The Day of the Storm (7 page)

It was the young man who had sold me the two little cherrywood chairs.

I stood open-mouthed, feeling obscurely that someone had played me a mean and unfair trick. If ever I was in need of a friend it was at this moment, and yet fate had chosen to send me, possibly, the last person on earth I ever wanted to see again. And that he should see me thus, drenched and desperate, was somehow the last straw.

His smile widened. “What a fantastic coincidence. What are you doing here?”

“I've just got off the train.”

“Where are you going?”

I had to tell him. “To Porthkerris.”

“Is someone coming for you?”

I very nearly lied and told him “yes.” Anything to get rid of him. But I was always a useless fibber, and he would be bound to guess the truth. I said, “No,” and then I went on, trying to sound competent, as though I could take good care of myself, “I'm just going to phone for a taxi.”

“It'll take hours. I'm going to Porthkerris, I'll give you a ride.”

“Oh, you don't need to bother…”

“No bother, I'm going anyway. Is that all your luggage?”

“Yes, but…”

“Come on then.”

I still hesitated, but he seemed to consider the matter already settled, going over to the door to open it, and holding it open with his shoulder, waiting for me to follow. So eventually I did so, edging past him, and out into the fury of the dark evening.

In the dim light I saw the Mini pick-up, parked, with the sidelights burning. Letting the door slam behind him, he crossed over to this, and gently loaded his parcel into the back, and then took my rucksack from me, and heaved this in too, covering the two bundles in a cursory fashion with an old piece of tarpaulin. I stood watching him, but he said, “Go on, get in, there's no point us both getting wet through,” so I did as I was told, settling myself in the passenger seat with my bag jammed between my legs. Almost at once he had joined me, shutting his door with an almighty slam, and switching on the engine as though there were not a moment to be lost. We roared up the hill away from the station, and the next moment had turned on to the main road and were heading for Porthkerris.

*   *   *

He said, “Tell me more, now. I thought you lived in London.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Have you come down for a holiday?”

“Sort of.”

“That sounds good and vague. Are you staying with friends?”

“Yes. No. I don't know.”

“What does that mean?”

“Just that. It means I don't know.” This sounded rude but it couldn't be helped. I felt as though I had no control over what I was saying.

“Well, you'd better make up your mind before you get to Porthkerris, otherwise you'll be spending the night on the beach.”

“I … I'm going to stay in a hotel. Just for tonight.”

“Well, that's great. Which one?”

I sent him an exasperated look and he said, reasonably enough, “Well, if I don't know which one, I can't take you there, can I?”

He seemed to have me cornered. I said, “I haven't booked in to any hotel. I mean, I thought I could do that when I arrived. There
are
hotels, aren't there?”

“Porthkerris is running with them. Every other house is a hotel. But at this time of the year most of them are closed.”

“Do you know some that are open?”

“Yes. But it depends what you want to pay.”

He glanced at me sideways, taking in my patched jeans, scuffed shoes, and an old fur-lined leather coat that I had worn for warmth and comfort. At the moment this garment looked and smelt like a wet dog.

“We go from one extreme to the other. The Castle, up on the Hill, where you change for dinner, and dance the foxtrot to a three-piece orchestra, right down to Mrs Kernow who does Bed and Breakfast at Number Two, Fish Lane. Mrs Kernow I can recommend. She looked after me for three months or more before I got into my own place, and her prices are very reasonable.”

I was diverted. “Your own place? You mean you live here?”

“I do now. Have done for the last six months.”

“But … the shop in the New Kings Road … where I bought the chairs?”

“I was just helping out for a day or so.”

We came to a crossroads, and, slowing down, he turned to look at me. “Have you got the chairs yet?”

“No. But I've paid for them. They'll still be there when I get back.”

“Good,” said the young man.

We drove for a little in silence. Through a village, and up over a wild bit of country high above the sea; then the road leaned down again, and there were trees on either side of us. Through these, through twisted trunks and branches tortured by the wind, there presently appeared, far below us, the twinkling lights of a little town.

