The photos were truthful but cruel. I showed my oldest brother, who laughed.
“Fuck, those are nasty. Are you going to show Mum and Dad?”
“Do you think?”
In the end, I showed my father. “Nice,” he said without really looking at them. “Workmanlike. Not a work of genius.”
“I want to be a genius.”
“Want want want. You can’t be what you’re not.”
I knew I should do something with it all, but I didn’t know what. When I came back from the Time Ball Tower, I’d be smarter. Wiser. I’d be able to figure it out.
I had that dream. Of my teeth falling out.
My mother watched me a lot, a grateful look about her.
“We should throw you a farewell party. That’s what people do.”
“It’s okay, Mum.” That would be her idea of Hell.
“No! Let’s do it. It’ll be fun.”
Dad got way into it, writing up guest lists, deciding on cocktails. I let it happen. Why not?
Renata came over early to help set up. No one else would. Mum was “preparing” in her room. Dad was out buying the booze, which meant drinking at the pub until the last possible minute. My brothers would show up later. We didn’t talk much, although Renata made lots of jokes for me, making me laugh, “filling me up,” she said, as if I could draw on that stuff when I was out there. She gave me a wooden puzzle to give to her ancestor.
“To keep him occupied.”
“Why do you even care?”
“I don’t know. Habit, I guess.” Some families did cling to it.
Renata and I had a quick pasta meal. She toasted, “Here’s to getting rich on the suffering of others.”
“Bitch!” I said. It did annoy me. I never gave her a hard time about the residents and how she treated them.
“We’d never lock up an innocent person for money,” I said.
“It depends on how much, doncha reckon?”
“No, I don’t.”
She spilled pasta sauce on my camera and I wiped it off.
The food tasted bland, so I added extra salt and a bit of chili.
“You eat too much salt.”
The house filled with people. My brothers, their wives, girlfriends, kids, friends. The noise of it. I felt myself shrinking. Disappearing.
Home was always full. “I’m looking forward to peace and quiet over there,” I said. I had to say it again; no one heard me.
“It’s not actually silent,” my brother Cameron said. “Be ready for that. Some days they are as rowdy as a pack of crows. And if a new one comes in, he’ll be like a puppy dog compared to the rest of them. Yap yap.” He did a weird spin on his heel, tongue out, panting.
“Is that meant to be a dog?”
“Meant to be? It is a dog. You have no imagination.”
Cameron and Damian had been to the tower, Cameron in 2006, Damian in 2012. Nolan had not. I wondered if he would ever regret it. He sat in front of a computer, gaming. We looked a lot alike, but we had nothing in common.
Damian and Nolan were shits, Cameron was not. All had left town. My mother was happier when they weren’t close by.
You know she thinks we’re all ghosts,” I told Cameron. He gave a kind of mouth shrug, maybe meaning, “what can we do?” Then he said, “When you come out, let’s talk.” He’d spent a lot of time with Burnett, too, before he moved away. We often visited together.
Max was there, sexy as ever, wearing a tight T-shirt, jeans, his hair mussed up. He smelled good, like fresh air, and I wanted to snuggle him and more.
My photography teacher wanted to talk, though. He was the opposite of Max: baggy pants, faded old checked shirt, hair neat.
He talked about the solitude and how wondrous that would be. “You really must enjoy this. What you will see out there will astound you. The patterns. The shapes. What lies beneath when you are no longer distracted by the outside world. You will come back bursting at the seams with ideas.”
I didn’t like the image of “bursting with ideas.” It made me think of a body with the orifices sewn up and bloated with gases. I’d never seen such a thing, but Burnett described it for me, to try to scare me. “This is what happens when you die. Why do you think I want to keep this body alive?”
I asked my photography teacher about his own time there and how it inspired him, because I knew he had achieved very little of what he had hoped to achieve. He was one of the few failures of a keeper. That was a bonus for me. It meant he’d stayed in Tempuston. Without his encouragement, I would not be who I was. What I was.
My teacher said, “Don’t wish the time away out there. The isolation will make you great. Take the time to explore your work, really explore it. You’ll be a much greater artist for it. It’s like what’s in a whirlpool.”
We were all in our backyard. Animals kinda everywhere. Rabbits in hutches. Three cats. Four dogs. And of course all the markers; all the dead ones I couldn’t just bury and forget.
I couldn’t resist a stray. My mother calls them the straifs. Waifs and strays.
“You’ll look after the animals while I’m gone, won’t you, Mum?”
She ignored me completely. In the end, I knew I’d have to find homes for them all, but I played with the fantasy that she’d help me out. She was scared of animals, though, which made things hard.
“At least if they die, bury them properly.”
“You don’t want me to freeze them for you?” my dad said. “I need an excuse to buy one of those big arse freezers. I’ll put a sign on it. Phillipa’s Straifs, DO NOT EAT.”
I wished I could take the animals with me. Dad was off his face. A happy drunk. He made everyone laugh; he really was funny. He did mimicry and told long, involved, hilarious stories. I tried to match him drink for drink but no way. I felt numb, tongue-tied, and he was dancing on tables. My brother Nolan (the one who had never been a keeper, so he really couldn’t afford it) gave me a really good bottle of scotch and told me to drink it all myself.
