Tidetown

  Tidetown

  Also by Robert Power

  In Search of the Blue Tiger

  The Swansong of Doctor Malloy

  Meatloaf in Manhattan

  Tidetown

  ROBERT POWER

  MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

  www.transitlounge.com.au

  Copyright © Robert Power 2015

  First Published 2015

  Transit Lounge Publishing

  This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be made to the publisher.

  Map: Ian Faulkner

  Cover image: ©Paulo Dias/Trevillion Images

  Cover and book design: Peter Lo

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

  A cataloguing-in-publication entry is available from the

  National Library of Australia: http://catalogue.nla.gov.au

  ISBN: 978-0-9943958-2-5

  With love, as always, to my three sons

  Tom, Dominic & Louis,

  and in memory of Liam Davison,

  who helped set me on my way.

  ‘It is always hard to see the purpose

  in wilderness wanderings until after

  they are over.’

  John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress

  ONE

  ‘Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.’ – George Bernard Shaw

  Tidetown could tell the story. Though memory’s a curse; forgetting may be a better healer. Through its laneways, within its courtyards, the yellow wallpaper of its parlours. This hinterland could recount many tales: its moors and sea caves, cliffs and wetlands. Given a voice the woods could sing out secrets, the meadows whisper lovers’ sighs. Some say the world is such an uncertain place. Shifting sands cover the tried and tested ways to confound and confuse the old. Travellers return with exotic tales of spices and temples, burial mounds and buildings carved into rock. Yet the people of Tidetown are proud of their town’s traditions and habits; confident in its ability to let change pass it by, leaving no mark, leaving all untouched. Sailors, whose ships dock at the harbour for repairs or to unload cargo, sigh contentedly as they make their way along the jetty, certain that all will be as they left it. That the town’s people will be going about their daily business abiding by the written and unwritten rules. In The Sailor’s Arms the rum will be undiluted; and the mayor will be secure in his place, just as the footman is in his. Not much changes in Tidetown. But no place, no person, can stay as it is. Not for all time.

  This coast is tired of shipwrecks. For centuries boats have broken apart on rock and reef. The cliffs have listened in hushed sadness to the tear and groan of beam and mast, wood splintering and creaking in the frothy brine. This day, a seagull looks down from its nest, its beady eye spying the lifeless bodies bobbing in the swell, wondering what pickings await. One solitary figure moves on the reef against the wash and sway of the waves: on his knees and elbows. His clothes are shredded to rags, revealing a tar-black skin not seen before in these parts.

  He looks up, this man from Africa. Blood runs into his eyes, diluted and salty. He falls back into the shallow water; the razor-sharp rocks and barnacles slice and open his skin, beads of red bubbling and popping. But exhaustion numbs the pain as his instinct to survive keeps his head above the waves. Breathing is as much as he can do. His mind races to remind him of the thread of life. ‘My name is Zakora. Zakora,’ he repeats. Images race and flicker at random. The past. The day the missionary came to his village, clutching the heavy book close to his chest: the ledger of life. The man from the new god, tall and white, pinky skin, his long silver hair like the colour of the froth where the waterfall hits the river. ‘Silvery Man’, they called him, in their own language, behind his back. He wanted them to call him ‘Father’. ‘But we have our own fathers’, whispered the children. ‘Silvery Man he will be’, Zakora said to the other children. ‘Not Father’. The flowing locks, the salty water, the suck of the sea, the words on the blackboard and the room of small black faces repeating back to the Silvery Man: ‘sins of the world’, ‘saviour’, ‘lamb of god’.

  Beached now, on a new coastline, foreign icy-cold water, the castaway, Zakora the sangoma drifts in and out of consciousness. The rain lashes him like the whips from the slave master; the cold is colder than anything he has ever known. The salty water is in his mouth, his eyes: it is trying to find a way to wash the jelly from his bones. ‘Remember, remember. Who I am,’ he struggles to think, to breathe. ‘Who I am.’

