Mr Golightly's Holiday (4 page)

O
N THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE STREET TO
Spring Cottage, set back from the road and fronted by an ugly, untended garden, was a long low building which bore a painted sun-peeled sign, nutkin’s tearooms. This, despite a further legend which promised ‘Full Devon Cream Teas’, was well on the way to becoming derelict. In fact, the only takers for teas now, cream or any kind, were the brown rats whose scampering depredations had so scared Paula’s mum that she had had to give up her little cleaning job, while those who owned it made up their minds what they were going to do with the blamed place! In the past, the tearooms had provided a useful, if limited, source of income for those residents of Great Calne who were neither retired nor living on social security and consequently barred from able-bodied work. During the holiday season, coachloads of tourists had visited regularly and the people of Great Calne had themselves liked to take an occasional light snack there when the services offered extended to a soup and salad luncheon with choice of white or brown ‘fresh-baked’ bread rolls (delivered twice weekly from Bunn’s Bakery, in nearby Oakburton).

In those days the tearooms had been run by Patsy and Joanne, a lesbian couple of the old school. They had left Great Calne after there had been talk that Patsy had made
a pass at Nicky Pope’s daughter Tessa. Tessa was known to be fanciful, and feeling among the village – after the departure of the two women, who in their quiet way were popular – ran high. It was felt by some that justice would have been better served if Tessa Pope, rather than being offered counselling by the lady vicar, had been smacked hard for her lying ways.

The tearooms were bought by a retired couple from London, Hugh and Heather Wright, who also took over the name of ‘Nutkins’ for their house at the top of the village. But after Heather ran off with a lecturer in medieval social history – he had come to do research on vanished villages of Dartmoor and vanished instead with Mrs ‘Nutkin’ – Hugh had found consolation with Morning Claxon, a practitioner in crystal healing. A committed campaigner for health foods, she had turned Hugh against cream – indeed against cholesterol of any kind.

Among the residents of Great Calne, ‘Morning’ was not a name which inspired confidence. The example of Patsy and Joanne had induced tolerance of homosexuality – indeed, sexual proclivities of most varieties were generally accepted – but the village was inclined to be mistrustful of anything ‘hippie’. A name like ‘Morning’ didn’t command sympathy. It had been the devil of a job to get those long-haired squatters out of the rectory, when it was empty all that time after Rector Malcolm died of Parkinson’s. The lager cans and quantities of roll-up butts had become local legend. Morning’s plans to turn the tearooms into an
alternative health clinic had attracted suspicion rather than support. And there was the question of the car park, which butted on to Sam Noble’s garden.

The tearooms car park was placed, somewhat anomalously, up the hill and across the road from the tearooms. It stood behind the village hall bearing a sign
TEAROOMS PARKING
only and was mostly used by the children of Great Calne when learning to ride their bikes. Sam, a man who read both the
Guardian
and the
Daily Telegraph
and was well versed in his rights, was adamant that an alternative health centre would bring unacceptable noise levels to the proximity of his bedroom.

A meeting of the parish council had been called at which Morning had spoken, passionately, of the benefits of Indian head massage. Not properly a resident – she only came down for weekends, when she had Hugh Wright out in the garden all day, getting a dig, people said, at the old wife by having him unearth all the shrubs she had planted – her right to speak was questioned and her words did not carry weight.

The car park was, in fact, a prime building site. It was Sam’s nightmare that a speculator would buy it and try to engineer a profitable development. While planning permission in the area was granted rarely, there was nothing, Sam knew, that money couldn’t buy. That Indian massage woman was flaky. Even if she had no plans for developing the car park herself, a speculator could easily get hold of her, cross a few palms with silver and then where would
their peace and quiet be? No, by far the best plan would be for the village collectively to buy back the tearooms from Hugh Wright; then Sam could oversee the car park.

To this end, Sam had run a cost-benefit analysis which he had printed out on his computer. He proposed to call on all the village personally and drum up support.

The Morris Traveller was parked in the front when Sam called on Spring Cottage and banged on the door with the flat of his hand. There was no bell or knocker; when Emily Pope had lived there folk always went round the back; but the new tenant had not been installed long enough for proprieties to be dispensed with.

Johnny Spence was on his second can of Coke when Sam knocked and Johnny’s reaction was to look for a place to hide. There was a cupboard under the stairs but his eye had hardly found it before Mr Golightly laid a hand again on his shoulder. Placing a finger to his lips, he mouthed conspiratorially, ‘Wait there!’

Johnny found himself obeying his host who walked with his peculiar silent tread to the hallway.

