for fences to have flattened, for walls to have slipped and lost their shape, and for tough scrub, already chest high, to have colonized what must have been good fertile fields.

  It had taken them the best part of the morning to leave the taller trees behind and enter the open lands. But thankfully, after several days without rain, the
going was much firmer and less arduous. The barrow wheels did not sink into the earth. And it was lighter to push, as Margaret, now greatly strengthened by her convalescence in the woods, had volunteered to walk much of the time on her own two feet though with the help of one of Franklin's sticks.

  Franklin, too, had been greatly restored. His shoulders were no longer fixed in pain as they had been after his one day of piggybacking and harrowing. His knee was strong again. So — though it was little cause for satisfaction — he could tell himself that Jackson had been incorrect to say that his brother's recovery would take a month and, therefore, spoil their chances of getting to the coast before the final boats. Franklin had predicted 'Three days, four days', and he had not been far out. Getting to the boats in time was still a possibility.

  There had been animal trails that they could follow through the forest, but it had proved more difficult to find a beaten path across the scrub. They had to weave their way between patches of less strangled ground and along the sides of creek beds. For every hundred steps they took, they seemed only twenty closer to their destination. So when, from a raised fold of land, they spotted in the distance what looked like a long, straight escarpment relatively free of scrub and evidently heading eastward, they made a beeline for it, hoping to locate a freer route, less snagged by undergrowth.