I Do Not Sleep (24 page)

Suddenly to our right, a stout wooden gate materialised as if from nowhere. It was hidden from the path by a slight bend, and behind it lay a hazy vista of green trees and bushes, flitting butterflies and, just glimpsed between shady foliage and thickly leaved branches stooping gracefully to the ground, the sea, brilliant with silver-gold flashes as the sun sparkled flirtatiously, peeping down from its cloudless sky.

I stopped dead. There was a heavy-duty padlock on the gate. Just as Len had said there would be. This was the place.

‘Here?’ asked Jamie curiously. ‘Is this the gate Len meant?’ He gave an affectionate laugh. ‘It’s the allotments, Molly. Polperro’s kitchen gardens, very popular and lovingly toiled in by the good folk of the parish to produce cabbages and courgettes.’ His voice was suddenly serious; he bent down to me. ‘Molly,’ he said gravely, ‘you must remember Len was dangerously ill when you saw him in hospital. He was confused, at death’s door. I know you think he had certain powers, was a Charmer, and I agree with you. He was a lovely bloke and certainly very wise. Well, he was ninety-two; of course he was wise. But I don’t want you to expect too much. Len meant well, but he was a very sick old man.’

I remembered Len’s kind face, full of warmth and wisdom. Yes, he was dying, but he hadn’t seemed confused to me. He had sounded absolutely confident, sure of his ground. He had wanted to help me. I believed in him.

‘There’s a padlock on the gate,’ I said to Jamie.

‘Yes, the allotments are always kept locked, to stop tourists getting in and pinching the veg. The folk who grow stuff here are very possessive.’ He smiled. ‘It’s like a religion to them. They even have competitions to see who can grow the biggest marrow.’

‘Len said there’d be a padlock,’ I said, my voice slow, drowsy and insistent as I thought back to his last words to me as he lay on his deathbed.

The gate is old, dark wood, to the right of the path. It is padlocked, but you will find it opens for you. Walk into the place the gate guards. The sea lies beyond. You will find what you are looking for.
 

Jamie was looking at me carefully. ‘You want to go in, don’t you?’ he asked.

‘I must,’ I replied, still in the slow voice that had appeared from nowhere but held my tongue firmly in its grasp. ‘But it’s locked.’

‘That’s not a problem. I’ll just get the key from Annie Trelawney.’ And he turned to his left and sprinted up a steep flight of steps leading to an imposing white house just opposite the sternly fastened barrier. I saw him ring the bell, and moments later a vigorous-looking elderly woman opened the door. She was delighted to see him, and I saw him kiss her cheek, and follow her inside the house. I stood still, staring at the gate and wondering what lay behind it. Then I turned back to the impressive dwelling into which Jamie had disappeared, and froze.

There was a sign attached to one of the two substantial pillars framing the long stone staircase that led up to the graceful, dignified old building. It was a large sign, bold white letters engraved on a slab of dark grey slate. It read
JAMAICA
HOUSE
.

Jamie came running down the steps, a bunch of keys in his hand. He faltered when he reached me and saw how white I looked.

‘Molly?’ he said. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘It’s called Jamaica House,’ I said wonderingly.

‘Oh, Annie’s lovely old place. Yes, it’s belonged to the Trelawney family for generations. The Trelawneys were the major landowners in this part of Cornwall, very rich, very important. Two of them were successive governors of Jamaica, in the seventeenth century. That’s how Jamaica Inn got its name.’

‘I thought it was to do with smuggling rum,’ I said in a daze, my preconceptions shattering.

Jamie laughed. ‘That too, probably, but no, the Trelawney family’s ancient association with Jamaica is the real reason. The family’s not nearly as powerful now, but there are still quite a few of them about. Annie here is one of the last. She never married, had no kids, so she lives here in Jamaica House in solitary splendour. She’s a lynchpin of the village, our local historian, chairman of the neighbourhood watch, of course, and she keeps the emergency keys to the allotments.’

‘Emergency?’ I stuttered. ‘What sort of emergency?’

