The Count of Eleven

by Ramsey Campbell

  "I'll get the keys," Laura said, and ran to the office while Jack waited for the bill. When he went inside the taverna to pay, the proprietor offered him a shot glass of raki from a plastic bottle that had once contained water. Jack knew about the drink—Greek moonshine—and drained the glass at a gulp. "Dutch courage," he told the proprietor, who assumed that was a toast and raised his own glass.

  Jack stood beneath the awning for a few moments, feeling the spirit burn down into his stomach and rise into his brain, then he sent himself towards the hotel. There was no point in wishing that the day would never end; he'd saved the holiday only by knowing what he would have to do. Suddenly anxious to be with Julia, he hurried to their room.

  She opened the door to him and retreated, towelling herself. Ghosts of her swimsuit emphasised her breasts and the bushy ginger division of her thighs. Her hair, sleek with water that dripped down her back, made him think of a wildcat's pelt. He heeled the door shut and put his arms around her and threw the towel on the bed, and was running his hands down her spine to her naked bottom when Laura knocked on the door. "Mummy, there's a cockroach in my room."

  "It's a good job it wasn't an insect that burgled our house,"

  Julia murmured, and called "Don't worry, Laura, it's twice as scared of you as you are of it."

  "Can't I come in?"

  Julia pressed her cheek against Jack's and her body against him. "What for?"

  "Just for a little rest. I won't be able to sleep for thinking that's in my room."

  Julia hugged Jack, then eased herself away from him. "You don't mind, do you? We'll be alone later."

  He gave her a last kiss, chasing her tongue with his, then turned away quickly not so quickly, he hoped, that she would wonder why. It was for the best, he thought as he opened the door; by the time Julia had gone to sleep Laura might well have been awake. "It was this big," Laura said.

  "If it was that big we should have caught it and had it stuffed." He stood back to let her in while Julia finished to welling herself. "Where's Daddy going to sleep?" Julia said.

  "You can have my bed, Laura. I'm going to read." He picked up the guidebook from Julia's bedside table and stepped onto the balcony, leaving the windows ajar.

  He took his time over leafing through the guidebook. They hadn't found time to walk down the Samarian Gorge; they'd never seen the rare flowers or the bearded vultures or the goats whose horns bent back. Perhaps one day, he thought, and told himself he mustn't try to plan for them. He examined the map that showed the Sea of Crete. As he'd noted on the way to Santorini, there were very few islands, and the whole of Britain could have been fitted into this sea. He gazed from the balcony at the glittering of the water, a message he understood now, and then he looked into the room.

  Julia and Laura were asleep. They didn't stir when he tiptoed in and found a pen in Julia's handbag. On the balcony he smoothed out the envelope addressed to Janys Day and tore off the back before stuffing the rest of it, together with the letter, into his shirt pocket. Gone to hire a boat from the next beach for a paddle, he wrote, and glanced at his watch: nearly three o'clock. Back by 4.30, he wrote, and bit his lip and rubbed the corners of his eyes hard. He drew eleven kisses and turned to the window again, but had difficulty seeing until he wiped his eyes with one forefinger and thumb. Then the heat dried his eyes and the sight of Julia and Laura gave him strength.

  It was only right that they'd crowded him out, he thought; they didn't need him. Eleven was the number of a team a winning team and Julia and Laura added up to that without him. His worst mistake had been to think that the Count had won Julia her new job. It showed how much Jack underrated her that he hadn't realised she had achieved that herself.

  He slipped the keys with the clown's head out of his pocket and crept into the room. Placing the guidebook on the otherwise bare table near the window, he laid the note on top of the book and weighed it down with the clown's head. As he stood between the beds he felt as if he was already nothing more than his shadow on the wall. He knelt between the beds and kissed Julia's forehead, then Laura's. "Mum," Julia said, and Laura greeted him with almost the same sleepy contented sound. Once he was certain they were still asleep he stood up carefully. "Look after each other," he whispered, and tiptoeing out of the room, inched the door shut.

  He felt unexpectedly exhilarated as he went down the sunlit steps. There was something to be said for being able to see the future so clearly. He tore the letter and the remains of the envelope into small pieces and dropped the fragments in a waste-paper basket beside the reception counter. "Just going to hire a boat for an hour," he told the receptionist, and pointed along the coast towards the next beach.

  A road closed by bollards led in that direction. Five minutes' walk brought Jack to the public beach. A man and a woman were splashing and ducking each other a few hundred yards out from the edge of the waves, but the beach was deserted apart from a bearded Greek on a canvas chair beneath a wide umbrella next to several canoes. He gestured at the sun with one thick calloused hand and set his face in an advisory grimace when Jack held out the hire fee, then he shrugged and accepted the money. "One hour," he said.

  The canoes were made of moulded plastic. Near the back of each was a flat ridge for sitting on, flanked by pedals that were no more than U-shaped pieces of metal. Each boat had a number and yes, Jack saw, one was number 13, the digits and the red plastic dulled by sea and sun. He cradled it in his arms and staggered across the pebbles and sand to drop it in the water, almost falling on top of it. The man and woman splashed inshore towards him, competing to see who could drench the other worst. They were the couple from Birmingham.

  When they recognised him they finished their game with one last defiant splash each and then seemed to be trying to pretend that he couldn't have caught them at anything so undignified. As they paddled towards him Jack sat on the boat, which immediately touched bottom and tilted to one side, nearly throwing him off. "More awkwardness between my legs," he said.

