wouldn’t think so to look at her.’
‘It’s she that needs the cleaning.’
‘To think some man would waste his wages dressing her up in fine clothes.’
‘Like a donkey in a hat she’d look on her wedding day.’
‘When it’s rags that suit her best.’
‘And now I’m wondering what it is she might be good for?’
I ran. Ran back the way I came towards the sea. My footfalls were hard upon the lane and my body shook with each stride. My heart pounded. I fought for breath in the freezing air. Fear threw me forwards. I had a start on them. They ran too. And they laughed the more because of the chase. I could run no faster. Tears came then stopped, since I cried for no one, and to no one. I ran on, and knew that they were close upon me.
Then, at the turn of the lane, something took shape. It was the black outline of a man. Like shadows formed and thickened into a man. It barred the way.
I slowed at once and felt a hand catch my hair and pull it back sharp. Then a blow upon my head. I was caught. I fell to the hard cold ground.
Forwards then the man surged, towards me out of the dark, like a falling tree, like a breaking wave. Without mercy he struck the lad that had struck me. And struck him again. Now he sounded like the boy he was. His scream was shrill, like a bird’s. The other fled. The wounded boy coughed and spat like blood was drawn. He spat loathsome words at me and at the man. He turned and ran.
Waiting on the ground, curling closer round myself, I closed my eyes. The man stood awhile over me. I heard his breathing slow. And then, quietly, with a heavy voice, he asked me, ‘Are you hurt?’
With my face turned down I answered, ‘No.’
‘Do you need help?’ I answered again, and lied again that I did not. ‘You are the fisherman’s girl. Why are you out so late alone? Where is your father?’ I said nothing. I could not speak.
‘If you have need of help, I have help to give. If not, I must to my work. I say goodnight and a Merry Christmas to you and your Father.’
He turned and walked away, simply, and without regret. I heard his footsteps leave the road and take to that same frozen path that led to the sea. I stood up and guessed his route. I saw the limekiln fire bright between the trees. And I saw the man that had just saved me take his station before the flames.
I could turn to no one else.
It was like the sun. The raw heat from the kiln pressed through the freezing air towards me. My faced burned with it, overwhelmed but brightened. I held back a little from the man who seemed full in his work. Then I took courage to speak. My voice was weak:
‘Have you seen my father come this way?’ He stopped and turned, his face still in shadow:
‘I saw a man take the path you took, to the boats.’
‘Did you see him come back?’
‘I’ve seen nothing of him since.’ I must have shown something of what I felt at this news because he added: ‘You are worried for him. I am sorry.’
He thought for a moment. ‘Look, wait here for him a while. Sit and warm yourself. I don’t have chairs for company, but this might do.’ I sat on a low stool. He lifted an axe from a hewn log and sat there, facing the fire. Then I could see him for the first time. His hair was dark. He looked old, and one side of his face was deeply marked, as though it had been deeply burned. He noticed me looking.
‘No, no, I’m not as a pretty as you. Your father is of the sea, but I’m of the fire. And you don’t work with fires like these without getting some hurt from them.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. He smiled.
‘Never you mind. I was no painting to start with. And there’s no one around here that wants to look at me.’
With his eyes on the fire, he took out a pocketknife and opened out the blade. With another hand he reached into a bag and reached out bread. He cut off slices and set them up against the fire. They browned leaf brown. He handed one to me and I took it.
‘What’s this you have there?’ He saw the toy boat I had taken with me, still wrapped tight against me.
‘It’s nothing. I think it must have broke when I fell on the road.’
He held out his hand and I passed it to him. He seemed to marvel at it, turning it around.
‘It’s a pretty thing you’ve made. You bring something precious to the world in making this.’ He seemed at once happier. Without asking he turned his knife upon the wood. The strength of his hands was ten times mine. And he worked away the splinters in smooth strokes and revealed a new clean shape, leaner and lighter than before. He took a shard of kindling from the ground, and turning it under the strokes of the knife, a new mast formed.
He admired the boat. Now of his work and mine.
