By this time, Pinson told himself, the moment for resistance had long passed. Jean watched him intently while he finished his tea. He glanced over her head to the doorway in which Mrs Bread appeared for a second. She looked at him, shook her head, then disappeared.
Reluctantly at first, Pinson found himself enjoying his tour of Bidmouth in Jean’s car, a comfortable, air-conditioned Mercedes. In her presence he felt free of restraint and obligation, even the obligation to like her. She told him all about Bidmouth’s scandals and controversies, in many of which she and her coterie of friends—‘the gang’—played the roles of heroic victims who finally triumphed over the forces of reaction and obscurantism. Pinson recognised an embryonic talent for fiction in her gift for mythologising events.
Having seen the sights of the town, mostly from the comfortable interior of the car, Jean said: ‘There is one place I must show you before we go to lunch. It is rather special. The most wonderful views. You will love it.’
They drove out of Bidmouth and then along a coastal road that swooped and swung through the Devon countryside. The sky was clear but for a few high white clouds; the scenery was idyllic. Through gaps in the trees and dips in the fields Pinson caught flashes of sunlit sea. The dazzle of light and beauty put Pinson into a trance from which Jean suddenly aroused him.
She said: ‘Of course, it’s a marvellous play and all that, but you’re quite wrong, you know.’
‘What?’
‘Your play about the Poisons Affair. You got my character, Madame de Montespan, the King’s mistress, all wrong.’
‘Ah. You think she was an innocent victim of rumour, then? All that stuff about black magic ceremonies was made up? Yes. Many historians think that.’
‘Oh, no! She did it all right. What you got wrong was that she just made use of the magical ceremonies to keep the King in her bed. No. She was far deeper into all that stuff than you make out. The Abbé Guibourg was one of her people. She was Queen of the Witches.’
This was a novel theory which Pinson had never heard before, obviously culled from some trashy book on the occult.
‘Oh, really?’ he said, gently condescending. ‘And how do you know that?’
‘Canon Doker told me. He’s an expert on that sort of thing. You know who you ought to write a play about next?’
‘No,’ said Pinson in what he hoped was a discouraging voice. If there was one thing he hated more than anything it was to be told by a non writer what he should write about.
‘Joan of Arc,’ said Jean who seemed oblivious to his tone.
‘Done already, I believe.’ Sarcasm was not disguised.
‘I know. I know. But not properly. All that saint rubbish. She was actually a top witch, you know. Canon Doker told me all about it. I mean, her best friend was this bloke who was actually executed for black magic and all sorts. Jill, something or other.’
‘Gilles de Rais. The original Bluebeard. Sorcerer and sodomite.’
‘Exactly. There you are. She must have been a witch.’
‘That is to assume guilt by association.’
‘Who said anything about guilt?’
‘You might just as well say that because Gilles de Rais was a friend of Joan’s he must have been a saint like her.’
‘Well, I think it’s a fascinating idea. I’ve even thought of a title. Joan the Witch. Don’t you think that’s the most brilliant idea?’
At that moment Jean suddenly swerved off the road and onto a dirt track that wound towards the sea. Pinson noted that a white signpost at the beginning of the track had pointed the way to a place called DODMAN’S POINT. Having reached a flat open space over which a few sheep grazed Jean stopped the car and said:
‘We’ll walk from here.’
They got out of the Mercedes, which she had parked in the lee of a dry stone wall. Pinson followed Jean along a chalky little path towards a narrow grass-covered promontory. Its sides were steep granite cliffs which fell fifty or sixty feet into the sea. Screaming gulls wheeled about the cliffs and nested in their crevices.
‘That is Dodman’s Point, is it?’ asked Pinson.
‘Yes. Isn’t it gorgeous?’
‘Gorgeous’ seemed the wrong word to Pinson: impressive or spectacular might have served better. Someone more mystically inclined might have chosen another adjective, like ‘numinous’. About half way along the promontory, high above the sea, stood two upright granite menhirs, each about eight feet high, flat and roughly oval in shape, facing one another. Jean addressed his unspoken inquiry.
‘They’re called Dodman’s Hands,’ she said.
