“No, I think you could have a problem getting out again. Everything sinks into that lot.”
Carole pointed out a row of public moorings, pontoons loosely attached to tall posts which rode up and down the water level with every tide. The rectangles of slatted wood lay on the mud, as did a few motor launches, stranded at asymmetric angles. “One of those belongs to Bill Chilcott, I think.”
“What’s that noise?” asked Jude.
Once again Carole was aware of the heavy thumping which had done so little to help her headache that morning. As they turned a bend of the path, they saw its source. On top of the sea wall, beyond the gates controlled by the Fethering Yacht Club, a cluster of builders’ vehicles was gathered. There were a crane, two small vans and a JCB. Huge sheets of corrugated metal were piled by the blue fishermen’s chests, and a lot of men in fluorescent yellow jackets and hard hats milled around.
Rising from the centre of this activity, at the edge of the Fether, stood a tall pile-driving machine. The rhythmic thumping sounded as it forced the metal sheets deep down into the mud. Gulls protested overhead, intrigued by the commotion.
“Repairs to the sea wall,” Carole explained. “I’d heard it was due to be done some time.” She shivered. “What a day for them to start.”
¦
From inside the Fethering Yacht Club, but for the dull thudding of the pile driver, you wouldn’t have known about the repair work taking place only fifty yards away. The building equipment was as invisible as everything else beyond the windows of the bar. The way the wind whipped the rain about in every direction, sitting in the Fethering Yacht Club that afternoon was like being in a car-wash.
Carole’s conjecture had proved right and it was Denis Woodville who let them in. He was a tall, angular man with a high domed head surrounded by a little frill of white hair that gave the impression of a joke-shop tonsure. His nose was beaky and he had the sagging, papery skin of a heavy smoker. A politically incorrect Gauloise drooped from yellow-stained fingers and he kept sucking at it, as if desperate to tar up the last few unpolluted cells of his lungs. He perched on a stool and had gestured his visitors to sit on two others. Beside him, on the shelf that ran the length of the sea-facing window, was a balloon of brandy from which he took sips between drags of his cigarette. The bar-room was punctiliously neat and the adjective could not be avoided – shipshape.
“Wouldn’t surprise me at all if they’d nicked one of our life-jackets,” he said after Jude had glibly produced her lie. “Lot of bloody kids always trying to break into this place.”
Denis Woodville’s accent was unusual, upper class on the surface but very carefully spoken, as if he was afraid he might at any moment betray a less cultured voice beneath.
“And into the boats,” he continued, gesturing outside.
Though the windows were blinded with rain, Carole and Jude had seen what he was talking about as they approached the clubhouse. Rows of dinghies on trailers were regimented on a cement rectangle in front of the building, all zipped up to the necks of their masts in sturdy fitted covers.
“Bloody awful times we live in,” Denis Woodville went on. “Nobody has any respect for property any more. Kids aren’t brought up with any respect for anything, that’s the trouble. May not be a fashionable sentiment, but bring back National Service, I say. A couple of years of doing what they’re told, thinking about other people rather than themselves for a change – that’d bring the little buggers into line.”
His taking a reflective swallow of brandy enabled Carole to ask, “Is this clubroom open right through the winter?”
“Yes. Every day. Normally a few regulars come in at midday, but when the weather’s like this…” He shrugged. “Won’t put off the evening crowd, though, I’m sure. Actually, just as well there’s no one in this lunchtime, because we’ve recently lost our barmaid finished work on Friday. And you can’t really have the Vice-Commodore pulling pints, can you?” He chuckled at the incongruity of the idea.
“So are you actually the Vice-Commodore?”
The note of awe that Jude had injected into her voice had the right effect. Denis Woodville preened himself as he replied, “Yes. I am. Hotly contested election for the post last year, but I won through. Members of this club still appreciate the old–fashioned values of integrity and common sense, you know.”
“I’m sure they do. Are there a lot of members?” Jude asked ingenuously.
“Couple of hundred. Not all very active. Some’re London folk who’re just weekenders down here. We tend to be a bit careful about the kind of people we let in. Open the doors too wide and you could end up with all kinds of riff-raff, eh?”
“I suppose you could,” said Jude, in a manner that might have implied agreement.
“And it’s all run by volunteers, is it?” asked Carole. “You don’t have any permanent staff?”
“We club officials give our services free,” the Vice-Commodore replied grandly. “Obviously, expenses taken when required by the Treasurer and so on. That’s Rory Turribull, he’s our Treasurer. Dentist chap. You know him, don’t you, Mrs Seddon?”
“Yes.”
“He’s got problems at the moment, you know…”
“Oh? Problems with what?”
“Club accounts. Don’t tally, I’m afraid. It’s the bloody accountant’s cock-up. Honestly, these days you can’t even trust the professionals. Just scrape through their bloody exams and then reckon they’ve got a meal-ticket for life. And when they get their sums wrong, it’s the client who has to pay, of course. Do you know, the accountant who looks after the club has managed to mislay over a thousand quid somewhere during the last year. Rory’s on to the case and it’s getting sorted, but even so…it all takes time, doesn’t it? In the old days, if you employed a professional, you could rely on getting a professional job done. Not any more.”
¦
“No,” Carole apparently agreed. “It’s rather impressive that this whole set-up’s run without any paid employees.”
“Well, of course, we pay the casual workers…cleaners, bar staff…”
“Except,” said Jude, “you say you haven’t got any bar staff at the moment.”
“No. Tanya finished Friday, as I said. Did you know her?” Carole shook her head. “Rather large girl. No thing of beauty, and got this great industrial rivet punched through her nose, but polite enough to the members. And didn’t drink the profits, just cup after cup of coffee all day.”
“Well, anyhow, she suddenly reckons in her wisdom that this place was ‘too far from Brighton’, so she’s going to look for something closer to home. I don’t know, young people nowadays just don’t stick at anything. She’d got a perfectly good job here, done six months, members getting to know her, doing very well, and suddenly she decides a twenty-minute train journey is too much for her. Kids’ve got no tenacity these days.”
“So will you be advertising for a replacement barmaid?” asked Jude.
“Yes, have to get round to it. Why, you looking for a job?”
“Might be.”
This reply, as well as amazing Carole, seemed to release some warmth in Denis Woodville. He smiled into Jude’s brown eyes as he said, “If you want to pursue it, let me have a CV, and maybe I can put in a word with the committee.”
“I might just do that.”
Did she mean it, Carole wondered. Could she possibly mean it? People who had cottages in the High Street of Fethering didn’t work behind bars. Once again she realized how little she knew of Jude’s background. Maybe her neighbour actually did need a job and maybe she wouldn’t be above working as a barmaid. Once again, Carole determined to get a few basic facts about Jude’s life sorted out.
The relaxation of Denis Woodville’s formality continued. “Would either of you like a drink, by the way?”
“No, thank you,” replied Carole firmly, before Jude could once again succumb and lead her further astray.
“Oh.” The Vice-Commodore looked wistfully down at his empty brandy balloon. “Well, I’d better not have another one either. Better get back home, I suppose.”
The prospect didn’t appeal to him. “Yes, better close up. Open again at six. The six o’clock regulars never miss a night, come hell, high water or both.”
“I gather from Carole,” said Jude, “that we’re neighbours, Mr Woodville.”
“Please…” He raised a veined hand in admonition. “Don’t call me Mr Woodville.”
