Three minutes later she was just putting two teabags into the Hester Bateman silver teapot that was used when there was more than one person for tea but fewer than four, when the door into the conservatory creaked open. She heard a familiar voice. Lucy smiled.
‘I’m in the kitchen,’ she called. ‘I heard you on the corner. Whose car have you borrowed now?’
Jared climbed in through the small opening set in the left hand oak door. ‘Don’t you open the door any more? That hole isn’t meant for people more than five feet high.’
‘That’s because in the seventeenth century they weren’t. Those doors are supposed to be made out of timbers that came ashore from the Cortes. You should know.’
‘At least they didn’t have to bloody dive for them.’
‘No one said you had to go diving off Despair either. You can’t complain.’
‘I wouldn’t complain if someone would just come up with some money! They can afford to build another swimming pool and turn Maldun’s Mill into an art gallery. If they want art, the bottom of the damn sea is littered with the stuff. But who cares about that?’
‘Jed, be fair. We need swimming pools. People entirely surrounded by water should learn how to swim. It’s logical.’
‘But three?’
‘Yes, three. One at Dorrado, one at St Brandons and now one at Lyonsness. Kids don’t walk thirty miles every time they want a swimming lesson. We’ve got the hot springs: we should use them. The Portuguese did. The walls around the Lyonsness spring are fifteenth-century Portuguese, Baskerville says.’
‘So? The stonework round the fountain at Dorrado is fourth-century Irish. That doesn’t mean we’re obliged to use the place as a jacuzzi for the next thousand years. So you like having an art gallery in Maldun’s Mill? A hundred and one perspectives of Mount Brasil, with a skyful of dollars in the background?’
‘Kirwan’s photographs aren’t like that.’
‘Is Kirwan exhibiting there?’
‘The first one-man show and the opening attraction. So there!’
‘Wedged in between the café and the souvenir shop? I’m surprised they got Kirwan.’
‘Kirwan wants to live, just like the rest of us. Most of us aren’t betting everything on Spanish gold. Here, take this. Let’s sit in the window.’
He took his tea and followed her. The kitchen was barrel-vaulted, built in the original storerooms below the main hall of the castle. The round German stove at the north end bore a strong resemblance to a steam engine, so that Jared always had an anachronistic sense of being in a railway station. He relished the impression all the more as they were 1388 miles from the nearest railway station to the east, which was Tralee, and 2383 from the west, which was Halifax, Nova Scotia. (The railways in Newfoundland and Cape Breton Island had ceased to function in the 1970s.) Perhaps this was why Jared had always liked the idea of steam trains, especially the huge saurian type that were built to cross continents, with memorable destinations printed on the windows: Paris, Geneva, Vienna, Athens, Berlin, Warsaw, St Petersburg, New York, San Francisco. In reality he hadn’t seen a train at all until he was nineteen, and first boarded the British Rail boat train from Southampton to Waterloo.
Jared skirted a twenty-foot-long table, piled for half its length with maps, books, magazines, letters, a typewriter, a bowl of fruit and some models of plastic reptiles that had once come out of cornflakes packets, and followed Lucy to the window embrasure. In the twelve-foot thickness of the castle wall there was room for a round table with windowseats on each side, shelves with a few stray books, a toaster, a game of Cluedo, and a ginger cat.
‘Hello, Ginger,’ Jared said to the cat. ‘Where’s Simpkin?’
‘God knows,’ said Lucy. ‘Killing something I expect. He’s taken to leaving half a dead rabbit behind the sofa every night for me to find in the morning.’
‘How touching.’
‘I don’t think it’s intended as a present. There aren’t any biscuits, but you could have toast. Dammit, that’s the phone. Help yourself.’
Jared found a home-made loaf in the bread tin, and cut himself two large slabs. While they toasted he stirred his tea and listened to half a conversation.
