Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth

The other nodded. “It seems our talking about it must have sparked me off again. I found one or two rather nice pieces.”

“You certainly have an eye for it,” the old man commented, his flattery very deliberate. “Why, I can see you have several ‘nice pieces’—expertly finished pieces, that is—right here. But if you’ll forgive my saying so, it seems to me these aren’t so much carvings as wind-, sea-, and sand-sculptures really, which you have somehow managed to revitalise with sandpaper and varnish, imagination and infinite skill. So much so that you’ve returned them to a new, dramatic life of their own!”

“Really?” Tremain was taken aback; he didn’t see Jamieson’s flattery for what it really was, as a means to an end, a way to ingratiate himself into the Tremains’s confidence. For Jamieson found himself in such a close-knit microcosm of isolated community society that he felt sure the headmaster and his wife would have knowledge of almost everything that had gone on here; they would have the answers to questions he couldn’t possibly put to Jilly, not in her condition.

For the old man suspected—indeed, he more than suspected—that Jilly White’s circumstances had brought her to the verge of nervous exhaustion. But what exactly were her circumstances? As yet there were loose ends here, which Jamieson must at least attempt to tie up before making any firm decision or taking any definite course of action.

Which was why the ex-Doctor was here at the Tremains’s this evening. They were after all his and Jilly’s closest neighbours and closest in status, too. Whereas the people of the village—while they might well be the salt of the earth—were of a very different order indeed. And close-mouthed? Oh, he’d get nothing out of them.

And so back to the driftwood:

“Yes, really,” the old man finally answered John Tremain’s pleased if surprised inquiry. “I mean, this table we’re sitting at, drinking from: a table of driftwood—but see how the grain stands out, the fine polish!” In fact the table was quite ugly. Jamieson pointed across the room. “And who could fail to admire your plant stand there, so black it looks lacquered.”

“Yacht varnish,” Tremain was all puffed up now. “As for why it’s so black, it’s ebony.”

“Diospyros,” said Doreen Tremain, entering from the kitchen with a tray of food. “A very heavy wood, and tropical. Goodness only knows how long it was in the sea, to finally get washed up here.”

“Amazing!” Jamieson declared. “And not just the stand. Your knowledge of woods—and indeed of most things, as I’ve noted— does both of you great credit.”

And now she preened and fussed no less than her husband. “I do so hope you like turbot, er, James?”

“Psetta maxima,” said Jamieson, not to be outdone. “If it’s fish, dear lady, then you need have no fear. I’m not the one to turn my nose up at a good piece of fish.”

“I got it from Tom Foster in the village,” she answered. “I like his fish, if not his company.” And she wrinkled her nose.

“Tom Foster?” Jamieson repeated her, shaking his head. “No, I don’t think I know him.”

“And you don’t want to,” said John, helping the old man up, and showing him to the dining table. “Tom might be a good fisherman, but that’s all he’s good for. Him and his Gypsy wife.”

Sitting down, Jamieson blinked his rheumy eyes at the other and enquired, “His Gypsy wife?”

“She’s not a Gypsy,” Doreen shook her head. “No, not Romany at all, despite her looks. It seems her great-grandmother was a Polynesian woman. Oh, there are plenty such throwbacks in Devon and Cornwall, descendants of women brought back from the Indies and South Pacific when the old sailing ships plied their trade. Anyway, the Fosters are the ones who have charge of that young Geoff person. But there again, I suppose we should be thankful that someone is taking care of him.”

“Huh!” John Tremain grunted. “Surely his mother is the one who should be taking care of him. Or better far his father, except we all know that’s no longer possible.”

“And never would have been,” Doreen added. “Well, not without all sorts of complications, accusations, and difficulties in general.”

Watching the fish being served, Jamieson said, “I’m afraid you’ve quite lost me. Do you think you could... I mean, would you mind explaining?”

The Tremains looked at each other, then at the old man.

“Oh?” he said. “Do I sense some dark secret here, one from which I’m excluded? But that’s okay—if I don’t need to know, then I don’t need to know. After all, I am new around here.”

“No,” said Doreen, “it’s not that. It’s just that—”

“It’s sort of delicate,” her husband said. “Or not exactly delicate, not any longer, but not the kind of thing people like to talk about. Especially when it’s your neighbour, or your ex-neighbour, who is concerned.”

“My ex-neighbour?” Jamieson frowned. “George White? He was your neighbour, yes, but never mine. So, what’s the mystery?”