by Miles Gibson
Mad-eyed and grinning, wrapped in a blanket, she stands for a moment to sniff the air. She yawns and the blanket slips from her shoulders. Her breasts blink. Her legs shine in the failing dark.
Tanner Atkins jumps from his nest, scuttles down the beach on his hands and knees, runs like a crab to the sea. He froths at the mouth and snaps his claws. But he never catches the idiot girl. She is far away, touched by the moonlight, laughing as she swims through the cold, black water.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The sea rolled into Rams Horn. It rose up through the soft, summer darkness, drowned the beach, floated Whelk Pier and washed across the esplanade. It sucked at the cobbles, gnawed at lampposts, strangled a cat with ropes of seaweed and thundered into the drains.
When the sea retreated, the beach was exposed – a wilderness of wet sand that stretched to the edge of the sky. Floating in this shimmering lake, caught upon rocks and shingle banks, was all the wreckage of life. Here were shoes, bones, bottles and buttons, beer crates, deckchairs, tractor wheels, window-frames, rusting drums of industrial waste, rotting shells of lobster boats.
After breakfast, when the doctor reached the esplanade, it seemed as if the whole town had collected on the beach to pick through the tidal treasure. An old man, with his boots around his neck, prised a suitcase from the sand. Beyond the pier Oswald Murdoch, the butcher, plunged through rockpools to scavenge for scraps of lost underwear. Beneath the esplanade a group of elderly women had excavated the frame of a wheelchair and were chipping at its crust of mussels. Everywhere he turned he saw people digging on the beach. Some had spades and wheelbarrows, others used nothing but their bare hands to scratch at the sand.
While he leaned on the railings a man struggled up from the beach dragging a heavy, canvas sack. He was a fat, turtle-faced man dressed in a rubber apron. When he reached the railings he paused to light a cigarette.
‘Good morning,’ smiled the doctor, twisting slightly to stare at the sack. ‘What have you found?’
‘Dogs’ meat,’ grunted the man. When he kicked the sack the seams spurted mud the colour of blood.
As the doctor walked away he felt the sweat clutch his shirt. It was already hot. The sand began to belch and bubble beneath the glare of the sun. Flies hissed. The air was sweet with the stench of decay.
He was turning towards Regent Terrace when he saw two figures dancing on a narrow shingle bank a hundred yards from shore. They held each other by the wrists and danced in a circle, their heads bobbing like pigeons. He paused, shielding his eyes with his hands, squinting into the sunlight. He recognized one of the figures as Mrs Reynolds and her partner seemed to be old Charlie Bloater. Mrs Reynolds was screaming. Charlie was bleating for help.
The doctor hurried down the esplanade steps and walked towards them. When he scrambled onto the bank he sank to his ankles in shingle.
‘Help!’ moaned Charlie, when he saw the doctor. ‘I’m an old man!’ He roared as Mrs Reynolds grabbed him by the ears.
‘What’s happening here?’
‘They’ve stolen Polly,’ screamed Mrs Reynolds.
‘Who?’
‘The darkie,’ gasped Charlie as he danced. ‘She thinks I’m hiding that darkie sailor.’
‘You bastard,’ hissed Mrs Reynolds. She slapped him so hard that he fell down.
‘Stop it,’ the doctor ordered, trying to catch Mrs Reynolds by the wrist.
‘Where’s he hiding?’ she demanded.
‘I haven’t seen him,’ clicked Charlie defiantly. He sat in the shingle and pulled out his teeth, inspecting them for signs of damage.
‘I’ll do him a mischief,’ screamed Mrs Reynolds. ‘I swear I’ll do him a mischief.’ She struggled to escape from the doctor, twisting her body and pulling away from him.
‘What’s happening?’ he shouted impatiently, shaking her by the shoulders. She felt so small between his hands that his fingers, buried in her sweater, seemed to squeeze her shut like a concertina.
‘They’ve got Polly up there in the boat,’ she moaned. ‘Filthy animals!’ She spat at poor old Charlie as he staggered to his feet. ‘They’ve stolen my daughter.’
‘I don’t know anything about it,’ clicked Charlie, shaking his head in amazement. ‘I’ve got to think of my cabbages.’ And sensing his chance to escape, he slithered from the bank and hobbled off down the beach.
