Thirteen Days By Sunset Beach Read online

  The man shrugged and held out his hands once they were empty of the branch. When Pris pointed to the effigy he said a word or two before ambling towards a corner of the square occupied by a makeshift stage. "So, Priscilla?" Julian said.

  "The old man, I think. The old one."

  "Not just old, Pris," Doug said. "The oldest. The ancient."

  "Is that supposed to tell us something?"

  Presumably Julian was finding fault with their informant rather than the translators, but Ray thought Doug was going to respond in kind until William said "Look, there's, you know. Look, she's there."

  "Don't start seeing things again, William," Natalie said. "Just try and forget your dreams and then you won't have any more."

  "Not my dream. That was a man. I'm saying the lady that was waiting for us."

  He wasn't quite pointing, no doubt because he'd been told it was rude, at a taverna on the corner of the square opposite the stage. For a moment Ray thought he meant the dumpy woman who was leaving trinkets on the tables, having shown the diners a laminated card that signified she was dumb, and then he noticed a young woman in a dress printed with dark green vines—Sam from the travel firm. "She can let us know what's happening," he said.

  She was alone at a small table with a glass of Mythos beer. As Ray went over she raised the glass to her lips and saw him. She took an appreciable swig before setting down the drink. "Mr Thornton, isn't it," she said. "Are you all having a good time? I'm just waiting for my friend."

  Ray could have thought she was making sure none of them joined her, but Doug sat at the next table. "Drinks on Pris and me. Will you have one, Sam?"

  "Thanks anyway. As I say, I won't be here long."

  "I'll just sit with Sam for a minute," Ray said and did so in order to lower his voice. "I don't know if you'll have heard, but we found the gentleman your colleague said was missing."

  "We both did," Julian said, squatting down between them.

  "I hope it won't spoil your holiday too much."

  "His was spoiled considerably more," Julian said. "What was his name, by the way? We weren't even told."

  "Oh, his name." As Julian opened his impatient lips Sam said "Mr Ditton."

  "And just remind us when he was discovered to be missing."

  "Weeks ago," Sam said and took another gulp of beer. "Last month."

  "We thought Jamie told us it was last week," Ray murmured.

  "That's Jamie for you. Half the time he doesn't know what day it is. He's a lot of fun, but you wouldn't go to him for facts."

  Perhaps Julian found the denigration unprofessional. He stared at her as a preamble to saying "Where was it he said Mr Ditton was staying?"

  "I don't know what he said." As Julian's stare lost any patience it had contained, while Ray reflected that Jamie hadn't offered the information, Sam downed another mouthful. After that it seemed she couldn't delay saying "The Paradise Apartments."

  "Thank you," Julian said but saved most of his effort for standing up.

  "Have you finished your conference?" Doug called. "Sam, can you tell us what's going on?"

  Sam lifted her glass and held it close to her mouth. As Ray found a seat at the family table she said "I don't know what you mean."

  "Why's he on top of the pile over there? We didn't know St Titus was a monk."

  "That isn't him."

  The vendor of trinkets had left some of her wares in front of William, who was plainly taken with a cross that lit up colour after colour. "Would you like that, William?" Sandra said.

  "We'll buy it for you," Ray told him as Pris asked Sam "Who is he, then?"

  Sam seemed to wish she had more of a drink to linger over. "Someone he was supposed to stop," she said.

  "There you go, Will. That's who St Titus had to fight."

  William shook his head at the figure tied to the chair. "He isn't spiders."

  "Don't be childish, William," Julian said.

  As Ray laid his hand on the cross to identify the purchase to the vendor Sam said "He didn't fight him."

  The vendor made a praying gesture, apparently in gratitude for the amount Ray handed hen "So what did St Titus do?" Pris said.

  "People prayed to him. That's what they do here. That's what I meant. They did when the island was invaded in the war as well."

  "Thank you, grandad. Thank you, grandma."

