It's Raining Men

by Milly Johnson

  ‘I’m not sure if they are stored in order,’ said Edwin. ‘What dates were you looking for?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Joan. ‘I thought I’d start with the twentieth century, right at the beginning of it.’

  She wished Edwin would bugger off and let her get on with it.

  The first book was one of the very badly age-spotted volumes that had been stored in the church crypt, but luckily it contained records from far earlier than Joan was interested in. The second she picked out was in good condition but, again, too early. The third – in the words of Goldilocks – was just right: ‘1900 – PRESENT DAY’.

  ‘I shouldn’t really be looking at them in work time,’ said Joan.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Edwin. ‘It’s rather thrilling to be Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple for a while.’

  ‘It could take ages.’

  ‘Even better.’ Edwin twinkled.

  Damn, thought Joan. Still, seeing them with him was better than not seeing them at all. She opened the book to the first page and pretended to be interested in a marriage certificate dated 1904: Frederick and Anne Coffey.

  ‘A relative of Gladys – how interesting,’ trilled Joan.

  ‘Well, by marriage. Gladys is a Shaw of course. There will be a record of her birth in the later records.’

  1905, 1906, 1907 . . . There were records of deaths and marriages between familiar family names: William Arnold Bird and Florence Hathersage died, Anna Bird married Stephen Unwin, Thomas Hubbard married Maria Docherty from Wellem. Then there were the births: Martha Unwin, Catherine and Mary Smith, James Ward, Dor is Dickinson, Grace Landers . . . on and on. Joan’s heart was quickening with anticipation as she turned to the next page. 1909: a son born to Edith and Ebenezer Acaster Seymour. A child who ended up being buried on unconsecrated ground and was closely connected to R, Edwin Carlton’s heir.

  Chapter 59

  At ten o’clock the others were still sleeping. They’d spent the previous evening having a cathartic bitch about Michael and James and Tianne, whilst half watching some TV, which was once again possible thanks to Gene Hathersage removing the signal-jamming aerial. But it was now eleven hours since they had all turned in for the night, and if that didn’t prove their batteries were run down, nothing did. Would they ever get back into the swing of starting the day at five o’clock in the morning?

  After her swim, Clare was wide awake and full of beans; it was a tense, nervous energy, though, that needed burning off. She picked up her tin of cleaning things and headed off for Raine’s cottage, as she had promised to return. There was no sign of Val Hathersage near Spice Wood, not that she thought there would be at that hour. She didn’t know if she was relieved or disappointed by that.

  Raine was delighted to see her and greeted her warmly.

  ‘Oh, my dear Clare,’ she said, her plump, old face beaming. ‘I hoped you’d come back.’

  Clare smiled. ‘I’m a perfectionist. I never leave a job half done. I told you I’d be back and I’m a woman of my word.’

  ‘My lady who brings my meals in the evening thought she was in the wrong house,’ said Raine. ‘You’re so very, very kind.’ Then she noticed Clare’s wet black hair. ‘Have you been for a swim today? In my lagoon?’

  Clare smoothed her hand over her head. ‘I didn’t want to use the hair-dryer in case I woke my friends,’ she explained. ‘Yes, I’ve been for a swim. The water was beautiful.’ Just what I needed. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to bear to leave it.

  ‘I miss it so much,’ said Raine sadly. ‘I haven’t swum in a very long time. I wish I could see it again.’

  ‘How did you used to get down there?’ asked Clare, taking various bottles out of her tin. ‘Were you able to walk when you were younger?’

  ‘No, I’ve never been able to walk,’ said Raine. ‘My husband used to carry me.’

  Clare’s head was suddenly suffused with a romantic picture of that. She saw Raine, long golden hair streaming behind her, smooth and lithe as a rippled ribbon in the water; her young husband a perfect match for her. She sighed.

  Her hand stilled on the bottle of bleach she’d been unscrewing. ‘There must be some way of getting you back down to the lagoon.’ She thought hard. It would be a feat and a half but not impossible, surely.

  ‘If I saw it, I could never bear to leave it again.’ Raine’s old head shook slowly from side to side. ‘No, it’s best I remember it in my memories only.’