Opening the front door took a bit of shoving: the door was used infrequently, and the wood had swollen in the winter damp so that in opening it Mr Golightly almost staggered into the man standing outside.

‘Morning there. Sam Noble – we met the other evening up at the Stag.’

A hand was being proffered, but Mr Golightly was
annoyed at having his conversation with Johnny interrupted and his response was lukewarm.

‘Yes?’

He hoped this visit would not form a precedent. He must be careful not to convey an impression that Spring Cottage was a home for social chit-chat.

‘Pleased to meet you again. I’m calling about the tearooms.’

‘The tearooms?’ Mr Golightly’s face was a disobliging blank. Tea gave him a headache – he rarely touched the stuff.

‘All here,’ said Sam, ‘cost-benefit analysis.’ He slapped a furled bundle of papers on the palm of his hand. ‘Scheme for the village. I’d be glad of your views.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Mr Golightly, ambiguously. It was to escape the affairs of the world that he had come to Great Calne. The last thing he wanted was to be involved in local politics – indeed, politics of any kind.

Johnny Spence, after an initial obedience to Mr Golightly’s directive, had nipped up to the bedroom to check it out. The room didn’t look like a perve’s. Not that Johnny specially cared. That jerk who slept in the caravan all last summer, up in the parking place on the edge of the moor by old Lavinia Galsworthy’s house where you weren’t supposed to park, had tried something on him and Johnny had kneed him in the balls. If this bloke had any ideas Johnny was prepared. But somehow he didn’t give off that kind of feeling.

Mr Golightly’s employees could have told Johnny that to pry undiscovered was a lost cause. The boss had supersubtle powers of observation. It was said that their business rival had once, long ago, worked for him and got himself sacked that way; on the other hand, there were rumours they had fallen out over some woman. Those who knew the boss felt that this last was unlikely – certainly the idea of some inexcusable interference fitted the picture better. When Martha had once, quite innocently, moved some of his archaeological specimens to give them a thorough clean, she had received a dressing down which had led to bad feeling for several weeks. Since then, the boss had tidied his own desk, which, as Martha said, behind his back, meant those nasty old stones, dating back from God knew when, merely gathered more and more dust, which was murder for her asthma.

Mr Golightly, having seen Sam off, looked in the direction of the stairs. If he sensed Johnny’s investigations – and it would be hard to see how he could – he must have decided not to mention it since he merely said, ‘Is there anything I can do for you, before you go?’

The idea of leaving made Johnny’s stomach lurch, like when his mum had gone in for her operation and he’d had to sleep on the sofa over at his Auntie Jean’s. Not that Jean was really his ‘auntie’: she was his mum’s friend from when he was a kid and he and his mum and Auntie Jean lived together over Plymouth way. That time, when his mum was in the hospital, Uncle Glenn, his Auntie Jean’s live-in
boyfriend, had driven Johnny in his convertible to see her.

‘Can I have a go in your car?’

Mr Golightly inwardly sighed. What about his writing schedule? But the boy’s hazel eyes looked at him with frank beseechment.

A dart of pain touched Mr Golightly in the upper quarter of his left ribcage. Subduing irritation, he said, ‘Well, we can’t go far but…maybe you could direct me to the nearest place for decent shopping?’

That was easy. Oakburton was three miles down the road and full of all the supermarkets and wine stores anyone could desire. Under Johnny’s guidance, they reached Oakburton in remarkable time, given the age of the Traveller, and soon Johnny was guiding his new acquaintance round Somerfields.

Not that any of the foodstuffs seemed to have had much to do with fields, or with summer, Mr Golightly observed to himself. He bought a plastic bag of seedy-looking potatoes, some tins of tomatoes on special offer (four for the price of three), lavatory paper, kitchen roll, and a kitchen cleanser called Mr Muscle, a name which took his fancy. When they got to the till Johnny, who had been dragging round behind, surprised him.

‘Seven pound ninety-four.’

‘Seven ninety-four,’ the cashier, with bored inattention, repeated a second later.

Mr Golightly forked out a ten-pound note and they went
next door to the Oak Deli. Johnny wandered off, leaving Mr Golightly to buy a brie, some slices of garlic sausage, olive oil, wine vinegar and some stuffed olives. These delicacies in hand, he looked for the small hardware store which, painted in a green gloss, had caught his eye as they drove into the town.

‘Paint’, ‘Timber’, Glass’, ‘Keys’ promised one window, while its twin announced, ‘Gas’, ‘Houseware’, ‘Plumbing’, ‘Fancies’.

