Song of the Sea Maid (16 page)

Pilar is the name of Horacio’s wife; she is in middle age, like him, with the kind of face in repose that looks like it has never seen a moment’s joy. On introduction, she tells me solemnly in Portuguese that she makes lace in Peniche and saw me that morning I greeted the ladies – that she would not have forgotten me, as a stranger in town is memorable – and she narrows her eyes at me in a rather severe manner. But when her husband tells her of my plan to live in a goatherd’s hut on Berlenga Grande
,
she considers it for a moment, then creases into mighty guffaws and we all fall into laughter together. She does not seem to think I am foolish; rather, she is enamoured of the challenge and accompanies us on the boat trip (she does not vomit once); she brings a broom, a mop, cloths, pots and pans, a blanket, and even a stool for me to sit on in my hut. We make light work of the cleaning, as Pilar reveals she speaks Spanish and is delighted I speak it too. My Spanish is much more fluent than my Portuguese, and she seems happy to converse in it again, though she tells me her native language is different. She explains that she was brought up on the island of Minorca and they speak a dialect there, but that Spanish will do for us. It reminds her of home. She misses it still. Minorca became a British possession around forty years ago, and she remembers as a girl the English ships arriving. But she has surprisingly little malice in her about it, and said her family were glad when the English came, though there were families against it, who favoured one or other of the many invaders over the years. She came to Portugal as a restless young woman to visit relatives. She lived in Lisbon for a time and met Horacio, then moved to Peniche. She married Horacio at seventeen and the Lord did not grace them with children, so they live alone. She says she dreams of islands and envies me sleeping here.

Each evening I drift into sleep to the sound of the sea. Each morning I wake to the sound of the sea. I spend my days exploring and learning of my island’s wildlife. I find I soon discard my parasol, as it seems always cumbersome and in my way; though my cheeks at first become a little sun-scorched, thereafter my skin seems to take to the climate here and bronzes quite unfashionably. The archipelago’s relief is jagged with a flat central plain. No trees of any significance grace the scene, only a few stunted olive and fig bushes. There are a variety of seabirds hereabouts: yellow-legged gulls and black-backed gulls, petrels and shags and guillemots, storm-petrels and shearwaters. I watch the shags with their funny crests, yellow beaks and green eyes, bickering and complaining among themselves. The guillemots possess a strange calm, I think only due to their matt black faces and the curious white streak beside their eyes, which gives them the air of wisdom. There are black rats, probably arrived with mariners, and a curious lizard, bright green-yellow along the flank and back, mottled with black and brown patches. I know from speaking to Horacio that there are sardine and mackerel aplenty in these waters, as well as skate, eels and an ugly-faced fish, called by Pilar
el mero
, which some consider a delicacy. The flora is very appealing, with drifts of pink-purple thrift fluttering across the swells of land, flanked by yellow fleabane, and the rocks creep with a matting plant with delicate green florets which I believe is of the family
herniaria
or rupturewort. Pilar tells me that the odd thing is that these flora and fauna are quite different from those found in Peniche, as well as the red granite rock here being completely different to the limestone on the mainland – almost as if the island had been plucked from another continent and deposited here by a mighty hand, or perchance islands in the distant past did float across the seas, picking up curious animals and wind-borne seeds as they went.

There are numerous caves and hollows hereabouts. Some are on the other islets and thus far unreachable to me, yet I have managed to clamber into some on the main island. In one I find the floor strewn with old things: mounds of seashells, remains of fires and scattered piles of the bones of animals. I collect a few and examine them in my hut. It seems some of these bones may even be human. I consider how old they may be. Also I find several stones that seem too similar to be a coincidence. I would swear they have been fashioned in some way, flaked with perhaps another piece of rock to create sharp edges on both sides. They fit perfectly into the palm of my hand. And I could call up into my fancy the act of holding such a stone and cutting fruit with it, or even carving shapes into wood or bone, scraping, slicing, creating. It is a tool, I am sure of it. But what kind of people would need to use such a hand-made, lowly tool as this? Even the monks will have had cutlery, axes and knives. It must be so old it is beyond memory. I keep them all laid out in my hut and study them over and over, considering the hands that made them, and what their eyes did see in that distant past.

