Mr Mac and Me (18 page)

The next morning I wake early. There is no sound but the birds, calling. A pure clear whistling and a high
peep peep
. Ann is not in the bed beside me. She must have fled from my scorched limbs to the big room in which the Cheshires have left their smuts and smells. A weak light seeps through the window, and the roar that has been in my ears is gone. I look out at the day and a calm washes over me. I wrap a blanket round me and walk through the slumbering room next door, and down the ladder to the main bar where the ash of the fire is still warm. I push some sticks against it and breathe it into life, and with the effort of my puffing, the whole world spins. I steady myself and pull open the back door. It’s cold. A shroud of frost brightening the yard, and the air is sharp and sweet. I step into boots and stumble outside. The well is open, the bucket silvered, and I drop it down, waiting while it fills, and when it comes up, I raise the water and I drink. I’m as thirsty as a newly planted tree. I feel the water spreading through my limbs, so hungry am I for it that I can hardly swallow. I splash my hands and face, and then I tip the last drops over my head and feel my body start with life.

‘Tom!’ It is Ann at the door. ‘Come inside, you lunatic.’ She holds the blanket that I’ve dropped there and she wraps me up and sits me by the fire. ‘Happy Christmas,’ she laughs. She can see that I am better. And she goes out into the yard to release the hens, and bring in the eggs, which this morning we’ll keep for ourselves.

The letter, when I find it, is from Mac.

My dear Thomas
, it says.
I’m sorry to hear that you’re not well. Please, as soon as you are better, come and call on us, as we will be very happy to see you. There may even be a wee gift for you here. A surprise. Which means I cannot let you know what it is now
.

With very best wishes,

C R Mackintosh

I trace the initials of his name, the round black flowing letters. C R Mackintosh. Charles Rennie. But hard as I study it I’m still no closer to discovering the secret code – MMYT – he uses in his letters to his wife.

I’m excused church, although I would have gladly gone, ready as I am for any kind of life. Mother has prepared a side of muntjac, although she won’t say where she got it, but there is nothing for me to watch this time as she is going to roast it with stewed apple when she gets home and so avoid the chance of burning. ‘You’ll keep yourself warm?’ Father mumbles, by way of farewell, and Mother runs back in and kisses me on the top of my head.

I sit by the fire and wait. The service at Christmas is always longer, for the vicar must bring the whole village closer to God on this day if not on any other, and so I rifle through my schoolbooks and look down the margins at what I’ve scrawled there. Wherries and winklebrigs, smacks and yawls, and then later, in the clothbound book Mac gave me, the sweet smiling face of Betty. What would she have written if the letter had been from her? And I imagine her words curling across thin paper.
The whole island of Lewis has gathered here to take a look at your picture. So cleverly done it is, and so like me. The winter here is harsh. With snow thick as a blanket, and nowhere to go but to sit by the turf fire. I’m in a hurry for the spring. And after that the summer, by the end of which will see me setting off for Suffolk and the work and fun that is to be had gutting the herring.

I close my eyes. What else might she have said?
My sister is well again and will be my companion, although this year she’ll bind her fingers doubly tight before she takes hold of her knife. I’ll write to Mrs Horrod, to keep hold of the rooms, and I’ll let you know too what day we shall arrive.

I pull a page free from the binding of my book and start on my reply.
My dear Betty
, I put the pen in my mouth and then remove it fast before Runnicles can rush over from Wenhaston and swipe it away.
I’m glad you’re keeping well. I’ve had some kind of fever, stayed with me a while. But thanks to the cheering words of your letter I’m well again. How is it in the Highlands? Is the war very bad for you there? There are rabbits aplenty here. And we still have eggs and food from Mother’s garden. There are others a lot worse off than we are. I heard of a ship – the
Hawke,
torpedoed by a U9 in your waters, overturned in fifteen minutes with only time for two lifeboats to be lowered. There weren’t many survivors, but some were taken to Aberdeen. That’s not so far from you, I think?

I picture Mac’s letters as I flounder for anything else to say. And then, trying for his words, I write:
I’m sitting alone here at the inn, but if the door were to open, there’s no one I’d be happier to see than you
. No. I shiver with the horror of it. And quick as I can I blot out that last line.

