Alma and I were once regular correspondents. Our letters became infrequent during the war, and just after. Two years running, she absent-mindedly sent Christmas cards with the message, ‘We have moved,’ but not giving an address. It was little Felicity who became my correspondent, sending thank you letters for Christmas and birthday gifts and, when older, coming to stay with me.
In recent years, Alma had sent me mimeographed flyers advertising her books for sale. I bought them out of loyalty, although I had no desire to learn How to make Amusing Objects out of Newspaper or to gather Yuletide Decorations from the Natural World.
Her latest book, or rather pamphlet, is Prophetic Tellings by Madam Alma. Mrs Sugden, usually the most sceptical of women, read this offering cover to cover and thought that in future years it might come to rank alongside the writings of Old Mother Shipton of Knaresborough.
After I had dawdled on the pier for about ten minutes and was some yards away from the pepper pot, a woman in her late thirties emerged. The woman walked in my direction, a smile on her face. She must be a satisfied customer, recipient of a favourable fortune. I approached cautiously, not wanting to take up Alma’s precious time during working hours. She must need the money and another seeker or two might be loitering nearby, waiting their turn. At some point, Alma would emerge for a cup of tea, unless she had a spirit lamp kettle in there.
Perhaps Alma divined my presence, or spotted me. The door was left ajar after the departing customer. Alma appeared, ready to whip away the Engaged sign from the doorknob. She wore an unusual swirling dress in different greens, sewn from panels of cotton, chiffon and cambric. Her dark-red turban was decorated with a stone of Whitby jet, rather than the ruby in the picture on the door. She smiled, her pale skin slightly tissue paper-lined around the eyes. Reaching out her hand, she drew me inside. ‘Kate, how lovely to see you and a thousand welcomes.’
If she were indeed a fortune teller, she ought to sense that I had just had a terrible shock. Perhaps I am a good actress, or have seen too much death. Alma showed no sign of divining that anything was amiss, though she frowned.
‘Are you tired from the journey?’
‘A little. You look well, Alma.’
‘Don’t say that! People always say a woman looks well when she is beginning to show her age.’
‘Well you do look well, and when you said you would be on the pier, I never expected this.’
Her pebble-grey eyes sparkled with satisfaction. ‘My own abode, my workplace, my inspiration. Sit awhile. I’ve done enough predicting for one day. And I might be looking well, but you’re looking peaky.’ She frowned. ‘Is everything all right?’
Everything was far from all right but under orders from the sergeant I had little choice but to pretend otherwise. ‘It was a long drive.’
There were just two chairs in the small space, on either side of a round table that was draped with a maroon chenille cloth and set with Tarot cards. I sat in the customer’s chair. On a shelf to Alma’s right stood a crystal ball on an ivory stand. Beside it, a white porcelain hand etched with delicate lines marked Life, Love, Happiness, Money pointed a finger at the crystal ball.
Alma put the Engaged sign on the door and shut it.
‘It’s a little warm, but people will expect me to be private while giving a reading, and that’s what they will think I’m doing.’
‘Then let’s meet later. I don’t want to put off your prospective clients.’
‘On the contrary, a closed door attracts customers.’ She took her seat opposite me. As if by habit, she straightened the cards, frowning at first, and then pushing them aside. ‘Always best to have one’s cards on the table.’
‘Do you really tell fortunes?’
‘Of course!’
‘Sorry.’
‘Oh it’s all right. I expect people ask you if you really do investigations.’
I smiled. ‘When I meet people who don’t know, I keep quiet about it. I only sent you my card to show off.’
She smiled back. ‘I know what you mean. People can be so sceptical.’ She tapped the cards. ‘And sometimes the results leave such a lot to be desired. The Tarot often indicate that one should keep on keeping on. Very dull.’ She picked up the cards and shuffled.
‘Alma, how did you come to be telling fortunes on the pier?’
‘Ah, good question. The person who was here – a genuine Romany, unlike me – moved to Scarborough. Of course that annoyed the Urban District Council no end. Madam Rosa was popular with visitors and it offended local pride that she went to work in the land of Algerinos.’
‘Algerinos?’
‘It’s what Whitby people call Scarborough people. They dislike each other intensely. That’s why Madam Rosa’s departure was regarded as treachery and she wasn’t allowed to name a successor. Women from two rival Romany families want the job and I was asked if I would step in, until there is some settlement, otherwise the Council lose rental income and have disappointed visitors.’
‘But you’re not a fortune teller.’
‘Oh I don’t wear a black bombazine dress and terrify or delight people with shocking prophecies, but I do have a gift. Don’t you remember? I always had a gift.’
It was true that she had told fortunes at school, cast spells and was generally thought to be a little psychic. She was also a dab hand at elaborately interpreting dreams which I thought was to entertain and bid for popularity.
‘How about an exchange, Kate? Let me tell your fortune and you can investigate something for me.’
‘Oh, thanks Alma, but I don’t want to hear about my future. Spare me the details.’
