by TP Fielden
‘I heard you call her Oog or something when you were saying goodbye the other day. Is that a nickname?’
‘No, her real name is Huguette, I call her Hugue for short. You don’t say the “h” of course. She escaped with her family from Belgium in the First War and they set up home in Britain. She went to school in Sussex before university, then joined the family business.’
‘She has a businesslike brain. You can see that.’
‘Her father died and she became quite important running round Europe – Amsterdam one minute, Paris the next. Berlin, Madrid, all over. The diamond trade. It came in handy for her war work.’
‘Diamonds? Really?’
‘No, you silly boy,’ said Auriol. ‘The fact that she knew every European capital and could get by in each of their languages. That was a rare and vital asset in 1939.’
‘Does she have family still living?’
‘Just her mother now. A bit of a battleaxe. No,’ corrected Auriol, ‘more than a bit. Madame Dimont can’t quite believe her daughter has grown up. She knows nothing, obviously, of her war work and so is unable to judge quite how competent a human being she brought into this world. But Madame is the veritable Achille’s heel – Hugue can cope with everything in life, apart from a visit from her mother.’
‘Which the mother is permanently threatening.’
‘You do catch on quickly, Valentine.’
‘I rather hoped the one tangible asset I possess might come in useful in journalism.’
Auriol laughed. Underneath that charm, he was pretty sharp.
‘And she’s never married?’ he asked.
‘That’s enough for one day,’ said Auriol firmly. ‘She’ll tell you if she wants. That’s if you stick around long enough. There’s a high turnover of young journalists down here – here one day, gone the next. Where do you think you’ll be this time next year?’
‘D’you know,’ said Valentine, getting up and walking over to the window, ‘I woke up this morning and decided I might want to stay here for ever.’
‘You might not want to,’ cautioned Auriol, ‘once you’ve got on the wrong side of that editor of yours. He can be perfect poison. I’ve known him for years and he gets worse. I don’t know why Hugue puts up with it.’
‘That’s another thing,’ said Valentine, turning. ‘Why call herself Judy, when her own name is so much more intriguing?’
‘Girls can be cruel. For a time she was a bit plump at school and so they called her Huge. No wonder she changed it.’
‘Not Judy to close friends, though.’
‘No,’ agreed Auriol, ‘not to close ones.’
‘It’s strange,’ said Valentine. ‘I’ve only been here five minutes and already it seems like home. There’s something special about Devon, there’s definitely something very special about Temple Regis. Maybe the air perhaps? I don’t know.’
‘I would have thought a young man like you would prefer to be in London, kicking up your heels.’
‘Well, one does get invited to parties – too many parties,’ he said, scratching his head.
‘Lots of nice girls,’ encouraged Auriol.
‘Well …’ said Valentine and looked as though he was going to go on, but then shut up. ‘I’ve been on my own rather a lot. After I came out of the army I decided to go for a walk.’
‘Lake District? Scotland?’
‘No,’ said Valentine, ‘something different. I took the train to Dover, hopped on a ferry, and then walked from Calais to Budapest.’
‘Good Lord,’ said Auriol, who was not easily impressed, ‘that must be …’
‘Nearly a thousand miles, with detours. I hitched a lift some of the way but it still took a long time.’
‘Why?’
‘I was pretty mixed up. I’m not now.’ Valentine wandered over to the door. ‘Well, that was lovely, Mrs Hedley.’
‘Miss Hedley. Auriol if you like.’
‘I’ll be in again. I’m just round the corner at Cranmer Cottage.’
‘Old Christie’s place? I thought he was dead.’
‘He is. Last December. He was … not quite sure what sort of relation he was, but until they sort out the probate it’s on loan. As a quid pro quo I’m supposed to sort out the chaos. Bit untidy at the moment but I hope you and Judy, er, Hu— er … will come and say hello once it’s straightened out. I really feel at home here.’
‘Delighted,’ said Auriol spiritedly. ‘And if you ever have an afternoon off during the holiday season, young man, I can always use an extra pair of hands.’
