Moon Island (26 page)

It was impossible to tell her father any of this. Disgust and shapeless longing possessed her in equal parts. ‘Yes.’

After a moment’s hesitation John asked, ‘Can we talk about the other evening?’

The cuts on her hand were healing. The new tissue puckered and crawled under the antiseptic tape. ‘No.’ She heard how her blank monosyllable disconcerted him. Miserably she added, ‘Can’t we just forget about it? I’d rather we did. Truly.’

‘It’s just…’

‘Please,’
May begged.

Her desperation silenced him. ‘If that’s what you really want,’ John murmured. They walked on to the harbour without speaking.

At the moment of their arrival the first firework exploded overhead in a mushroom of sparks and a cascade of blue and emerald fireballs. The sparks drifted down, turning scarlet until they were blotted out in the sea, and another rocket streaked upwards.

Ivy was in the crowd, with her arm draped around the shoulders of Sam Deevey. She waved when she saw them. Leonie Beam was there too, with Sidonie on her shoulders. The bursting rocket illuminated her profile for an instant and May knew that her father’s eyes stayed on her.

Lucas came out of a group and greeted them. It was clear that he had been drinking. ‘Hi, Maysy. Happy Pittsharbor Day, guys.’

Nine

The driftwood fire on the beach facing Moon Island held a core of pure red heat within a cage of branches. Every so often part of the latticework collapsed and a column of sparks went shooting upwards like a tiny echo of the Pittsharbor fireworks. Even now from the direction of the harbour an occasional rocket streaked into the darkness, followed by the peppery explosions of firecrackers. Freelance celebrations were continuing in the town long after the official ones had ended.

Food had been barbecued and eaten around the bonfire by the bluff families and a loose group of guests, mostly friends of the Beam children. Everyone had drunk wine or beer, and a fragile gloss of cordiality slicked over an undercurrent of tension, which seemed to dull the fire and thicken the already stifling air.

In an effort to lighten the atmosphere Marian and Marty had talked too much from opposite sides of the group. Now one of the boys was picking at a guitar and an uneasy calm settled. Figures moved in the firelight, to pick up a bottle of wine or fetch more wood, and an umber glow halved their silhouettes.

Murmurs of conversation threaded the groups; the evening had reached the point where the young people would begin to drift away and the older ones might safely collect up the debris of the barbecue and move towards home.

Ivy was still sitting hip to hip with Sam Deevey, her lovely neck bent so she could whisper into his ear. The shifting of her favours was obvious, but no one had audibly remarked on it. John frowned a warning at her but she ignored him and Marian’s displeasure was only revealed in sharp glances. Lucas merely looked on in silence and tipped his head back to swallow another drink.

Leonie had reorganised the plate of food Marian had pressed on her, but had eaten none of it. She could only think how her way ahead had narrowed to the vanishing point where there was no possibility but to leave. She wrestled in her mind with the question of where to go. Not back to the apartment in Boston, filled with the possessions Tom and she had accumulated together over the years.

But if not there, then where else? To rent somewhere, that would be the answer, but the practical difficulties of doing even that seemed all but insurmountable. Leonie knew it was unhappiness that was disabling her. She must move, before the paralysis became complete.

Tom was sitting on the opposite side of the fire, with Judith Stiegel and Spencer and Alexander. They were talking, but Leonie couldn’t hear what they were saying because the low murmur of the sea amplified itself in her ears. The firelight shone on her husband’s face, casting unexpected shadows, turning him into a stranger.

Marian’s bulk interposed itself. ‘Do you suppose anyone would like more blueberry pie?’

There was a surplus from the bake stall.

In translation the question meant
Get up and offer second helpings
, but Leonie disregarded it. ‘If they do I expect they’ll manage to help themselves.’

A corner of gipsy skirt whipped her knee as Marian swept on by. I’ll pay for that, Leonie told herself, then remembered that she wouldn’t have to because she would be gone. The idea of such an upside made her mouth curve in a sudden smile and she saw that John was watching her.

