The Gradual (39 page)

‘Name it,’ Renettia said.

I struggled for a moment with an unfamiliar name, knowing nothing about it.

‘Yenna?’ I said. ‘Also called in island patois Overhang. A treaty, a convention, the Yenna Convention?’

‘Yenna. Can you tell what it is?’

All I could detect was a single note, a plaintive sound, but when I tried to describe it to Renettia it meant nothing to her. ‘Can we go there?’ I said.

‘Go next.’

‘Where is Yenna?’

‘No idea. Mark it.’

I etched a new line.

The matter of the gradual was also not easy to grasp. Renettia said I would have to work out my own way of interpreting what the stave told me and then calculate the necessary correction of the gradient. She showed me some examples, which I drew with the sharp little blade. The stave was quickly gaining a wide hachure of criss-crossing etched lines. It was beautiful and enigmatic. I kept holding it up to admire it.

‘When you need me I will come with you to help calculate,’ Renettia said. ‘It is an obscure matter, impossible to explain, but you will soon understand it in your own way. I cannot teach gradual calculation to you – I can only show how you learn it.’

The sun was soon high and the familiar swelter of the day was rising around us. I was completely wrapped up in what Renettia was showing me, focusing so closely that I was only half aware of all the growing business and activity of the harbour as the day started, the noises and the movement of people and boats. I was leaning forward with the weight of my violin pressing on my back.

When I did look around me, finally, I discovered that Renettia and I were no longer alone beneath the canopy – half a dozen more young people had arrived from somewhere and were sitting, standing or sprawling around in the shade. None of them acknowledged me. One of them was Pheelp and he ignored me as he always did.

Renettia said, ‘A ship is about to dock.’

I turned my head and saw the long dark shape of a passenger ship closing in on the harbour wall. Black smoke was pouring from her funnel and a blast from her siren resounded across the harbour.

Renettia said, ‘Don’t look. Learn this now, Violin. Never look at the ship.’

‘What? You told me to.’

‘I informed you. Not point it out. Show no interest. And put away the stave. You must be ready – it might be you.’

I turned away, slipping the stave beneath my robe. Along with the other adepts I sat in an affect of uninterest, looking at the sky, staring at the ground, keeping my eyes away from anywhere near the direction of the dock. Time passed.

It was not long before a stream of passengers moved away from the ship and headed for the Shelterate building. We did not stare at them and none of them noticed us.

Later, when the ferry from Hakerline came in, a middle aged woman made contact with one of the male adepts who was waiting under the canopy.

I heard him say her name, then, ‘Ten thaler.’ The woman paid up immediately and handed over her stave. After he had etched a minute scratch on the wooden rod they walked together to the road that ran alongside the harbour. He waited while she spoke to one of the taxi drivers. After they had driven away he walked back to rejoin us.

I was getting hungry. I said to Renettia, ‘Do we eat?’

‘Of course we eat. We are people, Violin.’

We went to one of the harbourside cafés. I spent the rest of the day practising with the stave, but mostly just waiting.

On only the second day I was sitting with the other adepts when a cruise liner arrived at the port. I waited with the others to see how many people disembarked and from the stream of people who appeared, pushing luggage trolleys or tugging their own wheeled cases, it seemed likely it was going to be a great number. While I stared at the ground Renettia said to me quietly, ‘Cruise passengers usually on organized tours without staves. Wait to see what happens.’

The crowd pushed on past us to the Shelterate building, where most of them had to cluster in the yard while the crush inside was eased. Many of them, in particular a large group of men wearing brightly coloured sporting shirts, were grumbling about the heat. From the amount of noise they were making most of them seemed drunk. We sat and sprawled beneath our canopy, making no move. One by one the mostly disgruntled passengers were emerging from the Shelterate building. They walked off towards the town, heading in many cases for the taxi rank.

Then suddenly I knew I was required. I did not understand how. I stood up, and walked towards a young man who had emerged from the Shelterate building.

