Deep Water, Thin Ice (5 page)

Alex shook her head and offered a weak smile.

‘Thank you but I’m fine really. It’s nothing.’

‘It’s no trouble. Let me look at them for you. It’ll only take a minute.’ The woman peeled off a glove and held out her hand, smiling warmly and creasing up the floury soft skin of her cheeks. ‘I’m Elizabeth Franklin. Call me Liz. What happened to you?’

‘I fell asleep on the beach.’ Alex took the proffered hand, feeling foolish. ‘I’m Alex by the way. The tide came in while I was asleep and I was cut off. I scrambled up what looked like a path but it was very rocky. Stupid of me wasn’t it?’

‘Happens all the time,’ Liz said comfortably. ‘Coastguard’s always busy round here.’ She turned as she spoke and began to walk back up the long brick path to the house. ‘Come in, come in. I was just about to make some tea,’ she called over her shoulder and after a moment’s hesitation, Alex felt obliged to follow.

Twenty minutes later, her wounds washed and dressed, Alex was shown into the sitting room where she perched awkwardly on the edge of a sofa. After so many weeks of self-imposed seclusion she felt obscurely ill at ease at having this company thrust upon her. Liz had talked at her almost incessantly from the moment she’d arrived. She was a widow too apparently, having lost her husband Bill eight years before, four years after moving into the village. And it seemed the whole village knew who Alex was and what had happened to Simon courtesy of the receptionist at the hotel who ‘likes a bit of classical music.’ Alex shuddered to think what else they’d been saying about her.

Liz came through and Alex forced herself to chat over tea and home-made fruit cake. Determined to avoid any probing personal questions, she asked Liz about a dog she’d seen on the beach - a black and white border collie with mismatched eyes.

‘Sounds like Mick Fenby’s dog: Susie. She’s often on the beach. But you don’t see much of
him
. He keeps himself to himself. Lives in an old railway carriage down along the Grenloe.’

‘The Grenloe? The stream that runs over the bar?’

‘Yes. Where that little bridge is. It’s a river really but it’s been so silted up for years that now it pools behind the bar in a long, wide stretch of marshy ground. It’s been like that as long as anyone round here can remember. There’s a rough stone wall reinforcing the bar now.’

‘Yes, I saw…but I don’t remember seeing any sign of a railway.’

‘Oh not now. It used to come right down to the harbour where they loaded the tin into boats – oh centuries ago.’ Liz grinned. ‘Local history was a big hobby of Bill’s, you see, so I’m a second-hand expert. They used The Grenloe originally to move the tin but the mining up river caused it to silt up so they laid the railway instead. But I don’t think there’s much track left now. Tin mining stopped donkey’s years ago. Price fell out of the market. Have another piece of cake why don’t you? No? Are you sure?’ Liz put the plate of cake down again.

‘So why is this Mick Fenby living in a railway carriage there then?’ Alex felt her curiosity piqued for the first time in months.

‘God knows. Why do any of these people live like that? Asserting their independence? Cocking a snook at authority? I don’t know. New Age Travellers – what does that mean anyway? But there’s only him so far as I know. He arrived there about a year before Bill died. There was talk….you know, everyone expecting trouble. But then no-one ever saw him and he caused no bother so everyone stopped talking about him. You see him at the shop every now and then, briefly, in and out. People call him The Birdman. He carves birds in wood apparently and sells them round and about.’ Liz picked up the teapot and smiled expectantly. ‘More tea?’

*

Walking home, her torn and bruised legs increasingly stiff, Alex felt relieved to have got away and then guilty for thinking it. She meant well, Elizabeth Franklin, quite obviously. She was a nice woman. But her helpfulness and endless talk had begun to feel more and more oppressive. At the point at which she’d started to give Alex advice on how to cope with bereavement and the importance of getting out and meeting people, and was she thinking of getting back to her singing before long, Alex had made her excuses and left. Before Liz had allowed her to go however, she’d insisted on pressing a couple of foxgloves in plastic pots on her, assuring her that they could go straight in the ground. ‘They won’t mind a bit of frost.’ They were biennials, she said, and these were second year plants so they should flower soon. ‘Right…thanks,’ Alex had said, feigning enthusiasm. She had no idea what Liz was talking about.

