The Visitor

By Katherine Stansfield

It is 1880 in Cornwall. Pearl, Nicholas, and Jack play among the fishing boats of Skommow Bay, not understanding the undercurrents beneath their games. Nine years later, Nicholas, keen for the fishing industry and society as a whole to progress, makes a decision that will affect all of their lives forever. Told from the point of a view of an aging Pearl, succumbing to dementia in 1936, this moving novel jumps back and forth through time as Pearl’s own memory does and explores topics such as the tension between individual will and the pressure to conform to societal norms, love and tragedy, and the ripple effects of a dying industry. The story is set against the scenic backdrop of Cornwall as well as the late-19th-century riots over the observance of the Sabbath in the fishing industry, and serves as a tremendously accurate snapshot of a particular moment in time and a meditation on the universal themes of love and loss.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Parthian Books
• Release date: Mar 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781909844223

Katherine Stansfield

Katherine Stansfield is a multi-genre novelist and poet. She grew up on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall and now lives in Cardiff. She is the author of four novels and several collections of poetry. Her latest novel is The Mermaid's Call, third in the Cornish Mysteries series, out now with Allison & Busby. Katherine’s poetry is published by Seren. Her new collection is We Could Be Anywhere by Now. Alongside her independent writing projects, Katherine co-writes with her partner David Towsey under the partnership name D. K. Fields. Head of Zeus publish D. K. Fields' political fantasy trilogy The Tales of Fenest.

Book preview

Forests

One

‘Keygrims,’ Nicholas says, ‘will call you by name. You’ll be sleeping. This is how they sound.’ He scratches his knife across his plate. It’s answered by a shriek of wind down the chimney. A cold gust blows round the room. She moves closer to his chair, hunching into the wood and biting her sleeve.

She was remembering, but she was back there, too. What was remembered was true. She was with Nicholas again.

‘You know what they are, don’t you?’ he says.

She looks at Jack who says nothing. His arms are wrapped around his knees and he’s worrying a hole in his trousers. She shakes her head.

‘They’re drowned men,’ Nicholas says. ‘Come to claim the living.’

Shadows play across his face. She can’t see if he’s smiling. It’s winter. Night comes in the afternoon and the weather is too poor to go outside. Their parents are in the house next door, Nicholas’ house, praying for fish and to be watched over whilst at sea. Nicholas is trying to scare her and Jack. He doesn’t believe in any of the other creatures that live in the sea. He doesn’t believe her stories, or the one Jack tries to tell. Only keygrims.

‘What do they look like?’ she says.

‘You and me, but their skin’s gone, worn away by salt. And the bone underneath, it’s shells. Only seaweed holds them together.’

The rain thrums on the windowpanes. Beyond the hearth the room is dark.

‘Once they’ve called you to the beach they wait for the waves to touch you and that’s it.’ He claps his hands and Jack jumps. ‘The keygrims take you.’

‘That’s a lie. There’s no such thing,’ Jack says, trying to sound sure. His voice wavers. The curtains sigh in the draught. ‘I know about mermaids. They—’

‘There is such a thing as a keygrim,’ Nicholas says. He turns to the fire and knocks some of the wood with his boot. Though the wood is almost burnt black some sparks find life and for a moment there’s a glow around him. His cheeks are flushed red and his eyes are bright.

‘How do you know?’ Jack says.

‘Because I’ve seen one.’

*

Keygrims, she whispered, will call me by name. The little room and the wind gusting fiercely – they were real things. She had been there, with Jack and Nicholas, talking of keygrims. She was still there, somehow, though the moment was so long ago.

Pearl held one of her hands to the sun. The skin was so thin that the light seemed to shine through it. She had lived by the sea all her life. The salt was wearing her away. The bones of her hand were raised, the knuckles lumpy and tight. Like shells. The wind whipped her hair across her face. It was long and tangled, tangy with seawater. It had to be dry before she went home, and she had to catch her breath. She couldn’t let Jack know she’d been swimming. He wouldn’t like it.

She followed the tide line, winding with the snake-shape of broken wood and seaweed, keeping her eyes on the sea. They were old friends. They had an understanding.

