The Catalyst (8 page)

To make amends he got out of his chair and, kneeling before her in the firelight, he cupped her face between his hands. Looking into her eyes he was shaken by the depth of the misery he saw in them but it was too late now, he was on his knees in front of her, committing himself.

‘Look, Jen, I will support you and help you sort this out ... anyway you want and for as long as you want.’

She could not speak to answer him, her throat ached with suppressed emotions. This vow was what she had expected from him and because it was Jasper she knew he meant what he said. She stroked his cheek before gently pulling him against her and rocking, desperate now to regain the comfort she had felt earlier when he had held her against him.

‘I know you will … and I will try too ... I promise I will try my very best,’ she said, desperate now to match his commitment to her, knowing it really was time she helped herself. She would never have a better chance of resolving her situation with Jimmy than now, when she had Jasper on her side.

His uncharacteristic anger at her earlier hopelessness had shaken her with its underlying implication that it was obvious the situation could be changed for the better. She knew now she had to find the courage to stop wallowing in her own misery and change things. She began to hope she had turned some sort of corner in her mind.

As the uncomfortable turbulence of emotion started to dissipate they decided to stay a little longer at the farm to see if anything was salvageable and Jasper was surprised, and relieved, to find that most of the outhouses were in a better state than the farmhouse. His father seemed to have taken pains to make sure they were, at the very least, properly roofed and they found dry logs and even a small sack of potatoes in one of them.

Taking the logs and potatoes back into the kitchen they stoked up the fire and, placed a few of the potatoes in the hot ashes hoping they would cook as they sat down to plan Jenny’s future.

Despite his earlier vow Jasper knew he really should keep himself out of her long-term plans. He could not allow her to rely on him for anything except financial and moral support and he had vowed he would supply that for as long as it took. But what if something more was needed? At this point his thoughts started to become uncomfortably hazy and he skirted round them as though they were some sort of killer bog.

By the time they had lapsed into a weary silence, and had eaten the potatoes it was early evening. The violent emotions of the day had damped down their appetite, which was fortunate as there was nothing edible in the kitchen cupboards and just at the moment neither of them felt like going to the nearest inn and enduring the intrusiveness of the rest of humanity. The fire had made them comfortably drowsy and they could not be bothered to drive back to Dehwelyans to pick up Jenny’s car.

So Jasper had the idea of turning the large kitchen table upside down in front of the fire and padding it out with straw from the barn to make a bed. Then, after building up the fire, they snuggled down in this nest and, despite the strangeness of the situation, Jenny found it easy to curl up against him. She fell asleep immediately and slept soundly, exhausted by the emotions of her day.

Jasper lay awake for some time, his mind still struggling with the implications of his involvement with Jenny and ranging through the many possibilities the situation had thrown up, until he too fell asleep.

It was early morning when they awoke and Jenny turned over to face Jasper. They lay together, silently contemplating each other as he gently pulled the straw from her hair. A lump came into his throat as he noticed the first few silver hairs amongst the still-luxurious tumble of her dark hair. He wanted to tell her she was still beautiful but he kept silent, he knew she wouldn’t believe him now. The past had done its work too well and he knew she thought herself unattractive.

What was encouraging however was that the few hours sleep seemed to have strengthened her resolve and she seemed excited, eager, to start on the changes to her life.

For the moment he felt reluctant to remind her that she needed to inform Jimmy of the decisions she had made the night before. He had serious doubts that Jimmy would let her go so easily, even for the few weeks they had planned to allow her to get some sort of perspective on her next step.

The impression Jenny had given him of Jimmy was of a man so enslaved by his work and his own needs that he would be totally unable to see her point of view. Even though he did not seem to be able to treat her with any respect, it seemed likely he would still be possessive about her, if only to see to his own comforts. Jasper could only hope her resolve would hold.

For his own part, he wondered just how much time he was willing to spend on his ‘Jenny project’, as he called it in his own mind. He wasn’t sure and it made him nervous. Staying down here, away from his business, could be potentially ruinous. He knew it was possible to run his business from a distance by internet and phone, with the occasional quick trip back to London, but there was no substitute for looking your rivals, or even your so-called allies, in the eye and sizing them up.

