It is time to make an end.
The Dingle Peninsula
Adèle Starminster does not find it difficult to pick up Elizabeth's trail across Brytain and Eire. A person of Lady Boreal's wealth and status leaves ripples in her wake wherever she goes, and a journalist can readily follow them.
The train and ferry bookings, the hotel staff, and a little bit of inside information from within the Boreal Foundation, lead Adèle to the west coast of Eire, and Dingle, and a tiny village in the neighbourhood of the house of Tir-na-nÓg. She takes a room in a cottage in the hamlet, under the pretext of being on a walking holiday, and easily convinces her landlady of the truth of her story by setting out each morning loaded with a backpack, and wearing shorts and stout walking boots.
The backpack contains a pair of powerful binoculars, and Adèle keeps her quarry under close observation for several days, hiding in the hills which slope down from the east towards the sea. However, it soon becomes clear to her that there is no story here. What Elizabeth is doing is exactly what she expects her to do – she is taking life very easy, never going far from the house. There are no gentleman callers. The house seems to be run by a staff of two, a housekeeper and a cook, and the gardens are maintained by a man from the village who spends two afternoons a week pulling up weeds and digging flowerbeds.
When Sunday comes, Adèle is in two minds whether she should stay here any longer or go home. There is no point in trying to travel anywhere today as there are no buses or trains on a Sunday, so she attends Mass, taking a place near the back of the oratory and making sure that Elizabeth has no opportunity to see her face and identify her.
It is entirely by coincidence that Adèle, who sees no point in staking out the house merely to watch Lady Boreal and her household eat their Sunday dinner, decides to take a walk along the seashore and discovers a heap of abandoned clothes on the beach, where the shingle meets the sand.
The Dingle Peninsula
Elizabeth wakes the following morning and, for a moment or two, cannot work out where she is. It is dark inside the hut, for the sun, rising in the east, has yet to become visible above the slope of the dunes and the hills beyond.
She wriggles out from underneath the rough woollen blankets which cover her – there are no sheets – and tiptoes across the wooden floor of the hut, not wanting to disturb the boy who is still fast asleep in the bunk opposite. The door is a ragged piece of driftwood, hung on fabric hinges and secured by a simple catch which she fumbles in the half-light to undo.
The sky is clear, with the promise of a beautiful hot day to come and the open sea stretches out before her, where the little bay opens out. Elizabeth slips out of the old blue shirt, which has doubled as a nightgown and, chased by the seagulls which hover nearby looking for scraps, walks into the sea.
I could swim for ever.
No, that was yesterday, remember.
Yes, that was yesterday. Elizabeth paddles in the shallow water for a while, then spends a little time circling around the bay before returning to the beach. The sun is peeping over the dunes now, so she stands and lets it dry her, winding her hair around her fingers and squeezing as much water out of it as she can. The boy is standing by the door of the cabin when she returns.
'You've had a swim, then.'
'Yes.'
'Was it good?'
'It was fine.'
'That's grand! Look, I've made us some kaffee. In you come!'
She puts the shirt back on and follows the boy into the hut. Now that the sun has risen properly and there is light she can see that, although it is small and appears to have been constructed from the flotsam which is washed up all along the coast, everything there is well made, and neatly put together, and tidy, with everything stowed away in its own place. Her bunk, she sees, has been made up for her, and she thanks the boy.
'That's all right, missus. Now sit yourself down and have something to eat.'
As before, the food is simple – eggs, bacon, toasted bread, kaffee, milk and butter. As before, it is the best she has ever eaten and she accepts with pleasure the second, third and fourth helpings the boy offers her. At last, when they are full, but not uncomfortably so, the boy speaks.
'There's a fair wind today. We can go fishing. Will you come?'
Yes, she will come, and together they drag the boat over the sand to the water's edge, and the boy goes into the hut and returns with two baskets; one full of worms for bait and one containing fresh bread, a ham and a jar of water. He gets into the dinghy and Elizabeth passes him the baskets. Then she pushes hard on the transom, and the boat slides smoothly and rather too quickly into the water and she laughs and runs alongside it, jumping in and laughing again as it rocks from side to side, threatening to tip them both out.
