No Sharks in the Med and Other Stories (37 page)

These were the thoughts that crept through my numb mind as I strove to fight free of both my mental and physical lethargy. But the swirling of the mist seemed hypnotic, while the unknown force working on my body—even on my head, which was gradually nodding lower and lower—weighed me down like so much lead. Or rather, to more accurately describe my perceptions, I felt that I was being
sucked
down as in a quagmire.

I tried one last time to focus my attention on the figure on Tumble Tor. Indeed, and before succumbing to my inexplicable faint, I even managed to take up my oh-so-heavy camera and snap a few shaky pictures. And between each period of whirring—as the film wound slowly forward and I tried to refocus—I could see that the man was now climbing down from the rock…but so very
quickly
! Impossibly quickly! or perhaps it was simply that I was moving so slowly.

And now…now he had clambered down into the mist, and I somehow knew that my nightmare was about to become reality. For as in my dreams he was coming—he was now on his way to me—and the mental quagmire continued to suck at me.

Which was when everything went dark…

“What’s this?” (At first, a voice from far, far away which some kind of mental red shift rapidly enhanced, making it louder and bringing it closer.) “Asleep on the job, are ye? Twitchin’ like ye’re havin’ a fit!” And then, much more seriously: “Man, but I hope ye’re
not
havin’ a fit!”

“Eh?” I gave a start. “W-what?” And lifting my head, jerking awake, I straightened up so quickly that I came very close to toppling over sideways.

And there I was, still seated on my plastic mac, blinking up into the half-smiling, half-frowning, wholly uncertain features of Andrew Quarry. “G-
God
, I was dreaming!” I told him. “A nightmare. Just lately I…I’ve been plagued by them!”

“Then I’m glad I came along,” he answered. “It was my hope tae find ye here, but when I saw ye sittin’ there—jerkin’ and moanin’ and what all—I thought it was best I speak out.”

“And just as well that you did,” I got my breath, finding it hard to breathe properly, and even harder to get to my feet. Quarry took my elbow, assisted me as, by way of explanation, I continued: “I…haven’t been sleeping too well.”

“No sleepin’?” He looked me straight in the eye. “Aye, I can see that. Man, ye’re lookin’ exhausted, so ye are! And tae fall asleep here—this early in the mornin’—now, that’s no normal.”

I could only agree with him, as for the first time I actually felt exhausted. “Maybe it was the mist,” I searched for a better explanation. “Something sickening in the mist? Some kind of—I don’t know—some kind of miasma maybe?”

He looked surprised, glanced across the moorland this way, and that, in all directions. “The mist, ye say?”

I looked, too, across the low-lying ground to where Tumble Tor stood tall for all that it seemed to slump; tall, and oddly foreboding now,
and dry as a bone in the warm morning sunshine!

At which I could only shake my head and insist: “But when I sat down there was a mist, and a thick mist at that! Wait…” And I looked at my watch—which was proof of nothing whatever, for I couldn’t judge the time.

“Well?” Quarry studied my face, curiously I thought.

“So maybe I was asleep longer than I thought,” I told him, lamely. “I must have been, for the mist to clear up like that.”

His frown lifted. “Maybe not.” He shrugged. “The moor’s as changeable as a young girl’s mind. I’ve known the mist tae come up in minutes and melt away just as fast. Anyway, ye’re lookin’ a wee bit steadier now. So will ye carry on, or what?”

“Carry on?”

“With ye’re paintin’—or drawin’—or whatever.”

“No, not now,” I answered, shaking my head. “I’ve had more than enough of this place for now.”

As he helped me to gather up my things, he said, “Then may I make a wee suggestion?”

“A suggestion?” We started down the hillside.

“Aye. Paul, ye look like ye could use some exercise. Ye’re way too pale, too jumpy, and too high strung. Now then, there’s this beautiful wee walk—no so wee, actually—frae my place along the beck and back. Now I’m no just lookin’ for a lift, ye ken, but we could drive there in ye’re car, walk and talk, take in some verra nice autumn countryside while exercisin’ our legs, and maybe finish off with a mug of coffee at my place before ye go on back tae Torquay. What do ye say?”

I almost turned him down, but…the fact was I was going short on company. Since the breakdown of my marriage (it seemed an awfully long time ago, but in fact had been less than eighteen months) all my friends had drifted away. Then again, since they had been mainly couples, maybe I should have expected that I would soon be cast out, to become a loner and outsider.

So now I nodded. “We can do that if you like. But—”

“Aye, but?”

“Is your daughter home? Er, Jennie?” Which was a blunt and stupid question whichever way you look at it; but having recognized the apprehension in my voice, he took it as it was meant.

“Oh, so ye’re no particularly interested in the company of the fairer sex, is that it?” He glanced sideways at me, but for my part I remained silent. “Oh well then, I’ll assume there’s a verra good reason,” he went on. “And anyway, I wouldnae want to seem to be intrudin’.”

“Don’t get any wrong ideas about me, Andrew,” I said then. “But my wife and I divorced quite recently, since when—”

“Say no more.” He nodded. “Ye’re no ready tae start thinkin’ that way again, I can understand that. But in any case, my Jennie’s gone off tae Exeter: a day out with a few friends. So ye’ll no be bumpin’ intae her accidentally like. And anyway, what do ye take me for: some sort of auld matchmaker? Well, let me assure ye, I’m no. As for my Jennie, ye can take it frae me: she’s no the kind of lassie ye’d find amenable to that sort of interference in the first place. So now ye ken.”

“I meant no offence,” I told him.

“No, of course ye didn’t.” He chuckled. “Aye, and if ye’d seen my Jennie, ye’d ken she doesnae need a matchmaker! Pretty as a picture, that daughter of mine. Man, ye couldnae paint a prettier one, I guarantee it!”

