Before long I grew bored with watching the daylight claim the room. I got out of bed, had a quick wash and dressed. Finding the house quiet and Mather still in his room, I decided to get some fresh air and clear my head of the powerful and bizarre images left over from the dream. Although I was eager to record Mather’s story, he had said breakfast would be at eight o’clock, and I didn’t want to appear rude or ungrateful by disturbing him too early. My watch told me it was only ten minutes past seven.
I took pains to be quiet as I drew the large bolt across the top of the front door. Opening it, I was confronted by a great blanket of mist that lay close to the ground outside and gave the small clearing a strange, ethereal quality.
I walked some way from the house, wading through the mist. I was amazed at how thick it actually was. It swirled and parted as I made my way through the trees before emerging by the shore. The mist was thinner on the water, yet it hugged the surface for as far as I could see. I gazed across the lake and tried to spy the town and the dock, but the mist obscured them. I couldn’t see anything besides rocks, trees and water.
Gazing up at the sky, I fell into a kind of daze, hypnotized by the passing of the clouds. With some effort I wrenched my attention away and looked for traces of the boat I’d destroyed the day before. There was nothing, not even one piece of wood bobbing through the fog or lying on the shore. I wondered where Mather’s boat might be. I guessed it was sheltered somewhere, perhaps in a boathouse, where it would be safe from storms and unable to drift away. As there was still plenty of time before breakfast, I decided to take a further look around.
I returned to the house then walked past it to the left, where I found a rough footpath heading into the trees. I could feel the air getting warmer and saw that the mist around my ankles was already thinning. I had a good feeling that the day would turn out to be brighter and calmer than the one before, and I wished my journey from London had been delayed by a day. At least then I might have had a boat to give back to the harbour master.
Although the footpath was generally unobstructed, I still had to push my way through branches and bushes in order to make progress. There was a wonderful floral smell, and the silence that pervaded the whole area was soothing.
The path zigzagged through the trees until it opened out into another, smaller clearing. To the left was a large pile of rocks, beyond which was a wide open view of the lake. I walked over and saw that a rough dirt slope ran down to a small sandy beach. Almost hidden amongst overhanging branches from the trees above was a shed. It was green, but the paint had faded and flaked from years in the sun. I approached it for a closer inspection.
The shed had been constructed, rather hastily by the look of it, from vertical planks of wood. The door was padlocked, but through a thin gap between two of the planks I was able to get a glimpse of the interior. Shafts of light penetrated inside, revealing a large blue plastic sheet covering what I assumed was a boat. On impulse, I tried pulling the padlock apart, but it wouldn’t budge. The lock, unlike the shed, was designed to withstand the rigours of nature.
As I turned from the shed and began to stroll along the small beach, I heard a sound like a door slamming somewhere far off. Mather must have become aware of my absence and was now out looking for me.
I headed back to the house, thinking as I did so that living on the island might not be so bad after all. In summer the lake must be beautiful. I walked briskly, enjoying the feel of the early morning sun on my face. Once back in the clearing, I caught a glimpse of Mather as he disappeared through the trees towards the other beach. I followed, and found him in a state of bewilderment, pacing up and down the sand, squinting and scanning the horizon. I stood for a while and watched as he went a few paces into the water, soaking his shoes and socks.
‘Mr Mather,’ I called, feeling it was time to put an end to his agitation.
He turned, and though he was startled by the sound of my voice, his relief was immediate. A smile lit up his face and he advanced towards me, apparently unaware of the water he was splashing onto his trousers. ‘Thank goodness,’ he said, his eyes wide open, making his expression all the more odd. ‘For a minute I was . . . I thought I’d lost you.’
‘No, no. I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep so I decided to go for a walk.’
Mather paused a moment, as though examining my face for evidence of something. ‘I’m sorry there’s so little to see here.’ He looked down at his legs, noticing for the first time that his ankles were underwater. ‘Oh dear, oh dear. Look at me.’ He hopped about comically until he was back on the sand.