Alex dumped the pots on the ground by the back door and let herself in through the kitchen door. After all Elizabeth’s kindly chatter the house felt bloated with silence, as if it were holding its breath. Nervous suddenly and unsure why, Alex paused a moment, listening, then shrugged it off and went upstairs and ran a hot bath to soak her aching bones and muscles.

Afterwards, walking back into her bedroom in her dressing gown, she glanced towards the corner of the room and frowned. Crossing to the chest of drawers, she reached out her hand to touch the frame of Simon’s photograph, then checked herself and left her hand hovering there. It had been moved, she was sure of it. It was a good eighteen inches from where she’d left it. She always put it back in the same place…didn’t she? Someone had been in and moved the photograph.

Then a sound on the landing made her heart hammer and she froze for a moment before forcing herself to creep to the door and look out. The landing was empty. She looked back at the photograph and shook her head. The doors had been locked; there was no sign of forced entry. She must have made a mistake.

Mick Fenby knew all the back roads and paths in Kellaford Bridge which meant he could get from one place to another without meeting too many people. And he generally moved around during the quietest times of day: early in the morning, last thing at night and that short still spell in the middle of the day when, except in the height of the season, most people were inside getting their lunch. It was just such a time that he chose to visit the new gallery which had opened on the main road down into the village. The previous business, a pottery which had been there for years, had finally closed its doors the summer before, starved out by the difficult seasonal nature of trade in the remote seaside community. Mick made a point of noticing things like that. It wasn’t just that he looked for places to market his carvings. He made it his business to know who was who in the village, what their names were and what they did. Like a bird which always checks an area out thoroughly before choosing a nesting sight and then keeps an eye out for predators, Mick watched his back. If there was going to be a problem he wanted to know which direction it would be coming from.

He rarely spoke to anyone, and generally he was ignored - he was the man in the scruffy clothes who smelt of animals and wood smoke and sweat - but that suited him fine. He’d learnt long since that people’s good opinions were brittle, their friendship fickle, their loyalty when things went wrong unreliable. He kept his eyes and ears open though, noticing signs and planning permission notices, overhearing odd bits of gossip in the shop, walking slowly, his dog at his heels, past men standing outside the pub, smoking their fags. People had become so used to ignoring him, they sometimes seemed to forget he existed.

So he knew that a well-known singer, recently widowed, had come to live in Hillen Hall; that Theo Hellyon had returned from a long spell of itinerant crewing work to live with his odd and condescending mother at the Lodge; and that there was a new harbourmaster in the village, an outsider called Bob Geaton. Bob, it was said, was ex navy and was throwing his weight about a bit, keen to assert himself in the job. Mick had seen him patrolling the harbour or standing outside his office on the quay. He was broadly-built, his grey hair smartly cut and clipped, the increasing fleshiness of his cheeks not yet ruining his handsome features. He was affable when approached but officious when crossed, and it was his wife, thirty-something and ‘rather vain and full of herself’, who had now opened the gallery.

Mick stood outside the window and looked in, his dog at his heel. In the display behind the glass were a couple of paintings on table easels, one oil, one acrylic, a few hand-painted scarves and some pottery. Hand-made greetings cards were fanned out, flat, on the ledge. Further inside he could see more paintings on the walls, decorated mirrors and a display case of jewellery. Everything looked sleek, polished, and shiny. It had new and trying to make a good impression written all over it. ‘Mm, smart,’ he murmured. ‘What d’you think Suse? Worth a go?’ It was raining and the water pooled on the brim of his waxed hat and then dribbled down onto the window sill as he leaned forward to peer inside. All the display lights were on and a figure moved around at the rear of the shop. ‘Nothing to lose,’ he told himself with more determination than conviction, ordered Susie to ‘stay’, pushed the door open and went in.

Helen Geaton turned round as the bell over the door tinkled and Mick walked in. She had shoulder-length blonde hair, hazel eyes and a clear complexion. Her mouth was shapely and lightly coated in a glossy pink lipstick, her long eyelashes enhanced with mascara. But the smile on her lips shrank at the sight of him and her expression became stony. She glanced down at the water which was dripping off him onto the shiny new oak-boarded floor and then transferred her gaze to the bin bag he was carrying under his arm.

‘Good morning,’ she said tersely. ‘Can I help you?’

Mick didn’t reply but put the bag on the floor and began to peel back the black plastic to reveal two newspaper-wrapped bundles.

