‘Haven’t seen him out in this ‘ere boat in months.’
‘Pity,’ said Hamil. ‘Cos tis a fine vessel and no mistake. Wouldn’t mind one such meself. I dare say as how it be finely appointed inside?’ Cocking a quizzical eye at Cory by way of enquiry.
Cory shook his head. ‘Don’t ask me, I wouldn’t know. Hugh Marrack and I are not on such chummy terms. I’ve never been invited to make an inspection.’
‘What, you’ve never been on board your own son-in-law’s yacht?’
‘Dare say he thought I’d mess things up by putting my oily fingers all over the fancy panelling.’
‘But you say he doesn’t use it much now, and he’s working in The Ship today.’
‘He is indeed.’
The two men regarded each other with boyish complicity.
‘Wouldn’t hurt to take one little peek. My hands aren’t oily, are yours?’
Cory rubbed his grubby palms down the seat of his trousers. ‘Clean as a whistle, come on, let’s have a decko.’
The yacht was indeed very finely appointed with the kind of polished cherry-wood panelling that had Cory keeping his hands very firmly in his pockets. The saloon had plank seating which, with the addition of bunk cushions, could double as beds and would, the two men decided, be reasonably comfortable as well as functional. At the starboard end was fitted the galley with a small gas cooker and basin, and there were cupboards and lockers fitted into every corner.
Both men were equally impressed with the equipment in the cockpit, content to investigate every device, discuss mainsail and jib, winches, compass and fenders, and likely handling of the vessel in bad weather.
‘Fine workmanship,’ Hamil observed, once they had explored every gadget on board. ‘And the stern locker is spacious and waterproof.’ He pulled it open and both men peered inside. ‘You could keep anything dry in here. See this bag, no doubt where he stows his wet weather gear. It’s probably been here for months and not a drop of sea water, not a mark on it.’
Cory peered inside it. ‘Seems to be a bag of stuff for emergencies. Torch, bandages, iodine, flares, oh and what’s this?’ He pulled out a metal implement of some sort.
Hamil examined it closely. ‘Looks like wire cutters to me. Now why would your son-in-law have call for a pair of wire-cutters on board?’
‘Well, you never know, I s’pose, and here’s a couple of maps, one showing the coastline right down to the Scillies, and the other is of France.’
They both looked at the maps, a red circle marking one particular spot off the Brittany coastline, then at each other. Cory said, ‘Well, he was in the coastguard service I s’pose.’
‘Not in France he wasn’t.’
Cory put everything carefully back in the bag and stowed them away in the locker. ‘Like I say, he’m not a man to cross, ain’t my son-in-law. What he do is his business, not mine.’
Hamil wandered back into the saloon while Cory kept continually glancing over to the harbour, beginning to grow nervous of seeing a dinghy coming this way. ‘We should be going. What if he were to come? Hugh is not the mildest of men, he do have a sharp temper on him.’
‘This is clever,’ Hamil said, continuing to inspect the boat regardless. ‘Removable panels to gain access to the underside of the cabin and the wiring.’ He began to pull one or two aside and Cory became really alarmed.
‘Here, don’t you go messing about with none of that.’
‘Don’t fret, m’boy, I’ll put it all back d’rectly. Now what be this? There’s something in here, pushed right to the back under the benches.’ Hamil reached in to the shadowed recesses of the locker and dragged out a small battered, leather attaché case. ‘Looks like he was planning to make some sort of a trip.’
Cory looked at the case blankly for a long moment. ‘Hold on, if that’s what I think it is . . .’ He flicked up the two catches and both men stared in open-jawed disbelief at the contents thus revealed. ‘Jumping catfish. Who would’ve believed it? Now what would old Hugh need with one of these?’
‘And what in tarnation do we do about this little catch, now that we’ve found it?’
Chapter Forty-Five
Chad had never been so unhappy in his life. Here he was pacing the floor of the room they’d once shared, wishing he could turn back the clock and do everything different. How could he have made such a mess of things?
