He handed Drake a cup of tea.
My wife’s not here. She’ll be very sorry to have missed you. She’s often away at our daughter’s, so I’m well-practised at looking after things. I know where the tea and biscuits are.
They sat quietly, smoking, drinking tea. The clock ticked loudly between them.
It never used to work, that clock. It chimed out of the blue two or three years ago after I learnt of my son’s death. People often talk of clocks stopping don’t they, Mr Drake? Well, mine started. I haven’t the foggiest what that means, but it gives me comfort. Inexplicable moments give me comfort. Like you turning up. With a letter I never expected. Inexplicable moments.
The doctor drank his tea.
Do you have family, Mr Drake?
No.
No one?
No.
No one who cares about you?
Drake shifted in his seat. I don’t really know, he said.
The clock ticked loudly.
Sorry. Too direct?
No. Not at all. No. I have been cared for, Dr Arnold, so . . .
So you have answered my question. Good. Good.
Dr Arnold sipped his tea. Had you known my son long?
Yes. Long enough.
He never mentioned you.
No? Drake reached for his tea. Keep your hand steady.
He was a good soldier, he added. You should be proud of him.
I am. I was. But he wasn’t a good soldier, I don’t think. And he hated every minute of the war. And we disagreed about the war and in that disagreement was the seed of our estrangement. So. You see. You’re either a bad liar, or you didn’t know him.
Drake’s heart thumped loudly. The clock ticked. His mouth dried.
I didn’t know him, he eventually said. I’m sorry. I don’t want to cause distress.
No, no you’re not, said the doctor. Please sit down. Please. But how did you come by the letter?
I was passing a wounded man who had been left on a stretcher at the edge of a field hospital and he asked me to deliver it.
And you didn’t know him?
No.
But you promised to deliver it.
I did.
The last wish of a dying man?
Yes, I thought it was.
Then for that I thank you. The doctor drank the last of his tea.
We drank brandy, said Drake. And the flowers were out. And that day didn’t feel like war because it was summer, and the sun was out and it was normal. And for a brief moment we were normal. Your son said he wanted to swim.
The doctor smiled, said, He was a good swimmer.
He wanted me to tell you he was all right.
The doctor coughed, cleared his throat. So? What happens to you now, Mr Drake? he said.
I don’t know, really.
Back to London?
No. Not London. I may go back to France. To the south.
A free spirit?
Something like that. I’ve been living here the last six weeks.
In Cornwall?
Yes. I’ve been living by a river in a boathouse: a strange set-up for someone who hates water.
An ideal set-up, in many ways, for someone who hates water.
Yes, maybe. I think that’s probably what the old woman would have said too.
And what old woman is that? said Dr Arnold.
Old Marvellous. Lived down there for years.
The clocked ticked loudly.
She’s still alive? said the doctor.
You know her?
Knew her. Yes, I did. A long time ago now, and Dr Arnold got up and went to the drinks cabinet. My God, he said. How is she?
Drake thought. Remarkable, really.
Does she still swim?
Drake smiled. Yes. Every high water.
She told you her mother was a mermaid?
She did.
The doctor raised a bottle of Scotch. Will you join me?
Please.
No water I would guess, said the doctor.
No water, said Drake smiling.
The doctor handed Drake his drink.
Good luck, Mr Drake.
To you, sir.
The sound of two glasses touching. The sound of a clock. The sound of the doctor sitting back heavily in his armchair as a sigh from the past brushes his ear.
Do you believe in fate, Mr Drake?
I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.
No, and neither did I at your age, the question was probably rather unfair. But looking back now I can quite honestly say that I do believe in fate.
I met your old woman – Miss Marvellous Ways – twenty-five years ago. And to this day I count myself lucky to have met her. For years there had been rumours about her. My predecessor had warned me about the Woman in the Wood. Said people were uncomfortable with her, scared of her even. But most doctors tolerated her. One even had his children delivered by her. Strange times, Mr Drake.
When I was called to visit her, she had been living rough in the woods for weeks. Naked, whatever the weather. It was not long after the First War I think. It was 1922 maybe? People said she had gone mad after burying her lover. Well, that was the story that brought me back to her door one spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago.
I remember leading her back to her caravan saying something unbelievably trite, something along the lines of, Life goes on. I was young, my only excuse.
She was oblivious to her state, thank God. She thought our meeting was a meeting of like minds: doctor to doctor, the linking of science – me – with her the traditional. Or so she believed. She had cuts on her hands and feet and sores around her mouth. She had a rasping cough, if I remember rightly. I asked to listen to her chest and she told me it was grief. I said I thought it was pneumonia. I said, Open your mouth. She said, Open your mind.
