Now We Shall Be Entirely Free

by Andrew Miller

  He gave her his back, looked down the glittering white length of the beach. “It may be,” he said, “I will not like this Thorpe after all.”

  They did not walk back to the excavation but went directly to the house. There was no sign of the others. They went to the kitchen. A half-dozen wine bottles filled from the spring were standing on the floor in the shade under the window. They drank a bottle between them, dabbed their lips.

  “I will do some work in the garden,” she said.

  “Why not rest?” he said. “Sit somewhere cool for a while.”

  “Like an invalid? No. I will do things while I can. And you can help me later. I will need to water the vegetables.”

  He promised he would. They parted. Lacroix went to his room (once again pressing the wall rather than the door and having to stand back and guess again). He sat on the unmade bed, got out the writing case and settled it on his lap. The ink in the silver pot had dried to a gum. He spat into it, spat again and mixed it with the steel nib of one of the patent pens. He had the urge to write poetry. Lines Composed in the Western Isles by Capt . . . whoever he was. The walk on the beach would be at the centre of it. Emily as a Nereid, himself a shipwrecked sailor. Or the spirit of one? And if he liked the piece why not set it to music? Something slow but not mournful. An air to the air! He dipped the pen, paused with the glistening nib above the paper, then began a letter to his bank in Bath. He requested that they send, as a matter of urgency, a draft for twenty-five pounds to the Ship Bank in Glasgow and that the draft might be collected and cashed by Miss Emily Frend (he did not want Cornelius getting hold of such an amount). He had not seen the Ship Bank himself when in Glasgow—what had he seen?—but William had mentioned it and the name was not difficult to remember. Emily would bring the money back with her and they would, for a time, not have to depend on the satin purse or Thorpe or the whim of a visionary turned factory master.

  The ink—powder and spit—dried to an uncertain purple, as if he had written the letter with wine lees. It would do. He folded the paper, wrote the address. He didn’t have anything to melt wax for a seal but he could do that later. He would give the letter to Ranald this evening. It would go to Glasgow with the list of provisions and Emily’s letter for Rizzo.

  He cleaned the nib, closed the case, pushed off his boots and lay down. Poor Lovall. The face came to him more clearly than it had in many weeks. How quickly they had put him aside! A little grave in Castelo Branco, then the auction of his effects—a jacket, a pair of overalls, a saddle, spurs, the writing case . . .

  He shut his eyes. He would have a short sleep now. He needed one; the heat had drained him. And when he woke he would see if it was time to carry water to the garden, a job he was already relishing the prospect of (light slopping in the mouth of a pail). But when he did wake—the usual confusion following upon a sleep in the day—he heard Cornelius, his voice shrill, angry it seemed, and he sat up on the bed, braced, uneasy. He strained to hear but the only word he could be sure of was “How?”—spoken twice, the second at a higher pitch than the first. Clearly all soporific effects of the drug had worn off. Then he remembered the piece of flint the child had brought up and that Emily had tossed into the trench. It had been found of course! Cornelius was not angry but excited. And if it was Emily he was speaking to she must be struggling to keep a straight face.

  He peeled off his stockings, shook out the sand, put them on again, pulled on his boots. He was tugging on the second boot when he paused once more to listen. Another voice now, a woman’s. Words close-packed, words in flurries. Then Cornelius again, as if trying to bat the words away. Then silence.

  Was it silence?

  He did not want to intrude on a family spat but he was curious. Why should the finding of the flint occasion a row? He went to the door. If he was in the way, if his presence was awkward, he would nod to them, cross the room and leave the house, make himself scarce for an hour.

  He opened the door and went in. They were all there: Cornelius, Jane, Emily, Ranald. Cornelius was standing at one side of the table. He had the appearance of a man falsely accused, a raggedy, half-size Danton. On the other side of the table was Emily, her cheeks shining with tears (no green glasses to hide them now). Jane was in the shadows by the bottom of the stairs, arms folded beneath her breasts. Ranald was beside the hall door, his gaze on the floor, the old rugs. On the table, and somehow the centre of everything, was a parcel of black earth, of freshly cut peat, about the size of a family Bible.