The boy is not bothered in the slightest by their narrow escape from a soaking, but raises the sail and takes the tiller in his nut-brown hand. The boom swings out to the starboard side and they sit next to each other to port, balancing the pressure of the wind on the sail with the weight of their bodies and keeping the boat upright, the mast with its fluttering burgee flag at the head pointing straight up to the blue sky above them.
They take it in turns to sit at the tiller, one hand resting along it, the other holding the mainsheet and adjusting the angle of the boom to match the warm southerly wind and the course they wish to follow. Elizabeth is delighted to discover that she has not lost the knack of sailing a small boat. When the coast has receded to a green blur in the distance they heave to, take out their rods, and fish in silence, throwing their catches into a bucket which the boy has placed in the bows.
After a few hours the sun is at its zenith, but not oppressively hot, and they eat their simple lunch. Again, Elizabeth cannot believe how good it is – the bread has a crisp crust and firm-textured crumb, the ham is subtly spiced, the water seems to sparkle and fizz as if it has just come bubbling from the spring. She sits with her back against the mast, and gazes over the water, and wonders if heaven will be so full of delight as this glorious day.
Then the boy lets her steer them back to the shore, guiding her into the narrow cove which she would otherwise have missed, and they pull the boat back onto the beach and take their catch to the door of the cabin. The boy selects the two best fish for them to eat and tells her to take the bucket down to the sea and throw the others back.
Soon, the sun is hovering above the western horizon, blazing through pink clouds, and it is late evening. Elizabeth has insisted on cooking the fish herself – although she suspects that the boy attended to them as well, when she wasn't looking – and has also boiled up a bundle of herbs to make a dill sauce to go with them and, she cannot understand how this can be possible, they have eaten raspberry ice cream, freshly made with pieces of angelica in it, out of rough delft bowls.
The boy takes the plates and cups down to the water's edge and leaves them for the tide to scour. 'Won't they be washed away?' asks Elizabeth, but the boy tells her not to worry and, sure enough, there they are the following morning, bright and clean, lying on the sand and ready for them to use.
That day they go rambling in the hills, and the day after they take a long walk north and get home late, tired out but happy, and the next day they do nothing at all but laze about on the beach; and so the bright sunlit days and soft velvet nights pass, blissful and without count, until the morning comes when Elizabeth wakes, stretches, gets out of her bunk and, looking round the hut, notices to her surprise that the boy is not there. He is not outside the cabin either. Nor is the boat.
A deep melancholy wraps itself around Elizabeth's heart. It has ended, then, like all good things do, she tells herself. It was just the same when she was a child – there was always a day when you had to pack your suitcases, take your collection of shells from the windowsill and put them into a bag, where they would be crushed and lose their lustre, so that when you got back to London they looked as faded and sad as you felt.
There is bread and a pot of chai on the table. She sits and eats and drinks. The food tastes as good as ever, but she cannot enjoy it as she has these last few days, or however long it has been.
She puts the dishes in the usual place to be washed, folds up her blankets and places them on her bed, sweeps the hut out and, taking a final look around to make sure that it is as clean and tidy as she can make it, opens the door and steps outside, taking care to fasten the catch properly.
'Thank you,' she says, although there is no one but her to hear.
The house called Tir-na-nÓg is more or less due south of here, so she walks steadily in that direction. Her shoeless feet have hardened up, so she walks with equal ease over sand, shingle, rocks and grass until she reaches the beach from which she first set out. And there it is! The boat! The boy must have gone for an early sail and landed here. Perhaps he has gone to the house to tell everyone there where she is and then they will be able to go back to the cabin together and this wonderful holiday need not end just yet.
Calling out and waving her arms in the air, she runs along the beach, splashing through the water. 'Wait for me! Wait for me!' The small figure by the boat waves back to her. Breathing hard, she crashes into the side of the boat, laughing.
'Come on! Let's go sailing!' And then she realises…
It is not the boy who is standing by the boat, but a girl, eleven or twelve years old, slight of frame, with tawny hair tied behind her neck and a look in her light-blue eyes that Elizabeth cannot read. It is her sister Lyra, wearing a white cotton shift, in which she can see, glittering in the morning sunlight, threads of gold.
'Lizzie! At last! It's so good to see you.'