‘Hi-aye … Oh Colombo … Fine … Yes … sure, tell me …’ A pause. ‘A book about Hy Brasil? Why? Who is she? … Well, if they want a guidebook why don’t they ask one of us? I suppose it’s the full employment round here puts them off … No, no, fair enough … Here? Me? … Well, that’s true … What’s she like? …‘A pause. ‘OK, but will I like her? … What if Idon’t? … Sure, I could use the cash … OK, well … but … what? … Suppose we say in about a week? … No, that’ll give me a chance, in case I want to get out of it … Fair enough … Yes, OK, bring her any time that week, and she can stay a week to start off with … Oh yes, well, I charged those Canadians twenty-five pounds fifteen and six a night. That was last year. Do you think that’s fair? … OK, and if I like her and she stays longer I might make it less … Oh, I think so. It only means one lot of sheets … OK then, next week then … Yes, very nice, and so do I love you … No, you know I won’t. See you soon … Don’t talk about it … Bye.’
Lucy came back to the table looking slightly flushed.
‘Poor Colombo,’ said Jared.
‘There’s nothing poor about Colombo,’ replied Lucy tartly.
‘Well, I wouldn’t be in his shoes. Not that I have any shoes of that sort at all just now,’ Jared sighed.
‘My heart bleeds. If you keep yourself immured on Despair what do you expect? Ferryloads of avid blondes rowing in formation across the sound?’
‘Now there’s a nice idea. Do I gather you’re getting a lodger?’
‘A girl called Sidney – Sidony? – something like that. She’s a Brit. And she’s writing a book about Hy Brasil.’
‘Oh, Christ. I hate her already.’
‘You won’t hate her. Colombo says she’s pretty. I should have suggested she meet you. There’s lots of things you could tell her. Well, we can arrange that later, and then you needn’t be footloose any more.’
‘Thanks. So she’s staying here next week?’
‘For a bit. She’s at the hostel in St Brandons just now. I expect it’ll be fine. She can do Ogg’s Cove and Lyonsness from here.’
‘Do them, eh? That’ll be great.’
‘Come on! From what Colombo says she’s only a student, or just graduated or something. Anyway, she’s not the witch of Endor or Colombo wouldn’t want to help her. You’re in a foul mood, Jared.’
He was instantly repentant. ‘I’m sorry. Read that. I picked it up at the Post Office this morning. That’s partly why. If she’s nice I think it’s a good idea. I suppose you could do with the company.’
Lucy smoothed out the crumpled letter.
Dear Sir (she read)
Your application to the Mayda Trust has been carefully considered. It has been a record year for projects, which reflects the thriving state of artistic and conservationist endeavour in this country. The Committee has been impressed by the high standard of the projects brought to its attention. However, funding is necessarily limited, and our primary criterion had to be the potential benefit of each project to the community as a whole. We therefore regret to have to inform you …
‘Oh Jed,’ she said. ‘But Spanish treasure isn’t the only thing. It’ll be there another year.’
‘Want to bet? Chances are they’ll sell the rights to some foreign company that’s got all the gear and can pay anything they ask, before the year’s out. I should never even have told them about it. It’s out of the bag now.’
‘Jed, I’m sure they won’t.’
‘And there’s another thing. Why I’m here today: I found something yesterday. The more I think about it, I bet it all hangs together. Fuck the Mayda Trust. Has anyone ever seen their accounts?’
‘Well yes, the auditors presumably. I expect it’s Gunn and Selkirk. They do most of the public bodies. They do me, too, in fact. What abo
ut it?’
‘I tell you, there’s something behind all this. It’s not just coincidence. And yesterday …’
‘Behind all which? Get real, Jared. Who the hell wants to salvage the Cortes except you and possibly Ishmael Pereira? Who else do you think gives a damn? The bloody mafia?’
‘Suppose you let me finish my sentence? Just because you think I’m paranoid …’
‘I didn’t say that. What I do think is that this Robinson Crusoe number isn’t making any sense. Spending all your evenings out there brooding about conspiracies. It would do you a lot more good to have an active sex life. In the spring a young man’s fancy ought to turn to thoughts of love. Have you thought of advertising?’
‘Shut up, Lucy, and listen to me. You’re not one to talk anyway. I’m trying to tell you something important. The reason I’m over here today is I found a packet of cocaine on the white strand yesterday morning. Seriously.’
Lucy stared at him. ‘Cocaine?’
‘Yes. On the high tide mark. In a waterproof plastic case. Jettisoned.’
