Ship Ahoy! (A Cliffhanger Novel Book 3)

by T. J. Middleton

  ‘Is there any other way?’

  I put the bacon under the grill on low, put my mac on over my dressing gown, and nipped down to the bakery, slippers on and all. By the time I got back the rashers had started crisping up nicely. On came the fried bread, and when they were done, the eggs, two a-piece. Well, why not? When it comes to a cooked breakfast, a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.

  I got the hostess trolley out that Em had bought as a laugh in a car boot sale, put a couple of tea-towels over it to cover up the rust, laid it all out, fresh coffee and paper napkins included, and wheeled it down the corridor. They were both sitting up there, bolt upright, their mouths hanging open like they were two chicks in a nest, though she looked more chick like than him, it must be said. She looked bloody marvellous actually, not perfect you understand, but bloody marvellous, like she knew what sort she was, cheap and adaptable, was proud of it too, her bee-hive all messed up, her shoulders young and bare and the swell of her below strong enough to make my trolley-wheels squeak. I plonked Gerald’s plate down first, cause he was nearest, then trundled over to the other side. I was almost as close to her as he was. Never mind what I’d thought before, there was a lot to be said for this catering lark.

  ‘Morning Mrs Durand-Deacon,’ I said. ‘I trust you had a comfortable night?’

  ‘Mostly satisfactory, thank you,’ she said, and gave with the giggle. She had a voice like a cat being shaved with a blunt razor-blade, but did I mind? Mostly she’d said. Like a lullaby that was to my ears. She wriggled a bit and pulled the sheet around her top just that little bit tighter. Yes please.

  ‘Because it’s difficult isn’t it, getting your head down somewhere comfy in a strange bed. Bit like that song. Slap bang in the Middle of Nowhere. Isn’t that how it goes?’

  I took her plate and laid it down slow and careful on her lap, like it was me settling there, Slap Bang in the Middle of Somewhere. It was a trick I’d learnt while driving the Vanden Plas, putting out the feelers in front of the opposition, the husband, the intended, the God-awful mistake. They really go for it, some of them, really preps them up. That’s why you do it. This one liked it. Liked it a lot. She looked up at me, all ready with that smile again, and then gave a little cry and put her hand to her mouth.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I said. ‘Eggs too runny?’

  She shook her head, put her hand over her eyes, and started with the rapid snickering again. The sheet started slipping. She crossed her arm over it and snickered some more.

  ‘Your dressing gown,’ Gerald said, all slow and sophisticated like he was sipping cocktails with Noel Coward. ‘It’s come adrift.’

  I looked down. Tonto was staring down at her plate like he wouldn’t mind a spot of bacon himself.

  ‘Can’t take him anywhere,’ I said, and stuffed him back pronto. I wiped my hand on the other sleeve and grabbed hold of the coffee pot. ‘Shall I be mother?’ Gerald was firm.

  ‘No. Wheel it round this side. Tell you what you can do as well. Change that booking to four nights.’

  ‘But Audrey said…’ I stopped. He hadn’t noticed.

  ‘I know. But we’re enjoying ourselves so much, it would seem a shame to cut short such stimulating opportunities. Isn’t that right my dear?’

  She picked up her slice of fried bread and dropped it onto his plate, licking her fingers one by one afterwards. It was horrible really what they was doing to me. I banged the hostess trolley against the foot of the bed.

  ‘I don’t know if we can do that,’ I said. ‘Other bookings and that.’ Gerald waved his fork about.

  ‘And then there’s that picture in the gallery. My mind’s still hovering you know, shall I, shan’t I? A thousand pounds didn’t you say? There’s a marvellous spot on the landing that would give my Frinton friends something to think about.’

  ‘You don’t say?’

  ‘I do say. Speaking my mind is a trade mark of mine. And I’ve a lot more to say when we meet up on the Beacon this afternoon. Three o’clock this afternoon I think we said.’

  ‘Did we?’

  ‘I am sure of it. Now, if you’ll make yourself scarce Mr Greenwood, Charity and I must concentrate on getting our fill.’

