The Taint and Other Novellas (23 page)

“Yes,” she said. “It was very thoughtful of you to wait for me.” She opened the small velvet-lined box and passed it across to him. The brooch was pinned to a pad in the bottom of the box and the old man let it lie there, simply turning the box in his hand and looking at the brooch from all angles.

“You’re absolutely right.” He nodded after a moment or two. “Without a doubt it has a certain beauty, but it’s also a very odd piece. And it’s not the first time I’ve seen gold worked in this style. But you know…” Here he paused and frowned, apparently uncertain how best to continue.

“Oh?” she said. “Is something wrong?”

“Well—” he began to answer, then paused again and bit his lip. “Well, it’s just that…I don’t know. Perhaps I shouldn’t mention it.”

Doreen took back the box and brooch, and said, “But now you really
must
mention it! You have to! Do you think there’s something wrong with the brooch? But then, what could be wrong with it? Some kind of fake, maybe? Poor quality gold? Or not gold at all!” Her voice was more strident, more high-pitched, moment by moment. “Is that it, James? Have I been cheated?”

“At the price, whatever it was you paid? Probably not. It’s the meaning of the thing. It’s what it stands for. Doreen, this isn’t a lucky item.”

“It’s unlucky? In what way?”

“Well, anthropology was a hobby of mine no less than driftwood art is your husband’s. And as for the odd style and native workmanship we see here…I believe you’ll find this brooch is from the South Seas, where it was probably crafted by a tribal witchdoctor.”

“What? A witchdoctor?” Doreen’s hand went to her throat.

“Oh, yes.” Jamieson nodded. “And having fashioned it from an alloy of local gold and some other lustrous metal, the idea would have been to lay a curse upon it, then to ensure it fell into the hands of an enemy. A kind of sympathetic magic—or in the poor victim’s case, quite unsympathetic.”

Now Doreen took the box back, and staring hard at its contents said, “To be honest, I’ve never much liked this thing. I only bought it out of some misguided sense of loyalty to Jilly, so that I could tell myself that at least some money was finding its way into that household. What with George’s philandering and all, they couldn’t have been very well off.”

Her husband took the box off her, peered at the brooch for a few moments, and said, “I think you must be right, James. It isn’t a very pleasant sort of thing at all. It’s quite unearthly, really. These weird arabesques, not of any terrestrial foliage but more of…what? Interwoven seaweeds, kelp, suckered tentacles? And these scalloped edges you see in certain shells. I mean, it’s undeniably striking in its looks—well, until you look closer. And then, why, you’re absolutely right! It’s somehow crude, as if crafted by some primitive islander.”

He handed the box back to his wife who said, “I’ll sell it at once! I believe I know the jewellers where George White got rid of those other pieces.” And glancing at the old man: “It’s not that I’m superstitious, you understand, but better not to risk it. You never know where this thing’s been.”

“Dear lady, you’re so right,” Jamieson said. “But myself, having an interest in this sort of thing—and being a doctor of an entirely different stamp—I find the piece fascinating So if you do decide to sell it, don’t take it to a dealer but offer it to me first. And whatever you paid for it, I think we can safely say you won’t be the worse off.”

“Why, that’s so very kind of you!” she said, seeing him to the door. “But are you sure?”

“Absolutely,” the old man answered. “Give me a ring in the morning when you’ve had time to think it over, and let me know what I owe you.”

With which the Tremains walked him to his car…

• • •

The winter came in quickly and savagely, keeping almost everyone in the village to their houses. With the fishermen’s boats sheltering within the harbour wall, only the old Sailor’s Rest was doing anything like good business.

Driving his car to work at the college in St. Austell over frequently washed-out and ever potholed roads, headmaster John Tremain cursed the day he’d bought his place (a) for its cheapness and (b) for its “seclusion and wild dramatic beauty.” The seclusion was fine and dandy but he could do without the wildness of winters like this one, and of drama he’d had more than enough. Come spring and the first half-decent offer he got, he and Doreen would be out of here for a more convenient place in St. Austell. It would be more expensive, but what the hell…he’d sell the car, cycle to work, and save money on petrol and repairs.

