Honeymoon with Death

by Vivian Conroy

  Crazy.

  Damaris closed her eyes and tried to breathe deeply. But she kept seeing the beetles. They weren’t crawling across the flowers, though, or the bedside table. They were crawling across a dead face. A face staring at her.

  Her own face.

  She opened her eyes wide. “I want to leave here.”

  “What?” Teddy leaned over.

  “I don’t want to stay here. Let’s go home.”

  “What? Just because of a few beetles in the room? I’m sorry they gave you a bit of a start but…” Teddy rose. “I’ll go and catch them. You sit here. The old man can watch over you. I’ll be back soon.”

  He turned and left before she could protest.

  Damaris wrapped her arms around her shoulders and sat as quietly as she could, eyeing the glass he had left on the bench beside her. Why did she remember someone handing her a glass and demanding that she drink it? Why did she remember a strange taste and darkness, fear? Not wanting to stay there.

  Not here.

  She shook her head. The strain of a long day travelling, all the impressions of new places, had got to her. She was just tired. She had to sleep. But how could she sleep in that horrible room full of beetles?

  Teddy came back to her, stood in front of her, his expression confused. “There are no beetles in the room. Not a single one.”

  “They must have crawled away. Into the bed, even.” Damaris shuddered.

  “No, I lit the lamp and shone it around. I don’t see any. Come and look for yourself.”

  Damaris wanted to say she had no intention of going back into that room, but as she saw the look on his face, she jumped to her feet and walked out ahead of him. He didn’t believe her, he thought she had overreacted, had seen a shadow or something. But she knew what she had seen and she’d prove it to him.

  Inside the room she halted. The lamp beside the bed burned brightly. The flowers were there just as pretty as they had been that afternoon. There was nothing on them or on the vase they stood in. The bedside table looked normal. Not a black crawly creature in sight. Not on the walls. Not on the floor. Not on the bed. Nowhere.

  She ran up and picked up the pillows, looked underneath. Pulled the bedding away. Nothing. She crawled across the floor, with the lamp, shining it into every nook and cranny. Nothing. Not a single black beetle.

  She stood up and stared ahead. A shiver went down her spine. Had she really imagined it? But how? What was wrong with her?

  Teddy came up to her and touched her arm. “I’m sorry you had such a fright, darling. I’m sure you saw something and mistook it for beetles. It was dark after all. You lit the match and then dropped it. You can’t have seen much.” He added, “You should be glad nothing caught fire. Then we’d have to pay for damages.”

  He smiled at her, a strange concerned little smile. “I think you’d better turn in right away. You’re obviously too tired to think straight. It will be better in the morning.”

  Damaris nodded, half dazed. She let him help her take off her dress and jewellery, put on her night gown and slip into bed. He sat on the edge, stroking her bare arm as she lay down and closed her eyes stiffly. She could still see those beetles crawling across one another, a living heap of nightmarish material. But there had been none. Just a trick of the mind. A moment’s delusion when she had struck the match.

  Teddy’s touch was warm and reassuring. But she did notice that, once he had undressed himself and come to bed, he didn’t take her into his arms. He turned on his side away from her and pretended to be asleep. Pretended as she was sure he was wide awake, like she was, and pondering what had happened.

  She clenched her eyes shut, a tear seeping through her lashes and running down her cheek. This was not the honeymoon she had imagined. Not the dream holiday she had hoped for when she had seen the island lie bathing in the sun.

  * * *

  The old woman stood in the shadows, looking at the hotel. “Such a pretty face,” she muttered to herself, “and yet so evil.” How dare she walk here carefree and laughing while she was guilty? While she should be dead.

  She turned away and shuffled off, the basket on her arm beating against her hip. As every day, she made her way to the old graveyard and to the grave at the far back of it. Not many people knew it was there. It didn’t look like a grave, just a pile of rubble. But the old woman knew who was buried there.

