“I hope this is suitable—one of our visitors left it behind. It’s set in this part of the world, and the author lives in Cornwall. The river she describes is our river.”
It was the same well-shaped, sloping script I had seen in the tide tables on the shelf: Jack’s handwriting.
The note had been tucked into the front of the book. I saw that Frenchman’s Creek had been published quite recently—in 1941—and that the author had written several other novels, two of which had been made into films. I read the first paragraph—a bewitching description of the sea wind blowing into the Helford River estuary as gulls and wading birds skimmed the surface of the water.
I turned back to the synopsis on the dust jacket. It said the novel was the story of a wealthy married woman of the seventeenth century who flees her superficial life in London, looking for peace of mind amid the hidden creeks and woodlands of Cornwall, and finds the passion her spirit craves with a dangerous pirate. I smiled, wondering what Sister Clare would think of such a book.
I’d read four chapters when I realized it was getting dark outside. With the help of Jack’s makeshift crutch, I heaved myself upright and went out to close the shutters. The tide was on its way out again. The receding water had exposed the ugly metal barrier designed to stop enemy craft from landing on the beach. It was a crisscross of spiked metal poles, wrapped with barbed wire. It marred what would otherwise have been a perfect vista. A couple of red-legged oystercatchers were picking at shells near the water’s edge. A ridge of clouds hung low on the western horizon, tinged scarlet by the dying rays of the sun. The water was very still.
The river she describes is our river.
Jack’s words came back to me as I lingered in the doorway, listening to the sweet, haunting cries of the oystercatchers. I knew now that what I was looking at was not the sea but an estuary. The wide mouth of the Helford River. As I turned to go back inside, I caught a glimpse of the moon in a cleft in the clouds on the eastern edge of the water. I stood a little longer, watching it rise, pale yellow, its ghostly reflection shimmering on the water. The wading birds suddenly took flight, as if something had startled them. There was no sign of anyone or anything in the cove. Then I heard a distant drone as if a swarm of bees was heading in from the sea. Looking up, I saw a plane silhouetted against the moon. Two planes. Then a third. Was this the enemy? Was it one of the bombing raids Jack had talked about? With a shiver of fear, I hobbled back inside.
I lay awake, listening, well into the night. But all I could hear were the waves and, later, the patter of rain on the window. I closed my eyes, inhaling the smell of woodsmoke tinged with the rancid odor of fish. This place was very different from the nuns’ dormitory in Africa, where I would listen for the rustle of lizards in the thatched roof, breathe in the scent of mimosa through the window screens, and hear the slap of banana leaves when the wind blew.
Faces began to appear, like an old school photograph being unrolled in my mind’s eye. I said a prayer for each of them: the young African men I’d trained to assist me in the hospital—Boula, Rutshuru, Kalulu, and Batembo—who had decorated my compartment in the train with swathes of flowers and clusters of fruit the day I left the mission hospital for the long journey back to Ireland. Then there were the nuns I’d lived and worked with—some of whom had been truly sad to see me go; others, like Sister Clare, had eyes that flashed their disappointment in me as they waved goodbye. And two other faces, too young to understand why the woman who gathered them up in her arms was wetting their skin with her tears. Dear God, keep them safe. As I drifted into sleep, I managed one last prayer: You’ve brought me to this place. Please—let me do some good.
Waking the next morning, I immediately rolled off the bed, onto my knees. I was halfway through the first Ave Maria before I remembered where I was, and that I no longer needed to do this unless I wanted to.
Did I want to? To drop this daily ritual would feel as strange to me as not brushing my teeth. It was part of waking up, repeating the salutation to the Virgin Mary. It brought my dozing brain to life. And yet it was something I had often chafed against. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Saying it over and over—fifty times in the rosary prayer alone—made it feel like a magic spell: the sort of thing I’d seen witch doctors perform when they went into a trance.