• • •
At the weekend Jamieson called the Tremains on the telephone to check that the invitation was still open, and on Sunday evening he drove the solitary mile to his neighbour’s place, parking by the side of the road. Since he, the Whites and the Tremains had the only properties on this stretch of potholed road, it wasn’t likely that he’d be causing any traffic problems.
“Saw you on the beach the other day,” he told John when he was seated and had a drink in his hand. “Beachcombing, hey?”
The other nodded. “It seems our talking about it must have sparked me off again. I found one or two rather nice pieces.”
“You certainly have an eye for it,” the old man commented, his flattery very deliberate. “Why, I can see you have several ‘nice pieces’—expertly finished pieces, that is—right here. But if you’ll forgive my saying so, it seems to me these aren’t so much carvings as wind-, sea-, and sand-sculptures really, which you have somehow managed to revitalize with sandpaper and varnish, imagination and infinite skill. So much so that you’ve returned them to a new, dramatic life of their own!”
“Really?” Tremain was taken aback; he didn’t see Jamieson’s flattery for what it really was, as a means to an end, a way to ingratiate himself into the Tremains’s confidence. For Jamieson found himself in such a close-knit microcosm of isolated community society that he felt sure the headmaster and his wife would have knowledge of almost everything that had gone on here; they would have the answers to questions he couldn’t possibly put to Jilly, not in her condition.
For the old man suspected—indeed, he more than suspected—that Jilly White’s circumstances had brought her to the verge of nervous exhaustion. But what exactly were her circumstances? As yet there were loose ends here, which Jamieson must at least attempt to tie up before making any firm decision or taking any definite course of action.
Which was why the ex-Doctor was here at the Tremains’s this evening. They were after all his and Jilly’s closest neighbours and closest in status, too. Whereas the people of the village—while they might well be the salt of the earth—were of a very different order indeed. And close-mouthed? Oh, he’d get nothing out of them.
And so back to the driftwood:
“Yes, really,” the old man finally answered John Tremain’s pleased if surprised inquiry. “I mean, this table we’re sitting at, drinking from: a table of driftwood—but see how the grain stands out, the fine polish!” In fact the table was quite ugly. Jamieson pointed across the room. “And who could fail to admire your plant stand there, so black it looks lacquered.”
“Yacht varnish,” Tremain was all puffed up now. “As for why it’s so black, it’s ebony.”
“Diospyros,” said Doreen Tremain, entering from the kitchen with a tray of food. “A very heavy wood, and tropical. Goodness only knows how long it was in the sea, to finally get washed up here.”
“Amazing!” Jamieson declared. “And not just the stand. Your knowledge of woods—and indeed of most things, as I’ve noted—does both of you great credit.”
And now she preened and fussed no less than her husband. “I do so hope you like turbot, er, James?”
“Psetta maxima,” said Jamieson, not to be outdone. “If it’s fish, dear lady, then you need have no fear. I’m not the one to turn my nose up at a good piece of fish.”
“I got it from Tom Foster in the village,” she answered. “I like his fish, if not his company.” And she wrinkled her nose.
“Tom Foster?” Jamieson repeated her, shaking his head. “No, I don’t think I know him.”
“And you don’t want to,” said John, helping the old man up, and showing him to the dining table. “Tom might be a good fisherman, but that’s all he’s good for. Him and his Gypsy wife.”
Sitting down, Jamieson blinked his rheumy eyes at the other and enquired, “His Gypsy wife?”
“She’s not a Gypsy,” Doreen shook her head. “No, not Romany at all, despite her looks. It seems her great-grandmother was a Polynesian woman. Oh, there are plenty such throwbacks in Devon and Cornwall, descendants of women brought back from the Indies and South Pacific when the old sailing ships plied their trade. Anyway, the Fosters are the ones who have charge of that young Geoff person. But there again, I suppose we should be thankful that someone is taking care of him.”
“Huh!” John Tremain grunted. “Surely his mother is the one who should be taking care of him. Or better far his father, except we all know that’s no longer possible.”
“And never would have been,” Doreen added. “Well, not without all sorts of complications, accusations, and difficulties in general.”
Watching the fish being served, Jamieson said, “I’m afraid you’ve quite lost me. Do you think you could…I mean, would you mind explaining?”
The Tremains looked at each other, then at the old man.
“Oh?” he said. “Do I sense some dark secret here, one from which I’m excluded? But that’s okay—if I don’t need to know, then I don’t need to know. After all, I am new around here.”
“No,” said Doreen, “it’s not that. It’s just that—”
“It’s sort of delicate,” her husband said. “Or not exactly delicate, not any longer, but not the kind of thing people like to talk about. Especially when it’s your neighbour, or your ex-neighbour, who is concerned.”
“My ex-neighbour?” Jamieson frowned. “George White? He was your neighbour, yes, but never mine. So, what’s the mystery?”
“You’ve not sensed anything?” This was Doreen again. “With poor Jilly? You’ve not wondered why she and Anne always seem to be sticking up for—”
“For that damned idiot in the village?” John saw his opportunity to jump in and finish it for her.
And the old man slowly nodded. “I think I begin to see,” he said. “There’s some connection between George White, Jilly and Anne, and—”
“And Geoff, yes,” said Doreen. “But do you think we should finish eating first? I see no reason why we can’t tell you all about it. You are or were a doctor, after all—and we’re sure you’ve heard of similar or worse cases—but I’d hate the food to spoil.”
And so they ate in relative silence. Doreen Tremain’s cooking couldn’t be faulted, and her choice of white wine was of a similar high quality…
• • •
“It was fifteen, sixteen years ago,” John Tremain began, “and we were relative newcomers here, just as you are now. In those days this was a prosperous little place; the fish were plentiful and the village booming; in the summer there were people on the beaches and in the shops. Nowadays—there’s only the post office, the pub, and the bakery. The post office doubles as a general store and does most of the business, and you can still buy a few fresh fish on the quayside before what’s left gets shipped inland. And that’s about it right now. But back then:
“They were even building a few new homes here, extending the village, as it were. This house and yours, they were the result. That’s why they’re newish places. But the road got no further than your place and hasn’t been repaired to any great extent since. Jilly and George’s place was maybe twenty years older; standing closer to the village, it wasn’t as isolated. As for the other houses they’d planned to build on this road, they just didn’t happen. Prices of raw materials were rocketing, the summers weren’t much good any more, and fish stocks had begun a rapid decline.
“The Whites had been here for a year or two. They had met and married in Newquay, and moved here for the same reason we did: the housing was cheaper than in the towns. George didn’t seem to have a job. He’d inherited some fabulous art items in gold and was gradually selling them off to a dealer in Truro. And Jilly was doing some freelance editing for local publishers.”