‘You’ll be back at work on Monday and not remember any of it,’ said Gene, picking up the dog ball and rolling it around in his hand.
‘I don’t think I can forget this week and a half. It’s been . . .’ She searched for the word and couldn’t find it. ‘I don’t know what it’s been.’
‘Boring, tedious, painful?’ he suggested.
He had got the wrong end of the stick entirely. ‘Not at all. No way. Crazy, funny, bizarre, but in a lovely way. I’ll be taking a bag full of warm memories with me. As well as a crutch.’
He dropped the ball and it rolled under Lara’s chair. She bent to pick it up and handed it to him. Her hands looked tiny compared to his. She imagined them cupping her face, stroking her cheek.
‘I’ve got something to show you,’ said Gene, taking a long swig of coffee and then putting his cup down on the table. ‘Come with me.’
He led her out of the door and across into the outbuilding where he worked. One of his projects had a sheet over it. He pulled it off and revealed a dog lying down, paws straight out in front, head resting on them, asleep.
‘It’s Jock,’ he said. ‘If you haven’t guessed. It’s not quite finished.’
Lara bent down to it. She knew what a labour of love this must have been for him and, though she had never seen old Jock, she had no doubt that this must be a brilliant likeness of him.
‘Oh, Gene,’ she said, her voice flooded with sympathy.
‘Don’t start me off,’ he said, pressing a thumb and forefinger into his eyes.
Lara couldn’t remember closing the step that separated them but suddenly she was there, her arms around his waist, and his moved to circle hers and then he was bending and his lips were on hers. His kiss was gentle and sweet. His big hands were in her hair, then stroking her neck, then cupping her face, holding her cheek, and it was every bit as nice as she had imagined. Then he was pulling away, those hands now on her arms. He didn’t need to say anything. They both knew that neither of them was ready to open up and let someone take even a cursory look inside. There was no need for apology or analysis, it was simply a kiss between kind, decent people whom life had pushed together for a brief spell. In another time, another place, there might have been more. They merely carried on as if what had happened had been a little diversionary arc from the main path and the main path had now been rejoined.
‘I’ll drop the keys off tomorrow before we leave,’ said Lara.
‘No need. Just leave them under the mat at the side of the door where you found them.’
Gene replaced the cover over the dog as gently as if he were covering the real Jock with it. Then they fell into step as they left the outbuilding.
‘Well.’ Lara turned to face him at his door. ‘Thanks for the crutch and all the patchweed.’
‘Knitbone.’
‘That’s the stuff.’
‘Take care and drive safely tomorrow.’
‘We shall.’
‘Bye.’
‘Bye.’
She heard his door open and creak shut, so there was no need to turn and wave; she knew he had gone inside.
But he was still there, watching her as she walked off, aware that she was pressing her finger to her lips and tracing the place where his had touched hers.
Chapter 83
Joan had hardly slept. Her brain was awash with electrical activity, ideas sparking, trying to turn an impossible suspicion into a real situation. What she had deduced was nonsense. It was a woman who had saved the thirteen men’s lives in 1928. What sort of woman could do that? A mermaid? Every sensible bone in her body was telling her that it was a loony story.
But what if it weren’t.
It was right up there with the Loch Ness Monster and the Yeti. Then again, how much money had sightings of them fetched? Fake as they were.
At nine o’clock exactly, Joan started ringing newspapers: the Mail, the Sun, the Telegraph, the Mirror.
‘I think I’ve got a story,’ she told the switchboard operators. ‘And I want to know how much you’d pay me for it.’
She was careful not to give away her location or too many details, but she had always been very good at teasing.
‘Have you got cast-iron evidence and photographic proof?’ each of them asked.
‘I’ve got a lot of photographs to show and I’ll have everything else you need by tonight.’
Annoyingly, they didn’t sound as interested as she had thought they would be. They clearly thought she was one of many nutters who rang and claimed to have seen the ghost of Anne Boleyn in their cellar or Elvis in a chip shop. In a hissy fit of pique she rang the Sunday Enquirer, a sensationalist publication, and was delighted to find that they were more than keen.
