Алия Уайтли - Skein Island

It would be too obvious to go for green. Yellow or blue, perhaps? Blue was the colour of truth, of sunny skies and deep seas. Marianne loved blue. The night before she had left for Skein Island she had been wearing her favourite dark blue waistcoat.

Yellow, then – a scroll could contain answers. But the pull to the red cube was too strong to deny.

‘Red,’ he said.

Mags lifted her eyebrows and opened her mouth. It was such an artful expression of surprise that he felt sure it must be fake. ‘Sure?’ she said.

He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of changing his mind.

‘Yes.’

‘Right then. Bit of an action man, we’ve got here. No messing. Here you go.’

She picked up the red cube and he held out his palm for it, just as Geoff had done before. It was warm and wooden. He felt around the top, found a small depression and pushed it in, and the lid popped open.

Inside was one black marble.

David took it from the cube and held it up. The intense concentration of the men as they focused on the marble was overwhelming; he felt them lean forward, yearning for it.

‘First time lucky,’ said Mags. ‘Come on.’

‘Where?’

‘A trip to the back room,’ she said, as if he should have known. She adjusted the ruffles on her scarlet blouse and smacked her lips together, and a mixture of terror and sexual desire swept over him, horrified him. He was a prisoner to it.

‘No, I don’t need it. One of the others can go,’ he said. He put the marble back in the cube, closed it up, and put it back in line with the others.

‘Doesn’t work that way, dear.’ She grabbed his hand. He felt the points of her fingernails pressing into his skin. ‘You play, you pay.’

‘No, I—’

Arnie came up beside him, patted him on the back, and David found himself walking around the side entrance of the bar, the other men crowding around him, pushing him onwards.

‘You always win first time out,’ whispered Arnie, in his ear. ‘To give you the taste.’

‘Just relax and enjoy it,’ said Mags. She held out a shot glass, half-filled with a brown, viscose liquid. ‘A shot of brandy. To get you going.’

‘Going where?’ he said, and everyone laughed. Reality was fading; everything was moving more slowly. He couldn’t remember why he was afraid. He took the glass, drained it, said, ‘That wasn’t brandy,’ as he tasted oranges and something fresh, like mint. He was getting an erection.

One of the men said, close to his right cheek, ‘I don’t know anything about Skein Island. She never talked to us again. All she left was a note.’

‘But the letters,’ David said. Was it Arnie talking? ‘The cards. Birthday cards.’ His voice sounded deeper, like an echo in a cavern, the sound spreading low, through the muscles of his abdomen.

‘I’ve got a lady friend in Bedfordshire. I asked her to send them.’ There was a snort, and hot, beery breath filled David’s nose. The smell was unbearably potent and for a moment he couldn’t breathe. ‘Couldn’t let Marianne think she’d been deserted. But that’s what happened. Gone, she was. She wanted to be gone.’

Mags shoved Arnie and the other men back, flapping her hands, then led David down the corridor that ended in a windowless storage room, filled with orange crates of empty bottles, cardboard boxes and silver kegs.

Set in one wall was a small, white door with four coloured squares painted upon it: red, blue, yellow and green. Mags opened it with a large brass key, attached to a gold chain around her neck, and it swung back to reveal a total, consuming blackness from which palpable warmth emanated. From within the dark, David sensed a want, a need. Something called to him. It was as if Marianne had said his name; he felt his erection twitch in response.

He stepped through the doorway.

The men were cheering, very far away. A sweet smell enveloped him, like a cloud of perfume left behind by a beautiful woman at a party. He wanted to find her; he pushed through a crowd of faceless people to reach her. The cheering grew louder, ahead of him, becoming the rise and fall of many people. His legs were being pushed apart and he felt something large between his knees, under his buttocks. He fell backwards, ended up sitting astride it, and it began to move at speed, towards the thin, horizontal strip of intense blue daylight – the purest, cleanest sky he had ever seen. His body shook under the pressure, the sensation of speed, and the cheers became deafening, drowning out his own heartbeat as he crashed into the living picture at the end of the tunnel.

His hands were full; he looked down, and saw a long wooden pole and thin strips of leather. The horse upon which he sat had a black mane that was streaming in the wind, and when he looked up he saw the enemy, ahead, dressed in black and thundering towards him on an enormous charger. There was nothing else for it but to lean forward, brace himself for impact, and swing around the lance, aiming for the breastplate, trying to block out all other thoughts but to win.

The collision was the most intense delight of his life; he felt his lance crack into the chest of his opponent, who reeled back and fell to the ground. The crowd roared their approval, banging drums, clapping hands to make a cacophony of elation. He dropped his broken lance and saluted them, over and over. The cheers only grew louder. A pink haze filled his vision, then encased him in slick, warm wetness. It was her, his prize.

He was soaked in the ecstasy he had won, drowned in it, pulled down and through, for the longest time. Then the pink haze of her love withdrew, along with her scent, and that final loss caused a crescendo of intense pain. He was a hero no more. Just plain old David, abandoned. Lonely. It was more than he could bear.

After an age, the visions receded just enough to bring him back to his body. He got to his feet and staggered forward until he collided, hard, with a solid wall. The shock of it brought tears to his eyes. He put his hands against freezing brickwork and crouched down, making himself as small as he could manage, hoping she wouldn’t find him again and take away everything he had ever known, ever loved. He had been aware of that power in her, so much greater than his own, so different from the soft, tentative touches of women he had known.

Like Marianne – so tender, so hesitant to let him possess her, to find enjoyment in sex, at the beginning. Then that last night, when she had demanded pleasure. And he had given her what she wanted, but it had made him uncomfortable to be her object. That unsettled feeling had turned out to be the first tremors of the earthquake that now shook him to pieces, left him unsalvageable.

The thought of Marianne flooded into his emptiness. He punched the wall – once, twice. Again. He felt the pain, the blood on his knuckles, but the pain was welcome. It reminded him of what he was, of his ability to protect himself, to overcome, as a man should. But the wall did not shrink away from his fists. There was no way out of the darkness.

A bright light switched on overhead.

David looked up, squinting, and made out the plastic casing of a security light. A cobweb was strung between it and the wall. A light film of drizzle hung on the strands of the cobweb. The banality of it was bewildering.

‘I told you not to come back,’ said a woman, near his right ear. He flinched away from her voice, and she said, ‘What have you done? Jesus.’ She knelt in front of him. He managed to stay still as she picked up his hand and examined his knuckles. ‘Can you get up?’ She was surprisingly strong, pulling him up to his feet, and her black jacket, white shirt, neat black hat, suddenly became familiar.

‘Sam.’

Under the security light she was as bright as an angel. ‘I told you he wouldn’t come back here.’