Signals of Distress (29 page)

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.’

A
YMER
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.

W
HAT 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.