Thirteen Days By Sunset Beach (8 page)

The boy was scooping up sand with his hands to replenish the face of the supine figure he and Jonquil had built in the shadow of the cliff, a shadow that had merged with the beach since the sky had clouded over. Whenever William succeeded in shaping the features the hot breeze erased them, which no longer amused him as much as it had. "I thought he was going to be the man in the box," he said.

"We call that a shrine," Sandra said before Julian could. "And he's called St Titus."

"If that's who he is, William," Jonquil said, "we ought to find his spear."

The boy surveyed the beach, which offered only sand and pebbles polished by the waves. "What's he got to fight, then?" he was eager to hear.

"I don't think that's necessary," his father said and gazed at Jonquil. "No good comes of bringing badness."

William made a last attempt to consolidate the rudimentary upturned face but gave up once the eyeholes he'd poked began to crumble. "Thank you for helping me make him, Jonquil," he said.

"I wanted to show you. My daddy used to make them with me."

As William's father conveyed how quiet he was remaining, Sandra said "I don't know what's the matter with my brain today. It must be too much sun."

She added a weak smile as though she'd made a joke she didn't fully understand. "Why," Ray had to ask, "what's wrong?"

"We should have bought somebody some beach toys when we were in the supermarket. I'd like to while I have the chance."

"I'm certain you've plenty of time left," Julian said.

Ray felt as if the response he and Sandra were withholding had stolen his breath. He was searching for words to say before the silence tarried too long when William said "Can I go for a swim now?"

"Please may you?" Once he'd heard the required phrase Julian said "I expect your lunch will have gone down by now. Swim out to your mother."

"I'll come with you, William," Jonquil said at once.

"Are you coming too, grandad? We'll teach you how to swim."

"I don't think even you can do that for me, William. Maybe I'll brave the water in a while."

The boy dashed into the shallow waves as though to demonstrate how it was done and threw himself flat as soon as the sea grew deeper. As Jonquil set about racing him to their mother, Julian said "If you'll excuse me I'll join them."

"Do you mind if I go out too, Ray?"

"How could I mind?" Ray said and clasped Sandra's hand, barely refraining from squeezing too hard. "You enjoy everything you can."

As Julian strode into the water she limped after him. Ray was watching her venture deeper when she stumbled, falling full length. He lurched helplessly to his feet and was about to yell to somebody to go to her—Tim was closest, and had left his awkwardness behind the moment he'd immersed himself—when she regained her old grace and surged forward through the water. He could have thought she'd grown almost as fluid as the waves. He mustn't panic just because he couldn't follow, not when she had the family around her, but he was dismayed to think she was out of his reach.

He did his best to relish the pleasure she was taking in the swim, but found he couldn't bear to watch her growing more remote. There wasn't much to distract him on the beach. Apart from clothes and backpacks abandoned on towels he was alone except for the figure made of sand. Most of both the holes it had for eyes had gone, and the nose had collapsed, while the mouth dwindled as he watched. As it vanished from the left side of the face he heard William call "Please may I go in the cave?"

"Just give me a few minutes," Julian said, "and I'll see if it's safe for you."

Ray saw how he could be some use to everyone. "I'll go and look," he shouted.

"Will you be all right by yourself, dad?" Doug called.

"I'm not past it quite yet. I'll be fine," Ray told anyone who was concerned, and sat forward with a groan he hoped nobody heard. At least the arthritic twinge that made him flinch distracted him from taking his son's words as an omen. Once he'd fastened the straps of his sandals he had to kneel in order to struggle to his feet and plod along the beach.

The pale sand gave way to ribbed slabs of rock a few hundred yards from the cave. At first Ray was able to stride across the grey rock, but then waves rose to meet him. He had to take so much care on the increasingly slippery surface that he felt barely competent to walk. He wished he'd worn his trainers, which would have lent him more confidence. He inched across the rock to plant a hand against the stony cliff, and hoped none of the swimmers noticed his difficulties. The support of the cliff let him feel not quite so vulnerable, capable of moving less like a geriatric. When he reached the cave he leaned on a projecting rock beside the mouth and peered in.

