His eyes closed and he tasted salt in his throat. He cast his head downwards and moaned quietly.
Why now, after so long?
The weight of the blanket over his shoulders drew him back.
'Drink,' Amy said, holding a thin silver flask under his nose.
The brandy loosened the salt inside and he relished the sudden inner warmth. He raised one arm and she joined him beneath the blanket.
'You okay?' she asked, snuggling close.
He nodded, but the shivering had not yet ceased.
'I brought your glasses over.'
He took them from her, put them on. The focused world was no more real.
When he spoke, his voice was shaky. 'It's happening again,' he said.
3
'Tomorrow?' he asked.
Amy shook her head. 'Daddy has guests - all day.' She rolled her eyes. 'I'm on duty.'
'Business?'
'Uh-huh. Potential investors from Lyon. He invited them for the weekend, but thank God they could only make it for Sunday. They fly back Monday afternoon, after they've visited the company. He's disappointed - he wanted to show off the island as well.'
Paul Sebire, Amy's father, was chief executive of Jacarte International, a powerful financial investment company based in the offshore island, itself a low-tax haven for those on the Continent as well as on the mainland. Although predominantly British, the island was physically closer to France.
'Pity,' Childes said.
'I'm sorry, Jon.' She leaned back into the car to kiss him, her hair, now tied back into a tail, twisting around her neck to brush against his chest.
He returned her kiss, relishing the smell of sea on her, tasting the salt on her lips.
'Doesn't he ever relax?' he asked.
'It is relaxation for him. I'd have swung you an invite, but I didn't think you'd enjoy yourself.'
'You know me so well.' He prepared to drive away. 'Give your father my love.'
She mock-scowled. 'I doubt he'll reciprocate. Jon, about earlier…'
'Thanks again for dragging me out.'
'I didn't mean that.'
'What I saw?'
She nodded. 'It's been so long.'
He looked straight ahead, but his gaze was inward. After a while, he replied, 'I never really thought it was over.'
'But almost three years. Why should it start again now?'
Childes shrugged. 'Maybe it's a freak. Could be it won't happen again. It may just have been my own imagination playing tricks.' He closed his eyes momentarily, knowing it wasn't, but unwilling to discuss it just then. Leaning across the steering wheel, he touched her neck. 'Hey, c'mon, stop looking so anxious. You have a good time tomorrow and I'll see you in school Monday. We'll talk more then.'
Amy took her hold-all from the back seat, Childes helping her lift it over. 'Will you call me tonight?'
'I thought you'd planned to mark papers.'
'I don't have much choice, with Sunday so busy. I'll have earned a few minutes break, though.'
He forced a light tone. 'Okay, Teach. Don't be too hard on the kids.'
'Depends on what they've written. I'm not sure which is more difficult: teaching them French or decent English. At least with computers your own machines can correct their mistakes.'
He huffed, smiling. 'I wish it were that simple.' He kissed her cheek once more before she straightened. The first raindrops stippled the windscreen.
'Take care, Jon,' she said, wanting to say more, needing to, but sensing his resistance. Getting to know Childes had taken a long, long time and even now she was aware there were places - dark places - inside him she would never reach. She wondered if his ex-wife had ever tried.
Amy watched the little black Mini pull away, frowning as she gave a single wave. She turned and hurried through the open iron gates, running down the short drive to the house before the rain began in earnest. Childes soon turned off the main highway, steering into the narrow lanes which spread through the island like veins from primary arteries, occasionally slowing and squeezing close to hedges and walls to ease past oncoming vehicles, whose drivers adopted the same tactics. He clutched the wheel too tightly, his knuckles white ridges, driving by reflex rather than consideration; his mind, now that he was alone, was preoccupied with other thoughts. By the time he reached the cottage he was trembling once more and the sour taste of bile was back in his throat.
