‘Positively Sherlockian,’ said Kerry. ‘Was it the fact you’ve never seen me before that tipped you off?’
Swirly-shirt man sucked in his bottom lip, and treated Kerry to a look that was both amused and challenging.
‘I should warn you,’ he said, ‘that we treat banter seriously in these parts. I should also let you know that I am the current holder of the title Archbishop of Banterbury, and I don’t intend to relinquish a hold on it anytime soon.’
‘Noted,’ said Kerry. ‘But just so you know, if starvation wasn’t making me light-headed, I would consider rising to that challenge.’
The giant gave a despairing shake of his head, a movement that could precede him either going back outside, or punching one of them in the face. Not the companion, Kerry guessed. He had the look of a long-time offsider, a Sancho Panza to the giant’s Don Quixote, had the latter been a World Wrestling SmackDown champion instead of a delusional barmpot on a knackered nag.
‘We done here?’ the giant enquired.
‘No!’ said Kerry. ‘Can I buy some food? Please.’
‘Fine,’ the giant said. ‘What’re you after?’
Kerry checked around for a menu. None was evident.
‘Er, what have you got?’
The giant frowned, as if this was a tricky question. ‘Bit of crayfish?’
‘What’s that I smell cooking?’
‘Slow cooked pork. Not ready. Another two hours.’
‘Anything else?’
The giant gave him a look. ‘Bit of crayfish?’
‘Just the thing,’ said Kerry.
When the giant was safely in the kitchen, Kerry asked the companion, ‘Er, are your crayfish the same as those little American snappers some idiot released in our British waterways?’
‘Nup. Ours are big, like lobster.’
‘Lobster? Look, when I said I had cash, I—’
The giant shoved a plate in front of him. ‘Crayfish roll: ten bucks.’
Kerry looked down at a soft white bread roll that smelled home-baked, stuffed to overflowing with lobster meat, iceberg lettuce and mayonnaise.
‘I have died and gone to heaven,’ he said.
‘Great,’ said the giant. ‘Gate fee is ten bucks.’
Kerry handed it over.
‘Want a beer?’ said the companion.
It was now three-fifteen in the afternoon, but then, he didn’t have to start work until the morning. ‘Is there more than one kind?’
The companion bent to the fridge behind him and retrieved a bottle. It was plain brown, with no label except a white sticker with the word ‘Beer’ written on it.
‘I’ll take that as a “No”, then,’ said Kerry. ‘How many bucks is that?’
‘For you, five.’
‘For everyone else?’
The companion chuckled.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked. ‘Passing through?’
Kerry had taken a bite of his roll, and was seriously tempted just to shove the entire thing in his mouth, so delicious it was. But he chewed properly, slowly, like his mother had drilled into him — ‘Don’t bolt your food, you’ll get a torsion of the bowel’ — and swallowed politely before answering.
‘I’ve taken a job at Woodhall,’ he said, ‘helping Mrs Barton. Cooking, errands, laundry, general all-purpose domestic aid.’
Raised eyebrows, at two different levels.
‘Meredith kept that quiet,’ the companion said.
‘Why shouldn’t she?’ said the giant. ‘It’s certainly not your bloody business.’
‘Didn’t say it was.’
‘You’re pissed off you didn’t know, though.’
The companion, Kerry noted, was indeed somewhat irked.
‘And why you?’ he demanded of Kerry. ‘What are your qualifications?’
Be bold and honest. Ish …
‘Well, my mother did insist I keep my bedroom tidy,’ said Kerry. ‘But I suspect my major recommendations were that I was available and happy to accept a certain level of pay. A low one, in other words.’
‘You here legally?’ said the companion.
‘Not your business, either,’ said the giant. ‘Nosy bastard.’
The companion rolled his eyes. ‘So have you met the not-so-patient patient?’
‘Not yet,’ said Kerry. ‘I mean I know about him — that he took to his bed after the death of his daughter. And that he seems to be against medical intervention. And that Mrs Barton is possibly a saint.’
‘He was always a bit of an arsehole, old Jonty,’ said the giant. ‘And a pompous git.’
