by Peter Benson
When he awoke on a sunny June day, Mr Bell announced to Mrs Bell that he had had a revelation. Evil in this world was being channelled into homes down electricity cables, and was seeping into people through radios, light-bulbs, twin-tub washing machines and irons. It was his mission to spread this news. He got up, dressed quickly and discharged himself from hospital.
The doctors explained that his condition was caused by lack of oxygen to the brain, and after a series of adventures in St Austell and Indian Queens, Mr Bell was committed to a hospital where he died three years later, having revised his revelation to include water. ‘Washing is the worst thing you can do to yourself,’ was one of the last things he said to Mrs Bell. She mourned for six months then sold their place in St Austell and bought the house in Zennack. She had always wanted to do bed and breakfast. ‘Looking after people. Giving them a good breakfast. That’s what counts.’
‘It’s one of the things.’
‘I knew a man like you before,’ Mrs Bell said to me. I didn’t ask where. ‘I could trust him. You can’t trust anyone in this village. That’s what I miss.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Confidences.’ She reached out and touched my sleeve, and gave me a longer look than she had to. ‘I expect on board a ship you had to be careful what you said.’
I said that you did.
‘And I miss just sitting, just enjoying someone else’s company. Not having to say anything…’
‘I know what you mean,’ I said, and at that moment I knew I’d said the wrong thing. I gave her the wrong signals, but she smiled and nodded as if I had the nicest face and had said the wisest thing.
Now she offered me a cup of tea. She had the kettle on. I followed her inside. Gloria sat by the front gate. Vauxhall watched her from the doorstep, then lay down and went to sleep.
I put my shopping on the kitchen table, sat down and waited for her to join me with the teapot. It was a comfortable scene. Mrs Bell took her apron off before sitting down. She didn’t have pierced ears or a television but her skin was very pale, and her hair was dark. She had the look of a gypsy fortune-teller who gave up telling fortunes years ago, innocent eyes broken at the corners. She wore a little rouge on her face and her wedding ring on her right hand. ‘So…’ she said to me, and I knew what she meant.
‘Elizabeth Green’s at my house,’ I said.
‘At your house?’ Mrs Bell knows what it’s like at Port Juliet. ‘She stayed the night?’
‘Yes.’
‘My God,’ she said. ‘In your house?’
‘Yes.’
‘But it’s…’
‘I know,’ I said.
‘Is she okay?’ She lowered her eyes and coughed. ‘What I mean to say is…’
‘I know what you mean,’ I said, and I smiled. ‘She’ll survive. I’m here to fetch the taxi for her.’
‘Oh,’ said Mrs Bell, and she poured the tea and told me all she knew.
Elizabeth Green was in England for the European premiere of her new film, Raintown. That had been last week, and now she had taken a few days off before flying back home to America.
She had appeared in Zennack two days ago. She’d taken a cab from Penzance. She booked into Mrs Bell’s and did nothing but complain. First the bed was too small, then it was too high, and then the room was too noisy. When she said the bathroom was dirty Mrs Bell was indignant, told her that none of her previous guests had complained and went to make herself a cup of tea. ‘I’ve never been so insulted,’ said Mrs Bell.
‘Her mother was born in Port Juliet.’
‘That seems unlikely.’ I don’t think Mrs Bell had spent her whole life in Cornwall.
‘I think it’s true.’
She huffed, and poured herself another cup. ‘You could eat off my taps,’ she said.
‘Of course you could,’ I said, and I told her about the state of my house, and how ashamed I’d felt.
‘Have you seen any of her films?’
‘I don’t think I missed one. Whenever I was in port I went to the cinema.’
‘I haven’t been for ages.’
‘There’s a cinema in Truro,’ I said. ‘We could go one day.’
She touched her hair and looked at her cup of tea. ‘Could we?’
‘Of course.’
‘I’m not sure,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t think it would be a very good idea.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because…’ she started, and then she coughed noisily and said, ‘And the phone never stopped. In the end I had to take it off the hook.’
