The Ballroom (35 page)

At first, he had wondered if he would find it strange to have a house at all. To sleep between four walls. But he had taken to it without much fuss, and as the months passed he had begun to enjoy it. He was past fifty. It was time to plant himself.

He turned back to the room, and it pleased him to see the neatness of his kitchen; the fireplace with the hanging pots and pans. The bedroom, a simple chamber off the kitchen with a narrow single bed.

He took his jacket from the nail behind the door and a bag from the table and made his way out on to the lane.

Walking, he came to join the back of a small procession: a few carts with men at the front driving and smoking, women and children in the back tucked amongst sacks of flour and pigs. Young men and women wheeling bicycles. The light honeyed and thick. Dust was kicked up and settled again. Nobody moved very fast. He let himself fall into an easy rhythm.

Abroad, in his time on shore, he had seen the changes: London, Newcastle, New York, Buenos Aires, the swiftness with which things now moved. Had seen a war come and go, serving on the merchant ships. Seen machines replacing men. How the century was settling into mean, efficient lines. But here, things still moved at the speed of a man. Or a man and a horse. It was fast enough for him.

The stream of people thickened as it neared the town, and the main street was thronged with people and animals. At one end the grocery shops, at the other the saddlemakers, the blacksmiths, the horses. He stopped at a good-sized shop that was alive with chatter, joining the queue for groceries, and when it was his turn bought flour and eggs, some currants, sugar and tea. He stowed them in his knapsack and made out into the sunlight.

A neighbour hailed him on the street: a red-faced farmer whose land was close to his. ‘Mulligan! Wouldja join us for a drink here?’

The man was standing at a makeshift bar, which was doing a brisk trade in porter, and he and his companions looked as though they had been drinking for a good while already. John made his way to join them, touching his hat in greeting. The farmer waved the girl over, and she brought a pint of porter for John, who stepped up to the table with a nod of thanks.

‘This is John Mulligan.’ The farmer introduced him to his drinking friends. ‘He bought the Langan property back there.’

The men raised their glasses, made appreciative noises as they drank.

‘How are you getting on out there now?’ said the farmer.

‘Oh aye. Well enough.’ He took a sip of his pint. ‘When the barn’s finished, I’ll be in the market for a horse.’

The farmer cast an eye over the animals. ‘Plenty of horses out today.’

‘Aye.’

‘You’re not lonely out there?’ The farmer turned to his companions with a glassy wink. ‘My wife’s forever after getting him married.’

‘Not lonely, no.’

‘Plenty of young women out here now.’ One of the other men leant in. ‘Plenty of women for a fella like you.’

John took a sup of his porter and looked about him. It was true. The sun had brought them out in flocks, many with the modern look about them: skirts worn short to the knee, hair cut close to their heads. It made for a fine enough sight, but it wasn’t for him. He smiled and shook his head. ‘I think I’m a little old for that sort of thing now.’

The man who had been speaking leant forward again. ‘You’re never too old for that sort of thing, lad.’

John drained his pint, threw some coins on the table. ‘Well, I’ll be getting along there.’ He shouldered his bag. ‘Nice to meet you fellas.’

He saluted the farmer, turning to make his way down the street. Soon he was amongst the fray: young girls grasping chickens by the wings, showing their undersides to clutches of buyers. Young lads riding bareback on ponies through the crowd. Cows and goats and sheep and ducklings and the street thick with the sweetness of dung. The horses were at the far end, each with a small crowd around them: working horses, with young women grasping their harnesses, fine horses, horses with scabbed and matted manes. He saw a lovely bay mare that he thought might do. Next month, perhaps, if she was still for sale. The barn would be ready by then. When he had done a circuit, he made to walk back, cutting up away from the main street – past stalls with all manner of handmade spades and tools laid out. He cast his eye over them as he passed.

At the top of the road, passing the hotel, he stopped. A young woman was standing on the other side of the street. She had her head turned away from him. Her dark hair was tied in a knot at her neck. She was pale and pregnant, hands clasped around the swelling of her belly.

The young woman looked up, her attention caught by something just beyond him. And he saw her properly then: the paleness of her face. Her deep brow. The straight line of her mouth. The breath was emptied from him.