  "I beg yours?" the woman demanded in a shocked shrill voice, and her companion emitted a sound halfway between "What?" and a protracted splutter. It would be just like Jack Awkward to be foiled at the eleventh hour by a punch-up. The owner of the boats was shouting "Go out, go out' and flapping his hands at the canoe, and Jack floundered off it in order to push it away from the shore. "Water," he mumbled, "that's what we need."

  "What are you asking for now?" the Birmingham man growled.

  Jack straddled the canoe and lifted his feet onto it, and found that it floated. "Just needed pushing deeper," he told the Laura, who looked as if she suspected him of innuendo. "Feets, don't fail me now," he said.

  "What did you just ask my wife?"

  "I was talking to my feet, not her. Not that I'm suggesting there's any similarity." Jack shoved at the pedals with the heels of his sandals, which skidded off the metal. "I was telling them not to let me down, like that tanned gentleman used to."

  "Eh?" the man said, a sound like the Birmingham accent reduced to its essence, and stared at the owner of the boats as if Jack was referring to him.

  "The actor. The black. You should know, you're fond of films." Jack managed not to panic. He exerted a more gradual pressure on the pedals, and the canoe glided between the couple. "Feets, don't faaaiiil me now," Jack cried to demonstrate what he'd meant, and sailed out from the beach.

  In a few strokes of the pedals he established a rhythm. He passed the caves to which Julia and Laura had swum, where the reflections of ripples lapped the shadowy ceiling, and then the hotel came into view. Suppose Julia were to step onto the balcony? Even at that distance she might recognise him, in which case she would try and call him back out of the sunlight which was beating on his skull. Suddenly he wanted her to appear wanted it so much that he forced himself to face away from the hotel and keep paddling until he thought it was safe to look back, until he'd thought so for minutes and hadn't looked. When at last he couldn't resist glancing over his shoulder he was hopi
ng that he would see Julia waving at him to return or swimming after him. But there was no sign of her, or the hotel, or the beach: nothing but the sea.

  He felt as though he'd been relieved of a burden or an obligation. He was experiencing a sadness so profound it was peaceful. All around him the sea glittered in the rhythm he was pedalling. He trailed his fingers through the water, which was cool, a refuge from the heat if that became unbearable. After a while he rested from pedalling, and found that the boat continued to drift away from the land. He would let it drift so long as nothing appeared anywhere on the enormous disc of water that surrounded him. He seemed to be attaining a state beyond action or thought. The sea whispered to him, the sun began to lower itself towards his baked cranium, and it was purely by chance that his gaze fell on his watch.

  The time was almost five o'clock. Julia and Laura would be awake. By now one or both of them would have been down to the beach to see what was keeping him. Perhaps they had already questioned the receptionist, and eventually they would speak to the owner of the boat and no doubt to the Birmingham couple. At some point they would contact the police. He thought Julia would be the first to understand that he wasn't coming back, but in time Laura would have to ask. Beyond that he couldn't think.

  The alternative was even less endurable that they would discover who he was. Even if he escaped the notice of the police, he was sure that Jack Awkward couldn't fool his family for the rest of his life. There might be nothing other than himself to betray him, but that would be enough. The panic he'd experienced when the policeman had handled the briefcase was aching to be revived. During their first days in Crete it had nearly driven him out of hiding, and only knowing that he had to take the course he was taking now had assuaged it. Besides, more than panic was lying dormant in him. Despite his being almost certain that the Count's adventures hadn't affected their luck, if he went home the Count would feel compelled to make sure. The prospect sent a shiver through him, which he translated into a push at the pedals which sped him towards the receding horizon.

  After a few minutes he let the canoe drift again. The sun was at his back, which meant he was continuing to leave Crete behind. His skull had begun to feel weightless. Soon he felt close to disembodiment, as though his body and the canoe no longer had anything to do with him. Perhaps he was already a ghost who was remembering the sea as he watched over Julia and Laura, because he could see them. They'd had to go home days later than they'd planned, the tour operator having taken pity on them, and the house was just the right size for the two of them. If they still wanted to move house the life insurance which was linked to the mortgage would have paid off the last of the debt, and if Mr. Hardy dared give Julia any trouble, he'd better keep looking behind him; the Count might be watching over the family too. They weren't troubled now, they were reminiscing. "Remember all the happy times in Crete," Julia was saying, and Laura said "I remember that day when we saw the fox with Dad."

  His gaze wavered to his wrist, and he managed to focus. His watch showed a quarter to six. Julia must be struggling not to panic. However vividly he might imagine that, the reality must be far worse. He yearned to go back to her, to ask how she could have thought for even a moment that he could ever leave her, and then he wondered how the police would search for him. Weren't they likely to use a helicopter? The possibility, and his need to place himself beyond giving in to his longing for her, made him disengage his feet from the pedals and, lifting himself from the seat, inch backwards along the canoe until he sensed that it was about to tip up. Before panic at the prospect could get the better of him, he leaned backwards and kicked the boat away from him with all his strength.

  The canoe shot away, bouncing out of the water, while he floated in the opposite direction. He was aware of the unseen depths below him, which for the moment were buoying him up. He was floating on his back, as Julia had often tried to teach him and as he'd succeeded in doing after burying the blow lamp but he didn't think he could sustain the position for long. Soon the depths would reach for him. Foreseeing his last moments had been easy, but living through them mightn't be. He made himself relax as if he was lying in bed, about to fall asleep, and closed his eyes, and began to count aloud slowly as the salt water lapped at his ears. When he reached eleven he would see if he had any luck left. Perhaps the Count could swim.