Deep Water, Thin Ice (8 page)

*

Alex had begun to spend money on the house. She replaced the cracked and stained crockery, invested in a range of new kitchen equipment, and finally got round to having a new television and DVD delivered. She looked into the options for replacing the rotten windows and contacted an oil company to fill up the tank for the boiler. She’d managed to get the clock going again – she wasn’t sure how – only to have it stop again the same evening. So she’d had a clock specialist out to the house to look at it. He’d serviced its movement and had declared it in remarkably good order. ‘So why does it keep stopping?’ she asked. ‘I’m not sure,’ he replied, sounding disinterested. ‘They can be a bit temperamental.’ He had a bushy head of grey hair and he stooped as if he had all the cares of the world on his shoulders. He only needed the long white beard, thought Alex, to be Father Time himself. ‘If you were more than two hundred years old,’ he continued laconically, ‘You’d probably creak a little too.’ He’d glanced round the room. ‘Maybe it’s not quite level, not quite balanced. Try moving it a little.’ He’d quickly left with her none the wiser. ‘Move it a little,’ she muttered to herself. ‘On my own?’

And in between, she just kept walking. The apathy had largely gone leaving only the nervous agitation which drove her on and wouldn’t let her settle. She wandered round the churchyard, taking in the local Devon names, reading the stones like a potted history of the parish. She sometimes sat in the church, her bottom getting numb on the hard wooden pew. She’d always loved singing sacred music but her faith was more vaguely spiritual than formally religious. Still, imagining Simon waiting for her in some after life was appealing and she clung to the idea much as a capsized sailor clings to his boat. Leaving the churchyard one day by a different gate, she came across the Hellyon family graves and saw the one for Julian, recently dressed with fresh flowers. He’d been born the same year as Simon she noticed and had died late one April, just fifteen years later.
Lost to us too soon
, it said.
But never forgotten
. She quickly moved on.

She walked all the streets of Kellaford Bridge, such as they were, even walked into the new little housing estate near the square, its boxy houses seeming to have been imported from some suburban settlement further east like so many monopoly models, the gardens little more than paved parking spaces. When locals tried to engage her in friendly conversation she was happy to exchange pleasantries but resisted any efforts to involve her in the social life of the village; she didn’t feel ready for coffee mornings, quiz nights or the local history society.

And she walked alongside the River Kella too, round the boatmakers’ sheds, on and up onto the footpath which snaked the muddy margins of the estuary. Oystercatchers patrolled the oozing mudflats, their piping calls echoing eerily between the tree-lined banks as they skittered away from her. The trees on the farther side of the Kella stretched unbroken up the hillside. Round a bend of the river and out of sight of the harbour, the low tide revealed a line of tall stepping stones leading to the opposite bank and a path winding away into the trees heading for the coast. But even at low tide the river ran determined and fast round the base of the stones and she didn’t venture to cross them.

Most commonly however she walked down through the village, over the Grenloe to the coast, where she would stand on the cliff top, feeling the wind in her face, or kick her shoes off and walk Longcombe Beach barefoot, watching the rollers break and hiss onto the sand.

It was a sunny Wednesday morning in the middle of June when Alex saw the odd-eyed collie on the beach again. The dog brought a stick for her to throw. ‘Susie,’ Alex said, remembering what Liz had told her and the collie put her head on one side, then brought the stick a little closer. Alex smiled and threw it for her. A minute later Susie was back with the stick and followed her up the sand, insatiably playful. When Alex left the beach the dog pushed in front of her up the path and waited for her on the cliff top, tongue hanging out, eyes bright and expectant. As Alex reached the top, Susie skipped away again and trotted ahead, tail waving, but by the time Alex reached the footpath which led inland by the Grenloe, the dog had disappeared. Alex walked to the end of the path and looked up through the trees. She’d seen an exquisite carving of a bird in the window of the gallery in the village.
Avocet, by Mick Fenby
the label had said. Liz had called him ‘The Birdman’. Some sort of eccentric artist, Alex assumed, mildly intrigued.

