Trowchester Blues Read online

  Michael gasped and pulled away. Reflexively, Finn thought. Reflexes built up from years of playing straight. But he didn’t take his hand from under Finn’s. He caught Finn’s eye and licked his lips as though he was deliberately trying to sample the taste.

  To their left, a tableful of teenagers burst out in giggles. From the kitchen doorway, Idris gave Finn an I told you so look. Even Michael was smiling. What could Finn do but give in? “And if the heart is going to err,” he finished his thought, “it’s surely always best to err on the side of love.”

  Which was surely far too strong a sentiment for a first date, if this meeting could even be called such a thing. Finn prepared to backpedal for comfort, but Michael’s smile just sweetened a fraction as, with a strange diffident tact, he let the matter drop.

  A half an hour later, they had finished their tea. Michael glanced up as the sun struggled out once more and gave the flowers hanging over the window an air of being preserved in amber. “I’d better get back to clearing out the boat. If I can get that sorted this week, I’ll at least have a bed to call my own.”

  He eyed Finn warily, obviously wondering if Finn would turn the observation into some kind of double entendre, but Finn despised the double entendre as juvenile, and besides, this one was far too obvious. He just rose and accompanied Michael to the door. An awkward moment, when neither of them could decide what was appropriate. He held out his hand to be shaken, and Michael took it.

  Brief disappointment turned into a delighted mixture of embarrassment and shock when instead of shaking it, Michael raised Finn’s hand to his lips and kissed his knuckles.

  “Oh,” Finn said, taken aback and touched all at once. How old-fashioned, how unexpected, and how offbeat. “Oh, you’re delightful.”

  “Will I see you again?”

  It wasn’t a question he could answer right now, for all he wanted to say yes. Deciding he’d been a widower long enough was one thing; deciding to take up with a guy with so many problems of his own was another. “Whenever you’re least expecting it.”

  One of the advantages of them both being grown-up: Michael took the ambiguous response without melodrama, simply nodding and walking away. Finn watched him amble along the riverbank, his black jeans, black T-shirt, and black hair stark against the silvery sheen of the water, until he was swallowed up in the shadow of a bridge. Then he went back inside to pay the bill and field Idris’s enthusiastic curiosity.

  “Come into the kitchen and tell us all about your mystery friend,” Idris said, catching him by the wrist and pulling him into the steamy warmth. Idris’s cousin Lalima waved a spatula at him in acknowledgement as she smoothed lemon icing over a newly baked drizzle cake.

  “There’s nothing to tell,” he said, feeling unusually tight-lipped. “He’s just moved into town and knows no one. I felt sorry for him, so I thought I would invite him to the book club.”

  “And kiss him, in public, in my highly reputable tea rooms.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, am I bringing down the tone?”

  Idris stepped back, raised his hands. “Defensive and evasive. What do you think, Lalima? I think it’s serious.”

  “I think you should mind your own business and get those scones out of the oven before they burn.”

  “My friends’ happiness is my business,” Idris protested. But he gave Finn a sympathetic glance nevertheless. “Is he coming to the book club? Because if he is, I don’t think a lot of literary criticism is going to get done tonight. Eligible bachelor comes to town, and you snap him up before the rest of us even get to lay an eye on him? That’s going to cause a stir.”

  Lalima looked at Finn’s face and smacked her cousin on the back of his hand with a wooden spoon. “Leave it. I’m not joking.”

  It worried him a little that she could see the uncertainty on his face. “I’ll tell you what’s going on when I have it worked out myself,” he offered. “It’s . . .” Too fragile, too frightening. I wish I knew what Tom would think of it. I wish I could ask him. Apologise to him. I haven’t been so nervous, so full of butterflies and dread and desire since I was in my teens. “It’s too early to say anything for definite.”