Still, he had given his promise and he did not intend to break it. He just needed to look upon this period as an adventure, or a challenge … or a new way of life something mischievous whispered inside him.

Jenny was well aware of the turmoil inside Jasper now the old link was well and truly reestablished. She knew she should tell him to go, that she would sort it out herself but she kept silent, unable to let him walk away from her again. She wondered if it was some form of self-preservation and on some other level of unconscious knowing she had recognised she could not do this alone, that she had to accept help.

No one was better placed to help her make sense of her life, to help her towards a new life if that was what she chose, than Jasper. He was more to her than a friend, or a brother, more even than a lover. There was that between them that had no name, almost as if they were one person, one soul in two bodies.

Now, as they stepped out into the early sunshine and breathed in the freshening breeze Jasper watched the woman at his side, seeing her anew, wondering at the spirit that seemed to fill her as she smiled at him and held out her hand.

‘C’mon Jazz ... let’s go,’ she said.

Chapter 7

The landlord of ‘The Red Sail’ in Porthcarn had had enough of Matty Tregoning for one day. The boy’s eyes were practically rolling in his head. He had never seen him so drunk, and so early too. He had come in at opening time and drunk solidly for two hours. You got to expect it from some of they other buggers, but not Matty, he thought, shaking his head as he came round from the back of the bar.

‘C’mon, Matty m’dear ... you can’t spend all day in ’ere … dunno what you’re a-thinkin’ of, boy. Now just you get you ’ome and sleep it off.’ He hauled Matty off his bar stool and helped him unceremoniously out of the door, ‘An’ doan’ you go out on that there boat o’yourn checking them pots … not in that state … y’hear?’

Matty had absolutely no intention of checking his lobster pots again today. He had not resisted being ejected from the pub but he could just as happily have stayed there until he fell off his barstool. He was aware he was drinking a little too much these days. Some, especially my old Ma, would say a lot too much, he thought now with a drunken chuckle.

He weaved automatically towards his mother’s house before remembering he now lodged with Tom Batten. It was a recent arrangement that suited both of them, helping Tom pay his rent and saving Matty from what he saw as unnecessary nagging. Maybe clothes didn’t get washed quite as often and he had to cook his own food but he reckoned it was worth it for the freedom to do as he pleased.

Besides, it didn’t look good, still being at home with your Ma at my age, I got me image to consider, he thought as he wheeled round unsteadily and headed off up the other end of the village to his new home.

Pulling himself out of the hedge that seemed to have thrown itself in front of him outside Tom’s cottage, he made a staggering bow towards old Mrs. Tonkin’s window next door as she twitched her net curtains at him and glared through the thick lenses of her glasses. The garden gate too proved tricky. It stuck and insisted on fighting back but he finally managed to negotiate it before tripping up on the doorstep and crashing up against the front door.

It was lucky Tom was not in, he thought hazily, knowing even someone as easy-going as Tom would not have been pleased with him coming home this drunk in the middle of the day. He wasn’t particularly pleased at himself either.

Once inside he made some coffee and slumped down at the kitchen table to rest his head on his arms for a few moments, feeling it was just too heavy to hold up. When he woke up again his head was pounding painfully and the coffee was cold so he made some more and swallowed a couple of painkillers down with it.

Despite not usually being given to introspection, he was starting to wonder at himself. Why had he started to drink in the middle of the day? Was it boredom? He always had plenty of work to do, so how could it be boredom?

Usually he checked and emptied his lobster pots early in the morning then threw a few hand-lines out to catch mackerel or bass. He came back to harbour either when he had had enough or if he couldn’t find the fish. What catch he had he sold to the landlord of ‘The Red Sail’ or one of the other local pubs before spending the rest of the day doing maintenance on his boat and preparing his lines and bait for next day.

That left the evenings free for drinking, playing pool or darts and chasing women. He wasn’t usually a big drinker but he did like the company of other people. He wouldn’t have put it so himself but he liked the comfort of being in amongst a crowd of folk he had known all his life.

His hand lining and crabbing didn’t provide for lavish living but he got by and in summer when the visitors came there was a greater demand for his catch by the pubs and hotels. That was when he put out more pots and stayed out hand lining longer to make enough money to supplement his living in the winter.

