Flesh and Wood - a new novel by Roger Frederick

two

They made their way back along the beach. Winnie was pulled ahead by Oscar and Tegan. Jemma followed slowly behind, carefully prodding the sand with her stick, the wooden hand half zipped into her orange gilet. The fingers poked out as if they were gently caressing her, or trying to escape - reaching out like the finger tips of a prisoner through bars, striving to touch a forbidden sky.

As she limped up the slipway the breeze stiffened, sweeping leaves and litter across the empty harbour car park and down onto the beach. Sand whipped against rotting groynes where trapped plastic flapped like injured gulls. The village was even more eerily silent that usual, like a deserted film set. It were as if every inhabitant had been abducted by aliens or struck down by some mystery plague, turning it into a Mary Celeste-on-Sea. It was the kind of place people only moved to to convalesce or die.

When Jemma left the rehabilitation unit at Westing General Hospital, Lucy, the psychotherapist, suggested she should spend some time in a retreat - a place of spiritual healing, a halfway house where she could come to terms with her condition and then gradually rebuild her career.

Jemma resisted the idea. For one thing she was not attracted by the alternative therapies that the retreats offered - crystal channelling and iridology. As far as she was concerned it was all bullshit, and she had no wish to hang out with a bunch of weirdos (she’d had enough of that in hospital). Also she had no desire to return to her former job at Westing Information Systems.

Stuart had offered to take her back. But she had completely lost her drive, her looks, her ability to think quickly - all the things that made her good at what she did, what she’d done. No, however well meaning Stuart might be, she had no wish to act out that charade, a shadow play of her former life.

Not knowing which way to turn, Jemma had stayed in the flat in Westing in limbo for a few weeks, before moving to Nant Llwyfen. She’d told Lucy that she wanted to be near her mum. Lucy had been encouraged by this.

“It will give you a chance for reconciliation and to re-evaluate your goals,” she said.

Jemma wished she’d never talked to Lucy about her parent’s divorce, and the effect it had on her teenage years. Lucy obviously hadn’t been listening. Otherwise she would have know there was no possibility of ‘reconciliation’, not in the way that Lucy envisaged it. It was simply that Jemma’s mum had offered her a chalet by the sea, and a part time job as a caretaker for the flats and cottages that she and her new partner, Peter, rented out.

It was not what Jemma wanted to do. But it was an easy escape route. She would hardly ever have to meet anyone. She could cope physically with the menial cleaning and administration duties required. And (although she wouldn’t admit it to Lucy), she did actually crave the peace and solitude the village offered - an opportunity to get her head straight, and work out where to go next.

Nant Llwyfen stood (or, rather, crouched) at the tip of a narrow peninsula in Cymllynion, the least populated county in Britain. By rights the strip of land (the devil’s dick, the finger, the Welsh lizard) should have been devoured by the waves centuries earlier, but it somehow persisted against the odds, getting narrower and narrower each year. Once there had been hamlets on either side of the peninsula, where farmers and fishermen eked out a living, but one by one their sparse stone cottages had crumbled in the wind or been swept into the sea, until now only a few roofless ruins remained. Aside from a few side tracks, there was now just one road that extended the 16 mile length of the peninsula, a weak artery feeding Nant Llwyfen, which perched like a chipped and bruised nail at the end of that finger of land, stubbornly refusing to fall off.

It was not an easy place to get to. You had to cross the third bridge and drive for another forty miles along narrow roads before you even reached the turning to Nant Llwyfen. Jemma had arrived at night, passing Cymllyn castle which clung to its dark escarpment, as if sculptured from the craggy rock face like the four American presidents. In the darkness, the castle seemed to float on wisps of smoky blue mist, its rugged turrets and smooth spires illuminated by spotlights. That was all Jemma could remember of the journey, having slept most of the way. She hadn’t missed much, except acre after acre of marshy grassland populated by sheep and the occasional ramshackle farm.

In recent decades people had drained from Cymllynion attracted by areas with better jobs, better weather, better roads and better beaches. All that remained were a few farmers, a few locals and numerous retreats offering fringe religions, holistic therapies and a general escape from the hustle and bustle of Westingshire on the other side of the bridge where the commuter villages and industrial estates had merged into one sprawling suburb, which seen from the air at night, flickered and pulsed like some crazy circuit board soldered by a robot gone haywire.

