Like Chaff in the Wind (7 page)

“And God?” Don Benito asked once Alex fell silent.

“Poor old God doesn’t stand a fighting chance. I come from an age where proof is king, and how can you prove God exists?”

“But that’s why it’s called faith!” He shook his head at the idiocy of these future generations.

“Yes, but in my time man will prefer to believe in his own capacity to change his destiny rather than to leave it up to God.”

Don Benito laughed. “Even now God expects you to work for your happiness, child. He doesn’t just drop things in your lap.”

“He did to me. He gave me my husband. Will He take him from me, do you think?” She leaned against him, in an intimate but platonic gesture.

“
No hija
. He has given you to each other.”

She nodded and yawned, looking exhausted. He levered them both to stand. As they reached her cabin door, he stopped her and drew his fingers in the sign of a cross on her forehead.

“You have faith; deep inside, you know you do.” He bent forward and kissed her on her cheek. “Go with God, child.
Que duermas con los
á
ngeles, hija mía
.”

*

All that night Matthew sat beside her, and in his hands Alex could see the ruby that was her heart thudding steadily. Just before dawn, she felt his lips brush her cheek and then he left her, his eyes a glinting green in his dark tanned face.

Chapter 9

2005

Magnus barely made it back to his cabin. Alex! Here, in the middle of the sea, framed by a wreath of twisting blues and greens. Just like in Mercedes’ disturbing paintings, twists of colour that pulled you towards a pulsing centre. And the look in her eyes when she’d seen him…it made his heart sing with joy. Alex Graham, 1661. What was she doing here, halfway across the Atlantic? Taking a cruise perhaps, he suggested, bursting out in loud, nervous laughter. No; the one taking a cruise was him, courtesy of Diane and John, who’d bundled him onto a plane and told him they expected him to come back exhausted.

“Do something about that frustrated libido of yours,” Diane had said. John had gone beetroot red, but Magnus had laughed and promised her he would. Now in his third week, he spent more and more time with Eva, a woman a couple of years his junior who could drink like a horse and dance with the grace of a swan. One fantastic dancer, was Eva, and as Magnus wasn’t exactly left-footed, they owned the dance floor, to the irritation of some of the younger cruise participants. Younger in this case being relative, he admitted, not having seen anyone that looked below forty.

A soft knock on the door interrupted any further musing, and Magnus opened to let in Eva and the bottle of champagne she was brandishing.

“Room service?”

“I can’t recall ordering any.”

“Age,” Eva sighed. “Alzheimer’s light.”

Magnus pretended to be offended, but opened the door wide.

“Are you going to tell me what that was?” Eva asked a few minutes later.

“Tell you what?” He speared a piece of cheese on his fork and extended it to her. Eva cocked her head to one side.

“The girl in the water.”

He choked, punched at his chest a couple of times before he succeeded in dislodging the chunk of pear that had got stuck halfway down, and leaned back against the pillows, wheezing loudly.

“What?” he finally managed to utter.

Eva sighed and moved closer. “I saw her. And I saw you lean so much forward, I thought you were about to dive head first into the sea. So, who is she?”

“Not how? Just who?”

Eva laughed. “The how scares the daylights out of me, so let’s leave that for the time being. And won’t the who to some extent explain the how?”

He held out his flute for a refill and gulped the fizzy wine. “She’s my daughter.”

Eva kept her composure, with just a slight pursing of her mouth.

Magnus gave her an admiring look. “This happens a lot to you, does it? You know, running into men who see their lost daughters in the sea.”

“Not really,” she said. “But then I suppose grief comes in very many shapes.”

“Grief?” Magnus shook his head. “My daughter isn’t dead. Or rather she is, but she isn’t.”

“Crystal clear,” Eva snorted, downing her glass. “Can you please tell this from the beginning?”

To his everlasting surprise, Magnus did, from the day when Alex disappeared on an empty Scottish moor to today. He even told her of his wife, studying her with trepidation when he explained that Mercedes had been born in 1461, and through an improbable and tragic set of events been sent tumbling repeatedly through time before that day in the 1960’s when Magnus first met her in Seville.

