Harriet blushed, held her stomach. When the men stepped away, she whispered, “I am with child!” It was a relief for her to tell someone real. Much as she loved Grace, Grace barely existed.
“Oh, darlin’! We’ll get you to see Mary. She’s lovely with the babies. She’s delivered every last one in this town! No doctor will come near us and some of us think that’s a good thing!”
Thus, it was Harriet who eased our welcome. People seemed desperate for company (even company as odd as ours) and a pregnant lady made everybody happy. Everybody! The population was thirty-two. You could call it a ghost town.
We were welcomed with afternoon teas and a civic function, held in the home of the town’s founder, Martin Wilson. He no longer lived there, so they used it as their hall, their school, their church. It was a wonderful building. So full of precious things. A storage house of memory which would one day become a museum.
There were abandoned houses, built by Wilson for his workers. We took two for ourselves, well back from the water. We moved into the small upper bedrooms and nobody commented. Eugene undertook much of the maintenance of the house and proved to be extremely good at it. We felt proud that he could manage it and certainly it helped our welcome in the town.
I learned much about the man who established this town. Wilson had been a wealthy cattle owner, who, in a philanthropic frenzy, commissioned the building of the Time Ball Tower. Building had halted when the man and his family left abruptly. Rumor had it that he murdered his wife and perhaps the children as well, but no bodies were ever found. His wife was desperately unhappy here, it was said, and she was bitter about what she had lost. Who can say, now?
For me, the tower was like a beacon. It brought to mind the Iron Age Broch Tower, I’d seen on Jailshot so long ago, on a visit with my dear father.
Harriet cleaned all the windows of our two houses. She took down the old curtains and stood gazing out at the Time Ball Tower.
“Is that someone in the window?” Harriet said. “Is there anyone out there?”
“Some say it’s haunted,” the local policeman told us. He’s the one she’d marry before long. He was the kind of man who could accept a bastard child as long as he had plenty more of his own. “By a killer. He murdered a young mother and her tiny baby, small as yours will be. Seduced her with soap, they say, fresh wrapped, smelling like roses. He escaped capture by swimming out to the Time Ball Tower. No one was game to follow. He must have felt very pleased with himself until the weather came over. It would have taken him weeks to die. No water or food. Even if he caught water from the storm, soon it wouldn’t be fit to drink. Made many of us happy, I can tell you. Looking out there, thinking of his suffering. Some say he’s still there.”
“Some would say he deserved such a punishment. Child killer like that,” Harriet said. “They should shut him up in a boab tree.”
We had seen this done, on our journeys. Criminals imprisoned overnight in the large, round, hollow trees.
Shortly afterwards, Harriet gave birth to a healthy baby girl. Such a beautiful angel! And she looked like Harriet, with barely a glimmer of Phillip. I wondered how Harriet felt, looking at her child. If she was reminded of the man who deserted her so easily. Sometimes I cursed Phillip for leaving us; we needed him.
And yet Harriet called the girl Phillipa. Harriet proved very fertile, producing Tristram, William, Lawrence, Neville and Lorna over the next years. She did her bit to preserve Little Cormoran.
1845CE
I called a town meeting. Others have said I was like a religious leader when he was young, charismatic and brilliant. People followed me when I led. I didn’t see myself that way, but still; we do have this town, and the Time Ball Tower, don’t we? That I built myself, that I asked people to build with me.
The people sat with cups of tea and biscuits made by Harriet. I sat amongst them, because I wanted to converse, not to lecture.
“This is a good place to live,” I began. “The best I’ve found. And yet there is a sense of the unfinished and I believe that is why we are fading.”
I told them stories, weaving magic, then I unveiled a large drawing by Eugene, of the imagined, completed Time Ball Tower.
“Look on this. With the Time Ball Tower, we will be in control of the minutes, the hours, the days.”
I talked about commerce, shipping and prosperity.
They cheered.
Such a moment. That room full of people, listening to me. We would build the Time Ball Tower. We would become a timely place to live.
We would become Tempuston. I did consider calling the town Tempustide, because Time and Tide Wait for No Man, but I think that was beyond the learning of most of the townspeople.
1850CE
As the Time Ball Tower grew, so did the rest of town. School was the most important thing, I had them understand. The Time Ball Tower for lives and routine; school for the future. We built a courthouse, where we sat to discuss the town’s future. At the entrance, Harriet planted seeds that came from the cypress tree by Michelangelo’s grave. She was always an admirer of that brilliant man. I myself know nothing of the artist, or indeed any art at all.
Perhaps that is the origin of her disdain towards poor me.
1857CE
The Time Ball Tower was completed in 1857. When the Ball dropped for the first time, there was great celebration.
The town loved our Time Ball Tower, liked the way it watched over us, providing us with a sense of place. It changed the very nature of the town. The ball dropping every day at five past one managed the passage of time; relentless, dripping on.
