Signals of Distress

15. The Lands of Promise

THIS WAS Aymer’s final night in Wherrytown. He had the whole inn to himself. George neglected him. Even Mrs Yapp had disappeared — she’d gone to Walter Howells’s for some celebration of their own. There was no one for Aymer to talk to. When he heard Wherrytowners coming back from Evensong, he was almost tempted to stroll up to the chapel and the chapel house to see Mr Phipps. Just for the company. It might, he thought, be an amusement to conclude the conversation he had started that morning with the preacher on the quay — Blind Superstition, and the Bible as a Chart. But he guessed that Mr Phipps would hardly welcome a Sceptic interrupting his supper. So Aymer stayed at the inn and had to eat alone. Cold ham and pickles. Solitary pie.

Aymer, as the only guest, could choose to sleep in any of the inn’s twenty empty beds. He hardly dared to sleep at all, in fact, in case he missed the Wednesday’s dawn departure of the Tar and the liberating taste of salt-free city air which beckoned him. He’d already packed his bag and dressed for the voyage by ten that Tuesday night. He wouldn’t go to bed. He took a blanket to the parlour. He put his chair next to the grate, facing the window that opened on to the lane. The fire would keep him warm until the early hours. And, if he dozed, he would wake as soon as there was any daylight in the window. He tried to read at first, but he was tired of Mr Paine. He couldn’t concentrate. Rosie Bowe had disconcerted him. He tried to put her out of mind. He shouldn’t blame himself. The fault was hers. She’d misconstrued his charity.

Where was her daughter? How far out at sea? Aymer stared into the fire. Would she be happy in America? Too late to worry now. No need to worry now, in fact. Aymer could put right in his mind’s eye things that might go wrong in life. That was his major skill. He couldn’t quite remember Miggy’s face. No matter — he’d improve on her. He imagined her in Wilmington. She wasn’t gaping. She wasn’t fidgeting her feet. Nor wearing breeches. She was breathing through her nostrils, not her mouth. He gave her better skin and hair. He ribboned her. He put her in a simple cotton dress. He imagined her heavily pregnant, too. That, surely, was the spirit of the emigrant. And she was more lively in her speech, more generous, more womanly. America was suiting her.

He put her in a rocking chair, and spread one hem of her cotton dress across the arm. He served her a slice of honey cake, and a jug of some new drink. He couldn’t recognize its smell. He put her foot up on the balustrade of the veranda. Maize, tobacco, sweet potatoes, and snap beans were growing in the plot below. (Would there be snap beans in America? Aymer wasn’t sure.) There were chickens. There was sun. Whip was rolling in the grass.

Aymer shut his eyes and put himself into the scene. He was standing in the garden, looking up at Miggy. ‘In’t you too hot?’ she said. No, no, that wouldn’t do. She had to speak again, and this time with the slight brogue of the Carolinas. ‘Aren’t you too hot? Put on your sun hat, Mr Smith.’ Oh better, yes.

‘I can’t wear that foolish hat.’

‘Then you will bake.’

Aymer baking in America! Just the thought of it made him smile. Again he imagined himself in Wilmington with Miggy, Margaret! This time he was sitting on a stool underneath a shag-bark tree. He put his back against the trunk and began a pencil sketch. The artist Aymer Smith! Another life, another dream. First he roughed in the framework of the rocking chair, and then he marked in Miggy’s black hair against the curving headrest. Then the outline of the jug. Then her ankles and her black boots, a happy balance with her hair. He left the paper blank for her white dress.

‘What will you do with it?’ she said.

‘The sketch?’ She nodded slightly, hardly moved her lips. She didn’t want to spoil the pose. ‘I’ll finish it and give it to Ralph. He can take it with him when he goes to sea. You’ll always be with him.’

‘What will you draw for Ralph and me, so that you’ll be remembered too, for your generosity?’ She forgot her pose, and waved her hands towards the house and garden. ‘Your sovereigns have paid the rent on this.’ Aymer shook his head, both in the parlour and in Wilmington. He didn’t want their gratitude. Why could no one understand that simple fact? ‘Perhaps you’ll do a portrait of yourself,’ she said.

