Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [17]
‘I know it. You have been recommended to me, Captain Thurso, by those whose opinion I respect. I know you are well qualified. But then, so is the man I am sending with you. He is a fully qualified medical man.’ Kemp paused for a moment, then brought out, as if it were the most significant qualification of all, ‘In point of fact, he is my nephew.’ The knowledge that this would not be welcome news to the captain hastened him into further speech: ‘He will be here any minute now. I asked him to call so as to effect a meeting between you. He starts back for Norfolk tomorrow, where he will stay until we are ready to sail.’ He paused a moment, then said, with something of appeal in his voice, ‘I intend to leave no stone unturned, nothing that could assist the enterprise.’
Thurso looked fixedly before him without speaking. If this had indeed been an appeal he showed no sign of being moved by it. A relative of the owner on board! He felt the fury gain ground on him, made worse by the necessity he was under to be civil. He clenched his fist below the level of the desk. All Thurso’s stoicism lay in enduring these dark rages that would come to him, increasingly of late, all his patience in waiting for the moment, the appointed victim, God’s signal for release. Long, cunning habit made him seek now to cover the traces, conceal himself in secondary matters. ‘Perhaps you were thinking of the branding?’ he said. ‘As to that, we don’t need a doctor, what you need for that is an experienced man who knows the way to go about it. My first officer, James Barton, who has sailed with me before, he is used to doing that side of it. You need a light touch, especially for the women. Barton is an artist at it. I can swear by Barton.’
‘No, no, you misunderstand me,’ Kemp said. ‘I don’t speak of this particular thing or that, it is the general well-being that I am interested to promote.’
Thurso’s face had never been remarkable for its mobility and with the years it had set very hard indeed; but his impassivity seemed now to have a quality of consternation about it, as if rock had been able to realize at last what the weather had done to it. ‘Well-being,’ he repeated in his hoarse, toneless voice. ‘Well-being.’ It had the effect of a wondering interrogative.
‘Here he is.’ Kemp spoke with quick relief. His voice, unlike the captain’s, was a direct register of his feelings, and he had not been finding this interview easy.
The two men watched the tall figure make its way down the length of the storeroom between the stacked bales. They heard him give good-day to two aproned men loading a handcart. He stooped through the doorway, taking off his low-crowned, countryman’s hat as he did so. ‘I find you at the heart of your empire,’ he said to Kemp.
‘Hardly empire, hardly empire. Allow me to present … Captain Thurso, Dr Paris.’
Thurso had got up and the two men bowed slightly.
‘Your servant.’
The voices overlapped, mingled briefly, one deep and vibrant, the other a bare mutter, hoarse and abrupt.
‘I have just been telling Thurso what a welcome addition you will be to the crew.’
‘An addition I can’t help but be.’ Paris smiled slightly at Thurso but failed to detect any answering expression. ‘Whether welcome is another matter,’ he added after a moment, in the same tone. He thought he saw some struggle for amiability on the other’s face, which was broad and brick-coloured, with prominent ridges of bone at the temples and wide, heavy jaws, a fortress of a face that yet failed to give shelter enough to the short-lashed blue eyes. These were full of fury, he noticed now, though whether caused by present