In Pale Battalions - Retail

by Robert Goddard

  His words broke into my thoughts. What was I to say? That he was a man I’d met once but never mentioned to my husband? That he was a friend of the father I’d never known? If I’d had time to formulate a response, I might have told him the truth then – complex and incredible as it was. Instead, I stumbled into a lie.

  ‘I don’t know. The name means nothing to me.’

  ‘But he’s left you his house!’

  ‘I can’t help that. It’s as much of a mystery to me as it is to you.’

  ‘Come on, darling. People just don’t leave their houses to complete strangers.’

  ‘Well, somebody seems to have done so in this case.’

  It was clear Tony didn’t believe me, yet it would have been unlike him to say so openly. Instead, he would wait patiently, trusting that eventually I would tell him the truth. I could read as much in the cautious, practised way he erased doubt and misgiving from the expression on his face.

  ‘What will you do, then?’ he said eventually, in neutral tones.

  ‘Contact Mr Trevannon, I suppose.’

  ‘Does he say how much the house is worth?’

  ‘No.’

  My reply gave him a safe topic on which to exercise his mind. ‘Fowey’s something of a holiday resort. The right sort of place might be worth a bit.’

  ‘Yes. It might.’

  ‘I suppose you’ll want to go down there.’

  ‘I shouldn’t think I’ll have much choice.

  ‘You know I can’t get away. Not as things stand at present.’

  ‘It’s all right. I’ll go alone.’

  Alone was, after all, how I wanted to go. If Tony hadn’t been so preoccupied, I suppose he might have insisted on accompanying me, but I think we were both secretly glad that he didn’t, both content, in fact, to skirt round the truth for a little longer. I was not yet ready to share the urge I felt to learn what I could of the life and death of John Willis.

  I drove down to Fowey the following Monday. It was a cold, wet, grey day in late January: raw and chill, with all Cornwall’s charm squeezed out of it by the grip of winter. It was dark by the time I arrived. I booked into the Fowey Hotel – rambling, empty and buffeted by gales – and began to regret the impulsive journey. I’d been given a room with a view of the estuary, but, that night, all I could see from the window was a sprinkling of pale lights smeared by the trickling rain.

  The prospect had changed by morning. The sky was clear, the frost stark on the lawns beneath my window, the sunlight winking and dazzling on the water. The town lay below me, a tumble of narrow streets and huddled roofs, smoke curling from cowled chimneys. Out in the estuary, bare masts stood like winter saplings above the cluster of anchored vessels. The put-pat of a slow-moving ferry boat reached me, amplified in the still air. To the south lay the broad, flat ocean, to the north the curving, enclosing slopes of a wooded valley. This was where John Willis had made his home.

  My appointment with Mr Trevannon was for ten o’clock. He greeted me in his first-floor office above the busy main street of the town and bustled about, arranging coffee and a copy of the will. He was younger than I’d expected, tousled and ill-prepared, somehow reassuringly inefficient.

  ‘As you see,’ he said, stooping over a small electric fire to activate another bar, ‘it’s a straightforward document.’

  ‘I see he stipulated cremation.’

  ‘Yes.’ He jarred a light-fitting with his head as he rose from the fire: the low-ceilinged office seemed altogether too small for such a tall and uncoordinated man. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t contact you beforehand. Would you have wanted to attend?’ He subsided into the chair behind his desk with a sigh.

  ‘Possibly. But it doesn’t matter. And a bequest of a thousand pounds to the Earl Haig Appeal Fund.’

  ‘Mmm. Was he … an old soldier?’

  ‘As I explained to you on the telephone, Mr Trevannon, I never knew Mr Willis. This inheritance has come as something of a shock to me.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Of course. How odd.’

  ‘I was hoping he might have explained himself to you.’

  ‘Well, no. Actually, if you look, you’ll see he made the will in 1954. The Trevannon who witnessed it was my father. I don’t recall ever meeting Mr Willis. I knew him by sight, of course. Something of a local character.’

  ‘Was he? Why?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Not very sociable, let’s say. But then, on the other hand …’

  ‘It doesn’t specify a house here. It merely refers to my receiving the residue of the estate.’

  ‘After the bequest to the Haig Fund and the undertaker’s bill, the house is really all that’s left. Mr Willis wasn’t a wealthy man. Although the house must have …’

  ‘When did he buy it?’

