Shades of Nothingness

by Gary Fry

  ——

  Eric had had a great day. Mummy had taken him to see a lifeboat, and one of the men working in it had shown him inside, which had been cosy and scary. Next they’d walked along the pier and looked through a telescope at the spooky abbey on a hillside whose ragged edge was crowned by gravestones and straggly trees. Then Daddy had joined them and they’d played mini-golf in a little theme park which also had a paddling pool and a small racing-car circuit.

  Now Eric was exhausted. He was supposed to be getting ready to go out for a meal with his parents and Brian. However, there’d been no sign of his uncle all day. Daddy had said that he’d gone out to “seek inspiration” for a story, but Eric hoped he wouldn’t go anywhere near the caves they’d visited yesterday. Maybe Mummy was also aware of the dangers there, because when Eric had asked where Uncle Brian was, she’d looked strange, as if something else had happened lately other than Eric’s nightmare.

  He’d decided that he must have been dreaming last night. The figure he’d seen scrabbling across his floor had been too creepy to be true, like the monsters he looked away from in films his parents sometimes watched at night. Indeed, how could Uncle Brian have exited the room so quickly? The window had been open, but it was a long drop outside. And surely only a real insect could have clung to the external walls before crawling back inside any other room.

  Still excited from the day’s events (he’d had sugary coke and a hamburger and lots of sweets), Eric moved to his window. After the episode in the early hours of the morning, Mummy had slammed shut this heavy pane and it remained closed now. The glass was dirty and maybe that was why everything outside appeared distorted. The sun was setting again, pitching too much of the nearby territory into shadow. The abbey Eric had looked at earlier appeared frightening, especially with so much grey cloud gathered behind it.

  Was Uncle Brian up there? There certainly appeared to be a figure moving among gravestones in a nearby church’s grounds. Most of the other tourists must have returned to hotels to change for dinner, just as Eric was supposed to be doing, but right now that was the last thing on his mind. The person on the hill had started running.

  The reason Eric thought the figure was Uncle Brian was the six limbs it possessed. Legs hurtled beneath it, arms pumping out to each side. But were there two more arms or legs sticking out from its middle…or were those connected to the entity that had just reared up behind the first one?

  Whatever the truth was—all the movement was too sudden to work it out—either one or two shapes were scuttling across the hill towards its treacherous edge, where the drop would pitch anyone straying too close headlong into the sea.

  Eric blinked; looked again. Perhaps he’d had too much sugar today. Mummy always said it made him “funny in the head. ”

  But then he saw the first of the six-legged creatures—surely only Uncle Brian with his plastic cagoule tried around his waist—fall off the hill’s lip. He tumbled fast, and despite being unable to see where he’d land, Eric knew there was just cold, deep water down there.

  Then he was screaming, and Daddy and Mummy were coming through the connecting door again, and after turning to look for a second time, Eric thought the figure skittering among tombs near the cliff ’s dangerous edge was just a tree waving goodbye to the man who’d fallen off it.

  ——

  Brian’s body was never found. Ken was distraught, and Penny, although supportive on her husband’s behalf, secretly believed that her brother-in-law’s disappearance was probably for the best. There’d been something unsettling about that man—his ailment, of course. In any case, she was glad that her son would grow up with no knowledge of such issues. He’d soon learn how difficult life could be and how, even with the support of family and friends—particularly family, Penny thought— there was little you could do to overcome duress. The best that could be managed was sheltering your loved ones, keeping them as safe as possible. And if that involved tragedies like this one, so be it. That was just nature’s way of preserving those who survived.

  ——

  A few months later, while playing alone in the back garden of their big house in Leeds, Eric heard a rustling in nearby bushes. Then a head appeared between the thickest growths there.

  “Uncle Brian!” Eric called, delighted to see the man’s face—however dirty it was—poking out between the foliage. “Uncle Brian, we thought you’d drownded! Come and play! Hey, have you got any new stories to tell me?…Oh, but don’t make it as scary as the last one. I didn’t like that. Come on, come out! Come out quickly!”