Now Aymer almost had her face: undramatic, self-possessed, determined. She had one hand cupped underneath her belly, supporting her first child — two weeks from being born. Its head was tucked in above her bladder; its bottom pressed against her dress, and its heartbeat was racing on her fingertips. She stretched her legs. She was content — she’d heard that Ralph would be back in a day or two from his voyage on the Belle to Norfolk in Virginia. Her face was flushed and full. She wasn’t the ouncy girl she’d been at Dry Manston, dressed in breeches, thin-lipped and mistrustful. Nor was she the shoreline pessimist, expecting nothing from her life but the repetitions of the seasons and the sea. Here was a woman pioneer, roots up, and free. Aymer looked at her, imagined her, and he was proud. He had been right to let her go.

‘Shall I fetch the map?’ he’d say, if he could only walk in on her now. He’d take it from the table drawer and hold it for her in the sunlight. ‘Find Wilmington first.’ That was easy for her. She had found it many times. She only had to spot the W, and Ws were easy. ‘Now Norfolk, Margaret. Your finger must go north.’ And there was Norfolk, spread across the coast. The N was on the reaches of the estuary; the f was on the beach; the k was knee-deep in the sea. ‘Now read for me the places Ralph will pass before he comes back home.’ She’d read: Cape Hatteras. Raleigh Bay (pronounced uncertainly, but Aymer smiled and didn’t shake his head). Cape Lookout. Onslow Bay. Cape Fear. ‘You see, it isn’t difficult. You’re reading well. Read for Ralph when he comes home. Read something for your baby when it’s born. We can resume our lessons later on. I will teach you script.’

‘I’ll never learn. I in’t … I’m not that clever.’

‘You will. I’ll not leave here till you do. Just think what they’ll say in Wherrytown, Margaret, when you write home in your own hand.’

‘I’ll write down how it’s all thanks to you.’

‘You’ll tell them how you’re missing Wherrytown.’

‘I don’t miss anything.’

‘Nor anyone?’

‘Well, there’s my ma. I think of her. I do. But I’m to be a ma myself, so there’s the sense in it. I don’t expect my …’ (she’d drum her stomach with her fingers) ‘… to stick to me for ever more … I’ll love it though while it’s here. If it’s a girl we’ll give it mother’s name. That’s only right. We promised her. She’ll be American. Miss Rosie Parkiss.’

‘She’ll be the belle of Wilmington, Margaret. And what if you have a son? The beau of Wilmington, I suppose.’

‘We’ll name him after you, to mark your generosity to us. Master Aymer Parkiss. Don’t that sound high-falutin’? Oh, my! He’ll be the mayor!’

‘He’ll be the captain of a ship.’

AYMER wasn’t quite awake, nor quite asleep, when he invented Captain Aymer Parkiss. The parlour was too dark and quiet for sleep. And far too cold. The fire had not survived. He wrapped the blanket round his legs. He was

baby tempted to ring the parlour handbell for George or Mrs Yapp. Would either of them come? He’d like some fuel for the fire, another blanket and a warming drink. But it was far too late — or far too early — to summon them. He guessed the time was two or three o’clock. The window-panes were black. There would be at least three hours more of Solitary Pie before the glass thickened with any light. He’d have to ruminate the time away, grazing on the minutes of the night with only chimeras for company.

He’d had enough of Miggy Bowe and her offspring in Wilmington. He’d settled them. They didn’t trouble him. Now his thoughts had turned to Katie Norris and how, in this very parlour, he’d first set eyes on her. It wasn’t hard to recall her face. She’d worn a shoulder cape. She’d had black ribbons in her hair. The parlour grate had been cold and empty then as well: ‘We were hoping for a bit of fire,’ they’d said. A bit of fire in life, Aymer thought to himself. What fire could he kindle in his own, cool life, in those dark hours in the parlour? What else but some device to bring him back to Katie Norris? They’d have to meet again. In Canada, of course. That was possible. If Aymer was to keep his resolution to travel more in future, to see the greater works of man in Florence, Paris and Edinburgh, then why not travel to Canada as well to see dear friends?

He could imagine her in Canada, and ready for his visit. Their landscape was quite clear to him. He’d seen the prints of immigrants by Mr Gay in his Illustrations from the Colonies: ‘Glorious morning! What a fine country. Here at last is Canada!’ He was acquainted with the trees, their Latin names, the timber huts, the never-ending lakes, the distant prospect from the migrant ships of Cap Tourmente and the Laurentians. What would he do if he arrived in Montreal, Aymer wondered. Canada was big. How would he find the Norrises? He saw himself on unpaved streets, with wooden boards for pavements, and buildings in grey limestone and timber. All the men were tall and bearded. All the women wore thick boots. He’d look at every face he passed. He’d check the colour of the women’s hair. One day, surely, he’d meet Katie on the streets. ‘Why, Mrs Norris,’ he would say, ‘the world is smaller than we think …’ But, no, that wasn’t right. He knew he wouldn’t meet her on the streets, or in the market places, or coming out of church. She wouldn’t be in Montreal. The Norrises hadn’t gone to Canada for streets and marketplaces. Their dream had been a piece of land, a cabin in a clearing, privacy. They could be anywhere, from Sturgeon Falls to Lake St John, from mountaintop to shore.

