The Mysterious Affair at Castaway House (11 page)

‘Don’t know the meaning of work, your generation.’ Josie sniffed. ‘Once you’ve picked shards of glass out of some poor sod caught in a blast, you’ll know what hard graft is.’

Mrs Hale glanced at her. ‘V. A. D., were you?’ she asked, surprised.

‘Do I look like a mug?’ Josie snapped. ‘It was my Derek. Come home one night looking like a chandelier. I said to him, if you will go gallivanting about Princes Street, what do you expect?’

‘Terrible.’ Mrs Hale sighed. ‘All those pointless deaths …’

‘Well, Derek didn’t die. More’s the pity, I sometimes think.’

‘And Rosie’s father.’ Mrs Hale turned to me. ‘Did you say he was shot?’

I nodded. ‘He was all right then; it was after I was born the pneumonia got him. The doctor said his whole system was too weak to take it.’

‘Your poor mother.’ Mrs Hale shook her head and sighed again.

Josie snorted and pulled another cigarette from her black leather handbag, which lived on the desk like a malevolent tomcat. ‘When my mum got the telegram about my dad being missing at Passchendaele,’ she sniffed, ‘she thought he was still alive, soppy cow. Two weeks later, one of his mates knocks on the door. He’s on crutches, holding a shoebox. Gives it to her and says, “That’s all we found of Bill.” She opens it up and there’s this finger sticking up at her. Six months pregnant with me, she was, and she goes and faints on the doorstep, banging her head. When she wakes up she says, “I knew it was his finger straight off. Never would clean under his nails, the dirty bugger.” ’

Mrs Hale gave a patient smile and handed me my coat
and handbag from behind the desk. ‘See you on Wednesday, Rosie,’ she said as I left. ‘Enjoy your day off.’

I waved her goodbye, excited at the prospect of no work for nearly forty-eight hours. I practically ran down the steps on to the street. The wind was racketing along the cliff top, blowing my hair about my face as I walked towards town, and the clouds were yet again threatening rain; but I was so glad to be free from work that I skipped my way down the cliff, and forgot about the note and Harry and all the rest of it, in the delight of being alive, and the delicious sense that all of life was bursting out before me, a hundred avenues, a thousand possibilities. I had cash in my handbag and was going shopping at Bradley’s.

I turned left on to King Street and then right on to Wellington, passing Lady Lucinda with my head turned the other way so I wouldn’t have to see the sandals I knew were still gracing the plinth in the window display. I trotted past a headscarfed housewife wheeling a giant pram, and at the plate-glass doors followed a lady in a camel coat and stilettos over the marbled step and into the hallowed entrance of the department store, passing under the huge three-sided clock that hung from chains lashed to the ceiling of the ground floor.

The six storeys of Bradley’s had been the engine of my childhood, with its lift operator punching buttons, its block letters proclaiming such exotic names as
Haberdashery
or
Lingerie
, its coffee shop at the top where you could look out over Helmstone while lacy-aproned girls served grated-cheese sandwiches. It had been our treat, Mum
and I, back when she was the centre of my world, the pavements of Petwick its cosy perimeter, and a day trip into town the highlight of my week.

I took the new escalator up to the top and worked my way down, starting at Menswear and perusing the racks of shirts and slacks with the eagerness of an explorer, embarrassedly gathering up underpants and flinging them into my basket, covering them up with packets of socks. A pleat-skirted salesgirl saw my numerous items and offered to pack them up for me. She added, with a superior, lipsticked smile, that they could be delivered for a small charge.

‘Of course, if you’d like extra help to find any more goods,’ she said, eyeing the huge quantity of notes I still held in my hand, ‘we’d be happy to oblige.’

‘That would be wonderful,’ I purred, and so, for a short, happy hour I was once again a member of the moneyed classes. A young lad raced about the shop for me picking up toiletries and groceries, while I found myself drifting towards Ladies’ Clothing. The new autumnal range was in stock; I fingered polo neck jumpers and wool skirts, wishing I’d thought, on leaving home, to pack for future seasons, and not just the one I was in.

After Ladies’ Clothing came Ladies’ Footwear and the special Modern Girl section, and of course they were there, the same fab white sandals that had been gracing the window of Lady Lucinda all summer. They had a thick round buckle and a low heel, and the tiny price tag attached to it read, in discreet handwriting,
45/-
.

