Feathertide

by Beth Cartwright

  ‘I’m not sure what I want,’ I admitted, stumbling further away, just as he caught my arm and pushed me against the tree. His breathing was warm and heavy in my ear. His body hard against mine. His lips touched my neck and then I couldn’t distinguish between the rain dropping onto my skin and his kisses, which came now without hesitation.

  I thought of my father, far away in the sky.

  I thought of Lemàn in another corner of the world.

  I thought of Elver and her past: a territory I could not claim.

  Then, I thought of nothing, but Leo’s hands in my hair, his mouth on my mouth, his bare skin against mine and there was nothing I could do to stop it. My body was responding as though I had no control and we fell to the ground and lay together in the long damp grass. I had no idea if anyone saw us; it was such an early hour or a late one depending on your perspective, that I doubted even one of the city’s drunkards would have found us there. Sometime later a sound made me stir. Along the path in the distance, I could see the park keeper trundling along with his cart, stopping occasionally to pick up leaves and broken twigs. I grabbed my clothes and my fingers fumbled over my buttons, trying to cover my shame. Yet again desire had made me reveal too much. Leo groaned as I pushed him off my boot and yanked it back onto my foot.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Still early,’ I said.

  ‘Where are you going?’ He sat up, stretching out his arms to pull me back towards him.

  ‘I need to go.’ I threw his trousers at him. ‘You better get dressed, the park keeper’s here.’

  Suddenly, the sound of the city bell echoed over the rooftops. The Keeper of the Hours had restored time once again; a warning of what was lost and how in a moment everything can change.

  ‘Wait!’ he cried, his face was so full of expectation.

  ‘I can’t … I’m sorry … this was – I just have to go.’ Then I left, running out of the park towards the sound of the bell, thinking that if I could reach it, then I could somehow stop time, rewind the clock and reverse the night. I needed to restore more than time. I could hear Leo calling me, but his voice came from far away and I didn’t look back until the only sound was the one made by my feet on the path. When I had put enough distance between us, I stopped, collapsed against a wall and sobbed. I hadn’t realised the city had slowly woken up and when I finally lifted my head, I saw the market traders were arranging their stalls around me and the smell of bread was wafting out of the open door of the bakery. I felt no hunger, just a longing for the night that would never return, and the gnawing guilt of my betrayal. Then I just felt numb.

  Once inside, I went straight to the mirror. My face was blotchy, damp and cold and there were dark circles looped under my eyes. Sybel appeared in the corridor and watched me suspiciously.

  ‘That was a long goodbye,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, it was a long night,’ I muttered, refusing to meet her eye. Leo’s smell still clung to me like a gossip bubbling with secrets to share. Even my words tasted of him. Already I knew she knew everything; it was her way.

  ‘It will be hard for a while. Loss is never easy.’

  With those words, I collapsed into her arms. Tenderly, she began smoothing down the frizz of my hair, still damp from a night of humid rain.

  ‘Elver came to see you.’

  ‘Elver … was here?’ My voice broke like a wave as I said her name.

  ‘She left – you came too late.’

  CHAPTER 39

  To help Sybel and to distract myself from the night before, I offered to take Zephyros’s urn to be engraved. It was early when I opened the door, and I was surprised to find Leo standing there, his hand poised ready to seek entry.

  ‘Morning,’ he said, stepping back to allow me out.

  ‘Morning,’ I replied, brushing past him, hoping it was Sybel he had come to see.

  ‘I wanted to make sure you were okay after … last night.’

  ‘It was hard to say goodbye,’ I replied, being deliberately obtuse. I tried to relax, but the taste of last night was still on my tongue.

  Sensing that I wasn’t yet ready to discuss what had happened between us, he quickly changed the subject. ‘What’s that you’re hiding under your arm?’

  ‘I’m not hiding anything,’ I said defensively. ‘It’s Zephyros’s urn that’s all, I’m taking it to be engraved.’

  ‘To the Island of Memories?

  I nodded. Our exchanges had become awkward stutters.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to go there myself … I haven’t been to tend Professor Bottelli’s grave for a while. Would you mind if I accompanied you?’

