leg was a wardrobe with, as I imagined, just enough clearance between it and the bed to allow for the opening of the doors and barely any between its top and the ceiling. Beyond my boot soles was the window. To the right of my right boot was a small table covered with a tartan cloth. On the table was a box of long matches, a red-shaded oil lamp, with the wick burning low – as though in expectation of a tenant – and instructions for the lighting of the lamp. There was also a black book.
To the right of my right knee was a small fireplace, not laid for a fire but with kindling and paper ready in one scuttle, and coal in another. At my right elbow was a wash stand on a scrap of red and black tab rug, which ran partly under the bed as any rug in that room would have to do. For the rest, the floor was black-painted boards.
I sat and watched the black, brooding sea and listened to the wind rising off it, which periodically set the window clattering in its frame. I then leant forward and picked up the book that lay by the side of the lamp. It was Ocean Steamships by F. E. Chadwick and several others, and the owner had written his name on the inside page: 'H. D. R. Fielding'. Who's he when he's at home? I thought, and I settled down on the bed with it. Turning to the first page, I read: 'It is a wonderful fact in the swift expansion of mechanical knowledge and appliances of the last hundred years that while for unknown ages the wind was the only propelling force used for purposes of navigation…'
At that, I put the book back on the table and picked up the directions for the lamp. 'Sunshine at Night,' I read. 'The 'Famos' 120 Candle-Power Incandescent Oil Lamp. The management of the lamp is simplicity itself…' Tucked into the pages of the little booklet was a handwritten note evidently meant for guests at Paradise and left over from the summer: 'Please note that teas can by arrangement be served on the beach. Please place requests with Mr Adam Rickerby.'
So there was more than one Rickerby. I didn't quite like the thought.
I replaced this and the lamp directions, and looked at the wallpaper, which was of a mustardy colour, bubbling here and there, and showing the same small ship – a black galleon – entangled dozens of times over in the same curly wave. I was just thinking that it would have made a good pattern for a lad's room when I heard a stirring to my left and there, looming in the doorway, was the over-grown boy who might have spent his childhood years gazing at it.
'Does it suit?' he enquired.
'Adam Rickerby?' I said, and he nodded.
'Will it do?' he said.
The words fell out of his mouth anyhow, in a sort of breathless rush, and with a quantity of flying spittle. He was a gormless lad of about eighteen and, depending on how he grew, he might be all right or a permanent idiot. For the time being, he was unfinished. He wore a shirt of rough white cloth, a thin white necker tied anyhow, and a dirty green apron, so that he looked like some monstrous sort of footman.
'It's cosy enough, en't it?' I said.
He made no answer.
'But it suits me fine,' I said.
'It's two shilling fer t'night,' he said, and he put his hand out.
'Who sent you?'
'Our lass,' he said, and so he was the brother of Miss Rickerby. I was glad he wasn't her husband.
While her face was made pretty and friendly-seeming by being rather wide, his was pumpkin-like; and while her mass of curls was fetching, his were… well, you didn't often see a man who had too much hair but his allowance was excessive, as though sprouting the stuff was about all he was good for. While his sister was well-spoken (for Scarborough, anyhow) he spoke broad Yorkshire, and his blue eyes were too light, indicating a kind of hollowness inside.
I paid over the coin, and he dropped it directly into the front pocket of his apron.
'Winder rattles,' he said.
'I know,' I said, and he skirted around the bed until he came to the window. There he crouched down and found a bit of paste-board, which he jammed into the frame, afterwards remaining motionless and gazing out to sea for a good few seconds. Rising to his feet again he indicated the paste-board, saying, 'You've to keep that in,' as though it was my fault it had fallen out. I could clearly read the words on the card: 'American Wintergreen Tooth Powder: Unequalled for…' and then came the fold. At any rate, it worked, and the best the wind could do now was to create a small trembling in the frame.
'Seen t'toilet?' enquired the youth, who was standing in the doorway once more.
I gave a quick shake of my head.
'It's on t'floor below… Yer've not seen it?' he repeated.
'Is there something special about it?' I said.
The lad kept silence for a moment, before blurting:
'There en't one in't back yard.'
'But you don't have a back yard, do you?' I asked, thinking of how the rear of the house gave on to what was practically a sheer drop. *
He shook his head.
'So it'd be a bit hard to have a toilet in it, wouldn't it?'
I glanced down under the bed, and Adam Rickerby looked on alarmed as I did so. A fair quantity of dust was down there, but not the object I was looking for.
'There's no chamber pot,' I said.
He eyed me sidelong, looked away, eyed me again.
'This room doesn't have a chamber pot,' he said.
'I know,' I said. 'That's what I'm saying.'
'Want one, do yer?' he said, very fast.
'Yes,' I said, 'that's what I'm also saying.'
A note of music arose: the sea wind in the little iron fireplace – a very pure sound, like a flute.
'Cabinet fer yer clothes,' he said suddenly, indicating the wardrobe.
'Yes,' I said, and the silence that followed was so awkward that I said, 'Thanks for pointing it out.'
Had he taken the point about the chamber pot? It was impossible to tell.
'Coal an' wood in't scuttles,' he said – and just then there came a great bang and a scream from beyond the window.
The lad remained motionless, as I barged the bed aside to get a look. Red lights, like burning embers, drifted peacefully down through the black sky towards the harbour.
'I'd say a maroon's just been let off,' I said, and I looked at the lad, who was frowning down towards the bed.
'Appen,' he said.
'What does it mean?'
'Could mean owt,' he said.
'Well,' I said, 'that can't be right,' at which he looked up at me quite sharply 'If a maroon could mean anything, they wouldn't bother firing one. I'd say a ship's been wrecked.'
And the lad didn't seem to think much of that idea, because he just turned on his heel and quit the room. I went out after him, and caught him up on the floor being decorated.
'There's t'toilet,' he said, indicating a white-painted door. 'Paint's all dry.'
Evidently, then, he did not mean to supply me with a chamber pot. It struck me that he was a very inflexible youth.
'Where's everyone else in the house?' I said. 'I want to see about this shipwreck.'
'Sitting room,' he said. 'Next floor down.'
I followed him down towards the first landing. On the way we passed three framed photographs I hadn't noticed on the way up. I turned towards them expecting to see sea-side scenes. Instead there was an old man giving me the evil eye. He hadn't mustered a smile for any of the three, I noticed, as we descended under his gaze.
'Who's that?' I enquired, although I knew the answer in advance on account of the pile of grey curls atop the old man's head.