There was a shout, and a young child, a little girl, came barrelling down the road towards the woman. A man following. Slim and tall. Glasses. The man bent and lifted the child to the mother’s face for a kiss, and for a moment the small family stood in the afternoon sun, almost as though for a photograph, or a still life, until the moment broke, the man touched the woman on the arm, she spoke to him and smiled, and they went into the hotel.

Slowly, John came back to himself. On the other side of the road was a pub, and he made his way towards it, and when he reached it he found he was breathing hard.

‘Whiskey.’

He downed the dram, let its fire burn him. He lifted his head, saw his reflection in the glass behind the bar. The furrowed face. Eyes narrowed and lined from squinting at the sun. He was old. Somehow, somewhere along the way, he had become old.

That night he woke and did not know where he was. He could not see the stars, and so he panicked and shouted, tangled in his covers, until his hands touched walls and he understood. He pulled on clothes and walked outside, where he sat on the bench at the front of the house. The sky was clear – only a few rags of clouds trailing after the moon. He rolled a cigarette and smoked it, breathing as the thud of his heart becalmed.

For a long while on the ships he had insisted upon sleeping on deck. As long as he was in no one’s way they let him. He spent years like that, wrapped in blankets. Not wanting to be enclosed by the things of men.

He stared out now into the blackness around him.

Ghosts.

He had thought he was done with ghosts.

When he had first escaped, he had seen her everywhere. Every street corner. Every crowd leaving every mill. That was in his time of searching; always then, the balance of looking with the fear of being caught; with the need to make money and to live.

For days he had roamed Bradford, Leeds. He knew she had worked in the mills, and so he asked the women as they poured out from the gate, but none knew an Ella Fay.

He needed work himself, finding it in the flat farmland north of York, weeks digging turnips and swedes in filthy weather. Then, with some money in his pocket, he searched again.

That was when he went to sea. Dan had been right. No questions asked.

His first voyage a long one – Argentina and back. Colour and light and sound, and him torn inside and all he could think was that their child would soon be born.

On his return he searched the cities again. Manchester, Newcastle. At night he slept in boarding houses. Bolder now, he asked the foremen this time; anywhere a woman might work, he asked to see the names on their lists. Day after day. He saw her all right. Over and over. A pale face in a crowd. But when he looked again it was never her.

He returned to sea, the years passed, and he moved through the ranks.

Il mio Capitane.

Dan had been right.

There were women sometimes. Sweet women who turned to him and held his face and asked so little of him that they broke his heart. But he still searched.

Until, at some point, he could not say when, he stopped searching. Stopped seeing her in the street. Stopped thinking of her. Until his time at sea was more than his time on land. Until he felt himself become a different sort of man. Until years had passed. Until he had begun to grow old.

The next morning he woke early and gathered tools and wood. It was a fine day, blustery with sea breeze, the sun glancing off the sea in the distance, the Atlantic light pale and clear. He climbed the ladder up on to the roof of the barn and began work straight away.

After a few hours, he was sweating. He stopped and rolled himself a cigarette, leaning back against the slanted roof, closing his eyes against the late-summer sun.

When he opened them again, he saw a figure coming down the lane towards the house. Moving slowly but purposefully, as though carrying a heavy load. She was wearing a yellow dress. He leant forward. Looked away. Then back again. Still she came.

He ground out his cigarette and climbed down the ladder, brushing his hands on his trousers. The woman was nearing the gate. She had not seen him yet. She was smart, her print dress the colour of pale lemons. A hat placed at an angle on her head. She stood, hand on the gate latch, and he saw her hesitate, as though on the edge of cold water. Then she looked up and saw him, and put her hand to her chest. ‘John Mulligan?’ she said.

The voice was different. Clear, somehow. And yet the face was the same.

He nodded, his blood in an uproar. He did not trust himself to speak.

‘May I come in?’

He gestured yes, and she manoeuvred herself through the gate, making her way up the path towards him. Her eyes flicking to him and then from left to right as though to take it all in: the house, the land, the sky. He was aware of the weeds growing either side of the path, the hole in the roof of the barn. The overgrown garden, the tangle of the bramble patch. Himself. The weeds had grown there too. He passed his hands over his hair then put them in his pockets. He took them out again.

