Perhaps it was this remark–or simply because he was keyed up to a near hysterical level of mind and reason–that prompted the first stirring of the thought. If he had rejected it immediately or ridiculed it at once he would never have done it. But as the thought occurred to him, he created for it a sudden fantasy–an immediate waking dream of an existence that seemed intensely preferable to the one he had been leading over the past few weeks. The thought became a sensation–a sensitivity that grew out of all proportion to logic–and yet seemed the most logical answer to the prospect of renewed persecution. To be at Adrian’s beck and call if they ever got back to Exeter Court unscathed would be intolerable–he was in enough trouble already without inducing any more. The sudden remote possibility of life without Adrian still remained a dream–a very pleasurable one–and he sat silently for half an hour or so, contented with the workings of his imagination. After a while he began to watch Adrian, who was sitting staring at the water, shivering and looking ill. Then he began to be sick into the Sea–the pallid vomit settling on the water like a discarded rag and then being swept on amongst the fluted columns and scarred colonnades that stretched endlessly behind them.
It had happened so quickly and almost silently that Alexander hardly registered what he had done. It had been fantastically easy to do–but now to his horror he saw Adrian in the water, looking up at him, his small eyes surprised. He had managed to grab hold of a rusting column but he would only be able to hang on for a few moments–Already his hands were sliding on the livid weed and rust and the swirling water was tugging viciously at him. He was still looking up at Alexander, and when he had spluttered and gasped out the rank salt water he shouted authoritatively: ‘Alexander–help me–help me–’
But Alexander sat and watched him curiously, dissociated completely with the struggling figure in the water.
‘I’ll tell on you–I’ll tell,’ shrieked Adrian as his hands slipped further down the column. A sudden onrush of water swirled under the pier, caught him and threw him up against another column. There must have been some kind of sharp projection on it for when Alexander saw him again his face was running with blood. He was a few yards away now and the rest of his face was in shadow. Finally he called out again, ‘I’ll tell–I’ll tell,’ and then more water rushed in and swept him on. Alexander heard a cry of pain, so he assumed that he had been swept against something else. Then there was complete silence. Alexander continued to sit there, idly watching a piece of driftwood eddying around the column, hitting this one and that and changing course with each collision. After a while he felt sleepy and tried to keep himself awake by counting the number of columns, then girders, and finally simply the bolts in his own particular section. He fell to thinking about Shirley–surely in the summer holidays they’d be able to be together just for a while, without the grown-ups hovering about. He saw her face in the water, sometimes laughing up at him, sometimes serious. Once or twice she looked up at him with a special look that he hadn’t seen or been allowed to see for what seemed years. He thought of her for some time and kept seeing her face. He began to shiver–he’d never be able to swim now, he was so cramped. He tried to kick his legs to and fro to restore the circulation but somehow they remained wooden and useless. He tried to shift his position but this was difficult too. He wondered how many hours he had been sitting there. Soon he began to call Eric’s name again but the same mocking echo returned to him and he felt a numb misery.
Trying to keep his eyes open he stared down very intently into the water. He saw her face again and she looked up at him with the special smile that she reserved for him alone. He cried out her name–and tumbled off the girder into the water.
SEA WRACK
June 1964
They found him clinging on to a wooden crate which had drifted in with the tide. Lettie, clad in a huge pair of Wellington boots, giggled hysterically when she saw him–and she ran to the edge of the sea with Casey towards the strange wreckage. His skin was like pulp and the colours in his clothes had run, staining the withered flesh a dull red. There was a bloodless cut on his forehead but he was alive. Casey rushed back across the beach to raise the alarm whilst Lettie, like a great bird, picked him up and laid him on the pebbles, and began to pummel him in a vain attempt to remember her training, years ago now, in the Red Cross. To her the whole impending episode took on an aspect of tremendous unreality–a sequence of fragments that she could not assimilate–nor was she able to associate the people that appeared with their identifiable personalities–the whole morning appeared as a fantastic farrago–and she was merely a spectator to it all.
