The Silver Dark Sea

by Susan Fletcher

  Why not? Has she got divine insight?

  Nathan can be many things but he is not sarcastic. She’s worried about you.

  It was the quayside.

  Bullshit.

  Nathan drinks again. He tilts the bottle right up. When he has drained the beer, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and he gives a single cough, a clear of the throat, and says OK. Fine. Dad caught me climbing through the wire fence above Lock-and-Key. I was bending the wire to fit through it and he took a swing and got me. You know how he was about those bloody fences.

  Ian sees it. He can see it so clearly. He knows what happened as if he was there – how their father would have grabbed Nathan by the collar, held him whilst the other hand came down against his jaw. You should have said.

  To who? No point.

  To me.

  No point.

  And Ian feels tired, at that moment. Tired of what they never speak of and have never quite freed themselves of. He is tired of how he himself walls himself up and speaks like his father now and he knows that when Hester was watching him in the barn, earlier, she was seeing the family looks in him – his hair, his hands. Just that one time?

  Nathan is quiet.

  That one time? Or were there other times?

  It doesn’t matter any more.

  There it is. Like the beach when the tide is out he sees it all so differently; what he had thought was a stable and reliable truth no longer seems so truthful. Ian had forgotten about those milk teeth. But now he remembers. He remembers that Hester was jealous of the tooth fairy coming twice; he remembers the cotton wool Nathan held to his gums. And suddenly there are other things: the way Nathan cracks his knuckles; the small scar by his eye which was, he said, a cricket ball. The marks on his arms which he claims are from wire. He doubts them all, now. Ian turns over shells as if each one hides a sharpness.

  Did you ever hit Kitty?

  Never. I have never hit anyone – not once. But I’ve still hurt her, Ian – I just chose other ways.

  They spend the afternoon on the bench. In the end, Ian goes to the fridge and comes back with two beers. They clink their bottles together, drink.

  They talk about the sheep. They talk about the puffins that have nearly all flown now, leaving their burrows to the rabbits and the wind. Also, they talk about him – the bearded man who seems to live at Tavey now and how Maggie is happy in a shy, contented way. It’s good. It’s good that she is. And Ian knows that yes, it is. Tom, then: they talk of Tom – not in the way they’ve talked of him over the past four years, which has been rarely, and briefly, and as if talking about him would make the loss far worse. Ian talks, instead, of the birthday cake that was shaped like the Star, or how Tom tried, once, to ride a sheep. Nathan smiles. He shakes his head, picks at the bottle’s label. And Aunt Tabitha passes on her bicycle, waves at them both so that they both wave back.

  As Ian readies to leave, his brother looks up. Never you?

  No.

  Hester?

  No. Why did he only go after you?

  I was smaller than you but bigger than Tom? I don’t know.

  It makes no sense.

  Not everything has to make sense.

  There is a chill to the air, now. The sky is darkening and the moon is out, and the birds are landing for the night. And Ian’s way of leaving is by putting his hand in his brother’s hair, ruffling it. He says she’ll come back, kid – which are his words of love. He might be brimming with it, aching with love for his younger brother and he might be fifty-one years old, but this is his best way, for now, of trying to express it. He is not good at any other way.

  * * *

  Ian finds his wife that night. She is reading in the bath, one foot on the taps. Her hair is coiled up, on top of her head, but there are fronds that have escaped and are wet, now. The bathroom smells sweet – like vanilla.

  Can I come in? he asks.

  She smiles. She drops the book onto a towel. Of course.

  He lowers the lid of the loo, and carefully sits on it.

  What’s up? He can tell she is bemused. Are the children alright?

  Oh, I think so.

  And you? Are you alright?

  Constance looks beautiful. He forgets, sometimes, to look – and now he looks. This is how queens looked, in legends, or how the mistresses looked who usurped the queens – flushed, warm, naked, half-smiling – and if he was an articulate man he would tell her this, but he is not. He’s a farmer who’s seen nothing of the world. He doesn’t read books, as she does. Are you happy?

  She rises from the foam. Happy?

  Yes. With us. Me.

