Big Low Tide

by Candy Neubert

  _____

  It’s hard for men and women to receive signals from each other, even when those are clearly transmitted in words and behaviour and an infinite number of means besides. Brenda doesn’t hear what Gerry is saying to her; she has her own agenda.

  Peter likewise believes in his own assurances until the truth wriggles through and presents itself to him at the wheel of the tractor three days later. Brenda won’t return to Les Puits, of course. Gerry Vine, of whom he has refused to think, has recently come into money, hasn’t he? Think! He’s bought a big house, hasn’t he? Rumours of poker games, huge stakes, huge losses, huge wins. Think, think, think about it, go on; pull it open, eviscerate it.

  In the seedling house on the farm he brings in the washed trays ready for the next planting. Mrs Pickery fills them with compost and flattens it with a piece of wood and drops a seed into each square with practised fingers. Jack carries them down the house to lay them out on trestles under sheets of cardboard. At the end of the day they lift the covers and turn on the sprinklers so that under a fine mist of water the seeds awaken, and when Mrs Pickery replaces the covers the little skins will split in the moist soil, tomorrow or the next day, and the kernels will begin to grow.

  Mrs Pickery doesn’t see that Peter has returned with another pile of trays and set them down behind the crates. He hears her talking to Jack and at one time would have minded his own business. Now it is his business, and he hears.

  – how’s your Simon settling back?

  – ah he’s doing all right. Misses the bright lights.

  – friendly with your step-nephew, is he?

  – Gerry? They’re of an age. He’s a bad lot, that one.

  – is it?

  – through and through.

  – I heard that our Peter’s Brenda, that lives next to me, is seeing something of him.

  – Simon?

  – no, Gerald. And she’s no better than she ought to be, neither.

  – poor man.

  – Gerald?

  – no, our Peter.

  Later, when the protective skin is split and the kernel growing, Peter asks Jack if his son, Simon, can remember how to drive a tractor. Jack replies yes, he supposes so, and then wonders at the question.

  _____

  On Saturday morning Mrs Avery, Mr Farthing, Mrs Vine and their friends are enjoying the countryside. The minibus fairly hurls along the leafy summer lanes, not towards the town but towards St Stephen’s, and they haven’t been this way for... oh, ever so long. They are going to the shops later, yes, but Susan is looking after two boys this morning, and picking them up by the church. What’s that? Too much noise? No, it’s lovely and quiet here; must be your hearing aid crackling. Susan says we’re taking the scenic route, isn’t she a one. Lovely petunias there, see! Isn’t that a new wall? I don’t remember it being there.

  At Les Puits Patrick and Danny are delivered into the bus and they sit freshly scrubbed and subdued amongst the powdery smiles. Susan tells Peter that she’ll make sure they have lunch before she brings them home, not to worry, and under her words she wishes him ease and she wishes him love. Peter pumps up the tyres of the bicycle and sets off for Port Victoria.

  At the harbour the fishing fleet is in and the decks washed hours before. The dinghies drift on their ropes by the pier like a corps de ballet. Peter looks down at them, noting particularly those with outboard engines, and then he wheels the bicycle over to the Yellow Box and props it against the wall.

  Inside there is a brief but not unfriendly lull as he enters. He nods towards one or two familiar faces and goes to the hatch to order tea and a cheese roll. He sets this down on the table where the Hamon brothers sit, and sinks his teeth into the food.

  – ’lo. Peter Duncan, in’t it?

  – ’s right. Mm. Hungry. Cycled across the island. I’ll have another.

  – Mac! Gi’s another roll fer this lad ’ere. Doing all right then?

  – right enough.

  – you got a little clinker, in’t it?

  – ’s right. Not so little. Twenty-six footer.

  – ah. Pretty, she is. Used to ’ave a moorin’ this side. Seemed a little tiddler over ’ere. I remembers ’er.

  – I’m looking for an engine.

  – is it?

  – maybe. Think so. Want to fit her out a bit.

  – ah. Engine, eh? ’Ere, Mac! Seen ’Arry this morning?

  – eh?