  ‘Can I get you a drink before I start?’

  ‘A cup of water would be nice, please.’

  Clare filled up a cup and delivered it to Raine’s hands. ‘You’re so cold,’ she said, closing her warm fingers over Raine’s chilled ones. ‘Can I light a fire for you?’

  ‘Thank you, but no,’ said Raine. ‘I don’t like to be too hot. This temperature in here is fine for me.’

  Clare set to work in the kitchen. Whoever came to look after Raine wasn’t very good at washing down surfaces, she thought with a huff. The window in there afforded the most beautiful view over the cove. The skies were very dramatic today: grey clouds were being buffeted and bullied on their way by the wind and the sea was restless and dark.

  Raine studied the young woman now climbing up on the chair to clean the inside of the kitchen window. Such a pretty girl with her neat twenties-style black bobbed hair, but too many clouds in her two-coloured eyes. She had a head that was telling her heart all the wrong things, Raine could tell. She wheeled herself nearer to the kitchen door.

  ‘What do you think of Ren Dullem?’ she asked. ‘Now you’ve been here a few days more.’

  Clare stopped working and tilted her head to the side in thought. ‘I think it’s the strangest place I’ve ever been to in my life,’ she eventually concluded. ‘But I like it.’ Faced with delivering her opinion of the place, Clare realized that she had settled into life here more than she ever thought she would. The thought of not being able to open a door in her bedroom and tread down to an underground cavern was one she didn’t want to contemplate at the moment. She was trying hard to think of the here and now and not project about what life would be like in a few days’ time.

  ‘Ren Dullem needs people like you,’ said Raine. ‘It is craving an injection of life and passion and care. It has become worn down by its duties. When I first came here, it was the prettiest little place I’d ever seen. I was in love with it. I was in love with the people. I know now I shouldn’t have come.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘People say that you can’t fool yourself,’ said Raine, smiling sadly. ‘Oh, but you can if you try. Or at least you can override the evidence that is staring you in the face. But eventually, eventually, the truth becomes too hard to ignore. I think you know what I mean.’

  Clare coughed. She had become a past master at overriding her true feelings. Stamping other people’s ideas of what her life should be like over her own and pretending to accept them had become a way of life to her. But her anxiety dreams every night and her bitten-down fingernails were evidence that the truth was seeping out. Clare switched her mind back into work mode and gave her full attention to the windowsill. She had brought an old toothbrush to get right into the grooves.

  Through the window the clouds were tumbling over themselves as if running scared.

  ‘There’s going to be a summer storm, I think,’ said Clare.

  ‘I shall enjoy the view,’ said Raine. ‘There is nowhere better in the world to see a storm than at High Top.’ In the distance they heard a growl of thunder. There would be a bigger storm soon in Ren Dullem. Then the skies would clear and finally the sunshine could appear once again.

  Chapter 60

  Lara was crushing up more comfrey leaves on the kitchen table with the end of a rolling pin, in the absence of a pestle and mortar in the kitchen of Well Cottage, when there was a heavy-handed knock on the door.

  She hopped across and opened it to find the imposing figure of Gene Hathersage there, his hands behind his b
ack.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said. ‘Come in. I’m just crushing mend-skin.’

  ‘Knit-bone,’ he corrected. ‘How’s the ankle?’

  ‘Not bad at all,’ said Lara, in all honesty. The swelling had gone down completely and the bruising had faded from black to light brown as if the healing had been accelerated. She hadn’t put a lot of credence in claims of herb-magic before, but she was in severe danger of having to eat her words.

  ‘I brought you this,’ he said, and from behind his back he produced a wooden crutch. ‘I measured it against the mark on the wall so it should be the right height.’

  ‘Ah, that’s why you stuck your pencil under my arm.’

  His eyebrows formed a dipped arch of confusion as if he was thinking: why else would I have done that? ‘Try it.’

  ‘Oh, that’s very kind of you. Thank you.’ She accepted it, placed it under her arm and assumed the pose of Long John Silver. ‘I didn’t see a fish.’

  ‘Fish?’

