A Year of Marvellous Ways (24 page)

It was me, he said.

Three more again: In the glass.

And Marvellous said, I know, and she held his face and kissed him hard, and Doubt never came back after that.

49

J
ack began to visit often. Began to smile again
because his dream-horizon was suddenly within reach. He began to sing again too, most noticeably in Marvellous’ presence, and her expectation and hopes grew. People began to remark about their ease and joy, and rumour quickly took flight. Birds looked up and ruffled their feathers thinking it was the wind until they felt a heavy whack upon the backs of their heads. What was that? said one thrush to another. No idea. Never saw that coming.

Never saw that coming, thought Jimmy as he lit his pipe and watched his brother sing a song to his girl. Suddenly, he felt the sands move and the sky darken. He gripped the table hard as the shifty little bad-luck shadow crept towards him, calling to him, whispering his name.

Marry me! he shouted out to Marvellous suddenly. The shadow stopped its approach.

Marvellous looked up. What’s that?

What’s that? whispered the shadow.

Marry me!

The shadow hesitated.

Marvellous couldn’t answer.

The cottage held its breath and the fire crackled and the old clock ticked, tocked.

Marry you? Her voice was as dry as a kiln.

Don’t you want to? You got some better idea? he said, looking over to Jack.

’Course she’ll marry you, said Jack, and he got up and put his arms around his brother and thumped his back hard, whispered good words because he daren’t look over towards his love because their life together was over.

And that night, in a haze of rum-hot, the three of them made plans. America! South Africa! Australia! The world was theirs. They could go anywhere. Tin prices here were down and the world wanted Cornish miners, would pay for their miners. It was a way out and Marvellous drowned her sorrow like a litter runt, and they toasted and they drank To new life! To
our
new life in Australia! And Jimmy wept, for that shadow had shifted and it was racing over to some other poor unlucky sod. And by God he was grateful. That murky bitter shadow had gone for a time . . .

But of course, it hadn’t gone, had it? For nobody had bothered to look in the corner of that smoky little room, they were too boozed to care. But it was there.

The next morning fear rose with the sun. A fine sheen, like a fever, had crept upon Jimmy in the night. It was a fear that stole words. He dressed in silence, ate little in silence. He gathered his matches, his pasty, his soon-to-be wife in silence, and ducked out of the door and made his way to the mine.

The sky was low and racing clouds dark and hungry ate all colour from the moorland. The day fought hard to lighten but would lose the battle by ten. They sat upon a stone hedge and breathed the crisp air as they waited for Jack to appear. Marvellous noticed that Jimmy was shaking. She placed a sprig of gorse in his handkerchief and he was grateful. From her hands everything became a blessed charm. The weather worsened and so did Jimmy’s mood as Jack failed to appear. He strode silently towards the stacks and engine houses. Only when Jimmy was far out of sight did Marvellous’ pain bend her double, did her tears finally fall. She howled and punched her face and by the time she got to her cottage she was bloody and spent. She dragged herself in and fell upon the frigid flagstones, as merciless to her as a coffin. She lay on those stones for a full hour and it was only the scurrying of a busy mouse that kept her will alive.

She staggered up and went to the stove and the warmth soothed her and heaving sobs tore again at her sight. That’s why she thought she was dreaming at first. Hoping or dreaming, it was all a blur. But when she wiped her eyes, there it was on the table: clear and perfect and orange. Come to take her home.

She picked up the starfish and ran round to the back. Both her dray horse and caravan were gone. But then she saw them: a distant speck up by the tor. Not moving, just watching. Like a beacon.

She tried to run but it was tough going. Pools had formed after the rains and bog was hiding below the scraggy coarse grass and she stumbled twice as her skirt soaked up the mud. The rain lashed down and it bit hard but she felt none of it because soon his lips were on hers and he said, Let’s go. And she would always remember a sunray stealing out from the dark cloudscape and she would always remember her dray and caravan tucked away behind the gorse and she would always remember he had thought of everything that morning, that beautiful beautiful morning when they were about to run towards their horizon.

