Mr Whybrow waited for me to catch up, letting me absorb it in my own time. He knew I’d never have seen a pier before.
The first thing to catch my eye was a walnut box.
“It provides music, Miss;” my guide explained. “Some folk like to dance here.”
Dancing – that was something I’d never learned to do. And these people would have their own standards – but I need not have worried. Mr Whybrow gave another of his chuckles. “It’s all right, Miss; you won’t be expected to. I never cared much for it, myself. I dance like a giraffe with five legs.”
Was he just trying to put me at ease again? No, he lived quietly enough to have been telling the truth. But then a glimmer of alarm passed his eyes; I followed them to a peculiar metal box on the opposite side. Daring a caution from my master, I went over and wiggled its lever experimentally.
“It’s a ‘What the butler saw’ machine, Miss,” Mr Whybrow explained, awkwardly. He hesitated, searching for a way to put me off using the machine. And with his disquiet standing out like a beacon, that meant it had to be worth looking at. He made no attempt to dissuade me, but rather stood by with a “She’ll have to learn sometime” look as I put my eyes to the lenses and turned the handle.
What I saw can only be described as a young lady en deshabillee. After a good long gape that wasn’t so long as to suggest any interest on my part, I stepped back, taking care to appear suitably scandalised. Mr Whybrow flapped an arm about, back in “clueless” mode once again. “Seaside resorts are happy jolly places, and gentlemen like to look at – well, as you can see – “
Actually, I had seen plenty of women in various stages of undress. Workhouse inmates didn’t sleep in their day uniforms, after all. And Mr Whybrow’s unease was affording me some amusement, which I did not bother to hide. By his own embarrassment, he was admitting that he’d looked into the machine himself.
“I see, sir.” But I was being mean. He had put a lot of trust in me, including an immensely complicated car which I had nearly wrecked. And regarding the dreaded airships, he was entitled to consider me as being infantile and awkward.
It seemed a suitable time to bounce another quandary off him by way of distraction from his embarrassment. “Sir – I’m a little puzzled about that plank over there.” I pointed to a one-inch thick board jutting over the side of the pier.
Mr Whybrow looked from it to me and back to the board again, only half-interested. “Mmm? Oh? The diving board?”
“Diving board, sir?”
“Yes, you stand on the end and – well, jump into the water headfirst.”
I stared at the board as if it was someone’s idea of a practical joke. It looked too thin, to springy to support a human weight. “But why should anybody want to do that?”
“Because it’s fun, Miss Bluebird,” came the patient reply.
He had to be teasing me. In no way could I associate immersion of the body in water with fun; not when the monthy workhouse bath had involved being herded into grimy tubs of tepid water by human gorillas in bonnets and pinnies, with stiff brooms to scrub the most refractory. It was only since I had come to Caledon, and been allowed to bath in my own time and in my own privacy, that I’d even discovered a therapeutic side to it. But if stepping into the gelid, critter-infested, crashing saltwater for fun seemed illogical, leaping into it headfirst was downright insane.
Mr Whybrow was studying my face, reading all the panics, confusions and general contradictions to all commonsense. But he refrained from ridiculing what must have been a very foreign attitude to his experience.
“You really don’t believe me, do you?”
There was no point in denying it, although I should have known better than to disbelieve anything he told me about this place. “No, sir, I don’t,” said I in a feeble sort of show of defiance.
He gave me that nod I was getting used to. It meant resignation to yet another thing which I could not have been expected to know. “Come with me,” he said.
With a wave of his arm, he led me back to the pier entrance where a pair of vendors stood by, to which I had only given half a glance as we entered. They sold, respectively, male and female bathing attire. All right, so I had to believe him now. And it did answer a quandary which, by itself, made the whole idea of sea-bathing unbelievable. I could not accept women walking about in the water with multiple layers of costume to weigh them back and get ruined.
He seemed to be waiting for me to do something, and gave me a nudge by helping himself from the male vendor. “Go on, it’s free.”
Uneasily, I did as I was told and surveyed the skimpy garment. At first, I thought that this had to be a joke; the outfit was positively indecent. But on reflection, more everyday clothing would have brought about the unpleasant consequences which had already occurred to me.
“Sir, do you mean to go into the sea now?”
“I certainly do. We’re here, it’s there, why waste the opportunity?”
