Times and Places

by Keith Anthony

  “Try to enjoy your meal, I’m sure they can put cheese in the omelette…” It wasn’t obvious whether he was being serious or ironic, but the look he received in response communicated clearly to him that this was a line of conversation best not pursued further. The next night there were no such shortages, with the vegetarian option back to its normal tick-box status, and ‘mushroom risotto’ turned out to be an upturned cup of rice with a few mushrooms tactically placed around its sides. Sylvie resigned herself quietly to this, betraying her disappointment only with a half suppressed groan.

  Although the Maitre D’ still appeared somewhat remote, they had grown fond of Angelo: there was a naivety in his manner and they felt empathy for him as he continued his countdown of seemingly innumerable meals to serve before he could see his family again. In all though, dinner times were not the most relaxed part of the day, especially on the night Fergus – not having noticed it was another semi-formal evening – was again dispatched back to his cabin to fetch a tie, while all the other men sat open collared in the restaurant, with their jackets slung over the backs of their chairs. In fairness, most of the food was of a remarkable quality, bearing in mind the number of passengers and the fact that they were at sea after all. Nevertheless, rather than truly enjoying meals, Fergus and Sylvie usually left the dining room with a sense of relief, counting on an evening walk around the deck to restore their mental calm.

  After they had taken that stroll, their evenings varied. On the first Canary Island night they had a drink in the Conservatory Bar, before heading downstairs to hear the band in the Atlantic Lounge, with Sylvie again trying her level best to look attached to her husband while the Lotharios circled around, looking for potential partners. Fergus was unable to resist another:

  “I’m just going to nip to the Gents…” tease, which received the same “Oh no you are not!” response from Sylvie that it had generated four nights earlier.

  The next evening, they wound the night down playing cards, appropriately enough, in the Card Room. It was completely empty, with their fellow passengers either filling the various bars or attending the show in the Poseidon Theatre, this time featuring an old crooner from the 1970s. Fergus and Sylvie savoured the peace, disturbed only when a woman came into the room in order to escape the noisier areas and make a phone call: apparently there was a crisis at the pony club. The conversation only lasted ten minutes, though it would have taken Einstein himself to explain to the two card players why it had felt infinitely longer.

  “Hmmm,” said Fergus as the woman shouted down her phone, “didn’t we say that the Card Room would make an excellent place to find a body?”

  “Don’t think I’m not tempted too!” Sylvie retorted. But at that very moment the woman finished her conversation with:

  “Kisses kisses darling,” leaving the room without realising her murder had by that stage reached the point of mid-planning.

  As she left, so a man entered, settling down quietly the other end of the room, with a laptop computer open in front of him and a large reference book to one side. They could hear him tapping on the keys, but softly, so it was background noise and not disturbing. Every now and then there would be a pause and these became increasingly frequent, until eventually the typing stopped altogether, replaced only by the sound of occasional heavy sighing.

  After they had finished their game, Fergus and Sylvie stood up to leave and, heading to the door, she caught the man’s eye and enquired:

  “Not working surely?”

  “Writing a book actually, or at least trying.”

  “How interesting!” Sylvie exclaimed with genuine surprise.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” the low key response came with a hint of despondency and was followed by another sigh, “I’m not sure it’s going to be much of a success.”

  “That all depends how you measure success,” interjected Fergus thoughtfully, “maybe books are like people: a few become famous, the vast majority don’t, some might just be known by a handful of friends, some only by their creator even, but they all have value, at least if they have soul.”

  There was a silence while the author digested this uninvited wisdom and Fergus momentarily worried that he had made a fool of himself, but then the man replied:

  “That’s rather insightful. You do put a lot of yourself into writing a book, that’s for sure.”

  “How is yours coming along?” Sylvie probed gently, wary that he appeared to be struggling.

