“George was from Massachusetts, a town on or near the coast – pretty much like this place, I suppose – called, er, Ipswich? Or maybe Arkham or Innsmouth. He would talk about all three, so I can’t be certain. And I admit to being a dunce where American geography is concerned. But I’m sure I have his birth certificate somewhere in the house, if you’re that interested?
Sitting down, the old man bade Jilly do the same. “Interested?” he said. “Well, perhaps not. Let sleeping dogs lie, eh?”
“Sleeping dogs?” Now she was frowning again.
And he sighed before answering. “Well, I did practice for a few months – just a few months – in Innsmouth. A very strange place, Jilly, even for this day and age. But no, you don’t want to know about that.”
“But now you’ve got me interested,” she said. “I mean, what was so strange about the place?”
“Well, if you must know, it was mainly the people – degenerate, inbred, often retarded – in fact much like young Geoff. I have bumped into him, yes, and there’s that about the boy . . . there’s a certain look to him . . .” But there the old man paused, probably because he’d seen how Jilly’s hands fluttered, trembling on the arms of her chair. Seeing where he was looking, she put her hands in her lap, clasping them until her fingers went white. It was obvious that something he had said had disturbed her considerably. And so:
“Let’s change the subject,” he said, sitting up straighter. “And let me apologise again for being so personal. But a woman like you – still young and attractive, in a place like this – surely you should be looking to the future now, realizing that it’s time to go, time to get out of here. Because while you’re here there are always going to be memories. But there’s an old saying that goes ‘out of sight—’ ”
“ ‘— Out of mind?’ ” She finished it for him.
“Something like that.” He nodded. “A chance to start again, in a place, some town or city, that does have its fair share of eligible bachelors . . .” And then he smiled, however wryly. “But there I go, being personal again!”
Jilly didn’t return his smile but told him, “I do intend to get away, I have intended it, but there are several things that stop me. For one, it’s such a short time since George . . . well, since he . . .”
“I understand.” Jamieson nodded. “You haven’t yet found the time or the energy to get around to it.”
“And two, it’s not going to be easy to sell up – not for a decent price, anyway. I mean, look how cheaply you were able to secure this place.”
Again the old man nodded. “When people die or move away, no one moves in, right? Well, except for old cheapskates like me.”
“And all perfectly understandable,” said Jilly. “There’s no school in the village, and no work; the fishing has been unproductive for years now, though of late it has seemed to pick up just a little. As for amenities: the nearest supermarket is in St Austell! And when the weather gets bad the old road out of the village is like a death trap; it’s always getting potholed or washed out. So there’s no real reason why anyone would want to come here. A few holidaymakers, maybe, in the summer season, and the very rare occasion when someone like you might want to retire here. But apart from that . . .”
“Yes?” He prompted her, slyly. “But apart from that? Jilly, almost everything you’ve said seems to me contradictory. You’ve given some very excellent reasons why you shouldn’t stay, and a few pretty bad ones why you should. Or haven’t I heard them all yet?”
She shrank down into herself a little, and Jamieson saw her hands go back to the arms of her chair, fluttering there like a pair of nervous birds . . .
“It’s my daughter,” she said after a while. “It’s Anne. I think we’ll have to stay here a little longer, if only for her sake.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. She’s . . . she’s doing piano with Miss Harding in the village, and twice a week she studies languages at night school in St Austell. She loves it; she’s quite a little interpreter, you know, and I feel I have to let her continue.”
“Languages, you say?” The old man’s eyebrows went up. “Well, she’ll find plenty of work as an interpreter – or as a teacher, for that matter.”
“Yes, I think so, too!” said Jilly, more energetically now. “It’s her future, and she has a very real talent. Why, she even reads sign!”
“I’m sorry?”
“Sign language, as used by the deaf and dumb.”
“Oh, yes, of course. But no, er, higher education?”
