It was starting to get dark as I reeled from the wine bar. I told the hippies that I had to get some air. The driver of the van had subjected me to an interminable monologue about how they had tried to set up a commune at the far end of the island. He was downing the wine as though it was beer and he kept skidding off into tangents about the mystical qualities of the land and the financial complications of its purchase. He described how most of the members of the enterprise had chickened out when the weather cooled, scuttling back to their snug flats in the city. Now there was just the three of them left, him and the two women. Rose, the man in the back of the van had arrived just a few days ago.
‘Just walked out of the bush with a bag of grass and a pocketful of pills. Reckoned he had got mixed up with some kind of bad vibes in the city. Wanted to get away to clean his head. Bit of a fucked up kind of a dude, if you ask me. Never says much. Just sits there looking at you, and I mean right at you, with those green eyes of his. Sometimes I wonder if he’s on smack but I haven’t seen any hardware. But he’s cool, man. Yeah, he’s cool.’
Then he asked if I would like to fuck the blonde, drugged looking woman. She wanted me, he said.
‘She might look a bit out of it but she’s hot. Trust me, man. She’s really cool. Maybe we could all like get it together. Have a smoke and get into like an encounter. Whaddaya say man? Are you into it?’
Outside, the rain had stopped but the air was thick and green with the smell of sodden foliage. I staggered behind the store to piss in an empty lot surrounded by dripping trees. Then I saw the van. It was parked at an odd angle with one of its wheels sunk deep into a pool of mud. There was a line of light pencilled around the door. There was a sound like a sob.
When I slid back the door of the van, Sykes was bent backwards over the table. He was naked and gagged with a red spotted bandanna. His hands were tied behind his back. The man, Rose, was kneeling between his legs holding a candle in one hand, letting the wax drop. With the other he was applying a cigarette to Sykes’s chest. The sweat sizzled. His chest was studded with a cruciform of black craters. One of his nipples was bleeding. Sykes looked up at me but he wasn’t there. His eyes had filmed over and he was panting through the gag. I saw his jutting erection when Rose reached over to slam the door.
It had started to rain again. I stood there in the dark looking up at the sky, letting the drops fall into my eyes. This is it, I thought. This is the way it is. The window of love swings open and you relax for a moment. And then it slams shut and everything falls to pieces.
When I got back to the wine bar the hippies were very drunk. They had opened the cask of wine. The fortune teller was reading the barman’s palm. The only light came from the jukebox. It was playing You Were Always On My Mind. The van driver and the blonde seemed to be trying to dance. He was holding her up as she shuffled backwards, her arms hanging limp at her sides. Her head was slumped sideways and she was looking at me, mouthing the words of the song.
‘Got any change for the machine?’ the driver asked when the music ended.
‘There’s been a change of plan,’ I said. ‘I’m going back to town. You can keep the groceries, I’ll just take these.’ I grabbed the vodka bottle and some cigarettes and jammed them into the pocket of my raincoat.’
‘What about your friend, man?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t care.’ And I turned away so that he wouldn’t see my eyes.
I wanted to go straight to the wharf to wait for the last boat back to the city, to go home and dissolve myself in alcohol, but, somehow, I felt I couldn’t leave the beach house unlocked and untidy. It would mean Lizzie’s having to make a special trip to clean up. And I didn’t trust Sykes. I was afraid he would bring the drunken hippies back to destroy the place. It was going to be a long night. The lid of the vodka bottle gave a reassuring click as I broke the seal.
I had to feel my way down from the road through the bush. I tried to use my cigarette lighter as a torch but I kept stumbling and snagging myself. A branch sprang back and lashed my face and I tasted blood. It had started to rain again by the time I saw the beach-house silhouetted against the purple sky. I could hear it beating on the tin roof. The lights of the city were a distant line of orange mist on the horizon.