M. C. BEATON
Copyright (c) 1999 by M. C. Beaton.
ONE
THERE is nothing more depressing for a middle-aged lovelorn woman with bald patches on her head than to find herself in an English seaside resort out of season. Wind ripped along the promenade, sending torn posters advertising summer jollities flapping, and huge waves sent spray high into the air.
Agatha had lost her hair when a vengeful hairdresser had applied depilatory to it rather than shampoo. It had grown back in tufts but leaving distressingly bare patches of scalp. Not wishing the love of her life, James Lacey, to return from his travels and find her in such a mess, Agatha had fled from Carsely to this seaside resort of Wyckhadden to wait for her hair to grow.
She had booked into the Garden Hotel, advertised as small but exclusive. She now wished she had chosen somewhere plastic and bright and modern. The Garden Hotel had not changed much since Victorian times. The ceilings were high, the carpets thick, and the walls very solid, so that it was as hushed and quiet as a tomb. The other residents were elderly, and no one feels more uncomfortable among the elderly than a middle-aged woman who is rapidly approaching that stage of life herself. Agatha could suddenly understand why middle-aged men often blossomed out in jeans, high boots and leather jackets and went looking for a young thing to wear on their arm. She walked a lot, determined to lose weight and remain supple.
One look around the dining-room of the Garden at her fellow guests made her start to ponder the sense of getting a face-lift.
The town of Wyckhadden had prospered during a boom in the late nineteenth century, and its popularity had continued well into the twentieth, but with the advent of cheap foreign travel, holiday-makers had declined. Why holiday in Britain in the rain when sunny Spain was only a hour's plane flight away?
So on this windy day, two days after her arrival, she was charging along a deserted promenade, head down against the wind, wondering how soon she could find a sheltered spot to enjoy a cigarette and get some of the excess of oxygen out of her lungs.
She turned away from the restless sound of the heaving sea and made her way up a narrow cobbled street where the original fishermen's cottages had now all been painted pastel colours like in an Italian village and had cute names like Home At Last, Dunroamin, The Refuge and so on, showing that they had been bought by retired wealthy people. Tourism might be on the wane, but property prices in seaside resorts on the south of England were high.
She came to a tea-shop and was about to go in when she saw the non-smoking sign on the door. The government was threatening to ban smoking in pubs, Agatha had read in the newspapers. Not a word about the dangers of alcohol, she thought as a particularly strong gust of wind sent her reeling. People who smoked did not drive off the road or go home and beat up their wives. Drunks did. And with the fumes from more and more cars polluting the air, she thought that smoking had become a political issue. The left were anti-smoking, the right pro- smoking, and the lot in the middle who had given up smoking wanted everyone to suffer.
She saw a pub on the corner called the Dog and Duck. It looked old and pretty, whitewashed with black beams and hanging baskets which swung in the wind. She pushed open the door and went in.
Inside belied the outside. It was dark and gloomy: stained tables, linoleum on the floor, and if there was any heating at all she could not feel it.
She had wanted a coffee, and pubs these days sold coffee, but she felt so low she ordered a double gin and tonic instead. 'We don't have ice,' said the bartender.
'You don't need it,' snapped Agatha. 'This place is freezing.'
'You're the only one that's complained,' he said, scooping up her money.
Should be written on the British flag, thought Agatha sourly. 'You're the only one that's complained' was always the answer to the slightly less than timid customer who dared to complain about anything.
Perhaps she should admit defeat and go home. She lit a cigarette. The pub was nearly empty. There was only she herself and a couple talking in low voices in a corner, holding hands and looking at each other with the sad intensity of adulterers. They probably met here, thought Agatha, knowing that no one they knew would see them.
There must be some sort of life in this town.
The pub door swung open and a tall man came in. Agatha studied him as he went up to the bar. He was wearing a long dark overcoat. He had a lugubrious face and large pale eyes under heavy lids. His hair was black, like patent leather, smooth across his head. He ordered a drink and then turned and looked curiously at Agatha. He was far from an Adonis, and yet Agatha was suddenly conscious of her face, reddened by the wind, and her head tied up in a headscarf because she had not wanted to wear her wig.
He walked up to her table and loomed over her. 'Are you visiting?' he asked.
'Yes,' said Agatha curtly.
'You've picked a bad time of year for it.'
'I've picked a bad place,' retorted Agatha. 'I think people only come here to die.'
His pale eyes gleamed with amusement. 'Oh, we have our fun. There's dancing in the pier ballroom tonight.' He sat down opposite her.
'How on earth to people get to it?' asked Agatha. 'Surely anyone trying to get along the pier in this weather would be blown away.'
'I tell you what. I'll take you.'
'I don't know you!'
