Signals of Distress

by Jim Crace

  If she had waited for ten minutes more – as did Aymer Smith – she would have noticed the fog-cloud thicken where the Belle had disappeared and a yellow twist of smoke make smudges on the white. The coastal steampacket, Ha’porth of Tar, passed within fifty yards of the Belle. They rang their greetings across the water, and Lotty Kyte, reluctant to abandon the sea air and the deck, waved both hands into the darkness and had no fear. It seemed to Aymer that the tussling spirits of the age were passing on the sea; the old, the new, the wind, the steam, the modest and the brash. The future would be driven by steam, he was sure. It was a more compliant slave than wind. Already there were steam coaches, steam looms, steam threshers, and he had heard of a machine that could hatch eggs by steam. ‘There’ll be no need for men and chickens soon,’ he thought. ‘There’ll be no need for sails on boats either. A shame.’ And such a shame as well that there wasn’t anyone to share his observations with. The quay was empty now. Aymer went in search of educated company, George, perhaps, or even Mr Phipps.

  The Tar, its progress simplified by steam, put into Wherrytown with no one there to watch – unless there was someone, lost behind the town, with nothing else to do but stare and wonder if the Belle’s departure was a liberation or a curse.

  Aymer Smith didn’t find educated company. He went back to his room. His own bed smelled of Whip. He lay down on the Norrises’ double bed, his boots still on, his face pressed into the mattress. He smelled where Katie Norris had been, and would have masturbated there and then had not Mrs Yapp come in on some thin pretext and plagued him with her nosiness.

  ‘In bed? Are you not well, Mr Smith?’

  ‘I am entirely well, despite a malady of spirit.’

  ‘What’s that then? Fever? I’ll bring you a pennyworth of something for it, if you want.’

  ‘I suffer from a sentimental malady, Mrs Yapp. A pennyworth of peace and quiet is all I want.’

  Mrs Yapp was not the sort to take offence. ‘Don’t suffer for that Miggy Bowe,’ she said. ‘She’s gone and in’t worth the fever.’

  ‘I have not got a fever, Mrs Yapp. Nor do I suffer anything for Miggy Bowe …’

  ‘I think you have been singed by her, though. You can say.’

  ‘Good heavens, she’s a country girl! What dealings could I have had with her?’

  ‘Now there’s a question to be asked, and asked by anyone who saw you handing money to the girl.’

  ‘Phaa, Mrs Yapp!’

  ‘I’m only mentioning …’

  ‘Then please to mention nothing more. I have no head for it.’ He stood up and looked out on to the courtyard, with his back to her. ‘I have business dealings with the Bowes, the younger and the elder both, regarding the manufacture of our family soap. As you well know. Those coins that I gave were kindly recompense for their loss of kelping. My pocket has been singed by her and nothing else. I aim to give some coins to the mother, too. And so you see there is no gossip to be brewed from it.’

  ‘That is uncommon kindly, sir. For Rosie Bowe will want a little helping, what with her Miggy gone, the kelping finished with and bad luck all along the coast. You heard the Cradle Rock’s pushed down?’

  ‘The Rock pushed down! And how is that?’

  ‘That blackie done it, Mr Smith. Pushed it halfway down the cliff.’

  ‘Then it’s the work of Nature. Otto would not have the strength for that.’

  ‘He must’ve done. It’s him, all right. He signed his work. They say he’s put his name to it, scratched in some piece of benchwood that they found …’

  Aymer walked out of the room and pulled his coat on as he ran along the inn’s odd levels to the parlour and the lane. No Ralph. No George. No Whip. He had to walk along the coast alone. He hadn’t known he had such energy or speed. His coastal walks had made him healthy. Now he could almost run. Six miles was not a trial.

  Mrs Yapp had not exaggerated. The Cradle Rock had fallen on its side, and where the rock had once pivoted was now a newly opened cave, musty, colourless and wet, with streaks of bird lime and the bones of rats amongst the debris of the stone. When Aymer came, a group of fishermen were standing where the rock had been, talking in low voices with their hands across their mouths, as if they feared the wind would take their words away. Walter Howells was standing on the pivot edge, looking down on to the toppled Rock. He had his pistol in his jacket belt. ‘That’s never coming up again,’ he said. ‘That’s going to end up in the sea. A thousand shillings wouldn’t put that back in place. Don’t even ask.’