When she was close, but still a few paces away, she thrust out her hand. A glove on it, despite the warmth of the day. He stepped up. Felt warm, supple leather as they shook.

‘My name is Clemency.’ An English voice. A crispness to it in the clear air.

He was aware of being looked at in the pale morning light by this young woman in her lemon-yellow dress. A reckoning. ‘Would you come indoors?’ he said. ‘I have tea?’

She looked about her, and her eye fell on the bench. ‘Might we sit outside instead? It’s such a lovely morning.’

‘Aye. Make yourself comfortable. Would you like the tea?’

‘Yes.’ She moved to sit. ‘Please.’

The kettle had been hanging over the fire since the morning and so was warm, and he was grateful for it. He let it be a moment and went into the bedroom, where a mirror was nailed to the wall. His face had a streak of dirt on it. He rubbed it away. His shirt was damp in the armpits and the back. For a long moment, he simply looked at himself, adrift. Then he went back into the kitchen, where his hands shook as he poured the tea and milk into mugs, and carried back out.

‘Would you like bread?’ He put the tea down beside her. ‘I have a little soda bread and cheese.’

‘Tea is fine. Thank you.’

A precision in the way she spoke. You could hear the edges of the words. And the way she was sitting too. Neat, despite the bulk of her. Hands folded in her lap. Hair knotted at the base of her neck. Long, old-fashioned hair.

He felt he should not sit beside her, so he stood instead, a little way to her left. ‘I saw you,’ he said.

She turned to him, startled. ‘When?’

‘Yesterday. In the town. With your … husband and your child.’

She nodded. ‘Yes. We’re here on our holidays.’

‘That’s grand.’

‘He’s a schoolmaster. I am a teacher. Or I was before I married.’

‘That’s grand,’ he said again, and then fell silent. He felt slow before this woman. Her mind quick. He could feel it landing on him, taking flight, landing again. ‘How old is your little one then?’ he asked.

‘Two.’

‘Ah.’

She put her tea to the side and pulled off her gloves. Threaded her hands in front of her belly. ‘He told me not to come,’ she said quietly. ‘My husband. He doesn’t know I’m here.’

He nodded. ‘I see.’ His mouth tacky suddenly. ‘And … why is it that you are here?’

She looked up at him. And it was her looking at him, Ella – twenty years ago. And he wanted to get to his knees before her and beg her forgiveness. And yet he saw the young woman in the yellow dress draw back, afraid, perhaps, at whatever she had caught on his face.

She stood and looked around her. ‘It’s a lovely place you have here. Have you lived here long?’

‘A year,’ he said, gathering himself. ‘No more.’

She nodded. ‘And before that?’

‘I was at sea.’

‘And before that?’

‘When are you thinking of?’

‘Twenty-three years ago.’ Her face tight.

He swallowed. ‘Would you sit down?’

She shook her head. Hands in fists at her side. She looked younger now. Scarcely more than a child. ‘I have to know. Where were you then?’

‘Yorkshire,’ he said. He had nothing more to offer her than the truth. ‘A place called Sharston.’

She put the heels of her hands to her eyes and gave a small sound.

‘Do you know me?’ she said, lifting her face to his. ‘Do you know who I am?’

‘Aye,’ he said to her, softly. ‘I believe I do.’

She nodded. ‘I looked for you,’ she said. ‘I looked for you for so long.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Did you look for us? If you didn’t, I’ll go. And I’ll never see you again. I promise you. But if you did, I have to know.’

‘Please. Don’t upset yourself. Sit yourself down. Your tea’s getting cold.’

She sat again, but her eyes did not leave his. He saw her stubbornness and was proud.

He touched his hand to his heart. ‘I looked,’ he said to her. ‘I looked for years. I looked until looking became …’

‘What?’ Her white face. ‘What did looking become? Tell me,’ she said. ‘I want to know.’

‘I came to feel I should never find you by looking,’ he said.

There was silence for a moment, then, ‘Where is she?’ he asked.

Her face contracted. ‘She’s dead. She died three years ago.’