“Risk is the word,” said Frank.
“Many times I thought I’d go under. So I’d float on my back to steady myself and regain my strength. And in the end, I got here.”
“Was that you shouting?”
“Yes.”
“Aha!” said Frank to his partner. “See? I was right!”
“So you were,” acknowledged Hal, before asking:
“There were just the two of you on board that damned boat of yours?”
“Yes.”
“What about the guests you had back there?”
“They all left yesterday morning.”
Hal stared at her coolly.
“Are you sure the unfortunate gust of wind wasn’t you?” he asked with a knowing smile.
She looked at him uncomprehendingly.
“What do you mean?”
“Your story don’t ring true, darling—it sounds like it was cobbled together… The boat gets blown over, you start drowning, your hubby fishes you out and then he’s the one who goes under… Next thing you get a trip across the Atlantic… And supposing you hadn’t bothered about which way you were going, you’d have fetched up in New York harbour one of these fine days!”
She sat up.
“I forbid you to think such horrible things!”
“Oh! I’m just saying…”
“Herbert is dead!” she cried with genuine feeling. “We’d just had lunch and—”
“You said that it was getting on for evening when you started back, when the boat got turned over…”
“Because we’d been partying all night—”
“Ah! So you had! Many happy returns!”
The interruption did not appear to bother her. She seemed inert.
Meekly she went on:
“…We didn’t have lunch and I’d had something made up for us which we’d eaten out at sea…”
She was crying quietly as she spoke.
“We must do something,” she said.
“We can’t do anything for someone who’s been rolling around on the bottom of the sea for hours,” said Frank. “There are plenty of fish down there. They can take care of him.”
14
Hal looked at the woman carefully.
“Still,” he said, “it could have been an accident after all. But to be honest, we don’t give a damn if you did him in or not… It’s just that it would be better if we were all on the same side, if you take my meaning. If only because it would make dealing with each other easier.”
When she did not turn a hair at this, he went on, finding a guilty pleasure in provoking her.
“Because, of course, now that you’re here, we can’t afford the luxury of letting you go. Anyway, if you did try to leave the island, the odds that you would get sucked down in the mud or drowned would be shortissimo.”
She was just beginning to understand her position, and there was a look of silent disapproval in her eye. She let out a groan.
“Is she good-looking?” asked Frank suddenly. He was breathing noisily.
The question took Hal by surprise. He looked at the woman again, now through different eyes.
“She could be my type…” he conceded. “You know, blonde, and eyes that could be violet at certain moments…”
“I wish I could see her,” sighed Frank.
“You’ll see her, all right! She’ll be staying here for some time and you’ll be cured long before the three of us go our separate ways.”
The woman sat up.
“It’s out of the question!” she said. “I won’t! I don’t want to!…”
Hal burst out laughing. He put one knee on the wooden bench and trimmed the smoking wick of his lamp.
“Listen, sweetie, in this life there are what are called circumstances. Circumstances decided that you should end up here with us… Well, you just have to put up with it. Fate… you see, there is such a thing… Fate, along with its sidekick, Chance! You helped us, so now it’s our turn to help you. If we hadn’t been here, you would now be by yourself on this island crying with cold and fear. Tomorrow you’d have tried to get back to the mainland on foot and you’d have gone to meet your maker with that pretty mouth of yours full of sand…”
“He’s got the gift of the gab, hasn’t he?” leered Frank.
“We wait!” said Hal.
She shook her head.
“Wait for what?”
“Wait until some time has gone by between us and the cops. The cops are just like everybody else. They’ve got memories, but believe me, memories are not intended just for remembering things, but, more importantly, for forgetting them!”
“Aw, put a sock in it!” cried Frank. “Have you finished rabbiting on? Lady, when he starts talking he gets drunk on his own words!” He went on: “Let’s leave it at that! OK, so we make room for Widow Wossername here. I can’t take any more of this!”
“Oh!” cried the woman.
She burst into tears… Her chest heaved, racked by sobbing… She fought for breath.
“You’re being a bit hard on a young woman who was very nice to you,” observed Hal.
Frank sidled up to him.
“You mustn’t hold it against me,” he said meekly.
He waved one hand about on the off chance of locating the woman. He touched her hair and started stroking it.
“Don’t hold it against me…” he repeated. “I feel so down.”
She freed herself with a horrified shrug. He felt the full force of the revulsion he inspired in her.
“You can cut that out!” Frank said angrily. “Don’t get smart with me or I’ll make sure you join your better half down among the fishes! I could do it, you bet I could, blind as I am!”
He lay down on his seaweed bed and starting crying with frustration.
Hal shrugged his shoulders and gathered up an armful of grass, which he spread out in another corner of the hut.
“Come, lie down here,” he ordered the woman, “and cry your eyes out all you want if it makes you feel better. Tomorrow’s another day and it won’t be anything like today.”
Head bowed, she did as she was told.
She was still asleep when the two men woke up next morning.