Even when he’d been stuck in the hospital, slowly recovering from his wounds, he’d comforted himself with the thought that Bette loved him, that she surely wouldn’t desert him just because he’d lost an arm. He’d been so certain of her. Though apparently he’d been wrong about that.
All the time he lay there, wounded, she was fooling around with his best buddy.
Yet as soon as she’d discovered that he was still alive, she’d written back to him, claiming to still want to marry him and had got the first transport to come out. Okay, those first weeks hadn’t exactly been easy, but she’d stuck it out, hadn’t she? Mom hadn’t helped much either, nor Mary-Lou with her miserable complaining.
Let’s face it, his whole darned family had been a problem from the word go. They would keep interfering, telling him that she’d up and leave any minute, so why bother to wed her? That she wasn’t to be trusted, was only after a rich husband like most war-brides. If that were true, was it any wonder if she’d got the wrong idea?
Back in England, he’d boasted far too much, made out they had thousands of acres of land as well as a fancy house in town. He’d certainly given her the impression that he was loaded. Barney had made it worse with his own embellishments about catering establishments.
Chad admitted to himself that he’d given her no hint that the Jackson family merely rented a holding high in the mountains, and a small one at that, by local standards.
Was it any wonder if she’d been disappointed by what he had to offer? He’d seen it in her face, heard it in her tone of voice, much as she’d tried to disguise it. What must she have thought of him?
That he was a liar and had got her here under false pretences.
Because of that, and his reluctance to stand up to his family and marry her in spite of their dire forecasts of disaster, he’d been filled with guilt, couldn’t bring himself to even have sex with her, when really he was desperate for her love.
Even so she’d stuck it out, had shown no inclination to go back to England. On the contrary, over and over she’d asked him to look for a place of their own, begged him to name the date for the wedding and he’d done nothing.
He couldn’t get it into his head that Bette would come all this way, suffer all of those problems with his family, even struggling to learn to cook and sew and wash his shirts. Where was the point in enduring all of that if she didn’t really care for him? Why hadn’t she left right away, the minute she’d discovered he wasn’t what he said he was?
It didn’t add up.
Did she decide to hang on until he’d at least made an honest woman of her? Was that all he represented to her, a marriage licence? Bette might have been naïve and foolish but she was also sweet and kind and romantic. She liked to have fun and was a bit naïve perhaps but he’d never seen her as the scheming sort.
And he found it hard to believe that any woman who could be so calculating, would up and leave when she did. Why take such a risk as to run off the minute the baby was born, before it was barely a week old, and with winter coming on. A new born baby might not survive such a journey. It didn’t make sense.
Or was he simply clinging on to false hope?
Exhausted from going over and over the same old questions with no easy answers, he flung himself out of the room and headed for town. He needed a beer. It might help him think.
‘Folk generally get in my truck the normal way, I niver did have none come bouncing in the back of it before. Let alone one carrying a young ‘un.’
‘Where am I?’ Bette could feel movement, the world seemed to be spinning around her, as if she were on a whirligig. �
�I’ve a head on me like I’ve drunk two bottles of whisky and then been hit by a frying pan.’
Her rescuer let out a gale of laughter. ‘At least you haven’t lost your sense of humour. Don’t panic, child. You’s safe with old Joe. I ain’t gonna hurt you none, nor this little whipper-snapper here, though he seems mighty hungry, by the rumpus he’s making. Time mamma’s milk bar be open pretty damn quick, I’d say.’
Matthew was screaming. Bette felt like doing the same herself her head hurt so badly, except that she was too delighted to hear another human voice to care a scrap about her headache. Even though she could see nothing but a blaze of light flashing in her eyes in the darkness, the driver of this vehicle, which she now realised was the cause of the movement as it jolted along, was male but sounded friendly enough.
‘Where are you taking me?’ Despite her confusion and the pain, she thought she’d better ask.