To Eva’s credit, she succeeded in looking unperturbed, even if Magnus did catch the odd incredulous look. As he continued with his story, detailing years of loss and anguish when first his wife, then his daughter, were yanked away, Eva moved close enough to take his hand, and Magnus realised with a start that he’d never shared these his innermost thoughts with anyone before, not even with John.

“Mercedes was a painter,” Magnus summarised. “And in some of her paintings she left passageways through time.”

Eva cleared her throat. “What?”

Magnus rolled his eyes at her. “Totally impossible, huh? And me a scientist, a man raised on rational thought, having to come to terms with the fact that my wife is some sort of witch.”

“Umm,” Eva said, looking somewhat pale.

“We hope we’ve burnt all of them,” he continued, explaining that they didn’t want the children to accidentally drop through one.

“I imagine not,” Eva shuddered.

“Today is the third anniversary of Alex’s disappearance,” Magnus said. “That’s why Diane booked me on this cruise, to distract me from the date.”

Eva laughed and patted his hand. “Didn’t work did it?” She gnawed her lip. “Why would she be on a boat anyway? In 1661?”

“I have no idea, but at least now I have a date and a name, so maybe I can find out.” He had an inspirational flash and turned to the woman beside him. “Will you help me?”

If Eva was taken aback, she didn’t show it. “I can try,” she smiled.

*

“I didn’t expect him to fall in love,” Diane said to John as they made their way up the garden path. Magnus had insisted they come to dinner and meet Eva, here for a quick visit before returning to her home in London.

“No,” John said, “you just encouraged him to shag like mad.”

“He needed to.”

“Absolutely, but did it never strike you that even men occasionally have a tendency to link sex with love?”

“No,” she said, “it didn’t.”

John chuckled and gave her an amused I-told-you-so look.

It was not until they were seated that the conversation turned to the cruise, initially a rambling description of food and entertainment, but after a couple of minutes Magnus cleared his throat and after a quick look at Eva began to talk. Diane just stared at him. What on earth was he saying?

“You can’t seriously expect us to believe this!” she said. “That’s impossible.”

“I’m just telling you what I saw,” Magnus said. “On the third anniversary of her disappearance, I saw Alex – in the sea.”

“The projection of a sick, obsessed mind,” Diane muttered.

“Maybe. Except that Eva saw it too.”

Diane gave Eva a dark look. To agree to having seen an obvious delusion smelled of quite the opportunist, and God knew what this strange woman might be after. She lowered her eyes to the table and concentrated on chasing peas across her plate.

“So what exactly did you see?” John asked.

“She was on board an old wooden ship – like the replica of the Golden Hind down in London – and she was standing by the railings, looking at me.”

“In a polka dot bandana and with an eye patch, no doubt,” Diane broke in.

“No,” Magnus said with an icy edge. “She wasn’t dressed like a Halloween pirate.”

“But why would she be on a ship?” John’s voice coloured with concern, and Diane swallowed back on a wave of jealousy.

“No idea.” Magnus dragged his hand through his thick hair, scrubbing at it until it stood untidily around his head.

“Early form of charter tourism?” Eva put in.

“Yeah,” Diane snorted, very irritated with this woman. “Down to the fleshpots on the Canary Islands.”

“At least I know the year,” Magnus said. “1661. And I have a name, Alex Graham.”

“You were wrong, though,” John said to Magnus. “You said you thought she was somewhere close to here. But you saw her on a ship, so obviously she isn’t here, she’s somewhere else.”

Diane rolled her eyes; seen her on a ship? Why was John encouraging him, for all the world sounding as if he believed this preposterous tale?

“She could come back,” Magnus replied. “Maybe she just went on a trip.”

“In 1661?” Eva sounded very doubtful. “People didn’t do much globetrotting then, definitely not women.” She grimaced. “Women stayed at home and had babies.”

Many babies, Diane thought, and then they died around fifty, looking like seventy-five. She felt a flash of pity for Alex, a flash mirrored in Eva’s eyes. Neither Magnus nor John had caught on, busy discussing why Alex would have been at sea.

“Maybe she
is
a pirate,” John suggested, jumping up to adopt a ferocious pose, his coffee spoon an imaginary cutlass.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Diane snapped. “It’s not even funny.”

John held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture, mumbled something about checking on the girls, and left the room.