As for the Whites: Jilly and Anne were more or less housebound, but they did have a regular visitor in the old American gentleman. James Jamieson had seemed to take to them almost as family, and never turned up on their doorstep without bringing some gift or other with him. Often as not it was food: a fresh pie from the bakery, a loaf of bread and slab of cheese, maybe a bottle of good wine. All to the good, for Jilly’s old car was well past reliable, and Anne had to attend her piano and language lessons. Jamieson would drive the girl to and fro without complaint, and wouldn’t accept a penny for all his kindness.

Also, when Anne went down with a sore throat, which served to drive her mother frantic with worry, Jamieson gave the girl a thorough examination and diagnosed a mild case of laryngitis. His remedy—one aspirin three times daily, and between times a good gargle with a spoonful of salt in water—worked wonders, for mother and daughter both! But his ministrations didn’t stop there. For having now seen Jilly on several occasions when her nervous condition was at its worst, the old man had in fact prescribed for her, too; though not without protesting that in fact he shouldn’t for he’d retired from all that. Nevertheless, the pills he made up for her did the trick, calming her nerves like nothing she’d tried before. They couldn’t entirely relieve her obsession or anxieties with regard to Anne, however, though now when she felt compelled to fuss and fret her hands wouldn’t shake so badly, and her at best fluffy mind would stay focussed for longer. Moreover, now that certain repetitive nightmares of long-standing no longer visited her quite so frequently, Jilly was pleased to declare that she was sleeping better…

• • •

Occasionally, when the weather was a little kinder, Anne would walk to her piano lesson at Miss Harding’s thatched cottage on the far side of the village. Jilly would usually accompany her daughter part way, and use the occasion to visit the bakery or collect groceries at the post office. The winter being a hard one, such times were rare; more often than not, James Jamieson would arrive in his car in time to give Anne a lift. It got so that Jilly even expected him, and Anne—normally so retiring—had come to regard him as some kind of father or grandfather figure.

One day in mid-January, when the wind drove the waves high up the beach, and stinging hail came sleeting almost horizontally off the sea, the old man and his young passenger arrived at Miss Harding’s place to find an agitated Tom Foster waiting for them—in fact waiting for Jamieson.

The old man had bumped into Foster once or twice before in the Sailor’s Rest, and had found him a surly, bearded, weatherbeaten brute with a gravelly voice and a habit of slamming his empty mug on the bar by way of catching the barman’s attention and ordering another drink. He had few friends among the other fishermen and was as much a loner as any man Jamieson had ever known. Yet now, today, he was in need of a friend—or rather, in need of a doctor.

The village spinster, Miss Julia Harding, had kept Foster waiting in the small conservatory that fronted her cottage; he wasn’t the sort of person she would allow in the house proper. But Foster, still shaking rain from his lank hair, and pacing to and fro—a few paces each way, which was all the conservatory allowed—pounced on Jamieson as soon as the old man was ushered into view by Miss Harding.

“It’s the boy,” he rasped, grabbing Jamieson’s arm. “Can’t get no sleep, the way um itches. I know’d you’d be comin’ with the lass fer the teachin’, and so I waited. But I do wish you’d come see the boy. I’d consider it a real favour, and Tom Foster dun’t forget um that does um a favour. But it’s more fer young Geoff’n fer me. Um’s skin be raw from scratchin’, so it be. And I got no car fer gettin’ um inter the city…beside which, um dun’t want no big city doctor. But um won’t fuss any with you, if you’ll come see um.”

“I don’t any longer practice…” The old man appeared at a loss what to do or say.

But Anne took his other arm. “Please go,” she said. “Oh do
please
go and see Geoff! And I’ll go with you.”

Miss Harding wagged her finger at Anne, and said, “Oh? And what of your lesson, young lady?” But then, looking for support from Tom Foster and Jamieson, and seeing none, she immediately shook her head in self denial. “No, no—whatever was I thinking? If something ails that poor lad, it’s surely more important than a piano lesson. It must be, for Mr. Foster here, well, he’s hardly one to get himself all stirred up on a mere whim—nor for anything much else, except maybe his fishing—and not even that on a bad day!”

“That I’m not,” growled Foster, either ignoring or failing to recognize the spinster’s jibe for what it really was. And to Jamieson: “Will you come?”

“Well,” the old man sighed, “I don’t suppose it can do any harm to see the boy, and I always carry my old medicine bag in the back of the car…not that there’s a lot of medicine in it these days. But—” He threw up his hands, took Anne and Foster back out to his car, and drove them to the latter’s house where it stood facing the sea across the harbour wall in Fore Street.

