Collector of Lost Things

by Jeremy Page

  ‘Believe,’ she whispered.

  18

  THE TOWN WAS DRAUGHTY and damp, with bitter curls of wood-smoke blowing around the house corners and water running from the eaves and down the walls. A persistent and heavy drizzle fell, filling the few streets with the sound of dripping. I walked with Clara, holding a waxed umbrella above us and supporting her arm as she stepped in and out of the wheel ruts.

  ‘At least we’re off the ship,’ I said.

  She gave me a thin smile.

  Godthåb was the country’s largest settlement, but it was a bleak and lonely place. Several houses had been painted a rust red, with white window frames. Built in the Danish manner, they had heavy timber doorways on stone foundations. These buildings were gentle and civilised, reminiscent of fairy tales and warm Scandinavian evenings, a glimpse of the familiar and welcoming. It was in the largest—which acted as a covered market—that French had arranged his trading goods in front of several interested merchants. I had his sales list on a sheet of paper.

  ‘Listen to this, Clara, it’s as if we’ve brought enough to furnish an entire town: oilskins, sou’westers, undershirts, overshirts, duck coats, blankets, tin pots, tin pans, mittens, stockings, razors and mosquito netting. Then there’s thread, coverlet cloth, combs, towels, some handkerchiefs—that’s kind, given the colds that must be rife in this place—thimbles, sets of dominoes, beads, calico, needles, glover’s needles for the long Arctic winter nights, knives and forks, scissors, chopping trays and chopping knives, axes, snow knives, shingling hatchets, saws, bastard files, gimlets, awls and fish hooks.’ I folded the paper away. ‘Exhausting.’

  ‘Tell me, Eliot, have you revised your opinion of that man?’

  ‘French?’ I considered how I felt about him. ‘I believe he has his own interests at heart. But what is actually in his heart is a mystery. Why do you ask?’

  She shrugged. ‘He can be charming when he wishes to be.’

  ‘Charming? Not a word I would associate with him.’

  ‘Being pleasant seems to take a toll on his energy. Certainly he finds smiling a tiring business—it doesn’t surprise me the crew are not keen on him.’

  ‘Has he told you this?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘The evening when you dined with the whalers. He showed me a more considerate side to his character.’

  I remembered how he had bathed in the stream that day, pouring bucket after bucket of water over his body. That, and his impatience to return to the ship.

  ‘But where was your cousin that night?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, wandering the ship.’

  ‘So you ate alone with Mr French?’

  ‘It was peculiar at first. He couldn’t look me in the eye. I wished you had been there—but he relaxed. He told me about his days in the navy, but that he wished to get away from the sea.’

  ‘He was thrown out of the navy. Did he tell you that?’

  She was thoughtful. ‘He pushes people too far. And he likes to play games. I think he is beginning to play a game with us.’

  I was alarmed. ‘What form of game?’

  ‘Does it not seem to you that in the last few days he has been watching us rather too closely?’

  I was sure that Clara was not commenting on any specific incident, but was reacting on intuition. Yet her instincts were often correct. I remembered the way she had touched my cheek, telling me how much I tended not to notice what was occurring.

  ‘Why should he do that?’

  ‘That man is conflicted,’ she said.

  ‘He has much at stake in concealing the bird. If the captain discovers, he could be discharged. Perhaps he is thinking about his future.’ I was stumbling to defend him, and not sure why. ‘Clara, I am sure he is still a man of his word.’

  ‘Have you noticed how he stares into the flame of a candle?’

  I pondered her observation carefully. ‘Yes, Clara, I have noticed it.’

  ‘Do you not think it odd?’

  ‘The captain referred to it once. He said French would ruin his eyes.’

  ‘But he persists, Eliot. It is unusual.’

  Clara, wearing a dress of watered silk trimmed with bands of plum velvet and black lace flounces, was attracting much attention. Her height, the elaborate plaiting of her hair and the waxed umbrella made her an exotic sight among the deep ruts and gravel drains.

  ‘You are being looked at,’ I commented, wishing to lighten the conversation.

  ‘Yes, I noticed. Do you think it is my bonnet?’

