Lighthouse (21 page)

The second drawer he opens contains underwear. Near the top he finds the same pink satin knickers he found beneath his bed the week before.

In the last drawer, he finds dozens of perfume bottles – some cheap, some expensive, a few novelty bottles and cases including a blue glass skyscraper and a little wooden lighthouse, and, beside it, what is surely his silver lighthouse. He is taking it out when the slam of the apartment’s front door makes him jump. Retreating once more to the dark and smoky bathroom, he feels himself trembling. He could do with relieving his bladder.

Ester, he thinks, is bound to discover him there now. Sitting down on the side of the bath, he finds that he is still holding the pink satin knickers. He has begun to worry that he is going to be asked to leave the hotel. He will have to sleep in his car and he does not have a blanket in there. And once again, he thinks, he will not get his breakfast.

In his other hand, he has the lighthouse. He is only vaguely aware that it feels unusually heavy.

He cannot see into the bedroom, there being no gap now between the door and the frame, but he hears the metallic clack of her heels on the bare floorboards as she walks into the room. The sound they make reminds him of tap dancing.

She pauses in the middle of the room before walking towards the bed, and then, after a moment, he hears her coming back to the near side of the room. She opens the wardrobe doors, and shuts them again. He hears her drumming her fingernails on the door or the side of the wardrobe as if she is standing there thinking, deciding. She moves closer to the bathroom.

Futh sits as quietly as he can in the dark, in the moonlight. For the first time since he was twelve he thinks he might wet himself. His heart is pounding, his blood rushing to the surface of his bath-softened skin. His face is burning and his pyjamas are sweaty under the arms. He looks down at his feet and breathes deeply in and out, trying to relax his toes, his arches, his ankles, inhaling and exhaling and concentrating on relaxing his calves, his knees, his thighs, his groin, feeling the warmth spreading through him.

She is standing right outside the bathroom, on the other side of the door. She is almost close enough to smell, and in the moment between the bathroom door opening and Futh looking up, the light flashing on, he smells camphor.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Ferry

The floor, luridly carpeted to hide the vomit, tilts and sways beneath Carl’s feet as he crosses the ferry lounge. When he opens the outside door, the sea air blusters in. He steps through, closing the metal door behind him.

The evening is cool; he misses his hat. The sky still has a bit of blue but the moon is out. It appears full, but in fact it was full last night and is already waning.

He looks around at the other people standing outside, scanning their faces. He is looking for the man he met on the ferry the previous weekend, who accompanied him to his mother’s house in Utrecht. Carl was hoping to see him out here on the deck.

Even though they spent some hours together only a week ago, and even though Carl has thought about him since, he finds that he cannot really visualise him. He was thin, he remembers, with thinning hair. He was pale, but perhaps that was just seasickness.

He cannot even remember the man’s name. It was a name which makes him think of froth, and the powdery wings of a moth. It was a name which seemed to vanish even as he heard it. He searches his memory, but the name has gone.

Carl, holding on to the railings, watches the coastline fade. The ferry, now surrounded by sea, will be in England by morning.

The conference was interesting. Contrary to what his mother insists on believing, there was no reading of crystal balls or tea leaves, only papers delivered by people with grants. He listened to speakers on the topics of telepathy, remote viewing and distant healing. What really fascinates him is the subject of premonition and precognition. It is true that he has been experimenting with tarot cards, but he does not appreciate his mother’s disparaging comments. He was embarrassed by her coming to his room while they had a guest and berating him for ‘messing about with those bloody cards’. Before leaving him alone she said, ‘And will you be needing our coffee grounds?’

He looks around the deck once more for this man, this uneasy traveller who gave him a lift in his car. This makes him think about the car deck, its throb, its fuel stink, the metal walls and the metal floor and the strip lights on the metal ceiling, the luminous orange paint and the safety notices, the hazard warnings, the no-smoking signs and the fire extinguishers, the sirens and flashing lights. It reminds him of the underground or a submarine and turns his stomach.

Down on the car deck on the outward journey, sitting in the passenger seat of his acquaintance’s car with the road atlas on his lap, waiting to go, he suddenly had this dreadful feeling of being trapped, the sense of a disaster about to happen. It made him feel quite sick. As he turned to his companion and said, ‘Do you ever get a bad feeling about something?’ the ramp was lowered and there was daylight, there was the sky, and his friend was working at some tune as they sat there waiting to drive out into the brightness of the day.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Acknowledgements

Big thanks to Nick Royle for early encouragement and invaluable feedback, for astute editing and patience; to Dan for close reading and the making of many good points, for being able to sleep with the light on and being so supportive; to Wheelbarrow Grandma for Arthur’s play dates; to John Oakey for the great cover; and to Jen and Chris at Salt for being such a pleasure to work with.

Table of Contents

The Lighthouse

CHAPTER ONE