Your Blue Eyed Boy

  Some to make hay, dilly dilly,

  Some to cut corn,

  While you and I, dilly dilly,

  Keep ourselves warm.

  It’s the deepest dream there is. Two people folded away against the world. No matter if the song means death.

  At the horizon there’s another tanker. It looks rusty, but that’s probably the colour of the paint. I hear the sound of Michael planing at a plank of wood, and I smell the pale shavings as they curl and fall. Down in the harbour the masts chink together, lightly. It’s autumn. Soon the woods will be full of falling leaves. The life of the trees will sink down into their stems. The sap will thicken, and even if you cut the bark it won’t bleed. The dogwoods burn all winter like rubies in the snow. I unscrew the top of the whisky bottle and put its mouth to mine. The taste makes me feel as if I’m about to throw up, but I don’t. I’ve got to have the kick of the whisky in my stomach. I keep swallowing, tiny swallow by swallow until the bottle is empty, then I screw the top back on and put it in my own pocket. The beach swings round me as I lift my head.

  I can’t leave you lying like this. As soon as I’m gone those gulls will come down and walk up to you, closer and closer. It’s won’t take them long to realize they don’t need to be afraid of you. Being human’s a good protection, but it only lasts while you’re alive. They’ll tear at you. They know death when they see it. I’m afraid they will peck out your eyes. I should shut them but I don’t know how. I’m afraid of shutting them and seeing them open again, emptily, not in greeting.

  I get my arms under you and heave you over onto your face, using the slope of the beach to help me. As you roll, pain spurts in my back. I am sweating. I smell the stink of myself, sharp. When you are lying flat I pull the jacket off you, then wrap it over the back of your head and wind it around so it protects your face. It still doesn’t seem enough. I pick up handfuls of the small pebbles and bury the edges of the jacket so that the birds won’t be able to pluck them out with their beaks. I cover the cloth with pebbles, just as you buried the condom deep in the wet gravel. But my hands tremble, remembering your hands.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  My thoughts jump about as if electricity is shooting through them. They’re fast and sharp, but they don’t seem to join up.

  I could go home. Get Donald, tell him what’s happened and he’ll help me.

  I’m not going to do that. Donald will never be able to get it out of his mind. If he knows, this will never be finished. It will play over and over, whatever else we do. I’ll see it in Donald’s eyes and I won’t be able to get away from it. Everywhere we turn we’ll jump at the same shadow. And for himself, too, why should he know? He’s innocent.

  Michael cartwheels before my eyes. I hear a thud, like blasting in a quarry miles away. A dull sound that lifts the air and shakes it. I don’t know what it is. His head strikes the concrete. I shut my eyes and he pulls me sideways, safe on top of the wall. He might have kept his balance if he hadn’t done that.

  I can’t leave him here. It’s raining hard and no walkers are likely to come down here now, so far off the coast path. If only I could run and scream and bang on someone’s door and get them to phone the ambulance, phone the police, and set in motion everything you would do for a stranger. They’d wrap a coat round me and ask me what had happened and I’d tell them.

  But here we are, out in the rain. There’s no one to come who can take this out of my hands, because Michael is not a stranger. No one is less strange to me than him. I see us in the mirror again. The lipstick on his lips, the mascara I’d stroked onto his eyes. The skin of his newly-shaven cheeks glowing with unearthly cosmetic colour. The only time a man wears make-up is when he’s in his coffin. You said that. I never realized that undertakers used cosmetics until you said that, and it fascinated me. You talked about the guys you knew who went home stitched into body-bags. But we were too young then to know what being young was. We couldn’t believe we’d ever have to learn anything else, about having lines and sagging and finding everything funnier than we’d done when we were young. like my children, who look at me and Donald, offended, when we roar with laughter at something they think is serious. All that youth, smooth as the skin of a plum. I think of your lost voice spooling out its endless confession in sleep. And in the morning I didn’t have the sense to keep quiet.

  ‘I don’t want you to understand me, Simone. It’s better that you don’t.’ Well, all right. I’m grown-up now and I’ve listened to it all. I absolve you. Is that what you wanted?

  The boat. You would like the boat. You wouldn’t want to be here on the pebbles with the gulls around. Even the rain is the wrong rain. You don’t belong here.

