by Lex Lander
She peeked fearfully over the top of the sheet, cautious as a snail emerging from its shell.
‘You’ve got a gun,’ she observed.
‘Only a small one.’ Best to pass it off lightly. I perched on the edge of the bed, laid the gun beside me, finger-combed the disorder from my hair.
‘Is it real?’ she asked.
‘It shoots bullets, yes. Lots of people around here keep them for self-defence. Does it frighten you?’
‘It gave me the Jimmy Britts when I first saw it. Now I’m glad. It makes me feel safer.’ She moved her legs restlessly under the sheet. ‘Who do you think it was?’
‘A bad dream?’
She made a dismissive gesture. ‘No, how could it be? I was awake, I got out of bed. I heard at least two blokes down there, talking. They shone a light on my window.’
‘Did you actually see them?’
She shook her head crossly. ‘They must’ve run off when I yelled for you.’
‘Maybe you were hearing things in your sleep.’
‘Don’t be fucking stupid.’ Indignant now, she got out of bed and stomped off to the bathroom. She was wearing a pale blue T-shirt thing, covered with garish, abstract patterns in red and dark blue.
Water gurgled in the bathroom. She returned with a tooth glass full and stood before me while she consumed half the contents. A hiccup, then an accusing ‘You don’t believe me.’
A visit by prowler’s wasn’t out of the question. Burglaries were not unknown, even in low-crime Andorra. Reserve judgement, then.
‘Go back to bed,’ I said. ‘See how it looks in the morning. Daylight puts things in a different perspective.’
‘If you say so.’ She deposited the glass by the bed, crawled back under the sheets, stretching like a drowsy cat. ‘But it wasn’t a dream. They weren’t speaking English. Or French.’
‘We’ll talk about it tomorrow. I’ll leave your door open.’
‘Don’t forget that,’ she said, pointing at the Python.
I picked it up, feeling a bit ridiculous, as if I had over-reacted.
‘Good night, Freckles.’
‘Night, Alan.’
As I re-entered my room the towel fell off.
At breakfast next morning Lizzy, unexpectedly, was willing to concede that it might have been a dream after all.
‘Even you and that gun don’t seem real anymore.’ She tittered behind her toast. ‘Were you really in the nuddy?’
I squirmed. ‘Discussion of my nudity is hereby declared a no-go area.’
Breakfast was concluded in more or less orderly fashion. Afterwards, while Lizzy cleared away the dishes (it was Señora Sist’s day off), I went outside in the already thickening heat and around to the east face of the house where lay Lizzy’s bedroom. No matter what platitudes I had fed her, my built-in self-preservation meter would only stop ticking if I eliminated the alternative explanation, namely that the prowlers had been real.
No traces of interlopers on Lizzy’s bedroom’s side, not so much as a trampled cigarette butt. The ground was baked hard and the grass was struggling to survive, so brittle it crunched underfoot like frozen snow. Only the flower beds were kept moist, including the strip of soil between the gravel path that ran parallel to the house wall on three sides of the building. This section was planted by Maurice, my part-time gardener, with rosemary, alyssum, nasturtium, and every bloody flower known to man, all irrigated by an automatic sprinkler system.
I continued my survey, round to the north wall. My attention was caught by what looked like a single shoeprint in the flower bed. I crouched for a closer inspection. The shoeprint was of a heavily ribbed sole, as of a tennis shoe, and was pointing away from the wall, suggesting someone had been standing there. Next to it a clump of lavender had been flattened. By one or more other feet, presumably. Anyone standing there would have been invisible from Lizzy’s window.
Had Maurice come across such desecration he would surely have erased the print and tended the blooms. It was therefore very recent.
What price Lizzy’s bad dream now? I proceeded to do a sweep of the immediate area for other signs of trespass. When Lizzy hailed me from the terrace I was still at it.
‘Looking for treasure?’
‘No, a four-leaf clover,’ I quipped, already thinking about the precautions I needed to take for her safety.
‘It might be wise,’ I let drop casually, over morning coffee, ‘if you slept with your shutters fastened in future.’
Lizzy was instantly on the alert. ‘Because of a dream?’
Sometimes she was too sharp for her own good.