  “I’m a little stuck I suppose. It’s a story set in the late nineteenth century and I’m finding it difficult to capture the period… it’s not easy to put yourself in a different time and place,” he thumbed through the thick reference book, as if to illustrate the weight of his task, discharging motes of dust into the light of the lamp he had angled over his keyboard.

  Not wanting to disturb him further, they left him there with the Card Room to himself, she wishing him good luck and happy to hear the sound of the tap tapping restarting as its door slowly closed behind them: perhaps he was making progress again. Fergus, however, said and heard nothing, something about the encounter had left him contemplative, as if somehow lost in a memory. As she led him back to the cabin, Sylvie noticed this but sensed it was not a moment to intrude.

  The third evening was very different again, this time involving the latest show, which had an “Around the world in eighty days” theme. The lead male performer played Phileas Fogg, encountering his colleagues dancing in traditional costumes from various nations, while the band played songs from around the world, or at least songs with names of countries in their titles. The show culminated in a raucous gypsy number from Spain and the girls twirling around in fabulously colourful flamenco dresses, into which somehow they had ‘quick changed’ between numbers. The songs didn’t exactly trace the route taken by the original Phileas, but the combination of exotic costumes together with diverse tunes and dances created an atmosphere in which Fergus and Sylvie were able happily to lose themselves, though he again worried a little as to how Nicole was able to convey so much sadness in her vocals.

  “Didn’t you think the leading lady singer was good, the auburn haired girl?” He ventured to ask his wife afterwards.

  “Do you mean the one with the deformed arm?” Sylvie queried rather bluntly, trying to distinguish between the singers, but immediately regretting her choice of words.

  “Oh come on, she’s so much more than that!” Fergus almost barked back, feeling defensive of Nicole and in a rare moment of disappointment in his wife.

  “I know, that was insensitive. Sorry.”

  Relief swept over him that his wife had recognised her tactlessness, as well as some embarrassment that – without thinking – he had reacted so strongly. They headed out of the theatre and back on deck, star gazing once more from beneath the bridge.

  “Speaking of the singer… have you gone and got yourself another little crush?” Sylvie asked delicately. There was a pause, which surprised her, then:

  “There is something about her… something sad,” he answered. Sylvie recognised the sadness too, in hindsight she could see it, but she said nothing. “I don’t know,” he went on, “I’m a bit fascinated with them I suppose, the singer and the dancer I mean… but more than that, I’m a bit concerned for them…” Sylvie looked dubious, but she could see he meant it. “Maybe it’s the singer’s arm, maybe it’s the dancer’s friendliness… maybe it’s what might have been… perhaps I feel protective towards them.”

  Sylvie was sufficiently attuned to her husband to hear the unspoken “because I failed to protect Justine.” She gave him a hug, before audibly whispering:

  “And maybe it’s because they are a little bit pretty too?”

  “Hmmm… yes, there might be a bit of that in the pot as well!” Fergus admitted sheepishly, “but you know…” She put her fingers on his lips before he could finish:

  “Shhh,
quiet Romeo, you are over-thinking and over-worrying… take me to bed.”

  22

  The Isles of Scilly – May 1993

  Fergus knew his daughter liked extremes and so they took a launch for the twenty minute trip to St Agnes, the smallest, most westerly of the inhabited islands. Once there, they walked down a narrow lane, past pretty cottages and then along a footpath, until they were out on moorland overlooking the Atlantic and towards America, more than three thousand miles beyond. Justine, the peak of her pale pink baseball cap protecting her eyes from the sun, stared out to sea, as if it were possible, if you strained hard enough, to look all the way across.

  They collapsed on the grass, ate chocolate and enjoyed being at this extremity, breathing in the fresh air and feeling satisfied to be at the very end of their nonstop journey of fifteen hours from Paddington, and a couple of hours longer than that since they had left home. They rested there a while, before leisurely completing their circle, finding themselves once more at the small quayside where they had first arrived. A few minutes later, the same launch collected them and took them back across the sea to Hugh Town, dropping other passengers off in time to catch the return ferry to Penzance. Fergus and Justine, meanwhile, made their way towards the small, but inviting, hotel they had booked for the night in the town centre.