  You said this sea wasn’t like your ocean, but all the seas join on to one another in the end. There aren’t lines drawn on the sea like there are on maps. If you set off from here, sailing, you’d come to America. That’s the way you have to think of it. It would take a long time, but you’d get home.

  The boat is there, under its tarpaulin, and the oars are there too. I could take it out and no one would ever know. It hasn’t been touched for months, you can tell that. It’s only a little rowing-boat. I can easily handle it. The sea’s not rough. But could I lift you? If I drag the boat up on the beach and use the slope as I did to turn you over, I could lift you. The other part would be more difficult. Don’t think of that now. Think of it later.

  If only I could go back along the shore. Nobody would see me then. But it would take too long, with all the breakwater and the shingle that makes it hard to run. I’ll have to go back along the sea-wall then drop down to the beach again, and hope that no one sees me.

  It’s too risky to run. You can see the top of the sea-wall miles off. You don’t know who might be watching, down on the marsh. A bird-watcher in a hide, or a man with the sheep. Or just a child. Even in this rain they’d see me. People remember someone running.

  ‘Michael,’ I say, starting to explain. But you seem to be slumping deeper into the pebbles as the minutes pass. I am afraid. I don’t know how long it takes for a man’s body to stiffen. If you were stiff and hard I’d never be able to move you.

  I turn my back on you. I run clumsily along the beach to the steps, then climb to the top of the wall. The whisky is still in me but I wish I had more. It would be better to be drunk. At the top of the wall the wind catches me. It’s beginning to blow up now. I put my head down and walk into it, fast, as if my legs are pistons. But I don’t run. My heart bangs in my chest and hurts me, but that’s just fear and the whisky. I can do this.

  The Indian bones. I wonder if they bury them again, once they’ve been unearthed and cleaned and sorted. I wonder if they know the right way of burying them. Better to grind the earth back over them with the earthmovers.

  ‘I left my bag at the station. I checked out of the motel.’

  There aren’t any photographs in your bag. You promised me that. I see your hands picking up jeans and sweaters and underpants and putting them carefully into the bag, one by one.

  I’m running now. It doesn’t matter. There’s no one here and the rain falls like a blind between me and the country inland. Nobody will see me. My breath is harsh and loud and my feet thump on the wall as if someone’s coming after me.

  The tarpaulin glistens in the rain. It is carefully tied down, and at first I’m too shaky to undo the knots. They baffle my fingers until I’m whimpering with frustration. I make myself stop, put my hands on my knees, take in deep breaths. This is my little shingle beach where I’ve swum a hundred times. All I have to do is take it slowly, then I’ll be able to untie the tarpaulin, drag the boat down the beach, and push it out onto the water.

  When my hands stop trembling I untie the knots, one by one, and pull the thin cord through the eyelets. Water swooshes off the tarpaulin onto my clothes as I roll it off and fold it as small as I can, dry side inside. It’s a small boat, old and in need of varnish, but it looks all right. Not too heavy. Big enough for two. The oars look n
ewer than the boat. But though it’s a small boat, it’s heavy, and at first I can’t get the leverage right to tip it over. It’s stuck to the shingle like a snail glued to concrete. I rock it and wrench it and then one side is loose and I heave it up. A burst of daylight hits the inside of the boat as it rolls over and there it is. A crab winces sideways out of the shelter and buries itself back in the wet shingle.

  By the edge of the water I tuck the tarpaulin under the seat, then I take off my boots and socks, and roll up my jeans. It’s easy to push the boat into the water, but once it’s there it rocks so I can’t control it, and each time I push it round so it faces outward, the bow is shoved round by the wind. I throw my boots into the bottom of the boat, and wade out, holding the bow, steering it into deeper water. Then I lunge in, using my weight to shove the boat farther out. It’s like trying to clamber onto a bike which is already moving. I hit my hip on the seat as I fall into the boat. But it’s veering round already, trying to lodge itself back on the beach. I push off with an oar again, then quickly fit the oars into the rowlocks and pull. The first time I scoop too deep. The boat rocks violently but doesn’t move. With the next stroke I get it, and the boat hits out over the choppy waves that are crowding back to shore. I dig the blades back in, again, again. I’m pulling away, fifteen feet from the shore and out of the turbulence of broken waves snatching at the pebble-bank.

