The Blind Eye (13 page)

Wait right here
, he made them promise, wishing he had never brought them in the first place, and he pointed to the cigarette in Eli’s hand,
or I’ll tell your mum you nicked it from me
.

He paddled slowly, feeling his way through the black water, listening to the slap of the sea against the pylons, Lucas’s whoops of joy from the shore and, from further out, the occasional murmur of voices, Mick and Jason, fishing in the darkness.

With his eyes closed, Silas did not hear it or see it before he felt it, the rip of the hook against his shorts, and the sharp splice of the twine against his flesh as he struggled to break free.

Jesus
, and his voice rang out in the silence.
Jesus
, his splashing was furious as he tried to look up.

He could hear them laughing and the twang as one of them pulled a ring can, flicking it down to where he struggled below them.

Gottya
, Jason laughed, but it was Mick who looked over the railing.

Watch it
, his words a whisper in the quiet.

5

When Silas failed to show up at the library, Greta became anxious.

He was always there
, she told me later.

She was aware of a concern she felt for him, a slight unease each day he didn’t come in, his boots loud on the hard floor as he passed her, looking across to give her a quick grin as he slid into his seat. She occasionally contemplated going to his place to see if he was all right but she was, as always, slightly uneasy at the thought of seeing him outside the safe routine they had established together.

And then, after three days of wondering where he was, she saw that he was back. She looked up to notice him pushing the heavy doors open as the late afternoon sun was slanting through the high windows, the thin streams of light making it difficult for her to see him clearly as he made his way, hurriedly, towards her desk.

She did not have enough time to conceal the shock.
You look terrible
, she told him, her voice a whisper in the quiet.

He nodded towards the exit and she glanced at her watch. There was only half an hour until closing.

I have to finish
, and she flicked through the thick wad of pages she still hadn’t read. She only had a couple of months of pay left on the project and she was a long way behind.

Please
, and the urgency in Silas’s voice startled her.

Outside, in the warmth of the sun, they sat side by side on the library steps, and Greta waited for Silas to speak.

It’s getting worse
. He lit a cigarette, his hand shaking as he put the match out, his sleeve pushed up just enough for her to see the latest damage he had inflicted upon himself.

She was, she told me, at a loss as to how to respond.
Have you talked to Daniel?
As he shook his head, she wished he had other friends.

She put her hand across her throat, aware of Silas’s eyes on her again, and wanting to cover the softness of her skin near the top of her breast, because she suddenly felt uncomfortable at the memory of the night they had spent together, flitting at the edge of each conversation they had.

I can’t help you
, and Greta shook her head.
I’m just not able to
.

I know
, and he shifted slightly, moving away from her, breathing in before he continued because there was something he wanted to say, she could see it.

When I was away, there was someone I met
. His words were hesitant and she could tell he hated his inability to pick the exact ones he needed.

And I fucked up badly
.

She, too, had inched away from him.
We’ve all done that
.

He shook his head.
Badly
.

She did not know if she wanted him to continue, but when he reached for her, she knew he was trying to let her know that it was all right. He was not going to do or say anything that would damage the tentative beginnings of the friendship they had constructed, and she felt herself relax, slightly.

If something I did caused all that’s happening to me now, then I just don’t see how I can expect to fix it by seeing Daniel. He can’t take hack what happened
.

Greta did not understand. She looked at him. But
that’s not what you are seeing him for
.

Silas stubbed out his cigarette. He pushed up his sleeves, not bothering to hide the full extent of the damage from her. Greta stood up. She stepped backwards down the stairs to street level, and he did not follow her, nor did he call her back. She looked towards one end of the road and then to the other. She unknotted her cardigan from her waist and wrapped it around her shoulders. He was watching her as she made her way towards him again, her arms wrapped tight around her chest, the glare now gone from the sun so that behind him, the facade of the library was becoming little more than a darkness.

She picked up her bag.
I have to get my things. They’ll be closing soon
.

He didn’t try to stop her.