  She frowns, not understanding him.

  Kitty’s gone. Left.

  Constance’s mouth opens. She blinks a few times, and then looks down into the water. Poor them … A sound like a moan.

  Are you happy?

  His wife turns to him. Her gaze is bold, even. Not always. We never have enough money. I hate smelling of sheep. Sometimes I wonder where my life went – I’m nearly fifty and I love my kids and I love you, but I sometimes feel like I’ve wasted it. I guess, she says, that I am sometimes happy. And sometimes is probably enough. She rubs his thumb with her own thumb. Are you?

  He nods. I have you. I should tell you how I feel more.

  Yes, you should. You never do.

  For a while, they are quiet. Then Constance draws her knees to her chest so that the water in the far end of the bath is empty, waiting, and she says very quietly room for two …

  That night, in bed, Ian smells of vanilla. He shifts his bulk down under the blankets, and kisses his wife on her ankles. He kisses the damp backs of her knees.

  In his own bedroom, Nathan lies alone. He remembers his milk teeth. He had been seven and three-quarters, and hadn’t meant any trouble. He’d run home, frightened, clutching them – two hard, bloodied pebbles in the palm of his left hand.

  The sea says hush … hush …

  Abigail lowers herself into bed. She has also seen the moon, and it troubles her. It troubles her that, today, she had heard Sam talk about the sly tide that is coming closer; the sly tide makes her wistful, sad.

  She also thinks of love. She thinks of her husband, lying beside her, and she believes the love she feels for Jim now is the strongest it has ever been. Their marriage has not been without a raised voice or a little broken china, and once they did not speak for three days; but all the same, their love has grown. Like the plants which send out runners underground so that more of that plant pops up later on, their love is deeply rooted – it cannot be lost and it will never fade. This is love at its best, and most lasting: she would change this for nothing, nothing at all. But she can remember their love’s early days. She can still see her shy, teenage self feeling faint and tearful with this want – this need, this amazement. She’d look at Jim’s fingers, astonished; he, in turn, would feel her fleshy sides with his eyes closed as if trying to absorb exactly how she felt. Early love is … What? Restorative. Extraordinary.

  Jim? Are you sleeping?

  Not yet.

  Do you think there are exceptions?

  Exceptions?

  I have looked in the book. Maybe the Fishman does not have to return? On a full moon? Maybe there are exceptions, and he could stay? I am thinking of Maggie.

  Her husband is quiet. She can see his lips moving; he licks them, as he thinks. I’ve heard of no exceptions.

  No … And it saddens her. But Abigail knows this is the way of it, for her mother said so. Mercy had leant forwards and said what might happen, do you think? If he stayed too long? A drying out; a yearning. A very gradual death.

  Abigail is nearly eighty-four and yet she can still miss her mother. Mercy always counted her children as she kissed them – one and two and … – as if checking that they were all still there.

  He’ll go this Friday, won’t he?

  Yes, says Jim. He will.

  * * *

  Lorcan is still at his piano. He has
been here for an hour and he knows it’s late – but he thinks once more … And so he plays from the beginning for the last time, before bed – slowly, leaning over the keys. He is on the third page of music before he plays a wrong note. He gives a single frustrated punch to the air. So close … But Lorcan is getting better. And one day, before too long, he will play it flawlessly.

  Rona is tearful, wretched. Her love is turning, darkening. She cracks her knuckles, as a fighter might.

  And me? Maggie? The Fishman?

  They are in Tavey. There is a single candle – enough to see each other by.

  He is like a diver parting the waters.

  She is as the eels are – oh, oh, oh.

  The Imps at the Farm called Wind Rising

  Once there were three children – Ian, Hester and Nathan. They lived on a farm with sheep, and high winds. They had hay-seeds in their jumpers and grass stains on their knees. Happy, or mostly. Then a fourth child was born. He was called Thomas and he came like a gift, like the best of all the shells on the shore.