Tom Foster’s wife, a small, black-haired, dark-complexioned woman, but not nearly as gnarled or surly as her husband, wiped her hands on her apron to clasp Jamieson’s hand as she let them into the house. She said nothing but simply indicated a bedroom door where it stood ajar.

Geoff was inside, a bulky shape under a coarse blanket, and the room bore the unmistakable odour of fish—but then, so did the entire house. Wrinkling his nose, Jamieson glanced at Anne, but she didn’t seem to have noticed the fish stink; all she was interested in was Geoff’s welfare. As she approached the bed so its occupant seemed to sense her presence; the youth’s bulbous, ugly head came out from under the blanket, and he stared at her with luminous green eyes. But:

“No, no, lass!” Tom Foster grunted. “I knows you be friends but you can’t be in ’ere. Um’s naked under that blanket, and um ain’t nice ter look at what wi’ um’s scratchin’ and all. So out you goes and Ma Foster’ll see ter you in the front.” And coarse brute of a man that he was, he gentled her out of the room.

As Foster closed the door behind her, so Jamieson drew up a chair close to the bed, and said, “Now then, young man, try not to be alarmed. I’m here to see what the trouble is.” With which he began to turn back the blanket. A squat hand, short-fingered and thickly webbed, at once grasped the top edge of the blanket and held it fast. The old man saw blood under the sharp fingernails, the trembling of the unfortunate’s entire body under the blanket, and the terror in his huge, moist, oh-so-deep eyes.

Foster immediately stepped forward. “Now, dun’t you take on so, lad,” he said. “This un’s a doctor, um be. A friend ter the lass and ’er Ma. If you let um, um’ll see ter your scratchin’.”

The thing called Geoff (for close up he was scarcely human) opened his mouth and Jamieson saw his teeth, small but as sharp as needles. There was no threat in it, however—just a popping of those pouty lips, a soundless pleading almost—as the hand slowly relaxed its grip, allowing the old man to turn back the cover without further hindrance.

Despite that Foster was hovering over the old man, watching him closely, he saw no evidence of shock at what was uncovered: that scaly body—which even five years ago a specialist in St. Austell had called the worst case of ichthyosis he’d ever seen, now twice as bad at least—that body under a heavily wattled neck and sloping but powerful shoulders, and the raw, red areas on the forearms and under the ribcage where the rough grey skin had been torn. And as the old man opened his bag and called for hot water and a clean towel, Foster nodded his satisfaction. He had done the right thing sure enough, and Jamieson was a doctor good and true who would care for a life even if it were such as this one under the blanket.

But as Foster turned away to answer Jamieson’s request, the old man took his arm and said, “Tom, do you care for him?”

“Eh?” Foster grunted. “Why, me and my old girl, we’ve cared fer um fer fifteen years! And in fifteen years you can get used ter things, even them things that never gets no better but only worse. And as fer folks—even poorly made ’uns such as the boy—why, in time you can even get fond of ’em, so you can!”

Jamieson nodded and said, “Then look after him better.” And he let Foster go…

• • •

Anne saw the wet, pink-splotched towels when Mrs Foster brought them out of Geoff’s room. And then Tom Foster allowed her in.

The old man was putting his things back into his bag as she hurried to the bedside. There was a clean white sheet under the blanket now, and it was tucked up under Geoff’s blob of a chin. The youth’s neck was bandaged to hold a dressing under his left ear; his right arm lay on top of the blanket, the forearm bandaged where a red stain was evidence of some small seepage.

“What was it?” Anne snatched a breath, touching her hand to her lips and staring at Jamieson wide-eyed, her face drawn and pale, even paler than usual. “Oh, what was it?”

“A skin disorder,” he told her. “Something parasitic—like lice or scabies—but I think I got all of it. No need to worry about it, however. It must have been uncomfortable for him, but it certainly wasn’t deadly. Geoff will recover, I assure you.”

And Tom Foster said, “Anythin’ I can do fer you, Mr. Jamieson, sir, jus’ you ask. I dun’t forget um who’s done me or mine a favour—no, not never.”

“Well, Tom,” Jamieson answered, “I might come to you for a nice piece of fish some time, and that would be payment enough for what little I’ve done here. Right now, though, we’ve other things to talk about.” He turned to the girl. “Anne, if you’ll wait in the car?”