Gabriel's Bay

by Robertson, Catherine

  Please God, thought Kerry, let that be the bad luck trio over and done with. He knew that he’d made mistakes in his life, but still, this seemed excessive. He’d started this car journey aged thirty-two, and would not be surprised if the rear-vision mirror showed his hair now to be completely white.

  God was listening. That, or His attention had been diverted. Kerry only cared that the next ten minutes of driving were bus-, creature- and hill-free. And that having played ‘The Ballroom Blitz’ by The Sweet, ‘Kashmir’ by Led Zeppelin and now ‘Aqualung’ by Jethro Tull, with no ads in between, the radio station was shaping up to be the greatest in the known universe.

  Gabriel’s Bay. There was the sign. Here he was. He’d made it.

  He couldn’t stop, though. The place of his employment was a house a mile past the outskirts. The job was live-in, and he’d been asked to check in, as it were, the day before he was officially due to start, to give him time to settle into his accommodation. Kerry hoped for something comfortable, but after travels where his beds had included railway station benches, a goat shed filled with goats, and a giant sack of rice, he would be perfectly happy with a wooden board. There was still half an hour before his agreed arrival time, but he should keep moving, just in case. Would not do to be tardy.

  He drove through the town slowly, to gain some impression of what would, all going well, be his home for the next six months. He hadn’t told his new employer he only intended to give it six months because he might not. He might like it here. He might be able to build a whole new, improved life here around a whole new, improved him.

  Gabriel’s Bay was small. No doubt about that. The quantity of housing suggested perhaps a few thousand people. There was only one main street, and it was as long as the average pedestrian crossing in London. It was Sunday afternoon, which he hoped explained the emptiness. The number of inhabitants he did spot could have fitted in the Fielder, if they didn’t mind a bit of a squash in the back. They seemed ordinary enough, not well-heeled, but not underpass-dwelling scruffy. No one stared at him with the cold eyes of those whose plans for strangers involve banjos and squealing.

  Architecturally, the town looked a little like someone had built a set for a Western movie and then, over the years, as parts had fallen down, replaced the wooden buildings with concrete boxes, each with one window and a sliding door. Kerry saw a takeaway, a pharmacy, several shops selling second-hand goods, a clothing store that looked as if it only let in customers aged eighty-five and over, and a lawnmower repair shop. There was a liquor store and what could be the pub, though it could also be condemned; one window was boarded up and the front door looked to have been struck by an axe. He did not see the petrol station or the supermarket, but there could be side streets he had missed. There could, in fact, be a whole other affluent side to Gabriel’s Bay. Any town that has a winery close by couldn’t be too badly off, surely?

  On his right, at the end of the main street, a yellow sign’s worn black letters spelled ‘Beach’. The town website said the beach campground was so popular in summer that people were advised to book several months in advance. It was mid-October now, so summer was not far off. In London it was autumn, that season of mists and mellow fruitfulness and the ritual purchase of new gloves because you had stuffed your previous pair in the back of the sock drawer and now can only find one. Even though it was weeks off, Kerry’s mother would be starting to get excited about Christmas. ‘Whut is it with ye and baubles and yon infant in the hay?’ said his father every year, to which his mother always replied, ‘And this from a man who thinks the Pope fella can do magic.’ Kerry hadn’t spent last Christmas with his parents, having hightailed it overseas that April, a week after the wedding-that-wasn’t. He doubted he’d spend this one with them, either; a nurse and a teacher’s salary barely allowed for a weekend camping in The Witterings, let alone a plane trip to the other side of the world. Sometimes, he wondered if he’d ever go back home again.

  Woodhall! The sign was so discreet he’d nearly missed it. That was the name of the house owned by his new employer. It sounded grand; they sounded grand. Meredith and Jonty Barton. If they were in England, the pair would almost certainly ride to hounds.

  The sign was on the left of two white wooden gateposts that marked the start of a driveway covered in gravel. Civilised gravel, though, not the rutted, rough kind Kerry had seen on the farm driveways. This stuff had a hint of limestone, its dust fine and pale.

