Devil By The Sea (5 page)

Now the grandeur of the houses had diminished. They were merely large and inconvenient and shabby, the gardens impossible
to maintain. They expressed, in their peeling paint, their dusty chandeliers, a whole chapter of middle-class decay. There
were no more parties. The only rich household left belonged to Miss Fleery-Carpenter and she was old, potty, lived on boiled
onions and the daily expectation of the Second Coming of Christ. Apart from the Brays, the owners of the houses were old,
mostly retired people, barely conscious, though they discreetly let rooms in summer and grumbled about rising prices, that
the world had changed. Occasionally they would remark to each other that people “of their sort” did not live in Henstable
any more.

But to Alice Bray, who had been Alice Parker, the bright, disciplined child from the slum houses at the other end of the town,
it still seemed, for most of the time, a considerable achievement to be living on The Way. She, who had run the streets, been
beaten by a drunken father, been abandoned by him at the age of fourteen, left in sole care of a paralysed, whining mother,
now owned a car, sent her children to expensive schools, voted Conservative.

Smiling and well-nourished, she stood at the gate of her comfortable, shabby house and looked down the hill towards the town.
From where she stood she could see the beach, the flags on the roof of the bandstand, and the long finger of the pier pointing
out to sea. The sea was calm and blue, the blue sky swept down to meet it: it was a beautiful day.

As she watched, a tiny, toy bus left the pier and crawled slowly along the front. It was the four o’clock bus, the one the
children usually caught when they had been on the beach. In a moment or two it would reach the foot of the hill and she could
telephone Charles, tell him that the children were safe and go out to tea.

She hoped that the children had heard nothing of the trouble in the town. She must warn Janet to say nothing to them. Peregrine
would not understand what had happened but Hilary was precocious and excitable: she would see at once the dramatic possibilities
in the situation and use them to the full. Once she knew about the murder, she would be impossible for weeks.

The bus stopped at the bottom of the hill. She saw Janet and the children get out, three small, distant figures in cherry-coloured
cardigans. She went into the house.

Miss Hubback answered the telephone. She sounded breathless. “Oh, it’s you, Mrs. Bray. I’m afraid Mr. Bray’s busy. We’ve got
a traveller in. Would you like him to ring you back? You know,” she ended archly, “how he hates to be disturbed.”

This familiarity annoyed Alice. She wished that Charles would find an assistant who was a lady. Miss Hubback had a common
accent and Alice was sensitive to accents.

She said coldly, “I’m in a hurry.”

Miss Hubback was breezy. “Oh dear. I’d better get him then, hadn’t I?”

There was a chink as she laid the telephone down. Alice could hear her humming softly as she left the tiny office. Then Charles’s
voice said, “Are they all right?”

“Of course they are, dear. They’ve just got off the bus.”

“Good. I’m sorry if I worried you.”

“That’s all right, dear. But I’m late for my little tea-party now, so would you do a small errand for me? I ordered a lobster
from Goring and I haven’t had time to pick it up. Do you mind?”

“Of course not. Why lobster?”

“The Wallaces are coming to dinner. Now don’t say this is the first you’ve heard of it because I told you last week.” She
put on a soft, coaxing voice. “And, sweetheart, I know
they’re not really your sort of people but they really are such an interesting creative couple. So do try and be nice to them,
won’t you?”

“I’ll be polite, I hope.”

“Of course you will. You always are, dear. But I want you to be more than polite, really friendly.”

His voice was suddenly testy. “Wallace is in advertising, isn’t he? What’s creative about that?”

“He’s a very clever artist, dear. And Erna Wallace is so clever with her hands. She makes pots. Really interesting, modern
ones.”

“Does she now? Well, well….” He cleared his throat. “All right, dear. I’ll come home with the lobster. Enjoy your tea.”

She put the telephone down. There was a thumping noise on the floor above. The ceiling shuddered and, in the dining-room,
the glasses on the sideboard danced against each other with a sound like little bells. Auntie was getting up after her rest.
Her massive footsteps trod across the upstairs landing to the bathroom. It was like a mountain moving. She turned on the bath
and began to sing in her strong, melodious voice, “When I survey, the Wondrous Cross.” Mingling with the splashing water,
her voice rose painfully to the high note beyond her range and sank, gladly, to a swelling contralto. “On which the Prince
of Glo-ry di-ed.”

