A Cornish Orphan, page 12
‘No toffee apples,’ Millie warned.
The band marched past and Lottie experienced the power of the big drum running through her like a shiver. Behind the band came a long line of children dressed in white with flowers in their hair, dancing in pairs, a boy and a girl. Lottie was envious. How romantic to dance in white in the early morning with everyone clapping and cheering and waving the flag of St Piran from high windows above the shops. Her feet itched to dance as if her new shoes were alive with the memory.
The line of children danced into open doorways, around kitchen tables and back gardens and out again, weaving loops of joy as if stitching the town of Helston together for all time. The procession disappeared around the corner and up Meneage Street, the thump of drum fading, the notes of the Furry Dance lingering like glow worms in the twilight.
Jenny trembled with emotion. She opened her arms and drew the three children close like baby birds nestled in the peachiness of her dress. ‘Shh,’ she whispered, ‘be very quiet now and listen for the Hal-an-Tow.’
Another silence frowned over them as if it came from the sky which was now a translucent grey. Heavy drops of rain began to fall. Jenny looked up in disbelief. ‘It NEVER rains on Flora Day. NEVER.’
The five of them huddled together under Millie’s massive umbrella. It had a hole in it and a smell of lobster pots and moss. Lottie watched the splodges of rain mottling the cleanly swept street and pressed close to Jenny, trying to gather the ruffles of her dress under the umbrella. She remembered what Nan had said about the Hal-an-Tow. It was the dark side of Flora Day. She wanted to tell Jenny. But Jenny and Millie were alert again, listening, their eyes gazing down the street.
The rain pelted on Millie’s umbrella, and stopped abruptly like a wave of applause. Even the sky seemed to be listening. Then, from the valley of the Cober River came a new, unearthly sound. An eerie whistling. Matt threw Lottie an intense look, a look that said he wanted her to be frightened.
The whistling never stopped but grew louder, and a rustling sound and a howling sound surged out from the steep narrow alleyway and into Coinage Hall Street.
Lottie sidled close to Millie who looked down at her with reassuring eyes. ‘It’s all right, me little ’un. ’Tis just pretend.’
But the approaching Hal-an-Tow was terrifying to a child. To Lottie it looked like a mad, whirling, angry forest invading the town; the whistling and rustling was like the storm wind overturning her safe ship. She made herself stand still, comforted by Millie’s slow heartbeat in her left ear. She imagined herself as an ice fairy in her blue dress, frozen and untouchable.
The whistling branches with green human legs danced up the street, swishing bunches of foliage along the ground, over the walls and into the air, elm leaves, willow whips and fans of sycamore. The actors, or Mummers as Jenny called them, wore raggedy clothes and hats stuffed with foliage. As they came closer, Lottie was relieved to see they were human, with very human eyes flashing from gleeful faces. They were blowing tin whistles and elder flutes and some had tambourines, adding to the din. The town of Helston stood still in shock, even though it had seen it all before, the crowd joining in the whistling with enthusiasm.
Tom and Matt were jumping up and down, letting out bloodcurdling howls, their eyes shining.
‘Let ’em go mad,’ Millie said, putting a restraining hand on Jenny. ‘It won’t ’urt ’em.’
The Mummers stood in a circle, their branches held high, guarding the space as a band of folk musicians came, playing the Furry Dance on a variety of flutes, fiddles and drums. There was booing and whistling as the towering red dragon did its gyrating dance in the middle of the circle. Then cheers as the avenging knight fought and killed it with a remarkably realistic sword.
‘There you are. Light triumphs over darkness,’ Jenny said, looking at the boys with wide, bright eyes. ‘It always does. Every year. In Helston it does anyway.’ She looked up at the gathering rain clouds. ‘It’s my turn next – and I might have to dance in the rain.’
‘What will you do if your lovely dress gets wet?’ Lottie asked.
‘Carry on dancing – and smiling,’ Jenny assured her. ‘Even if I look like a dishrag, I’ve got to carry on.’
Millie chuckled. ‘Well the flowers on yer ’at will be ’appy.’ She laughed heartily then pointed to a man in a grey top hat who was striding towards them. ‘Is that ’im, Jenny?’
Jenny glowed. She waved and twirled her dress. ‘That’s my dancing partner – Troy. We’ve done the midday dance together for years.’