She laughed. ‘Lucky you, not needing to know.’ She glanced greedily at my hands, as if she might just grab one and impart something significant. I placed my hands in my lap. My life and love lines were my own affair. She must have noticed my unease because she allowed a change of subject.
I asked her about Felicity. ‘How is she? I can’t wait to see her.’
‘She’s very well and has left school, tried a little this and that. She was working in a sweet shop on Brunswick Street in the mornings and washing up at the café next door in the afternoons. Now she’s fallen on her feet and has a job as a waitress in Botham’s tea rooms.’
‘What a lovely place to be.’
‘I only hope she’ll settle to it. Nothing suits her for long.’ Alma sighed. ‘To tell you the truth, she has taken against where we live. She… oh, you don’t want to hear, not on the first day of your holiday.’
‘Of course I want to hear.’ For several years, Alma’s address had been Bagdale Hall, which sounded rather grand. ‘Why has she taken against the place?’
Alma made a gesture as if it was all too much to explain. ‘It’s too big, too draughty. Her friends won’t come because they say the house is haunted, that kind of nonsense. She doesn’t talk to me like she used to. She might talk to you.’
‘I hope she will! I’ll go to Botham’s for tea and surprise her. I’ve brought her a dress but I can give her that later.’
Alma smiled. ‘That will please her. She goes dancing these days. Mind you she looks very smart in her waitress outfit.’
‘I’m sure she does. Everything suits Felicity.’
Alma stood and opened the small high window. There was something she wanted to say and so I thought I had better encourage her to spit it out. She might help me shake off the image of the poor dead man. ‘Alma, what’s this about my investigating for you? And you said in your letter there was something you wanted to talk to me about.’
‘Yes, you see I don’t know how you go about finding out things, making enquiries, without alerting someone – the authorities for instance.’
‘Tell me what it’s about and I’ll see if I can help.’
‘It’s regarding that husband of mine, Walter Turner.’
‘Ah. You never mention him in your letters.’
‘I wouldn’t want to commit certain things to writing. Though perhaps I s
hould have said something to you, given that you were my bridesmaid and everything, but I felt… I don’t know, embarrassed. Ashamed.’
‘Why? Tell me about Walter. He was so much older than you. I don’t suppose he enlisted?’
‘No, he did not enlist, and yes he was older, is older.’
‘How much older? I don’t remember.’
‘He was a young thirty-seven when we married, or so he said. Actually, he turned out to be fifty-seven.’
‘Never! I didn’t think he was so much older.’
‘He’s now in his seventies, wherever he is. The truth is, Kate, Turner turned out to be not what he seemed in more ways than lying about his age.’
‘Wasn’t his age on the marriage certificate?’
‘It would have been if he had presented the correct documents.’ She closed the cabin window, cutting us off from the slight breeze. Within a moment the cabin grew unbearably close.
‘He went abroad, shortly after Felicity’s sixth birthday – to Madeira. But then he sent postcards from other places. The postcards stopped, but I have a strong sensation of his being back on these British Isles of ours, somewhere or other.’
‘He abandoned you?’
‘Not exactly. I’m wondering whether Felicity heard on her birthday. She is always first down to collect the post, but she didn’t say.’
‘Has Walter helped you financially, with Felicity, and your… well everything.’ I felt a sudden rage at this man who had left Alma in the lurch. Small wonder she was on the pier telling fortunes and churning out pamphlets. I did not remember Walter very well, except for thinking that he was old enough to be Alma’s father and perhaps that was what she wanted, her own parents having died when she was young.
‘Walter has helped, in an arms-length indirect way, so that we have somewhere to live at least. He bought us a half share in the house – in Bagdale Hall.’
This seemed to me an evasive and mysterious answer, but I did not interrupt. She continued.
‘I’ve kept a terrible secret, an unbearable secret. Because of it, Felicity blames me. She blames me for driving her father away. It wasn’t like that at all, but I can’t tell her the truth.’
‘Can you tell me?’
‘Yes. In fact, I’ve hoped for months that you would come. I’ve sent you astral messages every week since Felicity turned sixteen in May. Perhaps your idea of coming to Whitby is a result of my thought waves.’
I urged her to say more about what was worrying her. I sincerely hoped my decision to come to Whitby bore no relation to Alma’s thought waves. Life is complicated enough at times without suspecting that one can be prey to astral messages.
‘I’ve never told anyone what I’m going to tell you. Before I say anything bad about Walter Turner, I must say that he did me a good turn. You may not remember that I used to faint a lot as a girl.’
I tried for an expression that would convey the difficulty of recollecting the unfortunate fainting fits. ‘Well yes, now that you mention it.’
‘Walter Turner practised as a hypnotist for a time. I thought hypnotism worth a try and so it was. He cured me of my fainting. That was how I met him. Later, I bumped into him in York Minster. We fell in love and married. It seemed like fate at the time, and I suppose it was.’
‘How romantic.’
‘Too romantic. I won’t insult you by swearing you to secrecy because I know you’ll be discreet. He liked women, Kate. He enjoyed falling in love. It was only afterwards I discovered that falling in love was his hobby, you might say. He did it all the time, and he meant it too. He didn’t stop loving me, but when we were penniless and his roving eye led him to a wealthy foreigner of some pedigree, I told him to go. I said I would be better off without him, and so it proved.’