But Aymer could meet Lotty Kyte instead. He’d see her by the river harbour, handing advertising bills out for her brother’s firm to new arrivals. She’d not remember him. How could she? She’d been blindfolded when they met in Wherrytown. Aymer hadn’t seen all of her face before. But no one could mistake the fleshless angles of her body, and that voice. ‘My brother can supply …’ He’d introduce himself, remind her about Wherrytown, and ask if she had any news of the Norrises. She had, she had! They’d cleared a piece of lakeside land a few miles north of St Jean-Luc. They’d built themselves a little hut. They’d even ordered furniture from Chesney Kyte, who else? Lotty, who helped her brother in the factory office, had sent a letter to the Norrises only last week informing them that Chesney would deliver their beds and sideboard and their chairs by wagon in a few days’ time. Could Aymer go with him? She’d ask.

What gift should Aymer take the Norrises? He’d buy a beaver hat for Robert. Castor fiber. And an ambered whalebone comb for Katie’s hair. It seemed to him that Wherrytown was Montreal. He had to stay awake that night, not to catch the Ha’porth of Tar along the English coast but to be on time for the wagon journey north, in Canada. He’d report to the Kytes at dawn. Chesney and his eldest boy would drive their four horses out of Montreal with furniture for five families roped to their wagon. There’d not be space for Aymer on the driving bench. He’d sit on one of the Norrises’ new chairs, watching the freshly printed ruts behind the wagon disappear into the flood plains to the south.

Aymer stared into the darkness of the parlour, and devised how the wagon ride would end with him and Katie … what? Arm in arm? Embracing? He guessed it took two days to reach the Norrises. Their cabin was a woodshed and a single room made out of pine logs, pine planks and maple frames. Their land was black from burning. Nothing grew between their cabin and the lake. Geese were picking through the ashes. The Kytes couldn’t get their wagon within fifty yards of the house. Too many trees were felled. The way was blocked by uncleared trunks and branches. Robert Norris was standing with a saw, down at the water’s edge, among the geese. He seemed more square, less clerkish, younger even. He had a beard. He pushed his spectacles up on his forehead when he heard the men approaching. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He hugged Aymer like a brother. ‘I knew that we must meet again,’ he said. They walked together, arm in arm, between the trunks of trees to where the wagon had been hitched. Together they lifted down the furniture. ‘Now we have everything we need,’ said Robert, and that ‘everything’ included Aymer too. ‘We wouldn’t wish to welcome you to Canada without the offer of a bed and chair.’

‘And is your wife quite well, and happily disposed to her new life?’

‘Oh, she is well! Why don’t you leave the furniture to us? Go to the cabin and surprise her there. She’ll be so happy to see an old friend such as you. She misses conversation.’

Aymer saw himself in Canada. He crossed the clearing like a young man, leaping over logs, not faltering, not caring if he fell. He couldn’t wait to see her face, to push the comb into her hair. She was singing in the cabin. He pressed his nose against the knots and eyes of the window glass. At first he couldn’t see the room. But then he found a square inch of the glass that wasn’t puddled. He could see the aura of the candlelight, and then the naked body of a woman, standing in a bowl of water. Her back was turned against the window and her hair was up. Her thighs were strong and freckled, just as he remembered them, although their tones were split in curving arcs of flesh, orange-warm from the candle flame, pink-cold from the window light. She was the salmon and the thrush. Her hair was sand. She sang. She washed herself in Aymer’s soap.

When she’d finished washing, Aymer fixed her in the bowl, dripping dry and struggling to find the verses of her song. As she sang she told a rosary of love on the double loop of chink-shells at her throat, his, hers, his, hers, his. Lacuna vincta. Aymer fancied that she searched for him, his chink-shells, the beauties that he’d found for her in Wherrytown. ‘I thank you, Mr Smith. A lovely one.’ Was Aymer looped forever round her neck? She stepped out of the bowl onto a piece of wood. She wrapped herself in cloth. She turned and faced into the window light. Such health and happiness, she had, such hope. Canada. Canadee. Canadee-i-o.