‘Because of peace of mind. Mine as well as yours.’
‘You really think I saw someone, don’t you?’ she threw at me. ‘Is that what you were searching for? Clues?’
I sidestepped the question. ‘The reason I want you to keep your shutters closed is to put a curb on that busy imagination of yours. Satisfied?’
She acceded with an ill-grace, and showed her annoyance (or disbelief) by whirling off to ‘bash the bones’. Lizzy-speak for playing the piano, at which we was more than merely competent.
The second precaution would be harder to justify, and would stretch my ingenuity and her credulity to the limit. The house was palpitating to the plinkety-plonk of the Bechstein when I locked myself in my den, the only room in the house barred to Lizzy. Not that it contained much that was of a secret or sensitive nature: a couple of handguns, a rack of hunting rifles, ammo for all of these. Also my private papers, including bank statements and shares certificates. On the desk a rather grainy photo of my parents, taken before I was born, and another of Julie, Willie and their girls, taken last year.
Otherwise just books, mostly comprising scruffy paperbacks unsuitable for public display, some unlovely ornaments, and an HP laptop computer I used for booking hotels, flights and suchlike. But it was for a hand gun that I came to my retreat. Not just any hand gun, a rather special revolver, made by Reck of West Germany. In profile similar to the Colt Python. Firing, not bullets, but what is best described as a mini-shotgun shell, a 9mm round that has the appearance of a blank cartridge case but contains, in addition to the explosive charge, some forty to fifty pieces of bird shot, each roughly 1.5mm in diameter. The ideal deterrent. Capable of inflicting pain, or in extremis disablement by blinding, yet not lethal. Into the cylinder of this nasty piece of work I loaded four cartridges, leaving the chamber under the hammer empty to prevent accidental discharge; the next chamber in line anti-clockwise, I loaded with a blank. This to allow both giver and receiver a last chance for reflection, before the second squeeze of the trigger and its consequences.
I introduced it to Lizzy during an afternoon stroll up the hill, following the goat trail towards the hamlet of Erts. We stopped walking while she examined the weapon. In her slender brown hands it was an obscenity.
‘Don’t touch the trigger,’ I cautioned. ‘It’s loaded.’
‘You said the bullets aren’t real.’
‘I said they can’t kill, which isn’t the same. But they can cause injury. Look.’ I demonstrated how to swing out the cylinder, indicated the empty chamber, extracted the blank round from the chamber next to it. Let her handle it while I explained how it differed from an ordinary bullet.
By then we were sitting side by side on a great grey slab of rock alongside the trail. I exchanged the blank for a cartouche à grenaille, as the shot-filled slugs are styled. She held it as if it were a loathsome insect.
‘I couldn’t deliberately blind someone,’ she said with a shudder. ‘Even a really bad person.’
‘Blinding is a last resort,’ I said patiently. ‘Shoot low. Aim for the legs, or the arms. It’s like being stung fifty times all at once. That’s all. Enough to hurt, not to maim.’
‘Ugh. How can you talk about it so bloody clinically? You make it sound like a scientific experiment.’
Emptying the shells onto the rock, I got her to hold the pistol and practice pulling the trigger
. She needed both hands, which was no bad thing, making for a steadier firing platform. Then I taught her how to cock the hammer for slower, more premeditated shooting.
It was hot up there on that bare, scorched hillside. I was in shorts and loose-fitting shirt, Lizzy in shorts and a white cotton shift with a bold NOW! emblazoned across the front, and still we sweated.
‘What shall I aim at?’ she asked, clasping the gun, her forefinger laid along the bottom of the chamber, well clear of the trigger. The way I was teaching her. ‘How about that Coke can?’ She pointed the gun barrel.
‘Sure,’ I said, mopping moisture from my eyes. ‘It’s only a blank anyway, remember.’
The first shot, being blank, served to condition her to the gun’s kickback and the noise. These cartridges go off with a bigger bang than the real thing. Birds erupted in clusters all along the slopes, setting up a bedlam of twitters and squawks.
‘My ears are ringing!’ Lizzy complained as the echoes of the gunshot ping-ponged across the valley.