Aaron and Hannah had not come down to the beach and their house at the end of the bluff was in darkness. Elizabeth had joined the party only for an hour. Spencer jumped up to escort her when she stood up to leave. She was relieved that Pittsharbor Day was at last over and she had done all that could possibly have been expected of her. On her way around the circle she thanked Marian, although there was no reason for Marian to have appointed herself hostess of the evening.

The last person Elizabeth came to in her circuit was May. She was attached to the group of teenagers without in any way being a part of it. Elizabeth patted her shoulder and wordlessly May took hold of her wrist. Her hand was burning. For a moment Elizabeth felt that there were wires criss-crossed tight between too many people in this circle, red-hot where they passed through the heart of the fire, cold and invisible on the margins.

May’s fingers dropped away. ‘Good-night,’ she said.

Ivy and Sam and Gail and the others were also making ready to go. The boy stopped strumming his guitar and pulled Gail to her feet. She gave a mock stagger and almost fell into his arms.

Ivy stood in front of Lucas. ‘You coming?’

‘Nope.’

‘Right.’ She walked off without a backward glance, with Sam close behind her.

The rest of them stood up too, hoisting bags on their shoulders and murmuring their thanks in Marian’s direction, before melting away across the crescent of sand. May knew they were making for a more secluded part of the beach, or maybe someone’s bedroom where they would not be interrupted. They would drink and smoke some more draw, and talk and snigger, and while she longed to be included she despised them at the same time for the repetitive dullness of their pleasures.

The young people moved away in a dark mass. The diminished group of eleven adults remained, plus Lucas, sitting alone. May shot a glance at him. His arms were wrapped around his knees and he stared into the fire.
Now
, May thought,
if I am ever going to
.

She had drunk two bottles of beer and she couldn’t remember how much red wine, covertly, while her father’s attention was turned elsewhere. The mixture lay uneasily in her stomach, but it had the effect of dividing her thoughts from the rest of her weighty self. She felt clear in the head and quite untroubled, with the knowledge that whatever she did or whatever happened wouldn’t matter much. Not enough to worry about. Not enough to care about.

She slid across the sand to Lucas’s side. ‘Hi.’

He rolled his head on his knees to look at her. ‘Oh. Hi.’

She waited a minute or two, giving him a chance to get used to her being there. No one else was looking at them. ‘She can be like that you know. She doesn’t mean to hurt people, not really. It’s like just sometimes she has to be a bitch. Kind of a power thing.’

The fire was dying into dull crimson embers. Flakes of ash twirled like snowflakes and settled on the sand. May raked and sifted sand through her fingers, looking anywhere but at his face.

At last Lucas sniffed and rubbed his cheek with the flat of one hand. ‘You want to come for a walk or something?’ he asked. ‘I feel like getting away from here.’

May waited a decent interval before she said, ‘Okay. If you like.’

They skirted the edge of the water where ink-black ripples subsided into the shingle. May walked boldly at Lucas’s side instead of drifting in his wake. They passed the Captain’s House and climbed northwards on to the headland. When she looked back she saw her father making his way towards the beach steps and felt a mean little beat of relief that he was alone.

It was difficult climbing upwards in the dark. Roots and brambles snagged May’s bare ankles but she let them tear at her because she was too conscious that a swerve might bring her into contact with Lucas’s arm and shoulder. A prickle of heat ran down her side at the thought and her scalp tightened over her skull.

Then Lucas tripped over a branch, and he stumbled and swore. ‘I can’t see a thing. Let’s stop.’

The headland rose on one side, a black sweep of trees. On the other was the sea, invisible but always audible. Tonight it made a low murmur like a chorus of close-matched voices. There was a dip in the ground, not much more than a shallow saucer but still a shelter of sorts, on the landward side of the path. Lucas sat down with his back against a tree stump and with only a second’s hesitation May took her place beside him. There was a lightness inside her head now that allowed her to do what would have seemed impossible a day ago. She eased herself back against the stump, stretched out her legs next to his. They sat and listened to the sea.

A year ago, May thought. The last night of Doone’s life. She had drowned the morning after Pittsharbor Day. All the other people gathered on the beach this evening must have remembered it, even though none of them had spoken her name. But she was always there, she must be, on the other side of the invisible membrane.