At first, young people traipsed out there to camp away from adults for a night or two. The school took a group out, expecting lessons to be learnt and great bonds to be made.
But the place was so unpleasant, so cold, and dark, the smell of the ocean rich and dank, that none lasted beyond a night. Some dreamed of a troll watching over them, drool dripping onto their blankets. Some found they couldn’t swallow properly, that the air was so thick it was hard to breathe, or that their limbs stiffened. Others spoke of the ghost out there, a dark malevolence, the murderer starved to death.
Still others spoke of the smell of roses where no roses existed.
Harriet’s daughter Lorna was one of the last to go out. She came back with nightmares that would never leave her, and she would never marry. She blamed the tower for that. She said, “That place is only good for criminals of the worst kind.”
Of the worst kind.
The seeds were sown.
Harriet heard a victim’s mother saying, “Death is too good for him. Stealing my son and my family’s future like that.”
She began to collect evil as others collected sea shells.
When she had enough, she approached me with the idea of using the tower as a jail. Her husband, the local policemen, saw this as the greatest development in crime control since transportation.
1865CE
Harriet said, “We could fill a dozen Time Ball Towers.”
“With whom?”
Grace said, “Ordinary men? Or those preserved?”
Harriet had long been against preservation.
Grace said, “Why should I suffer more, when they most certainly should as well? And imagine confinement on top of this.”
Harriet thought it was against God, but she would only whisper this opinion, not wanting to offend Grace.
Grace was not offended. She thought we should ensure the sun rose time and time again on these criminals. That they deserved blood guilt for eternity.
Grace’s skin was flaking off, leaving another layer, red and sore. The town was scared of her; children sang songs about her and told ghost stories. Stories involving the Time Ball Tower, and how at night time she flew out there, leaving flakes of skin behind, and if you look out at midnight and see a face in the window, you’ll die from the outside in until all that’s left is a shriveled heart.
Because the sentenc
e against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. Ecclesiastes 8:11
Grace took this to mean that the sentence or the punishment should be executed very, very slowly. She said, “If this doesn’t give us license to perform the preservations, I don’t know what does.”
Eugene had no opinion either way; he barely understood what we were talking about.
With her husband a firm supporter, Harriet was finally persuaded that we should preserve the worst of the prisoners.
Between us all, we convinced the townspeople to assist.
People listened to Harriet. She made them feel younger, just to be around her. Time stopped with her.
1868CE
Three years later, we sent out our first long lifer. This was a man about whom nobody argued. “Consign him,” they said without disagreement.
He called himself a drifter, but what he was was a thief and a killer. He called himself Wee Willie Winkie, and he’d told tired parents he could settle the children. We sleep well in this town, but it takes some time to train the children. He said he could teach them how to sleep, and he was a handsome man, his eyes bright blue, his hands large, his moustache neat under his nose. The women took to him as they did to anything new.
Harriet had three grandchildren, the newest only just born. She still had care of Grace, whom I rarely visited.
Wee Willie Winkie did run through the town.
Strangling our babies.
Why we trusted him is a mystery. We should have known; we should have seen the evil.
The babies slept and slept and slept until we saw what he’d done.
He didn’t get far. The young men of the town were fast on the horses. They caught him and made him run behind them back to town, so his shoes were worn to the soles and it looked as if his flesh would drop off him.
Prison was too good for him. Death was too good for him. We didn’t want him to find relief. We wanted him to suffer for eternity. There were many in government and business who supported us; we’d be paid well for our work.
“But Hell is suffering, isn’t it? Eternal suffering,” the local priest said. He was the last to be convinced.
“We wouldn’t see him there. And if there is no Hell? And if he repents before he dies? He will not receive that suffering.” Grace was determined.
“You have a choice,” the judge told Wee Willie Winkie. “You can be put to death. Hung, here as we stand. In our own way. We hang you gently. No neck break, no quick death. Then we save you, give you ten minutes to recover, then hang you again. The man who endured this the longest lasted twenty-two hours. The shortest fifteen. Or we can give you something few men have had. Eternal life. But you’ll spend it out there.”
He pointed at the Time Ball Tower.
“I’ll take the Time Ball Tower any day,” Wee Willie Winkie said. His fingers flexing, strong, marked. There were tiny scratches on his wrists from those tiny, tiny fingernails.
Harriet and two other women led him away. We would not see the treatment; none but a few can know.
I was the first keeper. An honor I hold dear to this day.
1869CE
Before I left to attend the prisoner on the island, Harriet called for me. She said, “Grace wants to see us both. She has a request.”
Grace was so light, so dry, if the room was darkened I would not have seen her.
“I’m tired,” she said. “I feel as if I have seen my destiny, in that we will preserve evil men in the Time Ball Tower. I have passed my knowledge to Harriet.” They exchanged glances here and I didn’t understand why. I didn’t like it when people exchanged glances and I was left out of it.
Grace took a breath every ten minutes. We didn’t feed her anymore. She seemed quite peaceful, and certainly accepting.
