Great Short Stories

1988.

Frenchman’s Creek

The weather was unusually good for the eve of Good Friday. It was a pleasant evening with the sun looking extremely round and bright in a beautiful red sky before it dipped below the horizon. However, Donna Smith felt aggrieved to realise that she was going to spend the next four days sitting at home on her own doing absolutely nothing. It had been a different life when her husband had been alive when they had enjoyed being with a multitude of friends, attending many parties and going on weekend trips or travelling abroad, but he had died in a motor vehicle accident over five years ago leaving her a lonely widower. She never really got on with her life after that but loneliness was beginning to hover over her like a wayward buzzard watching a dying animal struggling in the desert. Her closest friend with whom she expected to spend the weekend was forced to travel north to attend to her sick mother, so Donna was left to her own devices. To avert the boredom, she picked out a volume from her bookshelf, dusted it off, and sat in her conservatory preparing to read it. Her faithful basset hound, Mitzi, sat by her feet occasionally staring up at her adoringly with its large round eyes. Donna was a woman of forty-two years of age, slightly plump, with a pleasant round face topped by a mop of black curly hair. Her husband had been employed by a motor car manufacturer and they had bought a detached house in Essex a long distance from the sea. She had always wanted to live nearer to the coast and regretted not having purchased a property near to the sea when the opportunity presented itself in the past but her husband’s work came first and now her life was set deep inland.

‘This book is called Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne du Maurier,’ she declared to the dog, holding the volume on her lap. She often spoke to Mitzi as though the dog was a young person sitting at her feet. ‘It’s about a remote place in Cornwall in the south-west of England.’ She opened the cover and looked down at the first page before starting to read aloud. ‘When the east wind blows up Helford river the shining waters become troubled and disturbed, and the little waves beat angrily upon the sandy shores. Helford river was no inducement to a sailor ashore...’ she tailed off as an adventurous thought entered her head. ‘Do you know we haven’t been to Cornwall for years and years,’ she went on, as the dog whined lightly, placing her head between her legs as though intending to go to sleep. ‘Why don’t we go there and find Frenchman’s Creek for ourselves. That’s a great idea! Uncle Cyril will probably agree to come along for the ride. He’d like that, I’m sure. And you can come too of course. You don’t think I’d leave you alone here for a whole weekend, do you?’ She dropped the book and dialled a number on her telephone. ‘Hello, Cyril? Look, it’s Good Friday tomorrow and the holiday goes on until Tuesday morning. That’s four days. A whole four days. I don’t suppose you’re doing anything.‘

‘No, not really,’ replied the man tentatively. He was always uncertain how such conversations with Donna would end because she was a lateral thinker and had led him on more than one wild goose chase in the past.

‘I’ve got a great idea,’ she went on. ‘How would you like to go on a trip to Cornwall to find Frenchman’s Creek?’

‘Cornwall? Frenchman’s Creek?’ he echoed naively. He was a portly, balding man of sixty-two years of age but his attitude and decisions were always those of a person twenty years older. ‘What do you want to go there for?’

‘Where’s your sense of adventure?’ she riposted sharply.

‘I think it died when I peaked out at forty-five,’ he told her whimsically. ‘It’s a long way to Cornwall, you know. I say, it’s a long way to Cornwall.’

‘I know it’s a long way. That’s what makes it so interesting. Come on, be a sport. Join me on the trip.’

‘What brought this on? Why Frenchman’s Creek?’

‘I just started a book of that name by Daphne du Maurier and the idea rushed into my head. I thought, how great it would be to find this place. After all, it’s famous now.’

‘It’s still a long way to go on a whim,’ muttered Cyril shortly, hoping that she would change her mind. ‘I say, it’s still a long way.’

‘All the more fun,’ she returned casually, determined to make him come with her. ‘Well, how about it? You’ve just admitted you’ve nothing else to do.’

He knew that she knew he would never turn her down. They were related by marriage but the bond between them had always been very strong. ‘Okay, okay!’ he went on tiredly. ‘I’ll come with you. But it’s against my better judgement. I say it’s against my better judgement.’

‘It always is, Cyril. Now the arrangements will be as follows. We leave at five a.m. tomorrow morning. I’ll drive round to your place and pick you up. Just be ready.’

‘Yes, yes,’ he retorted. ‘Five a.m. I’ll be ready. I say, I’ll be ready.’

She replaced the telephone jubilantly. ‘There you are, Mitzi,’ she told the dog. ‘Uncle Cyril’s coming with us too. We’re going to have a good time over Easter after all.’