The doctor laughed. Open your mind! I told her she could die if she didn’t go and live somewhere dry and stop her daily swim. I swim because I have to, that’s what she said. It’s what keeps me well. And I said, Can’t you just swim in the morning? And she said I swim at high tide. It’s who I am. My mother was a mermaid. Blame the moon. I’d never met anyone who talked the way she talked. Who saw the world the way she saw it. And I was transfixed, if not professionally curious, as well. I saw her every day for two weeks. And every day she told me about her life and the river. Took me into the boathouse and told me the story of her mother and father. And on the last day I took out my stethoscope and listened to her breathing. There was no pneumonia, no hysteria. Just the sound of deep sorrow. It was the first time I had ever made such a diagnosis.
Melancholia. That’s the term the Victorians used. Grief. Depression. Unassailable loss, choose what you will, but I too understand the madness that ensues when someone you love dies. But I kept mine clothed. Respectable. I kept mine hidden so as not to frighten people. But it was there, behind my job, behind my eyes. But because I was respectable, people would come to our house with food, or a cake, or kind words. My grief – because I was respectable – was not misinterpreted. I too went mad, Mr Drake. But I still polished my shoes.
You see, this, he said, picking up a Y-shaped tree branch that stood with tongs in a brass holder next to the hearth. On my last night she sent me away with this dowsing rod tucked under my arm, which she promised would find me love.
Drake smiled. And did it?
Oh yes, it did as it happens. The following weekend at a colleague’s wedding. I was so taken with the beautiful Belinda Faulks that three days later I held that very same dowsing rod above her head like a sprig of mistletoe, and kissed her. We got engaged shortly after. Then married. All the things we are supposed to do. I worked hard. Children. Back to London. Back
to Cornwall. And I forgot about Miss Ways.
The doctor ran his hand over the old gnarled branch of hazel and he saw his hand again as a young man’s hand with a lifeline barely explored. And he remembered again that last night in the caravan. Remembered how the sun lowered, how the fractured colours breached the leafed canopy above and streamed before his eyes, that golden light – the light blues, the rich deep blues, as if its majesty that evening was just for them. And how for the first time in his life, he was flooded by an implacable and overwhelming peace. Somewhere between God and medicine there is a place for me. That’s what she’d said and that’s what he’d never forgotten. And he could taste again the sweet sloe gin that loosened his tongue and softened his heart, and the perfumed warmth of the wagon that gave him courage to speak his fears. His eyes prickled and were burning now as he remembered how she enfolded his hand in her own, turning it over, studying it, how she ran her finger across the scar – from a scalpel, he said – and he never pulled away when her gaze ran across his palm. And he remembered asking anxiously, What do you see? Because in her eyes there was a shadow, and years later he understood that that shadow was his son: a beautiful line that suddenly dropped off a cliff.
What do you see? he asked again. And she had said, Happiness. I see years of happiness. And she knew that’s all anyone wanted to hear. And she had followed him out into the darkness and the air was damp and earthy, and the smell of salt was strong and wafted on the breeze. And she had led him through the damp ferns towards the roadside where they stopped by his car. Marvellous had looked up into the starry sky and pointed to a bright white star. That’s your star, Dr Arnold, she had said. Take your bearings from that star and it’ll always bring you home. And it always did.
Dr Arnold shook out a clean white handkerchief and said, Excuse me. A day of ghosts, I’m afraid. Or should I say memories? People prefer memories to ghosts, I think.
The clock chimed.
She delivered Douglas, you know.
What? said Drake. But how? I don’t—
Douglas was my stepson. I engaged myself to mother and child. His father had been killed in the First War. That’s how, Mr Drake.
There are many more things I would like to say, said Dr Arnold. But it’s a question of time. Your time, obviously because you have given me so much already and my gratitude is beyond anything. But there is something I’d like you to see. Something interesting, I think. Something I wished I had seen before. Maybe it would have helped. I don’t know.
And Drake said that for once he had all the time in the world.
30
They were quiet by the time they reached the Museum. Drake let the doctor go on ahead while he stood outside in the falling dusk. He needed time to think about the strange coincidence of Dougie Arnold, time to think about everything the doctor had said to him. He lit a cigarette and watched the ebb and flow of people along River Street. So many lives. All unknown. Drake looked back up to the building. He flicked the cigarette into the gutter and with a heavy feeling in his chest, climbed the steps expecting nothing.
He had never entered a museum before. The close hush of the building was a surprise, a strange comfort. The air was cool, the mood strangely profound. As a church should be. He thought about Marvellous’ quiet declaration on the Night of Tears. I have faith in you. That’s what she’d said.
His footsteps echoed across the ornate stone floor and the fall of his London tread sounded clumsy in the vaulted room as he made his way to the staircase, to the level above.
Dr Arnold was waiting for him. He led him into a small gallery on the right and took him over to a painting on the far wall. Light snaked over his shoulder and lit the face in front.
Here she is, he heard Dr Arnold say. The young woman William Ways fell in love with. This, I believe, is our mermaid.
