Alex Barclay - Darkhouse

Wanda Rawlins was alone in the kitchen, radio blaring, singing along to Tony Orlando and Dawn. Beside the unfolded square of paper on the counter top, she bent low to take in her treasured lines, choosing to ignore the raw, agonising screams from the bedroom.

Two weeks later, when Duke was walking through the schoolyard, he saw the stooped form of Westley Ames at the front gate, a startling silhouette against the bright sun. He began to shake violently. His stomach flipped, then lurched and he threw up all over his trainers.

‘Hah! Pukey Dukey!’ said Ashley Ames as she skipped past him and ran ahead, jumping into her daddy’s arms.

Duke walked back from his Uncle Bill’s with a smile on his face. He had never seen the hawks before, let alone held them. He loved hanging out with Uncle Bill. No-one got hurt at Uncle Bill’s house. Except that poor quail. Bam! Bam! Dead! He could think of a few people he’d like to do that to. And as he turned the corner up to his house, one of them was standing there, waiting for him, combing back his thin brown hair with taut fingers. He was in his early thirties with a soft, boyish face. He took everything in, his blue eyes sliding back and forth across the yard behind black lenses. Everything else was still. His hands were firm on his hips, his feet rooted in polished black shoes, his shirt and pants neat and closefitting. Duke stopped and cocked his head to one side to watch him. He shivered. This guy was a total freak.

Duke called him Boo-hoo — during his first visits, he always tried to stop his tears. Only the name remained. The tears had dried up long ago.

Anna was sitting on the sofa with a book on Irish lighthouses open on her lap; almost two thousand miles of coastline and eighty major lighthouses to guard them. She turned to Joe.

‘You know, the motto of the Commissioners of Irish Lights is in salutem omnium , for the safety of all. It’s funny, I look at our little lighthouse and I feel safe. I can’t imagine how intense it feels when you’re out at sea in a storm, thrown up on massive waves and your whole life depends on that flashing light.’

‘You’ve gotta admire those keepers.’

‘Sam has some great stories. Some of the keepers used to play poker with the locals and used Morse code to tap out their hands.’ The phone rang and she jumped up to take it in the kitchen.

‘Oh hi, Chloe,’ she said. She listened for a minute and then she was pacing, stretching the yellow cord across the room. Joe followed her in. He saw her frown.

‘No. I need someone who’s not going to come over here and get traditional. Greg’s work on Iceland was three Björks by an igloo. Not good enough. I was thinking of this Irish guy, Brendan—’

She rolled her eyes up to Joe at the interruption.

‘No, no, listen! I’ve seen his work, it is completely different. And he’ll avoid all those terrible clichés. I’ve made a few calls and apparently he’s amazing—’

She stopped again.

‘I didn’t say I wanted Irish models! We’ll use American or French girls, that’s fine. But this is an interiors spread, Chloe. They should not be the focus.’

She held the phone away from her ear, then brought it back when Chloe stopped.

‘OK, OK. I’ll call him, get him to send you his book and the spread I saw in the Irish magazine. Then you make your informed decision.’ She hung up.

Joe looked at her, amazed. Miles away from the office, she was still secure enough to stamp her feet.

‘What’s for lunch then?’ he said, teasing.

‘Chloe is so stupid,’ said Anna as she walked to the fridge. ‘Meatball sandwiches with barbecue sauce.’

He squeezed her tightly, wrapping his arms around her from behind. ‘I love your balls.’

She laughed in spite of herself. ‘ Tragique . Oh, by the way, the doors should be here today,’ she said.

‘If they were still together and Jim Morrison wasn’t dead.’

Anna simply shook her head.

‘Come on, you love the bad ones,’ said Joe.

She stared at him. ‘ Quel curieux caractère .’ He recognised the quote, from the French version of Toy Story . In the English version it was ‘You sad, strange little man.’

After lunch, Ray’s van bumped up the stony drive. Anna waved him towards the lighthouse. He took a left and drove down the sloping grass as close as he could get to the steps. He got out and threw his hands up in the air.

‘What am I supposed to do now?’ he shouted to her.

She jogged over to the bottom of the steps.

‘I’ll need to call in back-up,’ she said, laughing.

‘Love that cop speak.’

‘Can I have a look?’ she said, nodding at the van.

‘You can indeed,’ said Ray. He opened the back doors and lifted a layer of green tarpaulin.

‘Oh my God,’ she said, her hand to her mouth. ‘They’re beautiful!’

‘They’re wooden doors,’ said Ray.

‘No, no. They’re beautiful. You did an amazing job.’

‘Thank you. I had the picture of the old lighthouse doors pinned to my board the whole time.’

‘They’re magnifique,’ she said.

‘They could almost be magnificent,’ he said.

‘Stop that!’ she laughed. ‘You’re always making fun of me.’

‘I always used to make fun of the girls I fancied in school,’ he said, winking.

‘You flirting with my wife again?’ said Joe, coming up beside them. ‘I’m pushing forty here, Ray — thirty-year-old charmers worry me.’ Ray was the same height as Anna, but looked shorter because he was so broad. His dark eyebrows and constantly furrowed brow could make him look either incredibly sensitive or just plain stupid. He was neither.

‘The doors are great,’ said Joe, running his hand over the wood.

‘Don’t. I’ll get a swelled head,’ said Ray. ‘OK, now how’re we going to get these down? Where’s this back-up of yours, Anna?’

‘I’ll get Hugh.’

Anna disappeared to drag Hugh away from his tea and tabloids. Between the four of them, they hefted the doors to the lighthouse and secured them onto their hinges. Anna bolted them shut.

‘Wow,’ she said. ‘I am thrilled. I am so grateful.’

Ray raised an eyebrow.

‘Not that grateful, pal,’ said Joe, putting a firm hand on his shoulder.

‘To be honest,’ said Ray, ‘I’m hanging out for the models who’ll be draping themselves over me for the photo shoot. I’ll be the “bit of rough”. Might wear an Aran jumper and tuck my jeans into my boots for the occasion.’

‘Anything else you need?’ asked Hugh.

‘No, no, thanks for your help,’ she said.

‘I’m off, too,’ said Ray. ‘If those doors get unhinged at all, you’ll know where they get it from.’

Anna didn’t understand. Joe laughed. She turned to him, taking his hand.

‘Let me show you my nightmare.’ She unlocked the new doors and led him up the winding staircase. They reached the service room and climbed the sloping ladder to the lantern house.

‘Look at this,’ said Anna, hooking the tip of her finger under one of the cracks in the wall. ‘Doesn’t move.’

‘Paint stripper?’ said Joe.

‘Not a chance,’ she said. ‘It’s taken years for it to get that way. And because of the temperature in here, it...’ she moved her hands in and out.

‘Got bigger? Smaller?’ said Joe.

‘No, no, the metal...’

‘Oh, expanded and contracted.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘So I don’t know what to do.’

‘I could get some of the guys, scrape it off.’

They both shook their heads.

‘We’ll think of something,’ said Joe. ‘Do you have to do this part? I mean, the thing doesn’t work anyway,’ he said, looking at the old mercury pedestal, ‘and won’t the shoot be really from the outside?’ She knew he was half serious.