I looked to the sea and swallowed the same sort of gulp that overtook me when I thought of the airships. At least, with a workhouse bathtub, one could see how deep the water was. And that water stayed still. It did not slop about by itself, changing its depth with every capricious toss of its head. Neither did it conceal its bottom. The workhouse gave you good honest galvanised steel, right there in plain view. God alone knew what lay below the surface here, where it was, or what manner of life it harboured. But fortunately, I still had one let-out.
“But sir, what about changing? I don’t see any facilities hereabouts.”
Mr Whybrow let a tic of a grin creep across his features. “At the seaside, Miss Bluebird, normal standards are necessarily relaxed. Might I suggest that we satisfy modesty by taking advantage of the thick columns under the pier?”
Well, I was used to an environment where it was impossible to do anything in private, where people had to share their modesty with others with whom they would not ordinarily want to share a planet. Mr Whybrow was not such a person, the neighbourhood was apparently empty, and I’d have to get used to him seeing me in a professional capacity. In fact, he’d been so obliging with my privacy that were I to distrust him, he’d have had every right to feel unfairly slighted.
To be honest, I knew he’d be as guarded about his own modesty as I was about mine. And I was tempted to peek, but as I’m sure you can imagine, removing a female costume takes more time than removing a male one and my attention was as occupied as my hands were. It was this that spared me feeling more than a fleeting shame as the sea air brushed on bare skin for the first time.
When my costume was on, it felt indecently skimpy, with the skirt only a token effort to hide certain curves, yet practical for its purpose. It clad me as though painted on, but its tight weave would not sag obscenely when wet. Which in the case of the skirt was a positive disadvantage, since it would surrender any pretence at curve-hiding by clinging like an extra skin on its first soaking.
But it was time to face the world in the form of Mr Whybrow, and I don’t know which I was more afraid of. Him, or the thrashing grey-blue sea. I was not surprised to find him already changed. Had I not been so nervous, I’d have hooted with laughter at his appearance in his swimsuit. He, of course, accepted it with the same composure as he’d have faced a delivery of handkerchiefs or indeed, knowing him, a judge donning the black cap.
He tried to make light of my unease as I stumbled around the pier, delicately avoiding anything remotely wet. “Come on in, Miss; the water’s lovely.”
I stood flicking my gaze back between him and the sea. The gently curling waves reminded me of an audience at a Roman arena, baying for the next victim.
Mr Whybrow called out what passed for him as encouragement. “It was good enough for George III, so it’s good enough for us.”
George III was barking mad! But I was unable to voice my sentiment as I took my first tentative step into the water. The sea crushed my toes with a numbness that spread up my ankles.
I waded towards Mr Whybrow, feeling like a toddler taking her first steps as the leaden sea’s deadweight held me back. My costume let the water in as though it was not there at all; under the sandals’ thin soles, the sand and pebbles were a constant irritation, silken smooth one moment and painfully angled the next. Unable to see the sea bed, I half expected to drop into a concealed hole that would drown me helplessly.
The sea bed shivered. It was alive. With nothing to hold onto, I fell backwards. My inwards seemed to implode with a painful crushing as the sea smothered me, rushing up my nose and into my ears, and before I could stop it, I swallowed a great gulp.
Some panic instinct clamped my feet to firmish putty-like sand, and I shot up standing. With my hair tangled in my eyes, I doubled up and my stomach Emptied with a Capital Emp as I projected a great gout of seawater, along with everything else I’d eaten that day.
Spitting out the last of the salty water, I became aware that Mr Whybrow was laughing uproariously. “Don’t drink it all, girl! Save some for the rest of us!”
I could have shot him. “It’s not funny!”
“Oh, yes it is.” He waved an arm in dismissal. “Everyone does that on their first time in the sea.”
“The sea bed moves! You might have warned me.”
I think he realised that my look meant certain death if he did not choose his next words more wisely. “You trod on a flounder, that’s all. Look at me. Have I come to any harm? Do you think I’d lead you into anything that could harm you?”
That irritating imp of commonsense at the back of my mind reminded me that he knew what he was talking about; I was the initiate, he the master.
Commonsense be damned. When he was so damned right like that, I could have shot him. Twice, in fact.
Beckoning me out, Mr Whybrow explained, “The sea is like a vehicle or a firearm, Miss Bluebird. Respect it, but don’t be afraid of it. The first thing you need to learn is how to float.”
I was about to ask him if he thought I was a bloody cork, but bit it off and waded laboriously out to him, my feet keeping alert for further flounders. Now that the sea had washed over me, it no longer felt as cold and sapping. In fact, my skin tingled with a new life that was curiously invigorating.
