Fear

‘Phrynne!’

Then she spoke more or less calmly. ‘Panic over. Sorry, darling. I stood on something.’

He realized that a panic it had indeed been; at least in him.

‘You’re all right?’

‘Think so.’

He struggled up to her. ‘The smell’s worse than ever.’ It was overpowering.

‘I think it’s coming from what I stepped on. My foot went right in, and then there was the smell.’

‘I’ve never known anything like it.’

‘Sorry, darling,’ she said gently mocking him. ‘Let’s go away.’

‘Let’s go back. Don’t you think?’

‘Yes,’ said Phrynne. ‘But I must warn you I’m very disappointed. I think that seaside attractions should include the sea.’

He noticed that as they retreated, she was scraping the sides of one shoe against the stones, as if trying to clean it.

‘I think the whole place is a disappointment,’ he said. ‘I really must apologize. We’ll go somewhere else.’

‘I like the bells,’ she replied, making a careful reservation.

Gerald said nothing.

‘I don’t want to go somewhere where you’ve been before.’

The bells rang out over the desolate, unattractive beach. Now the sound seemed to be coming from every point along the shore.

‘I suppose all the churches practise on the same night in order to get it over with,’ said Gerald.

‘They do it in order to see which can ring the loudest,’ said Phrynne.

‘Take care you don’t twist your ankle.’

The din as they reached the rough little quay was such as to suggest that Phrynne’s idea was literally true.

The Coffee Room was so low that Gerald had to dip beneath a sequence of thick beams.

‘Why “Coffee Room”?’ asked Phrynne, looking at the words on the door. ‘I saw a notice that coffee will only be served in the Lounge.’

‘It’s the lucus a non lucendo principle.’

‘That explains everything. I wonder where we sit.’ A single electric lantern, mass produced in an antique pattern, had been turned on. The bulb was of that limited wattage which is peculiar to hotels. It did little to penetrate the shadows.

‘The lucus a non lucendo principle is the principle of calling white black.’

‘Not at all,’ said a voice from the darkness. ‘On the contrary the word black comes from the ancient root which means “to bleach”.’

They had thought themselves alone, but now saw a small man seated by himself at an unlighted corner table. In the darkness he looked like a monkey.

‘I stand corrected,’ said Gerald.

They sat at the table under the lantern.