Of Sea and Sand

by Denyse Woods

  Thea hugged her knees. “You should forgive yourself.”

  “You think?”

  She nodded. “I rate forgiveness. It’s a good concept.”

  “I’ve been waiting for it to come along for years, but no sign of it yet.”

  “It isn’t a bus, Gabriel. You have to go looking for it.”

  “What would you know?” he said dismissively.

  “I know about guilt.”

  Lying on his side, curved around the fire, he looked up, the whites of his eyes challenging her. “You think?” he said again.

  “Yes, I do think.”

  “So?”

  Thea ran her fingers through the cooling sand. “Do you know Sheep’s Head?”

  “A bleak sort of place, as I remember. Straw-colored and rocky.”

  “Beautiful and bleak. That’s where I went to recuperate after Baghdad.”

  “Your aunt’s place. The one who nursed you.”

  “Yes. Anyway, one evening when I was feeling better, I went for a walk. My first long walk, towards the marsh near the lighthouse. I hadn’t meant to go far, but there’s a lake along the way, long and still, so I sat on a rock, looking over it for a while, and I realized, after a bit, that Ireland was reclaiming me. I knew then that I could get on without Iraq. If you have Ireland, you need no other place. So it was good. I felt good. Properly recovered, you could say.

  “Then the cold started to seep in—stupid of me, to stay out like that—and it wasn’t fair, either, because Brona would be worrying, but when I turned back, my energy store was suddenly empty. I had to take it slowly and rest along the way, even though it was getting dark.

  “It was a relief when I saw the black-tiled roof of the house down below. My pace picked up. I scurried through the boggy ground and onto the road, but when I got to the house, Brona wasn’t about. The kitchen was empty, but the car was there, so I checked every room—the bathroom, the scullery, the cold rooms we had slept in as children—and I thought, Oh, shit, she’s gone looking for me.

  “I hurried back outside, calling her. Nothing. Then I went along the road to see if she was down at her veggie patch, but of course she wasn’t. Her worrying had driven her out into the dusk in search of me, and with all the different goat tracks, all the humps of rock, it would have been easy for us to miss each other. So I ran back up along the main track and through that narrow grassy valley, shouting her name, over and over again, until eventually I thought I heard her call back, so I stood stock still, wanting the wind to hush. I was right—she was calling me from up behind the hillocks. I shouted, ‘I’m here. I’m coming. Where are you?’ And I stumbled along the high path, across the ridge, but even though I could still hear Brona’s voice, it seemed to get ever farther away. I kept shouting that I was coming, that I was almost there, running and slipping, and yelling her name as she was calling mine . . . until I found her.”

  Gabriel stopped poking the fire.

  “She’d fallen off the track, into the ditch, and was lying in the gorse, a tea towel stuck into the pocket of her apron, her face all scratched. Worried that I’d slipped and fallen, she had slipped and fallen. There was so little light left, I almost didn’t see her. She was cold. Heavy. Unconscious. I tried to drag her out, but couldn’t, so I took off my coat and jumper and put them over her, then struggled through the dark to the house.

  “After calling the ambulance, I grabbed a torch and found my way back to her, and I held her and tried to keep her warm. The wind was bitter, screeching like a banshee, or maybe it was the banshee, come to take her. . . . I had never been so scared. It took the ambulance nearly an hour to get there—they had to come from Bantry, along that wretched winding road—and I kept stumbling back to see if it had come, until finally it was there, down at the house, and I ran down, screaming. Incoherent. I was shivering so much, they wouldn’t let me take them to her. They wrapped me in a foil blanket and put me in the kitchen, while they went to her. For all the good it did.”

  “She died?”

  “She was dead already.” Thea’s eyes turned back to the fire. “So you could say that I killed her. My self-absorption and selfishness forced her out into the wilderness. She was frailer than we knew. She had your brother’s heart.”

  The desert took a few moments to absorb the story.

  “So, you see, I know all about your guilt, Mr. Sherlock. The difference is that I don’t inhabit it, I merely live with it, even though the memory of that night, the wind, and the gorges, and me sitting alone in the dark house, frozen, watching the—”

  “Blue lights flashing.”

  She looked over. “Yes.”