She began to pack a valise and then made herself some supper. As she began to eat it, there was a knock on the front door. She went to open it and faced her nephew, Matt, standing on the doorstep with a pretty young woman.

‘Why Matt!’ she exclaimed. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure. Do come in.’ She stared hard at the young woman.

‘This is Laura,’ he told her boldly. ‘And this, Laura, is my favourite aunt, Donna I’ve told you so much about. We’ve always been on first-name terms.’ He turned to his aunt. ‘We’ve come to tell you something important.’

There had been three occasions when her nephew had turned up on the doorstep in the past three years and each time he had asked for a modest sum of money none of which he had repaid. She wondered how much it was going to cost her this time.

They entered the lounge and sat down gingerly on the settee clutching each other’s hands.

‘Laura and I met three weeks ago and we fell in love at first sight,’ he went on. The dog made a slight whining sound and walked out of the room as though in disgust.

Laura smiled sheepishly and clutched Matt’s hand even tighter.

‘We’ve come to take you out for a drink,’ continued her nephew jubilantly. ‘You see, we’re going to celebrate.’

‘Celebrate,’ repeated his aunt dumbly. ‘What about?’

‘We’ve just got engaged,’ he enthused with a broad smile covering his face. ‘We’re going to get married.’

‘Well, that is something to celebrate,’ rattled Donna who had never seen or heard of Laura before, ‘but I’m afraid we’ll have to celebrate here. You see, Uncle Cyril and I are going to Cornwall at five o’clock in the morning on a trip to find Frenchman’s Creek.’

‘Frenchman’s Creek? Isn’t that the book written by Daphne du Maurier?’ uttered Laura sagely.

‘Indeed it is,’ retorted Donna staring at the young woman with a great deal of respect for knowing the fact.

‘Hey!’ intruded Matt thoughtfully, turning to his fiancee. ‘We’ve got nothing on this weekend. Why don’t we go?’ He turned to his aunt. ‘You wouldn’t mind us coming along with you, would you?’

Donna thought about it for a moment. ‘We’re taking Mitzi of course. You’d have to share the back seat with her. And it’s quite a long journey. About five or six hours each way.’

‘We could do that,’ he returned. ‘How about it sweetheart?’

Laura shrugged her shoulders. ‘It’s all right by me.’ She stared at the dog considering it to be small and light, although she would be dismayed when she learned its true weight on the journey. ‘I suppose we can go for a few days.’

‘Right,’ uttered Donna sprightly. ‘The four of us plus the dog will embark on our adventure tomorrow morning. You’ll need to go home and get some spare clothes for the journey.’

‘Yes, I suppose we do,’ exclaimed Matt, his mind going into a turmoil at the sudden change of events.

The two young lovers rose from the settee and left the house to return just before five o’clock the next morning. In the darkness before the dawn, they climbed into the rear seat of the vehicle and Donna placed the dog between them before getting into the driving seat. It took ten minutes before they arrived at Uncle Cyril’s house. He was standing on the doorstep with two heavy suitcases peering into the gloom at the car’s headlights.

‘You can’t take two suitcases,’ snapped Donna sharply. ‘There’s not enough room in the boot for two. You’ll have to leave one behind.’

‘But I’ve closed the front door and I can’t wake mother up at this time of the morning,’ he bleated.

‘Well you’ll have to leave it on the doorstep. Now come on, Cyril! We haven’t got time to waste! If we don’t get on, we’ll meet all the traffic on the motorway. Hurry up!’

‘I’ve mapped out our route,’ stated her uncle, staring bleakly at the road ahead after they had set off. ‘We take the M4 to Bristol, turn left and make our way to Exeter, on to Plymouth, Redruth and then to Helston. I suggest we stop at Redruth and have some lunch. Then we continue the journey to Helston, past the Royal Naval Establishment at Culdrose, on to Gweek and the Helford river. I say, on to the Helford river.’

‘That’s what Daphne du Maurier wrote in her book,’ exclaimed Donna seriously. ‘She mentions Helford river many times. Where’s Frenchman’s Creek from there?’

‘Well there’s a slight problem,’ continued Cyril in a dull tone. ‘You can get to the Helford river but there’s no mention of Frenchman’s Creek. It must be some kind of remote cove. I say, it’s some kind of remote cove.’

‘Well someone must have put up a road sign for it somewhere,’ cut in Matt enthusiastically. ‘They always do at famous places. I heard there’s a sign at Jamaica Inn which was the title of another one of Daphne du Maurier’s books.’

‘But that’s a pub. There might not be a pub at Frenchman’s Creek,’ ventured Laura hesitantly.