‘You think a what is living in your village?’ asked the reporter to whom the switchboard transferred her call. He was obviously writing notes as they were talking. She could imagine manic Teeline squiggles.
‘A mermaid,’ said Joan. ‘I know what that sounds like. But I’ll be able to prove it by the end of today.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Down south, that’s all I’m telling you.’ She’d withheld her number. They wouldn’t be able to tell.
‘Cornwall, by any chance?’
The mermaid capital of the UK. Nice try.
‘Near,’ lied Joan. ‘What would you pay if I gave you the story?’
‘Two thousand.’
‘You’re insulting me. I’m putting the phone down n—’
‘Wait . . . wait . . . Look, if you’re willing to give us a world exclusive . . .’
‘I am.’ Joan enjoyed hearing the panic in the reporter’s voice. World exclusive. That sounded very big and very thrilling. And very full of money.
‘And you can definitely get photos?’
‘Yes. And they’ll pass any scientific test you care to run them through.’
‘Well . . . if it all checks out . . . and let’s face it, love, you’d need some serious proof, but if you had it – well . . . you could more or less write your own cheque.’
‘Then I’ll be back in touch with you first thing in the morning,’ she said, and as she was putting down the phone she could hear the reporter once again pleading with her to wait.
Twenty-four hours would make him even keener.
Joan didn’t turn up for work that morning nor did she bother explaining where she was. If need be she would make up some excuse about feeling ill and having to go to the doctor. She didn’t want Gladys alerting anyone to where she might be going, pre-warning R – whoever or whatever R was. She took the back road into the village and wondered what on earth to do next.
She tried to get a coffee from the man in the kiosk by the square but the old bastard waved her away again, refusing to serve her. Fuming, Joan walked down to the harbour front. This damned place – she couldn’t wait to stamp it and all its stupid inbred people into the ground. She hoped that whatever scandal it was covering up was big and dirty and splattered them all with shit.
She followed the course of a seagull which seemed interested in her and she shooed it away, just as the coffee man had shooed her away, in case it crapped on her hair. And as she was looking up, she saw it: the cottage on the headland. On top of the headland. High up. It couldn’t have been more obvious. It was the only house she hadn’t looked at so it had to be that one.
How did one get to it, though? She decided to head up the hill first, then take any turning to the left and see where it took her.
Chapter 84
You might have had sisters had it not been for me.
If there was a run of boy births it was because a mermaid was in nearby waters.
Raine.
Apparently the village was named after the mermaids that once lived in the sea so they wouldn’t sink the fishing boats.
Reines de la Mer.
Queens of the sea.
Raine.
He said Seymour had committed a sin against God that would not allow him to be in
cluded on church land.
Seymour was cursed in marrying me.
Clare awoke with a start, feeling that she was drowning in the lagoon. She could feel her body floating downwards and in her dream she had long hair that swirled around her face in the water. She sat bolt upright and thought about the mad dream she had just emerged from. She would go and visit Raine today and they would laugh when Clare said that she’d had a dream about her, about Raine being cursed by Reverend Unwin because she was a creature of the sea and not a real woman.
Clare walked down the hill in order to get fresh milk. When she turned the corner Val Hathersage was leaning against one of the trees in Spice Wood, smoking. He looked very handsome, as always, but her pupils weren’t dilating.
‘Ah, it’s the witch,’ he said, his green eyes glinting, no doubt hoping to excite her.
‘Good morning, Mr Hathersage,’ she said. ‘How are you today?’
He caught her arm as she was about to pass.
‘Whoa, whoa, there. Why didn’t you say hello to me last night in front of your friends? Am I your dirty secret?’
Got it in one. ‘No, I was busy talking; you were busy chatting up Shirley.’ She instantly regretted saying that because it made her sound needy and jealous, and she was neither where he was concerned.
‘Did you hear me say that I’m moving on?’