  ‘Quite definitely,’ I joked, regarding her bonnet with its apricot silk ribbons and the ornamental grebe’s feathers. She was a bird of paradise in this place. ‘They prefer a skullcap of seal fur here.’

  As we left the centre of the town we entered a poor area of rough stone houses, partly dug into the ground, with turf roofs and chimneys where the smoke escaped liberally through the gaps in the rocks.

  ‘We should turn back,’ I suggested.

  Clara was reluctant. She wandered a few steps further, towards an open moor stretching for miles.

  ‘There’s nothing here,’ I said.

  ‘Let’s go on.’

  ‘What do you want to find?’

  ‘Warmth.’

  We continued, between the rough dwellings, even though we’d been told that we would not be welcome in this quarter, as the town was suffering greatly from diseases brought by Europeans. Illnesses that might last a week or two in England the Esquimaux had no immunity from. In the open doorways, several women had come to look, mostly dressed in sealskin. They were small people, with long flat black hair centrally parted or wound into a knot on top of their heads. One or two wore a cloth head cap, or a brightly beaded bodice, but on the whole they were clad in a uniformity of tanned hide, making their legs padded and baggy, even with hide lacing wound around them. Their boots were gaudily painted.

  Children began to follow us, making a sweet chatter, and we found ourselves being invited into one of the houses by a young woman.

  ‘It appears we are being asked in,’ I said to Clara.

  We stooped to enter a long dark corridor of bare earth and smooth rock, and then a kitchen where the air was grey with smoke. It felt damp and warm. The walls were entirely soot covered, with a range of utensils and cooking implements hanging on pegs and wires. Alongside them, various types of hunting and fishing equipment were strung up to dry. On a large cooking range, built of stone, sat a blackened pot filled with a thick stew. Several seabirds—I noticed a diver, a pink-footed goose, a pintail and eider, alongside a knot and wheatear and smaller birds—hung on meat hooks fixed to a beam.

  We were guided to a second room, which was long and low, with a sloping floor almost like the pitch of a ship’s deck in a storm. At the far end was an old man, sitting in a handmade chair and coughing regularly. He didn’t seem to notice our arrival. Woven stools were brought to us, and from neighbouring houses food was quickly mustered: white biscuits, wooden cups of fresh milk, a berry liqueur and several eggs that were small and elongated in shape. ‘I will try the biscuit,’ Clara told me, smiling. ‘It’s the thing I most recognise.’

  ‘You are thoroughly lacking in courage,’ I replied, holding a hard-boiled egg up in front of her. As I began to peel it, one of the elder women indicated for me to wait. She went to the kitchen and when she returned she held her palm out flat for me, revealing a pile of coarse salt. She gestured for me to dip the egg into it.

  ‘Gosh,’ I said, ‘slightly more than I bargained for!’ I dipped the peeled egg into her hand and ate it quickly, in two mouthfuls. It was surprisingly sweet, with a chalky yolk that tasted a little of fish. Or perhaps it had been her palm that smelt of fish. ‘Thank you,’ I told the woman, as she wiped her hand on her leggings. There were many other stains there, in the same place.

  Clara relaxed, playing with a boy and girl who had come in to watch. She asked for string and made a simple cat’s cradle with it, inviti
ng the children to participate. The children laughed continually, and it was a scene I had great pleasure in watching.

  The women smiled and chatted among themselves and wanted to touch Clara’s hair. They tried to emulate the plaiting across the top of her head, and bunch the sides into ringlets—but their hair was relentlessly straight and jet black, and their show was only for amusement and affection.

  Was this really the same woman with whom I had formed a strange and anonymous relationship on the other side of a plain bedroom door in a manor house in Norfolk? It was incredible that now we should be together, at the far end of the earth. I had noticed, wandering with Clara through Godthåb, that her shoulder brushed mine, and when she wished to point something out she would touch my forearm and hold it with a lingering gesture.

  ‘Why are you watching me?’ she asked, coyly, still playing with the children.

  ‘Seeing you in this room. In this room you seem … precious.’ She smiled at my choice of word. ‘As precious as our bird in the anchor locker. Surrounded by all this,’ I said, pointing to the dirt and smoke of the room. ‘You seem rare.’

