Between Withers

A steely and grey cast sky with blooming clouds bulging over the horizon. The pale sun had barely rose but the old man had already been sitting aside the door for a time and watched the fellow leave without a word shared between them. A sloop on frothed seas in the distance rocking and jolting with the fury drawing nearer. The old man watched the fellow wind his way down the track past mossed stones and further to stairs of dark rock disappearing out of sight. He lit his pipe and began puffing and waited. The sloop drew nearer still before vanishing under the blackened stone horizon and the old man was still puffing and waiting. 

It were a while before another fellow came back up that same hill. The first thing he would’ve seen were the old man sitting beside the door puffing away with eyes shadowed and hollow and with jowls like a hound. He would’ve been thinking a lot of things and none of them were happy. The old man would’ve been thinking of the same old song and dance. 

The fellow trekking up that hill saw the whole keep and it was all just wet smelling and salty and coarse. The old man still stared over the horizon to where the sloop had vanished. The fellow was upon him by the door but the old man kept looking forward. 

“How’d ya choose?” The old man asked.

“Choose?”

“Aye. Choose who stayed and who came.”

“Just made sense.”

“Aye?”

“Well if we’s just gettin half for leaving then I need more’n a halfs pay.”

“Why?”

“Me and my own.”

“Aye.” 

The old man kept puffing away as the fellow went inside. Being between late night and early morning it was dark and icy and he had to wait for his eyes to come to. The fellow set his things aside and came back out to the old man still staring aways ahead. 

“They got our supplies in the sloop.” 

“Aye.” 

“How we to get it?”

The old man pointed with the smoking pipe in hand to where the sloop had gone under. “Over yonder. Gotta winch there.” 

“Dunno how to use it.”

“You'll learn.”

“Can ya show me?”

The old man shook his head lurching from the old chair and wobbled inside past the fellow still sucking from his pipe then placed it on the table. The fellow walked back down the path and could taste the ocean through his skin. Wind had chapped his lips by the time he reached the rusted mechanism which hung by the ledge. The sun was up but it weren’t enough with the obscuring thick grey to figure out how the thing worked. The old man watched from the window inside as the fellow fangled his way round it. The bulging clouds had surged upon them all grey and oppressive like by then. He could smell the rain and taste it too. By the time it started pouring and thundering and screaming the fellow had managed to work the thing and dredge up the crates underneath the obsidian horizon. He came inside all drenched carrying as many crates as he could being just the one. He set the crate atop the table beside the long since smoked pipe and sat dripping. The old man sat too eating oats from a wooden bowl. 

“Could’a used ya help.”

“Could’a but didn’t.” 

A cold quiet only broken by the tappings of spoon against a wooden bowl and the rattling rain. 

“I don’t think we should leave them there.”

“You don’t think. That’s my job.” 

The rain had picked up yet and the fellow watched the seas froth and blacken like burnt match heads stinking of rain. Winds shuddered the wooden shutters and thrashed the stone walls too. The fellow watched the bundle of crates near the ledge under all the wind and the rain. 

“Don’t you think it might fall?”

The old man shook his head tapping away at his oats nearly all but done. 

“Winds eavy.” The fellow continued.

“Aye.” 

“Might get blown over.”

“Stop thinkin.”

The fellow roused in his seat on the verge of shivering all drenched and still staring at the bundle of crates outside. 

“What do you think then?”

“Don’t think much. Nothin to think of.”

“Thought thinkin was your thing.” 

“Better to think of nothin sometimes.” 

The old man waddled from his seat and came to the crate peering inside through its wilted cracks and frowned then sat down again. 

“Not liquor.” The old man said.

“What’re we to do?”

“Wait.”

It were a full day before the rain and wind held back enough to let the fellow reach the bundle of crates to bring back one at a time. He asked the old man for help but he just sat and shook his head and kept puffing on his pipe watching him all the while in that same old chair. The sky was grey and the stone was too. The ocean all black and endless and the only thing of colour was the deep green moss which stained under each step. The fellow laboured until the crates were nestled in place and by the time he had finished the white of dusk were upon them. They sat at the table again under the flickering orange glow of their lamp while the winds rustled outside. Their spoons slapped against wooden bowls as they sucked down their meals. 

“What's your name?” The fellow asked.

“What’s yours?”

“Withers.”

“As is mine.”

“I was told your name was Smith.”

“Aye.”

“Smith Withers?”

“Aye. Somethin like that.”  

They finished their bowls in turn shoving them to the centre of the table. 

“Why don’t you help me out none?”

“I’m for thinking.”

“I can think well enough.”

