Carpet Diem

by Justin Lee Anderson

  “Good, I think. I’ll tell you later,” Bob reassured him.

  Simon cocked his head with interest.

  Sean arrived back at the table with what could best be described as a pint of pure blue. He placed it carefully in front of Harriet.

  “Get that down you, love. You’ll be right as rain in 15 minutes.”

  Harriet’s pathetic attempt to grab the glass didn’t last long. Without skipping a beat, Sean produced a straw from somewhere and dropped it in the glass, which he then placed right under Harriet’s face.

  She got her mouth around the straw and began to suck, slowly at first, then, as if gripped by a fervent desire, faster and faster. She eventually grabbed the glass violently from Sean and, throwing the straw away, glugged back the last of the drink. When it was completely drained, she stood up abruptly and loudly announced to the empty room, “Monkey suffering fuck!” before collapsing on the table.

  Sean walked calmly back behind the bar. Bob and Simon looked to each other for some explanation of what had just occurred.

  “Is that supposed to happen?” Bob asked.

  “It’s not unheard of,” Sean answered casually. “Anyone else for coffee?”

  ----

  Ten minutes later, Bob, Sean and Simon sat around a table in the vast, empty bar. Harriet remained out cold, but now propped carefully up in her chair. This had been necessary to make room on the table for the cafetière and cups.

  “So what do you think of the place?” Sean asked Simon.

  “It’s very pretty,” Simon answered, hoping not to be asked for specifics.

  “What have you done so far?”

  Damn.

  Simon hesitated to answer, since, “I sat in my room all evening watching MASH and eating nuts” sounded so pathetic in his head that he was terrified of finding out how it sounded out loud. Especially not in the company of this gregarious, charming and virile Irishman.

  Thankfully, Bob rescued him.

  “Well, we only arrived yesterday and, as you know, Harriet and I hit the bar. We had a chat with Amelia and the barmaid.”

  “Oh aye? Who was on last night?”

  “Star, I think her name was,” Bob replied

  “Ah, the lovely Star. Now there’s a heavenly body.” Sean’s faraway look suggested he had examined it in some detail. Bob looked at him with what seemed to Simon like admiration and a little jealousy. He understood. It was hard not to like this man –and not to want him to like you back.

  “And what about you?” Sean turned back to Simon. Crap. He thought he’d been forgotten.

  “Simon had a big night on Wednesday, so he crashed out early last night.”

  It was Harriet’s voice. All three turned to see the previously comatose hellcat sitting serenely in her seat, smiling beatifically at them all. She winked at Simon.

  Harriet had just helped him. He had to let that sink in.

  What did she want?

  “Welcome back,” said Sean. “It’s nice to see your gorgeous eyes rather than the top of your head.”

  Smooth.

  “Really?” Harriet replied sweetly. “A lot of men have enjoyed looking at the top of my head.”

  There was a moment of brilliant silence as all three pennies dropped.

  Sean burst into raucous laughter. Bob joined him, shaking his head, and even Simon chortled nervously.

  “So tell me,” Harriet began, leaning towards Sean, “am I dreaming, or am I really looking at a gorgeous, Irish barman who comes with his own hangover cure?”

  Sean beamed.

  “My Lord, girlie, you’ve the heart of a lion and the mind of a harlot!”

  “That may be my favourite ever compliment,” she answered. “So, who’s hungry? I should eat.”

  “Yes!” Simon exploded from his seat, keen to escape Harriet’s foreplay.

  “I could eat,” Sean agreed.

  All four raised themselves and carried their coffees to the terrace.

  ----

  Luke examined himself in the mirror. He’d left a few nicks here and there, but mostly, it looked OK, considering he’d never shaved his head before.

  “How is it?” Gabby called from the bedroom.

  “Well, you know how Bruce Willis looks better without hair?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Not like that.”

  “Oh.”

