A keen wind buffeted me as I strode towards Heysham. I reckoned Half Moon Bay was to be found in or around the village. The headland quested towards the sea, like the brow of a Neanderthal giant whose remaining features were buried in the earth. A ruin-what must have been St Patrick's Chapel-clung grimly to the hill. Clustered trees set back from the coastline seemed braced by the wind, swept back like a thickly coiffured mane, their trunks shaped by the incessant breath gusting in from the bay. The light was failing and even the thought of meeting Eve was unable to assuage my lethargy. It had been an error to track down Pol-in a purely physical sense at least. Eking out the news regarding Helen had been hard work. I wanted to please Eve. Turning up couched in this fug of apathy was hardly likely to impress her. I foundered under the need of a lively gambit.
At the promenade's terminus I remembered being here with Helen years ago. It had been a sunny day, a quiet day-Heysham's nuclear power plant had been audible, a dry hum in the background. Her bangs had been flattened against her cheeks by the wind; the sun had darkened her face and left the shrivelled slash of scar tissue pale above her lip. She'd sucked my tongue deep into her mouth and we'd stood like that, pressing and yielding, eye to eye until her hand found the bulb of my sex as it thickened along the top of my thigh. The rat-tat-tat of claws had us parted in a moment, a thread of connective saliva spinning between us. The woman walking her dog had given us a knowing smile and I remember feeling convinced my hard-on was in perfect bas-relief against my jeans.
'We can walk to Half Moon Bay across the sand from here,' she'd said, any embarrassment already forgotten. 'Half a mile, that's all.'
I could feel blood strumming my glans.
'I'd rather just sit down here with you,' I'd said, which is what we did. Frustrating each other through our clothing until it became dark enough for us to relieve each other with impunity.
Just about here, it was, where a path branched off from the promenade, leading to the main road. I stopped and looked at the spot, trying to identify any chinks in the rock that would fasten the exact space to its historical counterpart. I wanted something of our ghosts to have remained and waited for a smell or a stain of warmth to suggest itself. Vain hope, when I couldn't even remember the clothes she'd worn.
It mattered not at all that my choice to go with Helen to Half Moon Bay (although I didn't know its name then) had been negated by lust; I was gladdened by it now. Of course, in retrospect I could have no idea of the ramifications of such a decision but had I visited that locale with Helen, anything that happened today would be tainted with her which would be unfair to Eve, more so if I was to talk to her in this current state of indifference. I wanted Half Moon bay to be Eve.
Though the tide was retiring, it had not done so sufficiently to allow me access to the bay via the sands. Instead, I had to trust to instinct and hope I didn't get lost. As it turned out I needn't have worried; one of the villagers pointed out the quickest way: over the hill by the ruin. As I walked, the incline and trees meshed around me, filling the sky with pockets of grey and leaf-black, I watched Morecambe Bay broaden where the sea curved out to the horizon. An oil tanker cleaved to the dullish background like a template for a child's picture.
From somewhere-I couldn't see a break in the ceiling of haze-gold coins of light dappled the surface of the sea. Plodding down the other side of the hill, the ruined chapel impossibly solid against the brunt of wind, I edged toward the immaculate lip of green, wondering if this was the drop Seamus had suffered. I imagined him scuffing around, hands deep in his pockets, now and again casting a glance at the hulking power station further along the coast. Sniffing madly against the cold. Watching the slow bend of a gull in the sky.
She was sitting on one of the slabs of rock, looking out to the power plant which was slowly misting the sky above with lights nestled into its roof. A large velvet bag slumped at her side, a tablecloth tongue protruding. A brown section of her back-shadowed with the soft swell of her shoulder blades-was visible above the black singlet she wore. I thought about creeping up on her and planting a kiss at her nape but she swung round as soon as my boot connected with the gravel at the top of the beach.
'Hello David David Munro.'
Her eyes… blue. Of course. 'Hello Eve Eve Baguley. Aren't you cold?'