He’d wait outside and listen to her voice. He’d listened to her singing once before, when they’d stood together at the chapel wall — ‘For Death is but the Shaded Sea …’ This time she’d sing a lighter tune, but with such care and with such girlish and unconscious gravity that Aymer wouldn’t dare call out her name for fear of ending it.

WHAT HOPE for Otto, though? Could Aymer realize some health and happiness for him?

Aymer had fought Otto off, banned him from the parlour. He didn’t want to spend the night with him, contemplating what he’d suffered since the tackle-room door had been thrown back. But there was no escaping it. Aymer had to try and find a happy ending for the African as well. He put his head into his hands and pressed the palms onto his eyes until all the nighttime was excluded. He could feel his pulse tapping on his forehead and in his fingertips. There was, at first, a flat and bruising darkness beneath his eyelids from the pressure of his hands. Then heavy patterns came: the pheasant wings, the bark and bracken, the tapestries, the blue-red fogs, and finally the deep-brewed tropic undergrowth that he was hoping for. Aymer tried to impose Otto’s face onto the pulsing darkness, but Otto’s face, like Miggy Bowe’s, was hard to recollect. So Aymer concentrated on the tackle room. That was easy. He could remember it. The single window and the draughty winter light. The door, the bolt. The saddles and the saddle-cloth. The floor bricks and the straw. And in the straw a body sleeping.

Now Aymer could imagine Otto emancipated at Dry Manston, wrapped in his blanket and looking down from Cradle Rock at the Belle, idling on its sandbank. There’d be a rising dough of clouds coming in from Canada with snow. He’d bang his forehead with his fist. What kind of freedom had he found that tricked him into this? Was he supposed to wade out to the Belle and climb aboard? Should he descend the companion ladders to the orlop deck, put his ankles back in chains?

Aymer pictured Otto squatting on the frosty ground. The grass seemed petrified. He had encountered frost before, but on the Belle’s rigging, not on land. What would he do with frost? He’d test it with his feet. He’d flatten it. His footprints were engrav’d in frost. But soon forgot. His blanket hung across his head. He swung from side to side on the pivot of his feet. He was a Cradle Rock of cloth. This was far too punishing. Aymer had to make him move, to look for help inland from some soft Radical, from some Samaritan, from George, perhaps. He had to make him run. The track was pitiless at first. It thwarted him. No shelter yet. No inn to welcome him. Freedom’s not the open sky, Aymer thought. It’s sheets, and heat. It’s Victuals, Viands and Potations.

The light was lifting as Otto ran, through the frost, the mud, across the unforgiving rocks. He seemed illuminated by some sharp and icy sun. He was like a boy, dodging through the heather and the gorse, leaping granite, skirting the low branches of wind-distorted trees. That wasn’t hard. Not hard for boys. But it was hard for Aymer to make the landscape change, to find a route for Otto between the granite and the thorn into the distant, humid fields of Africa. Aymer pressed his palms more firmly on his eyes and tried to make the land and earth come vaulting at him in a thousand forms, and every tumbling form a little warmer than the last, and every fleeting smudge of earth more succulent and odorous and dark and tropical. He tried to speed the landscape from grey and white to deeper green and yellow so that he could imagine the miracle of Otto home again. But he failed. No matter what he improvised, the landscape wouldn’t change.

Aymer looked towards the parlour window. It was slowly taking shape. His eyes were tired, but he could recognize the frosty truth — that Otto’s home was not in reach and never would be now. If he lived and had survived the snow, he could only be a ten-day walk away at most. He had his feet to carry him, and nothing more. Yes, Otto might be met again. Huzzah for that! He might be glimpsed. But it would only be on some English street. That was both a chilling and a strangely hopeful thought. It left the shadow of a chance that Aymer still could make amends. He concocted their encounter. He’d see Otto … where? In the market? Begging at the church door? Working in some warehouse by the marsh? Taking refuge in a stable room? He’d be transformed by his cold freedoms, that was a certainty. Much thinner, yes. His skin would be dry and dull and chapped. But there’d be something better than before. Something in his face, something in the angle of his eye, would be startling. Oh, what a meeting they would have, thought Aymer, his eyelids heavier than stone, the parlour window silver now with the first of Wednesday’s light, and with the last of Wherrytown. What have your travels taught you? he’d ask Otto. What have you learned away from home? What have you seen? But Otto would not say a word. He’d be joyful to have found a friend, of course, but far too weary to describe such cold, such bafflement, such heavy seas, such dislocating winds, such ships.