Thirteen Days By Sunset Beach (26 page)

Once he found he was rereading pages or rather their remains he decided he'd left Sandra by herself long enough. He eased the window open and saw she was asleep, though she'd stretched one arm towards the balcony as if to summon him in her dream. He replaced the drawer in the bedside table and used the bathroom as quietly as he could, then slipped into bed. As he slid an arm around Sandra's waist he was hoping to join her in sleep, but the fragmentary sentences were clamouring for completion, and the darkness only let them grow more insistent. The nearest he could come to quietening his mind was by concentrating on the single complete sentence that remained of the chapter on Vasilema—the last words of the chapter, on a page that had been largely blank. "They feed so Skiá feeds," he found himself repeating silently until it began to dull his awareness—until he lost the sense that it should waken him.

Ray heard a cry and was awake at once, and lay trying to grasp what he'd heard. At least he was certain it hadn't been William. He was hoping it had nothing to do with the family until he managed to reconstruct the sound—Julian shouting in anger if not in disgust. What was the problem now? Should someone intervene? Ray blinked his eyes wide and was listening for any further commotion when Sandra sat up next to him in bed.

No, it wasn't Sandra. She was still lying beside him with his arm around her waist. Nobody had sat up, but a shape had risen from crouching over her. As Ray struggled to focus his eyes he saw a figure dart as swiftly as a spider to the window. It loomed like a scrawny shadow on the curtain, which stirred as though a wind no more substantial than a breath had touched it, and then the intruder was gone.

How could it be? Ray had grown uncertain what he'd seen by the time he floundered out of bed and stumbled to the window, which was shut and locked as well. As Sandra muttered an indistinct sleepy protest he dragged the window open and lurched onto the balcony. Light was streaming from below it, which meant he couldn't make out whether a thin shape had scuttled along the outer wall of the balconies before leaping from the furthest one into the dark. He craned over the wall and saw Julian outside the lower balcony, peering into the night. "What's going on down there?" Ray blurted, mostly in a whisper.

As Julian turned to stare up at him Doug called "Yes, Tim, what's happening? Was someone in your room?"

"Just me," Tim said as if he'd discarded a couple of consonants in his sleep.

Ray heard a confusion of voices in at least two rooms—Pris, Doug, Natalie, Jonquil, William—which didn't quite distract him from a glimpse of movement some way along the beach. By squinting he was just able to distinguish three receding figures. Perhaps because the dim shapes were silhouetted against the waves, their outlines looked not much more stable than the sea. "Who's that?" Ray demanded, stretching out a shaky arm. "Quick, Julian, look."

Julian shaded his eyes to gaze up at Ray before turning to face Sunset Beach. He'd made Ray glance at him, and when Ray returned his attention to the beach it was deserted. How was that possible when there was no concealment on the shore within hundreds of yards of where he'd just seen the figures? As Ray strained his eyes Julian said "What am I meant to be seeing?"

"There was somebody. I know I saw them, three of them. I don't know where they could have gone." Ray was still peering at the dark beach as he said "What are you doing out there, Julian?"

Julian moved close to the balconies and lowered his voice. "I wanted to prove once and for all that nobody could be getting into William's room."

Ray refrained from pointing out that it was Jonquil's too, and found he was nervous of asking "Did you?"

"Of course I did. What on earth do you think?" Having waited until Ray met his incredulous stare, Julian said "But I wanted to make certain he'd no reason to imagine it. I had my suspicions, and it's a damned good job I acted on them."

Ray felt compelled to drop his own voice further—he might almost not have wanted Julian to hear. "Why was that?"

"The door and the windows were all locked, I saw to that, but I caught someone looking in."

"What happened?" Ray said more quietly still.

"I've been out here since William went to sleep. I came round from the front and caught the fellow on our balcony. I can even understand how William might have run away with the idea that he could come in through the glass. He had his face pressed against the window as if he meant to God knows what, squeeze through."

Ray was finding each question less easy to ask. "Do we know who he was?"

"I believe I already did. Perhaps I can be listened to in future." With a frown for anyone who'd earned the rebuke, Julian said "It was Jonquil's dancing partner."