  ‘Thank you, Eliot. You make me feel special.’

  ‘You are. I’ve always known that.’

  ‘But you’ve known me only a few weeks,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘Yes. Of course,’ I said, glad when one of the men of the house decided to show me his hunting hooks. They were fine and carved from bone, despite Sykes’ claims that the Esquimaux preferred British steel. I thought of French, down in the trading post, listing his cargo of hooks and rifles, wires and cables, while I held this exquisitely carved pale fishing hook: a secret I had been let into.

  ‘Do any of these people speak English?’ Clara asked.

  ‘I am sure they don’t.’

  ‘Then we can talk. What shall we do about my cousin?’ she asked.

  ‘How was he this morning?’

  ‘Reluctant to speak. He is approaching a crisis. I have seen it in him before.’

  ‘Is there any way I might help?’

  ‘Perhaps, if he lets you.’

  There was an element in their relationship that was still deeply troubling. ‘He seems to have a hold upon you,’ I said.

  She gave me a quick, dark look, before resuming her play with the children.

  ‘I do not know what you mean,’ she said.

  I felt urged to explain myself, but also out of my depth. ‘When I saw your arrival on the ship, I felt as though you knew nothing about where you were. Did Edward force you into embarking upon this voyage?’

  Clara appeared momentarily thrown. ‘What do I remember of the weeks before this ship? Very little, I can tell you. I recall Edward standing up to my father in a courtyard, how he shouted at my father that I should be allowed to find my own way in life. That is imprinted on my memory, and I am indebted to him for it. But what else? Interminable coaching journeys across the country, the most horrid lodgings where we were the subject of lewd insinuations. I remember being ushered in and out of rooms, not knowing where I was and not caring either, and I remember the doses of medicine that Edward gave me. Yes, more than anything I recall that leather case of his, and the vials of liquid.’

  ‘Tell me what the medicine is.’

  ‘Is it important to know?’

  ‘Not all medicine is meant to make you well.’

  She considered how to respond. ‘You asked if I felt pressured—well, I did, I felt pressure surrounding me, but the medicine relieved that. But to answer your question, I no longer require it.’

  ‘Yet when you sit with him in the evenings, Clara, it’s almost as if you are in a trance.’

  ‘Is that what Edward’s told you—that I am in a trance?’

  ‘I’m not sure. He said things about you two, as children. What you did when you were apart.’

  Clara laughed. ‘He loves to tell that story! I suppose he told you we communicated with our thoughts while we lay in separate beds? He is quite a fantasist, my dear. An endearing fantasist quite capable of elaborate conclusions.’

  ‘So, it’s not true?’

  ‘Edward believes I have a gift. That I am able to channel between this …’ she waved her hand around her, ‘and the spirit world.’ She smiled, wishing to leave the subject. ‘He thinks the medicine encourages it. But I am not convinced. A childish game, really, but he is most involved.’

  Was this an admission? A further deception? I wasn’t sure, but felt reluctant to be guided away so easily. ‘I have also noticed,’ I persisted, ‘that the health of Edward and your own well-being are intrinsically connected. He has an influence over you that causes me concern. You were very fragile when you first boarded the ship, and I wouldn’t wish for you to become ill again.’

  ‘Again?’ she answered with practical finality. ‘There are days when I am able to cope, and days when I cannot, that is all.’

  I sighed. ‘I think it might be time to leave.’ I gestured to the Esquimaux, then thanked them for their hospitality, and gave my metal-nibbed pen to the man who had showed me the hooks. He marvelled at it, looking along it as you might sight down a rifle.

  As we went out, I wondered whether I should have told Clara about a conversation I’d had that morning, as we had moored at the harbour. French had come up to me and asked, without preamble, if Edward Bletchley was a user of drugs.

  Quite taken aback, I had asked him what made him suspect such a thing, and why he should mention it at this specific moment.

  ‘Because of the way he hugs that damned doctor’s bag of his,’ French had replied, mirthlessly. ‘You must have noticed it too.’

  ‘Of course I have.’

  ‘Well, what do you think?’ He was in a great hurry to know. I shrugged, feeling cornered by his urgency. ‘And what’s in that hip flask of his?’ he asked.

