The Watcher in the Shadows

  Shortly before noon, Irene sighted the island straight ahead of them. Ismael decided to sail round it in order to berth the boat in a small, sheltered inlet. Thanks to Ismael’s explanations, Irene was now more familiar with the art of navigation and the elemental physics of the wind. She was able to follow his instructions, and between them they managed to overcome the power of the current and slide the boat through the craggy passage that led to the old jetty.

  The island was barely more than a single mass of rock emerging from the waters of the bay. A considerable colony of seagulls nested on it, and some of them eyed the intruders with curiosity. As they sailed in, Irene noticed some old wooden huts ravaged by decades of storms and neglect. The lighthouse itself was a slender tower crowned by a lantern room surrounded by glass prisms. It stood above a small, single-storey building, the former home of the lighthouse keeper.

  ‘Apart from me, the seagulls and a crab or two, no one has been here for years,’ said Ismael.

  ‘Don’t forget the pirate ghost ship,’ joked Irene.

  Ismael steered the boat towards the jetty and jumped ashore to secure the bow line. Irene followed. As soon he’d finished mooring the Kyaneos, Ismael pulled out a picnic basket prepared for him by his aunt, who was convinced that it was impossible to get to know a young lady on an empty stomach.

  ‘Come with me. If you like ghost stories, this will interest you . . .’

  Ismael opened the door of the cottage and gestured to Irene to go in. As she entered the old house, Irene felt as if she’d suddenly stepped back in time. Everything was veiled in a misty film caused by years of damp. Dozens of books, a variety of objects and pieces of furniture sat exactly as they had been left, as if a phantom had snatched the lighthouse keeper in the middle of the night. Irene looked at Ismael, fascinated.

  ‘Wait till you see the lighthouse.’

  He took her hand and led her to the staircase that spiralled up into the tower. Irene felt like an intruder, disturbing this world suspended in time.

  ‘What happened to the lighthouse keeper?’

  Ismael paused a moment before replying.

  ‘One night he got on his boat and left the island. He didn’t even bother to collect his things.’

  ‘Why would he do something like that?’

  ‘He never said,’ Ismael answered.

  ‘Why do you think he did it?’

  ‘Because he was scared.’

  Irene gulped and looked over her shoulder, expecting to see the ghost of the drowned woman drifting up the spiral staircase behind her, a demonic figure with claws stretched out towards her, a face as white as china and dark circles around her blazing eyes.

  ‘There’s nobody here, Irene. Just you and me,’ said Ismael.

  Irene nodded but she wasn’t convinced.

  ‘Only seagulls and crabs . . .’

  ‘Exactly.’

  The staircase led to a viewing point on the lighthouse tower from which you could see the whole of Blue Bay. As they stepped outside, the fresh breeze and the brilliant sunlight dispelled the ghostly echoes conjured up inside. Irene took a deep breath, mesmerised by the view.

  ‘Thank you for bringing me here,’ she whispered.

  Ismael nodded.

  ‘Would you like something to eat?’ he said.

  The two sat on the edge of the platform, their legs dangling in the air, and began to feast on the delicacies hidden in the basket. Neither was very hungry, but the food kept their hands and their minds busy.

  In the distance, Blue Bay slumbered beneath the afternoon sun, oblivious to what was happening on that remote island.

  Three cups of coffee and an eternity later, Simone was still sitting with Lazarus. What had begun as a friendly chat had turned into a long conversation about books, travel and the past. After only a few hours, she felt as if she’d known Lazarus all her life. For the first time in months, she found herself reliving painful memories of Armand’s final days, although she also felt a great sense of relief as she did so. Lazarus listened attentively, maintaining a respectful silence. He knew when to divert the conversation and when to allow her memories to flow.

  Simone found it hard to think of Lazarus as her employer – the toymaker seemed more like a friend, a good friend. As the afternoon wore on, she realised, with a mixture of regret and almost childish embarrassment, that in other circumstances, in another life, the strange communion between them might have been the start of something more. The shadows of her widowhood and her past life persisted inside her, however, like the aftermath of a storm. In the same way, the invisible presence of Lazarus’s sick wife pervaded the atmosphere at Cravenmoore. Two invisible witnesses in the dark.

