by Clare Clark
‘That’s a matter of opinion.’
Alice curled her lip, crossing her arms over her chest. Exasperated, Maribel gestured down the hill towards the great still lake which, beneath the dull sky, gleamed pewter grey, its shores softened by thick forests of bulrushes. In several places the local fishermen had cut paths through the rushes and there, on the silent water, flat-bottomed boats idled, painted in bright colours long flaked and faded by the sun. Beyond the lake, as blurred as buildings in the London fog, rose the dark forms of the Asturian mountains.
‘Look, Alice. Look properly. Can you honestly tell me it is not beautiful?’
Alice shrugged. ‘Beauty is as beauty does. When I look properly do you know what I see? The food stains on the tablecloth, for one, and the fingerprints on the glasses. There’s not a plate or a dish here an English dog would care to eat from. As for the fleas in the mattresses, I can see those clear as day.’
‘Alice Tweddle, you are impossible!’ Maribel cried. ‘I am back for five minutes and already the complaining has begun. Well, I am not listening. I am in too good a humour for your ceaseless doom and gloom. Make sure my luggage is safely unloaded. I am going for a walk.’
Without waiting for Alice’s reply she set off towards the lake, following the path that led away from the village and around the base of the hill. She walked briskly, not looking back. Before long Alice and the inn were out of sight but she continued to walk, enjoying the stretch in her muscles after the uncomfortable journey. Near the lake the path turned abruptly, leading down to a narrow strand of pebbled beach. Reeds grew in the quiet tea-brown water, and, along the shore, tiny waves licked at the worn grey stones. The slip and clatter of the pebbles as she walked reminded her of Inverallich and of Edward. She thought perhaps everything reminded her of Edward these days.
Gathering up her skirts she bent down, picking up and discarding stones until she found one of the right shape. She looked at it, flat and smooth on the palm of her hand. Then she closed her fingers over it, holding it in her fist like the stone of a fruit. She did not throw it. Though Edward had spent hours trying to teach her she had never mastered the skill of skimming stones. Instead she held it until it was no longer colder than her hand. As it warmed it seemed to soften. She opened her fingers. A flat grey pebble, flecked with white, an oval with one end more sharply curved than the other and a dent at the centre. Like an ear, she thought, and she set it to her own ear to listen to it. The silence in it was whole and desolate.
She threw the stone into the lake. It landed neatly, sending tiny waves shimmering through the surface of the water. She lit a cigarette. Then, with the cigarette in her mouth and her hands in her pockets, she walked slowly along the edge of the water away from the path. She was not yet ready to go back to the village. As the waves reached the beach the hem of the lake frilled.
In a few weeks Edward would be released. They would unlock the door and he would step, blinking, into the disordered bustle of a London street. At Pentonville all the prisoners were kept in solitary confinement. When they exercised with other prisoners in the high-walled yard they wore specially designed caps with flaps that covered their faces, the slits for their eyes cut only wide enough to ensure they did not fall. At Sunday chapel the pews were arranged in rows of high-walled cubicles. Such solitude could make a man mad. There were stories told of the prisoners who believed themselves to be the Devil, or God, or the Emperor Napoleon. Edward would stand outside the prison, his hand shielding his eyes as he contemplated freedom, conversation, the unfamiliar feel of his own good clothes against his skin. The light would be a shock to him. The outside of the prison, with its classical columns and porticos, was painted a startling white.
Would they have changed him, those desolate days and nights, marked off in scratched lines on the cell wall? Edward was a man of principle but he was still a man, formed of flesh and blood. The miserable regimen would starve his body and torment his mind. That was its purpose. His suffering might harden his will or it might break it but surely it could not fail to shape him. Before the trial he had said that he did not regret what he had done, had claimed that, granted the opportunity to go backwards in time, he would do it all again. The assertion had roused in her both tenderness and consternation. She thought of Mrs Besant, who, years before, had been sentenced to six months in prison for publishing a book by the American birth control campaigner, Charles Knowlton. In the event she had not served her time. The case had been overturned on appeal but the scandal had allowed her estranged husband successfully to argue that she was an unfit mother and to press for sole and permanent custody of their two children. She had never seen them again. Arthur and Mabel Besant were almost grown up now and still lived with their father. Meanwhile their mother worked tirelessly on behalf of the poor and their children, as least half of whom would never grow up at all.
