The Body in the Kelp ff-2

by Katherine Hall Page

  “You could be right," Pix said. "The end of an era."

  “Exactly." John closed the gate on the conversation, and Faith realized it was getting late. She resisted their attempts to convince her to stay for dinner and set off through the woods with Benjamin in tow. The path led close to the shore at times, and Faith could glimpse the sunset through the trees. The sun was a fiery-red rubber ball making a straight path across the water, the clouds streaming out along the horizon like purple and scarlet kite tails. Life with Ben was reducing her to kindergarten imagery.

  The rocks that sloped down to the water were already in darkness, and on the other side of the cove she could see a few lights at Prescott's lobster pound and the houses to either side. Bird's tiny cabin stood out against the sky. There were no lights on, and Faith wasn't sure Bird even had electricity.

  She had seen her with the baby on the shore again and this time had received a brief nod and slight smile in answer to her greeting. The baby, who appeared to be under a year old, still looked pale, and whether this was from the macrobiotics or lack of sunshine penetrating the sling Bird carried it in Faith didn't know.

  The porch light at her own cottage blinked a welcome as she emerged from the woods carrying Benjamin, who had suddenly decided he wanted to be picked up and was now sound asleep.

  She had no trouble sleeping that night either. Her last semiconscious thought was that she had never realized Nature was quite so noisy—crickets, owls, bullfrogs, and always the sea, just close enough so she could make out the faint rhythmical lappings of the waves on the rocks.

  The next morning Faith was up virtuously early. If she was a jogger, she'd go jogging, she thought. It was that kind of day. Newborn and sparkling. She packed a lunch in one of the two or three hundred knapsacks hanging from nails in the barn and set off with Benjamin for the beach at the Point. She had her bathing suit on under her shorts and shirt and thought they might even go wading, which would be something to tell Tom when he called next.

  By the time they got to the beach, she was worn out. It wasn't that Benjamin didn't keep up. He could match her pace for pace, but he was stubbornly determined to forge his own trails, and it took all her energy and patience to keep him on the track. Now he could roam at will over the beach and had already found a little stick with which he was furiously digging his way to China or whatever was directly below. Faith opened the knapsack and spread out a towel next to him. She sat down and looked at the water. The tide was out and had left a wavy line of seaweed, shells, odd pieces of wood, rope from traps and buoys, and other assorted flotsam—bleach bottles, which people cut to use as bailers, a waterlogged shoe, a sardine tin. The beach itself was arranged in layers. Farthest from the sea, near the wild roses, sea lavender, and spreading junipers, the sand was covered with stones and broken shells, pushed up by the waves. A line of dried, blackened seaweed separated this layer from the sand that had recently been underwater and still glistened in the sun. When it dried, it would be soft and almost white. Down near the water's edge the rocks started again.

  One of the big schooners sailed by, and Ben jumped up and down waving excitedly. "Wanna ride! Wanna ride!" He was actually beginning to make sense these days, and the next step might be conversation. In a way it was nice to concentrate on Ben, although a few days would have more than suffIced. Before he was born, she hadn't realized that there would be times when husband and child would pull at her from different directions. Like that poem of Robert Frost's that compared a woman to a silken tent with "ties of love and thought" binding her to the earth. They were either holding her up or pulling her down, depending on the day, or as Frost pointed out, the movement of the wind.

  Faith and Ben ate their sandwiches and wandered out to the receding water. This wasn't a clam flat and there was no mud. Faith held tight to Benjamin's chubby little paw. He was racing toward the water crying, "Swim! Swim!" Faith stuck her big toe in and promptly lost all feeling. She decided her shoes would fit better if she did not get frostbite and managed to steer Ben away from the beckoning deep, over to the tidal pools that had been left behind in the warm sun.

  “Sweetheart, we'll go look for little fishes and shells in the pools, okay? We'll swim another day." And in another place, Faith added to herself.

