It was late afternoon, almost five o’clock. The day had been quite glorious and the setting sun glowed amber and orange. Carl actively disliked going down to St Ives harbour or to the beaches during the tourist season when the place was overrun with people. He had made an exception for the eclipse, partly because I had been so determined that we should watch it from the waterside, but normally he preferred to remain in our little bit of town, up on the hill and way back from the harbour and the beaches, which stayed much the same throughout the year. I wasn’t quite so fussy, but he did have a point. I remembered my noisy summer lunchtime visits to the seafront with Mariette and thought how there was just no comparison with the joy of being down by the waterside on a fine, holidaymaker-free, November day like this one. In the quiet off-season times Carl and I loved to walk together along the beach at low tide and, indeed, to visit the Sloop, which was one of the places we avoided in high season because it was always packed with tourists.
As we approached the famous old waterside inn, a familiar figure emerged through the pub doors and began to totter somewhat unsteadily towards us.
‘Oh, no,’ muttered Carl. ‘I really can’t stand that woman.’
‘At least she’s leaving,’ I said in his ear.
‘Whisky must have run out,’ Carl responded uncharitably.
We both half stopped in our tracks, wondering if we could turn round and escape notice, but by this time Fenella Austen was already upon us. In some ways I was less concerned by this than Carl, because in the six years we had lived in the town Fenella, still widely regarded as the matriarch of the local artistic community even though her fortunes as a painter and sculptor had fallen dramatically in recent years, had totally failed to recognise my existence. I was actually quite relieved by this since, although I tried not to let on to Carl in case he thought I really was a complete and utter wimp, the bloody woman scared me to death – particularly when she was drunk, which seemed to be most of the time nowadays.
Fenella walked straight up to Carl, ignoring me as usual, and flung her arms round him, possibly to ensure she remained upright. Nonetheless it annoyed me.
‘And so how’s our new bright young thing,’ she bellowed, slurring her words only slightly. Fenella had only one level of speech – full volume.
‘Fenella, I’m neither new nor young, I’m forty years old, I’ve lived in St Ives for six years and, although you and I may think I’m bright, the rest of the art world is showing no sign of catching on,’ said Carl in a tone of exaggerated patience.
Fennella was probably only in her late fifties but had been playing the part of cynical elder for many years, certainly ever since we had moved to Cornwall. She leered at Carl. Maybe it was supposed to be a smile, I really didn’t know. She carried with her a strong stench of beer and whisky, and her hair looked as if it could do with a wash. She dyed it a mid-brown colour but not nearly often enough. A grimy yellowish grey displayed itself in a two-inch wedge at the roots. Come to think of it, her face looked as if it could do with a wash too. She wore heavy black eye make-up which had become badly smudged. Her skin was pale and blotchy. I suppose you had to admit it was all a bit of a shame, really, because Fenella still had striking dark-brown eyes and the remains of what must once have been a formidable high-cheeked bone structure. We had seen a sharp deterioration in her looks even in the few years we had been in St Ives.
The local perception was that she was killing herself with drink. She also smoked like a chimney and if one didn’t get her before her time it seemed inevitable that the other would.
‘You’re just a lad to me, Carl, sweetheart,’ continued Fenella in that deep, throaty voice which was the product of her sixty-fag-a-day habit.
She was, as usual, overplaying her hand – literally as well as metaphorically, as it happened. Her right hand had closed itself around Carl’s left buttock. I watched as her fingers squeezed him.
He winced and removed the offending hand smartly from its target. ‘If I did that to you it would be sexual harassment,’ he said, lightly but unwisely.
‘Harass away, darling,’ invited Fenella, as Carl managed to manoeuvre his way past her. ‘I can hardly wait . . .’
Having lost her support she staggered dangerously and for one lovely moment I thought she was going to fall over. She didn’t, of course.
‘Don’t turn her down for me, Carl,’ I whispered in his ear as we hurried along the promenade to the steps.
‘D-do me a favour,’ muttered Carl. The slight stammer meant that the woman had definitely got to him. Certainly he was no longer amused. I suppose you couldn’t blame him. She was a pest.
