I FOUND HIM.
Found.
Found?
I would have cut Louis down, but those three little words almost finished me. So instead I left him hanging there in his big, bad boots for the whole hungry jungle to feed upon.
I found him.
Where were you, Ronny? Why did you bring me to this dark place? I called your name. I called it all the way back to that little black shack. Where were you? Why won’t you let me go? Let me go! Stop squeezing! The touch of your hand in mine almost saved me.
Your touch almost saved me.
But I didn’t want saving. It was the last thing I wanted.
Oh why oh why won’t you just LISTEN, Ronny? M.
♦
All was silent. Connie looked around her. She was tiny. The maize was thick and it surrounded her. It was wet and everything feit much darker than it should have been. Like coal, but without the glittering. At first there had been a path but now the path was nowhere. Her hands were hurting. Something was cutting. She looked down. The keys.
She tried to walk but horrible stalks blocked her way at each turn. She began crying. I’m such a girl! I’m such a fucking girl! I don’t believe this. I’m such a stupid fucking girl!
She heard a noise and struggled to avoid it. But the maize blocked her. She ran into it wildly, imagining all kinds of horrors. The teeth, the tusks, the fiery eyes. All that hide, all those ridges, all that roughness! She was soaking and howling. She was hysterical. She’d gone and left the car after all her promises! Her face was whipped and her hair was full of bits of stalk and husk and cob.
“Stop that. Keep still. What’s wrong with you?”
She could barely hear his voice over her own gurgling.
“I won’t hurt you. Stop crying.”
She put out her hands. “I can’t see anything. I can’t feel. I think I’m dead!”
“No. It’s dark. You have hair in your eyes. You’re soaking.”
She felt someone touching her fringe.
“Stop cringing.” He sounded angry.
“It’s still too dark,” she said.
“There are no stars tonight. No moon. Only clouds.”
Connie blinked a few times.
“Show me your hands,” she demanded.
Something flapped whitely in front of her. She reached out her own hands and touched him. His skin was so soft. His hands were warm.
“How did you find me here?”
“I was passing. I saw the car. I heard you crying.”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“I don’t know.”
She held on to his hand. “You’re out of breath.”
“I’ve been running.”
He was still struggling to breathe.
“You seem taller than before.”
He said nothing. She smiled. “Your hand’s all warm.”
“Let’s get back to the car.”
Jim turned and led her through the maize. It was actually no distance at all. Five or six measly steps and they were standing on the road again. She could almost see him properly now. She sniffed, slightly abashed. “One of the boars escaped from the farm. Sara was going to contact the police but I persuaded her not to…” She stared into his face. He was trying not to look at her. He was wheezing.
“Perhaps she should have called them,” he managed finally.
“I was thinking about you,” Connie said softly, then grimaced at how this sounded before adding, “and I was thinking about Ronny.”
She squeezed his hand.
“And I was thinking about my father and his money and the connection…” She paused. “I felt as though I needed to understand something about his connection with Ronny. And I swear I didn’t ever want to know what it was that Ronny did. I wouldn’t judge him. I just needed to understand my father’s…” she didn’t want to utter that same word again, so she chose another word. “My father’s death. His death.”
Jim remained silent. He was breathing through his nose again. His mouth was closed tightly. She stared at him. “What’s the matter?”
He frowned. “Don’t squeeze my hand like that.”
She squeezed his hand again.
“I don’t know why it is,” she said, “but I keep doing all the wrong things around you.”
“You’re hurting.”
From the intense tone of his voice she knew that he didn’t mean his fingers. She was bemused.
“I’m not hurting anyone. I only want to clear things up. I only want to help. I want…”
The weight Jim had felt before, on the beach, on the road, had almost lifted, but it was not gone. Now it simply hovered above him like two great disembodied black wings.
“We don’t want helping. We don’t need saving. Just leave us.”
He tried to pull his hand away, but she held on fast. He watched, fascinated, as the yank of his arm transmitted through to her arm, jerked into her shoulder socket and then pulled her one step closer to him. She was so small. He shuddered.
“I won’t hurt you.”
She was whispering. Staring up at him and looking so open. She was a mess. Her face was scratched and streaming. He stared at her, like he couldn’t understand what it was that she wanted.
“The moon’s shining again,” she said, “and I can see everything.”
She put out her free hand, looped it around his neck and pulled his head down towards her. His face was bright. She kissed his lips. They were soft. She pressed hard and felt his teeth, all firm, just under them. His skin was so smooth she could have rubbed her wet nose all over it. But he pulled away.
“It’s a car,” he said, wiping his mouth. His face was fully illuminated and then it went dark again.
“I didn’t hear it,” Connie whispered, “I didn’t see it.”
She let go of his hand and touched her lips with her fingertips.
Jim was free again. He backed off, slowly, but he did not break Connie’s gaze. He held it with infinite care, like it was a fragile egg balanced between his forefinger and his thumb. He held it and held it, then something untoward and terrible seemed to strike him and he let go, his eyes dropped, he turned and strode away, in the direction of the beach and the prefabs, his shoulders hunching up again and his head balancing between them like a pale field mushroom.
