Oddly Enough, page 27
“Do you think—” Nora started, and George interrupted her.
“Look!”
The trees were falling in a clear-cut line, bearing down out of the woodland and toward the main gates, exploding in clouds of silver dust that spun the light back to the watchers and obscured whatever was within it. The noise swelled as the tidal wave of falling vegetation roared across the park, drowning the shouts of the soldiers and police, who had withdrawn beyond the gates. Big searchlights mounted on the jeeps were still shining into the park, but the all-pervasive dust of the dead trees fractured it as surely as mist, and the closer the thing – because there had to be something, didn’t there, the trees weren’t falling like that just by chance – the less that could be seen. And the unseen thing was almost upon the gates.
George and Nora stood with their arms around each other, wide-eyed and astonished, on their neat little balcony at the front of their neat little terraced house, and watched the gates of the park blow open, and the police and soldiers scatter with a soundtrack of belching gunfire. The thing plunged down the street, oblivious to the shots, moving with a muscular, ungainly speed that reminded Nora of a charging hippopotamus. It bounced off a few cars and set the alarms shrieking before it steadied its course down the centre of the road. It had so many legs it barely humped up as it ran, and Nora thought she could hear its sucker feet peeling eagerly off the pavement and planting back down again. It was like hearing the world’s biggest Velcro strap being opened and closed rapidly on the street below them.
They leaned forward to watch it pass beneath the balcony, and as it did it seemed to tip its head toward them, so tall that it was level with their feet, and they could see themselves reflected in one round dark eye. Then it was gone, Velcro-ing down the night-time street, taking up so much of the road that a car coming the other way veered in panic and ploughed into a parked moped. A moment later the first of the army jeeps roared after the creature, shouting soldiers hanging off it in all directions, followed by screaming police cars and more jeeps. Nora and George stayed where they were, their bodies still pressed together, trembling with the excitement of it all. Then the street was empty again, the car sirens still yowling, doors and windows opening and shutting anxiously.
Eventually, Nora looked up at George. “Cuppa?”
“Please,” he said, and they retreated to the warmth of the living room, settling themselves in their chairs and looking about cautiously, as if expecting something to have changed.
Nora put the kettle on, and took a packet of biscuits from the cupboard. “Digestive?” she said, offering them to George.
He took one, then hesitated. “Where are they from?”
“Sainsbury’s,” she said, putting the packet on the coffee table.
“Ah. Good.” George settled back into his chair and put his feet on the footstool. “I rather think you’re right about that other shop.”
“Of course I am,” Nora said. “And Sainsbury’s does some quite nice biscuits.” She picked up her crossword, read the clue again, and thought, Ah. Anomaly. That’s it.
Outside, the car alarms had finally stopped.
A Memorable Cruise
Anyone who spends any time on boats, especially offshore, gives at least a little thought to what might happen if they go overboard. Partly out of necessity, as thinking such things through is part of maintaining safety, and partly out of the same stomach-churning fascination that makes us peer over cliff edges. Because what if …
So I suppose it was inevitable that I’d write something about it one day.
Phil trod water, watching the lights of the cruise ship recede in a stately manner, the bulk of the vessel silhouetted against the star-crowded Caribbean sky. It was rolling slightly as it went, like a rotund duck hurrying hopefully along a riverbank.
This, Phil considered, was less than ideal.
Although, he reminded himself, it could have been worse. He could have hit his head on the way over the rail, rendering himself unconscious before he even completed the plunge into the unexpectedly cool waters. Or he could have survived the fall, but been sucked down into the maw of the enormous propellers, which wouldn’t have even hesitated as they chewed him up and spat him back into the sea. Well, he didn’t think they would have, anyway. He was hardly an expert in such things.
He paddled in a slow circle, his sandals already discarded and his socks slowly slipping down his calves to join them. He couldn’t see land, no matter which way he looked. Not that he’d expected to. They were in the middle of a night passage from Saint Lucia to Barbados, which, apparently, was quite a long way. Not that it looked a long way on the map, but he’d never been good at such things.
That night passage was one of the reasons he’d been on the otherwise deserted deck at one in the morning.
Which, in retrospect, may not have been his first mistake, but it was certainly one of them.
The woman had been at the bar all that evening, fiddling with a succession of frozen drinks in primary colours, fishing out pineapple leaves and paper umbrellas and strawberries on toothpicks to discard next to the frost-beaded glass. Her dress, like all the others he’d seen her in on the trip, looked new but faintly uncomfortable, as if someone else had chosen it for her, or she’d chosen it while thinking she was someone else. She smiled hopefully at anyone who drifted into her vicinity, blinking a little too quickly in the not-quite-flattering halogen lights, adjusting her hair, her skirt, the way she sat. There was still ridged skin on her ring finger.
