The Sea Change

by Rossiter, Joanna

  The only small indulgence that I allowed myself was his letters. Back in Imber, Annie and I would write a letter a week to Pete even though he lived only half a mile away down Dog Kennel Lane. Mrs Carter must have thought we were mad, spending all our pocket money on stamps and ink and envelopes that would travel just a few hundred yards up the road. It was Annie’s idea to send him letters. At first, I convinced myself that I was intervening simply to save her from embarrassment. I would correct her spelling and ensure that she limited herself to the facts of the day: the weather, the lambing, the bus ride to Warminster. Eventually she persuaded me to write my name next to hers after ‘Yours’.

  ‘You might as well, Vi! They’re your words, after all.’

  If it was going to have my name on it and he was going to be reading it, it had to be perfect. The very idea of his eyes scanning the paper made my stomach swell and my head giddy. I gave in on the condition that we wrote the entire letter again.

  ‘But we’ve just spent all afternoon writing the first one!’ she exclaimed.

  I took out a fresh sheet of paper and tried to quell a blush.

  ‘You like him too, don’t you?’ She giggled. ‘I don’t blame you. You’re the last girl in the village to give way.’

  Pete showed no sign of having received the letters at first. But then, after we had written three or four, he began to write replies.

  ‘The Parsonage?’ Annie lamented, as she read the address on the front of his first envelope. ‘But it was my idea to write to him.’

  I kept quiet.

  ‘Look,’ she said, running a finger over his first line. ‘Dear Violet and Annie. Why’s your name first?’

  ‘I’m certain he didn’t mean anything by it,’ I murmured.

  ‘Yes, but your name’s first and that means he thought of you first.’

  ‘That’s daft,’ I told her, wishing it wasn’t.

  ‘It’s your hair, Vi.’ She sighed. ‘You’ve always had the most beautiful golden hair.’

  Annie was by far the prettier of the two of us, a fact that I kept to myself. I secretly envied her saucer eyes – greener and curvier than the pond at Steeple Langford. The pink in her cheeks rested in just the right place whereas I tended to flush even on the coldest of days. She was elfish and mysterious-looking – the kind of girl whom shepherds and farmers stood back from, afraid to touch. My principal advantage was not my hair, which, contrary to Annie’s belief, was never anything other than a half-hearted brown: it was my breasts, crude and huge. I hated them. And I despised the kind of stares they attracted, despite my efforts to cover them up. Boys, and even girls at times, struggled to look me in the eye, as if my face were buried somewhere in my chest. Annie was never jealous, not in a scheming way at least. She just talked about how unfair it was, pinning her chin down over her neck to see how hers were getting on.

  Anyone would think the girl had grown up without a mirror. And the not-knowing made her all the prettier. In the beginning, before the letters, Pete liked her more than he did me. I’m sure of it. But she did such a good job of acting aloof around him that I was the one he thought he could have. I was sure that he mistook the letters for my idea, not hers, and that was why he had addressed them to me. It had been fickle of me to agree to write them in the first place. But the memory of my name at the top of his page kept returning. I tried in vain to swallow my curiosity. He didn’t mean anything by it. Of course he didn’t. It would be foolish to get carried away.

  Words didn’t come easily to Pete. Or perhaps he was deliberately sparse with what he said; I couldn’t determine which. His letters were short and frequently borrowed sentences from other people. Sometimes he would find a poem to copy out for us in the library at Imber Court. The lines from Keats were my favourite. Bright Star, would I were steadfast as thou art. Annie and I would dissect his quotes, pulling each other’s hair out over who was the bright star, basking in the myth that there was an art to the poems he chose. In truth, he was just as inclined to copy out a verse about a heroic battle as he was a stanza on a forlorn lover.

  Besides, they never told me what I really wanted to know. What did he think about when he was up on Salisbury Plain for nights on end, watching the sheep? Did he think of me? Did he ever spare a thought for his mother and father?