‘When?’
‘When that woman was here. I don’t know. Someone from London, and then there was an American. I overheard her talking; I think she was expecting Port Juliet to be more than what it is, but I wasn’t going to set her right. I thought, serves you right, treating me like this.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘And she turned her nose up at my breakfasts. That was the last straw.’
‘She’s got very little consideration.’
‘You can say that again,’ said Mrs Bell, and she stood up, tapped the table-top with the tips of her fingers and went to rinse her cup.
11
When I returned to Port Juliet, Elizabeth had her hair tied back in a bun. I told her that the cab was in Plymouth. ‘Where’s Plymouth?’
‘East. About a hundred miles.’
‘So he’s not coming till tomorrow?’
‘No.’
‘And he’s the only cab in town?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you didn’t phone for another?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
I said, ‘I don’t know.’
She narrowed her eyes and gave me a hard look, said, ‘You don’t know…’ slowly, took a deep breath, turned away and looked back towards the sea. ‘Tomorrow?’
‘Yes.’
‘So I’ve got to stay another night.’ Her voice trailed away like vapour, blowing into lowering clouds, failing.
I took a step towards the house and said, ‘Did you have a walk?’
She looked at me again, quickly, as if she was surprised to find me still there, and she said, ‘Yeah.’ She nodded towards the point and then she smiled at me for the first time. You know the one, the one from Missing You and The Forfeit Board and even Unit 505. There are dimples in her cheeks and her teeth are bright. Her head is tipped to one side and even her hair smiles. ‘I went that way,’ and she pointed. She looked down at her dress and her smile faded, and the hard face returned. She brushed at some dirt, then looked at her hands and winced. ‘I fell over,’ she said.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Who cares?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘What’s the point?’ She looked around, opened her arms to the scene and said, ‘It’s such a goddamn let-down. A disappointment. Disappointment follows me.’
‘Disappointment?’
‘I had a picture in my head of this place. Sure, it’s my fault. I had some Hollywood idea of England. People on bicycles, cheery men waving goodbye to their wives, children walking dogs.’ She slapped her forehead. ‘I can be very stupid.’
‘No,’ I said, uselessly.
She glared at me, and I waited for her to shout. I saw anger cruising behind her eyes, and then I saw her teeth. ‘I…’ she repeated, ‘can be very stupid. Believe me. And when I say believe me, you’d better.’
‘Or what?’ I said. ‘What are you going to do? Self-pity doesn’t suit you, so maybe you should…’
‘Self-pity!’ She exploded. Her arms went up and down like flags up poles, and she struggled with the words she wanted to use. ‘You talk to me about self-pity? You?’ She jabbed a finger in my chest.
‘You can make a disappointment out of anything.’
‘And save your homilies for someone else.’ Her face was flushed with blood.
‘Okay,’ I said, and I turned away, and walked past the house, up the path to the garden. At that moment I had had enough. My carr
ots needed me, and I was too old to argue about pointless things.
She shouted, ‘Where are you going?’
I raised my hand, dropped my head and said nothing. You take some abuse, you do what you can, you seek solace in a vegetable. Disappointment is a fleeting thing, and you should learn to chase it away.
Tell me about disappointment, tell me about failure, tell me about longing. Take off your shoes, put your feet up and talk. An hour later we sat together in the house, and I made a pot of tea. She tried to apologise for shouting, for being ungrateful. ‘You had your reasons. I’ve been disappointed.
I understand.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Elizabeth Green in my house. I’ll forgive her anything.’
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘You can forgive the woman you think I am, but me. The real me?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Try me.’
‘Okay. Tell me about Baja.’
‘Baja…’ she said.
‘Yes.’
She lit a cigarette, and sighed the smoke at the ceiling. ‘This happened to me before. Ten years ago…’ Her voice trailed away. ‘In 1965. After my last movie, the last one before the new one…’
‘Red Sun on the Sea?’