“You wouldn’t be here if you could.” 

Trails of thunder in the distance amidst the crackling of fire from the hearth a room over. The fellows' eyes drooped and sagged all tired like. He would’ve been thinking how he wished he weren’t here and he would’ve been thinking how stupid it was to come here still. The old man would’ve been thinking such is life and he would've been thinking such is the way of this fellows’. 

“What do you think of then?”

“Nothin much. Got nothin for it.” 

“Then what’re you good for?”

“More’n you think.” 

The wind howled and hurt the fellows ears as the thunder trailed closer. His eyes lolling and letting with the weight of sleep’s exhaustion he retired to the bunk. As he left he could hear the old man puffing and blowing away at his pipe with the sound infesting his dreams all dreary like. His eyes failing he glimpsed a downturned frame by the bedside table and couldn’t remember if it were his or not but he suspected it weren’t. 

The fellow worked the next day away maintaining the keep while the old man kept at his pipe watching. He asked the old man to help again but retained the same shake and puff for an answer. The wind was wet and icy and stung his fingers dead to the bone. Shreddings of moss would rip from the black stones whenever the wind picked up all heavy and furious like and whipped at his face as it sailed to sea. He kept going about the keep working until exhaustion kept him to slumber. In the night he dreamt of home and all he could hear was that puffing as he would. The following day was much the same as was the one after that. Their suppers and breakfasts and lunches were taken in disquiet only broken by the pipe puffing and the spoon tappings. A few days more turned into weeks as the sea churned further black and insidious like. The fellow worked and slept and ate the days away and he asked the old man for help no more for he knew the answer was no. Much the same as every other night and day it went on until the old man reprieved a bottle from the cellar and poured a cup to each man after supper one night. 

“What is this?” The fellow asked.

“Enough.” 

They sipped while downpour pelted the rattling wooden shutters. 

“What made you get this job?”

“What made you?”

“Money.” 

“Aye.” 

Sipping again. 

“How bout you?”

“Aye. Somethin like that.”

“Somethin like what?”

The old man dragged a long swig from his cup and settled it onto the table and poured himself another. “Same as you.”

“Me and my own?”

“Me and my own.” 

“Yaint been off this place in years ave you?”

“Aye.” 

“What for?”

“Mistakes.”

Sipping again and raining yet while the wind screamed something terrible. 

“You got a wife?” 

The old man finished another cup and poured himself another then did so again. 

“I did.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You ain’t. Wouldn’t be here if you were.” 

The fellow finished his cup the same but there was none left to pour no more. 

“How you to know if I’m sorry or not?”

“Cause I weren’t when I was doing the same as you.”

“And what was that?”

“Caring for my own. But there's no own here to care for. Just me. Just you.” 

The old man struggled from his seat and walked to the bunk room then laid upon his bed with his clothes still on and it was about then that the fellow realised he hadn’t changed once yet. The fellow followed into his own bunk. He would’ve been thinking about him and his own and he would’ve been thinking about how that downturned frame was the old mans and not his. The old man would’ve been thinking but trying not to. 

It rained all the next day. The day after that too. It rained a full week. Droplets dinged the window panes and trickled down them and that was about the entertainment they had for the mornings. The ocean churned and thrashed and occasionally splashed over the keep. The wind trembled the keep shooting wisps through whatever cracks it could find. The old man found the last bottle yet and sat to drinking across the whispering fire. He offered a cup to the fellow who took it in hand and started too.

“How many years you been ere?” The fellow asked.

“All of em.”

“No you ain’t.”

“All of em that mattered.”

“I don’t like the things you say much.”

“Neither.” 

“Then why say em?” 

“Cause there were a time I would’ve liked to ear em myself.” 

“What's that mean?”

The old man poured himself another and looked at the fire dancing under the gusting drafts.“You tell me why you’re ere again.” The old man said.

“I’m ere for me and my own.”

“Where are you right now?”

“Ere.” 

“And where are they right now?”

“Home.”

“Which ain’t ere.”

“No.”

“Aye.” 

They swigged their drinks by the crackling fire with the roof creaking and the howls outside. They swigged some more still and the rain kept going all cacophonous and constant like. The fellow would’ve been thinking that he didn’t see what he meant and he would’ve been thinking that he couldn’t take another few months of this much more. The old man would’ve been thinking about how he never saw nothing and he would’ve been thinking about what he could’ve done if he did. 

“You gotta kid?” The fellow asked.

“Aye.”

“Boy or girl.”

“Girl.” 

“How old?”

“Enough to forget me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re not. I’m not either. I forgot her first anyhow.”

