The Sea Cave

by Alan Scholefield

  ‘Yes, sir. I understand so, sir.’

  The coroner asked Van Blerk about the body as it had been found in the water. The questions were perfunctory, and concerned the depth of water and the tides. It seemed to Kate that he had already made up his mind about the cause of death.

  ‘I understand there have been many drownings on this coast?’

  ‘That’s true, sir. Many.’

  ‘And at this place?’

  ‘Not exactly in the rock pools. Not that I know of. But in the bay, yes. It’s rocky.’

  ‘From the evidence, what do you think happened?’

  ‘I believe she went swimming at night, sir, and maybe slipped and fell, probably hitting her head.’

  ‘We’ll hear what the doctor has to say about that. Thank you.’

  Old Dr. Richards, the District Surgeon, was next, and his evidence was almost as brief as Van Blerk’s. He was a small, gnomelike man, with a stringy, fibrous quality about him. He could have been made of dried meat. Even in the poor light, Kate could see tufts of hair growing from his ears.

  ‘What is your opinion of the cause of death?’

  ‘Oh, she drowned. Typical. I’ve seen scores of drownings along here. Fishermen mostly. They never listen. I tell them over and over again to be careful, but you see them all the time, standing on low rocks or ledges just above the water. Then a big wave comes and . . .’ He threw up his hands. ‘Typical!’

  The coroner asked him about the abrasions on the body’s arms and face and the side of the head.

  ‘Could she have fallen?’

  ‘That’s probably how it happened. I mean, those rocks are slippery.’

  The picture of Miriam’s face rose in Kate’s mind. It had been like something on a butcher’s slab.

  Mrs. Preller leant over and spoke into her ear. ‘All he cares about is his fishing. He takes the government’s money, but he does nothing.’

  Kate was called next. She had been apprehensive about this moment, but felt calmer having seen the informality with which the inquest had so far been conducted. The coroner took details of her name, age, occupation, and then said, ‘Tell me exactly how you found the body.’

  She could remember it all as clearly as though it was on a bioscope film running through her mind. What made it so sharp was that it had come after the events of the previous night, so that it seemed part of a continuing sequence.

  It was a Monday morning, and she had woken feeling nervous and tired and hot and had decided on an early swim to clear her head. For once there was no wind and the sea was aquamarine under an enormous blue sky with wisps of high cloud. She had put on her bathing costume, bathing shoes and dressing gown, and slipped out of the sleeping house.

  The pools were like glass. She had crunched over the sand and then over the flat rocks to the first pool and was taking off her dressing-gown when she had seen the thing in the water.

  The body was hunched forward, the arms were limply outstretched and the face was in the water. The shoulders were the only part of it that was above the water. The legs hung down so that it seemed almost to be standing on the bottom of the pool.

  ‘Did you recognise the body as that of Miss Sachs?’ the coroner said.

  ‘Not at that moment.’

  ‘What happened next?’ He did not look up and she saw his pen flowing along the lines of the pad.

  It was difficult to describe the next few minutes in exact words. Her mind had reacted quickly. For an instant she had thought someone was swimming and waited for movement; for an instant she had been gripped by terror; and then she had known she was looking at a dead body.

  One of the hands had been almost touching the rock wall and she had bent and tugged it. The body had rolled and she had seen the red horror that had once been Miriam’s face and the big, heavy breasts. She had recognised Miriam by her breasts, but how could she tell the coroner that?

  ‘You thought it was Miss Sachs?’

  ‘From her hair. The way it was cut.’

  ‘The way it was cut?’ The coroner looked up and his moist eyes fastened on her.

  ‘Square across the forehead.’

  ‘Is this unusual?’

  ‘I don’t think so, but I don’t know anyone else here with hair cut like that. And the colour was black.’

  And the eyes, she thought. The eyes had been black, too, and as the body had rolled, they had looked up at her, large and dead, the light behind them had gone out. Charles’ eyes were like that sometimes. A blank. But with Charles that was usually a sign of rage.

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I ran back to the house and telephoned the police and Sergeant Van Blerk came out and took the body from the water.’

  After Kate, Dr. du Toit was called.

