The Weird Part 54

And then I looked at Carl, laughing and relaxed and absolutely free of care, absolutely unchilled, finally, at last, after years of And then I looked at Carl again.

And then I looked down at my drink, and then I looked at my knees, and then I looked out at the sea, sparkling, clean, remote and impersonal.

And then I realized it had grown cold, quite cold, and that there wasn't a bird or a cloud in the sky.

The sea was wet as wet could be, The sands were dry as dry.

You could not see a cloud, because No cloud was in the sky: No birds were flying overhead There were no birds to fly.

That part of the poem was, after all, a perfect description of a lifeless earth. It sounded beautiful at first; it sounded benign. But then you read it again and you realized that Carroll was describing barrenness and desolation.

Suddenly Carl's voice broke through and I heard him say: 'Hey, that's a h.e.l.l of an idea, Tweedy! By G.o.d, we'd love to! Wouldn't we, gang?'

The others broke out in an affirmative chorus and they all started scrambling to their feet around me. I looked up at them, like someone who's been awakened from sleep in a strange place, and they grinned down at me like loons.

'Come on, Phil!' cried Irene.

Her eyes were bright and shining, but it wasn't with happiness. I could see that now.

'It seems a shame,' the Walrus said, 'To play them such a trick...'

I blinked my eyes and stared at them, one after the other.

'Old Phil's had a little too much to drink!' cried Mandie, laughing. 'Come on, old Phil! Come on and join the party!'

'What party?' I asked.

I couldn't seem to get located. Everything seemed disorientated and grotesque.

'For Christ's sake, Phil,' said Carl, 'Tweedy and Farr, here, have invited us to join their party. There's no more drinks left, and they've got plenty!'

I set my plastic cup down carefully on the sand. If they would just shut up for a moment, I thought, I might be able to get the fuzz out of my head.

'Come along, sir!' boomed Tweedy jovially. 'It's only a pleasant walk!'

'O Oysters, come and walk with us!'

The Walrus did beseech.

'A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk Along the briny beach...'

He was smiling at me, but the smile didn't work anymore.

'You cannot do with more than four,' I told him.

'Uhm? What's that?'

'We cannot do with more than four, To give a hand to each.'

'I said, "You cannot do with more than four."'

'He's right, you know,' said Farr, the Carpenter.

'Well, uhm, then,' said the Walrus, 'if you feel you really can't come, old chap...'

'What, in Christ's name, are you all talking about?' asked Mandie.

'He's hung up on that G.o.dd.a.m.n poem,' said Carl. 'Lewis Carroll's got the yellow b.a.s.t.a.r.d scared.'

'Don't be such a party p.o.o.per, Phil!' said Mandie.

'To h.e.l.l with him,' said Carl. And he started off, and all the others followed him. Except Irene.

'Are you sure you really don't want to come, Phil?' she asked.

She looked frail and thin against the sunlight. I realized there really wasn't much of her, and that what there was had taken a terrible beating.

'No,' I said. 'I don't. Are you sure you want to go?'

'Of course I do, Phil.'

I thought of the pills.

'I suppose you do,' I said. 'I suppose there's really no stopping you.'

'No, Phil, there isn't.'

And then she stooped and kissed me. Kissed me very gently, and I could feel the dry, chapped surface of her lips and the faint warmth of her breath.

I stood.

'I wish you'd stay,' I said.

'I can't,' she said.

And then she turned and ran after the others.

I watched them growing smaller and smaller on the beach, following the Walrus and the Carpenter. I watched them come to where the beach curved around the bluff and watched them disappear behind the bluff.

I looked up at the sky. Pure blue. Impersonal.

'What do you think of this?' I asked it.

Nothing. It hadn't even noticed.

'Now, if you're ready, Oysters dear, We can begin to feed.'

'But not on us!' the Oysters cried, Turning a little blue.

'After such kindness, that would be A dismal thing to do!'

A dismal thing to do.

I began to run up the beach, toward the bluff. I stumbled now and then because I had had too much to drink. Far too much to drink. I heard small sh.e.l.ls crack under my shoes, and the sand made whipping noises.

I fell, heavily, and lay there gasping on the beach. My heart pounded in my chest. I was too old for this sort of footwork. I hadn't had any real exercise in years. I smoked too much and I drank too much. I did all the wrong things. I didn't do any of the right things.

I pushed myself up a little and then I let myself down again. My heart was pounding hard enough to frighten me. I could feel it in my chest, frantically pumping, squeezing blood in and spurting blood out.

Like an oyster pulsing in the sea.

'Shall we be trotting home again?'

My heart was like an oyster.

I got up, fell up, and began to run again, weaving widely, my mouth open and the air burning my throat. I was coated with sweat, streaming with it, and it felt icy in the cold wind.

'Shall we be trotting home again?'

I rounded the bluff, and then I stopped and stood swaying, and then I dropped to my knees.

The pure blue of the sky was unmarked by a single bird or cloud, and nothing stirred on the whole vast stretch of the beach.

But answer came there none And this was scarcely odd, because...

Nothing stirred, but they were there. Irene and Mandie and Carl and Horace were there, and four others, too. Just around the bluff.