‘Taner Couter?’ I said. He looked at me in surprise, noticing the top of the violin case strapped to my back. ‘Let me see your stave,’ I said.

‘How do you know my name?’ he said.

I took the stave from him and felt gently along the wooden shaft. There were already many curled lines and spirals etched along most of it. I discovered a small detriment immediately.

‘You have come from Nestor,’ I said. ‘In transit to Ferredy Atoll?’

‘Yes.’

I was aware that Renettia had also left the shade of the canopy and was standing behind me. I felt reassured by her doing that. I took out the etching tool and quickly drew a short line, a straight one, not far from the handle.

‘Forty simoleons,’ I said.

After Taner Couter had departed on his way to Ferredy, Renettia and I went to Yenna. This was outside the Ruller Group, in a remote part of the Dream Archipelago. Renettia had never been there before. We saw at once that the arrangements for the adepts were not good – there was no shading canopy, for one thing, and we had to stand exposed to the sun. No other adepts were there. Renettia said little to me – this was her way, as it was the taciturn way of most of the adepts.

As soon as we arrived, Renettia asked me for the stave she had given me for practice.

I gave it to her, but to my surprise she broke it over her knee – it snapped at the point where the blade met the handle.

‘You no longer need it,’ she said.

She dropped it in a bin. I wanted to have a look at it, see what if anything was inside it, but she warned me not to.

We adjusted our own staves. Renettia said this was always essential on arrival at a new island.

Other adepts began arriving and Renettia and I went to find some food. While we were eating she congratulated me on how I had removed Taner Courter’s detriment.

‘The first one is never easy, Violin, but you made it seem natural,’ she said.

‘How was that calculation done?’ I said, remembering a long walk through streets behind the harbour, while Msr Couter followed with his luggage.

‘It was your calculation, not mine,’ she said.

‘But—’

Silence.

Why had we come to Yenna? She did not say. Why was it called Overhang by the local people? She did not know, or she did not say.

When we walked across to the yard behind the Shelterate building I was surprised to see Kan was one of the adepts who was there. I tried to speak to her, but she turned her back on me.

The port in Yenna was a largely industrial one, so the arrival of passenger ships seemed to me unlikely. However, within an hour or so of our taking up position a small ferry did arrive and about twenty or thirty passengers came ashore.

One of the male adepts, someone I had not seen before, said, ‘Hey, Violin. It’s you again.’ Some of the others laughed.

I went forward.

‘Mave Louster?’ I said to a young woman, who was burdened with a baby in arms and a small child in a push chair.

‘You want my stave?’ She appeared grateful I was there.

‘Twenty thaler,’ I said, holding the stave between my fingertips. She had come from Mee, the island next to Yenna, a short trip, an increment of less than fourteen minutes. Renettia nodded her approval at my work.

After that we went to Cheoner, where the port was called Cheoner Maxim. I remembered having passed through this island while I was travelling. We adjusted our staves immediately we arrived but I waited in vain with the other adepts for two days. On the third morning a newly disembarked married couple selected me. I heard two of the other adepts commenting on my violin case.

The situation this time was unusual. The man had apparently lost his stave while on the ship and needed a replacement. I was not sure what to do about this but Renettia was standing by and she said that had to be dealt with before anything else. She sold him a new one.

One hundred simoleons.

She pocketed the money then passed the man’s new stave to me. I identified the island location, then established the detriment, which was a fairly large one of just over seven days. My etched lines on the pristine blade were a matter of pride for me. Renettia and I set about the calculation that would correct the gradient.

Forty more simoleons – this was paid to me.

To enact the calculation we required a car, which Renettia obtained easily – she later told me that on Cheoner all the adepts used the same car. Some islands were more difficult and if they were needed cars had to be borrowed, or some other method had to be devised. I wondered about that.

