Carpet Diem

by Justin Lee Anderson

  After several minutes of thinking as quietly as she could, considering the various merits of a frontal assault (head for the sink), a rearguard action (head for the toilet) or a pincer movement (the toilet/bath combination), Harriet realised that the furry sensation in her mouth was not only punishment for last night’s excesses, but also a quite literal clue to the fact that she was lying face down on someone’s pedestal mat. It could well have been her pedestal mat, but there was no way to tell from this angle.

  This also explained the cold, hard mattress she had been considering complaining about. Still wearing yesterday’s clothes and some of yesterday’s dinner, Harriet reached up to the edges of the toilet bowl and hauled herself into a drunkard’s push up. After twenty minutes of deep and meaningful conversation with the toilet, she crawled to the mini-bar and ate every salty snack she could reach, washed down with mineral water.

  It was bitter.

  ----

  Bob breathed in deeply. He’d woken just before dawn and watched as the sun blushed the sky before rising over the hills. The warmth on his face; the sweet scents of the flowers; the sound of the wind caressing the trees –he was drinking every drop. His shoulders hung loose; relaxed. He was a man reborn and the world was reborn with him.

  After a succulent breakfast, he had asked his waiter for a recommendation of a good place for a walk. The sunken garden he now had to himself was the answer. There were plants here beyond his imagination, defying both logic and gravity, growing within stone ruins that breathed with history.

  Bob’s mind was quiet.

  Rising from the stone bench he had paused on, he wandered lazily along the makeshift ‘path’ through the grass. With Priest and Cassandra away, there was little to be done beyond enjoying themselves for a while. And this was a very enjoyable place. Plus, it was nice to be away from Hurricane Harriet. Regardless of her newly refined looks, she was a menace. Bob had been fortunate to require very little work in that regard. He was already tall and dark. It took only a few tweaks here and there – mostly removing a few visible scars - to add handsome to the stereotype.

  “Argh! Sorry!” he yelped as he turned a corner and very nearly careered straight into a young woman picking fruit from a tree.

  “I thought I was alone,” he began to apologise, before recognising the girl as Amelia from the night before.

  “Oh, hello. I didn’t recognise you,” he said, composing himself and placing both feet back firmly on the ground.

  Amelia had not been as rattled by the chance encounter. She was perfectly calm. And still. Completely and utterly still.

  “Hello?” Bob asked, confused. He waved a hand before her face, and noticed important things. Her eyes didn’t move, even to blink. She wasn’t breathing.

  But she was stunning - a work of art carved from flesh and cloth. Though she did not move, even minutely, her white summer dress flapped gently in the breeze, hugging then fleeing from her legs.

  Bob was transfixed. He felt an immediate and desperate urge to touch her. He stood in a museum, inches from a Pre-Raphaelite Angel, knowing he wasn’t allowed to reach over the velvet rope. And yet, his hand crept slowly toward the pale, delicate skin of her face as he also stopped breathing…

  “Bloody odd, isn’t it?”

  Bob jumped the jump of a guilty man. The voice had come from behind him –yet another place he had been certain there was nobody standing.

  He turned to find a swarthy, stubbled young man, with hair that was part surfer, part pirate, smiling broadly at him.

  Bob reeled for a moment, before his priorities returned to him.

  “Odd?” he answered. “Is she…I mean…what’s…?” bob shrugged his shoulders and nodded at Amelia, certain his questions were self-evident.

  “It’s OK,” the stranger replied in a soothing Irish brogue, “she’s not dead. She’s just stopped.” He smiled at Bob as if this explained everything.

  It didn’t.

  “Stopped?” Bob asked, wondering if this meant she had been able to see him reaching towards her like cat with a candle. “Stopped what?”

  “Just stopped. She does it all the time. Has done since she turned 14.Something to do with her and them witches, I think.”

  Bob took in the information as quickly as possible. Firstly: witches? Bloody hell. Secondly: 14! Bloody, bloody hell! He hoped that had been some years ago. He desperately wanted to turn and look closely at her to confirm his belief that she was somewhat older, but was terrified that one glance would give away his thoughts to the Irish pirate.

