T. Boyle - Water Music

But just when things seem blackest, they get blacker still.

Sometime in the winter of ‘04, one of the higher-ups in the Admiralty is struck with an inspiration while staring into his eggcup. An inspiration that will directly exacerbate the sufferings of Ned Rise, Billy Boyles and hundreds like them. What with the war on and the shortage of able-bodied conscripts to man the ships and flesh out the infantry, it occurs to this lord and official that it is a shameful waste of manpower to garrison out-of-the-way-yet-still-vital posts with regular troops. Why not, he thinks, spooning up a neat crescent of soft-boiled egg, why not man those forts with convicts? They’d been used in the past for such purposes, why not conscript them again? Get some use out of the lazy vagabonds? Swear them in and put them to work? After all, they can always go back to dredging once the little Corsican has been run up a flagpole. The idea pleases this lord and official immensely. He takes it to his superiors, and they in turn take it to their superiors.

And so, in the early fall of that year, Ned and Billy are transferred from the black stinking hold of the Cerberus to the black stinking hold of the H.M.S. Feckless , and deposited, soaked in their own vomit, at Goree — Fort Goree, on the island of the same name off the coast of West Africa. Fort Goree, gateway to the Niger and bastion of rot.

♦ NOLO CONTENDERE ♦

“You’ve been lying to me. You’re planning another adventure, aren’t you?

Well. Answer me.”

“Not really.”

“Not really? Then why bring this, this colored person into my house? Why jabber back and forth with him all day like some camel peddler at the bazaar, huh?. . I said why bring this Seedy into my house? Don’t you hear me?”

“I’m just brushing up.”

“For what?”

“Listen: say the word and I’ll stay.”

“Stay.”

♦ LOOSENING THE BINDS ♦

Sidi Ambak Bubi left Peebles after a stay of twenty-seven days, eighteen hours and six minutes. He was counting. Thirty pounds sterling or no, every minute under the slate roof in Peebleshire was like a week in Gehenna. It was Mistress Park. She was like a lioness with a cub, and he, Sidi, the slave sent out to bring back an infant lion for the Bashaw’s zoo.

His assessment wasn’t far off the mark. Ailie was fierce and defensive, strident, resentful, ungracious to the point of insult. She saw the Moor as an alien and divisive presence, a thief who’d come out of the dark fastness of Africa to steal her husband from her — and she responded in kind. Dogging his every movement, her bright suspicious eyes boring through his clothing, the door to his room, the very flesh and bone of his breast, always picking, insinuating, criticizing everything from the way he lit his chibouk to the condition of the turban wrapped round his head. She served him neeps and potatoes, bacon, ham, pig’s feet. She spilled tea in his lap, swept Saharas of dust round him as he sat studying the Koran, encouraged the dog to nip at his heels and chew up his sandals. She was distressed, upset, sick unto death, and she took it out on the Moor from Mogador.

When Sidi finally packed up his bags and rode into Selkirk to catch the London coach, an uneasy peace settled over the Park household. Ailie held her breath, and drew back. Mungo was contrite. He had given his promise, finally and irrevocably. Yes, he had lied to her — he admitted it. His ambition had gotten the better of him and he had lied to her. But he would lie no more. Could she forgive him? She could. She clung to him, mad to demonstrate her love, ease his burden, show him how much she valued his sacrifice and the vow he’d given her. The subject of Africa lay buried — even if the grave was a shallow one.

Things were quiet for the next several months, though it became increasingly apparent that Mungo was restive and dissatisfied. He was short of temper. Uninterested in the children or the workings of the household. Reclusive, silent, morose. The stomach disorder he’d contracted in Ludamar came back with a vengeance, and half the time he merely picked at his food or sipped a cup of broth and barley and called it a meal. When he was free of the grind of tending his ignorant, carping, accident-prone patients, he sat brooding over his books and maps or handling the artifacts he’d brought back from Africa, almost in a trance, his fingers tracing the outlines of a bone knife or wooden mask as if it were a fetish or the relic of a saint. Each morning, at dawn, he mounted his horse and rode thirty-five or forty miles across the moors to oversee births and deaths, treat sore throats and imaginary discomforts, look on helpless as a leg dissolved in gangrene or a cancer ate out an old woman’s intestines. This was his reward. This is what his daring and fame had got him. He was sick to death of it.

