No Sharks in the Med and Other Stories, Page 3

  “I thought so, too,” he agreed. And after a while he continued: “Well, despite having been in the sea, the stuff could still be cut into fine, heavy panels, and it still French-polished to a beautiful finish. So that was that: Lily-Anne got a lovely coffin. Except—”

  “Yes?” I prompted him.

  He pursed his lips. “Except I got to thinking—later, you know—as to how maybe the rot came here in that wood. God knows it’s a damn funny variety of fungus after all. But then this Haiti—well, apparently it’s a damned funny place. They call it ‘the Voodoo Island,’ you know?”

  “Black magic?” I smiled. “I think we’ve advanced a bit beyond thinking such as that, Garth.”

  “Maybe and maybe not,” he answered. “But voodoo or no voodoo, it’s still a funny place, that Haiti. Far away and exotic…”

  By now we’d found a gap in the old stone wall and climbed over the tumbled stones into the graveyard proper. From where we stood, another twenty paces would take us right to the raw edge of the cliff where it sheared dead straight through the overgrown, badly neglected plots and headstones. “So here it is,” said Garth, pointing. “Lily-Anne’s grave, secure for now in what little is left of Easingham’s old cemetery.” His voice fell a little, grew ragged: “But you know, the fact is I wish I’d never put her down here in the first place. And I’d give anything that I hadn’t buried her in that coffin built of Old Man Johnson’s ballast wood.”

  The plot was a neat oblong picked out in oval pebbles. It had been weeded round its border, and from its bottom edge to the foot of the simple headstone it was decked in flowers, some wild and others cut from Easingham’s deserted gardens. It was deep in flowers, and the ones underneath were withered and had been compressed by those on top. Obviously Garth came here more often than just “now and then.” It was the only plot in sight that had been paid any sort of attention, but in the circumstances that wasn’t surprising.

  “You’re wondering why there are so many flowers, eh?” Garth sat down on a raised slab close by.

  I shook my head, sat down beside him. “No, I know why. You must have thought the world of her.”

  “You don’t know why,” he answered. “I did think the world of her, but that’s not why. It’s not the only reason, anyway. I’ll show you.”

  He got down on his knees beside the grave, began laying aside the flowers. Right down to the marble chips he went, then scooped an amount of the polished gravel to one side. He made a small mound of it. Whatever I had expected to see in the small excavation, it wasn’t the cylindrical, fibrous surface—like the upper section of a lagged pipe—that came into view. I sucked in my breath sharply.

  There were tears in Garth’s eyes as he flattened the marble chips back into place. “The flowers are so I won’t see it if it ever breaks the surface,” he said. “See, I can’t bear the thought of that filthy stuff in her coffin. I mean, what if it’s like what you saw under the floorboards in that house back there?” He sat down again, and his hands trembled as he took out an old wallet and removed a photograph to give it to me. “That’s Lily-Anne,” he said. “But God!—I don’t like the idea of that stuff fruiting on her…”

  Aghast at the thoughts his words conjured, I looked at the photograph. A homely woman in her late fifties, seated in a chair beside a fence in a garden I recognized as Garth’s. Except the garden had been well-tended then. One shoulder seemed slumped a little, and though she smiled, still I could sense the pain in her face. “Just a few weeks before she died,” said Garth. “It was her lungs. Funny that I worked in the pit all those years, and it was her lungs gave out. And now she’s here, and so’s this stuff.”

  I had to say something. “But…where did it come from. I mean, how did it come, well, here? I don’t know much about dry rot, no, but I would have thought it confined itself to houses.”

  “That’s what I was telling you,” he said, taking back the photograph. “The British variety does. But not this stuff. It’s weird and different! That’s why I think it might have come here with that ballast wood. As to how it got into the churchyard: that’s easy. Come and see for yourself.”

  I followed him where he made his way between the weedy plots toward the leaning, half-timbered shack. “Is that the source? Johnson’s timber yard?”

  He nodded. “For sure. But look here.”