  He had appeared one day, at twelve years of age, with nothing in his pocket but a bus ticket bought in Hammersmith and the clothes on his back. He had offered himself as a labourer to any family who would give him food and lodging. Mr and Mrs Archam as good as adopted him. They had lost a son to pneumonia two years earlier and Pete was a gift – a welcome pair of extra hands and a face to fill the empty chair at their dinner table. Rumours of a new arrival spread quickly through the village and I wasted no time in running down Dog Kennel Lane with Annie to see if he was worth making friends with.

  We found him alone in the Archams’ farmyard, scuffing his shoes across patches of dried mud, hands in pockets, head crooked over his shoulders. He was scanning the ground for something, although I could not decipher what. Every now and then, he would bend down to pick up a stone and then throw it away again after a quick examination of its feel and shape. Finally, he stood up straight, eyes fixed on one particular piece of flint in his hand. Then he marked a circle in the mud around his feet, his arm arcing like a rudder through water.

  ‘Maybe it’s a game that children in London play,’ whispered Annie, from our hiding place behind the cattle shed.

  ‘Perhaps he’s not from London … He could be a spy for all we know!’

  ‘I say!’ Annie shouted over to him, with no warning. ‘Are you a German?’

  ‘Sssh!’ I hissed, pulling her further behind the shed. We watched as Pete flinched and glanced towards our hiding place. Looking around in vain for an escape route, we emerged sheepishly from our hiding place.

  ‘I’m Violet,’ I said, offering a hand.

  ‘Pete,’ he replied, not taking it. He clipped the t in his name so that it came off his tongue as hard and impenetrable as the stone in his palm.

  ‘Where are you from?’ asked Annie, folding her arms. ‘Because nobody around here seems to know.’

  I tugged at her pinafore. ‘Come on, we’d best be back before dinner. Pete here will need to unpack his things.’

  ‘Unpack?’ he scoffed. I felt myself redden.

  ‘Oh, of course,’ bleated Annie, ‘we heard you arrived without a scrap. But don’t worry, Violet and I can find you a toothbrush and a blanket, if the Archams don’t have anything for you. Isn’t that right, Vi?’

  I nodded, looking awkwardly at the space beyond his head. The feel of his eyes on me made me want to leave the yard.

  ‘I’ll make do,’ he muttered.

  ‘What’s it like in London?’ asked Annie, unabashed.

  ‘Annie, let’s go,’ I pleaded, tugging at her sleeve, then turning away in the hope that she’d follow. Despite my best efforts, Annie stayed put, leaving me to flounder between the conversation and the yard gate.

  ‘I bet there are crowds of men with umbrellas and canes.’

  ‘Beats me. I’m not from London.’

  ‘Then how come your clothes are all sooty?’ she protested. ‘You’re not a farmer – farmers don’t have that sort of dirt.’

  ‘All right, Sherlock,’ said Pete, with a smirk. ‘If you must know, I’m from Bermuda.’

  ‘Bermuuuda?’ parroted Annie. ‘Never heard of it.’

  ‘No surprises there, then. You’ve probably never left this village.’

  ‘Actually, there’s a bus that goes to Warminster every week and Violet’s father has even lived in Oxfordshire, hasn’t he, Vi
? He’s the parson, you see.’

  I seized my chance and retraced my steps back towards them. ‘Come on, it’s late, Annie. Leave him alone. Who cares where it is?’

  ‘I’ll bet you sixpence you haven’t heard of Bermuda, Miss Violet.’ The sound of my name caused my chest to tighten.

  ‘Oh, don’t be so sure of yourself!’ blurted Annie, before I could squeeze her hand to stop her. ‘Violet’s ever so good at geography. Mrs Williams says she’s the best. She’s even better than Freda!’

  ‘All right, then, let’s hear it.’ He discarded the flint he was holding and clapped his palms together.

  ‘You aren’t from Bermuda,’ I said flatly.

  ‘Looks like I’ll be keeping my sixpence then.’ He smiled. Annie looked crestfallen. I could tell she had been envisaging the jar of sherbet lemons on the grocer’s shelf at the back of the Bell Inn.