She had been walking on the beach that early morning, hoping that she would meet Casey. She needed desperately, once again, a reason or perhaps an answer to the retrospective futility of her day-to-day existence, and since that glorious afternoon out of which she had emerged so dishevelled she afforded herself at least a compromise. A period of observation–of sheer nothingness–a sudden complicity with a child–an association with memory-all were to be found in the fantasies of one small boy. So she had come down to the beach that morning in order to re-create her own sensibility; to find again the childish invention and to experience an uncomplicated rejuvenation in which her only asset was her susceptibility and her only aim renewal. Storm seemed more preoccupied than ever. He hardly spoke to her at all–and when he did it was something totally unimportant. She was simply a machine bound to serve him, and her only reward was a smattering of affection based on complacent acceptance of her role–background stuff all the way.
Lettie had wandered down to the beach, self-consciously heading towards the pier when she met Casey coming away from it. His hair was plastered down and he carried a bathing costume. He looked as if he was going to pass her without speaking, but she hurried up, intercepting him.
‘Hello,’ she exclaimed eagerly. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Swimming.’ He looked tired and dejected.
‘Oh.’ She wondered what to say. ‘Have you been swimming around the pier?’
‘Oh, no. It’s dangerous. You shouldn’t swim near the pier–I’ve been just down there.’
‘Are you going back?’
‘It’s almost time for breakfast.’
‘I suppose you wouldn’t like to show me a few things?’
‘What things?’
‘Oh, things in the pools–you know what to show me.’
Casey looked at her puzzled. How strange that this untidy-looking grown-up should be interested in asking him to show her things. Besides, couldn’t she look for herself? He quite liked her, but there was something so intense in the way she asked him questions that she frightened him.
Under the pier a launch had drawn up and they were hauling something out of the water. It looked rather heavy and Lettie and Casey watched them with apathetic interest.
‘Do you think they’re fishing?’
‘They might be catching crabs.’
‘But it looks too heavy–p’raps it’s a giant lobster.’
Casey suddenly looked at her–and his voice was quiet, yet keyed to a pitch of acute tension.
‘I say–that’s the Seahorse’s pool–you don’t think–they wouldn’t have pulled him out, would they?’
‘Good gracious, no,’ said Lettie comfortingly. ‘That’s most unlikely–he’s far too clever for them, you know.’
‘Well, he’s rather greedy–They might have put some food in the net and he swam right into it–You know what he’s like–after all, he’s a very young seahorse–he doesn’t really know what’s what.’
Lettie felt flattered to be confided in over the Seahorse’s failings–immediately she felt more at ease with the child.
‘Well, I should think he’s far too clever for them. I’m sure he is. After all, he may not be very old but he’s had a remarkably good education–I mean, think how old his parents are–they’ve already taught him a large number of things and that’s one of them. But let’s go and see, shall we?’
But Casey hung back–he didn’t seem to want to prove it one way or the other.
‘Come on,’ she persisted, ‘let’s have a look,’ and he finally consented to follow her. Lettie wondered if he was afraid of having his fantasy dashed–or proven. What if they were lifting his Seahorse out of the water, landlocked except by a narrow channel that gathered under the pier? A winch, perhaps some kind of lifting gear, was straining at the ropes or wheels, and out with a terrible sucking, a billowing of green water shreds and a great cry would emerge Casey’s Seahorse, magnificent with a devilled mane, shining with a brilliant verdancy and a tail that curled intricately and gracefully.
They hurried towards the pier but as they neared the water they found Eric, huddled on his crate, cast up by the sea.
She was still ineffectually squeezing and pummelling when someone pushed her out of the way. She noticed with surprise that it was Angus Clarke, pasty-faced and tired-eyed, his pyjama legs flopping below those of his shapeless grey flannels. He knelt over Eric, put his hands on his chest and waist, threw him roughly on his back and proceeded literally to squeeze the most fantastic amount of water out of him. As he was applying the treatment it began to rain, gently at first, then becoming a torrential downpour.