Chapter 39

Mother is up at first light and ready to go poltering with Mrs Horrod. There have been gales through the night and they want to get there early to see what’s been washed up. ‘You might as well stay home,’ Mother tells me, ‘poorly as you’ve been.’ But it’s weeks since I last checked the beach, although I’ve heard of nothing unusual come in, save for a cask of stout, discovered by the Cheshires who broached it and drank it out of buckets where they stood.

I pull on my coat, and a scarf of Father’s, and running off ahead of them I slide on the ice of each thin puddle as I tread down the lane to the beach. The dunes as I climb them are threaded with snow, scattered stiff as lace across the sand. We’re the first here, I’m sure of it. But as I reach the top I can see other figures, crouched over the sand, stooping and searching with gloved hands. ‘Quick,’ I call to Mother as she ambles behind, Mrs Horrod smaller and stouter by her side, and I take the bag she’s brought and run with it, my eyes searching for any black shape against the white. The tide is low now and the beach is half a mile deep. A charred stick sits on the sand, and beside the stick an orange stone gleaming up at me. I lift it and weigh it and knowing as I already do that it is not a piece of amber I throw it far out into the spit. It lands with a small glug and sinks into the sand.

I turn to find Mother talking to two women. Their sacks, from the strain of their arms, are at least half full. How have they found so much coal when until ten minutes ago the sky was dark? Have they used lamps? I narrow my eyes, and heavy with suspicion I tell myself it must have been the snow that led them to it. I daren’t think anything else. I stare for a moment at the rising sun, test my eyes before they become dazzled, and then, while the women are still talking, I run, nose down, across the beach. At last I find some. Smooth and black, scattered high up on the shingle, and with my back to the others I scoop it into my bag.

‘That’s a good lad you have there.’ It is Mrs Virtue, the sneak, coming to see what I have found, and she bends down and from under my hand she snatches up the last splinter of the coal.

‘Yes,’ I hear my mother sigh. ‘God saw fit to bless us.’ I feel their pitying eyes follow me as I hobble away along the beach.

I tread the waterline as far as the groynes and search amid their limbs. Seaweed glows wetly in the light and I imagine octopus and starfish blinking at me from behind their waving arms. I’m always hopeful I’ll find treasure here. It’s where I’d hide it if there was any to hide. But there is nothing, just a length of planking half buried in the sand. I tread closer, my footsteps springing up behind me, and that’s when I catch sight of it. A mound of a shape, lumped up behind the wood. I can hardly breathe. My boots are sinking, but as I come closer, there’s no doubt it is the body of a man. His face is down, his hair pasted thin across his scalp, and his ear, the one that I can see, is nibbled to a frill. ‘Mam,’ I shout as I bend over him. He has boots on, the leather swollen, the laces stretched, and his trousers are ripped and ragged to the knee. I kneel down and touch him. There’s something there. A canvas pouch, bound with twine, strapped around his leg below the knee. I look behind me. Mother is a black silhouette, stooping low against the snow. But Mrs Horrod, with her eager ears, has heard me, and she is hurrying this way.

Quick as I can I slide out my knife, and I slice through the string. A trail of seaweed has caught up in it, and the canvas is slimy. I hold it in my hand. I weigh it. There is gold inside. Or better than that. Gems. I slip it into my pocket, string and all. And I glance at his leg, the grooves of it, like slashes, where not so long ago he must have bound his treasure to him tight.

‘Tommy?’ Mrs Horrod is upon me. Her small eyes blazing. ‘What have you found?’ And she comes closer and bending down she slides her fingers under the man’s shoulder and lifts him just enough to see into his face. It’s terrible. A wide-open mouth and the nose smashed sideways.

‘That’s enough now, Tommy,’ she says. ‘Look at you. White as a sheet. Hurry away and find the coastguard. Or James Ladd up at the ferry.’ And as I go I see her bend low again to look into his face.

I don’t see the coastguard but I tell James Ladd and he sends news of it across the river, so that by the time I find the harbour master and lead him back, there are a crowd of people round the body, and Mother and Mrs Horrod frantic with the telling of the story.