  Nathan was the closest in age to him. He liked everything about his younger brother – firstly, how Tom drooled his food or clapped at any music. Later, Nathan loved how he tried to ride the sheep like horses and how he’d go downstairs on his bottom, thudding all the way down. Nathan liked showing Tom all the best parts of the farm – dung-streaked eggs, the bags of grain that they kept in the barn, the warm, gritty patch where the cat had slept.

  They played, and made dens. They caught crabs on a wire. And one day a crab nipped Tom on his smallest finger, breaking the skin so that a bead of blood appeared, and Tom cried. His eyes shone, and spilt. He asked why did it pinch me? Did I do something wrong? And Nathan said no, no you didn’t … and led him home, through the fields.

  The crab hurt both of them, maybe. Nathan hated it – seeing his brother fretful, his unsteady bottom lip. The mournful asking of why?

  To soothe Tom, Nathan told stories. He sang the sea shanties that their grandfather Abelard taught him. He talked of the silver in the fields, and the seals with human hearts. He always told these tales at night.

  Nay-than? Are you awake?

  Sometimes he’d answer no, and turn over; but mostly he’d say, a story?

  Yes, please.

  Some nights, when their father had been drinking, Nathan would wedge jumpers under the bedroom door. Or if it was a stormy sea, he’d open the window so that the sea’s sound came in – spray, and booming. One time, when glass got broken in the middle of the night and Nathan heard their mother’s frail whimper downstairs, he told Tom don’t worry, it’s just the dog, and then pulled the two seashells down from his bookshelf and clamped them onto Tom’s pink ears and said here. Listen. Keep those on your ears, and you’ll hear the sea singing …

  Tinfoil hats, like aliens. These hats came down over their ears, and muffled sound.

  I will keep him safe. Tom, who gave hugs like a starfish in that he’d cling with all his limbs.

  Once, Tom – aged six, or no older – woke in the night and padded downstairs. He’d wanted water, but found a broken chair, a smear of blood on the fridge door and their father snoring heavily on the fireside rug. It was too strange, too much. He clambered upstairs, using his hands. Shook Nathan’s shoulder.

  What is it?

  Downstairs … The voice of a frightened boy.

  Ah, said Nathan. He moved over to make room. Maybe that’s the imps, then.

  Imps? A sniffle.

  Imps. Like elves. Little people, but they are naughty. They like coming into people’s houses at night, and taking things. Food.

  Why?

  And so Nathan invented them – these miniature, mischievous men. That night, Nathan lay on the bottom bunk with his younger brother snuffling beside him and he talked of these imps with their curled-up beards, their jackets made from leaves and their trousers made from moss, how they hid in old rabbit holes which annoyed the rabbits a lot because who’d want to share their house with them? With cross little people? The imps argued all the time. They’d creep into houses when hungry, or bored. They’d fight over food, kick furniture over, break plates, and make the cat dart upstairs. Nathan looked up at the slats of the upper bunk bed and tried to think of other naughty things that they did – swinging from udders, or plugging a hen so she couldn’t lay eggs.

  Will they hurt us? Tom was wide-eyed.

  No, not people. They are frightened of us. If we stamp our feet they run away.

  And they’ve been downstairs?

  Yes. Maybe they came for the last of the ham. But we mustn’t talk about them too much. Not everyone believes in them, and we might get told off.

  The lies. He knew he shouldn’t tell them because it said so in the Bible, but he thought it was better than the truth would be.

  Goodnight, Nathan. A drowsy voice, muffled by a pillow.

  And once Tom was sleeping, Nathan crept downstairs. He opened the fridge, gave the last of the ham to the cat. He cleaned up the thumbprint of blood with a damp cloth. He took the bottle from his father, poured the whisky down the sink, pressed the empty bottle back into his father’s hand and padded back upstairs to his brother’s quiet, unsuspecting snores.

  * * *

  It was what he did. It was what Nathan chose to do as soon as Tom was born – to show him all the good things, and to keep him safe. No playing with wasps, or broken glass. When Tom dropped a biscuit on the floor, Nathan took it and swapped it with his undropped one. Small things.