‘Oh, you know, in case of some drunken youths who think they’re on holiday in Rock or Newquay instead of sleepy old Polperro decide to spend the night there with a few cans of strong lager. It happens sometimes. They climb over the gate, make a hell of a noise. And it could be dangerous – the allotments form part of a small headland; there’s a sheer drop down to the sea. No one’s actually fallen over it yet, but Annie always keeps a weather eye out in the summer for drunks. She may be old, but she’s quite formidable. I’ve seen lads quail before her. She’s got a shotgun too; don’t think she’s ever used it, but these daft young yobs don’t know that, do they? Come on, I’ll let you in. It’s quite beautiful in here, in fact – they’re probably the most romantic allotments in the country.’

Still chattering, he unlocked the gate.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

I followed Jamie, my mind locked onto what he’d called Annie’s emergency key. Could there have been an emergency concerning Joey? Could something have happened to him here, in these innocuous allotments? No, of course not. If Annie had seen my son here she would have talked to him, and if he’d subsequently disappeared surely she would have reported it to the police? Everyone in Polperro knew about the boat wreck, the missing boy. Annie’s possession of the key was for the simple purpose Jamie had outlined: so she would have access to the gardens if some drunken kids had climbed over the gate and needed a fearsome old lady to kick them out again. This pretty spot had nothing to do with Joey.

Except…

Jamie closed the gate behind us. I felt increasingly sleepy as I walked slowly ahead of him down a narrow paved path. On either side grew shady fruit trees, beginning to burgeon with growing apples, pears, walnuts and plums. Rose bushes perfumed the air; hydrangeas and fuchsia were lush with colour, and dotted among them were bird tables and nesting boxes. Wooden benches provided inviting places to rest, and, glimpsed through the trees, the sea sparkled like sapphires. Such a restful quiet place, full of peace like a grave-less cemetery. I startled myself with the comparison, and yet the calm tranquillity of this gated garden did remind me of Talland churchyard; it had a hushed repose. As I walked, the drowsiness I felt became stronger. I could hear the birds, I could feel the sun warm on my face, I could see the winking turquoise ocean, yet I felt I was sleepwalking.

No, this charming spot could have nothing to do with Joey.

Except I knew I’d been here before.

I heard Jamie’s voice, but distantly, muffled as if he spoke through cotton wool. He was telling me that we had almost reached the allotments. I saw a couple of potting sheds and a large greenhouse full of tomato plants and strawberry beds. I walked past these first signs of human industry, and the layout of the gardens immediately became less dreamy, more purposeful. I could see the individual plots were laid out in long strips, each of which were neatly tended and bursting with produce; carefully planted with all sorts of tender green shoots, budding kitchen delicacies, herbs, shallots, leeks, small marrows, runner beans. There were flowers, too: night-scented stocks, lavender and sweet peas climbing up canes and trellises; and amongst them idiosyncratic personal icons, small rural mementos placed affectionately on each patch: ceramic hens and cockerels, tiny pink piglets, ducks and geese and miniature baby lambs.

The whole place was enchanting – greens and reds, yellows and blues, and beyond this fecund little world the sharp intense cool blue of the sea framed a perfect picture.

Yes, I’d been here before. I wandered up and down the gravel tracks between each plot, and as I did my sense of ease and contentment began to falter. I grew cold under the hot sun. Something was wrong. Something was waiting for me, and suddenly I knew what it was. I didn’t want to look but I had to. There was no escape.

Because he knows, a frightful fiend

Doth close behind him tread . . .

