Dusk was
closing in early and the choppy sea looked almost as if it was talking as the
determined wave crest flicked like forked tongues as they rolled to the beach.
The tourist
season had drawn to a close. That was not to say there was not something for
the tourists to do. There were always
tourists around of some sort or another, whatever the season, enjoying some
event or other, but the eclectic little Cornish seaside town was essentially
most visited during the summer months when cars would jostle for the limited
parking available and the pretty gift shops and markets sold their wares in
abundance.
The many sea food outlets and restaurants also
did a roaring trade. Almost anybody who had ever wanted to be an artist came
here and that is why a famous London art gallery had open a branch right here
near Porthmeor Beach. The old Pathe
newsreels of yesteryear with the proud cockerel emblem, had in their archives,
a filmed news article showing enthusiastic painters creating the features of a pretty dark haired
model on their canvasses back in the 1950’s, back in the day.
Yet the day
was still now. The incredible enthusiasm
to paint and create was felt by many thousands who had ever walked the boards
of the scenery stage of St Ives and this carried on in to the present day with
artist colonies and painting schools continuously going full and noisily
enthusiastic throttle, much of the time.
Most people
painted one of the representations of beaches in or around St Ives Bay. Those beaches had been expressed at least a
million times by a million lives touched by the brush and the palette, as the
stately colours wove their Neptunian magick once more and all over again, for
ever and ever.
Had Vincent
Van Gogh chosen to paint in Cornwall instead of France, then instead of his
starry night scenes he could have painted the cloud Genie who rose from the sky
in a formation over Porthmeor beach, or at least, that was what appeared to be
happening in one dawn photograph.
The
photographers too were their element here - there was always another angle,
another interpretation to be captured by the flick of a light meter and the
heavy click of the sturdy camera button, to ensnare another piece of heaven
forever on the microdot of the cameras memory card.
Caradoc was
still rather in awe of his surroundings. He was getting used to things,
adapting to the new situations that were presenting themselves to him
daily. He knew he was lucky and that he
had fallen on his feet. At his time of life it wasn’t always easy to start
again, not these days, not with the recession and everything making it
difficult for those who were not in the first flush of youth to actually
survive, never mind get a decent paying job..
Caradoc knew all about job loss - he had gone
from being the manager of a thriving car garage one minute, to being ‘given his
cards’ as they used to say in the old days and being out on his ear the next.
He’d tried setting up on his own but in the northern English countryside there
were just too many who had the same idea - a glut - in fact, of car mechanics
and decal decorators.
It hadn’t
helped Caradoc that he’d had the rent to pay on a very swish olde worlde style
whitewashed cottage in the middle of a forest and near to a very picturesque
lake. Caradoc sometimes wondered about
the lake monster that was supposed to live in the very murky depths of the grey
lake.
The Windermere lake monster was not as famous as his Scottish cousin Nessie,
hailed from Loch Ness, but there were a fair few folks who had testified to
seeing his scaly, sleek grey body, nonetheless, stealthily surfacing and
breaking through the icy waters of Lake Windermere in the deepest, darkest and
most beguiling starry night, as he looked up wondrously from his watery
subterranean home at the white boats snoozing softly in their moorings at the nearby
Windermere Marina corral. After looking
round and flicking his proud head crest, he would dive once more, invigorated,
to his lake dragon home and when the people of the town awoke in the morning
there would be no sign of such a happening ever to have existed.
Caradoc
then took his mind way back down south to rest on the notion of the seals that
could sometimes be seen in St Ives harbour. His life had changed really, one
Saturday night when he had been at a loss for something to do, but he hadn’t
wanted to be with friends or stay in alone. He had, at that time, recently
split with a long term partner and he felt unusually restless, so in the end,
after some careful deliberating and musing, he had decided to visit a local
bar, come cinema, come eatery all rolled in to one, depending on which section
or door the customer entered by.