She shrugged herself into an oatmeal cardigan. 'I am now you've mentioned it. Have something to eat.'
She pulled fruit, sandwiches and a bottle of red wine from the bag. I uncorked and raised it to my mouth.
'Heathen,' she said, staying my arm. A fluted glass was slotted into the underside of the bag's covering flap.
'And what about you?'
'We can share it-everything tastes so much better when it's shared.'
'Oh I don't know about that.'
She tilted her head: a wedge of hair dipped into the space on her forehead. 'Meaning?'
'Forget it-I was just trying to be mysterious.'
She poured a glass of wine and offered it to me. Through the curve of glass, the wine itself, I saw half her face swell to grotesque proportions. Her eye was a melting ball of wax, spreading sedately across her skin. A safe illusion-maybe because I didn't sense a threat in her. It was a beautiful day.
'What are you doing later on?' she asked. I watched her, in profile, as she worked her mouth into a peach. Teeth having pared away a little flesh, her tongue fattened against the hollow, staunching any juice. Giddy, I concentrated on more wine, wondering if I should tell her of my intention to visit Seamus that evening or wait to gauge the quality of her alternative. It didn't take long.
'Nothing, why?'
'Come and see The Front Bottoms with me. They're playing at The Garage for a select audience.'
'The Front Bottoms?'
'Lettuce, technically. They changed their name-you know, rock stars.' She leaned over and licked my lips. A glaze of peach juice clung to her mouth. 'Come with me?'
'Yes,' I said.
After we had eaten and finished the wine, we walked back to St Patrick's Chapel and stood in the arch of the South Doorway; enjoyed the spank of air channelling through the tired voussoir above us. The sea moved against itself, a weakened tide coming up against the rebound from the rocky shoreline. The resultant motion created shimmers that looked like a vast, dense net settled just above the surface. Eve's hand rubbed at the curve of my shoulder-blade: a single movement, base to crown, but when I looked at her she was leaning against the arch, her hands folded neatly into each other like sleeping birds. Behind me, greensward dipped away into a gulley where life was represented by a listless dog and an old man wrenched into himself by a faltering spine. I was conscious of something else though, something pregnant in the still acreage of turf though I was aware that the sheer mass of the land was enough to disorient. Not one to fall prey to bouts of agoraphobia, I was nevertheless shocked by great, exposed tracts of land. Perhaps it's the wealth of silence, of seeming imminence nestled into spaces like that; or the concealed histories soaked into the ground: any number of deaths, bonfires, conceptions and robberies. Eve dipped her hand into my back pocket and lay her head against my chest.
'Penny for your thoughts.'
'Make it a pound and I'll kiss you instead.'
She slapped my bottom lightly and stood on tiptoe. The outer edge of her iris, and the part immediately next to the pupil, were a blue not unlike this sea; the moat between filled with a milkier hue, like opaque glass. Her mouth was hungry upon mine, yet controlled. When we parted, the light was failing rapidly and night was pushing a chill before it.
'How was Warrington?'
'Grim. How did you know I'd gone home?'
'Word gets round. Did you think of me?'
'Of course.'
'Liar.' Her smile flattened her eyes into cat-slits. I wanted to tell her how sexy, how new she seemed.
We walked back to The Battery. On the way, we said little. The banks of land to our left cradled puddles of shadow in between remarkable litter (a naked plast
ic doll, the cathode tube from a television, a pair of blue corduroy trousers, a sodden, unopened box of tissues) and old dog turds furred with mould. We saw the ashes of a long-dead fire, a single Wellington boot and a black cat watching us imperiously from atop a cairn of magazines stacked inexplicably in the centre of a footpath. Eve kissed me again once we'd drawn level with a camper van, the sunscreen of which was emblazoned with the names CALAMITY and TEX. Her tongue danced around mine; her thigh pushed between my legs and nestled there, spreading its glorious heat.