  This was crazy. I couldn’t be having them indulging themselves willy-nilly on the premises like this for another three nights. It wasn’t fair on my peace of mind, never mind Audrey’s safety. I put on my tattiest shorts, went outside, took the cover off of the chain-saw and oiled up the blade. The railway sleeper sat there staring at me like it was saying, “Forget that tart inside. Work your magic on me instead. I’m a different kettle of fish altogether”. He was spot on of course, but I couldn’t help looking over to their bedroom window, at the far side of the conservatory, curtains still drawn. Audrey was right. Notices telling them how to behave, that’s what we were going to have to put up: above the bed, above the mirror, perhaps even get them printed on the bog paper. Drugged cocoa wasn’t such a bad idea either. De-caff coffee first thing in the morning too. None of that full-bodied leg-jiggling nonsense that I’d just tipped down their throats.

  I took out one of the big black marker pens I kept in a flowerpot by the side and drew what I thought was a very reasonable likeness of a Cornish Pasty on the wood’s surface. Like a well pregnant D, Cornish Pasties are, with the curved part all crinkly at the edges where the front and back of the pastry meet up. A bit like stretch marks I suppose, only made with a fork. I picked up the chain-saw, started her up, fingering the trigger as I walked round, the noise of the engine like one of them Formula One pillocks revving up his racing car. Never understood it myself, the Formula One bollocks. Don’t get me wrong. I like cars, like the feel of them, the look of them too. A nice throaty engine, a classy bit of upholstery, a couple of comfy seats in the front that tip backwards, let me at it. But racing cars are not proper cars are they? They’re fuel-guzzling piles of junk driven by over-priced arseholes who dress up like they’re off out to knock off the nearest bank. And all that champagne shaking at the end, what’s that all about? I mean, we know don’t we, but as far as I know, that sort of behaviour isn’t generally allowed in public, even in the Euro-zone.

  I stepped up and began carving out the pasty, great chunks of redundant railway-sleeper flying off this way and that, the blade whipping through the air like it had one of them three musketeers on the end of the handle. I got quite caught up in it. Well you do, don’t you. when you’re an artist. Getting caught up in it is what it’s all about. You think you’re free but you’re not. You’re torn between what Em calls “the eternal contradiction between art’s intention and its form”, the never-ending struggle between order and chaos, with Vincent van Muggins stuck in the middle, uncertain whether to squeeze tight or let go. Like having a shit only with a painting at the end of it instead of a turd. Unless of course it’s a rotten picture.

  And right then, I had let go. I wasn’t thinking about Audrey or Mrs Durand-Deacon or even those two humping away with my pieces of cooked resistance inside them. I was floating free in Cornish-Pasty-Land. I could see them like they used to be when I was a kiddie, all stacked up in the larder like a little house of cards, eight or ten of them that my mum had made the day before, all golden brown and glowing like they’d been lying out on the beach all day getting a proper tan, them all looking at me like they was smiling with their crinkly mouths, like they were saying, “you couldn’t get any jammier than this boy, even if you tried,” that meaty smell of theirs filling my heart like I knew it was true. They were so real then, almost alive. Out there on the patio I could feel my stomach turning over at the very thought of them, feel the old warmth of them in my hand, feel their size too. They were big, her Cornish pasties, sat in your hand like a nicely fashioned lump of rock, like you were David and were just about to fetch Goliath one. What could go wrong with your fingers wrapped round one of those? You knew where you was with a Cornish Pasty like that, knew who you were going to be. Standing there, carving that first one out, seei
ng one of her Cornish Pasties shape up before my eyes, I realised I’d never made anything for my mum before, not since becoming an artist, never even thought of it, never once, and yet here I was, making her one as best I could. Me, Al Greenwood making my mum a Cornish Pasty! Made my heart grow to bursting, just thinking about it.

  Then something knocked me hard on the back of my head. A lump of surplus wood, well aimed. Just as I planned. I was putting Gerald off his post fry-up stroke. I turned round, smiling as if to say it didn’t bother me at all, only to find Alice Blackstock about to chuck another missile from the safety of her fence. She waved and beckoned me over. I switched off the motor, walked across. I was mostly done anyway.

  ‘Al,’ she said, ‘I’ve been shouting at you for ages. Are you OK? You’ve been making a terrible racket.’

  ‘Sorry Alice. Did I wake you? It’s this damned blade. It needs sharpening’

  ‘Not the saw, ‘ she said. ‘You. You seem to be in some distress.’