  He loved him. That was the reason. He loved him with a very serious love that was not like the love he felt for the rest. Ian, Hester and Nathan had already seen and heard things which stopped them laughing brightly, and which made them run away when a door slammed – but Tom’s laugh was a gurgle, like a half-blocked drain. He wiggled like a worm when the radio was on.

  And so Nathan told stories. He told stories that he knew from his grandfather, or was shown in Aunt Abigail’s red book. Or he made up his own, when he had to; he made up his own stories because he did not want the joy (that was the word – Tom had been joyful) to lessen or vanish as it had for him. He wanted Tom to believe in a better world than the one Wind Rising gave him, and so Tom believed in whales that spoke, the ghosts of sheep, imps, the turning wind and that he’d find, one day, the love of his life – a woman who was worthy of him.

  It will be better for you. Nathan vowed it.

  He thought you will never know why our mother wears long sleeves when it’s hot. Or why all four of them would sometimes go to the barn for hours at a time – which was so that their mother could be on her own for a little while, a tissue clamped on her bleeding nose or sitting on the edge of the bath thinking thank goodness the children have no idea, how lucky that they are in the barn – and thinking, too, of what could have been for her, if she had chosen differently. Oh, what could have been.

  Nathan sits in the dark.

  The sun has not yet risen but it will. Before too long, the lighthouse will close its eye, and sleep. Tom, in his early days, called it the turny light. Because it’s all turny. Round and round …

  Now he is dead. He went into the water aged thirty-seven and did not come back out.

  What good were the Parlan imps? The shells with sea stories? The fairy tales that said the world was generous and sunlit and worth staying in? What good was the book his Aunt Abigail had shown him in those early days that promised happy secrets and an underwater world? There was no good in it. It stopped nothing, in the end. Of all the Bundy children, Tom was the one who should not have died. He should have stayed for he believed the world was beautiful, and he made it more so by being who he was. He built sandcastles with his niece; he called Abigail Mrs C; he might throw his wife over his shoulder and carry her home as a hunter would, so that Maggie would laugh, squeal, slap his bottom and call out Thomas Bundy, put me down! And anyone who saw these things, or heard them said how can he be one of them? From that stock? All that height, and kindness. All that
trust in life.

  Nathan vowed to keep him safe, but look. Dead.

  He closes his eyes. Tonight, he can see Tom’s face – the beard, the eyes, the lines by those eyes. Sometimes he can’t see his brother, as if the years are fading the memory of him, as sunlight bleaches cloth or paint. But tonight he sees Tom perfectly.

  He deserved better. Kitty deserves better, and perhaps she will find it now. Even Rona – God, poor Rona – deserves more than this. Who is he helping? Whose life has he ever made better, in fact? Doesn’t he let them all down?

  Tom. Whose warm, firm body would climb into the bottom bunk and lift the blankets, say Nathan’s name. Pyjamas with small tractors on. A clean, lemony smell.

  Bad dream?

  Yes.

  That’s OK. Come in.

  All that love, and it still didn’t save him. All that love and Tom still went away.

  Fourteen

  Now is the deepest hour of night.

  It is the hour of human sleep. They all sleep. Each human is sleeping except one.

  Maggie watches him. He lies on his front, with his palms facing down. She knows the grooves of his back. She has moved a single finger down the spine of him, feeling that finger rise and fall as it finds each vertebra, and Maggie has touched the lines on his face – his forehead, his eyes. She has also held his hands, before now. She has tucked her hand into his, or she has wrapped her smallest finger around his own smallest finger and like this they have walked – on beaches, through the fields.

  But now he sleeps. And now, by candlelight, Maggie can look at his left hand. It lies beside her, relaxed, with the fingers spread. His skin is freckled here. There are tiny, white scars she has her own versions of; his fingernails have their white half-moons.

  She does nothing. She looks, and nothing more.

  There … The mark that he has had, since being found. On the loose flesh between his thumb and forefinger there is that neat, circular mark – no larger than a pencil’s end. She saw it at Crest; she has seen it as he’s moved his hand across his beard, or held a mug of tea. A scar? From what? What could make a mark like a small, reddish eye?