‘Sorry, I should have brought ear protectors. It’ll go away in a few seconds.’ I re-arranged her hold on the pistol, settling the butt more snugly in her hand, hooking her left forefinger around the front of the trigger guard for greater stability. ‘Now, listen up. The next round isn’t a blank, so try and hit the can. Cock the hammer for the first shot, then just keep firing, slow and easy. And don’t yank the trigger back. Sque-e-eze. At this range you shouldn’t miss.’
And, by God, she didn’t. The range was about five yards, optimum for this gun. Four shots and with each of them the can skipped a foot or so.
‘Hey, this is fun,’ she exclaimed, while the air was still twittering with the resonance of her last shot.
We went to examine the can. It was in tatters. Many shots had passed clean through, others rattled around inside. I kicked it away, into a gully.
‘You shoot well,’ I said, genuinely impressed.
She made a pretence of blowing smoke from the muzzle, stuck the gun down the front of her shorts, and swaggered about, thumbs hooked in belt loops.
I said, ‘Don’t ever do that with a loaded gun.’
I took it from her and showed her how to eject the empty shell cases, catching them in my cupped palm.
‘We must do that again,’ she said as we moved on up the track, innocent ramblers once more. ‘Tell me, though, why do I need to learn to shoot? Can a gun make dreams go away?’
‘All right, no need to keep hammering it home. So it probably wasn’t a dream. Burglars, most likely.’
‘Hoo-bloody-ray, you’ve finally admitted it.’
Whatever the ambitions of last night’s visitors – simple theft, voyeurism, rape even?– having thwarted them once didn’t rule out a replay. Since I couldn’t keep Lizzy company twenty-four hours out of twenty-four, a measure of self-protection was required. The means and the know-how I had now provided. The will to use them was up to her.
‘New house rules. In future you keep your shutters locked when you’re in bed. Agreed?’
‘You told me already.’ Wearily.
I put my arm around her bony shoulders and it seemed natural that hers should encircle my waist. Like father and daughter. Sort of.
‘Anyhow,’ I said, ‘you’ll be off to school in a couple of weeks.’
‘Will I? I haven’t decided yet.’ She sighed and pushed back a strand of damp hair from her forehead. ‘I love being here, being with you. If I went away I’d be miserable.’
I let that go by me. I’d be miserable too. More than I dared to acknowledge publicly.
‘Let’s stay focused on the matter of your self-defence,’ I said, then we came to an abrupt halt as a large mottled brown bird did a vertical take-off from behind a clump of grass beside the path. So tightly drawn were my nerves that I made a reflexive grab for the gun in my pocket.
The bird, a fat partridge, wheeled away sunwards on fright-driven wings, uttering a liquid, whistling call.
‘Go on,’ Lizzy prompted. ‘About my self-defence?’
‘Yeah, right. All I ask is that you keep this gun in your bedside drawer. Remember, shot number one is harmless … just a big bang. It’s the rest that count …’
That night passed, free of incident. I lay awake for most of it, as taut as a violin string, waiting for a yell that never came. As the empty hours dragged by, my worries about Lizzy’s safety receded, were ousted by other worries. Notably my ever more ambivalent attitude towards her.
On the one hand she inspired in me the urge to cherish and protect. It was a non-sexual urge. Parental and entirely honourable. Rising above the temptations she daily dangled before me, by her scantily-dressed presence and teasing behaviour. Seesawing between the demure and the outrageously seductive. Far from innocent, she nevertheless evoked a sort of hands-off purity.
I was conscious of the trust implicit in my guardianship. It was a trust I didn’t take lightly. It was my honour that shackled me and made her inviolate, as much as her extreme youth. Thus out of my night of unrest came a resolve to behave impeccably and irreproachably. As Clair would expect. If carnal satisfaction was all I needed, other outlets were available, and after all Lizzy would soon be flying off to Paris. With her would fly temptation, if not longing.
‘I’ll really miss you,’ she had confessed again before going to bed.
Me too you, Freckles. My God, I will!
Lack of sleep made me irascible next morning.
‘Talk about getting out of bed the wrong side,’ Lizzy chirped, herself back to sunny side up. ‘You must have got in the wrong side as well.’