Lizzie looks in disbelief at the girl, and the boat and the sea and the clouds and the grey mountains of Kerry to the north-east and finally down at herself. She is dressed as Lyra is, all in shimmering white and gold, and she is a girl herself, maybe only a year or two older than her sister, with her hair held back with a black band. And there is more… With a terrible shock she realises that neither Lyra nor she are accompanied by their daemons. When did Parander disappear? I haven't seen him for days. How could I not have known it? Why didn't I miss him? At last Lizzie realises what has happened to her. She leans against the side of the boat and dissolves into tears. Everything is undone. Her life is unravelling before her eyes, and she looks, horribly ashamed, at the pattern of its threads. She sees nothing but greed and lust, jealousy and hatred, and she despairs. Lyra comes to her then, puts her arms about her, and they embrace; as they did before all those years ago, when they first met and knew each other, in the headmistress' study in St Sophia's school in that Oxford which neither of them will ever see again.
'Oh Lyra, Lyra.' No longer the older sister, the wealthy and powerful woman of business, moving in the highest circles of society, having the ear of the King himself, she rests her head on Lyra's waiting shoulder and weeps – weeps for the love that they lost somewhere along the way.
'I have done such terrible things. What can I do now? Where can I go?'
'Come with me. You have a story to tell – your story. We all have stories, and we must tell them honestly, truthfully, or not at all.'
'How can I tell anyone my story? It is so full of hate and anger. Who could bear to listen to it?'
'Don't be afraid, Lizzie. We have good friends where we are going. They will listen, and they will demand that you speak nothing but the truth to them, but they will not judge. And I will be with you. Lizzie, look at me.'
Lizzie does as she is told.
'I love you. We all do – Will and Judy, Peter, Arthur, Mary and the others in the worlds of life. We would not leave you now; we love you too much for that.
'Pantalaimon and Parander, Lee Scoresby and John Parry, King Iorek Byrnison – they are waiting for us. All our friends who have died before us are there.'
'And our parents? Are they there too?'
Lyra's face is briefly clouded with sorrow. 'Our mother and my father died, and fell into the Abyss, and were lost. No one will see them again, while the worlds endure.
'But Lizzie – nothing is truly eternal and there is more than just Time ahead of us. One day the worlds will end, and the Abyss too, and then we may find them, in a place beyond the worlds; a place we can't imagine yet.
'And your father will be there now, and your uncle Henry too. Come on, Lizzie. Let's not wait any longer. We've so much to talk about and it's a lovely day for a sail!'
Together they push the boat across the beach and despite its weight it slips into the water with a soft sigh, as a lover greets her beloved's kiss. They climb into it and, taking the sheets and the tiller in their hands, navigate out of the broad sandy bay, past the green arms of the headlands which enfold it, and then, driven by a mild offshore wind, they leave the land behind and reach the open sea; that sea where we may not sail yet, until the time comes when it is ready for us, and we are ready for it.
Overhead the seagulls wheel and turn, and call out to one another all across the enchanted skies of that holy isle.
Aquae Sulis
Arthur has been lying in his bunk in the Maggie, covered in a golden shroud of Dust, eyes closed and lips moving occasionally, for almost two days when Harry, checking to make sure that he is comfortable, sees his partner's eyelids flicker and open. His daemon Sarastus leaves her place by his side and perches on the shelf above the bunk, where Harry's Mike joins her.
He helps the older man to sit up in bed, putting cushions behind his head, and brings him some water to drink. Harry feeds him bread and butter and, when the colour has returned to Arthur's cheeks, asks him the question which has been on his mind for the past forty-eight hours.
'Is everything well? Are they both all right?'
Arthur looks directly into Harry's eyes. Harry can feel his senses swim under the impact of his friend's indigo-blue gaze.
'Yes. Yes! Everything is fine.'
'You were able to help them?'
'They have forgiven each other, yes.'
'And – is it over?'
Arthur smiles. 'Yes. It is over; and they have made a good ending of it.'
* * * *
In a short while the Maggie and the Jimmy will slip their moorings and continue their journey east. They have a cargo of gravel to take from Bristol to London, and then there will be a load of coke for the kilns of the Burslem potteries; and after that there will be more goods to carry, and more work to do, and hard, useful lives for them to lead, navigating the rivers and canals of Brytain.
And in the end their work will all be done, and Arthur and Harry will set sail in a different boat, and make their landing on another, farther shore.