‘Does she, your little boat, have a name?’
‘I didn’t think to name it.’
‘Did your father think to name you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then she shall be named after the brave little girl that made her.’
As he carved my name in rough letters across the bow, he spoke like a child. He spoke freely, without forcing what he was saying:
‘I don’t remember much, but I was told that long ago, on a night like this, an angel came to some shepherds, alone on a mountain. They were gathered around a fire like us. Keeping warm, watching, and waiting for the morning. And the angel lighted up the sky. But the shepherds they were very afraid. So the angel said ‘fear not’ to them and said that a new King was born, and they should be happy. And they went down into the valley and took what little they had as presents for the young King. Now, he said, who will this present be for?’
‘I thought it would be something my father might like.’ He handed it back to me. I said: ‘Thank you for mending it so nicely.’
‘He’ll be very proud of you.’
We ate our bread, and we kept a safe and happy silence.
The air that had hung so dead around us for days came to life. Overhead, the trees stirred, and they stirred the man from his thoughts. The fire would grow unruly if the vague wind played against it. Agitated and on his feet, the man scanned the skies up above him and read the distances over to the sea’s horizon. Then he raked the white-hot coals, muttering to himself.
I said: ‘You’ve been so kind. I’d better go.’
‘Yes. I see. No point in being out here if snow starts coming.’
I got to my feet and turned. But nothing lay ahead of me. Leaving, I felt the fire’s heat decline upon my back. Ahead was a stretch of dark and cold. He shouted after me.
‘Or we could go and look for him?’
I stopped. I turned.
‘Your father. We should look for him. I could help. Look for him before the weather starts. Maybe give him a hand with the boat. Tell him what you’ve been doing. He’ll like that.’
‘Yes. He would.’
‘Good. Take one of these.’ He took up a lamp, lit it, and gave it to me. Then one for himself.
‘There. Now we’re like two ghosts,’ he said, ‘looking for a lost fisherman.’
With this, the man walked on and I walked carefully behind, along the path that led towards the sea. The lamps made moving tangles of shadows that crowded round the hollows of yellow lamplight through which we walked. How much better it was not to be making this journey on my own. And above, between the parting clouds, one star amid all the other stars seemed brighter, and closer, and warmer than the rest. Like a light of this world. He talked happily:
‘Daresay sailors know all about these stars. Their meaning. What they say. They always know the North and which way to go because of them.’
We made the beech quickly.
Ahead there was a silhouette, a mound of shadow, black against the sand. It was an animal. A dead or dying animal curled into itself and beyond saving. I felt pity. The tides had taken against the weakening creature and sent it out of its element, to its end amongst the strangeness of the land. The man increased his stride towards it. I could not stay with
him. He broke into a run. No. No. This shadow was a wooden shell, a boat, upturned and broken. A sail tangled, drawn and sea-choked. And beside it was a lesser form, indistinct; that of a drowned man.
He dropped the lantern. He dropped to his knees before the body of my father. He worked quickly, taking his head in his hands, speaking to him, crying out to him. He lifted him from the sand, found his balance and turned to walk back up the beech. The body was slung between the man’s huge arms. My father’s head hung back and rolled loose, like the boats that are tied against the harbor wall roll loose in the water.
‘Go ahead. Take the lamp. Lead me back to where you live.’
At the house, I pushed open the door and we were home. But the cold had made its home within. The house seemed one with the dark of the outside and the night air. The night had claimed the house and there was no safety there. The lamp I held only made the spaces within black with shadows and forgetful of us. The man, working hard, went straight to my father’s bed and laid him down upon it.
‘Get blankets. He’s very cold.’ I gathered what I could.
‘You’ve no fire. Have you anything for a fire?’
‘No.’
‘Wait by him.’
The man left in haste.
I was frightened. I did not want to be left alone with a dying man. I kept my distance. I could do nothing. But I did not then cry for him. There’s little point in crying for a fisherman. A man, sea-bound on a boat, is halfway to heaven. No one watches a boat go out without asking if it will ever comes back. The sea holds so many souls, and there is always