The Taint and Other Novellas (22 page)

For the old man suspected—indeed, he more than suspected—that Jilly White’s circumstances had brought her to the verge of nervous exhaustion. But what exactly were her circumstances? As yet there were loose ends here, which Jamieson must at least attempt to tie up before making any firm decision or taking any definite course of action.

Which was why the ex-Doctor was here at the Tremains’s this evening. They were after all his and Jilly’s closest neighbours and closest in status, too. Whereas the people of the village—while they might well be the salt of the earth—were of a very different order indeed. And close-mouthed? Oh, he’d get nothing out of them.

And so back to the driftwood:

“Yes, really,” the old man finally answered John Tremain’s pleased if surprised inquiry. “I mean, this table we’re sitting at, drinking from: a table of driftwood—but see how the grain stands out, the fine polish!” In fact the table was quite ugly. Jamieson pointed across the room. “And who could fail to admire your plant stand there, so black it looks lacquered.”

“Yacht varnish,” Tremain was all puffed up now. “As for why it’s so black, it’s ebony.”

“Diospyros,”
said Doreen Tremain, entering from the kitchen with a tray of food. “A very heavy wood, and tropical. Goodness only knows how long it was in the sea, to finally get washed up here.”

“Amazing!” Jamieson declared. “And not just the stand. Your knowledge of woods—and indeed of most things, as I’ve noted—does both of you great credit.”

And now she preened and fussed no less than her husband. “I do so hope you like turbot, er, James?”

“Psetta maxima,”
said Jamieson, not to be outdone. “If it’s fish, dear lady, then you need have no fear. I’m not the one to turn my nose up at a good piece of fish.”

“I got it from Tom Foster in the village,” she answered. “I like his fish, if not his company.” And she wrinkled her nose.

“Tom Foster?” Jamieson repeated her, shaking his head. “No, I don’t think I know him.”

“And you don’t want to,” said John, helping the old man up, and showing him to the dining table. “Tom might be a good fisherman, but that’s all he’s good for. Him and his Gypsy wife.”

Sitting down, Jamieson blinked his rheumy eyes at the other and enquired, “His Gypsy wife?”

“She’s not a Gypsy,” Doreen shook her head. “No, not Romany at all, despite her looks. It seems her great-grandmother was a Polynesian woman. Oh, there are plenty such throwbacks in Devon and Cornwall, descendants of women brought back from the Indies and South Pacific when the old sailing ships plied their trade. Anyway, the Fosters are the ones who have charge of that young Geoff person. But there again, I suppose we should be thankful that someone is taking care of him.”

“
Huh
!” John Tremain grunted. “Surely his mother is the one who should be taking care of him. Or better far his father, except we all know that’s no longer possible.”

“And never would have been,” Doreen added. “Well, not without all sorts of complications, accusations, and difficulties in general.”

Watching the fish being served, Jamieson said, “I’m afraid you’ve quite lost me. Do you think you could…I mean, would you mind explaining?”

The Tremains looked at each other, then at the old man.

“Oh?” he said. “Do I sense some dark secret here, one from which I’m excluded? But that’s okay—if I don’t need to know, then I don’t need to know. After all, I am new around here.”

“No,” said Doreen, “it’s not that. It’s just that—”

“It’s sort of delicate,” her husband said. “Or not exactly delicate, not any longer, but not the kind of thing people like to talk about. Especially when it’s your neighbour, or your ex-neighbour, who is concerned.”

“My
ex
-neighbour?” Jamieson frowned. “George White? He was
your
neighbour, yes, but never mine. So, what’s the mystery?”

“You’ve not sensed anything?” This was Doreen again. “With poor Jilly? You’ve not wondered why she and Anne always seem to be sticking up for—”

“For that damned idiot in the village?” John saw his opportunity to jump in and finish it for her.

And the old man slowly nodded. “I think I begin to see,” he said. “There’s some connection between George White, Jilly and Anne, and—”

“And Geoff, yes,” said Doreen. “But do you think we should finish eating first? I see no reason why we can’t tell you all about it. You are or were a doctor, after all—and we’re sure you’ve heard of similar or worse cases—but I’d hate the food to spoil.”