  ‘Me? ‘ I blinked, rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand. They were soaking wet. Cheeks too. Christ I’d been blubbing like a new-born and not even knowed it.

  ‘It’s the chain oil,’ I told her. ‘Should have worn the goggles.’ I pointed to the art work. ‘What do you think?’

  She gave me a stern look, like she didn’t believe a word I said, then turned to Cornish Pasty No 1. That was the thing about Mrs B. You never knew how much she knew.

  ‘Marvellous!’ she said. ‘Simply marvellous. What is it?’

  ‘What do you think it is? It’s a Cornish Pasty. I’m branching out here. I’m sick of sharks. I’m going to do still life.’

  She nodded, still staring at it. To my mind it had Cornish Pasty written all over it, but Alice, she was taking her time over it. That was all right. People do that with the advanced guard.

  ‘Why not primitive totem-pole shapes then?’ she said after a while. ‘Or perhaps a primeval nude, like your nymph there, only with better posture. It’s what most people go for.’

  ‘Course everyone does them, that’s why. I’m pushing the boundaries here, Mrs B. Not counting Damien Four-Eyes, no one did sharks before me and I bet your bottom dollar no one has done Cornish Pasties before me neither.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘I was thinking of doing a collection of them, like you find in a proper shop, in wood to start off with, but maybe later in stone or concrete. I quite fancy concrete. It’s more permanent, a nice contrast to the Cornish Pasty itself, which is, by the fact of it being scoffed a few hours after it was made, somewhat temporary.’

  She clapped her hands together. She could sense I was on a roll.

  ‘That’s very astute of you Al. You’re really begin to understand the dichotomy between the real and the imagined aren’t you? And of course, the better a Cornish Pasty is, the more temporary it will be. So the better your sculpture looks, the longer it should last. Give me a kiss you clever man!’

  I gave her a kiss. She’d been on a couple of rolls herself that morning. I could smell it on her breath. Well why not?

  ‘I knew you’d see it. There’s a lot of potential here. Maybe I could persuade the Cornish Tourist board to put a load of them up outside their Information Offices. They could have them standing next to all those signs which say, “Welcome to Cornwall. Home of the Cornish Pasty.”’

  ‘Do many of them say that?’

  ‘No, but they could, with one of those bastards alongside. I’m thinking ahead here Mrs B. There’s no end to the possibilities. I could stick one on the Lizard for instance, the very first thing Johnny Matelot sees off Land’s End, a fucking great Cornish Pasty, ‘cuse my French.’

  She gave a little jump of excitement. That was another thing about Alice Blackstock. She loved to join in. Never held back.

  ‘Perhaps the Angel of the North could have one tucked under his wing.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You know, that Anthony Gormley sculpture outside Newcastle.’

  ‘Oh him.’

  Em was rather keen on Anthony Big-Head Gormley, went all goo-eyed every time he popped up on the box bragging about his latest work, usually another sculpture of guess who? Talk about the man in the mirror. I couldn’t see it myself, the attraction. Besides, she already had one ground-breaking sculpturer snapping her elastic.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said, quite firm. ‘Being a northerner, his angel probably wouldn’t recognise a properly constituted pasty if it dropped through his halo. But a pasty sitting on the stomach of one of Henry Moore’s reclining nudes, like she was about to stuff her face, now there’s a thought.’

  Someone cleared their throat. Audrey was standing in the doorway between the conservatory and the lounge. I didn’t think that Alice could see her from where she was standing, but she was taking a hell of a risk.

  ‘Got to go Mrs B,’ I said. ‘Our first paying guests you know.’

  ‘I do know. I saw them arrive yesterday. I was intrigued.’ I looked to the still drawn curtains. Talk about rubbing my face in it.

  ‘Well their eating habits leave much to be desired and she’s a bit on the young side, but live and let live, that’s my motto. I mean who are we to judge?’ She shook her head, impatient.

  ‘Not that. I was wondering who it was who had answered the door?’

  She put her head to one side, all inquisitive. How I got away with pushing her down the stairs all those years back I will never know.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, Em had already left in her car and you were out in yours. And yet someone let them in.’

