The Mysterious Affair at Castaway House (2 page)

When I turned away, I caught my reflection in the huge gilt mirror that tilted at an angle over the disused fireplace. The mirror was tarnished and scratched, and the way it
leaned meant whoever looked in it always felt slightly seasick. I’d lost weight in the short time I’d been here, which perhaps was fashionable, but there were dark hollows under my eyes, and my cheeks were gaunt. I ran fingers through my damp hair, and several strands came away in my hand.

Before I went down for my bath I pulled out R. C. from his hiding place amidst the stack of books I used as a bedside table. Star had given him to me; one of the fifth-floor tenants had found him folded and wedged behind a loose bit of skirting. ‘Same initials as you,’ she’d said. ‘I was going to chuck it away, but, you know, you can have it if you want.’

That was one of the days when she’d been good: funny and generous and happy to seek my friendship. I smoothed out R. C. and studied him again.

It was a pencil sketch of the head and shoulders of a young man. It wasn’t very well done, but there was something about the angle of his cheekbones, the tuft of uncertain hair, the bruised eye sockets, that reminded him of me. His face also had an uncertain look about it, or perhaps that was only suggested by the timid strokes R. C. had made with that pencil, forty-one years ago. Above the picture he’d scribbled,
Twenty minutes after my arrival!
and, at the bottom,
R. C., 10th June ’24
.

It was the exclamation mark that intrigued me. The ‘arrival’ must have been at this house, but I couldn’t work out if the
!
indicated excitement or disbelief. I thought the latter seemed more possible. I’d felt the same twenty minutes after my own arrival, having dragged my cases up the stairs and been told by Susan that we’d all get along just
fine if I didn’t consider myself their friend, they having quite enough to be getting on with, and that the bathroom would be out of bounds between seven and half past eight every morning, and that she usually invited her boyfriend over every Friday evening, so if I could make myself scarce then, it would be much appreciated.

From downstairs, the telephone pealed. I looked at my alarm clock, balanced on the books. It was five o’clock.

I replaced R. C. in his hiding place and reached under the bed to take my towel from the suitcase I kept there, which I used instead of a drawer. I went down towards the bathroom and stopped just outside, looking down the stairs at the jangling phone. I hoped nobody else would answer it. The house certainly felt empty, except, I supposed, for the murderer on the ground floor, Dockie in the basement muttering nonsense, and Johnny, sauntering along one of Castaway’s many hallways.

Finally, the phone rang silent. I breathed out, as if I’d been temporarily reprieved, and opened the door to the bathroom. The tub was nearly full, and I twisted the tap closed, hung my robe on the hook and sank into the scalding water, determinedly not thinking about Mum tapping her nails, the receiver clamped to her ear.

I closed my eyes and concentrated instead on my mysterious R. C., his worried features and his exclamation mark. I mind-sketched arms and legs, gave him a suit jacket and a pair of trousers. I animated him, tried to see him climbing the stairs of Castaway House, but like a wooden man in a Swiss cuckoo clock he kept appearing and disappearing, his face a blank egg, even the features he’d drawn himself dissolving in the bubbles. I contented
myself with writing our initials in steam on the tiles, and then held my breath and lay down under the water, the earth caking my body running back into mud, as if that would wash me clean of my sins.

Both trains were packed all the way from Birmingham New Street to London, and again on the connecting service to the south. It seemed that in every carriage an elderly gentleman was smoking a cigar, and so I gave up my seat fairly early on and spent most of the journey in the corridor, pointing my nose towards the open part at the top of the window in an attempt to avoid a revolt by my lungs.

I had the letter from Alec folded neatly in my top pocket, inviting me once more to Castaway House, assuring me that he had meant what he had said at the funeral, and that I had merely to telegram the day and time of my arrival. I patted it again, feeling the crumple of it against my shirt. It had been my talisman all the way from my small Midlands town, and now, as I trundled through this unknown territory, it was a familial link that told me I was doing the right thing.

Mother hadn’t wanted me to go; she’d had her tea leaves read and was convinced that if I made the journey I’d never come back. Father said it was for the best. ‘Give those lungs of yours a chance, Robert,’ he’d murmured around his pipe when I’d told them of the conversation we’d had at the wake. ‘They need all the help they can get.’

‘It’s Alec,’ Mother had said. ‘He’s always been a flighty one. I don’t trust him.’

‘They’ll be all right.’ Father had rattled his newspaper to indicate the conversation was over. We were in the back parlour, with the oilcloth on the table and Mother’s heirlooms on the mantelpiece, and I attempted to smother my excitement at the idea of a whole summer in Alec’s company by thinking of the rumoured Regency grandeur of Castaway House, my dead Aunt Viviane’s family home.

‘I wouldn’t mind if he lived in a crummy boarding house on the seafront,’ I muttered. ‘I’d probably feel more comfortable there.’

‘If he had a room in a boarding house there’d be no space for you.’ Mother let out one of her practised sighs. ‘I suppose you may as well make the most of it.’

