Хилари Боннер - A Deep Deceit

Our brief courtship was barely worthy of the name. I only saw Robert Foster when he came to the house and Gran was usually with us. He never took me out anywhere, or introduced me to his friends or family. He did present me with an engagement ring, a single diamond in a narrow gold band, which I thought was rather lovely, and sometimes he brought flowers, although I was never entirely sure whether they were meant for me or for Gran. Everything between us was stiffly formal and distant.

We were married within two months. Gran didn’t have long to live and her last wish was to be at the wedding. This was held at Robert’s church, of course, with his bishop officiating. Gran and I had almost no friends or family worth mentioning, but half the congregation were there to see the pastor wed. I got through the day in a kind of a daze. My wedding dress, traditional ivory white, had been hired for the occasion. Two little blue-eyed blond girls I did not know at all, but who reminded me disconcertingly of Janet Postings and appeared to be of almost exactly matching height and colouring, were my bridesmaids. They had been drafted in from the Sunday School.

‘I’m just so proud and happy,’ Gran croaked.

Even her voice was fading. I suppose that was all I cared about, really, making Gran happy and I hadn’t thought much beyond that. For myself I felt nothing, really, just a great emptiness.

Among strangers and wearing somebody else’s dress I married a stranger. Robert Foster and I had barely been alone together. I had never had even the most casual and innocent boyfriend. I barely knew what to expect even of our wedding night – Gran had been an excellent tutor of Shakespeare, the Magna Carta and trigonometry but, predictably enough, sex education had not featured on her curriculum – let alone our life together.

I just knew that this marriage was what Gran wanted, that she thought it was the right thing to do and she had never let me down. But, of course, she had a blind spot when it came to Christianity and those who represented it. She honestly thought she could do no better thing on earth than to marry off her awkward unworldly granddaughter to a clergyman – and, more than that, the pastor of her own chapel.

The truth was that she had never really looked beyond the pulpit at the man himself. And, slavishly following her wishes as I always had done, neither did I until it was too late.

Gran died within six months of the wedding and after that there was no one in the world for me to turn to apart from my new husband.

And he turned out to be a monster wearing a dog collar.

I dread to think what might have happened to me were it not for Carl.

I could not travel. I certainly could not go abroad. I had never been abroad in my life. I did not even have a passport.

But Carl used to take me with him to his homeland. Through his wonderful stories I felt as if I had toured the Florida Keys, driven over the Seven-mile Bridge, drunk in the bars of Key West, visited Hemingway’s house, ridden the Conch Train, basked in the tropical sun and even danced in the streets after dark in the hazy hippieland of Carl’s childhood.

Carl had such a wonderful way of bringing it all to life.

He told me stories of how he grew up with the smell of oil paint in his nostrils. From when he was a very little boy he used to sit at his father’s feet as he painted and was allowed to visit the studios of many of the other painters, including Eugene Otto, who became perhaps Key West’s first really well-known painter.

Carl’s childhood sounded so exciting to me, although I knew it had not actually been a very happy one. His father had never achieved the success he hoped for as an artist and as a result – or that was his excuse, Carl used to say – had consoled himself with drink and drugs. As time passed the days spent painting were increasingly replaced by days passed in a drunken drugged haze.

‘What about your mother?’ I had asked him once as we sat together in the little public garden on the cliffside off the road to Hale, where a splendid Barbara Hepworth bronze stands proudly before the backdrop of what must be one of the most beautiful sea views in the world.

Carl’s eyes grew wistful. But he just shrugged. ‘In the beginning she often used to join in. I suppose it was fun to start with, that’s how it is with drugs, isn’t it? She smoked dope, but I never saw her do anything else, not like him...’ Carl shuddered. ‘Anyway, it meant I had plenty of time to myself...’

Indeed, from what I could gather the young Carl was more or less ignored by both his parents most of the time. He ran free in the streets, learning to cook and fend for himself from an early age, and even, when things got really bad, how to hustle and beg from tourists.

‘I was good at that,’ he told me, smiling.

‘I’m surprised you didn’t turn into a druggie yourself.’

Carl was as reasonable and logical as ever. ‘I suppose you go one way or the other,’ he replied quietly. ‘I’ve known people who regularly smoke dope and even do coke who are just fine. It wasn’t like that with my folks, that’s all...’

He didn’t mind telling me tales of the folklore and history of Key West, in fact, I think he positively enjoyed doing so, but when it came to confiding in me about his family that was about as far as he ever went. There was a lot of pain there for Carl.

None the less I knew this unique and crazy city, closer to Havana than Miami, shrouded in history and mystery just like Cornwall, still held a place in his heart, otherwise he could not have made it so special for me.

‘Cayo Hueso,’ he whispered to me. ‘Island of Bones. That’s what Key West was first known as. They reckon the Caloosa Indians used it as a burial ground. From a cemetery to a playground for presidents, that’s Key West. Built by fishermen, poets and pirates, sailors, soldiers, rum runners and treasure salvagers...’

‘Treasure salvagers,’ I interrupted him. ‘Is that American-speak for wreckers?’

He grinned. ‘I guess.’

The more he told me about Key West, on the southernmost tip of America, the more it reminded me of Cornwall, on the southernmost tip of Britain.

‘I know,’ he agreed. ‘I think it’s what drew me here, from the moment I came to the UK I knew I wanted to end up here. I can’t explain, just something about this county...’ He paused. ‘The people are the same, you know, I swear it.’

I laughed. That could be going too far, I reckoned.

‘No, I mean it,’ he said. ‘There’s the artists and the deadbeats, of course, plenty of those in both places. But Key West folk, they’re different from other Americans, like the Cornish are different. In 1982 Key West declared independence, you know, founded the Conch Republic, created a flag. They celebrate their own Independence Day every year.’

It was my turn to laugh. ‘A joke, I assume,’ I said.

‘Maybe,’ said Carl. ‘But don’t tell me the Cornish wouldn’t be quite capable of doing something like that.’

I had to admit he was probably right. In any case I loved his stories, and I pretended to myself that one day I would be able to go there and see it all for myself, with Carl by my side. I did have good dreams as well as the unspeakably bad ones and Key West often featured in the good ones.

I would picture myself standing on Mallory Dock at sundown, along with the jugglers, mime artists, musicians and the dancing, jostling crowds Carl told me gathered there every evening to celebrate. I imagined myself holding Carl’s hand and drinking exotic cocktails while we watched the sun sink into the Caribbean sea just eighty miles away from Cuba.

I knew why Carl had left his homeland and why he felt he could never go back, but I also realised how much he still missed it. Carl had been married before and his wife had left him for another man. I could not understand how anyone could leave so loving and caring a person as Carl, and I knew that this betrayal still broke his heart. It was, he said, the reason he had sought a new life in a new country.