The water had been cold today. Her chest was tight. She concentrated on breathing. On timing each inhalation with a breaking wave. When they take you, you’re cursed to live in the sea and see the people you love cry because you left them behind.

She moistened her lips against the salt that had dried them. She knew she should go home, that she mustn’t tire herself. She had walked by this sea and along these cliffs every day since she could walk, apart from those when she was laid up in bed. Now her body was stiffening against her. When she woke some mornings she didn’t know the creases of her face. Cups shook in her grip. Her chest was often tight, as if hands were on her ribs, pressing to hear them crack.

She was walking away from Morlanow now, away from its busy streets and empty harbour, but she could still hear the building work: hammers thumping and the sudden slide of bricks falling.

The bulk of the cliff that closed off the far end of the little beach loomed over her. She’d walked further than she thought, hadn’t noticed the effort it had taken until she stopped. Her legs trembled. A pale speck was crossing the water, coming in towards the harbour wall that divided her from the town’s main beach, which would be crowded at this time of day. A pleasure boat most likely, rather than a fisherman. So few fishing boats went out from Morlanow now.

This beach was usually empty of visitors. It was more shingle than sand so no good for lying on. The currents were stronger than those of the main beach, pulling a swimmer out suddenly when the bottom shelved. She loved that moment of slippage, when her feet left the safety of the stones and she was weightless in the water. That was when she felt most herself. Her chest would ease and her legs and arms were those of her child self again. She could swim and swim, away from Morlanow, never once turning her head to look back.

But here she was, back on land and the sea still taunting her with its vastness. Pearl put her hands to her eyes and blocked out the harshness of the sun, letting the hiss of waves fill her ears. She thought of the water stretching across the world’s surface to places she could only imagine.

The water that came to Morlanow’s sands was the same that had brought pilchards to her father’s nets when she was a child, when there had been keygrims and mermaids. It had taken them away too, but the fish were there somewhere. The sea was one great pull of movement, putting things down on one coast and then spiriting them to another. Nothing was ever truly lost, though she had grown tired of hoping, tired of searching for a sign that never came. She hated herself for looking, but she couldn’t stop. If she stared hard enough at the dark line of the horizon she believed she could will a ship into view. It would just be a smudge at first, perhaps mistaken for a cloud’s tail, then it would dip and roll into something recognisable. Each wave bringing it closer to shore would sharpen the outline, clearing to masts and sails. Then closer still and the hull would give up the shape of a man from its wooden sides; back, at last.

It was time to go. Jack would be home soon. She had to hide her wet things. She turned back towards the harbour wall. A glimpse of colour caught her eye. It was away to the left, at the foot of the sloping field that overlooked the beach. In the past, the women of Morlanow had laid their washing out on the grass to dry and for a moment the whole field was again a patchwork of aprons and nightshirts. She looked away. That was a sight she hadn’t seen for a long time.

Moving closer to the bottom of the field, she saw that the colour came from delicate blue stems of viper’s bugloss. Bugloss for sadness. They had been poked between two stones that formed the middle part of a small tower. It was a cairn, no more than a foot high. Each pebble bore some kind of marking; grey spider-lines, a darker split. The cairn was all but hidden by the scrubby sea-grass that clung where the drying field joined the stony beach beneath it. Who had raised the cairn? It wasn’t made for show or to be noticed, tucked here. A memorial of the old kind, built to mark a loss. She walked on. It wasn’t right to intrude. But the image of the cairn stayed with her even as she moved away, the tower growing taller in her mind until it was bigger than before, bigger than her, even. So much was lost that never saw such acts of remembrance. Her sister Polly had never had a stone in Morlanow, either on the beach or in the churchyard. Polly’s passing hadn’t had a marker of any kind. But that didn’t mean the loss wasn’t felt, wasn’t real. Pearl carried the cairn inside her all the way along the beach. She was weighed down by its stones.

She made her way to the harbour wall and stopped to rest before ducking under its arch. She would need her strength to get through the crowds, the motor cars. The faces she didn’t know. It was summer. Morlanow was strange to her. It kept changing its shape. Streets were moving, whole houses had disappeared. She was old and ill. It was 1936, and Nicholas was gone.

