The Maker of Swans

by Paraic O’Donnell

  One day in March, when a mist as thick as muslin lies on the river, the boy leaves a pair of surveyors on the far bank. He is making ready to return when he hears a man shout for him to wait for a passenger. It is a common enough occurrence, but today he does not at first see who it is that hails him. At length, a coach emerges from the mist, the driver standing with the reins and calling again for him to hold ashore.

  ‘Hold up, ferryman. Gentleman here on urgent business.’

  The boy loops a line about his elbow and returns to his checks. ‘I am not weighing anchor for Tasmania. You need not cause a stampede.’

  ‘If you want the gentleman’s business, you little river monkey, you’ll keep a civil tone.’

  The boy does not pause in his work. ‘There’s me or there’s the bridge. Seventeen miles or so, the round trip.’

  The coach has come to a halt now. It is some ten or twelve yards off still, and the boy sees only a dark hulk in the mist. The driver, by the sound of it, is helping his passenger down and putting himself in the way of a tip. The boy sits on the stern and watches.

  The man that approaches is tall, but his shape is so indistinct in the mist that at first the boy can tell no more. Soon, though, his dark hat and cape can be seen, and the man’s voice reaches the water. For a moment, the boy thinks that he is calling out to him, in some language he does not understand, but it is not that. The man in the dark cape is singing as he strides towards the boat. He carries a cane, though his gait is strong, and swings it at his side as he walks.

  It is a kind of singing that the boy has heard only once before, when a travelling show came to the guildhall. On that night, a man in a coat of crimson velvet climbed to the platform, his face powdered like a woman’s. He sang in just this way, with a great force and heat in his voice. The song was in another language, its melody voluptuous and extravagant. It was like watching a glass blower, who begins with no more than a slug of red-hot crystal but coaxes from it a graceful and fluted vessel.

  The man breaks off his song as he nears the water. He raises his cane in salute. ‘You must forgive my driver,’ he says. ‘They are apt, in that profession, to succumb to piles, a complaint that has likely taken the lustre from his manners. It gave me a pain in my own arse, I may tell you, listening to his soliloquy of misery all the way from London. You do not suffer from piles yourself?’

  The boy stares at him and slowly shakes his head.

  ‘Splendid. And this thing.’ The man raps the side of the boat with his stick. ‘It is entirely seaworthy, or riverworthy, as I suppose one must say?’

  ‘We keep it in good order, sir.’

  ‘Who is we, boy?’

  ‘It is my father’s boat, sir. He is in the town about some business.’

  ‘Is he indeed? I have business there myself. There is someone I am most anxious to see. I would take it most kindly if you could arrange for an immediate departure.’

  ‘You have no baggage, sir? Nothing you would like me to fetch from the coach?’

  ‘Nothing, my young friend. I carry all that I have to commend me here in my breast.’

  The boy stands on a thwart and offers his forearm, but the man reaches instead for his hand, grasping it warmly.

  ‘I am particularly delighted to make your acquaintance,’ he says. ‘My name is Mr Crowe.’

  Unlike other passengers of high station, Mr Crowe does not keep himself apart from the boy’s company during the crossing. He takes a seat opposite the stern and keeps him so much in conversation that the boy becomes anxious that he will miss some hazard in the water ahead. As they talk, Mr Crowe looks about them with interest, turning frequently towards the town, though little enough of it can be seen from the river. The guildhall and the fine buildings about the square are no more than a nest of shadows in the mist. Above the dark juts of the quays, gulls rise in dim scatters, passing through bends of fraying smoke.

  ‘I fancy,’ Mr Crowe says, ‘that the true beauty of this place lies hidden.’

  The boy gives a small laugh. ‘It may be for the best.’

  Mr Crowe regards him with amusement. ‘You do not greatly love your home?’ he says. ‘It is an understandable sentiment, and common enough in a young man. You feel, perhaps, that you are not fitted for this place, that it keeps you from the life that should be yours?’

  The boy looks at him carefully. Beneath his dark cloak, he is richly dressed. His face, though there is a small skew in its line, is strongly made and marked by the ease of his place in the world. Whatever life this Mr Crowe leads, he feels no great lack in it. And yet the boy sees no mockery in his face. Whatever he means by asking this, it is not to show his disdain.

