The Mysterious Affair at Castaway House (16 page)

‘I’m glad you came along,’ said Harry after he’d closed the gate and got back in. ‘I’ve been coming up to the house all week, trying to catch you in.’

‘I know,’ I muttered, as he roared out into the traffic
and then right along the seafront, stuttering to a halt behind a bus as soon as we got there.

He banged the steering wheel. ‘For Christ’s sake!’

I jumped, but Harry was only referring to the traffic jam.

‘Bloody buses.’

The car was waiting directly beside the fun park, with the Majestic Arcade opposite. I turned away from it and faced the stationary merry-go-round and the idling dodgems. As I gazed, nervous, preparing for the encounter I knew was coming, I saw Johnny emerge from round the back of the ride, adjusting his trousers and squaring his shoulders. I grimaced at having seen him, realizing he must have been for a pee, and then was surprised to see the boy who ran the dodgems also emerging from the same place a few seconds later. He swung up on to the platform in one quick move and lifted a hand. I switched my gaze to Johnny, who was now striding along the seafront, one hand also lifted in farewell, although if I hadn’t seen both of them I’d never have realized they were waving to one another.

Odd, I thought, and then the bus lumbered forwards and we followed in its wake.

‘Don’t take me back to Castaway,’ I said. ‘I don’t want you ever to go to my house again.’

‘Your home’s in Petwick,’ said Harry, but he obeyed me, and instead of turning up the cliff we continued along the promenade, past Riccardo’s ice-cream parlour and the barred entrance to the pier, all the way along to the sheer wall of rock rising up in front of us. Harry nosed his car to a spot beside the pavement, turned off his engine and
looked at me. ‘Now then, will you stop playing silly buggers and move back in with me and your mother?’

I stared out through the windscreen at the black face of the rock. ‘Is that all you wanted to say?’

He paused and then leaned across me. I stiffened, but he only flipped open the glove compartment and took out his packet of fags. He pressed the lighter button on the controls and sat back. ‘It’s killing Grace, all this nonsense.’

‘She’ll get over it.’

‘It’s your education, that’s what she’s worried about. Throwing up your schooling like that. There’s no need for it.’

I tightened my lips and continued staring straight ahead. ‘Is that everything?’

‘She knows I’ve been coming, you know. Practically sent me round there. She’s worried about you, living by yourself.’

‘I’m not living by myself.’

‘Not returning her phone calls.’

I turned to him now and opened my mouth, but he spoke before I could.

‘She only wants a chat.’

‘All right.’ I gripped the seat edge. ‘I’ll call her tomorrow.’

‘Not tomorrow. She’s visiting your auntie. Sorting out the sale of the farm; said she won’t be back till late.’

‘Okay. Thursday.’ An idea took hold of me: Mum would be out all day tomorrow. The house would be empty, and Thursday was a whole other day away. ‘Tell her I’ll call her on Thursday.’

‘And not before time.’ The lighter popped out. ‘If you ask me.’

I watched him as he lit his cigarette and blew smoke into the confined space of the car. ‘The reason I left home was because of you,’ I said. ‘The reason I haven’t been returning her calls is because of you. Because I don’t know how I can talk to her any more. And when she asks me why, I don’t know how I can lie.’

‘Jesus, Rosie, you’re such a drama queen.’ He wound the window down a fraction and tipped ash out into the breeze. ‘I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of things. We were having a bit of fun. Where’s the harm in that?’

‘Fun for you,’ I snapped.

‘Hey.’ He tapped my arm and, despite myself, I shivered. ‘You were more than willing, as far as I can recall. Christ, you nearly gave me a heart attack when I came home from work and your mum was in bits, saying you’d moved out. If we’d actually … you know … well, you know what I mean … I’d have been petrified you’d got yourself up the duff.’

I switched my gaze back to the cliff. A pensioner, an elderly man, was hobbling on a stick past the car. I watched him move slowly all the way to the end of the pavement and lean on the rail for breath. ‘I feel bad enough already,’ I said. ‘Don’t make me feel worse.’

‘No need to feel bad.’ He leaned closer towards me; I smelled his familiar smoky breath as he murmured, ‘As long as she never finds out, where’s the harm?’

‘You should never … We should never have …’

His face was very close to mine now. I turned towards him and he eased his lips on to mine.

‘There you go,’ he whispered, pulling away. He was
clever, Harry, moving back while I still wanted more. A small kiss, and he knew he had me hooked back in. ‘Just a bit of fun, see?’