She rubbed at her temple and stared at the ground. He bent his head so that he could catch her gaze from where he sat, knees to his chest, there on the step below the one on which she was standing.

Am I too much of a mess?
His smile was rueful, but his eyes were serious.

For what?

For a friendship
.

No
, and she was surprised to find herself uttering what she had always known was inside her, a trust in him, despite what had passed.
But you need to talk to Daniel, or someone
.

I know
.

As she reached down to help him up, his hand warm in her own, she realised how much she had missed seeing him around.

I guess it was then that I knew
, she told me later.

What?
I asked her.

That I had fallen for him
, and she smiled as she looked down at the table.
I just hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself
.

I watched as she bit her lip.

You know what he’s like
.

I told her that I did.

6

When I went to Port Tremaine, I saw that Thai’s house was just as Silas had described it: a double-fronted wooden cottage that was slowly collapsing into the earth, the dry paint flaking off in great strips of pale blue, the colour fading to a dirty white.

There were still toys in the front yard: broken plastic cars, a decapitated doll, a water pistol, all littered across the dust. If I hadn’t heard she had moved, I would have thought the place was occupied. Torn curtains hung in the windows and the front door was open, hanging on one hinge only.

Packed up about a year ago
, Pearl had told me.

She had not let me into the shop. We had conducted our conversation through the flyscreen door.
Closed up
, she had explained,
too old for this carry-on
, and she had indicated the rows of sagging dust-covered shelves behind her, still stacked with boxes and tins, mostly food, all of which would have been well past their use-by date.

I walked around Thai’s house, looking into each of the empty rooms, wanting to see it as it would have been when
Silas was there over four years ago. The cottage out the back, where he had stayed, was still furnished. The single bed was covered in mouse droppings; the stuffing was bursting out of the mattress. On the floor was a pile of paperbacks, the pages yellowed and water-stained, the covers bent back and torn. I wondered whether they had been Silas’s, left behind in his rush to get out of there, and as I picked one of them up, moths fluttered out, tiny, blind and white, their wings beating furiously as they attempted to make it towards the light from the window.

Outside Silas’s mother’s house, I saw the bath. It was rusted through, leaning lopsided on the one leg that remained. I did not go any further than the door. Not only was the floor collapsed, the smell caused me to pull back. Peering into the darkness, I could just make out the bulk of an animal, a wallaby I presume, the flics thick around its rotten carcass, and I stepped back into the brightness of the day with relief.

Walking around the building, I saw that it was one of the largest houses in the town and one of the oldest. Silas’s guess that this was where his mother had come for holidays was probably correct. Wealthy rural families had owned a few of the places here. It was hardly a glamorous seaside resort but it would have provided a brief period of respite from the unrelenting heat of the summers in the country that lies beyond the ranges.

Silas had no idea how often she had visited this place or when she had stopped, but this was not surprising. He knew little about her life before her marriage.

We didn’t touch on anything for long
, he told me once.
We never went beyond a light-hearted banter, the kind of social chit-chat that you might have at lunch when you are trying to amuse each other
.

Whenever I asked him about his father, he would look out the window and tell me they’d had little in common. I do not know whether this was the way it had always been or whether Silas’s shame at his father’s business activities had caused this breakdown. It may have been that the possibility of any kind of relationship had been too severely hindered by his father’s delusions; he never told me.

I do know that Silas’s father died shortly after his return from Port Tremaine. I read the articles in the paper, the features written by various investigative journalists that attempted to unravel where the money had gone, the diagrams that marked out the numerous trust funds, some of which Silas was the sole beneficiary, many others of which were tied up for years in the control of various solicitors and shelf companies. It was all so complex that later, when I was treating him, I did not wonder at Silas’s inability to deal with it.

Silas did not go to either his mother’s or his father’s funeral.

I should have gone to hers
, he told me.
I missed her
, and he looked down at the floor.
I had so little to fix me to the ground, to the world, I suppose
. He shifted in his chair.