  "Our pleasure, William," Sandra said as Doug waited to speak. "You still haven't said who that's meant to be," he reminded Sam, "and is that going to be a bonfire?"

  "Yes."

  Before Doug could prompt Sam yet again Natalie said "Don't say any more if you think it'll be too much for little ears to hear."

  Sam looked grateful. "It might be."

  "Then just say as much as you think you can," Doug said.

  Sam glanced around the square, but Ray gathered that she couldn't see her friend. She fixed her eyes on William and eventually said "It was the opposite of a saint, William. That's why the people prayed about him."

  "Who was he?"

  "We don't need to go saying his name, do we? He lived a long time ago. He was born centuries before your grandma and grandad."

  "He must have died a long time ago too."

  "I wish you'd stop thinking so much about death," Natalie said. "It isn't healthy for a little boy of your age."

  For some reason Ray felt Sam welcomed the interruption, but William wouldn't be hushed. "What did he do?" he said with a hint of defiance, laying down his luminous cross.

  "People took him in because he said he wanted to live like them, but then he lived off them instead."

  As William looked unhappy with her vagueness Pris said "Can we guess they were monks?"

  "That's what they were. They have to give shelter to anyone who asks. All the monks in Greece, I mean."

  "When you say he lived off them you mean he exploited them."

  "Drained them dry," Sam immediately seemed to regret saying. "I don't mean literally, William."

  "I still can't see," Pris said, "why people thought they had to pray about him."

  "Because of what he brought."

  "You'll have to tell us now," Doug said. "Does Will need to cover his ears?"

  "They said—" She didn't seem to want the rest to be heard. Perhaps she was mumbling for William's sake, and as soon as she'd finished she jumped up. "There he is," she said. "Enjoy the show. Have a good dance."

  Ray saw her wave to Jamie, who was hurrying across the square. He could have thought her gesture ended by waving her colleague away—halting him, at any rate. "I wouldn't mind a word with him," Julian said.

  "If it's about what I think it is," Natalie said, tilting her head to indicate William, "don't have it here."

  As Julian rose from his seat Sam grabbed Jamie's elbow to steer him away. Perhaps she was anxious to catch some event, and they vanished beyond the dormant bonfire. "Well," Julian said, "she could hardly have been less helpful. You'd think living here had robbed her of her grasp of English."

  "I think that was Nat," Doug told him, "making her watch what she said."

  "A bit more than careful," Pris protested. "Did anybody catch what she was supposed to be telling Doug?"

  "I thought she said the angry dog," Natalie said. "That's all, William, just a dog from a long long time ago."

  The boy giggled. "She didn't say that, mummy."

  "What do you think it was, William?" Sandra said.

  "The hungry dark."

  His words seemed to darken the square, which Ray thought had suddenly grown crowded. Perhaps the phrase simply made him aware how dark the place was, now that the red glow had sunk beyond the roofs like the last of a transfusion. "Why would she say a silly thing like that?" Natalie said with rather too deliberate a laugh.

  "That's what that man brought the monks," William said and peered at the hooded figure, at its cocoon of a face. "The hungry dark."

  "All right, you've said it now. No need to keep on. It doesn't make any sense, William,
and besides it doesn't matter."

  As the boy's face made his disagreement clear Julian said "I hope you've got what you wanted, Douglas."

  Ray didn't know how his son might have responded if a waiter hadn't arrived with a trayful of drinks. The man frowned at the table Sam had vacated. "Your friend?"

  "I expect she thought we were buying," Doug said. "Here's for hers as well."

  "Look, William, they're starting," Jonquil said.

  Musicians with stringed instruments had taken their places on the stage, and now a woman in an ankle-length white dress moved in front of them. As four men with flaming torches converged on the bonfire from the corners of the square, she began to sing, accompanied by a slow march of plucked strings and the wailing of a violin. "I like the howly music," William said.

  "You mean holy, William," said his mother.

