Moon Island

by Rosie Thomas

  When she was somewhat recovered she thanked them with proper warmth. ‘The officers of this ship are true gentlemen and I am in your debt for ever.’ She had a pretty smile and modest ways, and soon the other men were as much under her spell as Matthias Plant.

  The weather changed within a day of Sarah’s secret being revealed. A strong north-easter helped the Dolphin to landfall at Fernando de Naronha, where much-needed water and fresh food were taken on board, then a course was set for the mainland. For most of this time Sarah kept to her cabin, but from time to time she was persuaded to take the air up on the deck. Her behaviour when she met her erstwhile forecastle companions was a picture of modest goodwill.

  Sometimes when Matthias had a spare hour they would pass it together in talk, for the good mate had no doubt that she was lonely. He learned much about her childhood and the friends and companions of those early days, but she would almost never speak of Robert Hanner. Yet notwithstanding her reticence, Matthias did not believe he was ever out of her mind for more than a minute at a time. He would come upon her when she was staring out to sea or down at the ruined skin of her hands, and she would be so lost in thought that his voice would startle her. He knew then that she was thinking of her betrayer and most likely still planning how she might discover him again. Matthias felt a dreadful weight of fear and anxiety on her behalf, yet there was determination and an iron will in Sarah, as strong as or stronger than any man’s, that in some way only heightened her very womanliness.

  At Rio de Janeiro the Captain sent word to the Consul, and he soon received assurance that that gentleman and his wife would receive Sarah into their own home until such time as a passage home could be arranged for her.

  The day came for her to leave the Dolphin. Her share of the oil taken amounted to some sixty dollars and this money the Captain arranged for her to have, together with a similar sum collected for her by the other officers and men, so she was at least not quite penniless. For his own part Matthias gave her his gold watch, and she put her arm around his neck and kissed him and sobbed that he had been kinder to her than any father or brother.

  One of the boat steerers who was of similar height had given Sarah a white cotton shirt with a wide blue collar, and a pair of black broadcloth sailor’s pants, which fell smoothly to cover her low shoes. She had a broad-brimmed straw hat, tied with a black ribbon. She did not look like a lady of fashion, but she was neat and pretty in her makeshift clothes. The crew had gathered on the deck to see her off, and as the boat that was to row her ashore was lowered she shook the hand of each of them and whispered her thanks. Matthias waited until the last, except for Captain Gunnell.

  When it came to his turn to say farewell he took her small hand between both of his great calloused ones. ‘Sarah, if you do find who you are searching for, what do you truly believe will happen?’

  ‘I will make him marry me.’

  ‘And if he will not? Or cannot?’

  Her wide eyes never wavered. Matthias felt a shiver touch him like the first intimation of a fever. ‘Then I will kill him like a venomous snake.’ Her hand slid from his grasp and she was smiling. ‘Good Matthias, you must not be anxious on my behalf. I am truly grateful for your kindness and I will always be your friend. Goodbye.’

  So saying, she kissed his cheek for the last time and turned to Captain Gunnell at the taff-rail.

  The men stood together watching as the boat carried her towards the shore.

  ‘Do you imagine that she will find him?’ Matthias musingly asked.

  ‘I am certain she will.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I would not be in that man’s shoes for any money.’

  News of the woman who had disguised herself in men’s clothing and sailed on the Dolphin had travelled fast. A crowd of people were gathered on the dock, all waiting to catch a glimpse of her. Sarah stepped out on to dry land, handed up by her boatman, and the press of people immediately closed around her.

  She turned once to look back at the old Dolphin. She took off her straw hat and waved it, the black ribbons fluttering on the crowded dock.

  That was the last glimpse they had of her.

  May yawned and scratched the mosquito bites on her ankle. She liked books and she was quite interested in the sad and gory whaling stories, because of the remote connection with the history of Moon Island, but she couldn’t imagine that Doone would have read much of them by choice. From the plain sections of the diary she knew Doone didn’t exactly have broad literary or historical interests. Maybe Hannah Fennymore had offered to lend her the books and Doone had accepted out of politeness. Perhaps there had been no other suitable book to hand, so Doone had used the Dolphin book as the base for her code.