He had thought of everything. Almost everything. Almost.

Because as they walked hand in hand towards the wagon they both suddenly fell to the ground, as if their legs had been sliced from beneath them. They felt the earth upon their backs, the breath forced from their lungs. They knew, you see. What Jimmy felt, they felt.

Jack wouldn’t leave his brother’s body, not there in that tomb. And he ran back to the mine and fought with them all and he went back to look for him, even as the earth continued to move and threaten, even as the dust hung as thick as smoke. He searched for him, until in the furthermost reach he found him. He moved the stones off him, lifted him in his arms and carried him through the darkness, the inch nub of a candle urging him on. He carried that body as if it was a jacket thrown over his shoulder, and secured him to the stretcher and followed him to surface break. And as the warmth of a sunburst brushed his ear, Jack swore he heard the faint sound of his brother’s voice before it ventured back, for one last time, into his broken body. And he would never tell anyone what he heard that day. Because it haunted him, saddened him, and placed an unbreakable cursed chain around his heart.

50

M
arvellous laid Jimmy out herself. Upstairs in
the
cottage, in the front room. She washed and dressed him in a winding sheet and placed two small rounds of slate upon his eyes instead of pennies. She placed a chain of gorse flowers around his neck. She opened the windows and doors and sat with him for days and nights. She watched his mother and sister and the preacher come and go like a sad black tide. She welcomed women she didn’t know. Those women wept and she comforted those women because they had shared the man, so they shared the grief.

The last afternoon, Marvellous signalled for the room to still. There was a sudden whoosh of wind. She closed the windows and doors. Mirrors were covered. Prayers said.

Jimmy had gone.

The preacher carried a lame girl to the bedside. Such were the curative powers of a life just ended, or so rumour had it. The preacher lifted Jimmy’s hand and placed it on the girl’s withered leg. Marvellous had already left the room. As rumour came in, so she went swiftly out.

The coffin bearers put on black gloves. Jack carried the coffin with three others. They walked slowly the three miles to the church, and the rain fell. And the women wept and the men stayed silent and a young boy played the fiddle and found it hard to keep to mournful tunes because he had joy in his soul and preferred weddings because he wanted to dance, wanted to sing. Marvellous couldn’t take her eyes off Jack’s back. The road ahead disappeared into a blazing horizon of moor hills and sea beyond, and she wanted to know if he was thinking the same as she was, as she looked at that never-ending line of possibility that was suddenly theirs.

Only afterwards, in the cottage, after the tea and saffron cake and music had played and the stories were consumed, when everyone had gone, did Marvellous get her answer. They sat opposite, a fire in between. The unsaid as thick and as heavy as peat smoke.

She got up and sat at his feet and rested her head on his knee. They were a two. They had existed on snatched time and now Time was theirs and they felt awkward. She didn’t look at him as she unbuttoned his fly and he didn’t stop her. The fire crackled, and they felt hot, but nothing grew under the beat of her hand. Eventually he took her hand in his and said, I’m leaving.

She said, I know. She said, I could come too. She said, We could find love under another sun. Isn’t that what you always wanted? We are free to love now.

He said nothing.

She said I want what you want. Always have. You are my life.

He said nothing. Because had he opened his mouth he would have cried and told her the curse that Jimmy had laid on them before he died. And so he said nothing.

The fire began to smoke as sap oozed like tears. That’s how she knew.

She said: Best not hang about, eh? And she got up and went to the door.

She said: Look after yourself Jack.

He said: I’ll come back.

When?

Soon.

How soon?

When things have been forgotten.

He said, I love—

Don’t you dare, she said. Don’t you ever insult me by leaving those words at my door. Stay or take them with you.

He took them with him.

He flicked the catch, and there was a gust of wind as he left. The room fell still, became airless and the mirror darkened by itself. As if he, too, had suddenly died.

She waited for him to come back. Waited by the window. Two weeks passed, then three then six and the rains came and the mists came and dirty nights became long lonely ones. She went out into the squally dark and called his name but the wind brought it straight back to her.