Mr Golightly was taken by the idea of ‘Fancies’. He liked the look of this shop and entering felt at once at home among the curious collection of bric-a-brac. Here were dyes, bath plugs, colanders, tea cosies, flour sieves, screws and hooks and brass bolts of all sizes, slug pellets, hot-water bottles, jam covers, lemon squeezers, thermos flasks and hurricane lanterns. In particular there was a milk jug in the likeness of a cow. Mr Golightly lingered a little over the cow but in the end he bought a hot-water bottle with a knitted cover, some clothes pegs, shaped like little wooden people with stiff legs, some electric plugs and a packet of firelighters.

The door of the shop was fitted with an old-fashioned bell which raucously announced the arrival of Johnny. Mr Golightly pointed out the cow. ‘Me mum would like that,’ Johnny observed. ‘Eight pound forty-nine,’ he said, before the elderly man at the till had had time to ring up the items.

‘How did you work that out?’ Mr Golightly asked.

‘Did it in me head.’

‘Did you now,’ said Mr Golightly. He had heard about savage child geniuses and hoped to goodness he hadn’t got one on his hands.

S
AM
N
OBLE HAD BEEN DISAPPOINTED THAT HIS
brief conversation with the tenant at Spring Cottage had offered no purchase for the story of the Palme d’Or. The residents of Great Calne had all heard about it – many several times.

The opportunities to repeat the account of his brush with success had diminished over the five years since Sam had moved from London to the village after his divorce from Irene. Sam sometimes regretted parting from Irene. At the time the world had presented itself as his oyster. The separation had occurred after the near miss at Cannes and had been speeded on its way by a temporary association with an air hostess from Malta. But the oyster seemed to have clammed up since, and such pearls as may have been lying in wait remained ungarnered.

It was true that Irene had not been inspiring: she had wittered on, and long before the intervention of the air hostess Sam had ceased to pay her attention. But nowadays he sometimes missed her chattiness, her observations about the garden and whether they should use chemical pesticides on the patio moss, or go for something organic. There were times when he even missed her warm, comfortably ageing body in the bed beside him.

Sleeping alone in the double bed – which, since it had
become available for legitimate double occupancy, had remained depressingly single – had eroded Sam’s confidence. He dreamed fitfully about naked women jockeys and woke in the mornings too early. Dr Rhys at the Oakburton surgery had even discussed Prozac with him but, in the end, Sam decided he preferred to go it alone without anything chemical. After all, he still had a brain – or liked to think he did!

Dr Rhys was young and handsome and believed in the Hippocratic oath. That, and his sympathetic manner, meant he got lumbered with all the psychological stuff. He had suggested that maybe Sam might like to ‘talk’ to somebody. But Sam feared the ‘somebody’ might mean the lady vicar, who was training as a counsellor. Everyone knew she had a bee in her bonnet about male sexual performance. She had alarmed George, who dug the graves and helped out down at Folly Farm with the lambing, during bereavement counselling by asking questions which were hardly decent when you thought that his wife of fifty years was barely cold in her grave. And the grave dug lovingly by her grieving husband’s own two hands too! But these days it was all live-in sex and what the lady vicar worryingly referred to as ‘seeing to yourself’, with precious little about the rites of holy matrimony.

Sam had no particular concerns about the Church of England’s attitude to sexual habits, or to anything else for that matter. He had lived most of his working life in Hampstead and was a confirmed social atheist. But he didn’t care to be asked about his morning erections, particularly not by
a lady vicar. George, it was rumoured, had been encouraged to plot a graph.

In any case, it was not attentions of that kind he necessarily craved; it was intellectual stimulus. The empty early mornings had produced a new idea for a creative project – a film about sheep dog trials. According to Nicky Pope, this chap who’d moved into Spring Cottage was a writer. He would probably welcome a chance to hear about Sam’s contacts in the film trade.

Mr Golightly’s first day of writing had been a washout. The shopping excursion with Johnny had protracted into lunch. The cottage had been chilly on their return, and the boy, off his own bat, had read, and apparently comprehended, the instruction book for the wood-burning stove. A miracle, Mr Golightly couldn’t help thinking, and far more useful than some he had known. The impossible-looking diagrams had seemingly been clear as daylight to Johnny, who had flicked, switched and adjusted knobs and had even managed to open the firelighters, which were packed so impenetrably that they defeated Mr Golightly. After that it would have been churlish not to offer to share his modest lunch, though, from the way Johnny had wolfed down the rolls, they could have done with the species of miracle which multiplies.

