The Main Cages

by Philip Marsden

  After dinner, Captain Henriksen pushed back his chair and stood. ‘In Finland, they say we are very famous for making toasts for no reason –’

  ‘Not true!’ laughed his First Officer.

  ‘But this evening I have to say we have good reason. This town rescued us and all our company from big danger. It has accommodated us and welcomed us as if we were its own. I particularly would like to thank the Rector whose wisdom and kindness has made dark time possible for me and for my wife and for us all. May God give to him His blessing and may God give blessing to everyone also in this little town of Polmayne.’

  The next morning, at eleven, the Constantine hauled her anchor. She tucked in close to the lifeboat station, where a large crowd had gathered. On the ship, crew and officers lined the weather rail and raised three cheers. Amidst the crowd, Parson Hooper took off his hat and waved.

  The Constantine hardened sheets and headed away out of the bay. Picking up a good northerly she struck along the coast for Falmouth.

  Parson Hooper watched the ship’s stern shrink into the distance. He stood there long after the others had left, spinning the rim of his hat round and round in his fingers.

  From Newlyn that week, Jack wrote to Anna. He told her about the fishing (‘prices up to nearly 14/- a thousand’), his crew (‘Croyden and Charlie have stopped blaming Hammels’), and then he said to her: ‘Why not stay in Ferryman’s this autumn? You can paint and I will not be away but will be fishing out of Polmayne

  On Monday, she wrote back: ‘… My sister is coming to Cornwall today. She is going to Tintagel – she always loved King Arthur. She wants me to go but I think I will stay here and paint …’.

  It was a day of porcelain-blue skies. Small white clouds hung over Penwith, but out to sea it was clear. Jack walked south along the cliffs to Mousehole and beyond. On his left the water stretched to a blade-sharp horizon. What did she want? He felt again the mistrust that had haunted him since last winter. But then, what did he want? He wanted this. He wanted the sea and the blue shapes and the blue shades. He wanted it in its changingness and its grey guises, its capacity to give life and to take it away, its darknesses and depths – and he wanted Anna for the same reasons.

  On Thursday morning, manoeuvring back into her berth, the Maria V hit the harbour wall and sheared a rudder pin. It would take until Monday to repair. The four of them cut their losses and headed for Penzance station.

  It was late afternoon when they reached Polmayne. Jack rowed up at once to Ferryman’s. The tide was ebbing and it took him some time but then he reached the corner and came round it and there was the whitewashed front and the low thatch and there were the windows shuttered and there was the door with the arch of a padlock securing its latch.

  She had gone – of course she had gone.

  CHAPTER 21

  Anna Abraham at that moment was some forty miles to the north, seeing off a gentleman visitor on the steps of a Tintagel guest house. Silver-haired and silver-tongued, Dr Sanders was talking to her in soft, encouraging tones.

  It was less than twenty-four hours since she had received the telegram – COME TINTAGEL SOONEST V ILL MARIA – and now the doctor was telling her that he could find nothing physically wrong with her sister.

  ‘The problem is here,’ he said and tapped his temple.

  Dr Sanders saw a number of such cases every year. Having spent a lifetime wrapping themselves in Arthurian tales, first-time visitors to Tintagel often lapsed into a state of ‘acute depressive torpor’. He had once written a paper on the subject for the medical press: ‘Myth and Melancholy at Arthur’s Tintagel’. The paper had done him no favours, as his conclusion was entirely unscientific: people like this were unable to cope with the earthly realisation of their dreams.

  ‘It’s like seasickness, Mrs Abraham. As soon as they leave Tintagel they feel better.’

  So it proved for Maria. By the time they reached Bodmin Road station the next morning, she was chiding Anna.

  ‘It’s a man, isn’t it?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Nice?’

  Anna nodded.

  Maria looked up into the oak trees and smiled. She had never liked Maurice. And Anna’s mysterious involvement, which drew her deeper into Cornwall while she herself returned to London, went some way towards reviving her bruised sense of romance.

  ‘Schastlivo!’ she called as Anna’s train slid westwards out of the station.