  Kerry drove past English trees — oak, chestnut, sycamore, copper beech. One of those Edwardian-style curved-back wooden benches, painted white. Clumps of those small scented flowery jobs his mother liked — freesias? His father couldn’t smell them at all. It was one of those genetic quirks, apparently, like being able to roll your tongue.

  Kerry was no gardener, but he could see this one was well tended. Wouldn’t win the avant-garde award at Chelsea, to be sure, but it was pleasant and serene.

  And here was the house. Nice. Two-storey. Wooden. Painted white (there was a theme emerging here, Kerry thought) with pale blue trim. Bit of ornate fretwork on the upstairs balconies and the wide porch. Old-fashioned style that suggested inside he’d find worn Turkish carpets, Worcester tureens and paintings of dogs and ancestors.

  The driveway ended in a wide circle that bordered a stretch of neatly clipped lawn. Kerry parked to one side, checked that he looked presentable in the rear-vision mirror. His hair was always unruly, not much he could do about that; slicking it down with what hairdressers called ‘product’ only made him look like he was auditioning for a rockabilly band. His shirt was new — bought for less than five quid in Bangkok — and his jeans, as long as he sat carefully, had no obvious holes. His shoes were the pair he’d bought for the wedding. He’d hesitated about bringing them, but they were the best shoes he’d ever owned. He’d abandoned the dove-grey morning suit as being of further use only if he decided to become a magician in Las Vegas.

  A lime-chip path curved from the driveway through the lawn, ending at stippled concrete steps that ascended to the porch. The front door had a bronze knocker shaped like a lion’s head. Kerry patted its head — ‘Are you friendly?’ — and brought the ring in its mouth down against the door with a bang that sounded shockingly loud in this quiet place.

  Quick footsteps approaching, clunk of a lock, door opening to reveal a dark, wood-panelled entrance. A woman in front of him, in her sixties, neat white buttoned shirt, navy trousers, white curled hair in a layered cut.

  ‘Yes?’ Brisk, unfriendly.

  ‘I’m, er, here for the home-help job. I’m Kerry Macfarlane.’

  The woman’s brown eyes widened. She was good-looking, Kerry thought. A beauty in her day, though, as his mother might remind him were she here, some women definitely improved as they got older.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said. ‘Kerry Macfarlane is a woman.’

  ‘Ah. No. He’s a he. He’s me, in fact.’

  ‘Kerry-Francis Macfarlane?’

  He hoped his smile conveyed charm. ‘The very one.’

  Meredith Barton, for it must be she, folded her arms. ‘In your correspondence, you gave me to believe you were a woman.’

  Kerry tried to recall the emails he’d written to her. He’d pretended to have had a few different occupations over the years — usually when drunk and trying to pick up girls in pubs. And, true, he had once dressed in drag for a work party, but—

  ‘I’m pretty sure I did not. Perhaps you—’

  ‘You have a woman’s name!’ said his accuser.

  ‘Well, no — Kerry is very much a boy’s name in Ireland. And my Francis is spelled with an “i”.’

  ‘You’re Irish?’

  She made it sound a worse crime than pretending to be a woman. Kerry considered fudging his reply. But this place, this was where he planned to transform into the new, improved him — wasn’t it?

  ‘Half,’ he said. ‘Northern Ireland. Ulster. Though my mother’s family moved before she was born to get away
from all the sectarian hoo-ha. Which is ironic because she married a Catholic. From Aberdeen.’

  ‘Your father is Catholic?’

  ‘Semi-practising. A man of science, is my dad. He often finds those two things difficult to reconcile.’

  ‘And your mother is, I assume, a Protestant?’

  ‘Not much of one, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind me saying. My parents aren’t fans of organised religion. Organised anything, really. Having said that, my mother is a Yuletide fanatic and my father can be forcefully evangelical about model railways when you get him going. I myself sang in the school choir for a bit, so I’m reasonably au fait with the biblical ditties.’

  Meredith Barton stared at him for an eternity and a half.

  ‘Your father is a model-railway enthusiast?’

  There seemed no earthly reason why she should have singled out that fact, but it was better than shutting the door in his face.

