by Burke, John
The wind was veering round and snarling at them. They got up and walked past the lighthouse.
“If it comes to pride,” said Martin more quietly, “what about mine? Hearing all this about my own background. Parents, grandparents, all our ancestors all the way back to William the Bastard — pity we can’t blot out the lot.”
They parted outside Fernrock Hotel. Martin went indoors. The trees up here amplified the roar of the wind. A holidaymaker staying in one of the upper rooms of the hotel must, thought Brigid, have some of the sensations of being aboard a cruise liner in a choppy sea. Enjoyment would depend on whether or not you were a good sailor.
She went down the slope to the promenade and walked briskly towards the main shopping streets of the town. A few hardy souls had ventured out in the rising gale, determined to boast that they loved the sea breezes. Below, long ranks of frothing ripples advanced over the now submerged rocks with a throaty rasp.
Suddenly she realised that a young man had fallen into step beside her.
Peter said: “An interesting fantasy, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t think we have anything to say to each other.”
“Ah. This is the cold English disdain, yes? The haughty upper lip, I think.”
“You think wrong. It’s just that I’d sooner not…”
“Interesting,” he repeated. “The Mrs Hemming, she goes through my luggage in her hotel — oh, yes, but of course it was her — and she has the pieces to make a pattern. She makes up such a beautiful story for herself. It is so like my own story, yes? Suspicious, I think. So like.”
“They can’t both be true,” said Brigid flatly.
“That is so. Ah” — Peter spread his arms — “if only the characters were all of royal blood, such a libretto Verdi would have adored!”
Brigid said: “I really must hurry. I have some shopping to do.”
“What do you think she hopes to gain by her silly little comedy?”
Brigid’s head was spinning. She had already had enough of this — with all of them, with Martin, and now with Peter. Treading the same ground over and over again … stumbling through the maze, punch-drunk, fed up.
But she had to grapple with it. Sooner or later she had to find her way out of the maze.
“That birth certificate,” she said. “It has Walter Blythe’s name on it as Mrs Hemming’s father.”
“I said it meant nothing. Still I say it means nothing.”
“I’d say it meant a lot.”
“The registrar,” Brigid insisted, “wouldn’t enter that name without seeing a valid marriage certificate between Walter Blythe and the mother.”
“A forgery, then. It is of no consequence.” He shrugged. “It is easy to forge documents.”
“Not in this country, it isn’t.”
“No? I tell you, lovely Brigid, anywhere it is easy. If you know the people, it is easy.” He nodded and smiled as though in appreciation of his opponent’s tactics — an appreciation which would not alter his determination to win. “I do not know why it was done. There is a lot we do not know, I think. But one thing I know — I know the truth. The truth of myself, and what I must have.”
They waited to cross the road by the island of flowerbeds from which radiated streets climbing steeply into the town. Brigid looked straight ahead, wondering how she could shake him off.
He said: “Now I think I must find another hotel.”
She could not suppress a wry smile. “I don’t imagine you’re exactly a welcome guest.”
“Perhaps I am stabbed to death in my bed.”
“In Lurgate?”
“There are no deaths in Lurgate? No passion, no killing? I think it is dull. I think I go away.”
“Away?”
He laughed. “You are so anxious I go?” Before she could stammer an excuse, he went on: “And you will come with me?”
“Certainly not.”
“I ask you to think about it.”
“Where were you proposing to take me?” She made it as sarcastic as possible.
“We find out when we get there. That is the only way to travel.”
“You fancy me as a useful accomplice? You hope to keep working on my father through me — keep draining the firm?” His smile stayed on his lips but hardened. As they crossed the road he walked a step ahead of her as though gallantly to clear the way, and turned to meet her on the opposite kerb. He crinkled his eyes up into what was meant to be an endearing grin. As a small boy he must have been irresistible. No doubt his grandmother had spoilt him — the only man left in the family, in a land where, Brigid had heard or read somewhere, large families were the rule and sons were idolised. But the eyes were not childish now and they were not endearing. They were calculating and far too old for his years.
She stood still, wanting him to go away. Whichever direction he took, she would take a different one.
At the top of the steps which led to the shore, two workmen in green Corporation uniform were unloading deckchairs from a cart. The canvas, faded by earlier seasons, billowed in the breeze. Nobody was sitting on the shore today, but the date and time for the supply of extra deck-chairs had been decreed by the Corporation weeks ago and the routine had to be observed. Optimistically the men humped the chairs down the steps.
Brigid knew everything about Lurgate. All its nuances, all its moods. She could tell a visitor from a day tripper, a resident from even the most discreet, quiet holidaymaker. She knew almost too much about the place. Escape was a tempting prospect. But not with Peter.
“You know what I think?” he said. “I think maybe your Mrs Hemming’s mother killed my grandfather.”
“What a ridiculous…”
“But yes.”
“One minute you hardly believe in her existence, the next you’re dreaming up murder plots about her.”
“I do not believe in her as my grandfather’s wife, no. But his mistress, perhaps? And she find that he has had enough, that his wife is more beautiful. And he and his wife are going to leave the country, and the mistress she grows jealous.”