Once I have scoured the land of my island, I venture into the sea to study the life within it. At first I hitch up my skirts and wade into the shallows. I carry my glass viewer beneath my arm and peer down into the water for the first time. And what a world I find! Never have I dreamed of such a complete system of life so separate from my own, in this other medium, this water they have no knowledge of; they swim through it and yet have as little understanding of it as does a babe the air it breathes. I see flat rocks spreading out beyond me, home to a multitude of plants and creatures, a city of the shallows, buzzing with silent yet vibrant life; rather, it is silent to this outsider, looking in from the world of air, but I imagine within the water there must be a cacophony from all those tiny vivid inhabitants fighting for space, light and life, just as noisy as any London thoroughfare. Tiny fish dart between delicate plants constructed of waving fingers, spread across the rocks plastered with splashes of every colour I can imagine, strange jellied organisms – plant or animal? It is a mystery! – forests of tree-like structures spreading and contracting, moving in unison with every whim of the water, looking almost alive, sentient. I spend days looking at the reefs near to the beaches, up to my waist in ocean, my skirts sodden and salty. I scramble back to the beach and my bag, scribbling down notes and sketches of each new plant or animal I find, labelling each one with the names of the correct shades of colour, which I can later transfer into full drawings when my pastels and paper arrive from Lisbon.

In the evenings, I compare everything I have seen with the exquisite drawings in my book on sea life – how grateful I am to Mr Applebee for his gift – and find there are some species here not present in that volume. I imagine comparing them to all known species back at home, perhaps finding they are new to science, and the gratification of fashioning my own names for these enchanting specimens. To think, an animal or plant named by a woman, named after me! I swell with pride at the thought.

I soon grow impatient with my wading as I can see there is so much more to see beyond my depth. I venture further yet fear drowning. I anticipated this back in London and read a copy of the book
The Art of Swimming
; I have learned the techniques out of the water first, as the book suggests, practising in my room only when alone, as I look a fool doing it in the air. Now I begin to practise the arm and leg movements in the water, dabbling in the shallows to perfect my technique, and discover I am a strong swimmer. Within weeks, I have developed enough confidence to swim a little further out. Yet I want to go further still, so I borrow a small boat from the garrison and row myself out to quiet spots in deeper water, peering over the side of the boat through my viewer. Here I see even more stunning specimens of coral: bright yellow tree-like structures with white twiggy tendrils; a collection of terracotta tubes mottled with white-outlined red bumps; a pallid snowflake-shaped structure with transparent flowers that resembles an explosion of sparks. All these varied corals have one thing in common: though I am sure they must be plants, I have a peculiar feeling that they are thinking. There is something about the way they move, that they do not always sway with the current, but sometimes start as if in fear, and respond shockingly to outside intruders or even seem to engulf smaller creatures, as if eating them. It occurs to me that perhaps coral are animals, and not plants. But if they are, they are a form of animal without eyes or legs, or the other forms one associates with animals we know and love. If they are not animals, then they are intelligent plants, another uncanny thought.

One day I tire of my viewer and wish to see a broader area without it; thus I need to lean over from my boat and place my face close to the surface. But I stretch too far and fall in. I am submerged and weighed down dangerously by my ridiculous clothes, simple as they are. So I peel off most of them and discard them in the boat. I wear only my shift, feel my hair floating all around me on the surface of the water like a mermaid’s; I tip my head back, spread out my arms and float on the surface of the cerulean sea, close my eyes and float, my bare arms caressed by the playful water. This is the kind of liberation I had not the wit to dream of in smoky, dirty London, trussed up in stiff clothes and hemmed in by walls, streets and custom. The water soothes and holds me like a mother washes her child, like the babe in the watery womb. I wonder if my mother knew me long enough to bathe me, I wonder if she held me even. There are no answers to such questions.

