It's Raining Men (43 page)

Gene nodded slowly. ‘That’s a nice idea. Thank you.’

‘So, should I keep this?’ She held up the crutch.

‘That’s up to you. Are you likely to fall down any more holes?’

‘God knows what’s in store for me.’ Lara shrugged. ‘I’d better keep it, then. As a souvenir.’

She turned to go.

‘Do you want a coffee?’ asked Gene. ‘I could do with one myself.’

Lara looked at the toys and understood that he might need some company. ‘Yeah, okay, why not?’

He had a very broad back, she noted. Big shoulders and strong arms. He made rotten coffee, though. Weak as witch pee, as her nan used to say. She asked for another spoonful of granules.

‘So, have you any more tenants for Well Cottage?’ said Lara, nodding with approval at his second effort.

‘Are you joking? At those prices? I’ll leave it on until the end of the season, but I’m not holding out any hope. I have to go into Wellem to reply to those emails, and quite
honestly it’s a big faff. It takes me ages. Plus the first lot of tenants have put me off for life.’

Lara covered up the smile that was tugging at the edges of her lips.

‘I shall miss this place,’ she said. ‘I’m not looking forward to going home tomorrow at all. I’ve got holiday blues.’

‘You’ll be back at work on Monday and not remember any of it,’ said Gene, picking up the dog ball and rolling it around in his hand.

‘I don’t think I can forget this week and a half. It’s been . . .’ She searched for the word and couldn’t find it. ‘I don’t know what it’s
been.’

‘Boring, tedious, painful?’ he suggested.

He had got the wrong end of the stick entirely. ‘Not at all. No way. Crazy, funny, bizarre, but in a lovely way. I’ll be taking a bag full of warm memories with me. As well as a
crutch.’

He dropped the ball and it rolled under Lara’s chair. She bent to pick it up and handed it to him. Her hands looked tiny compared to his. She imagined them cupping her face, stroking her
cheek.

‘I’ve got something to show you,’ said Gene, taking a long swig of coffee and then putting his cup down on the table. ‘Come with me.’

He led her out of the door and across into the outbuilding where he worked. One of his projects had a sheet over it. He pulled it off and revealed a dog lying down, paws straight out in front,
head resting on them, asleep.

‘It’s Jock,’ he said. ‘If you haven’t guessed. It’s not quite finished.’

Lara bent down to it. She knew what a labour of love this must have been for him and, though she had never seen old Jock, she had no doubt that this must be a brilliant likeness of him.

‘Oh, Gene,’ she said, her voice flooded with sympathy.

‘Don’t start me off,’ he said, pressing a thumb and forefinger into his eyes.

Lara couldn’t remember closing the step that separated them but suddenly she was there, her arms around his waist, and his moved to circle hers and then he was bending and his lips were on
hers. His kiss was gentle and sweet. His big hands were in her hair, then stroking her neck, then cupping her face, holding her cheek, and it was every bit as nice as she had imagined. Then he was
pulling away, those hands now on her arms. He didn’t need to say anything. They both knew that neither of them was ready to open up and let someone take even a cursory look inside. There was
no need for apology or analysis, it was simply a kiss between kind, decent people whom life had pushed together for a brief spell. In another time, another place, there might have been more. They
merely carried on as if what had happened had been a little diversionary arc from the main path and the main path had now been rejoined.

‘I’ll drop the keys off tomorrow before we leave,’ said Lara.

‘No need. Just leave them under the mat at the side of the door where you found them.’

Gene replaced the cover over the dog as gently as if he were covering the real Jock with it. Then they fell into step as they left the outbuilding.

‘Well.’ Lara turned to face him at his door. ‘Thanks for the crutch and all the patchweed.’

‘Knitbone.’

‘That’s the stuff.’

‘Take care and drive safely tomorrow.’

‘We shall.’

‘Bye.’

‘Bye.’

She heard his door open and creak shut, so there was no need to turn and wave; she knew he had gone inside.

But he was still there, watching her as she walked off, aware that she was pressing her finger to her lips and tracing the place where his had touched hers.