‘How did you know it was coke?’
‘Well, it didn’t exactly look like a pint of milk.’
‘Thanks. But Jed … Surely no one’s into that scene now? I mean, who would be? I don’t know anyone. Do you?’
‘Of course not. But they wouldn’t tell me, would they? I don’t use the stuff.’
Lucy turned her mug round and round in her hands. She looked perturbed. ‘Oh Jed! I don’t like it. Does it have to be someone local? Are you sure it was cocaine?’
‘What else would it be? Nothing else comes through Hy Brasil now that I know of, except high-quality marijuana, and it certainly wasn’t that. But you remember there was that bit in the Times about Customs patrols? They must have startled somebody. That’s what you do if a search is imminent: jettison the cargo.’
‘Why didn’t they use lobster pots or something?’
‘Maybe they did and one got dropped. Maybe they couldn’t. How do I know? That was yesterday morning. I thought about what to do. You can see why I didn’t want to get involved, can’t you? But it bothered me, so today I came over to Ferdy’s Landing and showed it to Ishmael. He said I should have come at once. I’d never thought of it, Lucy, but Ishmael said, what if the peelers came over to Despair and found it on me? You think I’m paranoid. But Ishmael says I’m not careful enough; he thinks there’s maybe folk out there don’t want me on Despair, and I should watch out. I could get busted, and if they wanted to find stuff on me, well, that could be arranged.’
‘Did he really say that?’
‘Yes, and Ishmael doesn’t dream up anything that isn’t real.’
Lucy was frowning. ‘No, he doesn’t. Jed, I wonder … Do you see anything of Olly West these days?’
‘No. I did when I first got back, because he never left me alone. He got this notion we could set up some partnership with a boat. Is it likely? I don’t reckon that guy could row across the pond in Kings’ Park. Then when I started diving with Ishmael, Olly was black affronted about it. I never promised him anything though; just stood about listening politely when I couldn’t get away.’
‘Well, when you first got back, according to Olly West, you were the best thing since sliced bread. Now: not, to put it mildly. Or so they tell me.’
‘But Lucy, that’s what he’s always done: latched on to some unsuspecting chap, dreamt up some fantasy, and then slandered the fellow forever because it turns out the poor soul never knew a thing about it. I don’t give a damn. Olly’s harmless. No one listens to him.’
‘I suppose not. But go on telling me. So what did you do?’
‘Today? Oh, Ishmael drove me into St Brandons and we took the stuff straight to the peelers. And I tell you, I was damn glad he was with me. I didn’t exactly get a vote of thanks. They made it fairly clear that my role was Prime Suspect. Lucy, do I look like a drug dealer?’
‘No, m’dear, you don’t. But does anyone? It would hardly be a recipe for success to look the part.’
He wasn’t listening. ‘They had me in there over an hour, asking me questions. What the hell was I supposed to say? I kept on telling them, I found the damn thing on the beach. This morning, I said. Remember that if you get asked; I wouldn’t put it past those guys to go round all my friends checking up on me. Ishmael said say this morning, not yesterday, so it looked like I’d leapt in the boat and come over right away. So I did. But even telling that much of a lie, I started feeling confused, and yes, maybe I am paranoid. I started wondering if they had a truth monitor beamed on me, things like that. It was this horrible little room without any windows. I hate not being able to see out.’
‘Poor Jared. They did rattle you, didn’t they?’
‘I can’t stand peelers. I used to think it was because I was young. When I was a kid they were after me all the time. You remember that time I got stopped for speeding? That was the first time I ever got into the Court section of the paper. Stopped for bloody speeding. I was on water skis at the time. Not even in the bloody boat. No wonder I left the country. But now I’m back it’s no better. Worse in fact. If they framed me for smuggling coke I could go down for years. Years. Do you realise that?’
‘Jed, stop, stop! No one’s framed you for anything. OK, so the police gave you the third degree. Maybe they wonder what you’re doing out there on Despair all by yourself. I suppose they have to eliminate you first.’
‘According to our constitution they’re not allowed to eliminate me, much as they might like to.’
