The Lamplighters (14 page)

She stood up and took another gulp of coffee before replacing the mug in the sink.

“I’m really sorry for intruding.”

“Intruding? Not at all. Don’t get visitors up here much, not the polite conversation kind anyway. Just the goddamn uniforms, poking around.”

“Don’t you get lonely, up here by yourself all the time?”

“Sometimes. But you’re never
really
alone on an island this small.”

“Maybe I can visit another time, read some of your books?”

“Welcome anytime…”

She realized she hadn’t told him her name. “Marla, I’m Marla. Very pleased to meet you Vincent, and thanks for the coffee.”

Vincent stood politely up and Marla shook his leathery hand. She gave him a warm smile, then turned and headed down the spiral stairs.

Listening out for the familiar metallic clang of the door as it slammed shut, Vincent looked out to sea. He found himself hoping young Marla would head back to the mainland before the storms came. You could never really be alone on an island this small and it was no place,
no place at all
, for the young.

Chapter Eighteen

Pietro lit up a cigarette and strode out onto the porch to watch the sky. As the clouds rolled by he realized this was the first time in months he’d seen so many. Weather rarely visited Meditrine Island and so when it did, it became as much a grand spectacle as a fireworks display. He blew smoke through his nostrils, watching the little gray wisps as they appeared to mingle with the heavy cumulous in the sky. Becoming bored of the sight already his thoughts returned to Marla, in particular her smooth skin, pert breasts and firm buttocks. How on earth had he lost his erection with material like that? He wondered how long it would be before she came back to visit him, and how long after that before she ended up in his bed again so he could try again. Not long, he wagered, but even as he thought it he realized how disinterested he already felt towards her. Towards sex in general. Pietro felt more passion for his beloved A.C. Milano than he did for any female. It was true what they said about any lover, absence makes the heart grow fonder. He made a disapproving smacking sound with his teeth as he remembered asking her who had won the European soccer championship. Outrageously, she hadn’t even known who’d played in the final. He’d quizzed her on his other great passion and she’d failed spectacularly on that one too.
No I don’t know if U2 have an album out,
she’d said mockingly,
why do you even care about that?

“Why do I even
care
about that? Bitch.”

He was speaking aloud to himself now. He spat into the swimming pool defiantly, and then flicked the cigarette in after it. The stub made a satisfying hiss as it hit the water. Fuck it, he’d be cleaning the pool again soon anyway, and again soon after that, and on and on until his dick truly shriveled up and he died. Jessie had been telling him for weeks now to be patient, but he really was all out of patience. Jessie pissed him off anyway, a victim of that dreaded condition he called “Golden Pussy Syndrome”—swanning around the island like she owned the place just because she had a cunt between her legs. He kidded himself for a while that he didn’t fancy her after all, that she wasn’t his type, but what really pissed him off was knowing she was giving blowjobs to the security guards in return for smokes, booze and a bit of substandard weed. When he’d offered Jess his own personal services in return for some cigarettes she’d given him a few packs, but in return for
not
sleeping with her.
Golden Pussy Syndrome
. His lips smacked again. At least Marla had seen sense, although it had cost him most of his booze stash to get her panties off. Fat lot of good it had done him. Maybe he should start offering the security guards some mouth-to-cock action in return for some reliable information about A.C. Milano? He reckoned at least a couple of the boys in black were shirt lifters. Hell, even if they weren’t, any hole was a goal right? He groaned and stretched, feeling stiffness and tension in his muscles where there should’ve been post-coital numbness. What he really needed was a swim.
Oh, for the love of all that’s holy, a swim.
He looked back at the pool, seeing the cigarette butt floating there atop the chemically treated waters, doing backstroke. The clouds suddenly parted, bathing the surface of the pool in sunlight. Shimmering ripples danced across his vision, reminding him the ocean back home. Yes, what he really needed was a swim in the
sea
. Pietro spat into the pool again and as he watched his phlegm float on the sparkling water he felt himself descending into a funk.
Fuck Fowler and his rules,
he thought,
fuck Golden Pussy Syndrome and her rules too.
And with that, he headed back inside to find his swim trunks.

