The Little Country

  Felix shook his head. “It really isn’t the same. Believe me, I’ve tried to get over it. I don’t know how many times I’ve gone to a club on a floor singer’s night and given it a go, only to freeze up. Then I can’t even get the first note out of my box.”

  “Well, it’s not the end of the world,” Clare said.

  “Maybe not. But how can I tell Janey about that?”

  “She’ll understand.”

  “Do you think so? She thrives on being in the spotlight‌—that’s when her music really comes alive. How could she understand?”

  “You believe she’ll think the less of you because of it?”

  “I know she will,” Felix said. “Remember when Ted Praed used to get up to play at The Swan in Truro?”

  Clare nodded. “He never got through one song without his voice going all quavery and then he’d leave the stage. . . .” She paused, then went on. “And when we drove home Janey’d have us in stitches mimicking how his voice went.”

  “Carrying it over with little scenarios of what it must be like to go into a bank or a shop and have his voice break up and then he’d go running out. . . .”

  “But we all laughed‌—you did, too. And we all made jokes about it.”

  “I couldn’t stand her laughing at me like that, Clare.”

  She nodded. “It wasn’t very nice of us, was it?”

  “I used to feel like a heel, thinking about it.”

  “But Ted never knew.”

  “That still didn’t make it right.”

  “I suppose not.”

  Felix sighed. “I’d rather have her angry at me than have her laugh at me.”

  Neither said anything more for a time. They watched gulls circling the ferry that was heading out towards the Scilly Islands. Felix shredded a few more grass stems while Clare poked the end of her cane into the dirt by her feet.

  “You’ll still have to tell her,” she said finally.

  “I told you, I couldn’t stand to have her‌—”

  “Give her more credit than that, Felix. Maybe she will understand. If she cares about you at all, I know she will.”

  “But when I think of Ted . . .”

  “Oh, Ted. He was such a silly ass anyway. So full of himself. The real reason we made fun of him was because he was always going on about what a smashing singer he was and then as soon as he got up on stage, he’d fall apart. It’s not the same thing, Felix. If we hadn’t laughed at him about that, it would’ve been something else. It’s true,” she added before Felix could interrupt, “that it wasn’t a nice thing to do, but you have to admit, he did bring it on himself.”

  “But Janey‌—”

  “Was no worse than the rest of us. If Ted hadn’t been such a poppet, she would have been the first to help him get over his stage fright.”

  She tapped Felix’s leg with the end of her cane until he looked at her.

  “So you will tell her?”

  “If it comes up.”

  Clare shook her head. “If it comes up! What is it about men that they all feel they have to live up to this silly macho image? I thought you were more liberated than that.”

  “It’s not that,” he protested. “It’s just. . . well, do you like looking like a fool?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Neither do I. It’s got nothing about being macho or not.”

  “But looking like a fool still happens to all of us,” she said. “Whether we like it or not. Anyway, we’re not talking about me, we’re talking about you and Janey. You have to tell her.”

  “Yes, Mother Clare.”

  “No, really.”

  “I will.”

  “Good. Now you can see me home, like a good gentleman would, and tomorrow you can come by to tell me how it all went.”

  Felix had to laugh. “Yes, Mother Clare. Will there be an exam?”

  She whacked his leg with her cane, then offered him her hand so that he could help her up. She kept her hand in the nook of his arm and chattered about inconsequential things as they made their way back to her house, bringing Felix up-to-date on all the local gossip that might interest him.

  Enjoying her company, Felix wondered, and not for the first time, what would have happened if he’d met Clare before he’d met Janey. She was attractive, smart, and they got along famously. She should have been perfect, but she just wasn’t Janey. There could only be the one Janey‌—to which the Gaffer would add, “And thank God for that,” if she was in one of her moods.

  “Tomorrow, now‌—don’t forget,” Clare said as Felix left her at her door.

  “I won’t. Wish me luck.”