The whole thing depressed me. Dad being an idiot (he was so morose and quiet when not drunk), Mum in her room, Max pretty well having sex in the corner with some woman, Renata gone; she didn’t say why.
The only thing that cheered me was the music: Peter Mosse’s Time Ball Tower Mix. I loved it.
I wished he was at the party. He was in Vienna, performing in something or other. I loved his music and I would have liked the chance to tell him. I would when I came out. He’d be interested, then. When I was one of them.
Nate Deeming, 2009, said, “I’ll miss you when you’re gone.”
I was tongue-tied. He was an actor, charming, sexy, intelligent. He never used to be. He used to be a pimply guy, no confidence. Now he was a star. Superstar. Girlfriends all over the place, but I don’t think he ever forgot I was always nice to him when he was ugly.
He was the most handsome man I’d ever seen.
I wondered if he’d still be around when I came out. He wasn’t much older than me. He winked at me.
“There’s one thing out there…you’ll need to look for it. You’ll know it when you find it. If you don’t, no biggie. No big deal.” He seemed smooth and flat and ordinary and I wasn’t sure that’s what I wanted. But still. He did for the night.
I spent the last night alone. My parents were…somewhere. Mum was in the house, I guessed, but quiet as a mouse. I gazed at the Time Ball Tower. Ate fresh vegies until I felt bloated.
And I read the Time Ball Tower Keepers’ reports.
I read all of them.
There was so much. So much to understand.
It would make sense when I was out there.
Burnett Barton:The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 1868
The ball itself is a thing of wonder.
Made of copper, it glows like the most glorious sunset. I cannot find the seams, no matter how hard I look, how carefully my fingers run its surface. It spans the length of my arms twice over; if I had a comp
anion here, we could touch fingertips only just. It feels warm to the touch, most days, even when the sun has not shone.
As if there is something within; some hidden power source.
I know there is not.
I am the keeper of history. The sole survivor of Little Cormoran. The creator of Tempuston and the Time Ball Tower.
I set my words down here, as shall all who follow me. All who come to this small rocky island, this Time Ball Tower, and watch over the prisoners here. All those who sacrifice.
I am proud to say I built this beautiful thing.
It stands tall, solid, white, centered on this rocky island.
We do this so that there is a record.
So that the truth is not lost.
1150 BCE
The giants Cormoran and Cormelian had a falling out, and in the mêlée, seven people were killed. The giants didn’t notice until one young girl, known for her beautiful singing voice, hit a note high enough to get their attention. She pointed at the poor dead villagers. Instantly contrite, Cormoran left his village, saying he wouldn’t return until he had saved seven lives. In further penance, he rolled seven great boulders before him everywhere he went, so every night he fell asleep exhausted and aching with effort.
Along the way, he did save seven lives. The last was near the very field where Little Cormoran was settled. He heard crying and, leaving his stones in a pile, he walked until he found the source. It was a tiny boy, his leg bent and broken, his head cut wide open.
The child was terrified of the giant, of course, but he would bleed to death if left alone.
Cormoran was too big to tend to him, so he picked the child up and, taking two hundred and ninety giant steps, carried him in one calloused palm to a village where the hearth fires burned, and they could be expected to understand healing.
He watched and waited as the boy grew healthy and strong. They never did discover where the boy came from. Once he was well, Cormoran felt lonely and redeemed and he traveled home again, leaving his stones behind him.
1300CE
Before the founding fathers settled Little Cormoran, they were nomads, gathering knowledge, learning about the perfect existence by seeing many flawed, shallow, short lives.
As their numbers grew, they began to seek permanence. So, when they found the wide green field, a pile of seven big boulders, moss-covered and grey and stacked carefully one upon another at its center, they knew they were home. This place represented permanence and reliability.
Little Cormoran, village of the long-lived, was established.
1820CE
In 1820, Milton Carlisle came to the village. No one ever asked why he left his old one, but he was scarred head-to-toe, and he caused quite a stir. The young women, apparently unpleased with the men of the village, went all out to capture his eye. He was almost a giant himself, docile and plodding.
He focused only on work, building the church, carrying dozens of stones where other men could only manage six.
My father and I hated the man. All brawn, no history, he offended everything we believed in. So, when his name came up as the man next to be preserved, we had to act.
“We must stand against him. One of us must be preserved to carry forward the true story of our village,” my father said, although both of us knew he would be the one.
1821CE
Preservation was a dying practice in the village; too many had gone wrong. One or two people per generation were selected, that was all. We knew it was against God; it was unnatural and sacrilegious. We could reconcile it if we only preserved a certain few. My father wanted to be the one. He would not cede his place to Milton Carlisle.
He visited Edna, the oldest living woman.
Because she spat bile and venom at anyone who approached her, she was kept locked away. Edna was famous for her vicious stories. Gossip of the nastiest nature. She’d say, “I was there,” as if that made it true.