  ‘You are the Sachs’ physician?’ the coroner said.

  ‘That is correct, sir.’

  ‘You are also a friend of the family, I understand.’

  ‘I’ve known them for many years. I brought Miriam into the world and attended her mother in her last illness. I am attending her father now.’

  ‘You knew the deceased well?’

  ‘You could say that. I watched her grow up.’

  ‘What sort of a person was she?’

  Kate heard Mrs. Preller give a slight snort.

  Du Toit paused. ‘She was a very nice girl.’

  ‘Yes, but was she the kind of girl who would go swimming at night?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘She was known to do things like that. She was an extrovert personality. Ever since she was a little girl she did things her own way, if you understand what I mean.’

  ‘Would she have gone swimming in the nude?’

  ‘Yes, I believe so.’

  ‘Thank you, doctor.’

  The inquest was over soon afterwards, the coroner handing down a verdict of accidental death by drowning.

  ‘All this nonsense, taking up the taxpayers’ money,’ Mrs. Preller said as they filed out of court. ‘Of course she drowned. It was just like her.’

  ‘But how did she get out to Saxenburg?’ Kate said.

  ‘On a bicycle. Or on her feet. It’s not too far.’

  ‘There was no bicycle.’

  ‘She often walked out when she was a young girl. And there was a full moon. Miriam would do things like that. Did you not hear Dr. du Toit?’

  They reached the car. ‘I’m glad her father was not there,’ Mrs. Preller said. ‘I am not glad he is ill, but I am glad he was not there. It is bad enough to look at the dead body of your child.’

  On the outskirts of town Kate saw Lena and Betty walking bare-footed along the dusty road. Smuts stopped for them and they got into the front seat beside him. As she had been before, Kate was struck by Betty’s beauty. The girl was eighteen or nineteen and her skin was creamy brown. She might have been Greek or Southern Italian. Instead of the pepper-corn hair of most coloureds, hers was long and came almost to her shoulders. She was wearing a thin blouse with nothing beneath it and her breasts were high and sharply pointed. But her eyes were her most lovely feature. They were a greyish blue and Kate had sometimes wondered what stranger had crossed Lena’s path all those years ago. A sailor, perhaps, from one of the wrecks?

  ‘Well, Lena, that’s over,’ Mrs. Preller said.

  ‘Yes, Madam.’ She pronounced it ‘Marrem’. ‘Is Madam going to the funeral?’

  ‘Yes I must. Do you want to come?’

  ‘If Madam goes, I will go.’

  Almost from the day she arrived, Kate had felt a bond between the two women. She knew Mrs. Preller’s opinion of coloured people – not that it was any better or worse than most of the white population of Helmsdale – but there was something different in her attitude to Lena. It was as though they shared an understanding and a world closed to everyone else.

  It was difficult to tell what Lena had looked like as a young woman, for like most coloured women she had aged prematurely and had lost the two front teet
h in her upper jaw. She was much darker than Betty, but not quite as black as Jonas. Kate had been confused early on by the fact that social position among the coloured folk depended on gradations of colour: the lighter the better. The real black people, the Bantu, the Africans, the Kaffirs as they were called, she had hardly seen. They lived hundreds of miles up country. These were Cape coloureds, the product of white on black over the centuries, who now formed a separate half-caste race mostly centred on Cape Town and the southern districts of the Cape Province.

  She knew that Lena had worked for Mrs. Preller for many years. ‘She came to me on my wedding day,’ Mrs. Preller had told her. ‘She is like my right hand.’

  The relationship between Lena and her daughter, on the other hand, was bad. Lena dominated Betty and there was constant friction and tension. Betty was often in tears after rows with her mother. At first Kate had tried to patch things up and had been sympathetic to Betty. But neither seemed to want her to interfere, especially Betty who, under the constant, watchful eye of Lena, was a sullen and resentful young woman. Kate put down much of the tension to the presence of Jonas.

  She thought the relationship a strange one, especially as Lena seemed a good-natured person in other respects. There was no doubt in her mind that had it not been for Lena she would have bitterly regretted coming to Saxenburg in those first weeks.

