‘On you go. I’m done.’
Max watched his sister disappear upstairs. As soon as he heard Alicia close her bedroom door, Max put down his glass and went off to the shed in search of more films from Jacob Fleischmann’s private collection.
*
Max turned on the projector and the beam of light flooded the wall with the blurred image of what looked like a collection of symbols. Slowly, the picture came into focus and Max realised that what he’d thought were symbols were numbers placed in a circle and that he was looking at the face of a clock. The hands of the clock were still and the shadows they projected onto the face were clear and defined, from which Max inferred that the shot was filmed in full sunlight or at least under an intense source of light. The film continued to show the clock face until, slowly at first and then progressively gathering speed, the hands began to turn anticlockwise. The person operating the camera took a step back and it became clear that the clock was hanging from a chain. A further backward movement of a metre or so revealed that this chain was suspended from a white hand. The hand of a statue.
Max immediately recognised the walled garden that had appeared in the first of Jacob Fleischmann’s films they’d viewed a couple of days ago. As before, the position of the statues was different to how Max remembered it. Now the camera began to move through the figures again, with no cuts or pauses, just as it had in the first film. Every two metres or so the lens closed in on the face of one of the statues. One by one, Max examined the frozen expressions of the circus troupe. He pictured them fighting in vain to escape their horrific deaths in the pitch dark and icy waters of the Orpheus’s hold.
Finally, almost in slow motion, the camera approached the figure marking the centre of the six-pointed star. The clown. Dr Cain. The Prince of Mist. At his feet Max noticed the motionless shape of a cat stretching a sharp claw in the air. Max, who didn’t recall having seen it when he visited the walled garden, would have bet his life that the uncanny likeness between this stone cat and the creature Irina had adopted at the station was no coincidence. As he stared at the images, with the rain pounding against the windowpanes as the storm moved inland, it was easy to believe the story the lighthouse keeper had told them that afternoon. The malevolent presence of the stone figures was enough to remove any doubt, however reasonable that doubt might have seemed in the light of day.
The camera now closed in on the clown’s face, pausing only half a metre away and remaining there for a few seconds. Max checked the reel: the film was coming to an end. Suddenly, a movement on the screen caught his attention. The stone face was moving, almost imperceptibly. Max stood up and walked over to the wall on which the film was being projected. The pupils of those stone eyes dilated and the lips arched slowly into a cruel smile, laying bare a row of long, sharp teeth, like the fangs of a wolf. Max felt his throat constrict.
An instant later the image disappeared, and Max heard the reel spinning as the film ended.
Max turned off the projector and took a deep breath. Now he believed everything Victor Kray had said, but this didn’t make him feel any better – quite the opposite. He went up to his room and closed the door behind him. Through the window, in the distance, he could just about make out the walled garden. Once again, the stone enclosure was submerged in a dense, impenetrable mist.
That night, however, the darkness didn’t seem to come from the forest, but from within himself. It was as if the mist were nothing other than the frozen breath of Dr Cain, waiting with a smile for the moment of his return.
12
WHEN MAX WOKE THE FOLLOWING MORNING his head felt like a bowl of jelly. From what he could see out of the window the storm was gone and it promised to be a bright, sunny day. He sat up lazily and took his watch from the bedside table. The first thing he thought was that it wasn’t working properly. But when he put it next to his ear he realised that the mechanism was working fine; he was the one who’d lost his bearings. It was twelve noon.
He jumped out of bed and rushed downstairs. There was a note on the dining-room table. He picked it up and read his sister’s spidery writing:
Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,
By the time you read this I’ll be on the beach with Roland. I’ve borrowed your bicycle, hope you don’t mind. I see you went to the movies last night, so I didn’t want to wake you. Dad called first thing and says they still don’t know when they’ll be able to come home. There’s been no change in Irina, but the doctors say she’ll probably be out of the coma in a few days. I convinced Dad not to worry about us (it wasn’t easy).
By the way, there’s nothing for breakfast.
We’ll be on the beach. Sweet dreams …
Alicia
Max reread the note three times before leaving it on the table. He ran upstairs and hurriedly washed his face. Then he slipped on a pair of swimming shorts and a blue shirt and went out to the garden shed to find the other bicycle. By the time he got to the road that skirted the beach his stomach was already screaming for its morning rations, so when he reached the town he changed direction and headed for the bakery in the main square. The delicious aroma called to him from several metres away and the approving rumbles of his stomach confirmed that he’d made the right decision. Two sweet buns and two chocolate bars later he set off for the beach with a saintly smile stamped on his face.
*
Alicia’s bicycle was leaning on its stand by the path that led to the beach and Roland’s cabin. Max left his bicycle next to his sister’s. Still the city boy, it occurred to him that even if the town didn’t seem like a haven for thieves, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to buy a couple of padlocks. He stopped for a moment to look at the lighthouse on the cliff top and then began walking towards the beach. Shortly before he came to the end of the path that led between tall grasses to the bay, he stopped.
On the shore, about twenty metres from
where Max was standing, Alicia was lying on the sand. Leaning over her was Roland, his fingertips slowly caressing the pale skin of her belly. He drew closer to Alicia and kissed her on the lips. Alicia rolled onto her side then climbed on top of Roland, her hands pinning his against the sand. On her lips was a smile Max had never seen before.
Max took a step or two back and hid among the grass, praying they hadn’t seen him. He remained there, not moving, wondering what he should do next. Turn up, smiling like an idiot, and wish them a good morning? Or go off for a walk?
Max didn’t consider himself a spy, but he couldn’t resist the temptation to peek once more through the tall grass at his sister and Roland. He could hear their laughter and see that Roland’s hands were moving shyly over Alicia’s body. Exploring. From the way his hands were shaking, Max deduced that this was, if not the first time, then at most the second time Roland had found himself in such a momentous situation. Max wondered whether it was also the first time for Alicia. He had to admit that he didn’t know the answer. Although they’d spent their whole life living under the same roof, Alicia had always been a mystery to him.
To see her lying there on the beach kissing Roland made him feel uneasy, and it wasn’t something he’d expected. From the beginning he’d realised that there was something between her and Roland, but it was one thing to imagine it and another, very different thing to see it with his own eyes. He peered out again but suddenly felt that he had no right to be there: the moment belonged only to his sister and Roland. Silently he retraced his steps as far as the bicycles and left the beach.
As he did so he wondered whether perhaps he was jealous. Maybe it was just that he’d spent years thinking of his sister as a child, older than he was but with no secrets, certainly someone who didn’t go around kissing people. For a moment he laughed at his own naivety and gradually he started to feel better about what he’d seen. He couldn’t predict what would happen the following week, or what the end of the summer would bring, but that day Max was sure that his sister was happy. And that was more than he’d been able to say about her for many years.
Max rode back to the town centre and left his bike by the library. Inside, he found an old glass counter displaying the library’s opening hours and other public notices, including the monthly programme for the only cinema in the region and a map of the town. Max concentrated on the map, studying it carefully. The layout looked very similar to the way he’d imagined it.
It was a detailed outline showing the port, the town centre, the north beach where the Carvers’ house was situated, the bay to the south with the Orpheus and the lighthouse, the sports grounds near the railway station, and the cemetery. A thought flashed through Max’s mind. The local cemetery. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? He looked at his watch and saw that it was already ten past two. Grabbing his bicycle, he rode off up the main street, heading for the road that led away from the shore towards the small graveyard where he hoped to find the tomb of Jacob Fleischmann.
*