‘I did. Where are you going?’
‘Ireland. To try my fortune.’ He grinned and tried his knicker-melting smile again, to no effect.
‘Want to go into the woods, lady?’ he asked, with an Irish accent.
‘Erm . . .’ Clare scratched her head. ‘I think I’ll pass.’
‘Sure now? I’ll have you screaming my name out so loud they’ll hear you in Whitby.’
‘Thanks, but I’m going for milk. The others are waiting for me,’ said Clare, although she doubted that Val Hathersage would cut the mustard in the bedroom. He wasn’t considerate out of bed, he was hardly going to be a love god in it.
‘Good luck, Val. Enjoy Ireland.’
He rubbed his hands together and grinned. ‘With all those colleens waiting for me, I just might.’
Clare didn’t know if the word was deliberate or not, but, then again, she didn’t care.
When she came back up the hill, he had gone. She noticed a slim woman with long brown hair and a handbag over her shoulder walking into the wood. A visitor for Raine, thought Clare, unless it was one of Val’s conquests who was off for her rendezvous in the woods. She tittered to herself and carried on, wondering why, when she opened her mouth, she could suddenly taste something bitter in the air.
Clare had a coffee and a big fluffy omelette with the others and then went down for a swim in her lagoon. She was crying by the time she reached the bottom of the steps, but down there she was well away from the earshot of the others. They would have been devastated to know she was so depressed. She could only admit to herself that she knew how Frank Hathersage felt: snared in razor wire. Remaining trapped in it would kill them both; yet breaking free would cut them to ribbons. And, worst of all, they had coiled every strand of it around themselves.
Raine left Albert safely in the house. She kissed his old head and patted a throw around him. He didn’t wake up to return the goodbye.
Raine opened the door and the wind rushed at her, eager with its welcome. She reached behind and unfastened her long snow-white hair so it flowed around her like a wedding veil. She lifted her head to the sun and smiled.
‘I am going home,’ she said to herself.
Slowly she wheeled herself to the front of the house and she swept her old jewelled eyes across the vast expanse of sea. The waters were wild today, rising and foaming in jagged peaks, the waves pushing and jostling with each other. Just as they had been on that day all those years ago when she looked up and saw the massive dark shadow of the boat, heard the creak and snap of its mast, felt the vibrations as its great body plunged down. Splashes, cries, flailing arms, thrashing legs – their hair floating around their heads like angels as they descended to her. It’s raining men, she had thought. It’s raining men.
She breathed in deeply, and the bitterness stuck to her tongue like nettles to the skin. She felt a movement behind her. Raine did not turn as she spoke.
‘I’ve been expecting you, Joanna. How clever of you to find me.’
Clare didn’t want to go back up the steps, knowing that packing to go home awaited her. Home. She let loose a mirthless laugh and it echoed around her in the cave as if taunting her. Home was where the heart was and her heart wasn’t there in the trendy flat with the expensive furniture and luxury kitchen. It was lost, floating around, looking for a nest to settle in and be warm and looked after.
The blue-green waters of the lagoon beckoned her back. Don’t go yet. Stay, just for a little while. Enjoy. Think of nothing but the water.
Clare slipped back into the pool and, for the last time, let the waters take away the heavy load that threatened to weigh her down and crush her.
Chapter 85
So this was R, then. Raine? Raine de la Mer? A shrivelled old woman in a chair. That rhymes, Joan snickered to herself. She hadn’t a clue what was going on here but something was. How did she know her name for a start? Big-gob Gladys, no doubt.
‘Hello,’ said Joan. ‘How very nice to meet you at last, Mrs Acaster, or can I call you Raine?’
Raine did not reply. She sat with her short, stubby hands clasped in her lap, her long, fine white hair loose and blowing around her, her old crocheted blanket covering her legs. She studied Joan with her clouded blue eye and her emerald-green one. She was not afraid of this woman. But this woman should be afraid of her.
‘Raine? Raine de la Mer?’ asked Joan. ‘That is who you are, isn’t it?’