  ‘This place was not always my home,’ he says. ‘I don’t remember anything before, though. My father brought us here to run this boat.’

  ‘And you have not taken to it?’

  The boy shrugs. ‘There isn’t much to take to. You can see for yourself. We call it the end of the world.’

  Mr Crowe laughs. He looks out towards the estuary, but today even the sea is lost to the mist. ‘It is a poor enough prospect,’ he says. ‘I assure you, though, that the world is not so distant. France lies not so far in that direction. You have travelled to France?’

  The boy shakes his head.

  ‘And this morning, before I called upon the services of our mutual friend the coachman, I woke up in London. You have been up to town, at least? No? A day trip on the train?’

  ‘The train does not come here. They are surveying the land for it, but it is too marshy, they say.’

  Mr Crowe makes a snorting sound. From an inner pocket, he produces a silver cigarette case. He holds it open before the boy. The cigarettes are retained by a black ribbon. Each one is perfectly made, the paper as fine and white as cotton. The boy shakes his head. He is struggling to work the pole free of an embedded lobster pot.

  ‘And yet you have made something of it,’ says Mr Crowe. ‘You have applied yourself to your trade. Your father entrusts the boat to you, though you are not quite of age. You will forgive my saying so, I trust. All this is to your credit.’

  The boy shrugs. ‘I will not sit idly, even in such a place as this.’

  Mr Crowe lights his cigarette and narrows his eyes against the smoke. ‘That is all very well,’ he says, ‘but what good will all your industry have done if you totter from this deck in fifty-odd years to smoke your pipe in a place that is every bit as miserable as it was when last you looked up? A boy who chooses not to sit idly might do so anywhere in the world.’

  The boy rests a moment on the stern as the current takes them through a channel. ‘And you, sir?’ he says. ‘Did you begin in such a place as this?’

  ‘I?’ Mr Crowe worries at his cigarette and gazes off towards the east. ‘I hardly know, my young friend. It was not today or yesterday. Is that the pier ahead? I had it in my mind, for some reason, that this would be a long crossing.’

  ‘We had it easy today,’ the boy says, struggling to bring the stern about before the shortened pier. ‘The water was with us.’

  ‘Now, now,’ Mr Crowe says, rising from his seat. ‘You do yourself an injustice. I saw how skilfully you worked. It is like a labyrinth, that stretch of river.’

  ‘You might keep your seat, sir, until I have tied up.’

  Mr Crowe ignores him. He plants a boot on the gunwale and launches himself onto the pier. ‘You need not fear for me,’ he says, looking himself over and dusting down his travelling clothes. ‘I have had cause to leap from more than one boat in my time.’

  The boy joins him on the pier and kneels to tie a bow line. As he rises, Mr Crowe takes his hand and shakes it with both of his. The boy feels the impress of a thick coin.

  ‘I look forward to my homeward crossing,’ Mr Crowe says. ‘So that we may renew our acquaintance. Now, there is one last service I must ask of you. My business here is of a tender kind. There is a young lady, you see. We met in London, and something remained unfinished between us when she w
as compelled to return home. I will not strain your patience by saying more. There is a lass who waits for you, I have no doubt, who gives some salve to your misery when you are ashore.’

  The boy looks down. He says nothing.

  ‘I ask only that you set me on the right road to her house. She is a ward of her uncle, I am given to understand, a man who laid great stress on his standing in this place when I had the misfortune of making his acquaintance. The girl’s name is Lucy, Miss Lucy Swaine.’

  The boy makes ready to leave.

  It comes to him suddenly, the knowledge that this is what he must do, and yet the thought does not feel new. It is like a pebble that he has kept for months in the same pocket, that he has turned in his palm countless times without any consciousness of doing so, only to take it out one day and examine it, to find it faultlessly smooth, as warm as his own skin.