I turn and dip below the surface, open my eyes and through the blur consider the riotous beauty of the coral reef and how it came to be. This is a question I can contemplate. These gardens are so exquisite that it seems as if they must have been devised by a hand, created in order to be pleasing to the eye; the whole swathe of them in all their stunning variety across the reef seems designed by Capability Brown or some such landscape magician, to provide the most harmonious aspect. It may sound as if I am referring to the Almighty as the architect of this undersea garden. But I am not; I have an inkling that a human gardener created these displays, but an ancient one, from our distant past. Perhaps the kind of human who left their bones in those caves hereabouts. But what kind of being could have produced such intricate beauty as a coral garden, so long ago? And surely it would have to be a human who inhabited the shore, or islands, if not the sea itself; what, then, an aquatic human? I think of our smooth hairless skin, our layer of fat, even the curious webbing we all possess between forefinger and thumb …

Sometimes I believe the conjecture of the natural philosopher rests uncomfortably between enlightenment and lunacy. I consider removing my shift to experience the water’s embrace on every part of my body, but I fear it would be my misfortune to be spotted by a patrolling soldier who would cite my outrageous behaviour as evidence of madness and I would be removed from the island. Swimming in a shift is bad enough and I scramble back into the boat, spreading out my sodden clothes and lying beside them in the sun to dry off, the gentle waves rocking me as I drift along the ridge of the reef. I could float out to sea and never be found. There are worse fates.

That evening, clothed once more, somewhat damp with bare feet and the tangled hair of a siren, I tramp up the grassed path from the shore to the hillock on which sits my hut. A movement catches my eye and I glance down to the mooring-place below. There is a sailing boat there, one I have not seen before. In it, a man is collecting his bag and stepping out, met by a soldier from the garrison. They salute each other and the soldier points upwards, towards my hut. The man turns and shields his eyes from the golden light low on the horizon. He looks up and sees me, barefoot and wild-haired in the dying sun.

I am so astonished to see Captain Alex striding up to me – smiling broadly, hatless, wigless, a bulky knapsack over his shoulder, ruddy-cheeked and windswept from his sailing boat trip – that I guess there must be very bad news to bring him all this way. The brief contemplation of this – or something – causes a prickly sensation to sweep from the top of my head to my toes.

‘Is Mr Woods very ill?’

‘Oh no, Miss Price, not at all,’ he assures me. ‘I fear I have distressed you.’

‘I am so relieved.’

He places his bag on the ground and says, ‘In fact, I come on an errand. I bring your colours. And paper. From Lisbon. For your work. And post from England. And some food, fine food you have perhaps not tasted in some time in your humble surroundings here … And I bring wine.’

Never was I so glad to receive a gift, and to have a friend to bring it.

‘Well, Captain Alex, you are
most
welcome here!’ I laugh and he is pleased. ‘But where will you stay this night? It is already evening.’

‘I am to sleep at the fort. It is all arranged. I will leave tomorrow afternoon. I was hoping that we might share a meal now, if it is convenient?’

‘But I have no place to entertain you here, sir. No ceremony.’ I hold out my arms and look down at myself, even more dishevelled than the first time he saw me, barefoot as I am.

‘I am used to rough ways, at sea.’

‘In your superior cabin?’

‘It was not always thus. I began as a midshipman at ten years of age and lodged with the able seamen. I have seen my share of squalor.’

‘Then my goatherd’s hut will serve. Follow me.’

I clear the table of my studies and we lay out all his good gifts. He has brought cured ham and sheep’s-milk cheese, custard tarts too and soft milk bread.

‘I must admit I am quite stunned to see you here, Captain. I would imagine you to be in Africa by now.’

‘We plan to sail in five days. And I have taken some leave. I came to the English Hotel in Lisbon, intending to offer to accompany you on a visit to the local attraction of Sintra, an appealing seaside location. But they told me there that you were in Peniche and also that some artist’s materials had arrived for you. So, on a whim, I hired a horse to bring you your goods, stopping off to purchase some of the finest local food on the way. On my arrival your rather dour landlady informed me in imperfect English that you had decamped from there too, and were ensconced on your island for the week, only to be reached by a sailing boat voyage of several hours.’