Beyond the stand of bulrushes the beach curved to the left, opening up the prospect towards the south. Maribel squinted through the veil of smoke. Far out on the water men were fishing and beyond them, in the distance, a cluster of cottages huddled around a jetty on the low slopes above the shore. Some way away, where the hills folded in on themselves, among the dark bars of winter trees it was just possible to make out the line of a wall, painted white. Victor had chosen the convent for its isolation. The buildings were low, one-storey stone constructions set among groves of orange trees and enclosed on all sides by high white walls. If it had not been for the old woman Maribel would have never known the lake was there. The old woman laundered and pressed her clothes and her bedlinen, tidied and cleaned, and brought Maribel’s meals from the refectory. She had a monkey’s face, wrinkled as an old apple, and a mouthful of ill-assorted teeth that seemed to move in her jaw when she spoke. Maribel did not know where she slept or if she ever went home. When Maribel woke in the night, she was always there in the hard chair, her lips moving wordlessly over her teeth as she counted the beads on her rosary. In the darkness the bells had tolled softly, summoning the unseen nuns to prayer, and the newborn child beside her had stirred, crying to be fed.
She had not thought that she had come to this place because of the child. She only knew that, on the long journey, as her faith in the mine failed, the fact of the convent across the lake held her steady. Her grief was as familiar to her as the shape of her hands, the ache of it old and unfailing. The pain had not grown sharper as they neared their destination. Perhaps it could not. But it came to her more often and more unexpectedly. The arch of a bridge, the shape of a glass, the smell of food or of a log burning in a grate, such particulars could summon the pain into her throat with all the urgency of vomit. At those times she ached for Edward, the longing in her so strong that she had to bite the insides of her cheeks to master it.
It was a comfort to wake in the dark mornings in the spartan inns that marked the stages of the diligence, to jolt and shake for another day over the mud-rutted trails. To have undertaken the expedition in the warm embrace of summer, to travel through the hills bright with wild flowers, to watch the women washing their linen in the streams, the shepherds piping their sheep from the hills in the pink dusk, to lie beneath the sky on those long blue nights as the heat of the day evaporated, distilling itself into the white heat of a thousand brilliant stars – such a journey would have been unbearable. She endured the many discomforts without complaint. White she was cold and bruised with travel and the lice moved in her mattress she thought of Edward and his closeness was a consolation.
It began to rain, a light persistent drizzle. A fine muslin of cloud rucked in the curves of the hills and obscured the houses of Meiriz. She might have written to the convent from England but she had not. There would have been no purpose to it. It had been years. Even if they remembered the child, they would never tell her where he was. Besides, where was the help in knowing? Details would only whet the edges of her grief. Loss was formless but places were fixed. The precision of longitude and latitude, of distances in miles, was too absolu
te to be borne. To know exactly how far away he was, how close he had always been, that would be unendurable.
Still, late at night and especially after Vigo when they were on Spanish soil, when the wine was uncorked and the joints of her limbs sang with the giddy effervescence of too many cigarettes, she had allowed herself to imagine meeting him. He would be nearly twelve years old, dark and gangly, the bones sharp at the back of his neck but the curves of his face still soft with childhood. She would hold out her hands and he would set down his suitcase and step towards her cautiously, and she would take his face between her hands and kiss his cheek and he would smile and frown and rub at the place where she had kissed him with the back of his hand, and the part of her which had always been broken would not be broken any more. When she permitted herself these imaginings she squeezed her eyes tight, holding herself suspended in that moment, the swell in her chest, the diffident affection pinking his cheeks. The feeling was exhilarating, swooping upwards in her stomach like the high point on a swing. It did not matter that she did not know what came next. The trick was to think of something else before the swing began to drop.
