by F. G. Cottam
As he studied the old crustacean monster, noticing the barnacles on its ridged back and claws now that his eyes were fully adjusted to the gloom, he heard a noise behind him he knew was real rather than imagined. It was the clack of a heel in silence on a tiled church floor.
James turned, slowly. Angela Heart stood halfway down the aisle staring at him over folded arms. Her expression was severe and for a moment he felt absurdly as a child might, doing something naughty, caught red-handed in the act.
‘Why are you here?’
‘Why aren’t you at school?’
‘Inset day. This is a dangerous structure. It has lain derelict for years. It must be more than half a century since it was last surveyed. You should not be here.’
‘How did you know I was?’
‘You passed my cottage on the route. I was drinking a cup of coffee and enjoying the view of my roses through my front window. On foot, you could have had only one destination in mind. It seemed pretty improbable. I was fairly incredulous to be honest, but I knew I hadn’t imagined you. When you had not returned after five minutes, I came to look for you. I did so out of concern, James. This place is not safe.’
He nodded. He thought her phraseology odd. It was the structure that was unsafe, rather than the place. Teachers were usually more pedantic in their linguistic precision. On the other hand, Angela Heart was not your typical teacher. He had felt a physical thrill just now when she had used his Christian name.
She had not had time to change, surely, before following him to the church. It meant that she had been enjoying her coffee and her roses dressed as she was now, in a short black dress that showed her cleavage under a loop of black pearls and with her mouth shaped in crimson lipstick. The solitary clue to the impromptu nature of her errand was that her hair had only been carelessly brushed. Strands of it hung free on her cheeks, softening her features and making her look more youthful than she had the previous evening, especially now that she had dropped her hands to her sides and was smiling.
‘Listen to me. I sound like I’m telling you off.’
‘Are you going to make me go and stand in the corner?’
She looked around and pushed one of the stray strands of hair away with a thumb. ‘Neither of us should be in here. Come on, James.’
They were at the churchyard gate before he said, ‘What’s in the sacks?’
‘Bones,’ she said.
‘Not human bones?’
‘Really, how would I know what’s in the sacks? They look like they’ve been there for decades. They’re probably full of debris from an attempt to clean up the place, between the wars, back before the bay gave up on organised religion. You should really be asking Michael Carney about this. He’s our local historian.’ She closed the gate latch carefully behind them. ‘If I invited you back to my cottage for a cup of coffee, would you feel completely scandalised?’
James looked at his watch. He would set off at about one in the afternoon, the time when he judged traffic would be at its lightest, back in London to beat the rush hour. It was just after eleven o’clock. ‘I’d feel flattered and delighted,’ he said, which was only the truth.
They drank their coffee in her back garden. There was ivy on the ancient walls that formed its boundary. There was the smell of herbs and sweet grass and blossoming flowers. Birds sang from the branches of a sycamore tree. She studied him with her green eyes. In sunlight, after the gloom of the church interior, they were startling, almost mesmeric.
‘I like men like you.’
‘Oh? What’s likeable about men like me?’
‘You like women. In fact you are fascinated by women. It makes you attentive and charming and a bit flirtatious, but not in a patronising way.’
‘You think I’m a flirt?’
‘You do nothing to conceal the fact that you find me attractive. But you love your wife very deeply, James. When you talked about your family last night, the passion was plain to see in your face. It was ardent in the tone of your voice. You would never be unfaithful to her.’
‘No. I would not.’
‘I like that about you too.’
‘Then we should get on.’
She smiled. ‘But not too well. People might talk.’
‘I’ve never met a teacher who talks like you.’
Angela lit a cigarette. She said, ‘Many teachers draw no real line of demarcation between the children they teach and their parents. They speak to the parent as they might to a bright but sometimes tricky pupil. I’ve never done that. I have a mode of behaviour and a dress code and a rather correct and didactic persona I use in the classroom. I don’t bring it home or use it after hours because to do so would be a bore and make me a slave to my occupation.’
And teaching was an occupation for her, James knew. It was not a vocation and she was not in the business of pretending it was. She was too honest, with herself and other people for that.
‘What keeps you in the bay?’
She smiled again. ‘Why would I leave?’
‘You are clever and stylish and beautiful. I would have thought you’d have left years ago.’
‘I did leave, James. I came back.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t mind telling you, but it is a complicated story and we don’t have time for it now. You have a journey ahead of you.’
Lillian decided that she would tell James about her affair with Robert O’Brien as soon as the children had both gone to bed. She did not trust Robert. He was neither mature nor predictable and he was completely unused to failure and rejection. She thought it quite likely that he would compromise and expose her over the coming days and weeks. And living with that possibility would be a prolonged agony she was not prepared to tolerate.
She believed anyway what she had told Jack on the Thames towpath at Hampton Court. Secrecy was corrosive. She did not know whether her relationship with James, and therefore their family life, would survive intact her confession of betrayal. She did know that she could not live a lie. She had to tell the truth and then try to salvage what was salvageable once she knew the extent of the damage she had inflicted. She had to tell the truth as the first step in regaining the trust and respect of her son.