  Luke walked back into the room where Gabby sat, brushing her hair in the mirror. Her previously short blonde hair was now a jet black bob. She actually suited the wig, he thought, with only a small tinge of jealousy.

  “Oh, that’s not that bad at all, you know!” she said, turning towards him. “In fact, it’s kind of sexy.”

  “You’re just saying that…” Luke smiled sheepishly.

  “Seriously, if you just let that stubble grow out into a light beard…” she stroked his newly shaven head, smiling affectionately.

  “OK,” he smiled back. “So shall we risk venturing out of our room, then?”

  “I suppose we’d better, or else there wasn’t much point in coming, was there?”

  ----

  Cherry sat on the plush sofa in her room, wrapped in a luxurious dressing gown and drinking coffee. Faunt was an excellent host to everyone who stayed in his home - even those working for him. She hadn’t slept particularly well the night before, but then she often didn’t. As a child, she’d suffered night terrors and as an adult she never found sleep easy to come by.

  Usually, beer helped; but not last night.

  She’d had an ominous sense of foreboding –the strange, indefinable feeling that something was about to go badly wrong. Watching the news since she’d given up on sleep at about 5:30, there had been nothing to particularly worry her.

  There was a political scandal over a French government official sleeping with a male model; a sudden, inexplicable decline in the fish population off the coast of Norway; some equally unexplained damage to a Danish bridge, which might have been a failed terrorist attack, and a missing Lord in Britain, who, it seemed, had some ‘misunderstandings’ over his tax returns, going back some years.

  Nothing to be overly worried about. And yet…here she was, glued to the television with that horrible feeling that something was not right.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Gabby was starting to feel decidedly conspicuous. She wasn’t actually pretending to read a newspaper, or wearing dark glasses, but she was absolutely certain that anyone who looked at her and Luke would instantly know that they were watching Simon and his friends. After breakfast that morning, they followed them down to the beach. The barman had gone back to work. The three of them had then lounged on the beach, Harriet occasionally barking directions at Simon on how to enjoy himself “properly”. He had, to his credit, awkwardly tried his best to follow the instructions, even having a few piña coladas with her.

  Here they were, though, back at the castle-come-hotel, watching them having lunch. And, she was sure, wearing big signs that said “SPIES” around their necks.

  “What’s wrong?” Luke asked.

  “Nothing,” she answered. ”Why do you think something’s wrong?”

  Luke nodded towards her hands, which contained the remains of the napkin she’d been unconsciously making confetti with.

  “Oh. I’m just, you know…” she grimaced.

  Luke smiled reassuringly back at her.

  “What do you think it’ll be like? Being dead?” she asked.

  “What do you mean? You know what it’s like.”

  “I know what it’s like now. I mean, you know, after. What will it be like?”

  Luke’s face fell. He opened his mouth to answer, but he had no words.

  “I hope it’s like a dreamless sleep –you know?” said Gabby.

  Luke nodded.

  “We’re not done, yet,” he whispered. “We’re not beat.”

  “Yet,” Gabby repeated.

  At that moment, a young girl they didn’t recognise arrived at the other tabl
e. She didn’t look like a waitress. She was pretty and had an air of invincibility about her. After a moment’s conversation, Bob got up from the table and followed the girl back into the hotel. As he passed their table, both Luke and Gabby suddenly found their menus unusually fascinating –particularly considering they’d already eaten.

  “Now what?” Gabby asked Luke when she was sure Bob was out of earshot.

  “We stay with these two,” Luke answered. Which, of course, would have been somewhat easier, had Harriet not at that very point decided to get up and walk into the bar, leaving Simon alone at the table.

  “Now what?” Gabby asked, aware she was being repetitive.

  “Um, right.” Luke scanned the room for an answer. “You follow her. I’ll stay with him.”

  Gabby’s eyes opened wide. This was bad enough with Luke. On her own? Following the mad woman?

  “OK,” she answered nervously, getting up from the table.