  Then several things happened at once. Jane began to speak; Emily turned and made for the kitchen door; Cornelius slumped on to a chair by the table. Only Ranald kept his former pose.

  “Cornelius,” said Jane, “has found something, or the Mackinnons have, and now he will not go to Glasgow with Emily and Emily is in a rage with him.”

  “I appeal to you,” said Cornelius. “A fellow man. A rational being. How can I go now? It is . . . ”

  “What have you found?” asked Lacroix.

  Cornelius looked at the table, the slab of peat there. “They dug it up where they were digging their peat,” said Cornelius. “They sent the child to fetch me. At least they had that much sense.”

  Lacroix leaned over it. The peat was moist, dense, sticky black. And bedded into its surface was something else. Fibrous, whorled. He would have touched it but Cornelius stayed his hand.

  “It seems to be an ear,” said Lacroix. “Is it an ear?”

  “It is!” said Cornelius. “The ear of a Caledonian Achilles.”

  “Achilles?”

  “I mean it is ancient, Lovall. It is an ancient human ear. It heard the sea when the sea was new!”

  Lacroix bent lower. Now he knew it was there it was unmistakable. An ear! For love of Christ. Black. Black leather. Black exactly as the peat but unmistakably human.

  “And the rest?” he asked. “The head? The body?”

  “Nothing,” said Cornelius. “It is an ear on its own. But the rest must be there, somewhere. I have persuaded the Mackinnons to suspend their digging. They are horribly reluctant but you can imagine the damage they could do with their spades. Damn it, Lovall, there is some man or woman in the ground and I must find them. I feel they are depending on me.”

  “It is certainly a remarkable thing,” said Lacroix.

  “Of course! Of course! And now you understand why I cannot go on a jaunt to Glasgow. The moment I’m gone the Mackinnons will dig again.”

  “But your teeth?”

  “I have the tincture. I do not need a surgeon now. Perhaps next year.”

  “And what of Emily?”

  “Yes,” said Cornelius. “That is unfortunate. I would ask Ranald to go but he will have duties here.”

  “Then I will take her,” said Lacroix. He thought he heard Jane laugh. He looked at her; she wasn’t laughing. “I will take her,” he said, “if I have the family’s consent to it.”

  “And if he operates?” said Cornelius. “This . . . ”

  “Rizzo,” said Jane.

  “You will stay with her until she can travel?”

  “I will,” said Lacroix. He did not know how any of this sounded. He had been acquainted with the Frends less than a fortnight. A man who arrives on the back of a cow, who does not speak about his past. But Cornelius reached forward and seized his hands. He gabbled, was dewy-eyed, though it struck Lacroix that his offer was exactly what they had expected of him, that he had walked in on a piece of theatre and known his line.

  “You had best go and tell her,” said Jane, cutting in above her brother.

  “Do what?”

  “Emily,” she said, and pointed with her chin to the kitchen door.

  He nodded, freed himself from Cornelius’s grasp and went through to the kitchen. The cat was on the table lapping at a dish of melted butter. There was no sign of Emily. He went to touch the cat’s head, to stroke i
t, but the instant it saw his raised hand it twisted about and fled.

  14

  South of Carlisle they rounded a bend at the edge of a stand of pine trees to find, two hundred yards ahead of them, a line of cavalry drawn up across the road. They kept going.

  “Are they waiting for us?” asked Medina.

  “Why would they wait for us?” said Calley. They spoke without looking at each other.

  “Two men,” said Medina, “travelling north. One a Spaniard. To be stopped.”

  “Bollocks.”

  “They are looking for someone.”

  “Not for us.”

  Nature was at its most benign, or benign for Cumberland. A small shower of rain in the early morning had given way to sunshine and clean blue shadows. Trees shone. The hills looked comfortable.