  “You don’t need luck‌—just be yourself. Nobody could want more than that from you. And don’t you ‘Mother Clare’ me again today, or I’ll give you such a whack with this cane that you’ll be too busy healing to even think about sparking.”

  Felix gave her a wave, then continued on down Raginnis Hill. Clare was probably right, he thought as he walked. Janey wouldn’t laugh‌—not if she really did care. But how he was ever going to get up the courage to tell her, he really didn’t‌—

  He paused in mid-step and stared ahead to where he could see Janey walking in the company of a man Felix had never met. It was hard to tell the man’s age, but it was obvious from his cases that he’d only just arrived in Mousehole. Oblivious to Felix, they laughed with each other and went into Pamela’s Pantry.

  The first thought that came to Felix’s mind when he saw the man’s cases was, had Janey sent out more than one letter?

  He put his hand in his pocket to touch the folded paper that was still there.

  But no. She’d denied ever sending it, hadn’t she? And he believed her, didn’t he?

  He had no claim to her, but he couldn’t help feeling a little hurt.

  You’re the one that went off for a walk, he told himself. She didn’t. Why should she have to sit around waiting for you?

  Because‌—because . . .

  Oh, bloody hell, he thought and went on down the street.

  When he reached the harbour, instead of turning up Duck Street to the Gaffer’s house, he continued on up Parade Hill until it took him out of Mousehole and onto the coastal road that led to Newlyn.

  3.

  Janey found it easy to relax in the reporter’s company‌—so much so that she had to keep reminding herself that he was a reporter and making her feel at ease was part of his job. Because she tended to just talk off the top of her head, she’d had to learn her lesson the hard way when her first interviews appeared and some of her more outrageous, and sometimes unkind, statements lay there on the page, all too accurately quoted. She’d been thoroughly embarrassed by some of the things she’d said in the past and wasn’t about to let it happen again.

  She’d also made sure that Mike Betcher really was the reporter he said he was.

  As soon as they’d sat down at a table in Pamela’s and placed their order with the waitress, she’d asked him if he had any ID, whereupon he produced a press card, sealed in plastic.

  How hard would it be to get something like that? she wondered.

  She had no idea. But his looked official enough and she realized that questioning him any further would just make her look like an ass. She knew that there was no conspiracy. The American woman looking for Dunthorn’s book, Felix’s arrival, and this reporter had no logical connection.

  Deliberately, she put it all out of her mind and concentrated on the business at hand. She was determined to be on her best behavior. Did Rolling Stone have a million readers? More? If just five percent of them were interested enough to buy her records and come to her gigs, she’d be doing very well indeed.

  “This is great,” Betcher said after the waitress brought their order.

  Janey had always loved the Pantry’s cream teas‌—two scones with jam and thick Cornish clotted cream, served with a pot of steaming tea on the side‌—but she didn’t allow herself the luxury of having them often. If they did, she’d kidd
ed Clare one day, they’d turn into the Amazing Balloon Women.

  “I thought you’d like it,” she said.

  He didn’t bring up Dunthorn or his books, lost or otherwise. Instead, he talked about the music, with enough authority that Janey knew that his enthusiasm had to be genuine. She didn’t always agree with him, but she made a point of disagreeing diplomatically‌—not an easy undertaking for her, but good practice, she thought.

  “Why do you think there’s so many young pipe players on the scene?” he asked at one point.

  “Young players? You’re forgetting Alistair Anderson, Joe Hutton, Jim Hall‌—”

  “From the Ranters, yes,” he said. “I’m not forgetting him, or any of those others, but they don’t seem to have the same popularity as the younger players such as yourself, Kathryn Tickell, Martyn Bennet‌—”

  “He plays the Scottish small pipes.”

  “For the purposes of this piece,” he said, “there isn’t really enough distinction between the two to make a difference.”

  “There is when you consider the kind Hamish Moore plays.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Like any piping enthusiast, Janey immediately warmed to her subject.