He swung the Mini into the narrow opening before the old stone cottage, a patch he had cleared of weeds and brambles when he had first arrived, and switched off the engine. He left the bag containing his swimming gear in the car, jumping out and fumbling for the front-door key. The key resisted his first attempts to insert it in the lock. At last successful, he thrust open the door and rushed down the short corridor, just making it to the tiny bathroom as the bottom of his stomach rose like an express elevator. He retched over the toilet bowl, shedding, it seemed, only a small portion of the substance clogging his insides. He blew his nose on tissue, flushing the toilet and watching the soft paper swirl round until it was gulped away. Removing his brown-rimmed glasses, he washed his face in cold water, keeping his hands over his eyes for several moments, cooling them.
Childes regarded himself in the cabinet mirror as he dried his face and his reflection was pallid; he wasn't sure if his own imagination was creating the shadows under his eyes. Stretching his fingers before him, he tried to keep them still; he couldn't.
Childes replaced his glasses and went through to the sitting room, ducking his head slightly as he entered the door; he wasn't especially tall, but the building was old, the ceilings low, the door frames lower. The room lacked space, but then Childes had not packed too much into it: a faded and lumpy sofa, portable TV, square coffee table; low bookcases flanked the brick fireplace on either side, their shelves crammed. On top of one, by a lamp, was a small cluster of bottles and glasses. He went over and poured himself a stiff measure of Scotch.
Outside, the rain had become a steady downpour and he stood by the window overlooking his diminutive rear garden, broodingly watching. The cottage, among a row of others, all detached, but only just, backed on to open fields. At one time the houses had all been field-hands' tied homes, but the estate had been divided up long since, land and properties sold off. Childes had been fortunate to rent one when he had come to the island over two, almost three, years before, for empty property was scarce here, and it was the school's principal, Estelle Piprelly, eager for his computer skills, who had directed him towards the place. Her considerable influence had also helped him obtain the lease.
In the far distance, on the peninsula, he could just make out the college itself, an odd assortment of buildings, expanding over the years in various, unbalanced styles. The predominant structure, with its tower, was white. From that far away, it was no more than a rain-blurred greyish projection, the sky behind gloomed with rolling clouds.
When Childes had fled the mainland, away from pernicious publicity, the curious stares, not just of friends and colleagues, but of complete strangers who had seen his face on TV or in the newspapers, the island had provided a halcyon refuge. Here was a tight community existing within itself, the mainland and its complexities held at arm's length. Yet, close-knit though their society was, it had proved relatively easy for him to be absorbed into the population of over fifty thousand. Morbid interest and -he clenched the glass hard - and
accusations
had been left behind. He wanted it to stay that way.
Childes drained the Scotch and poured another; like the brandy earlier, it helped purge the foul taste that lingered in his mouth. He returned to the window and this time saw only the ghost of his own reflection. The day outside had considerably darkened.
Was it the same? Had the images his mind had seen beneath the sea anything to do with those terrible, nightmare, visions which had haunted him so long ago? He couldn't tell: nearly drowning had altered the sensation. For a moment, though, during and shortly after, when he had lain gasping on the beach, he had been
sure,
certain the sightings had returned.
Dread filled him.
He was cold, yet perspiration dampened his brow. Apprehension gripped him, and then a fresh anxiety homed in.
He went out into the hallway and picked up the phone, dialled.
After a while, a breathless voice answered.
'Fran?' he said, eyes on the wall but seeing her face.
'Who else? That you, Jon?'
'Yeah.'
A long pause, then his ex-wife said, 'You called me. Did you have something to say?'
'Where's, uh, how's Gabby?'
'She's fine, considering. She's next door with Annabel playing at who can create most havoc. I think Melanie planned to banish them to the garden for the afternoon, but the weather won't allow. How's it over there? - it's piddling here.'
'Yeah, the same. I think it's working its way up to a storm.'
Another silence.
'I'm kinda busy, Jonathan. I have to be in town by four.'
'You working on a Saturday?'