  She looked at her fingers, waiting for an answer. Not for the first time I was reminded why I’d stuck my foot out and sent her tumbling. Not that I wished her any harm you understand, not now, not even then either. It’s just, I didn’t give her the name Poke Nose for nothing. That’s what she did. Just when you didn’t want her to. It was in her blood, along with the Lebanese red.

  ‘That must have been my new artist’s model,’ I said, thinking double quick. ‘I am branching into nudity as a matter of fact, primeval like you said, the older cavewoman huddled round the fire in the altogether, treading grapes, mending bearskins, doing a spot of baking for when her man gets back from foraging.’

  She pulled a face. She could be needlessly critical sometimes.

  ‘Doesn’t sound very primeval.’

  ‘No? Wait till you see her what she’s greeting him with. A stone-age doughnut in one hand and a club in the other for when he steps out of line.’ I looked round again. Audrey was beckoning something furious. ‘Look I’ve got to go. We’ll catch up later.’

  I went back inside, shut the door firm behind me. Audrey was standing in the red flouncy skirt and the fluffy jumper. Ra-ra-ra.

  ‘Where’s your twirling baton?’ I said, coming up to her fast. I grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the hall door. ‘What the fuck do you think you’re playing at,’ I whispered. ‘Get back in the bedroom and stay there. I’ll tell you when it’s safe.’

  She threw me off. Quite easily in fact. In the past we’d been more or less of a match in the arm-wrestling stakes. Now, I wasn’t so sure.

  ‘It’s perfectly safe now,’ she said, her voice bouncing up and down the walls like a railway announcement. ‘Your guests. They’ve gone.’

  ‘What, done a flit? Bastards!’

  I ran into the en-suite. Empty, save for a man’s handkerchief left on the bed. I picked it up,

  ‘Look at what’s he’s left. Some snotty handkerchief. Where are my fucking car keys? They can’t have got far.’ When I find him I’m going to stuff this down his throat.’

  Now it was her turn to hold me back.

  ‘Keep your hair on Al. Their things are still here, in the hall. He left you a note. Look.’

  She pointed to my three-cornered hat propped up on the mantelpiece, a fold of paper tucked into the rim. I walked over, pulled it out.

  “You win this time,” it said. “Replay three o’clock. Be t
here. Without baggage, including wives, natch.’

  ‘Meaning?’ Audrey barked. She was in searchlight mode.

  ‘He’s playing games with me, can’t you tell?’

  ‘What sort of games?’

  ‘Something to do with his age, Audrey, something to do with his wife, something to do with the woman he thinks is mine. It was him who went for that picture I took down to the cove, you know, the one without? Least he said he did. Could be another of his games of course.’

  It didn’t seem to register.

  ‘And you Al. What games are you playing? I still haven’t heard how you’re going to get me on board. And I’m not happy with this beach thing either. I can’t believe it’s the only hiding place in the whole of Dorset. What about out on the gunnery range? Why couldn’t I could hide down there, in one of the ruins? They’re not firing there at the moment.’

  The gunnery range lay across the other side of the valley. We used to go there a lot after dark in the old days, Audrey and me, climb over the wire fence, run down to the smashed up cottages and scream our heads off, the shells bursting not half a mile away. Talk about the earth moving. Twenty something years later it was where she dumped my Miranda, with her head caved in.

  ‘It’s nice to see you still keep in touch with your sensitive side,’ I told her. ‘Jesus, Audrey, what are you thinking of? As a matter of fact, the beach thing is out. Better stay here. It’s only a few days before we sail.’

  ‘Me included?’

  ‘I’m working on it Audrey. It’s not easy.’ She started to pace up and down.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s like I never left here, not knowing what you’re thinking, what you’re doing, who you’re… I’m just cooped up here, like I used to be, fiddling about in the kitchen, pacing up and down the sodding carpet. Christ, I nearly hoovered it a moment ago. I mean think about it. Hoovered your bloody shag-pile. It’s what I wanted out from, you, this. And I’m still wearing this bloody red.’

  Her fists were all clenched, her face too. I’d seen it all before in the nick, when the walls just got too much and there was nothing else for it but to lash out. Still, she wasn’t in prison was she? She was in her former home, her former husband dancing around in attendance. Some people don’t know how lucky they are.