Chapter 36

REQUIEM

He’s still focused on the ground when he swiftly surfaces through trees. A chloroform calmness envelops him, an immense scrim of green through which the red bursts like a capillary. It’s the darting underbelly of a small bird, Lewis quickly realises, as it rises through the vespertine air.

The crackle of something underfoot brings him back down to earth – the dried-out husks of breadfruit leaves. They appear like tortoises in the darkening light. Beyond the leaves he notices that the lawn is perfectly manicured, and wonders how you could bring a mower all the way up here to the top.

Then with a sudden gust of wind, the leaves scatter and he hears the sound of singing so low it could be crying:

Music, but a lonely song …

The flash of vermillion catches his eye again, but this time it isn’t a bird. They are the red letters floating within a bag of duty-free – CHIVAS REGAL – dangling there in the breeze.

From behind the trees he watches her, waiting for the right moment to reveal himself. Not now. With her face turned away from him, he can look down the length of her body, watching the song play itself down her torso along with the last of the light. Every now and then her toes tremble and rearrange themselves, as if the song is held there for a moment before being released to the air.

He doesn’t dare move. Just to draw this moment out, drawing it out to the distant point where music becomes silence and the light fades and the sky deepens and departs.

Even when the singing stops he can hear the song of her breathing. The sound draws him in until it’s all that he hears on this last island of light.

It’s in the final moments that he can see most clearly. In a blink it will be gone.