Johnny had left just after four and by the time Mr Golightly had washed up and checked his e-mails again, dealt with a question from Muriel – it was shocking what
the government took you for VAT these days – it was far too late to begin a day’s work. Instead, he strolled up to the Stag and Badger, where he adroitly avoided conversation with Sam Noble by helping out the young poet in the woolly hat again with his crossword.

Mr Golightly was a crossword addict, a passion he shared with Muriel at the office and over the years he had fallen into the habit of doing
The Times
crossword with her. One reason for reading the dictionary was to pick up unusual vocabulary which might crop up, since it is well known that crossword setters are of the tribe of fiends. It had once been put to him that in the beginning was the word, and although in his own view things were both simpler and more complicated than that, it was a theory he had sympathy for.

Long ago Mr Golightly had discovered the principle of synchronicity, the law of meaningful coincidence, and it was following its signs in his business practices which was perhaps responsible for their general success. So he was not too surprised when four down in
The Times
read, ‘a deprived adolescence provides succour (6)’.

‘Uberty!’ said Mr Golightly, blatantly disregarding Luke’s chance to have a shot at the clue.

Luckily, Luke was not competitive. ‘What’s that? Never heard of it.’

But at that moment a thickset young man with a loud jacket, exuding a smell of aftershave, equally loud, made his way towards the bar.

‘Evening. Wolford, Brian Wolford.’ The man held out a
well-cushioned hand. Perhaps it was the overpowering smell of the aftershave but Mr Golightly withheld his own. Rather deliberately he picked up his pint mug.

‘Golightly,’ he said. ‘You know Mr Weatherall?’

‘You’re the writer chappie,’ said Wolford, ignoring Luke. He made it sound like an accusation.

‘My friend is a writer too,’ said Mr Golightly, distinctly.

But Luke was more interested in the crossword clue. ‘So what’s it mean, then?’

‘Funny thing’, said Wolford, ‘I work up at the prison yonder. You come across some pretty weird stuff there. I’ve often thought of writing a book about it. Might drop round your place and have a natter. We’ve all got a novel in us, right?’

‘Uberty?’ Mr Golightly said, pointedly addressing only Luke. ‘It’s the milk of human kindness,’ he explained, a trifle vaingloriously.

The next morning saw Mr Golightly more than ever determined to get the soap opera under way. Staring out of the window for inspiration he saw the horse, Samson, standing four-square in the greensward. Columns of fine rain were blowing in misty battalions across the fields. A kestrel, resting magisterially on pillows of air, circled above the low-falling rain. Kingdom of daylight’s dapple-drawn dawn falcon…Mr Golightly found he was suddenly overcome by a need for coffee.

But, maddeningly, he had forgotten that the boy had finished off all the milk yesterday.

Up at the shop the bearded Steve said, with evident satisfaction, ‘Out of milk, I’m afraid, even the long-life. Got soya, though, that do you? Weather’s all right for those as has webbed feet.’

Mr Golightly did not care for soya in his coffee. He bought a small tin of evaporated milk and returned glumly down the hill. Yesterday’s buoyancy had deserted him. The unwritten soap opera had become an unresponsive lover, one who resists the most ardent attentions.

Coffee with evaporated milk did not improve his mood but, nevertheless, by 10 a.m. Mr Golightly was once again seated at the gateleg table. Better check the e-mails in case there was something at the office…

Three messages, heralded by their zippy musical accompaniment, materialised in the ‘Inbox’. One from Muriel, to do with one of the many unpaid accounts they were increasingly having to hassle for, one from a firm selling timeshares in Spain – Mr Golightly paused to wonder how ‘time’, which was indivisible, could conceivably be ‘shared’ – and one from yesterday’s anonymous correspondent:

hath the rain a father?

it asked.

Mr Golightly did not know what to think. He was too unpractised in the art of e-mail to be able to decipher any clue to the questioner’s identity, and while he didn’t want
to reveal that he was the victim of an anonymous correspondent perhaps an e-mail to Mike was called for. He thought a moment then tapped out:

‘Dear Mike,

If someone e-mails me how do I know who they are?

And how do I reply to them?’

He pondered a moment more and then concluded:

‘Yours ever, Golightly’.

Mr Golightly had never had occasion to write to Mike before, or any of the office staff. It made him realise how little he really knew about ordinary channels of communication. Alone in Spring Cottage, with no one by to protect or defend him, he experienced an unfamiliar sense of vulnerability.