  She silently resolved to punish Luke later for not coming up with a better plan.

  ----

  “I don’t like this.”

  Daniel was pacing. He’d been doing it for some time.

  “I know you don’t.”

  Lily was draped over a very comfortable armchair, engrossed in the television.

  “They’re totally out of our control. They could come up with a plan to stay in there. What if they just tell Priest everything and he grants them sanctuary? Then what?”

  “Will you please just relax? Come watch this with me. It’s not bad.”

  Daniel exploded. “Are you serious? Do you know what kind of pressure I’m under? Do you know how much this means? If we screw this up, if we lose him …remember what happened to the last one?”

  “Of course I do,” Lily turned away from the TV for the first time in the conversation. “But what do you propose that we do, right now, that will make the slightest bit of difference? We’ve already brought a boat out to the edge of Priest’s waters. This is as close as we are allowed get. We’ve got surveillance covering the area all around the island. As soon as he leaves, in any direction, we’ll know. Until then, we know where he is. So as there’s absolutely nothing else we can do right now, why don’t you sit down and watch TV with me?”

  A look crossed Daniel’s face that Lily was not accustomed to seeing. He was a businesslike, serious and fairly obsessive personality. ‘Fun’ was not a concept that would often find itself in close proximity to the angel, unless ‘Fun’ took a second job as an accountant. But Daniel had a look that, on any other face, she’d have considered to be …devilment.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “I’m thinking,” he smiled, “that what we can do is remind them of the consequences if they stay there too long…”

  ----

  Simon was doing something unusual. He was exploring. He had to do something to take his mind off the ridiculous situation he was in. His life depended on kidnapping the wife of the apparently all-powerful ruler of this actually rather nice island. Them not being here was sort of a relief, but it was only delaying the inevitable. He actually just wanted them to come back so he could get it over with, despite being simultaneously completely terrified of the idea. And every time his mind wasn’t occupied, Simon drove himself insane thinking about all the ways he could end up dead.

  Hence the exploring.

  The vast, old, castle of a hotel was full of interesting nooks and crannies. In fact, if Wikipedia needed pictures to illustrate the phrase ‘nooks and crannies’, every variety of the species could most likely be found within this very building. There were suits of armour lining a ridiculously long hallway, in which hung the kind of paintings Simon suspected were each worth substantially more than his life, and, collectively, probably more than Britain’s Gross Domestic Product. Some of them looked sort of familiar, while others were totally foreign to him.

  There was a small cinema, with plush, suede-covered seats and a bar, into which Simon very much hoped he would be invited later. There was also a stunning, huge swimming pool, which was half under cover and half open to the sky, on a balcony, which looked out off a cliff top down to the sea.

  It was here that he discovered the group of ladies, sitting around a table, under the shade of a parasol. They were sipping what looked like very exotic cocktails and chattering away at the same time in the way that women can. They were - every one of them – classically elegant.

  The six of them were completely different, and yet they each shared flawless skin, perfectly symmetrical features, silky, luxurious hair and smiles that would melt glaciers. It was as if God or, he presumed, in this instance, Satan, had opened each of them in Photoshop and made liberal use of the airbrush.

  Had they appeared on a magazine cover, he’d have scoffed at them as an unrealistic idealisation of feminine beauty. And yet, here they were, looking at him.

  Being Simon, he did the most natural thing in the world when he realised a group of women were looking his way. He looked over his shoulder to see who was behind him.

  Once he realised there was nobody else around, the phrase ‘bunny in headlights’did little to reach the extremes to which Simon suddenly plummeted in his lack of social skills. It was more akin to one of those googly-eyed bush babies in a force ten gale, under floodlights.

  Then, in a completely unexpected and unpredictable way, it got worse. One of the women got up from the table, smiled, and glided towards him.

  “Hello,” she said, as she drew near.

  What the hell was he supposed to do now?