  Intimacy had made us strangers and I couldn’t meet his eye. I shrugged and gave no sign of protest.

  When the boat arrived, it had few passengers. A woman, dressed head to toe in black, was hunched at the far end, tucked away in the corner, her head turned away from the world. We sat down at some distance and I realised she was crying gentle sobs into a huge white handkerchief held to her face. On her lap lay a bunch of flowers, red tulips pursed ready to speak, their roots still attached like gnarled fingers and at her feet, I noticed a bucket filled with gardening tools. It was impossible to know her age, but the large dark liver spots covering her hands suggested she had lived many years under the sun. The watery light slashed its golden swords across the wooden planks of the boat as we sailed north, across the lagoon.

  Sitting there on the boat, we said very little. Exchanges about the weather and the water were all we managed before falling silent again. Thankfully the journey was so quick I could have rowed there myself. The boat glided towards a small walled island and came to rest in front of a chapel. Behind the wall, tall green cypress trees loomed like guardians, stretching into the low mist, which hung like a fisherman’s net ready to catch the escaping ghosts.

  We walked past the cloisters of the old monastery and under a red-brick archway. Inside, the air seemed damper somehow, more sorrowful and sombre. Row after row of gravestones spread into the distance, some sunken and forgotten, their inscriptions long since worn away; so old, there was no longer anyone left to visit them. Others were neat and clean, like well-made beds in the morning.

  Crunching down gravel pathways lined with trees and occasional crumbling statues adorned with crosses, we finally came to a towering wall of tiny tombs. Each one like a little drawer of grief opened with the turn of a key, but never really locked. The walls were so high that rolling ladders were kept at each end so people could climb up to reach the highest ones and pay their respects. Hinged to each drawer were pots for flowers and the flagstones below were always wet where mourners had just watered them. Watering cans hung from hooks for everyone to use. Sadly, some pots were just a tangle of weeds or worse, completely empty and broken. An elderly man pushed the ladder past and positioned it a little further along the wall. I watched him climb to the top; he seemed disappointed when he got there, as though he was expecting the ladders to take him all the way to heaven. Slowly, he began to replace the flowers, dropping the old ones into a bag on the ground below. We hurried past and I could hear him quietly talking to a ghost.

  In the square it felt more like a park than a cemetery with its well-tended grass and its cluster of trees, but death was clearly marked by little wooden crosses, which rose out of the green. The brightness of the flowers lay like blankets, trying to cover the darkness of loss beneath. We wandered between the graves, careful to stay on the path; a few people were kneeling on the soil, but there was an emptiness here.

  ‘I need to find the engraver,’ I said, looking towards a cluster of buildings towards the back of the cemetery, hoping that I might find him in one of them.

  ‘Professor Bottelli’s grave is up there,’ replied Leo, pointing to the right. ‘I’m going to search for a feather to lay on his stone. I think he’d appreciate the sentiment.’

  I continued on the path, fascinated by the different inscriptions and trinkets left on the graves. The saddest of all w
as a pair of worn ballet shoes tied loosely around the top of a headstone, so small they could only have belonged to a child. I noticed the old woman from the boat. She was sitting alone in front of a gravestone in a heap of emotional exhaustion like wilted basil; her shoes damp with soil and the hem of her skirt heavy with mud. As I went past, she stumbled to her feet and her sadness followed me, even though she went in the opposite direction.

  I found the engraver huddled in a small stone hut, shaped like a chimney pot. His head dipped low in concentration, quietly working on his latest inscription under the light of a desk lamp. I left the urn and, with it, Sybel’s request, which was written in her large looped letters. Clearly not one to be distracted, he nodded without so much as an upwards glance, and I hastened back into the fresh air.

  Back on the path, I could hear music and I followed the sound until I saw a woman in a long red coat, belted at the waist. She was sitting on a stool in front of a gravestone and at her feet stood a cello, which she was playing beautifully, oblivious to everything else around her. She held her head at an angle and I could see her eyes were closed, lost in some memory. Her loss was a fragile as a winter leaf left after a storm.

  I wondered who was she playing for.