  May flipped idly to the front and scanned the introductory pages that she hadn’t bothered to read before. She learned that the book’s narrative was based on Matthias Plant’s journals. The old whaleman had continued writing his journal for the rest of the Sarah Corder voyage and the three voyages that followed it, until he retired at last in 1848. Finally, in old age he set up home with his wife in the village of Wellfleet on Cape Cod, to be near one of his married daughters. After his death his books and papers were stored with the rest of his keepsakes in a tin trunk, and there they stayed until they were disinterred in 1902 by his grandson.

  This young man read the whaling diaries with the utmost fascination and passed them to a college friend who worked as an editor for a New York firm of publishers. So it happened that more than fifty years after they were written, the story told in Matthias’s memoirs was published by Charles Scribner & Sons under the tide Voyages of the Dolphin. When she looked at the front of the book again, May saw that Hannah’s book was the second reprint, dated 1909. Hannah must have owned the book for a long time. Or perhaps, May thought, she had found it on the second-hand shelves of the Bookhouse, Pittsharbor’s only bookshop. Her name was written on the blank first page in blue ink, but there was no date.

  ‘May?’ She looked up. John was calling her from the foot of the stairs. ‘Are you coming to watch the fireworks?’

  May swung her legs off the bed, noticing as she always did the ugly way the flesh quivered inside the loop of her shorts legs. ‘Yeah, okay.’

  John and May walked down the Pittsharbor road together. They hadn’t even waited for Ivy to materialise, knowing that she would have her own plans for the evening.

  ‘It’s a wonderful evening. We’re lucky,’ John said. Darkness was settling over the bluff and the first stars pricked the sky.

  May wrestled with what she should say. The image of her father on the sofa with Leonie Beam remained obstinately stuck in her head. It jarred like a misshapen jigsaw piece with other graphic sexual images. A scene from a video she had seen long ago with Ivy. Ivy herself with Lucas. The old people, Elizabeth and Aaron long ago in the Captain’s House. Doone’s numbered words conjuring thick passion out of the pages of an old-fashioned book. They were images she didn’t want to see but they attacked all her senses. Sex was everywhere, roping around everyone but herself.

  It was impossible to tell her father any of this. Disgust and shapeless longing possessed her in equal parts. ‘Yes.’

  After a moment’s hesitation John asked, ‘Can we talk about the other evening?’

  The cuts on her hand were healing. The new tissue puckered and crawled under the antiseptic tape. ‘No.’ She heard how her blank monosyllable disconcerted him. Miserably she added, ‘Can’t we just forget about it? I’d rather we did. Truly.’

  ‘It’s just…’

  ‘Please,’ May begged.

  Her desperation silenced him. ‘If that’s what you really want,’ John murmured. They walked on to the harbour without speaking.

  At the moment of their arrival the first firework exploded overhead in a mushroom of sparks and a cascade of blue and emerald fireballs. The sparks drifted down, turning scarlet until they were blotted out in the sea, and another rocket streaked upwards.

  Iv
y was in the crowd, with her arm draped around the shoulders of Sam Deevey. She waved when she saw them. Leonie Beam was there too, with Sidonie on her shoulders. The bursting rocket illuminated her profile for an instant and May knew that her father’s eyes stayed on her.

  Lucas came out of a group and greeted them. It was clear that he had been drinking. ‘Hi, Maysy. Happy Pittsharbor Day, guys.’

  Nine

  The driftwood fire on the beach facing Moon Island held a core of pure red heat within a cage of branches. Every so often part of the latticework collapsed and a column of sparks went shooting upwards like a tiny echo of the Pittsharbor fireworks. Even now from the direction of the harbour an occasional rocket streaked into the darkness, followed by the peppery explosions of firecrackers. Freelance celebrations were continuing in the town long after the official ones had ended.