  Clearly, his eyes betrayed him anyway.

  “Don’t worry, she’s well over 20 now,” the pirate smiled, patting Bob on the arm. “You can stop beating yourself. Unless you like that sort of thing.”

  That grin again.

  “I’m Sean, by the way. Sean O’Halloran. Pleased to meet you.”

  “Bob,” Bob replied, taking the hand offered to him. “Are you a guest?”

  “Used to be. But I ran out of cash, so I asked if there was any way I could stay. Now I’m a barman.”

  “A barman? I could use a drink.”

  Sean threw his arm around Bob. “Done and dusted, sir.”

  Bob paused, looking back at Amelia. “What about…?”

  “I’ll tell you about it in the bar, once you’re sitting down.”

  “Will she be OK?”

  “Aye, she’ll be grand. It’s not like it ever rains here. The worst she’ll get is a bit dusty.”

  Bob allowed himself to be dragged towards an explanation and something to put his weight on besides his uncertain legs.

  ----

  There were many sounds to which Simon had become unaccustomed during his solitary confinement. Several had presented themselves unexpectedly in recent days. His doorbell was, of course, first amongst them. Following this had been the sound of conversation in his living room, the chatter of a busy airport and the sound of friends laughing together.

  Cherry had made sounds he’d never heard before. He liked those. She’d also made him make some noises he’d never made before and that he was entirely unsure he knew how he’d made in the first place. He was, however, prepared to repeat the experiment to see if they happened again.

  One sound that was completely alien to Simon was that of a ringing telephone.

  He only had a telephone line connected in his house for emergencies and takeaways but, no matter how he tried, he couldn’t seem to avoid sales calls. Initially, as a small revenge and rebellion against these intrusions, he took some pleasure in playing with the callers. He would allow them to finish some elaborate and clearly scripted speech before saying, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. Could you repeat that?”

  But even that became tedious, so he eventually just stopped paying his phone bill in protest. When a British Telecom operator called to cut him off and told him he’d be placed on a service which allowed “emergency calls out only”, she was somewhat surprised with Simon’s whoop of delight. He then offered to pay the outstanding balance immediately, but only after securing the woman’s solemn word that she would leave him on a service which did not accept incoming calls.

  The poor woman was so bemused by this that she took it upon herself to look up Simon’s call records. In five years, there were only three local numbers he had called with anything resembling regularity –all around dinner time.

  Other than that, he had made half a dozen calls to each of three numbers: one in Melton Mowbray, one in New York and one in Geneva. The pity she felt in seeing this was slightly alleviated by her passing amusement at the thought that his high percentage of overseas numbers would have flagged him up for regular sales calls from the long distance team.

  Out of compassion, she misguidedly called the local Samaritans and gave them Simon’s details, suggesting he could do with a visit. This caused great irritation to Simon as they knocked on his door in the middle of an episode of Lost. Having to duck behind the couch and turn down the volume on the
TV made it even more difficult than usual to follow what the hell was going on. It did, however, finally convince him to get a Sky+ box.

  When Simon heard a phone ringing while brushing his teeth, then, it was not entirely inexplicable that his first thought was, “Next door’s phone is loud.” having quickly decided that the noise was definitely coming from his room, his next thought was, “Who put the telly on?” A quick glance out of the bathroom door confirmed that this, too,was wrong.

  Bewildered, Simon wandered into the room and called out “Hello?” through a mouthful of Aquafresh. With the next ring, the phone next to Simon’s bed clearly vibrated slightly, confirming the inconceivable fact that, yes, someone actually wanted to speak to him. Shambling around the bed, Simon lifted the phone and put it tentatively to his ear, the way one might pick up a furry bundle of teeth and claws whose owner has just cheerily assured you not to worry, because it hardly ever bites.

  “Yes?” Simon enquired of the phone.

  “Hell …me.”