Along the usual route back to the car, I couldn’t resist the occasional troubled glance in the direction of Tumble Tor. Andrew Quarry must have noticed, for he nodded and said, “That auld tor: it’s given ye nothin’ but a load of grief, is it no so?”

“Grief?” I cast him a sharp look.

“With ye’re art and what all, ye’re paintin’. It’s proved a poor subject.”

A sentiment I agreed with more than Quarry could possibly know. “Yes,” I answered him in his own words, “a whole load of grief.” And then, perhaps a little angrily, revealing my frustration: “But I’m not done with that rock just yet. No, not by a long shot!”

Leaving the car on the road outside Quarry’s place, we walked and talked. Or rather
he
talked, simultaneously and unselfconsciously displaying his expertise with regard to the incredible variety of Dartmoor’s botanical species. And despite my current personal concerns—about my well-being, both physical and mental, following the latest unpleasant episode at Tumble Tor—I soon found myself genuinely fascinated by his monologue. But if Quarry had shown something of his specialized knowledge on our first meeting, now he excelled himself. So much so that later that day I could only remember a fraction of it.

Along the bank of the stream, he pointed out stag’s horn and hair mosses; and when we passed a stand of birch trees just fifty yards beyond his house, he identified several lichens and a clump of birch-bracket fungi. Within a mile and a half, never straying from the path beside the stream, we passed oak, holly, hazel and sycamore, their leaves displaying the colours of the season and those colours alone enabling Quarry’s instant recognition. On one occasion, where the way was fenced, he climbed a stile, crossed a field into a copse of oaks and dense conifers, and in less than five minutes filled a large white handkerchief with spongy, golden mushrooms which he called Goat’s Lip. When I asked him about that, he said:

“Aye, that’s what the locals call ’em. But listen tae me: ‘locals’, indeed! Man, I’m a local myself after all this time! Anyway, these beauties are commonly called downy boletus—or if ye’re really,
really
interested
Xerocomus subtomentosus
. So I think ye’ll agree, Paul,
Goat’s
Lip falls a whole lot easier frae a
man’s
lip, does it no?” At which I had to smile.

“And you’ll eat them?” I may have seemed doubtful.

“Oh, be sure I will!” he answered. “My Jennie’ll cook ’em up intae a fine soup, or maybe use ’em as stuffin’ in a roasted chicken…”

And so it went, all along the way.

But in no time at all, or so it seemed, we’d covered more than two miles of country pathway and it was time to turn back. “Now see,” Quarry commented, as we reversed our route, “there’s a wee bit more colour in ye’re cheeks; it’s the fresh air ye’ve been breathin’ deep intae ye’re lungs, and the blood ye’re legs hae been pumpin’ up through ye’re body. The walkin’ is good for a man. Aye, and likewise the talkin’ and the companionship. I’d be verra surprised if ye dinnae sleep well the nicht.”

So that was it. Not so much the companionship and talking, but the fact that he’d been concerned for me. So of course when he invited me in I entered the old house with him, and shortly we were seated under a low, oak-beamed ceiling in a farmhouse-styled kitchen, drinking freshly ground coffee.

“The coffee’s good,” I told him.

“Aye,” he answered. “None of ye’re instant rubbish for my Jennie. If it’s no frae the best beans it’s rubbish…that’s Jennie’s opinion, and I go along with it. It’s one of the good things she brought back frae America.”

We finished our coffee.

“And now a wee dram,” he said, as he guided me through the house to his spacious, comfortable living-room. “But just a wee one, for I ken ye’ll need to be drivin’ home.”

Seated, and with a shot glass of good whisky in my hand, I looked across the room to a wall of pictures, paintings, framed photographs, diplomas and such. And the first thing to catch my eye was a painting I at once recognized. A seascape, it was one of my mother’s canvases, and one of her best at that; my sketch of Tumble Tor—behind non-reflective glass in a frame that was far too good for it—occupied a space alongside.

I stood up, crossed to the wall to take a closer look, and said, “You were as good as your word. I’m glad my effort wasn’t wasted.”

“And ye’re Ma’s picture, too,” he nodded, coming to stand beside me. “The pencils and the paint: I think they make a fine contrast.”

I found myself frowning—or more properly scowling—at my drawing, and said, “Andrew, just you wait! I’m not done with painting on the moor just yet. I promise you this: I’ll soon be giving you a far better picture of that damned rock…even if it kills me!”

He seemed startled, taken aback. “Aye, so ye’ve said,” he answered, “—that ye’re set on it, I mean. And I sense a struggle brewin’ between the pair of ye—ye’resel and the auld tor. But I would much prefer ye as a livin’ breathin’ friend than a dead benefactor!”

At which I breathed deeply, relaxed a little, laughed and said, “Just a figure of speech, of course. But I really do have to get to grips with that boulder. In fact I don’t believe I’ll be able to work on anything else until I’m done with it. But as for right now—” I half-turned from the wall, “I
am
quite done with it. Time we changed the subject, I think, and talked about other things.”

My words acted like an invocation, for before turning more fully from the wall my gaze lighted on something else: a framed colour photograph hung in a prominent position, where the stone wall had been buttressed to enclose the grate and blackened flue of an open fireplace. An immaculate studio photograph, it portrayed a young woman’s face in profile.

“Your wife?” I approached the picture.

“My Jennie,” Quarry replied. “I keep my wife’s photographs in my study, where I can speak tae her any time I like. And she sometimes answers me, or so I like tae think. As for my Jennie: well now ye’ve seen her, ye’ve seen her Ma. Like peas in a pod. Aye, but it’s fairly obvious she doesnae take after me!”