So they had waved me off at the station, and I’d thought I’d seen a tear gleam in Mother’s eye, which was silly because were it not for this year in the purgatory of my sickbed I would have been long gone anyhow. I pressed my forehead to the glass and watched the countryside of the South roll by in low-lying hills and broad streaks of meadow. A river snaked alongside us for a while, silvery under the June sun. We stopped at tiny country stations; I saw windmills bead the skyline and then, finally, the dotted cottages became terraced houses, heaped together and flung upon hillsides. A viaduct took us over a busy street thronging with buses and billboard advertisements, until finally we drew up alongside a platform heavy with trolleys and porters, beneath a vaulted glass-and-steel roof. A man in a square blue cap puffed alongside the train, pulling open doors and calling, ‘Helmstone, ladies and gentlemen! Helmstone, your final destination!’

People were already pushing me against the window,
hurrying to the doors so they could be the first out. I waited until the rush had subsided, then went back into the carriage and retrieved my case from the rack, coughing on the lingering cigar smoke inside.

A porter approached me, his eyebrow raised hesitantly, but I smiled quickly and moved on, dragging my case and hoping he would not insist as I had no spare coppers for a tip. Alec had said he would meet me at the station, and so when I arrived inside the concourse I hovered and looked about, trying to make the smile I was wearing appear suitably nonchalant.

Between the two arches of the entranceway there was an advertisement that painted Helmstone as the Riviera, where beautiful people leaned on a bleached-white terrace under a gaudy Mediterranean sun. I stood beneath the poster, thinking it seemed like a prominent spot to be noticed, and watched the holidaymakers thickening the station concourse: cow-eyed honeymooners, fast girls in long scarves, doughty widows in fake pearls and elaborate hats.

After a while, I realized Alec must have been held up. Another train came in, expelling a few more hundred passengers like ants from a nest, and then another. My nonchalant smile became harder to maintain. I wondered if he were waiting outside.

I dragged my case through the wide tunnel, emerging at the busy entrance to the station. Motor taxis idled in a queue beside me. Friends and family enveloped each other in embraces and handshakes. A wagon staffed by ex-servicemen, medals pinned to their blazers, sold roses for sweethearts. I peered beyond them and saw the sweep
of the road lead downhill and then, at the end, rising up like a flat wall, the blue slate of the sea.

I shivered when I saw it. I couldn’t help but feel rather enclosed by the thing, as if there were no escape at the end, just that high, unforgiving wall. And still Alec had not come.

Perhaps he had misread the time. I knew the address; I could take a taxi and hang the consequences. Yet I thought of the pitifully few notes I had stashed in my wallet, and, remembering Alec had mentioned how the house gave on to a view of the sea, decided to head immediately towards it and ask for directions on my arrival.

I grasped my case and made for the end of the street.

The pavement was narrow and chock-full of people. I transferred the suitcase to my left hand and heaved it downhill, following two plump girls wearing skirts that brushed their calves. A man stood in the doorway of a shop with strings of postcards dangling ceiling to floor in his window. He was smoking a cigar. ‘Luvverly postcards,’ he called at me as I passed him. I saw flecks of spittle on his lips. ‘Best photographic quality in town.’

‘N-no thank you,’ I said. ‘Must get on.’

‘You looking for an hotel, chum? I can sort you out. Beautiful little guest house, only half a crown a night.’

I was already a yard beyond the shop. ‘I’m quite all right, thank you.’ I hurried onwards, overtaking the plump girls, my case banging against my shins. I reached a junction where trolleybuses rattled back and forth. Straw-hatted schoolgirls waved down at me from the open deck of one. I smiled quickly, and looked away as they began blowing me kisses and giggling to one another. I crossed over,
headed past a cavernous dance hall advertising four nights of hopping fun every week, and found myself at a busy promenade that spanned the length of the beach. I crossed over the road to the sky-blue railings, put my case down between my feet and looked to see what I could see.

I was standing about eight feet above the beach; uneven steps led down to a planked walkway that bordered the sand. Arches were set into the brick wall directly below me, and even from here the smell of fish drifted up from their open doors to greet me. Away to my left was a row of beach huts, outside which were gathered various family groups, the women sunning themselves on deckchairs, the men overheated in shirts and ties. A few, making concessions to the mildness of the day, had rolled up their sleeves.

Further along was a paddock of donkeys flicking their ears. A child, riding one, screamed, red-faced, while her mother waved from the shore. Out to sea, a few people were frolicking in the waves, mostly children of the lower classes. On the promenade beside me, a nanny was holding her charges’ hands firmly and telling them that they were most certainly not allowed a bag of sweets from the scruffy seller by the pier.

I stopped her as she passed. ‘Excuse me,’ I said, and she turned a sharp eyebrow towards me. ‘I’m looking for a place named Castaway House.’

‘I know it! I know it!’ shouted the little boy, jumping up and dragging on his nanny’s hand.

‘Quiet!’ she said sharply. He ceased immediately and sulked, poking out his lower lip. She smiled tightly at me. ‘I’m sorry, I haven’t heard of any Castaway House.’

‘It’s on – er …’ I pulled out Alec’s letter. ‘Gaunt’s Cliff.’