“Stupid old fool,” said Alice loudly. Auntie had been living at Peebles for over a year and Alice felt she would never become
used to her presence. Since her arrival, a distinct musty smell had hung about the bedroom floor and the old woman made unpleasant
noises in the bathroom. Although she was rich, she never offered to contribute towards the household expenses. Alice had,
on several occasions, discussed the rising cost of living in her presence
but she had not taken the hint. On the other hand, Charles was her favourite nephew….

“Mummy,” Hilary called. “Mummy.” Her voice was high and eager. She ran in at the gate but when she saw her mother she stopped
abruptly and stood uneasily still, rubbing one dusty sandal up and down the back of her leg. Her face took on an expression
of dumb idiocy.

Alice knew that Hilary was pleased to see her and too shy to show it, nevertheless she was irritated, as always, by the child’s
inability to express an attractive emotion.

She said, “What a mess you’re in. Surely you don’t have to get so dirty?”

Hilary squirmed her shoulders and did not answer. Peregrine came up to Alice, carrying a pail full of shells.

“Look,” he said, “I’ve got lots of pink ones. I’m going to make a necklace for your birthday.”

There were dark rings of tiredness round his eyes. His cheeks were flushed with a pale, delicate colour.

“Are you, love?” Alice kissed him lightly on the top of his head. Feeling Hilary’s smouldering eyes upon her, she said, “Did
you collect any shells, darling?”

“Yes. I threw them away, though. Nasty, dirty things.” Hilary exaggerated her disgust. “Dead fish’s houses.”

Janet said, “She emptied them all over the promenade. It was a filthy mess, all mixed up with sand and seaweed. And
I
had to clean it up.” She looked hot and cross, her mouth was sullen. Alice felt annoyed: surely it wasn’t too much for the
girl to take the children out occasionally? She did nothing else except her silly, part-time job as secretary to the local
dentist: she had no particular talents.

Alice said sweetly, “What a bore for you. You won’t mind giving them their tea, will you? It’s all ready. I
expect Hilary will be a good girl and help, won’t you, Hilary?”

Hilary scowled and squinted down her nose.

“For heaven’s sake, child, take that look off your face.”

Hilary gave her mother a bitter glance and hopped on one foot into the house, leaving a trail of damp sand behind her. Following,
Peregrine carried his pail tenderly, like a chalice.

Janet said in a detached voice, “Hilary is much fonder of you than Peregrine is. You wouldn’t think it, would you?”

Alice wondered if this was intended as a reproach (she knew she was often harsher with her daughter than with Peregrine because
she loved her more) but decided at once that it was unlikely. Janet was much too anxious that Alice should approve of her
to be critical: sometimes her evident devotion had touched Alice’s intelligence though it never had, and never could, touch
her heart. Still, the knowledge of it had softened her exchanges with her stepdaughter and made it easier for her to tolerate
her stupidity and lack of grace. Lately, however, Alice had fancied that Janet’s attitude towards her had curiously changed:
her manner had become a good deal less humble, and, at the same time, almost excessively considerate. Occasionally she would
fuss over Alice as if she were someone quite old and frail: with gentle autocracy she forbade her to sit in draughts. Alice
had been amused, but only to a point. That point was reached on the day that she surprised a look of pity on the girl’s face.
She had told herself that it was inconceivable that Janet should be sorry for her. Nevertheless the fleeting expression had
affected her like an insult. From that moment, a new tartness had crept into their relationship.

Now Janet said, “I’m sorry. That was a beastly thing to say to you.” The clumsy apology implied condescension.

Alice said coldly, “Please do not trouble to explain my own child to me.”

The unfairness of this remark worried her briefly after Janet had gone, silent and rebuked, into the house. Then she looked
at her watch, saw that she was really very late, now, and went out to tea.