Caradoc had
been propping up the bar with his pint, idly watching the other customers. A
platinum blonde girl with a pink fluffy bandana, her short day-glow skirt
gently undulating against the tops of her slim tanned legs, whilst her
revealing, white top curved and molded to her like a second skin, gave Caradoc
a definite and meaningful wall to wall 4D smile as she reached for her
Caribbean white rum and coke , topped by a fancy little paper umbrella. Caradoc
noticed she had very electric bright, even teeth, that reminded him, for some
reason, of a vampire or a werewolf. He
politely smiled back, but other than that, made no further opening gambit or
moves suggesting he’d pulled for the night and after a while, with a toss of
her foam white locks, the girl moved on to a neatly dressed, coat hanger
shirted, sandy haired man, who looked every inch, the conservative, moderately
successful, accountant.
Caradoc saw
no loss in this, the girl hadn’t been his type, not really. He was forty after all and she looked no
older than twenty.
He was
pleasantly surprised then, when he looked up from bending his head a little,
straight in to the eyes of a lady with long red hair and determined,
self-assured, marble-shiny blue eyes.
She was, he guessed, in her mid-thirties, her freckled arms sparkled
from the gold body powder she had skilfully applied before the beginning of
her shift, yet her facial make-up was very subtle and he liked the
contrast. Her black work vest and
trousers looked well on here diminutive frame.
"Hey babe, what you got?" Caradoc enquired, mouth parched from an afternoon in a dusty shed with his Harley Davidson.
"What d'ya want?" she replied, with a cheeky wink.
Caradoc was suddenly conscious that he hadn't washed his hair for a week and his workshop shop clothes may have been playing a tune of their own - but no matter, the scent of an honest day's work might just be about to pay off.
He'd been spending like a penny millionaire in Amsterdam recently, so he thought he'd push the boat out with a whiskey.
"So, what do you do?" he asked, keeping it nice and simple.
“I work here”, she said, “I’m a bartender, but I’m way over qualified for the job - I’m really a designer.”
“What happened?” asked Caradoc
“Life - that’s what happened” she said “Kept picking the wrong boyfriends - got left pregnant and the rest, by an unfeeling fella - blah de blah sad story - though I don’t know why I’m telling you all this, it’s not as if I know you and you don’t want to listen to my problems when you’re on an evening out.”
“Try me, I’m a good listener” said Caradoc. “So”, he mused, “Did you keep the baby?”
The woman looked away suddenly. “No… look, I shouldn’t have said anything, I feel rather embarrassed now … I don’t even know your name”.
“My name is Caradoc, after my great granddad, but my friends call me ‘Doc’ for short”.
“And are you a doc then?” she said as the ghost of a smile flitted across her elfin face.
“No, I’m a motor mechanic” he replied “Anyway, what’s your name? He asked quickly.
“Lucy” She said simply.
And that had been that really. In between snatched moments taken alongside tending the bar with the other staff, she had begun a cozy friendship that turned all the more warm and fuzzy as the night progressed. Their mood became one of pure ambience, as Caradoc realized how dazzled he was with this artistic lady.
Next morning dawned bright and clear. Back in the deep Woodland Cottage, Caradoc and his new lady, Lucy woke to the sounds of birds cheeping at the window.
“Why don’t you move in with me” said Caradoc
“That would be great” smiled Lucy “I’ll just have to go and pick up my belongings and collect my dog from my mother’s house.
“Oh I just love dogs”, Caradoc laughed, “I used to keep them back at home. I had a spaniel when I was younger”.
“You’ll like my dog” Lucy beamed, “he is a gorgeous Jack Russell and I call him Pumpkin”
“Pumpkin, eh, sounds like a friendly little guy to me. I was thinking of getting another dog myself so I can’t wait to meet him” Caradoc winked as he said this - whilst sweeping his chestnut tousled hair from his open friendly face.
Later on that day, news filtered round the little town concerning the fact that a young woman, a platinum blonde party goer, wearing a day-glow skirt had been pulled from Lake Windermere. Foul play was suspected but as yet there were no real leads.
And now Caradoc was in Cornwall, musing on the whirlwind romance and finally marriage that had occurred over the last two and a half years. Himself, Lucy and Pumpkin were now an established trio and both Caradoc and Lucy were enjoying running their decorating and renovations business, whilst doing some car mechanic jobs here and there.
A life near the ocean wave, sun, sea, art in bucketsful, fish and chip shops, restaurants, a free flat to live in provided by Lucy’s mother - all should have been great.
