On the Edge

by Jane Jesmond

  Shit, I’d forgotten just how direct and persistent Rachel could be. She didn’t like to let a subject go until she’d worried the truth out of it.

  ‘Funny thing, though.’ I cut through her flow of questions. ‘It’s not the first time your name has come up today. You’ve rented Simon’s cottage out to a carpenter who Kit used on the renovation. What was his name? Neil? No.’

  Simon had been Rachel’s uncle by marriage and I guessed she’d be the person dealing with the rental of his cottage.

  ‘Nick Crawford?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, that was it. Nick Crawford.’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘What about him?’

  ‘Oh, you know. Just stuff. He made a couple of doors for Tregonna. Expensive. But worth it.’ I paused. ‘I wondered…’ She leaned over the counter towards me. ‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter. Except…’ I took a deep breath. ‘Do you know where he came from?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just seemed odd. That’s all. Him settling in Craighston. Most people have some connection with the area. And Kit has had a few problems with him.’

  ‘What sort of problems?’

  I settled my elbows on the counter and embellished Kit’s story of Nick offering to get him antiques on the cheap and his eagerness to mix with the dodgiest of people. Hinted that Kit had bought something from him and was now worried about where it had come from. And wondered why I’d dithered so much before because Rachel was enjoying every minute of this. She let her brochures lie and listened, her face quivering with anticipation, like a dog sensing a walk was in the offing.

  She told me she’d suspected something was wrong from the word go when Nick had offered to pay six months’ rent in advance. In cash. Debbie, her eldest, had said she was mad to let him stay. But six months’ cash was not to be sniffed at. No matter what her husband said about him. Not everybody had money to burn after making a fortune in London. This said with a sideways glance at me was, I supposed, a dig at Kit.

  ‘And anyway he was from round here,’ she went on. ‘I’m sure his previous address was a local one.’

  ‘Have you still got his old address?’

  ‘I’ll have it at home. Why?’

  ‘I was thinking of asking around about him. Getting a bit of background. Just in case Kit’s got a problem with the furniture. But keep it quiet, Rachel. I don’t want anything getting back to Crawford. Did he give you any references?’

  ‘No.’

  I supposed the cash had been reference enough.

  I scribbled my phone number on the margin of one of the leaflets and thought about extricating myself. The bell pinged again as the door opened. Another customer. An opportunity to escape. Rachel looked past me and said, ‘Finished then?’

  A fisherman, by the way he was dressed. Bald under the black woolly hat he took off and stuffed in his pocket. About Rachel’s age, although it was hard to tell. The sea left its mark on all fishermen’s faces, aging the young ones early but then preserving them.

  ‘Yup,’ he said.

  Rachel waved a hand at me.

  ‘You remember Jenifry. Morwenna Hammett’s daughter.’

  ‘Oh, aye.’ He nodded to me. I recognised him.

  ‘Hello, Mr Mullins. How are you?’

  ‘It’s Tom. Fine. And yourself?’

  ‘Great. Just catching up with Rachel.’

  He turned to Rachel and gave her a set of car keys. ‘I’m going over to the chandlery. Don’t know how long I’ll be. You take the car and I’ll come home in the truck.’

  ‘Are you going to pop by and check on your mum? Or shall I?’

  ‘I’ll do it. I should be back by seven.’

  Rachel turned to me. ‘Tom’s mum’s not too good these days.’

  ‘I saw her,’ I said. ‘A couple of days ago.’

  ‘Where?’ This was Rachel. A tight note in her voice. ‘Where was she?’

  ‘She gets confused,’ Tom said. ‘She’s wandered off at night a couple of times. Needs an eye kept on her.’ The last phrase was said with his eyes fixed on the counter between him and his wife.

  ‘At her cottage. I was waiting for the police.’

  ‘The police?’ Tom’s voice was sharp.

  ‘Nothing to do with your mum. A body. My brother Kit and I found it along the shore just down from your mum’s cottage.’

  I told him what had happened and his face settled into deep lines.