  Food had been barbecued and eaten around the bonfire by the bluff families and a loose group of guests, mostly friends of the Beam children. Everyone had drunk wine or beer, and a fragile gloss of cordiality slicked over an undercurrent of tension, which seemed to dull the fire and thicken the already stifling air.

  In an effort to lighten the atmosphere Marian and Marty had talked too much from opposite sides of the group. Now one of the boys was picking at a guitar and an uneasy calm settled. Figures moved in the firelight, to pick up a bottle of wine or fetch more wood, and an umber glow halved their silhouettes.

  Murmurs of conversation threaded the groups; the evening had reached the point where the young people would begin to drift away and the older ones might safely collect up the debris of the barbecue and move towards home.

  Ivy was still sitting hip to hip with Sam Deevey, her lovely neck bent so she could whisper into his ear. The shifting of her favours was obvious, but no one had audibly remarked on it. John frowned a warning at her but she ignored him and Marian’s displeasure was only revealed in sharp glances. Lucas merely looked on in silence and tipped his head back to swallow another drink.

  Leonie had reorganised the plate of food Marian had pressed on her, but had eaten none of it. She could only think how her way ahead had narrowed to the vanishing point where there was no possibility but to leave. She wrestled in her mind with the question of where to go. Not back to the apartment in Boston, filled with the possessions Tom and she had accumulated together over the years.

  But if not there, then where else? To rent somewhere, that would be the answer, but the practical difficulties of doing even that seemed all but insurmountable. Leonie knew it was unhappiness that was disabling her. She must move, before the paralysis became complete.

  Tom was sitting on the opposite side of the fire, with Judith Stiegel and Spencer and Alexander. They were talking, but Leonie couldn’t hear what they were saying because the low murmur of the sea amplified itself in her ears. The firelight shone on her husband’s face, casting unexpected shadows, turning him into a stranger.

  Marian’s bulk interposed itself. ‘Do you suppose anyone would like more blueberry pie?’

  There was a surplus from the bake stall.

  In translation the question meant Get up and offer second helpings, but Leonie disregarded it. ‘If they do I expect they’ll manage to help themselves.’

  A corner of gipsy skirt whipped her knee as Marian swept on by. I’ll pay for that, Leonie told herself, then remembered that she wouldn’t have to because she would be gone. The idea of such an upside made her mouth curve in a sudden smile and she saw that John was watching her.

  Aaron and Hannah had not come down to the beach and their house at the end of the bluff was in darkness. Elizabeth had joined the party only for an hour. Spencer jumped up to escort her when she stood up to leave. She was relieved that Pittsharbor Day was at last over and she had done all that could possibly have been expected of her. On her way around the circle she thanked Marian, although there was no reason for Marian to have appointed herself hostess of the evening.

  The last person Elizabeth came to in her circuit was May. She was attached to the group of teenagers without in any way being a part of it. Elizabeth patted her shoulder and wordlessly May took hold of her wrist. Her hand was burning. For a moment Elizabeth felt that there were wires criss-crossed tight between too many people in this circle, red-hot where they passed through the heart of the fire, cold and invisible on the margins.

  May’s fingers dropped away. ‘Good-night,’ she said.

  Ivy and Sam and Gail and the others were also making ready to go. The boy stopped strumming his guitar and pulled Gail to her feet. She gave a mock stagger and almost fell into his arms.

  Ivy stood in front of Lucas. ‘You coming?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Right.’ She walked off without a backward glance, with Sam close behind her.

  The rest of them stood up too, hoisting bags on their shoulders and murmuring their thanks in Marian’s direction, before melting away across the crescent of sand. May knew they were making for a more secluded part of the beach, or maybe someone’s bedroom where they would not be interrupted. They would drink and smoke some more draw, and talk and snigger, and while she longed to be included she despised them at the same time for the repetitive dullness of their pleasures.

  The young people moved away in a dark mass. The diminished group of eleven adults remained, plus Lucas, sitting alone. May shot a glance at him. His arms were wrapped around his knees and he stared into the fire. Now, May thought, if I am ever going to.

