The Many

by Wyl Menmuir

  After that he sleeps and wakes and the lines between the two states blur until it starts to become light. He opens the curtains and watches from his bed as the sun comes up over the sea. Not a postcard sunrise, but a gradual lightening of the black into greys, and the greys into blues, and later, greens.

  When he goes downstairs and opens the curtains in the front room he is surprised to see, on the small strip of concrete which circles the house, separating it from the garden, a man. He is standing with his back to the house, facing out towards the sea. He wonders how long Ethan has been standing there, and Ethan, as though he senses him at the window, turns to face Timothy.

  ‘You coming then?’ Ethan says through the window and Timothy looks around at all he must still do, at the bare floors, at the flecks of wallpaper still clinging to the stripped walls, at the fireplace he has stopped stocking with wood despite the cold.

  ‘I’ve got a lot . . .’ Timothy lets the words trail off as he sees Ethan’s expression.

  ‘You’re coming then,’ Ethan says.

  Timothy nods and retreats upstairs to get dressed into warmer clothes.

  Ethan’s is the last of the boats left on the beach. Once they have climbed aboard they settle into silence, and Timothy sits on the gunwales as Ethan prepares the boat. Clem, sitting in the tractor, is impatient for them to launch. He does not acknowledge either man, and when he has dragged the boat down to the water, he unhooks it without a word, and heads back up the beach.

  It is a calm morning, and the lack of clarity in the horizon does not resolve itself in the weak sunlight. Timothy looks back up towards the house and hopes Tracey will return and take the hint from the locked doors, or that she will have decided already to leave him be. The other boats in the small fleet are spread out as far as they can be within the boundaries of the container ships today, not bunched up as they are when the sea is rough.

  They have been out maybe four hours, working at setting, shooting and pulling up the empty nets, before Ethan speaks, as though to reward Timothy for obeying his rules. Sensing Ethan standing close by, Timothy looks up from where he is kneeling on the deck, stands, and pushes his frozen hands into his coat pockets.

  ‘Clem says you’ve been asking about Perran again.’

  Timothy and Lauren walk beneath autumn trees ablaze with colour. The trees are mostly beeches, acre upon acre of them run through with a criss-cross of paths for walkers and joggers. They follow a path that leads them past a series of sculptures carved from fallen trees. The sculptures are mostly hidden, or obscured beneath the piles of leaves that have drifted around them. They walk slowly. Lauren is heavily pregnant and they stop at each bench they come to and watch leaves spiral down from the trees. The autumn sun still has some strength in it and it lights the wood in a way that makes it feel like the wood is creating its own light. Each leaf that falls seems illuminated as it passes through a thick band of light. Timothy and Lauren do not speak much as they walk, though occasionally she takes his hand, or he hers, just briefly as they walk along the path. Sometimes it is little more than the backs of their fingers that touch, like the leaves of two trees brushing against each other in the breeze – small reminders they are sharing this experience. Above the tree canopy, the wind is blowing, but though they can hear it overhead, all they feel of it are its effects, the leaves falling around them.

  The path they follow eventually leads out and away from the woods and they stand for a while at the point where the trees are replaced by more open woodland, and where the path leads off between lower bushes and younger trees. Lauren turns back to return along the path into the woods again and Timothy follows.

  As they walk back along the path, the sight of a young family beneath one of the trees causes Timothy and Lauren to stop a short way off and they watch as they play. The parents are sitting next to one another with their backs against a broad tree trunk, their hands joined and partially buried in the leaves that surround the tree. A child of three or four is running around the trunk in ever decreasing circles, dipping to the ground every few seconds to scoop up handfuls of leaves which she then throws into the air. The girl laughs loudly as the leaves cascade around her. As her circles tighten towards the tree trunk, she gathers up larger handfuls of leaves and saves them for the point at which she passes her parents, throwing them high into the air above them and racing around the tree as the leaves fall, blanketing the young couple. Her parents join her laughter and Timothy and Lauren walk on back towards the car park. As they leave the scene, Timothy feels Lauren’s fingers intertwine with his own and she squeezes his hand.

  17

  Timothy

  TIMOTHY DOES NOT see the crowd on the beach until he feels the stones crunch under the boat’s keel. The gathering is of a similar size to the one he saw when they brought in their catch, only this one waits silently in the dark, hanging back against the concrete beach wall. The Great Hope grounds and Clem comes forward with the winch cable. Both Timothy and Ethan are silent too, and Timothy wonders how much of this Ethan knows about, how much he was expecting, how much he has been involved in, and whether he is aware of what is to happen next.

  The winch cable takes the strain and the boat judders forward up onto the stones. There is no one guiding the boat and it tips over to one side, and both Timothy and Ethan hold onto the gunwale, to avoid being pitched over the side. Once the boat clears the waterline, the machinery halts, and the crowd, until now held in shadow by the lights from the houses on shore, starts to push forward. Other than the stones underfoot and a soft murmuring where the sea laps at the shore behind them, there is no other sound.

  Timothy thinks he recognises the outlines of some of the other fishermen among the crowd of twenty or so. Clem has joined them again now, and as Timothy looks over the edge, he walks forward a couple of steps, a boat hook on a pole in his hand.