  ‘That’s not to say I don’t know where it is,’ I added. Annie’s eyes lit up. ‘It’s in the Atlantic. Father says they have the most awful storms there – whole towns have vanished overnight in the wind.’

  Annie narrowed her eyes at Pete. ‘Is it true?’ I did not know whether she was referring to the storms or to Pete’s dubious claim.

  ‘If I were you, girls, I wouldn’t indulge him any further,’ said a voice from the entrance to the yard. I turned to see my sister in a tea-dress and wellington boots, leaning nonchalantly on the gatepost. ‘You’re late for dinner. Father sent me to fetch you. You as well, Annie – your mother will be wondering where you are.’

  Annie scuttled over to my sister as if she were her mother.

  Freda, you’re such a show-off, I wanted to shout. My sister had a way of waltzing into situations and putting her stamp on them with seemingly no effort at all. I disliked her keenly for it. Even when we were older – and I had plenty of reasons to think her foolish – I never escaped the feeling that she had the better answers, and the better secrets.

  I braved one last look at Pete. He was staring past me towards the gate to where my sister and Annie stood. The light left with the three of us, and as we made our way back down the track, I turned to find the yard empty: Pete had gone, leaving only his circle, which rested like an uncracked code in the dirt.

  Already, I sensed that he wasn’t one to be pinned down – not an easy lad to love. As soon as we were evacuated, he parted ways with the Archams and went to work as a farmhand in Coombe Down. Mr Archam never recovered. Annie told me the doctor’s notes had stated that he had died of a broken heart. But stories like that always did have a way of swelling on her tongue. Whatever caused Mr Archam’s passing, it would have been a lonely death without Pete by his side.

  CHAPTER 3

  Something cuffs itself to my wrists, hoisting me out of the water and giving me my air back. Rasps and rasps of it. I can’t take it in properly – each breath a stammer. There’s something sharp scraping across my belly. My shirt is rucking up. I’m being dragged out of the sea.

  ‘Help’ is my first word, frail, half formed. I don’t understand the reply I’m given. Tamil or Malayalam, maybe. It’s a man’s voice. There’s a rough, rusting surface beneath me that feels powdery and metallic on my fingers. It fits unevenly under my shoulders, the metal arching into sharp peaks and troughs. But we’re floating. And that’s all that counts.

  The voice is shouting now but I still don’t understand. The saltwater dissipates in stinging blinks; I begin to make out the man’s shape. He’s soaked to the skin, like me, in a checked lungi and plain shirt, hair wired with grey. His face, creased with years, is washed into blankness at the sight of me and everything that’s gone before us.

  ‘Vana-kkam,’ I reply. One of the few words I know in Tamil. Good morning. I must sound ridiculous. He’s smiling. At least that’s something.

  ‘Ongelal payse …’ I don’t catch the rest. And even if I did it would be useless.

  ‘I don’t understand. I’m so sorry.’

  He tips his head from left to right and back again. Then his hands rise and leap into action, eyes widening as he gestures towards the shore. He mimics the wave coming in as he speaks, then knocks the metal underneath him with his knuckles, drawing out the shape of a square in the air with his two index fingers. He points to his chest and bangs the metal again, rattling out his sentences at such speed that I’m sure I wouldn’t catch everything even if we did speak the same language.

  ‘Your house? This is your house?’ I watch him draw the shape in the air again and point down at the sheet of metal.

  ‘House!’ He nods, rapping on the metal for a third time. I force myself to sit up and look down at our makeshift raft. It is nothing more than a sheet of corrugated iron – a roof. Something catches his eye and he grabs me by the wrist, like he did when he rescued me. He points to my ring, then down at the house and then back at the shore, face stiffening.

  I catch only one word from what he is saying: Manaavi. James and I learnt it yesterday – our wedding day. He said he preferred the sound of it to ‘wife’. I meet his stare, which is taut, unblinking. Raising my hand, I point to my ring and then to the shore, just as he did. ‘Kanavar,’ I whisper, ‘my husband.’

