Dead Water

‘… Now, you may all laugh as loud as you please,’ she cried with a reckless air. ‘I shan’t mind. I daresay there’s some clever answer explaining it all away or you can, if you choose, call it coincidence. But I don’t care. I’m going to say my little say.’ She held up her glass of port in a dashing manner and gained their reluctant attention. ‘I’m an asthmatic!’ she declared vaingloriously. ‘Since I came here, I’ve had my usual go, regular as clockwork, every evening at half past eight. I daresay some of you have heard me sneezing and wheezing away in my corner. Very well. Now! This evening, when I’d heard about Wally, I walked up to the spring and while I sat there, it came into my mind. Quite suddenly. ‘I wonder.’ And I dipped my fingers in the waterfall –’ She shut her eyes, raised her brows and smiled. The port slopped over on her hand. She replaced the glass. ‘I wished my wee wish,’ she continued. ‘And I sat up there, feeling ever so light and unburdened, and then I came down.’ She pointed dramatically to the bar clock. ‘Look at the time!’ she exulted. ‘Five past ten!’ She slapped her chest. ‘Clear as a bell! And I know, I just know it’s happened. To ME.’

There was a dead silence during which, Jenny thought, everyone listened nervously for asthmatic manifestations from Miss Cost’s chest. There were none.

‘Miss Cost,’ said Patrick Ferrier at last. ‘How perfectly splendid!’ There were general ambiguous murmurs of congratulation. Major Barrimore, looking as if he would like to exchange a wink with somebody, added: ‘Long may it last!’ They were all rather taken aback by the fervency with which she ejaculated. ‘Amen! Yes, indeed. Amen!’ The Rector looked extremely uncomfortable. Dr Maine asked Miss Cost if she’d seen any green ladies while she was about it.

‘N-n-o!’ she said and darted a very unfriendly glance at him.

‘You sound as if you’re not sure of that, Miss Cost.’

‘My eyes were closed,’ she said quickly.

‘I see,’ said Dr Maine.

The restless young man who had been biting at his nails said loudly: ‘Look!’ and having engaged their general attention, declared himself. ‘Look!’ he repeated, ‘I’d better come clean and explain at once that I take a – well, a professional interest in all this. On holiday: but a news-hound’s job’s never done, is it? It seems to me there’s quite a story here. I’m sure my paper would want our readers to hear about it. The London Sun and I’m Kenneth Joyce. “K.J.’s Column.” You know? “What’s The Answer?” Now, what do you all say? Just a news item. Nothing spectacular.’

‘O, no!’ Mrs Barrimore ejaculated and then added: ‘I’m sorry. It’s simply that I really do so dislike that sort of thing.’

‘Couldn’t agree more,’ said Dr Maine. For a second they looked at each other.

‘I really think,’ the Rector said, ‘not. I’m afraid I dislike it too, Mr Joyce.’

‘So do I,’ Jenny said.

‘Do you?’ asked Mr Joyce. ‘I’m sorry about that. I was going to ask if you’d lend me this picture. It’d blow up quite nicely. My paper would pay –’

‘No,’ said Jenny.

‘Golly, how fierce!’ said Mr Joyce, pretending to shrink. He looked about him. ‘Now why not?’ he asked.

Major Barrimore said: ‘I don’t know why not. I can’t say I see anything wrong with it. The thing’s happened, hasn’t it, and it’s damned interesting. Why shouldn’t people hear about it?’

‘O, I do agree,’ cried Miss Cost. ‘I’m sorry but I do so agree with the Major. When the papers are full of such dreadful things shouldn’t we welcome a lovely, lovely true story like Wally’s. O, yes!’

Patrick said to Mr Joyce: ‘Well, at least you declared yourself,’ and grinned at him.

‘He wanted Jenny’s photograph,’ said Mrs Barrimore quietly. ‘So he had to.’

They looked at her with astonishment. ‘Well, honestly, Mama!’ Patrick ejaculated. ‘What a very crisp remark!’

‘An extremely cogent remark,’ said Dr Maine.

‘I don’t think so,’ Major Barrimore said loudly and Jenny was aware of an antagonism that had nothing to do with the matter under discussion.

‘But, of course I had to,’ Mr Joyce conceded with a wide gesture and an air of candour. ‘You’re dead right. I did want the photograph. All the same, it’s a matter of professional etiquette, you know. My paper doesn’t believe in pulling fast ones. That’s not The Sun’s policy, at all. In proof of which I shall retire gracefully upon a divided house.’

He carried his drink over to Miss Cost and sat beside her. Mrs Barrimore got up and moved away. Dr Maine took her empty glass and put it on the bar.

There was an uncomfortable silence, induced perhaps by the general recollection that they had all drunk at Mr Joyce’s expense and a suspicion that his hospitality had not been offered entirely without motive.

Mrs Barrimore said: ‘Good night, everybody,’ and went out.

Patrick moved over to Jenny. ‘I’m going fishing in the morning if it’s fine,’ he said. ‘Seeing it’s a Saturday, would it amuse you to come? It’s a small, filthy boat and I don’t expect to catch anything.’

‘What time?’

‘Dawn. Or soon after. Say half past four.’

‘Crikey! Well, yes, I’d love to if I can wake myself up.’

‘I’ll scratch on your door like one of the Sun King’s courtiers. Which door is it? Frightening, if I scratched on Miss Cost’s!’

Jenny told him. ‘Look at Miss Cost now,’ she said. ‘She’s having a whale of a time with Mr Joyce.’

‘He’s getting a story from her.’

‘O, no!’

‘O, yes! And tomorrow, betimes, he’ll be hunting up Wally and his unspeakable parents. With a camera.’

‘He won’t!’

‘Of course he will. If they’re sober they’ll be enchanted. Watch out for K.J.’s “What’s The Answer” column in The Sun.’

‘I do think the gutter-press in this country’s the rock bottom.’

‘Don’t you have a gutter-press in New Zealand?’

‘Not as low.’

‘Well done, you. All the same, I don’t see why K.J.’s idea strikes you as being so very low. No sex. No drugs. No crime. It’s as clean as a whistle, like Wally’s hands.’ He was looking rather intently into Jenny’s face. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘You didn’t like that, either, did you?’

‘It’s just – I don’t know, or yes, I think I do. Wally’s so vulnerable. I mean, he’s been jeered at and cowed by the other children. He’s been puzzled and lonely and now he’s a comparatively happy little creature. Quite a hero, in a way. He’s not attractive: his sort aren’t, as a rule, but I’ve got an affection for him. Whatever’s happened ought to be private to him.’

‘But he won’t take it in, will he? All the ballyhoo, if there is any ballyhoo? He may even vaguely enjoy it.’

‘I don’t want him to. All right,’ Jenny said crossly, ‘I’m being bloody-minded. Forget it. P’raps it won’t happen.’

‘I think you may depend upon it,’ Patrick rejoined. ‘It will.’

And, in the event, he turned out to be right.

IV

WHAT’S THE ANSWER?

Do You Believe in Fairies?

Wally Trehern does. Small boy of Portcarrow Island had crop of warts that made life a misery.