THE PASSAGE LED straight onto the hidden beach below the cliff.
At the best of times a beach at night can be a shuddersome place – all the colour gone, and with it all charm and beauty. A place of pleasure during the day can seem like the most desolate spot on earth at night. And on this night the beach at Rousdon seemed like hell itself.
The full moon lit the scene before us like a theatrical set. Alex of course was centre stage. He wore a peculiar headdress and what looked like a lace dressing gown with no buttons down the front, the kind of garment that could only have been made by the lacemakers of Honiton. In the darkness his lips appeared to be tinged with blue and his face – just as it was in the caves – was a burning phosphorescent yellow.
Above him was the full moon. Behind him, the endless grey sea spitting pebbles up onto the beach. And before him, a crowd of benefactors and teachers – and held aloft between them, bound and gagged and tied to one of Morley’s surfboards, was Miriam. She was dressed in an outfit similar to Alex’s. God only knows what they were planning.
Morley yelled. I yelled. We ran full pelt towards the gathered ghouls.
It is difficult to describe what occurred then in the chaos that ensued, but this an account as good as I can recall.
Most of the teachers and benefactors scattered, running for the cliffs. Morley made it to Miriam and began to untie her from the surfboard – and when he undid the gag around her mouth she sat up and let out a bloodcurdling scream worthy of Fay Wray herself.
I went straight for Alex and launched myself upon him. He grabbed me with both hands by the throat, but I struck him once, twice and three times with all my might, and then grabbed at his fingers and bent them back until I heard them snap – and he fell down on his knees in agony. In Spain I’d learned from a little Hungarian named Imre some basics of hand-to-hand combat: attack the most vulnerable parts of the body, the groin, the eyes, the neck, the fingers. And use any available object. As Alex lay stunned before me I grabbed a large pebble, a rock really, the size of my fist, and was about to dash it down on his stupid shining head when someone or something flew at me. It was Miriam.
‘No!’ she screamed with a demonic rage. ‘Sefton, no!’ She hung on my back and dug her nails into my face, screaming; we fought intensely for a moment, me trying to throw her off, until she began sobbing. ‘You must not kill him! You mustn’t! You mustn’t! Don’t do it!’
And I realised suddenly that she had attacked me for my own protection, not Alex’s. It was me she was seeking to save from the consequences of my actions. Stunned, I released my grip on the rock and turned to her.
‘Don’t!’ she cried. ‘Please, Sefton! Don’t!’
I looked at her – for the first time perhaps properly looked at her – and she looked back at me. But then there were shouts from behind, and I turned to see that the headmaster had now got to Alex, and that he had somehow dragged him down into the shallow waters and had his head under the waves, pressing down and down. I ran towards him as he stepped back as if in shock, his hands free, and Alex did not reappear. I dived under the surf and swam towards Alex’s body.
With all my remaining strength I dragged him back towards the shore, and then Miriam joined me and helped me drag him up onto the pebbles and I attempted to give him the kiss of life, the man who only moments previously I had been about to murder.
It was no good. Miriam was sobbing, her head upon Alex’s chest, and then suddenly she stopped, by instinct, and turned. She’d noticed something. It was Morley.
‘Father!’ she cried.
Morley was lying flat on the surfboard, fully clothed, frantically paddling out into the waves.
The headmaster, ahead of him, was swimming far out into the dark ocean.
They headed far out, too far to be reached.
And then there was only the sound of the water.
Alexander – Alex, X – Standish