'I'll come for you,' she said at the gate to the guest house. 'It's a late gig. Two am, they're on. Be ready for me around one.'
I waved her off. After a shower, I went into the kitchen and emptied a tin of soup into a saucepan. Deadened canned laughter crept beneath the door of my landlord's living quarters, accompanied by his phlegmy chortle and the whinny of his wife. As the darkness condensed around me, and the soup warmed, I leaned back against the twin sinks and closed my eyes. So much information jabbered there, collated from the previous weeks, that I had to fight just to relax for a few minutes. I allowed Eve through, and licked my lips to see if she'd left any of her peach juice behind. When I opened my eyes again, the soup was boiling but I found my gaze drawn to the shelves above the cooker where the egg timer was losing sand through its impossibly narrow waist.
***
I noticed Eve's bag when I entered my room. I must have brought it in with me but I couldn't remember carrying it for her. But then, I couldn't remember fiddling with the egg timer either, so no need to be fazed. I ate my soup and tried to watch a little television but the colours were too busy. When I picked Eve's bag up, the glass we'd been sharing dropped out on to my duvet. As it fell I caught my reflection in the flat spin it described. And caught the reflection of another, standing at my shoulder. His eyes were varnished moonstones and I knew him but a name refused to cement that certainty. When I looked behind me I knew there'd be nothing but empty space between me and the florid wallpaper; I was even deconstructing my initial gut belief: I'd simply seen myself replicated in the opposite curve of glass.
I picked it up. Eve's bottom lip was elaborately delineated against the rim; in its bounty I could make out flaws-nubs and pleats and crinkles-and recall the slick, sticky smear of it against mine.
I fell back upon the bed, closed my eyes and pressed the edge of the glass against my bottom lip.
***
I struggled out of sleep, upset about something but unable to pin it down until I realised my smoke ghost was capering behind this wall of real vision, winking at me with its ember eyes. The duvet had become wedged under my pelvis, curving my body unnaturally, but it was somehow comfortable, to be supported like that. It was 11.30 pm. I had a while before Eve turned up. I rose and went to my door, opened it a crack. The landing was filled with dense black grains; through them I could make out the soft, orange borders of Duncan's door. He was listening to the radio; I also heard the thin clamour of his spanners as he placed them in and retrieved them from his special toolbox. My ears felt as though they were yawning for input, so I listened to the sounds of the hotel softly volley against each other in the dark: coolant in the giant fridges kicking in when the temperatures dropped below their programmed threshold; the drip of the leaking hot water tap in the upper floor bathroom; the sign over the door breathing rustily as the breeze tongued its worn hinges. I thought about my litre of orange juice in the fridge and decided I wanted some so I grabbed my bathrobe, left the door on the latch and slipped downstairs. I bypassed the bathroom, with its frosted slab of glass. It was backlit by some far off streetlamp: a bright, powdery lozenge hung in the centre. To its right, a black, waxy jacket was hanging-probably Terry's; he had been out fishing a lot recently and liked the weathered look of the landed gentry. I skipped down the last flight and ducked under the counter, being careful not to ring the service bell. In the kitchen I halted, because I could hear Maureen beyond the door which led into their downstairs living quarters. I stood with my forehead almost touching the glass, mouth dry, as I heard them making love.
'Ooohm yes, Terry, that'ssssss niccccce. Uh uh uh uhnnnn…'
I couldn't hear Terry at all until the end, when he hit his vinegar strokes and grunted a couple of times.
Feeling a little faint from holding my breath and being turned on (Jesus… Terry and his isosceles side parting? Turned on by that?) I grabbed the OJ carton and slunk back to the stairs. I was on the third riser when a bolt of blue light flashed in through the window in the main door and striped the hallway, picking the colour from everything. There was the suggestion of smoke in the air now and I heard the bark of a man: 'Jump.'
