The Boat House

by Stephen Gallagher

  "I think I do."

  "Watch, then. Watch the water. But I have to warn you, it's already too late for me to let you go."

  So he watches the lake as it catches whatever faint lights are available to it; close inshore, it seems to be stirring as the unseen rocks just below its surface warp and change the patterns with their mass. It flexes and shines like enchanted oil, a magic mirror onto a world of madness.

  Exhaustion, he tells himself. Exhilaration. That's all it is.

  She says, "Who sent you to me?"

  "Nobody. I followed a woman who said she knew you."

  "How did you meet?"

  "What?" He hasn't fully understood the question, simple though it is; he's being distracted by shapes and shadows that seem to be forming under the water.

  "Can you see anything in the lake?"

  "No. Just reflections."

  "Try for a little longer. And then I'll tell you what I can see, How did you come to be talking about me?"

  "I put out a message for you, on the radio. She heard it and called in."

  "What did she look like?"

  "Taller than you, dark…"

  His voice trails away.

  "You've seen something?

  "No."

  "Then close your eyes, and just listen. I'll describe it for you."

  He closes his eyes, and she begins to tell him; she begins to show him her world through the eyes of the Rusalka.

  She describes how the first of the figures rises from the water and stands a little way offshore, starlit and cadaverous and with water sluicing from it. The second rises as a dark female form beside this. Both are like thin shells of hard matter around an infinity of darkness and stars; there's no glint or glow to suggest whether they have eyes, or pearls for eyes, or anything at all.

  Pavel's eyes flicker open for a moment. He sees only the surface of the water, undisturbed.

  "Did she drive a big car?" Alina says. "A car like a truck?"

  "No… I don't…"

  He screws his eyes shut again. Against all reason he wishes that he could see what she's describing, because to see would be to enter her world completely.

  Others rising from the water; an old man, three young, straight wraiths, a couple of children, a carpenter… and then from out beyond them come a number of stags, a few cats and dogs, birds popping up and trying to unfold their sodden wings without success and without any kind of sound at all. They face inward in a half circle, an audience of the dead summoned for a performance of the living.

  And of all this, Pavel sees nothing.

  "You've made such a long journey," she says. "Now there's only one last step to take. Can you manage it alone?"

  He opens his eyes, then, and looks down at her. The face that he knows so well is now just angles and planes in darkness, all expression lost; there's little to tell between the girl on the shore and the creatures that she imagines to be in the lake. He tries to read sympathy there, he tries to read encouragement; but these are hopes rather than solid certainties, where the only real certainty is that she's probably much too far-gone in her madness for him ever to be able to carry her home.

  He'd hoped that he might somehow be able to take her back. Or at the very least, for the two of them to find some corner where they could build a kind of happiness. But he knows now that this can never be.

  She pushes him, taking him by surprise, and he stumbles and loses his footing on the bank. When he hits the water he almost falls, but then he manages to get his balance on the lakebed. The water is surprisingly cold, soaking into his clothes and making them heavy. He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and turns back to face Alina; she hasn't moved.

  "What was that for?" he says.

  "You want to be with me," she says. "I'm showing you the way."

  He takes a step toward the shore, but something catches at him under the waterline and he falls. plunging face first into the water, For a moment he's completely submerged, and as the water closes over his head the cold penetrates the rest of his clothes with a shock that feels as if it will stop his heart.

  There are weeds down here, and he's tangled in amongst them. They waft at him, they stroke him, they hold him in a grip like a dead man's hands. Now he's afraid. He pulls at the weeds and feels some of them tearing, but others are tightening in the same move.

  Already, the breath is beginning to leave him.

  It's strange; he finds that he's starting to experience flash-memories and scenes from his childhood as he tries to fight his way back to the surface. It's only inches away, but even inches can be fatal. The dizziness and the agony in his lungs begin to recede as the memories become more and more clear, until he's being hoisted up onto his father's shoulder as they walk along the sands…

  Which coincides with him coming up out of the water, ripping free and gasping for air.

  Alina is still waiting on the shore.

  He'd hoped they could be together. But he's lost her finally now, and he knows it. He'd even have entered her insanity, if he could have done it and there had been no other way… but even this has been barred to him.

  "Help him, children," Alina says.

  And suddenly there are hands on him, instantly plunging him back under so that the next breath that he takes is no breath at all.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  "It's done," Ted Hammond said, "but don't look at me. I only passed the spanners and fiddled with the radio." He was looking red eyed and somewhat hung over, but even so this was the best shape that Diane had seen him in for a while. She'd always liked Ted, from Day One; and if she'd been unconsciously avoiding him of late… well, it was only that she hardly knew where to begin.

  She glanced back at the Toyota, which was standing on the verge outside the workshop, and said, "Thanks, but I really need to see Pete, first."

  "Pete's out on a job," Ted said. "Somebody ran a car into the lake last night. He's gone to winch it out. If you want to drop by later on…"

  "It could be urgent," she said. "Can you tell me where I'll find him?"