  The voice was gravelly and spoke from the depths of the earth. Worms crawled in it and death rattled around it. “Help…me,” it repeated, this time including the missing consonant. Simon was frozen with terror. On this magical island, he was being called from beyond the grave to avenge a murder.

  It was the only thing that made sense.

  Simon was to be Hamlet, relentlessly seeking revenge on this poor, bereft zombie’s tormentor. He even had a ready-made lunatic to be his Ophelia –which also neatly took care of Shakespeare’s incestuous undertones.

  “Wah-tur,” the voice came again. “Wah-tur.”

  “Walter?” Simon asked. “Is that the name of your murderer?”

  There was a pause as the zombie processed the question.

  It then cleared its inhuman throat and replied, “Water, you fuckwit. Bring water. Now.” The line went dead.

  Simon’s shoulders slumped. Ophelia was the zombie. As usual, his life was less Shakespeare; more pantomime.

  Resigned, he finished dressing, emptied his bag and refilled it with the bottles of water from his minibar. With a deep breath, he opened the door and slowly left his room, off to rescue a dipsomaniac from dehydration.

  ----

  “I don’t usually drink this early,” said Bob, “but…”

  The empty glass that had, moments earlier, carried vodka to his lips, now stared accusingly up at him.

  “Sure, you’re on your holidays,” replied Sean, pouring himself a Jamesons behind the bar. The Irishman gestured to the vodka bottle, silently offering a top up. Bob shook his head. He was still a little tender from the night before and genuinely felt uncomfortable about the early hour.

  “So every now and then she just …stops, like that?”

  “That’s about it, mate,” replied the barman, seating himself beside Bob at the bar. “She’s one of the very few people to have been born on this island. Her mother is one of the witches. I don’t know who her da is, but I have my suspicions.”

  “Witches?” Bob asked. “Like, real witches?”

  “Well, I dunno. They call themselves ‘socialites’, which is, frankly, silly, because I’ve never met a less sociable pack of bitches in me life.”

  “They have magic powers?”

  “Well, let’s just say that some bloody weird stuff happens around them. For example, from a distance, you’d think you were looking at the tastiest bunch of fluff you’d ever been lucky enough to set eyes on. Get close though…” Sean’s voice trailed off as he shuddered and knocked back the last of his whiskey.

  “Oh,” said Bob. He wanted an explanation, but Sean didn’t look like he wanted to expand on the topic. “Is Amelia a witch?”

  “Don’t think so. Sure, the closer you get to her, the prettier she is.”

  Bob winced at the reminder of how Sean had found him earlier. He was right though; she was beautiful.

  “Boo!” Bob jumped in his seat as fingers dug into each of his sides. That small shock, however, was merely a tremor compared with the seismic quake of seeing who his assailant was. He was suddenly glad he hadn’t agreed with Sean out loud.

  “Jesus! Hello Amelia!” Sean said, warmly throwing open his arms to the now entirely mobile girl. “We were just talking about you.”

  Bob wondered if his face was as pale as it felt. How much had she heard?

  “Oh, really?” The girl smiled angelically and looked at Bob. “ all good, I hope?”

  “Well, yeah…” bob spluttered like a teenager. It was an unfamiliar position for him. He was a confident man, but this girl turned him to jelly. What the hell?

  “I was just explaining to Bob about your condition, you know? He was out in the garden and bumped into you, then I bumped into him, and now we’re here.”

  “Well thank heavens you were there Sean, otherwise Bob might have ravaged me!” She patted Bob’s knee playfully and laughed.

  Bob forced a smile. “Ravaging” her had genuinely not occurred to him. Until now.

  “You’re up early this morning. What happened to your girlfriend from last night?”

  “My …Harriet?” Bob sputtered. “God no, she’s not my girlfriend! She’s a … “Companion? Accomplice? Lunatic?”…friend.”

  “You don’t sound very sure, mate. Is she a friend?” Sean asked.

  “Yeah. She’s a friend.”

