The Devil in Amber (11 page)

I
have known, in my time, many species of praise. The charming art mistress who initiated me into the ways of the world–and of, incidentally, oil pastel–was very fond of the little hollow at the base of my throat just below the Adam’s apple. Many a lazy summer afternoon was passed with waxen fruit un-rendered and her pretty, heart-shaped face nestled there, beads of sweat rolling like pearls from her brow.

Then there was the renowned critic with morbidly unruly chest hair who, seeking to make up for his withering of my doodles, chased me around a slipper bath with his tumescent member poking from his pinstripes.

And then there was the boy with the very blue eyes who smelled of honey and stayed by my side for almost ten years until…ah, well.
C’est la vie. C’est la guerre.

Captain Corpusty’s effulgent response to my presence, however, counted amongst the best.

‘I don’t care what you’ve done or not done, sir,’ he announced. ‘Far
as I’m concerned you’re a genius of the first water and that’s’–emphasized with slap on corduroyed knee–‘
that
.’ I had been starved of appreciation for so long I almost wept.

Thus passed the next few days of the voyage, yours truly casting a practised eye over the smelly old pirate’s artwork in return for a faithful promise to set me ashore at some unknown spot where the peelers wouldn’t find me.

My habit was to rise early and then make my way down to Corpusty’s chaotic diggings, where he’d be waiting with a pot of stewed Darjeeling and another of his rather ropey canvases in which the sea, would you credit it, featured heavily. So heavily, in fact, that I began to grow weary of its crudely executed form, ladled onto Norfolk landscapes or Atlantic storm-scapes in thick grey impasto resembling sea-gull excrement.

The routine was enlivened by the captain’s occasional foray into portraiture, mostly wretched, though he’d caught something of friend Aggie’s impish charm in a pencil sketch that appeared to have been executed during a typhoon.

‘Don’t spare my blushes, Mr Box,’ Corpusty would cackle. ‘I can take criticism.’

He couldn’t, of course. Who can? So I was extremely careful to lard him with praise for his amateurish efforts lest he think twice and ditch me into the rollers.

Of course, I could see where all this was leading, and the fatal moment arrived one evening after dinner when Corpusty was treating me to a not-indifferent Amontillado. ‘I don’t suppose,’ he said, screwing up one eye as he lit a cigar from the candle, ‘you’d ever consent to making a picture…of me?’

The old fellow asked it as shyly as a school-girl. Eager to please, I pooh-poohed my talents once more, made a show of resistance but then grudgingly consented. A portrait in oils was completely out of the question given the incessant pitch and roll of the
Stiffkey
, but I would just about be able to manage a creditable pencil sketch.

Mon Capitaine said little during these sittings but simply sat and smoked, occasionally outlining his plans for my disembarkation, which consisted of plonking me in a rowing boat just off the coast whilst the
Stiffkey
herself steamed onwards to Cromer. According to the wireless, all the main ports were being watched, but Corpusty was confident the route he’d dreamt up would put me out of harm’s way.

Once or twice I gently probed him as to the nature of his business, hoping that Olympus Mons’s name might pop up, but the leathery sailor seemed to be keeping those particular cards very close to his tattooed chest.

As we churned through the leaden Atlantic towards England I actually found a measure of peace in my scribblings. Corpusty’s ravaged countenance with its heavy lids and ragged, gin-blossomed nostrils provided real inspiration. Of one thing I was extremely conscious, though: the
Stiffkey
was possessed of a most peculiar atmosphere that hung about it like a noxious cloud. It wasn’t just the hissing and chuffing of the ancient engines, nor yet the stifling fug of the airless passageways. There was about the ship a sort of dread, drear gloom, a feeling that something malign lay at its very heart, like the shuttered door to a secret room in some Gothic romance.

I am not a superstitious man. The closest I had ever come to encountering the other side was during the lurid business of the Cardinal’s Windpipe. I dare say you read about it in the picture papers. A decrepit Stuart pile (a house, you understand, not a person) was being ‘haunted’ by a ghastly apparition in a tricorne hat. Turned out to be a doe-eyed youth trying to frighten a hated cousin out of her inheritance. After much kerfuffle, I’d done the decent thing and well,
laid
the ghost.