  They settled into their twin room and each had an urge to go to sleep there and then, but Fergus rallied both himself and his daughter and they found a nearby pub in which they ate fish and chips, recounting to each other their favourite moments of the preceding twenty-four hours.

  “Mum, guess where we are?” Justine said down the phone once they were back in their room, “the Isles of Scilly!” she continued before her mother could answer. Sylvie listened to her daughter tell her all about the sleeper train, the ferry, the basking sharks, the launch across to St Agnes and back again. Visiting her sick friend had been something she had wanted to do, but it was also rather depressing, and she felt her spirits revive as she listened to the joy and excitement in her daughter’s voice. Eventually, Fergus was handed the phone:

  “So it’s going well?” Sylvie asked.

  “So far, perfectly,” he replied. Sylvie felt a moment of regret that she wasn’t there with them; but then she recalled how she and Justine had often shared time together and, reassuring herself that there would be plenty more of that to come, her sorrow was replaced by a deep contentment that Justine was enjoying such a great trip with her father.

  “I’m pleased… and proud, but I’m missing you both…”

  “And we you, but we’ll see you the day after tomorrow… are you OK?”

  Sylvie insisted she was fine, even though secretly she felt a little lonely away from home without them, the trials of her own day catching up with her.

  “You’re not a bad father, Fergus.” She gave this verdict tiredly, pulled between the draw of her awaiting bed and a reluctance to say goodbye to her only family, who suddenly felt very far away.

  “And husband?” He asked cautiously.

  “Not bad, not bad at all.”

  They said goodnight, Justine shouting a “sleep well Mum” from across the room, and they returned to their separate corners of the country. Justine got changed in the bathroom and by the time her father had done the same she was already sound asleep. He switched off the light, stifled a cry as he stubbed his toe fumbling for his bed in the dark, and then quickly fell into a deep sleep to rival that of his daughter.

  After breakfast the next morning, they packed up their rucksacks, put on their new baseball caps and headed back to the harbour, the idea being to take a boat trip out to the Western Rocks, where Fergus knew they were almost bound to see seals, though he hadn’t told this to Justine. Then the plan took them on to the Bishop Rock Lighthouse, after which, were they to keep going, it would be ‘next stop America!’ And so they found themselves back on a launch, with a dozen or so other nature lovers, skirting around St Agnes and then the Annet island bird sanctuary, where, to their astonishment, they saw puffins in significant numbers on the cliffs and bobbing around in the water. Through her father’s binoculars, their clown like faces stared back adorably at Justine as the boat gently sailed by. Meanwhile, Fergus was quietly thanking God for another piece – this one unexpected – of a jigsaw which was coming together to create a perfect weekend away with his young daughter.

  When they reached the Western Rocks there were seals everywhere, some gently dozing upon them, some swimming in the sea and others simply bottling, that is to say floating in the water with just their noses breaking the surface, so they could breathe. Justine, chalking up yet another spectacular member of British wildlife, was again ecstatic, romantically envying their lives lazing around in the Atlantic. Had they been able to speak, the seals may have invited her to come back in the winter and see if she still envied them then, but perhaps they wouldn’t have sought to argue that overall it was such a bad life. After half an hour or so, the boat’s motor cranked up and, despite Justine willing it not to, the launch headed deeper out into the Atlantic, leaving the seals behind. She didn’t know it at the time, but she was to see seals several times again in her short life, including four years later when she was swimming off a Cornish beach and, for a few fleeting but magical seconds, came face to face (or perhaps face to snout) with one, so close that she swore she could smell the fish on his breath. That, however, was for the future…

  The launch approached the Bishop Rock Lighthouse, a tall tower rising some fifty metres into the air and standing on a rock so small they couldn’t actually see it until they were extremely close. They circled the lighthouse a few times and both Fergus and Justine found themselves wondering what it would have been like to be a lighthouse keeper in such a location:

  “And in the winter you’d be stuck there for weeks!” Fergus exclaimed, unsure whether the prospect appalled or appealed, though suspecting the latter. Justine was in no doubt:

  “How fantastic!”

