The Mysterious Affair at Castaway House

by Lam, Stephanie

  He looked at me hopefully, and I remembered when I’d gazed at him below the dinosaurs and thought him the repository of all the world’s wisdom.

  ‘What’s that?’

  I jumped off the table. ‘We should go for a drink.’

  He grinned, and the old Alec was back in the room. ‘Now, that is what I call a bloody good idea,’ he said. ‘I’ll stand you a beer in the Walmstead Arms if you’ll agree to help us out.’

  I frowned, but realized he meant helping him out with this project, not with his marriage. The latter problem seemed insurmountable. I swung off the workbench and flicked Valentino’s headscarf as I walked past him, the glassy stares of the mannequins upon me as I went.

  5

  1965

  I stood in the basement kitchen of the Bella Vista guest house, elbow-deep in grey dishwater, the white belly of the Ascot by my head sweaty with condensation. To my right, Mrs Hale rattled pans on the blackened stove, muttering under her breath when the scrambled eggs turned gritty. I was trying not to think about the note Val had left for me last night, and yet every time I planted another soap-streaked plate in the rack, I found myself drifting loose and going over it once more.

  ‘Rosie?’ said Mrs Hale from behind me, and I jumped.

  ‘Sorry. I was just … um …’ I picked up a butter knife. ‘Scrubbing.’

  ‘Is that what you call it?’ Mrs Hale was scraping burnt bacon off the frying pan with a fish slice. ‘Perhaps you could turn your attention to all the piled-up plates in the breakfast room, instead.’

  ‘Oh yes. Absolutely. On my way.’ I looked longingly at the stone-cold cup of tea I’d not yet had time to drink, wrestled with the beaded curtain that separated the kitchen from the breakfast room, and lumbered through, my left shoe sticking to something nasty on the carpet tiles.

  Of course, I’d stayed up too late at Star’s last night, sneering at Sunday Night at the London Palladium, taking the mickey out of the performers, eating Spam and baked beans and then playing Beggar My Neighbour with a torn pack of cards. But it hadn’t helped that after I’d seen Val’s note in her bubbly handwriting I’d lain awake in bed for hours, thinking about how one could never really run away from the past.

  The breakfast room was murky with the metallic daylight filtering through the barred windows at the end. Mrs Hale’s transistor radio in the kitchen burbled out Mantovani on Housewives’ Choice. I piled up abandoned plates, scraping congealed egg on top of cold toast. Most of the guests had already left to battle the wind coursing along the seafront; only the fake Mr and Mrs Smith remained, hands entwined over the plastic tablecloth, giggling idiotically.

  ‘Excuse me, miss.’

  They were even younger than me, and she was twirling a curtain ring on her finger. The pale yellow walls made them both look sallow, and they were hollow-eyed and sated, perhaps with food but more likely with sex.

  ‘What d’you want?’ I asked ungraciously, the plates weighing heavily on my wrists.

  ‘My – er – my wife was just wondering if she could have some more tea.’

  ‘Peter!’ She giggled again.

  ‘More tea. Okay.’ I snatched up the teapot and stalked back to the kitchen, the words of the horrible note rearing their ugly head once more.

  Rosie, Val had written. Someone named ‘Harry’ called by to see you. He says he’ll come back every day until you’re in. You MUST tell us who he is!!! You dark horse, you never said you were somebody’s girl!!!

  ‘They want more tea,’ I announced to Mrs Hale, jabbing the tap on the urn. ‘It’s disgusting. They’re not even married.’

  Mrs Hale emptied the plates into the pig bin. ‘You’ll fall in love one day, Rosie, and everything will feel entirely different.’

  ‘Love!’ I snorted, flipping down the hinge to the pot and thrusting apart the beaded curtain once more. I dumped the tea in front of them. ‘Any more toast for you?’

  ‘Judy?’ He stroked her hand. ‘More toast?’

  She shook her head, simpering, and he turned to me with a wink. ‘She says she’s stuffed, thanks.’

  I growled and lurched back to the kitchen, where Mrs Hale was smoking a cigarette beside the window to the yard. She began talking to me, but I found myself drifting loose yet again, wondering what time Harry was likely to come by and how best I could avoid him.

  ‘… so can you take him up some tea when you’ve finished?’

