Eryn reclined on the leafy cliffs overlooking Rockham Bay. The low sun shattered the sea into a shimmering copper miasma, and the cool breeze carried a bouquet of salty pollen that blew her hair across her eyes.
For the first time since her days at school she was waiting for Boen. She’d had time to think about what he’d said and finally concluded that he’d been mistaken. Maybe he wasn’t lying or simply trying to gain her attention, but she couldn’t accept his allegations. It wasn’t that she thought the politics of their modest population were perfect - when her grandfather had overseen the safety of the community people had often lost their lives to ‘safeguard the population’, but that was a different era.
She couldn’t ignore though, that whether it be a lie, recreation or mistake, Boen seemed nervous and had been reluctant to share his thoughts outright. This in itself was strange. He normally didn’t care who heard his fictions and had, over the years, established the reputation of a fabulist wastrel. Yet he had shied away from Betty’s eavesdropping the previous morning and refused to talk to her around Baron later in the evening; there was something about his demeanour that spoke of an unshakable belief in what he said.
At midday she had seen him eating on the wall of the churchyard with his father, and had pulled him across the road so they could speak alone. He still wasn’t going to tell her in ear-shot of others though, and she insisted that they meet at sunset on the cliffs of Rockham Bay.
But where was he? Had it been anyone else, she could have waited in the sunshine without sparing it a thought, but Boen annoyed her with his sullen skulking and needless deceits, and she was hardly prepared to waste her evening for him. It was only her curiosity of his explanation and her feelings for Kelly that kept her waiting.
‘Sorry I’m late…’ Came a call from behind her. ‘Pa wouldn’t let me go until I’d finished taking in the...’
‘Well?’ She barked as he sat brusquely beside her. A dandelion burst and the seeds danced between them. She composed herself and said, more genially, ‘Sorry… Well?’
‘I couldn’t talk earlier. Your brother was looking at me like he was deciding which side of my face to cave in first.’
‘Ok, well, spit it out.’ Eryn said, finding it difficult to contain her impatience.
‘Right, well, on the morning Kelly died, pa and me were setting out earlier than usual. Pa had been up all night drinking with Kelly, and woke me up as soon as he got back. He was in a relatively good mood for once, until he noticed I’d forgotten one of the keys for the buoys. You know what he’s like, he clouted me and sent me back to Bull Point to fetch it before we set out. It was going to take a couple of hours so he was raging. Anyway, it must have been two-thirty when I left so it couldn’t have been later than half-three when I was passing Channel View. I heard a shout coming from his house and I guessed it must be Kelly, but I thought he was drunk and messing around with someone, you know how he was - he sort of said ‘oh, you bastard!’ in a way that made me laugh, like he’d been tricked or something. And then there was some banging around and it all went quiet.
‘I suppose I should have mentioned it before, but I just didn’t think. I mean, who gets murdered around here?
‘Anyway, I collected the key and then made my way back home, and when I was coming back by Channel View again someone comes steaming around the corner, fast as the wind – wearing a hooded coat and galoshes. I remember that because they made an odd smacking sound as he ran.’
‘Did you get a look at him?’
‘That’s the thing. The moon was behind him, so whoever it was, he got a bloody good look at me!’
‘He saw you?’
‘I was at the junction as he came round the bend and I stopped in surprise. From the moment he rounded the corner he clapped eyes on me.’
Eryn wasn’t sure how much of his account was dramatized, though she resolved to give him the benefit of the doubt.
She picked at some grass and looked at him. ‘You definitely think he was from outside?’
‘I don’t know anyone who owns a coat like that. And get this: I remember pa once said that they favour galoshes on Lundy rather than the boots we get here.’
Eryn looked across the glittering sea to the dark smudge of Lundy Island on the horizon. ‘So you think they were from Lundy?’
‘Could be, though I don’t know why they’d want to kill him, he was a good old boy, was Kelly.’
Eryn sighed in agreement and thought about the man she had loved with so much childish passion. In her early teens she deluded herself that he was in love with her also, that’s why he had remained a bachelor when he had so many admirers. As she grew older, however, she learnt of the informal nature of his relationships and decided that he was incapable of loving anyone other than himself, and certainly couldn’t bear the thought of marriage.
‘I don’t believe anyone around here would have killed him, everyone liked Kelly.’ She found herself whispering.
‘Some more than others, eh?’ He said.
She took it as an insult. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Come off it… It didn’t take Max Carrodos to figure you were in love with him. Remember when we stole that barrel of ale? We must have been, what, thirteen?’
Eryn couldn’t help but smile. ‘I’ve never been so sick in my life…’
‘You were wrecked! We all were… But I’ll never forget it. You kept on saying you were drowning your sorrows like some heartbroken cowboy…’ He considered that the reason was the same then as it was now and cleared his throat, ‘I think you’d had another argument with your pa, you were pretty beaten about in those days. You never talked about it though, you just poured more ale and talked about Kelly. You were furious with him because he was sleeping with Lucia.’ He smirked at the memory.
Eryn thought about denying it for a moment, and then turned to the sun. She continued smirking, her head tilted so the warmth was on her cheek. ‘…Bitch.’ She said idly, and snuffed a dry laugh.
Elysium Part One. Another Chance Page 10