  Simone could tell that identical thoughts were going through the toymaker’s mind. A golden light heralded the sunset, spreading a warm radiance between them. Lazarus and Simone gazed at one another silently.

  ‘Can I ask you a personal question, Lazarus?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Why did you become a toymaker? My late husband was an engineer. In fact, he was quite talented. But your work is extraordinary. I’m not exaggerating – you know the truth better than I do. So why toys?’

  Lazarus stood up and slowly walked over to the window, his profile tinted orange by the setting sun.

  ‘It’s a long story,’ he began. ‘When I was a small child, my family lived in the district of Les Gobelins, in Paris. You probably know the area. It used to be poor and full of old, run-down buildings. We lived in a tiny flat in an old block on rue des Gobelins. Part of the frontage was propped up because it kept threatening to collapse, but none of the families living there could afford to move to a better part of the district. How we all managed to fit in the flat – my three brothers and me, my parents and my uncle Luc – is a mystery. But I’m digressing.

  ‘I was a lonely boy. Always had been. Most of the things the other children on my street were interested in bored me, and the things that interested me didn’t appeal to them. I’d learned to read – it was a revelation – and most of my friends were books. This might have worried my mother had there not been more pressing problems at home. My mother’s idea of a healthy childhood was for me to run around the streets, picking up the habits and opinions of our neighbours. All my father did was sit around waiting for my brothers and me to add another wage to the family.

  ‘Others were not so lucky. In our block there was a boy called Jean Neville. Jean and his widowed mother were cooped up in a tiny apartment on the ground floor, next to the entrance. Jean’s father had died years before, from a disease he’d caught in the tile factory where he worked – something to do with the chemicals they used. Apparently it was quite common. I was aware of all this because I was the only friend young Jean had. His mother, Anne, didn’t let him venture beyond the building and its inner courtyard. His home was his prison.

  ‘Eight years earlier, Anne Neville had given birth to twin boys in the Saint Christian Hospital. Jean and Philippe. Philippe was stillborn. For those first eight years, Jean had had to shoulder the guilt of having killed his brother at birth. Or at least, that’s what he believed. For Anne made sure she reminded Jean, every single day of his life, that his brother had been stillborn because of him; that, had it not been for Jean, her marvellous boy would now be standing in his place. Nothing Jean did or said could win his mother’s love.

  ‘Of course, in public Anne Neville behaved affectionately enough. But in that solitary apartment, the reality was very different. Day in, day out, Anne would remind Jean that he was lazy. Bone idle. His school results were dreadful. His character more than doubtful. His movements clumsy. His whole existence, in short, a curse. Philippe, on the other hand, would have been adorable, studious, affectionate . . . everything that Jean could never be.

  ‘It wasn’t long before little Jean realised that he should have been the one to die in that gloomy hospital room eight years earlier. He had taken the place of another . . . All the toys Anne had been storing up
for years to give to her future son had been thrown into the flames, down in the boiler room, the week after she came back from the hospital, so Jean never had a single toy. They were forbidden to him. He didn’t deserve them.

  ‘One night Jean woke up screaming after a nightmare. His mother went over to his bed and asked him what was the matter. A terrified Jean confessed that he’d dreamed about a shadow, an evil spirit, pursuing him down an endless tunnel. Anne’s reply was decisive: it was a sign. The shadow he’d been dreaming about was the spirit of his dead brother, seeking retribution. He must make more of an effort to be a better son, obey his mother in everything, and not question a single one of her words or actions. Otherwise, the shadow would materialise and carry him off to hell. To reinforce her words Anne then picked up her son and dragged him down to the basement, where she left him alone in the dark for twelve hours, so that he could meditate on what she had said. That was the first time he was locked up.

