The New Uncanny

by Priest, Christopher

  She shrugged. ‘So no beach.’

  Dan smiled apologetically. ‘No beach.’

  ‘I guess I could walk to that café back up the 6A and get food for the fridge.’

  He brushed an eyelash from her cheek. ‘I’ll go.’

  Felix came running, as the SUV was hooked and clamped. ‘Where’s our car going?’

  ‘To the garage, squire. We’ll get a new one tomorrow.’

  ‘But you said we could play mini-golf.’

  ‘If you’re good for your mum while I’m out, we might spend the afternoon at the pool again.’

  ‘Yay!’ shouted Felix, punching the air. ‘I want to go to the pool again. Definitely. Except first, I have to tell Mum something.’ He crooked his finger.

  She looked at Dan, a smile playing on her lips. Then she bent down.

  ‘Guess what?’ he whispered in her ear.

  ‘What?’

  He motioned her over to a picnic table. ‘Go away, Rosie! Mum, Rosie can’t listen.’

  ‘Felix, calm down. She doesn’t know what you’re saying.’

  ‘The Earl talked to me.’

  She sat down on the bench. ‘Where?’

  ‘When I was feeding the geese. He sounded very cross.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said’ – Felix made his voice deep – ‘“Don’t put your face so close to the fence or…”’

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘“Or the geese will PECK out your eyes!”’

  ‘Felix, is that really what he said?’

  He nodded slowly. ‘Really. He scared me.’

  ‘Well, he shouldn’t have been cross and he shouldn’t have scared you. But were you pressing your face to the chicken wire?’

  ‘I can’t remember. Do you know what else?’ His hands waggled. ‘I saw something.’

  ‘What, Felix? Come on. Dad’s waiting for us.’

  ‘I saw The Earl has no eyes.’

  ‘Felix.’

  ‘The geese must have pecked them out.’

  ‘Now you’re being silly.’

  He turned his palms out. ‘Mum, I saw them. They’re not alive eyes. And they don’t have a real colour. Glass eyes are no-colour, and they make them in the same factories where they make marbles.’

  She nodded, pretending to weigh up the information. ‘Well I didn’t know that.’

  ‘I know. But now you do.’

  *

  She woke again that night, twisted in the sheet. She had a vague sense that she’d cried out – a warning or a threat – in her sleep. If she had, no one else had woken. She reached for Dan, for any bit of him that would orient her in the dark expanse of the bed. She needed water.

  The flooring was cold beneath her feet, as cold as if it had been laid directly onto damp earth. She checked Felix, then Rosie, in their beds. Without turning on the bathroom light, she filled a paper cup. Then she slipped on her flip-flops, slid through the doors, and nearly cried at the relief of fresh air.

  The night was starlit. Not a breath of a breeze moved in the trees. To the east, the sky was beginning to glow wanly. A few lonely birds called. She guessed it had to be four, maybe five, in the morning. She pulled her kimono close. A short stroll and she’d feel better.

  She turned left, starting off down the long drive towards the road, but a sudden image of The Earl and his wife, asleep in separate beds, their arms folded stiffly across their chests, made her turn back. She’d go the other way, as far as the pool.

  On the front lawn, the rows of empty picnic tables looked strange, expectant, in the night. The hammock sagged between the two sumac trees. The stink of a skunk caught in her throat. As she passed a blue Chrysler in the car park, she smiled at its glow-in-the-dark bumper sticker. ‘Make LOVE to Your Lawn. Trust Dave Vernon & Co For All Your Lawn Care Needs.’ Outside Room 16, four shiny bikes stood propped against the wall – new arrivals, she guessed – while in Room 23, the last room in the strip, the blue light of a TV seeped through the curtains.

  She raised her chin and closed her eyes to catch a scent. Sweet peas.

  Suddenly she was sitting again with her aunt in her conservatory. She was admiring the profusion of sweet peas Patricia had cut for the table, and her aunt was saying, ‘Here. Take them. Take them with you to the airport. You won’t be so sad about leaving.’ And she shuddered again at the thought of life with a Felix-shaped hole.

  She squinted into the distance. There was something… She wasn’t imagining it. A light was coming from the pool. Not the floodlight that shone until 10 p.m. A yellow glow.