  Closing my eyes, I listened to the infinite ache of the music and thought of Lemàn and my father, both now so far away, but who was further? When I opened my eyes, something seemed strange, as though the world had shifted out of place. It wasn’t until a few moments later that I realised what it was. There in the distance stood Elver, and next to her was Leo. Quickly, I rose to my feet and marched towards them. I could no longer distinguish between the sound of my feet pounding on the gravel and the sound of my heart raging in my chest. My sudden arrival ended whatever conversation they had been having and they both looked up expectantly. My anger hadn’t yet turned itself into words and I just stood there, trying to compose myself. My heart was like a caged lion, which had just caught sight of a lone antelope, and was ready to satisfy its hunger.

  ‘Where have you been? I have been looking for you.’ I didn’t know if it was the words she spoke or the way in which she spoke them with such nonchalance, that finally made me pull the bolt across the cage door. I was certain that if she had never found me again it wouldn’t have bothered her in the least.

  ‘Where have I been?’ I roared.

  She hadn’t been expecting my fury and her eyes widened in surprise. Then she looked uneasily at Leo, as though he could explain it all, but he simply returned her look with one of bewilderment. I took a step closer.

  ‘You left me at The Reef. Why?’ My words pounced without warning and then collapsed in mid-air.

  ‘I told you—’

  ‘Told me what? You never tell me anything! You just disappear whenever you choose without any thought for me. I had to say goodbye to my father. You’d rather spend time with that doctor!’ My anger intensified; it chewed every syllable.

  ‘Doctor Marino? He’s just—’

  Then my feathers flared and I was unable to contain my anger for a moment longer. I didn’t give her the chance to say any more as my torrent of words washed all hers away. ‘I’m always waiting for you to return, not knowing if you ever will.’ Words flew from my mouth in a jumbled, meaningless babble, each one as harsh as a scouring pad. My mind sped up, then jammed again.

  ‘I told you my time here is temporary – I was always honest with you. How could you think otherwise?’

  Against my own violent ramblings, her voice was patient and measured, and it infuriated me even more. Reaching for her necklace, I yanked it violently from my neck. It snapped in half and the beads fired through the air and clattered to the ground, before rolling away into the grass like spent bullets. At first, Leo couldn’t comprehend what he was witnessing, but then as understanding slowly flooded his face, I saw his eyes darken. It was my betrayal that had brought us here. I was torn between anger and guilt, with no words left to say to either of them.

  Elver seized the opportunity to speak. ‘It seems you weren’t waiting alone.’ Her eyes flicked to Leo, and before she could return them to me, I had struck her cheek with the flat of my hand, so hard it had made my fingers burn.

  I don’t know which of us was more surprised, but the cry I heard came from my own mouth. At first my words had been great sparks of triumph, like embers leaping from a fire, only to fall and leave scorch marks on the ground. That’s when she moved, fast as a comet, hurtling and aflame; her hair was a furnace stoked by the wind and I needed to smother the flames. I chased the light of her hair, but she disappeared round corners before I even knew they were there, and lost me amongst the gravestones. I thought I’d found her hiding under a tree, but when I lifted the branches, I realised it was just a pile of windswept leaves and discarded flowers. Back at the entrance, I saw a boat leaving halfway across the lagoon, but I knew she wouldn’t be on it and instead I searched the water for her shadow, her shape, a single strand of her hair, a ripple left behind.

  ‘Elver!’ I screamed her name into the wind-licked water. This was not the ending I wanted. But even if she suddenly appeared again, what was left to say?

  Then I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Leo, his face wretched and torn in confusion.

  ‘You should have told me.’ He shook his head at how foolish he had been and it was then I understood who the real fool was.

  I wanted to confess it all, but the words cowered in my mouth and slowly crept back down my throat in surrender, fermenting in the pit of my stomach preserved in guilt for later – flammable and explosive.

  ‘The next boat will be here soon.’ His voice was cold.

  When it arrived, we climbed on board. I noticed the woman with the cello standing behind us and the old lady with the gardening tools, and as we sat there on different sides of the boat, united by loss, I understood their pain completely and felt my own, greater still.