While the mouth was wide and high enough for a ferry to enter, the clear water was so shallow that he could see the stony floor. From this side of the entrance it looked possible for even Ray to clamber along the rocks above the water to a bend in the cave. He'd undertaken to look out for William, and perhaps he'd meant to give Julian a break. He let go of the handhold and grabbed the next one, and stepped into the cave.

A stony chill closed around him at once, and so did the sound of water. A hollow echo multiplied the lapping of ripples, which sent up light to drift over the ridges of the walls and roof. The seaweed that bordered the rocks underfoot was borrowing restlessness from the waves. The slimy growths gave him yet another reason to take his time, along with the need to keep waiting for his vision to catch up with the dimness so that he could search for footholds on the uneven narrow ridge. He had only started to make headway around the bend when the ridge sloped downwards, vanishing underwater a few yards ahead.

Ray was clutching at the wall with both hands by the time he reached the last unsubmerged inches of the ridge. Water slopped over his sandals to drench his ankles, and he couldn't see how far the ridge extended underwater, let alone whether it offered him any footing. Even if he didn't feel safe, he needed to go further to see what lay around the bend. At least he had his swimming trunks on—trunks for walking in the sea, in his case. He took a breath that roused a faint echo, and then he crouched on all fours to grip the ridge with his shivery fingers and let himself down into the water.

While the waves had chilled his feet, he wasn't prepared for how cold an immersion would be. An icy ache raced up his legs and seemed to clench around his stomach. Wasn't this enough to warn William against? But the boy and the rest of them could well be used to the temperature of the sea by now, which meant just Ray was weak. The toes of his sandals scrabbled at the submerged wall, and he couldn't judge how deep the water might be. He bruised his fingers on the ridge as he lowered himself, not fast but excessively fast. When the water clamped his hips he felt his penis shrivel, and his gasp echoed through the cave. He twisted around in a flurry of water to see if he'd alarmed anyone, only to find that the bend had already blocked his view out of the cave. All the dim light came from reflections on the nervous waves. The loss of his family—even of the sight of them—disconcerted him so much that he didn't immediately grasp that his feet had found the cave floor.

It felt no more secure to walk on than the ridge had. Ray kept one hand on the ridge as he ventured forward until the arm was submerged up to the wrist, forcing him to stoop sideways, and then he groped for handholds higher up the wall. The ripples he was making surrounded him with echoes that seemed to render distance audible—the remoteness of the beach. Just enough light reached around the bend to let him make out some of the way ahead.

Beyond the bend the cave grew several times as wide and extended further than he could be sure of. Traces of light almost too feeble for the name fluttered under the roof, and some faint illumination must be reaching the far end of the cavern, if that was the end. Certainly Ray thought he saw movement there, an extensive whitish glimpse that immediately withdrew into the dark. A high-pitched giggle distracted him, a sound that seemed more senile than he wanted ever to be, but of course it was one of the watery echoes that were lending the cave a kind of life. As his vision started to cope with the dark he became aware of a pale shape in the water to his left, against the wall he was following. It was a tangle of vegetation, which meant he needn't have recoiled, sending dim ripples into the cave. While the clump of pallid weeds did resemble the top half of a scrawny figure with its hands raised, it was stirring only with the movement of the water. As it bobbed up and down it put him in mind of somebody eager to catch a ball, and he wondered how it would look to William.

He had a feeling that Natalie and Julian mightn't like the similarity. Perhaps even William wouldn't if it or his parents made him nervous. His grandfather was meant to be seeing the place was safe, and Ray supposed this ought to include establishing exactly what the object was. Sliding his hand along the rough wall, he shuffled inch by inch through the dark water.

He was advancing into blackness. Such illumination as there was—more like a memory of light than any aid to seeing—fell short of this stretch of the wall. He could have used the flashlight on his mobile, but however waterproof the phone was claimed to be, he didn't want to test that more than was essential. He groped along the wall and edged his feet over slippery submerged rock. Seaweed fingered his shivering legs, and once a pebbly protrusion sprouted limbs beneath his hand before scuttling down the wall to plop into the water. The object he was trying to discern kept nodding what would have been its head as though to encourage his approach. He'd inched within a few yards of it, and was starting to marvel at how nearly human its shape remained even at this distance, when it spoke his name.

