Their table was close to a great open fireplace where logs popped and hissed, and the pub being mainly empty, the service couldn’t be faulted. In an atmosphere that was quietly mellow, the country food bought fresh from the village bakery was very good. Even Jilly appeared clear-headed and in good spirits for once, and as for the Tremains: putting their customary, frequently unwarranted snobbery aside, they were on their very best behaviour.
That was the up-side, but the down-side was on its way. It came as the evening drew to a close in the forms of the fisherman Tom Foster, and that of his ward the shambling Geoff, when the pair came in from the cold and took gloomy corner seats at a small table. It was doubtful that they had noticed the party seated near the fire on the far side of the room, but Foster’s narrowed eyes had certainly scanned the bar area before he ushered his ward and companion to their more discreet seats.
And as suddenly as that the evening turned sour. “Checking that his enemies aren’t in,” said Tremain under his breath. “I can understand that. He’s probably afraid they’ll report him.”
“His enemies?” said Jamieson. “The other village fishermen, you mean? Report him for what?”
“See for yourself,” said the other, indicating the barman, who was on his way to Foster’s corner with a tray. “A pint for Tom, and a half for that... for young Geoff. He lets that boy drink here—alcohol, mind— and him no older than Anne here. I mean, it’s one thing to have that... well, that poor unfortunate in the village, but quite another to deliberately addle what few brains he’s got with strong drink!”
Anne, visibly stiffening in her chair, at once spoke up in the youth’s defence. “Geoff isn’t stupid,” she said. “He can’t speak very well, and he’s different, but he isn’t stupid.” And staring pointedly at Tremain, “He isn’t ignorant, either.”
The headmaster’s mouth fell open. “Well, I...!” But before he could say more:
“John, you asked for that,” Doreen told him. “You’re aware that Anne is that youth’s friend. Why, she’s probably the only friend he’s got! You should mind what you say.”
“But I...” Tremain began to protest, only to have Jamieson step in with:
“Oh, come, come! Let’s not ruin the pleasant evening we’re having. Surely our opinions can differ without that we have to fight over them? If Tom Foster does wrong, then he does wrong. But I say let that youth have whatever pleasures he can find.”
“And I agree,” said Doreen, glowering at her husband. “God only knows he’ll find few enough!”
With which they fell silent, and that was that. Things had been said that couldn’t be retracted, and as for the evening’s cosy atmosphere and light-hearted conversation: suddenly everything had fallen flat. They tried to hang on to it but were too late. John Tremain took on a haughty, defensive attitude, while his wife turned cold and distant. Jilly retreated quietly into herself again, and young Anne’s presence continued to register only by virtue of her physically being there— but as for her thoughts, they could be anywhere...
* * *
After that, such get-togethers were few and far between. Their friendship—the fact that the Tremains, Whites, and Jamieson stuck together at all—continued on a far less intimate level, surviving mainly out of necessity; being of the village’s self-appointed upper crust, they couldn’t bring themselves to mingle too freely with those on the lower rungs of the social ladder.
The old man was the odd-man-out—or rather the pig-in-the-middle; while he maintained contact with the Tremains, Jamieson never failed to assist Jilly and Anne White whenever the opportunity presented itself. Moreover, he visited the Sailor’s Rest from time to time, building at least tentative friendships with several of the normally taciturn locals. The Tremains reckoned him either a fool or a saint, while the Whites—both of them—saw him as a godsend.
One evening in early March Jilly called the old man, ostensibly to tell him she was running low on medication, the pills which he’d prescribed and made up for her. But Jamieson sensed there was more than that to her call. The woman’s voice hinted of loneliness, and the old man’s intuition was that she wanted someone to talk to... or someone to talk to her.
He at once drove to her house.
Waiting for his knock, Jilly made him welcome with a glass of sherry. And after he had handed over a month’s supply of her pills, and she had offered him a chair, she said, “I feel such an idiot calling you so late when I’ve had all day to remember my medication was getting low. I hope you don’t mind?”