  At the corner of the chain-link fence, she stopped short. The Earl’s dog was trotting restlessly back and forth along the pool’s sundeck. Three brass lanterns shone at equal intervals along the edge of the deep end. For a moment, in the lantern-light, the pool looked like a deep, dark hole.

  Then she saw him.

  ‘Jesus.’

  At the nearest edge, almost bumping the wall, The Earl floated lifelessly, his broad muscled back slack and white in the water; his face, immersed; his arms and legs, dangling from his torso.

  Jesus Jesus Jesus.

  She started to run – the door was propped open with a bucket – she’d have to haul him over to the stairs in the shallow end – and yell till someone, anyone, came. Could she still remember how to give the kiss of life? Then she was at Reception again, telling him about Aunt Patricia; he was looking away, closing the registration book and straightening his pen on the desk as a cold surge of emotion mainlined to her core. Her heart juddered, and she was running, running for the door to the pool – oh God – when she heard a loud splash. She pivoted on her heels and pressed her face to the fence.

  The Earl had come to life. In one smooth motion, he’d flipped himself over onto his back and had pushed off from the side. He floated, spread-eagled and inert, at the centre of the pool.

  *

  The morning was humid again – eighty degrees by nine o’clock. The replacement car didn’t arrive by ten, as promised. After the third call, Dan started shouting down the phone. ‘Look, does a family funeral mean nothing to you people?’

  The chamber-maid, a girl of about seventeen, knocked on the door. Dan asked if she would come back later. ‘Better still, just give us a miss today. Our towels are fine.’ The service started at one. It was nearly noon. Mia pulled her black skirt from her case, but her black ruffled blouse was nowhere. She ran the motel iron over Dan’s trousers, noticing only too late the ugly yellow residue it spat over the pockets. ‘You’ll just have to keep your jacket closed all afternoon.’

  ‘In this heat?’

  She gave Rosie her bottle and asked Dan to take the kids outside so she could get their clothes together: Rosie’s blue silk dress from Monsoon, Felix’s jacket, shirt, belt and long shorts. But in a few minutes, he was back with their daughter in his arms. His jaw looked tight; his mouth was flat-lining. ‘She dropped her bottle. It smashed in the car park.’

  She sucked in her lip and continued to search for Felix’s good shoes. Dan disappeared outside to ask the chamber-maid for a dustpan and brush. Car doors slammed in the car park. Felix came running in, shirtless, bare-footed and breathless. ‘Mum, mum! Our car’s here!’

  She ran outside, holding one of the sought-after shoes. A canary-yellow saloon car waited by Reception. Perfect for a funeral cortege to a cemetery.

  What next?

  Dan signed the paperwork, then brushed past her, his head bowed, his thoughts in lock-down mode. He returned swinging a car-seat from either arm, and started strapping them into place.

  ‘Damn it!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Felix’s won’t lock on.’

  She couldn’t bear to know any more. ‘I’ll get Rosie dressed.’

  Felix trailed after her. ‘Mum, mum, I don’t want to stay at The Earl’s by myself!’

  Her head started to throb. ‘Felix, don’t be silly. When have we ever left you somewhere by yourself? You’re coming to Aunt Patricia’
s funeral.’

  He punched the air. ‘Yay!’ But still, he trotted behind her, his tiny breasts shaking. ‘Will the police arrest me if I’m not in my seat?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘they will arrest Daddy.’

  He started to howl.

  ‘Felix! I was only–’

  She turned. His eyes streamed. He was clutching his foot.

  ‘Move your hand, sweetheart.’

  Blood gushed from the sole.

  His face was turning purply-red with the pain.

  She scooped him up in her arms and started to run for the room. ‘It’s okay, bunny rabbit. Mummy’s got you. It’s okay.’

  Glass from Rosie’s bottle. Why hadn’t she or Dan told him to put his shoes on?

  ‘Oh, my poor love. Sssh now. Sssh… Mummy’s here.’ She was stumbling toward their room, struggling to carry him as he writhed.

  ‘Mia!’ Dan caught them up, put Rosie down and took Felix in his arms. ‘Run to the office and get their First Aid kit.’