  ‘One afternoon, a year later, Jean told me about it. I was filled with horror. I wanted to help the boy, to comfort him and try to alleviate some of the misery of his life. The only thing I could think of doing was to take the coins I’d been saving for months in my money box and go down to Monsieur Giradot’s toy shop. My budget didn’t stretch very far. All I managed to buy was a puppet, a cardboard angel with strings you pulled to make it move. I wrapped it up in shiny paper and, the following day, I waited for Anne Neville to go out shopping. Then I knocked on Jean’s door and gave him the parcel. It was a gift, I said. Then I left.

  ‘I didn’t see him again for three weeks. I hoped he was enjoying my present, since I wouldn’t have any savings to enjoy for a long time. Later, I found out that the cardboard angel survived only a day because his mother found it and burned it. When she asked him who had given it to him, Jean didn’t want to implicate me, so, he said he’d made it himself.

  ‘Then, one day, things went from bad to worse. His mother went berserk and took her son down to the basement again. She locked him in and warned him that this time the shadow was sure to appear to him in the dark and spirit him away for ever.

  ‘Jean Neville spent an entire week down there. His mother had got into a fight in the market at Les Halles and the police had locked her up, with a number of others, in a communal cell. When they let her out, she had wandered around the streets for days.

  ‘On her return, she found the flat empty and the basement door jammed shut. Some neighbours helped her to force it open. There was no sign of Jean anywhere . . .’

  Lazarus paused. Simone was silent, waiting for the toymaker to finish his story.

  ‘Nobody ever saw Jean Neville in that district again. Most people imagined that he must have escaped from the basement through a trapdoor and got as far away from his mother as he could. I suppose that is what happened, although if you asked his mother, who was in floods of tears for weeks, even months, over his disappearance, I’m sure she’d have told you that the shadow from his dreams had taken him. As I said earlier, I was probably Jean Neville’s only friend. Perhaps it would be fairer to say it was the other way round – he was my only friend. Years later, I promised myself I’d do everything in my power not to let any child be deprived of having a toy ever again. Even now I wonder where Jean is, whether he’s still alive. I suppose you must think this a strange explanation . . .’

  ‘Not at all,’ Simone replied, her face hidden in the dark.

  ‘It’s getting late,’ said the toymaker. ‘I must go and see my wife.’

  Simone nodded.

  ‘Thanks for the company, Madame Sauvelle,’ he added as he quietly left the room.

  Simone watched him go, then sighed. Loneliness created strange labyrinths in the mind.

  The sun had begun its descent and its light was refracted into flashes of amber and scarlet in the lenses of the lighthouse. The breeze was now fresher and the pale-blue sky was streaked with a few solitary clouds drifting along. Irene’s head rested lightly on Ismael’s shoulder.

  Slowly, Ismael put an arm around her. She looked up. Her lips were half open and she trembled imperceptibly. Ismael felt a fluttering in his stomach. Gradually, timidly, their lips moved closer. Irene closed her eyes. Inside Ismael, a voice seemed to whisper, ‘It’s now or never.’ He decided on now. The following ten seconds seemed to last ten years.

  Later, when the boundary between them seemed to have dissolved entirely, when every look and every gesture was in a language only they could understand, Irene and Ismael continued to lie there, embracing each other. If they’d had a say in it, they would have remained there, on the lighthouse balcony, until the end of time.

  ‘Where would you like to be in ten years’ time?’ asked Irene out of the blue.

  Ismael thought about it for a moment.

  ‘That’s a difficult question . . . I don’t know.’

  ‘What would you like to do? Follow in your uncle’s footsteps, own the boat?’

  ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’

  ‘Then what?’ she insisted.

  ‘I don’t know, I suppose this is stupid . . .’

  ‘What’s stupid?’

  Ismael fell silent. Irene waited patiently.

  ‘Radio series. I’d like to write series for the radio,’ said Ismael after a while.

  Irene smiled at him. ‘What sort of series?’

  Ismael looked at her for a moment. He hadn’t spoken about this to anyone and felt as if he was on shaky ground. Perhaps the best thing would be to beat a hasty retreat.

