Dead Water

A correspondence had got under way in the Sun on the subject of faith healing and unexplained cures.

By Friday, there were inquiries from a regular television programme. The school holidays had started by then, and Je

While the Barrimores were engaged in their breakfast discussion, the Rector and Mrs. Carstairs were occupied with the same topic. The tone of their conversation was, however, dissimilar.

“There!” Mr. Carstairs said, smacking the Sun as it lay by his plate. “There! Wretched creature! He’s gone and done it!”

“Yes, so he has: I saw. Now for the butcher,” said Mrs. Carstairs, who was worrying through the monthly bills.

“No, Dulcie, but it’s too much. I’m furious,” said the Rector uncertainly. “I’m livid.”

“Are you? Why? Because of the vulgarity or what? And what,” Mrs. Carstairs continued, “does Nankivell mean by saying two lbs bst fil when we never order fillet, let alone best? Stewing steak at the utmost. He must be mad.”

“It’s not only the vulgarity, Dulcie. It’s the effect on the village.”

“What effect?… And threepence ha’pe

“It’s not that I don’t rejoice for the boy. I do, I rejoice like anything and remember it in my prayers.”

“Of course you do,” said his wife.

“That’s my whole point. One should be grateful and not jump to conclusions.”

“I shall speak to Nankivell. What conclusions?”

“Some ass,” said the Rector, “has put it into the Treherns’ heads that — oh, dear! — that there’s been a — a—”

“Miracle?”

“Don’t! One shouldn’t! It’s not a word to be bandied about. And they are bandying it about, those two.”

“So much for Nankivell and his rawhide,” she said turning to the next bill. “No, dear, I’m sure it’s not. All the same it is rather wonderful.”

“So are all recoveries. Witnesses to God’s mercy, my love.”

“Were the Treherns drunk?”

“Yes,” he said shortly. “As owls. The Romans know how to deal with these things. Much more talk and we’ll be in need of a devil’s advocate.”

“Don’t fuss,” said Mrs. Carstairs, “I expect it’ll all simmer down.”

“I hae me doots,” her husband darkly rejoined. “Yes, Dulcie. I hae me doots.”

“How big is the Island?” Je

“Teeny. Now more than fourteen acres, I should think.”

“Who does it belong to?”

“To an elderly lady called Mrs. Fa

“Pub and all?”

“Pub and all. My mother,” Patrick said, “has shares in the pub. She took it on when my stepfather was axed out of the army.”

“If s heaven, the Island. Not too pretty. This bay might almost be at home. I’ll be sorry to go.”

“Do you get homesick, Je

“A bit. Sometimes. I miss the mountains and the way people think. All the same, it’s fun trying to get tuned in. At first, I was all prickles and antipodean prejudice, bellyaching away about living conditions like the Treherns’ cottage and hidebound attitudes and so on. But now…” She squinted up at Patrick. “It’s fu

“It made me quite cross, too, you know.”

“English understatement. Typical example of.”

He gave her a light smack on the seat.

“When I think,” Je

“ ‘Redheaded Je

“How he dared!”

“It’s not red, actually. In the sun it’s copper. No, gold almost.”

“Never you mind what it is. Oh, Patrick!”

“Don’t say ‘Ow, Pettruck!’ ”

“Shut up.”

“Well, you asked me to stop you. And it is my name.”

“All right. Ae-oh, Pe-ah-trick, then.”

“What?”

“Do you suppose it might lead to a ghastly invasion? People smothered in warts and whistling with asthma bearing down from all points of the compass?”

“Charabancs.”

“A Gifte Shoppe.”

“Wire netting round the spring.”

“And a bob to get in.”

“It’s a daunting picture,” Patrick said. He picked up a stone and hurled it into the English Cha

“No doubt.” Je

“My dear, virtuous Je

“Well, but I have. And, Patrick, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“I’ll forgive you. I’ll go further and tell you that unless things look up a bit at the Boy-and-Lobster or, alternatively, unless my stepfather can be moved to close his account with his bookmaker and keep his hands off the whisky bottle, you’ll be outstaying us on the Island.”

“Patrick!”

“I’m afraid so. And the gentlemen of the I

Je

What am I to say to him? she wondered. And does it matter what I say?

He took their luncheon basket out of the boat and returned to her.

“Sorry about all that,” he said. “Shall we bathe before the tide changes and then eat? Come on.”

She followed him down to the sea and lost her sensation of inadequacy as she battled against incoming tide. They swam, together and apart, until they were tired, and then returned to the beach and had their luncheon. Patrick was well-ma

“There’s the brow of the hill,” he said. “Just above our beach. And below it, on the far side, is the spring. Did you notice that Miss Cost, in her interview, talked about ‘Pixie Falls’?”

“I did. With nausea.”

He rowed round the point into Fisherman’s Bay.

“Sentiment and expediency,” he said, “are uneasy bedfellows. But, of course, it doesn’t arise. It’s quite safe to strike an attitude and say you’d rather sell plastic combs than see the prostitution of the place you love. There won’t be any upsurge of an affluent society on Portcarrow Island. It will stay like this — as we both admire it, Je

He could scarcely have been more mistaken. Before two years had passed, everybody in Great Britain who could read a newspaper knew all about Wally Trehern’s warts, and because of them the Island had been transformed.