Occasionally he would give demonstrations of lobster pot making at the local summer fetes and shows and sell the pots to tourists who wanted a memento of their holiday for their city gardens. It seemed strange to him but he supposed they knew their own minds. Sometimes he would take fishermen or divers out to one of the many wrecks that lay just off the coast and that could be very lucrative. Yes, there was always a way of earning a living if you had a boat, he thought with satisfaction.

The only thing he really dreaded were long spells of bad weather that kept him and the Maid of Zennor in harbour. He could be seriously strapped for cash to tide him over the winter if a summer turned out to be stormy. Even when the weather was kind to him there was still little enough money to spare for the stupidity of midday drinking sprees.

‘I really gotta stop this, now.’ He spoke his thoughts aloud, shaking his head before he remembered his headache. He grimaced with the pain but it did seem to underline his last thought. He wondered again if the cause of this new behaviour was boredom.

He didn’t think he was bored but he was finding it hard to gauge how he felt. He loved the way he lived his life, he loved being his own master and knew he would never be happy having to take directions from a skipper on one of the beam trawlers operating out of Tregorran. He was just a free spirit, he thought, smiling to himself, liking the idea. It felt cool being a free spirit.

Maybe he just needed to settle down, get a wife. The thought of a wife didn’t seem to send its usual shock waves through his system and he wondered if he was getting old. He shrugged philosophically. So who was there who might be willing to marry him?

The thought pulled him up short. Aren’t I supposed to be in love with someone to want to get married? He was glad no one could read his thoughts, he could barely admit them to himself and he was dubious as to whether he had ever been in love.

Now his mind showed him how his life might be as a happily married man and in the sentimental, rose-tinted world of his youthful imagination he quite liked what he pictured. He could even see himself as father to a little boy, taking him fishing, playing football on the beach with him, teaching him how to swim.

Abruptly he tried to rein in his thoughts in case he became enmeshed in something he could not control, something that immediately made him go out and propose marriage to one of his regular on-off girlfriends, but they just ran on as uncontrollable as a tidal wave.

One by one he went through a mental inventory of all the women he knew, in the Biblical sense, assessing their good points … and their bad ones. Oh, bloody hell! I gotta stop drinking if this is what it does to me, he thought in exasperation, standing up so sharply his chair fell over onto the flagstone floor with a clatter.

Still aware of his lingering headache he stumped off to the bathroom to splash his face with cold water, before deciding to wander down to the harbour to see if he could find any of his fishing cronies. He was feeling increasingly desperate for some sort of distraction from his disturbing thoughts of marriage and although vaguely shamefaced at the thought of being drunk in the daytime he needed to talk to someone, anyone. He knew he was not totally sober but he felt if he took care not to breathe on anyone he could pass as such.

The harbour was quieter now. Unexpectedly everyone, locals and visitors alike, seemed to have gone home for the day. A low tide skulked in the harbour basin as though someone had pulled the plug out and most of the boats sat listlessly on the sandy bottom, waiting for the water to return. Matty’s own boat, he noticed with pride, looked clean and well cared for. She was getting old now but she handled better than many newer ones, stable as an old sofa even in choppy conditions.

The fresh air was helping with the sobering process and he rambled randomly round the narrow back streets of the village, checking all the usual haunts of his friends. Disappointingly there seemed to be no one around today but he was reluctant to go back to Tom’s just yet.

Having spent too much money at lunchtime would mean a night in front of the television with old Tom banging on about the old days. That wasn’t too bad, he supposed. At least the old boy was full of interesting stories about his misspent youth. In fact there were so many stories that Matty had begun to suspect Tom either made them up as he went along or had hijacked old tales and put a personal slant on them.

For once Matty had not arranged to meet a girl this evening. He hardly liked to admit even to himself that sometimes the chase palled. He knew very well the effect he had on women and it would have been very difficult, even unnatural he liked to think, not to capitalise on that. Lately however he had begun to think it was rather like shooting fish in a barrel. He hoped such thoughts were just another symptom of his current, and hopefully temporary, boredom.