  Gabriel, suddenly, was on his feet.

  “But no siren. No sound.” Thea pulled her hand around the back of her neck. “Only the beacon, lighting the room with a blue hue, then throwing me back into darkness.”

  Gabriel stood on the other side of the flames staring at her, arms hanging. “Just as you left, so you come back.”

  “What?”

  “Lights on the wall,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “I saw the blue lights. On my wall. In Muscat. I saw the ambulance.”

  “Please don’t, Gabriel. Not here.”

  “And then you were gone and now you’re back again, and I can’t even see you.” His eyes narrowed. “It must be the competition. You don’t like it. Twenty-six years isn’t enough? You want my whole life?”

  “What are you on about?” Thea stood up and gripped his arm—anything to get his eyes off hers. “What competition?”

  “A beautiful woman comes into my life and you just have to wreck it, don’t you?”

  “Who are you talking to? It’s me. Thea.”

  He blinked, finally, and the arm in her grasp relaxed. “I know who it is,” he said, sinking cross-legged to the ground. “I know who you are.”

  She crouched beside him. “I bloody well hope so. You’re scaring me.”

  “You don’t understand how devious they can be. If they want you, if they want your love, they’ll do what it takes to make sure no one else gets it. They’ll even make you mad. She made me mad—”

  “No. No, you’re just tired.”

  “And I loved her for it.”

  “You need to sleep. We should turn in.”

  Gabriel held her eye. “She’s messing with us. Be careful.”

  “I won’t listen to this. I’m turning in. So should you.”

  Thea bolted upright, woken. Two voices. Beyond the canvas. Gabriel talking to someone. Who? A passing Bedouin in the night? If someone had driven up she would have heard the engine. He spoke quietly, in a low drone, but there had been another voice. That was what had woken her—it had slid into her unconscious and set off an alarm. She couldn’t work out what he was saying, but she was aware of motion, of to-ing and fro-ing outside, and Gabriel ranting, tonelessly.

  Then, quiet.

  The silence pounded. Her ears fretted, thumping in the discomfort of having nothing to do, the pulse of blood through her veins making her agitated. There is no such thing as silence, she thought. The body won’t allow it.

  There it was again. Light, wispy. A woman, outside.

  She pushed off the sleeping bag and crawled toward the flap, but couldn’t see anyone until she was half in, half out of the tent, on all fours. The fire was low, all but gone, the night sticky black. She leaned out farther and thought she saw something by the jeep—a darkness against the dark, and Gabriel. A woman? Gabriel took off, walking, talking. Thea’s body was vibrating. How long had she been asleep? Stretching farther out of the tent, she tried to follow his trajectory—he went behind the tent, around the other side, around the jeep, then out into the darkness, in measured, regular paces, and still that voice, though Thea couldn’t identify words or even the language.

  A voice on the wind, the light desert wind. Too scared to cower in the tent, she stood up, and although she knew he was coming, she jumped when Gabriel appeared from the side. She spun arou
nd—no sign, no sense, anymore, of anyone else.

  “Who’s here?”

  He stopped. She couldn’t see his face. “You.”

  “Who are you talking to?”

  “You,” he said again.

  “No—there’s a woman. Someone. I heard her.”

  “No,” he said kindly. “It’s just us.”

  The night air was frigid. Her mouth dry as dust.

  “The singing sands, they call it.”

  “What?”

  “It sounds like a voice,” he said. “The wind on the sand.”

  That made sense. She caught her breath, dropped to her haunches. “Oh, thank God.”

  He walked past her, resuming his trudging.

  Thea recoiled into the tent, like a snail into its shell. There was no woman. It was the sands, singing. The only thing now was his voice, the rhythmic muttering. Like chanting. Arabic. He was speaking Arabic. She put her hands over her ears. Christ, Christ, Christ!

  To have come to such a place—what had she been thinking? Kim had been right. This was madness. From first sighting, Gabriel had been an unsettling presence and yet she had come away with him, far from all things, alone. What can we know of strangers? What did she think she was doing? Making up for time undone? Adventures lost? Well, here was adventure: Gabriel ranting. She had unleashed his demons, and stood, trapped, between him and them.

