He felt immediately conspicuous, dressed as he was in the same khaki trousers and ratty sweater and worn gum-bottomed shoes that he wore to putter around the garden at home. He was overdressed. The most anyone on the beach was wearing was a thin strip of fabric over their fork, if fork was the right word, and the majority were not wearing even that. Most were nude, scattered in clusters here and there on the beach, and in the few moments he looked out over them none of them moved, as if the sun had reduced them to a sort of paralysis.
“Please?” said a voice behind him, in a thick guttural accent. Russian, maybe.
He turned to see a tall, bronzed man who was completely bald and completely nude, greased from head to toe with some sort of oil. A gold watch glinted on his wrist. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of goggles with dark, protective lenses.
“I seem to have gotten lost,” said Hovell. It was disconcerting, he realized, to talk to a man naked except for watch and goggles. He felt as if some sort of rule of etiquette was being violated, but wasn’t sure whether he or the bronzed man was the one violating it.
“This you can say,” said the bronzed man, crossing his arms. “This they all say.”
“But it’s true,” protested Hovell.
“If you care to have your look, we shall have our look too,” the man said, and reached out to take hold of Hovell’s sweater.
Hovell recoiled, stepping rapidly backward. For a moment the man held on tight and then he suddenly let go. Hovell stumbled and almost went down in the sand. He rushed quickly away, the giddy laughter of the bronzed man ringing loud behind him.
###
It was nearly dark by the time he found the complex again, which revealed itself to him just at the moment when he’d finally given up looking for it. The gate was still locked and though he rang the buzzer the concierge never came to open it. He circled the complex until he found the place he had climbed over and climbed back in that way. It was more difficult coming back in than going out, and he tore open the knee of his trousers.
In the twilight he crossed the courtyard. The same couple, or a couple very much like them, were there once again tonight, walking arm in arm, heads inclined toward one another, and he thought again of the resemblance of the middle-aged man to himself and of the younger woman to Miss Pickaver. He was tempted to approach them, and indeed had started towards them. But as he came closer he realized that something was happening between them, that what he had taken to be a genial arm-in-arm was the man holding the woman’s arm so tightly she couldn’t release it. He was pulling her forward, and the reason her head was inclined as it was was because it was hard for her to do otherwise. And yet, the woman did not cry out. Surely if she was in trouble, if she needed him, she would cry out.
Unsure, he drifted toward them anyway until, with a sudden burst of speed they darted away. He stayed there for a moment confused, looking after them, and then went inside. The concierge was there, waiting, and immediately began to wag his finger at him, but whether for climbing the fence or for some other reason, Hovell was at a loss to say. Hovell pushed past him and climbed the stairs.
By the time he reached his own window and was looking out of it, the couple had gone. There were however two men wearing what looked, in the growing darkness, like uniforms. Police perhaps, or people dressed to look like police. What did the police over here dress like anyway? He watched them walk in a unified step across the courtyard and enter his building.
The next hour he spent waiting for them to knock at his door. They did not knock, but knowing they could at any moment was enough to keep him agitated and upset. In his head he imagined what he would tell them about climbing the fence, about accidentally wandering onto the beach. He found his hands moving, gesticulating his innocence to the empty air. He tried for the first time to close the metal shutters over the window, to keep them from seeing him through the window, but though the mechanism made a humming sound the shutters did not come down. Eventually, he took a blanket and a pillow and locked himself in the bathroom to wait for morning. There had been no need to leave the apartment—why had he done it? He would not, he promised himself, leave the apartment again until Miss Pickaver returned.
4.
He was awoken by a narrow strip of light coming under the bathroom door and shining into his eye. He was sore all over from the hardness of the bathroom floor, from having to prop his feet on the bidet as he slept. No, in the light of day, it seemed foolish to have panicked. He hadn’t done anything wrong, there was no reason the police would have come for him. He had let his imagination run away from him.
But still, he did not leave the apartment. He moved from room to room, reading, looking idly out the window. He sampled more of the unfamiliar tins that Miss Pickaver had bought, and though he wasn’t fully taken by any of it, some of it was at least slightly better than edible. It was good to relax, he told himself. Before long, he would feel like himself again.
Twilight found him at the window watching for the couple, but tonight they were nowhere to be seen. Or, rather, now there was only the man, walking and pacing the courtyard all on his own, in a seemingly agitated state. Perhaps Hovell had started watching for them too late, after the woman had already gone in. Or perhaps the woman was elsewhere tonight. Or perhaps—but no, what other reasonable possibilities were there? No point letting his imagination run away with him.
He would read and then fall asleep, Hovell told himself. No late night for him. Not tonight. But instead he found himself still at the window, the lights of the apartment extinguished behind him so as to see better. How much time went by, he wasn’t sure. An hour maybe, or maybe more. And then, suddenly, he noticed again the shape on the balcony, the man there—he was almost sure now it was the man—visible in the moonlight and in contrast to the white metal of the balcony. Another watcher, much like himself, unable to sleep. But what was there to see at night?