“Your body weighs about the same as water, and in salt water will weigh even less,” he told me. “The air you breathe in makes all the difference to your buoyancy – how you float. Just fill your lungs with air, keep them full while you breathe, and lie back.”
Shakily, I drew down every ounce of air until my chest was about to burst, and slowly leaned back, surrendering to the caress of the waves. My feet seemed to want to leave the ground by themselves; they didn’t even seem to be doing anything to support me, so I let them. For the first time in my life, I gaped in disbelief at my toes floating in front of me. But it felt against all the laws of nature, bobbing about like a piece of driftwood. A little security from Mr Whybrow would have been appreciated, at least to the extent of supporting me in his arms, but no. He had to be his idea of a gentleman and stand decently out of reach.
And again, that headmasterish nod of approval; I might as well have just dropped my first dollop of solder onto two bits of metal. “Very good, Miss. You can stand any time you want.”
I wasn’t going to let him think that I was still so afraid of the sea that I could not wait to leave it. “Thank you, sir, but I’m quite enjoying this.”
“It is a lot easier than dancing,” he chuckled. “Just be careful never to go out of your depth. You realise that where you come from, rich folk spend fortunes to do what you’re doing now?”
“So why am I doing it, sir?” I looked him directly in the eyes, demanding a straight answer, He had to have a reason for teaching me to do such a silly thing.
He nodded to a big man-made island out to sea, gazing at it almost dreamily. “We need to prioritise, Miss Bluebird. You have, as we both know, much to learn about this place. The roads will be straightforward enough to commit to memory, but suppose you had to deliver out there? Half Caledon is unreachable by road, and half of that is only reachable from water or air. So you’ll need to master both those elements.” He directed his nod to the great airship tower, standing above Cay like a guillotine over the heads of the Paris mob.
“And have you mastered replacing my facility yet, sir?” I threw back.
“Don’t change the subject – “
“As you say, sir, we must prioritise. I need a facility more than I need to fly or float.”
“All in good time, Miss Bluebird; all in good time.”
Standing, I insisted, “Sir, I’m still having to use the yard. Last night, it rained. I got soaked! Have you ever tried holding an umbrella while you’re - ”
I completed my sentence with a sharp silence which I left hanging. Infuriatingly, he was still quite unperturbed – on the outside, at least, although I thought I perceived an irritable edge creeping in to his squint. “I’m just waiting for some materials to come, Miss Bluebird. Now, why don’t you try floating again and this time, kick your legs?”
I could not help wondering why timber and plywood should be so difficult to obtain in this land where you could build what you wanted and when you wanted to, but took him at his word and did as he instructed. Suspiciously, I stared at him over my toes and when I kicked my legs –
“I’m moving!”
“Correct, Miss Bluebird. Not the ideal swimming stroke, since you can’t see where you’re going, but at least now you won’t sink or have to tread water indefinitely should you find yourself in it contrary to your intentions. Next time we’ll work on a proper propulsion stroke. Now, how do you feel?”
He gave the question a general anything-will-do-as-long-as-it’s-honest neutrality. My chest felt more alive than it had ever been, but it knew that it had been working. “I must confess – a little tired, sir.”
Mr Whybrow looked to have been expecting that answer. “We’d better head back, then. Always leave the water when you’re tired, Miss. The sea does not forgive an overstayed welcome. We should have brought some towels,” he added with a sigh as I gratefully stood, half expecting to step on another flounder. “Never mind; the car has a heater under the dash, you’ll dry off as you drive us back. Now that you know how to handle those steep hills,” he added.
And how not to handle them, I mentally appended, noting that he had taken for granted that I would be manhandling that monster home again.
This time he showed me how to crank the engine. First set the handbrake (when it has one), and give a sharp swing clockwise - with the thumb tucked in, he sternly insisted, lest the engine wrench that part of me from my hand on a kickback.
It was a heavy beast, but the workhouse mangle had been heavier. I could have cheated and used my Dirty Look, but I did not need it. The engine caught first time and settled to its patient ticking.
I proudly straightened up, but Mr Whybrow was only interested in the engine. “Still hot,” he commented. “Water-cooled ones will retain their heat, Miss; one that size will take a couple of hours to cool down.” Then, ignoring my disappointed look at his dismissal of my mechanical triumph, he climbed into the back, still dripping wet and slightly comical in his bathing costume, and waited.