  To get French away from me, I decided to offer him some information, and mentioned the occasion when I had tasted the drink. I told him of the drink’s colour, and that it was not unpleasant but as a taste it was unknown to me.

  He knitted his brows, listening attentively. ‘Very interesting,’ he said.

  ‘But we all have our comforts,’ I continued, thinking I had already said too much, ‘as you have with your fondness for your pocket watch. I believe Edward needs all the comfort he can get, the poor fellow.’

  French pulled out his watch, examining it on its chain, as was his habit, but this time as if proving a point. He slipped it back into his waistcoat and made sure he had my attention before he spoke:

  ‘Opium.’

  19

  THE SHIP MADE CRACKING noises as it cooled. My cabin became cold. When I placed a hand upon the wall it felt chilled and damp, like the walls of a Norfolk house in winter, where the heat does not reach. I took my hand away quickly, as if it had been seared. Our direction was relentlessly north, crossing once more into the Arctic Circle, but this time Sykes made no mention of it. There was no pantomime of kissing hands at the dining table. For several days a cold mist enveloped the ship. The decks, masts and fixed rigging became coated with a thin layer of ice and the wood turned cloudy as if it had been sugar glazed. The Amethyst was transforming, as a chrysalis encases the caterpillar, into a different material. On one occasion I ran my hand against the mast and a sailor grabbed my sleeve, in caution.

  ‘Don’t touch the iron, sir,’ he said. ‘The skin might freeze and tear.’

  Illnesses were said to arrive in weather such as this, and sometimes the mist encroached so thickly it seemed possible to slice the air and gather it, with darknesses looming in the near distance suggesting rocks, or other ships. It was our shadow, leaching into the fog, but the walls of ghost ships veering towards us made me so unsettled that several times I truly believed I could smell the dampness of their wood and sails.

  There was much studying of the water. Shoals of seal, loons and ducks, floating seaweed—all were signs of the proximity of land; several times we heard breakers surging on rocks, and the men wou
ld stop to listen, gauging their closeness. I clenched my hands in my pockets, braced for the crunch of wood against a reef. Every few minutes a sounding of depth would be taken, and the leadsman would call back to the helm, brown sand, fifty-five, mud, fifty or gravel, eighty. It was hardly consoling. We appeared to be blind men feeling the seabed with a finger. Occasionally the same sailor would call, off soundings, at one-hun’erd twenty fathoms, the simple announcement that the world had fallen away from our deepest touch.

  There were glaciers near by, many of them, of great size. The number of sails had been reduced, enabling the ship to be hauled to the wind in a moment, and two men were on ice watch now. Men with good eyes and a reluctance to talk, who knew when layers of the fog were in fact the walls of icebergs. They would swing the wooden pointer and yell a hearty warning several times each hour, although it was rare that we ever saw any of the obstacles they steered us round. Only once during those days did I see an iceberg. I had been pacing the deck, nervously trying to light my pipe with a frustratingly damp match, when I felt the presence of something close by. A sensation of sudden alertness swept through me. It was as if the air had developed sharpened edges. Looking beyond the ship’s rail I saw, veiled in fog, an unmistakably cracked and grainy texture passing, a solid wall that had either been seen too late, or not seen at all. The ice was ancient and stained and looked as if it had drifted the world for centuries, spreading its sickly copper-green pallor to the surrounding air. I stared in disbelief, expecting to hear the disastrous sound of the hull splitting, but nothing happened. The fog concealed the berg, wrapping it once more, the ship carried on, and the men at the helm laughed loudly.

  As I headed for my cabin, I was halted by the sight of footprints upon the boards of the deck. Not footprints made from dirt or grime, but made of water. I crouched low to examine them. A line of footprints made by bare feet, walking towards the cabins. Small feet, that could only have belonged to a woman. Yet the temperature was below freezing, and there was no other sign of dampness on the boards that had not already turned to a thin glazing of ice. I stared at the prints and placed a finger upon one of them, wondering whether it was the cold I felt, or wetness, and as I wondered, I watched the line of footprints vanishing, or drying, so that after a minute or two, there was nothing at all.