And then the clouds shifted and he realized it was there again, on the paving stones of the courtyard: the large black shape, the heap or mound of something. One moment it hadn’t been and then now, suddenly, it was. What was it? He felt the hair rising on the back of his neck as his mind darted from terror to terror, offering each as a way to fill the mystery.
But no, it was ridiculous to think this way. He was letting his imagination run away with him again. There must be an explanation. If he went down, he’d find what it was.
He did not move from the window.
The figure on the balcony, he noticed, didn’t move either. It must be staring down at the same black heap, just like me. Unless, he suddenly realized with a start, it’s staring up at me.
It was as if the figure had taken this thought of his as its cue. He watched as it clambered onto the rail of the balcony and then, before Hovell could do anything or even cry out, it jumped.
###
He clattered his way down the stairs, heart pounding, and rushed past the closed concierge’s box and out into the courtyard. The body was nowhere to be seen, no human figure was sprawled on the pavement below the balcony. But wasn’t the fall enough to kill it? Or him, rather? Maybe he had crawled away.
He moved farther out into the courtyard and thought for a moment he’d glimpsed it, but no, what he saw was too big to be a human figure: it was instead a large, dark heap.
He almost turned and went back but he just couldn’t. Now, so close to it, he wanted to know.
He moved forward, wishing he had a tiny flashlight. When he came quite close, he could feel the warmth rising off it, and thought for a moment it was a compost heap or some other form of refuse, but then he came closer still and touched it and felt fur and realized it was a horse.
It was dead, or seemed to be. The body was still warm, but cooling rapidly. It must have been black, or a very dark brown, or he would have been able to see it better from above. But even close to it, even touching it, he had a hard time making it out clearly.
It wasn’t possible. It was immense in the darkness,
the biggest horse he had ever seen. Where had it come from? And what had the heap been on the earlier night? Surely it couldn’t have been the same dead horse on both nights.
But what about the man who had leapt from the window?
He pulled back his hand as if stung and stood up. There, near the door now, between him and the door, stood a figure, apparently a man. At first he thought it was the concierge, but when it began to move toward him with a stuttered, broken stride, he was no longer so sure. For a moment he hesitated, wanting to understand what was happening, to give it a logical explanation. This turned out to be his undoing.
5.
When Miss Pickaver returned she had seen four countries in four days, but since they were not new countries to her, not countries she had not seen before, they hardly counted. What did count was that she had seen them in company with the German gentleman that she used to know, and who had footed the bill. She would not tell Hovell about that—he wouldn’t be likely to understand, not in the way he should. But she would tell him about the four countries and what she had seen over the course of those four days. Or, to be honest—which she would not be—two days, since she and the German had for the first two days not left his room in town. After all, she had told herself at the time, she was a Miss, not a Mrs.: what she did with her leisure time was nobody’s business but her own.
The concierge greeted her with a torrent of French, and gestures she could not understand. She just shrugged and nodded until he either thought he’d gotten his point across or decided to give it up—with the French, how could you know what they were thinking?
Upstairs, she found a man in grubby overalls, a maintenance man of some sort, at the door of their apartment, nailing the 6 in 306 back in place, the right way up, so it no longer could be read as a 9. Inside, Hovell was at the same window he’d been at when she’d left, still staring out into that deserted little courtyard.
“Hello, darling,” she said. “Have a nice time?”
He grunted in reply, turned just long enough to give her a wan smile and pat her arm. Same old James, she thought. And then, suddenly, he did something that surprised her.
He turned fully toward her. “Shall we take a walk?” he asked, in a voice so confident it seemed hardly his own. “A turn arm in arm in the twilight?” And then he smiled in a way that seemed to her not like him at all. “Come on,” he said. “It’ll be fun. Nothing to be afraid of.”
He stood and put his arm around her and began tugging her toward the door.
D. P. Watt
HONEY MOON
Robert Galton looked over the car. It was a good twenty years old now, a Morris Traveller, and would have probably been lovely in its day. Now it could do with a complete overhaul, something his uncle claimed to have been doing these past few weeks in preparation for the honeymoon in Scotland. But Robert couldn’t really be picky; the loan of the car, and the cottage for them to stay in, was the best they could manage while they tried to do up the dilapidated house they’d got at bargain price in the centre of Derby. It was very kind of his uncle to have offered both things—as a wedding gift. His wife, Margaret, had encouraged him to accept this option, after he’d said he would pay for them to go to France and see Paris. She knew he couldn’t afford it—that could all come later, once they’d saved a little. Robert’s uncle, Tom, was the closest family either of them had now, and he’d been so generous, even helping with some of the other costs of the wedding. It would have been rude not to accept his offer.
“So, what do you think of her then,” Tom said, wiping his oily hands with a rag.
“Who… what?” Robert said, miles away.
“The car—come up a treat, ain’t she?” he said.
“Oh, god, sorry, I thought you meant Margaret for a minute,” Robert laughed.