Ray couldn't avoid realising that he'd already known as well. Before he could think of a response, Julian grimaced and wiped his hands on his shirt. "I had hold of him."

While Ray was by no means certain that he wanted to learn what Julian was recalling, he had to ask "Why are you looking like that?"

"I grabbed him when he hopped over the balcony. He showed me his teeth and gave me the slip." Julian's face writhed again as he said "Slippery isn't the word for him."

"What is, then?"

Julian pondered this, unless he was attempting not to. "Oily," he said. "Not just covered with it either."

Ray saw this too fell short of conveying Julian's experience. He felt as though his thoughts were creeping up on him while he said "Like William's word, do you think?"

"How could he know?" All the same, Julian's conviction appeared to falter. "I suppose," he conceded, "that's how a child might have described the fellow."

Ray's gaze strayed back to the beach, where the movements of the waves looked ominously surreptitious, too reminiscent of supine shapes biding their time. He was scarcely aware of muttering "Maybe that's how they are."

"Forgive me, what did you say?"

Ray was about to repeat the observation, though he was afraid to think where it might lead, until he heard Natalie. "Daddy and grandad are just chatting, William. Let's all try to get back to sleep."

"We'd better not discuss this any further," Julian murmured. "Perhaps we can continue at another time."

"I think we'll have to," Ray said but felt unhappily as though he'd lost a chance.

As Julian headed around the apartment block to his front door, Ray inched the window open. He was hoping Sandra hadn't wakened, but she mumbled "Who's out there?"

"Julian saw someone hanging about outside. I'll tell you about it later."

"I thought he'd got in," Sandra said quite clearly and at once was asleep. Ray knew he wouldn't be, but had to lie beside her and embrace her as well. When he tried to draw her arm into the safety of the quilt she moaned and moved it out of reach. He didn't know how much time passed before his eyes grew so tired that the lids slumped shut. Perhaps he needn't watch the window any longer—not tonight, at any rate. He still couldn't sleep, since far too many thoughts had caught up with him. Dismaying as they were, it was even worse to wonder how he could persuade everyone that he'd seen the truth.

***

Everyone had finished breakfast when Ray leaned over the balcony. "Shall we have our talk up here, Julian?"

"I think I've said all I have to say," Julian told him and patted William on the head.

"Some people won't have heard it. Sandra hasn't," Ray said, feeling bound for desperation before he'd thought he would.

"I should think you can tell her, Raymond."

"She's better hearing it from the man who knows most," Ray said more desperately still.

"I suppose there is that. Very well, we'll be up in a minute. Douglas and Priscilla may as well come too. Timothy, if you could help Jonquil with William we'll find you in the play area in due course."

"What aren't we allowed to hear now?"

"That's not the issue, Timothy. I hope you don't object to looking after your young cousin."

"I don't see why it needs both of us."

"Because he'll be safer with two of you, Tim," Natalie said. "Do you really mind?"

"Of course he doesn't, Nat," Doug said.

"He's just got a grump on because we had to wake him up," said Pris.

"You be good for Tim and Jonquil, William," Sandra called and tugged her hat down, shading her sunglasses further.

"You can help them both to finish waking up," Natalie said. Ray glanced at Sandra, wondering how sleepy her eyes might be, but saw just his own shrunken reflection in the black lenses. As he and Sandra cleared the table on the balcony he heard the youngsters being sent on their way, and not many moments later there was a knock at the door, immediately followed by a lighter one. "That's two," Doug called, and Pris added "It's safe to let us in."

They thought they were joking or celebrating a local custom, but Ray was no longer amused. Sandra opened the door as he manhandled the two chairs out of the room to supplement the pair on the balcony, where he and Sandra and the other women sat down while Doug and Julian leaned against the outer wall. "So, Julian," Ray said, only to feel less prepared than he'd hoped to be. "What did you tell William and Jonquil?"

"Just that I was right and her follower had been loitering round here. And that I'd chased the fellow off and I doubt he'll be returning."

If Ray was closer to doubting the opposite, this wasn't the moment to argue. "Now can you say what you said to me?"

"I nearly had him but he was too fast for me."

