weir, black-wet, solid as a tree trunk, hurtling in the direction of his nose – not even the time to exclaim Oh! before—
He tried to explain all this to the nurse. It was a lot to say when his own mouth was a foreign country and every word a new and arduous route through the alphabet. At first he was slow, his speech clumsy, and he semaphored with his hands to fill the gaps in his account. Sometimes she chipped in, anticipating intelligently what he meant to say, and he grunted to indicate, Yes, that’s right. Little by little, he found ways of approximating the sounds he needed and became more fluent.
‘And is that where you found her? At Devil’s Weir?’
‘No. Here.’
He’d come round under the night sky. Too cold to feel pain, but knowing by animal instinct he was injured. Understanding that he needed warmth and shelter if he were to survive. He had clambered out of the boat carefully for fear of collapsing in the cold, cold water. It was then that the white shape had come drifting towards him. He’d known instantly that it was the body of a child. He’d stretched out his arms and the river delivered her neatly into them.
‘And you thought she was dead.’
He grunted yes.
‘Hm.’ He heard her take a breath, put the thought aside for later. ‘But how did you get from Devil’s Weir to here? A man with your injuries in a damaged boat – you can’t have done it alone.’
He shook his head. He had no idea.
‘I wonder what it was that you saw? The thing that distracted you at Devil’s Weir.’
Daunt was a man whose memory was made of pictures. He found one: the pale moon suspended above the river; he found another: the looming weir, massive against a darkening sky. There was something else too. It hurt his face to frown as he tried to make sense of it. Like a photographic plate, his mind usually registered clear outlines, detail, tones, perspectives. This time he found only a blur. It was like a photograph where the subject has moved, dancing through the fifteen seconds of exposure that are required to give the illusion of a single moment. He would have liked to go back and live that moment again if he could, open it up and stretch it out full length to see what it was that had left this blur on his retina.
He shook his head in uncertainty; winced at the movement.
‘Was it a person? Perhaps someone saw what happened and helped you?’
Was it? Tentatively, he nodded.
‘On the bank?’
‘River.’ That he was sure of.
‘Gypsy boats? They are never far away at this time of year.’
‘A single vessel.’
‘Another rowing boat?’
‘No.’
‘A barge?’
His blur was not a barge. It was slighter, a few lines merely … ‘A punt, perhaps?’ Now that he had heard himself suggest it, the blur resolved itself a fraction. A long, low vessel navigated by a tall, lean figure … ‘Yes, I think so.’
He heard the nurse half laugh. ‘Be careful who you tell. They will have it that you have met Quietly.’
‘Who?’
‘Quietly. The ferryman. He sees to it that those who get into trouble on the river make it safely home again. Unless it is their time. In which case, he sees them to the other side of the river.’ She pronounced those last words in a tone of half-comic gravity.
He laughed, felt the pull of pain at his split lip, and drew in breath sharply.
Footsteps. The firm and gentle press of cloth at his face, and the sensation of coolness.
‘Enough talking for a little while,’ she said.
‘Your fault. You made me laugh.’
He was reluctant to let the conversation come to an end. ‘Tell me about Quietly.’
Her footsteps returned to the chair and he pictured her there, plain and tall and strong, and neither young nor old.
‘There are more than a dozen versions. I’ll just begin and see what comes.
‘Many years ago, in the days when there were fewer bridges than there are today, the Quietlys lived on the banks of the river not very far from here. They were a family with one peculiarity: the men were all mute. That is why they were called Quietly, and nobody remembers their real name. They built punts for a living and for a reasonable price would ferry you across the river from their yard and come and collect you again when you hailed them. The yard passed down from grandfather to father to son, over