“Well it isn’t,” Diane said defensively. “Actually there’s nothing funny about this at all, is there?”

“No,” Magnus sighed, “you’re right. If Alex is – or was – living in the seventeenth century, then she’s had to cope with a life for which she was totally unprepared. And that’s not even mildly amusing, it’s just bloody frightening.” He shrank together, his tall frame stooping under an invisible burden.

Diane leaned forward to clasp his hand. “She’ll manage.”

“You think?” Magnus’ voice wobbled.

“Of course she will. She’s just like you, stubborn to a fault.”

“Oh dear,” Eva murmured. “Is that a compliment?”

Diane tilted her head to the side. “In Alex’s case yes, in Magnus’ case I’m not so sure. He can be quite difficult, you know.”

“Difficult?” Magnus’ voice fluted into a squeak. “Me?”

Diane laughed and took the opportunity to steer the conversation away from Alex.

Chapter 10

As summer came to an end, Matthew detoured as often as he could to look down the narrow road. Shouldn’t she be here by now? He tried to count backwards from his own arrival to now, and deep inside he began to worry that perhaps she wouldn’t come, hoping he would somehow make it home himself. He would never get back on his own; he’d done four months of eighty-four, and so far he hadn’t spoken to one single field hand who had seen anyone survive more than four, perhaps five years.

He was shrinking at a worrying pace, the combination of an insufficient diet and long gruelling days under a relentless sun. He scratched; bug bites all over, but as yet no lice, something he feared was shortly due to change given to the way Elijah’s unkempt hair crawled with them. Matthew exhaled, shaking his head. A few lice were not his major problem. Why hadn’t she come? He stood staring down the lane, willing her to appear until there was no daylight left.

“Mayhap she’s forgotten you,” Elijah said one evening.

Matthew scowled; he could see it in their faces, how amused they were by his conviction that one day Alex would come to buy him free.

“And anyway, who’s ever heard of a woman setting off alone across the world?”

Matthew lunged, spitting with anger and suppressed fear, and he had to be pulled off Elijah before he beat his face to pulp.

“You mustn’t say such,” Matthew said between heaving breaths, glaring at Elijah. “My Alex will come. She will, because she knows I need her.”

“Aye, man, of course she will,” Davy said, “it’s just that Elijah is jealous.”

“I’m not,” Elijah said, “I have my own woman at home. And two lasses. She was with child the last time I saw her, and I never knew if it was a lad or yet another lass.”

“You will, some day,” Davy tried.

“You think?” Elijah shook his head. “Nay, Davy, I think not. This is where I die. This is where all of us die, including you Matthew.” He scooted backwards, away from Matthew.

Matthew set his jaw. “I won’t die here, I won’t die like an overworked nag.”

Davy coughed heavily. “But you are,” he said to Matthew. “An overworked, underfed nag. And how will you, or any of us, survive seven years of this?” They all fell silent, contemplating the truth in that.

“We should run away, now,” Elijah suggested, “we’d be well gone by daybreak.”

“And go where?” Matthew said. “To Jamestown? The constables would drag you back here before noon.” The constables, the magistrates… To hear it, Fairfax had them all in his pocket.

“Aye, and Jones would…” Davy’s voice tailed off. Matthew crossed his arms and stuck his hands into his armpits.

Elijah looked from one to the other. “We could go the other way – sneak off into the wilderness.”

Into the thick unknown forest with venomous snakes littering the ground. Matthew suspected Jones and Sykes exaggerated the threat of snakes, and so far he hadn’t seen any himself, but he’d seen one man carried in from the furthest fields, mouth open in silent agony. Jones had placed him in one of the sheds, sat a stone jar of cane liquor at his mouth and left the man to die, informing them there was nothing to be done for a rattlesnake bite.

“Nay, Elijah,” Duncan said with a note of shame in his voice. “I fear that thick green growth.” Davy nodded in agreement, leaning against his twin. He coughed, a rattling sound that was echoed by his brother.

“And you?” Elijah asked Matthew.

Matthew shook his head. “She would never find me there. And I don’t like snakes.”

“Me neither,” Elijah said, “but there are human snakes as well.”

