CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

 

 

THE NEXT FORTNIGHT was the happiest of my adult life. I dismissed the figures in the surf as another hallucination. I didn't dare tell Ellen. I trusted her - I thought I did. No, I knew. This was love. Total. All-consuming. I would die for her if I had to. I didn't think I could drive her away. But I didn't want to - couldn't - take that risk.

If you've ever been in love like that - and I pray you haven't because it can only lead to pain - then you'll understand.

There were no further hallucinations, anyway; no voices in my ear or figures in the waves. And so the only shadow that'd lain on me lifted, and the days and nights passed with Ellen Vannin. We walked the hills together, ate and drank together. And, yes, we slept together.

The first time, I was afraid my body would disgust her. I was scrawny and pale, arms and legs like pipe-cleaners. Even on my good days, I moved stiffly, and had the face of a man twenty years older.

Well, she'd seen my face and she knew my story. But even so, I worried.

The first night we slept together, she insisted on undressing me, peeling off my shirt, pulling off my boots, stripping me naked. As she did, she kissed my body - my nipples and stomach, my knees and thighs, even the insteps of my feet - before pressing me back on the bed, bending over and pressing her lips down on mine.

"Beautiful," she whispered.

I reached up to touch her breasts but she grinned and slapped my hands away, running her tongue over her top lip. "Naughty."

She kissed me deeply, and then worked her way down over my chest and stomach to my cock, kissing it gently, running her tongue up and around it. When she took me in her mouth, I cried out, grabbing fistfuls of bedclothes. "Stop. Stop." But it was too late. The orgasm was so intense it damn near hurt.

I sagged back with a moan. There was silence. Shit. I'd ruined it. Gone off like that. In her mouth as well; women didn't like that. I tried to mumble an apology, but she was laughing, wiping her lips.

"Well," she said. "I suppose I should take that as a compliment."

She stood up and released her long black hair; it fell around her shoulders. "Now," she said, "you've got no excuse. I expect you to last this time."

Her dress fell around her ankles, slithering down the pale slopes of her body smooth as water. She was naked, except for her black shoes. She kept them on throughout. "Touch me," she whispered, and guided my hand between her legs. She was already open and wet to the touch. With her free hand she drew my head to her breasts, and I took a nipple in my mouth as she stroked my hair.

 

 

MY HEALTH, AS if in response, was the best it had been since the accident. I reduced my DHC dosage, even skipped it once and suffered no ill-effects. That was only a one-off, though; on the whole, I still needed to take the medication, but less than before. I had no doubt it was down to Ellen in some way. How or why, I didn't know and I didn't care. I just wanted it to last.

We didn't talk about her friends. Throughout that fortnight, I never met them, not till the very end. They were just a vague reason that Ellen was here in Barmouth. A plot device. Nothing more.

We didn't talk about the future. I was afraid of finding out that it was all just a fling for her, a holiday romance, to be consigned to a shoebox full of memories, of things that once were but no more. I didn't want to know I'd be just another faded snapshot - do you remember that time in Barmouth, in the autumn of...

I wanted this to be forever. I wasn't going to make the same mistakes I'd made with Sara, with all the others. I was ready to commit. I was ready to change, whatever was necessary. Whatever it took. And I knew that was reckless, and I didn't care.

For a few waking hours a day I was on my own. She had to spend some time with her friends. It was a teenage thing, to want to spend every second together... but still I begrudged every minute of the day that wasn't mine.

Still, there were things to do. My house was almost unrecognisable now, it was actually clean. Clothes were washed and put away (occasionally even ironed), the washing-up was done daily, the carpets hoovered and cleaned. Parts of the place actually gleamed. It looked like a place fit to receive visitors. When I wasn't busy with the flat there was still time for a walk along the beach.

Or to surf the internet.

I didn't have a home computer. I'd rarely worked on the things even at University, unless I had to. I much preferred to write longhand. It was more portable, less likely to go wrong, it could be done anywhere. After all, given the choice, where would you rather work? A grubby, ratty bedroom, or a beach or mountainside? The defence rests.

But there was a coffee shop at the far end of Church Street that doubled as an internet café. I used it to make my occasional contacts with the outside world via the web. Generally I used it to follow current affairs, music, literature, general stuff really. Today, though, I had something different in mind.

Today, the last day of that happiest fortnight - although I didn't know that then - I was doing a little detective work.

It was the her name; the nagging familiarity of her name. I knew I'd heard it before. I'd asked her, but she shrugged it off; she was no-one special, she said (I disagreed) and she'd never done anything to lift her into the public eye.

But it wasn't a common name. You wouldn't forget it once you'd heard it. And I was sure I had... but I didn't know where.

And so I sat in the café, cup of coffee at my elbow, and typed 'Ellen Vannin' into a search engine. And watched the parade of hits come up.

