Signals of Distress by Jim Crace

Author:Jim Crace [Jim Crace]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780330473798
Publisher: Bolinda Digital Pty Ltd

‘GOOD MORNING, Mrs Bowe.’ She didn’t seem to want to stop and talk. Her smile was wintry, but she was cold and tired and shy, no doubt, and keen to get the pilchards off her back. ‘I trust you suppered well on that beef-fish you netted yesterday.’

‘A tasty fish,’ she said, and took a further step towards the salting hall. She hadn’t liked to smile too freely; he had an oily scab of burnt fish-skin on his nose. A comic beauty spot.

‘You might remember, Mrs Bowe, my parting words to you yesterday when you were kind enough to entertain me at your home. I promised to devise some ways in which I might alleviate your loss of kelping for a living …’ (she took another step, and moved the basket on her shoulder) ‘… for which, alas, my family firm owes some responsibility.’ He closed the gap between them, and whispered, ‘Your daughter, Mrs Bowe. Now I might help you both through her, though I would not wish to separate a mother and her daughter unless …’

She looked at him and nodded. She understood. ‘You mean to take my Miggy as a maid?’

‘No, no. I would not take her as a maid. Your daughter is too fine.’ He swallowed deeply, blushed, and spoke almost inaudibly, his lips six inches from her ear. ‘I hope to take her as a wife.’ Rosie Bowe was startled now. She couldn’t think of a reply. She nodded. Shook her head. Raised her eyebrows. Smiled. ‘My Miggy get wed to you?’

‘You might not know of it, but I am yet a bachelor …’ He blushed again. She didn’t notice it. She’d turned away from him. She pulled a face.

‘You must regard me as a friend who wishes simply to enhance your lives,’ he said. ‘Consider, if you will, the benefits …’ He counted seven on his hands, and ended with ‘the benefit of some prosperity, not only for Margaret, but for all those who love her … She will regard it as an opportunity, I am certain of it, Mrs Bowe.’

She shook her head. ‘I couldn’t say,’ she said.

‘You might like to join your daughter in my house.’

‘No, I in’t leaving here.’

‘There’s nothing here for you, not now.’

‘It’s home, is what it is. A bit o’ kelp don’t make the difference. At least my heart is fixed.’

‘Mrs Bowe, we need to talk of this at length. You might consider me an unexpected son-in-law. Indeed, you have a right. There is the matter of my age, my class, my sensibility. I am unlike your daughter, it is true. I might not make a pattern husband for her. I owe no debt to Beauty or to Youth. But I am earnest, Mrs Bowe, and trustworthy, and diligent. My motives are sincere and simple. You will not find me stained by that Humbug which is the besetting weakness of our age. I ask you and your daughter to consider me as if I am the continent of Canada,

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