The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 17

by Stephen Jones

  “– Womanizing?” The old man sat up straighter in his chair. “Are you saying he was something of a rake?”

  By now Doreen had returned with a small jewellery box. “Oh, George White was much more than something of a rake,” she said. “He was a great deal of a rake, in fact a roué! And all through poor Jilly’s pregnancy he’d been, you know, doing it in most of the towns around.”

  “Really?” said Jamieson. “But you can’t know that for sure, now can you?”

  “Ah, but we can,” said John, “for he was seen! Some of the locals had seen him going into . . . well, ‘houses of ill repute’, shall we put it that way? And a handful of the village’s single men, whose morals also weren’t all they might be, learned about George’s reputation in those same, er, houses. But you’ll know, James – and I’m sure that in your capacity as a doctor you will know – it’s a sad but true fact that you do actually reap what you sow. And in George White’s case, that was true in more ways than one.”

  “Which is where this becomes even more indelicate,” Doreen got to her feet. “And I have things to do in the kitchen. So if you’ll excuse me . . .” And leaving her jewellery box on the table she left the room and closed the door behind her. Then:

  “George caught something,” said John, quietly.

  “He what?”

  “Well, that’s the only way I can explain it. He caught this bloody awful disease, presumably from some woman with whom he’d er, associated. But that wasn’t all.”

  “There’s more?” Jamieson shook his head. “Poor Jilly.”

  “Poor Jilly, indeed! For little Anne was only a few months old when this slut from Newquay arrived in the village with her loathsome child – a baby she blamed on George White.”

  “Ah!” Jamieson nodded knowingly. “And the child was Geoff, right?”

  “Of course. That same cretin, adopted by the Fosters, who shambles around the village even now. A retarded youth of some fifteen years – but who looks like and has the strength of an eighteen-year-old – who in fact is George White’s illegitimate son and young Anne’s half-brother. And because I’m quite fond of Jilly, I find that . . . that creature perfectly unbearable!”

  “Not to mention dangerous,” said Jamieson.

  “Eh? What’s that?” The other looked startled.

  “I was out on my verandah,” said the old man. “It was just the other day, and I saw you with . . . with that young man. You seemed to be engaged in some sort of confrontation.”

  “But that’s it exactly!” said Tremain. “He’s suddenly there – he comes upon you, out of nowhere – and God only knows what goes on in that misshapen head of his. Enough to scare the life out of a man, coming over the dunes like that, and blowing like a stranded fish! A damn great fish, yes, that’s what he reminds me of. Ugh! And it’s how Tom Foster uses him, too!”

  “What? Foster uses him?” Jamieson seemed totally engrossed. “In what way? Are we talking about physical abuse?”

  “No, no, nothing that bad!” Tremain held up his hands. “No, but have you seen that retard swim? My God, if he had more than half a brain he’d be training for the Olympics! What? Why, he’s like a porpoise in the water! That’s how Foster uses him.”

  “I’m afraid I’m still not with you,” Jamieson admitted, his expression one of complete bafflement. “You’re saying that this Foster somehow uses the boy to catch fish?”

  “Yes.” The other nodded. “And if the weather hadn’t been so bad recently you wouldn’t have seen nearly so much of the idiot on the beach. No, for he’d have been out with Tom Foster in his boat. The lad swims – in all weathers, apparently – to bring in the fish for that degenerate who looks after him.”

  Jamieson laughed out loud, then stopped abruptly and asked, “But . . . do you actually believe that? That a man can herd fish? I mean, that’s quite incredible!”

  “Oh?” Tremain answered. “You think so? Then don’t just take my word for it but the next time you’re in town go have a drink in the Sailor’s Rest. Get talking with any of the local fishermen and ask them how come Foster always gets the best catches.”

  “But herding fish—” the old man began to protest.

  And Tremain cut him off: “Now, I didn’t say that. I said he brings them in – somehow attracts them.” Then he offered a weak grin. “Yes, I’m well aware that sounds almost as silly. But –” He pursed his lips, shrugged and fell silent.

  “So,” said Jamieson. “Some truths, some rumours. But as far as I’m concerned, I still don’t know it all. For instance, what was this awful disease you say George White contracted? What do you mean by ‘awful’? All venereal diseases are pretty awful.”