  Harris’s Station Bus was waiting at Truro. It was very hot inside. Anna found a seat on the shaded side. The windows were open but it was still hot. They were waiting for three men from the train, one of whom was having an argument with the station porter. The men wore flannel suits and in the end two of them dragged their argumentative friend away and ran for the bus.

  ‘Almost missed it!’

  As the bus pulled off the men came swaying down the aisle. They flopped into the seats beside and behind Anna.

  They introduced themselves. They were off-duty cavalry officers. The one next to her was called Lee, another Travers, and the other was Birkin. In a week’s time, they said, Birkin was getting married, and he and his friends were booked into a hotel for a final spree.

  ‘The Golden Sands – you staying there?’ Lee asked Anna.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I say, are you Spanish?’

  Anna shook her head and turned to look out of the window.

  ‘Well, you sound Spanish. Does she sound Spanish to you, Birkin?’

  ‘Never been to Spain.’

  ‘Refugee, I suppose. Damned hot in here – can’t we open a window?’

  ‘They are open,’ said Travers.

  ‘Funny, I thought they were dark in Spain, but you’re pale. Very charming though. Isn’t she charming, Birks?’

  Birkin was asleep.

  In Polmayne, the bus pulled to a halt in front of the Antalya Hotel. Several people stepped out of the shade to meet it. Mrs Cuffe greeted a couple and their son. The boy’s face was half-hidden by the sail of a model yacht, and he was crying.

  Three porters had come with barrows from the Golden Sands, and the cavalry officers joined them and another couple from London and they all followed the barrows along the front.

  Anna set off for the shops. She was surprised to bump into Croyden Treneer. He looked at her raffia hat and her small leather valise and said, ‘He’s over there.’ He flicked his chin in the direction of Bethesda.

  He was back! She cut through the alley just as the boy with the model yacht came rushing out past her. She knocked on Jack’s door.

  Nothing. She knocked again. Had she misunderstood Croyden? Had he meant that Jack was still in Newlyn? He wasn’t due back for another two weeks at least. Maybe Croyden had come back earlier, the Reeds …

  The door opened. Jack stepped out of the shadows.

  ‘I thought you were in Newlyn!’ She stepped up and wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.

  ‘And I thought you’d left for good.’

  Parson Hooper was driving the dog-cart back from Truro. On the hill below Pennance, Harris’s Station Bus rattled past him and Job jumped forward and Hooper had to grip the reins to stop him bolting. But then the bus was gone and Job resumed his walk. In the close and thundery heat the sound of his hooves made the parson drowsy and his hat nodded down towards his chest. The reins fell into his lap. In the back of the dog-cart was last month’s Tablet: A Garden is a lovesome thing, God wot!/Rose plot,/Fringed pool,/Fern’d grot …

  Without the crew of the Constantine, without Captain Henriksen, Parson Hooper had slipped back into his early-summer mood. Polmayne had become an alien and friendless place. He had not even taken any lines for a new Tablet. Never in all the years of his ministry had he felt so isolated.

  ‘We’re not wanted here,’ he had told Mrs Hooper. ‘Do you know what the fishermen do if they see me on the way to their boats? Do you know?’

  ‘No, dear.’

  ‘They turn round and go home. I am bad lu
ck. Bad luck! Imagine what that feels like.’

  Anna and Jack rowed up to Ferryman’s. It was hot and close and Anna pulled up her sleeve and trailed an arm in the water. The clouds were heavy overhead. Anna started to sing. She sang in Russian and then stumbled over the words. ‘I forgot this song until now. It was one my grandmother sang us.’

  ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘If I remember – it is the story of a Cossack and he steals a noble lady from her husband and her big house and he takes her away in his boat. Then later she becomes a bandit also and one day in a war or something she comes to raid the estate of her husband. I don’t remember exactly what happens then – I think he shoots her and then he shoots the Cossack, or maybe the Cossack shoots him or maybe she shoots the husband and herself – anyway they all end up dead! It’s quite a sad song.’