  ‘We’d like you to come down.’

  He says it softly, as though he is talking to an animal that needs to be reassured, placated, to a dog that may bite. As though it is Timothy who is the threat rather than the threatened. When Timothy makes no move, Clem taps the side of the boat with the pole gently.

  Timothy looks behind him to Ethan, and Ethan shrugs and nods his agreement to Clem’s words.

  Timothy releases his grip on the boat and stumbles down to the rail that is closest to the beach. The crowd backs up a little to let him down, though Clem remains where he is, watching Timothy carefully, and when he finds his feet on the beach, Timothy is close enough to hear the other man’s breath.

  ‘What’s this about then?’ Timothy asks. ‘A welcome home party for tired fishermen?’

  ‘Just time to talk is all,’ says Clem. His voice retains the same calm, quiet quality as before and he starts to walk up the beach, pausing only to let Timothy catch up with him. There is a moon behind the thin cover of clouds above and, as they walk through the gathering, Timothy can see a few faces he recognises – Rab, Tomas, Jory, Santo, Tracey, the girl from the café – though as he looks around none of them will meet his eye. Towards the back of the crowd, standing aside from the others, he sees another figure he recognises, that of the woman in grey, who is looking in on the scene, though it seems to Timothy that she is an observer and not part of the mob.

  The crowd parts for Timothy and Clem. Timothy wonders whether the gathered men and women are all going to fall in behind them and follow, but they stay where they are, as the two men climb up off the beach.

  They walk up through the village, and what light spills out from the houses illuminates Clem’s face. He looks troubled. They walk up past Perran’s and through a gap between two of the houses at the end of the row, and over a stile into a field. A rut around the edge of the field leads them further away from the houses and up onto the beacon and they slow down to pick their way up a path that is littered with loose stones. At one point, Timothy trips and pitches forward, but Clem is clos
e enough to him to stop him falling. He waits while Timothy regains his balance and helps him find his feet again. When they reach the summit, by the stubby white marker stone, Clem comes to a stop and leans heavily on the boat hook, while he gets his breath back. Timothy turns towards Clem and is about to speak, and as he does so Clem swings round towards him and puts a hand square on Timothy’s chest.

  The wind is strong at the top of the hill and brings with it a dull roar of white noise, and when Clem talks he has to raise his voice as the wind blows around them and down through the village.

  ‘We answered your questions as best we can, now it’s time to leave them be,’ he says and turns slightly so his face is now turned back towards the village. ‘It won’t do any good you asking them any more.’

  Timothy shrugs and feels Clem’s hand press harder against his chest.

  ‘Perran’s ours,’ Clem says, and this time he moves closer in, and speaks low and soft into Timothy’s ear. ‘See?’

  Clem is so close now he has blocked out the wind that whips around them and Timothy can now hear each breath the other man takes.

  ‘You’ll not know him. Not here and not ever,’ says Clem, and without moving away he waves the boat hook out over all of the village below. ‘You want me to tell you he stood up here and breathed in the air and looked out on this scene in the morning as the light came up, and as the sun rose over the sea. And at noon when it was hot and there was no shade and in the afternoon when he watched the boats out on the water and thought they were all he needed to see in the world, and later in the evening when the sun set and the sea was ablaze. You want me to tell you he’s buried here, under the marker stone, or down there in the barrows, from where he could keep watch on us. You’ll want me to talk until you know him. Am I wrong?’

  Timothy can feel Clem’s breath on the side of his face he is so close now.

  ‘He’s not,’ Clem continues. ‘Not buried here, nor down in the village, nor out at sea. You’ll not find a headstone, though you might look for one as long as you please. So take your questions and leave them be. Take them away from here. Or, if you stay, stay and keep them to yourself.’

  Clem’s arms fall to his side and he takes a couple of steps back then, his job done.

  ‘Tell me then,’ says Timothy. He cannot help the question rising from some well inside and Clem turns on the spot and swings the boat hook towards him with a speed Timothy does not expect. It hits him square on the chest and knocks him to the ground. Clem is standing over him now, shaking with what Timothy can only assume is anger, with the boat hook raised, covering him so he cannot get back up. Timothy can taste blood in his mouth. After a moment that lasts an age, Clem’s breathing shallows and he moves the boat hook away. As he backs away from Timothy, the moonlight catches his face again. By it, Timothy sees a man twisted in frustration or exasperation. It is not a face that wants to do him harm. There is something paternal in it perhaps and it occurs to Timothy that Clem believes he is doing him a favour.

  Clem backs up a few more paces from Timothy, who is lying, still in shock, on the ground. He turns away and then back towards Timothy, and Timothy wonders whether he is going to return the finish the job. He still has the hook in his hand, and he is raising and lowering it as though he is rehearsing a motion in his head that he is unaware is being played out by his body. But eventually he drops, or rather throws, the hook on the ground and walks away from Timothy.

  ‘Why bring me up here to tell me this then?’ Timothy shouts down after Clem as he walks away down the hillside. ‘Why drag me up a hill to tell me what questions I can and can’t ask?’

