Chris
turned the car into Main Street.
"Chris,
there he is. Quick. Stop."
He
pulled over. "Who?"
"The
man who does odd jobs around the village."
Chris
saw a man chopping at a privet hedge with some shears.
"You
said we needed some help at the seafort-go ask him."
"Are
you sure? He looks a bit wild."
"It
won't hurt to ask, Chris."
His
arms, legs, and most of his body ached. Some help shifting the rubble
mountains, he had to admit, would be welcome.
Stiffly,
he walked along the pavement to where the man was cutting the hedge.
With every snap of the shears his hair and wild-man-of-the-woods
beard shook.
"Excuse
me. I'm-"
The
man continued cutting.
"Excuse
me."
The
words sunk in. The man stopped abruptly and looked up. The face was
expressionless but the eyes had an odd cast to them. Chris pressed
on. You don't need Einstein to shift concrete slabs.
"Excuse
me. My name's Chris Stainforth. I've just moved into the seafort up
on Manshead."
No
response. Just an empty stare.
"There's
a lot of rubbish to shift and I wondered if you'd be interested in
some work."
"Uh
..." the man held the shears in front of him frozen in mid-cut.
Then
understanding hit him like a lump of concrete dropping out of the
sky. The empty eyes blinked. Suddenly a fierce look blazed from them.
"Manshead
... Seafort ..." the wild man shuddered as if he'd found a
severed hand in his sandwich box.
"No
... No. Mans ... head." The voice, thin and cracking, sounded as
if it hadn't been used for weeks. "No. I don't go. You don't
make me go. I live here. You say ... you say, go there, go do this,
go do that. I'm here, I'm here. You want this, you want that. Go to
the seafort. Go to Manshead. Do that in that place. That bad place."
Chris's
polite smile dried. "It's okay. Forget it... Don't worry. Just a
suggestion."
The
wild man pointed at Chris with the shears. They were stained green
with the blood of the privet. "It's not right. They say: Do
this, do that. I wash cutlery, you know. There's so much of the
bloody things. Knives, forks, spoons. More than anyone needs. It's
just not right ... No ... no. I'm not-"
"Easy,
there, old son."
The
big American who ran the village store ambled casually along the
road, an easy smile on his face. "You got work to do, Brinley?"
"Cutting
this blasted hedge."
"Hey,
watch the language," said the man soothingly. "Lady and kid
present."
"I've
got lots to do before hometime. Hedge. Watering."
"Plenty
of time, old son. Take it easy. You got your flask? Have a drink."
It
took five whole seconds for the penny to drop.
"I
want a cup of tea."
"Sure
... No point wearing yourself out. Grab yourself a break."
The
wild man abruptly walked away.
"Thanks,"
said Chris. "I think I upset him."
"Ah,
don't bother yourself. He gets like that. Hey, how's David? Still got
the Superman stuff?"
David,
leaning out of the car window, beamed shyly and nodded.
"That's
great. 'Cos I found some Superman comics in my old magazine store."
He handed a carrier bag full of glossy comics to David.
"That's
great. Thank you."
"That
saves on introductions." Tony Gateman had appeared and was
swinging open an iron gate. "You met my other guest."
"Sure,
we've met before in the shop."
"This
way, folks. The barbecue's lit, the drinks are cold. I don't know if
anyone's thirsty, but I am."
They
followed Tony into the back garden.
"There
you go, David, old son. I've rigged something up for you."
"A
rope swing!" David ran down to the bottom of the garden where a
mature willow stood. From a branch a rope dangled with a piece of
wood pushed through a knot at the bottom.
"You
shouldn't have gone to all this trouble, Mr. Gateman."
"Tony,"
he corrected gently. "No trouble. The little chap'd be bored
with my old-fogey talk anyway." He led them onto a paved
barbecue area. A large purpose-built barbecue smoked in a
business-like way. Two tables stood side by side, one laid out with
foil-covered plates and bowls; the other with bottles.
"White
wine, Ruth? Or am I being a sexist pig?"
"I'm
sure you're not, Tony. But I'll have a lager if you've got one."
"Ah,
working up a thirst on that seafort of yours, eh? Beer, Chris?"
Mark
Faust spoke in his bass rumble. "Chris and Ruth had a taste of
Fox just now. I should have warned them."
"Ah."
Tony handed Chris a pint topped with a foam as white as ice-cream.
"Every village has a Brinley Fox. Harmless, though. But you'll
have met his father?"
"No.
Should I have?"
"Fox
and Barnett. The builders you bought the seafort from. That's old
Mr. Fox's son."
"I
always dealt with the agent. I never met Mr. Fox himself."
"That's
hardly surprising, I suppose."
Why?
Chris was tempted to probe deeper. The excuse that Fox had simply
pulled out of converting the seafort because he had had a change of
heart was pretty light on authenticity in Chris's eyes. And he
suspected Tony Gateman knew the real reason.
Tony
poured Mark a Guinness and himself a generous Scotch and ginger while
effortlessly engaging the three of them in small-talk. Eventually,
Mark excused himself, saying he was going to talk to David.
Tony
topped up the drinks. "Smashing place, Out-Butterwick, you're
going to love it."
"What
brought you here?" asked Ruth. "You're not local."
"Ah,
you spotted the lad from the East End accent. A dead give-away. To
tell you the truth, my dear, you won't find many true locals. As far
as I know, only the Hodgson brothers, the chaps who farm all these
meadows at the back here, are original Out-Butterwickers. No ..."