  ‘Your signature.’

  ‘I can whittle you one, if you insist.’

  ‘Why not? I’ll put the kettle on.’

  ‘Then tea for me, please, if you’re offering.’

  There was enough milk for two cups. May had gone down to the shop for some more just before Gene arrived. It was a wonder they hadn’t passed each other.

  Gene took a knife out of his back pocket and reached for the crutch.

  ‘You do realize that if I carve you a fish on here, the value of this instantly increases by ten,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll remember to mention that on eBay.’

  Jesus, she bet he hadn’t a clue what eBay was. Was that possible in this day and age?

  ‘It’s a sort of shop,’ explained Lara. ‘On the Internet.’

  ‘I know,’ said Gene indignantly. ‘We might not get the Internet in Ren Dullem but I am aware of what it is. I’ll go into Wellem if I need to use it.’

  Maybe if Great-Uncle Milton stopped fannying about with his signals you might be able to use it here, thought Lara. This really must be the only place on earth not to have the Internet and yet everyone seemed to cope quite adequately as they had done in the days before mobiles and the net and Facebook, which weren’t that long ago really. She wondered what Tianne’s timeline would be saying. She was glad she couldn’t torture herself by checking.

  ‘It’ll only be a little one,’ said Gene, his knife nibbling expertly at the wood.

  ‘I was really only joking about the fish.’ Lara felt slightly cheeky now.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ he replied.

  Lara swished the pot around and poured out two cups of hot brown tea.

  ‘Not be long now until you’re home,’ said Gene eventually, as Lara sipped at her drink and watched him form a fish in the arm rest. ‘Have you decided what you’ll do?’

  Lara felt her cheeks flush, remembering that she had poured out her business to him after falling into his dog’s grave.

  ‘I’m going to get my things from the house and then stay with May until I sort myself out. I’m not looking forward to it,’ she said, sounding a lot braver than she felt. ‘I won’t let him persuade me to try again, if that is his intention, of course.’

  ‘Easier said than done.’

  ‘True. But it’s not just that I found him with someone else, it’s all the other things: the lies, the taking me for granted, the lack of thought for my feelings. I couldn’t go back. I wouldn’t respect myself if I did. And my mum and dad always told me that if I can’t respect myself, how can I ever expect anyone else to?’

  Gene nodded silently and carried on whittling.

  ‘Did you love him?’ he asked eventually.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lara. ‘That’s why it hurt when he invited me to share his future and encouraged my dreams and then smashed them all to frigging bits.’ Oh God, please don’t cry again in front of him. She felt the hot sharp prick of tears stabbing at the backs of her eyes. ‘Plus, if that was the way he behaved, he didn’t really love me, did he? Men should think with the brains God gave them instead of . . .’ She shut up quickly, realizing she shouldn’t be saying this to him: a man.

  ‘Not all of them think with that,’ Gene replied.

  Lara flicked her hair back from her face in an unconscious gesture of someone gearing up for a possible fight.

  ‘All the ones I’ve met do,’ she said, as a collection of strong emotions swirled inside her. ‘Anyway, I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘There. A fish.’ He thrust his arm out to its full length and handed the crutch back to her. ‘You were the one who dragged me kicking and screaming into your emotional crisis,’ he reminded her, his jaw clearly rigid under his beard.

  ‘Yes, and I made a big mistake,’ snapped Lara. She felt years of fury banging on the bars and demanding to be released. ‘I’m not saying all men are bastards, but there’s a lot of them out there who think it’s fine to treat someone like crap and then say, “Sorry, love, didn’t mean to bonk my ex. It just happened. I fell into bed with her by mistake.” And then they expect the heartbroken woman to be so overjoyed that they’ve said a few apologetic words and bought her a bunch of tulips from Asda that everything will be A-OK. Until the next time.’

  ‘You’ve obviously tarred us all with the same brush,’ Gene growled, putting his knife away in his back pocket.

  ‘Yeah, well, maybe I have. Maybe that’s because what I’ve found is that they all obviously like being black and sticky and smelling like roads.’ What on earth have you just said? asked an exasperated voice inside her.