Ray stumbled backwards, and his feet skidded from under him. His fall would break some of his bones, if he didn't drown from panicking in the dark. He sprawled on his back in the water, which surged into his eyes and filled his nostrils, denying him any breath. He threw out a hand under the water, stubbing his fingers on the jagged wall. He managed to grab the rock despite the throbbing of his fingers and hauled himself to his feet. As he struggled to stand on his tremulous legs while he spat and spluttered and fought for breath, ripples and their giggling echoes swarmed away from him. His ears were so waterlogged that at first he wasn't sure he heard the voice repeat his name.

He was even more uncertain where it was in the echoing dark. As he poked at his ears and tried to shake them clear of water it said "Can you hear me? Are you in difficulties?"

By now he couldn't mistake Julian. He turned in the water as fast as he dared and saw a succession of ripples precede the swimmer into the larger cavern. "I'm quite all right," he felt bound to declare.

"I thought it would be best to see for myself," Julian said, presumably not about Ray, and jerked his head up. "What's that behind you?"

"I was just about to look," Ray said, peeling open his hip pocket to take out the phone. He shook every drop of water off it before wakening the screen and touching the flashlight icon. While he took care not to swing around too fast the beam trailed across the water. It barely reached the limit of the cave, but he was able to make out a gap several feet wide in the rear wall. No doubt the movement he'd glimpsed there earlier had been a stray reflection that had outlined the gap, appearing to fill it. The light grew more concentrated as it glided towards him over the wall, so that by the time it reached the bobbing object it was a white glare. For just a moment Ray was loath to aim the beam directly at the object—he thought he'd already seen too much and then the light caught it. "Good God," Julian said, and in case this failed to convey his shock "Good God."

The shape had once been much more human, but now it seemed to sum up age and decay. It looked as withered and contorted as the husk of a spider's victim. The man's head was thrown back as if it had been paralysed in the act of uttering a final cry, which had shrunk the lips back from the teeth in a tortured grimace. The hands might have been lifted to fend off or deny his fate, unless a convulsion had raised them. Although Ray had no means of judging how long the corpse had been in the water, perhaps the immersion went some way towards explaining its state, because the flesh that dangled from its bones resembled perished rubber. He was staring at it in helpless dismay—he felt unable to move the light until he or Julian managed to deduce what had happened to the man—when the corpse winked at him.

He saw it take a breath as well. No, the reflections of the ripples that were wagging its hands and nodding its withered head were at play among the shadows of its ribs, enlivening the collapsed bare chest as the beam shook in Ray's hand. But the drooping eyelid had certainly stirred, although only because a crab had emerged, bearing off a prize. "Come away, Raymond," Julian said as though rebuking a child. "We've seen quite enough. We need to make sure nobody sees who oughtn't to."

It took Ray some moments and a good deal of resolution to turn his back on the restless corpse, though he'd looked away quickly from the sight of the crab crawling askew down the ravaged pallid face. Julian was treading water where the cave narrowed. "Will you be all right to make your way out," he said, "while I go and deal with the others?"

Ray saw this was scarcely a question. As he mumbled a reluctant assent Julian struck out for the sea, and in seconds only his wake remained. Ray kept the flashlight on as far as the exit from the inner cavern, but he didn't want to run the battery down. He switched off the phone and stowed it in his pocket, and was leaving the darkness behind as swiftly as he dared to shuffle through the water when a cluster of ripples caught up with him.

The corpse hadn't made them. The pallid husk wasn't creeping after him in the dark, teeth bared, hands raised to seize him. In fact, he had a sense that the ripples were coming from the far end of the cavern. Those Julian had sent back must have rebounded there, and they would be the source of the shrill echoes Ray could hear, however much those resembled senile mirth. Just the same, he was glad when the activity subsided, and even more relieved to be able at last to clamber onto the ridge above the water.