Pinson looked at them again and acknowledged that they did look curiously like two hands thrust up through the soil, as though they were about to come together in prayer or applause.
‘When were they put there?’ asked Pinson.
‘Nobody knows, darling. Yonks ago.’
‘Dodman. . . . Could that be a corruption of Dead Man?’
‘Could be. There’s some sort of legend about one of those old West Country saints. You know. Called St Egg or St Teeth or something stupid like that. Well, this saint fought a giant around here, and some people think the giant was a local god called Dod or Doddon, hence the name. Then when this saint had defeated the giant, the legend says he buried him on Dodman’s Point, but the giant wasn’t quite dead because he managed to thrust his hands up through the soil. At least, that’s the story anyway. And there are all sorts of superstitions about the stones, like if a young girl sleeps between them she will dream of her true love. Or if you fuck between them you’ll conceive a black haired male child.’
Pinson blinked at the unexpected use of the four letter word on such a pure, bright day. ‘Then there are more sinister tales, like that there are times when the hands mysteriously come together and can crush anyone between them. Come on. Last one there’s a sissy.’
And then this buxom provincial woman in her lime green trouser suit, her brassy jewellery and her white flat-heeled shoes took off down the chalky path towards the Hands. Pinson scrambled after her feeling quite ridiculous. Jean did not stop until she was on the Point very near the stones; then, when Pinson had caught up with her, she seized his wrist and dragged him between the Hands with a whoop. Once through the stones they stopped to recover their breath. Pinson looked at Jean astonished and she, seeing his expression, began to shriek with laughter.
‘I’ve shocked you! I’ve shocked the great playwright!’ she shouted triumphantly.
‘You’ve horrified me,’ said Pinson trying to sound amused.
**
At the Saracen’s Head, an over-decorated old pub which served pretentious bar-snacks with names like ‘Thai Prawn Temptation’, and for pudding, of course, ‘Death by Chocolate’, he and Jean met Jim and Adela Strange, the owners of Spyhole Cottage. Pinson recognised them as members of the ‘gang’ that surrounded Jean in her dressing room the night before. They were in their fifties, he gross, with an oversized, sensual head, she skeletally thin with a twitch. From the way she downed vodka martinis, probably an alcoholic, he speculated. They seemed to Pinson like figures out of a Medieval Morality: Sin and Death, he named them to himself. Jim’s withered arm would not have been that conspicuous, had Jean not told Pinson about it. He found that his eyes were constantly being drawn to the offending limb, and this added to his unease.
After lunch Pinson was abandoned by Jean and placed in the hands of Jim and Adela who took him to see Spyhole Cottage. Before she went Jean had invited them all round to a barbecue at her house that evening. Pinson could not evade it because, ostensibly, it was being held in his honour. In his head Pinson heard his London friends all saying: ‘what are you doing with these people?’ Pinson did not know. He was not a weak person but he had an inclination at times to stand back from his own life and watch events take their course, as if they were happening to someone else. He would say it was what Keats called ‘negative capability’, a gift and a malaise. That was his excuse.
S
pyhole was a whitewashed, converted fisherman’s cottage on the outskirts of Bidmouth. Inside it was also whitewashed and decorated to the outermost limits of seaside picturesque. There were windows shaped like portholes, swags of netting weighted with green glass witch balls, framed prints of tea clippers, a clock set in a ship’s wheel, and on sills and mantels various items of brass naval bric-a-brac, not to mention a flock of gulls in pottery and wood. Curtains and loose covers were a chintz pattern of pale pink anchors on a white ground. Pinson made suitable noises of wondering admiration.
‘Marvellous, isn’t it?’ said Adela, ‘Jean did all the interior design. She’s so incredibly artistic. Normally this place would be let. People just love it, but we happen to have this fortnight free. Isn’t that lucky?’
Pinson asked what the rent was to be, conscious that he was somehow being inveigled into staying two weeks. They quoted a sum which seemed to Pinson a little on the expensive side, but he made no objections, though he wondered again at his own weakness. It was, in its way, he supposed, a pretty place with lovely views. He told himself that this was just what he needed to begin writing again. They showed him the cottage in its entirety, inviting expressions of admiration at every room. The last one they showed him was the spare bedroom.