When Jemma had first relocated to Nant Llwyfen she’d thought the locals were speaking to her in Welsh. After a few days she realised they were in fact speaking their own eccentric version of English, part-dialect, in a mumbled drawl that took time to attune to. She’d got used to it all now - the strange manner of speech, the eccentricity, the remoteness. But the calmness that had first attracted Jemma to the village had started to drive her crazy.

Wherever Jemma had lived before - Bristol, Bath, Westing - she had constantly been surrounded by people and noise. Come the Autumn, Nant Llwyfen was a pebble-dashed definition of deafening silence. The emptiness was most severe in the evening. Some nights the silence kept Jemma awake for hours. She longed to hear a car accelerate outside, a lorry reversing, or the violent swearing of some drunken couple as they stumbled home. She wished she were back in her flat in Westing. Despite its many faults - the traffic, the drunken violence of the town centre, it’s soulless suburbs and sterile technology parks - at least Westing was alive.

Nant Llwyfen was barely breathing. Far from being a spring board to future opportunities, the village simply made her feel like a broken boat stranded on mud flats at low tide, an inept grockle trapped on a sandbank as the brutal grey ocean lapped at her flimsy beach shoes.

The shut shops, which surrounded Jemma as she hobbled from the harbour, only served to accentuate the feeling of emptiness. Inland villages of a similar size never had more than a post office and a pub. But Nant Llwyfen seemed more like a small town with a chemist and a greengrocers, two general stores, two clothes shops, an amusement arcade, an ironmongers, and cafés and gift shops galore.

Tentatively each spring the shops and cafés would open, but the only time the village really came to life was on bank holiday weekends when the traffic jams made it harder to reach more desirable destinations. Then, every square inch of sand became sacred. Trippers fought, windbreak and towel, for their patch among the driftwood, cans and half-buried condoms. But the holiday season was months away. For now, the village remained locked and shuttered in its autumn hibernation.

Surprisingly, it was a busy week for bookings. The combination of cheap prices, an absence of grockles and a mention in one of the Sunday supplements had attracted an unexpected flurry of out-of-season visitors to Nant Llwyfen. Fortunately, Peter had offered to give her a hand with the two cottages in the Parade, before she went to straighten out the Morgan Lane flats, which had all been occupied earlier that week.

Jemma had planned to pop into the newsagents and the Londis on the way, to see if anyone had any ideas about where the mysterious wooden hand may have come from. But she was already running late. So, her enquiries would have to wait.

Jemma had arranged to meet Peter at nine. Glancing down at her watch, she saw it was already ten past. Although she knew he wouldn’t really mind, Jemma still felt a mixture of guilt and panic, just as she had when she was running late to meet a client. But she could no longer ‘put her foot down’ and she plodded at the same frustrating pace up the street to Lavender Spray, the large four-bedroom cottage nestled at the foot of the cliffs at the far end of the Parade.

Although it was quite chilly in the shadow of the cliffs and Peter had a key, he was waiting for her outside, leaning against his metallic green Rover 75 estate.

Jemma’s mum had introduced her to Peter three years earlier (about a year before her accident), and she’d instantly taken to him. When her mum had first let on that she was dating a builder, Jemma presumed it was a passing phase. Before meeting him, Jemma had pictured Peter as a bit of rough (probably younger than her mum) with whom she was enjoying a brief fling, having tired of failed post-divorce liaisons with worthy but dull middle-age professionals.

Peter was not at all what she expected. He had no tattoos or builder’s cleavage. He wore a pair of neatly belted Farahs and was quite well spoken. Jemma guessed he was a couple of years older than her mum, but looked in good shape. He was lean with neat grey hair and sinewy tanned forearms (in contrast to her dad who was rather plump and pale, like her sister Joanne). Peter was very placid. But there was also something rather commanding and self-assured about him. When he talked he always looked directly at you, and he had gentle eyes and nice teeth. She’d found him quite attractive, even.

