The Road to Bedlam: Courts of the Feyre, Book 2 (29 page)

    Amid the collection there were farm implements, examples of lace, ancient comic annuals and discarded toys. Nothing was in any order or sequence. A rusty lobster pot provided a resting place for a child's doll with no indication that there was any relationship between the two.

    On the first floor I came into a room full of photographs and pictures. There were engravings showing ships ploughing through mountainous seas in great storms, and shadowy photographs of grim-faced men hauling a lifeboat on a trailer. Sepia-tinted portraits showed families tricked out in Sunday best, hats on and children scrubbed. In amongst these pictures were photographs of men and women, a mayor and a schoolteacher, a town clerk and a governess. None were smiling.

    "All dead now."

    The man from downstairs was standing in the doorway. I hadn't heard him approach, which was surprising given how the wooden floors in the houses creaked as you walked.

    "Some fine people," I commented, gesturing to the wall.

    "They worked hard, 'n' built this town from nowt. Better than it is now. It's a shadow of what it was."

    I scanned the pictures. "They don't look too happy about it."

    "Don't believe it. Sitting for a portrait in them days was just that. Took forever to take a photo. Imagine standing in a starched collar, buttoned up. You wouldn't be smiling, neither."

    "I expect you're right."

    He walked over to stand beside me. Surveying the pictures, he pointed to an oval portrait of a rather stoic, round-faced young woman dressed in black with white lace at her collar and cuffs.

    "Only time I ever saw her without a smile. She were a grand old lady."

    "You knew her?"

    "I should do. She were my great-grandmother."

    "She must have lived to a good age, if you knew her."

    "Aye. Right until after the war."

    "The First World War?"

    "No, second one. She died in nineteen forty-eight. Six children, and seventeen great-grandchildren. Related to half the town, one way and another."

    "Quite a woman."

    "You didn't mess, that was for sure. She never raised a hand, though. Didn't have to."

    "How old was she when she died?"

    "Into her nineties, I should think. Not the sort of question you could ask."

    "That's old for those times, especially after six children."

    "Aye. Never complained. Always smiling, except for that photo. Never liked a fuss made, Sea Queen or not."

    "Sea Queen?"

    "Aye. Used to be a big event. Parade round the harbour, a band, mayor's speech and that. Used to make a big thing of it. My sister had it one year. She were a bonny lass too."

    "Runs in the family."

    "Aye, well. None of 'em interested now. No call for herring or mackerel. No call for Sea Queens neither, though there's some that would like to start it up again."

    "Really?"

    "Always some mad bugger wants to go back to the old way."

    "Not you, though? No grandchildren, wanting to follow in great-great-grandmother's footsteps?"

    "They're all telly watchers now. Wouldn't know one end of a gutting knife from another. Last thing they want is to smell of fish. It's all changed."

    "I suppose it has. Still, she's a grand old lady."

    "She is that."

    "There's something I wanted to ask," I said.

    "Oh, aye?"

    "These young women that have gone missing; there are posters all over town."

    "I've seen 'em," he said, nodding.

    "Is that a new thing, or has that always gone on?"

    "What d'ya mean, gone on?"

    "I was wondering. Has it always been like that? It's a small community. You could understand if people needed to get away, find a new place for themselves. Would anyone care?"

    "You've never lived anywhere like this, have you?"

    "I grew up in the country. This is a bit like a village, isn't it? Everyone knows everyone else's business?"

    "It's a small community, I'll give you that, and people do know what each other are about, but it's not like a village. Come through here."

    He took me through an archway into the adjoining house. There was one room at the back that was different from all the other rooms in the museum. It had a small table with a book open upon it. On the walls were more pictures. Some were photographs, some paintings, some black and white and some colour. One or two looked quite recent.

    "Ravensby's not a village, it's a town. More important, it's a harbour town. If you've never lived in a place like this, then you wouldn't know."

    "These are all boats from the town?"

    "Some are, some are from other harbours. They're all still here, though, in a way."

    "Still here?"

    "Every one of these went down off this coast. These boats are out there somewhere, or were smashed to pieces against the rocks, or were driven up on to the beach. If they were lucky, the men will have been rescued. Often as not, they were never found."

    I looked around the room. There were boats of every size: trawlers, steamships, cargo ships, even lifeboats.

    "The ninth of February, 1871 was a nice day. Boats put out in a fair north-westerly. With the dawn on the tenth, though, the wind veered."

    The old man's eyes were open, but it wasn't the pictures he was seeing.

    "By seven o'clock next morning it had turned one hundred and eighty, south-easterly and building hurricane force. The waves came up and the sleet and snow were driven flat. Some boats tried to run before it, but the waves overpowered them, the wind stripped the rigging and they were driven on to the rocks, the bottoms ripped out. One tried to make port; it was crushed by the swell against the harbour wall, the men pulled from the sea on ropes thrown from the harbour by rescuers who lashed themselves to the mooring rings so as not to get swept away theirselves."

    His voice was soft, but somewhere in it was the force of the storm.

    "Others went for the beach. They grounded the boats on the shingle and the men jumped into the waves, only to be dragged back by the undertow. Men from the town were standing chest-deep in the waves, trying to haul them out, their hands numb with cold, their faces frozen with shock.

    "The lifeboat went out time after time, dragging men from the waves, but it was only one boat. There were ships swamped by the waves, men hanging from the rigging, calling out for aid. It was piteous. No one could reach them. The lifeboat went out for a collier brig. It was foundering and the men were clinging to the stern. The lifeboat tried to reach them, but a wave picked it up and smashed it into the fully laden brig. The lifeboat crew and the men from the brig were all lost."

    "It sounds horrific."