“Oh, right,” Tom chuckled, nudging him in the arm. “But, she looked a treat an’ all yesterday. You’re gonna have a lovely time up at the cottage—nice, secluded little spot, if you know what I mean.”
“Yes, it’s going to be wonderful, thanks Tom,” Robert said, feeling his cheeks warming. He’d never been much good at being bawdy.
“I promised you—when your dad died—I’d do what I could, and this is the best I can muster at the moment,” he said, handing the keys to Robert. “She don’t go very fast, but she’ll get you there in one piece.”
Robert wasn’t so sure about the latter—but he’d never really been into cars and mechanical things. It was a black car, that had clearly been left out for some years and had gathered a crusting of green algae that Tom had done his best to remove. There was a nice wooden trim around the van section at the back of it, but one of the rear windows had been put out and a piece of board had been nailed over the inside to replace it.
Tom saw Robert looking a little puzzled at this.
“Sorry about that, Rob. Steve managed to put a spanner through it a few days ago while we were doing the exhaust and I didn’t have time to get more glass so I thought it best to put something in to keep the weather out,” he said.
Steve was Robert’s cousin and there had always been some jealousy on Steve’s part. Even about Margaret, who Steve had fancied for years. He’d got very drunk at the wedding reception but thankfully hadn’t said anything too terrible. He’d just fallen asleep in the toilets and had been taken home early. Robert wouldn’t have been surprised if Steve hadn’t done it deliberately, just to mark his territory a bit.
“It’s great, uncle Tom,” Robert smiled, getting into the car. “Thanks for all you’ve done for us.”
“Oh, think nothing of it. Anyway, you two lovebirds have a wonderful time, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Tom grinned.
Robert smiled awkwardly and drove away as quickly as he could, feeling his face now flushing a bright red.
###
Margaret had got everything packed in the hallway of their new home, where they were just living on the ground floor for now, while they did up the bedrooms and then they’d swap over. There were two suitcases, one for each of them and a lot of boxes filled with cooking utensils and basic foods. Tom had warned them that things were “a bit basic” up at the holiday cottage, near Stranraer, and so—knowing Tom—they’d erred on the side of “basic” meaning virtually nothing. The cottage had been inherited by the family from some distant relative with whom Robert’s father had spent summer holidays. When he died it passed to uncle Tom who used it to go on sea fishing trips.
Margaret and Robert were very excited about the honeymoon—their first proper holiday together, and Margaret was proving herself to be an excellent organiser.
They set off early the following morning as dawn was breaking, the little car just managing to nudge 60 on the flat. It was quite laden with stuff though and Robert just hoped it held together long enough to get them there and back.
As they headed up the empty M1 Robert’s thoughts turned to their married life together, unfurling before them like a blank map, filled with destinations and adventures as yet unimagined.
He was very nervous of their first night together. Margaret had been quite a traditionalist about sexual matters and had reserved their first “proper” encounter for the first night of their honeymoon. Robert was uncertain how it would all go. He was relatively inexperienced himself, having lost his virginity to a girl at school in his mid-teens and then only one further experience more recently, arranged by his friends on his stag night. That was with a woman from Soho. He’d been rather dazzled by all the neon lights and the endless drinks he’d been bought. That woman had been an education though and he hoped that Margaret wouldn’t be disappointed with some of the things he thought he’d learnt.
“Are we nearly at Moffat?” Margaret asked. She loved the name of the town, where they’d booked an evening’s bed and breakfast to break up the journey, and she said it in a funny voice, as though it were a strangely named foreigner.
“I’m afraid not, darling,” Robert said. “We’ve only been on the
road a couple of hours, it’s some way yet.”
Most of the journey was spent in silence, each with their own thoughts. Margaret wasn’t a great traveller and she said talking too much made her feel sick.
They arrived in the quaint little town mid-afternoon, for their little stopover. There wasn’t much to do and the guest house was small and rather run down. After a couple of drinks in the pub they decided to turn in for the night and set off early in the morning for the next part of the journey.
Margaret got into her nightdress in the little bathroom down the hall and Robert heard her scurrying back, in case someone saw her. She hurried into bed and turned out her side light. Robert lay a few moments wondering what to do. Was tonight their first night? Was she expecting it to happen now?
She had her back to him, curled up under the prickly sheets and blankets. He nuzzled up to her and nibbled kisses on the back of her neck. He slid his hand around towards her breasts but she stopped him with a gentle pat of her fingers.
“Now, now,” she said. “Not ’til tomorrow.”
He felt rather silly and slid back to his side of the bed.
The town was very quiet and he was used to a noisier street of terraced houses. That’s why he couldn’t sleep—well, that’s what he told himself anyway.
###
After salvaging what breakfast they could from the plate of yellowy grease they were served they headed on their way, passing through Dumfries, Castle Douglas, Newton Stewart—all of which Margaret commented would make lovely places to visit during their stay—and on to Stranraer, where they stopped to share a bag of chips and stand at the harbour, watching a ferry come in from Ireland.
Year's Best Weird Fiction, Volume Three Page 11