“Now, if he was a few years younger...” she’d said to her mum, cheekily.

“Hands off,” her mum’d joked, aiming a fake slap at her.

“Has he got a son?” Jemma asked as she ducked.

“Two,” her mum told her, “but they’re both married, one to an Egyptian girl,” as if that somehow closed the matter.

After a few weeks, when the novelty of having a dishy stepdad had worn off a little, Jemma began to notice (without wishing to sound silly) that Peter had certain monkeylike characteristics. His teeth were too large for his mouth, his forehead was too pronounced and his eyes were too dark and beady. And when he was deep in thought, he resembled a puzzled chimp.

Peter wasn’t that tall - about five eight, maybe - but he had disproportionately long arms and fingers. He was also slightly bowed legged, and his back was slightly hunched. Jemma assumed this was due to carrying heavy loads up and down ladders and scaffolding, or being bent over to lay bricks or plaster walls. She shouldn’t have poked fun at those characteristics - the effects of years of hard graft. But the stoop did make him seem like some Darwinian throwback.

She’d mentioned this to Joanne one summer afternoon (many months before the accident) as they sat on their mum’s patios watching Peter lollop around the garden like an extra from Planet of the Apes. Later, when Peter offered to brew them a fresh cuppa, Joanne cheekily enquired if he had PG Tips.

Jemma almost choked on her Madeira cake. In fact, Peter had to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre on her. Possibly he’d even saved her life. She’d felt rather guilty then for sharing her monkey thoughts with Joanne. She supposed the choking episode was somehow a punishment or a warning not to be so judgemental.

She tried to push the monkey thoughts from her mind, but that summer Peter had suddenly taken to wearing shorts. His legs were extremely hairy and withered like uncared for cacti (the male equivalent of cellulite). He’d also started to dye his hair. It was supposed to be mid-brown chestnut, but in the light there was definitely a tinge of tangerine to it. Even his leg hairs had a hint of satsuma, as if stepping from the shower he had thoughtlessly smeared the residue of dye on his leg, and then had to complete the job to cover any silver traces.

Jemma wouldn’t be surprised if every hair on his body was dyed. Peter obviously fancied himself as a bit of a ladies man, but Jemma could not imagine anyone lusting after those legs or that garish coiffure, aside from a lady orangutan - and her mum, of course. They were over each other like teenagers. They were both very touchy feely -too touchy feely! In fact, since her accident, Jemma had started to find Peter rather creepy at times.

Before, when she’d been Sales Manager for WIS, she’d exuded a kind of force field around herself, as if she were protected by an invisible glass dome. She wasn’t being deliberately aloof or distant, it was just the way she was in that role.

After the accident (like everything else in her life) that dome had shattered. She had mellowed, softened, maybe (which was probably a good thing) but she’d also lost all her defences.

Previously, Peter had seemed slightly intimidated by her. Now that her armour (her make-up, the BMW, those designer outfits) had been replaced by a limp and woolly lameness, Peter never seemed to stop touching her. He would hold out his hand to support her arm or back (which she appreciated sometimes), but occasionally his monkey fingers would hold for a moment too long or brush against her inappropriately.

Maybe he was just clumsy or over anxious to help her. But, once or twice she had caught him taking a sly gander at her tits. Of course, he was a man (and not her real dad), so this was to be expected. She was used to it from her sales days.

Even in this supposedly enlightened age, if men were spending money with you, you were apparently fair game for gropes and comments (even if it was actually their company’s money). It didn’t bother her too much then. She’d shrugged it off, like some eighteen stone flanker at full pelt shrugs off the odd high tackle. But now any touch and look seemed invasive, revolting even.

Still, she told herself, Peter was harmless enough. And at least he was patient - returning her wave as she slowly hobbled up to him.

“Sorry,” she said. “It took me a while to get back up the beach in the wind.”

“No problem,” said Peter, as he unlocked the door to Lavender Spray. “The Bradleys aren’t due until two this afternoon.”

“A family?” she asked.

“A honeymoon couple.” Peter pulled a customer form the A4 plastic sleeve he was holding and grinned inanely

“Oh,” said Jemma as she followed him inside. “A strange place for a honeymoon - at least, at this time of year.”