It was nearly closing-time. Charles brought in the trays of secondhand books from their position on the narrow pavement outside
the shop. Turfed out from cobwebbed attics, novels, travel books, Christmas annuals, the sermons of forgotten Victorian vicars,
jostled each other in their dusty jackets, offered for sale at sixpence each. He picked up a bound volume of
Chatterbox
and lingered over the lovingly tattered pages. There had been a copy, he remembered, in his preparatory school library—a
dignified term for the rough rows of shelves in one corner of the room where they kept their play-boxes.

The shop bell tinkled and he thrust the
Chatterbox
on one side. Miss Hubback had come back with the lobster.

“Look, it’s a beauty. Fresh caught this morning. Are you having a dinner party, Mr. Bray?”

The lobster, unwrapped from its newspaper, had a curiously exotic air.

Charles thought of Erna Wallace, a trivial, eager woman, twittering in endless, flowing scarves, trying hard to live up to
Alice’s idea of her as a contemporary potter.

“Well, yes … or rather, my wife is.” He smiled. It was difficult not to smile at Miss Hubback. Although she was in her thirties,
she was as clumsy and engaging as a very young girl. Her face was almost quite round and artless as a child’s first drawing.
Her features, which were small and
elegant, rather like those of a china doll, seemed lost in the middle of it. Good will shone out of her like innocence in
a tired world.

She said, “I think your wife is lovely, Mr. Bray.”

“Oh?” Though used to her sudden, bursting confidences, Charles was surprised.

Her eyes glistened shyly behind her spectacles. “I shouldn’t say that, should I? I mean it was sort of personal, wasn’t it?”

“I’ve always found you can be as personal as you like, provided what you say is flattering.”

She gave a high, neighing laugh, “Oh, Mr. Bray, you
are
cynical.” She gazed at him admiringly. “Honestly, I wasn’t being flattering. I know you’ll laugh at me, but that evening
I came to dinner was the most wonderful experience of my life.”

“I wouldn’t dream of laughing at you,” he said, “what was so special about the party?”

She beamed. “It was all so lovely. The way your wife talked about important things, not just small talk. It was like being
at a university. Your home is lovely, too. I thought the lounge was like something out of
House and Garden”

“I’m glad you liked it.” And he
was
glad, he told himself. But sorry, too, that she had been taken in by something so second hand.

He said, “We’d better lock up.”

“Already? It isn’t quite time….” She looked at him doubtfully.

“It’s all right. I’ll do it. You run along home early for once.”

As she fetched her coat, she said, “Isn’t it dreadful? About the poor little girl?”

“What? Oh … yes.”

“They were talking about it at the fishmonger’s. I hope they catch him soon. Hanging’s too good for a man like that,” she
ended savagely.

He was shocked. “Poor devil. I don’t suppose he’s responsible for his actions.”

“You’re sorry for
him?”
she cried. “But aren’t you worried? I’m sure poor Mrs. Bray must be. Your lovely, lovely babies.” Her tiny mouth quivered
sentimentally.

He said, evading the issue, “My wife is very sensible. She doesn’t worry unnecessarily.”

When Miss Hubback had gone, clipping on her run-over heels along the cobbled passage that smelt of herring and salt to the
broad, main street with its bright, light shops, Charles put up his green wooden shutters and locked the heavy iron bars into
place.

The exertion made his head swim: he rested, leaning against the counter. Then the dizziness passed and he flexed his muscles
cautiously, feeling for the pulse in his wrist with tender hypochondria. Reassured, he smiled. It was nothing. Nothing to
worry about, the doctor had said, just a timely warning that he must take things easily. The plain truth was that we were
none of us as young as we used to be. But with care, a monthly check-up, there was no reason why he should not make old bones.
The old heart—the doctor spoke with a blunt, dismissing cheeriness—was a bit coked up like the cylinders of an old car engine.
They had both smiled at the professional joke and, when the interview was over, shaken hands.

At first, Charles had been dismayed. Then, as the months passed and his condition grew no worse, he began to treat the doctor’s
diagnosis with light contempt. Talking with his friends, he frequently led the conversation round to the inefficiency of the
medical profession. He was delighted
whenever he discovered an instance when they had been proved wrong. He did not worry overmuch about himself. Nevertheless,
he did not tell Alice about his monthly visits. He did not wish to spare her, but himself: once told, she would be brave on
his behalf and insist that he face up to it. She was a very courageous woman.