  Idris took pity on him and let him go after that. He walked back into the centre of town along the towpath, with wet gardens sloping up from him on one side and the slow push of the river on his other. He had a good life, such as it was, alone in his little flat, with no one to tell him what to do. Master of his own fate and king of his own little kingdom. He wasn’t sure if he had it in him to sacrifice that after all this time. But increasingly when he thought of Michael, it was with a tug and current as strong as the river, desire rising through him as irresistibly as a flood.

  He went back to work annoyed at the poets who had neglected to mention how distracting and irritating and disruptive this falling-in-love lark could be, and annoyed at himself for being unable to manage a simple flirtation and potential roll in the hay without getting all . . . involved.

  He shut the door on the last customer and ushered Kevin out with a feeling of liberation. Two hours to calm down before book group. He should make some dinner and—

  The bell rang just as he was switching off the lights in the shop. He raised his eyes to heaven and unlocked the front door again, throwing it wide. “What?”

  And oh fuck. They barged straight in, jostling past his raised hands. Benny and Lisa. The twins. Both mousy haired and high cheekboned, thin and swift and nervous as the speed-freaks they were.

  “We heard you were—”

  “Back in business.”

  “So we brought you—”

  “This fucking—”

  “Vase.”

  They separated as soon as they were in, heading in different directions. He could only stop one of them physically, so he stood in the stairwell and blocked Benny out of his flat.

  “I don’t know who told you I was here, but I’m not interested. All right? I am not back in the business, and in fact, if you don’t get out of my house immediately, I am calling the police.”

  They know, he thought, tasting despair in the back of his throat like warm copper. Briggs must have told them about the book. Who the hell else has he told? Do any of them have proof?

  “You wouldn’t do that,” Lisa called. He could see only a shadow in the darkness of the bookshop’s main room, a suggestion of a white-gloved hand resting on blown glass. It was the sculpture of Pegasus, made out of glass reclaimed from the sea pebble by pebble over twenty years of the artist’s life. “You know why not?”

  “Because we would be—” Benny shifted the bulky parcel he was carrying into his other arm so he could shove Finn in the chest unhindered.

  “Very displeased.”

  Twenty years of the artist’s life and all of her care and genius expended over six months of intensive creation. Finn clenched his shaking hands and mourned preemptively. I meant it. I meant it. No more.

  He pushed Benny back down the stairs. “Get. Out. Of. My. Fucking. House.”

  “Ooh, I’m—”

  “So scared.” Lisa gave a grunt of effort and a moment later came the thud and crack and tinkle of ten pounds of glass hitting the floor.

  Finn saw red. Before he knew what he was doing, his fist was in Benny’s teeth, and that fucking hurt, damn it, but Benny recoiled with a shout, sounding flabbergasted and betrayed.

  Lisa came tearing out of the room at the sound of it, gaped at Benny’s split lip, and gave Finn a glare that was like being splashed in the face with vitriol. “You fucking whore. Benny, you okay?”

  “Yes. I think we should—” Benny backed towards the door, dabbing at the flow of blood from his mouth.

  “Come back later,” said Lisa darkly, ushering him tenderly out. She paused on the step to look Finn up and down. It was like being eyed by a starving wolf. “You don’t get to say yes to Briggs and no to us,” she said. “And you don’t get to hurt Benny. We may be going away right now, but this ain’t over. Is that clear?”


  He shut the door in her face. But yes, it was crystal clear.

  “Come in, come in.” Mrs. Li opened the door to him with a beaming smile. Michael was instantly glad he’d taken the time to root through the boxes of his possessions that had arrived this morning and find his suit, because she was very smart indeed in a soft-pink mohair twinset and a pair of Harris Tweed slacks.

  “Thanks,” he said, and offered the requisite bottle of wine and bunch of flowers. He knew very little about wine, but the guy at the shop had said it was a good one, which would have to be enough. He offered a nervous smile back, trying to be on his best behaviour, but not sure what was expected of him.

