The Beachcomber (14 page)

“Mebbe yer right,” Jasper conceded. “I’m a great believer in Fate. Happen you were sent here for a purpose.”

Before he began, Jasper took hold of her hand and squeezed it gently. He nodded in agreement, and what he told her was a love story, of two lonely people, brought together by chance, and parted by a cruel twist of Fate.

There on the steps, in the warmth of the early morning, they sat together, the old man and the young woman. In a quiet voice he unfolded the mystery, and she listened, hanging on his every word. Neither of them noticed the people who passed by, occasionally glancing at them. Instead, he revealed the truth of how it was. As he spoke in his soft voice, Kathy had neither eyes nor ears for anyone but him.

“It all began one winter’s night, some nine years ago,” Jasper confided. “Yer father were on his way to close a business deal in Dorchester. Anyway, the weather took a turn for the worse, so he came off the main road and into West Bay. He stayed at the guest-house back along the road there …” Pointing in the direction from which Kathy had entered West Bay, he went on. “For three days the storms raged on, the roaring seas threw up waves some twenty feet high. I’m tellin’ yer, lass, it were like all hell let loose.” As he related it to Kathy, he grew excited. “By! I’ve never seen anything like it in all me born days.”

“I remember!” she exclaimed. “He told us all about the storm when he got back, but he didn’t say anything about West Bay. He just said he’d found a place to stay until it died down.” She chuckled. “Mother was none too pleased. She thought he should have got the train home and not been so selfish by staying out a week longer than was necessary.”

The old man shook his head. “He couldn’t have left … there were no trains running. All the roads were blocked for miles round. And there was fork-lightning, too – struck several houses an’ set ’em afire. Telegraph poles were down and the harbor overflowed onto the walkways. It were a livin’ nightmare!”

Kathy was enthralled. “So he stayed in the guest-house the whole time?”

Jasper recalled every detail. “Aye, lass. He were here for the whole of that week. That’s how he met Liz. She were a widow: her husband was killed afore the war.”

He smiled fondly. “They told me many a time afterward that the minute they met it were like they’d known each other all their lives. Sometimes they talked right through the night … getting to know each other –” he gave a slow, knowing wink – “falling more in love with every day that passed.”

Kathy had mixed feelings. “He never told me,” she murmured. “He never told anyone. Except you.”

“It’s easier to talk man to man. Sometimes, when Liz was off doing things, we’d sit on this very step and confide in each other. There are things you can tell a stranger that you could never tell them as are close to yer.” He knew that from experience. “Anyway, I’d best not jump the gun. After the storm subsided and some o’ the roads were cleared, he knew he had to get back to close that deal. When they parted the very first time, with yer dad still driven by his work, they each promised that they would meet in a few weeks. Yer dad turned up at every opportunity. He just couldn’t keep away. They were becoming inseparable. Afore too long, it got so’s neither of ’em wanted to go back.”

Kathy gasped. “That was when he began staying away for longer periods at a time. ‘I won’t leave you for longer than I have to,’ that’s what he used to say to me, and I counted the minutes until he came home.”

Jasper astonished her with his next remark. “After the war, your father bought a small cruiser … it’s gone now, Liz sold it.” He laughed out loud. “By! We ’ad some fun with that boat, I can tell yer. Y’see, a long time back, when I were young an’ foolish, I joined the Navy. I had a hankering for the sea, so I got to know a bit about boats and such. Yer dad didn’t know nothing at all!” He chuckled. “Matter o’ fact I told him many a time that he were a danger to hissel.”

Shaking his head, he laughed out loud at the memory. “I helped yer dad to manage that boat, and I don’t mind tellin’ yer, he soon got to grips with it … seemed born to it, ’e did. But there were times in the beginning when I thought the three of us would be drowned for sure! Like the first time yer dad negotiated that narrer channel out to sea. By! We crashed into the walls so many times it were a wonder we didn’t end up as matchwood. Liz were screaming; I were trying to bale out the water that were splashing in; and Gawd ’elp us, yer dad were up front, fighting at the wheel.”

