My uncle stared back at us, stared into our lifeless eyes, searching for some sign of fellow feeling but finding none. He seemed unable to take his eyes from ours, almost hypnotised by our gaze. It was clear from the look on his face that he would rather have looked almost anywhere, yet still he could not take his eyes away. Perhaps he feared us more in thought than in view.
But then, with an effort, he closed his eyes and turned his head, and when he opened them once more he was looking at the wide, empty ocean and I saw tears fall down his cheeks. Then he turned his back on us and did not turn round again.
A breeze blew up. But it blew in our faces. It blew across my unblinking eyes as we moved ever on, the sails above us actually filling in the opposite direction to that in which we travelled. But we were a ship of impossibilities. There were no surprises left in the world for me or for my uncle.
Or so we thought.
The first sign of the next wonder was the change that now came over my uncle. He’d been standing in his usual stance: of a man beaten down, his back bowed and bent as though the albatross was still roped around his neck.
He stood that way at the prow of the ship, looking ahead, a silhouetted shape against the cold night sky, like an ink blot on blue velvet.
Then he started to move. He craned his head, leaning forward and peering into the distance. To my surprise, he moved suddenly this way and that in an agitated manner. He gripped the rope that was tethered nearby and slapped his hand on the woodwork to his right. He muttered to himself and this muttering grew and grew until he whooped in excitement.
Then I saw what he saw. A light. A light. The dark shapes on the horizon and a light with it. It was land! It was a shoreline and a harbour and a harbour light!
And as we closed in, the wonder of this sight increased a thousandfold because I saw now, even in silhouette, that this wasn’t just any shore. I knew these shapes. Even in darkness, I knew this place. I knew that church tower jutting from the houses on the hill. I’d been christened there. This was my own town: my own sweet town.
My uncle burst into sobbing and I would have done likewise if I’d been able. I heard him mumbling and shaking his head as we rounded the end of the harbour wall and entered its mouth.
It was like a dream. The harbour was deserted. The only sound was that of the water moving against the side of our ship as we slowed, and then the wake lapping against the harbour wall and rocking the boats moored alongside.
The whole scene was bathed in moonlight. The water was flat calm and mirror smooth and the little cockerel on the church tower glinted and winked its light across the water of the bay and into my own tired eyes as I looked across the scene with a heavy heart and wondering mind. What was to become of us now?
Would my mother come down to the harbour and find me like this? Would the spell now be lifted? Would we now be allowed to die? Would I be released from the spell that held me?
Even as I thought this, I fell to the deck and all the dead crew along with me. We fell with a sickening thud that made my uncle turn with a startled expression.
And over each fallen man stood a glowing figure, hovering like a beacon, lighting the ship like a signal to the shore and illuminating my uncle’s awestruck face. The whole scene was lit as though by a thousand candles.
My uncle knelt and prayed whilst away in the distance I heard the sound of oars splashing in the waters of the bay.
It should have been a joyful sound. It should have been a sound of homecoming, a sound of welcome. It should have meant a rescue – a waking from this nightmare. But I knew somehow that the forces that had brought us to this point had not finished with us.
I heard voices. I heard the pilot shouting to the ship and then discussions in his boat between him and others aboard. What was coming next? Were these men about to be swallowed up in the curse along with us?
PART THE SEVENTH
XXIX
I recognised the hermit’s voice as well as the pilot’s as the boat came nearer to the ship. I heard the hermit wondering aloud why we hadn’t answered their call and then marvelling at the state of the sails whilst the pilot moaned and said the whole ship had a ‘fiendish look’. He was all for turning back, but the hermit told him to keep rowing.
Then there was a sound I had never heard. It bubbled up from deep below and began to rock the ship. The pilot’s boat was almost upon us when the rumble rushed upwards and grabbed the ship and dragged us under.
The sea reared up on every side and then crashed in upon us. The holds filled with water and the crew were sucked down into the watery depths, and the ship sucked down too into the deeps of the bay.
I saw my uncle floating free and heading up towards the moon glow whilst I sank with my crewmates. And I did not fear that fate. I did not fear death. But I did fear this living death. Would I be trapped in that state for ever?
Then I saw that the magic that had held the bodies of my fellows from rotting as they should, now left and each man underwent a month of decomposing in a few short seconds. Their flesh fell from their bones, and the bones crumbled as they were revealed. They were skeletons for only an instant, but all at once they turned to sand and sank in yellow clouds to the seabed.
However, I did not sink as the others sank. I saw the ship melt into the dark below as it was taken under for ever. It seemed to fall to an impossible depth, as though a huge chasm had opened up beneath us and swallowed it up.
Then I was spun round and about with dizzying speed and sent up – up towards the surface like a bubble, bursting into the moonlight.
I had risen some way away from the pilot’s boat. I saw the whirlpool left by the ship’s sinking. I was far enough to be hidden from their view but close enough to hear what they said.
There was a commotion going on aboard the pilot’s boat as the wake from the sinking ship lifted it high up into the night sky, the silhouette blocking out the stars behind.