"You said more than that, didn't you? You said you managed to grab him."

"I got my hands on him but he wriggled out of them."

"And you told me how he felt. You said..."

"Sweaty. You'll forgive me," Julian said with a glance at Doug and Pris, "but that's how quite a few of your locals smell."

"That isn't how you put it last night," Ray protested.

"I said he was oily, I believe. Pretty much the same thing. No, I'll grant you, a bit more. Oily in every sense."

"You said William's word applied as well."

"I don't think anyone would say I'd ever be so childish as to use it. Or if I thought about it that must show I have a little imagination after all."

As Ray struggled to think how to proceed Sandra said "Does any of this matter very much? How he felt, I mean. Have you been in touch with the police?"

"Natalie and I have decided against it, given my experience with them and Raymond's. I suspect they would feel we were wasting their time."

"But you wouldn't be, would you?" Doug said.

"All we could say was that the fellow was looking in the window." With a grimace not unlike the one Ray remembered from last night Julian said "I'm afraid we would have to admit that he may not have been entirely uninvited."

"Would you like to say what you mean by that?" Natalie demanded.

"I'm simply thinking of how Jonquil looked at him."

Ray thought Julian might have touched upon more of the truth than he knew. He was trying to think how to address this when Natalie said "She was just being teenage. It's about time you got used to it, Julian."

"I'm with Natalie," Pris said. "This doesn't seem much to bring us all up here for."

"It isn't everything." Ray felt as if he'd stepped over an edge or at any rate was about to be unable to step back. "I've got something you all need to see," he said and limped to the bedside table before he could find his actions impossibly foolish. He carried the drawer onto the balcony and, having dumped it on the table, found the remains of the first page about Vasilema. "Look at this," he urged.

As they examined the photograph everyone confirmed everybody else's silence. "It's the monastery," Natalie said at last in a tone like an audible shrug.

"Yes, but look properly, it's not as black. You can see how that's spreading from it, can't you? The rock underneath the monastery isn't nearly as black as we saw." Ray felt as if his words were insufficiently precise, just like the remnant of the photograph. "If we had the rest of it," he said, "you'd see the trees weren't even touched. Are you sure you didn't see that when I had the book, Doug?"

"I can't pretend I did."

As Natalie and Julian murmured similar denials Pris said "Why is it important to you, Ray?"

"Not just to me. It showed there was never a fire. The place was turning black, but not from that. It was coming out of the monastery, not from the woods at all."

Everyone seemed reluctant to speak, but Natalie did. "What was?"

Ray turned the page over and spread it on the table. "Read this and maybe you'll see what I think."

He very much hoped so, but their eyes looked unwilling to admit much into their thoughts. Once Doug and Julian straightened up from leaning over the table he couldn't tell who was waiting for the other to respond. It was Doug who said "I'm sorry, dad, I don't."

"Just look here," Ray said and saw how desperate he must seem.

There came many years ago to the monastery of Agios Tit
a traveller from where nobody can tell. He gave his name Proskynitis
Greece a monastery must take in the pilgrim and those who seek she
Titus offered hospitality for but a single night, and the night Prosky
saw the dawn.
He was said to tell the abbot he was wandering in search of sol
contemplate eternal things. He vowed that on his death he would will rich
who gave him what he sought. Some monks said that the monastery was not
fortune, but Proskynitis assured them that his riches would not be of the world
eternity. They had put aside worldly matters, but their vanity was spiritual. So
them to his cause. He became an inmate of the monastery, taking less sustenance
monk while he fasted as a help to meditation. As well he counselled his brethren
distractions of the world and urged the dark upon them as the most true path to
eternal.
His example won him acceptance to the order, taking the name Brother Skiá
shadow. He prevailed upon his brethren to help him build a cell deep in the rock, wh
distraction of light could reach. Here he followed his ambition to embrace eternity
embrace the dark. Why could he not do this in real solitude, far from any man? He
to have once, but eternity needs life to feed upon or it is only lifeless dark. He
secrets of the dark is caught in its embrace. If it brings unending life it fills its
hunger.
It was the abbot who invited the dark pilgrim within his door, and now
answered his invitation. Now the abbot fed the dar