The Mysterious Affair at Castaway House

by Lam, Stephanie

  ‘You’re not selling Castaway.’

  I was sure Alec did not see her hands shaking on her cigarette, but I could, as she said, ‘Your mother would never have allowed it.’

  ‘Don’t you dare mention my mother.’ He jabbed a finger. ‘Castaway is not your house. It’s mine, and I can do with it what I like.’

  She banged her palm flat on the table. ‘It’ll be chopped up into flats or turned into an hotel or … or something hideous like that.’

  ‘It’s only a house, Clara. It’s not a baby.’

  She received the words like a slap in the face. She flicked a glance at me, and I saw tears trembling in the corners of her eyes. ‘You’d regret it,’ was all she said, swallowing hard.

  ‘You ought to be careful, Clara.’ His face reddened. ‘I raised you up from the gutter; I can drop you back down again.’

  She blew smoke towards him. ‘If I go down,’ she said in a voice as smooth as coffee, ‘you’ll be coming right down with me. Dearest.’

  Alec uttered an oath and saw me finally. ‘Enjoying the show?’ he snarled.

  I stared at him, surprised, and said, ‘Oh, come on, Alec.’

  He cursed again and left the room. A few seconds later the front door banged so resoundingly on its hinges that the entire room rattled.

  For a full minute, silence reigned, except for the hiss of Clara’s cigarette being extinguished. I considered my options. Either, I thought, I could leave the room on a pretence of neutrality or I could plant my flag now. Then I heard a swallowed-back sniff from Clara and knew, just as I always had, that the choice was no choice at all.

  ‘I don’t know about you,’ I said, getting to my feet, ‘but I need a very stiff drink.’

  She widened her eyes so the tears would not fall, and reached blindly back to the bell pull by the fireplace.

  ‘Not here,’ I added, and her hand dropped.

  Clara drew in a breath; of course, she saw in an instant the partisan nature of my statement. She nodded and stood up, turning to face the mirror that hung over the mantelpiece. She patted her perfect hair, her eyes in the reflection as black as coals. ‘I know somewhere,’ she said in a murmur.

  She moved swiftly into the hall. I heard her talking to Scone, to whom none of what had occurred could be a secret, and by the time I joined her in the hallway she was already dressed for outside. I collected my hat from its peg, and together we walked down the steps in the warm, scented night air.

  She did not speak to me the entire way down the hill. Only her heels clattered angrily as I kept pace with her. Dr Feathers’ waiting room was lit as we walked past, and I saw the doctor in the window. I raised a hand to him in greeting, and he nodded, arms behind his back, and I wondered what he thought of my accompanying my cousin’s wife into town, not five minutes after the master of the house had gone this same way.

  We continued along the seafront, past the entrance to the Snooks. The midsummer sky was still indigo; a few stars twinkled, but true darkness had not yet set in. We walked all the way to the east end of the town, towards the small harbour, and crossed the road just before it. A terrace of whitewashed houses stood facing the front, and from the basement of one I heard the faint pulse of live music.

  Clara stopped at the top of the steps and turned to me. ‘Thanks, Robert,’ she said. ‘You’ve been an awful brick about the whole thing. I know it can’t be easy, stuck between Alec and me.’

  I shrugged. ‘I want you both to be happy.’

  She shook her head. ‘When two liars marry each other, it’s never going to end well.’ She grimaced. ‘And d’you know what? I’m fed up of lying.’

  I frowned, because it seemed to me I had never seen her so honest. ‘Are you lying now?’

  ‘All of this …’ she drew a line around her black beaded dress and her emerald wrap with one finger. ‘All of me is a lie. The only thing of me that I have that is still true is down there.’ With the same finger, she pointed to the basement.

  I peered. Through the barred windows I saw hazy movement. ‘What’s down there?’

  She inclined her head, saying, ‘Come and find out,’ before turning and heading down the steps. I paused, and then followed her. She knocked rat-a-tat-rat-a-tat on the door and then waited. I hovered on the steps as the door opened and a burst of music and sticky warmth emerged. I heard a voice say, ‘Sweetheart! You’re back!’ and as she leaned in I saw two masculine arms embrace her.