Caradoc regularly updated his social networking pages with happy leers and grins, whilst Lucy saw herself as the archetypal mermaid. She imagined herself beneath the foaming waves, being waited on by handmaidens in a green grotto full of pearls and fine gemstones left by a pirate, her shimmering turquoise blue fishtail stretched out on her shell chaise longue, whilst her red hair fanned out behind her. What did it matter now that the deep russet tones of her childhood were assisted these days, by skilled hairdressing application of occasional bolder red highlights? She was certainly swish and she loved her tanned arms which were lightly speckled with freckles like a newly laid hen’s egg.
Lucy even loved Caradoc’s tattoos. He had decided he was getting a mermaid tattoo with her name on it, but she has asked him not to do or at least to put it in a secret place as it was something she wanted to keep private, especially for them when they were alone together.
The only thing that bothered Caradoc were the nightmares, where he dreamed of pushing someone off the jetty in to the water but they were of course just dreams.
As Caradoc walked along Porthmeor Beach, very deep in thought, he did not see the trim blonde lady who looked to be a well-kept 40 something approaching him, until he bumped in to her.
“Oh, I am sorry”, he said contritely before attempting to walk on.
The lady got hold of his arm, very lightly. “I teach at an Ashram in London”, she said. You can call me Sita, it is the name I use now. “It’s just that I noticed you were carrying a lot of shadow” she continued.
“What do you mean” asked Caradoc
“I can see dark swirls around you. I do dance meditations and I contact the Higher Intelligences to use my body both as a temple and a channel for these higher thought forms and teachings. You are definitely carrying a shadow and it is one which is getting longer. I feel you have moved away form a situation that haunts you and yet one day you will go back to it and by then you will know what you should do about it. I can tell that you have had a difficult life and that you have had to do what you can to hold on to your beliefs. However you are proud and strong and they will work for you if you give them a chance”, the lady finished her speech whilst pulling her purple jacket tighter round her and arranging the folds of her long patchwork skirt which lightly scraped the floor.
“So you can chase shadows then”, smiled Caradoc, secretly grinning to himself more than he let on.
“I am both a Spirit Walker and A Shadow Dancer that is true, in the Shamanic traditions” she told him matter of factly, “but this is not what I mean”, there is a darkness around you, like the swirls of a deep lake if you will forgive me for saying.
“Don’t you mean a deep sea” he said.
“No, on this occasion, I meant a lake. What is your name anyway?”
“Call me Doc”, he said. “Caradoc sounds too formal”
“Well Doc you’re on” she laughed.
“Do you live in London then?” he asked her
“No, I live in Devon at the moment, by the sea actually, just as pretty as this, in a little white cottage. I used to live in St Ives though and have contacts round and about this area. I’m visiting one of them right now as a matter of fact, that’s why I’m here. I commute to London frequently and to Bristol too.”
“You sound very mysterious, not to mention very busy.” Caradoc was staring far out at the sea line, his mind conjuring up a myriad of exotic spices and dances with thumb cymbals, in a plush desert tent
“Yes I’m going to be setting up some dance mediations classes in the area”. She pushed a stray piece of tawny blonde hair from her forehead.
Caradoc could smell the salt of the sea on her. She smelled fresh, like a perfumed pearl and she wasn’t bad looking for what he considered to be her age either, a well-honed late 40’s..
‘I’ll have to get back to my wife soon” Caradoc knew that was abrupt but did not know what else to say.
“Oh, my partner’s at home in Devon, right now, then tomorrow he’s going to see his family in Wales for a week” Her eyes looked straight in to his.
“Aren’t you going with him?” It was a reasonable enough question
“No”, was all she said, then “I could tell you a lot about him about the other people who try to use my energy for themselves - that includes him and his friends. A lot of his friends are women. He is even friends with his ex-wife! My daughter is at university in Bristol, but she is from a former marriage of mine and my ex-husband attempts to manipulate me through her.
“Fancy a quick drink then Sita?”Caradoc gave her a sidelong glance. “Strictly business friendship, of course”
“Of course” she really smiled then, showing smooth white even teeth, “Anything else would take my sacred power”.