With that the old man hobbled to his bunk with the bottle still clasped in hand before crashing onto the bed. The fellow followed and crashed in his own and felt sleep coming as he thought about how the old man always slept with his back to that downturned frame. 

A few months passed much the same though it weren’t as often rainy but the wind still screamed all hellish and hateful like. The fellow kept at maintaining the keep working from pale dawn till pale dusk. The old man kept puffing to the side all quiet and silent and still. They hadn’t talked since the last bottle and neither had thought anything of it. There were naught to talk of because the fellow couldn’t hear it and the old man couldn’t make him. 

It were during one of the fellows' tasks when he found a rock dove cooing in the pigeon loft with a paper round its ankle. It was for him and him alone. He read it then and there and it was after finishing where he had to hide the tears that came. It was about time for supper and he left the pigeon loft with the note in his breast pocket and sat by the old man and ate. No one spoke before the old man cleared his throat.

“Got a letter.” The old man said.

“I did.”

“From your own?”

“From my own. Aye. How’d you know?”

“Saw your eyes.” The old man paused. “Saw the dove fly in too.” 

“Would see a lot with the little you do I bet.” The fellow kept slapping and chewing away at his food. 

“Better to see little and do a lot then it is to see a lot and do little.” 

“Then why don’t you do more?”

“Cause there's nothin for me to do no more. Too late now.” 

“So I’m doin good then?”

“You’re seein and doin too much of the wrong stuff and too little of the right stuff.”

“You don’t make no sense.” 

“I'll show you sense.” 

The old man got up from the table but he hadn't finished his food yet. He went into the bunk room and came out then went up the spiralling stairs and the fellow knew he was to be followed. The stairs wound themselves upwards all cramped and oppressive like and wound higher still. The fellow watched the old man ahead move with a swiftness he hadn’t yet seen. Whirring sounds from above and white light trickling through cracks from the overhead stairs. The fellow would’ve been thinking that this man was crazy. The old man would’ve been thinking if he couldn’t be better than this fellow would. 

Atop the stairs a glassy bulbous light swirled about round and round its pale torch casting over ocean and island and coast above thrashing frothing waves. The coast was littered with blinking lights like stars but on the ground. The beam rinsed about over and over.

“Whereabouts there are your own?” The old man asked pointing to the coast.

The fellow pointed towards a winking light. “There.” 

The old man revealed the downturned picture frame which he usually slept with his back to but it was now upwards. “This ere where my own are. They'll never be there.”  He pointed to the coast. “Not ever again.”

The fellow nodded.

“You’re ere for you and your own. But your owns down there and where are you?” 

“Ere.”

The old man pointed to the winking light then he poked the fellows breast pocket which still held the note. “If yaint careful they’ll be right ere and ere only. Forever.” He kept his finger against the pocket still. “You see?”

“Aye.”

“Aye.” 

The man left down the stairs back to his bunk room to lay the picture frame downby his bedside and slept with his back facing it. The fellow sat atop for a while watching the light of his own’s blinking by the shoreline but it went to sleep and so did he. He would’ve been thinking and trying not to. The old man would’ve been sleeping. 

The last couple months were much the same before but they weren’t. There was no talk between the two but they didn’t need to no more since the old man had said all he needed and the fellow had learnt all he could. The fellow worked but not so much and not so hard. The wind had kept yet and so had the rain but that too had conceded some. The ocean crashed and roared all violent and spiteful like but it bore nothing to them. The man still puffed and watched but he watched nothing in particular no more. The day before the sloop was to take the fellow back home the old man spoke his last words to him.

“Tell the next ones what I told you.” 

“What?”

“Half pay for the one who goes home. Other half for the one who stays.” 

“You workin nother few months?”

“I work no months.” 

“I seen that. You only think.” 

“Aye, I think. Moreso I’ve thought.” 

The sloop came the next day sailing over the waves and the fellow gathered his stuff and left in the morning. Though it was early and the sun was still rising the old man sat aside the door and watched the fellow make his way down that track without a word shared between. The sloop disappeared under the stone horizon of the island and the old man stared still. He watched the fellow make his way down that track before he vanished and that was that. He lit his pipe and puffed and waited. 

It was a time before the next fellow came up those steps and into sight. The first thing he would’ve seen was the old man puffing and huffing away staring ahead. He would’ve been thinking a lot of things and none of them happy. The old man would’ve been thinking the same old song and dance. 

The fellow was upon the old man but he kept on staring ahead to that bleak horizon which held atop the seething ocean and while hearing the tearing winds and smelling the new rain to come he said 

“How’d ya choose?”