  Curling up and pulling the sleeping bag about her, Thea willed herself to the safety of her own bed—hers and Alex’s—with the sun pouring in across their deep red quilt, and the cat, like a furry hot-water bottle, at her feet, purring when rays of sunshine slipped past clouds and coated him with warmth. So distant; beyond reach. Out of range. She scrabbled for her phone, pressed a button and allowed its light to brighten the inside of the tent. The tiny screen lit up the canvas dome, but there was no signal, no way to contact . . . anyone.

  The only person within reach was Gabriel, and he—barely so.

  She should sleep, leave him to it. He would sleep, eventually. Dawn would come.

  Or . . . he would come in—into the tent. She had gripped his arm, allowed him to touch her. He might come looking for more.

  He could be sleepwalking. That was it. He was sleepwalking. Nothing spookier than that. But he might sleepwalk clear out of the camp and disappear over the dunes, in which case—her thoughts stepped carefully from one scenario to another, like feet through a minefield—she would get into the jeep and go for help at first light.

  Unless, in his dream delirium, he took the jeep.

  A cold flush flooded through her. Where were the keys?

  No, she wouldn’t need them. He wouldn’t go anywhere. Any minute now he’d calm down. Go to sleep.

  He kept the keys in his hip pocket.

  She peeked through the flap, but could only follow his voice. His pace was no slower, no less rhythmic. He would walk her into a trance with his chanting. This was how they had spoken of jinn—crazy stuff, loss of reason, normalcy yanked away. Love and possession. Perhaps his jinn lover, threatened, had come back to take ownership. Perhaps now she meant business. That must have been what he’d been alluding to when he’d talked of competition—talked at her because to him they were interchangeable, she and Prudence. But humans were stronger, Abid had said. Jinn prey only on the weak. Thea let out an involuntary groan. Gabriel was weak, at his core, and weakened further by a new infatuation. His steadiness, the even keel on which he forced himself to live, had made him unsusceptible until this night and its double darkness. Now perhaps the jinn would have their way with him, and so he babbled. Thea listened again, and thought it must be the verses he had recited in Bahla—the ones from the Quran to repulse jinn—that he was reciting again now.

  Dry riverbeds. Deserted spots. Exorcisms and potions. Thea believed in it all. The man pacing past the canvas was not familiar. He was neither predictable nor reasonable. He could be made to do anything—like driving off.

  If he did, she would die. Eight liters of water per day, or delusion and death.

  She needed those keys.

  Her legs barely held her. She stepped out onto the sand and stood grasping one of the flaps, thinking of Alex, willing him to her side, though he was sound asleep three thousand miles away. He had no idea that his wife was alone in the Empty Quarter with an unhinged man and vengeful spirits.

  Gabriel didn’t see her.

  “Gabriel.”

  And around he went again, reciting, invoking Allah.

  Thea too prayed, to her own neglected God. Belief fluctuates. When a shot of cold shook her, she called “Gabriel,” just as she remembered that it was dangerous to wake sleepwalkers. It had to be done gently; they had to be guided back to bed. . . .

  His bed was on top of the jeep.

  He came around again. “Please stop,” she said.

  His step faltered marginally; he stopped talking and the desert near-silence fell around them. She was aware of his shape, some feet away. Her eyes watered. She wanted out. She wanted to run. “You’re freaking me out.”

  “Why?”

  “This . . . you’re . . . the chanting.”

  “Who?”

  “What are you doing? Have you been drinking?”

  “The thing is,” he said, his voice normal and his tone cold. “The thing is . . . the thing I didn’t mention is, what I did, that was bad. Bad. But you—”

  Her tongue, like wafer. “Tell me in the morning, we’ll talk tomorrow. You need—”

  “You and me, this is something. Something hot.”

  Bile in her mouth. “You should lie down. You need to sleep.”

  “Sleep?”

  “Yes. Come into the tent.”

  He twisted on his hips, back and forth. Then he said, “I’m off,” and turned toward the jeep.

  “No!”

  “No, really,” he said, still in that casual, devil-may-care manner. “I’d be the death of you, honestly. I do that to people. Kill them and stuff.”