  Other images from the past keep Zakora alert, afloat. In the sacred hut, late at night. Out of earshot, out of sight of the Silvery Man, Zakora listens to the venerable sangoma, to learn his skills, his potions and his spells; looking through the smoke of the incense, grasping for the words and chants that force their way through the straggly beard and matted hair of the old sangoma. This will be Zakora’s foil, his protection, the amulets and icons of his people against the Silvery Man and his god who hangs from a tree, so forlorn, so defeated. A message pinned to a cross. The boy, Zakora, grows to be proud, vital, alive. He will become a sangoma himself, a spiritual man in his own right. But in the daytime, the Silvery Man at the big blackboard, with his ‘cat-sat-on-the-mat’ and his ‘Peter-Piper-picked-a-peck-of-pickled-peppers’, Zakora learns the words and ways of the Jesus men, anticipating their value in some unknowable future. All these thoughts and half-forgotten sights jumbling through his mind, battling the waters, to keep him breathing; thoughts and memories that keep the drowning man pinching at life.

  There’s an iciness in the air to scratch at your eyes. Up on the cliffs the seagulls stay under feathers. Down below, the seals hunt deep beneath the sea where it’s warmer. This is the coldest winter on record. The halyards on the boats in the harbour are frayed with icicles tinkling in the breeze. It is near to dawn, but Tidetown sleeps on. In their seaside homes couples hold each other close under eiderdown and blanket (even where passion has long since waned). In the mansion up on the hill the mayor pushes into the folds of his mistress as they snore and snuffle under a bearskin rug. In the monastery on the Island of Good Hope the Brothers stir to the sound of the bells calling them to prayer.

  Across the valley, in cells as spartan and cold as those of the monks, the women of the prison fight to keep the cold and awakening at bay: few are eager to greet another day. The prison stands rock solid on the moor, its grey granite walls as bleak and uninviting as the freezing mist that swirls and circles. An onlooker (though none will pass by this fiercesome morning) might cast a glance up at the cliff of barred windows, each hiding a pair of lost souls (stored away for safekeeping). If the onlooker was sharp of vision they might see the faces of two young women, framed by the bars of a single window, looking out across the bogs and tors of the moorland.

  ‘Did you see him last night?’ says the one to the other, pulling the thin rough blanket over her shoulders.

  ‘I did,’ says the other, her breath mingling with the morning fog. ‘Oh blessed … he came to me.’

  ‘And now he is gone,’ says the first.

  They huddle close together, for warmth and complicity as they stare out across the landscape in hope of a sign: the flutter of an angel’s wing, a shape in a cloud.

  There’s a loud knock on the door that turns them back into the cell. The small shutter in the thick metal door flaps open with a clutter. They can see the mouth and chin of the warden.

  ‘Perch and Carp Fishcutter. Get up and clean out your cell. The governor will see you at her pleasure. Be ready.’

  Today the morning is a miser, giving out light as if the land was a begga
r. Yet Joshua is never happier than at this moment of the day. No matter the cold. No matter the sleet that lashes his face. He is at his post at the battlements at the top of the second tower of the Mayoral Mansion (the Lesser Tower, as it is known, lest Joshua get ideas above his station). He puffs out his chest and looks for the sign from the window of the uppermost floor of the Greater Tower. His eyes are fixed on the window, as they have been this past half-hour. He knows and relishes his duty, does Joshua Barnum. No caprice of the elements will force him to blow hot or cold. Time ticks on; and on he waits. He is steadfast and true, as reliable as the tide that shifts and scrapes and shuffles the pebbles on Beckett’s Beach. The sky above is clogged with clouds. But the westerly wind, at the tail end of last night’s gale, is equal to the task, pushing its heavy load towards the heath and hills of the hinterland.

  Joshua’s sights are set on the window above, ever vigilant, ever patient. And there it is: the hand he knows so well, the one he would kiss if given the chance; that slaps his cheek at its owner’s whim. The fingers of the hand, between filigree curtain and glass, flicker the command and Joshua moves to his post. He awaits in keen anticipation for the second sign: the wave from his master. When it comes, with the slightest twist of the wrist, Joshua licks his lips, quietly clears his throat, and brings the bugle to his mouth. Startled, as if they’d never heard the shrill notes before (repeated as they are every morning, come sun or snow), the pigeons from Grundy’s Wood hurtle skywards. All across Tidetown and its surrounds its people and animals raise eyebrows and hackles as power and privilege, in time-honoured fashion, make their voice known.