  So Ted shrugged, and told her. All she needed to do would be to drive south on the lakeside road until she came to a wagon train of emergency vehicles, about five miles down. The police were there, the forestry people were there, possibly a TV crew as well; although why there should be so much interest in a routine wreck, Ted couldn't say.

  Ted got the Toyota's keys and walked out to the vehicle with her. Chuck and Bob, who'd come bounding up to say hello when she'd arrived, had wandered off and were now mooching around the verge looking for something to piss on.

  Ted said, "I'm glad you called by. Gives me a chance to say thanks."

  "For what?"

  "For coming to the funeral. It was appreciated, even though I wasn't in much of a state to say so at the time."

  "Nobody's been expecting thanks. But if it isn't a stupid question, how've you been feeling?"

  "I'm getting by," he said. "That's about as much as you can hope for, really."

  She got into the car, and closed the door. The side window was already open. Even after only one day in the Zodiac, the switch back to the high cab made her feel momentarily strange.

  She said, "Thanks, Ted."

  "Pleasure," Hammond said. "And, look, I'm sorry I've taken so long to get anything done about the Princess. I've got no excuses for it. If you still want me to handle the sale, I'm happy to go ahead."

  "Excuses?" Diane said. "Ted, I've never even thought about it that way. I juggled the books, moved some money around between the accounts. It wasn't any problem."

  "So Dizzy keeps his boat?"

  "Until next year. It'll stay in the boat house and it won't see daylight, and next year I'll go through all the same arguments again."

  "Well, the police gave me back the boat house key. Want me to dig it out now?"

  "There's no hurry."

  "Get it from Pete, then," he said. "He can hand it over the next time he sees you."

  The road was the one on
which she'd returned from town the previous evening; daylight turned it into a completely different journey, almost as if she was coming down out of primitive country and into civilisation. The mountains to either side were just as remote and the forested valley sides were just as sheer, but down here the lower slopes had been tamed and the pale faces of houses and hotels looked out like small children from the bushes. For the moment they were few and well-spaced, but they were only the outposts of the big resort that lay ahead.

  The emergency vehicle setup, when she finally found it, was rather different to the scene that Ted Hammond had suggested.

  To begin with, she'd been expecting something like a carnival train of vehicles at the side of the road itself; but when she stopped and asked a couple of forestry workers for help, they directed her back to a spot where the lake and the road parted company for half a mile or more with woodland between. Ten minutes later she was following a dirt trail, and less than five minutes after that she was getting out of the pickup alongside what looked like a grey, under equipped ambulance.

  It was only one of half a dozen vehicles, which included a couple of ordinary cars and the yard's breakdown wagon. She saw Pete almost immediately; he was standing on the outskirts of the circle of interest, unoccupied for the moment but seemingly too fascinated to drag himself away.

  At the centre of the circle stood the car in question. Except that it hadn't made it as far as the lake; instead, it had burned.

  It looked as if it had been rolling or was being driven toward the water, but had become stuck on the jagged rocks between the dirt track and the edge of the lake. How it had come to burn, it was difficult to say; the front end was just a blackened mess, the paint scorched away, the tyres gone and leaving two tangled heaps of fine wire that were already beginning to rust, the windshield melted to a fringe. The rest of the glass was dark and discoloured, the ground about the car a wasted area scattered with carbonised ash. However it had started, the car had burned fiercely and fast.

  Ross Aldridge, in uniform, was standing by what had been the driver's door. He was in serious conversation with two men who were wearing grey overalls and heavy rubber gloves, and didn't notice her as she made her way around to Pete. There was an atmosphere here, and Diane couldn't exactly define what it was.

  Pete seemed surprised to see her.

  "Hey," he said with a look of concern. "You shouldn't be here."

  "What happened?" she said, looking toward the wreck; one of the two overalled men (both of whom, incongruously, appeared to be wearing neat shirts and ties under their greys) was about to apply a prybar to the buckled driver's door.

  "Nobody knows," Pete said, "but I wouldn't watch this part, if I were you."

  The door popped open with a binding, crunching sound.

  Diane turned to look, her reactions running out of step with her conscious mind that was now, belatedly, absorbing the implications and telling her No! The overalled men moved in and blocked her view of the car's interior, but not before she'd had a moment to register the thin, charred stick figure whose meatless head was bowed over what remained of the steering wheel.

  She felt faint, as if she'd been hit hard by a big wave that had left her floating without even a rudimentary sense of up or down. She felt Pete's hand on her arm, turning her and guiding her away as Ross Aldridge beckoned for a well used steel coffin to be brought over to the wreck.

  "Did you see that?" she said as they moved around behind Aldridge's white Metro. Her voice sounded hollow in her own ears, as if her head was in a glass bowl.

  "I saw it earlier," Pete said. "Once was enough."

  "But, the car…"

  "They can't tell how it happened. He must have been deliberately trying to drive it into the lake. But then it all went wrong on him, somehow."

  "When did it happen?"

  "Last night, late. After midnight, anyway. But no one realised there was a body until we came to shift it this morning." Pete shook his head. There's no explaining it, he seemed to be saying.