  “Is that what happened to Prudence? Did you kill her?”

  Thea froze. Where had that come from? Was that her voice? It didn’t sound like it. She looked around. Who said that?

  “You don’t look very dead to me.” Gabriel pulled open the door.

  Thea lurched, grabbing him. “Don’t go!” But which was the greater danger—Gabriel or the desert? What exactly had he been on the point of telling her? Was the bad, bad deed more than what they knew? Was it in fact what Kim had suggested in Nizwa?

  He turned slowly, and ran his hand along her arm, over her shoulder to the side of her neck. “I can’t stay. I can’t . . . hold back.”

  “I’ll come. Wait till I grab my passport.”

  “You can’t come where I’m going.”

  She couldn’t risk breaking their contact. “Gabriel! Stop this. Please.”

  He stroked the side of her face.

  “I’m coming too,” she said cautiously, trying to move past him to get into the jeep. To hell with her passport. She’d go without. But he moved in front of her, so that she stepped into him, against him; his breath warmed her neck. His hands fussed around her elbows, then gripped them. They were in the very place where she had seen him moments before with . . . he’d said it. She knew it now. She was the woman she’d seen. By the jeep. Near him. Talking.

  Time in a tumble.

  She pressed closer to him. “I’m cold, Gabriel,” she said, her lips on his neck.

  “Me too.”

  Her hand slid down to his belt. A deep sigh, human and recognizable, escaped him. It was working. She was bringing him back. But at what cost? At what pleasure?

  With a backward step, she yanked him away from the jeep. Second by second, he was becoming the Gabriel she knew best—earthbound and seducible.

  “I won’t resist,” he said.

  Another pull on his buckle and they were near the tent. If he would just lie down, she thought, he might sleep. She kissed his cheek.

  “Won’t resist,” he
said, kissing her neck. “Can’t.”

  The back of her fingers felt the bulge of keys in his hip pocket. She crouched at the tent and pulled him toward her; he fell in, landing across her. Squirming beneath him, she found his mouth. He responded. She sucked on his tongue, determined to keep him going until she was safe, until they were both safe. It was easy, though. He pushed up her T-shirt; she pulled his shirt over his head and pressed her hand into his crotch, rubbing, pushing, the keys right there, an odd, jagged shape above her thumb. If she grabbed them too quickly, he might revert, click back. She must not do the stupid thing—be impetuous and hasty, like heroes in bad movies. In the real world, there could be no mistakes. Calm, measured, slow. Slow, like his hand between her thighs and his breath heavy in her ear. So simple. Rambling incoherently moments before, and now a mere man, making the right moves, arousing her. Fear become desire. Focus, she thought. Focus! She opened his buckle, his zipper, burrowed into his clothing and curled her fingers around his erection, kissing him again, because she wanted to; had wanted to since, in that intimate way, he had nodded at her by the Bimmah Sinkhole and something warm had shot up from the ground. He moaned. Get them. . . . Her knees lifted. Keys. Jeep. Keys. Safety. Danger. Kissing so good, so well, and Alex far away, asleep, unconscious, so unconscious that this wasn’t even happening.

  Gabriel moved down, his mouth on her ribs, her hip. At any moment, he would push off his jeans. Clear thinking was drifting beyond reach. Should she grab them now or were the keys best left in his pocket until he fell asleep? No. If things went wrong, it would be too much of a scramble to get them from his discarded jeans, so she interceded, leaned over to undress him. With a whimper of anticipation, he lay back. . . . She hadn’t thought of it, but there it was, right by her cheek, so she took him in, her mouth working so well he wouldn’t have known or cared that her hand was searching his pocket. She gripped the keys tight in her fist, her mouth tightening also, too much, because he pulled her off, saying it was too soon, too soon. She moved her arm back, behind her. Nothing to hide them under, nowhere to conceal them, no nook or fold. His tongue flicked her nipple, slid to her navel. Fuck the keys, she thought. Fuck me. Careful not to let them tinkle, she could feel only bare canvas, as bare as Gabriel’s shoulder beneath her palm. If he rattled them in the upheaval, or leaned on them, he might realize that the seduction had been a ploy. There would be no convincing him that it was both ploy and pleasure.