  Clara smiled up at me and disappeared beyond the doorway. I hesitated and then climbed down the steps and entered the room.

  It was stiflingly hot inside and almost pitch-black – or, at least, after the milky light from the street lamps outside it seemed so. The room was crammed with people, and they all seemed to be talking and moving at once, making the place appear a many-headed, buzzing insect. At the far end of the room, on a raised platform, a band was thumping on a piano and playing strings and horns. I saw with a jolt of surprise that they were Negro.

  A hand pulled at mine; it was Clara’s, and she tugged me through the throng to a small bar on the right where a man – perhaps he of the embracing arms – was serving drinks. He sported a thin, elegantly twisted moustache and eyebrows arched even more sardonically than Clara’s.

  ‘This is my cousin, Robert Carver,’ said Clara breathlessly. ‘Robert – a good friend of mine, George Basin.’

  The man put down the glass he was holding, wiped his hands on his apron, and shook mine. ‘Glad you persuaded her out the house,’ he shouted, over the noise of the band. ‘We been missing her down here these past few weeks.’

  ‘Stop your flattery,’ said Clara, but her lips and eyes flashed all the same. ‘And get us a drink. What’ll you have, Robert? Gin? It’s too hot for anything else, isn’t it?’

  I nodded, too ambushed by my surroundings to care much what I was drinking. There were couples dancing in the middle of the room, in front of the band. The singer, his eyes screwed tight shut with concentration, belted out a fast jazz number and the couples twirled apart and together. Bodies banged against bodies, hemmed in by the narrow walls of the club, and Clara handed me my drink and I knocked it back, needing the dumbing effect of the alcohol to cushion the novelty.

  ‘Like the whangdoodle?’

  I looked down. A short man wearing blue-lensed glasses was shouting up at me.

  ‘The band,’ he added at my bemused expression.

  ‘The band? Oh – yes, very.’ I did not add that I had almost no experience with bands, apart from the Salvation Army in the park on bank-holiday afternoons.

  ‘From London,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘They play all the top places there, you know. Clara! Nobody told me you was here.’

  Clara embraced this man too, kissing him on both cheeks, and introduced me to him as Mr Eli Golden, the proprietor. ‘Eli saved me from death by boredom,’ she said. ‘When I moved back here I thought I’d never go dancing again, and then I met Eli.’

  ‘She’s a great little hoofer.’ Eli winked at me. I presumed he thought me her lover, and I blushed, glad of the darkness. I remembered what Alec had said, about her fall after dancing, and wondered if the accident had happened here, perhaps on those stone steps outside.

  Still, she appeared unaffected by the memory now. ‘Want to dance?’ she said, and I heard, in the exuberance of shouting, and the sentences clipped of necessity, a coarse echo of another voice, one that spoke without irony, with literalness, in harsh, unaffected tones.

  I shook my head. ‘I can’t, I’m afraid.’

  For answer, she took my empty glass from me, laid it on the counter and pulled me into the middle of the throng. I was jostled on all sides by moving bodies, but I managed to grasp Clara’s right hand with my left and put my other to the small of her back, which was damp with sweat. I had no idea what to do now, but I managed to sway in time to the music as she darted away and towards me, her hips shimmering, her lips mouthing the words to the song, perfectly in time, as if the rhythm of the band was be
ating out the pattern of her heart.

  Towards the end of the song she was claimed by other friends, both male and female, and I retreated gratefully to the edge of the dance floor. I ordered another drink and leaned on the bar, craning my neck to watch her dance, cursing when other couples lumbered in front, obscuring my view, and I wished now that at some point during my wasted adolescence I had taken lessons, at least, and wondered why nobody had ever pointed out to me that an ability to dance was worth a hundred Latin declensions or a matchless spin-bowl.

  There was a commotion near the stage, and a great deal of applause and whooping. ‘Here she goes,’ said George Basin behind me, and when I queried him he said, ‘Your cousin. They always get her up on the stage when she’s here.’