‘That is my name.’
‘Surely not a reine de la mer?’ Joan put on an exaggerated French accent. ‘A sirène. A queen of the sea.’
Raine studied her, this dark-haired woman whose features were twisted into a cruel but fascinated smile. She had always wondered how the final act would begin. She found herself slightly amused that this woman thought she had the upper hand. Raine knew how this scene was going to play out. Joan Hawk did not.
‘What do you want?’ Raine asked.
Joan scrutinized the old lady with blatant interest. Her skin was like leather, her lips full and pale – and those eyes. Joan’s hands, holding her camera, were trembling with the anticipation of what one single photo of this woman could mean to her life.
‘I want to know what you are,’ she answered eventually. ‘I want to know why, because of you, Ren Dullem seems to be such a screwed-up place? Why are no girls born here? Why does everyone freak out if I ask questions about anything connected with you? Why do you live up here like a queen bee? It’s because of you that the village has closed in on itself, isn’t it? Why would it do that? Why was your husband buried outside the churchyard? Is it because he married a thing?’
Raine was composed and calm. Her old hands lay in her lap, one over the other. ‘And then what will you do when you know all the answers to the questions you have asked?’
‘I’ll go. I just want to know.’ Joan smiled.
‘No. You’d turn Ren Dullem into a circus. You’d make a mockery of all those people who closed ranks around me. You’d kill the village more than I ever did.’
‘I need to see.’
Quick as a flash, Joan reached down and yanked off Raine’s blanket – then she stepped back in astonishment.
‘What the fucking hell are you?’
‘You know what I am. You worked it out and now you want to parade me in front of everyone, don’t you? For money, of course for money. That’s what has always driven you, isn’t it, Joanna? And this would be the big one for you, wouldn’t it?’
‘Of course for money,’ Joan agreed. There was no point in denying it. She lifted her camera, pointed it at Raine and said, ‘Smile.’ Click.
Joan was heady with eup
horia. Ren Dullem hid itself away to protect this? Jesus Christ, she was going to be rich and famous beyond her wildest dreams. Click. TV appearances, books, maybe even a film. They could devote a whole section in Ripley’s Believe It or Not to Raine de la Mer. Click. There would be merchandise. Click. Worldwide tours. Click.
Joan was almost drunk with joy now. Her hands were becoming sweaty. The stupid old woman was just sitting there, looking deformed, letting Joan snap away with abandon, as if all the fight in her had gone.
As Joan wiped her right hand on her trousers the camera left her slippery hand. She bent down to catch it and missed. Before her fingers could gain hold of it she felt the ground rumble as Raine wheeled towards her. It was too late to step aside. Raine carried Joan forward with her, until there was no more ground for the chair to wheel upon.
I am going home.
This can’t be happening, Joan thought, struggling uselessly against the grip of the old lady’s vice-like hands. Down they plunged through the air, as if someone had slowed down time. Joan’s scream was lost under the salty waters of the sea.
Clare could see Raine sitting in her chair. She waved, but Raine was looking straight out to sea. She opened her mouth to shout, then the visitor she had seen in the wood appeared at Raine’s back so she didn’t. They looked too close to the edge for comfort.
The wind was building today. The waters were spiky and unfriendly. Clare turned back to the cave entrance and took one last look behind her to see Raine and her visitor gone.
Chapter 86
The afternoon was a glum one. Packing didn’t take long, but it was a weighted symbol of the end of their holiday. A holiday which hadn’t turned out at all as expected, but was better for that.
‘Let’s go to Jenny’s and have something to eat. And if Daisy Unwin is in there, sod her. I’m not leaving my cheesecake for anyone,’ said Lara, zipping up her case with a flourish.
‘I’m in,’ replied May. ‘Jesus, I feel pathetic. I didn’t think you got holiday blues once you grew up.’
‘We don’t take enough holidays to know,’ said Clare, unhooking her bag from the kitchen chair. ‘Come on.’
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