  He goes to see his mother. He busies himself for a short while with a loose slate, then comes in and sits by the range. He thanks her, but tells her he will not stay and take a bite of supper. There is a gentleman from London, he says, who may have need of an early crossing. There is much to be done before he goes to bed. His mother accepts this with little comment. She prepares her own meal in silence, and seems content to have him sit and watch as she does so. She gives no sign, at least, that she wishes him to leave. She makes no enquiry as to the business of the gentleman from London. She asks nothing about the day’s trade or how he found the crossings.

  The boy looks around the kitchen. There is a coal bucket now in the corner by the range where he and Eleanor slept in their turns. The old oilcloth is spread over the table, but it is otherwise entirely bare. His mother stands at the stone sink, where a small window looks out over the river. She keeps her eyes down. With her thumbnail, she prises the scabs of shell from a hard-boiled egg. Her hair is arranged in a coarse knot and sheathed in a scarf.

  He approaches her and touches her arm. Next to where she works, he sets down an old syrup tin. ‘There is a little more I have kept aside,’ he says. ‘There are tips, still, though I am getting too old now. And he is only there half the time. He does not know about this. It was to be next year’s wintering.’

  She pauses in what she is doing, but his mother does not turn around. She glances at the syrup tin and takes a long, halting breath. She releases it softly. It is not quite a sigh. The boy rests his hand on her shoulder. She lowers her head to one side as if considering something. The boy closes his eyes for a moment, then withdraws his hand.

  He closes the door quietly as he leaves.

  He goes next to the churchyard, though it is no time for such a visit. It is growing dark, and the lanes are veiled with mist. He will be thought mad by anyone who sees him. Someone will tell the story of how the ferryman’s boy crept into the churchyard, of how he lay all night wailing on his sister’s grave. More will be said than was ever seen. He has heard how they talk. The boy does not concern himself with the thought. He no longer cares to have their good opinion.

  On the way, he gathers daisies. It is early in the year still, and even the grass is only beginning to thicken. Some of the flowers have begun to close against the oncoming night, so he picks two or three in each place and moves on. In the end, he finds two dozen or so that are fresh enough to be used. It does not seem a great number, though so many daffodils would make a fair posy. They are frail in his cupped hands, seeming to amount to nothing.

  He sits on a stone bench under an ink-dark yew. He cannot remember whether he has ever made a daisy chain before, though of course he saw Eleanor do it. He takes to it quickly enough, splitting the tender fuses of the stems with his thumbnail, making sure that the fissure lies along the centre so that one side or the other does not weaken. He takes care, when threading each flower, to tug gently all the way along its length so as not to rupture the preceding link.

  When he has finished, the boy takes the garland to where Eleanor lies. There was no money for a stone, so the grave is marked by a simple wooden cross. He tries hanging the daisies from this, but is not satisfied with how it appears. It occurs to him, absurdly, that they will be beyond her reach. Instead, he lowers himself on one knee and arranges them in a loose ring on the turf, as if to hang them about her shoulders. He places a kiss on his fingertips, and lays them on the cool and darkening grass.

  The boy spends his last night in the ferry house. He sweeps it out and sets the workbenches in order, tying the loose lines in neat coils and stowing them in the rope locker. He oils the tools and hangs each one in its place, ranking them by size so that they gleam on their nails like the pipes of the church organ. If his father notices any of this, it will be in exasperation. He will want something and will not know where to look for it. As he hunts for it, he will disturb everything else. Within a day or two, the ferry house will have fallen into disarray. A week after that, the boy thinks, his father too will be gone. He no longer has the heart or the patience to do this alone.

  He leaves the boat on the slip when he locks up for the night. At first light, he will haul it down and make the crossing alone. He has carried his last passenger. He does not care to think of what business this Mr Crowe might wish to conclude with Lucy Swaine, but if he should return here in her company, he will find the boat tied up on the far bank. The boy will not await their pleasure.

  Still, he thinks of her before he sleeps. The longing is dry and pleasureless now, but he cannot keep himself from it. He wishes he could make himself proof against her, caulk himself like a hull, but he is as helpless as he has always been. She seeps into him from beneath. His skin is stretched over skewed ribs, and the dream finds every fissure. He is sinking, his body bucking in the brackish surges, slowing in the clouded shallows and at last becoming still.