The men on the boat were babbling in horror at my uncle’s appearance. I suppose he must have looked quite frightening to those who had been in this good, sane world all the time we had been in hell.
He had been pulled aboard by the pilot and the hermit and – yes – the pilot’s son was there too. The old world I had known poured back in and excitedly I waved my arm and shouted, amazed that I had been given back control of my movements once again.
No one responded to my cries except, I thought, my uncle, who turned briefly, and once only, at the sound before grabbing the oars and rowing for shore as though pursued by sharks. The pilot’s son cried out and collapsed into the boat.
‘Ha! Ha!’ he screamed, clearly remembering my uncle. ‘The Devil knows how to row!’
The hermit sat in the prow of the retreating boat and I heard his prayers over the sound of the oars. I watched my uncle’s bent back and cursed him again.
‘You heard me,’ I said to myself. ‘You heard me but you left me here to drown.’
Yet I was not drowning. I was not sinking. I floated, though I seemed to have learned the art without any teaching. I simply did not seem able to sink. I was like a cork, bobbing on the surface.
And I could move! After all those days – who could say how long? – when I was a puppet to whatever forces held me, I was now my own self again. Something had changed and I was free. Life had been returned to me.
I called out again to the boat and begged them to respond, to pick me up and carry me to the shore – but no one turned in my direction, not even my uncle. He rowed on and the joy I had felt in my renewed life turned swiftly to anger. I called again. Nothing!
The boat quickly got away from me and I was forced to make after it. I was surprised to find I had the energy to do it after all I had been through. But my arms and legs moved without pain. I did not feel the water, though it must have been freezing cold.
The boat came ashore on the pebble bank between the spurs of the harbour walls. The moonlight rippled on its wake as I swam as quickly as I could in pursuit.
By the time I reached the shallows, the pilot and his son were already staggering away towards the town, the pilot half carrying his son, who was in the grip of some kind of fit of terror.
The hermit was calm though and my uncle sank heavily to his knees.
‘Hear my confession, holy man,’ said the uncle.
‘Speak, brother,’ said the hermit nervously. ‘What manner of man art thou?’
‘I have been to hell and back,’ said my uncle. ‘I have sailed to the lands of ice and have been pursued by demons. All my fellows were taken. I alone survive to tell the tale.’
‘All dead?’ he asked.
‘Aye,’ said my uncle.
The hermit looked out into the bay and then shook his head.
‘Then you are blessed, brother,’ he said, turning back to my uncle.
‘Blessed?’ said my uncle quietly. There was something about his tone of voice I did not like.
‘For you alone have been chosen to live,’ continued the hermit. ‘We must celebrate your survival even whilst we mourn their loss.’
I saw a minute change come over my uncle. It was barely visible. It was a slight shift in how he carried his weight, a slight tilt of the head. I had seen it before.
‘Perhaps you are right, holy man,’ said my uncle, looking back to the spot where the ship had gone down. ‘Though I feel so sorry for those poor souls who were not chosen.’
‘Aye,’ said the hermit. ‘That does you credit. But praise be that anyone lived on. You must not blame yourself for their misfortune. These tragic events are beyond our understanding.’
My uncle nodded and hung his head. Yet there was no humility in his posture. The hermit placed a comforting hand on his shoulder and my uncle stood up unsteadily.
‘Come, brother,’ said the hermit. ‘We must find you food and water. You must be exhausted and in need of sustenance.’
They started to walk away.
‘No!’ I shouted.
Neither the hermit nor the pilot, who was helping his son further along the shore, paid me any heed. But my uncle clearly heard me. He looked round slowly, his face filled with terror.
‘That’s not what happened!’ I said. ‘Tell the truth!’
My uncle was gripped by a sudden agony that shook his whole body and he dropped to the ground, twitching. The hermit rushed to his aid and tried to help him.
‘My son?’ he said. ‘What is the matter, my son? All is well now. You are quite safe.’
My uncle tried to stand with the hermit’s assistance.
‘Tell the truth,’ I said again. ‘Tell him what really happened.’
Another seizure wracked my uncle and he gnashed his teeth and dug his fingers into his chest and stomach, as though pierced by a dozen arrows.
‘What ails you?’ cried the hermit as my uncle groaned and howled.
I walked up to the hermit. He didn’t seem to see me, though I stood only inches away from him.
‘He’s not telling the whole story,’ I said. ‘He needs to tell you the whole story.’
He could not hear me. Only my uncle could hear me and only he could see me. And the seeing and hearing of me was like a rack and thumbscrews to him.
Was this why I had been spared? To force my uncle to tell the truth, for once in his life? Though at that moment I had no idea that his life was to be so miraculously extended.
‘I need . . .’ gasped my uncle. ‘I must . . . tell you how this happened.’
‘There’s time enough for that, my son,’ said the hermit. ‘Sleep first and –’
‘NOW!’ yelled my uncle. ‘I must tell you now.’
And my uncle reached out and grabbed the hermit’s arm. That was the first time I saw it – the spasm that passes through my uncle’s arm and into that of his listener; the first time I had seen the look of hypnotised enchantment that comes over the face of his listener.