Gently pulling the door open, I stepped out on to the porch and drank some juice, eyes fast upon the swarms of people gathering around the corner. Most were in nightdresses and pyjamas so I walked towards them, checking once over my shoulder to see if anyone had shared my concern. No sign from downstairs, where Terry and Maureen were still presumably glued together in a soporific trance. Duncan's curtains were moving, but the light was now out. As for Eiger, she and her husband were on the other side of the house anyway.
I turned back and muscled through the knot of people. A beautiful column of flame was spinning around the top floor of one of the guest houses, punched from beneath by frequent fists of black smoke. Somebody else shouted, a woman in a track suit top with a hood. Her legs were concealed by a black nightdress.
'Jump! Come on now. Jump! We'll catch you. It's okay.'
The roar from the fire made it hard for me to hear her cries, so I imagined it must be impossible for the person for which they were intended. I peered into the smoke, wondering why the fire brigade hadn't arrived yet. I could see a figure leaning out of a narrow window. Flames were lashing the space behind her. Thick coils of smoke, like tarred ropes flung to the heavens, churned around the figure. Another pulse of blue light split the road and I saw that the fire brigade were here, they just couldn't get to the blaze. Someone had double-parked a Vauxhall Nova, blocking access to the street. A police car pulled up and the occupants started banging on doors to try to track down the arsehole.
Pushing his way through the growing crowd and ignoring the entreaties to do something, the raised fingers, jabbing at what must now be a corpse, a firefighter in breathing apparatus kicked in a pane on the front door and sank through a wall of smoke.
I had crushed the carton of orange juice in my fist. My feet were soaking. When I looked up, I caught a glimpse of Eve as she passed the cluster of terraced houses opposite, before turning north into a street parallel with the bay.
The firefighter had not yet returned. His colleagues were arguing outside as to whether they should go in after him. A gang of men had gathered around the double-parked car and were rocking it violently, trying to get it on to its side.
Suddenly, the person dangling from the window toppled out and crashed on to a sun-lounger, silencing everyone. Her legs had been cooked completely off the bone of her pelvis. I staggered back, smelling burned meat, and dropped the carton of juice. It was a crazy moment. I thought the policeman by my side would caution me for littering.
'Eve,' I croaked, and jogged after her.
***
I had been shuffling around for half an hour or so when I realised I wasn't making any progress; merely turning blindly into any street, alley or ginnel that offered itself to me. My movements had nothing to do with finding Eve.
I surfaced on the Marine Road. The sea was a cold slab. From here it looked as if it had accrued a layer of dust; I couldn't see a reflection on it anywhere. Exhausted, I sloped back to the guest house. There had been some dispersal but the fire engine remained, dead and quiet. A blanket concealed a form on a stretcher but I couldn't tell who it might be. I hoped the firefighter had made it out alive.
I took the smell of smoke inside with me and felt instantly nauseous. I traipsed up the stairs and saw that the coat in the bathroom had disappeared. I went in and turned
on the bath taps, poured some cheap and nasty salts in from a box that had had its brand name bleached out of sight by age and the sun. There was no hook on the back of the door, nothing to hang a coat on. I left the bath running and trotted up to my room. A door snicked shut as I approached the last few risers. Not mine: it was still on the latch. I saw a shadow shift fluidly along the bar of returned light under Duncan's door, like the slow bleed of mercury in a thermometer.
I considered knocking, to tell him about the drama outside, but at the last moment I pulled my hand away from the door and went back to the bathroom, where I failed to wash the stink of death from my skin.
***
I lay in a sweat of blankets while the vision of the dead woman revisited me. I heard leisurely footsteps pacing up and down the street and at one point I thought I heard a voice ask, in a quiet voice: 'Alex?' but when I looked, I couldn't see anyone. Just before one, I heard the gate squeal open and Eve's footsteps on the path. She didn't knock, which I found endearing. She'd wait for me. As I dressed I heard the fire engine move away, vibrating my bed with its snarling engine. With the window open, the cold air reeked of ash. I slammed it shut.
Head Injuries Page 15