  “Well, I suppose they are,” Tremain answered. “But not like this one. There’s awful and awful, but this was hideous. And he passed it down to his idiot child, too.”

  “He did what?”

  “The way ‘young Geoff’ looks now, that was how George White looked in the months before he—”

  “Died?”

  “No.” The other shook his head, grimly. “It’s not as simple as that. George didn’t just die, he took his own life.”

  “Ah!” said the old man. “So it was suicide.”

  Tremain nodded. “And I know this is a dreadful thing to say, but with a man like that – with his sexual appetites – surely it’s just as well. A disease like that . . . why, he was a walking time bomb!”

  “My goodness!” Jamieson exclaimed. “Was it never diagnosed? Can we put a name to it? Who was his doctor?”

  “He wouldn’t see a doctor. The more Jilly pressed him to do so, the more he retreated into himself. And only she could tell you what life must have been like with him, during his last few weeks. But since she’d already stuck it out for fifteen or more years, watching it gradually come out in him during all of that time . . . God, how strong she must have been!”

  “Terrible, terrible!” said Jamieson – and then he frowned. “Yet Jilly and her child, I mean Anne – apparently they didn’t come down with anything.”

  “No, and we can thank God for that!” said Tremain. “I think we’ll have to assume that as soon as Jilly knew how sick George was, she – or they – stopped . . . well, you know what I mean.”

  “Yes.” Jamieson nodded. “I do know: they were man and wife in name only. But if both Anne and Geoff were born within a few months of each other – and if young Geoff was, well, defective from birth – then Anne is a very fortunate young woman indeed.”

  “Exactly,” said Tremain. “And is it any wonder her mother’s nerves are so bad? My wife and I, we’ve known the Whites a lot longer than you, James, and I can assure you that there’s never been a woman more watchful of her child than Jilly is of Anne.”

  “Watchful?”

  Doreen had come back in, and she said, “Oh, yes. That girl, she can’t cough or catch a cold, or even develop a pimple without having her mother fussing all over her. Why, Anne’s skin is flawless, but if you should see them on the beach together next summer – and if Anne’s skin gets a little red or rough from the sun and the sand – you watch Jilly’s reaction.”

  And Tremain concurred. “It’s a wonder Jilly so much as lets that kid out of the house . . .”

  The subject changed; the conversation moved on; half an hour or so later Jamieson looked at his watch. “Almost time I was on my way,” he said. “There are some programmes I want to watch on TV tonight.” He turned to Doreen. “Before I go, however, you might like to show me that brooch of yours. You were, er, busy in the kitchen for a while when we were talking and I didn’t much like to open the box in your absence.”

  “Yes,” she said. “It was very thoughtful of you to wait for me.” She opened the small velvet-lined box and passed it across to him. The brooch was pinned to a pad in the bottom of the box and the old man let it lie there, simply turning the box in his hand and looking at the brooch from all angles.

  “You’re absolutely right.” He nodded after a moment
or two. “Without a doubt it has a certain beauty, but it’s also a very odd piece. And it’s not the first time I’ve seen gold worked in this style. But you know . . .” Here he paused and frowned, apparently uncertain how best to continue.

  “Oh?” she said. “Is something wrong?”

  “Well—” he began to answer, then paused again and bit his lip. “Well, it’s just that . . . I don’t know. Perhaps I shouldn’t mention it.”

  Doreen took back the box and brooch, and said, “But now you really must mention it! You have to! Do you think there’s something wrong with the brooch? But then, what could be wrong with it? Some kind of fake, maybe? Poor quality gold? Or not gold at all!” Her voice was more strident, more high-pitched, moment by moment. “Is that it, James? Have I been cheated?”

  “At the price, whatever it was you paid? Probably not. It’s the meaning of the thing. It’s what it stands for. Doreen, this isn’t a lucky item.”

  “It’s unlucky? In what way?”

  “Well, anthropology was a hobby of mine no less than driftwood art is your husband’s. And as for the odd style and native workmanship we see here . . . I believe you’ll find this brooch is from the South Seas, where it was probably crafted by a tribal witchdoctor.”