  ‘That’s it,’ he said when I’d finished. ‘That’s enough. She can’t stay there alone.’

  ‘She’s not alone,’ Rachel said. ‘She’s got Kelly there at nights and people pop in and out through the day.’

  ‘Kelly’s not family.’

  ‘Your mum’s happiest in her cottage. She’s lived there since she married your dad. It would be too much of a change at her age.’

  But Tom persisted. ‘I’m not sure about Kelly.’

  Rachel slapped another box of brochures on the counter and ripped the tape off it.

  ‘Give her a chance. She’s only been looking after your mum for a week or so. There are bound to be a few teething problems,’ she said. ‘You’ve got a bee in your bonnet about her. No one’s good enough to look after your mum.’

  ‘Why didn’t Kelly tell us about the body? A body found close to my mother’s and she doesn’t think to tell us.’

  ‘The storm washed it up,’ I said. ‘Talan said it could have floated for hundreds of miles. Just chance it landed near your mother’s place.’

  ‘Talan is a fool.’

  The lines in Tom’s face screwed tighter. Rachel gave him an impatient look.

  ‘Don’t start, Tom,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t you start either, Rachel. Talan and his bunch of cronies know as much about the tides and currents here as I know about knitting.’

  ‘You think the body may have come from round here then?’ I asked. The redness of Tom’s face deepened towards purple.

  ‘Well, I don’t think it floated here from Africa,’ he said and turned to Rachel, leaning an arm on the counter, effectively blocking me out of the conversation. Surprise made me catch my breath. I’d never have thought he could be so rude to me. Ma counted him as an old friend, buying fish direct from him and letting him use Tregonna for his daughter’s wedding reception.

  ‘We’d only need to look after her at night, Rachel,’ he said. ‘There’s enough folk around during the day. Can’t have her wandering off at night again.’

  ‘I need my sleep, Tom.’

  I got the feeling it was an old argument. Their words lacked colour, as though it had been rinsed out of them through over-use.

  ‘What about the time Kelly didn’t turn up at all?’

  ‘Talan rang and explained, Tom. People get ill.’

  ‘And Mum –’ He shot me a quick look and lowered his voice. ‘You know she’s had more accidents since Kelly’s been there.’

  ‘It happens. At her age, it won’t get better.’

  ‘But all of a sudden, like?’

  ‘She says she sleeps well when Kelly’s there. So she doesn’t wake up in time. That’s a good thing. Sleeping. And it’s only a few sheets. You need to stop going on at her about it. It embarrasses her. She’s entitled to a bit of privacy.’ And with an air of having finished on a high point, Rachel gathered a pile of brochures and headed over to the shelves. ‘Go on, then. You’ll miss the chandlery if you don’t get a move on.’

  He went, slamming the door so hard behind him the bell jingled for several seconds after. I followed, waving a quick goodbye to Rachel then racing after Tom. I’d rather talk to him than any of the other fisherman. We walked together down the street towards the quay. He was silent and I wasn’t sure if he was lost in his thoughts or ignoring me. But when we reached the harbour, he turned to me.

  ‘How would you feel if it
was your ma?’

  ‘Don’t know, really. Can’t imagine it. I mean I can’t imagine Ma not doing her own thing.’

  He raised an eyebrow, turned towards his truck and wrenched the door open. Something had left a big dent in it. A long time ago by the look of the rust that had formed on its outer edge.

  ‘Tom,’ I said quickly. ‘Do some of the fishermen still bring stuff in? You know. Stuff.’

  He stopped, halfway up into the cab, one foot on the ground, the other on the foot plate, and shot his head round to glare at me.

  ‘Why do you want to know that, Jenifry?’

  ‘Just wondered.’

  ‘They might. But you won’t catch me saying anything about it.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘What do you mean who?’

  ‘Who brings stuff in? I know you know. Or you can at least make a good guess.’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’ he said again, but this time his voice was angry.

  ‘I just do. I can’t explain.’