My father said, “I need more time on the planet. One life is not enough for me to achieve all I’m meant to achieve. History is told by the survivor. And the longer I live, the more I’ll have to tell.”
My father was a great historian, with as much fascination for the future as for the past. He believed we lived the history of our descendants. History is carried through the ages in the mouths of the people. We can be living history books.
We visited many ancient places together, places I will never forget. Like the Shetland island of Jailshot, where we saw stone houses from the eighth century BCE and an iron broch tower from the first century CE.
Edna said to my father, “God made our bodies destructible for a reason. We all need to grow old and be ready to cross over into his arms. This is what God wants.” Edna spoke so slowly, sometimes you forgot where the sentence began.
“And yet here you are, alive after centuries. Do you feel Godless? Abandoned?”
“I am an abomination. If any of these villagers had the courage, they’d gut me and let me die in the sun.”
She spoke so slowly, my father wanted to throttle her.
“You are no abomination. You are magnificent, a Great Mistress of Time.”
There was a creak as she lifted her shoulders.
Edna had no real physical needs. She was one hundred and twenty then, it was thought, and whoever had preserved her had done a good and careful job. Sometimes she would suck on a sweet, and sometimes she craved meat, diced to the size of rice grains. Sometimes she needed to be shifted, because her slow blood pooled beneath the skin if the pressure wasn’t released.
“I’m the one to be saved. Not that great dumb lump of a man.”
At last, she agreed. She had him stay at her house and no one knows what payment she exacted.
My mother stayed at home to manage all the children, although half were of adult age by then. The older two were moved away already and children of their own.
I tried to sneak a look in at my father but could see nothing. And all I heard was low moaning.
When it was done, my father’s lips tasted of salt, so no one would kiss him. He couldn’t eat with his fingers, not even a piece of bread, because of the salt that seeped out through his pores.
It didn’t work with him, for all that. It didn’t stick.
He had a short, fat neck, and that was surely the reason. Because the old, old people all had long, thin necks like tortoises. I didn’t point this out to my father, though. The man hated to notice his flaws. Especially because my mother’s neck was long and beautiful like a swan’s.
My father didn’t ever return home. He lay dying, turning to sludge, bitter and furious that he wouldn’t get to see the future after all, or to keep the past fresh.
“Don’t you let that man Milton Carlisle survive you,” he said to me. “Don’t let him be the carrier of our history.” Over and over, he had me repeat names and dates, impressions. Always the combination of those things. He wanted me to know the dates, because those are the things that people trust. And names, because those are the things that people remember. I was Burnett Smith, then. Not a name to be remembered. It was not even my actual family name; my grandfather was a horse thief who escaped prosecution and changed his name to Smith, a profession he had never carried.
“You learn to tell a story, Burnett,” my father said. “Make it come to life with your descriptions. Then live to tell the tale. Live a very long time. This is the only way to stay out of Hell. Out of the eternal fires.”
“I’ll remember,” I said.
I spent a lot of time with my father at Edna’s house, escaping the noise of my own home, and avoiding work when I could, because my master clockmaker employer did not understand how well I could work if I was allowed to. I listened to stories and came to care for Edna deeply. I came to care for her helper, too. Young Harriet, who was bright and cheeky. Clever and hard working. She could even make Edna smile.
Harriet’s face glowed.
“So young,” Edna said.
1822CE
&nbs
p; My father dried into a husk, shrank into a ball like the mollusks we found without their shells on the shore sometimes. It took six months for him to die. A year? Who can remember? He began to leak, leaving sludge where he lay.
My father said, “You marry that good strong girl Harriet and have a dozen babies, each of them brighter than the last. She’s no catch, but she’ll see you through.”
“She’s too young, Father.”
“You can wait.”
I agreed, but I knew I would not marry Harriet.
She was a child.
1823CE
When Grace came to Little Cormoran, it was love at first sight.
Fate.
She was not, at first, agreeable to my thoughts of our future together.
I was patient, though. She was young. She would come to love me. I was apprenticed to the chief watchmaker; I had a bright future.
I did not count on Milton Carlisle, however, who also fell in love.
“I’ll marry the man who rolls those rocks,” Grace said, pointing at Cormoran’s pile of seven, thinking it impossible. But a big man could move them if he was full of beer and bravado, and we say that our troubles started just over five hundred years after our village was settled when Milton Carlisle moved those rocks and God’s wrath fell upon us.
Some say the stones he rolled acted like a dam stopper, and that he unleashed the water on us. Some say it was the curse of the tortoise man, because there he was, skeleton-old and crumbling, inside the rocks where he’d rested for five hundred years.
Some may blame Grace, because she asked him to roll the stones. I did not blame her. She never expected Milton would do it. She had no interest in him. Grace preferred more intellectual companions.
And yet Milton Carlisle asked her to marry him, and everyone waited for her to say yes.
1926CE
Edna called for me. Her room was filled with clocks from ceiling to floor, an inheritance from her father, one of the great watchmakers in a town famous for its watchmaking.
Tide of Stone Page 5