Frank tore off the bandage, which had stayed stuck over his wound. He blinked at the light.
“Can you see?” asked Hal, who was observing what he was doing.
“No,” said Frank, “but there’s hope… I can already tell the difference between light and dark… It’s just like as if I were looking through frosted glass, if you follow me…”
Hall nodded: “Good. It’s coming back slowly… And the wound isn’t weeping any more—you’re on the mend.”
“Did you sleep well?” asked Frank.
“No.”
“Me neither… Feeling that she was there, the scent of her… It’s a long time since I had a woman anywhere within reach…”
“True,” said Hal, “and it gets to you!”
“And how! My mouth goes dry just thinking about it!”
“She asleep?”
“Yeah,” said Hal after glancing at the woman.
“Is she really good-looking?”
“A stunner!”
Frank sighed. He stood up and forced himself to open his half-closed eyes… But the pain started to come back.
“I’ll have to bathe my eyes in water that’s been boiled,” he said. “That’ll do them good, won’t it?”
“A power of good.”
“Do you buy this story about a capsized boat and the husband who drowned?”
Hal thought for a moment. He gestured vaguely with one hand.
“What’s it matter? After all, it’s not that important. It’s a plausible enough story and you can’t ask any more, not even of a story…”
“I could hear her breathing in the dark…” said Frank dreamily. “And I wanted to get up and go and press my face down on her mouth…”
“You’re not the only one.”
“What! You too?”
“And how! I swear, if you hadn’t been there, I’d have had me some fun. Quality goods and tasty with it!”
“You’ve got it bad!” laughed Frank.
But his laughter jarred and sounded false.
“You think so?”
“Well, I mean to say… She’s been a widow ever since yesterday…”
“Widows,” sniggered Hal, “are a like fish: mustn’t wait too long before you gobble them up!”
“So you want her yourself, you old goat?”
Frank’s face was bright red—and it wasn’t on account of his temperature.
“And you don’t?” asked Hal.
“Leave me out of it. For the moment, I’m blind.”
“So what? Making love is something that’s usually done in the dark!”
Frank stood next to the woman, whom he could vaguely make out through the thick fog which enveloped her.
“The way things are going,” he said, “I’d be surprised if she stays prissy for long.”
The still-sleeping woman sighed deeply.
“Was that her?” asked Frank.
“Yes. She’s starting to wake up.”
“And to think I can’t see it! What’s she doing?”
Hal had moved nearer to the blonde woman. He stood watching her with some satisfaction, with his lips drawn back over his sharp teeth.
“She’s doing what all women do when they wake up,” he said quietly. “She looks as if she’s dreaming.”
“And to think I can’t see it! I can’t see it!” said Frank, almost weeping while he desperately screwed up his eyes. “I could kill myself!”
“Cheer up! Mustn’t start getting gloomy ideas!” said Hal in an effort to soothe his friend.
“Gloomy ideas! Brother, you said it!”
The woman was now staring at them in silence. She was hollow-cheeked with grief.
“Still, it’s not everything,” muttered Hal. “I’m going to make some coffee.”
He leant over her:
“What’s your name?” he asked.
She answered:
“Dora.”
“Sounds like someone in the films,” said Frank. “Still, some people like that sort of thing…”
Hal leant down farther. There was a glint in his eye. Dora did not pull away from him. She seemed transfixed.
Delicately he kissed her on the mouth.
Frank could not hear anything and felt anxious.
“What the hell are you two up to now?”
The kiss went on and on. Though it was not really a kiss, for it was one-way traffic. Hal gave it; Dora endured it.
Frank started getting very jumpy.
“What are you up to? What are you doing?”
“We’re looking at you,” answered Hal. “We’ve both got eyes, so why shouldn’t we make the most of them?”
“You swine!…” cried Frank. “You’re mocking me… But usually it’s the deaf who get laughed at, not the blind!”
“But you’re not blind,” said Hal. “Don’t exaggerate. Don’t lay it on so thick.”
“OK, OK!” said Frank, feeling crushed. “So I’m not blind, you’re right. It’s just that I can’t see!”
PART IV
The Beast
15
The days that followed were as strange as those which had preceded Dora’s arrival on the island. The three self-exiled castaways led a life not unlike that of campers. Dora seemed resigned to her fate. She had lost heart but put a brave face on things and submitted to the life imposed on her by the two men. They never let each other stray very far. When Hal went fishing for crabs or shrimps, Frank and the young woman went with him. They prepared their meals together and played pointless games using flat stones as a substitute for quoits. Dora never cried now, never spoke about her boating accident, and gave no indication that she would try to return to the mainland. All three, on the basis of a perfect tacit agreement, negotiated this dead time the way a thrown object works its way across its trajectory.