  I talk in English, telling him about James and our wedding – how not even my parents know what we have done. How I don’t know where he is – that I need to go and look for him. He speaks Tamil back to me, accompanying his words with broad, bold hand movements, which I watch, eager to interpret what he is saying. I try to discern the verbs and nouns from his tones, holding each sound in my head and attempting to dissect it. In the end, I have to let his sentences go – they don’t yield their logic easily and the words blur together. He turns away from me after a while, frustrated at not being understood. We resume our gaze at the sea.

  We try to paddle our way back to the shore but the beach soon slips beneath the horizon. I think of James, adrift maybe, like me, waiting on the mercy of the tides. It’s no use. We cannot resist their pull. We can only lie with our arms dipping like nibs into the water and go wherever the currents decide.

  Minutes pass like hours, hours like minutes. Time dries in our throats. Flotillas of drinking water appear on the horizon if I stare at it for too long. The sun becomes what I want it to be – a giant parasol cocooning me like night – instead of what it is: unbearably bright and scorching. And all the while we’re floating, riding the roof as if it were the saddle of a horse, never still.

  Night comes. And then day. Time gathers. And gathers again. Waves bloat and expire.

  The heat invades the gap between my waking and sleeping. I’m afraid that, if I don’t find a way of waking myself, my mind will drift off with my body to a place with no anchor – no hard, still point on which to tie thoughts; only thirst.

  In a last-ditch attempt to keep myself awake, I press my hands together in a sideways prayer and extend them towards my companion. I motion for him to copy me so that our middle fingers are just touching. He frowns and I go in for the slap, clapping my palm onto the back of his outstretched hand and letting the sound ring out across the water. A clean slice through the ears. Finally I am awake.

  He whips his fingers away and cradles them against his chest crossly. ‘Yenna seyringa? Athu vallithidhu!’

  I smile and hold out my hands again in the same position. He shakes his head and pushes air towards me to dismiss me. But I keep my hands where they are and wait.

  ‘Come on,’ I rasp – throat dry from the saltwater. ‘It’ll take our minds off it.’

  After a few minutes, he mutters something and presents his hands to me again. Before I can ready myself, he has launched into a swipe that sends a sting up my arm.
‘See!’ I laugh, with a flinch.

  He smiles and tilts his head from side to side. Then he points to his chest. ‘Ravindra. Ra-vin-dra,’ he repeats, separating the syllables for me.

  ‘Alice,’ I reply, offering a hand. He doesn’t take it and instead presses his palms together under his chin.

  ‘Aleece,’ he echoes, trying out the word on his tongue.

  I speak his own name, attempting to roll the second r as he did but not quite pulling it off.

  He settles down again on the roof. It is not long before the silence returns. The heat has baked my clothes dry. James’s shirt, which I pulled from under his pillow and threw over myself before I left the hotel room, is stiff with a thick skin of silt. I try to think of where he might be – if he made it to higher ground.

  Did he even see it coming? Or did he just carry on in the heat with his back turned, oblivious to the water twisting into a fist behind him? The day had lulled us both with its blue sky and lush greens; we hadn’t thought it might collapse. We should have guessed our time might be gone before we had the chance to measure its weight.

  It seemed so beautiful – the notion of us driving for thousands of miles over Persian ruins and Kashmiri meadows. I fell in love with the trip before I fell in love with him. The idea of it. And those startling eyes of his, which seemed already to have a bazaar of stories hidden in them before we even set foot in Istanbul. I knew it would infuriate Mum. His hair. His lack of ambition.

  We pooled our savings – from the sale of his photographs and the money that I had collected from waitressing at Isabel’s – and bought a second-hand Mercedes 319D. He knew the van would only get us as far as Pakistan, Kashmir at a stretch. But he said that if we billed the ride as ‘Istanbul to Delhi’, we would soon find paying passengers. And he was right: every seat was taken within a day of us arriving in Turkey. The cities along the route were barely even names to me. I had no pictures to go by. Only stories from the long-haired campers that I had met on the Isle of Wight: how Ararat humbled you and Gulmarg made you free.