‘Yeah. How did you know?’
I shrugged.
‘You saw it?’
‘Yes.’
She laughed. ‘Yeah. Red Sun on the Sea. God. The things I’ve done.’
‘Why?’ I made the tea.
‘And the questions get bigger…’ She laughed.
‘I’m sorry…’
‘This happened to me then. In Baja…’
‘What?’
‘I was stranded for a couple of days, but I got to like it. I felt that today.’ She paused and took a thoughtful drag on her cigarette. ‘I was almost… I was almost getting to like this place. Walking and everything. The sea, the cliffs. Those goddamn birds. Even them. Gulls, right?’
I nodded.
‘It is beautiful here.’
‘That’s good. Isn’t it?’
‘Maybe. Lost days, days without names. Minutes that last hours. But then…’
‘Yes?’
She didn’t know.
Lost days are made by instinct. Minutes that last hours and wedge in your memory like a note. Or a scent. White flowers and wood bark blended and sealed in a beautiful bottle and hidden in a hole. Here’s the hole and here’s twenty cents. Go to the store and buy yourself some sweets. Go to Baja and buy yourself a memory that hibernates for thirty years and wakes to remind you that all truths are not self-evident. All truths are elemental.
I said, ‘I bought a lemon.’
‘Did you?’
‘For your tea?’ I poured it.
‘Oh. Yes,’ and she said, ‘You didn’t have to.’
‘No, I didn’t. But I did. How do you like it?’
‘Just a slice.’
‘Okay,’ and I cut a slice.
She said she sat at the point, watched the sea for hours and thought about her mother. She hadn’t thought about her for years, not properly, not really thinking, not imagining what it was like living in a place like this. ‘She was eighteen when she left, pregnant, widowed. My father was shell-shocked.’ She held up her glass. ‘Came back from the war, slept with Mother, drank a bottle of whisky, fell in the sea and drowned before I could meet him. In 1919 my mother left this place. She never said much about it, and it was never good.’
I managed, ‘You’ve come a long way.’
‘From Baja…’
‘What happened there?’
‘I almost stayed,’ she said, and I thought Stay here but I did not say it. I let the thought hang in the air, hoping that she would sense it, but I don’t think she did.
Her clothes were a mess. I offered some of mine again and she said, ‘What are you? Two hundred and twenty? I’m one-thirty.’
‘There’s some stuff I shrank in the wash. And I’ve got a spare belt.’
She looked down at her dress and brushed at a patch of mud.
I went upstairs and fetched a pair of trousers, a shirt, a pullover and a belt. I put them on the kitchen table. ‘They’re clean,’ I said.
She looked at me. ‘What can I say?’ she said. ‘I give you a hard time and you give me your bed and your clothes. And a cup of tea.’
‘Forget it.’
‘What can I do?’
‘Change,’ I said, and I called Gloria and we went outside, past the ruins and down to the beach.
The sea was calm, clouds were high and racing. I smelt spring in the air, warmth, and the echo of a fast passage from Tilbury to Copenhagen across the smoothest North Sea I had ever sailed, and two nights in the city. An echo of spring at sea, carried to me in Cornwall like a piece torn from an old newspaper fluttering down a street.
You never met a woman like Jytte. We met in a pastry shop. She spoke beautiful English and offered to strop my bottom while singing choice passages from Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales to any tune I wanted. I told her that I would be happy with the basic affair but she insisted on singing anyway, and I didn’t mind.
Jytte was the first woman I wanted to marry. I was twenty-five and I didn’t care what she had done or how many unusual tricks she could play with her fingers; I wanted to live with her for ever. I could work in the docks, we could live in a flat over a pastry shop, we could take a daily stroll to the Little Mermaid, she could get as fat and old as she wanted. Jytte. She had more moles on her body than any woman I ever met; her skin was like the night sky in reverse. Once I tried to count those moles but gave up after a hundred, and I’d only done her shoulders and her back. ‘Jytte,’ I said to her, ‘I want to marry you.’