‘Yeah,’ the companion agreed. ‘But he was a good advocate for the Bay. Knew how to kick the Council’s butt. Unlike the current bunch of Progressive Association dickwads.’
Kerry finished his roll and desperately wanted to lick his fingers to get the very last traces of tastiness, but he settled for a paper napkin.
‘Good?’ said the giant.
‘Now, normally, I’d be tempted to lie because I find you highly intimidating, but in this case I don’t need to. That was truly, hands down, the best thing I’ve eaten in months.’
He finished wiping his fingers, stuck out his hand.
‘I’m Kerry,’ he said. ‘Kerry-Francis Macfarlane.’
He braced himself for the return shake, but the compliment seemed to have softened the giant.
‘Jacko Reid.’
‘Gene Collins.’
By contrast, the companion’s grip made bones crunch, and he held Kerry’s hand just that fraction too long. Kerry did not flinch.
Gene grinned, released his hand.
‘Welcome to Gabriel’s Bay.’
Too many hours and plain-packaged beers later, Kerry found himself sitting on sun-warmed dunes, watching gulls squabble over mussels adhering to a great copper-black tangle of seaweed.
Along the beach at water’s edge, lifting a spray of surf bright as tossed diamonds, galloped a gleaming bay horse, ridden bareback by a young woman with long, blonde hair and a face of such surpassing gorgeousness that Kerry caught his breath. She glanced across at him, lifted a hand in greeting, then bent her head over the horse’s mane and dug a heel into its flank, and the pair sped down the sand like the wild, free creatures they were.
Saints be praised, thought Kerry, with a quick apology to his father.
This might turn out OK after all.
Chapter 4
Sidney
‘Sid.’
Jacko Reid handed Sidney Gillespie a jar of bread-and-butter pickles. She removed the lid with one swift twist and handed it back.
‘Ta.’
‘No problem.’
‘That’s a real talent,’ said Gene from his seat on the Boat Shed’s back doorstep. ‘What’s your secret?’
‘I trained with Lego,’ she told him. ‘Could never find the little brick separator thingy and didn’t want to bugger my knives.’
‘Lamb shoulder and six bread rolls OK?’ Jacko asked.
‘Whole shoulder? You sure?’
Jacko totted up the items Sidney had brought him in a cardboard box. ‘Four jars of honey, two lettuces, two heads of broccoli, bunch of spinach, three lemons, spring onions and a cabbage. Yep, that’s more than fair. You seen the price of broccoli right now?’
‘Luckily, I don’t have to look.’
‘People make their own luck,’ said Gene.
‘Fuck off,’ said Jacko. ‘People work hard and take responsibility.’
‘That’s what I meant.’
‘Say what you mean better then.’
‘Now, now,’ said Sidney. ‘Don’t make me reach for the wooden spoon.’
‘Your boys fight a lot?’ Gene said.
‘They’re boys. They’re less than a year apart. What do you think?’
‘There were six of us in my family,’ said Jacko.
‘Let me guess,’ said Sidney. ‘You were the runt?’
‘My oldest brother’s six-nine. Weighed twelve pounds at birth.’
‘Jesus,’ said Gene. ‘Your poor mother. We’re all runts in my family. Short, round and brown, like a set of lawn bowls. Samoan genes got smashed by the potato Irish.’
Sidney could see her reflection in the kitchen stove’s stainless-steel splashback. It was blurry and, she knew, about as accurate as a funhouse mirror, but it still made her glum. Her boys seemed to be taking after their long-absent father, who’d remained as slender as a fishing pole no matter what he ate. Metabolism, he put it down to, but despite agreeing with Jacko about luck, Sidney knew that the shape you were born with had little to do with hard work or merit or anything under your control. If you were born with the whippet gene like Fergal, or the chubster DNA like her, that’s just how it was. Eating and exercise habits could affect your weight but not your overall look. Sidney could eat lettuce all day and she would still have broad hips and no waist. And she’d be starving to boot.
Why couldn’t she have been born with a figure like — pick one — Casey Marshall’s? Lean and athletic, Casey made a shapeless, square police uniform look good. Or Olivia Jensen’s? No, scratch that. Olivia looked like she was made of garden twine, all taut and stringy. Sidney didn’t want prominent veins and sinews. Just a little less … width. She could also cultivate the attitude that you should love your body no matter what shape it was. But let’s face it, that wasn’t going to happen in her lifetime.