“Is that Porthkerris?”

“It is. And in a moment you're going to have to tell me if it's to be The Castle or Fish Lane.”

I swallowed. The Castle was out of the question, obviously, but if I went to Fish Lane I would necessarily place myself under an obligation to this managing person. I had not come to Porthkerris for any other reason than to see Grenville Bayliss, and I had an uncomfortable feeling that if I once got involved with this man he would stick like a burr.

I said, “No, not The Castle…” meaning to suggest some other, more modest establishment, but he cut me short.

“That's great,” he said, with a grin. “Mrs Kernow of Fish Lane it is, and you won't regret it.”

My first impression of Porthkerris, in the dark and the gusty rain, was confused to say the least of it. The town was, on this unsalubrious evening, nearly empty of people; the deserted streets gleamed wetly with reflected light, and the gutters ran with water.

At a great speed, we plunged down into a warren of baffling lanes and alleys, at one time emerging out on to the road which circled the harbour, only to turn back once more into the maze of cobbled roads and uneven, haphazard houses.

We turned at last into a narrow street of grey terrace houses, with front doors opening flush on to the pavement.

All was seemly and respectable. Lace curtains veiled windows, and there could be glimpsed statuettes of girls with dogs, or large green pots containing aspidistras.

The car slowed at last and stopped.

“We're here.” He switched off the engine, and I could hear the wind and, above its whine, the nearby sound of the sea. Great breakers thundered up on to the sand, and there was the long hiss of the retreating waves.

He said, “You know, I don't know your name.”

“It's Rebecca Bayliss. And I don't know yours.”

“Joss Gardner … it's short for Jocelyn, not Joseph.” With this useful bit of information he got out of the car and rang a bell in a door and, while waiting for an answer, went to retrieve my rucksack from underneath the tarpaulin. As he heaved it out, the door opened and he turned and was illuminated in a shaft of warm light which streamed from inside the house.

“Joss!”

“Hallo, Mrs Kernow.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I've brought you a visitor. I said you were the best hotel in Porthkerris.”

“Oh, my soul, I don't belong to take visitors at this time of the year. But come along in now, out of the rain, what weather isn't it? Tom's down at the Coastguard lodge, been some sort of a warning up from the Trevose way, but I don't know, I haven't heard no rockets…”

Somehow we were all inside and the door shut and there was scarcely room for the three of us to stand in the narrow hall.

“Come along in by the fire … it's nice and warm, I'll get you a cup of tea if you like…” We followed her into a tiny, cluttered, cosy parlour. She knelt to poke the fire to life and add more coal, and for the first time I was able to take a good look at her. I saw a small, bespectacled lady, quite elderly, wearing bedroom slippers and a pinafore over her good brown dress.

“We don't really want tea,” he told her. “We just want to know if you can give Rebecca a bed—for a night or so.”

She stood up from the fireplace. “Well, I don't know…” She looked at me doubtfully, and what with my appearance and the dog-smelling coat I didn't blame her for being doubtful.

I started to open my mouth, but Joss sailed in before I could say a word. “She's highly respectable and she won't run away with the spoons. I'll vouch for her.”

“Well…” Mrs Kernow smiled. Her eyes were pretty, a very pale blue. “The room's empty, so she may as well have it. But I can't give her supper tonight, not expecting anybody, I haven't anything in the house but a couple of little pasties.”

“That's all right,” said Joss. “I'll feed her.”

I started to protest, but once again I was overborne. “I'll leave her here to get settled in and unpacked, and then I'll be back about—” he glanced at his watch—“seven thirty, to pick her up. That all right?” he flung casually in my direction. “You're an angel, Mrs Kernow, and I love you like a mother.” He put an arm around her and kissed her. She looked delighted; then he gave me a final, cheerful grin, said, “See you,” and so departed. We heard his car roaring away down the street.