  – seen ’Arry? ’Arry from the Cloud?

  – ah yeah. Bin an’ gone.

  -Ah. ’Arry’s got an old Enfield, ain’t ’e? Eh, Franklin?

  – yeah. Big fucker. Air-cooled. Usin’ it, tho.

  – is it?

  – runs ’is generator, don’t it, fer the vinery.

  – ah.

  – ’member that Kelvin we started with? Petrol and paraffin job. Fweh! Make yer jump overboard, one of ’em. What you want? Twin-cylinder, is it?

  – ’e’s better off with a single. Long-stroke with a big fly. Nice slow revvin’. Hand start it easy, then. What you reckon?

  – sounds good, aye. Know of any?

  – there’s that Mahy chap. Bill Mahy. ’Ad a Lister, eighteen horse. Wonder if ’e sold it already?

  – ’e won’t come back today. Football’s on. Arsenal’s at ’ome.

  – nor tomorra. Church.

  – tha’s right. But we’ll ask fer yer.

  thirteen

  On Sunday the wind blows. Danny has gone to the Corbin farm after church, where John Corbin and his wife Deborah are harvesting soft fruit in the kitchen garden. Melissa and Danny disappear into the orchard – the blonde head and the dark just visible above the grass.

  The Nan flies along, free as a bird, free as a fish. The island diminishes behind them; slowly the Avaleur slides across the horizon and the Marais Tower looks like a box on the cliffs, a hat, a blur. Reluctantly Peter changes course for the long tack home. Now he is the one nursing the question, choosing his time.

  – Patrick. Y’know what you said the other day? About living with your mother.

  – I don’t want to.

  – I know. I thought not.

  – can she make us?

  – she’s said nothing to me as yet.

  – but she will?

  – seems likely, aye.

  – can she make us, though?

  – depends.

  – it’s up to you, isn’t it?

  – not if the law says otherwise. Anyway, I thought we might go away for a while. On the boat.

  – oh yeah! France?

  – no, no. I’ve cousins in Ireland; place called Cork. They were sent over as children in the war and settled there.

  – you mean we’ll sail all the way?

  – well, boat needs a bit of work. Maybe fit in an engine in case of emergencies.

  – emergencies?

  – ah, just in case. Winds and currents act funny round the Scillies, I’m told.

  – sillies?

  – at the end of England.

  – coo! What’ll we eat?

  – we’ll get plenty of provisions on board. Like the sound of that?

  – Danny too?

  – of course. Can’t separate brothers.

  – but Dad, there’s school.

  – when’s your holiday?

  – five weeks time.

  – there you are, then. Five weekends to get her ready. Evenings too.

  – great!

  – Okay. Keep it to yourself for a while. Time to loose off a bit now. Mind your head.

  _____

  Such a rational man, bearing the coils of fear like any other. Fear of edges and falling and loss of love. It is not like Peter, this plan, yet the thoughts connected to it enter his head with their clever accomplices. There are schools in Ireland – so that problem is sorted out. Elsa can sell Les Puits if they don’t come back, for what is a family home without family, without sons? They’ll live for a while on the capital. They can come back one day;
it need not be forever. Just until the ache is gone. When the boys are bigger they will be different from the little ones he has held and cleaned and knelt beside at night. But not yet.

  Every long midsummer evening, Peter rows out to the boat. Her keel is good; she was out of the water and anti-fouled last winter. She is snug and tight and trim. He fixes the masthead light, new hanks for the sail, and a little stove in the cabin. He stores tins and dried milk and sugar in the lockers and matches in a plastic tub. He buys charts of the south coast of England and clips them up against the deck-heads. He is almost happy.

  Once he comes home when it is nearly dark to find the minibus in the yard and Susan standing at the kitchen sink. She turns with an apologetic smile and he says wait, I must say goodnight to the boys first, and he is upstairs a long time, sorting out their clean clothes for the morning. Downstairs she finishes the washing-up and wonders if she should leave, and then she begins to clean the stove. Peter comes down and sits at the table and watches her.