For a start, the correct spelling was Ellan Vannin. In the old Manx tongue, it referred to the Isle of Man.

But also, there were two songs. Ellan Vannin, a traditional Manx song, the island's unofficial 'national anthem.' And another, more recent, by a Liverpool folk band called The Spinners: The Ellan Vannin Tragedy 1909.

The SS Ellan Vannin. One of the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company's fourteen mailboats, all named after some feature of the island. Snaefell, Tynwald, Ben Machree... the actual ships had changed over the years, but the names had been passed down. All except one.

On December 3rd, 1909, the SS Ellan Vannin had sailed from Ramsey Bay for Liverpool, with twenty-one crewmen, fifteen passengers, and a cargo of sheep and turnips.

The weather had been temperate enough when she set out, but rapidly worsened to a Force 11 gale driving twenty-foot drives. Having been on the sea myself, I knew that was like. The sad part was, she was close to port when it went wrong. She'd passed the Bar lightship and entered the Mersey Channel. Exactly what sent her down was never confirmed; most likely a massive wave had capsized her. There was no time to do anything. No-one made it out. All thirty-six people aboard her drowned.

It'd been the worst shipping disaster in Manx history. The name Ellan Vannin was never re-used by the company.

It was coming back to me now. The Irish Sea around the Isle of Man is notorious for its shipwrecks, and I'd gone wreck-diving off there a few years before. There'd been a few of us. One evening, we'd been in the pub. One of the party was a bloke called Hughie, a Liverpool man. He'd had a guitar, and he'd taken it out and played the Spinners song. Told us the story.

There was no woman called Ellen Vannin. But of course, it might be a family name... somewhere. Could just be a coincidence.

Coincidence? When you see dead things calling you from the sea, when their eyes glow green like the ones you dream and nightmare of? Ever since you nearly died - in the sea, Ben. In the sea -

"Ben?"

I jerked round in the chair, fumbling for the mouse, as Ellen walked in.

"What you looking at then?"

"Oh, nothing."

Her eyebrows went up. "Nothing?"

"Honestly."

"Nothing, tra-la-la?" She was looking at me the way she did sometimes, head half-turned to look at me sideways, a teasing, I-don't-believe-you smile on her lips.

Shit.

Then she grinned. "Hope you weren't looking at porn there." She leant forward and whispered. "You'll get in trouble if you do that here."

I leant over and whispered back. "Why would I need to look at porn, when I've got you?"

"You old smoothie," she said, and brushed her lips across mine.

The tension had passed. "Just checking my emails," I told her.

"Anything interesting?"

"Bugger all."

"Oh well. I'm bloody starving. Lunch?"

"Why not?"

 

 

WE ATE AT Davy Jones' Locker once more. It was a very mild day, so we chanced sitting out on the deck outside.

"Ben... I've got something to tell you."

My stomach lurched. Did she know I knew?

Know what? She's got a name that sounds like something else? Vannin's just her family name, Ben, that's all. It's coincidence.

But my eyes flickered out to look across the harbour where the tide had come in, sure I was going to see them rising up out of it.

Shit, she's pregnant, that's it, that's what she's going to tell you.

"I'm leaving tomorrow."

"Oh." A part of me was almost relieved for a second. Then it hit home.

"Shit."

Her smile was crooked and her eyes glistened. "Yeah."

"When... when are you..."

"Don't know exactly. Probably early on."

We looked at each other, neither speaking.

"Do you work?" I asked at last. Weird. I realised it'd been another question I'd never got round to asking.

"Why?"

"I just thought..." No, there was no other way, I had to ask her now "... If you don't have a job to go back to, you could stay here a little longer. I mean, with me."

She stared at me.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."

"No. No, it's OK. You mean that?"

I nodded. Her laugh was half a sob. "I thought - I was afraid you just - that you didn't want... I mean, long-term..."

Her hand reached out across the table; I took it. "I was afraid that you didn't."

She laughed again, dabbed her eyes. "We're both bloody stupid aren't we?"

"Yeah."

"But I can't stay here, Ben. I can't."

"Why not?"

"I just can't."

"A job?"

"Yes. No. Sort of. It's complicated. But... oh, God, I love it here. It's so beautiful. But I have to go back. At least for a while. But, would you consider..."

I wanted to hear her say it herself, but she left the sentence unfinished so long I had to do it for her. "Coming back with you?"

"Yes."

"Yes," I said. "I would."

"Yes? Really?"

"Yes."

"Ben, you don't know where I live. You don't know..."

"I don't care." I squeezed her hand. "Simple as. End of."

She wiped her eyes again with her free hand, and smiled. "You're sweet."

"Don't call a man sweet," I growled. "For God's sake."

"Oh for pity's sake," said Sally, collecting our glasses. "Get a room, you two."

 

 

THE SUN WAS going down; we walked along the sea-front, her hand in mine.

"Do you want to come back to mine tonight?" she said.