Matthew nodded; aye, there were definitely human serpents, and chief among them was his own brother. With a little sigh he stood, grabbed his blanket, and with a muttered good night made for the door.

“May I come?”

Matthew stopped mid step, wanting very much to say no, but the sight of Elijah’s battered face shamed him into saying yes, and so there were two that slipped out into the night to sleep by the little spring. Elijah dipped his hand in the spring, laughing at the feel of cool clean water on his skin. Matthew smiled, and half stripped to wash.

“You wash all that?” Elijah sounded amazed, even worried.

“I try.” Matthew patted himself dry with his dirty shirt. He sat down against the tree he had come to consider as his own. The sky was overcast tonight, the air oppressive with concentrated humidity.

“Are you that sure then?” Elijah asked, breaking a long stretch of silence. “That she will come for you?”

“Aye,” Matthew said, slapping at a midget. Yes, of course she would come; something had delayed her, but soon she’d be here and… He halted himself mid thought. Something had delayed her! She might have found herself with child, and then how could she cross the sea to find him? He counted rapidly on his fingers. Now it was August, and any child would have been conceived at the latest in early January, so then it wasn’t even born yet. And before it was weaned and she could leave the babe, it would be another year, and by then he would be dead. No; he shook his head. He wouldn’t be dead. Somehow he had to live.

Matthew’s nights at the spring came to an end one evening when Jones stumbled upon him sitting in the dark.

“What are you doing here?” Jones demanded in a menacing voice.

Matthew was already on his feet, his back against the trunk behind him.

“It gets so hot in the shed,” he said, angered at the defensiveness in his voice.

“Oh dear, and that of course is insufferable for a man here due to a ‘miscarriage of justice’.” Jones chuckled at his own jibe. “Mayhap you’d like a bed as well, and perhaps a window.” Matthew didn’t reply. Jones swatted Matthew lightly over his arm. “Get back, and in the future you stay where I put you or I’ll have you under lock and key.”

Matthew had no doubt he meant it and hurried off in the direction of the shed.

*

Jones lined up all the men the day they began the harvest. Field after field in which the tobacco plants were to be cut, long wooden sleds on which to load them, and then the heavy never-ending trudge dragging the sled behind until it was all unloaded in the yard. He smiled to himself. This was when quite a few of the new men would balk; no man was comfortable being harnessed like a mule to a sled. He needed strong men, and his eyes rested for a while on Matthew. Since the incident in the barn, there’d only been one time where he’d had to beat him properly, the day the stupid man protested that they were not being adequately fed, otherwise Graham had kept his head to the ground, avoiding any kind of conflict. But now and then, Jones caught a vivid green stare from those hidden eyes, and he nodded to himself: definitely on one of the sleds – Matthew Graham needed to be broken once and for all.

To Jones’ mild disappointment, Matthew didn’t protest at being strapped into the leather harness, nor did he say anything when Jones indicated the sled. He just nodded and adjusted the straps to minimise the chafing. One of the other new men – Elijah? Jones couldn’t remember – did protest, but a vicious cut across his shoulders made him shut up. Out of the corner of his eye, Jones saw Graham tense at the treatment of his friend, but the wide shoulders slumped when Jones turned to look him in the face, the riding crop raised.

*

All that day Matthew pulled. His shoulders throbbed with pain, his legs were shaking with exertion after each load, and still Jones sent him back for more, flicking his crop in the air to indicate Matthew had to hurry, he was falling behind the harvesters.

“Water,” Matthew panted at midday. “I must have some water.” He leaned forward, bracing himself against his knees. Jones signalled to one of the women busy sorting tobacco leaves and she came towards him with a ladle. “Thank you,” Matthew said hoarsely. The woman smiled, a very nice smile, and Matthew smiled back, noting the golden hair and deep brown eyes.

“Kate,” she replied to his unspoken question. “I’m Kate.”

“I’m Matthew – Matthew Graham.”

“I know,” she said, “of course I know.” Her mouth softened into yet another little smile.

Jones cut any further conversation short, and Matthew went back to his work. But every time Matthew came in with a load, Kate contrived to be there, ladle in her hand, and each time Matthew drank he met her eyes, smiling his thanks.