‘There’s no name on him. No papers. Nothing to tell us who he is.’ It’s Shrimp the coxswain, never happy to let a man perish in his waters. And he pats down the man’s clothing, and checks his pockets once more to prove the truth of his words. My face flushes hot and cold. And my body too. I feel it prickling below my shirt. And the canvas packet, wet as it is, is forcing a green stain through the wool of my jacket. If only I’d had the quick thinking to slide it into the poltering bag instead, and I take a quick look down, my heart beating, and cover my action by the mumble of a prayer.

‘Thomas Maggs.’

My head jerks up.

‘You’re proving to be quite the little lookout. We’ll be relying on you in future. Although you missed that cask of stout and a box of margarine that was hauled in last Monday.’ The harbour master laughs, and I give him back a smile.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Is it possible . . . do you think . . . might he be a spy?’

‘Whatever he was, he’s nothing now.’ Mrs Horrod is quiet, and I look across at George Allard, and I see him nodding, as if to say, you see, I’ve trained the boy well.

A roll of canvas arrives, and the man is levered on to it and carried up the beach. We all walk with him, and when we’re on firmer ground he is lifted on to the back of a cart, and taken away to the mortuary at Southwold, the ferry silent as he takes his last voyage. I’m tempted to go with him. Feel I owe him that much at least. But Mrs Horrod is inviting us to breakfast, and I’m so hungry at the mention of it, I can hardly stand up. She has a pan of porridge, she says, waiting in the oven, and a spoon of cream sitting on the sill.

‘Thank you,’ I say, but Mother hesitates. ‘Your father may be up,’ she looks at me. Her fingers are still splinted together inside her ragged glove. But then – I see her reasoning – we haven’t found enough coal to be sure of his good cheer anyway, so . . . she shrugs, we might as well risk his fury after breakfast, as before. She laughs. And Mrs Horrod laughs with her. And the two women link arms. And pressing my hand against my pocket, I let it rest there against the corner of the canvas package, as I walk along behind.

The porridge is fine and silky. And the cream that’s stirred into it, with a spoon of honey, tastes so good I sigh. ‘What do you say, boy?’ Mother prompts, and I shake my head and, just as if I were a child, I chant, ‘Thank you, Mrs Horrod. It’s so good. Can I have more?’

‘Wait till you’ve finished that bowl first,’ Mother shakes her head. But Mrs Horrod laughs. ‘I’ll be saving some for Vic when he comes down.’

‘Vic is home?’ How is it possible I didn’t know? And the days that passed while I lay feverish in my room hit me like a slap.

‘Yes.’ Tears spring sudden into Mrs Horrod’s eyes. ‘He’s home all right. Just for a few days. He’ll want to know about the drowned man.’ But although we sit over a second pot of tea he doesn’t come down.

‘Poor little old boy,’ Mother whispers later when I ask. And when she catches my surprise, she says she’s sure a bit of rest will give him back his strength.

George Allard’s son Abb is home too. I’ve seen him in his uniform striding through the village. Chin up, chest forward, the tips of his boots striking the road. He must have fought in a different battle, where the enemy were driven back, and not as I hear now, in Vic Horrod’s regiment, where Girling, Spence and a score of others lost their lives within the same half hour.

‘The anchor rode is finished, thanks to Abb,’ Mr Allard has told me, and he’s promised to send word for me when more orders come in.

There are chores to be done and logs to split before I’m free to climb the ladder to my room. I shut the door tight and, having nothing else, I push the chamberpot in front of it. Carefully I draw the package from my pocket. The canvas is still damp and there’s a tide of salt washed up at its corners. I lay it on the floor and unwrap it. Over and over, the material unfolds, and finally, at its centre, just as I’d thought, there is the chink of gold. My heart leaps and then it plummets. It is not a coin but the gold edge of a painting made on china. And beneath it are two others. Portraits in miniature. The first is of a woman. She has a stiff collar, and her hair is piled high, but her eyes when I squint into them are warm and chestnut brown. Two children stare from the other frames. Soft curls and polite smiles. I take them in my hands and I hold them, the cold painted china, the hopeful faces, until they are warmed.