‘We thought you could write in here.’ said Adela. And who were ‘we?’ thought Pinson. ‘There’s a table at the window that you can use as a desk.’
There was indeed, and the view from the window was a splendid one of the Devon coastline. Unfortunately Pinson was one of those writers who prefer blank walls to distracting scenery when writing. Nevertheless, he dutifully admired the prospect, and in doing so was slightly shocked to find that he could see Dodman’s Point in the distance. The Hands looked as if they were about to come together in applause: whether approving or ironic, he could not decide.
**
When Pinson told Mrs Bread that he was moving into Spyhole Cottage she sniffed and said she hoped he was not going to pay a lot of rent for ‘that place’. Pinson put it down to professional envy and drove to Jean’s barbecue that evening with a light heart. Whenever Pinson allowed himself to let events take their course it was always in the superstitious belief that good fortune would follow. Sometimes it did.
Jean and Alec Crowden’s house was a large white villa built around 1930 in a vaguely Spanish style. It was one of a row of similar houses in the most exclusive, though by no means the oldest, part of Bidmouth. The drive was already crowded with vehicles when Pinson arrived there. He hoped he was not going to be lionised. An instinctive snobbishness, of which he felt slightly ashamed, told him that it was one thing to be celebrated in an Islington drawing room, but another on the patio of a provincial Queen Bee.
As it happened, he was welcomed effusively by Jean but not, as he had feared, displayed like a trophy. Among the guests, he recognised most of the gang from the dressing room who said: ‘Hello, Dan!’ with friendly familiarity and then passed on. Someone handed him a glass of Asti Spumante, sweet and heady.
The main sitting room was decorated in a range of creams and pastel colours, what Pinson called ‘tastefully tasteless’. Everything was new and spotless and showed the mark of Jean, the aspiring interior decorator. The only unconventional feature of the room was that on one of the side tables reposed a cage, painted white, containing straw, various ramps and wheels, and three white mice with fierce red eyes. Pinson had not put the Crowdens down as mouse fanciers. Sliding glass doors opened onto a patio where Jean’s husband Alec was at the barbecue grilling burgers and sausages. He wore a bright red apron emblazoned with a comical representation of a chef and the words: CHIEF COOK AND BOTTLE WASHER. This light-hearted legend was strikingly at odds with Alec’s angry red face and morose expression. He looked as if he were wearing the apron as a kind of punishment, like the sanbenito of a repentant heretic. Pinson was so fascinated by this image that, until he was spoken to, he did not notice that Canon Doker had been standing by his side.
‘And what are you doing in this galère?’ said the Canon archly, indicating the guests.
Pinson shrugged his shoulders: ‘I might ask you the same question.’
‘Oh, I am conducting a little social experiment of my own,’ he said. And, as if to illustrate this cryptic statement, Doker beckoned Pinson to follow him. He led him to the cage containing the three white mice. Their red eyes shone like rubies in firelight.
‘I have always had a weakness for mice,’ he said with an ambiguous smile that made Pinson wonder if it was their personalities or their flesh he valued. Giving Pinson a mischievous sidelong glance Doker took out a silver pill box from the pocket of his black silk vest. Having opened the lid, the Canon extracted a thin white disc, which looked to Pinson like a communion wafer, and pushed it between the bars of the cage. One of the mice seized the wafer avidly and began to devour it, then the other two fell on it and began competing savagely for the prize. Doker fed another through the bars with similar results.
‘Are they what I think they are?’ asked Pinson whose agnosticism could not extinguish shock at an apparent sacrilege.
Doker snapped shut the silver box and returned it to his waistcoat pocket. ‘I consecrated them this morning,’ he said casually. ‘I think mice are far more deserving of the sacraments than some humans, don’t you?’ Pinson could find no answer to this, and none seemed to be called for.
‘Is everyone here connected with the Bidmouth Players?’ he asked.