  – I finished the ironing and young Patrick came to me with a tin of beans and said he couldn’t work the opener. I made a pie – only took a minute. It’s still in the oven, if you’d like some.

  – well... I could do it justice, I’m sure. But Susan...

  – I know. It’s not my place. But I was free this evening...

  – Susan...

  – It was no trouble. I’ll just finish this and be on my way.

  He watches her. Over her hips she wears an apron which he remembers; it must have been in the drawer. The strings are tied around her where she is strong and round and wholesome and the unbearable sadness comes back. His hands could no more reach out for Susan than his vocal cords speak Chinese. He filled the wrong woman with children and that’s when the pain began.

  – that’s finished, then. I’ll get my coat.

  – here, let me. Susan, thanks for all you’ve done.

  – it’s nothing. See you next week, then.

  – yes, next week.

  – goodnight.

  – ’night.

  _____

  In the bedroom at Le Clef du Ferme, Brenda is lying awake. She is thinking inconsequential things, of the shampoo she brought to Gerry’s big white bathroom and then she ended up washing her hair back in her own flat. She hasn’t managed to get a grip on the situation; she always ends up where she started.

  She thinks of the phone calls. When she’s not with Gerry, she calls him, and always he lifts the phone and then will not answer her. Yet tonight the phone rang and he drew away from her and spoke into it for a long time, and she had an image of her own self in the telephone box and of Gerry, finally talking to her. She feels split into a lesser version of Brenda; she must push out, become real and whole, get a grip.

  She turns over and curls her legs against his and slides her hands around him.

  – Gerry? Gerry? Love me?

  – whrrr? mmmf.

  fourteen

  Patrick tips water into the little metal bowls. The big red’s laying has gone right off again; there are only two eggs today. He wishes that Danny wouldn’t stand in the doorway; they’re supposed to do the hens together but Danny just stands there, blocking the light.

  – you going out on the boat with Dad again on Sunday?

  – yeah. ’Spect so.

  – and me?

  – no.

  – don’t care. You don’t know who I saw at Melissa’s.

  – who?

  – won’t tell you.

  – doesn’t matter.

  – I saw mummy’s boyfriend.

  – so?

  – he gave me chocolate. And I drove his car. So I don’t care.

  – don’t care about what?

  – you and Dad.

  – me and Dad nothing.

  – you are. You go off together.

  – you’re coming with us.

  – where?

  – away.

  – where away?

  – Ireland.

  – what for?

  – I’ll tell you. Mummy might try to take us from Dad so you and me and him are going on the boat. It’ll be great.

  – no! Won’t!

  – sh. Don’t tell. Don’t say nothing.

  They stare at each other for a moment over the scratching of the hens. Then Danny turns away and disappears. Patrick places the two eggs carefully into the front of his shirt, holding it up like a little hammock. He picks up the watering can and crosses the yard, his feet heavy with the weight of his heart. He pushes at the weight to keep it hidden. Now he’s betrayed the plan – did his father actually say it was a secret? No, but betrayal is a big monster and he can’t look it in the eye. His father just said: brothers can’t be separated. He can’t look that in the eye either.

  _____

  Danny skirts the fields on the inside of the hedge, through the land now leased to the Corbins as far as the grass bank bordering the road. Perhaps it’s not so odd for Patrick to wonder if his brother is Aunt Elsa’s son after all. The two of them are both skirters of fields and walkers of borders. Does it really matter to the nature of the child, which is the seed and which the carrying belly?

  We too are watchers, following him now, this mean little dark man-child of four, nearly five. He works his way towards a wooden construction on the hedge, a simple three-sided box that serves as a market stall. On the one side, facing the road, Aunt Deborah’s strawberries are for sale. There’s a rusty cash box with a slit in the top for coins. Unfortunately for Danny the box has a small padlock now, since Deborah found that the money did not match the sales of fruit.

  He crouches in the blackthorn where he is hidden from the house. He is very still and very patient. There are no voices and no cars approaching, but he remains still and patient for that is what he is good at, and he is sunk deep into himself. Now he moves to the side of the stall where the strawberries shine scarlet and squeaky fresh in the shade. He plucks one from each tray, twelve in all, drops back into the field and sets off in a curious scuttling run.