Miss Dimont was on the point of leaving the Tuppenny Row cottage. Angela de Mauny’s mood had veered from friendly to almost threatening during this second conversation, but though she was definitely odd, Miss Dimont could not help admiring her grit – the ambition to conquer Mount Everest a mere handful of years after Edmund Hillary was enviable. To enter horology, a profession as closed to women as the Freemasons themselves, and to prosper, was remarkable too. She was quirky and well read but with a strange urgency about her, her hands often dabbing at her eyes as if trying to rub away non-existent tears.
The matter of the Sisters of Reason remained unexplained, equally Angela de Mauny’s presence at the Paignton beauty pageant: Miss Dimont, a gifted interviewer, realised she was talking to a brick wall when it came to these matters. All that could be said was that the clockmaker had helped furnish Miss Dimont’s article on the progress of West Country women post-war – the ostensible reason for her return to Tuppenny Row – with some sharp little vignettes. It could be said, therefore, that her work was done.
Just as she picked up her raffia bag ready to depart and pushed the spectacles back up her nose, the front door was pushed open with some urgency and a voice barked: ‘Ange! You promised … !’
‘Oh!’ exclaimed Miss de Mauny, embarrassed and deflated at the same time.
Miss Dimont felt the hallway suddenly filled with a massive presence. Before her stood a tall, crop-haired eminence, slim and military in bearing, dressed in a sharply cut tweed suit. Though not much taller than the other two, she somehow towered above them. She was little short of magnificent.
‘Er,’ faltered Miss de Mauny, clearly punctured by the arrival of this newcomer, ‘er, my guest is just going. Do, er, do go in and make yourself a cup of tea. Just be a jiffy.’
‘Hello,’ said Miss Dimont, pleasantly enough, but not wishing to leave without an introduction. ‘Judy Dimont.’
‘New recruit?’ barked the eminence, looking straight past the reporter to Miss de Mauny.
‘No, Ursula. She’s a reporter from the local newspaper.’
‘WHAT!’ The stentorian voice crashed against the pastel walls of the cottage and bounced back.
‘Riviera Express,’ said an undiminished Miss Dimont, perfectly at ease. ‘May I ask …?’
‘Ursula Guedella,’ snapped the towering individual, as if everyone should know who she was. Yet the name did not serve to enlighten the reporter. ‘We don’t want publicity.’
‘I don’t offer publicity,’ said Miss Dimont, sharply, quite undaunted. ‘I came to talk to Miss de Mauny about a feature I’m writing about the position of women in the late 1950s.’
‘And so you SHOULD!’ barked the tweed suit. ‘So I should THINK!’
‘Perhaps,’ rejoined the reporter, ‘it is a subject close to your heart as well.’
A strange whinnying noise came from across the hall, one which could loosely be interpreted as laughter.
‘My name means nothing to you?’ said Ursula, snootily.
‘I’m afraid not,’ said Miss Dimont. ‘I don’t believe you’re local?’
‘LOCAL?’ the response came as a bellow. All three of them were standing in Angela de Mauny’s hall but suddenly there did not seem enough room to accommodate them. ‘We are EVERYWHERE. You’re a WOMAN. You surely know THAT!’
Miss Dimont made a gesture of conciliation. Her smile, the dip of her head said that what a fool she must be not to kn
ow all these things, including the identity of the rude woman standing so aggressively before her.
The penny finally dropped. ‘The Sisters of Reason,’ she said, shooting a glance at Angela de Mauny. The clockmaker, who like St Peter had thrice denied all knowledge, had been caught out.
The woman strode past.
‘Commandant,’ said Angela, chasing after her into the kitchen. ‘A cup of tea.’ Miss Dimont was left on the doormat; clearly it was expected that she would let herself out. But since she had not directly been invited to leave she took the journalist’s view that, perforce, she was allowed to stay. She followed the pair into the back room. ‘No milk, no sugar,’ she trilled sweetly. ‘But if you have a slice of lemon …’
Betty Featherstone was feeding the customary double-decker sandwich of copy paper and carbon paper into a large Olivetti parked on an unused desk at the back of the newsroom. It had been relegated there because its ‘g’ had gone missing – very irritating, but every other typewriter was occupied. There were fewer machines than reporters, and when you were in a hurry you had to take whatever there was.