  ----

  Gabby was pacing. She’d followed Harriet and Sean. It hadn’t been difficult. They went straight to Harriet’s room. She’d hung around outside feeling horribly conspicuous just long enough to hear that the pair were clearly going to be engaged in private activity for some time. As it was loud enough for her to hear through the door in the hall, she assumed that the occupants of the adjacent rooms would also be aware of the situation. If they happened to stick their nose out of their door, as people sometimes do in these situations, she had no desire to be left trying to explain what she was doing loitering in the hall listening intently.

  Sensibly, she buggered off.

  Having spent some time trying to find Luke and being afraid to call him in case his ringing phone alerted Debovar to his presence, she had found herself here, in an upper hallway, wondering what to do next. With a large sigh of frustration, she threw herself down in a chair and leaned on the adjacent window ledge, looking out at the beautiful garden below.

  As serendipity would have it, she found herself looking down on Bob and Amelia, who were sitting on a bench not far below her. Fantastic! Now she could tell Luke she had tracked down the gatekeeper and the girl when she’d had to abandon the other two!

  Pleased with her fortuitous competence, she settled quietly to watch her new subjects.

  They spoke softly to each other, laughing often. They looked happy. In fact, they reminded her of Luke and herself, in better times; before they were on the verge of losing everything. In fact, she realised, she’d been unfair to Luke. After all, he was only human. Now. Sort of.

  She would apologise for being so hard on him, later.

  Smiling, Gabby’s thoughts returned to her unwitting subjects below. The girl twirled her hair and giggled. He cleared his throat and looked her in the eyes.

  Wait a minute.

  If Gabby didn’t know better she’d think they were…Wait a minute! Wait a minute! She was leaning towards him. He leaned toward her. “They’re kissing!” she very nearly yelped out loud, jumping up from her seat. This was an unexpected twist –even in this odd story.

  It wasn’t a quick peck either. It was a long, intense, deep kiss –the kind between two souls reunited after a lengthy absence. Between two people, lost and alone, who have unexpectedly found something they didn’t know they were looking for. It was beautiful.

  Suddenly, Gabby realised her afternoon’s activity was in
danger of qualifying her for Voyeurs Anonymous. Hoping no one had been watching her, she quietly got up from the seat and moved on. That was it, she’d done her bit. Both of the people she’d been watching were getting busy and she was starting to feel a little neglected, herself. It was time to go back to the room and prepare Luke’s apology.

  ----

  Time stopped.

  Simon had reached the absolute peak of social awkwardness. Worse than accidentally flashing the neighbours. Worse than farting in church. Only moments ago, as the slinky, liquid blonde had moved toward him, he had been in a state of sheer terror.

  He was alone. She was going to speak to him. It was obviously terrifying.

  And then it got worse. As the woman stepped within a few feet of Simon and stretched out a hand to greet him, she seemed to wither, age and decay in front of him. The sophisticated beauty became a cretinous hag. She said something. He definitely saw her mouth move –but all brain function had clearly been diverted from his ears to where it was busily screaming “What the bloody, buggering hell is that?!” and desperately doing its best not to let the shock, horror and disgust register on his face.

  That would be rude.

  What he definitely was not prepared for –which is not to say that he was prepared for the melted-faced monstrosity reaching for his hand –was to see the same shock and horror on her face as she looked back at him. Why on earth would this Gorgon be scared of him? He was barely retaining control of his sphincter as it was.

  Simon looked down. He couldn’t see his feet.

  It wasn’t because of the new trouser bulge to which he was still becoming accustomed. It was his belly.

  He was back to normal.

  At first, seeing such a familiar sight seemed natural –almost comforting. Then he realised where he was and that, if he were seen like this by the wrong person, he could well be thrown off the island. Then he’d have no Cassandra, no carpet and, eventually, no lungs, he was pretty sure. Unusually for Simon, this all occurred to him quite quickly. It’s amazing what mortal terror can do to speed up one’s mental faculties.