In May of 1804 he told Ailie he was selling everything — the house, the furniture, the practice. They would move in with his mother at Fowlshiels. He needed time to think.

“Think?” she echoed. “About what?”

He held her with his eyes. “About what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.”

They were in the kitchen. Surrounded by potted herbs, crockery, wooden utensils, knives. A basket of freshly culled eggs, brown and white, sat on the table in a puddle of sunlight. Suddenly she pushed back her chair and swept the eggs onto the floor. “I know what you’re doing,” she said, her voice low, cracked with emotion. “You’re loosening the binds.”

“No, Ailie. Honey. I’m not. I’ve just got to have some time to think, that’s all.”

He was sincere. Or at least he felt he was. The confrontation over Sidi had left him feeling debased and low. He was a home-breaker, an irresponsible father, an egotist out to swell himself up at any expense — even if it meant lying to his wife like a common jack. This wasn’t Mungo Park, hero, conqueror of Africa and unveiler of the Niger, This wasn’t decent, clean and noble — it was despicable, and he despised himself for it.

There would be no more deceit. He was sure of it. The move to Fowlshiels was in no way connected with the expedition the government had promised him. It had nothing whatever to do with tying up his affairs, settling Ailie and the children comfortably and under the watchful eye of his mother, nothing whatever. No, it wasn’t the sort of thing that made him feel free and untrammeled, ready to hop a coach for London at the drop of a hat. No, no, no. He just needed time to think. That’s all.

♦ WATER MUSIC (SLIGHT RETURN) ♦

There was a premonitory chill in the air the day Mungo left for Edinburgh, a foretaste of the bitter nights to come. It was mid-September, just after his birthday. The leaves were changing and in the mornings a cold gray mist fastened on the river like the spread claws of a cat or bear. There had been a party of course — Ailie had insisted on it, though the explorer seemed embarrassed by the whole thing, as if it were foolish or undignified, as if when you got down to it there was really no cause for celebration at all. “But Mungo, it’s your thirty-third birthday,” she’d argued. “Doesn’t that strike you as auspicious?” He looked up from his dog-eared copy of Leo Africanus’ geography. “Auspicious?” She was grinning like a clown. “After all,” she said, “it was a big year for Christ, wasn’t it?”

Twenty-two guests turned out to drink the explorer’s health, Walter Scott, The Reverend MacNibbit and Thomas Cringletie among them. Scott had just settled in at Ashestiel on the Tweed, though he’d been sheriff of Ettrick Forest for the past five years and knew every farmer in the area — including Mungo’s brother Archibald. When Mungo moved down from Peebles, Archie brought the two together, and by the end of the summer Scott and the explorer had become fast friends. Mungo would mount his horse, cross the ridge that separates Yarrow and Tweed, and while away the long afternoons at Ashestiel, or Scott would show up unannounced to spend the evening out on the porch at Fowlshiels or down by the river, casting a fly and watching the midges hover over the shifting surface. They took long walks together, heads down, rapt in conversation; they fished, rode, drank and philosophized. Scott had published the three-volume edition of the Border Minstrelsy the previous year, and Mungo was drawn again and again to the old ballads, contrasting the poet’s versions and the ones he’d grown up with, pointing out inconsistencies, delighting in correspondences. He was even moved to give his friend the benefit of his own observations on the oral tradition among the Mandingoes and Moors. For his part, Scott never tired of hearing the details of Mungo’s travels — especially those the explorer had suppressed. He would pour out a cup of claret and prod Mungo to tell him about Dassoud’s excesses, for instance, or Fatima’s appetites and Aisha’s soothing, supple ways. About eating dog and groveling before Mansong, King of Bambarra. About the strange rites he’d witnessed, the unspeakable acts and unnatural practices.