Reminder: Olivia’s daughter, Madison, was coming around after school today. Sidney would have to set her and the boys up with some activity that didn’t require too much supervision — French cricket in the back garden, perhaps? — so Sidney could have an undisturbed hour to tutor her student. It wouldn’t be a problem. Madison was an easy kid, polite, obliging, fair-minded, but just competitive enough to want to keep playing games with Aidan and Rory, who, let’s face it, viewed school, eating and sleeping as dull, worthless intervals between the real point of life — sport. Fortunately, they were smart and loathed losing, so they were both doing fine at school. Not so brilliantly at sleeping or keeping their voices down to anything under a bellow, but you couldn’t have everything.
Clearly, thought Sidney, if that were possible, she would have an income that didn’t make her hyperventilate every time she opened a bill, a house that wasn’t quietly and determinedly rotting, a figure like Casey’s, and a reliable, thoughtful, caring and present male lover.
‘Don’t suppose you can work Saturday, Sid?’
Jacko blew cigarette smoke out the kitchen door. Sidney had long since discovered there was no point in tut-tutting. Jacko’s father had dropped dead at fifty-nine from a massive heart attack, and Jacko had no doubt he was in for the same fate.
‘Reaper’s coming,’ he’d say. ‘Good behaviour won’t delay him.’
Jacko’s wife, Mac, worked for Dr Love, the town’s longstanding GP. Sidney knew Mac did not share her husband’s opinion of his imminent and unavoidable demise, and would be elated if he packed in the smokes.
‘But he won’t be told, by me or anyone,’ Mac had said to her. ‘The voice of God could come out of a burning bush and all he’d do is bend down and light a fag off it.’
‘This Saturday?’ Sidney said.
‘Devon’s at some family hui. Mac can mind the boys.’
Devon, Jacko’s extra help Thursday to Sunday, was one of a huge family. Over the past century the originally all-Māori bloodline had become more of a braided river, merging with the DNA of Scottish whalers, Dutch cheesemakers, Polish refugees and, legend had it, a Cheyenne chief from Wyoming. Devon was generally dependable, but family came first.
‘Sure,’ said Sidney.
It was a bit of extra income. And the boys wouldn’t care. They loved Mac, and they especially loved King, the Reids’ enormous chocolate Labrador, who would play any game with them as long as they rewarded him with food.
‘That new bloke might come in,’ said Gene. ‘I think he liked it here.’
Sidney refused to bite. This was a regular ploy.
‘He’s about your age. OK-looking, if you like them ginger.’
‘Talks a lot,’ was Jacko’s contribution.
‘Got a job helping out Meredith,’ said Gene.
Now that was interesting.
‘Is she paying him to hold a pillow over Jonty’s face?’ Sidney said.
‘That remark displays a sad lack of Christian compassion,’ said Gene. ‘The man is ill.’
‘The man is an intelligent human being who has decided to opt out of life, thus making his wife a virtual slave.’
‘Who’s now getting help. From a ginger bloke who, as Jacko says, talks a lot.’
‘It’s Jonty who needs help,’ said Sidney. ‘But, oh, no — he insists on continuing to make his wife’s life a misery. Selfish git.’
‘Mac says Doc Love goes up to the house every month,’ said Jacko. ‘Sits and reads to him.’
‘Reads him what? The riot act?’
‘A biography of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.’
‘That would drive me out of bed,’ said Sidney.
‘Doc uses it as an opportunity to assess him, seeing Jonty won’t come to the surgery.’
‘And his professional opinion is … ?’
‘Can’t help anyone who doesn’t want to be helped.’
‘Next time, Doc Love should bring all six volumes of Churchill’s Second World War history,’ said Sidney. ‘And smack Jonty around the head with each one in turn.’
‘You know, Meredith could leave if she wanted to,’ said Gene.
Sidney turned on him.