Prominent Temple Re.is resident .athers support a.ainst his critics
She wrote.
A .ar.antuan row over Mr Ben.t Larsson’s famous Rejuvenator is buildin. in the national press. But a .roundswell of opinion is also .rowin. in defence of the machine. The Express has .athered a lar.e number of letters from an.ry people who claim to have .ained hu.e benefit from the …
‘Oh this is hopeless!’ exclaimed Betty. ‘I can’t concentrate.’ She had difficulty assembling her thoughts at the best of times, but when there was a hint of a new romance in the air it could scatter her thoughts hither and yon.
‘Any su..estion that this life.ivin. .ad.et is a sham is simply outra.eous!’ said Mrs .eor..ina Hu..ett, of .ran.e Road, Temple Re.is, this week.
Just then she was rescued by her editor, who ordered her into his office.
‘Just writing it up now, Mr Rhys.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said what a good friend you had been to him over the years. He said that when you and he …’
‘Never mind all that. Have you got a significant denial out of him?’
‘Well you know, Mr Rhys, I’m no expert but it does look as though what some of these people are saying is right. After I talked to Mr Larsson, his butler gave me some letters to show how much the public adored him, but by mistake the man gave me another file as well which contained … well, Mr Rhys, it’s shocking! I always thought the Rejuvenator was a good thing – good for people’s health, that’s what he always claimed. But the letters, Mr Rhys!’
‘Rr … rrr.’
‘These people saying they’ve been electrocuted, they’ve been scorched, that it’s had a bad effect on the brain when applied to the scalp … not just one complaint, Mr Rhys – there must have been hundreds!’
‘There was a time, Betty, when Ben Larsson was considered for a knighthood. Just you bear that in mind.’
‘He says he’s very grateful to you, Mr Rhys. Something about the War, he started talking about it and then stopped. What would that be about? Should I include it?’
‘Nothing to do with the present circumstances. You just get on and write that story.’ The editor seemed extremely edgy.
‘I can’t Mr Rhys. The only available typewriter is that broken-down old Remington with the missing “g”.’
‘Better use mine then,’ said the editor with irritation. ‘Sit down and get on with it, we haven’t got all day.’
Just then his phone rang: ‘Sam Southam here,’ said a self-important voice.
‘Good afternoon, Your Worship.’
‘Rhys, I want something in the paper tomorrow about these animals who’ve invaded our town. These blooming girls and boys ripping the Pavilion to shreds over this skiffle group. I’ve got hordes of people down here at the Town Hall threatening all sorts of things. There really is no need for a town like ours to bow to … teenagers.’
‘Er, not a skiffle group, Worship. They are in fact the number one beat group in the country,’ said Rhys, parroting Judy and Valentine’s combined story. ‘They will bring glamour and prestige to Temple Regis – the first of the new beat groups to do a summer season, and they choose our town! I’m told we should be grateful, that you should be holding a civic reception for them.’
‘Horse manure! They’re upsetting the townsfolk, they’re making a filthy racket, and there are girls running around our streets in a state of undress, screaming their heads off, getting up to all sorts on the beach. How’s that going to make the town rich?’
‘Well, I confess I don’t know how much they’ll boost trade in your butcher’s shop, Worship, but it could bring some much-needed national publicity to the town. Especially after the Larsson business.’ The editor did not like the Mayor but then it was mutual.
‘Just get an article in there telling everybody to calm down. I don’t want the Chief Constable drafting in extra police – think of the cost!’
‘We never tell the readership what to do,’ snapped Rudyard Rhys and abruptly brought the conversation to a halt.
He turned to Betty, whose typewriter had fallen silent.
‘Have you finished? That was quick.’
‘I can’t do it, Mr Rhys. It’s lies, honestly. Lies! All these poor people, the damage they’ve suffered! And if that can’t be put right, why doesn’t Mr Larsson just pay them back the money? He wouldn’t miss it – just look how rich he is!