  She helped Ben climb up onto the flat ledges that stretched around the Point, and they began to explore the endlessly fascinating pools. At first Ben wanted to jump in or at least stick his hand in right away, but Faith was able to get him to pause and look first—to see the busy world of tiny fish darting among the sea anemones and starfish, small crabs making their way across the mussels and limpets clinging to the pink and orange algae that lined the bottoms of the pools. They went farther away from the beach, carefully avoiding the sharp remains of the sea urchins the gulls had dropped on the rocks and the lacelike barnacles that covered the granite.

  “What's that, Ben?" Faith looked up from the life in thepool she had been studying. It looked so arranged, so deliberate, like the pine cones she had found in the woods placed on a mat of gray moss in a star shape with a feather in the middle.

  “Wait, honey, I'm coming." She made her way across the flat rock and stood next to Ben, who was crouched and gazing intently at something in a lower pool.

  “Man swimming," he said. "Ben wanna swim."

  “What man?" Faith started to say before she looked and the question was answered for her.

  It was Roger Barnett, draped over the rocks and secured with thick ropes of brown kelp. Small waves were systematically covering and uncovering his head, filling his slackly opened mouth with sea water, fanning his long brown hair against the rockweed. His shirt was gone, and the dark kelp stood out against the unnatural whiteness of his bare arms and chest. His eyes were open and staring straight into the sun. Roger wasn't swimming.

  Roger was dead.

  4

  Faith opened her mouth to scream, remembered Benjamin, and swallowed hard. Then she grabbed him and started to walk quickly back to the beach. Her legs felt as rubbery as the kelp that lashed Roger to the rocks, and she had trouble focusing. She stepped on a sea urchin, the sharp tines puncturing her heel, and for a moment the pain was a welcome distraction.

  There had been no point in investigating closer. Roger was beyond any resuscitation attempts. She felt extremely nauseated thinking about trying.

  In with the good air, out with the bad.

  And she knew she wouldn't be able to move the body herself. She had to get help before the tide came in and carried him away. Faith didn't read the charts, but she could tell when it was out and when it was in. It was out now, so that meant it would start to come in sometime. Maybe soon.

  They had reached the beach and she stared to run. Ben laughed delightedly and raced after her. She paused to stuff their things into the knapsack, put their sandals on, and kept going. At the end of the beach she stopped. Where were they going? Roger's face kept blotting out any reasonable thoughts. She sat down suddenly on the sand and pulled Benjamin onto her lap. She had to get herself together and think. Her heart was pounding.

  The Millers' cottage was closer than hers, but Pix and Samantha had gone up the coast to visit Mark and Danny atcamp. Faith doubted the Fix would lock up, but sue couldn't take the chance. She looked across the beach and saw the gulls hovering over the tidal pools. A sudden image of the birds walking impersonally over Roger's body, pecking at him with their sharp beaks, made her shudder uncontrollably, and she held Benjamin tight.

  There was a fisherman's house on the other side of the Point, and she'd have to try there. If they didn't have a phone, at least someone might be able to move the body.

  The body. This was Roger. Roger, who less than a week ago had been at her house, smiling and joking, enjoying the wine and the food. Soft-spoken, easygoing Roger, who created beautiful things. How could this have happened?

  She found the path that led across the Point to Long Cove and, half carrying, half dragging a suddenly weary Benjami
n, felt the tears start down her face. What a terrible, terrible tragedy. Eric would be distraught—all of Roger's friends would be.

  The fisherman's house emerged in front of her. She had been looking down, picking her way through some blackberry brambles, when she realized she was walking on lawn. Thank God! There was an elderly woman hanging up clothes in the back.

  “Please, I need your help. A man has drowned and his body is back on the Point," Faith blurted out.

  The woman looked at her in amazement, and Faith realized the whole situation was like your worst nightmare. Does she believe me? Does she think I'm a lunatic? Benjamin started to howl.

  “Well now." The woman stuck the clothespin she had been holding poised over a sheet back in her apron pocket and took Ben by the hand. She put an arm around Faith's shoulders. "You'd better come inside, deah, and sit down while I try to get someone on the CB. Freeman, that's my husband, will be home for his dinner soon anyway. Could you tell who the man was?"

  “It was Roger Barnett—do you know him?" Faith was having trouble with tenses.

  “One of those pottery boys, wasn't he? And so young.”