  “Twenty,” said Medina.

  “Twenty-two,” said Calley. “No. Twenty-three.” He had picked out the officer, a man on a grey horse riding slowly just to the rear of his men. There was no one else on the road. No farm cart, no pedlars or packhorses. Nor were there any turnings, left or right.

  Fifty yards now. It was a game! Twenty-three pairs of eyes were staring them down. Medina’s horse tossed its head and he reached down to smooth the heat of its neck.

  At thirty yards the four troopers in the centre of the line started their horses forward and peeled away, two to one side and two to the other, facing across the road. Had they rehearsed this? Drilled it? There was now a gap on the road about the width of a field gate. Ten yards to go. Five. They were entering the range men fight at. Length of a man’s arm plus the length of his blade. Close enough now to see the braiding on a collar, the creases in a boot. Medina nodded. He did not aim it at anyone, just nodded. No one spoke. The silence was inhuman. They entered the line; they passed through. It was like passing under the shadow of a bridge. The road ahead was empty, its surface spotted with the glossy dung of the cavalry horses.

  “Don’t look back,” said Calley.

  “I do not intend it,” said Medina.

  “Don’t even look at me.”

  “I do not intend it.”

  They were both grinning, both light as air.

  The last part of the journey was the most tedious. They felt they were close but they weren’t, not yet. They crossed the border, crossed a line of hills, crossed another. They learned the name of the river they were following, the Annan. Several times they stood their horses off the road to let drovers pass. On one occasion more than three hundred cattle were herded past them, heading south. There was something military about it. The numbers. The smell and churn of the road.

  To Medina the land seemed wild as Spain, as old Castile. In the high country he saw eagles—small bent sticks turning in the currents of the sky, the sky itself a type of blue like the lining of something, like the source material of distance. Madre perla. Madre de Dios . . .

  Two nights they slept in the hills, waking shivering, hugging themselves, foul-tempered, though by noon the sun was hot enough to suck the damp from their coats so that each man rode inside his own cloud. On the third night they stayed at an inn, solemnly eating everything that was brought to them, then sleeping in a windowless room on two straw pallets, sprawled, silent, dead to everything.

  In the morning they followed a new river. (“Fuck the Annan,” said Calley, and Medina had said, “Yes, fuck the old Annan.”) The sense was of having climbed the country river by river. The Severn, the Wye, the Eden, the Annan. Now they had the Clyde.

  One more night in the open, then, early afternoon the next day, Medina stood in the stirrups of his horse and pointed to the smoke that hung in a brown cloud over the river. An hour later they could pick out spires, the stacks of industry, and later still—pushing their horses on—the sun setting in window glass, all Glasgow for half an hour like the embers of a fire.

  The city built itself around them. A zone of scrubland, a midden ghosted by dogs. Then shanty, brickfields, the first formal streets newly built or still unfinished (tons of dressed stone with a watchman camped at the top). Further on they saw the bones of an older city, streets in a curl, houses piled like broken crockery, human faces white as bindweed . . .

  They had lost the river; now they discovered it again, its channels running through mud beneath a handsome bridge. There were globe-headed lamps on the bridge and the lighters were at work, one of them, a boy, holding a length of smouldering cord of the kind gunners use.

  On the far bank they found a lodging house so close to the quayside you could, without much risk, leap from an upstairs window and catch hold of the yardarm of a ship. The place was Calley’s choice—all were Calley’s choice—though it seemed to Medina he had simply walked up the steps on impulse. Beside the house was a shop selling wines and spirits, a light in an alcove above its door like a wayside shrine. Medina decided he would go there later and buy enough wine to get drunk. He thought he still had the money for that, just. Two bottles of northern wine. Drink one fast, then find somewhere private to lean, drink the other slowly.

  They stabled the horses and went up the stairs of the house behind a man carrying a fish-oil lantern, its orange glow creeping up the walls with them as they climbed. On the fourth floor he opened a door and led them into a room. He said they had a view of the river though when Medina went to the window there was no river in sight, only what appeared to be a garden or perhaps a small burying ground that had come adrift from its chapel.

