by Ted Bell
“Is this the first time this has happened? Close your eyes a second, I’m turning on the light. I need to look at your pupils.”
“Yes. I mean no, not the first time. Ouch. That’s bright.”
“It is, or it isn’t the first time?” she asked, examining him. His eyes, normally a hard blue, now looked breakable, like china.
“I’m not sure. A few days ago, just before I flew up to Washington, I was standing up on deck. Just looking at the stars. Thinking about you, actually. How much I missed you. And then, my breathing went all arsey-versey and my heart sort of went pounding off the rails and—”
“Is there a physician here on board the QEII?”
“Of course.”
“I want you to see the doctor first thing in the morning, Alex. No excuses.”
“Why? Hell, I just fainted, Vicky. I’m fine. See? I’m not even shaking anymore. This is just an elaborate ruse to come down and bother you. Check out which nightie you’re wearing. Good selection.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing serious. But you do need to see him. Get a complete blood workup done. He may want you to have an MRI.”
“It’s a she.”
“What?”
“The ship’s doctor. He’s a she.”
“Of course. Your nurse-uniform fetish. God, how stupid of me.”
“What do you think is wrong with me, Vicky? Brain tumor?”
“I think you’re fine, darling. I think you’ve had a panic attack.”
“Panic? Over what? I’ve never been happier.”
“I don’t know. You’re not really my patient, remember?”
“We’ll fix that.”
“You said you had a bad dream, Alex. Can you remember anything about it?”
“No. It’s a very bad dream.”
“Tell me about it.”
“May I have a sip of your water? Thank you. Well. It’s always the same at the beginning. I’m locked inside a small—I’ve never told anyone this before, Doc.”
“It’s all right, Alex. Tell me.”
“Can we just make love again instead? I’ll tell you first thing tomorrow.”
“No.”
“All right, all right. It’s frightfully mundane. I’m locked in a small room. A closet of some kind and—why am I talking about this? It’s only a stupid childish dream.”
“Dreams are important because they offer clues to our deepest feelings.”
“You sound just like a bad textbook, darling. ‘Our deepest feelings.’ Well, in my case this shouldn’t take long because deep down I’m a very shallow person.”
“Tell me the goddamn dream, darling.”
“Yes. Anyway, in my dream, I’m locked inside a small closet. It’s insufferably hot and foul-smelling. There’s a small hole in the door, and I can see into the next room.”
“What’s in the other room?”
“Nothing. But there’s a hole in its ceiling. And I know something bad is coming down through that hole. That’s the feeling I have. A bad thing is coming.”
“Is it always the same bad thing?”
“Yes. It’s—it’s a spider. It wants to kill me. It wants to kill everybody.”
“And you’re powerless to stop it?”
“Um, yes. I am.”
“Because of the locked door?”
“Because I’m so little. And the door. Yes, it’s locked. I’m hiding so the spider won’t find me.”
“How old are you in the dream?”
“I don’t know. Six or seven maybe.”
“What do you do? Where are your parents? Can’t they help you?”
“I don’t have any bloody parents. I never had any! I was raised by my grandfather!”
“Alex, calm down. It’s all right.”
“Sorry. There’s no one in the closet but me. I’m all alone. I’ve always been alone. I want to scream. But I can’t because then the spider will hear me and find me. After a while, I don’t care. I want to open my mouth and scream and scream but nothing comes out.”
“Alex, you’re shaking again. Are you all right?”
“No. I’m not all right. My dreams, my life. Sometimes I can’t tell the difference. I always seem to be somewhere on the road between Heaven and Hell, and I never know which way I’m headed.”
“Oh, Alex.”
“You know—I really don’t want to talk about this, Doc. Drop it, all right? I’m thirty-seven fucking years old. I managed, somehow, to make it this far through my life without a lot of psychobabbling doctors digging into my past, and I’m not bloody well about to start digging into it now.”
“Why are you so angry?”
“This is my life you’re poking around in. I’m a private person.”
“I’m just trying to help. You came to me, remember?”