"Best had. My last chance, isn't it?"

"Mm?" She frowned for a second, then giggled. "Yes, of course. I was thinking you'll always be at mine after tonight." She looked ahead, and I glanced sideways at the sea; it was reassuringly empty. "Will you be OK?" she asked. "Just packing up and going like this?"

"Yeah. I'm used to travelling light." A thought occurred to me. "How are you getting back?"

"Mm?" For the second time she seemed distracted, thrown by what I'd said. Maybe the late nights were catching up with her. It wasn't as if we'd been drinking. We'd hardly touched a drop; my alcohol intake had fallen to almost nothing in the last two weeks. "Oh. Yeah. We'll be driving."

"I'll have to pack some stuff, that's all. Just wondering about room."

"There'll be plenty. Karl's got a van."

"Karl?"

"You'll meet him in a minute."

 

 

DINAS OLEU'S OUTLINES crumbling into the thickening dusk; a sharp tang of coal smoke in the air as we came down Marine Road.

The house stood near the railway bridge, one of a row of tall terraces, made up of bricks of grey Welsh slate. Ellen opened the front door.

"Hello?" she called. "We're back." She motioned me through, pushed it closed with her foot. Old newspapers were heaped up between the door and the wall.

The living room was on the left. The door was open. The light was off, and the only illumination was from the dim flicker of the TV. A woman with black, bedraggled hair slouched on the sofa.

"Carrie?" Ellen called. The woman didn't respond. "This is Ben."

The woman's head turned our way. The tangled mop of hair hid her face.

"He'll be coming back with us tomorrow."

Carrie nodded slowly. She half-raised a hand and made a faint noise that could have been, or meant, anything. Her skin looked very pale in the TV's flicker.

Down at the far end of the hallway, shoe leather scratched on linoleum. A tall, thin shape stood swaying in the kitchen doorway, backlit by the thin grey twilight. A second shape, smaller and plumper, shambled to stand alongside him with painful slowness. It wore an old print dress. The first figure put an arm around its shoulders.

"Ben, this is Donna and Charles."

Jesus, Ellen, who the hell are these friends of yours?

"And this is Karl."

She pointed up. The staircase to the right was very steep and vanished into darkness. Floorboards creaked. Another figure was coming down. He was very tall and very, very thin. He was barefooted, wearing jeans and a white sweater. His hair was longer than Ellen's or Carrie's, and hung lank and heavy.

I couldn't see any of their faces.

Ellen's hand gripped mine tightly. "Are you still sure, Ben?"

"What?"

"Sure you want to come with us?"

"Yes..." Why was her hand so cold, suddenly? And clammily damp? I forced a smile and waved generally at the group. Charles raised a hand silently in greeting. Karl kept coming downstairs, slow and purposeful.

"Why are all the lights are off?" I asked. "Forget to pay the bill?"

Charles and Donna rocked back and forth in silence. As Karl reached the bottom of the stairs, he shook his head slowly from side to side.

"They don't talk much," Ellen said. "They can't. It was enough of an effort, just for me to..."

"What?"

I was turning to look at her, but then I stopped. Something I'd seen from the corner of my eye, in the hallway's grey crumbling twilight dusk -

Charles and Donna were trying to get to us. The space between the staircase and wall was too narrow for them to walk abreast, but they squeezed close together and shuffled forward. It was like watching a grub squirming. Karl had stopped at the foot of the stairs, and had turned his head towards them.

"I brought them with me," Ellen said. "In case I needed help."

"Help?"

"With you, Ben." Her voice hitched. "With you."

The hallway wasn't quite as dark suddenly. I could see Charles and Donna a bit more clearly. The more I saw, the more I wished it was still dark. The flesh of their faces were hanging off the bones, barely attached. They faded back into the dark as Karl turned towards me, but by then I was looking right into the light source, into the two discs of green light that should have been eyes, glaring through wet, tangled hair. His face looked grey. Something had eaten part of his nose. When his mouth opened, a hole gaped in his cheek.

Now Charles and Donna's eyes were glowing too, and their bustling down the hallway was like insects scuttling towards their prey. There was a thumping sound from the living room. I didn't look to see what Carrie was doing. Pain shot up my arm. Ellen's grip had tightened, and her hand was searing cold.

"I'm sorry, Ben."

"What?" I turned to look at her. Her profile was smooth, white, unmarked; eyes closed, a thin tear-track gleaming silver on her cheek. "What is this?"

"I'm sorry," she said again, as the green light began seeping through the join of her closed eyelids. Lighting up her face. The glow brightening as her eyes opened, as she turned to face me, the eyelids shrinking back and away like scorched polythene, the light blowing away softening shadows and comforting illusions and showing her face for what it really was, for what crabs and fishes and slow decay had left of it, the mouth snarling open into a scream full of blackened teeth as she lunged towards me.