  As the curtain is drawn and the mayor’s morning face appears, Joshua stands to attention and salutes: proof of his diligence, his commitment to duty, his preparedness. The mayor sighs.

  ‘Of course it’s him, the puppy dog,’ he says to Fraulein Rumple, his mistress, who an hour ago was strapped in bridle and rein, who in half an hour from now will disappear down the steep servants’ stairwell to the awaiting coach, as if she had never existed.

  ‘He stands like a tin soldier, the dullard,’ mocks the mayor at the window, smiling and waving to his master-at-arms, his second in command, his deputy mayor. Then he turns back into the room. Fraulein Rumple, the very merry widow, lies curled up in the bed, the satin sheets barely covering her acres of flesh. Mindful of Angelica, his daughter, in the West Wing and the need for discretion, the mayor curls his waxed moustache, winks at his mistress, licks his lips and calculates that ten minutes should be more than enough to get the job done.

  Puffed up with pride, dripping wet and frozen to the core, Joshua skips down the winding circular stairwell that leads from the roof of the tower. Downward he goes, round and round, his progress echoing on the cold stone steps. Way below, in the bowels of the tower, Mrs M hears him coming, her arms deep in suds and linen, steam and stains. Joshua appears in the doorway, shaking his head like a shaggy dog, his long straggly hair spraying icicles and rainwater.

  ‘Joshua,’ says Mrs M, without turning, ever busy at sink or stove.

  ‘The very same,’ he says, ‘J. B. Barnum, Deputy Mayor, Justice of the Peace, man of considerable means and no shortage of learning. In whose present condition a bowl of oxtail soup would be most welcome. Most welcome indeed.’

  ‘Well, by a happy constellation of the stars,’ says Mrs M, wringing Angelica’s undergarment as if it were the horribly spoilt child’s own plump neck, ‘and by the good grace of the tailless oxen, the very same is bubbling on yonder stove.’

  Joshua bows an exaggerated bow.

  ‘I can smell it through the carbolic and detergent. I can already taste its deep meaty warmth. Mrs M’s acclaimed broth. Medicinal. Nutritious. Just what a deputy mayor needs after a post-dawn bugling.’

  As he drifts in and out of consciousness, the cold water of the incoming tide slaps Zakora aware. Up on the cliff he sees an apparition. At first he thinks he spies a ghost, the hazy outline of a man staring down at him. His vision blurs, his mind blackens. When next he opens his eyes the man is standing at the water’s edge, in clear view. A tall man in a brown hooded garment, his face in shadow. Zakora looks up again, struggling to see through the sea water that seems to be invading his very being. Is this becloaked man a magician, a spectre, a spirit from the cliffs? These thoughts pass through his mind, but soon he is back under, barely breathing, hardly being. The monk, for such is the man, touches the black wet skin of the poor soul lying in the shallows. Pushes the skin against its bones. There is a grunt and a groan. He is alive, like I am alive, thinks Brother Paul. Hard to pull and heavy, the dead weight of the body resists his attempts to heave it through the spume and seaweed. The monk feels the coldness grow in his own sandalled feet as the sea laps against his shins. Inch by inch he drags the gasping man to the safety of the sands. An eye opens and looks at him. In wonder. In amazement. Does he think we are in heaven and I the welcoming spirit? ponders Brother Paul.

  To reassure the poor man, he lifts the hood from his head and smiles a welcoming smile. Then the eyes of the near drowning man close. The mouth gasps and speaks in a thick, lilting accent. ‘Thank you. Thank you.’ And then all is quiet. Both are exhausted. The monk sits on the beach with the man’s head resting, breathing hard, in his lap. The monk speaks without words to his new friend. Brother Paul introduces himself with a glint from his eye, his tongue long torn from his mouth, his voice silenced since childhood. The sangoma looks up at this strange man with the ginger beard and smiling face. Then he drifts off again: somewhere deep, somewhere where the taste on his tongue is of salt and metal, of iron, of chains.