In the rain the match took reluctantly. She hunched her shoulders, cupping her spare hand around the tip of her cigarette as she sucked in the flame. Above her, a tumble of rocks led to a narrow trail along the lip of the hill in the direction of Ferrixao. Her cigarette clamped in her mouth, her skirts bunched in her one hand, she scrambled up the rocks, her boots slipping a little on their rain-greased skin.
By the time she reached the trail the rain was falling in earnest and cloud veiled the lake. She hurried back towards the village. In a field that sloped up from the path several young boys were picking stones, gathering them in the pockets of oversized canvas aprons. They worked in silence, their hair slicked flat by the rain, their narrow bodies hunched over the weight of their cargo. Her cigarette had gone out. She stopped to relight it, watching the children as they stooped over their work. Their clothes were worn, their wooden shoes fat with mud. The rain fell harder, sticking their shirts to their backs. She could see the curves of their ribs through the wet cloth, the ridges of their spines.
The paper of the cigarette was wet too. She pulled in her cheeks, frowning with the effort of making it catch. In the field one of the boys straightened up, his fists on his hips, and stared at her. She smiled. The child called out something in Galego and the taller boy who worked beside him turned round to glance at Maribel. She thought she heard the word cigarillo as the taller one replied, lobbing a stone in the younger boy’s direction. When the younger boy ducked the taller one laughed and returned to his work. The younger boy’s jaw jutted. He glared at Maribel as though he dared her to laugh too. His hair fell over his face and in his famished old-man’s face his dark eyes were huge. Then he too bent down and began once more to gather stones.
Blinking the rain out of her eyes, Maribel hurried away.
32
THE VISITORS’ PARLOUR was a small room dominated by a polished oak table, its feet carved to resemble the clawed paws of a lion. On one whitewashed wall a large fireplace was presided over by a heavy iron chimney, an unlit fire neatly made up in the grate. The hearth was spotless. Opposite the fireplace, above a stiff row of high-backed oak chairs, a discoloured Jesus writhed on a wooden crucifix. There were no other adornments, except for plain iron sconces set at intervals into the wall, each bearing a half-burned candle, and a plum-coloured velvet curtain strung at shoulder height on the far wall. The velvet looked dusty, paler on the outward creases of the curtain where it had been bleached by the sun. It was hard to think of the room filled with sunlight. The two small windows were barred.
Maribel smoothed her skirt, shaking fragments of straw and dried mud from its hem. Then she sat down to wait on the chair nearest to the door, her hands folded in her lap. Her throat was dry. It had shaken her, how little she remembered. She had prepared herself for the avenue of trees, the wide gates, the grove of orange trees. Instead the farm cart that had brought her here had deposited her on the far side of the convent. She had entered through a side door into a high-walled passage which led directly to this room. It was like entering a prison.
She sat, her hands making patterns in her lap. It was very quiet. No one came. She longed to smoke a cigarette but she was afraid that in a convent smoking might be forbidden and she had no wish to provoke the nuns. She shifted on the chair. The wooden seat was slippery and uncomfortable. Later she stood, contemplating Jesus. His ribs protruded from beneath his yellow skin and brown blood streamed from his hands and feet and from his temples. The crown of thorns around his head was fashioned from twisted metal, the thorns sharp as razor blades. Beyond the window bells rang out. The end of sext, she thought, with a jolt of recognition. Her heart beat faster and, for something to do, she began to walk around the table, touching each of its corners with her fingertips as she passed. She thought of Edward, one bead on a string of felons, circling the prison yard. Beyond the door she heard footsteps. Suddenly she could not remember what it was she had thought to say.
There was a knock at the door.
‘Yes?’ she murmured and the word stuck like a wafer to the roof of her dry mouth.
