by Clive Barker
There was nobody on the beach, which stretched perhaps half a mile from the spit of rock before it was bounded by another spit, far larger than the one they’d clambered over. At this distance the second spit looked to be impassable: this beach was as far as anyone could go on foot.
Niolopua was already down on the sand, and pointing out to sea. Rachel followed his gaze. No more than a few hundred yards from the shore a whale was breaching, thrusting its almighty bulk skyward, then toppling like a vast black pillar, throwing fans of creamy water up around it. She watched for the creature to rise again, but it was apparently done with its game. She saw only a glistening back, a dorsal fin; then nothing. She looked back at the beach, suddenly heavy with sorrow. He wasn’t here; it was obvious he wasn’t here. If the wreckage Niolopua had seen was indeed that of The Samarkand then its captain was out there in the deep waters of the bay, where only the whales could find him.
She crouched down on the rock for a moment and told herself in no uncertain terms to stop feeling sorry for herself, and finish what she’d come here to do. It was no use avoiding the truth, however painful it was. If there was wreckage here she should see for herself. Then she’d know, wouldn’t she? Once and for all, she’d know.
She took a deep breath, and stood up. Then she clambered down over the rocks and onto the sand.
XV
Mitchell knew where the Kaua’i house was; Garrison and he had talked about it many times over the years. But talking about the place and being there were two very different things. He hadn’t expected to feel so much the trespasser. As soon as he got out of the taxi his heart quickened and his palms became clammy. He waited outside the gate for a few moments until he had government of his feelings, and only then did he venture to the step, slide the wooden bolt aside, and push the gate open.
There was nothing here that could do him any harm, he reminded himself. Just a woman who needed to be saved from her own stupidity.
He called her name as he walked up the path to the front door. A couple of startled doves rose from their perches on the roof, but otherwise there was no sign of life. Once he got to the door he called again, but she either hadn’t heard him or she was trying to make her escape. He opened the door and stepped into the house. It smelled of old bed linen and stale food; not a bright place, as he’d expected, but murky, its colors muted, all tending toward brown. So much for the feminine touch. Several generations of Geary wives had occupied this house on and off over a period of sixty or seventy years, but the place felt grimy and charmless.
That fact didn’t make his heart beat any the less violently. This was the house of women; the secret place, where he’d been told as an adolescent no Geary male ever ventured. Of course he’d asked why, and his father had told him: one of the qualities which distinguished the Gearys from other families, he’d said, was a reverence for history. The past, he’d said, was not always easy to understand; but it had to be respected. Needless to say, this answer hadn’t satisfied the young Mitchell. He hadn’t wanted vague talk of reverence; he’d wanted a concrete reason for what seemed to him an absurdity. A house where only women were allowed to go? Why? Why did women deserve to have such a house (and on such an island)? They weren’t the moneymakers, they weren’t the power brokers. All they did, to judge by the daily rituals of his mother and her friends, was to spend what the men had earned. He simply didn’t understand it.
And he still didn’t. There had been times, of course, when he’d seen the strength of the Geary women at work, and it could be an impressive sight. But they were still parasites; their lush, easy lives impossible without the labors of their husbands. If he’d been hoping that entering and exploring this house would offer a clue to the mystery, he was disappointed. As he moved from room to room his anxiety diminished and finally disappeared. There were no mysteries here; nor answers to mysteries. It was just a house: a little shabby, a little stale; ripe to be gutted and refurnished; or simply demolished.
He went upstairs. The bedrooms were as unremarkable as the rooms below. Only once did he feel a return of the prickling unease he’d experienced outside, and that was when he walked into the largest of the bedrooms and saw the unmade bed. This was where his wife had slept last night, no doubt; which fact would not have moved him especially, had it not been for the way the bed was fashioned. There was something about the crude elaboration of the carvings, and the way age had dulled the brightness of the colors, that unsettled him. It was like some bizarre funeral casket. He couldn’t imagine why anybody would ever want to sleep there, especially a neurotic bitch like Rachel. He lingered in the room only long enough to go through the contents of her suitcase and traveling bag. He found nothing of interest. With his rifling done, he left the room, closing the door behind him, and turning the key in the lock. It was only then, when he’d put the bedroom out of sight, that he dared bring to mind its other function. It was of course the bridal suite; the place where Galilee had come to visit his women. He stood in the gloomy hallway outside the room physically sickened at that thought, but unable to keep himself from imagining the scene. A woman, a Geary woman—Rachel, Deborah, Loretta, Kitty; all of them in one congealed form—lying naked on that morbid bed, while the lover—his hands as dark as the body he was touching was pale—played and fingered what was not his to pleasure; not under any law in any land: only here, in this godless, gloomy house, where a rule of possession held sway that Mitchell had no hope of comprehending. All that mattered to him right now was to get his wife in his hands and shake her. That’s what he pictured when he saw them together again: his hands clamped around her arms; shaking her until her teeth rattled. Maybe he could still frighten some sense into her: make her ask him to forgive her, beg him to forgive her, and take her back. And maybe he would. It wasn’t out of the question, if she was sincere, and made him feel appreciated. That was the heart of the problem: she’d never been thankful enough. After all, he’d changed her life out of all recognition; snatched her out of her trivial existence and given her a taste of the high life. She owed him everything; everything. And what had she given him in return? Ingratitude, disloyalty, infidelity.