‘No.’ I hugged my arms around myself. ‘It’s not fun, it’s wicked. It’s evil.’

‘Bloody hell.’ He sighed heavily, and I was relieved, because while he was frustrated he was less attractive to me. ‘Look, I like you, you like me. You’ll be off to university soon, won’t you? And we’ll say no more about it.’

I looked at him now, feeling stronger. ‘Listen, I don’t care whether you think I’m being stupid or childish or whatever, I don’t want to see you again.’

‘Well, that’s going to be a bit difficult, eh, seeing as how I’m married to your mother.’

‘You could go.’

He laughed at that.

‘If you leave,’ I continued, ‘I’ll move back in.’

‘And how’s that going to help? Devastate your poor mother? Ruin her life?’

‘You’re not that special,’ I said. ‘If you really loved her, you’d do the decent thing.’

‘Hey.’ He jabbed a finger towards me, and this time I didn’t shiver. ‘You’re her daughter. You’re the one with her blood. If you had any sort of loyalty you’d never have tried it on with me in the first place.’

I spluttered for a bit, almost inarticulate with rage, before saying, ‘It was you! You made a move on me.’

‘Don’t be a silly bitch. Swanning around in that itsy-bitsy school uniform, giving me welcome-home kisses. I mean, look at what you’re wearing now, all sexed up. What was I supposed to think?’

I was helpless with the awfulness of it all. I tugged at my prim pinafore dress. ‘But … but that was just my school uniform,’ I said. ‘And this is just me. Being me.’

‘You’re so full of crap.’ He flung the end of the cigarette out of the car. ‘You’re a little minx, and you know it.’

‘Stop it!’ I put my hands over my ears. ‘Just stop it!’

‘I’m a man, Rosie. I have urges.’

I grappled with the car door and swung it open. As I picked up my handbag, he said, ‘Don’t be like this. You’re a special kid, you know?’

I scrambled out of the car. ‘Don’t call me. Don’t come round,’ I snarled, my head full of rage. He was smiling at me, not bothered by anything I’d said, anything that I’d told him I felt. I pulled my house keys out of my bag and slammed the door closed. Holding one of them between finger and thumb, I put it against the door and scratched a line along his paintwork, moving all the way along to the end of the car and then back again.

As soon as he realized what I was doing, he honked long and hard on the horn. ‘Stop that, you slag!’ he roared distantly, from inside the car. By the railing, the pensioner looked up, startled.

I bent down and saw his enraged face. I was still holding my keys in my fist. ‘I never want to see you again!’ I shouted, and then turned and clattered into a heeled run along the prom. Behind me I heard his engine start, and I’d only gone a few yards before he drew up alongside me. He leaned across and rolled down the window.

‘You’re a frigid cow!’ he yelled, and then he stepped on the accelerator and Harry and his E-Type Jag leaped down the seafront and finally disappeared from view.

I held on to the rail. I was beside the entrance to the hacked-in-two pier, with its walkway leading to nowhere. I saw its bolted entrance, the steel bars on the plinth overhanging the damp sand. The pier itself, ten yards further from shore, seemed to be listing into the corrosive sea, splintering under the relentless, daily wash of salt and seagull droppings.

A wave of despair for that poor old pier engulfed me, and I found myself exploding into sobs, shaking with the force of them, bent double over the railing as tears and snot dripped on to the sandy rocks below. I groped blindly inside my bag for a handkerchief, but had none, and this calamity drenched me further, until I felt as if I too were rolling about in the icy water, flailing and drowning, my skin flaking from sea salt, my hair twisting into a coiled rope, gasping for air and sinking beneath the scudding tide.

‘Here.’

I jumped, as a handkerchief was thrust into my hands. Johnny Clark was beside me, and I cursed him for being there, even as the tears continued to fall.

‘It’s clean,’ he added, and so I took the handkerchief from him and blew my nose and dabbed my eyes and wished he’d go, but he stood there and waited until finally my tears dried and I was left with tired, gritty eyes.

‘I don’t want it back.’ He held his palm towards me. ‘Seriously.’

I swallowed back the last of the sobs. ‘Thank you.’

‘Nobody likes to see a damsel in distress, eh?’ He leaned on the rail a foot away and we remained like that, in silence, watching the sea crash against the sand. After a while he
said, ‘D’you want me to – I dunno – get Star or something? You know, have a chat?’

‘No!’ I said frantically. ‘Please, don’t. I’m fine now. Honestly. It was nothing.’