Phil had seen her elsewhere on the trip, too. Sometimes she’d be half-reading a book by the pool while she watched the other passengers over the top of enormous glasses, an equally oversized hat flopping over her ears. Her toenail polish almost matched her swimsuit, but not quite, and sunblock smudged her nose. And she’d been on the same tour as them in Grenada, the one that had taken them to the spice gardens. He’d dutifully carried a basket as his wife filled it with jars and bags of spices, exclaiming over them in excitement. They’d languish unopened in the back of the kitchen cupboard with the za’atar from Morocco and the saffron from Spain and the dried mushrooms from Italy, brought home from other trips.
The woman had laughed a lot, he remembered. Laughed at the commentary of the guide, at the sweet bite of the chutney, at the polite smiles of the other guests. Phil had watched her as she stood alone for a moment in front of a display of jars, the rest of the group melting away from her as if she might be catching. She was swathed in a dress full of rich greens and purples, her bare arms soft and vulnerable looking. Her smile slipped, became crooked, then she looked up and caught his eye. The smile returned immediately, wide and urgent.
“Jerk seasoning,” she said, pointing, and laughed again. “Jerk!”
He looked away, embarrassed, and trailed after his wife, feeling rather than seeing the woman follow them back out to the bus, adjusting her hat against the sun.
Bioluminescence trailed in the water, sparking off his fingers like fairy dust in a children’s movie, turning the careful, economical sweeps of his arms into glowing halos. He wondered if the ship was far enough away now that he didn’t have to worry about any sharks that had been following it. He’d read that they did that, sharks. Followed ships to eat the rubbish that was thrown overboard.
Were they still allowed to do that these days, though? Throw things overboard? It seemed unlikely. But that didn’t mean the sharks had stopped following the ships. It might be some sort of instinct by now. Or memory. Hope, even.
Phil lay back in the grip of the sea and let his feet float up, his belly a check-print dome before him, a tiny island bulging out of the ocean. He watched the stars.
One lunchtime, on the deck that looked out to the pool, his wife said, “Maybe we should invite her to join us.”
Phil followed her gaze and saw the woman, in a blue and white dress this time, the straps thin on her pinkened shoulders. She was slowly carrying a plate of salad from the buffet to a table in the corner, shooting hopeful glances around the room. Phil looked away, patting his wife’s hand, feeling the looseness of her skin under his fingers.
“This is our holiday, dear,” he said. “And it’s her own fault. It’s a couple’s cruise.”
“Hmm.” His wife slipped her hand away and picked up her wine glass. “Maybe she booked it as a couple, but something happened. We don’t know.”
Phil glanced at the woman again, perched alone at the edge of a room full of matched sets of thinning hair and expensive dye jobs, tropical shirts and flounced sundresses.
“It’s not our problem,” he said. “We should leave well enough alone.”
His wife didn’t answer.
He wondered now, as he examined the excess of stars, why they had been on the trip in the first place. It wasn’t the first cruise they had been on, but it was by far the most expensive. The others had been in the Med, little week-long jaunts with only a couple of hours to fly at each end.
It had been his wife’s idea. Something different. When had she suggested it? Christmas? Just after?
He remembered agreeing, because things had felt unsettled. Had been feeling unsettled since just before the Christmas drinks party, when he’d been late. He’d had to pick up the catering-sized pork pie from the organic butcher in town, but his other, more private engagement had run late, and in his rush to get showered before the guests arrived he’d left the wine in the boot of his car.
His wife had gone to fetch it.
And hadn’t she been a little odd, after that?
She hadn’t even asked why he’d been so late. Or mentioned the small stain on his trousers, even though he’d had the papercut on his finger to explain it.
When Phil and his wife had left to go to their cabin after dinner that night the woman had still been at the bar, dangling one sandal from her toes as she shredded a napkin into soggy confetti. The bar staff were alternately avoiding her or smiling too brightly. She didn’t look up.
Phil led his wife hand-in-hand down the mellow-lit corridors and into the cabin, which was small and a little too warm, almost claustrophobic, but the porthole looked out on the sea. It had cost more for that tiny glimpse of the outside world, and Phil wasn’t sure it was worth it, but his wife had insisted.
“If we’re going to do this,” she had said, “we should do it properly.”
And he had agreed, because he wanted things to feel settled again, and it seemed that might help.
He let her use the bathroom first, just as she did at home, and while he listened to the burrrrr of the electric toothbrush he popped a pill out of a blister pack and dropped it into her water bottle. It fizzed softly, turning slow flips as it sank, and by the time she came out of the bathroom it was gone. Phil had changed into his pyjamas, the pale blue ones with the dark blue piping that she had given him for his birthday.
“All yours,” she said, and sat on the edge of the bed – or bunk, he supposed, it being a ship – to pull her shoes off.
Phil thought that the water really was cooler than one would have expected, given that it was the Caribbean. It was certainly cooler than the top-deck pool, or the beaches they’d paddled at briefly during excursions. He supposed because it was deeper out here. He rolled onto his belly, attempting a clumsy doggy paddle as he wondered just how deep it was.
The swells were long and lazy, lifting him toward the stars then easing him back down again. There was no wind to speak of. When the sun had set that evening it had lit the entire ocean on fire, pouring molten across the swells and rendering it even more alien. Now, the sea might have been tar, thick and dark and drowning.