I caressed the shoes furtively. They were five bob
cheaper than they were in the shoe shop, not that it made any difference to me: I wasn’t about to buy them. Despite myself, my thoughts returned to the mountain of Dockie’s notes still squashed into the bottom of my bag, and I knew that he’d never notice how much I returned to him. He hadn’t even asked for a receipt.

I wrestled with my conscience for several minutes, as another pleat-skirted, red-lipsticked salesgirl hovered discreetly nearby, waiting for my nod. I had helped him, after all; more than anyone else would have done. I would never, ever be able to afford the shoes. I would never be able to afford anything decent ever again – or, at least, not for years and years, which was the same thing. And what did he need the money for, in any case?

‘Can I help you, miss?’ The salesgirl took a step closer.

‘I’m not sure.’ I thought of the day before I’d thrown everything up in the air, when I’d gone into town with my schoolfriends and had bumped into Harry, purely by coincidence, and he’d made them giggle and I’d said nothing at all. He’d tagged along, even though I hadn’t wanted him to, and as we were exclaiming over the white shoes in the window, he’d offered to buy them for me.

‘What, now?’ Sheila had said, and I’d caught the puzzled look that passed between her and Mary, and I’d known that it wouldn’t be long before they caught on.

‘It
is
my birthday in a month,’ I’d said archly, and they’d nudged and teased me for the way I’d said it, and I hoped I’d distracted them enough that they wouldn’t twig that all the little extra things I’d come to school with – the gold-nibbed fountain pen, the bound copy of
Madame Bovary
, the lipstick applied in secret at break time – hadn’t
come from my non-existent savings but from the pocket of the man trailing us around town right now.

Well, I was glad I was finished with that, although the presents had been nice, and I sort of wished I hadn’t got used to them.

‘Let me know if you need me,’ the salesgirl said a little wearily, clearly thinking I was a time-waster.

‘Wait,’ I said as she turned to go. ‘You wouldn’t have these in a size three, would you?’

Sometime later I headed out of Bradley’s, several paper bags clutched in my fists, one of them containing a rather beautiful pair of expensive white sandals. The plate-glass door was opened for me, I was waved off with cheerful smiles, and I bounced back along Wellington Street, grinning at the shoes in the window, turning left on to King Street and then right at the seafront up Gaunt’s Cliff, pleased that I’d done a good turn, not only to the old man but also to myself.

When I got back to Castaway, I went straight down to the basement and knocked on Dockie’s door with a confident fist. ‘Hello!’ I called. ‘Rosie here. I’ve got some things for you.’

Just like yesterday, there was no answer, although this time as I hammered again I heard somebody behind the door opposite snarling at me to shut the fuck up. After several more knocks, which were again greeted with insults from across the way, I realized, belatedly, that he must not be there.

I looked at the bags in my hand and glanced down the passageway. I had a feeling that if I left them outside his door they would be gone within half an hour, and so I
tried the handle to his room. When it gave, I opened and stepped in.

The smell of yesterday had lessened slightly, perhaps due to the open window. The closed curtains billowed inwards, rippling grey daylight across the dim room. I made out the shape of the table and went to put the bags on it.

‘Who’s there?’

I yelped and turned, my heart hammering. The shape on the bed was shifting. In the dark I could just about see Dockie’s tangled head and lumpy body.

‘You scared the living daylights out of me!’ I dropped the bags, went to the window and pulled the curtains open. Dockie was lying on one arm; he had removed his overcoat and boots at least, which were lying on the floor, but the blanket was cramped around his much-darned stockinged feet. His eyes were half-closed and gummy.

‘Whassgoinon?’

‘It’s me. Rosie.’ I returned to his bedside and looked down at him. ‘I’ve brought your shopping.’

‘Ugh.’ He put a hand to his brow to hold back the light.

‘You asked me to buy you some things. You gave me money.’ I opened my handbag and took out his change, putting it on the table where the torn envelope still lay. No, I decided, he would never, ever notice the missing forty-five bob.

He grunted something which sounded like, ‘My head,’ and rolled over on to his side.

‘There’s more being delivered later,’ I said brightly, conscious of the shoes in their clean white box, wrapped in
tissue paper. I was still holding this bag in my hand, and placed it carefully beside the door. ‘But look, I’ve brought you some groceries. Shall I make you a cup of tea?’

‘Tea.’ He snorted. ‘Tea.’