But he knew how to be magnanimous. His father had always said that when a man was blessed by circumstance, as Mitchell had been blessed, it was particularly incumbent upon that man to be generous in his dealings. To avoid envy and pettiness, which were the twin demons of those who had been denied a grander perspective; to err on the side of the angels.
It wasn’t easy. He fell short of those ideals every day of his life. But here was a clear circumstance in which he could apply the principles he’d been taught; in which he could resist the call of envy and vengeance and prove to be better than his baser self.
All she had to do was let him shake her and shake her, until she begged to take him back.
XVI
“This is part of the hull of The Samarkand,” Niolopua said, pointing down at a length of battered timber in the sand. ‘There’s another piece over there. And there’s more in the surf.”
Rachel walked down to the water’s edge. There were indeed more lengths of painted wood tumbling back and forth in the waves. And further out, beyond the surf, one or two larger pieces bobbing about, including what might have been a portion of the mast.
“What makes you so sure it’s The Samarkand?” she asked Niolopua, who’d come to join her at the water’s edge.
He stared down at his feet, curling his toes into the stained sand. “It’s just a feeling,” he said. “But I trust it.”
“Isn’t it possible the wreckage was washed up here, and he came ashore somewhere else?”
“Of course,” Niolopua said. “He could have swum along the coast. He’s certainly strong enough.”
“But you don’t think he did.”
Niolopua shrugged. “Your instincts are as good as mine where he’s concerned. Better probably. You’ve been closer to him than I have.”
She nodded, looking past him along the littered expa
nse of the shore. Perhaps her beloved was lying somewhere in the shallows, she thought, too exhausted to make it the last few yards without help. The thought made her stomach turn. He could be so close, so very close, and she not know it. Dying for want of a loving hand.
“I’m going to walk along the beach,” she said to Niolopua. “See if there’s any sign.
“Would you like me to come with you?”
“No,” she shivered. “No thanks.”
Niolopua fished in the breast pocket of his shirt, and took out a hand-rolled cigarette and an old-fashioned steel lighter. “Do you want a hit of Mary Jane before you go?” he asked. “It’s good stuff.”
She nodded and watched as Niolopua lit a joint up, pulled on it, then passed it over to her. She drew a deep, fragrant lungful then passed it back to Niolopua.
“Take your time with your walk,” he told her. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She slowly exhaled the smoke, already feeling a pleasant but mild light-headedness, and headed off along the beach. Just a few yards on she found more wreckage—a piece of rope with the tackle still attached; what looked to be the wheelhouse window frame; the façade of an instrument panel, its gauges still intact. She went down on her haunches to examine this last item more closely. Perhaps there was some inscription on it: some sign that would confirm Niolopua’s suspicions. Or better still, prove him wrong.
She lifted up the panel; seawater ran out, and a blue-backed crab, secreted in the moist sand beneath it, scuttled away. There was nothing on either side of the panel; not even a maker’s name on the face of the gauges. Frustrated, she tossed it back onto the sand, and stood up again. As she did so, the drug in her system played a strange, dislocating trick She suddenly became acutely aware of how her ears were each receiving radically different information. On her left side, the sea: the rhythmic draw and crash of the waves. On her right, audible only when the sea was momentarily hushed, the sounds of the green. A little breeze had come up since she and Niolopua had started their climb over the rocks, and it gently shook the canopy, moving leaf against leaf, blossom against blossom.
She glanced back toward Niolopua, who was sitting in the sand staring out at the water. This time, she didn’t follow his gaze. She wasn’t interested in what the sea had to show her. Instead she turned her eyes up the slope of the beach. A few yards from where she stood a small stream emerged from between the trees, carving a zigzag path across the sand on its way to the sea. She started to climb the beach to the place from which it appeared, studying the wall of vegetation as she did so. Another gust of wind moved the canopy, and stirred the colored blossoms so that they seemed to nod at her as she approached.
She slipped off her sandals at the edge of the stream, and stepped into it. The water was cold; far colder than the sea had been. She bent down and let the water play against her fingers for a moment, then—making a shallow cup of her hands—scooped some of it up and splashed it against her face, running her wetted fingers back through her hair. Icy water trickled down the back of her neck, and round and down between her breasts. She pressed her hand against her breastbone to stop the water going any further. She could feel her heart thumping under her hand. Why was it beating so fast? It wasn’t just cold water and a hit of marijuana that was making her feel so strange: there was something else. She put her hand back into the stream, and this time she was certain she heard the double thump of her heart quickening. She followed the path of the water with her eyes, up into the green. Another gust of wind, and the fat wide leaves rose all at once, showing their pale undersides, and the deep shadows their brightness concealed. What was in those shadows? Something was calling to her; its message was in the water, flowing against her fingers and up through her nerves to her heart and head.