  She had drunk two bottles of beer and she couldn’t remember how much red wine, covertly, while her father’s attention was turned elsewhere. The mixture lay uneasily in her stomach, but it had the effect of dividing her thoughts from the rest of her weighty self. She felt clear in the head and quite untroubled, with the knowledge that whatever she did or whatever happened wouldn’t matter much. Not enough to worry about. Not enough to care about.

  She slid across the sand to Lucas’s side. ‘Hi.’

  He rolled his head on his knees to look at her. ‘Oh. Hi.’

  She waited a minute or two, giving him a chance to get used to her being there. No one else was looking at them. ‘She can be like that you know. She doesn’t mean to hurt people, not really. It’s like just sometimes she has to be a bitch. Kind of a power thing.’

  The fire was dying into dull crimson embers. Flakes of ash twirled like snowflakes and settled on the sand. May raked and sifted sand through her fingers, looking anywhere but at his face.

  At last Lucas sniffed and rubbed his cheek with the flat of one hand. ‘You want to come for a walk or something?’ he asked. ‘I feel like getting away from here.’

  May waited a decent interval before she said, ‘Okay. If you like.’

  They skirted the edge of the water where ink-black ripples subsided into the shingle. May walked boldly at Lucas’s side instead of drifting in his wake. They passed the Captain’s House and climbed northwards on to the headland. When she looked back she saw her father making his way towards the beach steps and felt a mean little beat of relief that he was alone.

  It was difficult climbing upwards in the dark. Roots and brambles snagged May’s bare ankles but she let them tear at her because she was too conscious that a swerve might bring her into contact with Lucas’s arm and shoulder. A prickle of heat ran down her side at the thought and her scalp tightened over her skull.

  Then Lucas tripped over a branch, and he stumbled and swore. ‘I can’t see a thing. Let’s stop.’

  The headland rose on one side, a black sweep of trees. On the other was the sea, invisible but always audible. Tonight it made a low murmur like a chorus of close-matched voices. There was a dip in the ground, not much more than a shallow saucer but still a shelter of sorts, on the landward side of the path. Lucas sat down with his back against a tree stump and with only a second’s hesitation May took her place beside him. There was a lightness inside her head now that allowed her to do what would have seemed impossible a day ago. She eased herself back against
the stump, stretched out her legs next to his. They sat and listened to the sea.

  A year ago, May thought. The last night of Doone’s life. She had drowned the morning after Pittsharbor Day. All the other people gathered on the beach this evening must have remembered it, even though none of them had spoken her name. But she was always there, she must be, on the other side of the invisible membrane.

  ‘You okay?’ Lucas asked and she nodded wordlessly. She put her head on his shoulder and he shifted his position to fold his arm around her. She felt a jolt when he touched her and she had to look down dizzily at her folded hands, at the thickness of her own thighs, to assure herself that she was still May – that she hadn’t slipped sideways through the same membrane that seemed to grow thinner, almost to have dissolved into nothingness.

  The hands were hers. But Doone was close, it was her breath in May’s hair, not the breeze off the sea. The sea’s voices were louder.

  Time and space were shifting. Had Lucas brought Doone up here a year ago? Was she living this night now, or the other one, which had somehow swum back again to engulf them all?

  The entries she had decoded from the diary whispered in May’s ears. Hot, heavy words that made her feel loose and restless.

  He slipped down beside me. We kissed for a long time. I touched him, I made him touch me. Everywhere, and there. I don’t care, I don’t care about anything else.

  I love him.

  Those three words, over and over, written with such passion that they scored the underlying pages.

  Lucas was probably drunk, May knew that. She was certainly drunk herself. None of it mattered. Behind his head, where the glimmer of his hair bisected the sky, she could see an arc of cold stars. May closed her eyes to shut them out. She leaned forward, dipping into space, swimming through nowhere until her mouth connected with his. Warm, solid and a surprised hiss of indrawn breath. She pressed closer, willing him with all of herself not to recoil.