Jim Crace - Signals of Distress

‘Ah, George.’ Ah, George, sweet George was carrying a half loaf, some apples and a ripped kerseymere jacket.

‘Ah, Mr Smith. Moon-hunting or rabbiting tonight?’ George sounded uneasy — and embarrassed — for once.

‘Neither, George. I’m fishing in the fields.’ He was delighted with his joke, and happier than he could say to have the parlourman and the lantern as companions home, and to have his conscience liberated by the happy certainty that Otto had an unexpected friend.

THAT NIGHT a chicken disappeared. Amy Farrow found some feathers from the missing bird and the shells of two eggs, eaten raw, next to the coop. There were more feathers outside, in the lane. Had Otto taken the chicken? Was he the beak hunter? Or was this the work of foxes? The older Wherrytowners who had time to gather in the inn’s courtyard for sailor Rankin’s funeral were in no doubt. If there had been a fox prowling through Wherrytown at night then there would have been a din of squawking, and barking dogs. But no one had been woken. The Farrows’ bedroom — an open stage of boards across the roof beams — was above their yard and Amy Farrow said she slept ‘with one ear cocked, and never heard a thing, excepting Mr Farrow, wheezing like a steaming pie’.

‘It had to be some mighty clever fox,’ her husband said, ‘to climb our wall and smash the coop door open. And then he puts a spell on both the chickens and the dog and sends ’em dumb. If we had foxes sharp as that we wouldn’t have no need of folk. Not womenfolk, at least.’

‘I never knowed a fox before shell eggs. They eat the lot,’ a neighbour added. ‘It’s only men and monkeys can shell eggs. And I suppose we know it in’t a monkey, unless it was the Devil’s monkey. My wager is it was the Devil’s man .’

They all agreed it was the Devil’s work. The sooner that they brought the blackie in, the safer they would be in their beds at night and Mrs Farrow wouldn’t have to sleep with one ear cocked.

George and Mrs Yapp brought beer and mugwort tea into the yard to warm the mourners while Nathaniel Rankin, still stitched in his piece of sail, was boxed in Walter Howells’s birchwood coffin and carried out from the tackle room. Mr Phipps placed a wooden cross on top of the coffin, smiled bleakly at his parishioners and raised his eyebrows for a moment too long when the Norrises and Aymer Smith came down the outer staircase from their room. He would, he thought, require the man (if he were bent on coming to the burial) to stand outside the chapel grounds with his Unholy Scepticism for a companion. He sent George down to the quay where the captain, his crew and the local artisans were working on the Belle , and making better progress than they’d dared to hope. They’d have to spare an hour for their shipmate’s funeral. Mr Phipps was hoping for another large congregation, and had prepared a careful sermon and found the perfect hymn. He was pleased to see the Dollys from Dry Manston arrive — the parents, three sons, two daughters, Skimmer. They weren’t usually a chapel-going family. They didn’t even, he suspected, observe the Sabbath if it suited them. He shook the hands of the two older men and nodded impatiently while they explained — in unnecessary detail, he judged — how it was the Dolly nets that had brought the sailor in, and how it was their duty now to see their ‘catch’ put to rest.

Mr Phipps was glad when the Americans arrived. He was in a hurry to begin. The sailors were happy to have a break from the tedious and unexciting work of ship repair. Their lungs were trained for salt, not sawdust. They were even more content to have the offer of some beer so early in the day. They drank too much of it, too quickly, and when the time came for the four bearers to lift their shipmate to their shoulders in his box, they mismanaged it. The body in its canvas shroud could be heard buffeting the wood. He’d been dead since Saturday, but still the bruises came.

The pebbled passageway which led up through the inn was too slippery with mud, too narrow for the bearers and the coffin, and too steep. They had to put the coffin on the ground and drag it up the steps.

‘Shake out his bones, Onto the stones, He’s only a sailor, Who nobody owns!’ the mate sang, and didn’t care who overheard.

When they’d finally got the coffin into the lane, kicked off the mud and hoisted it once more onto the shoulders of men of roughly equal height, they set off to the chapel at such a pace and in such high spirits that many of the older mourners were left behind. The bearers waited at the chapel gates for the preacher and their captain to arrive, and then put the coffin in the graveyard shelter on a slate table. They only quietened down when Captain Comstock threatened them. They plunged their hands into their pockets and smirked into their chests.

Mr Phipps stood at the gate and greeted all his congregation as they arrived. The fittest sailors first, including Ralph Parkiss. Then John Peacock, the sailmaker, and the older crew. Then the Dollys, with their boy Palmer executing an untidy and unnecessary salute at Captain Comstock like some raw volunteer, and offering an awkward ‘G’day, Captain’ in what was not a local accent. Alice Yapp came next, alone and out of breath. (A wink for Captain Comstock.) The Norrises then. Katie — in her blackest bonnet — was quite beautiful, Mr Phipps thought. He’d make a point of comforting her when the burial was over. Her husband had a halfways decent voice and could be asked to lead the hymn. Aymer Smith was with the Norrises. He even gave his hand to Mr Phipps. The preacher pressed his fingers on to Aymer’s chest: ‘And have you come to be baptized at last?’

‘No, sir. I come …’ Aymer was alarmed. The preacher’s fingers had been hard and hostile.

‘No, sir, indeed! Will you then tread on blessed ground?’ ‘I come only for the burial, to pay respects.’ ‘Then pay respects to God and stay beyond His wall. You can attend our holy interment, Mr Smith, but from a distance.’

‘Come, Mr Phipps …’ said Robert Norris, taking Aymer by the arm to demonstrate their friendship. ‘I see no harm in it …’ He looked to Katie for some help.

‘We would not like to leave dear Mr Smith outside.’ ‘No, Mrs Norris. Do not speak for me. I am content to be a distant witness.’ Aymer wished the ground would open up and swallow him. Already he was close to tears. Why was he always close to tears?

‘But, Mr Phipps …’ she said.

‘You see, he does not want to trespass here. He has no interest in Morals, and boasts of it. He told me only yesterday that he nurtured not a single aspiration to stand amongst my congregation. He paraded himself above the chapel …’ (Mr Phipps pointed at the muddy overhang, fifteen feet above) ‘… and he holloa’d it, as my gravediggers are my witnesses. Now, Mr Smith, do me the courtesy of stepping back. There are chapelgoers at your shoulder who would appreciate an easy entrance to the chapel green.’

‘Allow me this indulgence, Mr Phipps, that our good friend should be allowed to stand with us,’ Katie said.

‘I cannot, madam, no. I am the instrument of God, and have no freedom to indulge, but …’ But could he reject so pretty, so black-bonneted a request? He turned to Captain Comstock, who was standing just beyond, with Alice Yapp at his side, and Palmer Dolly, hovering. ‘What do you say, Captain? It is for your man that we’re gathered here. Do you request that Mr Smith should join you?’

Alice squeezed his hand. ‘I see no call for it,’ he said.

Aymer had already turned his back, and would have hurried out of sight. He would have sought the refuge of an empty room or the company of gulls. But Robert Norris caught his sleeve. ‘We’ll stand with you,’ he said. They led him down a path along the chapel wall, and found a place where they could overlook the grave. They stood on either side of him, white-faced and angry. Aymer’s face was red, red not only from embarrassment but from a hardly comprehended joy. What was the song? For once. For once. For once, at last, he did not stand alone.