  The house itself had had an overpowering effect on her. She had found its brooding, enclosed atmosphere claustrophobic, almost frightening. She remembered how she had entered the house for the first time at dusk and sensed its eeriness.

  Lena and Betty had met her at the door and she had followed Smuts into a large hall. There had been only one small oil lamp hanging from the centre of the ceiling, throwing a feeble light, and the corners of the room and parts of the walls had disappeared into shadow and darkness. She’d had an impression of muted colours and a musty, dusty smell. A large and magnificently carved staircase rose from the centre of the hall and on either side of it were great amphorae-like porcelain jars filled with what at first looked, in the half light, like dried ferns, but on closer examination turned out to be ostrich feathers. There were more feathers in vases on the walls. They were in constant slight movement as draughts of air touched them, and appeared to be alive.

  The hall’s dominating feature was a towering sculpture that appeared from its general shape to be a crucifix, but as Kate drew nearer she had realised that it was the figurehead of a sailing-ship: a woman with a large, naked bust, flowing gold hair and dark red robes. On a panel of wood below it was one word: Saxenburg.

  ‘Smuts!’ She had heard the harsh, shrill call and had looked up to see the figure of a woman at the top of the staircase, her hands gripping the balustrade. The face was dead white below long, dark hair.

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Augusta, the train was late.’ Smuts had moved towards the staircase with the rolling, bandy-legged walk that Kate had noticed on the station.

  ‘Did you get it?’

  He had tapped his pocket.

  ‘Give it to Lena,’ the woman had said. ‘Lena, you bring it up, now.’

  ‘Miss Buchanan is here,’ Smuts had said.

  But the figure at the top of the staircase had turned away and disappeared, Lena following her. There had been a flash of light as a door opened and closed and then the house was silent once more.

  Smuts had shrugged and said, ‘She’ll call you when she wants you. She will send Lena.’ He had closed the front door after him and she had heard his booted feet on the gravel. She had not known whether to wait for him to come back; she’d had no idea what to do. Then Betty had taken up her cases and Kate had followed her up the big staircase. She had seen a shadowy corridor. About half way along it, a thin band of light shone at the bottom of a door and she had heard the faint sound of voices. She had followed the girl up a second staircase, this one narrower and steeper, to a square landing. Betty had opened the first door on the right, allowing Kate to go in ahead of her. It was a large, low-ceilinged room again lit by an oil lamp and, being a corner room, there were windows on two walls. The windows had no curtains and the blinds were up, giving them the look of dark, shining eyes.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Kate had said.

  ‘Betty.’

  ‘Thank you for bringing up my suitcases.’ It was then she had noticed the girl’s beauty for the first time.

  ‘We’re going to be friends, I hope,’ she had said.

  ‘Yes, Madam.’ She had replied without emotion and had turned and left at once.

  Kate had looked about her, then pulled down the blinds. With the night shut out the room became less stark, but at the top of the house the wind roared and whined as squalls struck the headland. Such wind had been a new experience in her life then; now she was used to it.

  The room must once, long ago, have been a nursery. At one end was her bed, with a wardrobe and a dressing-table; at the other there was a fire-place around which three armchairs had been grouped. They had all seen better days. One was badly stained and a second had horse-hair coming from a large hole in the arm. Near one window was a table and two hard chairs. There was a rocking-horse, missing an eye, and along one wall was a blackboard and chalks. Apart from the door through which she had entered there were two other doors, one near the head of her bed, which she found to be locked. She had assumed that a nanny or a governess might once have slept in the adjoining room. The third door opened into a small bathroom. There was a copper geyser set with paper and kindling ready to light. She had noticed that the taps on the bath and hand-basin were massive brass affairs. The bath had rust streaks and the tap in the basin dripped continuously. The water, when she had switched it on, was a pale, peaty colour. The bathroom smelled of damp and seaweed but the bedroom, when she had returned to it, had the same dusty smell as the hall downstairs.

  Soon Lena had come in with a tray. There had been bread and butter on it, a glass of milk and a plate heaped with some mustard-coloured substance which Kate had not recognised.

  ‘What have you brought me?’