At least it was easier to get back in, with the handbrake in the passenger compartment rather than obstructing my doorway. But something was bothering me. Taking advantage of the partition for protection, and my position to obviate the need to look at him while I spoke, I asked down the speaking tube, “Sir? Won’t people be talking now?”
“About what? People go swimming all the time.”
“About us, sir.”
“Oh, I see.” I could almost hear his careless shrug. “Some will; that’s just human nature amongst those who have nothing better to do with their lives. Those will be talking anyway, no matter what we do.”
I wasn’t sure that he’d quite grasped the urgency of the situation. “Sir, in London, they’d expect any couple seen together like that to be married, or about to be.”
“This isn’t London, Miss Bluebird. Caledon is far more laissez-faire.”
Very well, so Caledon was more let’s say ‘fair.’ But he was still missing the point. “And here, as in London, one does not marry one’s shopgirl.” I gave a gentle emphasis to the final noun. “Or associate with them outside the shop except in matters of immediate professional importance. I’m thinking of your reputation, sir.”
“And your concern is appreciated. But you’ve a lot to learn about people, Miss Bluebird. They’re more likely to talk if we spent all our time in a closed convent. If they don’t know what to think, their minds will happily fill the vacuum with their own fictions.”
He was right, of course. For all that he could be stand-offish, he did know the locale and understood how its inhabitants worked.
The sandals felt squishy and uncomfortable on the pedals. Kicking them off, I reversed gingerly from the improvised chock and set off for home at a cautious pace, although if questioned, I’d have called it “dignified.”
This time, I was careful to change down before that great plummetting descent back into SouthEnd; just gentle but persistent dabs of the brake were sufficient to keep the car under control. But as I drew up outside the shop, I felt no great triumph at a successful return journey. I knew that he’d been trying to show me kindness and consideration, in his own way, and I had not exactly received it with all due grace.
I also knew that he would not give up on the matter of airships. That lent my future the prospect of an impending death sentence.
“I’d better park this thing,” came over the speaking tube. “Needs finesse. Can you check the shop; see if any correspondence has arrived in our absence?”
Oddly, I did not feel out of place squelching into his shop in a damp swimsuit. Besides, nobody was about. But someone had been. A large crate sat in the middle of the floor, dumped there by its delivery team. My curiosity arose – so he had been expecting something to come for my facility. But what could it be? There was nothing in that cubicle that would have come in such a crate.
The delivery note had been pinned over the legend branded into the wood; I was about to remove it when Mr Whybrow returned. “Ah, excellent! I’d been waiting for that. Nothing else, Miss Bluebird? Then you’d better change back while I lug this to the cellar.”
I returned home with a gleeful beam on my face. That crate was a mystery whose purpose I could not wait to be solved. One thing I knew for sure was that he was taking care of my personal predicament. If only he’d just tell me straight and not try to be so unassuming!
Changed, coiffured and shod, I went back to the shop and revised my definition of “unassuming.” I was just in time to catch Mr Whybrow emerging from the cellar looking like a demon escaped from hell and out for revenge.
“Is something wrong, sir?” I tentatively essayed.
Grunt from Mr Whybrow. “Nothing to worry yourself about. I’d ordered something which I now find I can’t use. My own silly fault.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, sir.” Yes, I was. Whatever it was, I had clearly miscalculated its purpose. Back to the yard for me, it seemed.
Straightening up, he scratched his head. “Well, I might find a use for it some day.”
One of those damned airships picked that moment to intrude with its beating of propeller blades. As though seeking an outlet for his frustration, Mr Whybrow pointed up. “Hear that, Miss Bluebird? That’s the future. Our future. Your future. You’d better come to accept it, or – “
Go back to the workhouse and spend the rest of your life stagnating and regretting what you’ve thrown away.
Tartly, I replied, “Yes, sir. In the meantime, there’s the matter of a small plywood chamber requiring your attention.”
“So you keep reminding me.” He knit his teeth as he said it, warning me not to push my luck. “I’m off to change; Lord knows what any customer would think if they came in and saw me like this.”
With that he swept out, leaving a trail of small air vortices behind him. He was angry and had every right to be so, especially since he’d done so much for me. But there were some things he was not entitled to ask in return, and his demands brought back my anger in a surge like a corked volcano. What manner of brute would submit me to a choice like that? Surrender my life to a gasbag or return to the workhouse?
