Having deducted only bafflement, I drove to Mentle Marina in time to meet Jodie Danglass at noon. I was worn out.
She came to meet me, handbag swinging and hair blowing in the onshore breeze. I warmed to her, though I still hadn’t quite worked out why suddenly she was so prominent on my horizon, so to speak. Children were watching a Punch and Judy. Those weird nasal voices and everybody getting hanged or beaten put the fear of God up me, so I refused to advance towards her and waited where I could see the donkeys trotting across the sands.
“Have I got the wrong accessories, Lovejoy?”
“You look exquisite. This where Baff bought it, Jode?”
She looked about, didn’t point. “No. That caravan site on the north shore. They have a funfair, disco dancing, open-air pub, amusement centre for the yokels.”
We could see it, three furlongs on. First time I’d been at Mentle for a couple of years, when I’d bought a fruitwood lowboy—as the American dealers always call these 1720-ish small tables. I love applewood furniture, and paid a fortune in IOUs for it to a seaside landlady. (Don’t be daunted by the rather lopsided appearance of the little drawers, incidentally. It’s bound to happen to gentle woods like apple after about 150 years. In fact it’s a good honest clue to authenticity, in a trade which badly needs such.)
“The south shore being where we’re heading?”
“Yes. Two distinct halves, Mentle these days. B.T.” We started walking. “Before Troude.”
The sands gave out midway along the sea promenade. There a few geological pimples, which pass for cliffs in flat East Anglia, rose with obvious effort to form a headland. A walker’s path climbed its contours through flower arrangements and decorative bushes so you could stroll with your ladylove while avoiding the ice-cream sellers and balloon touts.
“He own this Mentle Marina too?”
“The lot. North-shore funfair, caravan site, pubs. He’s the big shilling, Lovejoy.”
With Almira Galloway and Sandy among his backers. But backers for what? The thing that worried me most, though, was the knowledge that Baff wouldn’t have got his part-time job unless the boss said so. Not only that— around here you obeyed this Troude prude. For some, or any, reason. Even if it meant taking a duff job that ended in a planned blagging by yobbos. How had Baff, your average minnow, mortally offended a marina mogul to earn that doom?
We walked the prom, short-cutting the headland, coming on the marina itself with unexpected suddenness.
The place had been all fields, until excavators dug out a series of shallow bays and opened seacocks to let the tides in. Then it became a mesh of inlets, jetties on a mathematical grid design. Seagulls love it. Posh folk sail yachts down the coast to throw parties for other nauticals who throw parties back. There’s a lock gate, but only to charge boats entering and leaving. These seaside places are catchpenny.
“See the building? Only finished three weeks ago.”
A feast of modern architecture, the squat ugliness was breathtaking. Wrap-around windows gave a monster view of artificial bays. Its artificial lighthouse blinked red and green port and starboard lanterns from artificial masts. Artificial sails stuck up from the deck-hatch roof, across which artificial spray whisked every few seconds. Artificial rigging displayed signal flags depicting some non-message. Only the seagulls weren’t artificial, and I wasn’t sure about some of those.
“I love it,” I told Jodie. She looked at me with a question in her eyes. “Only practising.”
We were expected. Jodie was given a polite thank you by Troude in a blazer-and-Henley rig. Neckerchief with gold anchors, and a flying pennant blazer badge. The lounge was extravagant with ships’ wheels and marlinspikes and capstans and two of the most grotesque figureheads you could ever imagine. No place to get drunk. You’d wonder what you were looking at.
“See you, Jode,” I said, smiling to show I wasn’t daunted by the lady sitting with Troude. He even had a captain’s cap nonchalantly on the couch beside him.
“Thank you for coming so promptly, Lovejoy.” He smiled differently in daylight, but still the ruler of all he surveyed. Or, in present company, possibly not?
“How do you do, missus?” I said politely. “Lovejoy.”
She gazed with utter indifference. Not at me, note, but vaguely in my direction. But there were a few boats gliding the briny behind me, so I couldn’t be certain.
“This him?” she asked Troude. She didn’t care one way or the other if I was me or not. I could tell.
“If it’s me you want, missus.”
She looked at me, not quite hailstones but getting that way. “I won’t tolerate idiocy, Philippe,” she said.
“He’s nervous, Monique.” He introduced her. “M’selle Delebarre, Lovejoy.” I sat at Troude’s gesture of invitation, thinking, she’s the boss and he’s only her nerk, captain’s cap or no captain’s cap.
Surprisingly, I didn’t think I was. Nervous, I mean. In the lounge, staff were preparing for an influx, but keeping quiet and respectful. No customers, which was odd. I’ve never known a sailors’ bar that wasn’t heaving with maids and matelots.
“I won’t wait all day,” Monique said. A cryptic lady, of very little patience.
Blankly I smiled at Troude. He looked at me. She drummed her fingers prettily. I yawned a bit, started watching the boats. One was fluttering its sails, having difficulty braking or something coming into its moorings. Monique was slim, but she’d had to work at it. A calorie job, no mistake. Her figure gave her away, in spite of the minions who’d slogged to make her appear less voluptuous than she was. She belonged among those fashionables who think a woman’s got to look cachectic to be attractive. She’d not quite made it. Her hair was dark, lank but with sheen. Her face hadn’t enough make-up on for me, but then I’m a magpie, want them to wear tons of it. They rarely do.
“Make him, Philippe.” She’d lost patience.