  ‘Yellowtail, Madam.’

  ‘What’s yellowtail?’

  Lena had said, ‘Fish, Madam. Pickled fish. If you don’t want it, I can bring some cold meat.’

  ‘I’ll try it.’

  ‘It’s good.’

  She had turned to the door and Kate had suddenly not wanted to be left alone and inquired her name.

  ‘Lena, Madam.’

  ‘Won’t you call me Miss Kate instead of Madam?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Kate.’

  ‘The lady at the top of the stairs . . . that was Mrs. Preller?’

  ‘Yes. She says she will see Miss Kate tomorrow.’

  ‘Lena . . .’

  ‘Yes, Miss Kate?’

  ‘Nothing. Goodnight, Lena.’

  Then Lena had said a strange thing: ‘I hope Miss Kate is happy here. We need Miss Kate.’ She had turned and left the room.

  Kate had stood in the centre of the room for some moments, feeling touched, but at the same time, curious. Why did they need her? They didn’t even know her.

  She had tried to eat some of the food, but the pickled fish was curried and had burnt her mouth. She had sat on her bed and felt that she had never been quite so alone as she was at that moment.

  But she was not the kind of person to sit brooding. She had explored the cupboard space and had begun to unpack. That finished, she had decided to have a bath, but had changed her mind when she calculated the effort of lighting the geyser. Instead, she had stripped and given herself a flannel wash. There was an old stained mirror behind the bathroom door then – she had replaced it with a better one later – and she remembeed looking at herself in the half light, seing the dim reflection of her body. ‘You’re a throw-back,’ Duggie had said once. ‘A dark Celt.’ And she had remembered Tom on the ship coming out to the Cape stroking her naked breasts in the heat of the cabin and saying, ‘You’ve got a body like a young boy,’ and she had said, ‘Do you
like young boys?’

  The mirror had reflected her eyes, deep brown and set wide apart, large and flecked with gold, with an inner light that gave an impression of immense energy and vitality.

  That night, when sleep had come at last, her dreams had been filled with white, writhing snakes with gaping mouths and bulging eyes, and ships breaking up on jagged black rocks, and a woman coming out of the sea, her breasts white and bare, the remainder of her body covered in a film of blood.

  When she had thought about the dream the following morning, she was able to place all the images. Now, in the car going back to Saxenburg after the inquest, she wondered if there had been precognition: surely the body had been Miriam’s?

  Chapter Four

  Everything was strange those first days. She remembered that when she awoke the morning after her arrival the first thing she had noticed was the silence. It was almost as though she had come to her senses in a tomb. The blinds were still down and the room was dark. She had climbed out of bed and let the light in, then stood at the window, staring down at the view. It was breath-taking. Her room was on the seaward side of the house, so close to the edge of the cliffs that it appeared from her angle that cliff and house were one. The sea was directly below her.

  To her left, the cliffs stretched along the coast, dropping away to the town of Helmsdale and the long white beach beyond. To her right there was the cove with the headland on the far side. In the brilliant morning sunshine the sea had been light green and almost flat calm. Tides had still sucked back and forth across the India Reef, but they were small by comparison with the day before.

  It was a little after seven o’clock and she’d had no idea what the household arrangements for breakfast were. She had washed and dressed and gone down to the hall. The blue and purple ostrich feathers in the big vases at the bottom of the carved mahogany staircase had stirred and turned in the current of her movement.

  All the doors which let off from the hall had been closed and she had turned to her left and opened the first one. She had found herself in a huge drawing-room. It occupied a corner of the house, with windows facing the sea. The shutters were closed, but bars of sunlight lit the room as they might the interior of a church. Again the colours were muted: purples and blues, a grey carpet, grey velvet curtains, more ostrich feathers in vases on the floor and on tables, again the smell of dust. There were piles of magazines on a low stinkwood table. The date on the top one was September, 1913, more than ten years before. She had picked up one or two more. Their dates were all before the war, some near the turn of the century. They had been published in London, Paris, Berlin or Rome and on the cover of each was an illustration of a woman wearing some form of feather decoration, either on her hat or as a boa.