Mrs Reynolds burst into tears and collapsed in the doctor’s arms. She buried her face in his shirt and bawled.
‘Come up to the surgery‚’ he said gently. ‘We’ll sort it out.’
She nodded but did not unwrap him.
‘Can you manage?’ He slipped his hand around her waist and pulled her slowly from the embrace.
‘Where are your shoes?’
She pulled up her skirt and stared stupidly at her feet. ‘I forgot them,’ she whispered.
The doctor took her by the arm and led her off the beach, towards the safety of Storks Yard. It took some persuasion to get her through the door and into the house but finally she agreed to follow him. He guided her to the surgery and placed her in a chair.
‘Take your time,’ he said. He drew a glass of water at the little porcelain handbasin and sat at the desk to watch her drink. She was trembling so much she could barely control the glass against her mouth. Snuffling, splashing, gasping for breath, she tried to tell the doctor her story.
He knew about the sailor, of course, since he had treated the giant for poisoned prawns. But he could not begin to imagine what she’d been forced to endure while the sailor had lived in the house. The language. The crazy outbursts. The constant threat of violence. He could not imagine. The sailor had disappeared. No warning. Walked out. Gone. He hadn’t paid for the room but under the circumstances she didn’t care about the money. She thought, at last, she was safe from him.
She paused to blow her nose, squelching into a paper handkerchief. Her mouth sagged. Her eyelashes stuck together in spikes.
‘And Polly?’ prompted the doctor.
‘She went out yesterday afternoon and vanished,’ gasped Mrs Reynolds, pulling her nose with the handkerchief.
‘Did she tell you where she was going?’
‘No.’
‘Perhaps she stayed the night with friends,’ he suggested hopefully.
‘No – I phoned everyone – she’s vanished.’ She shook her head and the tears flew from her chin. ‘You can’t understand – you’re not a mother – when I realized what had happened – the world fell out of my bottom,’ she wailed.
‘But what makes you think the sailor is involved?’
‘He pestered my daughter,’ she hissed.
‘You mean he made indecent suggestions?’ said the doctor, nervously scratching his scalp.
‘Worse!’
‘Yes?’ inquired the doctor.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said.
‘Can you explain what happened?’
‘He tried … he tried to fiddle with her,’ she blubbered She had twisted the paper handkerchief into long, sticky shreds that clung to her fingers like strands of dough.
‘When?’
‘Whenever he got the chance.’
‘While he was living in the house?’ he asked. He searched anxiously for his fountain pen. He thought he should be writing it down.
‘Yes.’
‘But she’s a child,’ protested the doctor.
‘That makes no difference to him,’ she sniffed.
‘And was Polly hurt?’
‘No. The silly bitch encouraged him.’
‘But why should they run away?’ he asked hopelessly.
‘He’s wicked. He has some kind of influence over Polly. A special power,’ she whispered.
‘What sort of power?’ demanded the mystified doctor. And even as he spoke he knew that he didn’t want to hear the answer for he no longer had faith in his own power to light the darkness of the world.
Mrs Reynolds crossed her legs, kicking out her skirt and exposing a thigh so pa
le that it seemed to hold the faint, blue shine of milk. Her feet peppered the floor with sand. ‘When I cleaned his room I found things,’ she whispered, avoiding the doctor’s eye. ‘Disgusting, filthy things.’
The doctor stared at the woman and frowned. What sort of things had she seen? Rats? Toads? Soiled underwear? Luminous rubber dildoes? Human remains in a cardboard box? Had he nursed a monster with Milk of Magnesia? Had he treated a vampire with Valium?
‘And you think Polly has been taken to Charlie’s boat?’ he said at last.
Mrs Reynolds shook her head. ‘No, I just thought the old devil would be able to tell me something …’
‘I think we should go to the police,’ said the doctor, placing his hands on the desk and pushing back his chair. It was simple. He would take her to the proper authorities.
‘No!’ she snapped. She cocked her head and glared at him.
‘But they can make the proper enquiries,’ he explained. ‘They’ll set your mind at rest.’
‘They’ll fill out forms. They’ll ask silly questions. They’ll confuse everything.’