  ‘The deeds are still with the bank. But, from memory …’

  A secretary minced in with coffee and biscuits. She leant across the desk for a confidential word with Trevannon. ‘Mr Cobb’s downstairs,’ she whispered.

  ‘Oh God.’ He grimaced. ‘Well, tell him I won’t be long.’ She withdrew. ‘Now, where was I? The house … when did he buy it? Early fifties, I think. It’s probably appreciated a good deal since then.’

  ‘So … may I see it?’

  ‘Of course.’ He raised his cup to drink.

  ‘Do you have the keys?’

  ‘Ah. Bit of a problem there.’ He put the cup down again, as if to emphasize his difficulty. ‘Actually, no. Ordinarily, I would have. But, in this case … To put it bluntly, Mrs Galloway, you have sitting tenants.’

  ‘Squatters?’

  ‘Oh no. They were there with Mr Willis’s blessing … as far as I know. Lodgers, you might say.’

  ‘So they have the keys?’

  He smiled nervously. ‘Well, naturally. I’ve explained the position to them, of course. They know you’re coming.’

  ‘In that case, perhaps I oughtn’t to keep them waiting.’

  ‘Go straight round, you mean? Good idea.’ He raised his cup again, then changed his mind: it returned, still full, to its saucer. ‘Perhaps I should … ah … tell you something about them. They’re not … the sort of lodgers you or I might take in.’

  ‘I’m sure they won’t bite.’

  ‘No … No, of course not.’ Some coffee was finally consumed. ‘You’ll want some directions. Bull Hill’s just round the corner. Number thirteen’s at the far end.’

  Bull Hill, an alley reached by a flight of steps behind the Lugger Inn, threaded between the backs of the housetops in Fore Street on one side and a tall stone wall on the other. The estuary was visible beyond the jumble of roofs, but Bull Hill itself held a sheltered, hidden warmth, divorced from the bustle of the town.

  Some way along, the wall to my left merged with the frontages of houses built on the slope above the alley and there, between two austere and shuttered properties, I found my strange inheritance.

  Number thirteen was a narrow, three-storeyed building looming above a low, crumbling wall and a neglected garden, pink-washed and slate-roofed, with paint peeling on the windows. The porched entrance was to one side, reached by a steep flight of shallow-treaded steps. At the top of them, out of the sun, it was suddenly cold: a bitter, chill breath of winter. On the door I noticed a sheet of paper, folded in two and attached by a drawing pin. I rang the bell and then, hearing no sound, tried the knocker. There was no answer. Feeling only a little sheepish, I removed the sheet of paper and unfolded it. Three words scrawled on it in biro: King of Prussia. Then I tried the door handle. It wasn’t locked.

  A strange mixture of odours met me: dampness, furniture polish, stale food, cats and something else, sickly sweet, like incense. There were soiled dishes piled in the kitchen sink and cat food in a bowl beneath the draining board. The kitchen was to the rear of the house, looking out on to a patch of shade-blighted garden where two sheets hung despondently on a motionless line. The large front room commanded a fine view of the town and the estuary. The warmth of a paraffin
stove still hung in the air, its steam heavy-beaded on the windows. There was a frayed leather sofa, a dark-wooded dining table much scratched and stained, and bookcases beneath the windows, their contents jammed and jumbled.

  I knelt by one of the bookcases and ran my eye along the shelves. It was just possible … but no. I didn’t recognize any of them. Thrillers by Hammett and Chandler, some Zane Grey westerns, most of Scott Fitzgerald, poetry by Sylvia Plath, plays by Wesker: not at all what I’d have expected.

  ‘Hello?’ A voice came from behind me. I turned round to find myself looking at a slim, rather blank-faced girl in her early twenties. She had long blonde hair with brunette showing at the roots and wore an oversized caftan coat over a cheesecloth shirt and tight, faded blue jeans. ‘You must be Mrs Galloway.’ There was a lilt of Cornishness behind the practised drawl.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. I’m sorry to have barged in. The door wasn’t locked.’

  ‘It never is. I’m Zoë Tefler. I live here.’

  ‘I thought you must.’ I held out my hand: she shook it awkwardly, as if the gesture was an unfamiliar one.