  Skimmer and two of the Dollys climbed up from the headland rocks and joined their neighbours.

  ‘There in’t no sign of him,’ said Palmer’s father, Henry.

  ‘How long’s it been?’

  ‘Most half a day. He wasn’t there when we put up the nets. We sent the dogs out looking for the boy. And we’ve been hollering his name all morning.’

  ‘He’ll show up,’ said Skimmer.

  ‘Bound to.’

  No one dared say ‘cannibal’. Palmer would show up all right, his bones picked clean, his blood drunk dry, his sable hair as lifeless as a mat. They blamed themselves. They’d had Otto almost in their hands. They should’ve tossed him in the sea. They should’ve kept him chained and gagged.

  ‘You’ll have to put a bullet through the bugger’s heart, Mr Howells,’ one fisherman said. ‘Or else what? If he can down a rock that size and on his own, then it’ll be our cottages next. He’ll snap our boats in two. He’ll rip the country up, so help me God.’

  His neighbour stooped amongst the bones and lifted up a piece of broken glass. He put it to his nose. ‘That’s brandy I can smell,’ he said. ‘And fresh.’ The fishermen looked nervously inland. What now? They even turned to Aymer Smith for his advice, but he had none, or none at least that they would want to hear.

  Aymer went down to the beach, past the thirty cattle from the Belle which were still fenced off by snaps of gorse amongst the dunes, awaiting agent Howells. The tide was high, almost on the turn, and heavy with weed. The kelp! He had forgotten it though it had brought him there. In that tumbling clarity of water, the weeds were as vibrant and seductive as a satin-merchant’s shop. The mustards and the crimsons he had seen when Ralph and the Bowes were fishing for their cow were no longer there. The seaweeds that he saw were darker, more mature, the sort of satins worn by spinsters, dowagers and chaperones, in mauves and browns and greys, the sort of satins favoured by the old.

  IT WAS the third time that he’d knocked on Rosie Bowe’s front door. The dogs recognized him now. They didn’t bark. She let him in and put him in his usual place. There was an idling fire, and the smell of Sunday’s beef stew, saved for the dogs and greening in the pot. Aymer leant across and put three sovereigns on the shelf above the hearth. He didn’t want to justify the gift, or ornament it with a speech. He simply clicked each coin on the wood, so that she wouldn’t have to guess how much there was. He understood her independent mind, he thought. He was the independent sort himself. And he was keen to avoid her independent tongue, as well. He couldn’t forget her thrashing temper when he’d first offered her his help: the kelper’s shilling and the soap. ‘That in’t no use,’ she’d said, not guessing what a friend and benefactor he might be. ‘It’s a bad-luck shilling and we’ll have none of it.’ This time he wouldn’t preach at her, but carry out his duties without a word. His promise would be kept and his debt settled. She could pick the money up, or leave it there for ornament, or throw the bad-luck coins out. That responsibility was hers.

  Rosie dished a plate of stew. The dogs could go without. No matter how upset she was and wanting privacy, she could hardly let her visitor shiver in his chair and not provide the victuals for his journey back. The beef did not taste good, but Aymer forced himself to chew on it, and eat the horn of home-bake and drink the lukewarm minted water that she gave him. It seemed important that he should finish everything. These were her modest thanks to him, he thought. He occupied himself with food. Where should
he look, but at his spoon and plate?