Lottie looked dubiously at Troy’s fleshy pink smile. Last night’s argument between Jenny and Arnie still haunted her. The boys had slept, but Lottie had listened, miserable and anxious. Was Arnie right? Should Jenny really be dancing through Helston with another man – a man who Arnie apparently hated? Troy looked confident and smart, but his jacket smelled of beer. She backed away when Jenny tried to introduce her. ‘Our new adopted daughter, Lottie – from the October shipwreck. Don’t be shy, Lottie. Shake hands nicely.’ But his hand was too hot, and too squeezy. Lottie set her face and twisted out of reach. The boys stood back too, looking at each other.
It felt wrong to all three children. Their faces were anxious and very serious as they watched Jenny go swanning off with Troy, her flower hat bobbing, her mane of hair defiantly swinging.
‘Well, don’t look so po-faced!’ Millie teased. ‘You lot cheer up and let yer ’ardworking mother enjoy ’erself fer a change.’
A rumble of thunder growled from the darkening sky. The eerie whistling began again as the Hal-an-Tow moved on to perform further up the street.
‘I wish our daddy was here,’ Tom said soulfully.
Back in St Ives, Nan sold the last of the herb posies from her basket. The east wind had dropped, the sea was calming down, and the May sunshine was too hot for her to tackle the walk up Porthmeor Hill. She sat down on a stone ledge to rest and count her money. One pound, fourteen shillings and sixpence. Enough to buy Lottie a birthday present. Coloured pencils in a tin were what she wanted, and Nan had seen some in the Post Office. Then she planned to go home and make Lottie a birthday cake with butter icing and glacé cherries. She’d take it down to welcome the family home from Flora Day. She hoped they’d ask her to stay and play the cottage organ and have a sing-song.
Most of Nan’s dreams were focused on Lottie. She knew Lottie was bright, and David Merryn wanted her to take a scholarship and get into the grammar school. Nan planned to start teaching her music, and botany, and show her how to make pot pourri and willow baskets.
Her dreams were interrupted by an urgent bell, ringing fast and continuously. A noisy motorcar came rattling along Wharf Road, much too fast, Nan thought, appalled. And why the bell? What was going on? Then she saw the notice on the bonnet of the car. POLICE.
Wharf Road had only recently been built to create a promenade for visitors. Artists from ‘up-country’ had started coming to St Ives and setting up their easels along the edge of the new walkway, much to the annoyance of the fish packers and net makers who assumed the new space was for them. If someone was in trouble with the police, it would be one of those visitors, Nan thought, not a Cornish person. She watched the police car and saw two helmeted policemen get out, brandishing notebooks. One of them carried a coil of rope which he stretched across the entrance to Smeaton’s Pier, and he stood in front of it, stopping people going down there. The other one went to a crowd of locals who were gathered, looking down at something on the ground.
Nan overheard two women talking close to her.
‘Apparently they’ve pulled a body out of the water.’
‘Dead?’
‘Looks like it. Must have been swept off the pier by those big waves in the night. Some poor visitor who doesn’t understand the ways of the sea.’
‘No – they say it’s one of the fishermen, a man in a navy-blue jersey. A young man.’
Nan clutched her basket tightly. She blanched with shock. It couldn’t be. No, it couldn’t be Arnie or Vic. Could it? Surely not. They were lifeboat crew, strong swimmers, respected knowledgeable men. It couldn’t, shouldn’t happen. Nan’s skin went cold from the soles of her sandalled feet to the roots of her silvery hair. She felt numb and faint as if she was going to pass out. She clasped the bone handle of her walking stick and took some deep breaths. She told herself not to panic, not to get in such a state when she didn’t know the truth.
Intending to go over to Smeaton’s Pier and find out, Nan struggled to stand up, and sat back down again when she saw Vic. He was walking between the two policemen, shaking his head, his face white and drawn. Nan got up and hurried towards him.
‘Mother!’ Vic looked at her with tormented eyes, his cheeks moon-pale, his smile gone as if it had never existed.
It was then that she knew.
‘Arnie,’ she whispered. ‘It’s him, isn’t it?’
Vic closed his eyes and nodded.
‘NO!’ Nan’s voice, and the terror in her eyes filled the busy harbour and everything stopped. Time stood still. ‘Not my Arnie – my grandson – I loved him – I . . . I brought him up.’