A convent servant opened the door. She was slight and pale-faced, barely more than a child. She carried a tray with a carafe of water and a glass which she placed on the table. Gratefully Maribel poured herself a little water and drank. The girl did not speak. Instead, her head lowered, she scuttled across the room. Groping behind the purple curtain she pulled a cord. The curtain opened bouncily, like a puppet theatre, Maribel thought, except that behind the curtain was an iron grille, perhaps one foot and a half square, framed in curled iron brackets. The crisscrossed bars were beaten flat, leaving only small holes in the metal. At the centre of each cross was a tiny flower. The maid curtsied briefly, her eyes on the floor, and hurried from the room. The iron latch of the door clicked shut behind her.
‘My apologies,’ a voice said softly in Spanish from behind the grille. ‘We have kept you waiting.’
Maribel hesitated. Then, her glass clasped tightly between her hands, she approached the grille.
‘Prioress?’
‘The Prioress cannot receive visitors without an appointment.’
‘I see.’
‘You may talk to me.’
The voice was husky, deep enough almost to have been a man’s. A smoker’s voice. There was a silence. Maribel wished she could smoke. Instead she took a sip of water. Her hand was unsteady.
‘What is it that brings you here, my child?’
Maribel swallowed, placing her glass on the table. It should be easier, she thought, to talk to oneself, without the requirement to disregard the expressions on another’s face, the tightening of the lips, the faint pinching of the skin between the eyebrows.
‘I –’
She bit her lip sharply, moistening her lips with her tongue, but still the words did not come. On his cross Jesus twisted his head away from her, his mouth wide with anguish. Maribel put her hands over her face. The voice said nothing. After a while she opened her fingers and looked at the grille. She thought perhaps she could make out a gleam of white behind the iron lattice. Perhaps, if she placed her hand flat on the metal she would feel the warmth of the nun’s breath against her palm.
‘I – I cannot see you,’ she said.
‘But you know that I am here.’
‘I think it would be easier for me if I could see you. If you were in the room.’
‘That is not permitted.’
‘So we must talk through the wall, is that it? Like Pyramus and Thisbe?’
The joke was a poor one, poorer still in her rusty Spanish. Her throat tightened, apprehension binding her stomach to her spine.
‘Ours is a closed order. We must remain within the confines of the priory.’
‘And I cannot come in?’
‘Not without the express authorisation of the Bishop.’
Maribel too
k another sip of water. She thought of Victor, who had always claimed to know everyone who was worth knowing.
‘Do not be discouraged,’ the voice said gently. ‘Sometimes it is easier to say things only to oneself.’
It startled Maribel, to hear her own thoughts spoken aloud. Slowly she ran her finger around the lip of her water glass. It was a heavy tumbler, unskilfully blown. Large bubbles were trapped in the thick glass like fish in ice. She set it on the table.
‘My sister was here,’ she said quietly. ‘Eleven years ago.’
‘Your sister was a novitiate?’
‘She was a visitor. For three months. The Bishop must have been –’ she hesitated, searching for the word in Spanish – ‘accommodating.’
The voice on the other side of the grille said nothing. ‘My sister did not live with the nuns. The Bishop was not so accommodating as all that. She spent her confinement in the cottage beyond the wall, the one beside the orange grove, and there she bore a child. A boy. When he was only a few weeks old they took him away. She let them take him away.’
There was a lump in her throat. She turned away from the grille, interlocking her hands and pressing the knuckles hard against her lips. Beyond the high barred window the sky was the inscrutable white of polished stone. She stared at it for a long moment until the lump was gone, her attention fixed upon the floating motes of dust as they darted and spun over the surface of her eyes. Then she cleared her throat.
‘Now my sister is very ill. The doctors hold out little hope. It is a matter of months, perhaps even weeks. She has made her confession, performed her penance. She should be at peace. Instead she cries in anguish for her lost child. It was to soothe her that I promised I would come here, to see if you might have any information as to the boy’s whereabouts, so that she might know him before it is too late. Of course, there is a chance that the child – that it is already too late, but, if he lives, I beg you, help me to help her. She has money. She wants to make amends. It torments her that she will die without knowing she has done what she can for him. Without his – forgiveness. She would help you, help your convent, if you were able to help her.’