'Sort of. A new author's arriving in London today and the publisher wants me to cosy him, give him a prelim on his tour next week.'
'Couldn't Ashby have handled it?'
Her tone was sharp. 'We run the agency on a partnership basis - I carry my load. Anyway, what do you expect of a born-again career woman?'
The barely veiled accusation stung and, not for the first time, he wondered if she would ever come to terms with his walking out. Walking out is how she would have put it.
'Who's taking care of Gabby?'
'She'll have dinner at Melanie's and Janet'll collect her later.' Janet was the young girl his former wife had hired as a daily nanny. 'She'll stay with Gabby until I get home. Is that good enough for you?'
'Fran, I didn't mean-'
'You didn't have to go, Jon. Nobody pushed you out.’
'You didn't have to stay there,' he replied quietly. 'You wanted me to give up too much.’
'The agency was only part-time then.'
'But it was
important
to me. Now it's even more so - it has to be. And there were other reasons. Our life here.'
'It'd become unbearable.'
'Whose fault was that?' Her voice softened, as though she regretted her words. 'All right, I know things happened, ran out of control; I tried to understand, to cope. But you were the one who wanted to run.'
'There was more to it, you know that.'
'I know it would have all died down eventually.
Everything.''
They both knew what she meant. 'You can't be sure.'
'Look, I don't have time for this now, I have to get moving. I'll give your kisses to Gabby and maybe she'll call you tomorrow.'
'I'd like to see her soon.'
'I… I don't know. Perhaps at half-term. We'll see.'
'Do me one thing, Fran.'
She sighed, anger gone. 'Ask me.'
'Check on Gabby before you leave. Just pop in, say hello. Make sure she's okay.'
'What is this, Jon? I'd have done that anyway, but what are you saying?'
'It's nothing. I guess this empty house is getting to me. You worry, y'know?'
'You sound… funny. Are you really that down?'
'It'll pass. Sorry I held you up.'
'I'll get there. Do you need anything, Jon, can I send anything over?'
Gabby. You can send over my daughter. 'No, I don't need anything, everything's fine. Thanks anyway.'
'Okay. Gotta run now.'
'Good luck with your author.'
'With business the way it is, we take anything we can get. He'll get a good promo. See you.' The connection was broken.
Childes returned to the sitting room and slumped onto the sofa, deciding he didn't want another drink. He removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes with stiffened fingers, his daughter's image swimming before him. Gabriel had been four when he'd left them. He hoped one day she would understand.
He rested there for a long time, head against the sofa back, legs stretched out onto the small patterned rug on the polished wood floor, glasses propped in one hand on his chest, sometimes staring at the ceiling, sometimes closing his eyes, trying to remember what he had seen.
For some reason, all he could visualise was the colour red. A thick, glutinous red. He thought he could even scent the blood.
4
The first nightmare visited him that night. He awoke afraid and rigid. Alone.
The after-vision of the dream was still with him, yet it resisted focus. He could sense only a white, shimmering thing, a taunting spectre. It faded, gradually overwhelmed by the moonlight flooding the room.
Childes pushed himself upright in the bed, resting his back against the cool wall behind. He was frozen, fear caressing him with wintry touches. And he did not know why, could find no reason.
Outside, in the bleak stillness of the silver night, a solitary gull wailed a haunted cry.
5
'No, Jeanette, you'll have to go back and check. Remember, the computer hasn't got a mind of its own - it relies totally on yours. One wrong instruction from you and it doesn't just get confused -it sulks. It won't give you what you want.'
Childes smiled down at the girl, a little weary of her regular basic errors, but well aware that not
every
youngster's brain was tuned into the rapidly advancing technological era, despite what the newspapers and Sunday colour supps informed their parents. No longer in the commercial world of computers, he had had to adjust himself to slow-down, to pace himself with the children he taught. Some had the knack, others didn't, and he had to ease the latter through their frustration.