  ‘Of course.’ I narrowed my eyes in an attempt to knit a meaning out of half a sentence. ‘Which room?’

  ‘Room One. He’s always in Room One.’ She rolled her eyes and blew out a plume of smoke. ‘When he’s here. Luckily, all of us siblings have him on rotation.’

  ‘Oh, your father.’ And now I remembered earlier talk from Mrs Hale, back in the kiosk, monologues that I’d ummed and ahhed to, but to which I hadn’t really paid any attention at all. To cover up, I said quickly, ‘I think I saw him yesterday. He waved to me through the window.’

  ‘Very sociable, is Father. Be careful or you’ll be trapped there for hours.’

  I laughed, because I had no intention of staying at the guest house for any longer than Mrs Hale was paying me, even if it meant I ran the risk of seeing Harry. ‘I will,’ I said, as she loaded me with a tea tray, and I took it up the stairs to the empty lobby.

  Josie, the receptionist, was absent, although the smell of her cigarettes hung like a cloud of flies in the blood-red hallway. There were a lot of notices behind her desk, which Josie had typed up herself on Mrs Hale’s old Imperial machine. They said things like KEEP NOISE TO A MINIMUM and NO SAND IN THE WASH BASINS and DRUNKS SHALL NOT BE ADMITTED, which Josie imagined lent the place some class, although I thought any holidaymaker who saw them was bound to feel rather dispirited.

  I balanced the tray under one arm and knocked on the door of Room One. I heard a lot of shuffling about before the door finally opened, and a shrivelled elderly man with a small white beard looked nervously out, leaning heavily on a stick.

  ‘Ah,’ he said, and beckoned me in with a shaking hand. ‘Please come in.’

  I walked into the room, which had a tattered old armchair facing another tattered old armchair in the window, and a single bed with a green coverlet. ‘Over here?’ I asked him, indicating the low table that stood between the two chairs.

  ‘That’s the one.’

  I set the tray down and watched him make a slow, trembling journey across the carpet towards the chair. Finally he arrived and sat down, although his head still shook uncontrollably.

  ‘I wonder if you would be so kind,’ he said, ‘To fetch me a glass of water from the basin.’

  ‘Of course.’ I let the water run cold before filling the glass, and brought it back to him.

  ‘Thank you,’ he murmured, and sipped at it. He took a breath, rested his hands on his cane and looked up at me. ‘Are you a new girl?’

  I nodded. ‘I’m Rosie. I’m helping Mrs – your daughter – with the breakfasts.’

  ‘Good for you.’ He swallowed with what appeared to be a painful effort, and stretched his face into a smile. ‘How do you do, Rosie. My name is Dr Feathers.’

  I shook his trembling hand. ‘How do you do, Dr Feathers.’

  ‘In name only now, I’m afraid.’ He coughed timidly. ‘Would you play Mother for me and pour the tea?’

  ‘Of course.’ I tipped in the milk and poured the tea through the strainer. ‘Sugar?’

  ‘Two, thank you. You seem very young, Rosie. How old are you, if you don’t mind my asking?’

  ‘I’ve just turned eighteen.’ I glanced at the books lining the window seat beside us. I had an awful habit, the moment I entered a person’s room, of judging them based on their reading material. Val and Susan owned no books and thought, probably rightly, that I was a terrible snob. Johnny and Star had a collection of James Bond novels and a John Le Carré. Harry, I remembered, owned How to Win Friends and Influence People. That should have told me everything I needed to know about him.
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br />   ‘Eighteen! I remember when my daughters were eighteen.’ He nodded at the books. ‘I see you’ve noticed my – ahem – oasis of sanity.’

  Dr Feathers’ books appeared to be an eclectic bunch: some Shakespeare plays, a few nineteenth-century classics, an illustrated guide to birds of the British Isles – appropriately enough I thought, given his name – a George Orwell, a Graham Greene. Even though he was as old as the hills and we clearly had nothing in common, I highly approved, and pointed to a leather-bound copy of Measure for Measure. ‘We were going to study that this term.’

  ‘Justice and truth.’ Dr Feathers nodded. ‘Not the most famous play, but one of the most profound, in my opinion. Would you like to borrow it?’

  ‘Oh no. I mean, thank you, but I couldn’t possibly.’

  He grimaced with pain as he shifted in his chair. ‘But you said you are to begin studying it at school?’