‘Grrr.’
Señora Sist breezed out onto the terrace, likewise infuriatingly cheerful, la-la-ing snippets of music from Carmen.
‘Quel beau matin!’ she cried, as she replenished my cup.
Later, Lizzy set up her easel on the terrace. She was working on a watercolour of the view towards the Bos residence.
‘Got a date with your girlfriend tonight?’ she enquired, all sweet know-nothing, without break in the rhythm of her brush strokes.
I left my chair to stand to inspect the fruits of her toils. As a modest connoisseur, sadly with no artistic talent of my own, I derived a vicarious pleasure from seeing the picture take shape.
I swung her round by her shoulder to face me. ‘Just for the record, girlfriend or no girlfriend, I like having you around.’
She swallowed, her eyes narrowed and probed mine, as if seeking a hidden meaning behind the sentiment.
‘In that case I might decide to stay.’
Never short of a comeback, that was Lizzy.
Twenty
Aside from Lucien and Madeleine, our only regular visitors were Maurice the gardener, and the mailman. Consequently, the day the vacationing couple invaded our little haven it was a major event.
Until then it had been a typical morning. Me on a sun bed on the terrace, skipping through a turgid biography of Lenin, Lizzy performing at the easel. Most days, after an hour or so of brush-wielding she would feel like a break and seek me out in search of amusement. Today was no different.
‘Come on, lazy!’ She pulled at my wrist and the sun bed slid several feet with me still aboard. ‘Ten lengths of the pool and the winner pays for a champagne supper tonight.’
My laugh was derisive. ‘Suppose you win?’
‘Easy. You lend me the money.’ She laughed back at me, gaily, even happily, then accelerated across the terrace, her tanned frame in fast, fluid motion, her hair a tawny backwash.
By the time I left the lounger she was in the water and had covered nearly half the length of the pool. She could swim like a porpoise and I had to work hard to get past her, which I did as we turned for our eighth length. She didn’t look at me as I passed. Her face was set with concentration; she expected to be beaten – that she could tolerate. The objective was to avoid humiliation.
I won by a few feet. The grin she flashed at me as I hauled her from the pool denoted her satisfaction with
the result. It was then I noticed that her navel had grown a piece of jewellery. First nose, now navel. Which part of her anatomy next?
‘You’re improving,’ I said.
‘Yeah. In a week or two I’ll beat you, just wait.’ She picked up her discarded towel. ‘I wish Mummy was here to see …’
Her face altered, the happiness draining away like water off sealskin. I drew her to me, giving comfort. This was a function I had performed often during our weeks together. She needed a lot of hugging. Commentary was secondary, a garnishing.
‘Oh, Alan,’ she whimpered into my chest, ‘I miss her so. I still miss my dad, too, even after all this time.’
‘Sure you do.’ She made me feel like crying for her. I stroked her hair and murmured sweet anythings that came into my head.
Her arms were clamped around my waist, her nose around my left armpit. Shivering.
‘You’re so nice to me.’ She looked up, and her eyes, damp, sparkling probed mine. ‘Much too nice for a spoiled brat like me.’
‘Don’t be a nong.’
She smiled at the Aussie vernacular, wiped her nose with a forearm. ‘I don’t deserve you, really I don’t.’ She blinked shyly, touched my cheek with timorous fingertips. ‘I …’ She broke off, looking past me and frowning. ‘Hey, we’ve got visitors.’
I turned. A green car of uncertain provenance was nosing into the drive. It crawled towards the semi-circular parking space, propelled by a stammering diesel engine. Andorra plates, male driver, female passenger. Strangers. Mentally I went onto Yellow Alert. Not because they looked suspicious or dangerous, just part of Warner’s survival kit. They parked tidily beside Señora Sist’s moped. The clattering ceased and the doors swung outwards simultaneously, like flippers.
‘Hello there,’ the man called up to us. ‘I hope we do not disturb you.’ He was of middle-height, thinning blond hair, with a vacuous sort of face.
I nodded neutrally. Looked from him to the woman: she had mid-brown hair carelessly done up in a bun, and was on the stocky side, with thick, muscular legs. Both she and the man wore shorts; hers were easily a size too small.