“Right. My mistake. Sorry. I don’t need any bloody help. I’m sorry I disturbed you. I’ll go back to my bed now, thank you very much. Good night.”
“Alex, you need to talk to someone. Maybe not me, but someone.”
The door slammed and he was gone.
“Good night, Alex,” Vicky said, and turned out the light.
She lay staring into the darkness for about ten minutes, arranging and rearranging her pillows. There was no possible way she could go back to sleep. She’d been in bed for the best part of forty-eight hours. She felt great. Mild concussion? Obvious misdiagnosis. Minor concussion, that was this doctor’s second opinion.
She flipped on the light, got up, and pulled on a pair of khaki shorts. Then the white T-shirt with the big black hawk that the captain had given her when she’d first come aboard. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She’d completely forgotten about the bandages around her head.
Pulling open a drawer, she grabbed the lovely Hermès scarf that Alex had found for her on New Bond Street in London. Dolphins and whales. She wrapped it around her head and went off in search of the nearest stairwell.
She hadn’t been on the yacht long, but she already knew where to find Ambrose. She knew his habits well enough to know that right now, he was sitting out on deck under the stars, probably at the business end of a vintage cognac. It was Ambrose, after all, who’d introduced her to Alex in London. There’d been a dinner dance at the home of the American ambassador. Vicky was a guest there because the current ambassador to the Court of St. James, Patrick Brickhouse Kelly, and his wife had been great friends of her father’s.
And, besides, she had a new children’s book out called The Whirl-o-Drome that had won all sorts of English literary prizes and was all the rage in London. She’d found herself invited to countless dinner parties because of it.
Alex was the guest of honor that evening, and she’d been seated next to him. He was devastatingly good-looking, and she was sure this seating had been carefully arranged. When the beautiful man proceeded to ignore her all through the first course, she’d turned once more to the charming older man on her left, Ambrose Congreve, and asked if he knew why the rude guest on her right was ignoring her. He said he happened to be the man’s closest friend and would be happy to assist.
He scribbled something on the back of his engraved place card, and handed it to Vicky. It was folded and said “Alex Hawke” on the outside. She tapped the rude man on his shoulder and handed it to him. He read it, looked pale, and then said to Vicky, “Excuse me, I’m a dreadful bore. But I would be twice honored if you would do me the singular honor of the next dance.”
Ambrose would never tell her what he’d written on the place card. But when she’d turned and asked the gorgeous man if “twice honored” meant two dances, well, that was the beginning of everything.
In the event, the three of them spent the next two weeks in a merry whirlwind of pub crawls, parties, and weekend trips to lovely old country houses. She and Alex spent the last weekend alone at his rambling home, Hawke’s Lair, deep in the Cotswolds. They had, of course, fallen deeply in love by then. And Ambrose had become a frequent companion as well.
So she knew Ambrose’s nocturnal habits. Now, he’d most likely be up on the topmost deck in the open stern lounge. It was his favorite haunt and he’d nicknamed it the Fantail Club. He’d be smoking his pipe and having his Hine cognac, which is exactly what she wanted at the moment.
She emerged into the cool night air. The stars were so bright she wished she’d brought sunglasses. Seated at the rounded banquette in the curvature of the stern were two familiar silhouettes. Their heads were bowed together, deep in conversation, and neither saw or heard her barefoot approach.
She bent and kissed the nearly bare pate.
“Ah, the very lovely Doctor Victoria Sweet!” Ambrose said, standing up. “Up for a midnight stroll round the decks, no doubt? The sharp sea air? Smashing idea!”
“I couldn’t sleep a wink,” Vicky said. “Hello, Ambrose. Hello, Stoke.”
“Evenin’, Doc,” Stoke said. “Sit down, girl. We’ve got us a fine night goin’ up here. Hell, you sit up here long enough, you bound to see meteors, comets, sputniks, and at least three or four shooting stars. Leastways Ambrose sees ’em, but then he’s on his fourth star and his fifth brandy.”