Next day, as Lucy and Caradoc listened to the radio as they got out their paste table and started on the latest renovation, this time for a holiday lets owner, a local news broadcast informed them that an unidentified woman, thought to be in her late 40’s had been found in the sea. She had last been spotted by locals yesterday evening, walking on Porthmeor Beach and chatting animatedly to a tall man in his early 40’s, with neck length tousled brown hair.
Over the following two years Caradoc’s nightmares increased. They seemed to happen around specific times – particularly at the pagan solstice areas – such as Winter Solstice or Summer Solstice. Caradoc didn’t believe in any of that mumbo jumbo, he liked riding the crest of the wave on his surf board or tinkering with his newly purchased motorbikes. He wasn’t against any of those who chose to follow the old ways more lately known as a New Age lifestyle, but he was too level headed to really go for any of that kind of thing. He saw them as the stuff of TV shows and film epics – not real life.
If the Lady Lovidbond ghost ship had rounded the corner of the bay and knocked Caradoc off his surfboard he wouldn’t really have noticed.
Lucy was busy fussing around her mother who had also moved down to join them. Caradoc liked to think he got on well with Herbert, who was Lucy’s mum Caroline’s new partner. It was serious this time and bound to last, Lucy had explained to him as she ate some newly baked edible seaweed pasties.
Herbert was a lovely man – he was a professor at Exeter University and kept an apartment there but right now he was helping out with an artist’s colony who had bought some old mine building further up the coast and needed Herbert’s expertise as they were doing a project on time slips, alternative realities and interdimensional space travel. Just the thing for a physicist to delve in to in his spare time.
Soon it was St Ives Music Festival time again. This year, the big event was Trevannon Gayle, known as Trev G, who actually hailed from Devon. Trevannon was a former mid 90’s starlet who had had some minor success with a Gothic revivalist band called ‘Slinky Livingstone’ who did a number of the Whitby Goth festivals around that time. He used to go on stage dressed as Dracula with his long black hair flying around him, mangling his Fender Strat, driving the strings in to finger cutting cheese wires, whilst his balding cohort and front man, Jeff Tregarth, belted out vampire influenced lyrics to a heavy base back up, played by Trev’s girlfriend, TV production assistant Morwenna James.
Trevannon himself worked for a national TV company and edited the morning and evening news. It was such a dull job he thought, but his status as a TV backroom supervisor and ‘tech guy’ got him back stage passes to the concerts of the very famous and his FaceSpace page was filled with pictures of these encounters. He had various new bands on the go and even had an album out with a lady lawyer who sang part time but now lived in Manchester with her partner and baby. He wished she still lived in Devon but you couldn’t have it all.
Trevannon did not really get on with Jeff Tregarth. Unlike Trev, Jeff did not court publicity openly, he just wanted acclaim as a good lyricist. The secret opinion amongst the followers of the band was that whereas his composition was good and tight, on the downside, the songs were incredibly wordy meaning that Jeff had to sing very fast to fit the actual syllables in to the tune. This sometimes left him dizzy and out of breath.
When Morwenna was found dead in a back ally with bite marks all around her neck, completely drained of blood the day after the main show of the St Ives Festival, the press had a field day and Trev found himself the subject of both local and national news.
This was both good and bad. It was good because his album ‘Lights Are On But No One’s Home’ got serious airplay and impressive reviews from the big boys of music and was very bad because the police saw Trev as a suspect even though Trev had provably been at a party held at St Ives SPEEK-EEE ZEE Jazz Club at the time of Morwenna’s demise.
Caradoc, meanwhile, was hot footing it back to Carbis Bay after a pub crawl with the South West Interior Decorators Association and could not understand how he has suddenly gotten covered in red paint or even why it was on his face. Especially paint that had a weird smell – like blood.
He was going to ask his uncle, who ran a large timber merchants’ outlet in the Midlands to give him enough timber for an underground bunker as he had noticed sunlight was really getting to him lately – and not in a good way. He had decided to deck out a local cave which ran directly in to a mine shaft as his new trendy and posh living quarters and restaurant. He was sure Lucy would approve, after all – she was his special mermaid and what was not to like? The cave was near the beach but protected from the lashing waves by a bluff so that it was nicely dry at high tide and also it had the added bonus of being very dark.
To be continued...