  ‘We were wondering when you’d arrive. I’m sorry it’s such a mess.’

  ‘There was a rather odd note pinned to the door.’

  She shrugged a knitted bag off her shoulder into an armchair and laid her hands on the still warm stove. ‘The King of Prussia’s a pub. It means Lee’s gone down there. You must have just missed him.’

  ‘Pity.’

  She laughed, then squinted back at me as if in need of spectacles. ‘You’re not really what we expected.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Johnno never mentioned you.’

  I decided to test her knowledge. ‘He never mentioned you either.’

  ‘He wouldn’t, would he?’

  ‘Why not?’

  She walked to the window and lit a cigarette. I declined the offer of one. ‘What will you want to do with this place?’

  ‘I was hoping we could discuss that. Perhaps when … Lee gets back.’

  She laughed, as she had before. As she drew on the cigarette and gazed out of the window, I noticed for the first time that she was really quite beautiful: long neck, high cheeks, large, almost luminous eyes, all carried with a casual air of waif-like awareness.

  ‘Would that be possible? There’s no hurry. I’m staying at the Fowey Hotel overnight.’

  She frowned, then looked at me with sudden concentration. ‘Mrs Galloway’ – another drag on the cigarette – ‘did you … mean something to Johnno?’

  I was determined to give nothing away. ‘I must have.’

  ‘When did you know him?’

  ‘I last saw him fifteen years ago.’

  She nodded pensively. ‘Why don’t you come to dinner tonight? You could meet Lee then.’

  I was taken aback by the abruptness of the invitation. ‘Well … all right. Thank you. I’d love to.’ Suddenly the abnormality of it all struck me. Zoë Telfer wasn’t at all the sort of person I’d have accepted – or expected – a dinner invitation from.

  ‘Do you want to … see round the place?’

  ‘It’s kind of you, but I shan’t intrude. Perhaps … later.’

  ‘OK then. Come round about seven.’

  ‘Until seven then.’ I turned to go.

  ‘Mrs Galloway …’ I stopped and looked back at her. She took a lengthy draw on the cigarette, then stubbed it out prematurely in an ashtray on top of the bookcase. ‘I miss him, you know. It’s funny really. I was hoping you’d be somebody I could talk to about him.’ She looked at me with her frank, saucer-like eyes.

  ‘To be honest, I didn’t know him that well.’

  ‘Nobody seemed to. And now … it’s too late. It was so … unexpected.’

  ‘A heart attack, Mr Trevannon said.’

  ‘Yeh. Poor old Johnno.’

  ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘He was always up early. That Sunday, he hadn’t stirred by midday, so I took a cup of tea in to him. At first, I thought he was still asleep. It must have been a very peaceful way to go. The doctor said he wouldn’t have known anything about it. Like a clock winding down, I suppose. One day, it just stops.’

  ‘I’m glad he wasn’t in any pain.’

  ‘Yeh, so am I. He was very good to us. Taking us in and all that.’

  ‘How long have you lived here?’

  ‘A little over a year. We moved in just before Christmas ’66. Before that, he lived alone.’

  ‘You’d not known him long then?’

  ‘No, not long. Not really …’ Her eyes seemed to drift out of focus, as if she was looking past me at something that wasn’t there. When I left, I’m not even sure she noticed.

  I made my way to the other end of Bull Hill, where it rejoined Fore Street, then headed back towards Trevannon’s office. The narrow thoroughfare was crowded with shoppers and delivery vans. Stepping into the doorway of a bakery to avoid a pair of old women with bags on wheels, I found myself standing next to a tall man in a duffel coat, holding the steaming remains of a pasty before him, swathed in greaseproof paper. It was Mr Trevannon.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, gulping down a mouthful. ‘Have you been up to the house?’

  ‘Yes. I met Miss Telfer.’

  ‘But not her boyfriend?’

  ‘You mean Lee? No, he wasn’t in.’

  ‘Just as well. Bit of a weirdo, actually. American. A draft dodger, I think. Funny choice for a lodger. Funny all round, really.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘See that over there?’ He pointed to the shop opposite – some sort of boutique-cum-pottery, with a metallic, copper-coloured awning. The midday sun, slanting between the houses, hit it with a dazzling glare. ‘Mr Cobb’s wife is disabled, you see. They lived above this bakery. He claims she can’t sit by the window as she used to, and watch the world go by, because of that awning. Unless it’s cloudy, of course.’