  ‘Mystery series,’ he replied at last, hesitantly.

  ‘I thought you didn’t believe in mysteries.’

  ‘You don’t have to believe in them to write about them,’ Ismael replied. ‘I’ve been collecting cuttings about a man called Orson Welles who has worked for the radio. Perhaps I could try to work with him . . .’

  ‘Orson Welles? Never heard of him, but I’m not sure it would be easy to contact him. Have you had any ideas?’

  Ismael nodded vaguely.

  ‘You must promise you’ll never tell anyone.’

  Irene raised her right hand solemnly. Ismael’s attitude seemed a little childish, but she was intrigued.

  ‘Follow me.’

  Ismael led her back down to the lighthouse keeper’s cottage, then he walked over to a chest that stood in one of the corners. His eyes were shining with excitement.

  ‘The first time I came here I went snorkelling. I discovered the wreckage of a boat – the one used by that woman who is supposed to have drowned twenty years ago. You remember the story I told you?’

  ‘The September lights. The mysterious woman who disappeared during a storm . . .’ Irene recited.

  ‘Exactly. Guess what I found among the wreckage?’

  ‘What?’

  Ismael put his hand into the chest and pulled out a small leather-bound book that was protected by a metal box no larger than a cigarette case.

  ‘The water has affected some of the pages, but quite a few of the fragments are still legible.’

  ‘It’s a book?’ asked Irene, fascinated.

  ‘It’s no ordinary book,’ he explained. ‘It’s a diary. Her diary.’

  The Kyaneos sailed back to Seaview just before nightfall as the blood-red sphere of the sun slowly sank into the horizon. Irene observed Ismael quietly as he steered the sailing boat. He smiled at her, then turned his attention back to the sails, tracking the direction of the wind which was starting to blow from the west.

  Before Ismael, Irene had kissed only two other boys. The first, the brother of one of her school friends, was more of an experiment than anything. She had wanted to know what it felt like. The second one, Gerard, was even more frightened than she was, and the experience hadn’t dissipated her fears on the matter. Kissing Ismael had been different. When their lips met she had felt a sort of electric current running through her body. His touch was different too. His smell was different. Everything about him was different.

  ?
??What’s on your mind?’ Ismael asked, noticing her thoughtful expression.

  Irene tried to look secretive, raising an eyebrow.

  He shrugged and continued steering the boat towards the headland. A flock of birds escorted them as far as the jetty. The lights from the house danced on the waters of the small cove.

  ‘It’s almost dark,’ said Irene, sounding slightly worried. ‘You’ll be all right, won’t you?’

  Ismael smiled. ‘The Kyaneos knows her own way back. I’ll be fine.’

  The boat berthed gently alongside the jetty. The cries of the birds echoed from the cliffs. A dark-blue strip was now visible above the horizon, and the moon had appeared between the clouds.

  ‘Well . . . it’s getting late,’ said Irene.

  ‘Yes . . .’

  She jumped ashore.

  ‘I’ll take the diary with me. I promise I’ll look after it.’

  Ismael nodded in response. Irene gave a nervous giggle.

  ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight, Irene.’

  Ismael began to cast off. ‘I was planning to go to the lagoon tomorrow. If you want to come . . .’

  She nodded as the boat edged away.

  ‘I’ll pick you up here . . .’

  Irene stayed there, watching Ismael leave, until the night had swallowed him and the Kyaneos completely. Then, floating on air, she hurried back to Seaview. Her mother was waiting for her on the porch. You didn’t need to be a fortune-teller to guess that Simone had seen the whole episode on the jetty.

  ‘How was your day?’ Simone asked.

  Irene swallowed hard.

  Her mother gave her a cheeky smile. ‘You can tell me.’

  Irene sat down next to her mother, who put an arm around her.

  ‘How was yours?’ asked Irene.

  Simone let out a sigh, remembering the afternoon spent with Lazarus. She hugged her daughter.

  ‘It was a strange day, Irene. I suppose I’m growing old.’

  ‘What rubbish.’

  Irene looked into her mother’s eyes.