Drake became aware of his every breath. Aware of every beat of every pulse at his neck at his wrist in his groin in his heart. He noted the size of the frame ahead of him, absorbed the beauty of the face staring back at him, eyes deep and black and sad. An evening sun had caught her right cheek, enriching the dark honey and brown tones of her skin.
Drake turned to Dr Arnold and before he could speak the doctor said, Not what you expected, is she? Imagine her here, Mr Drake. Imagine people’s fear, their incomprehension. Their suspicion.
There were some free men and women back in the American South in the 1850s, Mr Drake. I have done my research. Not common, but not rare either. But whether she was free or whether William Ways bought her freedom we can only speculate. Her desire to swim – to cleanse, if you will – is not that hard to understand, given what probably happened to her. A form of baptism, you could say. Purification by immersion.
Drake turned back to the canvas. Globules of water diamonds hung upon her brow, masking a scar. Her hair, dark and dripping, running down her back. Her bosom, heavy and full. There was gold around her neck, a small shell box too, holding her daughter’s calling. But there was no smile, no song on those thick reddened lips, merely history; a history stolen and brought across seas and sold to the highest bidder. Those lips that had launched a thousand sailors had buried themselves into the neck of William Ways like a prow full steam into waves, and he had promised her freedom and she had given him life. The boathouse was there behind, and the river, full and bloated, nibbling at her hem, teasing her with her not-nice history whispering, Wash it off. Wash them off. And those eyes would not let him be.
For here she was: Lady of the Sea, Approx 1857. Artist: Alfred Warren. Donated Anonymously.
For here she was: the missing piece that matched the smudged outline, etched upon a boathouse wall by smoke and time. A false window to yesterday.
31
Tt was late, dark when the car pulled up at the top of the meadow. Drake got out, waved as he watched the doctor pull away. He sat down wearily on the milestone and looked at the dowsing rod. It held everything he had heard today and everything he had seen, and it felt heavier than when he’d first held it. He hadn’t wanted to take it, but the doctor had insisted. Said you never really own things like this, you merely borrow them.
Come on, he said to himself, no more tonight. And he rolled up his trousers and made his way through the wet grass. He’d decide what to say to old Marvellous when he saw her in the morning. He was too tired now to come up with a story, because today had been a day when he just couldn’t lie.
As he came through the trees he saw that a lamp had been left outside his door. How had she known? Every gesture weighed heavy and he wanted to go straight inside and smoke and drink more but he heard her call out his name and he could never refuse her calling. He left his suitcase outside by the steps.
When he entered the warmth of the wagon, he could barely see her under the pile of blankets, and what he could see was just two large eyes full of longing.
Here, said Drake, peeling her glasses away from her head.
Must have fallen asleep, she said.
Yes, he said.
Waiting for you to get back.
I know.
Silence.
You went to the barber.
I did.
You look nice. Very smart.
Then she pointed to his hand and said, What you got there, then?
He lifted the dowsing rod into the light. The old woman ran her hands across the grain.
Is it one of mine? she asked.
It is. You gave it to someone a long time ago.
I did?
Yes. Four years or so after the First War. A doctor came to see you. Do you remember?
A doctor?
Yes. A Dr Arnold? The man I took the letter to?
The old woman’s eyes clouded.
I don’t think I remember him right now, Drake.
That’s all right.
I don
’t have to, do I?
No, you don’t. You really don’t, and he pulled the blanket up high.
I was thinking, said Drake.
What?
I don’t think I’m going to leave. I’d like to stay –
I’d like you to stay –-
– for as long as I can, if that’s OK.
The old woman nodded and smiled. She reached across and patted his hand.
Ten days till Christmas, she said. Have you thought about what you’d like?
No I haven’t.
I was thinking you need a crab pot.
Do I?
Yes. Because the shops keep running out of food.
That’s true.
So you never go hungry.
A crab pot it will be, then, said Drake. Night, Marvellous. And he stood up to go.
What you going to get me? she said.
I don’t know yet. He smiled. What would you like?
A surprise.
All right.
It better be good, mind, she said.
It will be. I promise it’ll be unforgettable.
Promises, promises, she said.
Night, Marvellous.
When Drake got to the door, Marvellous said, That dowsing rod. It won’t find you water, you know. Only love.
Drake stopped. He went back to the bed, leant over and kissed her for the first time.
What’s all this then? she said.
But he had no words. He would never have any words for what happened that day, and she held his hand and whispered, It’s all right. And that between them would be enough.
32
In a forgotten chapter torn from time, a key turns loudly in a lock and a young doctor – newly married – is shown into the fading light of a grey room. A woman sits on the bed. She is not yet old but she looks old, fiddling with a shell box hanging about her neck. The air is still. About her, scores of model boats cast adrift on the brown institutional floor: boats of various sizes, some complete, many not, made by love and a careful eye, and the secret component of endless time.