  But Clem has given up on Timothy now and is walking away. He does not look back, but leaves Timothy on the ground in the dark of the hillside with the wind whipping around his ears, feeling as though he has been sucked out to sea by an unstoppable tide and stranded far away.

  Timothy lies on his back and the cold from the wind and from the ground below seeps into his body through his clothes. The blood in his mouth tastes metallic and the question repeats itself as if it is on a loop, quiet and insistent and endless.

  18

  Timothy

  BY THE TIME Timothy arrives back at the house, the wind has dropped and he finds the house in darkness, though from the road he can hear the sound of a door swinging against its frame in the wind. As it comes into view, he can see the front door is open, revealing a darkness darker than that of the night outside. He walks around the side of the house to the door he uses now and sees that too is open. He approaches slowly and when he gets to the doorway, he runs his fingers over the splintered wood where the lock has come away from the doorframe, and walks through into the kitchen. He tries the switches on the wall just inside the door, but the lights will not turn on, and nor will the lights in the hall or the sitting room when he comes to those. There is a sharp chemical smell in the air that thickens the deeper he walks into the house.

  He feels the carpet wet underfoot and after cracking his shins on furniture that is lying strewn across the floor, he walks more carefully and stops each time he feels something in his way. A fallen chair, its legs in the air, a bookcase upended, the pages of novels and textbooks soaking up whatever liquid has been poured onto the carpets. He moves like this for several minutes, slowly investigating the house in the darkness. He heads upstairs to look for the torch he knows is in his bag under the bed, but by the time he has found the torch he realises he does not want to see the extent of the damage and he leaves it where it is. In the bedroom, he is aware the bed frame has been pulled out of alignment and there is a pile of his clothes tipped out of drawers onto the mattress, and some of the upstairs windows have been put through. The wind comes cold into the room and through onto the landing. Timothy closes the door of the bedroom, but makes it no further than the doorway to the sitting room, where he slumps against the doorframe and allows himself to slide down to the floor. With his head held in his hands and his knees up around his ears he begins to sob, uncontrollably for some time and then because he allows it to continue. Later, he finds the strength to stand again, though only to make his way across the darkened sitting room to the armchair in the corner of the room, which, he can see by its silhouette, is still standing. He checks it and finds it has escaped being doused in whatever liquid covers the floors. He sits down and, taking off only his shoes, tries to recline the chair, though the mechanism will not work, and he pulls a blanket over himself and tries to push himself as deep into the cushions as possible, to wait for the morning to arrive.

  In the village below, the church bells start to ring, slow and persistent, and the sound makes its way into the house and continues late into the night.

  He spends the night sleeping and not sleeping on the chair and at some point he dreams. He is standing, alone, by the side of the coast road, the glare of a full and heavy moon bearing down on the sea in front of him and on the fields behind. Both the sea and the fields are still and calm under the weight of the moonlight and the reflection of the moon on the water amplifies its glare. He is waiting for something he knows is about to happen, so when it does happen, it is not a surprise. A slight movement in the water, a susurration from the fields behind, and they emerge, like some great exodus or migration of animals, pulled out of the sea by the moon all at once. They emerge in their hundreds, or perhaps in their thousands, pouring out of the sea and he cannot believe the sea is able to hold so many of them. They emerge in numbers too great for him to take in and, overwhelmed, he turns away from them, only to find they are emerging too from the barrows and are filling the fields. Perran upon Perran upon Perran. Timothy knows they are all Perran and that each one of them has within him the potential for infinite variety, though all the figures before him are faceless and featureless. At that moment he feels he knows for each of the Perrans emerging every decision each of them has made and will ever make, and still they pour forth from the sea and from the ground. T
hey crowd towards him, not out of any knowledge of him or sense that he is there, but because they fill all the space around, and they continue to come until they block out the light from the moon, and the darkness takes him.

  In the early morning, as morning light begins to make its mark on the darkness, he is able to see the full extent of the damage. The damp underfoot is the paint he had bought for the walls, poured out over the new carpets. There are tens of pairs of footprints walking through it in every direction and the paint shows the path the townsfolk took through the house and out into the garden. The curtains he had hung have been ripped from their hooks and lie on the floor, soaking up paint, and through the window he can see splintered items of furniture spread out across the grass in front of the house. He walks outside among the wreckage and beneath the large tree he finds a pile of disturbed earth and by it, in rows, the disintegrating bodies of the fish he buried a week previously. They are laid out next to one another on the ground, an array of rotting fish, pale and luminescent. Scattered around them is a halo of scales, and, as a slight breeze passes through the garden, they shift and float upwards and then back down to the ground. Timothy sits beside the fish and looks around him at the scene. After a while, he rouses himself and, after looking and not finding anything else suitable to use for the job, gets down onto his knees and uses his hands to re-excavate the hole. One by one, he replaces the fish with care in their grave and covers them over with soil.

  He rises from the ground and goes back into the house where he walks from room to room again, picking up and then replacing on the floor the books he had brought with him, small and splintered pieces of furniture. It reminds him of images of the aftermath of a hurricane he once saw on the news. It feels elemental somehow, rather than something human, though the footprints throughout the house belie this thought.