  ‘Well, they are. But not me.’ He frowned. ‘I’ve left school.’

  There was a pause. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I assumed you were working here as a holiday job.’

  I shook my head. ‘Term started two weeks ago,’ I said. ‘I should be in the Upper Sixth, but I decided not to go back after the summer.’

  He leaned forwards on his stick, peering up at me. ‘And why is that, may I ask?’

  ‘I – er – I left home. I needed some … independence.’

  ‘Independence.’ Dr Feathers said this as if it were an entirely new concept for him. ‘You’re not having a baby, are you?’

  I gasped. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  His eyelids drooped; his head continued to shake. ‘I’m sorry, dear. I was a doctor, you know. I’m used to asking direct questions. Forgive me, there is no requirement to answer.’

  ‘No, it’s quite all right. I was just – um – surprised.’ I bit my lip. ‘No, I’m not going to have a baby.’

  ‘Well, that’s something.’ He gave a tight little smile. ‘Of course, I am assuming you left home because of a boy, and if there’s a boy, there’s often a baby involved. I’ve seen it all before. A hundred times before. You see, my dear, it could be worse. Much worse.’

  I smiled back, although I wanted to tell him he didn’t know the half of it. ‘Things could always be worse, I suppose.’

  ‘Please. To make up for my rudeness.’ He waved at the books on the windowsill. ‘Take one of these. Yes. I saw you perusing them; it takes one aficionado to know another.’

  ‘No, honestly, there’s no need.’

  ‘I insist.’ He leaned forwards and pulled a handful of books towards him. ‘Have a look. It would make me feel better.’

  I took the books from him, to be polite, and looked over the covers. Nineteen Eighty-Four, Northanger Abbey, Little Dorrit. I flicked through a few dusty pages. They were all rather dog-eared, and some had scribblings in the margins and on the flyleaves. I opened the back cover of Northanger Abbey and looked at it awhile, trying not to show my astonishment at what it contained.

  He beamed at. ‘Ah, Austen. Yes, please take it. A favourite of my daughter’s. In fact, I think it belonged to her.’

  ‘Mrs Hale?’ I said, and as I spoke the door to the bedroom opened and Mrs Hale herself walked in.

  ‘No, another daughter.’ Dr Feathers turned a creaking neck and saw Mrs Hale at the door. ‘Ah, Madeleine! We were just talking about you.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ she said absently. ‘I just wanted to tell Rosie that it’s half past ten and I’ve her wages in the safe if she needs to go.’

  ‘Of course.’ Dr Feathers nodded. ‘She doesn’t want to carry on chatting to this old fogey, does she?’

  ‘No, no,’ I protested, but he winked at me and made a shooing motion with his hand. ‘Enjoy the book,’ he called as I left the room.

  ‘Thank you.’ I held it to my chest, and Mrs Hale looked at it curiously as I walked past her.

  ‘Has he been pressing things on you?’ she said, closing the door and following me back into the lobby. ‘He’s always doing that, the silly old fool.’

  I supposed it was a daughter’s prerogative to insult her elderly father, and I supposed I didn’t know what it was like to have to look after him, but all the same I thought she was being a little unfair. I remembered what I had seen scribbled in the book. ‘Did you – um – grow up in this house?’ I asked as we walked back to the reception desk, where Josie had returned, tapping her brightly lacquered nails on the counter.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Mrs Hale mildly. ‘That was my father’s office, you know.’

  ‘You know what curiosity did,’ said Josie to me, batting her false lashes, her out-of-date beehive wobbling. Josie was forty-seven and dressed as if she were eighteen, and she petrified me.

  ‘I was just interested,’ I squeaked, and she snorted.

  Mrs Hale lifted up the flap on the counter, bundled herself beside Josie and bent down. ‘Now, what’s the combination of the safe?’

  Josie rolled her eyes. ‘One-five-oh-six-three-four.’

  ‘Of course.’ She straightened up with a red cash tin and squinted at the bundle of keys she always carried with her. ‘Now, which one is it?’

  Josie puffed out her lips and picked up the library book lying face down on the counter. ‘Best doctor in town, Dr F. was, according to my mum,’ she said, as if reading out a line of prose. ‘Before the bomb blast. Where was it, Southend?’