She stood up again and began to walk against the gentle flow of the stream, until she reached the edge of the vegetation. It smelled strong; the heavy fragrance of blossom mingled with the deeper, more solid smell of all things verdant: shoot, stalk, frond, leaf. She paused to see if there was an easier way in than wading through the stream, but she could see none. The foliage was thick in every direction: the easiest option was simply to keep to the flowing path.
The choice made, she stepped out of the sunlight and into the shadows. After no more than six or seven steps she began to feel clammy-cold; a prickly sweat broke out on her brow and upper lip. Her toes were already starting to numb in the icy water.
She looked back over her shoulder. Though the ocean was only fifty yards from where she stood, if that, it might have been another world. It was so bright and blue out there; and in here, so dark, so green.
She looked away, and resumed her trek. The stream no longer ran over sand now but over stones and rotted leaves. It was a slippery path, made more treacherous still by the fact that the ground was getting steeper as she progressed. She was soon obliged to climb, doing her best to strike out into the undergrowth when the route became too steep, using saplings and vines to haul herself up, then returning to the relatively unchoked stream once she’d reached a plateau and could proceed without the need of handholds.
She could no longer see the beach, or hear the waves breaking. She was surrounded on all sides by greenery and by the inhabitants of that greenery. Birds were noisy in the trees overhead; there were lizards running everywhere. But more extraordinary than either, and more numerous, were the spiders: orange-and-black-backed creatures the span of a baby’s hand, they had spun their ambitious webs everywhere, and sat at the heart of their fiefdoms awaiting their rewards. Rachel did her best to avoid touching the webs, but there were so many it was impossible. More than once she walked straight into one and had to brush its owner off her face or shoulder, or shake it out of her hair.
The climb had by now begun to take its toll on her. Her hands, weary with their exertions, were beginning to lose their grip, and her legs were shaking with fatigue. The promising curiosity she’d felt on the beach below had faded. She might go on wandering like this for hours, she realized, and never find anything. As long as she followed the stream she had no fear of getting lost, of course, but the steeper the way became the more she ran the risk of falling.
She found a flat rock, in midstream, to perch on, and from there made an assessment of her situation. She hadn’t brought her watch, but she estimated that she’d been climbing for perhaps twenty-five minutes. Long enough for Niolopua to be wondering where the hell she’d got to.
She stood up on the rock and yelled his name. It was impossible to judge how far the call went. Not far, she suspected. She imagined it snared in the mesh of vines, in the hearts of blossoms, in spiders’ webs: snared and silenced.
She regretted making the sound now. For some absurd reason she’d become anxious. She looked around. Nothing had changed; there was only green, above and below. And at her feet the burbling stream.
“Time to go back,” she told herself quietly, and gingerly took the first step down over the weed-slickened rocks. As she did so she felt a spasm of the same force she’d experienced on the beach passing through her from the soles of her feet.
Instinctively she looked back up along the course of the stream, studying the water as it cascaded toward her, looking for some clue. But there was nothing out of the ordinary here; at least nothing she could see. She looked again, narrowing her eyes the better to distinguish the forms before her. So many misleading combinations of sun and leaf-shadow—
Wait, now; what was that, ten or twelve yards from her, lying in the water? Something dark, sprawled in the stream.
She didn’t dare hope too hard. She just started climbing again, though there were several large boulders before her, one of which had fallen like a great log, and could not be climbed around. She was obliged to scale it like a cliff face, her fingers desperately seeking little crevices to catch hold of, while a constant cascade of water rushed down upon her. When she finally clambered to the top she was gasping with cold, but the form she’d seen was more discernible now
, and at the sight of it she let out such a shout of joy that the birds in the canopy overhead rose in clamorous panic.
It was him! No doubt of it. Her prayers were answered. He was here.
She called out to him, and climbed to where he lay, tearing at the vines that blocked her way. His face was a terrible color, like wetted ash, but his eyes were open and they saw her, they knew her.
“Oh my baby,” she said, falling on her knees beside him, and gathering him to her. “My sweet, beautiful man.” Though she was cold, he was far, far colder; colder even than the water in which he’d lain, passing the message of his presence down the stream.
“I knew you’d find me,” he said softly, his head in her lap. “Cesaria . . . said you would.”
“We have to get you down to the beach,” she told him. He made the frailest of smiles, as though this were a sweet lunacy on her part. “Can you stand up?”
“There were dead men coming after me,” he said, looking past her into the vegetation, as though some of them might still be lurking. ‘They followed me out of the sea. Men I’d killed—”
“You were delirious—”
“No, no,” he insisted, shaking his head, “they were real. They were trying to pull me back into the sea.”
“You swallowed seawater—”
“They were here!” he said.
“Okay,” she said gently. ‘They were here. But they’re gone now. Maybe I frightened them off.”