  My back hurts from where I lifted you. I don’t want to be too far out. If I hug the shore now I won’t be visible from inland. The sea-wall will hide me. Later on, though, I’ll have to row out.

  Lucky I’m rowing east. The wind is with me, blowing me on. The boat is light, too, and easy to handle. And I’m getting into a rhythm, bending to the oars, making a long, smooth cut through the water, heading out to clear the breakwaters. The sea is lumpy. If the sea got any heavier I wouldn’t be able to manage the boat. But I can do this.

  Watch the oars. Keep the boat straight. Don’t look at the shore. There’s no need yet.

  I nearly row right past you. Maybe I’m not thinking properly, though everything looks so clear. Time keeps jumping. And there you are, just as I left you. From the sea your body could be anything. A sack someone’s left there. But the gulls are still whipping round in the air above you.

  I don’t draw the boat up too far. I run it onto the shingle and drag it up so it can’t drift. I search the beach, picking up the biggest stones. When I have enough, I take them back to the boat and put them under the seat, next to the tarpaulin. Then I go up the beach and kneel beside you again. I pick away the little stones I used to keep the edges of the jacket tight around your head. And you are there, just as you were before. I think you’re paler now. You look more asleep than you did, even though your eyes are still open. I should have closed them. That’s what you should do. I am afraid I’m going to damage you. The thought of hurting your dead face makes the whisky come up in my throat. Your eyes are open. I lift your head again and lay the jacket under you, then wrap it tightly around your head. You won’t feel the stones now.

  I need to lift you a little so I can get my arms through yours and lift you by the armpits enough so I can drag you down the beach. But I can’t do it. Your head lolls, wrapped in the jacket. You are not so warm now but your joints still flex. The whisky comes up in my throat again and I turn aside and vomit it onto the pebbles, along with the chocolate you gave me.

  There’s sweat all over me. I’ve gone too far to go back now. It’s too late to do the other thing and run back along the sea-wall and phone the police and the ambulance. It is much too late for all this to be turned back into an accident.

  Do it.

  I have to roll you down the beach. I put my hands under your sides and lever and haul until you roll awkwardly, flopping onto your other side. The pebbles crunch underneath you. Then I do it again. You don’t feel it. I wipe the sweat off my face, kneel, lift, and you roll. Now you are by the boat, raised on the bank of shingle. I left the boat half in the water, half out, but the tide is rising fast and a wave rushes beyond the boat and slaps at you. I manhandle one leg over the side, then the other. Your torso hangs as I grapple to support it. And then you are in, just as the tide lifts and swings the boat. I stand in swirling water and the side of the boat thuds against my legs. For a second it rides above me, then I get my hands on the side, push down and scramble over the side. One of my bare feet touches your bare hand. You have pitched forward, doubled over and face-down in the water that slops in the bottom of the boat.

  I can’t row without touching you. I grab at the oars and steady the boat, then pull hard. Each time I pull on the oars my thigh rubs against your shoulder. Your weight is over one side, but I can balance it. I ship the oars, then unfold the tarpaulin and cover you, tucking you in. The boat swings round, out of control and low in the water. I sit down again, and begin to row outwards, facing the land and the sea-wall. The waves hit the boat, shock after shock. More water slops over the side. I lick my lips and they taste of salt.

  Do it. Don’t get frightened now. I’m in too deep. The sea isn’t really rough. It’s just choppy. And the rain’s easing again. I can see the length of the sea-wall, just as I could when I was swimming. I blink and something seems to duck down on the wall. A figure. I blink again and there’s nothing. Only the empty wall, the white-grey sky, the grey-green waves and the gulls which glide a hundred yards on one flick of their wings. They make wider and wider circles and I think they are keeping me in their sights.