  “Oh, you shouldn’t!” She took them from him with pleasure, ducking her head to sniff at the roses as he had a good look around the hall and noticed the shelf of shoes by the door.

  Coming up from the flowers, she caught his eye and nodded at him. “You can leave your shoes there and then come through. I’ll just put these in some water.”

  As he was unlacing the second shoe, she returned, offered him a pair of white slippers, and guided him straight through into the dining room, where a man and a youth stood up to greet him.

  “This is my husband, Aiguo, and my child Tai. And you should call me Lian.”

  He shook hands, resisting the impulse to peer at Tai’s throat. They were as androgynous a person as it was possible to get. Longish spiky hair that would have suited an anime hero or a rock chick alike, a faint tracing of eye shadow on a face that was beautiful no matter which way you leaned. Flat chest, narrow wrists. He caught himself trying to guess again and firmly drew a line through his curiosity. The kid had obviously put a lot of thought into not letting their body dictate how others saw them. Michael knew enough to leave it at that.

  “Michael,” he said. “Michael May. I’m very pleased to meet you.”

  “Sit, please.” Mr. Li drew out a chair for him opposite the door, while Mrs. Li bustled in and out, setting a dozen different dishes on the lazy Susan in the centre of the table. She put a bowl of white rice down in front of him, filled his glass with something that smelled like alcohol but about which he was too ignorant to go any further. Then she settled into her own seat and sighed.

  Mr. Li raised his glass. “To new neighbours,” and when they had all drunk, Michael gathered from the expectant gazes that it was his turn.

  “To friends.”

  A certain air of relaxation entered the room.

  Aiguo leaned forwards onto his elbows. “Please, start.” And as Michael took a dab from each bowl and laid it on top of his rice, he said, “I was very pleased to hear that the house next door was no longer empty. Your father and I, well. Maybe we didn’t have the best of relationships, but I was sorry to hear of his death.”

  “He, uh, only had good relationships with people who didn’t know him,” Michael said. “By which I mean he was charming to strangers, but if he was unpleasant to you, that meant he considered you . . .” A real person, a challenge, a worthy adversary—none of those were appropriate dinner-party fare. “Important.”

  “Well, so he should. I wonder if you brought your deeds so that we can fix this question of whose land is whose, once and for all.”

  On either side of him Lian and Tai gave identical eye rolls. “Let the poor man eat his dinner first,” said Lian, rotating the turntable to put the dry-fried bean curd within easy reach—the one thing he hadn’t yet tried. He duly sampled some, and then went back for more. It was amazing.

  “So, um.” He scrambled for small talk, aware that he had a tendency either to sit in silence or to conduct an interrogation, neither of which would do. “Why the boatyard?”

  “Boats are in my family.” Aiguo smiled. “We’ve always been river people. We didn’t see why we should change that simply because we had new rivers. My wife tells me that you are interested in the old barge on the disputed land. Why?”

  “I . . .” hadn’t really thought about it. “I guess because it’s there.” Everyone wanted to know his business, it seemed, and maybe telling them was a good place to start getting over it. “I was a police officer in London, but—”

  “Cool!” Tai’s voice was a gruff alto, or perhaps a light tenor. “Did you investigate murders, like on TV?”

  He had a flash of Stacey. Looking at Tai’s narrow hands, he had a flash of Stacey’s wrists, melted into the radiator. Pushing away from it, instinctively, he came back to find himself panting hard. Everyone watching him with horror. He took a shaky gulp of the pale green tea that had mysteriously materialised at his elbow. “Sorry. But yeah. Yeah, I did. And that’s why the barge.”

  With concentration, he stabilised his breathing, managed an apologetic smile. “It got to be too much. So I quit and came home, to do something peaceful with my hands.” He pulled himself together enough to raise his head and look at Tai, who was so young. “Murder, it’s not . . . it’s not as much fun as it looks on the TV.”

  “But it’s important,” they said, with a hint of sullenness. “Important to stop it, I mean.”