Grace said, “I want you do to this thing, if you ever loved me. If you ever cared about me. You will need it if you are to keep watch over the prisoners over in the Time Ball Tower. We can’t trust anyone else to do it.”
Harriet poured something into a glass from a large jar. Even from where I stood, across the bed, it smelled bitter. It was a pale-yellow color, clear liquid below, with floating gobbets of what looked like clear, solidified fat. She passed the glass to me; I did not want to take it. The very look of it made me shudder.
“Please,” Grace said. It took her a minute to say the word.
I loved them both so much. I wished to never lose them. That’s how much I adored them.
“Please, drink it. For all that was Little Cormoran, all that is Tempuston, all we were and all we are now. For all you have created.” Harriet said these words and I found it hard to say no to her. She had been with me from the beginning, supported me, helped this town to grow. Her children and grandchildren made it what it was; they were good people.
The first sip made me gag. The taste was of bile; bitter, irredeemable. The texture was liquid and solid, the gobbets of fat melting slightly on my tongue.
“Drink it all,” Harriet said.
“What is it for?” A belated question which will give you to understand how much I adored these two women.
“For the future,” she said. “To give you the ultimate power and strength to take us into the future. Drink it like a glass of milk. You drink yours, and I’ll drink mine, and we’ll be together.”
I drank it all.
I would never, ever, be able to eat or drink anything again without that texture, that flavor in my mouth. Even now, the thought would bring bile, if I still produced such.
I slept for three days solid, woke hungry and thirsty. I could eat hard biscuits; they dissolved slowly and seemed to digest well. And beer. I loved beer. I thought it filled my blood with fire. I liked fire.
I felt okay at first, on the inside, but my body dried out, and it creaked at times. The noise upset people; they stared at me as I moved. Became impatient with my slowness.
I lost very little as far as power; truly they listened to me more. I’d threaten to tell their great-great-grandchildren some home truths, “I’ll let them know about the sort of person you are,” I said and that would keep them honest.
The worst thing was knowing my ladies had done this to me deliberately. I considered insisting Harriet join me, as she had promised, but I did not, in all honesty, want to spend eternity with her.
And no matter what else, I did not wish this suffering on her.
I told Harriet, “I would not have done this to you. Better you should let me die.”
I wasn’t sure that was an option for me, now. Grace, meanwhile, Grace was tired and wanted to go. I asked how this would be managed, but Harriet didn’t answer for me.
I did consider speeding things along for her, as I had Edna, but I didn’t want to go through that again.
Harriet brought three of her grandchildren to visit me and their voices were high-pitched and hurt my ears. She had this horrible habit of chittering away, clicking her tongue, disapproving.
I could not wait for the isolation of the tower.
No, the worst thing of all was that Grace was gone. She was gone, when I would have kept her forever, kept her safe and near to me.
She was passed beyond.
I rowed myself to the Time Ball Tower, where I stayed for a few short months when I had planned to stay forever. Too short. My time was cut short because they needed me on dry land. They sent three men to replace me; Jackson Sheward being the best of them.
Three men, I often said. Three for one.
And still they couldn’t manage.
Burnett Barton
Jackson Sheward: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 1869
There is rhythm in our town. The great tick-tock. On dry land the tower looms over us from the island, and we are always of the tick-tock.
We are aware of each day passing, the ball dropping, each day.
We are good men. We three. And yet two have gone, refusing to return after shore leave, leaving me here, amongst the f
ilth and the evil and the sound of that ball dropping, dropping, dropping.
They talk of a dark hole of obsession and sadness.
I am stalwart.
Jackson Sheward
Tristram Barton: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 1872
These precious criminals. Lucky creatures, to live forever. Oh, the things they’ll see. All thanks to our sacrifices.
Jackson Sheward finished his year damaged. Changed forever. Suffering from Soldier’s Heart, you might say.
This will not happen to me.
My mother Harriet begged me not to go, but I said to her, where would we be? If you hadn’t traveled from England and from Perth, been brave?
She is much loved in our town.
She was much loved. She’s gone, and Burnett Barton is back. People tell me this makes sense; God’s Will, but I do not see it this way.
She’ll be sadly missed. But her sacrifice will not be wasted.
Tristram Barton
John Barton: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 1873
Ah, time. How we live by it, adore it, abhor it. My brother Tristram was a most decisive man. A man willing to make sacrifices for the greater good and sacrifice he did, out there on the rocks.
Time has passed since then. I hear the tower calling, as many of us do. Some say to my very face that I am saved by going out there; that I would be a criminal without it, because I have no wife or child. I have no true friends. I have no mother left, and my father is a man lost in his thoughts.
They do not know; all my life this has been my ideal. If our mother had not left us (gone where? We do not know), Lawrence, the brother-in-between, would not have stayed home, insisting on watching for her.
So, I am here.
Fateful, perhaps.
Tide of Stone Page 7