  They came round the bend in the river and the boat eased up the shingle and Anna threw her shoes ashore and went on ahead to unlock the cottage. She stood for a moment on the slate floor. She closed her eyes and let the coolness seep up her calves. When Jack came in, he took her hand and without a word led her across the room and up the stairs. On the narrow iron bed, he sat her down and knelt before her. The shutters were still closed and in the shadows her face glowed in the heat. He wondered why, when he had tried so often, he had failed to remember her features, failed to remember the exact curve of her lips and her long nose and her smiling eyes.

  ‘Don’t go.’ He gripped her hand. ‘Don’t leave here.’

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen!’

  On the terrace of the Golden Sands Hotel, Mr Bryant called for silence. Beside him stood Mrs Bryant and the Raffertys and Lady Banville with her pout and her painted décolletage.

  The afternoon had dragged into evening. Thick grey cloud hung over the town; already it felt like dusk. Veils of midges followed the guests as they milled around the hotel lawn. Everyone was short-tempered.

  Mr Bryant had arranged another reception, this time for the commissioning of the newly-refurbished Golden Sands. Dozens of visitors were added to the fifty-odd guests staying in the hotel. Parson and Mrs Hooper were there. The cavalry officers were there; they had been asleep and their flannel suits were creased. The knot of Petrel skippers were discussing next day’s Porth regatta when Mr Bryant clapped his hands.

  ‘Dear God!’ hissed Ralph Cameron. ‘Not another of his damned speeches!’

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen! Thank you all for coming this evening.’ He paused. ‘When Mrs Bryant and I first came to Polmayne, we were drawn here for one reason and one reason only. Indeed it is the same reason you are here – all of you.

  Those who are visitors or guests or have chosen to live here, or to bring your children here or sail your yachts. Indeed, it is the same reason this very town exists and has existed since dim antiquity.’

  Mr Bryant pointed over the heads of the guests, over the lawn and the shingle beach to the water. It stretched grey and soupy into the gloom.

  ‘The sea! It is the sea that pulls us here as powerfully as a nail to a magnet. One has only to think of the many ways in which it provides for us – feeding us with its fish, cooling us when we bathe, exercising our bodies, soothing us when we hear it on the rocks at night. From cradle to grave it provides for us all in a dozen different ways.’

  ‘Hear, hear.’ Sir Basil was finding it hard to concentrate in the heat. But it helped to bob his head up and down in agreement.

  ‘Get on with it, for God’s sake!’ muttered Cameron.

  ‘No doubt Sir Basil here will remember a comedian we had up our way before the war – Tommy Thomas?’

  Sir Basil nodded.

  ‘You will remember then his routine of a publican whose refrain was always, “If the guests is happy, then we’s is happy” – at which he would grin and jangle the change in his pocket.’ Mr Bryant chuckled.

  Sir Basil dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief.

  ‘“If the guests is happy, then we’s is happy.” Well, that is our motto at the Golden Sands and that is why I have taken on an enterprise which I am sure will yield great dividends not just for visitors to the hotel but for the entire town!’

  Mr Bryant and Sir Basil and their party then made their way down the terrace steps, down the hotel’s well-watered lawn towards the beach and the newly-built jetty.

  They heard it before they saw it – the shrill poop-poop of a foghorn in the slate-grey dusk. Around the point came the Golden Sands: golden-yellow sides, sky-blue funnel with yellow hoops.

  Mr Bryant stood with the Raffertys by the jetty. ‘There she is!’

  ‘Splendid!’ Sir Basil clapped; a few others clapped too.

  Lady Rafferty was fanning herself with a mother-of-pearl fan. ‘Is that it?’

  On board Jimmy Garrett stood at the still-unfinished bar, silently dispensing drinks. Tacker darted back and forth, pointing out the new features.

  The cavalry officers stood at the bar and Travers said, ‘I like this boat, don’t you, Lee?’

  ‘I like it too. What about you, Birks?’

  Birkin was waving his empty glass at Jimmy. ‘Barman!’

  Jimmy ignored him.

  In all, more than eighty people made their way along the jetty that evening and on board the Golden Sands. Mr Bryant gave the Raffertys a detailed tour of the boat. ‘Ladies’ convenience here. Covered seating here at the back for thirty people …’

  ‘Marvellous!’ Sir Basil asked lots of questions. Lady Rafferty asked none. Behind the wheelhouse was the new lifeboat and a rather complicated piece of plumbing. ‘And what’s this?’ asked Sir Basil.