‘Could she? You think? It’s her house — her family’s house — and her garden. That place was old, sad and tired when they moved in — it was her effort that brought it back, while Jonty was off playing bloody golf with his accounting cronies. It’s mostly her money, too. Jonty obviously thought himself a big cheese, but he was a partner in an accounting firm in bloody Hampton, for Pete’s sake! Hardly Goldman Sachs in New York! The bulk of their wealth is her inheritance, nothing to do with him. But if she left him, he’d get half of everything that’s hers: house, garden, dosh, the lot. If she wanted to stay in Woodhall, she’d have to buy him out, and you know he wouldn’t go cheap. But, sure, she could leave if she wanted to. Easy!’
As if carried on the reverberation, Jacko’s cigarette smoke floated out the door. Gene sucked in his bottom lip, nodded.
‘You’ve been giving it some thought, then?’ he said.
‘Ohh …’ Sidney dragged her palms down her face. ‘Yep,’ she said. ‘I’m brilliant at identifying the problem. I know exactly what’s not working. For me, for Meredith, for this town — I could give you a comprehensive list right now of everything that’s buggered. But I can’t give you any solutions, can’t work out how to fix even one thing. Useless …’
Gene was still nodding, eyes off in the middle distance. Jacko stubbed out his cigarette, reached to the top shelf, handed Sidney a jar of sauerkraut.
She twisted off its lid, handed it back.
Jacko said, ‘Lamb’ll be ready at five o’clock.’
Olivia wasn’t due to pick Madison up until six — at the earliest; punctuality wasn’t her strong suit — so Sidney bundled the three children into the back of her car, promising them a kick around on the field after they’d swung by the Boat Shed. The boys in particular had been really good this afternoon, playing cricket out the back and doing their best to keep the noise down while she guided a fifteen-year-old boy through the Macbeths’ relationship dynamic (‘Yes, he could have stood up to his wife, but that would have made it a very short play.’). Sidney’s student, Franz, was the son of Filipino immigrants who’d come for seasonal orchard work out of Hampton, then found full-time jobs on a dairy farm and stayed. Franz was bright, excelled at maths and science, but, as his parents spoke little to no English around the house, found subjects that required written fluency a struggle. Sidney coached him as best she could, for the little his parents could afford to pay.
She’d aske
d the kids to stay in the car while she fetched the lamb from Jacko, but may as well have asked the ocean to stop being salty. By the time she returned, they were all out, kicking the soccer ball around the car park, and with them was a man about her age. With ginger hair. Sidney cursed, and not all that quietly.
He didn’t hear. Was too busy blocking Rory, who had the ball and was trying to kick it around him. It wasn’t a serious attempt to block, Sidney saw, but he was making it look like one. The ginger-haired man set his legs a little too wide apart, and Rory took the opportunity to shoot the ball straight between them.
‘Nutmeg!’ cheered the man. ‘Perfectly executed. High-five, my friend.’
Rory, delighted, gave the man a slapping high-five.
‘Next stop, White Hart Lane,’ said the man.
‘Ergh.’ Aidan screwed up his face.
‘Now, come on. How can you not be a Spurs fan?’
‘Arsenal!’ Aidan and Rory both punched their fists in the air.
‘But their mid-field is so lightweight. And there’s simply not enough aerial supremacy at the back.’
Aidan and Rory paused for a microsecond.
‘Arsenal!’
The man turned to Madison. ‘Are you my last hope?’
‘I liked Gareth Bale,’ she said. ‘But he’s gone now, isn’t he?’
‘Alas, yes. Sold for a million-squillion, possibly even a bajillion, euros to the Spaniards. It’s like they’ve been waiting this long to take revenge for the Armada.’
He spotted Sidney.
‘Hello! Are these yours? I found them running wild, like mustangs.’
‘They were told to stay in the car. Weren’t you?’
The boys squirmed.
‘It was ho-ot.’
‘Well, put the windows down when you get back in. Hurry up, or we won’t have time for a kick around. Madison’s mum’s coming to pick her up soon.’
Soon-ish, anyway.
‘Kick around?’
The man looked as if she’d said they were about to go to Disneyland, or a place where they were giving away free ice cream.
‘Don’t suppose I could join you?’ he added.
‘Yes!’ Aidan and Rory punched the sky yet again.
Gabriel's Bay Page 4
