Five meals I’ve counted – that’s two-and-a-half days, I think. I’m nearly sure from the patterns of light and dark around the window, or the porthole as I suppose I should call it now. But I still can’t guess how long I was unconscious. The great discovery that I’m on a boat, with my senses more alert now I’m drinking less laudanum, makes it possible to put more things together. I’ve managed to see that the boy has had something to eat from my bowl on three visits and he’s crept in twice with a cup of water. I think that where I’m being kept is a storage hold with part of it raised up above the deck, which is where the porthole is, no more than seven feet above my head. I suppose it is there for people to look down at the cargo, rather than for anybody inside to look up. There may be more than one hold, because this one seems not so very large, maybe about twice the dimensions of our drawing room at home. If I stand up with my arms at full stretch, I can almost touch the ceiling, or rather the hold cover. A merchant ship, then. I’ve been wondering, to no great purpose, what it carried. Not coal or hay, because it would surely smell of them. Probably not wood either, though the smell would depend on what sort of wood. Cabbages or vegetable marrows? It seems too large a vessel for market garden produce, though not so very large. Its responsiveness to the tides – I’m nearly sure that there are tides – suggests to me a vessel of medium size, a coaster rather than an ocean-going ship. As for where Minerva, the poet and the child live, that’s towards the bows, I think. Minerva may have become suspicious about my efforts with the boy. On the last occasion, she kept him very much under her eye. I had to drink some of the drugged water from sheer thirst. I’m almost intolerably thirsty most of the time. I’m trying to distract myself by remembering things. I still have only the smallest fleeting memories of the attack, but the evening leading up to what happened is becoming clearer, starting with that protest of Harry’s: Going out again. Always going out. It was in the night nursery. Mrs Martley had given him his bowl of broth and Helena her bread and milk. Helena had been tucked up in her crib and had only opened her eyes for a moment when I bent over to kiss her, but Harry had refused to get into bed, truculent. We’d still been trying to count up to ten when Robert came in, fighting with a collar stud. Between us, we’d managed to persuade Harry into bed, then went to our dressing room. I’d dealt with the collar stud and Robert had helped me fix my dragonfly clip in my hair while we talked about the evening to come.
‘I hope you won’t find it too tedious, darling. It seems to be a rule of nature that great riches are given to boring people,’ he’d said.
‘Or that great riches make people boring. I hope we’ll never have to risk that. If he comes up with a generous donation for the hospital, it will be worth it.’
Robert’s pride and joy – the eye hospital. And yet, what seemed to have turned out to be his role in life had come about almost by chance. A young friend of ours had had his sight restored by an operation at the hospital. Robert’s interest in him had turned into a fascination with the work, and for the past three years he’d been training as a doctor and raising funds for the hospital in his spare time. The Maynards – the hosts’ name had popped into my head quite suddenly – might donate. Miles and Rosa had bowled up on time to collect us. The leather of their carriage upholstery was the green of holly leaves. They’d had the carriage for two years, at least. Why was I remembering things that didn’t matter?
Later. A thump against the side, just now. I’d been half asleep again and it brought me wide awake. My first thought was that some other boat had crashed into us, my second that this was the rescue. Even through my drugged sleep, I’d been more than half expecting it. I was on my feet at once, pulling up my shredded stockings, twisting my blood-clotted hair into a knot, ready to run. Nothing happened. It had been quite a soft thump, no battering ram. Then something jolted down the side of the boat, seeming very close. A rope ladder being let down and a male voice from the deck, saying something I couldn’t catch. The hope of rescue faded almost to nothing. This was some visitor, recognized and expected. Still, I stayed on my feet, hoping even now. After an uncertain number of days with so little happening, any change seemed welcome. Then there was a soft, unsteady tap of feet on wooden rungs as somebody climbed the ladder cautiously. Whoever it was must be unaccustomed to boats. More words, then two sets of male footsteps on the deck. So a man who wasn’t a sailor had arrived, probably by rowing boat. One lot of steps came back along the deck, and something was thrown down and landed with a thump, presumably in the rowing boat. It must have been the end of a rope, because after that three loads were drawn up, sounding heavy as they bumped down on the deck. Supplies, probably, and there must be some person down in the boat hooking them on. So we were anchored close enough to the shore to be reached by rowing boat. If fresh supplies had been delivered, the intention was for us to remain on the boat for some time. There were more people in the plot than the two-and-a-half that I knew to be on board, but that had been pretty clear from the start. The loads were dragged across the deck. Some minutes after that, voices sounded from the other side of the plank wall, where Minerva, the poet and the boy lived. This was unusual because, as far as I could tell, they mostly went about their business in silence. The new arrival and the poet seemed to be arguing. I heard, ‘… Manage without if we have to …’ from him and a loud, ‘No’, from the other man. He must have been standing close to the partition when he said it, then moved away, because the next words were less distinct. I caught, ‘… There’s still time. It’s definitely fixed now for Friday the twenty-third, so we know where we are.’ Then, ‘… Message to him when he lands …’ Then the argument probably finished, because I only heard them moving about, nothing else.