Phil stopped paddling and craned his head out of the water. He’d already lost sight of the ship. There was nothing in any direction but endless swells, rising to meet the dark dome of the sky.
He swallowed, his throat clicking on salt.
When his wife’s breath was slow and even, and she didn’t even stir when he whispered her name, Phil got up again. He exchanged his pyjamas for shorts and a checked shirt, and pulled his socks and sandals back on. Then he let himself out of the cabin and retraced their steps to the bar.
The woman was still there, and she looked up with a hopeful smile as Phil took the stool next to her. Recognition flickered, and the smile faded to a shadow of disappointment, or even distaste.
“Where’s your wife?” she asked.
Phil gave her a polite smile, pushing his glasses up his nose. “She’s sleeping.”
“So what’re you doing here?” Her tone was flat, unfriendly.
“Insomnia,” he explained, and ordered a hot chocolate from the bartender. “Sometimes there’s just no use trying, but a hot drink can help a little.”
“Oh,” she said, and for a moment neither of them said anything else. Then she added, “I thought … oh, never mind.”
“That I was coming to proposition you while my wife slept?” Phil gave a little, restrained laugh. “Oh, my, no. I mean, you’re very attractive, but I love my wife.”
The woman laughed as well, a relieved sound. “That actually makes me feel better. It’s hard being here alone. Everyone either feels sorry for me or thinks I’m some sort of man-eater.”
“Why are you here alone?” Phil asked, sipping his hot chocolate.
“I wasn’t meant to be.” She touched the raised skin where a ring had been reflexively. “Long story. I should have cancelled, but I thought it might help, somehow. Getting away.”
“I’m sorry,” Phil said.
She shrugged, and pressed her fingers to the soft skin below her eyes. Her hands were shaking slightly.
He offered her his napkin. “Shall we get some air? I find a little fresh air does wonders for, well, everything.”
She dabbed at her face with the napkin, looked at him carefully, then nodded. “Alright.”
Phil wondered if he should be able to tell what direction land was in by the position of the stars, or the angle of the swells or something. Not that he supposed it mattered if he was swimming toward it or away from it, not at this distance. And there would be currents, among other things.
Now he thought about it, the cruise really had been out of character. The extravagance of it. Two weeks aboard, sailing out of Florida.
“It’ll be memorable,” his wife had said. “Something to treasure.”
And he’d agreed that it was time they started treating themselves. Mostly because things had still felt unsettled after Christmas. Because she had been odd.
But there hadn’t been anything to see in the car, when she went for the wine. Of course not. He was too careful.
Although he had been pressed for time. The butcher shut at five.
And hadn’t he wondered if things had been slightly out of place at his work office the next week, when he went to put his souvenir away?
But they’d had a temporary cleaner. He remembered that, because they’d put the mugs back in the wrong order.
So maybe his wife had just been odd for some woman’s reason, something to do with age or hormones or her sister’s endless problems. There had been nothing for her to see.
Nothing.
Phil and the woman from the bar leaned together on the rail, cradling their drinks and looking across the endless sea. She named some of the constellations, but he wasn’t listening. He was looking at the skin of her neck, just beginning to gain that glorious looseness, and at the beautiful lines creeping up to her chin from her décolletage. Her arms were softly sunburned, but her neck and face were pale. She must use good sunblock.
He put his cup down on a table by a sun lounger and made a polite noise as she pointed out a planet, still burbling on about Greek myths or some such. He pushed his hands into his pockets, his eyes on the dimple at the base of her throat, on the hollow where her jaw met her neck. In the dim lights of the deck he couldn’t see the blue veins under her skin, but he traced their path with his eyes anyway.
She turned away from him to put her own glass down, and his hands floated after her almost of their own accord, the tie of his dressing gown hanging loosely between them. He looped it over her neck in one swift, sure move, jerking it back fiercely, cutting off her scream before she could draw breath. She scrabbled at the tie, but he kept the pressure on with the conviction of long practise. He had her. His heart was louder than the sea in his ears, his breath quick and elated, and he braced himself to force her to her knees.
The pain was so sharp, so unexpected, that he was falling almost before he registered it. For one moment he wondered if he was having a stroke, spots flaring over his vision as his head reverberated in agony, the tie slack in his hands. The woman in front of him reared up, twisting away, and he stumbled to all fours. He touched a hand to the base of his skull, and the fingers came away wet.
Then his wife was in front of him, and he stared at her in astonishment. She was holding a hand-carved walking stick she’d bought in Saint Vincent.
“Quick,” she said. “While he’s still groggy.”
Phil tried to ask her what she was doing there, but the words wouldn’t come.
“Don’t you want to hit him again?” the woman from the bar asked. “I do.”
“No. Stick with the plan.” His wife grabbed his ankles, and he mouthed a protest at her. She should be comforting him. He was hurt. She met his eyes for a moment, her gaze cold and hard. “Grab his arms,” she said.