  And then the thing did; it made a curious noise with its throat as its multiple limbs scuttled across the fine green lawn.

  THE WAY OF THE WORLD

  ———

  “Is this the first time you’ve been on holiday without your parents, Oliver?”

  Sophie’s mum made him nervous. She must have given birth at an early age, because she was still quite young—not like his own mother. This was a bit like talking to female students at the college.

  “It’s the first time without my mum, yes, ” he replied from the back of the car. He glanced at his girlfriend beside him, who looked away through the window to the sea. Perhaps she felt guilty about forgetting to tell her parents that his dad had left home when he was only an infant. Maybe he ought to change the subject. “I’ve never been to Wales before. It looks nice. ”

  “The south coast is cracking at this time of the year, ” said Sophie’s dad at the steering wheel. Then he addressed his wife in the passenger seat. “We come here often, don’t we, Kelly?”

  “Every year since you were born, dear, ” said Sophie’s mum, and gazed quickly over her shoulder at her daughter, a sharp movement which belied the tenderness of her words.

  “Will loves the Gower Peninsula, ” Sophie said, and then added in a deliberately childlike voice, “Are we nearly there yet, Daddy?”

  Oliver was eighteen and thought he knew a thing or two about life. However, he’d never heard anyone call a parent by their Christian name. Some families must just be different, he reflected, and for him of course this was uncharted territory.

  Once Sophie’s dad—a middle-aged man with a playful demeanour—had pulled his company saloon into the forecourt of a hotel, they climbed out, removed luggage from the boot, and then trudged for the doorway, the parents uppermost with the teenage lovers bringing up the rear. Finally they entered.

  “Two rooms for the weekend, is it?” said the proprietor in a regional accent which jarred markedly with his guests’ blunt Yorkshire tones. Then he glanced at the two youngsters, a suspicious glint in his rheumy eyes. The hotel owner was obviously old-fashioned in his values. Oliver realised that the world must have moved on a lot since his heyday.

  “Are the rooms close to each other?” Oliver asked, and the comment drew an awkward expression from Kelly. Will offered him a knowing look, though Sophie grew uppity. “I just meant it will be easier to find each other for…for breakfast tomorrow, ” Oliver added, now aware of his question’s alternative meaning. But what was the problem here? He and his girlfriend were both adults and could surely do as they pleased.

  The hotel was a veritable rabbit’s warren. As the proprietor led them along winding corridors and up several flights of stairs, Oliver wondered how on earth they’d find their way in and out of the place without summoning staff to help. Eventually they reached a landing on what was obviously the top floor, where only two doors were stationed.

  “It’s quiet up here, ” said the aged hotel owner, his ostensible innocence masked by a thick Welsh accent. “And both rooms have glorious sea views. ”

  “I want to go to the beach!” Sophie cried, again barely suppressing childlike behaviour.

  “It’s a bit late for that today, ” replied Will, and then turned to their host, who was using keys to allow entry to the rooms. “It was a helluva journey from Leeds, mate: six hours on the motorways. As if I don’t do enough driving at work!”

 
“We ladies can get into our bikinis in the morning, dear, ” Kelly told her daughter, and after offering Oliver an ambiguous look, she and her husband vanished into one room, leaving him and Sophie to access the other.

  “Come and give me a kiss, ” Oliver said as soon as the door was shut and he’d heard the hotel owner’s footsteps retreat back downstairs.

  But Sophie had crossed to the window to gaze out at a restless sea.

  From behind, Oliver examined her svelte body silhouetted by fading daylight. They’d been booked into a twin room, its beds standing a respectable few yards apart. That was understandable, Oliver reflected, but all the same felt his penis stir. However, he was determined not to cross to his girlfriend; it didn’t seem right that he had to do all the chasing in this relationship.