And so they ate in relative silence. Doreen Tremain’s cooking couldn’t be faulted, and her choice of white wine was of a similar high quality…

• • •

“It was fifteen, sixteen years ago,” John Tremain began, “and we were relative newcomers here, just as you are now. In those days this was a prosperous little place; the fish were plentiful and the village booming; in the summer there were people on the beaches and in the shops. Nowadays—there’s only the post office, the pub, and the bakery. The post office doubles as a general store and does most of the business, and you can still buy a few fresh fish on the quayside before what’s left gets shipped inland. And that’s about it right now. But back then:

“They were even building a few new homes here, extending the village, as it were. This house and yours, they were the result. That’s why they’re newish places. But the road got no further than your place and hasn’t been repaired to any great extent since. Jilly and George’s place was maybe twenty years older; standing closer to the village, it wasn’t as isolated. As for the other houses they’d planned to build on this road, they just didn’t happen. Prices of raw materials were rocketing, the summers weren’t much good any more, and fish stocks had begun a rapid decline.

“The Whites had been here for a year or two. They had met and married in Newquay, and moved here for the same reason we did: the housing was cheaper than in the towns. George didn’t seem to have a job. He’d inherited some fabulous art items in gold and was gradually selling them off to a dealer in Truro. And Jilly was doing some freelance editing for local publishers.”

Now Doreen took over. “As for George’s gold: it was jewellery, and quite remarkable. I had a brooch off him that I wear now and then. It’s unique, I think. Beautiful but very strange. Perhaps you’d like to see it?”

“Certainly,” said the old man. “Indeed I would.” While she went to fetch it, John continued the story.

“Anyway, Jilly was heavy with Anne at the time, but George wasn’t a home body. They had a car—the same wreck she’s got now, more off the road than on it—which he used to get into St. Austell, Truro, Newquay, and goodness knows where else. He would be away for two or three days at a time, often for whole weekends. Which wasn’t fair on Jilly who was very close to her time. But look, let me cut a long story short.

“Apparently George had been a bit of a louse for quite some time. In fact as soon as Jilly had declared her pregnancy, that was when he’d commenced his…well, his—

“—Womanizing?” The old man sat up straighter in his chair. “Are you saying he was something of a rake?”

By now Doreen had returned with a small jewellery box. “Oh, George White was much more than
something
of a rake,” she said. “He was a great deal of a rake, in fact a roue! And all through poor Jilly’s pregnancy he’d been, you know, doing it in most of the towns around.”

“Really?” said Jamieson. “But you can’t know that for sure, now can you?”

“Ah, but we can,” said John, “for he was seen! Some of the locals had seen him going into…well, ‘houses of ill repute,’ shall we put it that way? And a handful of the village’s single men, whose morals also weren’t all they might be, learned about George’s reputation in those same, er, houses. But you’ll know, James—and I’m sure that in your capacity as a doctor you
will
know—it’s a sad but true fact that you do actually reap what you sow. And in George White’s case, that was true in more ways than one.”

“Which is where this becomes even more indelicate,” Doreen got to her feet. “And I have things to do in the kitchen. So if you’ll excuse me…” And leaving her jewellery box on the table she left the room and closed the door behind her. Then:

“George caught something,” said John, quietly.

“He what?”

“Well, that’s the only way I can explain it. He caught this bloody awful disease, presumably from some woman with whom he’d, er, associated. But that wasn’t all.”

“There’s more?” Jamieson shook his head. “Poor Jilly.”

“Poor Jilly, indeed! For little Anne was only a few months old when this slut from Newquay arrived in the village with her loathsome child—a baby she blamed on George White.”

“Ah!” Jamieson nodded knowingly. “And the child was Geoff, right?”

“Of course. That same cretin, adopted by the Fosters, who shambles around the village even now. A retarded youth of some fifteen years—but who looks like and has the strength of an eighteen-year-old—who in fact is George White’s illegitimate son and young Anne’s half-brother. And because I’m quite fond of Jilly, I find that…that
creature
perfectly unbearable!”

“Not to mention dangerous,” said Jamieson.

“Eh? What’s that?” The other looked startled.

“I was out on my verandah,” said the old man. “It was just the other day, and I saw you with…with that young man. You seemed to be engaged in some sort of confrontation.”

“But that’s it exactly!” said Tremain. “He’s suddenly there—he comes upon you, out of nowhere—and God only knows what goes on in that misshapen head of his. Enough to scare the life out of a man, coming over the dunes like that, and blowing like a stranded fish! A damn great fish, yes, that’s what he reminds me of.
Ugh!
And it’s how Tom Foster uses him, too!”

