The Essex Serpent(9)
Spencer withdrew a banknote from his pocket, set it silently on the floor, where his friend might mistake it for one he himself had dropped and forgotten, and closed the door behind him.
2
Having scoured its river for kingfishers and its castle for ravens, Cora Seaborne walked through Colchester with Martha on her arm, holding an umbrella above them both. There’d been no kingfisher (‘On a Nile cruise, probably – Martha, shall we follow them?’), but the castle keep had been thick with grave-faced rooks stalking about in their ragged trousers. ‘Quite a good ruin,’ said Cora, ‘But I’d have liked to’ve seen a gibbet, or a miscreant with pecked-out eyes.’
Martha – who had little patience for the past and eyes fixed always at some brighter point several years distant – said, ‘There’s suffering, if you’re really determined to find it,’ and gestured towards a man whose legs ended above the knee and who had stationed himself opposite a cafe, the better to induce guilt in tourists with overfilled bellies. Martha had made no secret of her discomfort at being plucked from her city home: for all that her thick fair plait and strong arms gave her the appearance of a dairy-girl with a fondness for cream, she’d never before been much east of Bishopsgate, and thought the oaky Essex fields sinister and the pink-painted Essex houses the dwelling-places of half-wits. Her astonishment that coffee could be had in such a backwater had been matched only by her disgust at the astringent liquid she’d been served, and she spoke to anyone they met with the extravagant politeness reserved for a stupid child. All the same, in the fortnight since they’d departed London – Francis retrieved from school, to the unspoken but evident relief of his teachers – Martha had almost come to love the little town for its effect on her friend, who removed from London’s gaze had abandoned her dutiful mourning and receded ten years to a merrier self. Sooner or later, she thought, she’d gently ask how long Cora intended to live in their two rooms on the High Street, doing nothing but walking herself weary and poring over books, but for now she was content to witness Cora’s happiness.
Adjusting the umbrella, which had done nothing more than channel the weak rain more efficiently into the collars of their coats, Cora followed Martha’s pointing hand. The crippled man was doing a far better job than they of tricking the weather, and judging by the satisfaction with which he examined the contents of his upturned hat, had made a good day’s takings. He was sitting on what Cora first took to be a stone bench, but which on looking closer she saw was a piece of fallen masonry. It measured at least three feet broad and two deep, and the remains of a Latin phrase emerged to the left of the beggar’s limbs. Seeing the two women in their good coats observing him from across the road he immediately adopted an expression of craven misery; this he swiftly discarded as being too obvious and replaced with one of noble suffering, with the suggestion that though he found his occupation odious he could never be accused of shirking. Cora, who loved the theatre, tugged her arm from Martha’s and slipping behind a passing bus stood gravely at his feet, sheltered a little by a shallow porch.
‘Good afternoon.’ She reached for her purse. The man cast his eyes up at the sky, which at that moment split and displayed an astonishing blue interior. ‘It isn’t,’ he said. ‘But it might yet be: I’ll give you that.’ The brief brightness illuminated the building behind him, which Cora saw had been torn apart as though by an explosion. A section to her left remained more or less as its architect intended – a several-storeyed building that might have been a great house or town hall – but a portion to the right had sheared away and sunk several feet into the ground. A bulwark of poles and planks kept it from tumbling across the pavement, but it was treacherous, and she thought she could hear above the slow traffic the creak and grinding of iron on stone. Martha appeared at her side and Cora instinctively took her hand, unsure whether to step backwards or hitch up her skirt and take a closer look. The same appetite that made her break stones in search of ammonites until the air reeked of cordite propelled her forward: she could see up to a room with its fireplace intact, and a scarlet scrap of carpet lolling over the edge of the broken floor like a tongue. Further up, an oak seedling had taken hold beside the staircase, and a pale fungus that resembled many fingerless hands had colonised the plaster ceiling.
‘Now steady on, miss!’ Alarmed, the man shuffled across his stone seat and gripped the hem of Cora’s coat. ‘What d’you want to be doing that for? No, a little further back, I should think … and a little further … safe enough now, yes; and don’t do it again.’ He spoke with the authority of a gate-keeper, so that Cora felt rather ashamed of herself and said, ‘Oh, I am sorry: I didn’t mean to alarm you. It’s just I thought I saw something move.’
‘That’ll be the house martins and they needn’t trouble you a bit.’ Forgetting for a moment the demeanour of his profession, he tugged at his scarf and said, ‘Thomas Taylor, at your service. Not been here before, I take it?’
‘A few days. My friend and I’ – Cora gestured towards Martha, who stood a little distance away in the shadow of her umbrella, stiff with disapproval – ‘Are staying on awhile, so I thought maybe I’d better say hello.’ Cora and the cripple both examined this statement for logic, and finding none let it pass.