  They’d met at the college of further education. Months had passed, during which they’d communicated attraction by only glances, before he’d plucked up enough courage to ask her out. And then, six weeks into their courtship, after meeting her parents for the first time at a barbecue at their smart detached home, he’d been asked to join them on this annual trip to Wales. He’d felt flattered, if not a little nervous; in fact, he still did.

  “Hey, Soph’, ” he said, stepping halfway across the luxurious carpet towards her. “What’re you doing?”

  His new girlfriend (he’d had several since he was fourteen, though none serious) turned his way, her breasts wobbling a little beneath her light blouse.

  “Sorry, ” she said, and took a moment to readjust to their easy manner with each other. “I was just thinking what a big world it is. The sea always has that effect on me. It’s a bit…scary when you think about it, isn’t it?”

  Oliver was studying for an A-level in Geography; he knew quite a bit about the planet. And Sophie’s vulnerability on the issue had offered him an opportunity. Guided by irrepressible activity in his groin, he closed the gap between them.

  “Let me give you a cuddle, ” he said, and while doing so directed her attention to the window and the distant horizon beyond it. “Once we’ve both got jobs, we could do some travelling, if you like. ”

  She squirmed in his arms. “Yeah, er, sure, ” she said, and Oliver wondered whether he’d presumed too much. Had this reticence arisen from him implying they must both find work (he’d assumed that these days all young women wanted a career)? Or was it his suggestion that their relationship would last that long? Oliver frowned, the expression visible in the window, which the darkening sky had rendered darkly treacherous. What was the point of going out together if not with a view to making the relationship permanent? What with his absent father, he knew all about a lack of such permanence…

  But maybe he should back off: life was about fun too, he realised. He said, “Shall we go and see if your mum and dad are ready yet? Aren’t we supposed to be going out for a meal this evening?”

  Now he’d captured her attention; she turned in his embrace, all smiles and animation. “Dad knows a great restaurant, ” she said, and only after a brief hesitation added, “Oh, and Mum loves it, too. Come on, let’s go!”

  After Sophie’s forceful knock at the other room’s door, the four of them were together on the landing. Oliver hoped he and his girlfriend hadn’t interrupted anything intimate, but when her parents had appeared, their faces had worn expressions more of rancour than of passion. However, nobody said a word while exiting the building, even after drawing puzzled looks from a pair of elderly drinkers seated in the hotel’s garden. By this time Oliver had taken Sophie’s hand; perhaps the befuddled onlookers had first thought they were siblings.

  Will and Kelly strode ahead, at a conspicuous distance from each other; this surely denoted the independence that arose in a long term marriage. Oliver knew that a relationship couldn’t remain passionate and obsessive forever. That was all the more reason to relish the feeling while it lasted, he reflected, and slipped around an arm around Sophie, enjoying the soft pressure of one breast against his thumping ribs.

  Moments later, however, she broke away and hurried forwards to stand beside her dad.

  “Here it is!” she cried, pointing at a restaurant that had just appeared, boasting multiple tables standing in a forecourt and a pair of swarthy waiters darting to and fro among other diners: families, lovers, and a party of friends.

  One of these young men offered warm greetings as Oliver and his companions passed through an ornate gateway. It was early May and the temperature had been unseasonably warm for weeks (something to do with global warming, Oliver had assumed); it was certainly pleasant enough to sit outside, and then they did so, at a table arranged for four. After Sophie hurried around the far side to be next to her dad, Oliver could only assume that she wished to sit facing rather than beside him. In the event, however, he was forced to take the only remaining position—at a diagonal from his girlfriend, and next to her mum.

  At least he was directly in front of Will, however; Oliver had hoped to chat with the man after their first meeting recently. The waiter handed them all menus, and in the corner of one eye, Oliver thought Kelly’s gaze had lingered on this guy’s attractive, smiling face a tad too long…Nevertheless, once her husband had ordered wine—a good bottle apparently, whose name Oliver hadn’t recognised—they were free to enjoy the evening.

  “I might have crab again, like last time, ” Sophie said, without even looking at the list of expensive, exotic-sounding dishes. Unsurprisingly, the restaurant specialised in seafood; the sound of water thumping the nearby coastline was atmospheric.