Sometime after that, Minerva and the poet came in. I hadn’t heard the other man leave, so he must still be in their living quarters on the other side of the partition. Minerva was carrying a candlestick and an ink stand, with the blotter under her arm. She put them down on the table. The blotter had a blank sheet of writing paper tucked into the corner.
‘Come here,’ she said.
I stayed where I was on the pallet until the poet made a move towards me, boots squeaking. I didn’t want to be dragged, so I got up and moved over, taking my time. Minerva had her veil down, as usual, but I had a sidelong glimpse through it of those eager eyes.
‘Write what I tell you, like last time. Whatever you’d call him, then this. I’m still alive but only because you’ve done as instructed. Continue to … You’re not writing.’
‘I’m not going to write.’ It was simple stubbornness because, with my wits coming back, I was sick of being passive. Minerva dipped the pen into the inkwell and tried to force it into my hand. I let it drop on the floor.
‘Pick it up.’
I didn’t. She hit me a stinging blow across the cheek with her open hand. The force of it made my teeth bite the inside of my mouth. I bunched my fist and hit her a lucky blow right in the stomach, a woman’s stomach definitely, yielding a little but not much. She let out a gasp, and the poet who’d been standing behind me grabbed my right arm and twisted it up behind the chair. When I tried to pull away from him, he just twisted more until I was sure if he forced it another inch my arm would snap.
I yelled out: ‘I can’t write if you break it, can I?’
To my surprise, he let go. I sat there, rubbing my arm, the taste of blood in my mouth, sweat on my forehead, trying to think. Heroism is all very well in opera, but when you’re alone, hungry and thirsty with no aria to sing, you realize its limitations. They could, between them, beat me unconscious, though that would defeat their object for the present. Still, I’d have to come to at some point, and then it would begin again, and – sooner or later, more or less damaged – I’d have to write the letter. Or die, I supposed. But then, they needed to keep me alive because I was their hold over Robert, and it was now clear that whatever they wanted him to do was the point of all this. I couldn’t imagine what it might be. They must believe that he possessed some influence, some skill or access to somewhere or somebody that mattered to them. But for the past few years, Robert had been leading an even quieter life than I had. True, he had sympathies with Italian patriots fighting to unite their country and had helped some of them, but more recently, his medical studies had taken up most of his time and energy.
‘Suppose we discuss a deal,’ I said, my voice sounding thick from thirst and blood. ‘I might agree to write under certain conditions.’
‘What?’ Minerva’s voice didn’t sound entirely normal either. My punch must have done some damage.
‘Stop drugging me. I want a plain cup of water with nothing in it before I think of doing anything.’
Minerva and the poet looked at each other.
‘Write first,’ she said.
‘Water first.’
Their hesitation proved one thing: they did not want to kill me, at least not at present. They exchanged another look, then Minerva went out of the door, leaving me with the poet. He didn’t speak or move. It was some minutes before she came back with the cup of water. It looked clear and tasted slightly of mud, nothing else. I made myself drink slowly, savouring every mouthful.
‘Now write. I’m still alive but …’
I wrote down her dictation, my arm throbbing. The complete message was short enough. I’m still alive but only because you’ve done as instructed. Continue to obey instructions or you may never see me again. Then simply my signature, with no love sent. How could I do that when they were forcing him to do something against his will and I was helping them? She blotted and folded the page, then took a step towards the door.