  She stood staring down on it with dry eyes, crossing herself and muttering a prayer. Then she reached into her basket and took out the last bouquet of the day. The one she always saved for him. She smiled to herself as she put it on the grave. A splash of colour against the grey. She didn’t mind the darkness around her. She knew her way. And she wasn’t afraid of the dead. They could harm no one any more. It was the living you had to watch out for.

  Chapter Three

  “Will you stop looking at me like I could faint at any moment?” Damaris spat. She raised a hand to her head and touched her temple. A night of tossing and turning had left her with a splitting headache. Just the idea of having to go out and do something was too much.

  “You do look pale,” Teddy said, as he put jam on yet another slice of toast. “Perhaps you had a fever last night?”

  “I didn’t imagine the beetles. They were there.” Damaris pursed her lips. “They must have escaped through the window while I was with you.”

  “All of them? They came in and crawled about to scare you and then they took off again?” Teddy sounded incredulous.

  “Then what do you think happened?” Damaris asked. She didn’t want to hear the answer and yet she couldn’t help arguing. Her headache did very little for her mood.

  “You must have imagined it somehow.” Teddy pointed at her with his knife. “Perhaps the wine here is stronger than at home.”

  “I wasn’t intoxicated.”

  “I’m just thinking up reasons why it wasn’t your fault,” Teddy said with a hurt expression. “I could have called you hysterical or melodramatic. But I didn’t.”

  “So should I applaud you now?” Damaris threw her weight back against the chair and lifted her hand to her head again.

  “Maybe you should go back to bed until you’re in a better mood.” Teddy dropped his knife with a clatter and rose. “I’m taking a walk.”

  He left her without even a goodbye.

  Damaris stared after him. His concern for her had been rather grating as she worried he took her for a nervous wreck, but now that he just left her alone, it also bothered her. What if… she were in danger somehow?

  She tried to laugh at her own fanciful thought. Of course she wasn’t in danger. Why? She didn’t know anyone out here. She was just a girl on her honeymoon. Not even a rich girl. Just an ordinary girl. Teddy had all the money. He should have been the target.

  If there was a target at all.

  She sighed and rose from the table. She didn’t want to go back to the suite alone, but it did seem like a good idea to lie down again. She needed sleep to clear her mind. To put things in perspective. Here she was on a gorgeous island, bickering with her new husband because of something she wasn’t even sure had really happened?

  She had just insisted to Teddy the beetles had been real.

  And they had been. She had felt one crawl against her hand as she had reached for the matchbox to light the lantern. She could still feel the disturbing sensation of those tiny legs against her skin. It made her shudder. It had been real. Not a thought, not an illusion. Real!

  She crossed the lobby and went into the walled garden. There was a soft splashing sound of water as if a hidden fountain sprayed somewhere. She ignored the urge to look for it and went to the door of her suite. She unlocked it and went in.

  A tall man stood with his back turned to her, measuring the wall opposite the bed.

  She yelped, jumped back against the door and snapped, “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  He turned to her, raising both hands in an apologetic gesture. The measuring tape dangled f
rom his left hand. “I’m only here for the painting.”

  “What painting?”

  “The painting the hotel ordered. It’s a sea sight and comes to hang here.” He pointed at the wall.

  Damaris now noticed the empty metal hook there. “I see.” She studied him better. “I saw you in the harbour yesterday. You painted the arrival of the ferry.”

  He smiled. “Guilty as charged. I do that most every day.”

  “You’re a professional artist?”

  “Yes, in summers I work here on the island; in winters I go to Athens or Vienna or Paris. I lead what you call a wandering existence. It sounds more romantic than it is.” He kept smiling, but his eyes were serious. “Money is always tight and a good health essential. Life on the road is dangerous, and you must know how to defend yourself against attack.”

  “It did look idyllic to see you sitting there painting,” Damaris said. “I hadn’t thought about the hardships of it. I was a bit jealous of you.”

  He hitched a brow. “What is there to be jealous of? You’re thirty years younger than I am, recently married.”