So, naturally, I shrugged off the curious atmosphere aboard the creaking old tub until an incident occurred that could not be so easily dismissed.

During an afternoon sitting for Corpusty’s portrait, I ventured to
enquire how he’d managed to come by such a lovely creature as Aggie for a crew member.

He pulled at his pipe and gave a throaty chuckle. ‘Wondered when you’d get round to that. Quite the peach, ain’t she?’

‘Indian?’ I asked, coyly, rubbing at the paper with my lead-darkened fingers.

‘Yar. With a dash of Swiss, so I’m told.’

‘My ears pricked up at this mention of the land of cantons and holed cheese. ‘How exotic.’

Corpusty’s addled eyes twinkled naughtily. ‘You fancying a bit of a Swiss roll, eh, Mr Box?’

I laughed lightly. ‘What
can
you mean, Captain?’

Corpusty settled himself more comfortably in his chair. ‘Can’t say as I blame you. But you’ll get nowhere. Aggie Daye’s as pure as the driven. On account of her upbringing.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘Yar.
Nuns
,’ he said, pointedly, coughing up a ball of phlegm and spitting it against the cabin wall.

My ears pricked so far they practically grazed the tobacco-glazed ceiling. ‘Nuns?’ I watched the phlegm roll over the Madonna of the Rocks and Whistler’s mother before disappearing behind a cracked lampshade. ‘This was in Switzerland, yes?’

Corpusty shook his head, jabbing his pipe in my direction as though scoring a point. ‘No! You’d never believe it, but she’s local to Norfolk. Settled in my neck of the woods when she weren’t no more than a mawther.’

‘Hm?’

‘A young girl,’ he translated.

I affected nonchalance, concentrating on the drawing for a full minute before asking: ‘In a convent, you mean?’

Corpusty nodded. ‘Funny old place. Out on a causeway.’

My heart thumped in my chest. ‘St Bede’s?’

Corpusty frowned. ‘Dunno. Least ways, don’t ring no bells.
Though, if it’s a convent, I s’pose it does! Rings bells, that is! Ha ha!
St Bede’s
. Suppose it could be. Why? You heard of it?’

‘Read about it in some gazetteer or other,’ I said with a dismissive shrug.

Corpusty folded his arms and looked up at the low ceiling, where a hurricane lamp swung restlessly to and fro. ‘Funny to recall how I first clapped eyes on one of them holy sisters. All black and white like a puffin bird. I wor only a boy and I thought it wor a spook! I says to old Ben–he wor cap’n of this ship afore me–just put that thar crate down, Ben, and lookee yonder, for there’s a ghost a-drifting’ cross the pier towards us or I’m a Dutchman.’

I nodded indulgently.

‘“Well,” says he. “Reckon you’d better break out your clogs, young’un,’cos that’s one o’ them bloomin’ brides of Christ!”’

Corpusty slapped his thigh again, then drifted off into a brown study. ‘Poor old Ben. Basking shark took him. Funny, that. I mean, they’s harmless creatures and I ain’t never heard of no one dying’cos of ’em, but this shark sort of
sucked
him to death and…’

He roused himself. ‘Funny buggers, in’t they?’

‘Basking sharks?’

‘Nuns! Fancy wasting their lives on that all that tosh. I ain’t never had much truck with Jesus.’

‘You do surprise me.’ I shaded in the shadows beneath the captain’s drooping earlobes. ‘So how did Aggie get from being lodged at the convent to sitting below decks on the
Stiffkey
darning your socks?’ I continued. ‘Ran away to sea, did she?’

Corpusty smiled, relishing the pleasure of slowly unfolding the tale, like a grandfather telling ghost stories round a Christmas fireside.

‘Not quite,’ he said at last. ‘Not quite. I was…approached one day. On the quay. The Mother Superior it was, and…’ He clapped his pipe into his mouth. ‘Well, that’s another story.’

Feigning indifference, I yawned and stretched. ‘I’m done for now, Captain. Might snatch a nap before dinner.’

Corpusty nodded and, with a contented hum, absorbed himself in some chart or other.

I had retreated to my cabin, somewhat fagged out, when Aggie’s familiar light knock sounded at the door.