About to turn away, the glint of sunshine on metal caught her eye, a few feet inland along the path. Going forward to investigate, she found a man’s watch, solid, old and scratched with the initials M.F. inscribed on the back of the case. Alex glanced up the path again and then, weighing the watch in her hand, followed it.

The path was little more than a slight wearing of the ground, a track where the vegetation was less inclined to grow. It wound in and out of the trees and branched confusingly with similarly obscure paths. The noise of the village and the constant ping of the boat halyards had gone to be replaced by a wild cacophony of birdsong and the occasional gurgle of trickling water. There was no sign of Susie. Alex, increasingly lost, wished she’d left the watch where it was.

She stopped to get her bearings but everywhere she turned, the view looked the same. Then she heard a dog bark and tentatively followed the sound. The ground opened out, the trees thinned to occasional scrub, and she finally came out in a clearing. To her right stood the old railway carriage, painted a rich racing green, a short run of wooden steps up to a door at each end. Originally an old Pullman car with timber doors and windows, its faded air of gentility looked out of place in this patch of wilderness. Just beyond it stood a large wooden kennel and stretched between trees, farther off, grey washing blew in the breeze. There was no sign of life.

Alex hesitated and then walked up the nearest steps. She knocked three times on the carriage door then peered through the semi opaque oval of glass. She saw no-one and there was no response. The windows were unapproachably high so she walked round to the rear where, beyond a run of wooden sheds, ran two small grass enclosures. Startled hens in the second of them lifted their heads at her approach. Further beyond again she could see the blades of a stainless steel wind generator spinning in the breeze. Turning back, to the rear of the Pullman, was a series of water butts and lengths of tubing, a Calor gas bottle, a couple of metal bins and a pile of chopped logs covered with tarpaulin. But no human and no dog.

She returned to the front and wandered round the clearing, stopping as the ground became increasingly springy and then soft. In front of her was a vast swathe of reeds, swaying and whispering in the breeze, broken in places by banks and areas of scrubby land, the whole stretching inland along the wide, flat bed of the old river. Clinging to the top of one of the reeds nearby was a small brown bird which warbled as it swayed to and fro. From a little way off came an answering song. Two shelducks flew in to land on an open spread of water to Alex’s right, parping as they shuffled their wings and settled. A damsel fly flitted past and swooped low over the water. Alex thought she had had never been anywhere which exuded such a sense of peace.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

She spun round. A man was bearing down on her carrying a saw in one hand and an axe in the other. He was wiry and grizzled, wearing torn, dirty jeans and a sweater covered in wood chippings. Susie left his heels and trotted forward to greet her.

Alex reached a hand down to the dog’s head as the man stopped in front of her.

‘Mr Fenby?’ she said uncertainly, disconcerted.

‘What’s that to you?’

Alex frowned.

‘It was a polite question.’

The man shifted his lower jaw sideways and stared at her. She kept her head up and held his gaze. She was wearing the dark glasses and a small straw hat; her linen dress was plain and long (Why are you wearing a sack? her mother would have said), her feet in flat canvas shoes, her hair braided loosely into a thick plait down her back. A gold treble clef hung from each ear. She stayed completely still while he silently swept his eyes up and down her. While there was nothing sexually invasive about the look, there was no doubt he’d recognise her again.

‘I’m Mick Fenby,’ he said eventually. ‘Who’s asking?’ The voice, with a slight northern brogue, was more educated than his appearance had led her to expect.

‘Alex Munroe.’

‘Ah.’ He nodded as if that made sense. ‘How do you know my name?’

‘Elizabeth Franklin told me.’ His expression registered nothing so she added: ‘From the B and B by the harbour.’

‘I know who you mean. What did she tell you? That I receive visitors on Wednesdays?’ He sneered and she felt like slapping him.

‘Well she didn’t tell me that you were rude.’

Mick Fenby’s face registered surprise for a second and then became stony.

‘So what do you want? You do realise this is private land.’

‘It doesn’t say so.’

‘Yes it does. Perhaps you should look more carefully next time. Take the sunglasses off for instance.’

‘Perhaps you should make the signs more obvious?’

