Dulcie beamed, and then laughed. ‘I know this one: Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside.’
I began to quicken my tweaking of the instrument and my intake of breath, so that it strayed from the original familiar melody and began to make a guttural drone which I speeded up, faster and faster, throwing in staccato rhythmic noises. It sounded like an irritant, a trapped wasp, but over the past few weeks I had practised enough to pluck out something that was occasionally recognisable.
‘Wonderful,’ she said. ‘Well done you, and a very wise move to play the old tiddley-om-pom-pom favourites. I’d chuck a coin in your cap if I were passing; I’m sure others will do the same, especially if you can master “We’ll Meet Again” or that God-awful “White Cliffs of Dover” song. Strike for sentiment, I’d say. You can’t fail. Here, do you know how Scarborough got its name?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘Not many people do,’ said Dulcie. ‘But then some people never bother to read a book in their entire lives – I don’t mean you, you’re out doing something even better: you’re living life. But there are some out there for whom even the newspaper is only good for soaking up chip fat and cat scat. Anyway, it got its name from two Vikings, Thorgils and Kormak Ögmundarson. Or one of them, anyway.’
‘I don’t quite understand how Scarborough was named after the Vikings.’
‘I was getting to that.’
‘Sorry.’
Dulcie smiled over her glass. ‘Only be sorry for the things you regret. Well, anyway. They were brothers, Thorgils and Kormak. Real rotten apples but, you know, in Viking society that could sometimes be deemed an asset, for back then moral codes were quite different to ours today.’
Dulcie drained her glass and then poured more wine for herself and took a large noisy gulp.
‘In 966 AD, having determined to write the Sagas with fists and hatchets alone, these two brothers stocked up their longboats and with a small army of strong men in tow left their homeland behind in search of adventure and bounty – a bit like you and your epic voyage, in fact.’
‘I’m not sure if it’s an epic voyage. More of a holiday, really.’
‘Travel is a search for the self, trust me. And sometimes just to search is enough.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘Of course. Wander around long enough with your eyes open and soon enough you’ll find things. Great journeys are never about the destination.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I mean, this morning I didn’t imagine I’d taste lobster, lemon or wine by evening.’
‘Exactly. Exactly. That’s precisely what I’m talking about: open eyes. Experience. But I’m digressing. These brothers. Well, they sailed south through choppy ice-cold seas to undertake a series of show-no-mercy raids on the coast of Britain.’
‘Where did they sail from?’ I wondered.
‘I’m not sure. If I had to hazard a guess I would say Iceland. Ögmundarson suggests the Icelandic tradition of men adding the “-son” suffix to their father’s first name. So, for example, Thorgils and Kormak would be recognised as the sons of Ögmundar. Thorgils and Kormak Ögmundarson. And you would be – what’s your father called?’
‘Ronald.’
‘Perfect: then you would be Robert Ronaldson, a Viking-sounding name if ever there was one. So Iceland was where these two brothers sailed from and upon arrival on these foreign shores they upturned their longboats and lived under them for a while, and then, in time, they established a stronghold in a dramatic sweep of conjoined bays backed by the verdant slopes right here on this very coast. They named this settlement Skarthaborg, from Thorgils’ nickname, Skarthi, meaning “Harelip”.’
‘Harelip?’
‘Oh, yes. You see, Thorgils had been born with this facial disfigurement and actually it had only served to make him a better Viking. All the childhood teasing had made him bitter, angry and violent – perfect warrior material. “Just stoke him up and watch him blaze,” the other Vikings used to say, and then they would laugh from deep within their whale skins.’
‘The poor lad,’ I said.
‘Well, maybe. Sometimes you just had to look at Thorgils the wrong way and he’d skin you with his billhook. So let’s hold back on our sympathy, for the suffering Thorgils inflicted on others far outweighed the cruel ribbing he experienced from his hirsute contemporaries. Violence, arson, theft, rape, murder – these were not gentlemen, and everything they gained was through brute force alone. They didn’t need an invitation to enter anyone’s home or marital bed, that’s for sure.’