Love was a funny commodity. Lillian would have sacrificed her life willingly for either of her children. She loved them profoundly, above anyone, above anything. She knew that they loved her unconditionally. Jack loved her despite the betrayal he had found out about. Sons tended to love their mothers. And until the catastrophic error of judgement with Robert O’Brien, she had been a good mother; an affectionate, unselfish provider who tried to teach her children right from wrong and good from bad through example.
The love an adult individual felt for their partner was a less certain, more negotiable commodity. There was still much that she loved about James. But she had meant it when she had said to him it was difficult to love someone who did not have any love for themselves. James felt that he was a failure in some important ways. What he saw as his defeat in the cut and thrust of the commercial world had made him melancholy. Perhaps he was even depressed.
His defeated mood had distanced him, at least in her mind. She could not have precisely identified the moment at which they had ceased to be soul mates. She thought that it had happened, though, in the months prior to Jack’s assault. James had become moody and preoccupied and less easy to communicate with. He had not wanted to inflict his company upon her, she realised now, because he had not had sufficient self-regard to consider himself a worthwhile companion.
There was something quite noble about his reason for distancing himself. But the effect had been to distance her and that had been damaging to their relationship. They had become careful and tactful and deliberate around one another, where before there had been only spontaneity. They had grown apart. At least to her mind they had. They had started to behave around one another with a sort of formality that was alien to real intimacy. She had become isolated and she realised now, in retr
ospect, rather lonely.
She catalogued his attributes in her mind. He was loyal and faithful. He was sober and gentle and kind. He was selfless and patient and always had time for the children and was forever encouraging and trying to stimulate and inspire them. He was clever and physically courageous. She could not remember ever having seen him afraid. He was a bit of a flirt, but that was because he was good-looking and well put together and women responded to him positively. He was always encouraging her, was always genuinely thrilled by her achievements. He was a man who loved his wife.
How would he respond to her confession?
Her thoughts were interrupted by laughter from the sitting room. She was in the kitchen, making tea for the dashing DS sharing a sofa and some choice football anecdotes with Jack. She thought Alec McCabe less inhibited than he had been when James had been around. Maybe it was just a case of the second visit being one he was making to someone he had got to know a bit. It was obvious Jack liked him and the feeling seemed to be mutual. They had a rapport.
She looked at her watch. When she had made the tea, she would have to go and fetch Olivia from school. Clichés become clichés because their aptness earns them constant repetition, she mused, with an ironic little smile to herself. The cliché she had in mind, as she stirred sugar into McCabe’s tea, was the one insisting that there is no rest for the wicked.
On their return, Olivia scampered up the stairs to her room, saying that she had something important to write in the journal she kept. Lillian made her daughter a snack and took it up to her. Then she went in to the sitting room for her formal chat with the police officer. He had rung that morning asking to talk to both the crime victim and a parent. Sensing that the boring, grown-up stuff was about to commence, Jack excused himself. He would nap for an hour. He was sleeping for less time in the afternoons as his strength recovered. But he still needed a little siesta each day if he didn’t want the evening to bring a headache with it.
‘He plays centre back, doesn’t he?’
‘He played centre back. How much relish he will have for aerial challenges when he’s healed is yet to be determined.’
‘He seems a resilient lad. And he’s young, has youth on his side.’
‘Maybe he can play on the wing,’ Lillian said. ‘Wingers provide the crosses, don’t they? They aren’t required to get on the end of them.’
‘Sounds like you know a bit about football.’
‘For a woman, you mean?’
‘No. I mean what I say, Mrs Greer. It sounds as though you know something about the game.’
‘I’m sorry. The sarcasm wasn’t called for. When your son is a footballing prodigy, you do sort of learn about it.’
‘By osmosis, you mean?’
‘I wish by osmosis. If I had a pound for every time I’ve cheered him on from a rainy touchline . . .’
‘You’d have a lot of pounds.’
‘Quite. Does your daughter play a sport? She can hardly follow you into the ring.’
‘Jack told you about that?’
‘My husband told me. Jack told him.’
‘These days, Dora could very well follow me into the ring, actually. It’s an equal opportunities sport. But her passion is ballet, thank God.’
Lillian looked at the floor.
‘I know what you are thinking. You are wondering how many black prima ballerinas there are and I can tell you, they’re as rare as hen’s teeth. But my wife is white and my daughter mulatto and quite strikingly beautiful.’
‘Do you think my husband a racist bigot?’
‘No, Mrs Greer, I don’t. I think your husband is an empiricist. He doesn’t have much time for righteous ideology. He judges the world on how he sees it.’
‘You sound as though you approve.’
‘I grew up watching news bulletins in which they constantly banged on about the black community. It’s so ubiquitous a notion, people don’t really question it. To understand just how bogus it is, consider the white community.’