  When the noise wakes him, the boy thinks it is thieves. He hears the deep, shuddering scrape of the keel being dragged down the slip, making a greater racket than is needed. They have wandered down from the quays, he thinks, a trawler crew on shore leave who can find no better entertainment. He rises quickly and goes to the small window above the workbench. He slept in his clothes so that he would waste no time when daybreak came.

  They have it in the water already. The boy swears, reaching for an old axe handle, but sees his mistake even as he does so. His hand goes still on the haft. The man who was pushing from the stern loses his footing as he tries to board. As he rights himself, he turns towards the ferry house and the boy sees his father’s face.

  He has been to the town and is much the worse for drink. It is why he made such heavy work of pushing the boat from the slip. When he manages at last to climb into the stern, the man already aboard confers with him and claps him on the back. That man is Mr Crowe, and as his father shoves off and the boat settles on the dark water, he takes his seat beside Lucy Swaine.

  The boy loosens his grip on the axe handle, allowing it to slide to the floor at his heel. On the boat, they are making preparations that at first he fails to understand. Lucy scrapes her hair back and secures it with something roughly knotted. His father hands her his dark cap, which she pulls low over her brow. They are disguising her, or something simpler; they are keeping her from sight.

  He watches as Mr Crowe stands to unhook his own black cloak, enfolding her with laughing ceremony. She looks up at him, raising her hand to where his rests on her shoulder. They are making distance already, receding into the gauzy darkness, but he sees the line of her upraised chin, the white flame of her throat. Mr Crowe lays a finger on it, on that whiteness. She turns to him then, and he no longer sees them clearly.

  The boy will not watch this, he will not stand still. The boat is gone, and with it the small means that were left to him of marking his own passage. He will leave by the road, with no trace or flourish. It matters only that he goes, that he walks until he almost sleeps on his feet, that when he lies down he is weary enough that no dream can taint his rest.

  He is lacing his boots when he hears the horses. Two, at the very least, a
nd they are being ridden hard, approaching along the lane from the town. The riders can be heard too, with one voice to the fore, bellowing oaths and giving orders. The horses are slowed to a canter as they near the end of the lane. They round the ferry house, their hooves deadening as they leave the road. The boy returns slowly to the window.

  Alderman Swaine dismounts almost before he has pulled up his horse. He is a bulky man, and unused to such strenuous movement. His thick back heaves as he marches to the water’s edge, roaring with renewed energy. The boat is almost halfway across, and will soon be gone from sight. Swaine turns and directs his rage at his companion, urging him to make haste. This other man ties up the horses and joins Swaine at the end of the slip, carrying something the boy cannot see.

  ‘Crowe!’ In his rage, Swaine can barely keep himself from wading into the river. He strains to see who is aboard the boat. ‘Crowe, you whoremaster! Where is she? Do not think to come back for her if she is hidden ashore! I will find her, by God, if I have to raze every kennel in this town.’

  Swaine turns from the water and stalks up and down the shingle. He is looking wildly about him, and for a moment the boy thinks he has been discovered. Swaine, though, is consumed by his pursuit. His eyes are all but unseeing.

  ‘Crowe!’ he bellows again. ‘What have you done with my niece? Have you cast her off now, after blackening her name? You will not acquit yourself so easily, you son of a tinker’s bitch!’

  Swaine issues a snarled order to the man with him, who stoops for a moment to retrieve something. When he stands, he is shouldering a rifle. At his master’s sign, he steadies himself and takes aim. Though he moves with urgency, there is a practised ease in his stance, in the way he knits his body around the path of the sight. The boy pushes himself from the bench, lurching in the slow darkness. He hunts for the axe handle.

  The first shot is so loud that he feels it in his chest and throat, a suffocating clot of pressure. He has the axe handle now, and runs for the door. When he pounds it open, the rifleman has pulled back the bolt. He shifts his stance by a careful fraction. When the second shot comes, the boy is already on the slip. He staggers, a halo surrounding all that he hears. He glimpses the boat, stalled on the water. There is a third shot, and a fourth.