  “Well, there’s three kinds of Cauld Wind Pipes,” she said. “The Scottish small pipes that we’re talking about are related to the Northumbrian, but they use a Scottish style of fingering and tend to be pitched in lower keys. Then there’s also the lowland or border pipes, which are more related to the highland pipes, although they’re a lot quieter because of the conical bore of their chanter. Nobody much cares for them these days.”

  “Yes, but‌—”

  “And lastly,” Janey broke in, “there’s the pastoral pipes, which have a long extended foot joint at the end of the chanter. They also have a regulator and looped bass drone one octave below normal, which gives them a sound that’s very much like that of the Irish Uillean pipes.” She paused to give him a look. “You’re not taking any notes,” she added.

  Betcher laughed. “That’s because you’re getting far too esoteric for my readers. Why don’t we just stick to the instrument you play?”

  “I suppose.” She thought for a moment. “You didn’t mention Becky Taylor. I did a workshop with her at the Sidmouth Festival in Devon this past summer.”

  He dutifully wrote that down, then returned to his earlier question. As the interview went on, Janey was surprised at how much he knew of her career, and couldn’t help but feel pleased. He avoided all the usual questions, concentrating on the kinds of things that she felt were important but that no one in the press ever seemed to cover in an interview.

  “Now what about some of these tunes you wrote yourself?” he asked. “ ‘The Gaffer’s Mouzel’ is self-explanatory, now that you’ve told me about your grandfather. But what about some of these others?”

  “Which ones?”

  “ ‘The Stoness Barn’?”

  “It’s named after an old barn on a farm in Canada where I stayed for a weekend.”

  “ ‘The Nine Blind Harpers’?”

  Janey laughed. “I’ve no idea where that title came from. Probably from Felix.”

  “That’s the Felix in ‘Felix Gavin’s Reel’?”

  Janey nodded.

  “And the Billy in ‘Billy’s Own Jig’‌—that would be Billy Pigg?”

  “No,” she said. “That one was for Billy Dunthorn.”

  He wrote that down in his notepad. “Did he play the pipes as well?”

  “Not likely. He was a local writer. William Dunthorn. He’s the one who wrote The Hidden People.”

  Betcher frowned, as though trying to catch a thought, then his face lit up.

  “Really?” he said. “The one about the Smalls? I read that as a kid and loved it. It’s funny he never wrote anything else‌—or was it just that he was like Grahame or Carroll and we only remember him for the one piece?”

  “You never read The Lost Music?”

  Betcher shook his head.

  “But that’s his best book‌—better than The Hidden People by far. It’s all about what I do‌—traditional music and its magical qualities.”

  Betcher’s eyebrows lifted in exaggerated surprise. “Magic?”

  “Oh, you know what I mean. Not witches and things like that‌—though he’s got that in it‌—but the way the music makes you feel. The magical way it connects you to history. To everything that’s gone before. He’s one of the main reasons I got into music in the first place.”

  “Well, I’ll have to track down a copy of the book then. Is it still available?”

  “They’ve got it down at the newsagent’s on North Cliff‌—after all, he was born here.”

  “I’ll make sure to pick one up after we’re done, then.” He referred back to his notes. “So it was Dunthorn who got you interested in music‌—was that your fiddle playing?”

  Janey nodded.

  “What brought you to take up the Northumbrian pipes? They’re not exactly a traditional Cornish instrument.”

  “I’ll say. It’s mostly all choir singing here, like in Wales. Something to do with all the mining, I suppose.” Janey grinned suddenly. “Here’s an old joke of the Gaffer’s: What’s the definition of a Cornishman?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “A man at the bottom of a mine, singing.”

  Betcher smiled, then brought the conversation back to its original topic. “What started you on the pipes?”

  “Well, that was Dinny’s doing‌—I told you about Dinny?”