  He stared down at me and shook his head.

  ‘You asking for your ma?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did Morwenna get you to ask me?’

  ‘No.’

  He gave a little laugh and a jerk of his head as though he didn’t believe me.

  ‘I haven’t discussed it with Ma. Honest.’

  I pulled my scarf tighter round my neck as he hoisted his body into the cab and dragged the door shut. He took his time, made me wait, shoulders curved against the breeze, then leaned out of the window and shot the words into my face.

  ‘I wouldn’t tell her when she asked me and I won’t tell you. Whatever the two of you think you’re doing, you need to stop. Things aren’t like they used to be, you know. It’s not about bringing in a few bits and pieces any more. It’s big business and it’s nasty. So you tell your ma to keep out of it.’ And with that he fired up the reluctant engine and yanked the truck into gear. I watched him reverse slowly through the crates of nets and tried to keep my mouth shut. What did he mean? What the hell was Ma up to? Surely she wasn’t involved with the smugglers.

  Behind me I felt the wind start to pick up. It pasted my jeans against my legs and blew my scarf in front of me like an arrow. It was all I needed to shove me into action. I ran after Tom’s truck, still manoeuvring backwards through piles of fishing equipment. I grabbed the mirror bar, leaped onto the footplate and hammered my fist on his window. He stabbed the brakes and the truck stalled. A couple of fisherman off-loading crates of fish from the boat next to us turned and stared as he rolled down the window. The words exploded out of me.

  ‘You’re not driving off and leaving me like that. If Ma’s involved in something you need to tell me.’

  He looked away. At the fishermen who had now stopped working and were staring at us. Shit. This was not a good place for the sharing of secrets. I turned and waved at them and stretched a smile over gritted teeth. Tom nodded. They went back to stacking crates but we both knew they were listening and glancing when they could.

  ‘Please, Tom,’ I said.

  ‘Get in the truck.’

  I did as I was told and sat in silence while he reversed off the quay and stopped by the gate. His rage had dialled down a notch and he was almost calm when he spoke.

  ‘That body,’ he said. ‘It’ll have come from the same boat as the others. Just taken longer to wash up. You heard about that? Two corpses, the other side of the lighthouse?’

  I nodded.

  ‘You and your Ma you don’t want to get mixed up with the people who let it happen. And that’s all I’m saying, Jenifry. I’ve got daughters and a mother who’s on her own. You get me?’

  He leaned across me and opened the door. His face was pale now but the lines were as deep and dark as rock crevasses in the snow. I wouldn’t get anything else out of him.

  My mind was racing as I clambered out of the truck. Ma asking questions about smuggling. Was she involved? She needed money. She was relaxed about drugs; she smoked a bit of weed herself. Or, at least, she had after Pa left. Growing it in the old greenhouse – a Victorian addition to Tregonna, with small glass panes and a curved roof, crumbling into ruin. Every spring Ma got the ladder out and filled the new holes knocked through by the winter’s storms with squares of old hardboard taped to the rotting frame.

  I remembered holding the ladder for her the spring after Pa and Kit left. Maybe that was when I’d realised what she was growing. Or maybe she’d told me as she stood on the ladder, her dress a patchwork of different fabrics billowing above me, like the coloured plastic round the crates on the quay beside me now, flapping in the wind.

  I ran up the street and back to the car park, leapt into the Aston and raced to Tregonna. For once, I was going to get the truth out of her.

  Sixteen

  Ma wasn’t at Tregonna. No one was. I tried her bedroom door on the off-chance but it was locked, which really pissed me off. I mean, who locks their bedroom door? In their family home? With only their family around? People with something to hide, that’s who.

  I raced around the garden and grounds but there was no sign of her and my anger grew as I paced up and down the drive, waiting for her to emerge from the woods clutching a basket of mushrooms or clamber up from the cove with her skirt and hair fluttering in the breeze, until I came to a stop by the front door and glanced up once more to check she wasn’t skulking in her room. Not that Ma ever skulked.