  ‘That is, er … Tacker!’

  Tacker came out from under the awning and said, ‘Fuel intake, sir. Had to reroute him, sir.’

  ‘It’s the fuel intake, Sir Basil. It’s where they take in the fuel.’

  ‘Oh really! I can’t stand another minute of this.’ Lady Rafferty told Mrs Bryant to take her back to the hotel.

  From far out to sea came the first growl of thunder.

  CHAPTER 22

  Anna Abraham lay on her back. She kicked at the water and the splashing echoed in the creek. She gazed up at the cave-grey ceiling of cloud above her. The whole sky looked ready to drop on her head. How long could it stay up?

  It was she who had woken first. In the heavy heat of early evening she rose and put on her bathing suit and came down to swim. When Jack heard her, he pushed open the upstairs window and leaned on the sill.

  ‘Come into the water!’ she called.

  ‘I have a better plan!’

  They went rowing. They rowed upstream, around the bend above the cottage where the river opened out into a broad lagoon. It was mid-tide. Oak-woods bordered the river, the trees’ boughs hung down over a steep foreshore. The water was as flat as a table. Anna had never been up here. She followed the strokes of the paddles and watched the crease of the bow-wave spread out towards the shore.

  At the top of the lagoon, the river divided.

  ‘Which way?’ asked Jack. ‘Main river, or the side creek?’

  ‘Er … Side creek.’

  The creek’s edges dovetailed into the dusk. Jack made three strong strokes and let the boat glide into it.

  ‘What’s it called, Jack?’

  ‘Gooth – Gooth Creek.’

  They drifted up between the oak-lined slopes. The tide pushed them on. A curlew screeched, slewed off over the trees. As they rounded the first bluff Anna saw the boats. They had become the same grey as the rocks and mud. There were dozens, scattered along both banks. Among them were several larger ones – their spars had been stripped and only the bare hulls remained, lying side-on and half-submerged.

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Seine boats, fishing boats.’

  For generations, he explained, boats had been laid up here by the people of Porth and Polmayne. In the war, many were brought up here and remained when their owners failed to return.

  ‘In the town, they say that someo
ne’s “gone to Gooth” when they’re too old or too ill to go out.’

  ‘Ugh!’ said Anna.

  ‘You want to go back?’

  She nodded. But at the main river she said, ‘What happens up the stream. No more boats?’

  ‘No more boats.’

  They pressed on, on into the heavy grey evening. One or two slender canes broke the water’s surface. The river swung to right and left, narrowed a little, but the woods on each side never thinned. Where streams came into the creek, the woods receded and gave way to beds of blond reeds. They came to a place where the river widened, and Jack shipped the paddles. He stood and the boat rocked from side to side.

  ‘Careful!’ said Anna.

  He made his way towards her and stretched his legs out along the boat. She twisted round and hung her feet over the side. Her head rested on his stomach.

  ‘Jack,’ she said, ‘I have made a decision.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You said stay here in the autumn and, well, I think I will stay.’

  He kissed the top of her head. ‘Good.’

  ‘On one condition.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You do not let any more beard grow on your chin.’

  They lay for a long time in the stern and listened to the splash of jumping mullet. Then from over the oak-woods, over the hill, came the sound of thunder.

  ‘We ought to go back,’ said Anna.

  ‘No,’ said Jack. ‘Let’s wait here, let’s wait for the rain.’

  At six o’clock the first large drops fell on Polmayne. They fell on the roofs and in the courtyards and they spotted the tarmac of the front and the cobbles on the quay. They brought with them a sweet, vegetable smell. Those on Parliament Bench upturned their palms and Toper Walsh gave a small cheer and Boy Johns went ‘Eeee!’ In Basset’s Yard, Mrs Stephens tilted her face to the skies and said, ‘Thank the Lord!’ Even Mrs Cuffe at Bethesda gave half a smile as she cleared the feeds to her water butt.