‘Just reading those letters,’ she said, quite agitated now, ‘most people who bought a Rejuvenator couldn’t even afford it, they bought it on the never-never. They just got caught up in the excitement of it and ended up broke.’
Rhys stood bolt upright, almost as if to attention. ‘He did some very brave things in the war.’
‘Nobody ever said anything about that.’
‘It’s because it was secret, Betty, a secret! I suppose I’ll have to write it myself.’
Betty felt like asking if he knew where the carriage return was, he was so unaccustomed to writing anything.
Rudyard, indeed. No Kipling he!
ELEVEN
Athene Madrigale stood immobile on the shore, watching the ships. Time passed, and their blurred silhouettes slowly blended into each other in the velvet haze of this most beautiful evening. Behind her in the approaching night she could hear a late freight train seething and clanking through the dusk.
Miss Dimont had come down to find her friend, bringing a wrap for the chilly evening breeze coming in off the water.
‘Thank you, dear,’ said Athene kindly, ‘but do you mind if I don’t put it on? Wrong colour, you see. Upsets the aura.’
It was nearly dark. The wrap, vaguely beige in colour, could hardly be thought to clash with the confusion of pigments wrapped around the clairvoyant’s slight frame, but Judy knew better than to argue.
‘I’d so like to talk to you, Athene,’ she said, ‘but it’s getting cold. May we go and sit in the bus shelter?’
Streaks of purple grained the heavy dark clouds. The air smelled of rain but you could still feel the heat rising from the sand. They walked towards the shelter, but then Athene had a better idea.
‘Come with me, there’s somewhere I’d like you to see,’ she said. ‘Only a couple of minutes away.’
It was not late, but most of Temple Regis had already tucked itself up for the night. The two women walked through deserted streets towards the fish-and-chip shop whose yellow bulbs were still blazing merrily, throwing pools of sparkling light onto the pavement outside. It was so quiet you could still hear the angry banging as the freight train started up from Regis Junction, making its way towards Newton Abbot.
‘Down here,’ said Athene suddenly.
Miss Dimont was entranced. She knew Temple Regis well but this little courtyard, Bosun’s Alley, was unfamiliar, they passed in front of an antique shop and a tiny second-hand book store then turned a tight corner
into what appeared to be a dead end. ‘Here we are,’ said Athene proudly, and opened a small door.
The lights were low and there was little noise inside, apart from a strange tinkling coming from a back room. ‘Sit down,’ said Athene, smiling, ‘Mr So will come.’
Judy Dimont looked with fascination around a long low room which was lit in part by a string of Coronation lights – red, white, and blue – which most people would have taken down years ago. Strangely they did not seem out of place here. ‘Where are we? What is this?’ she asked.
Athene smiled at the possession of her special secret. ‘The Chinese Singing Teacher,’ she said proudly. ‘You might call it my spiritual home.’
Two further rooms stretched away from them, but though they appeared to be unoccupied it felt as if a party of happy people had just departed, leaving their good humour behind, hanging in the air.
Mr So brought tea and rice crackers and bowed gracefully away.
‘Good Lord,’ said Miss Dimont, puzzled, ‘how most unusual! I didn’t know about this place.’
‘Nobody does. There are just a few of us … souls … you might call us. Mr So makes us welcome, dear, he is sympatico. It’s very soothing, very good for your aura – look, it’s turning green just as we sit here! You feel better, don’t you?’
‘I always feel better when I see you, Athene. But I’ve something to discuss.’
Athene looked into her teacup and who knows what she saw there. For most people, the view would be of some faintly coloured liquid with a few stalk-like leaves in the bottom, but to Athene …
Miss Dimont gave her a moment to absorb its mysteries before continuing. ‘Athene, I want you to think hard about Todhempstead beach. That girl didn’t get there by accident. She must have been brought while you were actually there – did you see a car or van, or anything that could have taken a body out there there?’
Athene looked deeper into her cup. ‘Don’t you think she might have come by sea?’ she asked slowly, as if the leaves had spoken to her.