I Do Not Sleep (22 page)

I didn’t manage to speak to Joey after that. He and Ben went off on their Easter break. I did have a postcard from him, sent three days after they arrived.
Thanks, Mum
, it read.
Cornwall is great, Polperro as much fun as ever. Having a fabulous time. You were right, as always. Ben sends love. Plus lots of love from me and see you soon, Joey.

Nothing after that, until the day I took Ben’s phone call.

I lied to Adam, that frightening night in our son’s Cornish cottage after he had disappeared, that I had overheard his conversation with Joey; I told him I had heard him insisting that our son should go ahead with the sailing holiday, despite his misgivings about Ben. Not only had I told my husband a lie, I completely believed it. After Ben had called me in Manchester to tell me my son had disappeared, his broken boat found swept up on the rocks near Looe, my mind would not allow me to acknowledge that I bore any blame.

And so I remember, that same night, breaking down completely, telling Adam hysterically that I would never forgive him; that our life as husband and wife was over. He began to caress my shoulders, kissing me gently, telling me he understood why I was saying these things. I pushed him away and screamed.

‘Listen to me, Adam. It’s over. I will never forgive you – you pushed Joey to his death. I can no longer be your wife. How can I? You killed our son. This is it. If Joey is dead, then so is our marriage.’

And so it was. Our marriage had been over for a long, long time. It was my fault, and I’d never had the courage to face it. Life with me, having lost Joey, must have been unbelievably vile for Adam. What did he have to hope for? Why had he stayed with me for all those years? Was he hoping I’d change? Surely not. Not any more.

I thrashed around restlessly in bed, tangling the sheets into knots. When it was light I got up and made tea. I sat on the porch in the soft morning light and thought about what I must do. I should call Adam, I thought. I had much to apologise for. But first of all, I must see Len. That was urgent. He was ninety-two and in hospital with pneumonia. He might make a brief recovery, but he’d told me his time was running out; I knew if I didn’t speak to him today I would never forgive myself.

Chapter Thirty-Four

An hour later, I arrived at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth. Within minutes I was shown into a small office adjacent to Intensive Care. A small woman with a fiercely competent manner bustled in after me.

‘You’re here to see Mr Tremethyk?’ she asked abruptly, consulting a clipboard.

I blanched. ‘Um, I’ve come to visit Len,’ I said, cursing myself for not knowing his surname.

‘Len Tremethyk, yes. I’ll take you to him. He’s not in a good way, but he should be able to talk to you. Are you a relative?’

‘No, just a friend.’

The Sister pursed her lips and sighed. ‘Well, God knows the poor devil needs someone to visit him,’ she said. ‘He told me he has no family living, and his old friends are either dead or far too old to make the journey to Plymouth to see him.’

‘I’ve brought him some fruit and chocolates, if he can eat them.’

‘Well, we’ll see, although I don’t see why not. I’m Sister Maynard, by the way. Come with me and I’ll see if he’s up to a chat.’

Len lay in his narrow hospital bed, bolstered by a bank of pillows behind his head. His eyes were closed, and he was very still. His face was white and gaunt. He looked more ill than I had ever seen anyone before. Sister Maynard bent over him and said in a gentle voice, ‘Len? There’s someone here to see you. Do you feel like talking?’

He opened his eyes, which were clear and full of intelligence. When he saw me he smiled. ‘Molly. I’m glad you’re here. Just in time, I think,’ and his mouth twisted in amusement. ‘I did tell you, my dear. I knew I didn’t have long.’

I sat down in a chair beside the bed. Sister Maynard drifted quietly out of the room.

‘I’m sorry, Len. I didn’t want to believe that.’ There was no point in trying to deny what he meant. He was dying. He knew it and I knew it. He started to speak, but coughed painfully instead. I looked wildly round for the Sister, but she’d gone. There was water in a jug by the bedside. I poured a glass and held it to Len’s lips, but he waved it away. ‘Wait,’ he rasped, his voice barely audible.

After a couple of minutes he swallowed deeply, closed his eyes and gripped my hand.

‘Molly, you must listen. When you went to Jamaica Inn, you had a bad fright, didn’t you?’

I nodded, mute with surprise. I’d expected him to talk about the island, not the misty Inn on the Moor.

‘How did you know I was at Jamaica Inn?’ I asked him.

His voice was faint. ‘You were seen. I was told by another like me.’

‘Another Charmer, do you mean?’

He nodded. ‘Another old man, yes. He lives on Bodmin, at Bolventor. He saw what happened to you.’

‘What do you mean? What did he see?’ Whoever saw me must have witnessed my hysterical behaviour in the deserted field. He must have thought I was mad.

Len confirmed my doubts. ‘He saw you running away; you kept stopping and staring back over your shoulder. You looked absolutely terrified.’

Sure I was, I thought. I shivered involuntarily. Death. It was here in the room, waiting for Len. I could feel it, and see a flash of movement, a brief impression on my retina. The grotesque figure of the rotting scarecrow stood leering behind Len’s bed, its head bent down towards the old man, as if it were salivating at the prospect of bearing him away to its own stinking lair.

‘Because he knows, a frightful fiend

Doth close behind him tread…’

Startled, I realised I’d said the words out loud.

‘What was it, Molly? The fiend you saw? What shape did it take?’

‘Your friend didn’t see it?’

Len shook his head. ‘He told me you were running away from something terrible, but it wasn’t visible to him. Tell me, Molly. I think I can help if you tell me what it was.’