‘All right, all right, keep your knickers on.’ He turned and leaned with his elbows against the rail. ‘Between you, me and the deep blue sea, eh?’

‘It’s just a – you know – time-of-the-month type thing.’

‘Ugh.’ He grimaced. ‘Here, this ain’t to get out of paying your rent, is it?’

‘Of course not,’ I croaked, my throat raw from sobbing. And then, a spasm of fear twisting my guts, ‘Oh, God, it’s today, isn’t it?’

‘I’ll be down this afternoon.’ He banged the rail with his palms. ‘With my little book.’

Too late, I remembered I still owed the tin a pound. I had fourteen shillings in my purse, and that was it. ‘I’m six bob down,’ I said frantically.

He shrugged. ‘Not my problem. Ask your flatmates for a loan.’

I ran a hand through my hair. ‘I can’t. I mean … oh, Lord …’ I pictured Susan’s sneer. ‘Please, just give me until tomorrow. I’m paid daily. I’ll come up as soon as I’ve finished work, how about that?’

Johnny narrowed his eyes at me and said, ‘I’m too bloody soft, that’s my problem.’

‘Oh, thank you. Thank you.’

He jabbed a finger at me. ‘Before midday, okay?’

‘Yes, yes, absolutely. Before then, even.’ I sniffed, and stuffed the handkerchief up my sleeve. ‘Thank you so much.’

‘All right, don’t make a meal of it.’ He started walking to where Gaunt’s Cliff twisted to the left and climbed steeply upwards. I followed him as he swung around the street sign that marked the start of the hill. ‘You coming to our party on Thursday?’

‘Party?’ My stomach slithered uncomfortably. ‘What party?’

‘I thought Star would’ve told you. Yeah. We’re having a party at our flat. It’s gonna be ace. We’ll have some proper ska, and I got a mate coming with some party starters, and – oh yeah, you got to bring some booze. You should come.’

I swallowed on my raw throat. ‘She didn’t invite me.’

‘So what? I’m inviting you now.’

I rubbed a hand over my swollen eyes. ‘I suppose she doesn’t want me to come.’

Johnny huffed. ‘What is it with you girls? You’re always so touchy. It’s like that other one she was mates with last year.’

I peered at him. ‘What other one?’

‘Oh, some bird called Gill. I dunno, it was back when me and Star were all part of the same gang, before we got together, you know. Her and Gill, they were like best buddies, then they had some stupid row over nothing and off that one goes to London and Star’s all in tears over it.’

We were approaching the top of the hill now; outside the Bella Vista, I saw a taxi pull up, its engine ticking as the driver got out to open the side door. I remembered my conversation with Star yesterday, and wondered if that row with Gill had had anything to do with the way Star had flared up at me. There was something there, some truth I wasn’t quite able to put my finger on.

‘I’m not touchy,’ I said. ‘And I’m coming to the party, okay?’

‘Ooh, Lady Muck.’ Johnny snorted. ‘Grace us with your presence, why don’t you.’

‘Shut up.’ I grinned anyway, and watched a plump woman in early old age climb out of the car with difficulty, leaning on a stick the driver was handing her.

As we approached them on the opposite side of the road I said, ‘By the way, how d’you know what’s-his-name – you know, the boy who works on the dodgems at the fun park? I worked opposite him for weeks, only I never saw you then.’

‘I don’t know him,’ snapped Johnny. ‘Who told you I knew him?’

‘Nobody. I saw you when we were – when I was – oh, just now. I was going along the prom and I saw you. Chatting,’ I added, although that wasn’t exactly what I had seen – at least, not the second time.

‘What are you on about? I was just passing. He asked if I had a light.’ Johnny spoke rapidly, swallowing hard. ‘I mean, I know him. I know everyone. Adam, his name is.’

‘Adam, right, that’s it.’ I saw the woman across the road standing about imperiously as if she expected something dramatic to happen on her arrival.

‘He’s just … you know. Nobody special.’ Johnny clicked his neck left and right, as the woman waved at somebody in the doorway of the guest house.

We crossed the road towards Castaway, and I saw Mrs Hale come down the steps and along the path to the pavement. As we drew level alongside the woman, I heard her say, ‘There you are, Maddie,’ and a half-acknowledged
assumption gathered substance in my brain. The woman had that sort of blonde hair that never really greys, just fades away, and a mottled complexion. She was carrying a handbag with a garish brass clasp, and had a shawl thrown over one shoulder, fastened with an amber-coloured brooch.

Mrs Hale handed the driver a note, murmuring, ‘Keep the change.’