  “You know a place called Dumbarton?” said Calley. He repeated the question four times before the man understood him.

  Dumbarton! Of course he knew Dumbarton.

  “Far, is it?”

  “Far? No.”

  “So how do you get there?”

  The man pointed to the window. “You go doon the water.”

  “And what about a man called Browne. Lives there. A sea captain.”

  “Browne?” said the man. “Browne of Dumbarton?” He bared his teeth; he was thinking, perhaps passing the residents of Dumbarton, one by one, before his inner gaze. He shook his head. “Someone will know him.”

  “All right,” said Calley.

  The man looked at them both. “Are you two Swedish?” he asked.

  “No,” said Calley.

  “Yes,” said Medina.

  The man seemed satisfied with this. He left them the lamp and went out.

  15

  As they crossed the water he told her stories from his journey on the cattle boat. He left out the full extent of his intoxication, his despair. He recast the whole as a comedy, much as he had hoped to recast the war for Lucy. This time, however—the material being more promising—he was successful. Emily laughed, open-mouthed, and his stories and her laughter gave to the journey the character of a pleasure-trip, a cruise, weightless.

  There was just enough wind to fill a sail and more of it as they moved further into the channel. After the heat on the island it felt fresh. Now and then licks of cold water broke on to the deck and startled them.

  They had brought a parcel of food, and bottles of water from the spring behind the house. They ate with the bench between them for a table, threw crumbs for the gulls. Slowly, the light shifted. The day settled into endless afternoon. Emily put on the green glasses; Lacroix gave up his describing. They had spent the night in a township on the south-east coast of the island and boarded the boat before first light when all the water of the loch had a carpet of mist over it, perfectly smooth and about the depth of a man’s arm. They were tired now and moved in and out of cautious sleep, not quite leaning against each other but sitting close enough on the bench for her shawl, in stronger breezes, to lift against the green of his coat.

  By the time they entered the harbour at Oban the night was already well advanced. They tied up at the side of another vessel and with Emily’s hand on a sailor’s shoulder they clambered over hatchways
and coiled rope and finally up an iron ladder on to the harbour wall. The sailor passed up their bags. They had brought just one apiece: for Lacroix the remaining leather bag, for Emily, a thing sewn from heavy fustian, the material worn to a shine by time and the world’s grease.

  Among the matters they had not discussed—a great deal had not been discussed, almost everything—was where they would spend the night in Oban before taking the morning flyer to Glasgow. Now, with Lacroix carrying the bags, they walked along the front towards a large building with a lamp outside and the word HOTEL written in tall, Gothic letters between the first- and second-floor windows. The street was empty, and to Lacroix’s ears, the whole town was silent. On the door of the hotel a poster had been nailed up and he stopped to read it. Under the heading General Information for Emigrants, was news of the Chiron, a first-rate ship bound for Cape Breton, coming down from Scalloway and taking on passengers at Oban at the end of the first week in July. There was a picture of the ship—of a ship—all sails hoisted, her pennants streaming.

  “Another emigrant ship,” he said. “For Canada.”

  “I would like to see it,” said Emily.

  “I saw the last one,” he said, “when it sailed by the island. I was with Ranald. A sad sight.”

  “I meant Canada,” she said.

  “Mmm?”

  “I should like to see Canada.”

  “Nothing there but snow and bears,” he said.

  They went through an unlit hall into the parlour. Empty glasses on uncleared tables, a fire burned down to the bones of a big log, a lamp on the serving hatch barely bright enough to do more than show itself.

  “Hello?”

  They waited, bags at their feet, slightly dazed from being suddenly inside after so many hours in the open air.

  Lacroix called again, louder. A door opened where they had not seen a door and a man came through, patting into place a wig of the kind Lacroix remembered his grandfather sometimes wearing. Remembered the smell of it. Singed.