‘We’ll find that out when we get there,’ declared Donna, focussing intently on the way ahead as she steered the vehicle through the narrow streets towards London.

The four of them settled down with Matt still holding Laura’s hand and, except for the driver, in the heat inside the car, they all dozed off, waking intermittently whenever the dog jumped up excitedly between the seats.

‘This dog is really heavy,’ complained Laura after they had been travelling for some time. ‘I thought it would be much lighter.’

‘Oh he’s heavy all right,’ riposted Donna smiling. ‘That’s why I’m surprised you came on the trip with the dog on your lap all the way.’

Laura pulled a face and pushed the poor animal down on the floor before leaning back to rest once more.

It took fractionally over two hours to reach Bristol and Donna began to wonder whether the adventure was such a good idea after all. The pangs of sleep began to tear at her mind and she felt sluggish and tired. Cyril didn’t drive, however Matt did. But could she trust her nephew to drive her precious car over a long distance? After all, he had no idea of the terrain once they moved off the motorway and she had heard tales of the way he had careered wildly across London on occasion. Fortunately, there were very few cars and lorries on the road at this time of the morning.

‘I think we should pull in at the nearest service station,’ suggested Cyril shifting nervously in his seat. ‘Do you hear me?’ he repeated in his usual fashion. ‘I say we should pull in at the nearest service station.’

‘For heaven’s sake!’ gasped Donna. ‘Don’t tell me you’re thirsty already!’

‘No, it’s not that,’ returned her uncle pressing his lips together. ‘It’s my bladder. It’s gone weak all of a sudden. I say it’s gone weak all of a sudden.’

‘You mean you want to go to the toilet,’ said Matt bluntly. ‘Well that’s no crime. Let’s pull in somewhere.’

Five miles down the road they came to a service station and Donna drove the vehicle into the car park.

‘Wow, look at all those tortoises!’ exclaimed Laura staring out of the window.

‘Tortoises?’ returned Matt inquisitively following her gaze.

‘Yes, all those caravans on the back of the cars parked here. They’re just like a whole bunch of tortoises.’

‘Does anyone else want to go to the toilet or get something to eat or drink?’ demanded Donna as Cyril climbed out of the car and hurried off into the main building.

There was no reply and the three of them sat quietly in their seats. Mitzi made a whining noise a few times and then sat down on the floor as if to go to sleep. Cyril was gone for some considerable time but eventually he returned hustling himself in a portly manner. Donna suggested that Matt might like to drive for a while and they all climbed out of the vehicle except Laura and the dog. When they repositioned themselves, Donna sat next to the driver while Uncle Cyril moved beside Laura in the back seat, pressing his foot against Mitzi who howled in pain at the pressure.

The motorway drive was quite boring but the advantage was that the dawn had broken and Matt found himself driving in the light. They stopped at a service station at Exeter for some coffee and to use the toilets and then continued at a rate of eighty-five miles per hour past Plymouth. It was only sixty more miles to Redruth which Matt seemed to cover in a relatively short time. When they arrived there, they parked the car and wandered down the main street caring little for window-shopping as they made their way to Coffee Tavern, a small cafe off Fore Street. Matt glanced at his watch.

‘It’s eleven fifteen,’ he told the others. ‘I suggest that we take the opportunity to have lunch here.’

They all agreed and sat down in the small green bucket seats to eat Cornish pasties which they greatly enjoyed. They kept the dog under one of the seats hiding him away from the customers and staff, but she began to get jumpy after a while.

‘Sit, sit, sit!’ Donna commanded in a whisper to the dog which seemingly obeyed her.

However, Laura’s face soon turned sour and she began to sniff loudly. ‘Can you smell pooh?’ she asked, glancing under the table. ‘Oh my Gawd,’ she went on with her eyes opening widely. ‘The dog’s gone and done a number two!’

Matt burst into laughter. ‘He must have misunderstood Donna’s instruction of sit, sit sit,’ he said in amusement.

‘I’ll find out about hotels and boarding houses,’ ventured Cyril changing the subject quickly. ‘I say, I’ll find out.’ He went over to the owner of the cafe to question him on the subject.

‘Hotels?’ repeated the man. ‘Well there’s Penventon Hotel but it’s very expensive. It’s the only one around here.’

‘What about boarding houses?’ asked Cyril somewhat dismayed. ‘I say what about boarding houses?’

‘They don’t exist around here. No B & Bs. None in Helston. In fact, there’s only a couple of hotels in Truro, the County Town, and they’re really pubs with a few rooms on top. But if you go to Newquay or Falmouth, there are hundreds of them all over the place.’