  ‘I see his point.’

  ‘So do I. But is it a public nuisance? That’s what he wants me to prove, which is tricky, decidedly tricky. Some people would say Lee Cormack was a public nuisance. Evidently your Mr Willis didn’t agree.’

  ‘Evidently not.’

  ‘As I say, it’s funny. He didn’t seem to have any friends. Lived alone till he took those two in. And left you with a bit of a problem. You’ll want to evict them, of course.’ He peered at the last fragment of pasty, then screwed it up in the paper.

  ‘Evict his only friends, you mean?’

  ‘You could look at it like that.’ He glanced up and down the street, apparently in search of a refuse bin. ‘Not his only friends, though. There was Eric Dunrich. You’d often see them together.’

  ‘Could I contact Mr Dunrich?’

  ‘Why not? He lives over the estuary in Polruan. Seaspray Cottage in West Street. Just round the corner from the ferry. Anybody will direct you. But I ought to warn you: he’s a bit odd. Proves my point, really.’

  Still uncertain what Mr Trevannon’s point was, I crossed the estuary on the tiny, struggling ferry-boat early that afternoon. The air remained clear and bright, a cold sun lighting the whitewashed housefronts of Fowey as they fell away behind us.

  I walked alone up the slipway on the Polruan side, while three housewives, laden with shopping bags, bustled past me to reach the ferry. On the jetty, one brave amateur artist sat muffled in the lee of a low building, dabbing at his canvas with a brush held in one mittened hand. I asked him for directions to Seaspray Cottage.

  ‘Just around the corner. But I fear you will find nobody in.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because I am the sole occupant.’

  ‘Eric Dunrich?’

  ‘Yes.’ He shot me a buck-toothed grin from inside his scarlet balaclava. At once, I took more note of him. A dumpy figure, wrapped in sweaters, perched obstinately on his camp chair. His painting, propped on an easel before him, had an air of stubborn inelegance.

  ‘Perhaps you’ll have heard of
me, Mr Dunrich. I’m Leonora Galloway.’

  ‘Mrs Galloway!’ In one maladroit movement, he jumped up from the chair, nearly capsizing his easel in the process, and swept off his balaclava, leaving a crop of grey hair spiked out at alarming angles. ‘Delighted to make your acquaintance.’ He seized my right hand but, instead of shaking it, held it flat and bowed stiffly.

  I laughed nervously. ‘I gather you knew Mr John Willis.’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’ He grinned. ‘And you, I gather, are his beneficiary. Will you do me the honour of stepping back to my humble abode for tea? We might there discuss our mutual, much-mourned friend.’

  I didn’t know whether to take him seriously, but accepted the invitation none the less. He left his chair, easel and canvas where they were and took only his paints and brushes, bundled in a duffel bag, as he led the way up a narrow street between silent cottages that seemed to echo and amplify his high-pitched, piping voice.

  ‘John never spoke of you, Mrs Galloway, but it is evident that you stood highly in his esteem. I am therefore honoured that you should seek me out.’

  We turned in at the green-painted door of his tiny home, a spotlessly clean, strangely warm haven of potted plants and ceiling-high bookcases. He left me alone whilst he made the tea, but his voice carried clearly from the kitchen.

  ‘I have no view of the sea from here, you understand, so, if I am to capture it on canvas, I must brave the winter chill.’

  ‘Do you paint a lot, Mr Dunrich?’

  ‘Ceaselessly, Mrs Galloway, ceaselessly.’

  ‘Yet none of your work is displayed here.’

  A serving hatch was flung open to admit his head and shoulders. ‘That is because my paintings are consistently dreadful. My ceaseless striving is to produce one that I actually like.’ Steam began to rise from a kettle behind him. The head and shoulders withdrew.

  ‘That’s a remarkably conscientious attitude.’

  ‘To thine own self be true. Is that not essential? John reminded me of it, often enough.’ He appeared suddenly at the door, teapot and cups rattling on a tray. ‘He had the advantage of me, of course, being a gifted painter himself. Yet still he hid his works from view.’ He deposited the tray on a low table and gestured me to an armchair.