‘You okay?’ Lucas asked and she nodded wordlessly. She put her head on his shoulder and he shifted his position to fold his arm around her. She felt a jolt when he touched her and she had to look down dizzily at her folded hands, at the thickness of her own thighs, to assure herself that she was still May – that she hadn’t slipped sideways through the same membrane that seemed to grow thinner, almost to have dissolved into nothingness.

The hands were hers. But Doone was close, it was her breath in May’s hair, not the breeze off the sea. The sea’s voices were louder.

Time and space were shifting. Had Lucas brought Doone up here a year ago? Was she living this night now, or the other one, which had somehow swum back again to engulf them all?

The entries she had decoded from the diary whispered in May’s ears. Hot, heavy words that made her feel loose and restless.

He slipped down beside me. We kissed for a long time. I touched him, I made him touch me. Everywhere, and there. I don’t care, I don’t care about anything else.

I love him.

Those three words, over and over, written with such passion that they scored the underlying pages.

Lucas was probably drunk, May knew that. She was certainly drunk herself. None of it mattered. Behind his head, where the glimmer of his hair bisected the sky, she could see an arc of cold stars. May closed her eyes to shut them out. She leaned forward, dipping into space, swimming through nowhere until her mouth connected with his. Warm, solid and a surprised hiss of indrawn breath. She pressed closer, willing him with all of herself not to recoil.

There was a surge of delight when he began to kiss her back. She sucked the inside of her cheeks to stop her lips curving in triumph. It was not a matter of scraped mouths and clashing teeth, which was all she had known of kissing before. It became simple and imperative, like drinking when you were thirsty. Only it made you thirstier still. It wouldn’t be enough, even if you drank until the water ran out of your mouth.

Lucas stretched himself on the ground in the shelter of the hollow and drew May down in the circle of his arms. She measured herself against him, gleefully registering soft and hard. His hand found a breast. ‘How old did you say you were?’

‘Uh, fifteen, nearly sixteen.’ He had forgotten; she had told him the truth once before.

‘Jesus.’ He breathed the word into her mouth but he didn’t lift his hand. His fingers teased in a slow circle so that her back arched upwards to meet him as he leaned over her.

She opened her eyes and saw the stars again. Don’t move, she warned them. Stay frozen like this for ever.

Lucas’s long leg rested over her hip now. His hand was in her hair, she was fastened to him. There was a trace of sourness in his mouth. His fingers were busy at her shirt front.

I touched him everywhere, and there.

May knew what she should do. Lightly, with her breath locked in her chest, she trailed her fingers down to the belt of his jeans.
Don’t let me fumble
, she prayed.

Was this what Doone had done?

The leather tongue was awkward, clamped in the buckle’s ridges. One-handed, Lucas undid it for her. A minute’s exploration yielded folds of cloth, then what she had expected to find. Only more solid than in her imaginings and somehow more brutal.

She didn’t know what to do now. She had forgotten how to breathe and her stomach was churning. Her mouth dried and she drew her head back a fraction. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a movement between the trees. She struggled to sit upright as words broke out of her mouth. ‘There’s someone there.’

Lucas lifted himself on one elbow and scanned the silent woodland. ‘No, there isn’t. There’s nobody.’

‘Someone was watching us.’

The note in her voice made him shield her with his arms. He found that she was shivering. ‘It’s okay. C’mon, look. We shouldn’t be doing this, anyway. I’m really sorry.’

Whatever it was must have been in her imagination. May threw herself down again into the mould-scents of dead leaves, knowing the thread was broken, torn between despair and relief. Lucas lay back too and held her against him. He had done up his jeans and now he began to button her shirt for her.

‘Don’t be kind,’ she begged. ‘I don’t want you to be
kind
.’

A door had opened on to a new landscape and had slammed shut again before she had a chance to take in the view.

He smoothed her hair, tidying strands of it away from her open mouth, the embodiment of kindness. ‘Why not? You’re really nice, aren’t you? Much nicer than your sister.’