‘We did a lesson on the Vikings.’
‘Then you probably know this already,’ said Dulcie. ‘It seems at “Harelip” they enjoyed good fishing and good times with those local women who had not managed to flee the area. Like I said, Thorgils and Kormak Ögmundarson were bad boys but successful Vikings. And sure enough they were soon breeding, and this small stronghold of theirs grew into a community and that community became first a village and then a town that spread right across the two bays. Of course, this took many centuries of conflict and dispute and setbacks, and the Ögmundarson brothers were, after all, mortals, who didn’t stick around long enough to see such an expansion, though they live on in the genes of many in Britain today. Many, many centuries passed to bring us to the spa seaside resort that it is today, Skarthaborg, otherwise known as Scarborough, around one thousand years after the Ögmundarsons first salted a cod there and Thorgils Ögmundarson brained Bjarni Sigmundsson with a rusty oarlock for calling him Skarthi one time too many.’
‘Who is Bjarni Sigmundsson?’
‘That doesn’t matter.’
Night settled upon the meadow like a trawler’s net sinking slowly to the deeper waters, the sun fading as the gloom enfolded everything within it.
The evening had drained into night as we had drained the bottle of wine, and it was too late to continue down bay, where there would be nowhere but doorways and ginnels in which to sleep, or the beach, where the incoming tide could take a sleeping man away.
So at the top end of the meadow I pegged my tarp into a triangular shape and crawled in with my sleeping bag and a small flask of tea dashed with a tot of whisky that Dulcie had insisted I bring with me. She had also offered Butler’s service as a nightwatchman but I had declined. I did not fear the dark. In fact, I relished it.
It was a clear, crisp night and it had cooled considerably as I lay watching the sky run the gamut of blues, my head swimming from the wine and my stomach bloated and creaking from the rich buttery food after several weeks of dining on the scavenged basics.
An elongated prism of light stretched from an upper window of Dulcie’s cottage across the garden and beyond the border fence into the meadow, but soon that went out and all was perfect darkness. But darkness is never a solid mass and in time the shapes of the swaying branches of distant trees distinguished themselves, and the night became a thing of layers, a lamination of changing hues in which perspective becomes distorted and suddenly judgement itself is placed under question. Foreground and background appeared to swap places, and the night offered a series of mesmerists’ illusions in this dark velvet theatre ruled by creatures of blood and bone.
I tuned into the changing soundtrack as the daytime residents were replaced by those nocturnal species who turned the meadow into an arena of feeding, flying, calling and crawling. The late shift had begun, and the creatures of the night slowly tuned up like the school orchestra reconvening after a long break. Fluttering moths tapped out paradiddle rhythms with their dry wings at the dull lamp that hung at the end of Dulcie’s lane, and the dipping shadow-shapes of bats clicked as they swooped down to snatch them up by the dozen, flitting in irregular, jerking circles, frenziedly feeding while mapping the night.
Field mice carved the tiniest curving tunnelled runs through the grass, and a barn owl watched on silently from its treetop promontory. I followed the sound of its call with my eyes and stared into the darkening blue for several minutes before I
saw its shape on the branch and then, fleetingly, its wide unblinking eyes like two moons crossed by a passing streak of threadbare cloud.
And in that moment I felt something of a kinship with those lone sailors and fishermen out on the sea’s skyline who had only their twinkling lamplights to register their existence, the coast of their country and the warm beds of their wives as distant as other planets – visible but unreachable, held between thumb and forefinger as they bobbed on the soft swell, anchored only by the deep ache of longing.
From further afield I heard another owl hoot, and then across the basin of land that curved its way down to the sea a lone dog barked incessantly. The whisky-tea went untouched. The night alone had me drunk enough. In time it took me entirely.
IV
I awoke to a different symphony.
The night shift had been replaced by a new menagerie of sun-worshipping species intent on serenading me from the first glimpsed finger of light that scratched at the roaring dawn sky.
