In Penzance harbor, John engaged a small fishing dinghy—“hang the expense” he had said when Esther looked at him with a question in her eyes. “There is a ferry—the Scillonian—but there was a nasty accident last month, she hit the rocks in heavy fog by all accounts, and anyway it doesn’t call at the island we want to reach. I looked into the possibility of a flight—there’s an outfit that flies Dragon Rapides from Land’s End, which could have been awfully thrilling, but they only operate in fine weather.”
Esther had no idea what a “Dragon Rapide” might be, but thought that a boat was probably the safer option. As he spoke, she glanced upward. The sky was low and leaden, the gray of a pigeon’s breast, and the air damp with the kind of light mist that softened the edges of things but didn’t soak you, at least not to begin with. She huddled further into her coat, hands deep in her pockets. What on earth were they doing here? The boat looked as though it would scarcely survive a strong breeze. The hull was patched and its paintwork faded; translucent scales flecked its wooden rails and it reeked of fish.
“Shall we embark?” His face was hopeful.
Esther did as she was bid and climbed aboard, doing her best to avoid stepping on the purple-red slime that stained the decking. It was definitely the guts of some sea creature or other.
They huddled on a bench in the dinghy’s small cabin as the captain got them under way. Beneath a pewter sky and afloat on an even darker sea, she was reminded of Charon, the ferryman of Hades, transporting newly dead souls across the Acheron and the Styx. The air was undoubtedly fresh here though. Sharply scented. Briny. Far more pleasant than the filmy London fog, which coated your hair, your skin, even your teeth with a fine layer of dirt. It roused her a little from her somnambulant state and she glanced about the cabin, seeing a dirty yellow sou’-wester, a length of oily rope acting as a paperweight on a creased and frayed shipping chart.
“Look!” John called out as they puttered out of Penzance’s sheltering quay. “St. Michael’s Mount. Centuries ago the English saw off the Spanish Armada from its battlements. At low tide you can walk across the causeway. Shame we didn’t have time for it.”
“Perhaps on our return?” she offered, her voice almost drowned out by the roar of the engine and the sound of the water slapping against the hull of the boat.
John didn’t reply, looking out to sea instead. Had he even heard her?
“Oh look! Kittiwakes.”
Esther raised her eyes toward the horizon; there were several gray and white gulls wheeling above them, their shrieks rending the air. To the left, a trio of torpedo-shaped birds whipped past. “And puffins!” he cried. The new sights and sounds had invigorated him, while she was already feeling queasy as the dinghy pitched and rolled. She registered their fat cheeks and bright orange bills and was reminded briefly of a portly professor friend of her father’s. She tried but failed to match John’s enthusiasm, pasting what felt like a smile on her face and swallowing hard to prevent herself from retching.
The captain cheerfully pointed out the site of several shipwrecks but Esther did her best not to pay too much heed to his story of a naval disaster in the early eighteenth century, where more than fifteen hundred sailors lost their lives. “One of the worst wrecks in the whole British Isles,” he said with a kind of proud awe. As he spoke, a lighthouse, tall and glowing white against the gray sky, came into view. It hadn’t done its job then. But then perhaps it had been built afterward, to prevent such a tragedy happening again.
They motored on as the rain thickened and soon a curtain of fog erased the horizon completely. Esther’s stomach churned and bile rose in her throat. Even John’s high spirits seemed dampened and they sat, saying nothing, as Esther fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief and pressed it to her mouth, hoping that she was not going to empty the contents of her stomach onto the decking. She tried not to think about them mingling with the fish guts and saltwater that sloshed just beyond the cabin. She gritted her teeth against the spasms of nausea while her insides roiled and twisted as if she had swallowed a serpent.
The boat pitched and heaved in the rising swell as the waves frothed whitecaps beside them. “It’s getting a bit lumpy,” said the captain with a grin. “Thick as a bog out there too.” John hadn’t mentioned the name of the particular godforsaken speck of land that they were headed for and Esther didn’t have the energy to ask. She tried to think of something else, anything but this purgatory of a voyage, but there were darker shapes in the yawning wasteland of her mind, so she forced herself instead to stare at the varnished walls of the cabin, counting to five hundred and then back again to take her mind off her predicament. She was only vaguely aware now of John next to her and the captain, mere inches away at the helm. Outside, the sea appeared to be at boiling point, white and angry, as if all hell had been let loose, and she gripped a nearby handhold until her fingers lost all feeling. She no longer had any confidence that they would reach their destination. She had ceased caring about anything very much months ago, so it hardly mattered either way.
Eventually, however, an island hove into view, and then another, gray smudges on the choppy seascape. Almost as soon as they had appeared they disappeared again into the mist, leaving nothing but the gray chop of the water. The captain’s expression changed from sunny to serious as he concentrated on steering them clear of hidden shoals and shelves. “They’d hole a boat if you don’t pay attention. Splinter it like balsa,” he said, not lifting his eyes from the horizon.
All at once the wind and rain eased a fraction, the fog lifted, and they puttered alongside a small wooden jetty that stuck out from a sickle curve of bleached-sand beach. Like an arrow lodged in the side of a corpse, Esther imagined.
The bloated carcass of a seabird, larger than a gull, but smaller than an albatross, snagged her attention. Death had followed her to the beach. Her thoughts were so dark these days; she couldn’t seem to chase them away. There was, however, some slight relief at having arrived, that the particular nightmare of the journey might soon be ended. For now that would have to be enough. “Small mercies,” she whispered. She tried to be grateful for that.
The captain made the boat fast, then helped them and their luggage ashore, even as the boat bobbed dangerously up and down next to the jetty, its hull grinding, wood on wood, leaving behind flecks of paint. An ill-judged transfer and they would end up in the water. Esther stepped carefully onto the slippery boards, willing her shaky legs to hold her up.
Once they were both safely on land, the captain slung several large brown-paper-wrapped parcels after them. “Pop them under the shelter and when you get there, let the doc know that these are for him—he can send someone down for them before they get too wet. The house is up thataway. A bit of a walk, mind, and none too pleasant in this weather. There’s not many that care to come this far.”
The pelting rain had begun to fall again, blown sideways at them by the wind, and Esther silently agreed with him; she couldn’t see the point of this wearisome journey, but John hefted their suitcases, looking at her with anticipation. “Think you can manage it, darling?”
Some small part of her didn’t want to disappoint him and she nodded faintly, still no clearer as to exactly where they were.