Joan had hardly slept. Her brain was awash with electrical activity, ideas sparking, trying to turn an impossible suspicion into a real situation. What she had deduced was
nonsense. It was a woman who had saved the thirteen men’s lives in 1928. What sort of woman could do that? A mermaid? Every sensible bone in her body was telling her that it was a loony
story.

But what if it weren’t.

It was right up there with the Loch Ness Monster and the Yeti. Then again, how much money had sightings of them fetched? Fake as they were.

At nine o’clock exactly, Joan started ringing newspapers: the
Mail
, the
Sun
, the
Telegraph
, the
Mirror
.

‘I think I’ve got a story,’ she told the switchboard operators. ‘And I want to know how much you’d pay me for it.’

She was careful not to give away her location or too many details, but she had always been very good at teasing.

‘Have you got cast-iron evidence and photographic proof?’ each of them asked.

‘I’ve got a lot of photographs to show and I’ll have everything else you need by tonight.’

Annoyingly, they didn’t sound as interested as she had thought they would be. They clearly thought she was one of many nutters who rang and claimed to have seen the ghost of Anne Boleyn in
their cellar or Elvis in a chip shop. In a hissy fit of pique she rang the
Sunday Enquirer
, a sensationalist publication, and was delighted to find that they were more than keen.

‘You think a
what
is living in your village?’ asked the reporter to whom the switchboard transferred her call. He was obviously writing notes as they were talking. She could
imagine manic Teeline squiggles.

‘A mermaid,’ said Joan. ‘I know what that sounds like. But I’ll be able to prove it by the end of today.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Down south, that’s all I’m telling you.’ She’d withheld her number. They wouldn’t be able to tell.

‘Cornwall, by any chance?’

The mermaid capital of the UK. Nice try.

‘Near,’ lied Joan. ‘What would you pay if I gave you the story?’

‘Two thousand.’

‘You’re insulting me. I’m putting the phone down n—’

‘Wait . . . wait . . . Look, if you’re willing to give us a world exclusive . . .’

‘I am.’ Joan enjoyed hearing the panic in the reporter’s voice. World exclusive. That sounded very big and very thrilling. And very full of money.

‘And you can definitely get photos?’

‘Yes. And they’ll pass any scientific test you care to run them through.’

‘Well . . .
if
it all checks out . . . and let’s face it, love, you’d need some serious proof, but if you had it – well . . . you could more or less write your
own cheque.’

‘Then I’ll be back in touch with you first thing in the morning,’ she said, and as she was putting down the phone she could hear the reporter once again pleading with her to
wait.

Twenty-four hours would make him even keener.

Joan didn’t turn up for work that morning nor did she bother explaining where she was. If need be she would make up some excuse about feeling ill and having to go to the
doctor. She didn’t want Gladys alerting anyone to where she might be going, pre-warning R – whoever or whatever R was. She took the back road into the village and wondered what on earth
to do next.

She tried to get a coffee from the man in the kiosk by the square but the old bastard waved her away again, refusing to serve her. Fuming, Joan walked down to the harbour front. This damned
place – she couldn’t wait to stamp it and all its stupid inbred people into the ground. She hoped that whatever scandal it was covering up was big and dirty and splattered them all with
shit.

She followed the course of a seagull which seemed interested in her and she shooed it away, just as the coffee man had shooed her away, in case it crapped on her hair. And as she was looking up,
she saw it: the cottage on the headland. On
top
of the headland.
High
up
.
It couldn’t have been more obvious. It was the only house she hadn’t looked at so it
had to be that one.

How did one get to it, though? She decided to head up the hill first, then take any turning to the left and see where it took her.

You might have had sisters had it not been for me.

If there was a run of boy births it was because a mermaid was in nearby waters.

Raine.

Apparently the village was named after the mermaids that once lived in the sea so they wouldn’t sink the fishing boats.

Reines de la Mer.

Queens of the sea.

Raine.

He said Seymour had committed a sin against God that would not allow him to be included on church land.

Seymour was cursed in marrying me.

