There’s no doubt that something shady went on that inspired the government to raid the town in 1927. The official report claims this was bootlegging and no doubt it was. The bootleggers fought back, and many were killed. Perhaps they hid some of their booty beneath the sea, which accounts for the explosions that allegedly took place near Devil’s Reef.
There is truth there, I’m sure, but also fantasy and wishful thinking.
Still, I must open myself to all possibilities and search. I’ll expose myself to the ambience of Innsmouth, sniff out its soul.
The elegant dining room of the Gilman House Hotel is Edwardian in theme. The staff are quiet yet pleasant. The dinner they bring me is seafood, exquisitely cooked. I wonder what the ghost of Robert Olmstead would think if he was sitting here with me, observing this lovingly reimagined building. It’s easy to picture him there, opposite me. He appears somewhat surly in a shabby dark suit.
“You see, Robert,” I tell him silently, “all your efforts did no good. The town did not sink into the sea. The notoriety you enhanced has made it this. The food is very good.”
Remembered as being an ascetic, if not a miserly man, he no doubt disapproves of the luxurious fare.
I often create invented beings to accompany me on my travels. I see them as tendrils from the deepest pools of my mind that are able to communicate with me. I decide to take this idea of Robert with me on my walks. I’ll allow him to talk to me, see what comes out of my imagination.
We take the main road across the river, Federal Street, which has the largest bridge. Below us, towards the harbour, the waters throw themselves over the lip of the falls, eager for the sea. The air is full of mist and the perfume of the land—water, wet rock, the tang of salt.
On the bridge across the Manuxet, which feels flimsy above the rowdy waters, I pause to take in the scene. I take a few shots on my phone, place-markers for the future.
Robert is uncomfortable, perhaps afraid.
“It was a long time ago,” I tell him. “Nothing can harm you now, not even memory.”
It’s recorded that, when he died, Robert Olmstead firmly believed he was living in a palace beneath the ocean, so perhaps my tulpa of him fears the recent changes in Innsmouth more than its history.
On the other side of the Manuxet, we turn east into River Street and follow this until we reach Water Street and the harbour. Everything looks ancient and faded, but not derelict—a deliberate effect. The tide is in, and the fishing boats rub against one another in the docks. I wonder whether they are still used for fishing or merely for ferrying tourists, perhaps not even that. Along the sea front, there are cafés and fish restaurants, yet more gift shops, and a small maritime museum. There are piles of pumpkins here too, most of them for sale, heaped outside the small shops. Their smell soaks the air, mingling with the aroma of the sea. Seagulls hang in the air, uttering cries that conjure inexorably the boundless summers of childhood. Families stroll up and down the harbour. A child skips by me, wearing a witch’s hat and holding a green balloon with a picture of a fishy face on it.
In the water, a few heads of corn are bobbing—an accidental spill from a shop crate or a local custom? I photograph the scene on my phone.
The harbour is constructed around a cup-shaped cape, with the open side to my right. A spit of land can just be discerned across the water. Beyond that, the ocean will be wild, untamed, unlike this waterfront calm. Perhaps the far side will be more like the original Innsmouth. As I stare at it, the place exudes a greater sense of desolation.
As the night draws in and the temperature drops, a grey veil of mist rises from the prowling sea, but I think I can just about make out the dark smudges of the reef emerging from the far waters to the northeast of the cape, the smash of waves against them.
Robert is being stubborn. When I invite him to talk all he can repeat in my head is “I cannot be made to shoot myself.”
Perhaps I should discard him as a companion for a while.
Leaving him to mutter at the water, I head back across the bridge towards the old wharfs, which are picturesquely decayed. A mass of brightly-painted small boats cluster around them, rising and falling restlessly on the high tide, like gulls waiting to be fed. But then I see they are chained together and held to the land with locks and keys. According to a painted sign on the boardwalk, again with cartoon representations of cheery fish people, these vessels can be hired by tourists. In addition, organised trips in larger boats will ferry people out to Devil Reef, where you may peer into the waves and hope to see something scary peering back. I might go there tomorrow.
I find the wharfs beautiful. They have not been overly “prettified” and their sagging boards feel restful rather than an unsettling reminder of inevitable decay.
I wander along the boardwalk, soaking up the atmosphere, taking a few shots on the phone now and again. There are few other people here, as most tourists no doubt prefer the attractions of the harbour and the centre of town.
Eventually the boardwalk sinks into gritty sand, tufted with coarse dune grass. There is a strong salty smell. The twilight comes down and I see there is a figure at the water’s edge. It wears a long bulky coat and appears to be poking around in the rock pools. This person is awkward somehow, their movements those of a self-conscious teenager not yet at home in their skin.
The figure pauses as I approach, and I sense within them an urge to flee.
“Hi,” I say—not too enthusiastically, hardly more than a sigh, really.
I see it’s a woman before me; as yet I can’t determine her age, but she doesn’t feel old to me. She grunts and sidles away. All I see is the gleam of an eye through the lank dark hair that hangs over her face. She’s different. She’s wary. What’s she doing out here?
“Do you live here?” I ask her.
She straightens up and stares at me. She has huge round eyes in a long face, but her jaw is firm and well-sculpted, her lips somewhat thin. She is young, perhaps in her early twenties. She doesn’t have the “look”, as it’s described, yet to me she’s… other. Her long coat hangs open revealing a fisherman’s jumper and trousers tucked into waterproof boots. She carries over her arm a basket filled with shells and stones. “What do you want?” she says in a heavy accent that has a foreign lilt to it.
“I’m a photographer, and I’d like to take your picture.”
She coughs out a short laugh then. She knows my sort, doesn’t have to say so. She’s not conventionally photogenic, so my reasons for capturing her must be voyeuristic in a sense other than sexual. Freak.
But she’s not hideous. If anything, she’s striking: her long hair drifting like strands of seaweed on the breeze, her gaze steady and dark. I can see her in a picture and it would be a good one. It wouldn’t be a picture of a freak.
“My name is Maisie Horne.” I fish out a card from my jacket pocket. It’s turned to felt at the edges from living in my coat too long, but I hold it out to her.
She looks at it without moving.
“When I photograph a place, I seek its inner life, its soul, if you like. I look for interesting people who have stories in their faces…”