“What? Foster uses him?” Jamieson seemed totally engrossed. “In what way? Are we talking about physical abuse?”

“No, no, nothing that bad!” Tremain held up his hands. “No, but have you seen that retard swim? My God, if he had more than half a brain he’d be training for the olympics! What? Why, he’s like a porpoise in the water!
That’s
how Foster uses him.”

“I’m afraid I’m still not with you,” Jamieson admitted, his expression one of complete bafflement. “You’re saying that this Foster somehow uses the boy to catch fish?”

“Yes.” The other nodded. “And if the weather hadn’t been so bad recently you wouldn’t have seen nearly so much of the idiot on the beach. No, for he’d have been out with Tom Foster in his boat. The lad swims—in all weathers, apparently—to bring in the fish for that degenerate who looks after him.”

Jamieson laughed out loud, then stopped abruptly and asked, “But…do you actually believe that? That a man can herd fish? I mean, that’s quite incredible!”

“Oh?” Tremain answered. “You think so? Then don’t just take my word for it but the next time you’re in town go have a drink in the Sailor’s Rest. Get talking with any of the local fishermen and ask them how come Foster always gets the best catches.”

“But herding fish—” the old man began to protest.

And Tremain cut him off: “Now, I didn’t say that. I said he brings them in—somehow attracts them.” Then he offered a weak grin. “Yes, I’m well aware that sounds almost as silly. But—” He pursed his lips, shrugged and fell silent.

“So,” said Jamieson. “Some truths, some rumours. But as far as I’m concerned, I still don’t know it all. For instance, what was this awful disease you say George White contracted? What do you mean by ‘awful’? All venereal diseases are pretty awful.”

“Well, I suppose they are,” Tremain answered. “But not like this one. There’s awful and awful, but this was hideous. And he passed it down to his idiot child, too.”

“He did what?”

“The way ‘young Geoff’ looks now, that was how George White looked in the months before he—”

“Died?”

“No.” The other shook his head, grimly. “It’s not as simple as that. George didn’t just die, he took his own life.” And:

“Ah!” said the old man. “So it was suicide.”

Tremain nodded. “And I know this is a dreadful thing to say, but with a man like that—with his sexual appetites—surely it’s just as well. A disease like that…why, he was a walking time bomb!”

“My goodness!” Jamieson exclaimed. “Was it never diagnosed? Can we put a name to it? Who was his doctor?”

“He wouldn’t see a doctor. The more Jilly pressed him to do so, the more he retreated into himself. And only she could tell you what life must have been like with him, during his last few weeks. But since she’d already stuck it out for fifteen or more years, watching it gradually come out in him during all of that time…God, how strong she must have been!”

“Terrible, terrible!” said Jamieson—and then he frowned. “Yet Jilly and
her
child, I mean Anne—apparently they didn’t come down with anything.”

“No, and we can thank God for that!” said Tremain. “I think we’ll have to assume that as soon as Jilly knew how sick George was, she—or they—stopped…well, you know what I mean.”

“Yes.” Jamieson nodded. “I do know: they were man and wife in name only. But if both Anne and Geoff were born within a few months of each other—and if young Geoff was, well,
defective
from birth—then Anne is a very fortunate young woman indeed.”

“Exactly,” said Tremain. “And is it any wonder her mother’s nerves are so bad? My wife and I, we’ve known the White’s a lot longer than you, James, and I can assure you that there’s never been a woman more watchful of her child than Jilly is of Anne.”

“Watchful?”

Doreen had come back in, and she said, “Oh, yes. That girl, she can’t cough or catch a cold, or even develop a pimple without having her mother fussing all over her. Why, Anne’s skin is flawless, but if you should see them on the beach together next summer—and if Anne’s skin gets a little red or rough from the sun and the sand—you watch Jilly’s reaction.”

And Tremain concurred. “It’s a wonder Jilly so much as lets that kid out of the house…”

• • •

The subject changed; the conversation moved on; half an hour or so later Jamieson looked at his watch. “Almost time I was on my way,” he said. “There are some programmes I want to watch on TV tonight.” He turned to Doreen. “Before I go, however, you might like to show me that brooch of yours. You were, er, busy in the kitchen for a while when we were talking and I didn’t much like to open the box in your absence.”