  “How do you know I’m recently married?” Damaris asked, suddenly suspicious.

  He tipped his head back as he laughed. “Only recently married people do silly things like admire their wedding ring.”

  Damaris’s gaze fell to her left hand. Teddy had simply left her to go take a walk. She could have dragged off her ring and tossed it after him. A world of difference compared to her feelings the other day.

  “Why would you be jealous of me?” the man asked. He came to stand before her and studied her with his blue eyes. They seemed to probe beneath the surface of her happy facade and look for something deeper, more meaningful. More… real?

  Damaris shrugged. “I’ve always led a dreary life. I had a mediocre job, not one I loved, but one that could sustain me. I never had enough money to travel or buy things I wanted. I wasn’t unhappy, just getting by. I looked at pictures of faraway destinations and I believed I would never go there.”

  “But now you’re here.” He smiled at her again. “You must not hide inside where the shadows hang but go outside into the sunshine, see the lemon orchards.”

  Damaris noticed that during her conversation with the man her headache had grown less and his suggestion to go outside actually appealed to her.

  He said, “I have the measurements for the painting. I could show you around a bit if you like.” He reached out his hand. “Amaranth Dupin. French by birth, Greek by heart.”

  “Damaris Ramsforth.” She could feel the calluses on his palm as they shook hands. As he had said money was always tight, did he have to do odd jobs to make a living?

  “Well, Mrs Ramsforth, may I escort you to see the lemon orchards? We need not go far as I have a friend with an orchard nearby. We can walk down the hill. There is a shadowed path.” He looked her over. “I would cover your arms against the sunshine. You can burn easily out here.”

  “Thank you, I’ve brought a thin cardigan. I’ll also put on a sun hat.” Damaris collected what she needed. Inside a voice asked what Teddy might think if he came back from his walk and she was gone. But she didn’t want to listen to it. He had treated her as if she were mad suggesting the beetles she had seen hadn’t been real. He deserved to come back and wonder where she was. Be a bit worried even.

  “All ready,” she said, and walked out the door.

  In the walled garden Dupin pointed to the left. “There’s a door there. Let’s take it so we need not go through the lobby.”

  Damaris followed him and saw the door well hidden behind a wildly growing bush.

  They went out and arrived at a path between high hedges. She fell into step beside him. “You said you were French by birth. When did you come to live here?”

  “Decades ago. I was just a beginning painter and I wanted an inspiring place to stay. I had only heard of Kalos, but once I had seen it, I knew it was the place I had been looking for.”

  “It does have a certain…” Damaris looked for the right word.

  “It casts a spell on you,” Dupin said slowly. “It can almost drive you mad.”

  Damaris froze, thinking she had misheard him. “Excuse me?”

  “I mean,” he said, “that it’s such a beautiful place you become quite intoxicated with it and you don’t want to leave again. It’s like Calypso from the The Odyssey who kept Odysseus captive on her island trying to keep him away from his homeland.”

  And his wife, Damaris recalled.

  But she didn’t ask if Dupin had family in France. It would be too personal, intrusive, impolite. “Teddy, my husband, told me about The Odyssey when we were in Athens. He had a classical education. He knows so much.” She bit her lip, realising how provincial she often felt by his side.

  Dupin smiled at her, as if he had read her mind. “Men don’t like women who know more than they do.” He was silent a moment. “You must forgive me if I’m impertinent but I don’t talk to many people here. Let alone ladies.”

  “The hotel must receive many guests from all over the world,” Damaris said.

  “What has that got to do with me?” He glanced at her. “I never set foot there. They commissioned a painting for the bridal suite, or I’d never have gone there.”

  “They commissioned it recently?”

  “Yes, that bridal suite is a rather new idea. The hotel used to be a villa, privately owned. What is now the bridal suite was a half-open structure where the lady of the house could sit and have tea. They put up an extra wall.”