  Ray wasn't sure whether she was wrong. He watched the men thrust the torches so deep into the foundations of the bonfire that they might have been ensuring any denizens were driven out or else trapped until they were consumed. As flames sprouted from the bonfire the march grew more solemn, but Ray couldn't tell if the singer was lamenting or celebrating; he could have fancied that nobody was meant to know. Sandra looked at William while she said "Are we going to want to know what she's singing?"

  "Something about finding light in the dark," Pris said.

  "And about the dark where there isn't any light," Doug added.

  "I think that's probably enough," Julian told them. "William, look over there."

  At the far end of a street off the square a figure at least as tall as the bonfire was rising into view. No, Ray thought: not rising to its feet but filling with light. It was an image of St Titus with his lance in the stained-glass window of a church. The saint's face remained in shadow, and the rest of him began to lose illumination as a procession bearing lit candles started to emerge from the church. The procession advanced at the pace of the musicians' march two abreast up the street to the square, and paraded around the bonfire while the flames snatched at the robed effigy. Ray could almost have imagined that the bound figure was struggling to writhe out of reach of the fire, but the chair was simply tilting as a section of the bonfire collapsed under one leg. All at once the figure burst into flame accompanied by oily smoke, and the bearers of the candles threw them high on the bonfire. The music speeded up and ceased to march, and as the singer grew more joyful the members of the procession linked hands to dance around the pyre. Once the circle parted, people in the crowd joined in the celebration. "I'm going to dance," Jonquil said. "Are you coming, Tim?"

  Ray saw how standing up reminded Tim of his height, but he followed her not too awkwardly. "Stay in the square," Natalie called after them.

  While they set about performing a version of the dance—arms stretched wide as if bound to a cross or just released from one, high stiff kicks—Pris glanced at Doug. "The light will come back?"

  "That's what it sounds like to me."

  "You mean that's what she's singing now." When they confirmed this Natalie said "Remember that, William. It always does."

  Ray was watching Tim and Jonquil, whose dance had turned more English or at any rate American, when Sandra murmured "Aren't you going to ask me to dance?"

  He wasn't much more skilled in this regard than at swimming, but he couldn't refuse her now. "Please may I have this dance?" he said.

  He took her hand to help her up and led her into the square. The heat of the pyre met them as the blazing chair lurched further sideways and the smouldering cowl fell back to expose the misshapen faceless head. If blackened features seemed to writhe on it, they were only smoke. Around the pyre faces fluttered with the agitated light, which brought its own rhythms to the dance. "Never mind anybody else," Sandra whispered. "Just be with me."

  When Ray made to let go of her hand she held on. She mustn't want to join in the celebratory dance, which would separate them. He slipped his other hand around her waist and tried not to be too aware of the bones of her spine. He'd begun to turn slowly in what he assumed to be some species of waltz, and was busy ensuring he didn't tread on her bare toes, when she murmured "Don't try so hard. Let me."

  This meant holding his hand so lightly it came near to stealing his awareness that she was. In a moment she began to turn them both in the opposite direction from the one he'd led. At first it felt so odd that he was afraid of stumbling, and then her confidence infected him. She felt not just lithe but more youthful than he could recall her ever feeling when they'd danced together. If their dance seemed wholly unrelated to the music, why should that matter? Her face flickered like a recollection, and he was close to seeing their dance as a memory he would keep for the rest of his life, but he mustn't distance it that way when she only wanted him to be with her. He clasped her waist, not too hard, and gazed so deep into her eyes that he could hope he was reviving all the life they'd spent together. He thought he was seeing it in hers, distilled into a wordless look. He'd started to forget not just the dancers all around them but his own clumsiness—it seemed to have left him, though he didn't think he would be able to move as fluidly as Sandra was dancing—when he heard Julian. "It's you again, is it? What do you mean by following our daughter?"