  I looked where he pointed. We were still in the graveyard, approaching the tumbledown end wall, beyond which stood the derelict shack. Running in a parallel series along the dry ground, from the mill and into the graveyard, deep cracks showed through the tangled brambles, briars, and grasses. One of these cracks, wider than the others, had actually split a heavy horizontal marble slab right down its length. Garth grunted. “That wasn’t done last time I was here,” he said.

  “The sea’s been at it again.” I nodded. “Undermining the cliffs. Maybe we’re not as safe here as you think.”

  He glanced at me. “Not the sea this time,” he said, very definitely. “Something else entirely. See, there’s been no rain for weeks. Everything’s dry. And it gets thirsty same as we do. Give me a hand.”

  He stood beside the broken slab and got his fingers into the crack. It was obvious that he intended to open up the tomb. “Garth,” I cautioned him. “Isn’t this a little ghoulish? Do you really intend to desecrate this grave?”

  “See the date?” he said. “1847. Heck, I don’t think he’d mind, whoever he is. Desecration? Why, he might even thank us for a little sweet sunlight! What are you afraid of? There can only be dust and bones down there now.”

  Full of guilt, I looked all about while Garth struggled with the fractured slab. It was a safe bet that there wasn’t a living soul for miles around, but I checked anyway. Opening graves isn’t my sort of thing. But having discovered him for a stubborn old man, I knew that if I didn’t help him he’d find a way to do it by himself anyway; and so I applied myself to the task. Between the two of us we wrestled one of the two halves to the edge of its base, finally toppled it over. A choking fungus reek at once rushed out to engulf us! Or maybe the smell was of something else and I’d simply smelled what I “expected” to.

  Garth pulled a sour face. “Ugh!” was his only comment.

  The air cleared and we looked into the tomb. In there, a coffin just a little over three feet long, and the broken sarcophagus around it filled with dust, cobwebs, and a few leaves. Garth glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “So now you think I’m wrong, eh?”

  “About what?” I answered. “It’s just a child’s coffin.”

  “Just a little ’un, aye.” He nodded. “And his little coffin looks intact, doesn’t it? But is it?” Before I could reply he reached down and rapped with his horny knuckles on the wooden lid.

  And despite the fact that the sun was shining down on us, and for all that the sea gulls cried and the world seemed at peace, still my hair stood on end at what happened next. For the coffin lid collapsed like a puffball and fell into dusty debris, and—God help me—something in the box gave a grunt and puffed itself up into view!

  I’m not a coward, but there are times when my limbs have a will of their own. Once when a drunk insulted my wife, I struck him without consciously knowing I’d done it. It was that fast, the reaction that instinctive. And the same now. I didn’t pause to draw breath until I’d cleared the wall and was halfway up the field to the paved path; and even then I probably wouldn’t have stopped, except I tripped and fell flat and knocked all the wind out of myself.

  By the time I stopped shaking and sat up, Garth was puffing and panting up the slope toward me. “It’s all right,” he was gasping. “It was nothing. Just the rot. It had grown in there and crammed itself so tight, so confined, that when the coffin caved in…”

  He was right and I knew it. I had known it even with my flesh crawling, my legs, heart, and lungs pumping. But even so: “There were…bones in it!” I said, contrary to common sense. “A skull.”

  He drew close, sank down beside m
e gulping at the air. “The little ’un’s bones,” he panted, “caught up in the fibers. I just wanted to show you the extent of the thing. Didn’t want to scare you to death!”

  “I know, I know.” I patted his hand. “But when it moved—”

  “It was just the effect of the box collapsing,” he explained, logically. “Natural expansion. Set free, it unwound like a jack-in-the-box. And the noise it made—”

  “—That was the sound of its scraping against the rotten timber, amplified by the sarcophagus.” I nodded. “I know all that. It shocked me, that’s all. In fact, two hours in your bloody Easingham have given me enough shocks to last a lifetime!”

  “But you see what I mean about the rot?” We stood up, both of us still a little shaky.

  “Oh, yes, I see what you mean. I don’t understand your obsession, that’s all. Why don’t you just leave the damned stuff alone?”