    "It was. Forty-four men were lost that day from this town alone. Up and down this coast, Scarborough, Bridlington, Filey, manymore, 'twere the same. Women stood on the harbour within sight of their menfolk and watched them drown."

    "That's awful."

    "Not quite like village life, is it?"

    "No."

    "That was a bad one. There were other bad ones too. Happens about every twenty-plus years. The weather forecasting's got better now, and there's more warning, but even a warning's no good if you're two or three days away from port. You just have to sit it out."

    "You still lose boats?"

    "Aye. Even with the new lifeboat down the coast. All the technology, navigation equipment, radios; it's all naught if the sea takes against you. There's no fighting nature."

    "It must be harsh."

    "It is. It is harsh, but it's a way of life. The women are strong. They know what can happen. Many of 'em have seen it. It's a small community and a close one. There's always help, always someone to catch you when you fall. We look after our own."

    I wasn't sure what to say to that.

    "Not these lasses, though. Gone to the big city, lure of the bright lights. I can't blame them. It's a hard life when you don't know whether your man's coming home or not. The day was, they didn't know owt else. It's what they were brought up to. Now, though, it's all internet and mobile phones. They've seen a different life. That's why they've gone. I can't blame them."

    "So it's not happened before?"

    "Oh, there's always been those that didn't stay. They married out, or moved inland. The ties are still there, though. They never went far. It's in the blood, see?"

    "So what changed?"

    "These girls are part of it, going off, God knows where. What are they thinking? Who'll keep things together, if they've left? Who'll keep the lights on, make it worth coming back to port?"

    "Maybe they don't see themselves that way?"

    "The boats sit tied up in t'harbour. They say there's no fish, that the sea's turned its back on them."

    "Has it?"

    "There's fish, but you have to work for 'em. They don't jump into your hold on their own. It's hard, I know, but you don't catch fish in port."

    "Maybe they're only allowed to catch so many. Aren't there quotas for fishing these days?"

    "Aye, there are. None of our boats are close to reaching 'em. If they go out they come back wi' nowt. Empty nets, empty holds. It happens. The sea has lean years like everything else. It's happened before, it'll happen again. You don't stop. You keep at it until the nets are full again and things come right."

    "Maybe they've over-fished it. Maybe it needs time to recover."

    "Aye, well, it's time they don't have. No fish means no money. If they can't pay the loans on the boats then the banks'll pull the plug. By the time it comes back we'll be buying fish frozen from Norway. The town'll die and that'll be that."

    "There are other things. The call centre looks pretty impressive. Won't that keep things going?"

    "The council's golden goose? Don't be daft. It's only there cos of grants and incentives. As soon as the money dries up they'll move the jobs out to India or somewhere."

    "What about tourism?"

    "Look outside. It's not Scarborough, is it? That beach is so steep that if you get in t'sea you can't get out again. No, this town lives and breathes fish, and at the moment it's mightily short of breath."

    "That's a very pessimistic view."

    "It's a realistic view. The women of this town are the lifeblood. When you never know if the men are coming back, they've had to be. Once the women start leaving, it's the beginning of the end."

    "Maybe they didn't leave. Maybe something happened to them?"

    "Something did happen to them. They lost faith." He turned to the book on the desk. "Every man that ever went missing, lost, drowned, is in there. There's no book for missing women, and I'm not intending to start one."

    He turned away and stomped down the stairs, leaving me with the book of names and the pictures of lost vessels. It was a sobering experience. I leafed through the pages, seeing the same names crop up again and again. By the time I'd reached the present day, I was wondering why they ever left port at all. To me it was inconceivable, after suffering such personal loss, to send another family member out on to the waves. But then, as he'd pointed out, I wasn't born here. I wasn't part of this community and I would probably never understand what kept it going.

    After a while I went back down and passed the printed guide back to him. There was no word of thanks or invitation to return. He didn't speak, just took the sheets from me and replaced them where he'd found them. As I turned to leave, the street door opened and a middle-aged man stepped inside.

    "It's bucketing out there. Fit for neither man nor beast." He shook the water from his sleeves.

    "Back again, Ted?" said the man behind the desk.

    He looked sceptically at my umbrella as I approached the door, knowing it would be useless in the wind, but then held the door open for me so I could leave. The water dripped from his orange waterproofs leaving a puddle inside the door. I stepped through quickly, not wanting to keep the door open longer than necessary and then found myself struggling to fasten buttons and turn up my collar in the blustery wind.

    Within moments, I was wet again. The rain found every gap, every crease. I made my way back to the harbour front, shoulders hunched against the wind, the halyards on the moored sailing boats tinging like manic vespers bells against the aluminium spars. Rather than make my way back to my room, I headed for the Harbour Café. The door was so swollen with damp that I had to push hard to get inside. I wedged the door closed again, shutting out the weather.

    I took my jacket off and shook it over the doormat, earning a disapproving look from Geraldine. I hung it over the back of a chair at a table by the window and took the other seat.

    Geraldine bustled up. "What'll it be?"

    "Coffee, please. Filter will do."

    She looked expectant, so I disappointed her further. "That's it, thanks."

    Her walk as she returned to the kitchen said just what she thought of men who ordered only coffee when it was still officially lunchtime. A scalding mug of coffee was delivered moments later, making me wonder whether she had simply put a mug of this morning's dregs into the microwave. It was far too hot to drink, but I was in no hurry and the café was all but empty.

    The windows of the café were steamy with condensation inside and running with rain outside, offering little in the way of a view. It left me to my thoughts: of the men and boats lost in storms like this one, of the girls and their different reasons for leaving the town, and of Blackbird. Where was she now? Where could she go that would be safe with Deefnir stalking her? The desire to follow her down to London was strong, but what would I do when I got there?