  Her bedroom window was open. Just a few inches at the bottom. Like it always was. She says she can’t bear an airless room. Enough was enough. I was going to find out for myself. She’d never have given me a straight answer anyway, even if she was here.

  I went straight up to the attic before I could think better of it, lashed the ropes we’d been using to clean the windows together and climbed down to her room. As I clambered over the windowsill, I knocked a jumble of crap off a table. A china tray and a rose glass dressing table set along with countless rings and earrings. Shit. I picked them all up but the stopper had come off one of the jars and its contents had left a streak of wet on the carpet. Fingers crossed it would dry without leaving a mark.

  I put everything back, trying to fit the tray exactly into the dust-free square on the table. Then I took a deep breath and looked in her dresser and wardrobe; they only contained clothes, their scents of patchouli, sea and damp bitter against the dusty odour of the room. I told myself I was looking for some evidence of her involvement in smuggling, ignoring the little voices trying to break through my rage with her, telling me to stop.

  At the back of her underwear drawer I found a small key. It was for the chest by her bed, I was sure. And I was right: the key turned easily. I lifted the chest lid a millimetre so as not to dislodge the piles of books and junk and peered in but it was too dark, so I gave up and swept all the clutter from the top onto her bed and flung the chest open all the way.

  Inside, all was order and neatness. No white powder, no wads of cash, not even a packet of dried cannabis leaves. Instead, there was a pile of folders. They were beige mainly with a larger green one at the bottom. All soft and woolly with age. I didn’t hesitate. I dived in.

  One folder contained her passport and birth certificate. Another, her O-level certificates and school photos. And another, the contract with her publishers and her royalty statements – very small amounts in recent years but I’d guessed that. And the rest were mainly photos from the time before Tregonna when we lived in London. Baby photos of Kit and me along with drawings we’d done and bits of pebble and dead flowers and grasses – mementos from day trips and holidays.

  The big green file was stuffed with her diaries and notes and sketches from the two years she spent in India where she met Pa and afterwards wrote about in her book.

  I’ve read it. When I was eleven, I think. I wanted to see what the fuss was about because e
very time we met someone new, they’d say to her ‘Not the Morwenna Hammett?’ Ma would give the tinkly laugh that made Kit and I look elsewhere and then they’d say how much they’d loved her book and how it made them want to visit India. Sometimes in a hushed voice they’d ask her if it was all true. She never answered. Most of them asked her if she was writing another and that would be the end of the conversation.

  I quite enjoyed her descriptions of the various jobs she did – peddling trinkets and beads from a small boat to tourists staying in houseboats on a lake in Kashmir, tea-picking in Kerala with the sisters of the roadside café owner after he threw her out, scrubbing floors as a maid in a small hotel near Delhi – but it was weird, very weird, reading about her living with a string of different men in her pursuit of understanding the culture of another country. She calls the women she works with by their real names but she gives the men titles such as the Roadside-café Owner, the Agriculture Student and, of course, the Maharajah’s Son. She meets Pa about two-thirds of the way through. The Young Englishman, he’s called. But you can tell it’s him. A passionate climber, wandering from camp to camp in North India in search of the next peak to conquer. Who else could it be? In case you hadn’t put two and two together, the publishers leaked a story about it being him when the papers were full of his historic first solo ascent of Kanchenjunga.

  Ma was much coyer about sex with Pa, which was a relief. You could tell she was wild about him, though. Her accounts of waiting for him in base camps and wayside shacks and her descriptions of the savage and beautiful mountains he climbed were strung through with a curious tension, as if she understood his passion for them but also hated and feared them as rivals.

  I thumbed through the file. Books and papers filled with her scribbles. Rough sketches of everyday life and a few photos. Most of them were in the book. But interspersed were drawings of Cornwall. Some of them I recognised straightaway. Charlestown port and the cliffs below Tregonna. A few, I was sure, were of the trees in the woods above the house and there were lots showing coves and beaches and rough stone walls with wildflowers poking through the gaps.