He took my hand as we jumped from the quite high bottom step on to the beach. The tide was out and the sun had almost dropped from the sky and hovered deeply golden now, glowing the last of its fire just above the horizon, bathing the entire bay in a truly wonderful light. I was a Londoner born and bred but I had grown to feel a sense of belonging in Cornwall greater than anything I had known before. Its past and its present both suited me. I liked to imagine the harbour in the great days of pilchard fishing when the whole town was kept alive by its one industry. The huge shoals of pilchards that used regularly to frequent the north Cornwall coast in the autumn, were caught by net in shallow water, a process known as seining. Great mountains of the small silvery fish would be dumped on the harbour side, then salted in big wooden tubs and exported to the Mediterranean in sailing ships. I could see the scenes so clearly: the men on their boats emptying their nets and on shore women, children, the elderly, picking up the fish, sorting them, carrying them to the salt vats, everyone involved in gathering this extraordinary autumn harvest. Maybe I romanticised it inside my head, but I couldn’t help it. Neither could I help being enthralled by the tales of the wreckers and smugglers whose wild exploits form such a part of Cornish history. St Ives had relied almost entirely on its tourist industry for decades but, in my opinion anyway, the old fishing port had not to lost its unique character, its special magic.
I gazed out to sea, blinking against that last brilliant fire of the sun. The light in St Ives is almost always special, which is why artists still flock there, but that day it somehow seemed more spectacular than ever.
Switching my gaze briefly inland, I saw Fenella Austen disappear into the narrow streets of the town, no doubt to pester somebody else.
‘Let’s forget the b-bloody woman,’ said Carl.
‘Too right,’ I replied. ‘Stand still.’
I used his shoulder to lean against as I removed my shoes and socks, something I almost always did on the beach unless the weather was really bitterly cold. I loved the feel of the coarse damp sand against my bare feet. I dug my heels in and curled up my toes.
Carl grinned at me. ‘Come along, Robinson,’ he said and he grasped my hand and led me along the beach at a trot.
Laughing together, the way we did so much of the time, we eventually slowed to a walk and spent several dreamy minutes enjoying the sunset and looking at the boats before we decided to double back and have that drink as intended in the Sloop.
A few days later, right out of the blue, Mariette invited me to her house for what she described as a ‘girls’ night in’. ‘A good gossip and a few drinks,’ she said. ‘Bring a bottle.’
I was quite excited. In spite of everything it seemed that I was beginning to exist as an individual. It felt as if I were being invited into some kind of inner circle.
Carl seemed pleased for me too, although, as we were meeting well after dark at 7 p.m., he insisted that he walk me to Mariette’s house and pick me up later, and he cautioned me to take care when he left me at the door of her cottage at the top end of Fore Street, just a few minutes walk from the library.
‘Don’t be silly.’ I smiled at him and he had the grace to look a bit sheepish before grinning back at me.
Mariette still lived with her mother. The first surprise came in the narrow hallway of their cottage, two-bedroomed, I knew, but not an awful l
ot bigger than ours, which was so cluttered you could hardly make your way through. The walls were lined on either side with shelves packed with brassware. Loads of the stuff.
‘Front door was open one day and a party of tourists just walked straight in; they thought the place was a shop,’ murmured Mariette smilingly. ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet,’ she continued as she led the way into the small lace-curtained front room.
More pieces of brass were everywhere, horse brasses, brass weights, plates, jugs, candlesticks and a vast assortment of ornaments ranging from a Madonna and Child to a range of animals including cats, dogs, pigs and rabbits.
‘She’s got about 4000 pieces,’ said Mariette, gesturing me to a chintz-covered armchair. ‘Cleans ’em in rotation and it takes her an hour and a half every day.’
‘Amazing,’ I said. It was the best I could come up with.
‘Now you know the Cornish are barking,’ Mariette giggled.