‘But I thought this was a major tourist area,’ retorted Cyril in astonishment. ‘I say, I thought this was a tourist area.’

‘Well it is but there’s a shortage of hotels in some of the towns. But not in Newquay or Falmouth.’

‘Tell me, why is your cafe open on a Good Friday?’

‘Ah,’ returned the cafe owner, ‘that’s because we’re a tourist area and we can’t let people down. I mean where is there for them to eat if we didn’t open up?’

Uncle Cyril shook his head in dismay and returned to the others with the sad story. ‘It looks like we’re going to draw a blank in Redruth. They’ve only one hotel in the whole place. I say they’ve only one hotel.’

‘So what do we do?’ asked Donna. ‘We can’t keep driving all day and night. Perhaps if we carried on to Helston we might find a place there.’

‘No,’ continued her uncle bluntly. ‘I have it on good authority that there’s no hotels or boarding houses in Helston. I say there’s none in Helston.’

They discussed the matter during the meal and left the Coffee Tavern in due course to continue their journey on the Helston road.

‘We’re going the wrong way,’ grumbled Cyril staring at the narrow road they had taken. ‘I say this is the wrong way.’

‘The signpost pointed to Helston in this direction,’ stated Laura, pushing the dog firmly down on the floor again. Mitzi whined a little at the harsh treatment and then settled down.

‘This road is very narrow and winding. Almost like a country lane. There only one bus width for the traffic on each side. It can’t be right. I say, it can’t be right!’

‘No, this is the right road,’ insisted Laura, rather sad that she had agreed to come on the trip. She was tired and felt as though she could do with a hot shower.

After passing through Four Lanes, they found themselves driving through a desert of fields with the exception of a few clusters of houses here and there for the ten miles to Helston. Before they arrived there however, they passed one particular well-known spot.

‘Hey, look!’ shouted Laura, causing all of them to jump. ‘There’s Poldark Mine. Someone wrote a book about it and there was a television programme which lasted for weeks and weeks.’

‘I know,’ commented Matt in amusement. ‘There was a man queuing up to get in who kept shouting it’s mine all mine!.’

The other three groaned at the pun but said nothing until he stopped the vehicle a little further on in a lay-by.

‘Why have you stopped?’ asked Donna with concern showing on her face. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘There’s a sign over there which reads ‘Mineshaft’,’ muttered the driver. ‘I’d like to have a look at it.’

He climbed out of the car, releasing Mitzi to the open field, and moved towards an engine house which stood proudly with its tall chimney reaching towards the sky. Laura followed him, stretching her tired legs over the uneven ground while Donna and Cyril waited for them patiently in the car.

‘He’s let the damned dog out, the fool!’ chided Donna angrily, watching her pet run all over the field like a maniac.

However, there was more to concern her five minutes later when Laura returned with a glum expression on her face to tell them that Matt had fallen down the shaft.

‘The mine. How deep?’ asked Cyril. ‘I say, how deep is it?’

‘Two thousand six hundred feet,’ replied Laura sadly.

‘Oh my Lord!’ uttered Donna in despair only to have her fears turned into anger when she saw Matt loping towards the car. ‘Really!’ she scolded. ‘You’re no fun on a trip!’

Her nephew reached the car, gasping at the effort of running, with a broad grin spreading all over his face. ‘That fooled you, didn’t it? We had you really worried.’

‘Never mind you,’ spat Donna harshly, ‘what about my dog?’

They looked round the field but there was no sign of her. Then Laura spotted a Dalmatian in the distance and together with Matt she made off in that direction. It was nearly fifteen minutes before they returned with Mitzi much to the chagrin of his aunt who had fumed at every moment they were gone. Matt’s fiancee clambered into the back seat of the car, the dog panting and whining as it tried to look out of the window but Laura managed to push her down to the floor again.

Shortly, they arrived at the outskirts of Helston. They followed a long line of traffic turning left and shortly found themselves queuing up to park in a Tesco’s supermarket which was open for twenty-four hours each day. They soon got back on to the main road and drove past the Royal Naval Establishment at Culdrose.

‘Turn left here,’ advised Uncle Cyril sharply.

Matt obeyed and immediately became quite discomforted. The road ahead proved to be a country lane which was only one car-width wide. Occasionally, they came across a farm gate which could have been used if they met a vehicle coming from the other direction but such places were few and far between. And, as expected, the inevitable happened. They turned a sharp corner to come face to face with a tractor coming the other way. There was absolutely no room for them to pass and one of the two vehicles would have to reverse for about four or five hundred yards. Matt was never terribly adept at reversing under normal conditions. He was extremely nervous at the idea