“Not at all, my dear,” the old man answered. “If anything, I’m just a little concerned that you may be taking too many of those things. I mean, by my calculations you should still have a fortnight’s supply at least. Of course, I could be wrong. My memory’s not as keen as it used to be. But...?”
“Oh!” she said. And then, quickly recovering: “Ah! No—not at all—your memory’s fine. I’m the one at fault. For like a fool I... well, I spilled some pills the other day, and didn’t like to use them after they’d been on the floor.”
“Very sensible, too!” he answered. “And anyway, I’ve let it go too long without asking you how you’ve been feeling. But you see, Jilly, I’m not getting any younger, and what used to be my bedside manner is all shot to pieces. I certainly wouldn’t like to think those pills of mine were doing you any harm.”
“Doing me harm? On the contrary,” she replied. “I think I’m feeling better. I’m calmer—perhaps a little easier in my mind—but... Well, just a moment ago, James, you were complaining about your memory. Huh! I should be so lucky! No, I don’t think it’s your pills—though it could be a side-effect—but I do seem to stumble a lot. And I don’t just mean in my speech or my memory, but also physically. My balance is off, and I sometimes feel quite weak. You may have noticed?”
“Side-effects, yes.” He nodded. “You could be right. But in a remote place like this it’s easy to get all vague and forgetful. I mean, who do you talk to? You see me occasionally—and of course there’s Anne— but that’s about it.” He looked around the room, frowning. “Talking about Anne, where is she?”
“Sleeping.” Jilly held a finger to her lips. “What with the weather improving and all, she’s been doing a lot of walking on the beach. Walking and reading, and so intelligent! Haven’t you ever wondered why she isn’t at school? They had nothing more to teach her, that’s why. She left school early, shortly after her father... after George... after he...” She paused, touched her hand to her brow, looked suddenly vague.
“Yes, I understand,” said the old man, and waited.
In another moment Jilly blinked; and shaking her head as if to clear it, she said, “I’m sorry, what were you saying?”
“I was just wondering if there was anything else I could do for you,” Jamieson answered. “Apart from delivering your pills, that is. Did you want to talk, perhaps? For after all, we could all of us use a little company, some friendly conversation from time to time.”
“Talk?” she said—and then the cloud lifted from her brow. “Ah, talk! Now I remember! It was something you were telling me one time, but we were somehow interrupted. I think it was Anne. Yes, she came on the scene just as you were going to talk about... about... wasn’t it that coastal town in America, the place that George came from, that you were telling me about?”
“Innsmouth?” said the old man. “Yes, I believe I recall the occasion. But I also recall how nervous you were. And Jilly, in my opinion—from what I’ve observed of you, er, in my capacity as a doctor or ex-doctor— it seems to me that odd or peculiar subjects have a very unsettling effect on you. Are you sure you want to hear about Innsmouth?”
“While it’s true that certain subjects have a bad affect on me,” she began slowly, “at the same time I’m fascinated by anything concerning my husband’s history or his people. Especially the latter, his genealogy.” She speeded up a little. “After all what do we really know of genetics—those traits we carry down the generation
s with us—traits passed on by our forebears? And I think to myself, perhaps I’ve been avoiding George’s past for far too long. Things have happened here, James...” She clutched his arm. “Weird alterations, alienations, and I need to be sure they can’t ever happen again, not to me or mine!” She was going full tilt now. “Or if they do happen, that I’ll know what to do—what to do about—do about...”
But there Jilly stopped dead, with her mouth still open, as if she suddenly realised that she’d said too much, too quickly, and even too desperately.
And after a long moment’s silence the old man quietly said, “Maybe I’d better ask you again, my dear: are you sure you want me to tell you about Innsmouth?”
She took a deep breath, deliberately stilled the twitching of her slender hands on the arms of her chair, and said “Yes, I really would like to know all about that place and its people.”
“And after I’ve gone, leaving you on your own here tonight? What of your dreams, Jilly? For I feel I must warn you: you may well be courting nightmares.”