The marching columns of rain had dissolved into a uniform drizzle and Mr Golightly thought he might stretch his legs before starting work. The River Dart was flowing into hills covered today by a modest décolleté of mist and seagulls had winged their way inland suggesting rough weather out at sea. The air was laden with moisture, but Mr Golightly had spent much of his existence under sun-parched skies and the cool wash of English country air was a welcome balm.

He stood with the mild wetness anointing his face. He had to admit it, he was rattled: not merely by the fact of the phantom e-mailer but by the nature of the message. The references to fatherhood and the coincidence of the
rain gave the impression that his unknown correspondent was peering at him knowingly – a feeling that challenged his usual security.

Back inside, the ‘Inbox’ announced that he had received another e-mail. Opening it, he read:

boss,

scroll down and you’ll see name of sender and address – bring cursor to ‘reply’ box, click and space for message will appear – compose message then click on ‘send’ – simple!

cheers, mox

There was something unsettling in this communication too. Mike seemed to have dispensed with the normal rudiments of style, with capital letters for example. And then the tone, while not actually disrespectful, was uncharacteristically familiar – that circle and cross by the signature, presumably betokening kisses and so forth. Presumably such endearments were part of e-mail etiquette. In which case, was he expected to do likewise?

Following Mike’s instructions he scrolled down the anonymous message to find [email protected]. Whoever the someone was, they had an ancient language in common. Nemo; evidently, the someone who was ‘no one’ didn’t wish to be known.

Slightly trepidatious, Mr Golightly clicked on the ‘Reply’ box and at once a space appeared ready to record his answer. But what in the name of heaven to say to an
anonymous correspondent? Mike had mentioned, in passing, the propensity of e-mailers sometimes to get into overintimate communications. Mr Golightly had given this information short shrift – it was hardly the kind of mess he had foreseen himself getting into. But might he not be about to fall into just such a trap?

And yet he had to admit he was curious about the anonymous mailer.

He sat motionless for a minute and then found he had typed:

who is this that darkeneth counsel?

Mr Golightly was not quite sure himself where these words had come from. But then many things which emanated from him emerged without consideration. ‘Consider’ – now there was a word the phantom e-mailer might also understand…
con sidere
– with the stars. Was that how the e-mails travelled, through the upper reaches of the ether? He pictured himself, wearing a pair of silver shoes, strolling soundlessly through the quiet chilly regions of the far-flung universes…

At this moment a loud banging at the back door and a raised voice penetrated his musing.

‘Hell-oah! Anybody at home?’

‘Someone, I know, who’s in the know, said there was some kind of handkerchief-pankerchief with the judges.’

Sam Noble had been at Spring Cottage for nearly an hour. Mr Golightly had, slightly maliciously, directed his visitor to the orange sofa, but a challenge to the spine is no deterrent to the determinedly garrulous. Sam had accepted, and drunk, two coffees from the Spiderman mug, and was well launched into the history of
What’s a Nice Girl?
, his film about female jockeys.

‘Everyone said it was in the bag.’ A piece of luck for this Golightly chap, Sam thought, that he was able to put him in the frame about the movie business.

Mr Golightly, who, by and large, believed in the virtues of politeness, was suffering in silence. Protected as he had been by his faithful staff, he was rarely exposed to unwanted company and lacked the social know-how to rid himself of an unwelcome guest.

‘Of course, it was a set-up,’ Sam reaffirmed. ‘Everyone knew the Palme should have gone to
Nice Girl.
’

‘Yes?’ asked Mr Golightly.

‘No question.’

There was a pause during which Mr Golightly said nothing. He had had no idea how mind-numbing self-absorption could be.

‘So, what are you up to then?’ asked Sam, mustering some faint recollection that social engagement was supposed to entail dialogue.

‘Up to?’ The question had an intrusive flavour; it reminded Mr Golightly of the anonymous e-mailer’s challenges.

‘Yes, what are you writing, then? Novel, is it?’ Sam gambled. It was usually a novel that chaps like this were engaged in when they came to out-of-the-way parts like Great Calne. They all thought they’d got one in them!

‘Not exactly,’ said Mr Golightly, stiffly.

‘If it was a script, then if there was any way I could –’

‘Not a script,’ said Mr Golightly. ‘Thank you,’ he added. He did not cross his fingers behind his back because he regarded such superstitions as childish. But he felt indignant that he had been driven to fib.

‘– because if it was a script then I’m your man.’

Mr Golightly had observed over the years that there are occasions when a truth cannot be told. On the whole, his policy had been tell the truth and shame the Devil, but there were also occasions when a truth can act as a lie.