Two

Her hair was dry by the time Jack got home. It needed cutting, tidying. He didn’t like it when it reached below her shoulders like this, said it made her look like Alice Trelawn, the woman of their childhood who gutted dogfish for pence. He never wanted to be reminded of Alice, and neither did Pearl for that matter. Pearl’s hair was grey and thin, like Alice’s had been, and hard to pin neatly. But at least it dried quickly on the walk back from the beach. She’d just stowed her still-damp and sandy nightdress in the back of the cupboard by the hearth when she heard the front door go. She picked up some darning and tugged at the needle left ready in the cloth.

‘Hello,’ he called.

She heard him get a drink of water from the pail. She took a last glance round the room to make sure everything was in the right place.

Her husband had been a broad man in his day, heavily built from years at sea hauling in nets and pots, but now he was sunk on his frame and looked as if he was wearing a body several sizes too large for him. His once blond hair had bleached to white and tufted at his ears. He was short but strong, apart from his hands. As soon as he appeared she could see they were swollen today. He pushed the door open with a fist.

‘Hello,’ she said.

He sat by the hearth. It had been so warm they hadn’t had to light a fire in this room for months. She was his height and when she went to his side she could see his scalp had reddened after another day in the sun. She bent down and unlaced his boots. As she eased them from his feet sand sprinkled onto the floor. She felt the need to smooth it on the flags, like salt to lay the fish on. Like before.

‘All right?’ he said. He was staring at her.

‘Hm?’

He proffered his hands. She rubbed them, easing each hot, swollen knuckle. His hands were softer now he didn’t put to sea. Watching the younger men go could soothe skin if not bone.

When he could uncurl his fingers a little she went to the kitchen and lit the stove. He followed her and sat at the table, watching her set the supper things. He hadn’t brought anything home from the harbour but she didn’t mention it. Some days he had something from Matthew Tiddy, their neighbour’s son, or their own son George if Jack would take it from him. Cradling a bit of pollock or whiting wrapped in newspaper, Jack would lay the fish delicately on the table, as if it were a baby. She knew how he needed to hold the fish in his stiffened hands. It was more than the taste. But today the table was empty. There were some cooked potatoes left from yesterday she could fry. She wasn’t hungry. She put the kettle on to boil.

‘That was some to do today,’ he said.

‘What was?’

‘You didn’t see?’

‘No. I was here all day. That darning.’ She looked for the potatoes.

‘Well,’ Jack said, ‘the palace was open. There were people inside, taking measurements.’

‘Really?’ She saw the palace bright with silver fish, women bent over buckets of salt. A song played at the edge of her thoughts.

She couldn’t find the potatoes. She was sure there were some left. She’d put them next to the fat ready to cook today. Only they weren’t there. No bother. She’d cook some fresh. The kettle began to sing.

She moved around the kitchen without thinking. Her hands knew the exact distance from table to stove to the back of the chair. Her feet felt the grooves and lumps of the rough floor, rolling and lifting as if dancing across its contours.

‘Are they going to open the palace again?’ she asked.

‘Seems so. I always said the fish would come back. It was foolish to stop.’

She filled the teapot and left it to brew. ‘But there’s nothing left,’ she said. Turning back to the stove he caught her hand and held it. His eyes were as washed out a blue as when he was a boy.

‘You’ll see,’ he said.

She was about to speak when there was a shout from outside. The kitchen window looked directly onto the street. A group of young men passed by, so close they could see in. Strangers. As they went by the front door on their way to the seafront there was jostling and the sound of someone being knocked into the door, then laughing as the door swung open. A gangly man sprawled onto the kitchen floor, all legs and elbows. There was cheering from the street. He struggled to his feet while she and Jack stood motionless.

The man seemed suddenly to realise where he was. He took in the stove, the table, Jack’s curled hands and mouth set in a grim line.

‘Sorry,’ the man mumbled, and dove back onto the street. His friends cheered again. Pearl pushed the door shut and locked it, then poured the tea.

