Cold Harbour -- an excerpt (2002)

The cottages on the front street open directly onto the roadway. None has a garden out front. Nothing much would grow anyway, battered by wind and spray. Sometimes, even, a high wave will surmount the sea wall and crash on the front street. What plant could survive that? The cottages threw their evening shadows onto the front street. My father was carrying me in his arms, my teeth chattering, my wet clothes freezing onto my body. I could feel his chuckling, his chest heaving, he was trying not to break out laughing.
‘Thought you would go for a swim, did you?’ he said, and he thought he was being funny. Another time I might have seen the joke, but I was tired and scared.
He stopped for a moment and looked me full in the eye. He had a strange look, maybe he was beginning to feel guilty. He had taken his eye off me, only for a couple of minutes, long enough for me to fall from the sea wall, where we had been walking. He was a brave man though, and patient, and had stripped to his undershorts before following me in. He had pulled me behind him with one arm as he stroked calmly with the other, until he had reached the steps and could drag me back up onto the sea wall. He had pulled his clothes back on, smiling at me as I coughed and spat onto the heavy granite of the sea wall. Although the water was icy, it was not a particularly cold evening, and he knew I would not come to any real harm, despite my shivering. Nothing a hot bath and a kip in front of the fire couldn’t put right.
‘Put me down, Dad,’ I said.
He looked very serious and I could see clearly the silver strands in his hair. He seemed old to me, so old, though he was not yet thirty — I did not know that. ‘I will never let you go,’ he said, his voice not quite steady. ‘Never.’
I squirmed in his arms and he did put me down. Embarrassed, I would not look at him. He insisted on taking my hand and holding it as we trudged up the hill, up the narrow lane that led from the sea to our house, the big house that overlooked the harbour. The house was isolated and quiet, cool and dry in the summer, but exposed, wet and cold — when the fire was not lit — in the winter. It was built of unclad stone and was not suitable to the climate. But it was home.

*

The sea slid and cracked, shiny ice all across the harbour. The snow fell relentlessly and, as they walked in the street, people’s breath steamed. The fishermen were all at home, chained to the village by the bitter weather, and the village was lively with talk, wine and music. No one would mind too much that the work had had to stop. Winter had been mild before this week and the fish had been good enough. There was a smell of spices hanging over the village.
I looked out from the window of my room and saw the village squatting in the shadow of the hill. It was the wrong side of the hill for shelter, all the wind came from the sea. The cottages fell down the hill, tumbled down to the sea, most of stone, some of clad brick painted white with grey slate roofs. Some had bunkers at the back, for wood or even coal, if there was the money to buy it. The back yards of the houses were connected by alleys broad enough only for one at a time; the villagers would happily step aside if someone was coming the other way, but they had to watch their feet — many of the gardens were unfenced and the women of the village loved flowers above all other things, bar their families, and would defend them with the same severity as they would one of their kin. The streets at the front were not much broader than the alleys at the back and only the front street, one other across the hill and the one leading from the harbour to our house on top of the hill were tarmacked; the rest were cobbled or gravelled dirt. But the roads served their purpose; few had cars to drive on them, but then few wanted to go anywhere outside the village. If they did wish to travel, say to the summer tea that the small church halfway up the hill organised, which was held on the beach at St Andrew’s, a few miles away, there was the pre-war bus that served as ambulance, school bus and coach service to the market towns inland. I had, as a proud member of the Sunday school, attended one of the teas — a whirl of cooing old ladies, saffron buns, sand and jam, just reward for the long Sunday mornings learning the incredible stories of Jesus, whom we had loved because he was a friend to fishermen and could do magic, like the Reverend Havers, the minister, only more convincingly. The reverend’s son, Jacko, was my closest friend, the first friend I had made at the village school, although he was thought to be a little slow, and I knew my alphabet and could read a little before I even started at school. This was thanks to the efforts of my mother, who nurtured always the dream that through education I would escape Cold Harbour and the fisherman’s life — I did not share her enthusiasm for either learning or escape, but I was pleased with the results: my knowledge was enough to make me shine against the background of the stumbling efforts of my schoolmates.
Sometimes I would look the other way, out over the rolling land at the back of the village, the wooded plateau, but there was nothing much to see, green forever. It was the sea that captured my imagination, a beast though muted by the lack of wind, the fear it inspired in the village people chilled down to a whisper. I knew the fear of the sea — I had seen the tears when one had not come back, I had seen the women of the village all in black, heard the priest’s calming words, a eulogy for an honest man done in by an unforgiving enemy, heard the sailor’s hymn plaintive but defiant rising from the cottages to the heavens above. I knew the merciless hatred of the sea for men, the greed with which it clings to its treasure — but I vowed I would one day conquer it. I was too young to go out on a boat, but one day I would sail out with my father, from this very harbour, out into the unknown. I would find the end of the sea, if it had an end, I would be its master.
I heard my mother’s voice, calling me out of my room, to come and join her and my father. She sounded a little drunk. They had been mulling wine. I shuddered a little with the embarrassment that I knew was to come. They would be kissing and they would kiss me too. Drinking always meant kissing in Cold Harbour and I did not like it. Soon it would be Christmas and whichever of the ladies of the town could catch me would plant a kiss on my cheek. Still, they gave me sweets — it wasn’t all bad. My mother called again and I came reluctantly away from the window.
Sure enough, when I came into the big room they were in each other’s arms, kissing, to my disgust. My mother broke away. ‘So the swimmer has come to join us?’ she said with her big, hearty laugh. It had been a month but she had not let me forget. I did not mind though. The spicy warmth of the room and the twinkling in my father’s eyes as he smiled at me chased away any annoyance. I even let her kiss me without complaint. I could hear the sea, far away. I was glad we had each other.