Thankfully, the wind had died down a little and Marla decided to take a different route back from the lighthouse. She felt warmed right through by the heat of the strong coffee Vincent had given to her. She didn’t want to waste the opportunity of exploring this new part of the island before heading back to do more chores, knowing full well she’d only mope around at the summerhouse anyway. The path across the rocks presented her with two new routes. One was a pebble-strewn path that thinned out in the distance around the headland. The other was a steeply tiered craggy outcrop leading down to the sea, its twists and turns making it seem almost like a natural spiral staircase. Feeling adventurous, she chose the latter and carefully began her descent down the rocky steps. It was slow going, especially when she reached the sharp turns, bending down then clinging onto lichen-covered fissures in the rock. Slowly she lowered herself bit by bit down towards the sea, which she could see lapping and swirling at a sandy cove far below.

Turning another corner and sliding down onto a particularly huge boulder, Marla could now see that the cove was actually quite large. Much of it had been hidden by the gradient on the way down but now she could see it in all its glory, a wide expanse of virgin sand sheltered from the wind by the huge rock face that bordered it like a gigantic windcheater. At the far end of the cove was an inlet, a cave, with a spiky overhang of blackened stone. Marla took a cursory look around the outcrop on which she stood. It seemed the only way down to this quiet paradise was a ledge some five or six feet below, maybe even further. Crouching down to look for a handhold, Marla awkwardly swung her legs out from under her and pivoted around so she was now facing the surface of the boulder. Gingerly, she slid her legs downwards whilst hanging onto the rocky outcrop above. A slight slick of perspiration had begun to form on her forehead. Taking a deep breath, she let go of the handhold first with one hand then the other and trusted in gravity to do its thing. She slid alarmingly fast, her clothing dragging against the rock so that she felt the cool alien surface of the boulder against her belly and legs. Then, with a thankful gasp, she hit the ledge and steadied herself before turning around. The drop had cut off the last of the wind current and she felt a palpable sense of calm in the still air. Smiling to herself she continued climbing down to the cove, hopping over the last of the rocks with the ease of a mountain goat.

Kicking off her Birkenstocks, Marla sighed at the cool comfort of the white sand beneath her feet. She walked down to the sea and watched the waves for a while, mesmerized by the beautiful simplicity of white foam gently buffeting a driftwood branch. The waves undulated like a soothing breath and they whispered to her, the sound folding in on itself in the strange acoustics of the rock walled cove. Making her way to a sheltered spot from where she could still see the ocean, Marla lay back on the sand for a while and listened to the waves. The distant song of a seagull echoed around her, conspiring with the other sounds to lull her to sleep.

Just as her eyes were about to give in to the lullaby, Marla saw a shape in the distance. She squinted at it, thinking at first that it was a dog or some other animal making its way across the beach towards the cave at the other end. Sitting up and wiping the drowsiness from her eyes, Marla looked again and saw that the distant figure was a small child. Confused, she stood up and started walking towards it, her strides quickening as the child built up speed. She could now see clearly that it was a little boy of no more than ten years of age. A dark, tangled mop of hair jostled on top of his head as his little legs carried him over the sand toward the cave opening.

“Hey!” she cried out, but the child pressed on either ignoring her or just not hearing. “Hey, stop!”

The boy was now at the cave entrance, where he stopped suddenly. He threw Marla a glance over his shoulder and his deep-set eyes made contact with hers. There was a melancholy in those eyes that even from this distance chilled her to the marrow of her bones. His face was deathly pale, starkly contrasting the crow black bird’s nest of hair framing it. Her steps faltered and she was about to cry out to him again when all of a sudden he turned and ran into the darkness of the cave.