  The singer bowed and made way for Clara, who scrambled rather inelegantly up on to the platform. She passed her drink down to a friend in the crowd, and there was a general hushing sound as dancers stopped moving and chatterers turned to see what was going on. The double bassist twanged a few notes, the pianist floated a melody over the crowd, and Clara opened her arms wide and sang in a voice as deep as the sea outside the door: ‘Your love won’t give me no roses …’

  The couples on the dance floor nodded to each other and struck up into a new rhythm, swaying together. The chatterers resumed their chattering. I remained where I was, one elbow on the bar, my face welded to the sight of Clara Bray, her eyes limpid with feeling, her voice dredging all my unused emotions up from the bottom of my heart and flinging them out across the crowded floor.

  And I knew then that I would always love her, no matter what happened in the future or who she’d been in the past. My adoration was unselfish; it was not dependent on subclauses, it merely was, and that knowledge was enough to make me happy.

  ‘Good actress, ain’t she?’

  George Basin was grinning at me. I was irritated he had interrupted my contemplation of Clara, and so I ignored him, but he hardly seemed to care.

  ‘Yeah,’ he continued. ‘I reckon she could have been one of the stars, you know, in the pictures and that, if she hadn’t a got married. When she sings it makes you feel all sort of mushy inside, know what I mean?’

  I nodded dumbly, and returned my attention to the stage, smug and safe in the knowledge that, however good an actress she was, I knew the real Clara Bray, who had cried on a five-bar gate and trembled as she smoked a cigarette; and as she climbed down from the stage to adulation and cheers and joined me, breathless and excited, I saw her eyes glowing and knew she could not be more real. I longed to take her in my arms and kiss her, and contented myself with saying idiotically, ‘Bravo! Very well done!’

  ‘I expect you think I’m a terrible show-off,’ she said to me, as the band struck up again. ‘Well, you’re right.’

  The weight of the people thrust her against me. I thought I could feel her heartbeat, but realized it must be my own, thumping like a rabbit’s inside my breast. ‘Th-thank you for bringing me here,’ I shouted back.

  She smiled and flung her arm out. ‘This was my life,’ she shouted. ‘In London. Until I met Alec. Now I’m an old boring married woman.’

  ‘You’re not, absolutely not. Well, married yes, but that’s it.’

  She touched my chin. ‘Bless you. Sweet Robert,’ she said, and my insides twisted, because this was the most affection she had ever shown me, and whether it was alcohol-induced or not, I didn’t care.

  We stayed a while, as she introduced me to friends I had no interest in, and I laughed and joked with them all the same, and before the party had ended she said she was achingly tired and did we mind leaving. I shook hands with everybody, and as we climbed back up the basement steps to the street, I watched her bottom as it rose up the steps, shifting in its swathe of silk.

  ‘I know you’re looking where you shouldn’t, Robert Carver,’ she mumbled as she walked up.

  ‘I’m not!’ I said, so loudly I convinced myself. ‘I was making sure you didn’t fall.’

  We reached the street level and crossed over to the seafront side. Clara touched the railing and looked out at the masts rattling on the boats in the harbour. ‘I did fall,’ she said quietly. ‘The last time I was here. It’s how I lost the baby. I was a silly fool. I should have been more careful.’

  I leaned on the railing beside her. ‘Accidents happen,’ I said quietly, remembering Alec’s cruel words earlier.

  ‘They do. They do.’ Her eyes were dark shadows in her face. ‘How wise you are for someone so young.’

  I was sure she was mocking me. ‘We’re not so far apart in age, I’m sure,’ I said stiffly.

  ‘Oh, but I’m married. It ages one considerably. Don’t you do it, not for years.’

  ‘The thing is,’ I said, ‘I’ve sort of – well, it seems I’ve promised Dr Feathers that I’ll propose to Lizzie. After university, that is.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ She laughed. ‘What a pickle you’ve got into.’

  I frowned. ‘Maybe I want to marry Lizzie.’

  ‘Maybe you do.’ She leaned back, holding on to the rail for support. ‘But she won’t be peaches and cream for ever, you know.’

  ‘When you’re in love,’ I said loftily, ‘that doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Exactly.’ She spoke with a sigh. ‘Exactly.’

  We stood beside each other in silence, looking at the fat moon bulging through the gaps in the masts. The night still held the heat of the day, and I kept my jacket tucked under one arm, the sweat from the club gently cooling away.