‘But they can help you,’ he said doubtfully.
‘No, the police won’t understand. They could put Polly’s life in danger,’ she said. And she looked so wretched that, for a moment, he believed it.
‘But your daughter might have had an accident. She could need urgent medical attention.’
‘She’s been spirited away,’ Mrs Reynolds replied in a tired voice.
‘Where?’
‘I don’t know. But I can feel her trying to reach me.’
‘You mean, you can hear her voice in your head?’ asked the doctor. His eyebrows arched suspiciously.
Mrs Reynolds ignored him. She didn’t need a doctor. She wanted a priest. ‘Mrs Clancy will help me,’ she said as she stood up and brushed down her skirt.
‘Mrs Clancy?’ The mention of her name caught him by surprise and made his ears blush.
‘She has the gift – I can’t explain – there’s no time,’ said Mrs Reynolds.
And before the doctor could help himself he was chasing the tear-stained, barefoot woman through the town towards Regent Terrace.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Mrs Clancy was sitting in the bedroom cleaning shoes. She had bullied polish into a pair of her late husband’s best Oxfords and was slapping at the shine when the doorbell rang. She dropped her duster, tiptoed to the front door and peeped through the spyhole. She wasn’t expecting visitors and she wouldn’t speak to strangers. But, when she peered through the lens and met the anxious faces of Mrs Reynolds and the doctor, she flung back the chains.
‘My poor friend, have you had an accident?’ she cried in alarm, staring at Mrs Reynolds’ dirty, naked feet.
Mrs Reynolds opened her mouth, shook her head and burst into tears.
‘I found her on the beach,’ said the doctor proudly.
‘Is she hurt?’
‘No.’
Mrs Clancy rushed them into the parlour where Mrs Reynolds threw herself on the sofa and with a great shout of despair, hid her face in the cushions.
‘Don’t be frightened – you’re safe now,’ soothed Mrs Clancy as she pulled the brandy bottle from the Turkish cabinet.
The doctor, who had spent months wishing a plague on Mrs Clancy in the hope that she might visit his surgery, suddenly found himself in her own apartment. He watched, bewildered, as she knelt on the floor and tried to force the bottle of brandy through the cushions. She was wearing a white cotton dress and a string of tiny china beads. He stared at the big, voluptuous breasts, the sweep of her shoulders, the shine of the beads at her throat. He sat and gloated. He was so happy and confused that he wanted to dance.
‘Has something happened to Polly?’ she whispered, glancing at the doctor. Her mouth was a splash of geranium in the pale beauty of her face.
‘Her daughter seems to have disappeared,’ the doctor said absently.
Mrs Reynolds had abandoned the cushions and was sucking at the brandy bottle. ‘You warned me,’ she moaned. ‘You warned me but I wouldn’t listen.’ And she recited her story for Mrs Clancy.
‘I think we should call the police,’ said the doctor when Mrs Reynolds had finished and returned to the comfort of the bottle. ‘Her daughter might have had an accident.’
The two women ignored him. Mrs Reynolds poked about miserably in the folds of her skirt and pulled the battered glove puppet from a pocket. She nursed it carefully in the palm of one hand before presenting it to Mrs Clancy.
‘It’s Polly,’ whispered the clairvoyant with wide and frightened eyes.
‘It’s a glove,’ said the doctor, staring at the glove.
‘It’s witchcraft,’ said Mrs Reynolds, glaring at the doctor. He was lovely but, dear God, he was stupid.
Mrs Clancy was silent. She had learned to cast fortunes, read Tarot cards and decode palm prints, but of the malevolent forces of Beelzebub she knew nothing. A chill ran through her blood as she remembered the demons she had seen in the crystal. It was everything she had feared. She had let a jinnee leak from its bottle and now it had started to work its mischief. A stranger had come to town on the devil’s business. Her friend had been attacked. A child had been snatched. How could she hope to save them?
‘The magic circle,’ she said at last. ‘We must call together the magic circle. If this is the devil’s work we must conduct a seance and ask the help of our friends in the spirit world.’