∨ Wide Open ∧
Forty
Lily refused to put the box into the boot or to rest it upon the back seat. “Nothing’s as safe as my own two arms,” she’d observed, and to prove as much had placed the box on to her scraggy lap, had slung her arms around it and then perched her small but pointy chin on top. Her shoulders were soon aching, but she didn’t care.
Her sense of direction was pitiable. Even after crossing the Kingsferry bridge she gave every appearance of being completely adrift when by rights she should have been plumb back in her own zone.
Nathan found her astonishing. As a child he’d developed an affection for American comics. There he’d discovered all kinds of exotica, not least, the Twinkie and the Oreo cookie, neither of which had he ever tasted, only dreamed of. And also, among the small ads with a tiny illustration, he’d encountered the Sea Monkey. A kind of underwater creature, a leggy mermaid; wispy and pale and lean. A female gargoyle, all loose-limbed and translucent. All fish-lipped and long-lashed, and with witchy nails that dragged and snagged. It was a real entity, for sale (just add water) but Nathan thought it must be like a unicorn or a dragon. It was pure, crazy, comic-book folly.
Yet in Lily he thought he’d found this aquatic organism made flesh. She was every inch a Sea Monkey. She was fish and chimp in one being. Pale and alien and underwatery.
She didn’t speak much, only when he requested directions. Then she’d say, “Uh, left, maybe?” and peer off anxiously to the right. So this was how they’d proceeded, tentatively. They didn’t say much otherwise. Nathan turned on the radio and doodled along quietly to the gentle tunes that filtered out at random.
“Ah! The priso
n.”
Lily perked up.
“I finally know where I am.” She pointed. “See?”
Through his side window Nathan saw a distant crust of mismatching eczema perched on the crest of a preponderantly flat landscape. It was dusk. Lights hatched out like angry zits.
“Right. Yes.”
He shuddered.
“I saw that.”
“What?”
“You shivered.”
“Cold.”
He put his hand to the heater.
“Brake.”
Lily spoke so gently that Nathan didn’t initially register the nature of her request.
“I said stop!” This time she spoke louder.
He pulled over. They were on a small, winding country road. Lily wound down her window.
“Oi!”
The engine idled. Behind him Nathan saw a fat man, trundling in the verge.
“Oi!”
The fat man paused and then looked over his shoulder. He faltered. He didn’t seem especially pleased to see them.
“Where are you going?” Lily yelled.
The fat man scowled. “Why?”
“I just wondered.”
“I’m going to the pub to buy cigarettes.”
“But you’re way past it.”
“Pardon?”
“You’re way past it. You should’ve turned off to the left a mile or so back.”
The flat man looked deflated. “Shit.”
“So I suppose you’ll be after a lift, then?”
The fat man took a few steps towards them. “Actually, yes. If that isn’t too much trouble.”
“But it is too much trouble.” Lily wound up her window. “Let’s go.”
Nathan didn’t move. He kept checking his rear-view mirror. Luke looked a mixture of angry and disconsolate. It was a pitiable combination.
“We can’t just leave him, surely?”
“Of course we can. Do it!”
Nathan pulled off and accelerated away.
“Anyhow,” Lily grinned, “he smells of fish. He’d stink out the car.”
“Offish?”
“Yep. Revolting.”
A loose stone hit their flanks. Nathan braked slightly. It was almost dark now. He turned his headlights on. To the right of his peripheral vision he saw something temporarily illuminated in the sudden blaze. It appeared solid but mobile and fairly prodigious. It bucked once and then skittered from view.
“Did you see that thing?”
His foot touched the brake again. Lily was clutching the parcel and staring straight ahead of her.
“Keep driving.”
“But did you see it?” he repeated.
“I saw it.”
She seemed slightly unnerved but grimly unflappable. “We need to get home. Quickly.”
Her directions became minutely precise, her voice, curter, gruffer. “Faster,” she said, when he’d changed down a gear to negotiate a corner, “keep going.”
“Was it a pig or a pony?”
“A boar. A wild boar. We farm them.”
“Should it be out on the road like that?”
Lily rolled her eyes.
“Is it dangerous?”
She cleared her throat but neglected to answer.
They were heading along a rough road next to a large field of maize. Up in front of them a car was parked with its lights off and driving door wide open. There were two people, standing alongside it.
Nathan slowed down.
“Don’t slow down.”
“I’m not sure if there’s room on this road for two cars.”
“There’s room.”
She was such a bully. A little tyrant. Even so, Nathan slowed down an iota and dipped his lights. They passed – just enough space – and he glanced over at the couple. Lily looked too. She inhaled sharply. She saw Connie and she thought she saw Ronny.
Nathan could only see the man clearly. A tall man. Hairless. The light bounced off his bald head and formed a glossy halo. He was sharp and thin and badly dressed. The woman – much smaller – was almost entirely obscured by his bony shoulders. But the man…
Nathan’s brain didn’t react, or his head, or his tongue or his chest – unlike Lily’s – even his belly failed to respond. Only his heart reacted. It swooped, it tapped, it buckled.