‘You separated.’
‘He would have gone with or without my permission. You see I’d found him out – or rather a previous wife had tracked him down. Falling in love wasn’t his only hobby. Marrying was something of a habit.’
‘He was a bigamist?’
‘I’ve had a long time to ponder this and I’ve decided that he was an enthusiast for matrimony. I suppose bigamist is the unkind term. So we weren’t legally married. Felicity doesn’t know.’
Now was not the time to say that when I met him for the wedding, I thought she must be making a mistake but it was obvious from the voluminous dress that she had not much choice in the matter. ‘Oh Alma, have you kept this to yourself all these years?’
‘It’s not the kind of thing to issue bulletins about, is it? Most of the time, I try not to think about it. But someone has found out, I feel sure. Someone must have told the police. Sergeant Garvin has been asking me questions.’
‘What kind of questions?’
‘Oh, nothing I could put my finger on and swear that he suspects. I’m not called into the station. He makes no official calls. But whenever our paths cross, there’s something – a comment, a query. He has asked me about Turner several times. I put him off, pretending not to follow his drift.’
I imagined Alma would do that very well. She was good at vagueness. ‘Has this happened often, the sergeant’s questioning?’
She took an official-looking document from the drawer in her table. ‘Several times. This is my licence to tell fortunes on the pier. He came to check when he knew very well it was in order. Also, during his time off, he collects fossils as Felicity and I do. We’ve bumped into him several times. There’s always something, some little question or comment.’
‘How awkward for you, Alma. But are you being over-sensitive?’
‘No. I’m sure I’m not.’
‘Can you remember anything specific he’s said?’
She twisted the wedding ring on her finger. ‘I’m trying to remember. He puts me in such a panic that my mind goes blank.’
‘Even if he does suspect, you are no longer with Walter. You were the innocent party.’
‘I married innocently enough but once I found out, I didn’t tell the authorities. That makes me party to the crime. Think of the shame that would come from a court case!’
‘If you’ve kept this to yourself, who do you think may have found out?’
‘I don’t know. But consider Felicity, who through no fault of hers or mine would be classed as illegitimate if I do speak up. Heaven knows the poor girl feels self-conscious enough, having a fortune teller for a mother.’
‘Doesn’t Walter ever write, or send money for Felicity?’
‘I want nothing more from him, alive or dead. If he turned up tomorrow and offered me the moon, I’d tell him to keep it. He bought us the house on Henrietta Street, and I never told you this but that was claimed by the sea one January. We had to hop out in the middle of the night and watch it slide away.’
‘What a nightmare. Felicity once said something about it, but I didn’t fully grasp what she was saying.’
Though it would be better to try and remain neutral, by now I had taken against Walter so thoroughly that it struck me as just the kind of thing he might do. Buy a house that would be swept into the sea. I was ready to hold him responsible for floods and freaks of nature as well as bigamy and abandonment.
‘Was the property insured?’
‘Good heavens, no. Everybody knew where the house was heading, except Walter and I.’
‘And you now live at Bagdale Hall.’
‘Yes, my half share, thanks to Walter again, and that wouldn’t have been my choice.’
‘Then how did it happen and who has the other half?’
‘Walter went in with Percival Cricklethorpe, a local artist. He painted the pictures on the pepper pot door, the moons, sun, stars and me. The house is in our joint names. We each have a floor and share the ground floor – the kitchen and the public rooms.’
‘That sounds an interesting arrangement.’
‘Walter’s idea and since he put up the money I didn’t say no. It could be worse. I was supposed to be delighted with it.’
‘
But you’re not?’
Alma sighed. ‘I wouldn’t go as far as that. You’ll meet Cricklethorpe. He’s a good artist and a sweet man but sharing with him puts me in an awkward situation too. My whole life feels so very temporary.’ She looked glumly into her crystal ball. ‘That’s why I used a post office address sometimes. I expected to move on, and I never have.’
‘How long have you been in Bagdale Hall?’
‘Five years.’
‘That’s a long time to feel temporary.’
‘Oh Kate, I’ve felt temporary all my life. I do tell people’s fortunes and see their futures, I really do, but my own evades me entirely.’
‘How old would Walter be now?’
‘Seventy-three.’
‘Say he had died, would you hear?’
She clutched the end of her shawl and gave it a good twist. ‘Possibly not. He didn’t always go under the same name. Crickly is more likely to hear than I. I believe he and Walter are in touch now and again.’
‘This might sound callous, Alma, but if you don’t know whether he’s alive…’
She finished my sentence. ‘The grim reaper may have solved the problem for me.’
‘And then no one need ever know that you weren’t legally married.’ I banished from my mind the image of a funeral with a dozen mourning women around a single grave.
‘I don’t want to make enquiries myself, Kate. I want to know but I dread the answer.’
‘How hard for you and for Felicity, not knowing whether he’s alive or dead.’
Death at the Seaside Page 4