“I don’t want to sit,” Vicky said. “I feel lucky to be alive. I want to have some fun. Go somewhere and dance by the light of the moon. Isn’t there someplace where a girl could get you two to dance and buy me a seriously good rum drink?”
“Staniel Cay Yacht Club fits that description,” Ambrose said. “Amen Lillywhite, the barman there, serves a notable concoction called the Suffering Bastard, which I’ve found to be extremely serious.”
“Let’s go, then!” Vicky said. “How do we get there?”
“Ain’t far. See all them Christmas lights hanging in the trees on that island over there? Only a couple of miles. We could swim it,” Stokely said. “But Mr. Congreve, he old-fashioned. He likes to take the launch.”
“Can we go, Ambrose? Will you and Stoke escort me?”
“Of course, my dear, we would be delighted. Stokely, would you please ring down to Brian at the launch deck and arrange a transfer?”
“It’s all happening as we speak,” Stoke said.
“Should we see if Alex would like to join us?” Ambrose said.
“Yes, of course,” Vicky said. “Might cheer him up. He’s having an awful night.”
“Ah. A bad night,” Ambrose said, looking at her. “Bad dreams, no doubt.” Vicky nodded.
“That old joint going to be jumping long about now,” Stoke said. “There’s a junkanoo on tonight. You listen very carefully, you can almost hear the music floating over the water.”
“Junkanoo? What’s that?” Vicky asked.
“Junkanoo’s where a cat can get so rum-brained his eyes and his brains stop communicating to each other and the cat don’t know half how ugly the person he dancing with is,” Stoke said, getting up and going over to the intercom phone. “That’s junkanoo,” he said over his shoulder. “Might cheer us all up. I’ll go arrange the launch.”
“Sounds pretty good to me, Stoke,” Vicky called after him.
33
“Tell me about Alex’s bad night,” Congreve said quietly, once he and Vicky were alone. Stokely had gone below to arrange the launch and they were still sitting under the stars.
And she did.
“You say ‘panic attacks,’” Ambrose asked, concern furrowing his brow. “How many?”
“I’d say this is his second or third,” Vicky said. “He passed out tonight. Not good. I’m hoping they are panic attacks, Ambrose. We could be looking at something serious.”
“How serious?”
“If I had to hazard a guess, epilepsy. Possibly meningitis. Worst-case scenario, a cranial tumor. I want him to get a complete blood workup tomorrow.”
“He seems in perfect health.”
“Seems being the operative word given his symptoms.”
“Stick with panic attacks a moment,” Congreve said. “Alex was in these islands once before. When he was a very small boy. A terrible thing happened. His parents were murdered in cold blood.”
“Good God. He’s always been so circular and oblique about his childhood. I just assumed he’d been adopted and didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t ever push it.”
Ambrose looked at her closely and made a decision. Discretion here was pointless. She was a doctor. And Alex was in love with her.
“It’s worse, Victoria. Alex was an eyewitness to the murders. He has buried this horror successfully for most of his life. I think returning here, to the exact place where it happened, is bringing the submerged images floating to the surface.”
“How horrible.”
“Unimaginable.”
“All I want to do is help him, Ambrose,” Vicky said.
“That’s all any of us want to do, dear girl. You can perhaps bring some of your professional gifts to bear. I know that some of your work involves children with problems. I am certainly trying to utilize my own experience.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, my dear, that I’ve been trying to solve these blasted murders for nearly three decades. On my own, of course. The case was consigned to the Yard’s dead file long ago. Sometime in the early eighties.”
“Does Alex know what you’re doing?”
“On some level, perhaps. We’ve never discussed it.”
“Do you think it’s wise? Proceeding without his knowledge, I mean?”
“It was the only way. Recently, I’ve made some considerable progress. If I begin to get close, really close, I’m going to tell him everything.”
“Be careful how you do that, please, Ambrose.”
Congreve gave her a look suggesting impertinence on her part.
“Sorry. That was very stupid of me. From what I’ve seen you are the very soul of delicacy and discretion. Shall I go fetch Alex and we’ll all go to the junkanoo?”