‘Actually,’ she began, ‘I’m not taking…’ She stopped as he pulled the newspaper off an exquisitely carved wooden bird with long, fragile-looking legs and a curved beak. She walked over and picked it up, examining it as he unwrapped the second one and set it on the floor.

‘This is lovely.’ She fingered its swooping lines and the fine detail around its face.

‘It’s an avocet,’ he said. ‘That’s a wood sandpiper.’ He pointed to the one on the floor. ‘In case you didn’t know.’

‘Uhuh.’ She nodded, put the first one down and picked up the second. She nodded again. ‘They’re good.’

‘Can you sell them?’ said Mick.

‘I might be able to,’ she said cautiously. ‘What do you want for them?’

‘Whatever you can get.’

‘I take a commission.’

‘How much?’

‘Thirty per cent.’

‘Twenty-five.’ You never got anything unless you asked, he reasoned.

‘Thirty.’

‘Aw, come on, what do you have to do, stand them somewhere? It’s not a lot of effort for twenty-five per cent.’ He paused, raised his eyebrows at her and smiled. He sensed her wavering. ‘They don’t need polishing or even feeding. And if they don’t sell, you’ve lost nothing.’

She relented and sighed.

‘All right, twenty-five. This time anyway.’

Mick nodded and bent over to pick up the newspaper and plastic bag.

‘I’ll call in now and then,’ he said, ‘to check if they’ve sold. Can I have a receipt?’

‘Of course.’

She walked to the glazed oak counter, put the carving down on it and rooted in the drawer underneath for her receipt pad. Mick rammed the wrappings in the huge pockets of his fraying canvas jacket and came to stand nearby.

‘Ah, here it is,’ she said with a flourish, and then looked up at him through her eyelashes. ‘You don’t trust me,’ she said with a coy smile.

‘Not especially, no. Write the terms down as well, will you?’

The smile faded.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Mick Fenby.’

‘And your address? Or a phone number?’

‘Like I said, I’ll call in.’

Helen Geaton scribbled on the pad, tore off the fair copy, and handed it to him.

‘And tell me, if anyone wanted you to do one to commission, would you do that?’ she asked.

‘No,’ he said abruptly, pocketed the paper, turned and left.

*

But for the day of Alex’s walk to the beach, the first two weeks of May stayed intermittently showery. The two foxgloves Liz Franklin had given her sat outside the back door and reproached her every time she went out. Apathy was still a problem and the flurry of cleaning activity was burnt out. She read a little and watched television with disinterest. The books had been there when she arrived, shelves of them with dusty covers and foxed paper, and the television was ancient with a set top box to convert the digital signal. Reception was erratic and the picture quality poor. She toyed with ordering a new television over the internet and maybe a DVD player – she’d always loved films, especially old ones - but kept putting the decision off. Then a bout of restlessness hit her and she made another effort at cleaning, attacking the dining room and a couple of days later, one of the other bedrooms. The foxgloves parched and began to turn yellow, the rain barely touching their surface. When the bottom leaves went brown she threw water over them from a mug filled at the kitchen tap. Then the showers finally stopped and the sun came out in earnest and she thought perhaps she should try to find somewhere to plant them.

‘Do we need to do something about the house in Devon?’ Alex remembered asking Simon when his mother had died but he’d shrugged the question off. ‘My mother had it all worked out,’ he’d said dismissively. ‘It runs itself. It’ll be fine.’ But it had been obvious from the moment she’d arrived that the garden had had little more than superficial attention in years. She’d found evidence of an old walled garden, set down in the bank to the east of the lawns, which still had espaliered fruit trees along one of its two remaining walls, and a bench underneath them. Some of the lost wall stones were visible further over in the grassy bank. And in a westerly loop of the winding path down the hill, set back among overgrown shrubs, she’d found a large stone basin with a statuesque water nymph tipping a jug over it. At one time it must have been a water feature, fed perhaps from an underground spring, long since dried up. There were little waterways everywhere round the village; you could hear them gurgling even when you couldn’t see them. One of the nymph’s hands was broken off and the features of her face were badly weathered. Alex ran a finger over it sadly, thinking how charming it must have been at one time. She wished she could do something about putting it all right but didn’t know where to start. The garden she had in London was tiny and gardening had never featured in her hobbies; she didn’t know a pansy from a petunia.