‘You are such a young boy,’ she said, ‘and I am very happy in Copenhagen.’
‘I’ll live here too.’
‘But you are a sailor. You cannot do that.’
When I was twenty-five I didn’t know that this was true. She pointed to my leather cap and said, ‘Why do you always wear it in bed?’
I shook my head.
‘Because you are a sailor.’ She took it off my head and held it to her chest. I didn’t like her doing that and she knew it, and wagged a finger at me. ‘Marry you?’ she said. ‘I think we can do better things together than get married.’
‘Only if you give my cap back.’
She felt its lining. ‘I know this cap,’ she said. ‘The sailor’s cap.’
‘My mother gave it to me,’ I said.
‘And sewed it?’
‘Yes.’
‘You won’t lose it.’
‘I know.’
‘Lose me instead.’
Elizabeth wore my old clothes but did not look lost in them, or less beautiful. Check shirt and brown trousers rolled up to her ankles. I think she could make any clothes look good, with a tuck there and a knotted corner here. I had bought a bottle of vodka in Zennack. I poured two glasses and raised mine to her. ‘You look good.’
‘Thanks.’
We drank slowly, and as we did she said, ‘Have you got kids?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘What the hell does that mean?’
‘I haven’t got any kids. You?’
‘Yeah, one.’ She drank. ‘Jacob. God knows what I did to deserve him. Don’t believe it when people say you can’t help but love your kids.’ She drank some more. ‘This is good vodka…’
‘You must love him.’
‘There you go. He loves me, but then he can’t afford not to.’
I said, ‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s the laziest man who ever lived, but he’s got a hell of a lifestyle.’ She lit a cigarette. ‘If you know what I mean.’
‘No, I don’t.’
She waved her hand in the air. ‘You don’t want to, Michael.’ She blew out smoke and looked around the kitchen, sniffed her sleeve and patted Gloria. ‘This place would give him a heart attack.’ She laughed and held up her glass. ‘If h
e could see me now.’ She drank. ‘He doesn’t like dirt.’
‘Nor do I,’ I said, ‘but there’s dirt you can see and dirt you can’t. Better to see it, then you know where it is.’
‘Crazy…’
‘True.’
‘And true, yes.’ She finished her glass and poured another. ‘He wouldn’t understand that. Not that he understands anything.’
‘Nothing?’
‘This is a man who thought Pakistan was in Africa. I suppose it’s my fault. I should have spent more time with him when he was a kid, and I should have learnt to say no. You can’t buy off your guilt, can you?’
I said, ‘No.’
She smiled and blew smoke in a thin stream, away from me towards the door. I don’t like cigarettes but she knew how to smoke one. She held it like she was in love, and sucked it like she meant it. ‘Sometimes I think like a movie. What do you think like?’
‘Sorry?’
‘You know the game?’
‘No.’
‘You’ve got to be honest. What’s the thing you relate to out of all the things in the world? You know: it could be a bottle of whisky, a place, a movie, some music. Sometimes I feel like “Three Coins in the Fountain”.’
‘The song?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve never felt like a song.’
‘What, then?’
‘I can’t think.’
‘A place? Anywhere…’
I stroked the rim of my glass, swirled the vodka and said, ‘Barcelona. Sometimes I feel like Barcelona.’
‘Spain?’
‘Catalonia.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You’ve got to be honest. There’s no point playing the game if you’re not.’
‘I don’t like games.’
‘Barcelona?’
‘Have you ever been there?’
‘No.’
‘It’s beautiful.’
‘Beautiful women too?’
‘There’s this park with views of the city and the ocean. Fountains, benches, places where you can get a drink. And the houses run down to the waterfront. They’ve got balconies, hanging baskets of flowers…’
‘Why do you feel like Barcelona, Michael?’
‘Because I like it?’
‘No questions as answers allowed.’