Then, just as he rounded the corner of Chapel Street, he saw Sunny Smith and everything changed. He stopped, unsure of what to do. There was something about this woman that made him uncomfortable though he tried very hard to hide it. For some reason she did not play by the rules, leastways not by any rules he knew. She seemed to have made up a whole new set and he never felt he was able to pick them up.

This knowledge had become increasingly obvious every time he met her. He was almost sure she was not completely immune to him but somehow her poker player ability to give nothing away unnerved him slightly. He knew she was older than him but he could not guess how much older and anyway when you looked like she did age was an irrelevance.

He just knew he wanted her as much as he had wanted all his other women, perhaps more. At first he had seen it as another chase starting, only now he wasn’t so sure, she had not responded to any of his usual opening moves.

Perhaps she was a lesbian, he thought in the time-honoured way of young men everywhere  disgruntled by rejection. Then he remembered the gossip in the village said she was a widow so that was that theory out of the window.

It occurred to him, fleetingly, that maybe she was not attracted to him but he discounted that unreasonable idea almost immediately. A woman who did not wholeheartedly throw herself at his feet when he made a play for them was an unknown creature to Matty. Mainly, it had to be admitted, because so far it had never happened.

Sunny was tidying her garden, as she jokily called the few flowerpots she kept beside her front door, and had not seen him. He wondered whether to sneak back the way he had come but just as the thought occurred to him she looked up and saw him.

For a second he felt they were like two gunfighters, facing one another at opposite ends of the street. He drew his smile first and she responded, a shade reluctantly he was aware

‘Hi …’ He spoke first, hiding the unfamiliar feeling of nervousness as well as he could. What the hell was he doing? What was he going to say to this woman who did not respond to the usual signals? Then he noticed her ankle had some sort of bandage on it and fell upon the subject like a lifebelt to a drowning man.

‘What the hell have you done to yourself, Sunny?’ There was genuine concern in his enquiry and Sunny found herself responding easily to him.

‘Just being my usual clumsy self, I’m afraid … I slipped on the mud on the cliff path and landed badly. It’s only sprained though so it’s not as bad as it could have been.’

‘Were you alone? How did you manage? D’you know how dangerous that could’ve been?’ he said, frowning at the offending ankle. As a native of this landscape he had no need of imagination to realise how serious this incident could have been. The cliff path was always an environment to be respected.

‘Yes, I realise that now, luckily I had help from … a passerby.’

She hesitated briefly, not wanting to share the whole story of her cliff-path escapade with Matty, and anyway there really was nothing to tell. Why she felt she should keep that meeting with Jimmy Fisher to herself she really could not have said.

So now she steered the conversation round to more mundane pleasantries soon becoming aware that Matty seemed to lack his usual self-confidence. He seemed somehow more vulnerable today and she had invited him in for a cup of tea almost before she realised what she was doing. Only when he stood in her room, hunched over to avoid the beams of the low ceiling and looking unusually large and awkward, did she have misgivings. He seemed to fill the room with a presence she again found disconcerting.

‘Sit down, Mat … thew.’ She gestured to a chair, unintentionally putting a break in his name as she internally disputed which version to use. Somehow using the shortened version in the intimacy of her cottage implied a familiarity she was sure she was never going to allow herself to feel.

He balanced on the edge of an armchair, aware of his own newfound uneasiness as he watched her make tea and place mugs and biscuits on a tray, her face half hidden by the silky curtain of her hair. He felt clumsy and too big for this doll’s house cottage as he took the mug of tea she handed to him.

Sunny wondered why he was so ill at ease today. It was almost as if he were a different person. She had seen him about the village a few times since he had offered to take her out in his boat and she had answered his smile with her own but usually she tried to avoid him, feeling life was simpler that way.

So why have I invited him in today, she wondered as she handed him the plate of biscuits. There was an awkward pause as both silently realised their discomfort at the situation in which they had placed themselves.

‘I’ve been thinking it’s time I was married.’

Disconcerted by the lengthening silence, he had weakened and blurted out the first thing that came to him, instantly regretting his admission. Suddenly, witnessing his intense uneasiness, she felt a rush of sympathy for him and looked for something to say to relieve his awkwardness.