On the last night she walked to the End of the Land where nothing existed except melancholy and ruins and ruined memories and the wind moaned. Or maybe she did, she couldn’t be sure. She shouted his name again but this time the wind was behind her and carried his name beyond the cliff face itself, past Gannet Rock, out across the shimmering black bay that stretched a lifetime away, and she felt sad but glad too. And his name flew and danced like a gull towards the horizon towards the flickering lights of a ship slowly moving from left to right. His name made safe landing on the deck and slipped down into the cuddy where it purred in the tunnels of his sleeping ears. Marvellous raised her arm and shouted, Be safe, my love!

The lights flickered.

Be safe.

She turned and climbed aboard her wagon. The reins felt soft and familiar in her hands. She fell asleep and let the dray horse take over.

Days later she was back in the familiar landscape of her home.

Look who’s come back, said Mrs Hard, chewing on her words as if they were a bridle.

Marvellous said nothing. Instead she stripped naked in front of Mrs Hard and waded into the river, and that had the same whiff of provocation for Mrs Hard as if the young woman had crouched next to her and shat.

She had grief in her veins and it flowed heavy and her heart pumped dull and it unbalanced her. Coming home, she realised all she had given up for love. That night, Marvellous went over to the church and lit her first candle. Lit one the following night too. And the night after that. And that was when she decided to light a candle every night because it was her light and no one else’s, and it was there to remind her what some men can do to women. She would never let that flame go out again.

Didn’t he ever come back to you? asked Peace.

Once in a while.

Not for good?

Eventually for good.

When?

Sometime after the First War. That was our time. Everything has its time. That was ours.

Drake refilled her glass with the sloe.

Why didn’t he get to you before Jimmy?

I asked him that myself eventually, said Marvellous quietly.

What did he say?

Hush now, said Marvellous.

It was the unmistakable sound of rumour that Marvellous heard first that fateful long-gone morning. She knelt down and lifted the rumour-catcher to her ear. The words spilt hot and her heart went cold.

Rumour said:
Morning my lovely! Today is the 14th of April 1921 and here’s what I know: Jack’s dressed himself in a coat of newspaper! He adds stories along the way! They call him Paper Jack now and he’ll tell you the news before it happens! His lungs are fucked! He’s just crossed the Tamar. Rumour (me) says he’s coming back to die
 . . . 
Over and out, baby.

Not long after, Jack came back. She heard him before she saw him. Heard his rasping cough fall like hailstones upon the woodland peace.

She walked up through the trees to meet him. Celandines and foxgloves coloured the green floor, and nature was renewing, celebrating, shouting from every bud and every petal and every beak of returning bird. And amidst this beauty, limped Paper Jack: a face of beard and eyes of blue. He had made a new coat and in the sunlight it glistened white and rustled loudly.

You again! said Marvellous.

Me again! said Jack.

What’s with the coat? she asked.

Lost everything. Even the shirt off my back.

You look like a ghost, she said.

Of my former self, he said, and laughed. She didn’t.

Trouble in Ireland, he said, pointing to his right sleeve. Civil war. War is not civil.

Stop it, Jack.

And look what’s happened in London.
Daily News
on my left sleeve. Very current, oh yay oh yay oh—

Stop it, she whispered.

I tried to outrun it, Marvellous, believe me. I ran and ran until I had this blinding insight.

And what was that, Jack?

That my peace is with you.

A soft breeze lifted the canopy of leaves.

Always with you. So here I am.

And she said, It’s been twenty years, Jack!

And he said, Was it really that long?

She said, I’m old now.

And he was quiet.

And she said,
Old
, and the valley moaned.

He said, Where has all the time—

It’s gone, she said. That’s all you need to know.

And he was about to answer but the coughing ate his words and knocked him double. He spat blood on to the floor. He wiped his mouth, looked up and smiled the sweetest smile.

When I die, cut open my lungs and you’ll be a rich woman. Full of copper and tin and gold dust they are. No one can say I didn’t provide, oh yay oh yay.

Marvellous turned to walk away.