“Are you listening to me?”
His head swivelled. “What?”
“I said next left. Sharp left.”
He turned the car. “Stop!” Lily squealed. “That’s my mother!”
Nathan slammed on the brakes.
There, next to a large, open, wrought-iron fence stood a dark-haired woman holding a torch and a shotgun. Lily carefully placed the box on to the back seat then clambered out and marched up to her. “I saw something at the turn-off,” she said, “we both did.”
Sara was blinking in the glare of the headlights. “The turn-off? Are you certain?”
“Yep.”
“I sent Connie out in the Volvo…”
Lily clucked. “We just passed her, parked up next to the maize.”
Sara switched off her torch. “What was she doing?”
“How should I know?”
“The turn-off…” Sara was perplexed, “that’s some distance.”
She indicated towards Nathan with the gun. Nathan didn’t observe this. He was looking at his own face in the side mirror. Inspecting every niche and nook and cranny of it. Trying to recognize something.
“Who is that? Will he be OK to drive me back there?”
Lily nodded. “He’s Nathan. He’s very obliging.”
“Hi. I’m Sara,” she said, sliding into the front passenger seat.
“Hello,” Nathan nodded, bemusedly.
Lily clambered into the back, settling the box on to her lap again. “She’s my mother,” Lily observed darkly, “and her gun’s loaded.”
Nathan merely smiled.
“She wants you to drive us back to where we saw the fat man before.”
Sara’s head turned. “Which fat man?”
Nathan set the car into reverse.
“Which fat man, Lily?”
Lily groaned. “That fat slug from the prefabs. Mr Fish.”
“Luke?”
“He was after some cigarettes. We offered him a lift but he said he’d just as soon walk.”
“And this was before or after you saw the boar?”
“Uh…” Lily focused on the ceiling, “I forget which.”
Nathan glanced nervously at Sara and then at Lily in the rear-view mirror. She didn’t make eye contact. He put the car into first gear and moved off. After a few seconds he said, “I’ll need directions.”
“Of course,” Sara reached out her hand and turned down the radio, “head straight on.”
Before long the car’s lights picked out the Volvo and Connie, crouched on all fours next to it, searching the ground for something.
“Stop for a second.”
Sara wound down her window. As they approached Connie straightened up, like a weasel. But she didn’t stand. She remained on her knees.
“What’s going on?” Sara asked, as they drew level. “Did something happen here?”
Connie was soaked and her face looked scratched and haggard. “No,” she said, “nothing happened.”
She seemed dazed. She was holding the car keys. They were covered in mud. She inspected her hands with a slight look of distaste.
“Then get back into the Volvo and return to the farm. Lily saw the boar near the main road. We’re just going back there.”
Connie’s expression remained vague. Her eyes slid past Sara and glanced deeper into the car. In the darkness she saw Nathan. Her eyes widened. “Nathan?”
Before anything else could be said, Nathan pulled off with a small skid. The car kangarooed. Sara jerked forward. Lily grunted, enraged, from the back seat. He quickly readjusted his foot over the clutch and then drove on.
Sara wound up her window. “Do take care,”
she said tersely, “I’m holding a firearm.”
“Yes. Of course. Sorry. It’s just that…it’s just…” Nathan took a deep breath. “I’m Ronny’s brother,” he said softly, all in a rush, feeling like this was a truly incredible admission. “I’m his brother.”
“Really?” Sara spoke. She was simply filling in conversational spaces. Her eyes were ransacking the darkness.
Nathan switched the windscreen wipers from slow to fast. He checked his rear-view mirror. Lily’s eyes met his in the glass. And they were tight eyes. They were mean old monkey eyes.
∨ Wide Open ∧
Forty-One
Jim approached the prefabs on numb, heavily sodden feet, wearing the dark like a big, black wrap around him. Everything here conspired to keep him a secret. The weather – it was windy and raining harder again – the sound of the waves, the sheets of heavy grey cloud in the sky which expunged the moon and all but the most steely and persistent of the stars.
The other buildings were, without exception, in total darkness. Only his prefab’s sharp angles were defined by the bleak glow of an electric bulb. Jim saw that Ronny had constructed a system of lighting to accompany his creative project by pulling an anglepoise lamp through the bedroom window and dangling it upside down from the sill. Its weight was supported only by its wire and the plug, which, by every indication, seemed to be pulling loose, because the light generated was of such a feeble quality; like a bad stutter or a fast blink.
But nothing deterred Ronny. He worked instinctively, slapping on the plaster with his small, silver-handled trowel, thinning it out, smoothing it down, dipping his hands, first into one bag, then another. He was applying the shells in tightly choreographed circles. On the wall in front of him, a crazy lichen was growing and adhering and enveloping.
Jim drew gradually closer until eventually he was sheltered from the worst of the elements in the lee of the building. He was so near to Ronny now that he could hear the rattle and pant of his breathing.
Every so often, Ronny would pause, stop what he was doing and rub at his eyes. But his fingers were coated in plaster, in sand and in salt from the shells. After a while he yanked up his T-shirt and rubbed hard at his whole face with it.
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