‘Kitson Point, that’s the one horse, two-bit town where Old Joe, that’s me child, case you hadn’t cottoned on to that fact, have the misfortune to reside. Once we get you there, we’ll have us some good hot coffee and you can tell old Joe your troubles. For such a skinny guy, I got the biggest, broadest shoulders you ever did see. My sister Josie now, she got these iddy-biddy shoulders and the rest of her is huge!’ whereupon he put back his head and roared with laughter.
Bette laughed too, largely out of relief that he sounded so friendly, and she’d almost forgotten what another human voice sounded like. She’d never heard of Kitson Point, nor did she care. But she understood now all about two-bit towns and if this one possessed nothing but a dry goods store and a petrol station, she loved it already. Anything would be better than that lonely mountain cabin. Even this bumpy old truck was better than the cold isolation of that place.
She beamed at him. ‘Sounds good to me,’ then pulling open her blouse, put the baby to her breast without embarrassment.
Their journey seemed to be coming to an end by the time Matthew was satisfied, a pearl drop of milk on his upper lip as he lay replete and fast asleep in her lap, and Bette could see lights ahead.
‘Here we be child, and you’s can get right in that big old bath jest the minute I park up.’
Bette had told the old man enough of her situation by this time to make Old Joe frown and scratch his head, and mutter something not very polite under his breath.
He supplied her with hot coffee and a doughnut, which were delicious, then she was wallowing in sweetly scented hot water, tucked into a big feather bed, with fervent promises that Joe himself would be only too happy to mind the babby
‘Don’t you fret none. Joe will take good care of you, girl. Where you want to go? The train station? Home to England?’
Bette shook her head. She didn’t have the fare for one thing, and she really had no wish to go home with her tail between her legs. ‘You don’t know a place called Savannah, do you? I heard, from a friend once, that it was quite pretty, and rather big.
Joe beamed at her. ‘It sure is bigger than Kitson Point and that’s a fact. Well, you’s in luck, child. That’s where my sister Josie lives - in Savannah. Owns a store jest like the one I have here. She’ll do right by you, will Big Fat Josie. Pretty girl like you shouldn’t be living in the back of beyond with an old sod like me anyways. You gotta get out there, gal, and live your life.’
Bette would certainly have agreed with him, had she not already fallen fast asleep.
Chad was drowning his sorrows in a second beer in the town bar. He’d asked around but nobody had seen a girl fitting Bette’s description, not here in Carreville nor in any of the small villages and hamlets he’d driven through on the way. Maybe what his mom said had been right after all. She had left and gone back to England.
He didn’t think to go to Kitson Point, way over to the east.
Joe took her to Savannah the very next morning. Bette had never seen anything like it. It was the most beautiful town she’d ever set eyes on. There were tall Regency houses built of wood and painted in bright colours, set in a series of squares. Some were more fanciful with ornamental iron work forming balustrades, staircases, porches and waterspouts. There were trees and wooded parks, walkways and quiet corners where folk stood and chatted together as if they had all the time in the world.
‘We got us some mighty fine ante-bellum houses here in Savannah,’ said Joe. ‘That means they was built before the war, our war that is.’
‘I know,’ said Bette with a small smile, remembering Chad’s boasting.
Joe took her to a pretty wooden house painted bright blue with paler blue shutters at each sash window. It had the usual porch running down the length of it, ‘Sideways to the sea to catch the breeze,’ he explained to her.
Bette was enchanted. What she wouldn’t give to live in such a house with Chad and Matthew. A real family house. Her family.
Big Fat Josie was indeed exactly as her brother, and her nick-name, described, except that she saw herself as being more shapely and better looking than he. She certainly laughed a good deal and swept them inside as if she’d been looking forward to their arrival all her life.
Next door to the little house stood the kind of general store in which you could buy anything from a pair of jeans and a cowboy hat, to a bag of nails or loaf of bread, from needle and thread to a bolt of fabric or tin of paint. There was a long wooden counter behind which were shelves stacked high with goods, tins, jars and boxes of every description. And in the centre stood a pot-bellied stove beside which sat two old men engaged in a game of checkers. They glanced up briefly from their game to touch their caps at Bette then got back to business.