'We cannot do with more than four...

But the Walrus and the Carpenter had taken two trips.

I began to crawl toward them on my knees. My heart, my oyster heart, was pounding too hard to allow me to stand.

The other four had had a picnic, too, very like our own. They, too, had plastic cups and plates, and they, too, had brought bottles. They had sat and waited for the return of the Walrus and the Carpenter.

Irene was right in front of me. Her eyes were open and stared at, but did not see, the sky. The pure blue uncluttered sky. There were a few grains of sand in her left eye. Her face was almost clear of blood. There were only a few flecks of it on her lower chin. The spray from the huge wound in her chest seemed to have traveled mainly downward and to the right. I stretched out my arm and touched her hand.

'Irene,' I said.

But answer came there none And this was scarcely odd, because They'd eaten every one.

I looked up at the others. Like Irene, they were, all of them, dead. The Walrus and the Carpenter had eaten the oysters and left the sh.e.l.l.

The Carpenter never found any firewood, and so they'd eaten them raw. You can eat oysters raw if you want to.

I said her name once more, just for the record, and then I stood and turned from them and walked to the bluff. I rounded the bluff and the beach stretched before me, vast, smooth, empty, and remote.

Even as I ran upon it, away from them, it was remote.

Don't Look Now.

Daphne du Maurier.

Daphne du Maurier (19071989) was an extremely popular English author and playwright. Many of her works have been adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca (1938), which won the Best Picture Oscar in 1941, Jamaica Inn (1936), and the story 'The Birds' (1963), all three movies directed by Alfred Hitchc.o.c.k. Du Maurier's 'Don't Look Now' (1971), included herein, was adapted into a cult cla.s.sic film directed by Nicolas Roeg in 1973. The novella is a masterpiece of the occult, its hints of a world beyond embodying the best of weird fiction. Du Maurier was one of five Women of Achievement selected for a set of British stamps issued in August 1996.

'Don't look now,' John said to his wife, 'but there are a couple of old girls two tables away who are trying to hypnotise me.'

Laura, quick on cue, made an elaborate pretence of yawning, then tilted her head as though searching the skies for a non-existent aeroplane.

'Right behind you,' he added. 'That's why you can't turn round at once it would be much too obvious.'

Laura played the oldest trick in the world and dropped her napkin, then bent to scrabble for it under her feet, sending a shooting glance over her left shoulder as she straightened once again. She sucked in her cheeks, the first telltale sign of suppressed hysteria, and lowered her head.

'They're not old girls at all,' she said. 'They're male twins in drag.'

Her voice broke ominously, the prelude to uncontrolled laughter, and John quickly poured some more chianti into her gla.s.s.

'Pretend to choke,' he said, 'then they won't notice. You know what it is they're criminals doing the sights of Europe, changing s.e.x at each stop. Twin sisters here on Torcello. Twin brothers tomorrow in Venice, or even tonight, parading arm-in-arm across the Piazza San Marco. Just a matter of switching clothes and wigs.'

'Jewel thieves or murderers?' asked Laura.

'Oh, murderers, definitely. But why, I ask myself, have they picked on me?'

The waiter made a diversion by bringing coffee and bearing away the fruit, which gave Laura time to banish hysteria and regain control.

'I can't think,' she said, 'why we didn't notice them when we arrived. They stand out to high heaven. One couldn't fail.'

'That gang of Americans masked them,' said John, 'and the bearded man with a monocle who looked like a spy. It wasn't until they all went just now that I saw the twins. Oh G.o.d, the one with the shock of white hair has got her eye on me again.'

Laura took the powder compact from her bag and held it in front of her face, the mirror acting as a reflector.

'I think it's me they're looking at, not you,' she said. 'Thank heaven I left my pearls with the manager at the hotel.' She paused, dabbing the sides of her nose with powder. 'The thing is,' she said after a moment, 'we've got them wrong. They're neither murderers nor thieves. They're a couple of pathetic old retired schoolmistresses on holiday, who've saved up all their lives to visit Venice. They come from some place with a name like Walabanga in Australia. And they're called Tilly and Tiny.'

Her voice, for the first time since they had come away, took on the old bubbling quality he loved, and the worried frown between her brows had vanished. At last, he thought, at last she's beginning to get over it. If I can keep this going, if we can pick up the familiar routine of jokes shared on holiday and at home, the ridiculous fantasies about people at other tables, or staying in the hotel, or wandering in art galleries and churches, then everything will fall into place, life will become as it was before, the wound will heal, she will forget.

'You know,' said Laura, 'that really was a very good lunch. I did enjoy it.'

Thank G.o.d, he thought, thank G.o.d...Then he leant forward, speaking low in a conspirator's whisper. 'One of them is going to the loo,' he said. 'Do you suppose he, or she, is going to change her wig?'

'Don't say anything,' Laura murmured. 'I'll follow her and find out. She may have a suitcase tucked away there, and she's going to switch clothes.'

She began to hum under her breath, the signal, to her husband, of content. The ghost was temporarily laid, and all because of the familiar holiday game, abandoned too long, and now, through mere chance, blissfully recaptured.