It was more than Nan could take. She fell forward, her stick flying one way, her basket the other. She saw Vic’s face, spinning with the sky and the boats as she crashed onto the windblown sand at the side of an upturned dinghy. She clawed at the side of the boat, then let go and lay still.
‘Oh God – not you as well, Mother.’ Vic ran to her, and Nan dimly registered the smell of oil and fish on his clothes. Dimly. Until there was nothing.
High above the harbour, down the steep hill from Carbis Bay, the charabanc came chugging home, full of singing, happy people, flushed and windblown from their day out. Tom fast asleep in Jenny’s arms, Matt and Lottie still singing the Furry Dance.
Chapter 10
The Queen of St Ives
Jenny and Lottie were in high spirits as they left the charabanc and skipped through Royal Square with Millie and the boys following, singing the Furry Dance and jingling the tambourines which Troy had bought them in the market. In Jenny’s bag were two mysterious hairy coconuts that Troy had knocked down on the coconut shy. They couldn’t wait to taste the sweet milk inside and munch the chunks of white nut. Arnie would saw the coconuts open, Jenny promised, and the empty shells could be used to make music.
It had been a wonderful Flora Day. Jenny felt alive again and despite her aching feet, she still wanted to dance. Dancing through St Ives in her gorgeous dress with Lottie whirling and smiling beside her, Jenny felt proud, and conspicuous. She hoped Arnie would be waiting on the doorstep. She was surprised when the people she met turned their heads away from her smile.
‘They’m jealous. Take no notice,’ Millie declared.
Something felt wrong. The seagulls were oddly silent, the sky a violet grey, the air humid and thundery. The doors of the terraced cottages were shut, the window panes glimmering with subtle movements of curtains and faces bobbing out of sight as Jenny and her family danced homeward.
‘Shame on you, Jenny Lanroska.’ Maudie Tripconey stood at the top of well-scrubbed granite steps, a polishing rag in her hand.
‘You should’ve come with us,’ Jenny taunted, flashing a smile as she swung past, her dress brushing its beaded skirts along Maudie’s wall. ‘You don’t know what you’re missing.’
Thunder growled around the bay and coppery lightning flickered over a gloomy ocean, gilding the little fleet of Seine boats heading home to the harbour.
‘You’ve got a shock coming to you, my girl.’ Maudie’s shout unfurled and reached into Jenny’s heart as she danced.
Nearly home, and her feet were faltering, her skirt hanging limp. Something’s wrong, she thought, surprised to see Vic waiting on the doorstep. The boys ran to him bright-faced with their tambourines, but Vic didn’t smile. His face was deathly pale, his eyes dark like troubled water. He didn’t smile at Lottie and call her Princess. He didn’t want to hold the coconut Tom took from Jenny’s bag. He didn’t speak. Couldn’t speak.
Jenny stared at him, and so did the children who had never seen their grandad without his welcoming smile and the twinkle in his eyes. ‘What is it, Vic? What’s wrong?’ Jenny’s voice trembled and rain began to fall in huge, ponderous teardrops, splashing her hot skin. A lone seagull on the roof lifted its head and sent a rhythmic, anguished cry echoing through the cobbled streets.
Vic held the door open. ‘Best come inside, out of the rain.’
The boys darted in. ‘Nan’s here!’ Tom yelled.
Lottie’s eyes shone. ‘Let’s show her the Furry Dance.’
‘Not now,’ Vic said in a strange voice. ‘You children sit on the sofa and be quiet.’ He looked at Nan. ‘Should we send the children upstairs?’
Nan shook her head. ‘They’ve got to face it. We all have.’
‘Nan’s crying!’ It was Lottie who noticed the old lady’s red-rimmed eyes. She ran to comfort her, taking out the embroidered hanky Jenny had given her for Flora Day. She dabbed the tears from Nan’s papery cheeks.
‘Oh, Lottie. Poor Lottie,’ Nan said in a husky voice, and a few sobs rocked her big body. ‘After all you’ve been through. Now this.’
‘Now what?’ Jenny looked from one to the other, not best pleased to find Nan sitting in Arnie’s leather armchair. ‘What’s happened?’