  “What? A witchdoctor?” Doreen’s hand went to her throat.

  “Oh, yes.” Jamieson nodded. “And having fashioned it from an alloy of local gold and some other lustrous metal, the idea would have been to lay a curse upon it, then to ensure it fell into the hands of an enemy. A kind of sympathetic magic – or in the poor victim’s case, quite unsympathetic.”

  Now Doreen took the box back, and staring hard at its contents said, “To be honest, I’ve never much liked this thing. I only bought it out of some misguided sense of loyalty to Jilly, so that I could tell myself that at least some money was finding its way into that household. What with George’s philandering and all, they couldn’t have been very well off.”

  Her husband took the box off her, peered at the brooch for a few moments, and said, “I think you must be right, James. It isn’t a very pleasant sort of thing at all. It’s quite unearthly, really. These weird arabesques, not of any terrestrial foliage but more of . . . what? Interwoven seaweeds, kelp, suckered tentacles? And these scalloped edges you see in certain shells. I mean, it’s undeniably striking in its looks – well, until you look closer. And then, why, you’re absolutely right! It’s somehow crude, as if crafted by some primitive islander.”

  He handed the box back to his wife who said, “I’ll sell it at once! I believe I know the jewellers where George White got rid of those other pieces.” And glancing at the old man: “It’s not that I’m superstitious, you understand, but better not to risk it. You never know where this thing’s been.”

  “Dear lady, you’re so right,” Jamieson said. “But myself, having an interest in this sort of thing – and being a doctor of an entirely different stamp – I find the piece fascinating. So if you do decide to sell it, don’t take it to a dealer but offer it to me first. And whatever you paid for it, I think we can safely say you won’t be the worse off.”

  “Why, that’s so very kind of you!” she said, seeing him to the door. “But are you sure?”

  “Absolutely,” the old man answered. “Give me a ring in the morning when you’ve had time to think it over, and let me know what I owe you.”

  With which the Tremains walked him to his car . . .

  The winter came in quickly and savagely, keeping almost everyone in the village to their houses. With the fishermen’s boats sheltering within the harbour wall, only the old Sailor’s Rest was doing anything like good business.

  Driving his car to work at the college in St Austell over frequently washed-out and ever potholed roads, headmaster John Tremain cursed the day he’d bought his place (a) for its cheapness and (b) for its “seclusion and wild dramatic beauty”. The seclusion was fine and dandy but he could do without the wildness of winters like this one, and of drama he’d had more than enough. Come spring and the first half-decent offer he got, he and Doreen would be out of here for a more convenient place in St Austell. It would be more expensive, but what the hell . . . he’d sell the car, cycle to work, and save money on petrol and repairs.

  As for the Whites: Jilly and Anne were more or less housebound, but they did have a regular visitor in the old American gentleman. James Jamieson had seemed to take to them almost as family, and never turned up on their doorstep without bringing some gift or other with him. Often as not it was food: a fresh pie from the bakery, a loaf of bread and slab of cheese, maybe a bottle of good wine. All to the good, for Jilly’s old car was well past reliable, and Anne had to attend her piano and language lessons. Jamieson would drive the girl to and fro without complaint, and wouldn’t accept a penny for all his kindness.

  Also, when Anne went down with a sore throat, which served to drive her mother frantic with worry, Jamieson gave the girl a thorough examination and diagnosed a mild case of laryngitis. His remedy – one aspirin three times daily, and between times a good gargle with a spoonful of salt in water – worked wonders, for mother and daughter both! But his ministrations didn’t stop there. For having now seen Jilly on several occasions when her nervous condition was at its worst, the old man had in fact prescribed for her, too; though not without protesting that in fact he shouldn’t for he’d retired from all that. Nevertheless, the pills he made up for her did the trick, calming her nerves like nothing she’d tried before. They couldn’t entirely relieve her obsession or anxieties with regard to Anne, however, though now when she felt compelled to fuss and fret her hands wouldn’t shake so badly, and her at best fluffy mind would stay focussed for longer. Moreover, now that certain repetitive nightmares of long-standing no longer visited her quite so frequently, Jilly was pleased to declare that she was sleeping better . . .