“By all means, dear girl, by all means!” Ambrose said, and Vicky raced down the wide and gently curving set of steps that led to Alex’s quarters in the stern.
As predicted, the Yacht Club was a seething organic mass of sweating, writhing bodies. Flaming torches mounted high on the walls painted the intertwined mass below with flickering yellows, blacks, and oranges. On a small bandstand toward the rear, a trio of dreadlocked Rastafarians was deep into some vintage Marley.
The atmosphere was a potent admixture of sweat, heavy rhythm, and sweet-smelling ganja; the whole crowd looked explosive, as if you threw a match at them, the junkanoo might blow sky high.
Vicky and her two escorts fought their way to the bar and miraculously found three stools side-by-side. Alex, despite Vicky’s pleadings, had begged her to go on without him. He even asked her to keep an eye on Congreve lest his old chum be “overserved,” as sometimes happened. His mood seemed much improved, and Vicky finally relented, leaving him to a good night’s sleep.
A bare-chested bartender appeared and was introduced to her by Ambrose as Amen. It was instantly apparent to Vicky that Amen and Ambrose seemed to go way back. Ambrose ordered them two Suffering Bastards, and Stoke ordered himself a caffeine-free Diet Coke. The drinks arrived immediately and Vicky took a deep pull on the straw.
It was a potent elixir, a potion easily underestimated by Vicky, who, despite her self-diagnosis, was still suffering the aftereffects of the explosion.
Polishing off this delicious poison, she debated ordering another and quickly gave in. As Amen served her, Vicky surveyed the over-heated scene and said to no one in particular, “This place reeks of sex.”
Stoke laughed and said, “How would you know that, Doc? Little sleepy-time-down-South gal like you?”
She sipped deeply from the cocktail and regarded Stoke with laughing eyes.
“Just because I know what something smells like, doesn’t mean I know what it looks like.”
Stoke laughed again, and she noticed that a beautiful dark-skinned girl seemed to have appeared at Stokely’s side and he had his arm around her waist. She looke
d very soft and shy, and had a wonderful smile.
“This is Gloria,” Stoke said, and Vicky shook her hand. “We met this afternoon down by the beach. Girl was fishin’ and obviously didn’t know what she was doin’, so old Stoke, he gave her some professional fishin’ lessons. Gal was in serious need of instruction. Girl caught herself a fine fish after that. Big damn fish.”
“How big?” Vicky asked, smiling.
He held his hands about two feet apart and Gloria laughed.
“Is Stokely a friend of yours?” Gloria asked Vicky, with the tiniest bit of suspicion in her eyes.
“Shoot, he’s a friend of everybody’s,” Vicky said, sipping her drink. “But I’m pretty sure he likes you a whole lot better than the rest of us.” She giggled at that, which was odd because it wasn’t even slightly funny.
“I work here,” Gloria said to Vicky. “Tonight’s my night off, but if there’s anything you need, please let me know.”
“I know what I need,” Stoke said. “I need to go fishin’ in the moonlight!” Gloria laughed.
“You tink they bitin’ tonight, Mr. Jones?” Gloria said.
“I hope so,” Stoke said. “Long as they ain’t bitin’ too damn hard.”
Laughing, the two of them quickly disappeared into the crowd.
“How about a dance, Constable?” Vicky said to Ambrose, who was swirling his drink around his glass with his finger.
“I have the notion under serious consideration. I was thinking of perhaps climbing up onto the bar,” Ambrose said, “and demonstrating the traditional Highland Fling. Do you think that’s unwise?”
She didn’t get around to answering because a very handsome boy, blond and deeply tanned, held out his hand to her and asked her, with his eyes, to dance. She smiled apologetically at Ambrose and plunged into the throbbing tumult holding the boy’s hand. She must have danced far too long with the pretty little boat boy, because when he returned her to the bar, Ambrose had deserted his post.
She finally spotted him in a far corner of the room, dancing with a tall blonde. Because of the press of bodies, it would take an hour to get over there and ask him to take her home.