Then, when three days had passed, the climate of absolute peace changed. More precisely, after the end of the third night. For if intangible bonds of friendship were created during the days, the nights imperceptibly undid them again. It seemed as though the breathing of the three occupants of the hut could not be aligned harmoniously. There was a break in rhythm, a break in the rhythm of their three-person existence. The two men tossed and turned on their seaweed beds, heaving sighs, muttering confused words, while Dora never stirred. A tense atmosphere of repressed sensuality lay heavy on the hut. Frank did not sleep because he wanted to keep an eye on Hal. And Hal struggled to keep awake so that he could check on the behaviour of his partner. Each was afraid that the other would follow the instinct which lurked inside him. Whenever either of them made a movement, the other was immediately on full alert.
Each despised the other for being kept awake. Gossamer threads of hate spread in their souls, and, at first light, when with faces etched with insomnia they exchanged the first glance of the day, they felt the urge to leap on each other like enraged wild beasts.
Frank’s wound was now markedly improved. His eyesight was quickly returning. There were periods of blurred vision and others, longer for the most part, when he could see almost normally.
Now, on the third night after Dora arrived, Frank, for all his resilience, fell into a deep sleep the moment he lay down. Hal felt his heart race at the thought that a sudden intimacy had sprung up between him and Dora.
He sighed softly. Without warning, the woman got up and tiptoed to the door.
“Where are you going?” whispered Hal.
“Outside…” she said. “It’s too hot in here. I can’t sleep.”
She left without closing the door behind her. Through it, he saw her walk away. He leapt to his feet.
“Hey!” he said as he left the hut in her wake. “Not so fast, lady!”
She went on walking quickly towards the sea. He had to run to catch up with her.
“Thinking of taking a dip?”
“Why not?”
“Not many people go swimming at midnight…” said Hal sarcastically. “But if there’s two of them, it’s more fun!”
Dora did not respond. The tide was high and there was not much of the beach left. She took off her plimsolls and walked into the water.
But the water was cold and she beat a hasty retreat.
“No need to be shy, girl, not at this time of night!”
“Oh, be quiet,” she said with a sigh. “You’re getting on my nerves…”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. Do you think this idiotic situation can last much longer?”
“What do you reckon yourself?” asked Hal.
“I think it’s totally and utterly idiotic.”
He slid one arm along her bare shoulder, which was just touching his. The soft, warm feel of that silky skin made him tremble. His calloused hand tightened around the woman’s arm.
He pulled her to him roughly. Indifferent, she did not not react.
“What’s the matter, Dora?” asked Hal.
Then he gave a start on seeing the figure of Frank standing before them. He was leaning motionless against a rock, with his hands on his hips. His weak eyes blinked.
“All lovey-dovey, are we?” he asked.
Dora pulled away from Hal and headed back to the hut.
“I asked you a question,” repeated Frank.
Hal had never seen so much rage in a man’s eyes.
“And I won’t answer it because it’s a stupid question,” he said. “You stand there, blowing a fuse because I try to make it with little Miss Chickadee… It’s only human nature, isn’t it? That first day, you yourself told me—”
“I don’t give a damn about what I told you that first day!” snarled Frank. “There’s no more first day! There’s only nights now! Steamy nights that make me feel like I’m burning up all over.”
“I know…” said Hal with a sigh. “It’s
the same with me. What do you expect? Think you’re the only man here?”
They made their way back to the hut. The island was beginning to feel too small for them.
“We ought to be thinking of getting out of here now that you’re on the mend,” said Hal. “The hunt must have died down a lot in the last week, since we gave them the slip! And between you and me, I’m beginning to have seafood coming out of my ears!”
“We’ll think about it,” promised Frank. “You’re right, amigo. Three of us here is getting too hard to bear!”
16
Frank was shelling crabs and Dora was busy boiling water. Hal had gone to gather dead wood in the tiny copse. This was becoming no easy task because, in their few days there, they had burnt all the dry brushwood which had been lying around on the island’s short grass. Suddenly Hal burst through the door empty-handed.
“You haven’t…” began Frank.
Hal advanced. He looked thoughtful.
“The revolver’s gone,” he said.
“What?” said Frank.
“I always carried it with me, in my jacket pocket… Then, as I was scouting round for wood, I noticed it wasn’t there any longer!”
“You lost it?”
“That’s what I thought at first,” said Hal with a scowl.
“What do you mean it was what you thought at first?”
“I looked everywhere. On the short grass it’s not hard to spot something black like a revolver. I saw nothing! Zilch!”
“But…” began Frank.
“But nothing,” said Hal. “The plain fact is, I haven’t got it any more… And I think that’s a bit screwy… Don’t you?”
Frank shrugged his shoulders.
“Couldn’t you have dropped it when you were looking for crabs?”
“I wasn’t wearing my jacket…”
“You probably lost it yesterday…”
“Nope. I had it this morning…”
Frank tossed a crab into the bucket of water.
“So what do you reckon?” he said.
“I reckon,” said Hal, “that it isn’t as far away as you might think. Somebody stole it from me.”
The Wicked Go to Hell Page 9