  But Diane was thinking about the Smiley faces that had been drawn in the dust on the undamaged rear end of the car, and which still showed clearly through the soot that now lay over them.

  Jed had been talking about Smiley faces, as she'd guided him into his pyjamas.

  "Pete," she said. "Did you see Alina last night?"

  He was looking at her warily; not a question he'd have expected, considering the circumstances. "I got home late, and she'd gone out. Nothing unusual."

  "And you didn't get my note?"

  "What note?"

  She shook her head. "We have to talk."

  "Sure."

  "But not here."

  He checked the scene behind them. Diane didn't turn. He said, "Well, I may be tied up for a while yet. Aldridge wants it photographed and checked over by some of his people, and then I've to take it to some laboratory out of town. I'm still wondering how I'm going to hook it up to the hoist. Could be an all-day thing."

  Diane said, "Then I'll meet you at the yard when you're done. Just promise me that you won't go home."

  "What?"

  "It's important, Pete. Don't go home until we've had a chance to talk."

  He studied her for a moment, and saw how serious she was.

  "Okay," he said.

  Routine estate work seemed to be out of the question for the day, but she felt no stirrings of conscience over this; didn't even give it a thought, in fact. Before heading for home she went on into town and called at the library, where she spent an hour looking through back issues of the local newspaper and getting photocopies of every accident, every fatality, every missing persons report that had appeared over the past few months. She made notes of the dates. Then, as a kind of afterthought, she asked if there was any reference entry for Rusalka, and the librarian said, "I think that's an opera, isn't it? You could try the music library."

  But she didn't.

  Back in her office at the Hall, she was cutting the fatality items out of the xeroxed sheets and had become so absorbed that she wasn't even aware of Dizzy Liston's arrival until he was standing in front of her.

  "Hi," he said.

  She managed a smile. "I thought you were hibernating."

  "No, just… keeping out of the way. How's everything?"

  "Everything's fine," Diane said. Which wasn't the most truthful statement that she'd ever made.

  It was good enough for Dizzy, though. He nodded and then drifted away, almost shambling. His yellow colour had gone, but he seemed wasted. He'd been staying in his suite for most of the time and he hardly ever came out; no guests arrived at the weekends, and no visitors came during the week. Dizzy's Women were becoming one of the endangered species.

  Diane thought of him, waiting endlessly in the same chair as he stared at the same patch of wall. And she remembered the voice on the telephone.

  Then she went out into the gardens to look for Bob Ivie.

  Ivie was out on a sun lounger on the lawn, his shirt unbuttoned as he lay with a magazine. It was probably true to say that the last few weeks had been the most boring of his life so far, with the same to be said of Tony Marinello. It had been one of Ivie's boasts that he hadn't opened the covers of a book since the day he'd left school; already this year he'd read four, and was wondering if there wasn't somewhere he could apply for a medal. Marinello spent most of the afternoons in his room, smoking dope and watching daytime TV.

  Diane said, "Bob, I've got a big favour to ask," and Ivie looked up at her with an interest that was almost gratitude.

  "Name it," he said, putting the magazine aside.

  "I want Jed to go to his grandparents' place for a few days, get him away from the Bay for a while. Will you drive him down for me?"

  "When?"

  "This afternoon. I'll pack him a bag, and you can pick him up from Mrs Neary's."

  "Consider it done," Ivie said. "Where do they live?"

  "Richmond," Diane said, and saw Ivie's interested smile fade a
little.

  "Oh," he said hollowly, but it was too late; she had him.

  "Thanks, Bob, you're a love," she said. "I'd take him myself… but suddenly I've a zillion things to do."

  PART SEVEN

  Seek and Destroy

  “No One Here Gets Out Alive”

  Jim Morrison

  THIRTY-SIX

  It was late in the afternoon when Ross Aldridge left his Metro in the square by the Lakeside Restaurant and climbed the pavilion steps to come inside; Angelica Venetz saw him through the window as she passed through on her way to the kitchen and her first, anxious thought was for Alina.

  And then Aldridge, after taking off his uniform cap, asked if they could speak privately somewhere, and so she led him through into the tiny office where, twice a week, she placed their orders and brought the accounts up to date. Aldridge's eyes were hard, his manner almost grim.

  But the waitress wasn't the reason for his visit, after all.

  He began by telling Angelica about his day's work so far; about the unknown, untraceable stranger who'd somehow managed to incinerate himself in his similarly untraceable car. When he started to tell her about how the body had come apart as the morgue men had begun to remove it from the vehicle, she got him a chair and persuaded him to sit.

  "I don't see how you can ever get used to anything like that," she told him.

  "You can't," he said bleakly.

  "Have a brandy."

  "I'm all right." He looked up at her. "You can do something for me, though."

  "What's that?"

  "Tell me what you know about Tom Amis."

  This was unexpected; it was as if the conversational ground had suddenly shifted, and it took Angelica a moment to regain her balance.

  "He's a carpenter," she said. "He hung a couple of doors for me at the start of the season."

  "You know where he's from?"

  "Down south, somewhere. He says he travels around in his van, going wherever the work is. Why?"