Wait! he shouted. I’m sorry. Please wait, and he held out his hand. We can be young again, if we think hard.

Marvellous stopped.

Don’t cry, Marve. This is our time now. Don’t say I’m too late. I can’t be too late. Am I too late? And from his pocket he pulled out a small chaffinch that lay still in his palm.

I thought if I could get it to you in time, it might be all right. It’s a sweet little thing, don’t you think? I fed it and breathed into its mouth. I tried to give it my song, but my song’s long gone because I left my song underground. Bring the bird back from the dead, Marvellous. Bring me back from the dead.

She went towards him and took the bird in both her hands. She breathed her warmest breath over it. The feathers stirred, the bird didn’t. With the side of her little finger she felt against its chest. She unpinned her hair and wrapped the bird up in the thickest part, before re-pinning it high. She covered her hair carefully with a scarf.

Come, she said, and led Paper Jack silently down to the boathouse and river.

She burned that suit of headlines. Watched the doomed stories of ’21 leave in a spiral of smoke, as if all it took was a slight breeze to blow away the imprint of history to another shore.

She bathed him at high water, scrubbed years off him and covered him with the scent of violet. She dried him, dressed him in clean warm clothes. She cut his nails, cut his hair and shaved him, and where his beard had been his skin was soft and white and of another time.

She warmed rum and she added lemon and cloves and he lay down and slept soundly before the sun had reached its highest point. She watched him sleep: her half-man of bones and memory, a nothing weight with broken lungs. She opened the doors to the balcony and listened to the soft lap of the river below, and as she did, she caught her reflection in the glass, and she didn’t recognise herself at first and she gasped and she had to fight hard to keep those voices at bay, because those voices were critical and so eager to turn a good day bad.

Why didn’t you get to me first? asked Marvellous, as she lay naked in Paper Jack’s arms. Why didn’t you just get to me before Jimmy?

I was looking at the horizon, said Jack.

That was it? That was why?

Yes, and he cried for Lost Time, and Lost Time felt so flattered by his tears that it gave him more time in return.

Just under a year, that’s what they were given in the end, but their joy made the year feel like two. It was happiness that dried Paper Jack’s lungs enough to become a songbird again and when he sang he never coughed, and when they visited the Amber Lynn pub further along the Great River, there was a piano and a banjo player and Jack set his voice between those two instruments and they became a trio and became known as The Odd Quartet.

At night in the boathouse, Jack lay wide awake in the darkness, not wanting to miss a moment more. He never slept, never took his eyes off Marvellous. Questioned constantly why he had ever left at all. Why had he put a dead man’s heart before his own? He no longer sought the horizon because that unreachable lure had been swallowed by the dense overhang of gorging tree cover, and that shimmering line of promise was now embodied by his woman, for only she promised infinite happiness and unknown adventure, and night after night he wrapped himself up in her chrysalis protection, aware that like a butterfly he would soon be required to fly away, colours blazing.

His lungs rattled and he struggled for breath and she held him as he gasped, and she calmed him, forced his chest to expand, to constrict. In the stillness of struggle he said, Marry me. In the stillness of surrender she said, Yes.

There were no rings to exchange, no vows, no I do’s, because they always had. Marvellous rowed along the creek, dropped anchor by the sandbar. They pronounced each other married, witnessed by an owl and two dozen starfish vibrantly orange in their wedding best. And sea horses galloped across the silver-tipped waves and nightingales sang from the branches above, and Marvellous stood up, stood tall and commanded the moon to fall, and that moon dropped mysteriously low. And they stood on tiptoe showered by its white watery grace and they stretched as much as they could until they were the first couple to touch the surface of the moon, the first couple to bury their promises beneath the surface of the moon.

They spent their wedding night lying naked along salty seat slats, drinking moonshine in the moon shine. She climbed on top of him and ignored the gnawing pain of age in her knees, in her hips. She noticed that tens of thousands of discarded fish scales had stuck to her legs and feet and buttocks and they glistened in the lit night. She had never felt happier.

What will you do? asked Paper Jack, as he combed out her hair with the last of his strength.