I thought that might be some sort of assent, and took one of the bags to the kitchenette, filling the kettle at the sink and setting it on the gas. ‘You do remember, don’t you?’ I said, lighting the flame with a match.

‘Mmm.’ There was a pause. ‘You’re the girl. You came before.’

‘That’s right. I’m Rosie. You’re Dockie.’ I looked over at him; he appeared to be hanging half off the bed now. ‘You left Dublin?’

I heard another ‘Mmm’, but it sounded more certain now. I busied myself with spooning tea into the battered metal pot and setting a chipped cup and saucer on the side.

‘The house,’ he muttered. ‘The name of the house.’

‘This place? Castaway House?’

He grunted. ‘Yes. Oh, God, my head.’ There was a squeak of bedsprings and he shuffled himself up to sitting, resting his back against the wall. ‘I have a problem … with my head. It doesn’t allow me to … to breathe.’

I glanced at him. ‘To breathe?’

‘To think. To remember.’

‘Yes,’ I said, as the kettle whistled and I poured boiling water into the pot. ‘You said you’d been on a bender.’

‘Ah. Of course. The bender.’ His gummy eyes peeled open further and appeared to take me in for the first time. ‘You … went shopping?’

‘You asked me, as a favour.’ My cheeks burned as I poured the tea and spooned in powdered milk, wondering if he’d notice my mangling of the truth. ‘To, you know, buy you some clothes and whatnot.’

‘I think I remember.’ He breathed slowly, as if unsure of his lungs. ‘Thank you.’

‘That’s all right.’ I opened the packet of sugar and shook some into the cup. ‘Here’s your tea.’

I brought it over to him and he took it from me carefully. I pulled out a chair from under the table and sat on it sideways. ‘Do you want me to call a doctor?’

‘Absolutely not.’ He blew on his tea. ‘I shall be fine very shortly.’

‘It’s just that you don’t seem …’ I paused. ‘At all well, really.’

He sipped his tea and sighed. ‘I have a problem with my memory,’ he said. ‘It’s not the booze, you know. The booze is medicine, to stop these headaches. I am plagued, you see, by terrible headaches.’

‘Okay,’ I said slowly. ‘If you say so.’

‘I don’t expect you to understand.’ He glanced up at me. ‘The tea is excellent. You will make someone a good wife one day.’

I barked a sour laugh and put my chin on the back of the chair. ‘So you still don’t know why you’re here?’ I asked.

‘Castaway House …’ He sighed. ‘A tattoo on my heart. Castaway House.’

‘Items from a newspaper, you said.’ I recalled mentioning that to him yesterday, although this time he forbore from going through his pockets yet again.

‘Ah. Yes. That rings a bell.’ He frowned. ‘I believe it was the reason for the bender.’

‘You read a newspaper and went on a bender?’

‘I’m not sure. Perhaps. I suppose I read something important.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s gone, I’m afraid. Maybe it will return.’

I glanced at the table beside me, where I’d laid the money. Beside it was the tatty envelope. ‘That photograph, from the envelope,’ I said, sliding it out and showing him. ‘This isn’t what you meant, is it?’

He looked at it. ‘I have always owned that,’ he said. ‘I was born with it.’

I put it back inside the envelope. ‘I thought it might be you as a baby,’ I said. ‘But I wasn’t sure.’

‘Ah, now, as to that I have no idea. If it is indeed a baby, I am at a loss as to which baby it might be.’

I frowned. ‘But you said you were born with it.’

‘On the docks. I was born with it on the docks.’

‘You were born on the docks?’ He’d muttered something about this yesterday, but I hadn’t been paying attention.

His red-rimmed eyes flicked in my direction. ‘By which I mean,’ he added, ‘that I was found on the docks.’

‘Really? How odd.’

‘By Frank. He found me on the docks, wrapped in a torn blanket, clutching this photograph, and there I was born, because prior to that moment I have no memory at all.’

I leaned forwards on my chair. ‘What do you mean, no memory?’

‘I mean exactly that. Of what happened to me before,
there is nothing but smoke and fog.’ He shrugged. ‘But it was a long time ago, you understand. It is of little consequence now.’

‘But that’s … but that’s … how old were you? I mean – you weren’t a child?’

‘Not in physical form, no.’ He breathed heavily. ‘But in many other respects, that is exactly what I was.’

I put a hand to my mouth. ‘That’s incredible.’

‘And ever since then … you see, the headaches. They get in the way of my remembering. I have a brain somewhat akin to a Swiss cheese.’