  ‘And women have the monopoly on being the victim, do they?’ said Gene, not even trying to make sense of that nonsense she’d just spouted about tar. ‘They don’t lie and manipulate and cheat at all, I suppose? They don’t turn on the tears and think sex will get them out of any trouble they’ve put themselves in? No, they’re all walking around like self-righteous radical feminists agreeing that all – sorry – most men are bastards, especially when they don’t get their own way.’

  Lara threw her arms up in the air. ‘The sexist quote of the year.’

  ‘I’m not a sexist. I’m a realist. Look, I think I’d better go. Take care with your crutch,’ said Gene Hathersage with a sarcastic snarl as he rose to his feet. ‘I’d hate for you to fall again.’

  ‘Yeah, I bet you would,’ said Lara, slamming the door on him as he went out. It missed his back by millimetres.

  Chapter 61

  May was just coming up the hill with a bottle of milk when she saw Gene’s truck turn into La Mer. He was crunching the gears and he had a sub-zero expression on his face.. He wasn’t a happy man today and she wondered who had put him in that mood.

  She doubted that Frank had the capacity to be as fierce as that. She had just seen him in the village. He was delivering to the butcher. He waved across the road at her and she waved back and although her legs pulled desperately to cross over so that she could say hello, engage him in conversation, be near him, she resisted. What was the point? She would be leaving Ren Dullem in four days, never to see him again. It was best to keep away and not let him even peek inside her heart. It was no less than torment, though, walking away from him, knowing that he was as disappointed as she was that an arc of a hand in the air was all that passed between them today.

  She hurried back up to Well Cottage because it was chilly and she wasn’t wearing anything over her short-sleeved shirt. The sky looked as grumpy as Gene Hathersage just had, she thought: moody and full of unspent rage. She opened the door to the cottage to find Lara wearing the female equivalent of Gene Hathersage’s incensed expression. Her eyes fell on the crutch propped up at the side of the table and she put two and two together and got a big fat tick for her effort.

  ‘Oho. Do I sense another incident?’

  ‘That man,’ growled Lara, venting her fury on the comfrey leaves. ‘He doesn’t like women at all. He thinks we’re all manipulators. But that’s okay, really, because men are al
l twats.’

  May picked up the crutch. She noticed the detail of the tiny fish, carved with all its scales.

  ‘Did he make this for you?’

  ‘Yes,’ hissed Lara.

  ‘Yep, that’s the action of a man who hates women – making them a crutch to help them walk and adding a little personal touch like this.’

  Lara stopped grinding. ‘Yes, it was kind of him to do that. Unfortunately he used it as an excuse to say that all women are evil.’

  ‘Is that what he said or what you heard?’ Taking the time to make this for a complete stranger was not the act of someone who hated easily, thought May.

  ‘Did you see Clare on your travels?’ asked Lara, changing the subject because she didn’t want to admit that May was right and she was wrong.

  ‘Nope.’ May gave a small sigh. ‘Didn’t see anyone at all.’

  Raine’s house was as shiny as a new pin. Clare’s job was done and she derived such a sense of satisfaction from seeing the surfaces sparkle and the kitchen gleam.

  ‘I wish I could come here once a week and keep on top of things for you,’ said Clare. She would miss the funny old lady when she went back to London; it was a thought that dragged her mood down.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Raine. ‘You haven’t even stopped for a cup of tea.’

  ‘I might have one now, if you wouldn’t mind my company for a bit longer,’ replied Clare. ‘Can I get you one, or some more water?’

  ‘Water would be lovely, thank you.’ Raine smiled. ‘Then you can sit with me and tell me about where you live.’

  ‘It’s not that interesting,’ Clare called from the kitchen, over the sound of the kettle building to a boil. ‘Have you ever been to London?’

  ‘No,’ said Raine. ‘City life isn’t for me. Is it exciting living there?’

  ‘Very,’ said Clare, pouring the water over the tea leaves and stirring them with a spoon to hasten the brewing. ‘Busy, colourful, noisy, mad.’ Clare walked into the sitting room with her tea and the glass of water. ‘It’s a thrilling whirl.’