  “Those claws nip, nip, nip!” said Will, presumably trying to brighten the proceedings, which for some reason had assumed a fraught tone—one possibly decreed by the conspicuously silent Kelly. But then her husband, looking at Oliver, went on. “Imagine getting your bits caught in one of them, Olly?”

  “Dad!” Sophie cried as she nudged him firmly, and although Oliver had at first thought that his girlfriend had been rebuking her father for truncating his name—he’d never much cared for that—her next comment taught him the truth. “Don’t be so rude. ”

  “Are we ready to order?” asked Sophie’s mum, turning in her seat before anyone could reply and summoning the guy she’d seemed to admire earlier. He was surely much too young for her, even though Oliver could admit that at thirty-something she’d maintained her looks and figure…

  He shunted aside such thoughts and hoped the wine, which had just been served, wouldn’t compromise him any further…well, at least until he and his girlfriend were back in their room together.

  After ordering their dishes, the waiter departed and the silence was once more begging to be filled. Then Oliver, still feeling uneasy, asked Will, “What do you do for a living?”

  Sophie’s dad took a sip of wine, which Oliver, after a first swallow, had found a tad too strong. Will, however, didn’t flinch while rolling the liquid around his mouth, and moments later said, “I’m area manager at a company called Parkinson’s. We export drilling equipment all over the world. I drive back and forth to many factories in the north of England and make sure everything sticks to plan. It’s hard work, but a decent job. It pays for this kind of thing, anyway. ”

  By raising the issue of employment, Oliver had hoped to acquire some tips about what to do with himself after his A-levels. He’d never received much guidance at home; his mum was too busy working long shifts at a factory, working on a production line, much like the ones that presumably kept Parkinson’s afloat and which, now Oliver considered the matter, had probably provided the funds for this meal…

  But he mustn’t let his restless mind get the better of him.

  Just then, however, Kelly responded to her husband.

  “You’re certainly away a lot. In fact, I…well, I mean, Sophie and I hardly saw you in the early days, did we?”

  “Hey, money doesn’t grow on trees, ” Will replied, and then drained more of his wine, as if his comment signalled an end to any debate.

  Maybe this was why S
ophie and I are attracted to each other, Oliver speculated. My dad’s absent, and hers has also been so in the past…

  But then his girlfriend said, “You should have taken me with you, Dad. I like travelling. ”

  This wasn’t the impression she’d given Oliver in the hotel. However, there was no chance to pursue the issue—and he’d certainly been tempted; the wine had already compromised his habitual reticence— because that was when the food arrived.

  The meal was less strained, at least for Oliver. Had alcohol reduced his sensitivity to the curious mores of his girlfriend’s family? Or had he only imagined these things in the first place? Whatever the truth was, once they’d finished eating, Will paid the bill and left a generous tip, which caused Sophie to stare at him open-mouthed.

  Kelly stood a little unsteadily after all the booze she’d imbibed and accidentally nudged a plate loaded with crab’s shell. A piece of this slipped onto the table top and as Oliver stooped to collect it, her hand also fell, and before either could prevent it, they were touching each other, fingers interlaced above the one castrating claw.

  “Sorry, ” Oliver said, snatching away his arm, and when the same waiter came to collect their leftovers and payment, Oliver couldn’t be certain that his girlfriend’s mum hadn’t switched her attentions to him.

  The night had descended; the sea continued crashing against the nearby coastline, as if seeking to break down a tenuous barrier in front of fragile society…These were Oliver’s inebriated reflections, each arising from sociology classes and all his experiences since puberty. Strolling along the road, Sophie looped one arm inside one of her dad’s, while Kelly strolled behind them, her slender body prompting unruly thoughts in Oliver. Two twin beds could be pushed together, he reflected. Perhaps his girlfriend’s parents, having booked the room, expected this anyway. Neither came across as particularly prudish, like his mum had always been.