  The boat wallows on. Once I have to stop rowing and scoop up the water that is sliding about round my feet and throw it back into the sea. I am four hundred yards out, six hundred, half a mile. More. It’s hard to tell distance over the water. The shore still looks much too close but the waves are getting bigger, and I’m afraid they’ll swamp me once I get beyond the protection of land. But I keep on rowing anyway, shifting my hands to ease the pressure which burns my palms. I’ve got to row fast. I look at your foot where the tarpaulin has come loose. I ought to stop and tuck it back. Your face is down in the water at the bottom of the boat, but I can’t see it because the jacket is tied tight. You would be drowned by now, in that water, if you’d been still alive. You would be dead twice over. I’ve never understood why killers keep on striking the bodies of their victims long after they’re dead. But now I understand it. Once they’re dead, that’s not enough. You want them to be dead and gone too, but they won’t go. I don’t want you to go. I just want you to smile at me in the mirror and crack the perfect surface of the red I’ve painted onto you.

  ‘Michael,’ I say, ‘Michael. Listen.’ I stop rowing, and pull the oars up out of the water. The boat twists and then shudders as it takes the waves broadside. ‘Michael.’ I sit forward, and pull away the tarpaulin, then untie the jacket from around your head. Your face has gone dark, as if a stain has seeped into it. Each time the boat rocks, water bubbles round your nostrils.

  One of those still days when the leaves are so thick on the ground they fly up every step you take. Yellow and red and all the burnt colours you can think of. And you still smell the ocean, even when you’re deep in among the trees. You know there are Indian walls up in those woods? They still find bones, when they’re clearing. The guy who keeps the store now, you won’t know him, he’s new since your time. He reckons there was an Indian burial ground up there. It’s all covered over now. I’ll show you.

  TWENTY-SIX

  I lift your hand. It is cold, but your wrist still bends. I have to move you now. I brace myself against the pitching of the boat, and struggle to get your jacket back onto you, but it’s impossible. Anyway I wouldn’t be able to zip it up, with you lying face down. I reach under the seat for the stones, to cram them into your jeans pockets. But the pressure of your flesh won’t make room.

  It’s the afternoon, slipping into evening. The kids are out of the water and changing under the supervision of Jim and Mary Beth. I have the next two hours off, until camp-fire. I have just finished slathering insect
-repellent cream onto my arms and legs. The pool is blue and still, the diving boards empty. The paving stones around the pool are already dry. You’d think the long day of splashing and screams had never happened The grass behind me is full of crickets.

  Everything is bigger, sharper, more violent than I am used to. There is poison ivy in the woods, and snakes. A phgue of caterpillars has eaten into a belt of trees behind the poolhouse so that their leaves are lace. Last night when we were driving, the car hit a skunk and its stink poured in through the air-conditioning. Every morning the sun comes up burning hot. My plane landed after a hurricane and when we came out into the air it was like being slapped with hot wet towels.

  The kids I look after an tanned and rich. They have the sheen of a lifetime’s steak and vitamins on their skin. I am supposed to be their counsellor, but they know everything there is to know about going to camp. They are nice kids, no problems here. Their teeth are shiny and white and perfect, or else they are still in tractor braces, waiting to become perfect. When I smile I am conscious of the NHS fillings in the back of my mouth. But they like the way I speak. I don’t shout at them, so that may be why. The other counsellors bawl them out all the time. In the distance I can hear MaryBeth yelling at someone now, for getting dressed without taking a shower first.

  My arms are deliriously warm, stinging a little from the day’s sun. I lift my watch-strap to check the deepening of my tan. In a while I’ll swim. I’m waiting for Julie, who is bringing some friends over. They have a car, and we’re going to go for a ride later and have a beer. I can’t believe how strict the bars are about underage drinking here. At home I’ve been going into pubs since I was thirteen.

  The early evening light is as warm and sleek as melted butter. I stretch out on my towel and shut my eyes so the last of the sun can spill onto my face. I raise my arms over my head, and stretch luxuriously. I would never have thought silence could be as solid as a gift. I’ve changed into a white cotton bikini, now it’s evening and the kids are gone. In the day I wear a swimsuit, because I’m teaching a diving group. I think they were surprised the first day to find that I could dive better than any of them, with my pale English body. Swallow dive, plain dive, pike and racing start. These kids know nothing about rainy Saturdays in the public baths, in the stink of chlorine, and coming up from a dive to find someone else’s Elastoplast bobbing by your nose.