“I want to know,” she answered at once. “As for nightmares: you’re right, I can do without them. But still I have to know.”
“Anne has told me there are some books that belonged to her father.” Jamieson tried to reason with her. “Perhaps the answer you’re seeking can be found in their pages?”
“George’s books?” She shuddered. “Those ugly books! He used to bury himself in them. But when they were heaping the seaweed and burning it last summer, I asked Anne to throw them into the flames!” She offered a nervous, perhaps apologetic shrug. “What odds? I couldn’t have read them anyway, for they weren’t in English; they weren’t in any easily recognisable language. But the worst thing was the way they felt. Why, just touching them made me feel queasy!”
The old man narrowed his eyes, nodded and said, “And do you really expect me to talk about Innsmouth, when the very thought of a few mouldy old books makes you look ill? And you asked the girl to burn them, without even knowing their value or what was in them? You know, it’s probably a very good thing I came along when I did, Jilly. For it’s fairly obvious that you’re obsessed about something, and obsessions can all too easily turn to psychoses. Wherefore—”
“—You’re done with me,” she finished it for him, and fell back in her chair. “I’m ill with worry—or with my own, well, ‘obsession’ if you like—and you’re not going to help me with it.”
The old man took her hand, squeezed it, and shook his head. “Oh, Jilly!” he said. “You’ve got me all wrong. Psychology may be one of our more recently accepted medical sciences, but I’m not so ancient that I predate it in its entirety! Yes, I know a thing or two about the human psyche; more than enough to assure you that there’s not much wrong with yours.”
She looked bewildered, and so Jamieson continued, “You see, my dear, you’re finally opening up, deliberately exposing yourself to whatever your problem is, taking your first major step toward getting rid of it. So of course I’m going to help you.”
She sighed her relief, then checked herself and said, “But, if that involves telling me about Innsmouth—?”
“Then so be it,” said the old man. “But I would ask you not to interrupt me once I start, for I’m very easily side-tracked.” And after Jilly nodded her eager assent, he began...
* * *
“During my time at my practice in Innsmouth, I saw some strange sad cases. Many locals are inbred, to such an extent that their blood is tainted. I would very much like to be able to put that some other way, but no other way says it so succinctly. And the ‘Innsmouth look’—a name given to the very weird, almost alien appearance of some of the town’s inhabitants—is the principal symptom of that taint.
“However, among the many myths and legends I’ve heard about that place and those with ‘the look’, some of the more fanciful have it the other way round; they insist that it wasn’t so much inbreeding that caused the taint as miscegenation... the mixed breeding between the town’s old-time sea captains and the women of certain South Sea island tribes with which they often traded during their voyages. And what’s more, the same legends have it that it wasn’t only the native women with whom these degenerate old sea dogs associated, but... but I think it’s best to leave that be for now, for tittle-tattle of that nature can so easily descend into sheer fantasy.
“Very well, but whatever the origin or source of the town’s problems—the real source, that is—it’s still possible that it may at least have some connection with those old sea-traders and the things they brought back with them from their ventures. Certainly some of them married and brought home native women—which in this day and age mightn’t cause much of a stir, but in the mid-19th century was very much frowned upon—and in their turn these women must surely have brought some of their personal belongings and customs with them: a few native gewgaws, some items of clothing, their ‘cuisine’, of course... possibly even something of their, er, religions? Or perhaps ‘religion’ is too strong a word for what we should more properly accept as primitive native beliefs.
“In any case, that’s as far back as I was able to trace the blood taint—if such it is—but as for the ‘Innsmouth look’ itself, and the horrible way it manifested itself in the town’s inhabitants... well, I think the best way to describe that is as a disease; yes, and perhaps more than one disease at that.