  Betcher nodded. “He plays on the albums.”

  “He got me interested in the pipes, but the only spare set he had at first were these Northumbrian small pipes, so . . .”

  The next two hours went by very quickly and all too soon Betcher was putting away his pen and notepad.

  “I want to put this in some kind of order,” he said, “but would it be all right to come by‌—say, tomorrow‌—if I’ve missed anything?”

  “Call first,” Janey said, and she gave him the Gaffer’s phone number.

  “And now . . . two last requests. I’d love to hear you play in person. Do you have any gigs lined up in the next few days?”

  Janey shook her head.

  “That’s too bad.”

  “I’m on holiday. What’s the other thing?”

  “I need some pictures. A few of you around your house‌—wherever it is that you practice, say‌—and one or two of you somewhere around the village.”

  Remembering the face that had looked back at her from the mirror this morning, she shook her head again.

  “Not today,” she said.

  She needed to wash her hair, find some decent clothes to wear. . . .

  “Tomorrow?”

  She sighed. It also meant cleaning up the jumble of her room.

  “If you have to. . . .”

  Betcher laughed. “ ‘The Modest Little’‌—I think I’ll stick with that as a title.”

  “Don’t you dare!”

  He held his hands up placatingly. “Your wish is my command. Tomorrow it is for the pictures‌—and maybe a few tunes?”

  He looked so earnest that Janey finally had to give in.

  “Oh, why not,” she said. “But mind you don’t ring up too early. I really am on holiday so I’m in my usual slothful state‌—and don’t quote me on that.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “Where are you staying?” Janey asked. “Maybe I can get a bit of a session together for tonight. If I do I’ll ring you up.”

  “I’m open to suggestions.”

  “Would a bed and breakfast be all right?”

  “Perfect.”

  Janey put on her jacket and gathered up her purse. “Come on, then, and I’ll walk you over to one that’s nearby. But after that you’re on your own. I’ve got a friend visiting and here I’ve gone and spent the whole day ignoring him.”

  The fact that she’d only just thought of Felix made her feel
guilty, but surely he’d realize what this article could do for her career?

  Betcher rose with her. He paid their bill, then gathered together his own belongings.

  “I hope there won’t be a problem,” he said. “With your friend, I mean.”

  “I don’t think so. Felix is very understanding.”

  She hoped.

  “This is the Felix Gavin you wrote the tune for? Is he a musician as well?”

  She nodded. “And a very good one. But don’t try to write him up in an article. He can’t stand the business side of things. All he loves is the music.”

  “You seem very fond of him.”

  Was that a touch of regret she heard in Betcher’s voice? It gave her pause when she realized that she might have been missing the signals. But, now that she stopped to think about it, the signals had been there all along. She just hadn’t seen them. It was too bad. He seemed a very likable sort of a fellow, and if Felix weren’t here, maybe she would have followed up on this interest of his that apparently went further than the interview.

  But Felix was here.

  “Very fond,” she said.

  Yes, he was a bit keen on her. She could see his disappointment, for all that he tried to hide it.

  Best to just pretend she didn’t see it, she decided. Her love life was complicated enough as it was.

  “Come on,” she said. “If we wait too long, all the rooms’ll be gone.”

  “At this time of year? I thought the tourist season was over.”

  “It is. But that doesn’t mean the B and Bs close down. There’s all sorts of folks still traveling about. Hardy hikers. Salesmen. Reporters from American pop papers. . . .”

  “I get the picture,” he said as he allowed himself to be led away.

  4.

  It never ceased to amaze Michael Bett at how easy it was to manipulate an individual. All one needed to know were the right buttons to push.

  Madden liked to think of it as magic, but while Bett agreed it had to do with the strength of one’s will, and how able one was to use it to overpower the natural defenses of a subject‌—the “sheep” as Madden and the other members of the Order liked to call the uninitiated‌—Bett himself believed it to be simply a form of mesmerism.