There was a rickety old fence running along the bottom of the allotments. I was surprised it looked so broken down; everything else in the kitchen gardens was sturdy and pristine. Beyond the fence shimmered the sea, and for a moment I saw that it had altered; it had become dull, dark and ominous. The rippling waves had disappeared. The surface was sluggish, moody, threatening. It surged towards me, urging me, telling me, forcing me to look. My eyes followed a breaking wave, topped not with crisp white surf but scummy grey dirt. The billowing ridge moved west, dragging its grimy muck with it, pulling my eyes towards where it finally disappeared under the headland. As it vanished, a spume of black sludge, thick with slime and mud, rose abruptly from the water. It hovered in the sky above the cliff like an exclamation mark, a sign. When it sank back down into the hellish depths from whence it came, it dragged my eyes down with it. I blinked. And there, right in front of me, leaning drunkenly against the sagging fence, was the scarecrow. My frightful fiend, dry, broken, and clad in black, come to haul me down below, come to take me to the monstrous lair in which it held my Joey, trapped and desperate in an infernal underworld.

I screamed. An inky jet of clammy mucous, stinking of rotting fish, blew in from the ocean, coating the scarecrow in a viscous jelly. It covered my face, my hair, leaving on me a foul stench of decay, a noisome stink forced from an abyss of pain.

I fainted.

When I came round, I was lying on the grass. Jamie bent over me, cushioning my head, feeling my pulse. I didn’t remember where I was or what had happened, but it felt as if I’d been here for ever.

‘Molly, Molly, you fainted. It’s OK. You’re all right now. But what happened? What did you see? What scared you?’

I remembered the slime, the vile jelly that had covered my face and hair, the awful stench. Surely Jamie could smell it too? And then I realised I could smell nothing but roses, stocks and lavender. I sat up abruptly, Jamie catching me as my head started to spin again. I put my hands up to my hair. It was clean, silky. There was no foul stuff clinging to my head or face.

I heard rapid footsteps coming down the path, and Annie Trelawney appeared, her face creased with concern.

‘Goodness, Jamie, what on earth’s happened?’ she asked anxiously. ‘I was watching you from an upstairs window, and I saw your friend collapse.’

‘It’s fine, Annie, don’t worry. She just fainted; she’s coming round now.’

The two of them hoisted me to my feet and guided me to a nearby bench. Annie handed me a bottle of water. ‘I grabbed it from the fridge when I ran downstairs. Drink it. It will make you feel better.’

Gratefully I took the bottle and drained it. Jamie looked worried. ‘You’re shaking badly, Molly. What on earth happened?’

I shuddered. ‘Didn’t you see?’ I appealed to him. ‘You were right behind me, you must have seen it.’

‘Seen what?’ asked Jamie helplessly. He shook his head. ‘Molly, I saw absolutely nothing; just the gardens and the sea beyond the headland.’

‘No, no Jamie. The… the thing I saw. The THING.’ I was shouting, struggling to get to my feet. ‘It’s over there. Look!’ Jamie grabbed me, but not before I’d managed to shakily turn round. I pointed a quivering finger at the fence, the rotting, dilapidated…

The strong, neat and immaculately maintained fence preventing unwary visitors from straying too close to the cliff edge; the heavily padlocked gate bearing a stern notice:
DANGER
.
DO
NOT
PROCEED
BEYOND
THIS
POINT
.
THIS
AREA
IS
NOT
STABLE
AND
LIABLE
TO
SUBSIDENCE
.

My shaking finger moved to the left, my body following my hand, until I saw…

… a scarecrow. A scrappy old effigy clothed in tatty black rags; a perfectly ordinary, everyday scarecrow, with perhaps a slightly malevolent face, but really frightening enough to scare only birds.

I collapsed back onto the bench. I turned my head back to the frightful fiend of my imagination, now transformed into a pathetic figure even a child would laugh at. And I looked at the sea behind it, glittering and bright once again.

‘What’s the matter, dear?’ This was Annie. ‘Did the old Ancient Mariner give you a fright? Goodness, he’s so decrepit now the birds even perch on his head. We only keep him out of sentiment, because he was the first scarecrow we put up when we dug the allotments. That’s why we called him the Ancient Mariner, because we wanted him to be really scary, constantly telling the damned birds to clear off. We’ve got quite a few scarymen now, as the children call them, but he’s the original.’ She waved her arm around the gardens, and I saw she was right. There were half a dozen or more scarecrows spread out over the land, festooned with scarves and jumpers in bright colours. Only mine wore black.