Maybe they had first met in the village, she thought, a holiday romance that had developed into something stronger. Peter continued to smirk strangely at her. Jemma smiled back politely. Peter’s shoulders heaved with a stifled chortle. Another monkey gesture inspired, she imagined, by some smutty comment that had just flitted through his mind. Jemma waited patiently for one of Peter’s customary ‘Carry On’ quips about newly weds (outmoded humour that men of a certain age still somehow got away with). But he just stifled his giggles and they went into the kitchen.

The two cottages in the Parade, Lavender Spray and The Cherries, were normally let to what her mum called ‘proper families’. Everything was left neatly folded and gushing words of gratitude filled the visitors book. Occasionally visitors made petty comments about the absence of soup spoons or the size of the shower mat or the dampness in some of the rooms (yes, take a look from the windows and you may notice you are twenty feet from a rather large source of water - it’s called the Atlantic Ocean). However, generally the cottages only ever required a quick once over before the next guests arrived.

“Shall I start in here, while you do the lounge?” asked Jemma.

She steadied herself on her walking stick and reached down to open the cupboard beneath the sink where the basket of cleaning stuff was kept. As expected, Peter intervened, reaching his hairy chimp arm past her to retrieve the basket where the previous week’s visitors had studiously replaced the Pledge and the Windolene.

“Okey dokey,” he said, still with that funny look on his face.

Jemma blushed and reached up self consciously to brush her fringe over the dent in her forhead.

“What’s got into you?” she aked

“Oh, nothing, nothing,” he said. “Just get on with your cleaning.”

“Oh well, whatever,” she murmured to herself as he disappeared, still chortling, down the hallway.

She wiped down the work surfaces by the four-ring cooker and then cleaned out the fridge. People had a habit of leaving behind milk, orange juice, eggs, blocks of mature cheddar from the Londis, and half empty packs of sausages. They thought they were being public spirited (waste not want not), but the whole lot had to go into the bin. She wiped the fridge clean and returned a couple of stray wine glasses to the cupboard. A spot of antibacterial spray on the draining board and the job was as good as done.

Peter was in the lounge with the hoover on.

“Ill do the main bedroom next,” said Jemma. “Are we adding any special touches for the honeymoon couple. Perhaps we could get some flowers from Dawson’s.”

The greengrocers normally kept a small selection available even at that time of year.

“What?” shouted Peter. He switched off the hoover.

“I said maybe we should get some flower for the bedroom. They’ll be spending a bit of time in there, I presume. I thought Lillies might be nice. Although, I guess you can’t go wrong with roses”

Peter pulled a face. “Pansies might be more appropriate.” He stifled another giggle.

“What?” said Jemma, slightly indignantly, although she couldn’t help sniggering with him.

“Oh dear,” said Peter. He wiped tears of mirth from his eyes. “I don’t know if I should tell you this or not.”

“Tell me what?” She reached up to her fringe again.

“I suppose I should really, to avoid any kind of confusion.”

“What are you on about?”

“Well, how should I put this - the Bradleys are friends of Dorothy.”

“Dorothy who?”

“They’re fruits,

“You’ve lost me now.”

“They’re gay as geese.”

Jemma still looked confused.

“Oh for pity’s sake. They’re a couple of queers.”

“You mean the Bradleys are two gay men who are celebrating a civil partnership”

“Exactly.”

“Well why didn’t you just say that?”

“I did,” said Peter exasperated. “Anyway, it’s a first for the cottage.”

Jemma shrugged. “I suppose so,” she said. “Although we often have gay couples in the flats.”

“Do we? Who?” Peter looked genuinely shocked (as if she had been covertly advertising in Attitude magazine and letting out the flats to leather-clad men with moustaches behind his back).

“Well, Sheila and Joan,” for example.

“No, they’re just a couple of old friends.”

“They’re more than friends.”

“Don’t be silly. They’re my age. They’ve been to tea with us!”

“I don’t believe there’s any upper age limit on lesbianism.”

“I’ve never heard anything so daft.”

“Well, I can guarantee you that they are a couple.”