  She sighed. "This is the second one this summer. A woman thought her little girl was in trouble, went in to fetch her, and drowned herself.”

  They walked in the back door into the kitchen. It was crammed with foul-weather gear, a lobster trap that was being repaired, firewood, and furniture, and all as neat as a pin. The aromas from a large coffeepot and some thick slices of ham in an iron skillet keeping warm on top of the wood stove mingled not unpleasantly with a faint smell of bait. Faith realized she'd better sit down before she fell down.

  “You come over here in this rocker by the stove. I started it up today; it was so cool this morning. And here's a cookie for your little boy.”

  Whoever this woman was, she was managing to do everything at once. Faith didn't see her pour the cup of coffee that was placed firmly in Faith's limp hand, and it was only when the CB began crackling back that she realized a message had already been transmitted. A man's voice gave some call numbers and asked what the problem was. It was the island's only police officer.

  “Earl, it's Nan Hamilton. Roger Barnett has drowned and one of the summer people found the body over on the other side of the Point.”

  Nan paused to listen and turned toward Faith in case she had missed it. "Earl wants to know if you can tell him where it is and I never did get your name.”

  Well, it hadn't exactly been a time for Miss Manners, Faith thought, and quickly made amends. "The body is at the end of the big beach in a tidal pool, and I'm Faith Fairchild—we're friends of the Millers.”

  Nan nodded and conveyed the information to Earl. "It's Faith Fairchild, you know, that minister from Massachusetts, friends of the Millers. She says the body is at the end of the big beach, up on the ledges it sounds like. Shouldn't be hard to find, and when Freeman comes we'll go over.”

  There was more crackling and she signed off.

  “Well, that's all over the island now," she said. "Half the population will be there waiting for him."

  “Do you think the police will want me to stay here to showthem where he is or could I go home?" Faith asked, hoping she could go.

  “If Earl needs you, he'll be able to find you, I'm sure, but I think you ought to sit a bit longer before you go racing off. You've had quite an experience, I'd say," Nan answered. "And let me cut you a piece of pie to go with that coffee."

  “You've been so kind," Faith replied. Nan was right. She didn't feel like sprinting off just yet, and it was a long walk back.

  Benjamin had finished his cooking and was busy exploring the kitchen. Faith started to get up to stop him from opening the cupboards, but Nan laughed and said she had seven grandchildren and the cupboards were turned out regularly.

  “That's some of them," she said, proudly pointing to a row of school pictures tacked to the wall. "We've got better ones in the parlor.”

  Faith knew there must be a mantel crammed with photos—the wedding poses and then the kids. Her own parents' mantel had a pair of cloisonné candlesticks and a few pieces of antique Chinese porcelain. For a fleeting moment she wanted to stand on someone's mantel hemmed in by Sears portraits. I must still be in shock, she told herself. Ming was Ming, after all.

  The door opened and a large man who must be Freeman came in. He had white hair cut close to his head and a fisherman's tan—face, neck, hands, and forearms. You could see where it ended when he took off the top layer of several shirts. He had left his boots outside and padded around in a couple of pairs of heavy socks. If he was surprised to see Faith and Ben there, he didn't show it.

  “Hello, Nan, what's for supper?" He grinned at Faith. "And who's this pretty young thing sitting in my rocker?"

  “Now Freeman, behave yourself. This is Mrs. Fairchild. They're renting the Thorpes' cottage. She just found poor Roger Barnett drowned over on the big beach."

  “Drowned! Why in tarnation people think they can swim here beats me. I've lived here all my life and then some and I've never been in this water on purpose. Too darned cold."

  “I couldn't agree more," said Faith. "But do you mean you can't swim?”

  Nan answered. "More fool he is, deah. Many of the fishermen here can't swim, and if they'd taken the trouble to learn, a lot would be here who aren't.”

  Freeman was all for changing the subject. "Roger Barnett. Well, I do call that a shame. He was a nice enough feller." He chuckled and turned to Nan. "Won't those Prescotts be steamed? Of course there's still the other one, and knowing Matilda, she would have left the house to him anyway."