First thing in the morning Jack went to the seafront, as he did most days. He went to watch the few fishing boats that still went out and to chew over the changes in Morlanow with the rest of those who’d stopped fishing. There were more men on the front than in the boats.

She pulled her wet nightdress from the back of the cupboard and took it to the little yard behind the cottage. The white-washed walls which separated her yard from those on either side were too bright in the sun. It was late August and still hot. The air swam with it. The nightdress would dry in an hour or so. She held it to her face and breathed in the sea. It filled her chest. She gave the nightdress a good scrub in the tin pail and hung it on the line. She could hear the workmen in the next street over, their voices a low hum broken by the blows of their tools. Which turn in the road was being widened today, she wondered. They were building on the cliff top too. New houses, though they looked light enough for the wind to lift them into the sea.

‘You’ve had a wash on early.’ Eileen Pendeen was looking over the wall. Her neighbour ran a shop, the oldest in the village. When Pearl was a child, Pendeen’s stocked everything Morlanow needed: rope, hooks, linen, soap, oakum, tea, sugar, cork. Now Eileen’s place sold games for the beach and towels. The fishing supplies were out the back. You had to ask to see the hooks and the cork. There were many other shops like it too.

‘It’s only Friday,’ Eileen said.

‘Didn’t want this to stain,’ Pearl said, ‘waiting until Monday.’

Eileen looked up and down the line, taking in the single piece of clothing pegged out. ‘You heard about the palace?’ she said.

‘It’s going to be opened. Jack saw them measuring yesterday.’

‘It’s going to be opened all right,’ Eileen said. But before Pearl could say anything Eileen said, ‘I’m late getting to the shop as it is. I’ll call in after, have a cup of tea.’

Pearl heard Eileen’s back door open then close. She stayed in the yard, letting the sun heat her face. There was no breeze. Eileen was sharp. Pearl wouldn’t risk a swim today.

She decided to go to the seafront to see the palace. Its re-opening was a surprise. She hadn’t let herself think about that possibility for so long. The disappointment only became worse as the years passed and it seemed less and less likely any money would be found to repair and relaunch the fleet. When the pilchards returned, the men could afford to get their boats back. There would be money for the town’s women too, curing the fish with salt and stocking their larders for the winter. Eileen would have to get rid of the beach towels and games and put the cork in the front of the shop. Pearl could still taste the dark, oily flesh of a pilchard, as if she’d just eaten one, but at the same time she remembered the hunger that so often accompanied hope of their arrival, felt the physical ache of it. At least the holiday visitors came every year without fail to Eileen’s shop. The fish had never been so loyal.

From her front door the palace was only two streets away but they were crowded. People packed the road from one side to the other. Pearl gave up trying to find a way through and stayed close to the houses on one side, moving with the crowd. She kept her hand out, letting it brush against stone, wood, glass to keep her balance. There was such a jostle, this time of year.

She came to the station. Morlanow was the end of the line so there was only one platform and the ticket office stood where the tracks finished. It was a single storey building but one of the smartest in the town. From Easter onwards there were tubs of flowers outside: pink and yellow lavish-looking things that stank to high heaven of sweetness. And spiky palms too. She remembered the prick of them through her thin clothes when she was a child. Jack and Nicholas liked to break off leaves and use them as swords. They were pirates. And what was she?

There was a newly pasted poster on the ticket office door. She had seen the picture before: Morlanow’s seafront, painted by someone often talked about. It was no good, she couldn’t remember his name. The poster showed the seafront with several new-looking fishing boats moored up. Two people stood admiring it: a fisherman and a little girl in a pretty cream dress. The rest of the seafront was empty. The sea filled most of the poster. It was beautiful: rich blue with purple to show the gentle swell. The hills that flanked it were gold and though the sun itself wasn’t in the picture she could feel it in every drop of paint. It was as if heat was seeping from the paper. It looked such a wonderful place, so still and quiet, so many lovely new boats, that she found herself wishing she could go, but then she saw ‘Morlanow’ written underneath. She was already here.