‘I really am sorry to have worried you,’ I said.
‘That’s no problem. How . . . how far did you get?’
We started walking back up the bank to the trees, Mather shaking his drenched trousers in vain.
‘Just to the beach on the other side of the island. The one with the shed.’
‘Ah, the boathouse.’ There was a nervousness in his voice that confused me. I hadn’t been trying to leave the island. It may simply have been my safety he’d been concerned about, but he’d still seemed a little over-anxious about my whereabouts. ‘I keep it locked,’ he said, matter-of-factly.
‘You’re not worried about the boat being stolen though, are you? I had the impression that you didn’t have many visitors.’
‘No, I don’t. It’s just that’ – he smiled a little in embarrassment – ‘I have a tendency to be rather obsessive about security. I know it’s silly, being so isolated, but, well, I can’t help it. If the boat did disappear then I’d—’
‘Don’t worry, I understand. And you’ve no need to worry about me taking off with it.’
‘No, of course not. I wasn’t implying that – I suppose I get anxious too easily.’ He laughed. ‘Please ignore me – think no more of it.’
Mather opened the front door and we went back into the house.
‘Why don’t you take a seat in the living room while I make us some breakfast?’ he said, trailing his words behind him as he left the room.
‘OK,’ I replied, hoping we would get to the matter in hand soon. ‘Thank you. I hope it will be all right to get stuck into the story in a little while. I really should be getting back to work as soon as possible.’
‘I perfectly understand,’ came the reply from the kitchen. ‘And I do apologize for detaining you. Blasted weather! I assure you it will be a story worth waiting for though. The Lady will quite take your breath away.’ I presumed by ‘the Lady’ he meant the mosquito, but it seemed an odd choice of words.
‘Excellent,’ I replied, though Mather may have been out of earshot. I felt a little uneasy being left there on my own, not really knowing what to do with myself. Unable to sit still, I left the living room and crossed the hall to the kitchen.
This was also at the front of the house, its window looking out onto the clearing. It wasn’t as big as I had expected, but since Mather lived on his own, I guessed it was more than adequate. There was, as I had expected, a gas cooker, but there were also a number of electrical appliances – a refrigerator, kettle and toaster. Mather stood with his back to me, absorbed in thought.
‘So where’s the generator?’ I asked, startling him for the second time that morning.
He scratched his forehead and nodded towards the back of the building. ‘The previous owner had it installed inside a sound-proofed hut behind the house. It’s a fairly small petrol-powered model. Thankfully I don’t need to go in there and replace the fuel very often. I use little electricity really, but God forbid it should ever break down.’
‘Yes, that must be quite a scary thought. So are there any other buildings on the island?’ I asked as he filled the kettle with water. He set it on its plastic cradle and pressed the switch, then turned to me with a look that implied he didn’t welcome my curiosity.
‘Sorry if I’m being nosy,’ I said. ‘It comes with the job, I’m afraid.’
Mather chuckled at this. ‘Not at all. I should
have been prepared for it.’ He opened the breadbin and took out a sliced loaf. ‘No, this is the only building on the island.’ I wondered how often he went to the mainland for food. He must have made frequent trips, if he used bread and fresh foods rather than tinned comestibles. Either that or he arranged to have his groceries delivered. He took out four thin slices of bread and put them into the toaster.
‘You’ll love the Lady. I really can’t wait for you to see her.’
‘Yes, I’m looking forward to it.’ I wasn’t quite sure if I meant this or not. I still didn’t know if Mather was telling the truth, or whether his story about this mosquito being the only one of its kind was a pack of lies. He turned from the toaster and took some plates out of the cupboard above the sink.
‘So, Mr Reeves . . . how are you with mosquitoes?’
‘Sorry?’
‘What do you know of them?’
‘Oh, not a great deal really. Only that they never leave me alone when I’m on holiday. I pulled a huge one off my leg last year in Jamaica. Stamped on it. I don’t like killing things but then he’d only have tried to get me again, wouldn’t he?’