  He shrugged but made no answer, and so we made our way back toward his home. On our way the silence between us was broken only once. “There!” said Garth, looking back toward the brow of the hill. “You see him?”

  I looked back, saw the dark outline of an Alsatian dog silhouetted against the rise. “Ben?” Even as I spoke the name, so the dog disappeared into the long grass beside the path.

  “Ben!” Garth called, and blew his piercing whistle. But with no result. The old man worriedly shook his head. “Can’t think what’s come over him,” he said. “Then again, I’m more his friend than his master. We’ve always pretty much looked after ourselves. At least I know that he hasn’t run off…”

  Then we were back at Garth’s house, but I didn’t go in. His offer of another coffee couldn’t tempt me. It was time I was on my way again. “If ever you’re back this way—” he said as I got into the car.

  I nodded, leaned out of my window. “Garth, why the hell don’t you get out of here? I mean, there’s nothing here for you now. Why don’t you take Ben and just clear out?”

  He smiled, shook his head, then shook my hand. “Where’d we go?” he asked. “And anyway, Lily-Anne’s still here. Sometimes in the night, when it’s hot and I have trouble sleeping, I can feel she’s very close to me. Anyway, I know you mean well.”

  That was that. I turned the car round and drove off, acknowledged his final wave by lifting my hand briefly, so that he’d see it.

  Then, driving round a gentle bend and as the old man sideslipped out of my rearview mirror, I saw Ben. He was crossing the road in front of me. I applied my brakes, let him get out of the way. It could only be Ben, I supposed: a big Alsatian, shaggy, yellow eyed. And yet I caught only a glimpse; I was more interested in controlling the car, in being sure that he was safely out of the way.

  It was only after he’d gone through the hedge and out of sight into a field that an afterimage of the dog surfaced in my mind: the way he’d seemed to limp—his belly hairs, so long as to hang down and trail on the ground, even though he wasn’t slinking—a bright splash of yellow on his side, as if he’d brushed up against something freshly painted.

  Perhaps understandably, peculiar images bothered me all the way back to London: yes, and for quite a long time after…

  Before I knew it a year had gone by, then eighteen months, and memories of those strange hours spent in Easingham were fast receding. Faded with them was that promise I had made myself to visit my parents more frequently. Then I got a letter to say my mother hadn’t been feeling too well, and another right on its heels to say she was dead. She’d gone in her sleep, nice and easy. This last was from a neighbor of theirs: my father wasn’t much up to writing right now, or much of anything else for that matter; the funeral would be on…at…etc, etc.

  God!—how guilty I felt driving up there, and more guilty with every mile that flashed by under my car’s wheels. And all I could do was choke the guilt and the tears back and drive and feel the dull, empty ache in my heart that I knew my father would be feeling in his. And of course that was when I remembered old Garth Bentham in Easingham, and my “advice” that he should get out of that place. It had been a cold sort of thing to say to him. Even cruel. But I hadn’t known that then. I hadn’t thought.

  We laid Ma to rest and I stayed with the Old Man for a few days, but he really didn’t want me around. I thought about saying: “Why don’t you sell up, come and live with us in London.” We had plenty of room. But then I thought of Garth again and kept my mouth shut. Dad would work it out for himself in the fullness of time.

  It was late on a cold Wednesday afternoon when I started out for London again, and I kept thinking how lonely it must be in old Easingham. I found myself wondering if Garth ever took a belt or filled a pipe, if he could even afford to, and…I’d promised him that if I was ever back up this way I’d look him up, hadn’t I? I stopped at an off-license, bought a bottle of half-decent whisky and some pipe and rolling baccy, and a carton of two hundred cigarettes and a few cigars. Whatever was his pleasure, I’d probably covered it. And if he didn’t smoke, well I could always give the tobacco goods to someone who did.

  My plan was to spend just an hour with Garth, then head for the motorway and drive to London in darkness. I don’t mind driving in the dark, when the weather and visibility are good and the driving lanes all but empty, and the night music comes sharp and clear out of the radio to keep me awake.