  ‘A plane offloading ballast before flying back home, apparently.’ Mrs Hale fitted a small key into the lock, turned it and picked through the cash inside. ‘He might’ve been all right, but then getting the news about Anthony being killed just about did for him. Here you are, Rosie.’

  I held out my palm and she folded a note into it. ‘Ten bob for today, seeing as it’s only four hours.’

  A memory flashed into my mind: yet another present from Harry, a silver chain with my name engraved on it. That had been one of the first; back in January, the day after Churchill’s funeral. ‘Ten bob for your namesake,’ he’d said, ‘but you’re worth it,’ and the second he’d gone I’d taken it from my wrist and hidden it at the bottom of my jewellery box.

  ‘Don’t know the meaning of work, your generation.’ Josie sniffed. ‘Once you’ve picked shards of glass out of some poor sod caught in a blast, you’ll know what hard graft is.’

  Mrs Hale glanced at her. ‘V. A. D., were you?’ she asked, surprised.

  ‘Do I look like a mug?’ Josie snapped. ‘It was my Derek. Come home one night looking like a chandelier. I said to him, if you will go gallivanting about Princes Street, what do you expect?’

  ‘Terrible.’ Mrs Hale sighed. ‘All those pointless deaths …’

  ‘Well, Derek didn’t die. More’s the pity, I sometimes think.’

  ‘And Rosie’s father.’ Mrs Hale turned to me. ‘Did you say he was shot?’

  I nodded. ‘He was all right then; it was after I was born the pneumonia got him. The doctor said his whole system was too weak to take it.’

  ‘Your poor mother.’ Mrs Hale shook her head and sighed again.

  Josie snorted and pulled another cigarette from her black leather handbag, which lived on the desk like a malevolent tomcat. ‘When my mum got the telegram about my dad being missing at Passchendaele,’ she sniffed, ‘she thought he was still alive, soppy cow. Two weeks later, one of his mates knocks on the door. He’s on crutches, holding a shoebox. Gives it to her and says, “That’s all we found of Bill.” She opens it up and there’s this finger sticking up at her. Six months pregnant with me, she was, and she goes and faints on the doorstep, banging her head. When she wakes up she says, “I knew it was his finger straight off. Never would clean under his nails, the dirty bugger.” ’

  Mrs Hale gave a patient smile and handed me my coat and handbag from behind the desk. ‘See you on Wednesday, Rosie,’ she said as I left. ‘Enjoy your day off.’

  I waved her goodbye, excited at the prospect of no work for nearly forty-eight hours. I practically ran down the steps on to the str
eet. The wind was racketing along the cliff top, blowing my hair about my face as I walked towards town, and the clouds were yet again threatening rain; but I was so glad to be free from work that I skipped my way down the cliff, and forgot about the note and Harry and all the rest of it, in the delight of being alive, and the delicious sense that all of life was bursting out before me, a hundred avenues, a thousand possibilities. I had cash in my handbag and was going shopping at Bradley’s.

  I turned left on to King Street and then right on to Wellington, passing Lady Lucinda with my head turned the other way so I wouldn’t have to see the sandals I knew were still gracing the plinth in the window display. I trotted past a headscarfed housewife wheeling a giant pram, and at the plate-glass doors followed a lady in a camel coat and stilettos over the marbled step and into the hallowed entrance of the department store, passing under the huge three-sided clock that hung from chains lashed to the ceiling of the ground floor.

  The six storeys of Bradley’s had been the engine of my childhood, with its lift operator punching buttons, its block letters proclaiming such exotic names as Haberdashery or Lingerie, its coffee shop at the top where you could look out over Helmstone while lacy-aproned girls served grated-cheese sandwiches. It had been our treat, Mum and I, back when she was the centre of my world, the pavements of Petwick its cosy perimeter, and a day trip into town the highlight of my week.

  I took the new escalator up to the top and worked my way down, starting at Menswear and perusing the racks of shirts and slacks with the eagerness of an explorer, embarrassedly gathering up underpants and flinging them into my basket, covering them up with packets of socks. A pleat-skirted salesgirl saw my numerous items and offered to pack them up for me. She added, with a superior, lipsticked smile, that they could be delivered for a small charge.

  ‘Of course, if you’d like extra help to find any more goods,’ she said, eyeing the huge quantity of notes I still held in my hand, ‘we’d be happy to oblige.’