She looked up at the sky, caught in a grey torpor, the clouds massed together into a drape of grey linen folds that spewed out the consistent, biting rain. They were soaked in a moment and as Eric ejected the last of the salt ocean Angus covered him with a coat. Other figures began to emerge through the rain blanket. Storm first, supported by Lancing, followed by Meg, Virginia and Paul. They stood in the wet sand, in incongruous stages of undress, half asleep and blurred to the elements around them. Storm went over to Eric, bent over him and said something to Angus. Angus nodded and Storm turned to Lancing, who then began to run towards the house. Lettie watched them, standing a few feet away, her boots caked with sand. She looked round for Casey, but he had run over the hard, wet sand to the launch, whose occupants were still engaged in trying to haul their burden on board. She saw Casey watching them intently. Gradually the whole beach was coming alive–already a little crowd of fishermen and early-morning bathers had joined Casey–they looked as if they were supervising the loading of something. Some of them were bent forward and others were standing, hands on hips, talking to the men in the launch. They seemed to be offering a lot of advice. More and more people were trekking over to the pier and she was surprised to see a helicopter swoop low over its ornamented pinnacles and balustrades, surveying the work in the pool. She watched it, fascinated, as it came in to land on the sand, its tracks carving deep indentations which quickly filled with water. A crab scuttled away from its activity and three men jumped out of the machine and began to walk towards them. Two of them carried a stretcher and the third a black box. It was all so rapid that Lettie was bewildered by the speed with which it was all carried out. The men were standing by Eric before the gleaming blades of the helicopter stopped turning, and the rain continued to thrash down. It made a tremendous din, or so it seemed to Lettie, and she couldn’t hear anyone’s voice through it. But their attention was being diverted by the other pocket of activity by the pier and for the first time communication seemed established between the two groups. A man wearing a yachting cap and a sou’wester ran up the beach towards them and he was shouting as he ran, his face glistening through the downpour. He stumbled up to one of the men from the helicopter, who took Storm’s arm and drew him aside. Lettie sat on the orange box that Eric had sailed in on and watched them all with mild surprise. Something really dreadful must have happened, she supposed, as she drew pictures in the pitted sand with the toe of her boot.
They were all rushing somewhere now; Storm and Paul were running down towards the pier–they passed by very close to her and she couldn’t make out whether Storm was crying or whether it was the rain on his face. As they ran past they showered her with wet sand and she bridled a little. Surely they could be more considerate. After all, even if it was pouring with rain, need she be covered with wet sand at the same time? She watched, with even a little anxiety, Meg kneel on the sand, covering her face with her hands and making such strange noises–a kind of howling noise on one note. What on earth was the matter with her, wondered Lettie. And she was wearing such a lovely skirt–and nylons! She would ruin them in the driven sand that was being churned up into mud around them. Virginia looked strange too–standing by herself in a heavy tweed suit with no macintosh.
‘Meg–Virginia–my dears,’ she exclaimed, ‘you’ll ruin your clothes. Do run back and change.’ But they didn’t seem to hear her so she got a twig and sought a smooth patch of sand just near her and drew a really lovely seahorse. She wanted to show Casey but quite suddenly the rain washed it away. Lettie felt like crying then, too, but instead she looked round for Casey–there he was, still standing by the launch. One of the helicopter men had just rushed by her at great speed, and he too was running down towards the pier.
Gradually the rain began to slacken. What a ramshackle old thing the pier is, she thought–no wonder they want to pull it down. Then she thought, Oh, but they musn’t–they definitely mustn’t pull it down! Then she picked up her twig and began to draw another seahorse–but she had only got as far as the mane when the retreating raindrops washed it away again. It was all so frustrating. Everything seemed to have quietened down, or rather it seemed as if everything was frozen. Meg was still on her knees and Virginia stood aloof and silent looking towards the launch, where once again activity seemed to have been temporarily halted. She was surprised to see that Storm was standing by himself apart from the others–then Paul went up to him and put his arms round him. Another man, a stranger, went towards them and did something at the other side of Storm. Then Casey, who had also been a little apart from the others staring into the pools, gave a muffled shout and Paul released his hold on Storm and ran towards him. He felt over the spot Casey had indicated and then took Casey’s arm and drew him back. But Casey broke away and ran to Storm, who was standing quite still, and buried his face in his mac. Lettie sighed–she had meant to have that particular mackintosh cleaned but there had seemed so little time these last few weeks. It was all for the best though, she thought comfortingly. He would only have got it awfully muddy today. She was becoming quite amused by the antics of everyone down by the rocks–they were like a litter of puppies, the way they rushed and cavorted about.