Big Fat Josie addressed one of them as she gathered up an armful of Bette’s possessions. ‘Mind the store for me Jake, will ya, while I show this child upstairs. This is where I used to live, honey, before I bought me that fine house next door. You’ll be nice and cosy living over my store.’
In the days following, the old woman cared for Bette without asking too many questions, or expecting any recompense. Bette was expected only to sleep and eat, ‘or set a spell on that old porch and watch the world go by.’
And that’s just what she did, filled with gratitude for the kindness of Big Fat Josie’s hospitality. She put on weight, the colour came back into her cheeks and her sores healed, the physical ones at least. After a while she began to take short strolls about the town, carrying Matthew in her arms or wheeling him in a big black perambulator that Josie had spirited out of nowhere.
Bette explored the many fine squares and parks, marvelling at the pretty clapboard houses and gardens, would walk down to the bluff where the early sailing ships used to come in loaded with cotton, or along Bay Street to Factor’s Row with its range of red brick buildings named after the cotton factors who first brought prosperity to the town.
There was always something happening, people going about their business, ever ready to give her a cheery good morning. This was the America she’d dreamed of, back home in Fowey.
One morning, Bette told Big Fat Josie that she was ready to work. ‘I’m feeling much better now and I’ve no wish to be a liability to anyone. Besides, I have a child to bring up.’
Big Fat Josie set her hands on her substantial hips and frowned. ‘You could help me right here in the store and welcome. I sure am getting mighty tired of working this hard. But I did reckon as mebbe you’d be anxious to get on home to Cornwall.’
Bette shook her head. What did she have to go home to? The shame and disgrace of a failed marriage before ever it got started, and her mother saying ‘I told you so’? ‘No, I’m in no hurry to go back home and yes, I’d love to work for you, Josie. Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.’
It seemed a small miracle to Bette that the woman could put her hands on the right size of screw or knitting needles in an instant, although she would sometimes hunt for a good half hour, muttering ‘I know I’ve got one here some place. Saw it jest the other day.’
The coffee bar, or diner as
she called it, was situated at one end with a couple of tables and check cloths and the constantly appetising aroma of freshly made coffee. Big Fat Josie would grind the beans herself. Ladies with baskets, or old timers with an hour to kill, would sit awhile and pass the time of day. Nobody seemed to be in a hurry when they came by Big Fat Josie’s place.
Josie said, ‘was a time when I had the energy to do everything myself. Did all my own baking and folk’d come from miles around jest to taste my apple pie. But I’m dead beat by closing time these days. Time I retired and went to rock out my days on that old porch o’ mine, so you’s right. I need me some help.’
‘I’d love to help,’ Bette agreed. ‘I’ve never worked in a shop. I was a hairdresser with my mum in Fowey but I’m quick to learn.’
Josie’s big brown eyes opened wide. ‘You telling me you can do hair? Well ain’t that somethin’. Hey, could you do mine, child? Cut it all short and sassy?’
Bette gazed at the glossy, ebony mass tied back from the fat, honey brown face with a twist of string, and reaching half way down her back, and said, ‘Why would you want to? It’s beautiful as it is.’
Big Fat Josie chuckled. ‘You sure got a way with words, girl. I like that about you. You’ll do fine.’
‘But will everyone else accept me? I’m a stranger here.’
Big Fat Josie put back her head and laughed again, making her several chins bounce and shake and wobble with mirth. ‘If they’ll accept me, they sure will take a shine to you, child. I was left this place by my pappy. He was a Spanish sailor who came to Savannah on the boats, met and fell in love with my momma, and stayed. She died when I was just a young ‘un.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. That must’ve been hard.’
‘I got by, but folk didn’t take too kindly to me at first; had a whole heap of problems when I was a gal. But my pappy, he done think I was the best thing on two legs, so I stuck on in here after he passed on, and here I still am, forty years later.
For All Our Tomorrows Page 34