  She stared at him, expressionless. If he looked up from eating, her mouth and eyes grew narrow in the half darkness. Her face became invisible. Her teeth and eye-whites disappeared. She gave no sign of breathing. If she had lungs, they must have been in her legs. She was ill at ease with Aymer Smith, but not as ill at ease as he was, alone with her. Despite the comforts of the fire, the chair, the smell of food, he felt displaced, a vagrant, over-feathered bird on a starling’s nest. He was too big and cultured for that room. Nothing that he valued in himself had any value there. His modest wealth, his manners and his education – what did they count for? His charity? His Scepticism? His love of conversation and debate? His unexpected sympathy for dogs? His democratic spirit? His prodigious memory for Latin names? Which amongst these attributes should Rosie Bowe admire? Which of his parts and virtues could she burn for candle wax, and which would stew well with a turnip root? What use were manners for catching fish? Would Scepticism make a sauce? Would education batten down the roof against a lifting wind? Would love of dogs bring Miggy back? Aymer understood her narrowed eyes to mean, ‘You in’t no use to me!’

  And he was right to some extent. For all his clumsy innocence, for all his clicking coins on the shelf, she didn’t value him. He was no use to her. He’d disappear like all the other passing gentlemen on their pedestrian expeditions through Dry Manston. Rosie had met a hundred men like Aymer Smith. They weren’t rare. Not in the summer anyway. They’d stop to sketch the cottage or ask the way. And then, what questions they would put! What was the folklore thereabouts? What were ‘conditions’ on the coast? What weather might be signified by easterlies? Which were the places where the seals came in? They’d make notes, persuade her to provide a plate of ‘whatever’s cooking on the fire’, look Miggy up and down as if she were a horse, donate a penny, then make their farewells – their plates not empty and their eyes not looking into hers, yet claiming that their lives had been enhanced by this encounter and exchange.

  But Rosie’s life hadn’t been changed. She wasn’t enhanced by meeting gentlemen, and feeding them. No matter how they loved the ‘emancipations’ of sea and air, they didn’t stay for long enough to make their mark on her. They soon grew tired of pauper food, and Rosie’s conversation. They’d come for landscape, beauty, history. They didn’t want to taste her life. They disappeared without a trace. Like Aymer would. Except that he’d not grown tired as quickly as he might. He had at least stayed long enough to taste her life. And, by the looks of it, he would leave an empty plate.

  Rosie watched him forcing down the stew, and tearing off small bites of home-bake as if he expected it to bite him back. He wasn’t used to wooden spoons, or eating off his lap, or chewing outskirt cuts of beef, or sitting on uncushioned wood with nothing overhead but a thatch of turf. She ought, she knew, to take the plate away. But let him eat like dogs before he goes, she thought. Let him get the tough and joyless taste of it. Let him gag.

  She was fascinated by the man’s timidity. He was as nervous as a child. He didn’t even dare to push his plate aside. He’d rather make a penance of the beef. If she let him finish every scrap and then put a second helping on his plate, would he eat that as well? She’d rap his knuckles if he didn’t eat it up. She’d box his ears. She smiled her first smile of the day. At last she couldn’t watch him any more. ‘You’ve had enough,’ she said.

  ‘No, no.’

  She took the plate away and put it outside for the dogs. ‘They’re glad of it.’

  ‘A dog that dines on beef is king,’ said Aymer.

  Rosie laughed out loud at that. ‘And what’s a king that dines on beef?’ she asked. ‘Is he a dog?’

  ‘That is not logical,’ said Aymer, glad to have this gristle for his intellect, and be free of gristle in his mouth. ‘A king that dines on bones might well be called a dog, I think you will agree. But the vice versa is not true. A dog that dines on bones is still a dog. You would not say he was a king …’

  ‘If they was beef bones, though?’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then dogs and kings might share a plate, and that would be a day worth living for, in’t that the truth?’ Aymer thought it was the wittiest of truths, and told her so. Again she narrowed her mouth and eyes, and seemed both unamused and unflattered by his laughter and approval.

  He tried to find some common ground with her. He’d see how sharp and witty she could be on other topics. But she didn’t want to talk about the beauty of the kelp, or the bizarre case of blindfolded Lotty Kyte, or hear the great debate between Wind and Steam. She hadn’t any views to share on Blind Superstition. Nor did the tumbling of the Cradle Rock much interest her. The fishermen were idiots if they thought one man had pushed it down. ‘It must’ve been those Americans,’ she said eventually. ‘I saw them on the headland yesterday. There’s nothing to be feared of them. Not now. They’ve gone. And Miggy, too.’ At this her eyes were narrowed even more. She screwed them up. She hid them with her hand.