*

Jacko and I ran along the sea wall. It was a fine, clear day, not a cloud, the sky washed-out lazy blue, but no fishing — it was Christmas Day. Trailing behind me was a kite, there was just enough breeze to keep it up, the ribbons in its tail fluttering limply. It was the best present I had ever had. My father had made it.
One night I had crept out from my room and had caught my father in the front room, sewing the pink, red and blue ribbons to the broad streamer of the kite’s tail. He had not seen me, he was intent on his task and I had only stayed for a few moments. But I could see that his fingers were nimble, for all that they were red and callused; he handled the needle with tender ease. I could barely see the needle in the gloom; there was no fire and the chill made my father’s breath steam, pale in the light of a hurricane lantern — the only time in my father’s life that he had sat under an electric light was when he had consulted the doctor with a wrist broken hauling in a net. That had been a hard time, I could not remember it but he had told me. He couldn’t work for three weeks and even then his wrist was not properly healed for some time after and he had to take it easy. It was lucky, he said, that there was family who cared for him. I knew well enough that our existence was precarious and a broken man in our village was a man who needed charity, although bad catches meant no more to me than homemade rather than shop-bought jam on my bread.
We stopped at the end of the wall, where it led in steps to a grassy bank, the edge of the natural harbour that gave our village its name. The breeze was picking up and the kite jerked around in my hand. Jacko smiled at me, he was missing some teeth, and that and a piggy nose ruined his looks. His black, long hair and pale blue eyes would certainly make him the favourite of the village girls in years to come but he needed to grow into his face.
‘Do you want a go?’ I asked him.
He nodded and I passed him the string, although I did not really want him to have it. I could hardly not let him fly the kite, but I didn’t really trust him. What if he let it slip? I looked out to sea. Where would it land if it were to fly free? I couldn’t guess, and the thought was soon gone as we ran back along the sea wall, laughing.
An old man, sitting out in front of his cottage, nodded his head and said, ‘You boys, you boys.’ His hair was white all over, and his face had caved in with age. He had no teeth left and his voice was a hoarse, lisping whisper, no more.
We stopped, smiling at the old man, whom we knew well. ‘You never had a kite like this, Mr Tremhall,’ I said. ‘My dad made it.’
‘Your dad’s a fine man,’ said Mr Tremhall, his head shaking on his parched, scrawny neck as if he couldn’t quite control it. ‘A fine man.’
‘Well, merry Christmas, Mr Tremhall,’ Jacko said.
‘Yes,’ the old man said. ‘Good luck boys.’
We ran on until we reached the place where the steps went down onto the street.
‘I have to go,’ said Jacko. ‘You know Daddy likes me to be home Christmas, and... thanks for letting me fly the kite.’
He handed it back to me. I watched his walking off for a while, then I turned for my own home. The kite streamed behind me, the now brisk wind tugging it hard against my hand. I had the string wrapped several times around my wrist, and I would not lose it. But it was time to go home. It would be no fun to fly it on my own. I had to get my father to come with me to the hills out back. Then it would really fly.

*

My mother and father were sat at the kitchen table having a drink. They looked happy and festive. The front room had streamers and a small pine tree covered in tinsels and baubles, which had been hidden in the loft for the past year. My favourite was the drummer boy, in a red uniform piped with white, which I insisted on placing on one of the lower branches myself. I did not put it on top of the tree. That was for the angel. She was the angel that looked out for sailors, my father said. You had to honour her.
There was the wonderful smell of roasting chicken (my father would not eat turkey), mingled with baking fish. And there would be pudding. My aunts and uncles would soon arrive (no cousins yet — my father would rib them about that with words I wasn’t sure I understood, although the older boys at my school used similar). I wondered whether there was time for us to go and fly my kite. Later my father and his brothers would be drunk, too drunk for children’s pursuits but not too drunk for cards. I wished we could have a Christmas with just us three some time, none of the others — but I had to remember sure enough that they were the family who cared for us. Even the aunts who wanted to smother me with kisses because they didn’t yet have their own children to kiss, even they cared for me. It was only at Christmas that they all got together really, always at our house because my father was oldest and his mother and father were gone to Jesus, as Jacko’s dad would say. My mother’s parents, my Nanna and Granddad, we would visit the next day. They did not come for Christmas, Granddad did not like the hill. He had been old already when my mother was born and now his hip was bad.
Maybe an uncle would come with me to fly my present in the wind that was still building outside. My father, I could see, did not have his boots on, and he was laughing and smiling, and I did not have the heart, now I saw him in the warmth of the kitchen, looking into my mother’s eyes with a look that even I could tell wasn’t all Christmas, to drag him out into the bluster.

*

I could hear them singing into the night, and my mother’s big bell of a laugh threaded in and out of the men’s roars. They had given up the cards and set to drinking and yarning, singing shanties and fibbing. I had crept into bed, tired and ready to sleep, an hour before, but the sounds of all the people in the world who cared for me, except perhaps for Nanna and Granddad, Jacko and Jesus, lifted me up so that I floated far above sleep. The house was beautifully warm and I was full of food and the chocolates that my Aunty Clare had brought for me. I was drifting on the sound of the songs that wound forever round the melody of the shifting sea.
Late in the night I woke in the quiet, the only sounds the hard wind and rain battering my window, and the snoring of my father, asleep on my bed, his arms tightly around me.

posted by Dr Zen @ 2:45 pm