I don’t want to feel like a mistake again.
I looked at my watch. It was almost six-thirty. In the distance, thunder rumbled across the sky. I folded the letter up, placed everything inside the box and took it with me as I rowed back around to the village.
9
I drove out of Carcondrock and found a place to stay about three miles further down a snaking coastal road. It was a beautiful greystone building overlooking the ocean and the scattered remnants of old tin mines. After a shower, I headed out for some dinner and eventually found a pub that served hot food and cold beer. I took the box with me and sat at a table in the corner, away from everyone else. There was a choice of three meals: steak and kidney pie, steak and ale pie or steak pie. Luckily, I wasn’t vegetarian. While I waited for the food, I opened the box, removed the contents and spread them out.
I picked up the birthday card first. The last contact Kathy ever had with Alex. She’d kept it in pristine condition. It was still in its original envelope, opened along the top with a knife or a letter opener to avoid damaging it. I took it out.
The card itself looked home-made, without being amateurish: a detailed drawing of a bear was in the centre, a bunch of roses in its hands. Above that was a raised rectangle with happy birthday! embossed on it, and a foil sticker of a balloon. I flipped it over. In the centre, in gold pen, it said: Made by Angela Routledge. I opened it up. Inside were just seven words: Happy Birthday, Kath. I love you… Alex.
I closed the card and studied the envelope. Something caught my attention. On the inside, under the lip, was an address labeclass="underline" Sold @ St John the Baptist, 215 Grover Place, London. I wrote down the address and turned to the photographs.
There was a definite timeline. It began with pictures of Kathy and Alex when they’d first started going out, and ended with two individual portraits of each of them, both older and more mature, at a different stage of their lives. I sat the two portraits side by side. The one of Kathy was a regular 6x4, but Alex’s was a Polaroid. When I turned them over, I noticed something else: they had different handwriting on them.
‘Mind if I sit here?’
I looked up.
One of the locals was staring down at me, a hand pressed against the back of the chair at the table next to me. The subdued light darkened his face. Shadows filled his eye sockets, thick black lines forming across his forehead. He was well built, probably in his late forties.
I looked around the pub. There were tables and chairs free everywhere. He followed my eyes, out into the room, but didn’t make a move to leave. When he turned back to me, he stole a glance at a couple of the photographs. I collected them up, along with the letter and the card, and placed them back into the box.
‘Sure,’ I said, gesturing to the table. ‘Take a seat.’
He nodded his thanks and sat down, placing his beer down in front of him. A couple of minutes later, the landlady brought my meal over. As I started picking at it, I realized all I could smell was his aftershave. It was so strong it buried the smell of my food completely.
‘You here on business?’ he asked.
‘Kind of.’
‘Sounds mysterious.’
I shrugged. ‘Not really.’
‘So, where does she live?’
I looked at him, confused.
‘Your bit on the side.’ He laughed, finding it funnier than he had any right to.
I smiled politely, but didn’t bother answering, hoping that the less I talked, the quicker he’d leave.
‘Just messing with you,’ he said, running a finger down the side of his glass. As his sleeve rode up his arm, I could see a tattoo — an inscription — the letters smudged by age. ‘Boring place to have to come for work.’
‘I can think of worse.’
‘Maybe in summer,’ he said. ‘But in winter, this place is like a mausoleum. You take the tourists out of here and all you’re left with are a few empty fudge shops. Want to hear my theory?’ He paused, but only briefly. ‘If you put a bullet in the head of every Cornishman in the county, no one would even notice until the fucking caravan parks failed to open.’ He laughed again, putting a hand to his mouth as if trying to suppress his amusement.
I pretended to check my phone for messages. ‘Nice theory,’ I said, staring at my empty inbox. When I was finished, he was still looking at me.
‘So, what do you do?’ he asked.
‘I’m a salesman.’
He rocked his head from side to side, as if to say he didn’t think I was the type. ‘My friend’s a salesman too.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah.’ He nodded. ‘A different kind. He sells ideas to people.’
I smiled. ‘You mean he works for Ikea?’
He didn’t respond. An uncomfortable silence settled between us. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t taken the hint yet. He cupped his pint glass between his hands, rolling it backwards and forwards, watching the liquid slosh around inside.
‘I bet you’re thinking, “How do you sell ideas to people?” — right?’
Not really.
He looked up at me. ‘Right?’
‘I guess.’
‘It’s pretty simple, the way he tells it. You take something — then you try to apply it to people. You know, give them something they really need.’
‘Still sounds like he might work for Ikea.’
He didn’t reply, but his eyes lingered on me, as if I’d just made a terrible error. There’s something about you, I thought. Something I don’t like. He took a few mouthfuls of beer, and this time I could make out some of the tattoo — ‘And see him that was possessed’ — and a red mark, running close to his hairline, all the way down around his ears and along the curve of his chin.
‘Got hit with a rifle butt in Afghanistan.’
‘Sorry?’
He looked up. ‘The mark on my face. Fucking towelhead jammed his rifle butt into my jaw.’
‘You were a soldier?’
‘Do I look the salesman type?’
I shrugged. ‘What does a salesman look like?’
‘What do any of us really look like?’ His eyes flashed for a moment, catching some of the light from a fire behind us. He broke into a smile, as if everything was a big mystery. ‘Being a soldier, that teaches you a lot about life.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Teaches you a lot about death too.’
I tried to look pissed off, and started cutting away at some of the pie’s pastry — but the whole time I could feel him watching me. When I looked up again, his eyes moved quickly from me to the food then back up.
‘You not hungry?’
‘Looks better than it tastes,’ I said.
‘You should eat,’ he replied, sinking what was left in the glass. ‘You never know when you might need the strength.’
He placed the beer glass down and turned to me, his eyes disappearing into shadow again. They were impenetrable now; like staring into one of the abandoned mine shafts along the coast.
‘Where you from?’
‘London.’
‘Ah, that explains it.’ He flicked his head back. ‘The home of the salesman.’
‘Is it?’
‘You telling me it isn’t? Millions of people whose only reason for being anywhere near that hole is so they can live on the top floor of a skyscraper and try to convince people poorer than them to live beyond their means? That’s a city of salesmen, believe me. Take a step back from the rat race, my friend — see what’s going on. No one’s there to help you.’
‘Thanks for the advice.’