‘You could say that,’ said Doker, for some reason laying his hand lightly on Pinson’s shoulder. Just then, the thin girl who played the Duchess de Fontanges passed by. She gave Pinson a quick frightened smile. ‘That’s Helen Titlow.’ said the Canon. ‘She’s married to our worthy director Ron Titlow, but estranged just at present and is now with Greg, the hearty whom you met in the dressing room the other night. I believe he’s here tonight, but not poor Ron. Greg is the P.E. and Games Master at Bidmouth Comprehensive where Ron and Helen also teach. A complex and fascinating web of relationships, don’t you think?’
Pinson thought it was rather banal, but he did not say so. Canon Doker appeared to relish his role as guide to the fauna of Bidmouth, and no doubt he flattered himself that he was providing a writer with useful ‘copy’.
‘Tell me about Jean and Alec,’ said Pinson.
‘Ah!’ said Doker, rubbing his hands together, then lowering his voice. ‘This strictly entre nous, you understand.’
‘Of course!’ He was beginning to be irritated by the Canon.
‘Alec was one of the most distinguished eye surgeons in the country, you know. Oh, yes! Made a lot of money. Jean was his secretary or assistant or something. Well, there were some irregularities, or so they say, involving female patients. Drink also was involved. He was nearly struck off. As it was he was near retiring age, so he withdrew discreetly. Rumour hath it that he married Jean to purchase her silence. You must have noticed that she is not quite—how shall I put it delicately?—out of the top drawer? At least not in his social bracket.’
Pinson had not noticed. In fact from the little he had seen of Alec, he appeared to be utterly subservient to her. Doker chattered on about others present, betraying an indiscriminate fascination in their doings, unusual for a clergyman. It was a relief to hear Jean shout ‘Grub’s up, folks!’ and to have an excuse to move away from him.
Pinson ate burgers and sausages and chatted to various people who, Jean told him, were ‘just dying to meet you’. Their eagerness had been overrated, but they seemed pleasant enough. Bland, brassy music started to emerge from the CD player in the sitting room. Pinson might have been at ease, if mildly bored, had he not had the sensation, from time to time, of being watched, not only by Jean and Canon Doker, but also by Greg, Helen Titlow’s muscular boyfriend. Of course this could all have been Pinson’s imagination.
When the pudding—a vast Pavlova—was served, Pinson took his portion to the far end of the garden. There was a little arbour where there was a bench on
which he could sit and eat in peace. He was suffering from what he called ‘social fatigue’; besides, the CD that was puncturing the night at that moment was entitled The Amazing Sound of James Last. Distance lent some enchantment to the view, and even to the sound. Pinson began to eat his Pavlova contentedly, feeling rather like a child devouring cake under the table at a family wedding. At least here he would not be spied on. Then he heard a rustling of leaves, and the next moment someone had sat down beside him on the bench in the arbour. It was Helen Titlow.
She brushed aside his genial welcome and said: ‘Look, I’ve heard you’ve taken Spyhole for a fortnight.’
‘News travels fast.’
‘Yes. Well. I wouldn’t. I’d get out of here. As soon as possible. I really would.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
But Helen had got up and was looking around her, like some frightened woodland creature scenting danger on the wind. Then she had gone. An odd silence fell. Pinson noticed that the Amazing Sound of James Last had ceased. Presently another noise intruded, that of someone singing raucously and off-key.
A physical chill had invaded his body even before he had recognised that it was Alec singing, sounding exactly as he had that night on stage when he played the gaoled black magician Abbé Guibourg. Pinson felt that the horror of that noise could be diminished if he was able to see what was happening. He got up from his refuge and walked towards the house and the patio which in the gathering dark was now illumined by floodlights like a stage set.
A cruel sight met him. Alec, still wearing his comic apron, was lying on the flagstones by the barbecue, propped up on one elbow, his other arm brandishing a long handled fork, as he bellowed out his song. Pinson could just about identify it as an ancient Cliff Richard number called ‘Devil Woman’. Jean was not there, but most of the guests were gathered round watching this spectacle. From a distance the scene looked like some grotesque parody of an eighteenth century history painting, such as ‘The Death of Wolfe’, with Alec Crowden as the dying general making his last oration on the field of battle, and the others as hangers-on grouped around in various attitudes ranging from concern to indifference. Some were even laughing.
The Complete Symphonies of Adolf Hitler Page 24