  Felix screamed louder.

  ‘What about Rosie?’

  ‘Into the playpen.’

  She looked into her son’s swollen face and, for a breathless moment, was almost knocked back by its red-eyed fury. At moments like this, when he raged, the dread always came back: he knows, he remembers. Somehow he knows.

  She sprinted, her blood-smeared kimono flapping behind her. At the reception desk, she shouted into the room behind. ‘Hello...? Hello!’ She would have pounded the bell on the desk if there’d been one.

  The Earl appeared, his face wearing its trademark mask of neutrality. He laid his hands firmly on the desk. It was hard to believe that this was the same body she’d seen, slack and heavy, in the pool only hours ago. ‘It’s my son,’ she breathed. ‘He stepped on a piece of glass. He’s bleeding quite badly. Do you have a First Aid kit?’

  The Earl nodded, almost imperceptibly, and walked back into his living quarters.

  She waited. She paced. Minutes passed. ‘Hello!’ she tried, bitterness getting the better of her voice. Had she been waiting here for a quarter of an hour or did it only feel that long? What if Felix needed stitches?

  The Earl’s wife appeared at the desk. The rims of her eyes were red. ‘Here now,’ she started. ‘You’re welcome to these.’ She laid a small half-empty bottle of antiseptic on the desk, along with sterile wipes and two large plasters.

  ‘Thanks.’ Mia grabbed the meagre offerings and flew out the door.

  *

  In their room, Felix was curled, foetally, on his bed. In the absence of drugs, Dan had switched on the telly.

  ‘Look, squire! Here’s Mum.’ But Felix only blinked at the television set. Dan turned to her, lowering his voice. ‘Where were you?’

  ‘They took forever to find this much.’ She showed him the supplies.

  ‘It’s okay. I managed to get the glass out with the tweezers from your make-up bag. I sterilised them in whiskey. It was a big piece, but the bleeding’s stopped.’

  ‘Thank God.’

  ‘He was very good. I told him how sorry I was about missing that piece of glass.’

  She glanced at her son’s pale face. ‘You and Daddy make a good team, don’t you, Felix?’

  On the pillows, he nodded, without looking at her.

  ‘You were very brave. I’m proud of you, bunny rabbit.’

  Dan murmured in her ear. ‘It’s twenty to one.’

  ‘Right.’ She sucked in her lip. ‘Let Mummy look at that poor old foot.’

  Without taking his eyes away from Scooby Doo, Felix stuck his leg in the air and rotated his ankle to display his wound. He was feeling better.

  ‘Now, sweetheart. Do you want to stay here with Dad while Rosie and I go to Aunt Patricia’s funeral? Or do you want to come with us too?’ She could hear herself, subtly manipulating her wounded child, and she cringed inwardly.

  Felix turned and grimaced at Rosie in her playpen. ‘I’m going too.’

  ‘Hooray! Mummy will put a plaster on your foot and get you dressed. Then we’ll drive there in our new car.’

  Dan muttered under his breath: ‘Minus a car-seat.’

  She looked at him and shrugged.

  ‘You can sit on my lap just this once, okay, Felix? I, for one, would love a cuddle.’

  ‘Yay,’ he muttered. But he did not turn to her with his just-for-her smile. His small fist did not punch the air.

  *

  They arrived back late, after ten, each bearing a sleeping child. She held the screen door while Dan fumbled with the key. Inside, he smacked the switch for the overhead light.

  She stopped, her back tensing. ‘He was here again.’

  He scanned the room. ‘Who was? Oh God. Don’t do this now, Mia. It’s been a hell of a long day.’ He lowered Felix onto his bed and started gently pulling off his clothes.

  She paced from the door to the window, from the window to the bathroom, checking their things. ‘I left the desk lamp on deliberately, Dan. I hate coming back into this room in the dark. And I left the window open a crack. He’s closed it again.’

  ‘So he’s a control freak. It’s not as if he’s taken anything.’

  She lay Rosie in the playpen and arranged her pillow and stuffed toys. ‘It’s our space, Dan. Who knows what he does when he’s in here?’

  ‘From what I understand, he turns off lamps and closes windows.’ He struggled out of his jacket and tie.