  Ray peered over Sandra's shoulder. The flames of the bonfire plucked at his vision, so that by the time he located Julian and Jonquil he had little more than a glimpse of whoever was being addressed—a thin retreating figure with a long face that the light appeared to render less distinct than everyone's around him. "That's right, stay away," Julian shouted, "and that applies to your friends as well."

  The offender had been joined by two companions not unlike him, Ray saw. "Who is that?" he blurted.

  He wasn't expecting Sandra to respond, but a nearby dancer did. "They come tonight too," he said and added a Greek word.

  As Sandra turned to look the figures withdrew into the dimness beyond the firelight. In moments they were indistinguishable from the dark along a street leading to the beach. "What's wrong?" Sandra said. "I didn't see."

  "We'd better find out," Ray said, though as he released her waist he felt as if he might be letting go of moments they would never regain.

  With his fingers gripping his hips Julian looked like the antithesis of a dancer or else a Greek sculpture rendered russet by the flames. "How long were you dancing with that boy?" he demanded.

  "I don't know." Perhaps just his tone made Jonquil frown, not her lack of knowledge. "He only came for a dance," she said.

  "You know perfectly well that he wasn't approved. You gave us to understand you would be dancing with your cousin."

  "I don't think Jonk said that," Tim objected as he joined them. "She never told me."

  "Shall we all sit down?" Sandra said. "No need to have a scene out here."

  Ray saw she hoped this would end the argument, but as they trooped back to the taverna Julian said "What did that boy say to you?"

  "Nothing. We didn't need to talk."

  "You must have given him some kind of sign."

  "I didn't. He was just there when I looked." When Julian made his dissatisfaction plain Jonquil said "Tell him yours was there as well, Tim."

  "What's your secret, Tim?" Pris said with the start of a laugh.

  "Just I was dancing with that girl you saw at Sunset Beach."

  "We said you'd found yourself an admirer," Doug said. "You don't look too delighted, Jules."

  "I'm not if the children are being stalked, and I'm surprised if you are. Weren't those people at the church today as well?"

  "So were we," Sandra pointed out.

  "That's by no means the same thing. They were told to leave even though they're local."

  "Somebody said something about them just now," Ray remembered. "What was it, Sandra?"

  "Vella, was it? Something along those lines."

  "That'd be a parasite," Doug said.

  "More like a leech," Pris told him.

  "Well, I hope you'll both take n
otice of the people who should know." At first it wasn't clear that Julian was addressing Tim and Jonquil. "Even their own countrymen don't like your dancing partners," he said. "They're the kind who live off other people who can't see what they are."

  They haven't got much out of these two," Pris said.

  "Shall we make sure as a family that they don't? If either of you should see them again, please let an adult know."

  "And I will."

  "That's very helpful of you, William," Julian said, though Natalie seemed not quite so taken with the proposition. "I think the subject can be closed now. Please don't let it put anybody off the dance."

  Ray didn't think he was inviting anyone to join it, and nobody did. If Sandra had suggested returning to the dance Ray would have been on his feet at once, but he didn't want to risk detracting from the memory they already had. Suppose his clumsiness returned? Even the notion threatened to bring it back. Instead he watched the celebration, only to be distracted by thoughts about the day's events. Leeches, transfusions—did those fit together somehow? Perhaps the three were beggars who made some money by giving their blood, and the man at the church disapproved of the practice. Was Ray seeing figures beyond the reach of the firelight, on the road to the beach? The flames made the thin shapes seem to shift like mist, but whenever he strained to distinguish the trio he saw nothing in that street except the dark.

  The pyre took a while to collapse into ash. While it did, the music trailed away and the dancers began to disperse. "I think someone's overdue for bed," Natalie announced, and William lifted his sleepy head. "I'm not," he protested despite the effort the words took.

  He stumbled as they left the taverna, and Julian lifted him onto his shoulders. As Sandra passed some of the people who'd danced, one of them spoke to her in Greek. "What was that?" Ray asked Doug and Pris.