Tony leaned forward as if sharing a secret. "Truth is we're all
flaming outsiders. You know Mark Faust is. Came here in '62. I
followed in '69. Before that I was a partner in a film production
company." Chuckling, he pulled a cigar from his pocket. He
didn't light it but turned it over and over in his long, thin
pianist's fingers as he spoke in his soft, eager, secrets-to-be-told
manner. "Film production sounds a bit grand. In fact we made
training films and promos for the big corporations. I was the East
End lad done good. Flash Jag, apartment in Mayfair, a leggy wife.
That's when it got stupid. We had more work than we could handle. I'd
find myself in the office at midnight; the night before you've got to
present a sure-fire hit to the client. And you know, you've not got a
ruddy idea in your head. That's when you reach for the white
powders." He tapped the cigar on the side of his nose.
"With
me going flakey on forty fags a day and a lot of white powder up my
tubes I came here. We were doing a location shoot for a new
lawnmower; up on the dunes. You know, it looks like twenty miles of
overgrown lawn." Anyway, I came. Did the shoot, feeling like a
slice of death warmed up, coke up my nose, pains in my arms and
chest; God, was I in a mess ... Then I walked along the beach to
Manshead. I just stood there and looked ... The sea, the fresh air,
the dunes, miles of beach, seagulls shooting this way and that ...
And-bang!" He poured himself another drink. "It hit me."
He
paused. Then smiled. "God knows what. But something did. It's
okay, folks, I'm not going to get religious on you. But I walked out
on that causeway. And I chucked my fags and coke into the drink.
Gone." He shrugged. "I went back to London. And all I did
was think about this place. It was like seeing an enchanting woman. I
fell in love. That's when I sold my share in the company and came to
live up here." He sipped his drink. "What do you make of
that, then? A dozy old bugger? Mid-life crisis?"
"No,"
said Ruth, "it sounds as though Out-Butterwick saved your life."
"I
think it did, Ruth ... Ah, enough of me. Tell me your plans. Another
beer, Chris?"
"Thanks.
Tony ... You said Fox just pulled out of the seafort conversion. To
be honest, the idea of someone pulling out after sinking all that
money into a project is insane."
"Look,
I'll tell you the truth," said Tony, leaning forward in his
chair. "If you don't get it from me, you'll get some cock and
bull story from one of the villagers. Want a drink, Ruth?"
"Not
for me, thanks. I'm driving."
"Right
... Old Fox worked on the seafort for about six months. His only
employees were his two sons. Twin lads in their late teens."
The
penny dropped; Ruth got there first. "The Fox who cuts hedges
was one of the twins, right?"
"Right."
"The
other Fox twin. Was he? ... "
"A
full shilling? He was perfectly normal. As was Brinley Fox in those
days. Two bright twin lads all set to follow in old dad's footsteps
as master builders."
"So
what happened?"
"So,
work went at a cracking rate. No problems. Brinley Fox liked it here.
Sometimes he'd camp out on the dunes and go night fishing from
Manshead itself-you know, there's a rock ledge that runs around the
bottom of the fort. He did that for a couple of weeks. Then packed it
in all of a sudden. In fact he got in a fight in the pub with a
couple of lads. He accused them of playing tricks on him. Trying to
frighten him at the dead of night."
"And
were they?"
"They
said they weren't. But lads are lads. Who knows?" He glanced at
his watch and then shot a look across at the setting sun. "Then
one day all three Foxes were working on the seafort. The tide was
coming in, just starting to lap over the causeway, when Jim Fox,
Brinley's brother, remembers they've left their sandwiches in the van
on the beach. It's a warm day, so he tells his brother he's going to
take off his shoes and socks and nip back to the van. He won't be
gone two minutes. Anyway, old Fox is doing some work on the doors,
young Brinley's sitting by the gate grabbing a nicotine break. By all
accounts Jim Fox set off across the causeway in bare feet, ankle-deep
in water, and phutt ..." He shrugged.
"What
happened?"
"What
happened is, Jim Fox set off on one side to walk the fifty yards
across the causeway to the beach; but he never arrived."
There
was a silence. Midges danced above their heads.
Chris
rubbed his cheek. "But Brinley Fox saw what happened?"
"Therein
lies the mystery. His sanity disappeared with his brother."
"It's
certainly a good mystery." Chris took a swallow of beer. "Good
enough for the tabloids. So what happened? Abducted by flying saucers
or mermaids?"
"Neither.
Old Fox says he saw nothing. He saw his son set off, walking
ankle-deep through the surf. He went back to his work. Five seconds
later he heard Brinley scream. He turned around to see that Jim had
vanished. Brinley yelled, 'It's got him, its got him.' Then he shut
up and said nothing for more than a year. When he started talking
again he was just how you see him now." Tony tapped the side of
his head.
"Well,
what did happen to Jim Fox?"
"No
one knows. He'd disappeared. No body-nothing."
Logic
glared Chris in the face. "An accident, you'd suppose. I've seen
it myself on the causeway. The tide comes in, and although it's only
a few inches deep on the roadway you can't see the stones because
they're a dark color. You only need to wander off course a yard or so
and you'd fall in the sea."
"Even
so," said Tony, "at high tide you would only be about
chest-deep if you stood on the beach at the side of the causeway."