There was a cry from the warren of streets behind her and then the sudden tumble of stones as another wall came down. She turned round but could see only people: waves and waves of sun-warmed skin. The poster didn’t show this place with its strangers, cars, and building work. But Morlanow was another place again, too. It was full of fishwives and the stink of fish. It was running along the sand with Jack and Nicholas. It was swimming and keygrims and praying.

Mrs Tiddy came out of the ticket office, holding a cloth. ‘Morning,’ she said. Her thick, dark hair was wrapped in a scarf and she wore an old apron over her dress. She smelled of polish and scalding. ‘I called by yesterday,’ she said. ‘You weren’t in.’

‘No,’ Pearl said. Her neighbour smiled and waited for more. When Pearl didn’t say anything Mrs Tiddy moved to the ticket office windows and began to wipe them, though they already looked clean. The frames were painted in the railway company’s colours: chocolate and cream. So were the benches and the frames round the information boards. The Tregurtha Hotel up on the cliff used them too, though Pearl hadn’t been any further than the hotel’s stable yard. The horses all had chocolate and cream nameplates.

‘Eileen said she saw you on the beach,’ Mrs Tiddy said. ‘Below the drying field.’

‘Did she?’ Pearl said. Another pause. Mrs Tiddy stopped wiping the windows, her cloth motionless on the glass. Her back was still straight as a nail though she wasn’t as strong as she looked, Pearl knew. ‘I don’t think so,’ Pearl said.

‘Now then,’ Mrs Tiddy said, coming over to her. ‘You know you’re not meant to swim.’

The bell on the ticket office wall rang. The clerk, Mr Daniels, came out onto the platform. There was the slow chuff-chuff of the engine and then smoke came into view. The three of them watched it though there was no sign yet of the train. The track curved round the coast. The train would be nearly in and yet it wouldn’t be seen until the last moment when the track straightened on the approach to the station. They stayed watching. Pearl couldn’t take her eyes from the track bed. The little stones between the sleepers made her think of the cairn on the beach. Was it still there? What if someone had knocked it down, not realising how important it was? There was a sharp whistle as the train rounded the final bend.

‘I’d stand back, ladies,’ Mr Daniels said. ‘She’s going to be full.’

When Mrs Tiddy turned to ask Mr Daniels about the pony trap, taking passengers to the Tregurtha Hotel, Pearl took the opportunity to slip away.

She wanted to turn left out of the station, to get to the seafront, but was confronted by a motor car. It was trying to inch its way round the tight corner of the station entrance, its progress hampered by the streams of visitors going in the opposite direction, towards the sea. Two young girls were admiring themselves in the car’s windows as it tried to pass them, the family inside all red-faced and squashed. The car wasn’t going anywhere for the moment. Pearl didn’t like to get so close to cars but in the summer it was unavoidable. She squeezed past the front, catching her hand on the burning metal bonnet. Someone pushed her from behind and she stumbled. The preening girls loomed over her, blocking her way. The sun was hot on her arms, her face. She didn’t recognise anyone. And still more people tried to push their way round the car. Finally the girls moved. She was safe, across the road.

It hadn’t always been like this.

Eileen had said she would come round. Pearl would have to be in, all neat and tidy in the kitchen under Eileen’s nosy gaze. Eileen was kind, a friend, but she did fuss and Mrs Tiddy would tell her all sorts. Pearl turned in the direction of home. The palace would still be there tomorrow.

Three

‘Move?’ Jack said the word awkwardly, as if it were in another language. Pearl looked up from the pastry she was working and stared at her husband’s back. ‘But we’ve lived in this house since we married,’ he said. ‘More than forty years.’

Pascoe stood on the doorstep. A local boy – man now, she reminded herself – but not a fisherman, despite his family’s long history with the sea. Pearl wasn’t sure what it was that Pascoe did do, but he always had money, was always standing drinks. He thought too much of himself, wearing fancy suits but his hair all sides up. He was trying to smooth it down now, stroking his head as if it were a pet.

‘It will be a bit of a change,’ Pascoe said.

‘I’ve no doubt of that,’ Jack said. He stepped forward so that he blocked the doorway, bracing each side of the frame with his tightly curled hands.