  ‘Your daughter, Mrs Bowe, will be well under way by now. I am happy that the sea is placid for her,’ said Aymer. ‘She will be sorely missed, of course. But Ralph Parkiss is a decent young man. I had the pleasure to be acquainted with his character. And he with mine. He would regard me as a friend. And – you will believe me, I am sure – he will regard your daughter with affection. Do not alarm yourself on his account. There are few better sons-in-law, though he be only young and poor. It may be that there are men of better standing and more generously provisioned … ah, that is …’ Aymer, too, put his hand across his face, to hide his embarrassment. ‘I do not mean myself, of course. Though I am neither young nor poor. I would not make a son-in-law for anyone. I am not the husband kind. I was foolish to have ever entertained the thought of it …’

  Again, Rosie Bowe was imitating seals. She tried to trap their calls inside her mouth. She tried to swallow them. Aymer thought, at first, that she was trying to suppress a sneeze. But he had wept enough himself to recognize a stifled sob. What had he said? Why should she care that he would not make a son-in-law for anyone? Was that so sad for her?

  He almost asked her not to waste a tear for him. He wasn’t worthy of her sympathy. But there was something in the way she cried that kept him quiet and gave him time to realize the shaming truth, that no one cried for Aymer Smith. Her tears were for her daughter and herself. They were unstoppable. She’d drawn her legs up to her chest and had her hands laced round her wrists. Her head was on her knees. She had halved in size. She was like a woman out of Bedlam, hot, white-knuckled, volatile. Why should she care if Aymer Smith was there and watching her? She didn’t know the protocol of grief. Her cheeks were wet, and then her lips. Her chin was leaking on her dress. Her nose began to run, and she was sniffing back the tears and swallowing them. Her breathing next: her lungs were working overtime. Her throat was wet and windy, and the noises that she made now belonged to gulls, not seals. Her shoulders shook. Her body lost its bones. Her hands were knotted wood. Her hair was weed. She said, ‘This is bitter …’

  Aymer Smith was too ashamed to move at first. ‘Can I do anything?’ he said. She didn’t hear. She banged her fists against her head. She threw her head back on the wall. His three sovereigns rattled on the shelf.

  ‘I beg you, Mrs Bowe …’ He took one step across the room and put his right hand on her shoulder. ‘Come, come, you will upset yourself …’

  Her head came up from off the wall; her forehead rested for a second on his hip, and then her head went back again and bounced against the wall.

  ‘I beg you, Mrs Bowe,’ he said again. ‘You are damaging yourself.’ Perhaps he ought to throw some water over her. He couldn’t see a bucket or a bowl. There was only beef stew in a pot. That wouldn’t help. He put both hands behind her head and tried to steady it. She was surprisingly strong, and Aymer was too gentle. He should have held her by the ears or hair. Instead he clasped her head tightly to his body, and called for help. He didn’t have
a name to call. The nearest neighbour was a quarter-mile away. His sister-in-law, Fidia, would have quietened Rosie straight away, with a glass of water and a slap, both in the face. He’d seen her do it with their kitchen girl. But calling ‘Fidia!’ would be no use. And simply calling ‘Help’ seemed too theatrical. So he called out, ‘Anybody! Anybody!’ And it worked. Nobody came. But it had startled Rosie. She stopped trying to break away from Aymer. Had that been his intention? He wasn’t sure of anything, except that dreams and nightmares were the same.

  So the oddest thing had come about. Steam and Wind were reconciled. This pair of awkward, independent Contraries were pressed together like two pigeons in a storm – though they weren’t as plump as pigeons. Rosie could feel his rib cage on her face and, now that she was quiet, she heard his stomach dealing comically with stew to the quickening percussion of his heart. She’d always liked a man’s hands on her head, his fingers hard on her skull and hidden in her hair. Her tears had made Aymer’s shirt-front damp. He smelled of good soap, and dog. She didn’t want to pull her head away and face him. What could they say to save their blushes? Besides, his hands around her head were calming her. Miggy had not hugged her Ma for years. So any hugging at that time would help.