The doctor went rigid, staring in dismay at the huge cherub as she rolled her eyes at the heavens. She was a gypsy fortune-teller! An old-fashioned table-tapper! In the heat of his dreams, through all those endless, easy seductions, he had persuaded himself that Mrs Clancy, alone among the women of Rams Horn, understood and supported him. Were they not already tied to each other by the fine and irresistible threads of fate and fancy? And now, with a few careless words, she had snipped those threads and sent him sprawling.
‘I shall make all the arrangements this afternoon,’ Mrs Clancy announced gravely. She raised a hand to her throat and rattled the beads with her fingernails. ‘We’ll hold the seance tonight. And I pray we’re in time.’
‘I suggest we conduct a search,’ argued the doctor, slapping his knees. It was time to take command. ‘The cliffs. The mudflats. She might be injured.’
‘No,’ said Mrs Clancy firmly. ‘You must save your strength for tonight.’
‘Why?’
‘We shall need you.’
‘But I’m a doctor. I can’t dabble in witchcraft,’ he protested. He felt angry and disappointed. He began to haul himself from the chair.
‘We shall not be dabbling,’ boomed Mrs Clancy. She had walked across the room and was standing against the window so that the sunlight shone on her shoulders and set alight her chestnut hair. Her face was in darkness and she had drawn herself up to her full height to take advantage of the effect.
‘God help us, we may need a doctor,’ she added softly. And the sun shone through her cotton dress.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
God arrived late in Rams Horn. He waited until the Victorians had built Him a house on Beacon Hill, overlooking the town and the wild, grey water. The church is a shock of Empire Gothic and blessed in the name of St Elmo, the martyr, who had his intestines uncoiled by a windlass. The breath of the saint, in a green glass bottle, was buried under the chancel floor.
The men of Rams Horn were slow to accept their new church since, for centuries, they’d enjoyed the special privilege of burial at sea. Wedding parties would ride in a decorated wagon to the church at Upton Gabriel. And other, more ancient, ceremonies were conducted in the shelter of the woods. But they learned to live with God as their neighbour. At Harvest Festivals they brought Him fresh lobsters, mackerels, prawns and baskets of whelks. At Christmas they muffled the flagstones with straw and draped the nave with bright beards of holly.
The Tower The brick and limestone square tower is flanked by ornamented buttresses. The shing
led spire has been removed.
The Chancel The walls of the chancel are dressed with Purbeck marble. Over the narrow chancel arch hangs a curious sepulchral sculpture comprising twenty terracotta skeletons in flight.
The Pulpit A local carpenter built the pulpit with oak salvaged from the wreck of The Whistler which ran aground in the Great Storm of 1912.
The Lectern A most unusual lectern carved as an albatross with outstretched wings. Although most lecterns take the shape of eagles, other birds are not unknown. A pelican lectern can be seen at Rockbeare near Exeter and a turkey at Boynton near Bridlington.
The Horse Brass A brass dedicated to the memory of the notorious parson, Hercules Shanks, may be found in the floor of the nave by the west door. The plate is engraved with a prancing pony.
The Windows The original windows, since destroyed, were the work of a student of William Morris. The glass in the west window depicted the seven deadly sins. Lust and Gluttony were portrayed by an unfrocked matron in the arms of a giant squid.
The church of St Elmo commands fine views across the town and surrounding countryside. In earlier times the hill on which the church stands had been a sacred beacon, a landmark in a straight ley line that stretches from the Rams Horn Barrow to Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain. The hill aligns with the monolithic pagan stone planted on the bank beyond Drizzle which, in its turn, leads the eye over the hills to the Magog giant cut in the chalk above Sixpenny Hilton. From the mouth of Magog the magic, invisible road leads directly to the earthworks at Badbury Rings, near Wimborne Minster, and through to Stonehenge.
Beacon Hill is an ancient acupuncture point in the belly of the planet, a magnetic valve, the fragment of a lost star map. On the feast of St Elmo – the second day in June 1930 and seven years after Sir Percy had disturbed the Wheel Barrow – the hill swallowed the church. The foundations sank, the tower cracked and the windows exploded like shell bursts. Now the church is closed, brambles grow in the porch, the roof has collapsed and horseshoe bats nest in the ribs of the chancel skeletons. God went to live in Drizzle.