He had to stop a minute, so helpless with laughter that he couldn’t go on. “Any-road … somehow or other we got out to open waters. We were safer there, y’see. Yer dad hadn’t got anything to crash into, and the waters were smoother out there.”

He could see the whole thing in his mind, like a film turning over. “Oh, but he soon got the ’ang of it. After a time, he and Liz would go out on their own … over to Lyme Regis, or into some little cove along the coast, where they’d swim to their hearts’ content. Afterward they’d lie in the sun, happy in each other’s company.”

Kathy heard what he was saying, but could hardly believe it.

The old man saw the questions in her pretty eyes, and he realized how all of this must be a shock to her. “All right, are yer, lass?” he asked.

Lost in thought, Kathy didn’t answer for a minute. “I never knew!” she said. “I had no idea. My dad was always in a suit … dressed for work. He bought and sold goods – anything from a fleet of lorries to a block of houses; whatever he could make a profit on. When he wasn’t in his office, he was trading, buying and selling, criss-crossing the country looking for the next big deal. Especially during the war: he was away a lot then.” She was amazed. “I didn’t even know he could swim. And I can’t
imagine
him taking a boat out to sea.”

She was beginning to see another side to her father, a side she had not known existed. “It’s as though you’re talking about a different man.”

“But that’s just it,” Jasper answered. “When he took off that suit, when he left the office and all his responsibilities behind, he came
alive!
” He heaved a great invigorating sigh. “Don’t yer see, lass? When he was ’ere, with her … away from all that … he
was
a different man. He weren’t the man fashioned and haunted by work and burden. He were a man at peace with himself.”

While Kathy reflected on the old man’s words, he went on. “To start with he allus stayed in the guest-house. Then one day, when they were walking along the harbor, they saw the ‘FOR SALE’ sign hanging right there …” He gestured toward the gate. “They made an appointment for the agent to meet them ’ere, an’ right from the minute they went inside, your father fell in love with it. He bought it there and then. She kept her house as well, but, oh, they spent many a joyous time in this house, lass … until one day it all went wrong.”

Sensing his hesitation, Kathy asked, “What happened?”

“He just never came back.”

“I don’t understand.”

Shrugging his shoulders, he confided, “There was no explanation. He just upped and away, early one morning. He kissed her goodbye, went out of the house and just … never came back.” He recalled how frantic Liz was. “She couldn’t understand it. She blamed herself, then she blamed him, and soon after she grew quiet, like. Wouldn’t speak to anybody. Oh, she were devastated, lass.”

“But why would he just leave like that,” Kathy mused, “without any explanation?”

“Who knows, lass? But, whatever the reason, as far as I know, she never saw him again. She waited for a whole month, and there was never a sign of him. She were like a lost soul. Sometimes, I’d see her walking the cliff tops, other times she’d be leaning on the rails over the harbor, or sitting on the wall by the slipway, where they laughed and played while trying to launch the boat. Most times she’d be watching out the window, willing him to turn that corner. After a time, she began to believe he’d changed his mind and wanted an end to it. So she closed the house up, and went away.” He pursed his mouth, the way he did when thoughtful. “Broken-hearted, she were.”

Kathy was saddened. “So she didn’t know … about my father … how ill he was?”

The old man shook his head. “No, lass. Though she did ask me once if I thought he’d caught a chill out on the boat … said she’d noticed how pale and quiet he seemed; but when she gently tackled him, he bucked up and everything seemed all right again.”

He shook his head slowly from side to side, his eyes downcast. “O” course, she didn’t realise, and neither did I. Even if yer father knew he was ill, he never would have said. He wouldn’t ’ave wanted to worry her. Happen he wanted it to end the way it had all started: sudden-like, without any kind o’ plan.”

“But if she’d
known
he was ill, she would have cared for him, I’m sure.” Kathy’s heart went out to this woman who had given her father so much happiness, only to have it all cruelly snatched away.