“She had the grades,” said Jilly, protectively. “She would have no trouble getting into university. But what some desire, others put aside. And to be totally honest . . . well, she’s not the communal type. She wouldn’t be happy away from home.”
Again Jamieson’s nod of understanding. “A bit of a loner,” he said.
“She’s a young girl,” Jilly quickly replied, “and so was I, once upon a time. And I know that we all go through our phases. She’s unsettled enough – I mean, what with her father’s death, and all – so any move will just have to wait. And that’s that.”
Now, having firmly indicated that she no longer desired to talk about her daughter, it was Jilly’s turn to change the subject. And in doing so she returned to a previous topic.
“You know,” she said, after a moment, “despite that you’ll probably think it’s a morbid sort of fascination, I can’t help being interested in what you were saying about Innsmouth – the way its denizens were, well, strange.”
Denizens, Jamieson repeated her, but silently, to himself. Yes, I suppose you could describe them that way.
He might have answered her. But a moment earlier, as Jilly had spoken the last few words, so the verandah door had glided open to admit Anne. There she stood framed against the evening, her hair blowing in the unrelenting sea breeze, her huge green eyes gazing enquiringly into the room. But her face was oh-so-pale, and her gaze cold and unsmiling. Maybe she’d been out in the wind too long and the chill had finally got to her.
Sliding the door shut behind her, and going to the fire to warm herself, she said, “What was that you were saying, Mother? Something about strange denizens?”
But Jilly shrugged it off. “Mr Jamieson and I were engaged in a private conversation, dear, and you shouldn’t be so nosy.”
That was that; Anne’s return had called a halt to any more talk. But when Jamieson drew the verandah curtains he couldn’t help noticing that hulking, shambling, head-down figure silhouetted against the sand dunes; the shape of Geoff, casting long ugly shadows as he headed back toward the village.
Following which it was time to drive Anne and Jilly home . . .
There was a week of bad weather. James Jamieson would sit in a chair by his sliding patio window and gaze out across the decking of the verandah, across the dunes and beach, at the roaring, rearing ocean. But no matter the driving rain and pounding surf, the roiling sky split by flashes of lightning and shuddering to drum rolls of thunder, sooner or later there would be a hulking figure on the sands: “Young Geoff,” as Jilly White had seen fit to call him, the “unfortunate” youth from the village.
Sometimes the boy – or young man, whatever – would be seen shambling along the tidemark; at others he’d walk too close to the turbulent water, and end up sloshing through the foam when waves cast their spume across his route. Jamieson made a point of watching him through his expensive high-resolution binoculars, and now and then he would bring Geoff’s face into sharper focus.
The sloping forehead and almost bald head; the wide, fleshy mouth, bulging eyes and scaly bump of a chin, with the bristles of a stubby beard poking through; the youth’s skin – its roughness in general, with those odd folds or wattles – especially the loose flaps between his ears and his collar . . .
One afternoon toward the end of the week, when the weather was calmer, Jamieson also spied John Tremain on the beach. The link road must have washed out again, relieving the headmaster of his duties for a d
ay or so and allowing him time to indulge his hobby. And sure enough as he walked the tidemark, he would stoop now and then to examine this or that piece of old driftwood. But at the same time “the village idiot” was also on the beach, and their paths crossed. Jamieson watched it all unfold in the cross hairs of his binoculars:
Tremain, crouching over a dark patch of seaweed, and Geoff coming over the dunes on a collision course. Then the meeting; the headmaster seeing the youth and jerking upright, lurching backward from the advancing figure and apparently threatening him with the knobby end of a stripped branch! The other coming to an awkward halt, and standing there with his arms and hands flapping uselessly, his flabby mouth opening and closing as if in silent protest.
But was it revulsion, hatred, or stark terror on Tremain’s part? Or simply shock? Jamieson couldn’t make up his mind. But whichever, it appeared that Tremain’s dislike of “bolshy” teenagers went twice for those who weren’t so much bolshy as, well, unfortunate.