‘Perhaps I should. Or maybe, to stop intruders, I should fence it off completely?’

Alex clamped her lips together to control her temper and stretched out her hand in front of her. She opened her fingers to reveal the watch.

‘Is this yours?’ she asked coldly.

Mick Fenby looked at it and then picked it off her palm taking care not to touch her. He turned it over and then looked back at her.

‘Yes. Where did you find it?’

Alex jerked her head back towards the harbour.

‘On the path just near the bar.’ She paused. ‘I assumed you’d want it or I wouldn’t have nearly got myself lost or maybe drowned…’ She waved a hand at the reed bed. ‘…trying to return it to you.’

‘They’re not that deep. The deepest ditches are about one and a half metres. Still it could be dangerous’ He hesitated and then added: ‘That’s why it’s private.’ He looked at her with a flicker of interest. ‘It seems you’ve already made friends with my dog.’

‘With Susie? Yes. We met on the beach. She brought me a stick to throw.’

He nodded. ‘She would.’

Alex glanced back towards the kennel.

‘Don’t you ever let her in the carriage?’

Mick followed her gaze and then looked back at her. There was the suggestion of a twitch to the corners of his mouth.

‘Sorry for the dog now. Think I ill-treat her do you?’

‘No, I didn’t mean that. There’s no need to be so aggressive. I just thought, if I had a dog, I’d want her company inside, with me.’

‘She does come in sometimes.’ He hesitated. ‘I’m not all bad.’

He had dark eyes, deep and unfathomable. There was a strained silence and then Alex turned away.

‘I’d better go. I wouldn’t want to trespass any longer.’

‘I’d better come with you…so you don’t get lost.’

Or to make sure I’ve gone, thought Alex.

But the walk back to the cliff path seemed much shorter than it had coming.

‘You should fix on something when you walk places like this,’ Mick told her, apparently less hostile now that she was leaving, ‘so you can always mark where you are in relation to it. Like the sun…’ He turned and pointed, ‘…or that big oak over there. Then you won’t get lost.’

‘All the time watching where you put your feet,’ Alex said caustically. ‘So you don’t fall into a ditch. Thanks. I’ll remember that.’ But she couldn’t imagine why she’d ever need the information. She had no intention of going there again.

Alex pressed the bell push of the Lodge and listened. The bell echoed in the hall beyond but there was no response and she fidgeted uncomfortably on the doorstep. Sarah Hellyon had invited her over for coffee. There’d been no phone call, no informal conversation down at the shops. Alex had come downstairs the previous day to find a hand delivered letter on the mat, her name written in a neat round hand on the envelope. Inside, on matching ivory paper, Sarah had suggested, politely but rather formally, that she might call round at ten thirty. To Alex it had felt like a summons and her first reaction had been to refuse.

But, the previous Friday, desperate to move a big piece of furniture, she’d rung Theo to ask if he would mind lending her a bit of muscle. It had been nearly three weeks since his visit to see her but he’d responded as if he’d seen her just the day before and came round late the same afternoon. ‘No problem,’ he’d said, and had seemed to mean it. ‘Have you got anything else you need moving? Sailing gives you muscles.’ And he’d pushed the sleeve of his polo shirt up his arm and flexed it to reveal a bulging biceps. ‘See?’ he’d grinned. Disarmed, she got him to help her adjust the position of the grandfather clock and then admitted that she’d arranged a bulk rubbish collection for the following Monday morning. ‘I’ve got to get it all outside ready and I’m not sure how I’ll manage.’ ‘I’ll come Sunday,’ he’d immediately said, and had spent part of his Sunday afternoon hefting the furniture Alex didn’t want – cheap modern pieces which looked as though they had been bought especially for letting – out onto the drive of the house. He’d even managed to get the shower to work. Afterwards she’d opened a bottle of white wine and they’d shared it, sitting outside on old white painted wrought iron chairs she’d found in one of the sheds and cleaned up. Theo had talked about the house and the village, told stories about his childhood with his brother and included odd memories of Simon. Alex had felt more engaged than she’d been for months. He’d even managed to make her laugh.