“Then why wouldn’t she have murdered your grandmother rather than your grandfather?”
He nodded bland acknowledgment of this point. “It is a puzzle, I agree. So much is still a puzzle. But I think…” His voice trailed away. Brigid had not been looking at him. Even while they talked she had been deliberately looking away, implying that she wanted a quick end to the conversation, that she was already on her way somewhere else. Now she glanced at him.
Peter stood rigid for a moment. He stared. He could not have been stricken more stiff and dumb if one of the passing
trippers had snatched off a paper hat to reveal the face of Medusa.
Before Brigid knew what was happening, he came abruptly to life. His hand grabbed her arm and he dragged her unceremoniously up the nearest street. “Stop it! Just a minute…!”
They stumbled under the green metal awning of a row of shops which had altered little since Victorian times. Peter obviously had no idea where he was. He looked blankly up at the shop names, and then down the street. A bulging, untrimmed privet hedge leaned out over a low wall and obscured the view of the promenade.
Brigid said: “What on earth…?”
“Ten thousand pounds,” he said breathlessly. He gabbled a few words which must have been Italian, then gulped and made himself speak English again, slowly. “What you think ten thousand pounds it means today? Ten thousand pounds from … from 1913, I mean.”
“Haven’t a clue.”
“The money they say my grandfather stole. But he did not steal.” He glanced down towards the promenade and began to urge Brigid further up the street. They stopped on a corner, where a long arc of roadway carried traffic away inland. “We know it was not my grandfather. Your grandfather — it was he who stole. And stole my grandfather’s life also.”
Brigid tugged her arm free. “What are you ranting on about? And what’s all the rush?”
“You think m
aybe your father settle for fifty thousand pounds? Fifty thousand and then he is rid of me. Very reasonable.”
“Settle? You mean you want to get out?”
“I think I do not live here.”
“Your claim won’t stand up to Martin’s,” she challenged. “That’s why you’re in such a flap. That’s what you’re afraid of.”
“Is nonsense. But I do not stay here. I would not be liked.” There was no humour whatsoever left in his smile. “And for me, I like to be liked. This is a cold place. Me, I find it very cold.” He gave a genuine shiver.
Brigid said: “I wouldn’t advise you to try and blackmail my father.”
“Who is talking of blackmail? I talk about a settlement. Man to man. The truth. We all know the truth. You speak for me — you ask your father, you find out for me?”
“No. You must see him yourself.”
*
Peter came to the house that same evening. He was closeted with Brigid’s father for twenty minutes. When he left, he was humming to himself.
Brigid waited for her father to emerge.
His face was pale and drained. Her mother, waiting just as tautly as Brigid, went to his side. Brigid felt suddenly and absurdly weepy as she saw how close they were. For the first time in her life she felt almost shut out; and in the same flash saw what it meant to be truly husband and wife.
She said: “Daddy, what did he say?”
“Same sort of thing as before. Only more of it.”
“You didn’t give him any money, did you? You didn’t let him…”
“Brigid.” Her mother was sharp, really thrusting her away. “Your father’s very tired. We’ll talk about it when he feels like talking about it.”
“I only wanted to know what happened.” The next day, Martin also wanted to know what happened. It must have been something big, something climactic — because Peter had not returned to the hotel that night.
“He was talking of moving out,” said Brigid. “He felt it wasn’t quite the right place for him. I expect he’s found somewhere else.”
“Without luggage? His bags are still in his room. We’ve had a look. And he hasn’t paid his bill.”
Thinking wretchedly that her father must have been pressured into giving Peter money, that Peter must have been out on a delirious spending spree, Brigid said: “He’ll be back. I’m sure of it. He’ll pay his bill and collect his bags, and…”
“And?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I just don’t know.” But Peter didn’t come back. Two days later the luggage was still there, the bill was still unpaid, and there was no sign of Peter.
The clatter of dustbin lids jarred Nell awake. After the first crash, coming from a house some distance away, there was a moment’s lull; then the wind rose again and skittishly moved a lid down a garden path or across what might be a patch of crazy paving.
There was a faint slithering noise overhead, followed by a crunch somewhere below the window. A slate must have come off the roof. There would probably be more by morning.
Nell buried her right ear in the pillow. It was no use: she was already wide awake.
Arthur muttered in his sleep and hunched closer.
There was a buffet against the house, then a sigh. Nell waited tensely for the next gust, trying to predict it and fall into the rhythm. There was no rhythm. The wind was unpredictable. It stormed, moaned, whispered.
She turned over.
The wind became the insidious voice of Peter Blythe, needling her, demanding answers she couldn’t give. She told him to go away and tried to find a way of convincing him that there was nothing here for him.
But he had gone, hadn’t he? It was the manner of his going that was so worrying. She must call him back. He must start all over again, do it properly, leaving everything tidy. As soon as she allowed herself to think of the word ‘tidy’, Nell found that Mrs Hemming was in the scene, fussy and meticulous.
If she went to sleep now, they would both follow her into a dream.