  His voice faded in the distance as Damaris stared ahead, not seeing the bright landscape in front of them but the green of a garden and the white of an open structure where someone waited for her.

  A voice called her name.

  No, not her name. Another name. Still, it was like the voice was calling her.

  She tripped and pitched forward.

  Dupin instantly steadied her with an arm around her waist. “Careful. The path can be uneven.”

  She looked up into his eyes. “Thank you.” Her voice was slightly breathless, and her thoughts wanted to focus on the garden, the structure, the woman, the voice. How was it possible that he told her something about the hotel and she could see it? She had never been there before.

  Dupin let go of her. “You had better watch where you step. Don’t twist an ankle or you’ll end up in bed.”

  “So the hotel used to be someone’s house in the past?” Damaris asked. “Do you know who lived there?”

  “An American family.”

  American. Not English. Obviously nothing to do with her. She almost shook her head to remove the thought that she had believed for a fleeting moment she could somehow have memories of the place. That was silly. She had to be mixing things up. Some other garden and a white building she had once seen.

  Dupin said, “There’s the entry gate into my friend’s orchard. Allow me.” He walked ahead to the sagging wooden gate and lifted the knotted rope that was securing it to the post. The gate creaked as it slowly opened.

  Damaris followed Dupin in. The high grass tickled her bare ankles as Teddy had predicted. Suddenly she missed him with a sharp stab of pain in her chest. They should have been doing this together.

  Dupin looked about him. “I like the tranquillity here. The whisper of the wind through the leaves. The scent which is sweet and sour at the same time. Earth, grass, herbs, fruit.”

  Damaris lifted her head and looked up at the branches outlined against the blue skies. “The trees should have been taller,” she said slowly.

  “Taller?” he asked. “They don’t get much taller than this.’

  “So I was smaller,” Damaris said slowly. Could she have been here as a child? It seemed unlikely as her parents had died when she had been young and she had been raised by an aunt who barely had money to make ends meet. No Mediterranean vacations for them.

  “Here.” Dupin rubbed his thumb across a lemon and let her smell it. “It is invigora
ting and soothing at the same time. You should put some lemon beside your bed at night. It keeps the mosquitoes away.”

  “Does it also work against beetles? Big black ones?” Damaris asked. She kept her eyes on his face to see if he would recognise them as an indigenous plague. “They don’t come inside. That is a good thing, too. People around here consider them a portent of death.”

  “Death?” Damaris echoed. Again she felt the soft whisper of the beetle against her skin. Then the image of the wriggling mass on her bedside table. Death. Death.

  She took a deep breath. “So people shy away from them?”

  “Yes, they don’t like to touch them or even kill them. They think it brings bad luck.”

  “I see.” Damaris wrapped her arms around her shoulders.

  Dupin glanced at her. “Are you cold?”

  She shook her head. “I just don’t like insects.”

  “Lemon helps. Try it. I’ll ask my friend if he has some lemons for you. He’s working on the other end of the orchard. One moment.” Dupin walked away from her, with an energetic pace. He had talked about good health being essential to his wandering existence and she guessed he was very fit as she watched him walk with that predator-like grace. A wolf perhaps, silent and confident as he stalked his territory.

  Dupin returned quickly, carrying a paper bag that he handed to her. “Enough lemons for the rest of your stay here.”

  “Thank you. How do I say that in Greek?”

  He said it and she repeated the word until it came easily off her tongue. They had both started laughing at her clumsy attempts and then, all of a sudden, Teddy stood before them. “What is this?” he asked, looking from Dupin to Damaris. “I thought you were at the hotel with a headache.”

  “I was, but I wanted a breath of fresh air.”

  Dupin said, “I met the lady here and offered her some lemons. Excuse me while I get back to work.” He nodded at her and vanished among the trees, all as if he was an orchard worker.

  Teddy glared after him, then spat at her: “Don’t just leave the hotel without telling me where you’re going!” He gestured at the bag. “And how did you pay for those? I thought I had our money.”