‘You sit down, Jenny.’ Vic led her to the wicker chair, moving gingerly as if he had suddenly aged in one day. He looked at Nan. ‘I can’t tell her.’ He broke down, holding his head in his hands and slumping onto the wooden stool. Outside, the rain lashed the streets, filling the cottage with whispers. Vic’s knees were shaking violently. He reached for Jenny’s hand and held it tightly, looking into her eyes. ‘Arnie,’ he croaked. ‘We’ve lost Arnie. My best, best boy . . . my boy . . .’ and then he cried, unashamedly, sobbing great gasping sobs, unable to stop.
Horrified, the children froze on the sofa.
‘What do you mean? Lost him?’ Jenny’s eyes rounded with alarm.
‘He’s gone. Dead. They pulled his body out of the harbour.’
‘Dead?’
The word filled the cottage. It silvered the raindrops on the squares of glass. It rang through the iron stove. It soaked into the granite walls. It grew like a cumulonimbus, engulfing Jenny’s home, crushing everything under its weight. And it wouldn’t leave. It was there, in the cottage, there to stay. DEAD.
‘NO!’ Jenny screamed. She ripped off her Flora Day hat and flung it spinning into a corner. She tore at her carefully pinned hair, ripping it loose, sending pins tinkling over the stone floor. ‘No, no, no . . . not my Arnie.’
Tom stood up. ‘My daddy’s not dead,’ he announced. ‘My daddy is out fishing.’
Nobody spoke. Lottie drifted around, picking up Jenny’s hat, gathering the scattered hairpins. She rescued Tom from his stance in the middle of the floor and took him back to the sofa.
‘How could this happen?’ Jenny asked. ‘Arnie was a strong swimmer – how COULD it happen to a member of the lifeboat crew? When he’s saved so many lives?’
Vic held on to her hand, trying to calm his breathing. He managed one word. ‘Drunk.’
‘Drunk?’ Jenny was appalled. ‘What was he thinking of?’
Vic collapsed again, shaking his head and weeping in great lurching sobs. Jenny leaned her cheek against his shoulder, her arm around his back, shocked to feel the heat and power of his grief. Nobody had ever seen Vic cry like that. Strong, dependable, brave lifeboat men didn’t show their feelings. ‘It’s me who should be crying, Vic,’ she said, feeling the shock creeping over her skin, like the tide cooling the warm summer sand. She couldn’t cry. Not with the three children sitting there with terrified eyes. ‘Go upstairs and play marbles,’ she said, but none of them moved. ‘Will you GO UPSTAIRS.’
‘Let them stay,’ Nan said. ‘They’re not babies. They need to know the truth.’
‘Don’t you tell me how to raise my children.’
Nan’s eyes glittered with fury. She let go of her pent-up feelings, hurling bitter words at Jenny’s shocked face. ‘It’s YOUR fault,’ she cried. ‘Arnie was my grandson, my best grandson. You’ve done this to him, you shameless hussy. Going off to Helston dressed up like a dog’s dinner and dancing with another man. Arnie loved you – God knows why – but he did, and he was jealous, of course he was. But no – you wouldn’t listen to him, would you? So what did he do? What any man would do – went to the pub and got drunk, trying to drown his sorrows. Broke his heart, you did – broke his heart. It’s your fault he’s dead.’
‘Not in front of the children, Mother,’ Vic pleaded.
The silence boiled as Jenny turned on Nan, her face ashen. ‘Get out of my house,’ she yelled, ‘and don’t come here ever again. I’ve got enough to deal with, without your spiteful tongue.’
‘Jenny – now is not the time for this feud,’ Vic said. ‘Mother can’t walk home tonight in this rain. She’s suffering from shock – we all are – and you are going to have to cope with being a widow, with three youngsters to raise. You need all the help you can get.’
Jenny gripped the arms of the wicker chair and looked at Vic, who seemed to have found his quiet strength again. She still couldn’t cry. It hadn’t sunk in yet. Thoughts flew wildly through her mind like trapped birds. An absurd, taunting memory of dancing with Troy, the radiance on his face. The look in Arnie’s eyes when he’d begged her not to go. The last words she’d spoken to him. She hadn’t told him she loved him. She hadn’t said goodbye. Arnie had been taken from her. So cruelly. Who would hold her in the night? Who would love and inspire her children? How would she manage? And how would she cope with the paralysing grief which was now rolling over her like the incoming tide. Unstoppable.