  ‘He has a shed out in our back garden. More accurately, our back garden comprises of his shed and a strip of ill-fitting paving stones between it and the house. If I wanted a kick-around, I had to go to the nearest park with my ball and hope the big kids didn’t steal it.’

  Although her face made the Great Sphinx of Giza look spirited, there was clearly a flurry of activity occurring inside the cranium. Kerry crossed his fingers that the mental dice being thrown would come up double-six on his side.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘This is not a suitable job for a man.’

  And she began to shut the door in his face.

  ‘No, wait!’ Kerry prevented her by holding onto the door’s edge. ‘Please. I’ve come a very long way for this job. Across oceans, over a huge hill, a one-way bridge and everything.’

  ‘You’re not suitable,’ she said again. ‘I’m sorry.’

  The old Kerry might have given up at that point. Accepted defeat and slunk off. But it was not his fault if this woman had hired him without ascertaining his gender. Or, come to think of it, without being too concerned that he had minimal experience …

  ‘You had lots of other applicants, then?’ he said.

  A pause. Had he guessed correctly … ?

  ‘I will advertise again.’

  Bingo!

  ‘But that may take weeks,’ he said. ‘And I’m right here, ready to start. I’m also very in touch with my feminine side. My father quite often refers to me as a big Jessie.’

  Hesitation, but with a frown. She wasn’t sold yet.

  ‘Here’s a suggestion,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you try me out — say for a month, and if you think I’m pants, I’ll go. No fuss, no bother.’

  ‘Pants?’

  ‘Rubbish. Condensed, I gather, from the original expression “a pile of pants”.’

  She pressed her lips together. In a manner more thoughtful than disapproving, Kerry was relieved to see.

  ‘A month is quite some time,’ she said.

  ‘All right, how about two weeks?’

  More hesitation. More frown. ‘You can feel free to fire me at any time.’

  Her shoulders sagged, which could be a sign that she’d decided it was simply easier to give in. By now, Kerry had no more fingers left to cross.

  ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘A two-week trial. With the option to sever earlier if it isn’t working.’

  Yes! OK, so the situation was entirely tenuous, but it was better than living in the back of the Fielder until he found something else.

  ‘Thank you.’ He offered his hand to his new employer. ‘You won’t regret it.’

  She took his hand. Her own was fine-boned but strong.

  ‘Won’t I?’ she said. ‘Well, that will make a nice change.’

  Chapter 2

  Bernard

  ‘Meredith’s helper arrives today.’

  Bernard Weston regarded his wife over the top of A Laodicean by Thomas Hardy. Her speech perturbed him on two fronts. One: Sunday after lunch was his time for reading, and Patricia knew that he considered this a time of guaranteed peace. If she did not want to occupy herself in the garden or with some other domestic task, she was welcome to read with him, but there were to be no interruptions until she made a pot of tea for them both at four o’clock. And two: the mere mention of Meredith Barton’s name plunged him into a bubbling witch-cauldron of emotion. Eye of regret, toe of shame.

  He gave a curt nod, to make it obvious he did not wish to converse. But Patricia persisted.

  ‘A young Englishwoman, apparently,’ she said. ‘Who’s been travelling the world. Probably taking one of those gap years.’

  She imbued the phrase with a wary admiration, as if in her mind a gap year were akin to the kind of adventure activity, bungy jumping for example, that required equal parts nerve and foolhardiness and, as such, was only to be attempted by the young. Bernard and his wife were sixty-three, and their life together had been thus far free of physical exuberance. Unless dementia beset the pair of them, bungy jumps were not likely to feature in their golden years, either.

  ‘I thought I would pop over later in the week,’ Patricia continued. ‘You see, I know she’s been rather anxious about her decision to hire someone. That’s why she’s kept it so quiet — I suspect she only told me because I caught her just after she’d said yes. You know what Meredith’s like. Even the Gestapo’s finest would struggle to make her confess to being anything less than fully in control.’

  Then she added, ‘Would you like to come with me?’