  “Oh, really? Well then there’s nothing to stop us two singles from going for a walk in the garden together later, is there? I can show you my favourite flowers,” said Amelia, “there are some great little alcoves and hidden spots.”

  Bob’s internal sensors did a quick rewind. Had he heard that right? Had the beautiful enigma just asked him to go for a walk in the amazing garden, looking for hidden alcoves?

  “I guess not,” he answered, grinning widely.

  “Lovely,” Amelia smiled. “Right, I need some breakfast. See you both later!” With a wave, she bounced through the terrace doors and out to join the growing throng of people breaking their fast.

  “Bob, close yer mouth, son,” said Sean, pouring himself another whiskey.

  “She’s…”

  “She’s something else, isn’t she?”

  “She’s amazing,” Bob finally said, reaching for the whiskey Sean had just poured and knocking it back in one.

  Sean grinned, pulled Bob’s empty glass to him and started pouring again.

  ----

  “For God’s sake, slow down!” Harriet barked.

  “Harriet,” Simon replied as calmly as he could manage, “we’re standing still.”

  “Bollocks,” she murmured, her eyes closed and her head hanging like a sack of onions as she leaned on her nephew for support.

  Simon had arrived at her room and found the door ajar. Inside, he’d found his great aunt face down in the remains of the mini bar: mainly empty water bottles and crisp packets. He’d managed to prop her up and pour water into her mouth (mostly), for which she’d seemed a little grateful and a little annoyed.

  After she tried and failed to fall asleep because “the bloody room won’t sit still!” they decided that food was the order of the day to combat the hangover from Hell.

  “Come on,” Simon coaxed, “we’re nearly there.” He hated this with every fibre of his sober being.

  Harriet lifted her head groggily and peered out through tiny slits. After a moment, they opened wide.

  “Are you mental?! That’s the bar!”

  “Harriet, the map said the breakfast terrace is through the bar.”

  Harriet used every ounce of her strength to grab Simon’s face with both hands and raised her head to look him in the eyes.

  “You have no idea what you’re asking me to do,” she said, with an intensity rarely felt outside of prison.

  Simon sighed. It was too much to hope she’d learn something from this experience.

  They shuffled onwards, finally negotiating the swinging double doors. Expecting to find the room empty, Simon was surprised to see two figure
s sitting at the bar. As they turned to see who was joining them, Simon was even more surprised to see that it was Bob. And a pirate.

  He wondered if alcoholism was contagious.

  “Bloody hell mate, what did you do to her?” the pirate asked, advancing on them.

  “Sean, this is Harriet and her …cousin, Simon,” said Bob, also getting up and moving towards them. “This is Sean. He works here.”

  Simon relaxed a little at the thought that Bob was simply doing what he’d said he was going to do –getting to know the staff. “Hello,” he said, as cheerily as he could muster.

  “Ugh,” said Harriet, vaguely moving one hand in his direction.

  “Harriet drank a lot of the local spirit last night,” Bob explained.

  “Ah, right,” said Sean, lifting her free arm and guiding her to a seat. “Now what would make a fine young girl like you think you could handle that kind of nonsense?”

  “Ugh,” Harriet replied again. Simon and Bob swapped a conspiratorial look that also contained no small amount of amusement for them both.

  “Well, what kind of barman would I be if I didn’t have a hangover cure on hand?”

  Sean marched jauntily behind the bar and began pouring things into a blender.

  Harriet motioned to Simon to come closer. As he leaned in, she whispered as loudly as she could, “Kill me.”

  Simon sat down next to his not-so-great aunt.

  “Isn’t it a little early for drinks?” Simon asked Bob. He hoped the disapproval wasn’t too evident on his face.

  Unfortunately, it was.

  Fortunately, Bob didn’t care. He was still swimming in the warm waters of Amelia’s smile.

  “I’ve only had a couple. Had a bit of a shock.”

  “Good shock or bad shock?” Simon worried that things had gotten worse while he played nursemaid. Though what would be worse was hard to imagine.