‘Come on now. I dare say it will be better for you in a new place,’ Pascoe said. ‘A nice bit of garden.’ He appeared over Jack’s shoulder then, looking into the kitchen. He looked so young. He inclined his head towards Pearl but was still addressing Jack. Pascoe never spoke to her directly. ‘And for your wife, much better to be away from all the noise down here. We’re expecting another good season next year and we all need to be ready. Morlanow has a lot to offer but we don’t have enough beds at present. People are having to stay

down the coast at Pentreath. The visitors from Birmingham alone…’

She stopped listening. The pastry was clammy in her hands. She looked at the low ceiling, its paint stained the colour of sand, the beams which ran anything but straight. She could still see the eyes in the grain. The thought of not seeing the ceiling again suddenly struck her. She hadn’t looked at it, really taken it in, in such a long time and now she wouldn’t see it any more. Her chest tightened and a coughing fit came.

Jack spun round, seeming torn between coming to her side and getting his hands under Pascoe’s lapels. She put out her hand to show Jack she would be all right. Her husband lurched out onto the street.

‘See what you’re doing to my wife?’ he shouted. ‘That’s what moving will do, make her ill, not help her. And don’t try and dance me round as if this has come out of the air, Pascoe. This is your doing!’

‘Now, Mr Tremain, there’s no need for any of this unpleasantness. I’m simply acting as the agent for your landlord who has asked me, on his behalf, to inform you of his decision to sell these cottages to the railway company, who will then lease to other occupants.’

‘Holiday people, you mean.’

There was a pause and when Pascoe next spoke his voice had lost its local familiarity. ‘The new occupants will be staying for shorter lengths of time,’ Pascoe said, ‘but that’s unimportant. What matters is that these cottages need to be empty no later than the end of the month. You won’t be left in the cold. Accommodation has been reserved for all Carew Street residents at the new development.’

Pearl managed to ease her coughs and sat down to quell the dizziness that would inevitably follow an attack. There was the sound of paper rustling.

‘The particulars are all there,’ Pascoe said. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I have others to notify.’

Jack called after him. ‘Is it true what I heard, that the company’s bought the pilchard palace too?’

But there was no response. Jack shut the door with a bang and slumped into the chair at the other end of the table.

Pearl stared at the floured rolling pin. She had the sense that she was falling and gripped the underside of the chair to remind her body she was sitting down.

‘How can they ask us to move, after all this time?’ Jack seemed to be asking himself the question rather than addressing her, for which she was glad. ‘Well, they can’t make us, I’m sure. We’re not leaving.’ He seemed to remember the envelope crumpled in his hand then. He drew out the single sheet of paper and read it slowly to himself.

‘Where do we go?’ she said.

Jack put the letter on the table and smoothed it flat, over and over. ‘Out of Morlanow,’ he said. ‘They’re moving us up the hill.’

She couldn’t take it in. The ceiling beams seemed to be looking at her again. She was meant to be rolling out pastry. It was long past supper time. Something came back to her.

‘That’s not true about the pilchard palace, that the company’s bought it? Why would they want it?’

Jack hesitated, then said, ‘Matthew Tiddy told me this morning. The company’s going to make it into a hotel, with Pascoe over-seeing it. Too good a place to sit unused, being on the front. Got an easy run to the beach.’

‘A hotel… but they’ve already got one. The Tregurtha’s so big.’

‘Not big enough, it seems. And Matthew Tiddy said the palace is going to be a grand one. Going to charge a fortune. Thirty bedrooms, sea views, and a big room for dances where the old cellars are.’

‘Dances?’

‘Pascoe’s going to make it just like the Tregurtha. There’s to be a man playing a piano every night while people eat.’

‘They’ll want fish,’ she said. ‘And they’ll pay a good price, hotel visitors.’ She saw her son George’s beautiful ling, straight from the hand line and steaming freshness on bone china plates.

Jack shook his head. ‘They want everything, these people.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me about the palace?’

He drummed his crooked fingers on the table and avoided Pearl’s eye. ‘Because