It seemed to me there’d been something more in his voice than his usual laconic good nature. ‘Is that what happened to you?’
‘I’d a wife back then,’ he said, neutrally. ‘Sailors’ wives, they get used to their men staying away; but if I’d known how long it was, maybe … Crap, maybe I did know. You can’t have it both ways. You make your own choice in the end, I guess. And I’ll level with you, Steve – answer what you were really asking. Yes. Yes, it’s more’n likely you’ll not remember. Yes, this may be the only chance to choose you get.’
‘That’s so,’ said Mall, and went on playing.
Clare reappeared, laden with a tray of good things, and brought it up to us. I couldn’t help noticing the lilt of her breasts beneath the striped jersey, the flash of thighs as she climbed to the deck, the faintest glimpse of golden hair as she stooped to put down the tray. Mall, too, was looking; and she suddenly sang a line or two from the ballad she was playing, in her mellow voice.
I sighed again. My heart wasn’t open, and my purse was fast emptying; not that I grudged a penny of it. Clare smiled, as if acknowledging what Mall was saying, and settled down beside me. She took my arm and started feeding me some kind of pate on biscuits.
‘I don’t know,’ I said again, when my mouth wasn’t full. ‘What a hell of a choice – there’s no other like it. God, I’m tempted – I’m torn. Almost literally,’ I added, feeling Clare’s grip tighten on my arm, the pressure of words unspoken. ‘But the way it seems to me –’
They all leaned forward, waiting for my answer. It was amazing, a wonderful thing in itself; that I should matter to them. Come to that, they mattered to me – even that evil thing, Le Stryge, in his way. There was a debt there, if nothing more. I’d never had to feel like this before.
‘It seems to me that the life I knew, the old life I had – I made a hash of that, a whole lot of mistakes. It’s pure chance I didn’t just go on making them, or worse. And though I’ve done a bit of learning, maybe, I’ve not finished yet. This new life I’m offered – I could make a real hash of that, too, couldn’t I? Only the consequences might be worse – infinitely worse. Christ, they almost were!’ I shuddered at the thought of what I might have been at this moment, so easily.
‘I laid myself open to one kind of evil. I’d better make sure I’m less open to others, before I start hanging around them again. I don’t want to leave you all – but, but I think I’d better. I should go back and learn to live my first life properly, and then maybe I can think about seeking out some others. I’ll try and remember! I’ll fight to stay in touch – and maybe I will. But if I don’t – that’s how it’ll have to be. That’s best for all of us.’
‘A brave settling,’ said Mall quietly, ‘and, a’mine avis, the right and the true one. May’t serve you better than you know now, my Stephen. I – I shall not forget.’
‘Yeah, well, you’ve got a point, I guess,’ conceded Jyp. ‘There’re some real ugly guys around out here. Can’t have you whizzin’ about like a bomb ready primed for the first comer to pick up. So – go!’ He sighed. ‘Forget all else if you must – but don’t forget the docks, and Danube Street. And ’fore all the Tavern! Fix that in your mind. Fight for it. Then maybe the rest’ll stay. And when you’re good and ready, you just keep asking your way, and you’ll find it in the end, if you really want to. But till then – well, I guess staying away, that’s right ‘nough the safest thing for you …’
Le Stryge snorted – much closer, I knew now, to a real laugh than that evil cackle of his. Contempt must be one of his few remaining links with human feelings. ‘The safest? Is it? I would not be so sure, boy. Stay away if you like, from this wider world of ours – and pray for your own sake that it stays away from you! I wonder if it will. Your destiny is uncertain, even in my eyes – do you know that? But should it chance to lie beyond the limits you once knew, that would not surprise me. And should that be so, then whatever you do to avoid it, it will surely find you out.’
I swallowed. The deck felt suddenly chill beneath me; but Clare’s arm was warm on mine, and held me tight. As if she was anxious to draw me away …
I rose, and she rose with me. ‘How long before we reach home?’ she asked.
‘Why, hours yet, m’dear,’ rumbled Pierce. ‘Till we cross the dawn again. At sunset – which sunset, sailing master?’
Jyp grinned. ‘The sunset after the dawn we sailed. They’ll hardly have had time to miss you.’
I gaped, but Mall just chuckled. ‘Not for naught’s he named the Pilot. Time holds few shoals for him.’
I shook my head wonderingly. Clare, accepting as ever, just chuckled, and drew me with her to the companionway. Laughing, skipping lightly to the tune of Mall’s music, she led me by the hand down to the deck. I went, not looking back. But at my cabin door I hesitated, staring out into the night. Far ahead there, just above the horizon – was that faint streak of deeper darkness the first sight of land, or just a line of dark cloud? Whatever it was, it hung there like a frontier between sea and sky, or a barrier between the wider world and the narrow, between many dreams and a single cold awakening. Suddenly I was afraid of it, of crossing that dark bar once more and into the embrace of harbour walls, both sheltering and imprisoning. There I could find my firm berth again and never leave it, rooted fast to the mud. While all the seas of the world, all the infinite oceans of space and time beat between shore and shadow, only the breadth of a memory beyond my reach. I was afraid to go home.
But then, softly, Clare opened the door, and drew me in.
Why not? If she’d soon forget – if I might, also – what harm could it hold for us? We’d earned our holiday; and I, my first new lessons in living. And loving; there was time for a little of that. Time enough, till morning.
Appendix
From The Consistory of London Correction Book for 27th January 1612 …
Officium Domine contra Mariam Frithe
This day & place the sayd Mary appeared personally & then & there voluntarily confessed that she had long frequented all or most of the disorderly & licentious places in this Cittie as namely she hath vsually in the habite of a man resorted to alehowses Tavernes Tobacco shops & also to play howses there to see plaies & pryses & namely being at a playe about 3 quarters of a yeare since at the ffortune in mans apparell & in her bootes & with a sword by her syde … And also sat there vppon the stage in the publique view of all the people there presente in mans apparell & playd vppon her lute & sange a songe …
& hath also vsually associated her selfe with Ruffinly swaggering & lewd company as namely with cut purses blasphemous drunkardes & others of bad note & of most dissolute behaviour with whom she hath to the great shame of her sexe often tymes (as she sayd) dranke hard & distempered her heade with drinke
And further confesseth … she was since vpon Christmas day at night taken in Powles Church with her peticoate tucked vp about her in the fashion of a man with a mans cloake on her to the great scandal of diuers persons who understood the same & to the disgrace of all womanhood …