  The launch then did something unexpected but wonderful, throttling up its engines and heading a mile or so deeper out to sea, before powering them right down again, until they were off completely. There, in what felt like the middle of the loneliest part of the Atlantic, they spent ten minutes floating in a silence broken only by waves washing against the boat, the gentle sea breeze and the occasional cry of a distant gull. It felt as though everyone in the boat understood the magic as barely a word was spoken. Eventually, and perceptively, Justine whispered to her father:

  “We must remember this is here, when we are having bad days at school or at work.”

  “Yes we must,” her father replied succinctly. He took off his cap a moment, ruffling his hair in the sea breeze and then, with his mind, took pictures in all directions: of the horizon deeper out in the Atlantic and of the lighthouse and the Isles of Scilly in the distance back the way they had come.

  A painful moment lasts an age and a perfect age lasts but a moment. All too soon the engines came back to life and the launch swept them home to St Mary’s and the quayside at Hugh Town, arriving at noon, just over two hours after they had left. But Fergus’ plans were not yet finished…

  They wandered into the town and had a drink and a bite to eat, before returning to the quay just in time to see the Scillonian docking. It would sail for Penzance in a little over four hours, with them on board. Fergus had researched that there would, in the meantime, be a little ferry to the neighbouring island of Tresco, for any day trippers from the mainland who wished to see its famous Abbey Gardens. The same boat would, of course, bring them back to St Mary’s again before the Scillonian sailed. And so, having been on the Isles of Scilly for just twenty-four hours, they clambered aboard a launch to their third island, this time little more than ten minutes away across the sound.

  The Abbey Gardens were a short hike up from the quayside and Fergus and Justine soon found themselves wandering amongst lush
green plants and trees, the like of which he would not see again for another twenty-three years. It was hot too, for spring at least, and there was definitely a sub-tropical feel in the air as they wandered the paths, stopping occasionally to enjoy the views and the exotic flora, resting at one stage in a beautifully coloured shelter made from a mosaic of sea shells. Fergus had wondered whether, after the wildlife, plants would be a little dull for his daughter but, whilst it was true they were not as exciting, he could see she was entranced as she walked around this Eden: a paradise which surely must have been cut loose from somewhere far more distant, drifting on the Atlantic currents, winds and waves until it finally ran aground here, just off the south-western-most tip of England, no more than four hundred miles from their own home.

  “I know it was a long trip to get here,” she said, “but it’s still incredible that all this is so close.” Fergus agreed and wondered why they hadn’t paid a visit before. He was, however, also just a little nervous about missing the launch back to St Mary’s, so, after two and a half hours wandering the gardens and taking a drink in the café, they headed back down to the little harbour and sat on a wall waiting for their ride, which duly arrived fifteen minutes later, eventually chugging them back across the water to where the Scillonian was patiently idling. On deck, Fergus asked:

  “So, the Isles of Scilly, hit or miss?”

  “Bullseye!!!” Justine replied with a beaming smile.

  The ship left the islands by a different route, turning left out of the harbour and squeezing between St Mary’s and St Agnes, before setting its sights on Land’s End some twenty-eight miles away. They savoured every moment of the return trip but Fergus was adamant that they should eat on board, as it would be past eight by the time they reached Penzance. The food in the little café was basic, but it more than did the trick and both ate hungrily after their eventful day. When they finished, they could see through the window that they were alongside the Cornish coast and they returned up on deck to watch it go by, better wrapped up now against the evening chill. Finally, they sailed past the village of Mousehole and turned into Mounts Bay, with the lights of Penzance glimmering in the distance and the dark tower of its church outlined against the evening sky.