  After a while Clara said quietly, ‘I wonder if Alec will want a divorce.’

  My heart quickened, but, attempting nonchalance, I said, ‘On what grounds?’

  ‘He can trump something up. Get himself photographed with some floozy; it won’t hurt him too much.’ I heard her fingers tapping the rail; her wedding ring clinked on the iron bar. ‘It’s only the truth, anyhow. Love, honour and obey? I don’t think he waited until we’d stepped on to the honeymoon train before he was at it with the dining-car stewardess.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t mind?’ I said carefully.

  She turned her beautiful face towards me. ‘One puts up with things,’ she says. ‘But sleeping with the servants; that really was the last straw.’

  I leaped into a realization. ‘It was Sally, wasn’t it? The girl who disappeared.’

  ‘Left a note under my door on the night she high-tailed it to whatever hole she’d crawled out of. Told me they were in love!’ She laughed scornfully. ‘Said he was going to leave me and marry her. I mean, I never liked the little strumpet, but I didn’t think she’d be that stupid.’

  ‘Is that why she left?’ I watched Clara straighten with a slight pulling-together of herself, and I knew that when we went back to the house we would never speak like this. I wanted this moment to pause for ever, the two of us suspended in time.

  ‘I presume so. I expect she’s still waiting for him now to ride up and sweep her off her feet.’ She shook her head. ‘That was the night I went out dancing. I was so angry. I couldn’t speak to him about it; I still haven’t. And then I lost the baby and he blamed me. Me, if you please! If only he’d bothered to keep his trousers fastened, I might still be carrying his precious goods.’

  ‘Lord.’ I looked away from her. I was still sure there was not a malicious bone in Alec’s body, but that did not mean there was no harm in it. I murmured, ‘You were right. He is a child.’

  ‘And here I am, boring you again with my woes.’ She laughed.

  ‘Not at all,’ I said lightly. ‘Although, of course, you’re forcing me to take sides here.’

  ‘Well,’ she said with a mischievous curl to her mouth, ‘I’m quite sure Alec has put his case across also. It’s only fair I should have the chance to do the same.’

  I turned to walk back along the promenade. ‘I’m surprised you care what I think.’

  She came alongside me and took my arm. ‘We’re chums, aren’t we? You and me.’

  ‘We are?’ I as
ked, genuinely surprised, and overwhelmed by her small hand inside the crook of my arm.

  She laughed, but said nothing. After we’d walked a few paces she said, dreamily, ‘Do you know what I really want to do right now, Robert?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  She chuckled. ‘Go for a swim.’

  ‘Oh. Well, I’m sure that would be terribly dangerous.’

  ‘Mmm.’ She paused. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘What?’

  But she was already moving past me, down the steps and on to the beach. I hurried after her, catching up as she was bending down to unbuckle her shoes. She kicked them off and hooked her fingers into their open mouths.

  ‘You’re not going to swim now?’

  She turned to me, her eyes flashing. ‘But don’t you feel all hot and uncomfortable after Eli’s club? This is the perfect remedy.’

  ‘They say never to swim in the sea at night.’ I was anxious now, running along beside her. I wondered how I could prevent her. ‘The tides are unpredictable.’

  ‘Oh, Robert,’ she sighed. ‘Have you never wanted to do anything unpredictable?’

  Yes, I called silently, Yes, Yes, Yes. Aloud, I answered, ‘Of course I have, but when one’s an adult, one can’t continually act upon desire.’

  She stopped, slightly ahead of me, her shoes dangling from one hand, her bare toes curling on the boards that led to the beach huts. ‘Well, if you don’t now,’ she said, ‘you never will.’

  An excitement clutched at my heart, a yearning chasm of feeling; and just now, tonight, I felt as if all things were possible, that Clara Bray was standing here in front of me, wanting me to swim in the sea with her, and that she was right, that if I did not do it now, then I never would.

  Still, I was unable to express this to her. ‘I haven’t a costume.’

  She smiled at me, and there was a world of mystery in that smile. ‘Alec has,’ she said. ‘In the beach hut. I know you’re taller, but I’m sure you can squeeze in.’