‘She,’ Mather said.
‘Pardon?’
‘She.’ He left the word in the air while I stood in the doorway feeling slightly puzzled. He dropped a couple of teabags into a faded brown teapot and said, ‘She would have tried again, not he. Only the female mosquito bites people.’
‘Oh, I see.’ I watched Mather take the kettle and pour the boiling water into the pot. ‘So the males don’t bother people?’
‘Well,’ Mather began, putting the kettle back in its cradle. His expression was serious, but I sensed he was enjoying the informal tutorial. ‘There are cases of males biting people, but it’s a very rare occurrence. They’re probably just . . . confused.’
‘Confused? You mean, they thought they were girls?’
Mather gave me an odd look, clearly unappreciative of my stab at humour. ‘Well, not quite. They just made a mistake, that’s all. It happens.’ He sounded a little frustrated with the direction the conversation was taking. ‘Males feed on vegetation, you see. Females do the same, but they need to ingest blood because the protein it contains facilitates egg production.’
‘I see. So it’s more for breeding purposes than for sustenance?’
‘That’s right. The blood meal is purely to aid reproduction.’
‘So I squished a lady. How rude of me.’
‘Indeed.’ Mather placed cups and plates on a large tray. ‘Would you mind giving me a hand?’
‘Of course not.’
He added a large plate of toast, some butter and jam, and a couple of napkins. ‘I’ll bring the rest in,’ he said.
‘Right.’ I turned and left the kitchen, taking the tray into the living room, where I set it down on the small table by an armchair. Mather followed shortly with the tea. It was only then that I realized how hungry I was. Sitting down in one of the armchairs, I set about filling my stomach.
The birds were still singing in the trees outside as I ate the toast, pausing only to wash it down with gulps of tea. Once more I was struck with the feeling that I might have had a wasted journey. I was keen to conclude my business on the island and get started on the journey back to London. I did, after all, have a job to get back to. Nevertheless, I decided to delay a while longer before saying something that might sound rude. Sitting back in the chair with my tea, I waited for him to resume the conversation. He had the detached look that had been so common amongst my lecturers at university. I guess he too believed that a speech should be thought through as much as possible in advance, instead of being delivered unprepared. Only when he had finished his first piece of toast did he continue.
‘You see, Mr Reeves, the male mosquito is of no real interest to entomologists,’ he began, cleaning his teeth with his tongue. ‘He is little more than a drone. Once fertilization has taken place, he’s out of the picture. He can do what he likes until he finally expires. It is the female that really matters.’
‘I see.’
‘She is the one who penetrates us – violates us, if you like.’ He grinned.
‘Right. So tell me a little about malaria,’ I said, trying to get to the point of my visit.
‘Malaria?’ He took a sip of tea, eyeing me curiously.
‘Yes. How does a mosquito pass it on? Where does it get it from in the first place?’
Mather looked through the window into the distance to my left. He broke a piece of toast off his second slice and put it in his mouth. He was clearly relishing a perhaps rare opportunity to educate another on his favourite subject.
‘A lot of people wrongly assume,’ he said, still chewing, ‘that the mosquito somehow introduced malaria to the world and proceeded to spread it from human to human like some flying poisoned needle.’
A plane passed overhead, temporarily breaking my host’s narrative. Perhaps the isolation of the island had already got to me, as the sound of the plane seemed like a reassuring connection to the outside world. Mather waited until the sound had gone altogether.
‘You see, the mosquito is a disease vector. It doesn’t create the disease, it only carries it. After ingesting the blood of an infected person, it will fly off and unknowingly incubate the malaria parasite until it feeds on another human, passing it into their bloodstream, where it multiplies and attacks. Malaria isn’t something mosquitoes are born with, you see; they have to feed on someone infected with it. It’s the same with yellow fever, dengue and the West Nile virus. The mosquito is extremely proficient at disease transmission, even though it’s completely unaware of what’s going on.’