  “Tai wants to become a detective.” Aiguo smiled at his child fondly. “And is doing very well at school, so I see no reason why xe should not.”

  May pulled himself together as hard as he could tug and smiled at the youth. “You’re right. There is no better thing in the world to do. And you are obviously already a damn sight stronger than me. I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

  The awkwardness passed. Lian topped up his glass and made sure he had seconds of everything before she said, “So you mean to become a boatbuilder, to support yourself in future?”

  “I guess I do,” he said, surprised that an idle thought had become a business plan while he wasn’t paying attention. “I met this amazing guy in the antiquarian bookshop in town, and he sold me some plans. They seem straightforward enough. All I need is enough flat land to cut out the pieces and assemble them, and some means of putting the thing in the water after.”

  “And so we come back to the question of the crane.” Aiguo gave him a considering look and pushed away his bowl. “I may have something to show you, when dinner is over.”

  He refused to be drawn on what.

  Later, when Michael genuinely could not eat another bite, they went out together into the boatyard. Around the marina, everything was scrubbed and neat. The tourist boats slumbered like horses in their stalls. The huts where they replenished their water and fuel, pumped out their waste, were freshly painted and well looked after. A little grocery shop, now with its shutters closed, completed the spick-and-span circuit. Farther from the water’s edge, the boats whose owners rented space for dry docking rested forlorn on their pilings.

  Farther on again, behind the alders that curtained the back of the crane, a warehouse stood empty. Aiguo led him inside the echoing chamber. Dusty concrete, a distant corrugated iron roof, and a set of stairs up to a mezzanine floor where bulks of rusting machinery were overturned amid spiders’ webs.

  “What do you think?”

  “It’s a . . .” He’d seen a documentary about the Titanic and it came back to him in a flood of sudden understanding once he adjusted the scale. “It’s a cutting floor?”

  “Yes, and space to build downstairs. When we bought it, the boatyard used to do repairs. We found that side of the business lost too much money, so we shut it down. But you could use the premises, if you thought you could do better.”

  “And for rent?”

  “Let’s talk about those land boundaries again and see what we can work out.”

  They shook hands on a deal, not half an hour later, in which Michael ceded the disputed land to the Lis, but in return was granted use of the warehouse and crane for a peppercorn rent of dinner once a year. Terms to be reviewed in ten years. After the agreement was made, Michael excused himself to go and turf the last abandoned microwave out of the houseboat, so that he could begin to see it as a place to live and not just a tipping ground for his father’s old rubbish. Perhaps he belonged w
ith the rest of the trash, but right now he was feeling pretty positive about his chances of correcting that—of gutting everything that carried ghosts and making a new start.

  Good people made such a difference.

  “I really want to thank you for, um . . . reaching out to me like this,” he said as he shook Lian’s hand in farewell. Which was probably a little American in its earnestness, but there was too much dishonesty in this world. A little earnest truth was sometimes exactly what was needed. “It’s been a hard time for me recently, and you’ve made me feel that there’s hope for better things.”

  “Thank you.” She ducked her head as if to let the praise pass above it. “But we are also glad to see an improvement. And in that vein—” she twisted her blue-black hair tighter and reclosed the diamante grip on it, her round face doubtful “—I don’t know whether I should say anything, but, do you know him well? The man who called here earlier today?”

  Michael’s new little hope tripped and sprawled on its face. He tried not to let it show. “Mr. Hulme? From the bookshop in town?”

  “Yes.” She directed a troubled look at one of the bay trees that stood outside her front door. “When he arrived in Trowchester five years ago, there were many rumours. He’s the kind of person who gets talked about. He turned a rather dull butcher’s shop into that eccentric tourist trap of his, so many people had many things to say about him.”

  “I can imagine.” Michael put a foot on his dread and tried to strangle it. Small towns and gossip made a famous pairing. This was probably just something of that sort.