“He's a lovely boy,” Mrs Kernow informed me. “I had him living here three months or more … now come along, pick up your little bag and I'll show you your room. 'Course it'll be cold, but I've got an electric fire you can have, and the water in the tank's nice and hot if you want a bath … I always say you feel so mucky coming off those dirty trains…”

The room was as tiny as all the other rooms in this little house, furnished with an enormous double bed which took up nearly all the space. But it was clean and, presently, warm, and after Mrs Kernow had shown me where to find the bathroom she went back downstairs and left me to myself.

I went to kneel by the low window and draw back the curtains. The old frames had been jammed tight shut against the wind by rubber wedges, and the dark glass streamed with rain. There was nothing to be seen, but I stayed there anyway, wondering what I was doing in this little house, and trying to work out why Joss Gardner's sudden re-appearance in my life had left me with this unexplained feeling of unease.

4

I needed defences. I needed to build up my confidence and my self-esteem, disliking the role of rescued waif in which I had suddenly found myself. A hot bath and a change of clothes went a long way towards restoring my composure. I did my hair, made up my eyes, splashed on the last of a bottle of expensive scent and was halfway towards being in charge again. I had already unpacked a dress from the ubiquitous rucksack and hung it hopefully to shed its wrinkles; now I put it on, a dark cotton with long sleeves, and dark stockings, very fine, and shoes with heels and old-fashioned buckles which I had found, long back, on a stall in the Portobello Road … As I fastened my pearl ear-rings I heard, over the rattle and bang of the gusty wind, the sound of Joss Gardner's little van, tyres drumming on the cobbles, coming up the street. It screeched to a noisy halt outside the door, and the next moment I heard his voice downstairs, calling first for Mrs Kernow and then for me.

I continued, slowly, to screw the fastening of the last ear-ring. I picked up my bag, and then my leather coat. This I had draped near the electric fire in the hope that it would dry off, but it hadn't. The heat had merely emphasized the smell of a spaniel come in from a wet walk, and it still weighed heavy as lead. Lugging it over my arm, I went down the stairs.

“Hallo, there.” Joss, in the hall, looked up at me. “Well, what a transformation. Feel better now?”

“Yes.”

“Give me your coat…”

He took it from me intending to help me on with it, and instantly became a comic weightlifter, sagging at the knees with the sheer bulk of it.

“You can't wear this, it'll drive you into the ground. Anyway it's still wet.”

“I haven't got another.” Still toting the coat, he started to laugh. My self-esteem began to drain away and some of this must have showed on my face, because he suddenly stopped laughing and shouted for Mrs Kernow. When she appeared, with an expression both exasperated and loving on her face, he bundled my coat into her arms, told her to dry it for me, unbuttoned and removed his own black oilskin and laid it, with a certain grace, around my shoulders.

Beneath it he wore a soft grey sweater, a cotton scarf knotted at the neck. “Now,” he said, “we are ready to go.” He opened the door, on to a curtain of rain.

I protested, “But you'll get wet,” but he only said “Scuttle” so I scuttled, and he scuttled too, and the next instant we were back in the van, scarcely wet at all, with the doors banged tight and shut against the storm, although small puddles of rain on my seat and at my feet gave rise to the suspicion that this staunch vehicle was no longer as watertight as it had once been. But he started the noisy engine and we were away, and with the volume of water both outside and inside the car it was a little like being taken for a fast ride in a leaky motor boat.

I said, “Where are we going?”

“The Anchor. It's just round the corner. Not very smart. Do you mind?”

“Why should I mind?”

“You might mind. You might have wanted to be taken to The Castle.”

“You mean to foxtrot to a three-piece orchestra?”

He grinned. He said, “I can't foxtrot. Nobody ever learned me.”

We flashed down Fish Lane, around a right angled corner or two, beneath a stone archway and so out into a small square. One side of this was formed by the low, uneven shape of an old inn. Warm light shone from behind small windows spilled from a crooked doorway and the Inn sign over the door swung and creaked in the wind. There were four or five cars already parked outside, and Joss inserted the van neatly into a tidy space between two of them, turned off the engine, said, “One, two, three, run,” and we both got out and sprinted the short distance between the car and the shelter of the porch.