‘Come!’

Ribbons of fog drifted inside with the girl, creeping around the jamb like the tentacles of a spectral sea-beast.

‘A bad fog is coming up, Mr Volatile,’ she said, shaking her head.

‘Well,’ I said cheerily. ‘Don’t fret.’

There was no response. Clearly the vernacular hadn’t penetrated the walls of the convent. ‘You’ll be glad to be getting home soon, I expect,’ I continued at length.

‘Home? Norfolk is not my home,’ she replied, mournfully, like something out of Chekhov.

‘You favour New York?’

She shook her head, still glum. ‘The
Stiffkey
is my only home.’

I sat down on the bunk, gesturing round at the grim interior. ‘I can understand that. I mean, why would you want to live anywhere else?’

She looked at me with her huge, tragic eyes. ‘Yes. I would miss the bright lights.’ Suddenly she grinned and her melancholy beauty was instantly transformed into something altogether delightful. The smile was infectious and I returned it with enthusiasm.

Aggie knew nothing of my planned escape–as far as she was concerned I was simply a fare-paying passenger to be landed at Cromer with the rest of their cargo. Yet at that moment I had a tremendous urge to confide in her. I simply didn’t want to say goodbye to this fascinating creature. As I’ve already indicated, and happily for me, I’ve always taken whatever’s pretty whenever it comes along. Makes life so much more interesting, don’t you know?

‘Look,’ I said gently, ‘you’ve been awfully good to me these last days. Before we part forever, isn’t there something I can do to say thanks?’

Her eyes bored into mine, suddenly serious again, then she bounded onto the bunk, knocked me flat on my back and kissed me with somewhat startling fervour.

I hardly had time to respond when she pulled away, licking her lips thoughtfully, and frowning.

‘So. This is how it is to kiss a man. I think it is disappointing.’

She began to move off but I grabbed her arm to pull her back. ‘Hang on!’ I entreated. ‘You caught me off guard, my dear. It’s really much nicer if we both have a go.’

So saying, I let her crumple into my embrace and planted a long, lingering smacker on her dark lips whilst running my hand over the knotty tufts of her cropped hair. She relaxed a little, then stretched out like a cat, pressing her body tightly to mine.

After the appalling stresses and privations of the past weeks, I felt a kind of fuzzy warmth flood through me like an infusion of sunlight, and my hips moved instinctively forward to grind against the girl’s, our belt buckles scraping together. Then Aggie pulled away, giggling.

She flopped back onto the pillow and leant her head on her hand, gazing at me, searchingly. ‘I have never in my life thought to do such a thing before.’

Hang on, I thought, there’s plenty more still to do! One chaste kiss isn’t the bally be-all and end-all.

I stroked the creamy curve of her jaw. ‘Aggie Daye,’ I murmured. ‘Short for Agatha, is it?’

The girl said nothing but languorously closed and re-opened her eyes.

I decided to press my advantage. ‘The captain tells me you were raised in a convent—’

She sat up with an angry hiss. ‘He had no right to tell you that! No right at all!’

‘Hey, hey, hey!’ I soothed, slipping an arm round her waist. She resisted and wriggled towards the edge of the bed, trying to plant
both feet on the cabin floor. ‘It’s all right, Aggie,’ I cried. ‘This isn’t an interrogation. I’m just interested, that’s all.’

She turned her flushed face towards me, her lip turned down petulantly. ‘They did not raise me!’ she said proudly, sinking back against the wall, arms folded. ‘They imprisoned me!’

‘What do you mean?’

Aggie looked glum and her eyes suddenly swam with tears. She let them roll over her cheeks, then impatiently wiped them away. ‘All I wanted was to be like them. As good as them. But the sisters told me it was impossible. I was
special
. So special, they kept me locked up!’

Gently, I pulled her back so that her head lay on my chest. She suddenly gave in to racking sobs and I stroked her head, making the soothing sounds one does on these occasions. I said nothing for a long time.

This was all terribly mysterious. Sal Volatile knew of the Convent of St Bede. Indeed it was the only place he said he’d feel safe. But why? And was this beautiful girl somehow caught up in it all?