It was just as it had been, years ago, when she was learning to drive. Her foot twitched, she went over and over a mistake — even a possible mistake, a misinterpretation — and she wanted to reverse everything, go back to the beginning and then set off properly, flawlessly. On the edge of sleep her foot used to slip off the clutch and she would be jolted forward in bed.
“Huh … mm … what’s ’at?” Arthur grunted now, just as he had done then.
Peter Blythe snickered.
Come back and explain yourself, she said in her head, and then clear off for good. Let me tell you what I think of you, and then go.
Arthur groped for the edge of the sheet and tugged it over him.
Nell was thankful when the morning light filtered through the parted curtains and tinted the end of the bed. She got up early and had drunk two cups of coffee by the time Arthur and Brigid came down to breakfast.
In the middle of the meal, there was a telephone call from the Borough Surveyor. He wanted Arthur’s professional opinion. There had been a nasty subsidence of the cliff below Fernrock Hotel during the night, and some urgent work might be needed. Could they meet there in half an hour?
“I’ll drive you,” said Nell.
Arthur looked mildly surprised. “No need to bother, love.”
“You’ve got so much on your mind just now. You don’t concentrate on the road at the best of times. I hate to think what you’d be like today.”
Arthur looked even more surprised. “You know, I’m perfectly capable…”
“Besides,” said Nell finally, “I feel like getting out.”
Arthur and Brigid exchanged wry, speculative glances. Nell was tempted to snap at both of them and tell them to wipe that silly expression off their faces. She restrained herself. Arthur would almost certainly have said that she was not in a fit state to drive the car.
They went slowly along the ridge. Neighbours were sweeping up fragments of slate or examining garage and outhouse roofs.
The wind had dropped. Below, the sea was oily and sullen. It appeared threatening rather than restful, as though waiting for the wind to revive so that they could launch a concerted attack on the heavy blocks shoring up the promenade.
Nell drove towards the bluff. From this angle, approaching it from the side, Fernrock did look precariously exposed. Ideal situation, magnificent sea vista … The advertisements were accurate enough; but when a storm raged perhaps the situation was not quite so ideal.
She drew up on the gravel before the hotel entrance. They got out and walked to the edge of the terraced gardens.
The fissure down the slope had widened into an alarming gash. Boulders and long, deadly slivers of rock had been clawed from the cliff by the wind. Some were poised, some had wrecked the flowerbeds; others had cascaded down the steep decline. The low wall at the foot of the gardens had shattered under the impact and was fragmented all over the promenade. Rubble was scattered far across the road and on to the beach. From where they stood, Nell and Arthur could see the stumpy, remote figures of policemen erecting barriers and emergency traffic signs across the promenade.
Hankey, the Borough Surveyor, was crouching over the gash. He saw Arthur and beckoned him down.
“Do be careful,” said Nell.
He patted her shoulder, his attention already on the job ahead, and strode down the nearest path. The two men went into a huddle.
She wondered what they would have to do. The opening was a great wound in the cliff, its earthy sides as brown as dried blood down the green slope. Nell had an incongruous vision of giant machines stitching the edges together. But in reality they would have to fill up the gap, strengthen it, perhaps shore up the whole cliff. One corner of the hotel was dangerously near the top end of the fissure.
There was an awful lot of debris to be removed; an awful lot of strengthening to be done; and an awful lot of money involved.
Arthur and Hankey prowled and sprang about like clumsy mountain goats who had lost the knack. They pr
odded and scratched at the ground as though intent on making the whole cliff subside.
“Good morning, Mrs Johnson.”
Martin had come from the hotel. He stood beside Nell, his gaze following hers down the ravaged garden.
“Day off?” she said.
“I rang the lab and begged some free time. A few of the guests are getting crotchety, and Mum’s in a bit of a state.”
“I don’t blame her.”
They walked slowly down the path until it swerved left and disintegrated into the gash. Martin stooped and examined the farther wall. He pointed.
“Interesting root formation. I wonder how…?”
He lowered himself to the edge and swung his feet in. His head was just below the level of the ground. Nell visualised the earth closing in and annihilating him without warning.
“Do be careful, Martin.”
He touched the tendrils of the root and splayed them out gently between his fingers.
From the slope above came a faint rustling sound. It was like the mutter of a stream over pebbles; but there was no water here.
Nell looked round.
A boulder was trundling down from the trees on the ridge, setting a cascade of stones and dust in motion. They rasped against each other and gathered speed. A small avalanche poured into the trench and came rumbling down.
Martin sprang back, but his feet scrabbled against the side and he was stuck for a moment with his arms and shoulders over the edge, holding tight but unable to move. Nell got her hands under his arms and pulled. Martin’s toes dug into the earth and thrust away. He rolled clear as the boulder racketed past.
The skyline reeled. Against it, Nell had a blurred picture of the windbreak of trees and of a woman’s shape against the light. The figure crouched and hurried into shadow. It was gone so quickly, and she was so dazed, that it could all have been a trick of the light.
“Arthur!” It was her own voice, shouting a warning. “Arthur … look out!”
“It’s all right, Mrs Johnson.”
She straightened up, and Martin got up beside her. They could see that Arthur and Hankey were already standing clear, letting the rubble slow and settle, choking part of the gash.