I swallowed, embarrassed, then remembered that the old man on the bed believed in spells and charms, believed he could heal people and keep them from harm. His thoughts, his conviction were rooted in the supernatural. Besides, he was dying; and I knew that his compulsion to help me before he passed on meant everything to him.

‘Are you afraid?’ I asked him.

‘Of dying?’ he replied. I nodded. ‘No. Why should I be?’ Len smiled; then was overtaken by another coughing fit. This time he sipped the water I proffered.

‘The process is difficult – harder, much harder than I thought it would be. Not a lot of dignity in bedpans at my age. And it’s painful, though the morphine helps at night. But death is a physical event, it’s not quick and it’s not pleasant. No point in fighting it, though. It’s easier if you open your arms and embrace it. As for afterwards, what’s to be frightened of? Nothing, Molly, believe me.’

He looked hard at me; then closed his eyes again. It was a long speech for a man whose lungs were barely capable of allowing him to breathe. He drank more water, and seemed to doze for a minute. Then he was suddenly alert and focused. ‘Molly, I won’t get to see the island with you now. But you must go; you must face it. Not alone, though. Take your husband with you. You will need him.’

‘But when I go, what will I find?’

‘Nothing at first, perhaps. Not immediately. You won’t understand straightaway. But seeing Lammana is the first step; the rest will follow. Your son’s friend is important, I think. That should come next. Molly, I’m drifting off. I can’t talk any more. You must go.’

I stood up obediently, but Len immediately became agitated.

‘No, no. Not yet.’ He muttered to himself, trying to lift his head up off the pillow. I put my hands gently on his shoulders and guided him back into a comfortable position. He coughed and spluttered, breathing as deeply as he could, a painful, shallow dry-throated rasp the only sound he could utter for a moment.

‘You must tell me about the Inn. You have to say what you saw.’ His voice was low and desperate. ‘I need to dispel it, you see. I need to exorcise it. I can’t go before I’ve done that. I can’t leave it hanging over you; I must help. This is all I know.’

I felt his desperation, and was ashamed of my unwillingness to confess my weakness, my mental frailty.

‘It was a scarecrow,’ I blurted. ‘It was evil, horrible, malicious. It stared at me, and then it… it moved, staggered; it pointed at me. I’ve never been so scared in my life.’

Len, his eyes closed now, sighed and nodded. ‘It pointed? Had you ever seen it before?’

‘No, never.’ But even as I spoke, something shifted in my head. There was a change in my perception, a long-forgotten memory. Something danced before my eyes; a hazy, indistinct shape, surrounded by a blue-grey blur. That was the sea, I realised. And as soon as I half-glimpsed it, the apparition vanished. My skin crept with embarrassment. What imagined horror had I just glimpsed? A figment of fancy, surely, just the dim shadow of a lost childhood nightmare.

Len was staring at me. He closed his eyes once more. His lips moved in a rapid silent prayer. Was he praying because he was so close to death, I wondered? Should I go?

Then I knew the prayer was for me. It was an incantation. Len was casting a charm. He was asking the God he was so sure of to help me through him. He was a vessel, a channel, bringing me enlightenment and succour, as he had tried to bring others afflicted by illness or distress throughout his life.

The prayer, or spell, came to an end. Len lay silent, his breathing shallow, his eyes shut. Then he opened them and looked at me. It seemed as if he stared into my soul.

‘Walk from Polperro along the coastal path to Talland. You will not need to go far. Look for a gate close to the beginning of the path. The ground is rough and stony beneath your feet. The gate is old, dark wood, to the right of the path. It is padlocked, but you will find it opens for you. Walk into the place the gate guards. The sea lies beyond. You will find what you are looking for.’

I stiffened with fright. My heart was thumping. Would I find Joey behind that gate? Is that what Len was trying to tell me? I leaned forward, urgently calling his name. But he was finished. He had nothing else to say.

There was a rustle behind me. Sister Maynard, ever vigilant, touched my elbow, signalling that I should go. I leaned over and kissed the old man’s papery cheek. ‘Goodbye, Len. Sleep tight. God bless.’

I walked to the door, paused and looked back at this gentle man, so full of wisdom and kindness. The morning sun caught his thin white hair. A darting silver beam of light played softly around his head, caressing and stroking his tired face. That darting gleam, that merry glow; I remembered a grave-strewn hillside, a soft darkness shot through with dancing rays of starlight. I remembered my vision of Joey’s funeral, and I suddenly knew where I’d seen Len before he came to the cottage.

I never saw Len again. He died that night, peacefully, Sister Maynard told me. He lost consciousness as soon as I left; he didn’t wake up after that. In the early hours, he breathed his last.

‘But he was in no pain, dear,’ the Sister said the next morning when I spoke to her on the telephone. ‘He just went to sleep when you left him, and was perfectly calm right to the end. Before you came, he’d been a bit agitated from time to time. But after you’d gone, he slept like baby, bless him. It was as if he was waiting for you so he could make his peace. He was a good man, I think.’

‘Yes – yes he was,’ I said.

Chapter Thirty-Five

After Sister Maynard’s phone call telling me Len had died, I went straight to the Blue Peter. Although it was only midmorning, the pub was open, Queenie at her usual station behind the bar. She was very upset about Len, and it took some time to calm her down. She asked if I’d seen Len before he went and I said I had, but I didn’t tell her about Len’s mysterious guidance, his information about my next steps. As I left the pub, preoccupied by Len’s last instructions to me, I wondered what to do next. I should go to the island, but not alone. Who would come with me? Len had told me to take Adam, but I was still too raw. I had lied to Adam to salve my own conscience. The thought of facing him now, knowing what I’d done, was unbearable.