  An unusual request and not entirely welcome. While Patricia and he could not be said to lead separate lives, they certainly allowed each other space to pursue their own interests. He had his property portfolio, his books and his chairmanship of the Progressive Association, and Patricia had her garden, a book club, and volunteer work of some sort. She seemed also to pay social calls on a variety of female acquaintances, but had never before requested he accompany her. Why now, and why Meredith?

  If Bernard had not been married to his wife for well over three decades, he might have suspected an ulterior motive. Once, a long time ago, Patricia had confessed to being jealous of Meredith. ‘She’s your Galatea,’ had been her bitter accusation. ‘Your peerless perfect woman.’ He had denied it, but perhaps some resentment still lingered, and she felt a need now to test him once again?

  But, no, her previous comments proved that while his own emotions might still bubble up, hers had faded to nought in the intervening decades. The two women were quite friendly now.

  But not too friendly, fortunately. Despite living within only a few miles from her, Bernard had spent the last forty-six years keeping Meredith at a distance. He had no wish for her and his wife to become such intimates that invitations to dine at the Bartons’ would manifest.

  ‘I’m sure you will be all the support she needs,’ he replied. And in a tone that was kind but firm, added, ‘Now, if you don’t mind, my dear, I really would like to return to my novel.’

  Patricia did not protest, and lifted her own novel from its resting place in her lap. Some dreadful mystery, by the look of the cover: shadowy figure in a foggy setting, out-of-focus title font, dominant colours blue and grey. Bernard gave thanks that his firm had never published such tripe.

  She let the book fall in her lap again.

  ‘I wonder what she’ll do with her spare time?’

  Bernard breathed in to quell his irritation. He had to be fair. Normally, Patricia respected his wish to read in peace. In fact, she was quite protective of his afternoon serenity, and would even refuse to summon him to the phone when his mother called, as Verity Weston often did, preferring those times she knew were inconvenient. Yes, Patricia’s urge to speak was out of her usual character, and so he would be patient and indulge her — for a minute or so more.

  ‘I assume you mean Meredith?’ he said.

  ‘She’s been at Jonty’s beck and call for over a year now,’ said Patricia. ‘She may have forgotten what it’s like to have time for herself.’

  Bernard employed his k
ind but firm tone again, with greater emphasis on the firm.

  ‘If anyone knows how to productively spend her days, it’s you, my dear,’ he said. ‘You can remind her of what options are available.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Patricia. ‘The superfluity of choice that faces me every morning.’

  She shut the mystery book with a snap, causing Bernard further irritation — for the unnecessary noise and for the risk to the book’s spine. Even a library mystery deserved to be handled with care. Another woman, after that emphatic gesture, might have leapt up from the armchair, but Patricia was not built for leaping. On her feet now, she smoothed down the front of her skirt and straightened her blouse.

  ‘I think I’ll go for a jaunt in the car,’ she said.

  Bernard had no desire to prevent her. Though he did, with all sincerity, wish her to drive safely, and told her so. Reading had to be paused while the car started up. He could never remember the make — something red and European; cars had never interested him. Patricia loved it, even though it was unnecessarily noisy and went through an inordinate amount of petrol. He’d suggested once trading it in for a Japanese hatchback that had excellent fuel economy, but she refused, claiming that hers had better handling or some such irrelevance.

  When the sound of her car had receded, he lifted up his Hardy, and noted, with a silent oath, that his hands were not entirely steady. The Meredith Barton effect. Undiminished for forty-six years.

  Bernard had known Meredith all his life — they were both the only children of the area’s two largest landowning families. But while his mother considered the Westons to be the equivalent of English gentry, with all the right that entailed to lord it over lesser mortals, Meredith’s parents had been more egalitarian, probably because they sensed that the heady days of farm subsidies were drawing to a close, which would put them in the category many English gentry had found themselves earlier that century — asset rich but struggling to pay the bills. However, in those days when farming was still lucrative, the two families had socialised regularly, and Bernard and Meredith had formed an affectionate, close acquaintance that endured through their teenage years, right up until the day Jonty Barton appeared on the scene. On that day the knowledge that he was in love with Meredith had darted through Bernard with the speed of an arrow, though unlike Austen’s Emma, he saw also that he had no hope of his love being requited. It was, Bernard reflected, the second-worst day of his life.