‘One of the island’s mysteries,’ he said. ‘Most of the locals believe they were caused by an earthquake three or four centuries ago, but there’s no proof.’
I stepped forward as close as I dared to the edge of one and looked down the steep sides of a gaping crack which must have been over one hundred feet deep. With the toe of a walking boot I caught a couple of loose stones and they bounced and clattered their way down the rift into the very bedrock of Abri.
‘Your island is full of hidden dangers, it seems to me, Robin,’ I said.
For a moment he looked startled and I laughed. One thing was certain about Robin Davey — his sense of humour had not been honed in a Bristol police station.
‘I’m joking,’ I said.
His eyes crinkled. That crinkly look was beginning to become familiar to me already, and I was growing to like it more and more.
On the way back to Highpoint we passed an old tumbled-down granite building surrounded by a tangle of rusting iron debris and what appeared to be a broken stretch of railway line. I glanced at Robin enquiringly.
‘All that remains of Abri’s celebrated gold-mining operation,’ he told me.
‘Good God,’ I responded. ‘I didn’t know we were in the Klondike.’
Robin smiled. ‘There’s always been gold in the west of England,’ he said. ‘People often don’t realise just how much. Within the last four or five years pirate diggers have illegally hacked six tons of rock off Hopes Nose in Torbay because there are veins of gold running right through the cliff. And did you know there’s prospecting going on right now around Crediton?’
I couldn’t help giggling at the picture that conjured up. ‘What, grizzled old timers in cowboy hats sifting for gold in the trout streams of Devon?’
Robin shook his head, ignoring my sarcastic approach.
‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘Three years ago now a company called Minmet sunk bore holes in the Crediton Trough, which is a thirty-mile rift valley, and discovered bedrock gold. There’s still exploratory work going on to discover whether or not there is actually enough gold to warrant a full-scale commercial mining operation, but so far there has been every indication that there is.’
I studied the ruined old building more carefully. It looked as if there had been a big chimney at one end. Robin followed my gaze.
‘They used to smelt the gold on the spot, over charcoal raised to a tremendous heat in brick ovens, just like the Romans did, and they were great gold miners. That produced a kind of gold concentrate, very impure. The railway was used to transport the impure gold out and on to the mainland to be refined and all the necessary goods and equipment in — including the charcoal because there’s never been more than scrubby woodland on Abri. Everything was winched up and down the cliffs. The easiest ways in those days.’
‘But surely there could never have been a really substantial gold-mining operation on Abri?’ I asked. ‘Not an island this size in the middle of the Bristol Channel?’
‘No, although people will conquer anything to get at gold. And a substantial vein was discovered on Abri. We all know the expression, but great-great-great-great-grandfather Ernest John really did strike gold.’
‘So surely that should have made your family even richer?’ I queried.
Robin shook his head. ‘Only temporarily,’ he replied. ‘The vein ran out quite quickly, but Ernest John never believed it. And by the time he died in 1860 at the age of ninety, he had not only lost all that the gold mining had earned him, but also much of his original fortune as well.’
We were standing by the broken railway line now. Robin kicked at a piece of twisted iron.
‘The gold turned out to be more of a curse than a blessing in the end,’ he said. ‘And that’s quite a familiar story, isn’t it?’
‘I think I’ve seen the film,’ I told him.
Robin laughed. ‘More than likely,’ he replied. ‘It must have been an amazing period in the island’s history though. Strange to think that when it was all over the islanders just blocked up the shafts, let the grass grow over them, and went back to sheep farming. Now there’s something that hasn’t changed.’
We continued to walk back towards Highpoint. Then Robin told me he needed to call in at the farm to check on a sick ewe. I went along, happy just to be with him. I had no idea that this would turn out to be the last of these carefree afternoons we were to spend together. His tragic past somehow seemed to turn Robin Davey into an even more romantic figure than he may otherwise have been. My fantasy software was fully operational — marginally better than lusting after an eighteen-year-old boy who then nearly kills you, I suppose, but not a lot.
The bombshell came the next day.
‘Rose, I’d like you to meet Natasha Felks,’ said Robin, cool as you like. ‘She’s over for the weekend.’
I had just noticed the Puffin moored in Home Bay, but, having been for a walk on my own that morning, all the way to the new north lighthouse, I had not even seen the ship come in let alone watched the passengers disembark. When I returned Robin was sitting in the drawing room quaffing his favourite dry sherry with this tall slender elegant thing straight off the cover of Tatler, who stood up, strode over to me, as I hovered uncertainly in the doorway, and held out a limp hand.
‘Call me Tash,’ she said in an accent that was pure Roedean. ‘Everybody else does.’
‘Delighted,’ I replied. But I wasn’t, of course. I’m prejudiced against tall slender elegant things.
I suppose my face bore an enquiring look.
‘Oh sorry,’ said Robin. ‘I should have said, Tash is my fiancée.’
He was as casual as if remarking that he’d forgotten to put the milk bottles out. Except they don’t have milkmen too often on Abri island.
I knew I had no right to feel the way I did, but I could have slapped his face, I really could.
‘Delighted,’ I said again, like some broken down old robot, and made myself stretch my face into some sort of smile.
The Puffin was to stay moored in Home Bay overnight and return to the mainland in the morning. I left with her.
Nothing of a remotely intimate nature had ever passed between the owner of Abri Island and me. There had been no words of endearment, no kiss, no touch, barely even the meeting of fingertips. But does your imagination ever run completely away with you when you meet someone you fancy rotten?
Ever since my husband, Simon, and I split I had been rather more out of control than usual in that direction. OK, so it’s reasonable enough that the shock of nearly dying might make you extra vulnerable. Typically, though, I had gone right over the top.
In the five days since I had been pulled to safety by Robin Davey off the side of the Pencil I had, in the dark recesses of my poor pathetic mind, already shagged him senseless, married him, and born him at least four children.
Reality had struck hard in the form of Natasha Felks. The bloody girl was a charmer as well, a real softy, an absolute sweetheart. Damn her eyes. And a looker. And she oozed sex appeal. It really was all too much. I certainly had no desire to stay any longer on Abri and watch the two of them together, although I endeavoured mightily not to give the slightest hint that the arrival of Ms Felks had in any way precipitated my departure.
Robin insisted on walking with me down to Home Bay, although in many ways I would have preferred him not to. I tried not to think about what a fool I had nearly made of myself.
As we stood on the beach watching Jason hoist my bag into the landing craft, Robin leaned close and kissed me on both cheeks, grasping me lightly by the shoulders. Our first kiss, but not of the kind I had had in mind. I deliberately did not respond in any way, but if he had noticed any change in my reactions to him since the introduction of Natasha Felks onto the scene he gave no sign.