  But approaching Easingham down that neglected cul-de-sac of a road, I saw that I wasn’t going to have any such easy time of it. A storm was gathering out to sea, piling up the thunderheads like beetling black brows all along the twilight horizon. I could see continuous flashes of lightning out there, and even before I reached my destination I could hear the high seas thundering against the cliffs. When I did get there—

  Well, I held back from driving quite as far as the barrier, because only a little way beyond it my headlights had picked out black, empty space. Of the three houses that had stood closest to the cliffs only one was left, and that one slumped right on the rim. So I stopped directly opposite Garth’s place, gave a honk on my horn, then switched off and got out of the car with my carrier-bag full of gifts. Making my way to the house, the rush and roar of the sea was perfectly audible, transferring itself physically through the earth to my feet. Indeed the bleak, unforgiving ocean seemed to be working itself up into a real fury.

  Then, in a moment, the sky darkened over and the rain came on out of nowhere, bitter cold and squally, and I found myself running up the overgrown garden path to Garth’s door. Which was when I began to feel really foolish. There was no sign of life behind the grimy windows, neither a glimmer of light showing, nor a puff of smoke from the chimney. Maybe Garth had taken my advice and got out of it after all.

  Calling his name over the rattle of distant thunder, I knocked on the door. After a long minute there was still no answer. But this was no good; I was getting wet and angry with myself; I tried the doorknob, and the door swung open. I stepped inside, into deep gloom, and groped on the wall near the door for a light switch. I found it, but the light wasn’t working. Of course it wasn’t: there was no electricity! This was a ghost town, derelict, forgotten. And the last time I was here it had been in broad daylight.

  But…Garth had made coffee for me. On a gas-ring? It must have been.

  Standing there in the small cloakroom shaking rain off myself, my eyes were growing more accustomed to the gloom. The cloakroom seemed just as I remembered it: several pieces of tall, dark furniture, pine-paneled inner walls, the old grandfather clock standing in one corner. Except that this time…the clock wasn’t clucking. The pendulum was still, a vertical bar of brassy fire where lightning suddenly brought the room to life. Then it was dark again—if anything even darker than before—and the windows rattled as thunder came down in a rolling, receding drumbeat.

  “Garth!” I called again, my voice echoing through the old house. “It’s me, Greg Lane. I said I’d drop in some time?…” No answer, just the hiss of the rain outside, the feel of my collar damp against my neck, and th
e thick, rising smell of…of what? And suddenly I remembered very clearly the details of my last visit here.

  “Garth!” I tried one last time, and I stepped to the door of his living room and pushed it open. As I did so there came a lull in the beating rain. I heard the floorboards creak under my feet, but I also heard…a groan? My sensitivity at once rose by several degrees. Was that Garth? Was he hurt? My God! What had he said to me that time? “One of these days the postman will find me stretched out in here, and he’ll think: ‘Well, I needn’t come out here anymore.’”

  I had to have light. There’d be matches in the kitchen, maybe even a torch. In the absence of a mains supply, Garth would surely have to have a torch. Making my way shufflingly, very cautiously across the dark room toward the kitchen, I was conscious that the smell was more concentrated here. Was it just the smell of an old, derelict house, or was it something worse? Then, outside, lightning flashed again, and briefly the room was lit up in a white glare. Before the darkness fell once more, I saw someone slumped on the old settee where Garth had served me coffee…

  “Garth?” The word came out half-strangled. I hadn’t wanted to say it; it had just gurgled from my tongue. For though I’d seen only a silhouette, outlined by the split-second flash, it hadn’t looked like Garth at all. It had been much more like someone else I’d once seen—in a photograph. That drooping right shoulder.

  My skin prickled as I stepped on shivery feet through the open door into the kitchen. I forced myself to draw breath, to think clearly. If I’d seen anyone or anything at all back there (it could have been old boxes piled on the settee, or a roll of carpet leaning there), then it most probably had been Garth, which would explain that groan. It was him, of course it was. But in the storm, and remembering what I did of this place, my mind was playing morbid tricks with me. No, it was Garth, and he could well be in serious trouble. I got a grip of myself, quickly looked all around.