‘There isn’t one.’
‘No, there isn’t. It’s an absurd concept.’
‘Why did you want to see me, Detective Sergeant?’
‘I spoke to your husband yesterday afternoon. He sounded as though he was on a beach.’
‘He probably was.’
‘After I spoke to him, I had a call from the social services department dealing with Jack’s three alleged assailants. They’re all having the same dream, apparently.’
‘That’s nice and cosy for them.’
‘One of them has mental health issues. The other two, the twins who are his cousins, are apparently well balanced mentally.’
‘Well balanced, when they’re prepared to beat someone half to death for a mobile phone?’
‘Everything is relative, Mrs Greer.’
‘What’s the substance of the dream?’
‘A little girl appears in it and threatens them.’
‘I cannot see what possible relevance that has to us.’
‘The little girl is white. And she is quite emphatic on the reason for the threat. She is very specific about what happened to Jack.’
‘The poor darlings, my heart bleeds for them.’
‘Sarcasm seems to be your default mode.’
Lillian bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry, Detective Sergeant. It isn’t usually. I’m under a bit of strain. I have a domestic issue. Actually it’s truer to say that we have a domestic issue, my husband and me. It will have to be resolved after he gets back, tonight.’
McCabe sipped tea. It was his turn to look at the floor. ‘They do say honesty is the best policy,’ he said.
‘You are very perceptive.’
‘Not always a blessing.’
‘Why do we need to know? About the dreams these boys claim to be having, I mean?’
‘If the case comes to trial, I don’t want you surprised by any tack their defence counsel might take.’
‘We’ve got no influence over their dreams, for God’s sake.’
‘But they think you have, apparently. They think they’re the victims of witchcraft.’
James got back to London in a buoyant mood. He did not honestly think that his trip to Brodmaw Bay could have gone any better. He had been warmly welcomed. The place was every bit as unspoiled and authentic as it had promised to be in Lillian’s book illustrations. Topper’s Reach was the perfect property to fashion into a wonderful home for the four of them. He had checked out the schools quickly in his room on his laptop while he did his bit of packing before departure and discovered that Philip Teal had been telling only the truth the previous evening in the Leeward. The Schools Inspectorate had picked out both the Mount and St Paul’s Primary for particular praise.
He had been obliged to pull into a lay-by to answer his mobile on the return drive to hear more positive news. Lee Marsden, his media agent, had just received a preliminary offer for his game from the people in Colorado. They had outlined a global sales strategy and come up with a provisional bid offer that was more money than James had earned in his entire professional career. There were also generous points on net profit percentage from retail sales down the line.
‘They are anxious to fix some face time, Jimmy.’
James did not like being called Jimmy. In the circumstances, he was prepared to tolerate it though. ‘Speak English to me, Lee.’
‘They want to meet you in person. They have ideas for multiple platform integration and brand extension and package visuals they want to put in front of you.’
‘Shouldn’t it be me making the pitch?’
‘We’re way beyond the need to pitch. They’re sold, brother. They’re totally sold.’
After this short conversation, James took a moment to think about what the news he had just heard might mean for his future and that of his family. He sat at the wheel at the roadside with the engine switched off and his mobile on the seat beside him and gave in to the temptation to speculate on what it would be like, finally to achieve the s
uccess he had striven for during a stop-start career marked mostly by mediocrity, anticlimax and disappointment.
His children would be proud of him. They would take pride in his achievement and they would enjoy its material consequences in lives that would be financially secure. Their peers would buy and play his game. They would queue to see the movies spun off from it. They would covet and then own the action figures based on characters he had created. His success would be tangible. And success bred success. The money would give him the time to create something even better.
It would change the dynamic of his relationship with his wife. She had always earned more than he had and that fact had to some extent inevitably shaped the way that they lived. Prior to his trip to Brodmaw, she had made every major decision affecting their lives together. Now it would be different. They would be equals. She would have more respect for him and, crucially, he would have a great deal more respect for himself.
It was tempting to credit Brodmaw itself with this sudden change in his fortunes and its potential effect on his status. It was just a coincidence of course that he had been there when the Colorado breakthrough came. But it did not really feel like one. What it actually felt like, to James, was that in finally making the decision to do something about their long-held fantasy of relocation, he had somehow qualified his family for an altogether improved fate. It was said that you made your own luck. He felt the strong conviction that an idyllic little village on the southern coast of Cornwall was going to be a lucky place for them indeed. It had started already and they hadn’t even moved there yet.
He looked up. His mind cleared itself of speculation and his eyes focused on what lay beyond the windscreen. In the distance, on the parched plain to the left of where the road gently descended, he could see Stonehenge. In a humbler mood, the sight of the great megalithic enigma would have chastised him, making him feel trivial and his ambitions shallow. The indifferent might of the sea could do that to him, or the vaulting arches of an old cathedral. But he was not in a humble mood. In fact, he felt exultant.