Wrecker. Noel O’Reilly

my wife that I am saved,’ he said. ‘Do it quickly to spare her more anxiety.’

      ‘We has sent for the doctor,’ I said. ‘He shall no doubt speak with your wife.’

      He was quiet again. I sat there by the bed in a slump. For a long while my thoughts were at a standstill. In the end, with a great heaviness upon me, I got up and went to my own room, where I belonged.

4

      The next day Dr Vyvyan came to see the foreigner. He knew us Blights, because in the months since Mamm had got the chronic he’d dropped in and looked her over whenever he was on his rounds. He spent a little time with her that day, too, before I led him up the stairs. He kept glancing at the yellow swelling on my temple and my bloodshot eye.

      I hadn’t expected the doctor to come so soon and hadn’t removed the bird from where it hung in the sick room. I made sure to go in first and stand in front of the poor thing so the doctor wouldn’t see it. The room was dark and close. It smelt of sweat and musty plaster, and stewed herbs. But above all there was the sour rankness of the bird, all but dead on the end of its string. I saw then how it would look to the doctor’s eyes, a pitiful, suffering thing, blackened and covered in weeping boils. The doctor’s nose wrinkled as he stepped into the room. Behind my back, I heard the bird twitching.

      ‘You are hiding something,’ he said right away, brushing me aside with a movement of his hand. When I was out of the way, he looked upon the bird with utmost horror, and then glared at me. He took a pocket handkerchief from his jacket and covered his nose with it.

      ‘A barbaric custom,’ he said, his voice muffled by the handkerchief. ‘The bird is clinging to life but already in the first stage of decomposition. This abomination is to be removed. It is undoubtedly carrying mites and I am sure it is distressing my patient.’

      ‘It’s taken the fever out of him, look. He’s better than before,’ I said. We both looked at the foreigner, lying peaceful enough on the bed.

      ‘Barbarous nonsense, a rustic superstition to the effect that the infection can be transferred from the man to the bird.’ He went to the bedside and got down on his knees, taking some instruments from his case. ‘What are we to do with these people?’ he said, smiling at the foreigner. His name was Gideon Stone, and it turned out that Dr Vyvyan knew him. He spoke to him now, as if I wasn’t there.

      ‘I thank you from the bottom of my heart for making this visit, Jonathan,’ said the foreigner. ‘How is Ellie? I know I can count on you to look after her.’

      ‘She is doing as well as can be hoped.’

      ‘Let her know I’m better now, much better. Tell her I have a guardian angel who has tended me the whole while I have lain here.’ He looked at me and my face grew hot. The doctor frowned. I don’t suppose I looked much like an angel to him.

      ‘Whatever possessed you to get into a leaky little boat with two men and a boy in the first place?’ asked Dr Vyvyan.

      ‘Have you had news of the men who were on the boat with me?’ the foreigner asked Dr Vyvyan. ‘Please tell me they have been saved.’

      ‘It’s assumed they have perished, I’m afraid,’ said the doctor. ‘What happened to you that day?’

      ‘I knew Hell. There was just myself, and a man and his son and an old fellow known to them. I wanted to see this place with my own eyes after the recent infamous reports, and see what good I might do here. But when we reached the cove the boat began turning in tight circles. Something was stirring the water from below, I was sure of it, the sea was so lumpy, so slippery.’ His breath grew thicker and faster as he spoke. ‘The current ran in opposite directions on either side of the boat. Unnatural! I swear that something twitched at the boat from underneath. And suddenly tearing, grinding, and a fount bubbling in the hull.’

      ‘This is enough for now. Save your energies. You can tell us the whole story when you’re home again,’ said Dr Vyvyan. But the foreigner seemed not to hear him. In his fancy he was back on the boat again.

      ‘The skipper asked me if the Maker would forgive him a life of mendacity if he repented at the last. I told him it was never too late. But it was the boy he wanted to save. The boy was his own son, you see? And I could do naught to save the lad. My prayers went unanswered. Before I could stop them, the pair of them had the barrel slammed into my gut. The father held me while his son coiled the rope about me and tied me fast.’ He fell back on to his pillow, and closed his eyes.

      When his breathing steadied itself, Dr Vyvyan spoke to him again. ‘Well, at least you are still with us,’ he said. ‘A less robust specimen wouldn’t have survived. You are the talk of Newlyn, you know. Ellie has had a visit from a correspondent of the Sherborne Mercury, no less. Everybody wants to know how the Methodist minister came to be washed ashore lashed to a barrel.’

      The doctor took out a kind of trumpet and put the bell end to his mouth to warm it with his breath. He bid the foreigner to lie on his side, and began to lift his shirt. At that, I fled the room, and waited on the stairs where I could listen to them through the half open door. It was quiet for a time while the doctor took his soundings with the trumpet. Then the bird went into a frenzy of noisy flapping.

      ‘Will you please remove that hideous item,’ Dr Vyvyan shouted. With a start, I realised he was talking to me.

      I went and fetched a rag from below stairs and took it up to the room. The bird was hanging limp on its string. I untied it from the rafter and wrapped it in the cloth. It seemed to weigh nothing at all in my hands. I brought the tiny bundle downstairs and out of the house, leaving it in the courtyard for Aunty Merryn’s stinking cat to maul, before returning to my station on the stairs.

      The foreigner was telling the doctor about his ailments. ‘I thought I had passed from this world into another,’ he said. ‘I was tied on some great wheel and flying demons like Furies pushed hot pokers between my ribs. Their huge wings rustled in the darkness and brushed against me.’

      ‘You have been in a violent delirium brought on by the fever, that’s all,’ Dr Vyvyan replied. ‘There is congestion in the right lung, but the other appears to be clear, which is very fortunate for us. You have pneumonia, I would say. You caught a chill in the sea that made you susceptible to the infection which was carried on the unhealthy vapours of this cove.’ He cleared his throat. ‘May I speak plainly?’

      ‘You may.’

      ‘Well then, as soon as I heard about your reckless voyage and miraculous rescue, I cancelled my appointments, at no little inconvenience, and made arrangements to travel here.’

      ‘I am eternally indebted to you.’

      ‘As a Penwith man, I know the necessity of hiring a pilot born and bred in this accursed cove to mitigate the hazards. The very reason why this village is so isolated and barbarous is the cove’s unsuitability as a harbour.’

      ‘I have learned as much, to my cost.’

      ‘Your tour of benevolence has put your wife under considerable strain, and as you know I hold her in the highest esteem. If I may venture an opinion, your Bible thumping and extravagant religiosity are not the medicine these poor souls need. What is required is a dose of moral reform, attached to material help.’ The doctor’s tone changed as he called out in a loud voice, ‘You can come in now, madam, from wherever you’re lurking.’

      It vexed me that he knew I’d been eavesdropping on them, and I didn’t like the way he spoke to me. Especially given that it was me who had saved his patient and not his stupid trumpet. I took a deep breath to cool my temper and stepped back into the room.

      ‘I am afraid we’re going to have to impose on your hospitality for another couple of days,’ Dr Vyvyan said. ‘I will leave money so you can pay for any purchases you make on my patient’s behalf. A warm meal wouldn’t go amiss. I’ll return in two days, weather permitting, and I’m hopeful I’ll be able to take Mr Stone off your