I did not meet Mrs Brenda Powell that evening. Apparently the deal was that she steered clear of her daughter’s girls’ nights, even though it was Mrs Powell, apparently, who had diligently supplied sandwiches, cheese and biscuits, and homemade cake for the occasion. Mariette appeared to have her mother, whom I knew to be a widow, pretty well trained it seemed to me. Certainly being installed in her own front room – with, I was told, Mrs Powell busily cleaning brass in the kitchen next door – did not cramp Mariette’s usual style, nor that of her three friends, none of whom I had met before, which made me quite nervous. The gossip was as raunchy as I had begun to become accustomed to – only this time there were five young women swapping stories of their sexual adventures. Well, four, actually. I had very little to say, although I found that I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the tales of their exploits.
‘Suzanne’s all right, adored by a man who will do anything to make her happy.’ Mariette put a hugely suggestive emphasis on the word ‘anything’. I tried not to look embarrassed.
‘He’s coming to get you, I’ll bet,’ she added.
Hesitantly I agreed that he was.
‘Good, we’ll all get a chance to have a look,’ she said. I had yet to introduce Carl to her.
‘No, he told me he’d wait outside,’ I replied innocently.
‘Really,’ remarked Mariette, and glanced at her watch. It was about ten minutes before the time I had agreed to meet him.
‘And no doubt he’s there already. He doesn’t take chances with our Suze!’
The entire group then crowded around the bay window and began to peek through the net curtains in order to get a glimpse of Carl as he waited for me in the street.
‘Is that him?’ cried Mariette. I peered around her and was just in time to see the back of a male figure disappearing round the corner. At that moment Carl appeared from the other direction and propped himself against the street lamp outside.
‘No, that’s him, there,’ I said somewhat unnecessarily.
‘Oh, doesn’t he look nice,’ said Mariette in a rather soppy voice. ‘God, I’m jealous.’
I manoeuvred myself so that I too could get a good view of him. He did look nice. That was the only word for Carl really, that and kind. He was not startlingly handsome, or startlingly anything for that matter, just nice, kind, solid, reliable and funny. And I did love him so.
‘Invite him in, go on, just for a moment, oh, go on.’
The entire throng encouraged me. I stepped briskly outside into the cool night air and, quite out of character, asked Carl if he would come in and meet the girls. Even the words sounded strange as I spoke them.
Carl looked terrified. His stammer made an appearance again. ‘I d-don’t think so, Suzanne, p-p-please, I’d rather not . . .’
He could not escape, though. Mariette and her friends were apparently not prepared to wait indoors for long. When I did not return swiftly with Carl alongside, all four of them followed me out into the street, surrounded Carl and insisted on being introduced. He blushed, his already ruddy face turning absolutely crimson, and I found it as endearing as I had that very first time in Richmond Park.
‘He really is very very nice,’ whispered Mariette in my ear as we finally said our farewells.
Carl hurried me up the hill. I think he was sweating. ‘Good G-God, Suzanne, I felt like a prize bull,’ he said.
‘You are a prize bull, my love,’ I replied.
He laughed, albeit a little uncertainly.
‘Mariette says she’s jealous,’ I went on. ‘I reckon it’s because she thinks you’ll do anything for me.’
I put a suggestive emphasis on the word ‘anything’ in just the way Mariette had done.
Carl looked slightly aghast. ‘Did she say that too?’
I nodded.
‘Do women really talk like that about men?’
I chuckled. He didn’t know the half of it. ‘Apparently,’ I said.
‘Just don’t ever throw me to the w-wolves again, that’s all,’ he admonished, still with just a hint of nervous stammer. But he was smiling when he said it.
Those truly were a happy few months. Nothing at all happened to cause Carl or I any anxiety. The van incident became ancient history. I really did get a taste of the normality I craved.
Mariette had alternate Saturdays off from the library and one weekend she persuaded me to go on a shopping expedition to Penzance with her. Actually, I didn’t take much persuading, but I wasn’t sure what Carl would make of it. I knew he was anxious about my friendship with Mariette, even though he passed little comment, so I didn’t tell him about the trip until the night before Mariette and I were due to take the little train from the station just by Porthminster Beach.
