LITMIR.BIZ

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dictated by Doone. It was between herself and Lucas.

      She moved her free hand, sliding it over his hip to rest in the hollow of his waist. If he had been drifting into sleep again the movement reawakened him. He rolled half on to his back and stared up at the sky. Awkwardly May bumped herself closer and hooked her knee over his leg. When he didn’t respond she hoisted herself higher, almost to lie on top of him, and nuzzled his jaw with her mouth. Even as she did it she knew it was all wrong.

      Instead of drawing back she rolled further across him and tried to reconnect the thirsty kiss. There was a weightless second in which he might have responded. But instead he sat up abruptly and May sprawled sideways. Her teeth snapped on a sliver of skin inside her lip and the pain of it made tears sting in her eyes.

      ‘Hey, I’m sorry. Are you okay?’

      ‘Yes.’

      His voice had changed, back to the way it had been when he told her on the beach to fetch a towel and keep warm. ‘May?’

      ‘What.’

      ‘I shouldn’t have done that, before. It was dumb of me, I wasn’t thinking.’ He touched her shoulder, tried to turn her head so he could see her face, but she kept her neck rigid. ‘You’re really nice, May. Too good to be treated like that. I’m sorry.’

      ‘What for? It’s nothing.’ Humiliation almost choked her, tasting like acid in the back of her throat. She wanted to bury herself under the blanket of leaves, burrowing down into rotten blackness.

      ‘Are you sure?’

      Blood roared in May’s ears, much louder than the sea had ever sounded. She nodded hard, thinking that she had to get away from him immediately before any more shame descended on her.

      He said, so kindly that she flinched under another stab of misery, ‘Come back to the beach.’

      ‘No. You go and find Ivy. She’ll want you to.’

      ‘Perhaps. I’m not sure I want it.’

      Yes you do, it’s all you do want. ‘Go on. I’m just going to sit here for a bit.’

      ‘I can’t leave you on your own in the dark.’

      May scrambled to her feet and spat at him, ‘Just go, will you.’

      The shrill words vibrated endlessly until the salt air at last damped them into silence. Lucas was as embarrassed as she was. ‘Okay, if that’s what you want.’

      He turned abruptly and crashed down the path towards the beach.

      When she couldn’t hear him any more May sank down again into the leaves. She lay back, but immediately the branches over her head knitted together and began a whirling that made her stomach heave. She sat up and concentrated on not being sick. As the ground levelled again and the trees slowed in their rotation May remembered the movement she had seen between the black pillars of the trunks. It had been no more than an instant’s flicker like a pale flame, but without Lucas’s protection fear expanded in her chest and rose into her mouth, more stifling than any nausea. She saw the island woman’s face again but now the eyes stared wide and the jaw hung open.

      A scream began inside May but it died before it reached her throat. Unsteadily she hoisted herself on to her feet and looked dazedly around her for the way home. She couldn’t remember which way to go and she staggered for a dozen yards uphill before turning and running wildly down the path. Long before she reached the beach she was gasping and sobbing, and her ankles and calves were ripped with thorns. At last she burst out on to the slope of shingle and her terrified rush slowed to a stumble before she stopped and hung her head, panting for breath and soaked in a clammy sweat. She had rushed almost to the water’s edge and now a wave gathered itself and broke over her feet. She hardly noticed that her shoes were filled with water.

      The moon had risen and it laid a silvery streak across the water. In its light the beach was empty and unthreatening. The Beams’ sailboat swung gently at its mooring and the light wind teased out a metallic rattle from the mast. Beyond it the island was a featureless black hump.

      May shivered. Turning to look at the houses she saw that there were cosy lights in all of them now, including the upstairs windows of the Fennymores’.

      Her terror slowly drained away. In its place a lumpen misery remained.

      In the Captain’s House John would be sitting on one of the chesterfields, reading his book. May found she couldn’t bear the idea of going in to face him, or Ivy’s inevitable absence. She moved back out of the range of the wavelets and flopped down on the stones. All her undigested love for Lucas had turned to a knot of disgust with herself. She drew up her knees and resting her chin on them she let the tears run.

      Even Doone, her alter ego, had deserted her tonight.

      In the grip of her loneliness May understood how much of an eerie companion she had made of the dead girl.

      She didn’t hear the footsteps behind her until they stopped a yard from her shoulder. Then she spun round and saw Marty Stiegel. He was breathing hard as if he had been running and his face in the moonlight looked pale and sweaty. ‘May. It’s you.’

      He didn’t sound as he usually did, one of the knit-together group of adults who played tennis and grilled shrimp on beach barbecues.

      ‘Who did you think?’

      Marty shook his head, then looked more closely at her. ‘Is something wrong?’

      ‘No. Nothing. Just, you know.’

      It would be such a luxury to talk to someone. Marty was friendly and he had been kind to her; May valued that.

      ‘I’ll walk you back up to your house,’ he offered.

      ‘Can I come up and have a drink with you? Like I did the other day?’

      Marty hesitated but she hurried on, extemporising, ‘There’s been a fight. Family stuff. I’d kind of like to be out of the house for a while.’

      ‘Sure. Okay. I remember fights with my mom and old man like you wouldn’t believe, when I was just about your age. But we got over them, you know. We’re good friends now, and you and your dad and sister will be too.’

      ‘Do you think so?’

      ‘I know so.’

      They crossed the beach in front of the Beams’ house and climbed the Stiegels’ steps. Justine’s stroller lay folded in the seagrass at the top of the wall and Marty picked it up and carried it like a shield.

      The room was empty although the door on to the deck stood open and all the lights were on, as if Marty had hurried out on to the beach without a backward glance.

      He told her that Judith and Justine were asleep, that he must go up himself in a minute. But at the same time he moved around the room, turning off some of the lights, switching on some music that sighed in the background. He heated some coffee for May and poured wine for himself. Then they sat at opposite ends of the sofa. Through the half-open doorway May could see the room he used as his study, where the sheaf of photographs of Doone rested neatly squared in the concertina folder.

      ‘I got a copy made of the volleyball picture for you.’

      ‘Thank you.’

      May drank her coffee, letting it warm her. She didn’t feel any longer that she might be sick at any moment, but a blunt finger of pain prodded behind her eyes.

      ‘What happened to your mouth? Here?’

      Marty leaned forward and dabbed it with a Kleenex. She winced at the pressure where she had bitten the inside of her lip. He showed her the red-brown bloodstain on the pink tissue and at the same time glanced at the Elastoplast on her hand.

      ‘Oh, no, it’s nothing. I climbed up on the headland and fell over a log or something. Bit the inside of my mouth. Dumb.’

      Now a silence

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