Clare awoke with a start, feeling that she was drowning in the lagoon. She could feel her body floating downwards and in her dream she had long hair that swirled around her face in the water.
She sat bolt upright and thought about the mad dream she had just emerged from. She would go and visit Raine today and they would laugh when Clare said that she’d had a dream about her, about
Raine being cursed by Reverend Unwin because she was a creature of the sea and not a real woman.

Clare walked down the hill in order to get fresh milk. When she turned the corner Val Hathersage was leaning against one of the trees in Spice Wood, smoking. He looked very
handsome, as always, but her pupils weren’t dilating.

‘Ah, it’s the witch,’ he said, his green eyes glinting, no doubt hoping to excite her.

‘Good morning, Mr Hathersage,’ she said. ‘How are you today?’

He caught her arm as she was about to pass.

‘Whoa, whoa, there. Why didn’t you say hello to me last night in front of your friends? Am I your dirty secret?’

Got it in one.
‘No, I was busy talking; you were busy chatting up Shirley.’ She instantly regretted saying that because it made her sound needy and jealous, and she was
neither where he was concerned.

‘Did you hear me say that I’m moving on?’

‘I did. Where are you going?’

‘Ireland. To try my fortune.’ He grinned and tried his knicker-melting smile again, to no effect.

‘Want to go into the woods, lady?’ he asked, with an Irish accent.

‘Erm . . .’ Clare scratched her head. ‘I think I’ll pass.’

‘Sure now? I’ll have you screaming my name out so loud they’ll hear you in Whitby.’

‘Thanks, but I’m going for milk. The others are waiting for me,’ said Clare, although she doubted that Val Hathersage would cut the mustard in the bedroom. He wasn’t
considerate out of bed, he was hardly going to be a love god in it.

‘Good luck, Val. Enjoy Ireland.’

He rubbed his hands together and grinned. ‘With all those colleens waiting for me, I just might.’

Clare didn’t know if the word was deliberate or not, but, then again, she didn’t care.

When she came back up the hill, he had gone. She noticed a slim woman with long brown hair and a handbag over her shoulder walking into the wood. A visitor for Raine, thought
Clare, unless it was one of Val’s conquests who was off for her rendezvous in the woods. She tittered to herself and carried on, wondering why, when she opened her mouth, she could suddenly
taste something bitter in the air.

Clare had a coffee and a big fluffy omelette with the others and then went down for a swim in her lagoon. She was crying by the time she reached the bottom of the steps, but
down there she was well away from the earshot of the others. They would have been devastated to know she was so depressed. She could only admit to herself that she knew how Frank Hathersage felt:
snared in razor wire. Remaining trapped in it would kill them both; yet breaking free would cut them to ribbons. And, worst of all, they had coiled every strand of it around themselves.

Raine left Albert safely in the house. She kissed his old head and patted a throw around him. He didn’t wake up to return the goodbye.

Raine opened the door and the wind rushed at her, eager with its welcome. She reached behind and unfastened her long snow-white hair so it flowed around her like a wedding veil. She lifted her
head to the sun and smiled.

‘I am going home,’ she said to herself.

Slowly she wheeled herself to the front of the house and she swept her old jewelled eyes across the vast expanse of sea. The waters were wild today, rising and foaming in jagged peaks, the waves
pushing and jostling with each other. Just as they had been on that day all those years ago when she looked up and saw the massive dark shadow of the boat, heard the creak and snap of its mast,
felt the vibrations as its great body plunged down. Splashes, cries, flailing arms, thrashing legs – their hair floating around their heads like angels as they descended to her.
It’s raining men
, she had thought.
It’s raining men.

She breathed in deeply, and the bitterness stuck to her tongue like nettles to the skin. She felt a movement behind her. Raine did not turn as she spoke.

‘I’ve been expecting you, Joanna. How clever of you to find me.’

Clare didn’t want to go back up the steps, knowing that packing to go home awaited her. Home. She let loose a mirthless laugh and it echoed around her in the cave as if
taunting her. Home was where the heart was and her heart wasn’t there in the trendy flat with the expensive furniture and luxury kitchen. It was lost, floating around, looking for a nest to
settle in and be warm and looked after.