He was fine about it though. ‘Don’t ever think I don’t want you to enjoy yourself, Suzanne, because I do, in every possible way,’ he said. ‘Just remember that you don’t know Mariette that well, won’t you.’
I knew what he was saying. In a funny kind of way it felt as if I knew Mariette very well indeed, but I didn’t of course, nor could I. Carl was just reminding me to be cautious and I knew that he was quite right to do so. That was how it was with us.
Of course, then I had to ask him for some money. Apart from my nightmares, which were lessening, money was our sole problem. We managed, but only just, and as I spent more time with Mariette I was increasingly embarrassed by having to rely on Carl for every penny. That had been one of the reasons why I had liked the idea of getting a job.
Carl, though, was as generous as ever. He swiftly produced fifty pounds from somewhere. I had few halfway decent clothes and I badly needed some new ones. Fifty pounds would not go very far, but for us it was a lot of money. I thanked him with enthusiasm.
‘Don’t spend it all at once,’ he responded with a twinkle.
I set off cheerily to meet Mariette at the station the next morning.
She eyed the calf-length skirt, cotton print blouse and cardigan I was wearing – more or less the best clothes I possessed – with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. ‘What you need is a complete make-over, my girl,’ she said.
I didn’t even know what a make-over was.
She led me through the crowds at Penzance to a shop called, rather appropriately I suppose, New Look. The prices, the lowest on the High Street, Mariette said, were, it seemed, the greatest attraction – that and a manic adherence to all the latest fashion fads. But every garment looked to me about three sizes too small and skimpy for any normal person.
‘Rubbish,’ said Mariette. ‘You’re slim enough and at least we might find something here which looks as if it should be worn by someone in their twenties, rather than a ninety-year-old woman.’
I retreated, wounded and beaten, and very soon, I’m not quite sure exactly how, found myself buying a bright-orange suit with a daringly short skirt. At least I thought it was pretty daring. In fact, even as I handed over a considerable chunk of my fifty pounds, I wasn’t sure I should be buying it at all. ‘Don’t you think it looks, well, you know, a bit tarty?’ I enquir
ed hesitantly.
‘Yes,’ said Mariette. ‘Great, isn’t it.’
I was then persuaded to buy a pair of ridiculously high platform shoes, but I balked at Mariette’s next suggestion.
‘No, I am not dyeing my hair,’ I told her firmly. ‘Absolutely not.’
‘I didn’t say dye it, I said have a few blond highlights,’ she responded in a wheedling tone of voice.
I stood my ground.
‘Well, what about a nice trendy haircut then? I’ve got a friend who’s a hairdresser who’ll give you a great cheap cut.’
I couldn’t even remember if I’d ever been to a hairdresser in my life. Gran had always cut my hair when I was a child. In adulthood I had let it grow long and straight, just occasionally trimming the ends myself in front of a mirror. But I was a woman, albeit one who had missed out on so much, and I was sorely tempted. Eventually, against my better judgement, I allowed myself to be persuaded.
An hour later I was sitting in a leather chair at the extraordinarily named Fair-dos salon, while Mariette’s friend, a striking redhead called Chrissy, snipped away alarmingly, and Mariette set to work on my make-up. I was beyond protesting by then. Two hours later I gazed in the mirror at a different human being.
My hair was several inches shorter, layered and gelled so that it kind of stuck out round my face. Hard to describe, but I had to agree with Mariette that it did seem to suit me. My lips were more or less the same colour as my new suit, I appeared to have had a cheekbone transplant and my eyes looked about two sizes larger than they had before.
‘Go on,’ said Mariette. ‘Put on the new suit and shoes, and let’s have a look at you.’
Obediently – I was thoroughly enjoying myself by then, by the way – I took my carrier bags into the loo and changed into my new outfit. When I emerged, teetering a little unsteadily on my platforms, Chrissy and Mariette both applauded, and Mariette emitted a loud and vulgar wolf whistle.
A Deep Deceit Page 5