“As to the form or forms this affliction takes,” (now Jamieson began to lie, or at least to step aside from the truth,) “well, if I didn’t know any better, I might say that there’s a fairly representative example or specimen, as it were, right here in our own backyard: that poor unfortunate youth who lives with the Fosters, Anne’s friend, young Geoff. Of course, I don’t know of any connection—and can’t see how there could possibly be one—but that youth would seem to have something much akin to the Innsmouth stigma, if not the selfsame affliction. Just take a look at his condition:
“The unwholesome scaliness of the skin, far worse than any mere ichthyosis; the strange, shambling gait; the eyes, larger than normal and increasingly difficult to close; the speech—where such exists at all—or the guttural gruntings that pass for speech; and those gross anomalies or distortions of facial arrangement giving rise to fishy or froggy looks... and all of these features present in young Geoff. Why, John Tremain tells me that the youth reminds him of nothing so much as a stranded fish! And if somehow there is something of the Innsmouth taint in him... well then, is it any wonder that such dreadful fantasies came into being in the first place? I think not...”
Pausing, the old man stared hard at Jilly. During his discourse she had turned very pale, sunk down into her chair, and gripped its arms with white-knuckled hands. And for the first time he noticed grey in her hair, at the temples. She had not, however, given way to those twitches and jerks normally associated with her nervous condition, and all of her attention was still rapt upon him.
Now Jamieson waited for Jilly’s reaction to what he’d told her so far, and in a little while she found her voice and said, “You mentioned certain gewgaws that the native women might have brought with them from those South Sea islands. Did you perhaps mean jewellery, and if so have you ever seen any of it? I mean, what kind of gewgaws, exactly? Can you describe them for me?”
For a moment the old man frowned, then said, “Ah!” and nodded his understanding. “But I think we may be talking at cross purposes, Jilly. For where those native women are concerned—in connection with their belongings—I actually meant gewgaws: bangles and necklaces made from seashells, and ornaments carved out of coconut shells... that sort of thing. But it’s entirely possible I know what you mean by gewgaws... for of course I’ve seen that brooch that Mrs. Tremain purchased from your husband. Oh yes; and since I have a special interest in such items, I bought it back from her! But in fact the only genuine ‘gewgaws’ in the tales I’ve heard were the cheap trinkets which those old sea captains offered the islanders in so-called ‘trade’. Trade? Daylight r
obbery, more like! While the gewgaws that you seem to be interested in have to be what those poor savages parted with in exchange for those worthless beads and all that useless frippery— by which I mean the quaintly worked jewellery, but real jewellery, in precious golden alloy, that Innsmouth’s seafarers as good as stole from the natives! And you ask have I actually seen such? Indeed I have, and not just the piece I bought from Doreen Tremain...”
The old man had seemed to be growing more and more excited, carried away by his subject, apparently. But now, calming down, he paused to collect his thoughts and settled himself deeper in his chair before continuing. And:
“There now,” he finally said. “Didn’t I warn you that I was easily side-tracked? And wouldn’t you know it, but now I’ve completely lost the thread!”
“I had asked you about that native jewellery,” she reminded him. “I thought maybe you could describe it for me, or at least tell me where you saw it. And there was something else you said—something about the old sea captains and... and things they associated with other than the natives?—that I somehow found, well, interesting.”
“Ah!” the old man answered. “But I can assure you, my dear, that last was sheer fantasy. And as for the jewellery... where did I see it? Why, in Innsmouth itself, where else? In a museum there—well, a sort of museum—but more properly a shrine, or a site of remembrance, really. I suppose I could tell you about it if you still wish it? And if you’re sure none of this is too troubling for you?” The way he looked at her, his gaze was very penetrating. But having come this far, Jilly wasn’t about to be put off.
“I do wish it,” she nodded. “And I promise you I’ll try not... not to be troubled. So do please go on.”
The old man nodded and stroked his chin, and after a while carried on with his story.
“Anthropology, the study of man’s origins and ways of life, was always something of a hobby of mine,” he began. “And crumbling old Innsmouth, despite its many drawbacks, was not without its sources—its own often fascinating history and background—which as yet I’ve so poorly delineated.
Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth Page 32