He looked as if he was about to argue with her. But he suddenly stopped, and said vaguely, “Oh well. Yes, yes. I’m sure they are.”

He obviously presumed her revelations about Sheila and Joan were (like the hallucinations) some side effect of her head injury.

“Mind you, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go around saying so.”

“I won’t,” she assured him.

“Good,” he said. He gave her his shy sideways look. And she gave him one of her special ‘difficult customer’ smiles and went off to prepare the master bedroom.

Jemma took an extra effort to make the room nice - carefully smoothing the embroidered counterpane, plumping the pillows and putting on the nice cream cases.

She met Peter back in the kitchen.

“I’ll check round The Cherries,” he said. “If you don’t mind giving the flats a quick once over.”

She nodded.

“I’ll pop in at lunchtime for the flowers. I thought I might take a twenty from the cash tin, if that’s OK. I know it sounds quite a lot, but it’s not everyday we have honeymooners?”

Her mum and Peter jointly owned the properties, so she didn’t really have to clear every little purchase with him. But Peter liked to play boss, so it was less hassle to humour him.

“Whatever you think fit,” he said brusquely. “Flowers aren’t really my thing.”

As they made their way down the corridor, Peter suddenly prodded Jemma in the ribs.

“What’s that in your pocket?”

Jemma had forgotten all about the wooden hand. She reached down to touch the fingers that poked from her gilet. The wood was brittle, but felt warm, having been close to her as she walked and worked. It were as if the hand were slowly coming to life. She flinched and shivered.

“Are you OK?”

“Yes, fine,” she said. “I’m just slightly spooked by this.”

She took the hand from her pocket and passed it to Peter.

“What do you reckon?” she asked. “I found it on the beach this morning.”

Peter studied the hand.

“It’s very well made. Shame about the broken finger.”

“I’ve got that,” she Jemma. She unzipped her other pocket, relieved to find the broken digit was still there.

“That’s easily fixed,” said Peter kindly. “I’ll do it for you later.”

Jemma turned slightly away from him. Her hand tightened protectively around the splintered wooden finger.

“It’s OK. I know what to do,” she said.

She thought about the broken cot her real dad had helped her to mend, and the beak off her push along wooden duck with its flappy feet of soft leather, which would send her into hysterics when pushed at high speed. But she didn’t like to talk about her real dad in front of Peter.

She reached out for the wooden hand, which Peter was still examining.

“Really, it’s OK,” she said. “All it needs is a quick dab of glue.”

Peter shrugged and handed it back to her. “What’s it for?” he asked.

“I’m not sure. I thought you might have some ideas.”

His brow furrowed in a puzzled chimp look.

“Washed up from a boat,” I guess. “Part of a figurehead perhaps.”

“But it was bone dry,” explained Jemma, “as if it had just been placed there a few moments earlier, or someone had dropped it maybe.”

“It was probably covered in something,” suggested Peter. “A piece of plastic that blew away”

“There was nothing nearby and the sand was soaking wet.”

“Well, there’s probably some simple explanation,” he said. He glanced down at his watch.

“Do you think it could be local?” asked Jemma

“Looks more like something from a pirate ship,” mused Peter.

“They’re aren’t too many of those around here anymore,” said Jemma.

“Plenty of smugglers.”

“Yes, but they have guns and speedboats, rather than cutlasses and Jolly Rogers.”

“Well,” conceded Peter. “It’s probably just a bit of fun then - part of a figurehead that’s been stuck to the front of someone’s boat.”

“Have you ever seen anything like that in the harbour?” asked Jemma.

“I’ve not noticed,” he said.

Jemma could see he was impatient to go. “Sorry, I don’t mean to keep you. I was just intrigued by it.”

“Well, why don’t you ask at the boat yard? Bob would probably know.”

She hadn’t thought of that. Bob was the harbour master and a boat repairer. He always seemed to be in the dry dock sanding a hull or varnishing a deck.

“Good idea,” she said, resolving to go and visit Bob as soon as she had finished at the flats.

“Let me know if you solve the mystery,” Peter called after her, as she made her way out of the front gate.

“Yes, I will, “ said Jemma, and with a small wave she hobbled back down the Parade.