‘It’s just there.’ The little boy pointed his free arm behind him. ‘D’you see that hill? That’s Gaunt’s Cliff, and the house is at the very top. Father showed me, and he told me an awful story about –’

His nanny cuffed him on the ear. ‘I told you once, I’m not telling you again.’ She sighed. ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you there, sir. You’ll have to ask somebody else.’

‘That’s quite all right.’ I smiled uncertainly at the little boy and tipped my hat to the nanny. ‘Thank you.’

Gaunt’s Cliff, according to the nanny’s charge, and I was quite prepared to believe him, was a steep hill that led off the seafront. Where the promenade continued beneath, the cliff pointed at an angle all the way up to the headland overlooking the sea. At the very top, the boy had said. I flexed my fingers and picked up my suitcase again. If he was wrong, I thought, he quite deserved that cuff about the ear.

I turned right and headed along the promenade. Great queues of charabancs were parked along the seafront, like giant perambulators waiting for monstrous babies. One drew up beside me, and from it a phalanx of flat-capped men and shawled women clambered out in a mountain of chatter and excitement and snaggle-toothed grins. I thought of the slow tick-tock of the mantelpiece clock in the parlour and the quiet rustle of Father turning the pages of his newspaper. I was already overwhelmed by Helmstone, and I had only just arrived.

I dodged between the charabancs and crossed the road towards where Gaunt’s Cliff launched into the sky. I craned my neck, peering up, and was just squaring my
shoulders in preparation when a voice from above called, ‘Hi, you with the suitcase! Put that down at once!’

I looked up, startled, and saw my cousin Alexander Bray coming down the hill towards me, as blond-haired and handsome as always in an ivory suit, colour-splashed with a magenta handkerchief. He had his hands in his pockets and was smiling broadly. ‘Sorry about that, old chap,’ he said as he approached. ‘Read the time completely wrongly on the telegram. Found your way all right, then?’

He took my hand and grasped it in both of his. ‘Tickled to death you decided to come. Can’t remember a thing about the funeral, of course. Drunk as a fox that day. Bit emotional, you know, Mother finally popping her clogs and all that. Father reminded me afterwards that I’d invited you to Castaway for the summer.’

‘Oh.’ I swallowed. ‘I d-do hope that’s all right.’

‘It’s wonderful. Can’t imagine anything better.’ He took the case from me and batted away my protests. ‘My fault entirely. Meant for you to be met at the station with the motor car, but, y’know, we don’t stand on ceremony here. This is a modern house, Robert, you’ll see. I’ll even carry my cousin’s luggage for him.’ He gestured with the case and then grimaced at the weight of it.

‘It’s awfully kind of you,’ I said, panting, as I followed him up the hill, my lungs protesting slightly. I hoped that over the summer they would improve.

‘Least I could do. Had no idea you’d been at death’s door. What was it, chest trouble?’ He patted his own. ‘Heard you had to put off university for a year.’

‘Yes. I’m … hoping to go up … this autumn.’

‘Good. I suppose you know I was sent down from
Brasenose. But we don’t talk about that, ha ha. Anyway, you’re off to – where is it, Magdalen? Glad Grandfather put a little aside for you. Least the old miser could do. By the way, Clara’s at home.’

This non sequitur threw me somewhat. ‘Clara?’

‘My wife,’ he said. ‘The new Mrs Bray.’

He spoke in such a strange way I had no idea what he really meant by that. ‘I don’t believe I met her at the funeral,’ I said.

‘She didn’t come,’ he said shortly. ‘Still, she’s happy enough now Mother’s left me Castaway.’

The effort of the climb and the strength of the sun were combining to form prickles of sweat at the back of my neck. I shrugged off my jacket and held it over my arm. All I knew about Castaway House was that it had been the family’s summer home; while my aunt had been alive, none of the Carver branch had ever been invited down.

‘You still have the flat in London?’ I asked him, remembering rumours of Alec’s wild years there.

‘Gave it up.’ Again, there was that odd twist to his voice. ‘Castaway’s the main residence now. One can’t gad about having flats when one’s respectable, you know.’

I supposed he meant that marriage had lent him that respectability, although I was not entirely sure why. They had wed pretty much in secret, and when the news had emerged it had caused a fair commotion. According to the family grapevine, his new wife had been a minor actress on the London stage, appearing in shoddy musicals and, before that, those revues where, apparently, girls stood in a line, naked or near enough. Mother, whose own
marriage had caused its fair share of commotion in its time, took great relish in chewing over the details, especially in relation to her brother, my uncle Edward.

‘He’s such a terrible snob,’ she had said, her voice salty with pleasure. ‘Viviane too, of course. They thought
you
were beyond the pale. Heaven knows what they must be making of the whole thing.’

The
you
in question was my father, sitting in his chair in the parlour with his pipe clamped between his teeth. He simply nodded, and I could tell he wasn’t listening. I, on the other hand, was imagining an apparition of my cousin’s mysterious new wife, naked, on the London stage, and was forced to concentrate very hard on this week’s copy of
Bystander
in my lap in order to distract myself.