Jim Crace - The Pesthouse

“There is a way,” she managed to murmur. “A secret way.”

She had a stunning revelation. High on the bluffs, between the cascades and the downfall from the lake, where the river was at its narrowest, hidden by the undergrowth, was a wooden bridge, wide and strong enough to take the weight of a horseman. It would certainly support their laden barrow. “Just follow this path, up.”

“A bridge?” repeated Franklin, unable to believe her. This was startling, if it was true and not some product of her illness. He’d never suspected that there was anything other than a ferry crossing. An expensive ferry crossing! So much per person, so much per animal, so much for each barrow, stage, or cart. A troublesome and unsafe crossing at which there always was a holdup. A line of people was waiting hopelessly there at this very moment. “How can there be a bridge?” he asked almost angrily, pushing Margaret’s arm to make her wake.

“The bridge is for the townsfolk only. Was,” she explained, struggling with her tenses. “It’s there for us if anybody wants to go across, though no one wants, or wanted to, these days. We keep it, kept it, to ourselves, of course.”

“Of course.” He laughed, not because of Margaret’s struggle with words but because one of their immediate problems had suddenly been solved and also because the people of Ferrytown had effected such an audacious deceit. “I understand! What idiots we are. What clever people you’ve been. Where is the profit in a bridge? You’d simply pay a modest toll and walk across. But a ferry crossing, now — that’s a lot of trouble. A ferry crossing can’t be cheap…Pay up, pay up, you have no choice. The river must be crossed. Yes, you were better off as Ferrytown. A place called Bridgetown would never have made you rich!”

Margaret was too tired to smile. She wanted sleep more than anything, because she hoped to escape the wretchedness of leaving home, of consciously inhaling the airborne, burned remains of Ferrytown. But when Franklin began to push the barrow up and along the riverside track toward the secret bridge, toward the hidden wooden bridge, she managed to add just one encouragement: “Giddyup.” She understood how little time there was, that if the undergrowth caught fire, as well it might, then the bridge would be destroyed by flames as well. She dared not feel hopeful, she could not be well, she would beat back her grief, until the far bank had been reached and they were out of harm’s way.

What was it that stopped Franklin from running back to that small group of emigrants who were waiting, helpless, at the ferry point, watching the mud-charged, storm-flushed river, the water almost thick enough to plow, it seemed, but sadly — they’d tested it — too thin to walk across? What stopped him from telling them that there was a bridge which they could use for free? He wasn’t good at keeping secrets, usually. He’d always been quick to pass on anything he’d spotted, even if actually it would have benefited from a blind eye. He was not devious but naively straightforward. That made him enemies, not friends. But on this occasion — revenge, perhaps; the small wound on his ear; the threats they’d made — he instinctively felt that salvation was in short supply, that the world was in such a state of anarchy and spite that it might allow nobody to escape, and that his and Margaret’s best option was to slip across the river unnoticed and unannounced. If he ran back down toward Ferrytown calling out, “A bridge, a bridge,” who could tell what forces might be listening, what demons might rush ahead with their thin hands to tear away the bridge and throw its timbers into the stream?

No, Franklin’s head was full of warring flies. Their clamor was deafening. He forced himself to concentrate on the now unwieldy, human weight of the boat barrow and on the awkward balance it demanded as they progressed upstream, avoiding chokes of rock and finding routes around the thickest undergrowth. Then, once he had reached the wider, beaten path above the cascades, where the ground was flatter and easier, he busied himself with an inventory of everything in their possession that might help them on their way.

What could they sell? The silver cup, certainly. Finding that had been a piece of luck. The silver cup could make them rich. It could secure them places on a boat. And there was his coat — yes, his coat now, perhaps, though parting with it would seem like a further act of treachery. He shook the thought away. There were the partly prepared skins. It was likely, too, that the carved dining platters he had rescued from Margaret’s family compound would be attractive, if not here in this land, where everybody seemed to be on the move, then possibly across the sea, where there were doubtless many opportunities to feast and many reasons to celebrate.

Then, of course, besides the few clothes he’d brought for Margaret and his own two pairs of everything, there was, or he hoped there was, though he could not remember where he had packed it, the little cedar box containing her three lucky things: the silver necklace that she had shown him as he drew the flux out from her feet; the square of musty, colored cloth, too delicate for him to touch with his big hands, she’d said; and the coins from the old America. The necklace might be valuable, but would she want to part with it? Would he even dare to say she should? What price good luck? Margaret ought to wear the necklace, he decided, and let it hang well out of sight (between her breasts), where it could work its charms without attracting pilferers. In fact, she ought to let him hang it there himself. He could imagine working the chain around her shaven head, lifting it over her exposed ears, and guiding it down to settle at her throat. He would find the cedar box and pull out the necklace for her to wear as soon as they were settled.

They had their riches, then, to trade. And in the meantime they would not starve, not for a while or two. He’d filled their four water bags in the river from the fishing platform where he’d left Margaret earlier that afternoon. It would be enough for several days, if they were moderate. Besides, they had the three flagons of pressed fruit juice that he had rescued from her house. And there was honey to eat — or sell! — and enough dried or salted blocks of meat to see them to the coast, surely, and possibly beyond. He even had a scrap of salted pork left over from the provisions that Jackson had entrusted to him all those days ago, and a handful of dried fruit, the final edible reminder of home and Ma.

Thirst and hunger seemed unlikely, and anyway, in this relatively undamaged land, more forested and fertile than the country he had fled, only the sick and lazy could easily starve. He was well equipped to find their dinner if there was any dinner to be had. He was a farm boy, after all, even though he had mostly been an unenthusiastic one. He knew what was welcome in a pot and what was poisonous; he knew which parts of plants were tasty in the fall and which were fibrous and troubling. He knew his mushrooms pretty well.

Again he made a list. What had they got to help them eat? They had a good-sized weighted net to fish with. (He even had the fisherman’s wading boots to make the task a dry one.) He had a bow and good arrows should they chance upon deer, game birds, or rock goats. There was enough rope somewhere on the barrow, under Margaret’s body, to make lassos or trip-snares. Anything they caught or trapped could be butchered and prepared with his two knives. And anything they cooked and ate would have the garnish of some fine fresh mint.

He could imagine it, the two of them, their faces warm above a fire, their backs defended from the cold by Margaret’s blankets, dining on some venison he’d caught and butchered. And then, when they retired to sleep, they’d have the barrow as their raised cot, too high for dew to bother them as they held hands beneath the tarps, their bodies separated only by the necklace at her throat.