The next surprise was a sudden bevy of policemen, two ambulances and several other anonymous cars. They all shrieked to a halt, nearly blocking one side of the coast road. It really was all rather exciting. Many more people seemed to converge on the beach and the blue uniforms distributed themselves between her group and the people by the pier. The ambulance men also split up and a few other men in raincoats with cameras and notebooks appeared. One of them flashed a very white light in her face and told her she was a brave woman. She gave him a puzzled, brave smile and looked down modestly at the sand, fiddling with her stick and a few pebbles. When she looked up he was gone. She felt rather disappointed–he was a very nice man.
They were lifting Eric on to a stretcher–he seemed quite comfortable but she was frightened that they were going to drop him at any moment. That would have been dreadful. However, they didn’t and they disappeared towards the ambulance. She decided that she would stroll down to the rocks and see if she might be needed down there. She was becoming rather tired of being ignored. As she walked down, flopping clumsily in her boots, she passed Casey and Paul. She said hello but even Casey didn’t seem to hear her. She paused expectantly by them, but Paul was too preoccupied to notice her.
‘That’s a very stupid and wicked thing to say.’
‘It’s not–it’s not–it was him.’
‘It’s a dreadful thing to say. How can you go on lying in face of this–tragedy? How dare you say that to everyone–especially to Storm when he’s so unhappy? Can’t you keep your bloody fantasies out of this? Can’t this at le
ast be sacred?’
Casey kicked at the sand. He looked absolutely bemused. Clearly he hadn’t the faintest idea what Paul was talking about. Paul tried a different tack–his face didn’t look furious but terribly hurt, as if he was terrified of wounding someone and yet was tearing at his own heart in the process.
‘Look–Casey–you know how fond of you I am–I’m saying this for your own good–please believe me–Now get this out of your mind straight away. There is no such thing as the Seahorse. He’s–it never existed and never will, except in your mind. He’s not real, you see–he’s not really alive–do you know that? He–it doesn’t exist–so the only way that poor Alexander and Adrian died was because they fell out of a boat–and got drowned. Now don’t you understand? I can’t let you keep this up any more, Casey–for your own sake, I can’t. It was all a dream. Please try and understand–the Seahorse doesn’t exist at all.’ He had taken Casey by the shoulders and was gripping him very hard. Their shoes were sinking in underfoot and Paul’s face was close to Casey’s.
Suddenly, Casey wrenched himself away and, tears streaming down his face, shouted back at Paul. Lettie turned to see that a crowd had collected by the roadside. A lot of the boys were there too, but they were obviously not allowed on to the beach as both Lancing and Angus were waving their hands at them. The police were controlling the rest of the crowd, who also threatened to stream on to the beach. Lettie could see, even at this distance, how frightened the boys seemed, and then she saw Laura Strang push her way through the crowd and come striding over the shingle. Her attention was again distracted by Casey, who was shouting at Paul:
‘It was the Seahorse–it was–it was. Eric told me they didn’t like him.’
‘Who didn’t like–it?’
‘Alexander and Adrian–They were going to do something to him–I don’t know what–but look what he’s done to them–I told lots and lots of people not to go near his pool. He doesn’t like strangers–he only likes me–and now look what he’s done. He’s only a very young Seahorse–he doesn’t know any better–I expect he thought they were going to put him in a zoo–He wouldn’t like that–and now you see what he’s done–but it’s not his fault–it’s not his fault–it’s theirs.’
The Seahorse Page 26