  Mayor Bruin is the richest man in Tidetown, by a very long way. His rotund belly and collection of solid-gold pocket watches, one of which he holds in his hand this wild and blustery morning, testify to his wealth and good living. Fraulein Rumple has been dispatched elsewhere, so he stands alone on the turreted tower of the Mayoral Mansion waiting for the town hall clock to chime the hour. He checks the second hand and is satisfied that all is in order and that the church bells and the tick of his watch resonate in harmony. Deeply he breathes in the air of this, his domain. He, the one and only mayor and owner of land as far as the eye can see. From his lofty belvedere he surveys the terrain, looking far out to sea and the prospect of flotsam and jetsam from last night’s storm. Any dead bodies (he crosses himself at the thought) he will leave to the fishes and the birds, but a sizeable proportion of any booty, washed ashore or otherwise, will find its way in his direction.

  He stretches, refreshed by a good night’s rest. He sleeps sound and solid, does the mayor; no lashing of rain or far-distant cries of the drowning have disturbed his slumber. He walks along the turret, viewing with pleasure the woodlands and copses, ploughed furrows and orchards. He notices the workers in the fields, his tenants, busying themselves in the business of swelling his coffers and filling his ample belly. He takes in the panorama, his early morning routine, sweeping the horizon for any signs of incongruity. For anything out of place. His hawk eye traverses the scene, the rise and fall of the hills, the country lanes and byways, the smallholdings and crofts. Way in the distance he spies the abbot’s horse and cart as it trundles over the hill to the monks’ island sanctuary. If he were in one of his more inquisitive moods, with his antique silver telescope to his eye, the mayor would have honed in on the strange spectacle of the big drayhorse pulling the cart with Brother Paul at the reins, with a wild and exhausted black man atop the cargo of sacks of maize and dried snapper. But the mayor has business on his mind. At Spencer’s Wharf is a consignment of mahogany that awaits Horatio Newton, the timber merchant, and the deal the mayor has brokered with the Provincial Ombudsman. There’s a lunch to be had at the harbour master’s house and a handsome commission to be tallied. The thought of fresh quail eggs and fat gold sovereigns puts a smile on his face and a lick on his lips.

  One by one Angelica lights the candles she has set in a ring in the middle of her bedroom in the West Wing.
The thick blood-red drapes are drawn tight across the solitary window keeping any natural light at bay, even though it is still midmorning. Mayor Bruin has long given up on trying to entice his only child from her room until she is good and ready. Angelica picks up her least favourite doll, Harmony, and drips hot candle wax onto the doll’s hair and forehead, anointing her as the Chief Prosecutor.

  ‘Queen’s Counsel,’ she whispers into Harmony’s sizzling ear, ‘a rare honour, but fully deserved.’

  Then she picks up Cruela, her favourite: a raggedly-taggedly doll, all wild matted black hair and broken skin. She spits into her face and rubs the moisture around Cruela’s eyes.

  ‘To bring you wisdom and fine words, Chief Defendant and Order of the Viper.’

  She places the two dolls at their allotted places on the rug in the fiery ring. They sit in silence opposite each other. The wax from the candle runs onto Angelica’s chubby dimpled fingers. She feels the heat, then watches the liquid solidify and whiten.

  ‘Time to bring the court to order,’ she declares, putting a curly ginger clown’s wig on her head. ‘Be upstanding for Judge Angelica.’

  She grabs the other dolls and assorted toys (tortoise, one-legged dinosaur, gorilla, carthorse, pig-suckling-piglets, headless cowgirl, armless cowboy – both recently tortured by Redskins) and selects a motley crew to sit as the jury. The remaining figurines and odds and ends of toys are the audience, plopped unceremoniously in a heap to the side, precariously close to the candle flames.

  ‘Now bring on the defendants,’ demands Judge Angelica.

  Carefully, reverently, she opens the clasp of a large wooden box sitting in place of honour on the table beside her diamond-shaped bed. One by one, she lifts the two identical handmade dolls, designed and crafted for her sixteenth birthday. Each is beautifully dressed in a tartan smock, black patent-leather shoes, with a bright yellow beret (almost a halo). Each has long silky black hair, a beguiling smile and coal-black eyes.