Face Value

Face Value

By Jo Bannister (excerpt)

I fell off the sailboard and, despite Jamie’s efforts to extricate me, became trapped under the sail and nearly drowned. For pony trekking, I was mounted on something distantly related to Red Rum which ran away with me halfway down a rocky gorge and dumped me on my head at the bottom. The hang-gliding instructor was a drunk. After three days I’d shaved death more closely, and in more different ways, than Baron Munchausen.

“I don’t know about this place,” I confused to Jamie when we were alone. “They don’t seem very safety conscious”.

He smiled tolerantly. “The best riders fall off sometimes. And nobody ever learned to windsurf without getting wet.”

“And the hang-gliding expert with the straw to his inside pocket?”

“Not the highest standard of professionalism,” he admitted, “We’ give the hang gliding a miss in future.” His face brightened. “We’re scuba diving tomorrow.”

My heart sank. It seemed to me that the scope of disaster was greater three fathoms beneath the Aegean than anywhere we’d yet been. The tanks might be empty. The air hoses might leak. We could be given irregular regulators, or weight belts that would take us plummeting to the bottom. The instructor might sucomb to an attack of nitrogen narcosis and lead us merrily deeper and deeper until returning to the surface would precipitate a fatal attack of the bends.

Sity sightseeing. Photo by Elena.

Jamie chuckled. “Don’t worry. I’ve been diving since I was knee-high to an octopus. Ill look after you.”

That evening we ran out of toothpaste. I thought Jamie might have packed some more and called after him but he was already en route to the bar. There wasn’t any toothpaste in his sponge-bag so I looked in his suitcase.

What I found there drove all thoughts of dental hygiene from my mind. It was a letter: a letter from a woman, on palest mauve notepaper scented just perceptibly with lilacs.

Did I read it? Of course I read it. And take that censorious little frown off your face – you’d have read it too.

Halfway through, my anger susiding, I realized I’d make a mistake. It was wholly innocuous, a letter any man could receive with a clear conscience, though it was affectionate, even loving, full of shared intimacies and private jokes. It was from his mother. She had news of his dog and his sister, in that order. She’d had the paintings off the wall to redecorate the library, and now she couldn’t remember what went where. She hoped he’d write and say if the Aegean was as lovely as she remembered; she hadn’t been back since his father died.

It was a nice letter. I thought I’d like Jamie’s mother. But I thought it was odd that she didn’t mention me, not even in that cool tone mothers use when their children are engaged in activities than which they are old enough to know better. He might have been in the Greek Islands on his own.

I put it back in the envelope. The stationary was crisp and textured, with a discreet little seal stamped on the back of the envelope. I turned it to the light in order to read the impress. Then, very carefully, I put it back where I found it.

(Ellery Queen, Mystery Magazine, September 1993)