  By the pump straddling the big well he tucks himself between the struts and lays his prizes on the wood. The green pips knobble the soft red skins down to each pale white base. He pulls off the calyx and eats them one by one.

  _____

  Thursday night is Brenda’s night off from the bar. Henry knows that a man’s drinking habits are directly linked to his wage packet and so on a Thursday he can manage The Navigator on his own.

  Brenda is at home, in the bath. She smoothes her legs and rubs oil into them, twiddling the taps with her toes. There’s no hurry; Gerry is never early. They roam the island at night on a Thursday – a game of pool at the Kings, or maybe another mad fool scheme with his step-cousin, Simon. Dead boring place, Port Victoria, really, but Gerry makes it different. He gives off an electric current, you get sucked in, you sizzle in it. Brenda is sizzling now as she wraps a towel around herself and pads into the bedroom. Gerry likes black. Black skirt? Black stockings?

  When she is ready she lights a cigarette and sits at the window. She hears the clattering of pans from the next door kitchen and sees Mrs Thingy from the bakery put their cat out. They’ll be going to sleep now, her and her husband, and get up at three in the morning to mix another load of dough. Brenda and Gerry will just be having it off in a field round about then – funny what keeps people busy at different times, she thinks, flicking the cigarette end out of the window. She got Wilf Pickery right on his cap once, but it didn’t catch fire and he never noticed.

  There’s hardly a ghost of day left; the late evening sky seems to be boiling coal. Through a gap in the rooftops Brenda sees the lights of the harbour and the tiny red and green eyes of an approaching yacht. She pages through a magazine and tosses it down. Then she turns off the lights, picks up her bag and locks the door behind her. She’ll wait for him at the top of the steps.

  There are headlights but quite a different car continues down the road. Maybe Gerry will park at the bottom
of the steps? You can never be sure where he will be. She clatters down and gazes along Turkenwell. She walks to the corner and watches the traffic on Main Street and the lights from Chandra’s spilling over the pavement. There’s nothing she needs to buy. Better to go home, and not seem to be waiting for him at all. Maybe he has even arrived while she has been out, and found her door locked. He wouldn’t hang about.

  Back in the flat she feeds the goldfish. Then she lies back on the bed and stares at the ceiling.

  At quarter past eleven she sits up again. The single striking of the town clock has broken her reverie and something snaps inside her. Right. Very well. If you don’t come to me, I’ll come to you.

  fifteen

  Normally Brenda would change her clothes before walking across the island at night. Normally she would not walk across the island at night, but she doesn’t feel normal. A finger pushes at the back of her neck, pushing a button; she is propelled along. Her stockings chafe a little at her thighs and the northerly wind blows on the back of her head.

  If she remembers walking these roads in the opposite direction, sunny and in love, it doesn’t slow her now. She takes a slightly different route, crossing the main roads and keeping to the back lanes, and only a few cars pass. Caught in their headlights she walks with purpose and assurance. Left in the darkness she is a feral thing, tracking her mate.

  There are two cars outside Le Clef du Ferme. She takes off her shoes and walks around the lawns, close to the hydrangeas and avoiding the squares of light which fall from the upstairs windows across the grass. Her eyes feel big and white and treacherous.

  There are voices and a sudden burst of laughter. She climbs the black sheet of the garden wall, driven up easily by the pushing finger. She stares into the bedroom, into the face of her sister-in-law. Elsa is not looking back through the glass; she is playing cards with Gerry and Simon, who sit on either side of her on the bed. Simon speaks, nods, raises a glass to his lips. Elsa throws a card down, lifts her arms over her head, throwing off her shirt in the same movement. Bare-breasted she smoothes her hair, and seems now to look straight out of the window. Brenda ducks. Her feet falter on the wall; she crouches, scrabbling for a grip. She slithers down, tearing something. The choice is there to ring the doorbell and to burst open the box. She takes a step or two – but that will spoil a dream too good to lose. She’ll think of something else.