“Oh! She’d have nursed him like a good ’un, so she would!” Jasper didn’t doubt it for one minute. “But now I can see that weren’t how he wanted it … With the way it had been with the two of them, he didn’t want her to see him getting more poorly day by day. I can understand his thinking, not to let on how ill he were. I’d ’ave done the very same.”

“She could have called him! If she didn’t want to call him at home, she could have rung his office.”

“It weren’t possible, lass. We neither of us had any point o’ contact with him. That was the way yer father wanted it, and we respected that.”

There was a moment of silence before Kathy asked, “Did she ever come back?”

The old man nodded. “For a time, aye, she did. She stayed on for a while. She waited, allus hoping he might come back to ’er. But o’ course he never did, and now, thanks to you, lass, I know why.”

Kathy wondered aloud. “Can I ask you something?”

“Ask away.”

“Do you think my dad bought this house in my name, so I could come back and tell Liz what happened to him?”

The old man was mortified. “Never!” He tapped his pipe out on the step. “He gave you this ’ouse ’cause he wanted you to find the same happiness he knew with Liz.
That’s
the only reason he wanted this house to go to you, lass, and don’t yer ever think otherwise.” On reflection he added: “Anyroad, he bought it long before he was ill. I’ve no doubt at the back of his mind he thought you might be happy here. I’d bet my life on it, lass.”

Kathy felt sad, but said, “To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t mind if he
had
meant for me to come here so I could tell her how it had been with him. She deserves to know why he went away like that.”

The old man nodded. “Happen one o’ these fine days she’ll turn up ’ere and yer can tell her what happened.” He smiled on her. “Yer a kind-hearted little soul,” he said. “Yer dad were a lucky man, to ’ave such a lovely lass for a daughter.”

Embarrassed, Kathy asked another question. “You said she came back?”

“Aye, so she did, lass.”

“So, if she was living here, why are the house and garden in such a terrible mess? From what you’ve told me, I wouldn’t have thought she was a slovenly person.”

“Far from it, lass. She were forever polishing an’ cleaning, and oh, but she an’ your daddy loved to potter about in the garden …’ad it looking a treat, they did. Never a hair outta place.”

“But she let it all go when she came back, is that it?”

“Ah, well now, she didn’t stay ’ere, did she? An’ though I offered to keep the house tidy in and out, she didn’t want that neither. She kept it closed … shutting the daylight out and the memories in, or so she thought. ‘Leave it the way Robert left it,’ she told me. ‘It’s his house.’ So that’s what I did.” He glanced at the tangled grass and the wildly overgrown shrubberies. “It’s been a while now, since the place were left empty. I’ve done as she wanted. I’ve not set fork nor spade anywhere near it.” He groaned. “It’s a pity though,” he mumbled. “I do so hate a garden looking untended.”

“It’s up to
me
now, though,” she said hesitantly, “isn’t it?”

The old man chuckled. “Aye, that’s right. Yer a householder now. Yer can do whatever yer like with the property. So, what ’ave yer got in mind, lass?”

“I’m not sure yet, but if I wanted you to help, what would you say?” Before he answered, she shyly added, “I can’t
pay
you, at least not until I get a job. But I can keep you going with a cup of tea, and I can help, if you’ll let me.”

“A cup of tea it is,” he agreed readily. “An’ if you’ve a mind to find work, yer needn’t concern yersel’ about me, ’cause I’m perfectly able to look after mesel’!” He had a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “An’ yer don’t need to help me neither, unless yer really want to …’cause the truth is, I work better when there’s no woman under me feet.”

They shook hands and the deal was done.

Kathy had yet another question. “When she came back, did she stay in the guest-house? I mean, if she closed this house up, she obviously didn’t stay here.”

“No, lass, she didn’t stay in the guest-house.”

“Where
did
she stay then?”

“That don’t matter,” he said wisely, “but once she left this house she never again went back inside … never walked up that path, nor opened that door. It were like she had to preserve what they had, for all time.”

Kathy felt like an intruder. “And now I’m about to disturb all that … aren’t I?” She needed to know. “What would Liz say if she knew?”