Tidetown Read Online Free Page B

trial. To despatch the poor man. One of the twins took a knife to him. As if the flames were not enough of themselves.’
    â€˜Children slaughtering their own father.’
    â€˜In the name of religion.’
    â€˜A truly crazy one at that.’
    â€˜What is the world coming to, Harbour Master?’
    â€˜Demise, Midshipman Hawkins, demise and dismay.’
    â€˜Evil all around. And the Oscar boy?’
    The old sea salt puffs on his pipe, billows of blue smoke shrouding his face.
    â€˜Not the first to be led astray,’ he says thoughtfully. ‘Better away, he is. The sea is a great forgiver.’
    She sees them watching her through the window of The Sailor’s Arms. Their talk , she ponders, like all the tittle-tattle of this town, will be small and narrow and barbed. Hold my head high, despite the sharp wind. This is my town too. My life to be lived too .
    Walking along the familiar laneways, up and away from the harbour with its boats and cranes, fishermen and sea squalls, she feels the cobblestones beneath her feet. What tales could they tell? These stones. Trodden by smugglers and brigands, stained by the tears of the sea widows, clattered by the marbles and sticks of children at play. All with hopes for a life less ordinary, a life less tragic. At the top of the town, the square, with its statue of Billy Bones the cabin boy, opens up before her. She turns and peers over the rooftops to the bay and the sea stretching out to touch the hem of the sky. All is empty, no galleon in sight. The huge expanse of salty water, gently shifting in its bowl, awaiting the wind and tide to coax it back to life. So many chapters in a life , is what she thinks. All chapters: opened and closed . The thought of whatever may come next brings a gentle smile to her lips and an extra skip to her step. A near middle-aged woman, smiling and skipping her way back to her cosy cottage, a cup of tea and buttered toast in the waiting.
    â€˜Good day to you, sir,’ she greets with a smile a slightly flabbergasted Mr Higgins, the town’s one and only knife sharpener. He and the mare he is leading down the hill to the farrier look back at Mrs April as they pass, as if to say, What right has she to be so cheerful and smiling and good-day-to-you-sir and all?
    Back in her parlour Mrs April sits down in her favourite armchair by the hearth and wonders whether she’ll build a fire tonight. It is surely cold enough, and the thought of the flicker of flames and twists of light encourages her on. She has a pile of kindling and cut wood waiting in the coal scuttle. She kneels down by the fireplace, takes the small brush from its holder and sweeps the ash from the grate. As she places the twigs in readiness for the flame her mind casts back, as so often it does, to the fire in the village hall: to Oscar, to the Fishcutter twins and the sacrifice of their father-her-paramour, and the trial that sent the twins to gaol and Oscar to the care of the monks and then on to the high seas. She crumples up the newspapers and pushes them in the spaces between the kindling. As she strikes the match, lightning flashes to illuminate the room, then thunder claps, yet another warning, yet another storm set to batter and bruise.

TWO
    â€˜To go back is nothing but death; to go forward is fear of death, and life everlasting beyond it. I will yet go forward.’ – John Bunyan
    My name is Oscar Flowers. I was once a cabin boy, now I am a sailor on the ocean waves. I live on a ship with men I can trust. The sun is as hot as I had hoped for. The sky is the blue that makes the deep sea look so cheerful. The galleon creaks and sighs as it shifts slowly with the swell, its sails trimmed, its anchor dropped. Step by step, I walk tentatively to the very edge of the plank as it bends and springs against my weight. I think of the many who have walked before me, hands bound, prodded forward at the tip of a cutlass. Looking down, the frothy waters