‘We’re lucky to still be here then,’ I said.
‘Hmm.’ Mather considered this briefly. ‘Well, possibly. You have to bear in mind that there are a lot of factors that affect a certain species or a certain disease. If there were, say, a thousand times more mosquitoes in the world than there are now, they might spend too much of their time attacking each other over territory to be bothered with us. If they didn’t destroy themselves, they might end up wiping out the diseases they carry by spreading them too thin. Perhaps the more a disease is spread, the less potent it is, and the more resistant we become. But’ – he chuckled – ‘it’s all guesswork, I’m afraid. I’m no expert on tropical diseases, I’m just theorizing. Although, everything in nature is exhaustible. Nothing is infinite if you look far enough down the timeline. If a certain disease became more widespread, there’s a chance that the human race could become more resistant to it, and the symptoms, in time, could be less severe. But we’re not talking about the common cold. Malaria is pretty hostile and it’s unlikely we’ll ever become resistant to it.’ He stopped, pondering what he’d said. ‘It’s a most interesting subject though. I’m sure someone’s written a book about it.’
Although it was nowhere near as interesting as the story I’d come to the island for, there was a chance I could use some of what Mather had said as the basis for an article, bolstered perhaps by information I might find on the Internet. Derek had told me to return with something. Perhaps a story about mosquitoes and mosquito theories would be a good enough substitute. Something rational and thought-provoking might even make a nice change for the magazine.
‘Excuse me a moment,’ Mather said, setting his cup down on the tray and rising to his feet. ‘I won’t be a second. Have you finished?’ He gestured towards my tea.
I drained the last of it, then gave him the cup. ‘Thanks. I’m not a big tea drinker, but that was very good.’
‘You’re welcome.’ He picked up the tray and left the room. I heard him put it down in the kitchen and run some water. A few minutes later there came the sound of footsteps in the corridor and what I guessed was the bathroom door closing.
While Mather was away, I took another look around the living room. Now that more daylight had been allowed in, it seemed bigger. I went over to the piles of books, crammed together on the shelves opposite the window. Som
e of them were very old; many were bound in a thick material, embossed in some cases with lettering and patterns. Some volumes seemed to be falling apart: loose pages were poking out from them. I picked up one of these editions for a closer look, careful not to cause any further damage, and realized that it wasn’t falling apart at all. The pages that stuck out in various places were actually from other books. Mather seemed to be using them as bookmarks. Why he would want to do such a thing was a mystery, unless the pages had been torn from a book he would otherwise have thrown away. Given the number of books he had though, it was hard to believe that Mather could be so destructive.
The book in my hands was an anatomical textbook called Body Ratio by the Reverend C. N. Tantica. There were countless pages from another book which must have been somewhat smaller, judging by the difference in page size, inserted at regular intervals. I opened the book to one of the marked pages and found a drawing that depicted a human liver. Checking a few of the other bookmarked pages, I found further diagrams of various organs. Mather had clearly studied the book in detail at some point, probably during his days as a medical student. It seemed to be well looked-after, being practically dust-free, unlike many of the other titles.
Turning from the bookcase, I noticed another of Mather’s framed silhouettes hanging to the left of the window. I don’t know why I hadn’t spotted it before, because it was striking. It must have been concealed in shadow the previous night, but now, in daylight, was hard to miss. Judging by the long feeding tube that extended from its head, it was a mosquito and was about the size of a small bird. Written beneath the finely crafted image in clear, elegant handwriting were the words:
Ganges Red
(Actual Size)
‘Big, isn’t she?’ Mather said from the doorway.
I jumped in surprise. ‘Yes, it certainly is.’ I found it hard to tear my attention away from the picture. ‘It’s not actually that big though, is it?’
‘Oh yes, indeed. And if you’ll follow me, I’ll prove it.’ He turned and walked off down the corridor. With some trepidation, but also a hope that I might finally get to see something of interest, I followed.
The Hand of the Devil Page 5