  This time the journey across the water seemed endless and I felt like I was in purgatory all the way. I still hadn’t let go of my anger, but it no longer raged inside me, rather it sat grumbling by my side. Deep down I knew the gifts Elver had given Doctor Marino were just gifts of friendship and nothing more. Perhaps in a way, I hoped there had been more, then at least I would understand why her heart refused to want me.

  In a last fit of temper, I kicked at a little clump of soil, and caught Leo’s foot. He didn’t move, his head was turned, staring back over his shoulder at the way we had come. Sitting there right beside me, he had never been so far away. We didn’t speak until the boat came to stop at the edge of the city. I waited for him at the bottom of the steps, a crush of passengers between us. I stepped out of the way as the cellist heaved her instrument up the steps and over the bridge. Then the street was empty apart from a couple far in the distance.

  ‘I made a mistake,’ I said. ‘And I’m sorry.’

  Leo didn’t respond; instead he looked out silently across the water. To my relief, he didn’t ask me what or who the mistake was, and I was no longer sure of the answer I’d give. Then, just like that, he walked away.

  I thought about how much bigger the world had become since leaving the whorehouse. I thought about being with Elver in her hourless room, and how I had wanted to snatch those hours back again, but now, watching Leo leave, I wasn’t so sure. She had warned me, and I should have known better than to fall for the song of a siren. No one knows anyone else’s heart, and sometimes they don’t even know their own. My thoughts turned to Leo and to the park and the smell of pine needles and the tangle of brambles caught in my hair, and I heard the sound of his laughter all the way home.

  When I returned, I found Sybel in the kitchen; she was shelling peas into a colander on her lap. Pausing, she looked up. ‘Did Elver find you? She came here again, so I told her where you were.’

  I nodded dismally and sank into a chair. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked. Sensing trouble, she abandoned the colander and the half-shelled peas on the side and came to sit beside
me.

  ‘I don’t know what I feel any more.’

  ‘About your father or about Elver?’ she asked slowly.

  ‘About Leo,’ I replied.

  ‘Ah!’ For the first time, the answer I gave wasn’t the one she had been expecting.

  ‘I doubt he will forgive me.’

  ‘And that’s how you lose everything. Doubt is the end of love,’ she said, wrapping me in the comfort of her arms. Sybel’s heart was huge and filled with forgiveness, but it wasn’t her forgiveness I needed.

  CHAPTER 40

  Turmoil and guilt bolted the door to the outside world and I stayed hidden in the protective darkness of my room. Lying there in bed, I thought about the truths I should have told Leo and regret lodged itself deep within my throat; I turned over trying to loosen it. Elver had always been truthful with me, but I hadn’t listened and my anger was displaced; I knew that now. I needed to unravel for a while. Eventually, though, I would have to face the demons that chased me into the darkness in the first place.

  After that, whenever a knock came at the door, I would rush to answer it, ready to face what I had done. Each time I was greeted by a querent in search of answers, or the old man with his bales of straw, or the milk cart rolling past, or some other delivery of wax or wood, but never one of forgiveness.

  Finally, Sybel persuaded me that I needed to stretch the knots out of my joints and shake the sadness from my bones. Convinced that a lungful of fresh lagoon air was the cure, she threw the harness over the dogs, looped the end over my wrist and pushed me out the door each morning in search of redemption. Crossing the Bridge of Longing took me near Elver’s apartment, but the place looked empty, as though no one had ever lived there.

  I spent longer and longer walking the dogs, ambling though a city that had become so familiar yet so strange all at once. My feelings for her had undoubtedly changed, but still I missed her. Places we used to pass together had lost their shine, dulled by her absence, and nothing felt the same. The bakery, the Church of One Hundred Souls, the marketplace, the clock tower, even the warehouses with the sound of heavy hammers, now sounded tinny and far away, like it was all make-believe. Circling the city in the soft patter of rain filled my mind with loss. My thoughts may have begun with Elver, but always, by the time I reached home, it was Leo who occupied the corners of my mind, and there in the middle of everything, burning bright like a votive flame, shone my father.