That, however, was all there was to it; hardly a confrontation as such, and over and done with as quickly as that. Then Tremain scuttling for home, and Geoff standing there, watching him go. The end. But at least it had served to remind Jamieson of his promise to go and see John’s driftwood carvings – which was one reason at least why he should pay a return visit . . .
At the weekend Jamieson called the Tremains on the telephone to check that the invitation was still open, and on Sunday evening he drove the solitary mile to his neighbour’s place, parking by the side of the road. Since he, the Whites and the Tremains had the only properties on this stretch of potholed road, it wasn’t likely that he’d be causing any traffic problems.
“Saw you on the beach the other day,” he told John when he was seated and had a drink in his hand. “Beachcomnbing, hey?”
The other nodded. “It seems our talking about it must have sparked me off again. I found one or two rather nice pieces.”
“You certainly have an eye for it,” the old man commented, his flattery very deliberate. “Why, I can see you have several ‘nice pieces’ – expertly finished pieces, that is – right here. But if you’ll forgive my saying so, it seems to me these aren’t so much carvings as wind-, sea-, and sand-sculptures really . . . which you have somehow managed to revitalize with sandpaper and varnish, imagination and infinite skill. So much so that you’ve returned them to a new, dramatic life of their own!”
“Really?” Tremain was taken aback; he didn’t see Jamieson’s flattery for what it really was, as a means to an end, a way to ingratiate himself into the Tremains’ confidence. For Jamieson found himself in such a close-knit microcosm of isolated community society that he felt sure the headmaster and his wife would have knowledge of almost everything that had gone on here; they would have the answers to questions he couldn’t possibly put to Jilly, not in her condition.
For the old man suspected – indeed, he more than suspected – that Jilly White’s circumstances had brought her to the verge of nervous exhaustion. But what exactly were her circumstances? As yet there were loose ends here, which Jamieson must at least attempt to tie up before making any firm decision or taking any definite course of action.
Which was why the ex-Doctor was here at the Tremains’ this evening. They were after all his and Jilly’s closest neighbours, and closest in status, too. Whereas the people of the village – while they might well be the salt of the earth – were of a very different order indeed. And close-mouthed? Oh, he’d get nothing out of them.
And so back to the driftwood:
“Yes, really,” the old man finally answered John Tremain’s pleased if surprised inquiry. “I mean, this table we’re sitting at, drinking from: a table of driftwood – but see how the grain stands out, the fine polish!” In fact the table was quite ugly. Jamieson pointed across the room. “And who could fail to admire your plant stand there, so black it looks lacquered.”
“Yacht varnish,” Tremain was all puffed up now. “As for why it’s so black, it’s ebony.”
“Diospyros,” said Doreen Tremain, entering from the kitchen with a tray of food. “A very heavy wood, and tropical. Goodness only knows how long it was in the sea, to finally get washed up here.”
“Amazing!” Jamieson declared. “And not just the stand. Your knowledge of woods – and indeed of most things, as I’ve noted – does both of you great credit.”
And now she preened and fussed no less than her husband. “I do so hope you like turbot, er, James?”
“Psetta maxima,” said Jamieson, not to be outdone. “If it’s fish, dear lady, then you need have no fear. I’m not the one to turn my nose up at a good piece of fish.”
“I got it from Tom Foster in the village,” she answered. “I like his fish, if not his company.” And she wrinkled her nose.
“Tom Foster?” Jamieson repeated her, shaking his head. “No, I don’t think I know him.”
“And you don’t want to,” said John, helping the old man up, and showing him to the dining table. “Tom might be a good fisherman, but that’s all he’s good for. Him and his Gypsy wife.”
Sitting down, Jamieson blinked his rheumy eyes at the other and enquired, “His Gypsy wife?”
“She’s not a Gypsy,” Doreen shook her head. “No, not Romany at all, despite her looks. It seems her great grandmother was a Polynesian woman. Oh, there are plenty such throwbacks in Devon and Cornwall, descendants of women brought back from the Indies and South Pacific when the old sailing ships plied their trade. Anyway, the Fosters are the ones who have charge of that young Geoff person. But there again, I suppose we should be thankful that someone is taking care of him.”