  ‘Or, he watches to see when people drive off, then rummages in their rooms.’

  ‘I need to sleep, Mia. We’re out of here first thing tomorrow anyway.’ He cranked open the window. ‘I’ll leave the main door open tonight. Maybe we’ll get a bit of a cross-breeze and you’ll get a better kip.’

  *

  She’d forgotten to take off her watch before falling into bed. Twenty past five, it said. But no panic this time. No slamming of her heart in her chest. No cold sweat. Just restlessness. She couldn’t wait to pack and be gone.

  Dan was snoring lightly. Rosie gurgled in her sleep. She turned her head to listen for Felix’s soft breathing.

  She propped her head on her elbow and listened again.

  She opened her eyes and studied the darkness for the glimmer of his face and hair. Then she was throwing back the covers and springing from bed.

  Her hands groped his sheets.

  ‘Dan. Get up!’

  She turned, knocking over Felix’s cup on the nightstand.

  Dan’s hand fumbled for the clock by their bed in London.

  ‘Felix isn’t in his bed!’

  He rolled out from below the sheet before he could make sense of what she was saying. She flung back the curtains, half tearing them from the rail. Rosie started to whimper.

  ‘What time is it?’ He was zipping up his jeans.

  ‘Twenty past five.’ She pulled on a tank-top, her camp skirt and flip-flops. ‘You left the main door open. There’s no lock on the screen door.’ She couldn’t believe she was saying it, blaming him.

  He was pulling on his trainers. ‘I’ll take Rosie and go right, towards the main road. You go left.’

  She nodded and they ran into the morning.

  *

  She checked between parked cars and beneath picnic tables. She ran to the hammock. She called over the duck-pond fence, waking the geese. ‘Felix! Felix!’ She stared hard at the surface.

  Something pale drifted near the far edge.

  In the half light of day, she saw his forehead, smeared with green.

  Oh God, oh God. She was over the fence and sliding down the bank before she realised.

  It was a pale piece of wood. A half-submerged duckboard that had slid from the path. She bent double and was sick into the pond.

  Then she clambered back over the fence and ran on, clenching her armpits. It felt as if the sobs she was forcing down would split her chest in two. ‘Felix!’

  At Room 17, a middle-aged couple appeared outside their door. ‘Is anything the matter?’ The woman’s eyes
were huge, kind.

  ‘It’s my son,’ she started. The tears were coming. ‘We can’t find him.’

  ‘We’ll pull on our shoes,’ said the man. ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Felix,’ she mumbled through her sobs. ‘It’s Felix. Could you try the back lawn?’

  She jogged past the barbecue pit, across flowerbeds, searching. Only the pool lay up ahead – she could see it now – mercifully fenced in. He had to have gone the other way, toward the road. The 6A. What was the speed limit? Sixty? Seventy?

  ‘FELIX!’

  Maybe Dan had him by now. Maybe in a few minutes she’d hear him calling: ‘Mum! We’re over here! You’ll never guess what I did!’

  She could hear the couple from Room 17 behind the motel. ‘Felix...! Felix…!’

  Lights were appearing behind closed curtains. If Dan didn’t re-appear with him within minutes, she’d be on the phone to the police. She’d demand police dogs, a man-hunt. She’d show them hysterical.

  She stopped. Up ahead, the door of the pool’s enclosure was propped open with a cleaning trolley.

  She slipped off her flip-flops and lurched into a run.

  *

  ‘Oh, my lovely boy,’ she whispered hoarsely.

  He was so still. So incredibly still.

  He crouched at the edge of the sundeck.

  ‘Felix, sweetheart?’ she softly called. ‘Daddy and I were so worried. We didn’t know where you were.’

  He was inches above the deep end.

  ‘We woke up and thought, where’s our Felix? Mummy was so sad.’ She edged her way along the length of the sundeck.

  He stretched his right arm above the water’s surface, and uncurled his palm.

  ‘But the only thing that matters now is that you’re here and safe.’

  She was close, almost close enough to touch him.

  He shifted on the balls of his feet, then stretched his arm out further, so his weight rested only on his toes. Balance had never come easily to him. At home, on his bike, he found it hard not to wobble, even with the stabilisers.