  Occasionally, when the weather was a little kinder, Anne would walk to her piano lesson at Miss Harding’s thatched cottage on the far side of the village. Jilly would usually accompany her daughter part way, and use the occasion to visit the bakery or collect groceries at the post office. The winter being a hard one, such times were rare; more often than not, James Jamieson would arrive in his car in time to give Anne a lift. It got so that Jilly even expected him, and Anne – normally so retiring – had come to regard him as some kind of father or grandfather figure.

  One day in mid-January, when the wind drove the waves high up the beach, and stinging hail came sleeting almost horizontally off the sea, the old man and his young passenger arrived at Miss Harding’s place to find an agitated Tom Foster waiting for them – in fact waiting for Jamieson.

  The old man had bumped into Foster once or twice before in the Sailor’s Rest, and had found him a surely, bearded, weather-beaten brute with a gravelly voice and a habit of slamming his empty mug on the bar by way of catching the barman’s attention and ordering another drink. He had few friends among the other fishermen and was as much a loner as any man Jamieson had ever known. Yet now, today, he was in need of a friend – or rather, in need of a doctor.

  The village spinster, Miss Julia Harding, had kept Foster waiting in the small conservatory that fronted her cottage; he wasn’t the sort of person she would allow in the house proper. But Foster, still shaking rain from his lank hair, and pacing to and fro – a few paces each way, which was all the conservatory allowed – pounced on Jamieson as soon as the old man was ushered into view by Miss Harding.

  “It’s the boy,” he rasped, grabbing Jamieson’s arm. “Can’t get no sleep, the way um itches. I know’d you’d be comin’ with the lass fer the teachin’, and so I waited. But I do wish you’d come see the boy. I’d consider it a real favour, and Tom Foster dun’t forget um that does um a favour. But it’s more fer young Geoff’n fer me. Um’s skin be raw from scatchin’, so it be. And I got no car fer gettin’ um inter the city . . . beside which, um dun’t want no big city doctor. But um won’t fuss any with you, if you’ll come see um.”


  “I don’t any longer practise . . .” The old man appeared at a loss what to do or say.

  But Anne took his other arm. “Please go,” she said. “Oh do please go and see Geoff! And I’ll go with you.”

  Miss Harding wagged her finger at Anne, and said, “Oh? And what of your lesson, young lady?” But then, looking for support from Tom Foster and Jamieson, and seeing none, she immediately shook her head in self denial. “No, no – whatever was I thinking? If something ails that poor lad, it’s surely more important than a piano lesson. It must be, for Mr Foster here, well, he’s hardly one to get himself all stirred up on a mere whim – nor for anything much else, except maybe his fishing – and not even that on a bad day!”

  “That I’m not,” growled Foster, either ignoring or failing to recognize the spinster’s jibe for what it really was. And to Jamieson: “Will you come?”

  “Well,” the old man sighed, “I don’t suppose it can do any harm to see the boy, and I always carry my old medicine bag in the back of the car . . . not that there’s a lot of medicine in it these days. But –” He threw up his hands, took Anne and Foster back out to his car, and drove them to the latter’s house where it stood facing the sea across the harbour wall in Fore Street.

  Tom Foster’s wife, a small, black-haired, dark-complexioned woman, but not nearly as gnarled or surly as her husband, wiped her hands on her apron to clasp Jamieson’s hand as she let them into the house. She said nothing but simply indicated a bedroom door where it stood ajar.

  Geoff was inside, a bulky shape under a coarse blanket, and the room bore the unmistakable odour of fish – but then, so did the entire house. Wrinkling his nose, Jamieson glanced at Anne, but she didn’t seem to have noticed the fish stink; all she was interested in was Geoff’s welfare. As she approached the bed so its occupant seemed to sense her presence; the youth’s bulbous, ugly head came out from under the blanket, and he stared at her with luminous green eyes. But:

  “No, no, lass!” Tom Foster grunted. “I knows you be friends but you can’t be in ’ere. Um’s naked under that blanket, and um ain’t nice ter look at what wi’ um’s scratchin’ and all. So out you goes and Ma Foster’ll see ter you in the front.” And coarse brute of a man that he was, he gentled her out of the room.