Jim Crace - Signals of Distress

‘You mean she’ll have to share a room with sailing men?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with sailing men except they’re rough.’

‘For how long will this be?’

‘Well, here’s the pattern to it, Mr Smith. The Norrises have passages aboard a ship that’s called the Belle of … some place I forget, and that’s the one that’s beached along the coast at Dry Manston. If they can get her off the bar and seaworthy and she’s not broken up for firewood, then the Norrises can leave and be in Canadee within the two months.’

‘If not?’

‘If not, the Norrises will have to share a room until they find another ship, or turn around and go back home, wherever that might be.’

‘It is not thinkable that they should share, even for one night.’

‘They’ve not the choice. I’ll not have shipwrecked men sleep in the street or in the stables. This isn’t Bethlehem. It’s damp and cold out there. I never heard that blushes did more harm than damp and cold. Besides, she’ll only have to blush a while and then they’ll all be shipmates, just you see. There’s plenty women in this town’d be glad to share a room with three or four Americans. Young Mrs Norris can take her pick!’ Her laugh was uninhibited and unoffending. She was a woman in her forties, playful, forthright, savoury, with some remains of beauty in her face if not her figure. Hers was a case for stays, although she was the sort whose stoutness was a charm. ‘There, that’s your bed dressed for the night,’ she said. ‘You’ll sleep like royalty. Don’t be surprised if I creep in between the sheets, it looks so clean and welcoming …’ Aymer reddened. He put his hand across his mouth. ‘Now, that’s me being comical,’ she said, noting Aymer’s discomposure. ‘I’ll not go uninvited anywhere. So there’s your sheets and there’s your bed, and anything you need from me is there for asking. You’ll not want soap, I see.’ She nodded at the stack of soap in Aymer’s hands. ‘They must be Smith’s.’

‘Please take some, if you want.’

‘I like a luxury,’ she said, and took three bars, and curtsied, plumply.

Aymer was alarmed. He couldn’t be sure if she’d been flirting. What was the ‘anything’ she’d offered him? Food? Hearthside hospitality? Or sin? Would she try to slip between his sheets — and legs — at night? And if she did, would Aymer take her in his long, thin arms, or would he flee, in his nightshirt, onto the balcony and down the wooden staircase to the cold and salty courtyard? Were blushes really so much healthier than cold and damp? He didn’t have the courage to find out.

‘There is no need to move the other beds,’ he said. ‘I’ll share a room with the Americans. I think we must allow the Norrises to keep their privacy.’

‘No, Mr Smith. I cannot let you sleep with sailors of that kind. Same as I said, they’re rough. Their language will offend you, and their nighttime habits …’

‘Well, then, perhaps it would be better if Mr Norris and his wife were to share with me. Shift out two beds for sailors, and let the other two remain. Our beds are curtained, so we can count on privacy. My language and my nighttime habits can give no offence. Besides, I am already acquainted with Mr Norris and he has introduced his wife. Perhaps, if my business can be completed rapidly, I will depart on the coastal packet tomorrow, and then this room can offer total privacy again.’

‘That is a rare suggestion and a kindly one.’

‘Surely I can make this sacrifice for just one night.’ Aymer put the remaining two bars of soap on the widest of the beds.

OTTO WOULD NOT get a bed. There were no volunteers to share with him, though there were many townspeople in the inn’s courtyard keen to stand around and stare, to examine his face, to try a smile, to test a word or two, to comprehend this first encounter with an African. What did they know except what they’d learned at fairs or from sailors or in the farthing pamphlets they’d bought from pedlars? That Africans were ruled by dogs or dined on dogs or smelled like dogs? That Africans didn’t wear clothes and had no tongues, no names, no navels? That black men didn’t dream? The Wherrytowners did their best to catch sight of a navel or a tongue, to find his oddities. ‘Well, Blackie,’ one man whispered in Otto’s ear, ‘what news from the Devil?’ But he didn’t wait for a reply.

Otto was conscious and in less pain. His ankle wounds had crusted. The bruises on his forehead were already blue. His eyesight was restored. He sat on the seaweed in the cart, eyes closed, and did his best to think of other things. But the oddness of the leafless trees he’d seen, the hardness of the sky, the stony torpor of the land, the mud, unsettled him so much that he was close both to tears and to fury. He had to concentrate, amid the din, to steel himself against the courtyard ghosts. He’d learn to dream himself elsewhere, but first he wanted things for which there were no words. He wanted warmth and food and sleep, and could not summon them. Shipmaster Comstock and his crew could be excused their neglect of him. They all were bruised. They all were cold. Their tempers were worn thin by the six-mile walk along the coast and by the prospect of some weeks ashore. They had no energy for anyone except themselves.

They put Otto in the tackle room beneath the wooden balcony. They covered him in horse blankets woven from rough perpetuanna wool, and made him comfortable on straw. They shut the bolts. ‘It’s best to let him rest,’ Shipmaster Comstock said. The captain had more pressing problems than the African. He had his ship wedged on the bar. He had fifteen sailors and a dog to feed and pacify. There were hard letters to be written: to the owners of the Belle ; to the various agents further down the coast who had arranged passages from several ports for emigrants to Montreal; to the Bostonian family of the seaman, Nathaniel Rankin, who had drowned; to the livestock merchants who had shipped the cattle that now were grazing freely at Dry Manston, still a half-day’s voyage short of the Belle ’s second destination, and their owners at the port of Fowey. He had to find the means to dislodge his vessel before it broke up on the Monday tides, and dock it in Wherrytown. He had to find the wrights and riggers to carry out repairs. He had to justify himself. Thank God that there were men like Walter Howells. In their brief conversation on the beach, the man had introduced himself as someone who could alleviate the captain’s burden, for some decent recompense. Already he had undertaken to herd the cattle at Dry Manston and find secure grazing for them. And he had promised more.

Comstock and his men were tired. They ate the bread and soup which Mrs Yapp prepared. They longed for sleep. It was midday. Aymer had stood on the bedroom balcony and watched the caravan of men arrive. The Norrises were there below, their passage tickets in their hands, anxious to discover what their travel prospects were. A small, untidy dog with a bearded throat and white hair on its chin and eyebrows ran wildly in the yard, barking at the townspeople as if they were the newcomers and the dog belonged. The horse-drawn cart was stabled with its horses. George began to unload the bed of seaweed and stack it in the inn’s fuel store. Aymer couldn’t see the African. The sailors who carried him into the tackle room obscured the view. At last the sailors followed Mrs Yapp into the inn. The Norrises walked once more down to the quay, and the townspeople returned to their nets and pots and laundry. Now the courtyard was empty except for the dog which was turning horse manure with its nose and eating some.

Aymer came down from the balcony by the wooden stairs. He tried to see inside the tackle room, but the single window had been boarded. There was no sound. Aymer knocked on the door and then drew the bolts. The black man had his back against a saddle and a saddle-cloth. It was too dark to see his face, although the draughty winter light that slanted through the open door displayed the healing rawness of his ankle where the chain had been.