‘Not like that, idiot. All I’m saying is, I suppose I can see why Ishmael thinks you should be careful.’
‘For Christ’s sake! Lucy, you don’t think I’m dealing drugs, do you?’
She was staring at him again, a sudden question in her eyes. Then she said, ‘Of course I don’t. But naturally I remember things. You must remember them too.’
‘Lucy! What is this?’ Jared stood up, knocking his mug over so it crashed to the floor. ‘If you’re trying to set me up too, I’m getting out of here!’
She caught him by the arm. ‘No, Jed, of course I’m not! Stop! Of course I don’t think you had anything to do with it! Jed, stop! I’m on your side. I would be anyway. Sit down! Listen to me!’
Reluctantly Jared sat down again and watched Lucy pick up the mug. ‘I didn’t break it, did I?’
‘No, don’t worry about it. Jed, I’m not accusing you of anything. But look at it this way. What do the police know about you? When you were at the Academy you were pretty wild. You weren’t in school half the time. They know you’ve been working a boat out of Ogg’s Cove more or less since you could walk. They know you know every inch of the coast between Dorrado and Lyonsness. You were busted for dope at the Hallowe’en dance in Lyonsness when you were in fifth year. Wasn’t that when they put you on probation for a year? I was in New York myself but Penelope wrote and told me all about it. Remember? Then not long after that you were caught spraying “Free elections, free Hy Brasil” on the statue of Lord Clanroyden just outside Government House. Three people wrote to me about that, and Colombo sent me the cutting. And then they published your poem about the French Revolution being betrayed by – what was it – “a little man from a little island” – have I got that right?’
‘Don’t repeat it. I’m not proud of my early poems any more.’
‘All right. But Jared, what I’m saying is, you may never have hurt a fly, metaphorically speaking, but in the legend you’ve created around yourself in Hy Brasil your record is as long as your arm.’
‘Oh come on! I haven’t even lived here since I was eighteen, until I came back at the beginning of last year. And what have I done since then?’
‘Nothing. That’s the trouble. Bought a boat and spent all your time mysteriously at sea, just when there’s no fish. Gone to live in an empty lighthouse where you don’t talk to anybody. OK, so you’ve kept a low profile. Too damn low, in my opinion.’
‘Lucy, I swear to you I’m not
involved in anything. I’d never touch the drug trade! What the hell do you think I was doing for eight years? It took me three years to get my degree, and the next five years I mostly spent in sub-zero Arctic waters. You can’t do drugs at the same time as doing that. I’ve published four poems and two articles on marine salvage, all in proper upmarket journals. Would you like to see them? I’ve just not had time for a life of crime, so don’t you think it! If you even suggested it to my friends away from here they’d think you were off your head! And I’m not eighteen any more either.’
‘Unfortunately you still look it. And you know what it’s like here. Your past is with you for ever. It’s not like that when you’re away. You know, and I know, and half the population of Hy Brasil knows that life can happen elsewhere and people can go away and change into whatever they like. But when you come home, you have to take the old story on again, even if it doesn’t fit you any more. Yes, it’s tough: you leave and become a successful whatever-it-is, and you think that’s who you are, you’ve acquired something to be proud of, but the minute you get back here it means nothing, you’re still the kid who stole the cookies, even if it happened forty years ago.’
‘Jesus, it’s worse than that! I hate it; I just feel like I’m not myself any more. The bloody peelers, for God’s sake! It’s like dreaming you’re back in first year being given detentions, but then at least you wake up and find yourself grown up after all. But this is real.’
‘So why did you come back?’
Jared looked out of the window. Over a low-lying mist the peak of Despair was just visible to the east, dark-blue against the dimming sky. ‘I suppose I wanted to come home. It felt like time. And then Ishmael and I started diving, and we found the Cortes. I’d always suspected she was around there, but I had no way of diving before I went away. Didn’t know how. No gear. And then last June Ishmael and I found her. That was some day! I’ll never forget it. And then I thought, well, here’s a project. I’m not an archeologist, but I can read, and Baskerville said he’d tell us what to do, take charge of the finds, write it up and stuff like that. Lucy, when all that was happening I thought we were made. I thought I’d found a way of coming home.
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