Marla chewed her bottom lip, pondering for an instant what to do next. Her feet decided, following the boy’s path into the cave and risking the darkness that lay within. As she rounded the curve created by the thick rock cave entrance the cool damp atmosphere hit her. Blinking away the daylight and willing her irises to widen so she could see in the darkness, Marla craned her head backwards and saw the ceiling of the cave arching over her like that of a prehistoric cathedral. Stepping inside, slowly now, she inched her way inside—her footfalls accompanied by the echoing drip-drip-drips of water on stone. Carefully avoiding a chunky cluster of coppery yellow stalagmites, she was headed for what looked like a turning at the back of the cave.
Mites go up and tights come down,
she told herself, remembering a seaside field trip from orphanage days long ago. A small child back then, she had looked on in wonder as her teacher described how the rock and mineral formations had formed over generations and would continue to do so long after their lifetimes. Marla found herself wondering why the little boy she had followed was on his own out here and felt a bleak chill pass over the surface of her skin. Her eyes now adjusting to the dark, she reached the wall at the rear of the cave and felt the source of the chill. A cool breeze emanated from a smaller passage that joined the main cave forming a sharp bend. She peered inside and whispered, “Hello? Hello? I just want to say hi, make sure you’re okay… Are you in there?”

The drip-drip-drips of the water grew louder, accentuated by the lack of any human response from the gloom of the passage. If the boy was here, he was quiet as a mouse and hiding in the dark. Marla’s skin prickled at the thought of walking into the passage alone but she also began to worry that the child had come to some harm in the cave. Newspaper headlines about pot-holers getting stuck underground in damp tombs like this one flashed by her mind’s eye like microfiche projections. She called out to the boy one last time and, hearing only the echo of her own strained voice, she backed out of the passageway and into the cave. The high ceiling was an instant comfort to her after the stifling claustrophobic black of the mysterious corridor. Turning toward the light, Marla made her way back to the beach and its soft carpet of sand. As she turned the corner out of the cave, she saw a figure silhouetted against the glare of the sunlit ocean waves. She squinted, her eyes struggling to make out the detail of the figure. The unexpected sight was accompanied by an unexpected droning sound, rather like that of a huge sluggish bee heavy with pollen in the last days of summer. Marla felt dizzy. A faint crosswind bent the sound waves in her ears and the refracting sunlight made the silhouetted figure shimmer before her eyes. She tripped through the deep sand, now more of an obstacle than a comfort, and moved toward the figure, squinting as she went. Beyond the figure was another shape, small and hard on the horizon of her vision. It was moving, and seemed to be the source of the droning sound.

Then the brightness was briefly diffused as a cloud enveloped the sun and Marla saw the figure turn to face her. It was Jessie. And far behind her in the distant ocean bobbing on the waves was a large pleasure yacht. Jessie glanced back at the boat, then to Marla.

“We need to talk,” she said dryly.

“Yes we do,” Marla agreed.

A moment passed between them. The boat’s engine sputtered like a spectator clearing its throat then droned on louder than before.

“You found the cove then? Quietest place on the island. The most private too. No spy cameras, well none that I’m aware of.”

Jessie was looking out to sea, holding her hand flat above her squinting eyes so she could see better. Marla didn’t answer.

“Hey, I guess I owe you an apology. Fowler wasn’t too harsh on you was he?”

Marla felt her blood beginning to boil. “Oh of course he wasn’t. Invited me in for tea and muffins right after his grunts shoved their guns in my face.”

Lowering her hand, Jessie turned back and looked Marla in the eye a little sheepishly.

“Look, for what it’s worth I’m real sorry, Marla, but there wasn’t any other way for me to get into the computer system. I would have been caught. And if that happened…well we can wave goodbye to our party at the big house.”

Her eyes darted to one side as she said her piece. Marla knew that Jessie was lying to her. Bile rose in her stomach and she felt new urgency to extract what Jessie was hiding from her, not to mention an apology for allowing her to make a complete fool of herself over Adam. Leaning in close to Jessie’s face, she spoke slowly and clearly, her voice just an octave away from real anger.

“For what it’s worth, Jessie, I think you’re full of shit. This has nothing to do with any bloody house party; you just wanted me to fall spectacularly on my backside. And thanks by the way for rubbing my nose in it with Adam,.That was a nice touch.”

“Oh…”

Jessie’s mouth fell open, wide. Then, to Marla’s further distaste, she chuckled. Her dry laughter sounded like cockroaches in a drain.