From branches and nests and hedgerows and the meadow their calling came.
I lay for a few moments and conducted a sleepy inventory of sound. There was the polyphonic throaty dual-note mantra of two resting wood pigeons, one near and one distant, twin sounds of contentment. Above that, the pedantic argument of a shrieking flock of seagulls coasting on an inland updraught, and from all around came the buzz and hum of insects hatching and insects breeding, insects taking flight and insects feeding. Ticks and bees and moths and flies. Grasshoppers and ants and beetles of many varieties; newly hatched creatures born in the dawn dew and dried by the morning’s rays to rise and conquer the unfolding day. There was more dry scratching and the melodious fluttering of freshly unfurled butterfly wings thinner than any paper, more beautiful than a stained-glass window.
Across the valley I could hear distant sheep being freed from their corral, each ewe and her young twig-legged lamb in constant contact via bleated conversations, some more urgent than others. And still a solitary dog barked so insistently, and for so long, that I wondered if it were the same one I had fallen asleep to, and whether perhaps it had forgotten the reason it was even barking in the first place.
Somewhere not far away, just beyond the limits of the meadow, where pastures spread to form a mosaic of land both tilled and untouched, I heard the strangulated cough of a young roe deer, its body cautiously curled and pressed deep into vegetation, perhaps, tromped down into fresh wild grass, close enough by to be heard, yet never daring to slumber in the same place for two nights running. There was just the single gruff engine-like honk of waking contentment, then it was silenced.
Nature’s alarm clock told me it was nearly time to rise. With all the noise I had little choice but I lay still for a moment longer, feeling the sun begin to warm my primitive tarpaulin tent as its rays stretched across the hillside.
I must have fallen back to sleep for when I awoke Butler the dog was standing silently at the entrance to my improvised bivouac. His head was cocked an inch or two to one side and his eyebrows arched to enhance an already expressive look. Having never owned one, I had never much noticed the behaviour of dogs before – round our streets they roamed freely, scavenging from bins, and doing their best to avoid getting flattened by the coal trucks that rumbled through the village – but I was already beginning to recognise the signs with which Dulcie’s dog communicated.
‘Hello, Butler,’ I said. ‘Good morning, dog.’
At this his ears tilted forward and he lowered his haunches, firmly planting his front paws. With the morning sun behind him, the lighter sections of his thick pelt became a rusted colour; his russet fur was dotted thereabouts with grass seeds that had lodged themselves to hitch a ride during his morning meadow-wandering, and also a small snatch of cleavers, their tiny hooked hairs giving the impression of stickiness when I leaned over to pluck them away. The dog let me groom him briefly. I tentatively scratched behind his ears and he responded by nudging my hand and half-turning away, and then repeating the action.
I understood: I was being summoned.
Though the morning air had a cool edge to it, the sun poured molten glass on the still indifferent sea and the outside table was already laid with the remains of yesterday’s loaf plus pots of jam, honey and butter, and more nettle tea turning pink in the pot. There were also apples and a small jug of cream. Dulcie was sitting at the table wearing a comically wide-brimmed sun hat, with a hardback book further obscuring her face. The dog led me to the table and then lay down beneath it. It was perhaps later than I realised.
‘Good morning,’ I said.
Dulcie lowered the book and then shaded her eyes with one hand. ‘And how did you sleep?’
‘Well,’ I said. ‘Very heavily.’
‘I thought I’d send Butler along before the cream curdled.’
‘What time is it?’
‘I have no idea,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I don’t keep a clock. The wireless or my stomach tell me what I need to know. Tea?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘I’m not a morning person so I will ask you just one more question and you can keep your response quite brief: would you like some eggs?’
‘Oh, no. This is quite sufficient.’
‘Then help yourself.’
Dulcie poured my tea and I joined her at the table, where we drank and ate in silence, occasionally swatting away the wasps that had begun to pay visits to the jam pot.