The hermit staggered back a step or two and sat down on the edge of a wall that runs beside the beach. The town was silent, as though we were all caught up in our own world and time had come to rest. The only sound was that of the pilot and his son, trudging across the pebble beach, and soon there was no sound at all save for the hermit’s expectant breathing and my uncle’s voice.
‘There was a ship . . .’ began my uncle.
XXX
And that was where it began. He told the whole story to the hermit and he became the first of . . . well, I cannot even begin to guess how many listeners he has enthralled. I wonder if it will one day become a myth, like the stories of old about the gods and heroes.
From that moment on the beach that night, we have walked the earth together, he growing old and white-browed over the centuries, but I still the boy I was aboard that ship.
We left the town as soon as my uncle had eaten and slept. We left by a route that did not take us past my mother’s house. My uncle did not want her to see the man he had become and I could not bear the thought that she would not see or hear me. It was torture enough to be so close to her yet not be able to feel her embrace. Seeing her would only make it worse.
My uncle ages, though not at any human rate, for the years – the centuries – have gone by and he lives on. I thought that he would fall and die many miles and many years ago, and every day he looks as though this might be the last time he tells the tale. He looks so frail and walks so slowly. Passers-by shake their heads in wonder at the sight of such an ancient out upon the open road. He is taken for a beggar or some mystic, but only those who fate chooses to hear the tale have any inkling as to what he really is.
Just as he was on the ship, he is charmed, and although the cold and frost gnaws his old bones, still he will not die. Is he immortal? I don’t know. He is so much weaker now; it seems less likely that he will simply go on and on. And then what of me?
We pass like night, from land to land, with my uncle having some magical gift of language, so that he can tell the tale in the native tongue no matter where we are. Whether the listener is Chinese or African, Spaniard or Turk, it makes no difference. They are able to hear the words in the language they need.
I seem to know the person he must tell and call on him to speak, wracking his body as I did that first time. I get no pleasure from this. Perhaps I did once, but that was long ago. I have no more choice than he. I play my part, that’s all.
My uncle finishes his story and the listener blinks and pulls back from him, staring at the ancient mariner’s hollowed face and skeletal body, as though seeing him properly for the first time.
My uncle grabs his wrist and whispers some words and the man nods dreamily before pulling his hand away and staggering back.
‘I shall go to church,’ says the man. ‘I shall pray for you.’
My uncle takes a deep breath and it rattles in his chest like the last breath of a dying man.
‘Listen to me,’ says my uncle. ‘Pray all you like, but know that it means nothing unless you love man and bird and beast. Love all life, however small, however lowly. Do you understand?’
The man nods.
‘I think so.’
My uncle peers at him suspiciously and then nods too, seemingly satisfied that the tale has done its work.
‘Then go in peace.’
My uncle gets to his feet, painfully and unsteadily, gripping his staff tightly, the veins and sinews standing out on his wasted arms, the rheumatic knuckles bulging. He shuffles away down the lane.
The listener watches him go and stands for a while in a kind of trance before turning himself and setting off in the other direction.
The sun has set and has left a green glow in the western sky. Soon it will be dark and the old man will sleep. Not I though. I have no need of sleep; I am no longer able to be unconscious. I used to long for sleep. Now I can barely remember what it was.
The ancient mariner walks on and I walk with him, though never beside him. He knows I am there, but he never turns round until he hears me call and feels the pain, and his pain is only in
creased by the sight of me.
I wonder what I look like now. I can see my own hands in front of me and my feet as I walk. I can see that they are pale; they are the hands and feet of the boy I was and am still, though I am a boy with the inner life of a man who has lived hundreds of winters on this earth.
And winter comes again. Even though my feet are bare, I do not feel the ice beginning to form on the moss beneath them as I follow the old man into the oak woods that cover the hillside hereabouts.
I can hear the sea breaking on a pebbled beach way down the hill. I can smell the salt air and hear the sad cries of roosting seabirds.
The old man’s walk is so slow now he is barely moving and the staff he leans against is the only part of him that does not tremble and look fit to break at any moment.
Finally, with a great sigh, he sits down on a moss-covered root and slumps against the gnarled bark of the oak whose leafless branches crane over him, black against the velvet blue of the night sky.
Stars twinkle and, as the old man falls asleep, they are mirrored on the ground as the moon lights up the tiny crystals of frost forming in the leaf litter.
Yes – winter will soon be here, full fanged. The old man can barely move his hands as it is, so accustomed are they to grasping tightly to that staff.
I look down at him and see his faint breathing, the wisps of white breath rising up like tiny ghosts from his thin, cracked lips. His skeletal face, swamped by beard and long matted hair, is scarcely recognisable as that of the man I set out to sea with all those centuries ago.
I walk closer and stand over him, confident he will not wake. The rags he wears soak up the dampness and the cold along with it. The frost performs its silent ministry, unhelped by any wind.
I stare into the woods ahead of me and realise in a moment of revelation that these are the very woods I played in as a boy. That were I to leave the old man and walk on, I would come to my mother’s cottage.
The Dead Men Stood Together Page 11