I could try telling him outright that I was just plain scared, but he already knew that and it just wouldn’t work. Bloody hell; I felt as if I was standing on a knife edge with great spikes jutting up from the ground on either side.
That wretched airship picked that particular moment to announce its departure in a boastful bellow of engines.
“Oh, shut up!” In my frustration, I stamped my foot. Straight onto the drawing pin which we had both forgotten about after Mr Whybrow had pulled it off when removing his delivery note from the crate.
The yell I let out, as it needled full-length into my foot, made the glass shake in the windows. It also brought Mr Whybrow running. His immediate countenance incandesced with anger at having been disturbed, but when he saw me leaning on the counter in obvious agony, he lapsed into concern, although I was in too much pain to care if he threw me out. I fumbled and twiddled my fingers, but the drawing pin was exactly where I could not get a grip on it.
“Miss Bluebird! Whatever’s the – oh.”
Well done, Sherlock Holmes.
Then he did surprise me; for a moment I almost forgot the pin transfixing my foot.
“Here – sit on the counter.” Seeing that I could not stand properly, he clapped both hands around my waist and hoisted me onto the counter top. As bottom kissed mahogany, he dropped to his knees, mumbling something about “really must be more careful in future.” Then, “Hold still, Miss.”
From his breast pocket, he produced a tiny screwdriver, of the sort for adjusting watch components, and levered out the offending drawing pin. It felt like a nail being prised out, but the relief was immediate. Then, to my astonishment, he slipped my shoe off.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to remove your stocking, Miss; I need to have a look at this.”
The pain, and the urgency to have my wound attended, kept me from fretting about modesty as I peeled down my stocking and presented him with my foot, which he scrutinised like an unfamiliar type of watch action. Somehow, the dispassionate functional scrutiny unsettled me more than if he had, say, let show a flash of excitement. Not that I’d expect someone to relish having my foot in his face, but these reserved types harbour all manner of surprises, don’t they?
So there I sat, mouth agape, awaiting his reaction, in whatever form that might take. I found it hard to suppress a shiver as his breath drew feathers over my toes, neatly lined up for his inspection.
“No blood drawn,” he pronounced.
Tough workhouse feet, I concluded.
“Can’t take any chances with that,” he decided, standing. I was a little disappointed that there was no gruffness to his voice, to betray suppressed excitement or awkwardness or – well, anything at all, actually. “Sit there a moment.”
He vanished into the back office and I heard him clinking around his desk drawers. A minute later, he returned with a hanky and a bottle.
“This isn’t surgical spirit,” he told me, holding up the bottle. “It’s better. Useful for cleaning metal. And shopgirls,” he added, setting the bottle down. “Be glad that I’m smarter than the customs men.”
I squinted at the bottle. “Old Exterminator?” London gin? All right, they sold some pretty ropey stuff in London at tuppence a coma, but all the same – oh. This was Caledon. The label was almost certainly honest, in an oblique sort of way; the vapours drifting up as he uncapped the bottle warned of a quick death for silverfish, woodworm, or anything less robust than an elephant. He could probably run his motorbike on it.
“And don’t worry, this is quite clean,” he added, flapping his hanky about to open it up.
I made a note to take particular pains over the laundry in future, as he poured a little of the spirit onto the bleached linen. Supporting my heel steadily in his hand, cupping it with the delicacy of a watch action, he dabbed the wet patch onto my puncture with a confident circular motion. It stung a little, but I forced myself to remain statue-still. Then he carefully folded his hanky and wrapped it around my foot, tucking the ends in.
“There ye go, Miss Bluebird. You’ll be right as rain; just keep it covered for a day or so. Can you stand?”
Wedging my foot back into my shoe, I eased myself onto the floor. “Yes – thank you, Sir. Thank you very much.”
“Quite all right,” he replied, his mouth slightly askew. “Oh, and you’d better get that back on again.” He nodded to my stocking. “Don’t want people to talk, do we?”
With that, he left me alone with a lump in my shoe and yet another paralysis of utter bewilderment at the almost tenderness with which he had handled me. I knew then that I owed him. Where persuasion had not worked, his personal touch had.
I shan’t make the offer myself, but the next time he mentions airships I’ll agree to whatever he suggests.
Provided that he comes up with me. That’s only fair.
Then the Old Exterminator worked its way into the deepest part of my puncture to seek out every single nerve ending and cauterise it with a red-hot branding iron, and I had other things to think about for the rest of the afternoon.
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