‘This is very kind of you – ’
Dulcie batted the compliment away as swiftly as she did the wasps.
Minutes passed and the sun rose further to slowly push back the shrinking shadows from the southern edge of the meadow.
When the bread had been eaten, and we had each had an apple, and the teapot had been drained so that all that was left was a wadded clot of nettle leaves sitting in some dirty green residue, Dulcie leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.
‘Thank you for the lack of conversation. Silence is indeed golden.’
‘You’re welcome,’ I said.
‘You don’t say much, and I like that. There is poetry in silence but most don’t stop to hear it. They just talk, talk, talk, but say nothing because they are afraid of hearing their own heartbeat. Afraid of their own mortality.’
Several more minutes passed before Dulcie opened her eyes.
‘You know, I don’t think I’ve slept under canvas for years. Decades, perhaps.’
‘Perhaps you should try it.’
‘Not likely. Does that thing keep you dry?’
‘More or less. So long as I set it up right, yes.’
‘But what about your ablutions?’
Once again uncertain as to the meaning of a word I had never previously heard, I hesitated, but Dulcie happily filled in the blank for me.
‘Your ones and especially your twos. Your toilet business.’
‘Oh.’ I hesitated. ‘Well, I have a trowel.’
Dulcie raised a hand. ‘Say no more; we managed quite well for thousands of years without the assistance of Mr Thomas Crapper & Co. And you’re warm enough in there, are you?’
‘Often I light a little fire, though that’s as much for the company as the heat.’
‘Makes sense. Man has found comfort at the fireside since time immemorial. I believe there is evidence that humans first used fire to cook food nearly two million years ago. Astonishing.’
I took a final bite from my apple core.
‘Sleeping in the meadow last night was like being in another world,’ I said. ‘The noises sent me to sleep and then others woke me up.’
‘Yes, I do rather like the wildness of the place,’ said Dulcie, shading her brow again. ‘But it is getting out of hand. I mean, look – ’ She pointed to the low garden fence, against which an assortment of weeds were staging an assault from the outside in. ‘One day it’ll eat up the garden and house and I’ll be left living like you in your funny little tent, a slave to knotweed and buttercups. I’ll have to send the hound
out for supplies.’
A moment passed and then I spoke again.
‘I had a look at that shed yesterday.’
‘Shed?’
‘Yes, the one over in the meadow there.’
Dulcie stood and busied herself with clearing the plates. She tipped the crusts and crumbs under the table for Butler, and then followed them with a dollop of jam, which he lapped up.
‘It’s in a bit of a state,’ I said.
Dulcie stacked the cups and teapot onto a tray.
‘It looks like the meadow is trying to steal it away too,’ I added. ‘But structurally it still seems sound.’
‘Well, I’ve no use for it now.’
Dulcie frowned deep in the dark crescent cast by the brim of her sun hat.
‘I thought it looked a bit nicer than your usual shed or summer house,’ I said.
She said nothing and instead took the plates into the kitchen before I remembered my manners and jumped up, helping her with the remainder of the jars and the cream jug. She stacked the plates into the big stone sink, alongside those from last night.
‘Perhaps I could wash up before I go,’ I said. ‘It’s the least I can do.’
‘Best to let them soak.’
‘I’d like to.’
‘No need. Let the warm water do the work. There’s far more important things in life; once a day at the very most is more than enough. Never do more than you need to, I say. Everything in moderation except moderation and all that. Oscar Wilde.’
‘You’ve been very kind in feeding me and letting me stay.’
Again she dismissively waved a hand vaguely in my direction. ‘You slept in the meadow; it’s hardly the Ritz.’
‘There must be something I can do about the place before I go,’ I said. ‘Maybe I could fetch you your messages from down bay?’
‘Oh, I have plenty to eat here, don’t you worry about that.’
‘The meadow, then. How about I tackle some of those weeds?’
‘But don’t you have somewhere to be, Robert? I thought you were desperate to see the sea.’
The Offing Page 5