Renettia drove us through an industrial complex, turning left and right, apparently without planning. I sat in the front passenger seat beside her while the couple were behind us. I was struggling with the calculation, trying to make sense of the gradual data that I was finding on the stave. I had no idea what I was doing. I had removed the violin case from my back to give myself more space, but it was in the foot well in front of me and my legs were cramped and uncomfortable. I had written down a string of values on my memo pad, all taken from the stave, as Renettia had taught me earlier, but I was not sure what the next step would be.

Seeing my expression Renettia stopped the car and took the pad from me. We were in bright sunshine.

‘What do I do with the numbers?’ I said. ‘What do they mean?’

She looked closely. The couple behind us were silent. Without the car’s movement the temperature inside the passenger compartment was rising rapidly. Renettia frowned, checked the stave, looked again at what I had written down. Then she passed the pad back to me.

‘OK,’ she said.

‘What does that mean?’

‘It’s OK. You finished.’

‘But – what have I finished?’

‘The calculation is correct.’ She restarted the engine and began turning the car around so that we could drive back to the harbour. ‘You have worked it out. Well done, Violin.’

‘I’m not sure how,’ I said quietly, not wanting to seem too inexperienced in front of the man and woman.

‘It matters only that you have done it. You might never know how.’

Back at the harbour in Cheoner Maxim we watched as the couple went through the Shelterate process, then they walked out with their luggage to board the ship to their next destination. They had said to me it was an island called Slow Tide, but I had never heard of that. The stave had indicated the island of Nelquay.

‘The same. They meant Nelquay,’ Renettia said. ‘You will have to be there for them, because the gradual between here and Nelquay is steep and irregular. Do you want me to stay with you? I think in fact you could work on your own now. It’s your choice.’

‘For now,’ I said. ‘Yes – please stay with me a little longer. I am nervous of doing something wrong.’

‘We all are,’ Renettia said. We were in the canopied shelter. My violin case was on my shoulders. The other adepts were sprawled in their self-consciously relaxed positions, but I had already noticed how a feeling of tension arose amongst all of them whenever a ship was due to arrive, or was preparing to depart. Their casual attitude was an affectation, a presentation of assumed confidence for their encounters with travellers. ‘Adept work is an art,’ she added. ‘I told you this when we were in Quy. It’s not a science. You know that now.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

We watched the ship moving away from the wharf, reversing and turning around in the cramped inner harbour, then setting out towards the south. A long cloud of smoke trailed from its double funnels. It was already late in the evening and we watched the ship until the darkness closed in.

‘So we go to Nelquay?’ I said.

‘Their ship won’t arrive in Nelquay for three days. First we eat.’

Immediately we arrived in the town of Nelquay Stream we adjusted our staves. It was a cold place, far in the north, close to the shores of Faiandland. Renettia and I were both dressed unsuitably for the island. We agreed that as soon as I had dealt with the gradual needs of the couple from Cheoner Maxim we would move south again. Some other adept could take over, if the couple continued their journey.

The harbour at Nelquay Stream was not much more than a huge building site: a tourist complex was being constructed on a spit of land beside the main quay, a planned hotel, marina, casino. We looked at the contractor’s board at the gates of the development and saw that the project was unlikely to be completed for another two years. At the present time it was a wilderness of building materials, trucks, temporary buildings. The persistent wind blew clouds of construction dust across the harbour.

Other adepts were waiting by the Shelterate building – most of them were familiar figures, but unlike us they had managed to find warmer clothes. I saw Kan again – she was wrapped up in an old greatcoat with a scarf wrapped around her lower face. She had mittens on her hands. Once again she ignored me when I tried to greet her.

Not long after, when their ship from Cheoner arrived and had docked, the couple selected me once more. Their staves confirmed that they had come direct from Cheoner, without breaking their journey anywhere and were intending to sail to Muriseay. I observed that the long voyage from Cheoner had involved a dogleg around the Reever Fast Shoals and this had created a detriment of more than five hours.

Renettia checked what I had done.

Thirty-five simoleons each.

‘We have to cross the harbour,’ I said, thinking ahead. ‘We must take them away from the town, then find the coast road.’

‘I’ll get a boat,’ Renettia said.