“Huh!” John Tremain grunted. “Surely his mother is the one who should be taking care of him. Or better far his father . . . except we all know that’s no longer possible.”
“And never would have been,” Doreen added. “Well, not without all sorts of complications, accusations, and difficulties in general.”
Watching the fish being served, Jamieson said, “I’m afraid you’ve quite lost me. Do you think you could . . . I mean, would you mind explaining?”
The Tremains looked at each other, then at the old man.
“Oh?” he said. “Do I sense some dark secret here, one from which I’m excluded? But that’s okay – if I don’t need to know, then I don’t need to know. After all, I am new around here.”
“No,” said Doreen, “it’s not that. It’s just that—”
“It’s sort of delicate,” her husband said. “Or not exactly delicate, not any longer, but not the kind of thing people like to talk about. Especially when it’s your neighbour, or your ex-neighbour, who is concerned.”
“My ex-neighbour?” Jamieson frowned. “George White? He was your neighbour, yes, but never mine. So, what’s the mystery?”
“You’ve not sensed anything?” This was Doreen again. “With poor Jilly? You’ve not wondered why she and Anne always seem to be sticking up for—”
“For that damned idiot in the village?” John saw his opportunity to jump in and finish it for her.
And the old man slowly nodded. “I think I begin to see,” he said. “There’s some connection between George White, Jilly and Anne, and—”
“And Geoff, yes,” said Doreen. “But do you think we should finish eating first? I see no reason why we can’t tell you all about it. You are or were a doctor, after all – and we’re sure you’ve heard of similar or worse cases – but I’d hate the food to spoil.”
And so they ate in relative silence. Doreen Tremain’s cooking couldn’t be faulted, and her choice of white wine was of a similar high quality . . .
“It was fifteen, sixteen years ago,” John Tremain began, “and we were relative newcomers here, just as you are now. In those days this was a prosperous little place; the fish were plentiful and the village booming; in the summer there were people on the beaches and in the shops. Nowadays – there’s only the post office, the pub, and the bakery. The post office doubles
as a general store and does most of the business, and you can still buy a few fresh fish on the quayside before what’s left gets shipped inland. And that’s about it right now. But back then:
“They were even building a few new homes here, extending the village, as it were. This house and yours, they were the result. That’s why they’re newish places. But the road got no further than your place and hasn’t been repaired to any great extent since. Jilly and George’s place was maybe twenty years older; standing closer to the village, it wasn’t as isolated. As for the other houses they’d planned to build on this road, they just didn’t happen. Prices of raw materials were rocketing, the summers weren’t much good any more, and fish stocks had begun a rapid decline.
“The Whites had been here for a year or two. They had met and married in Newquay, and moved here for the same reason we did: the housing was cheaper than in the towns. George didn’t seem to have a job. He’d inherited some fabulous art items in gold and was gradually selling them off to a dealer in Truro. And Jilly was doing some freelance editing for local publishers.”
Now Doreen took over. “As for George’s gold: it was jewellery, and quite remarkable. I had a brooch off him that I wear now and then. It’s unique, I think. Beautiful but very strange. Perhaps you’d like to see it?”
“Certainly,” said the old man. “Indeed I would.” While she went to fetch it, John continued the story.
“Anyway, Jilly was heavy with Anne at the time, but George wasn’t a home body. They had a car – the same wreck she’s got now, more off the road than on it – which he used to get into St Austell, Truro, Newquay, and goodness knows where else. He would be away for two or three days at a time, often for whole weekends. Which wasn’t fair on Jilly who was very close to her time. But look, let me cut a long story short.
“Apparently George had been a bit of a louse for quite some time. In fact as soon as Jilly had declared her pregnancy, that was when he’d commenced his . . . well, his—
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