  “Freeman, hush up now, Mrs. Fairchild doesn't want to hear about all this dirty linen.”

  Mrs. Fairchild did, but evidently Freeman thought Nan was right and he veered off on another tack.

  “Did I hear you were from Massachusetts? I went up there once. To Boston. They wanted eight dollars for a lobster dinner, so I come home." He laughed and Nan joined him. "Course lobster isn't as common as it used to be. When I was a boy, we'd get tired of it and beg my mother to make something else for a change.”

  Benjamin was banging on pots, and Faith decided it was time to go. But first she asked Nan for a piece of paper and a pencil to write a note to leave at Pix's when they went past the house. Freeman had finished two enormous pieces of ham, several biscuits, a couple of helpings of mashed potatoes, beets, and applesauce, all washed down with coffee that his wife kept steadily pouring into his cup. Then he allowed as he'd go over to see if he could help. He'd have his pie later. Nan said she'd go with him, so the four of them set off across the Point.

  As they left the porch, Freeman placed Benjamin on his shoulders. Benjamin laughed and all of them smiled up at the little boy, brown from the sun, his blond curls bobbing in the breeze. It should have been a nice day.

  They parted where the path forked toward the beach one way and back to the Millers' the other, Faith offered her hand to Nan and thanked her warmly. She hoped they'd meet again under more pleasant circumstances."Come over anytime. I love to have company. And I hear you like to cook. So do I. We'll go mushrooming someday. The Point is full of them."

  “You go with Nan," Freeman advised, "and you won't need a silver coin to boil with them. She knows which ones can be et."

  “Freeman! You know that coin business is just an old wives' tale. Now, we'd better get going.”

  Benjamin gave her a kiss and Freeman said he wouldn't mind one too and one from Mrs. Fairchild for that matter. Nan pushed him toward the path. "Don't mind him. He just never growed up."

  “That's all right," Faith said. "I'm flattered." And she was.

  She walked as quickly as possible to Pix's house. She had decided that she ought to drive into the village and see Jill. Faith didn't know any of these people well, but for the short time she had been on Sanpere, she felt she had been caught up in their lives with a swiftness that surprised her. She knew Jill would be trying to get in touch with
Eric, and she wasn't sure what she could say about finding the body, but maybe they'd want to ask her something. It also seemed impossible to pick up a magazine and sit on the lawn after all this. She wanted to be with people.

  Pix wasn't back—which Faith had expected. It was over an hour's drive to the camp, and they'd stay awhile. The door was open and Faith went in to find some tape. If she left the note on the table, it was probable no one would find it until evening. Pix and Samantha would rush in, pee if they had to, and then rush out to attack the weeds, chop firewood, or cut alders—whatever beckoned most furiously.

  She couldn't find tape, but there were Band-Aids in the medicine cabinet, and with one of these Faith attached the sad missive to the door. Benjamin was happily pulling Pix's yarn out of a basket next to the fireplace, and Faith managed to get to him just before he unraveled a few weeks' worth of an Irish fisherman's sweater for Danny.

  Back at her own cottage she was struck by the unreality of it all. They had just gone for a picnic. Had they really found a body in the kelp? She knew it was unfortunately true, but it was like one of those "What's Wrong with This Picture?" puzzles. An incredible day—bright-blue skies, white puffy clouds, sailboats moving gracefully in the wind, the long stretch of gleaming sand, and the tidal pools filled with jewellike mysteries and Roger's dead body.

  She grabbed Benjamin and headed for the car.

  Tom had taken their own car to New Hampshire, since a car came with the house. It was an old wooden station wagon—a 1949 Plymouth Suburban in "mint condition," Tom had gloated as he stroked the side panels. While Faith had not arrived at the point where she felt the need to caress the car, she loved driving it. To her the romance of the Woody was a solid, dependable one, based on mutual trust and shared interests. The gears shifted smoothly and she sat up high, as if she were in a truck, with a clear view of the road. Today she didn't pause to appreciate the car, backed out quickly, and set off down the long dirt road to the macadam that circled the island and led to Sanpere Village—the long way if you turned left, the short way if right. Faith turned right.