*

Five unbearable days, and on the afternoon of the sixth day he was so tired that he accidentally upended the sled, tipping the load of tobacco plants into the dirt. Jones flew at him.

“Fool! Look at what you’ve done!”

Matthew got to his feet, an effort involving far too many protesting muscles. His shoulders were permanently on fire, the harness had left broad, bleeding sores on his skin, and no matter how he tried to use his worn shirt as padding, the sores deepened and widened, a constant, flaming pain.

“I’ll just load them back.” He bent to pick up an armful. His arms were clumsy with weariness, and it took far too long to reload the sled, with Jones an irate, vociferous spectator. Matthew leaned forward into the straps, bunching his thighs. Dear Lord! He couldn’t budge the load, the leather cutting even deeper into his lacerated skin. He tried again, and still the sled wouldn’t move. Matthew looked back across his shoulder to find Jones sitting on the sled.

“Go on,” Jones sneered, “get a move on.”

“You’re too heavy,” Matthew said, “you can walk.”

Jones raised a brow. “Of course I can. But now I want you to pull.”

Matthew felt his pulse begin to thud. Wafting curtains of red clouded his vision.

“I’m a man, aye? I’ll work as you tell me to, but you can move of your own accord, fat though you may be. I won’t be your yoked beast, I’m a man.” There was absolute silence around him, his companions staring at him with a mixture of admiration and exasperation.

Jones stood up and moved towards him. “That’s where you’re wrong, Graham. You’re no man, not here, not now. You’re a slave, a beast to be worked until you’re no use.” He looked at Matthew expectantly, his hand tightening on the handle of his crop.

Matthew knew he should back down, grovel and mumble, but inside of him the fire grew, red hot rage at the man in front of him, at his traitorous brother, and the injustice of it all.

“I told you. I’ve never done anything wrong. I’m a free man.”

Jones laughed. “Free? Then why are you still here? Why aren’t you on a ship back home?”

“You know why! I have no money.”

“And we own you, until you can pay yourself free, we own you.”

“Nay, no one owns me. I’m a free man.”

“And I tell you you’re but a slave,” Jones hissed.

Matthew punched him straight into the face, having the distinct pleasure of hearing the cartilage in Jones’ nose crack. That was really the last thing he observed clearly, then it was all hands and feet, and the stinging of the leather crop, and he heard Jones call men to him and Matthew had the shirt torn from his back, he was thrown face down onto the ground and then there was the snap of leather that came down time and time again on his bared skin. One of his arms was twisted up behind his back, and in his ear he heard Jones’ heavy breathing.

“So, what are you?”

“A free man,” Matthew gasped. The pressure on his arm was tearing at his tendons.

“What are you?”

Bend! Alex shrieked in his head, for God’s sake Matthew, bend. But he didn’t want to, he had to salvage some pride, and the pain in his shoulder increased to the point where he knew it would soon be dislocated.

“What are you?” Jones hissed again, throwing his considerable weight against Matthew’s trapped arm. Matthew groaned. Please! Alex cried, please, Matthew, for me. Don’t let him maim you for life, my love, please! In his fuddled state Matthew wasn’t sure if she was here for real, or if it was a hallucination, but the despair in her voice rang through his head.

“I’m a slave,” Matthew mumbled, closing his eyes so that he might still see Alex, not the red earth an inch from his nose.

“What? I didn’t hear you.”

“I’m a slave,” Matthew mumbled again.

“Say it out loud.” Jones heaved Matthew to his feet. “Look at all the men before you and say it.” To his everlasting shame, Matthew did as he was told.

“I am a slave,” he said, repeating it time and time again until Jones released him to tumble to the ground.

He lay where he had fallen, and around him he heard the sound of people moving off, leaving him to lie unaided. No one dared to touch him, lest Jones should vent his anger on them as well, and Matthew found himself staring at his hand, so close to his face. He didn’t want to move. He no longer wanted to live.

“Please let me die. Sweetest Lord, just let me die.” He closed his eyes, and in his mind he saw Hillview, he saw a wee lad running up the lane to meet him, and there she was, laughing and crying at the same time, her skirts bunched high as she flew towards him, and he knew that of course he couldn’t die. He owed it to Alex to stay alive; he owed it to himself.