‘Do you have to keep me in the dark?’ I said. ‘I’m doing what you want. At least unblock the window and let me see some daylight.’
I called it window instead of porthole because I didn’t want them to know I’d guessed I was on a boat. She didn’t answer and they both left, taking the letter and the candle with them.
Soon after that, steps sounded across the deck and down the ladder, and the rowing boat drew away, taking, I was sure, my letter with it. I stayed sitting at the table, blaming myself for writing. After a while, it struck me that line of thought was no use to Robert and I should go on adding together what little I knew. One thing I’d recently learned was that Minerva and the poet were under somebody’s orders. They were no more than gaolers, with most of the planning happening elsewhere. The demand that I write a second letter had closely followed the arrival of somebody in the rowing boat. I wished I could have managed to open the porthole to get a look at this new person. I looked up at it, just beyond the reach of my fingertips. If I moved the table underneath it and used the chair to climb up on to the table, I’d reach it, but my mouth, head and arm were aching, my whole body weak from inactivity, my … While I was running through all the reasons against it, I found I was on my feet, moving the chair. That went easily enough, so I tried the table, inch by inch, careful not to make a sound. The nearly empty hold would amplify sound like a drum. Some grit must have got on to the floor under the legs, because it made a scraping sound that sounded loud to me but would probably be no more than a rat’s scuttling to anyone outside. I tried to take the weight and lift it rather than drag it, and was breathless when I’d got it under the porthole. Then, hurry took over. If I was going to try it at all, it must be before somebody came in with the next meal. I stepped on to the chair, lifted one foot on to the table, took a deep breath and followed with the other. It seemed desperately insecure, with nothing to hold on to, though the table was probably not much over two feet high. It brought my head under the ceiling of tarred planks – too high, in fact, so that I had to bend my head back to look up at the porthole. The view was not encouraging. It was secured by four thick brass bolts, with the nuts on the outside. There was no way of budging it. The cover was over the outside – a metal disc that looked firmly secured, but I couldn’t have reached it in any case. I got down, then returned the table and chair as far as I could to their previous positions. The experiment should have left me more cast down, but strangely did the reverse. At least I’d done something for myself. When, sometime later, Minerva and the boy came in with the stew, I ate most of it, leaving only a few chunks of beef for the child that he managed to bolt down when Minerva’s back was turned. The water that came with it was like the previous cupful – clear but slightly muddy tasting. It was an expensive bargain I’d made, but at least they were keeping to it.
That night – I think it was night because the small amount of light in the hold turned orange then went – I slept more deeply than I expected and dreamed. I was a child again, with my mother and father still alive. They’d taken my brother and me on some treat. In my dream, the childish rush of excitement came back to me, along with vivid pictures: a man in a leather apron, white-bearded, who seemed very old to us but kindly. His hand had a long iron claw and the claw – a chisel, I could make out now – was biting into a large wooden something clamped in a vice as easily as I could bite into an apple. It was shaping out the mane of a fine horse’s head, with wide eyes and flared nostrils. We understood that it was to be our rocking horse. Small curls of wood fell down, white with the faintest tinge of pink like sea shells. I stooped, picked one up from the floor and lifted it to my nose. I was instantly awake, panicking, crying out. It had been the same smell on the sleeve that came across my face from behind just before they hit me – the clean, sweet scent of fresh wood, of a carpenter’s workshop. The memory was so vivid that for some time I lay there, shaking. Nobody had come running, so my shout couldn’t have been as loud as it sounded to me. It was still dark. After a while, it began to rain – not very heavily, but regular and persistent, drumming on the roof of the hold. The sound of it sent me back to sleep. When I woke, the rain had stopped, daylight was coming in and one side of the blanket felt damp. Part of the pallet was damp too, and at first I was simply annoyed because rain had leaked in. Then the significance of it struck me. I stood up, pulled the chair over to stand on and looked as closely as I could at the ceiling of planks. There it was, two planks in from the side – a darker patch about a foot in circumference, a few drops still clinging, waiting to fall. I heard footsteps outside, and was just in time to get down and put the chair back in its usual place before Minerva and the boy came in with the porridge.