Саймон Бествик - The Devil and the Deep - Horror Stories of the Sea

These images recalled a series of Chagall prints Ann chose for their bedroom. He didn’t know much about art. Their titles contained words like “lovers,” “marriage,” and “kiss.” With clouds of color that spread across the lines of the forms, it was as if the passion those couples felt extended to everything they touched, everything they saw. It was too much, or at least he had thought so at the time. Now he envied their enthusiasm. The figures were so full of emotion they floated—they’d lost all sense of decorum or gravity.

He remembered those kisses—necks impossibly elongated, their swimming bodies in extremis as they wrapped around each other. Ann had loved them, and he had loved them more than he would say. But they promised so much—had anyone ever felt such passion in a normal marriage?

Yes, yes they had. Feelings he didn’t have words for. After Ann passed away he took the prints down and stuck them in the back of a closet so he might forget they were there. When his girls asked what happened to the prints he said he wasn’t sure. He had no idea what his life was now, but it wasn’t about that anymore.

The kiss last night had been nothing like the kisses in those prints. But it still had been surprising, although not exactly pleasant.

When Lee finally left his cabin he encountered the ship’s activities director, her fixed smile more predatory than friendly. From the beginning she’d made him feel bullied. “I’m so glad I was able to run into you. You haven’t been sick, have you?”

“Out too late,” he said, “I suppose having too much fun. You must have hundreds of people, don’t you, to be concerned about?”

“All equally important. Tell me, how can I make sure you have the time of your life?”

The very phrase the time of your life depressed him. “I’m doing fine, easing into things. Relaxing. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”

“Of course not! But I’m sure we can do better. I know four lovely ladies eager for some male company at lunch.”

He began his retreat. “Too much fun to do today, I’m afraid.” He turned his back and practically ran.

“You’ll leave empty-handed if you don’t make it happen !” she shouted after him. He felt dizzy and struggled not to fall as the floor appeared, briefly, to melt.

Every afternoon the decks stank of suntan oil. Every lounge chair was full of barely clothed flesh in various stages of destruction. He thought of Jonestown, the bodies darkening in the intense tropical heat.

These were not ugly people. They were just trying to enjoy their vacations. Lee believed there were no ugly people, but he himself didn’t have the courage to lie about half-naked, not with his aging carcass. He scanned the faces, looking for his mystery woman, even though she would seem out of place in a lounge chair in the sun.

“Aren’t you going to say hello?” He recognized Sylvia’s voice, but he couldn’t find her in the sea of glistening skin, oversized sunglasses, and floppy sunhats. “Over here, in the red.”

He walked over. She wore an old-fashioned-looking red two-piece suit. He thought she looked unusually sober. “You seem relaxed,” he said.

“You probably think I look fat in this.”

“I think… you look fine. Most of us aren’t that slim, not at this age. We hold onto that memory of what we used to be too firmly. If you like what you’re doing, that’s what counts, isn’t it?”

“I guess—I didn’t expect you to be so enlightened. Most men aren’t.”

“I’m not enlightened. If I were, I would be dressed in swim trunks.”

She laughed. “Will I see you at dinner later?”

“I don’t really know. But enjoy the sun.”

That hadn’t been so difficult. Perhaps he knew what to say to people after all. He continued to look at faces, struggling to remember the features of the woman from the night before. It wasn’t a good feeling. No doubt she would be appalled if she knew he was searching. But he was just making himself seen. If she wished to approach him it was up to her.

He strolled through the restaurants and stood at the back of a dance class. He looked for that yellow dress, but wouldn’t she have changed by now? He hadn’t behaved like this since high school.

He wondered what Ann would have thought of his behavior. Embarrassed for him, possibly, or sad. By sunset most of the chairs were empty. He should eat something, but he didn’t think he could. He sat down. He should be writing his daughters, letting them know how he was doing, but what in the world would he say? I’ve met someone , perhaps. Both the truth and a lie.

Both the sea and the sky appeared the rumpled gray of an unmade bed. The horizon line had been almost completely erased. Staring too long into the blurring of borders made him ill.

“You miss her—she is all you can think about.” The woman slipped into the next chair. Instead of looking at him she stared into that disorientating gray. Her dress, too, was gray this evening, or some shade of off-white.

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“You’ve lost your story, then,” she replied. Today he could see that she wasn’t a young woman. The skin of her neck was crepey, and there was loose flesh beneath her eyes. Perhaps she was his age after all.

“I just feel I should be doing something, but I don’t know what to do.” It made him feel unbearably sad to say this.

“You were in a story which worked for you for a very long time. But that story has ended, and yet you find you are still alive, and now you are in a different story you do not yet understand.”

“So what am I supposed to do?”

“Live your life. Enjoy your vacation. Life may look quite different when you return.”

“But I don’t seem to be very good at this.”

“Take a walk with me,” she said, standing up and grabbing his hand. “You can do that much.” It seemed he didn’t have a choice. She guided him down the deck until they reached a small door in the hull that said CREW ONLY. She opened it and dragged him inside.

They were at an intersection of corridors. She took him through another door and down some metal stairs. He felt like a child being hand-led like this. The air was steamy. Her gray dress clung like excess skin.

These interior walls lacked the polish of the public areas. No upholstery or shiny white paint—the metal was dirty yellow with brown rust around the seams and rivets and bolts. There were distant echoes of harsh male argument and laughter, the rattle of machinery, metal banging against metal.

Another trip down another set of stairs—the paint completely worn off the grungy treads. They hadn’t even bothered to mop up the dirt. Where were all those eager little uniformed men with their mops and smiles you saw on the passenger decks? The filth in the corners and along the edges had congealed into a black scum.

A muscular, shirtless man walked past them without a glance. Pressure was rising in Lee’s head, a thrumming against his ear drums. He wondered if they were below water level now.

He wanted to ask her name—it was absurd he didn’t know—but it didn’t seem like the time. He should have insisted she reveal where they were going but he couldn’t make himself speak. Her hand was delicate, yet she gripped his so firmly it hurt. Sweat made her skin appear gelatinous. Sweat was running into his eyes. He struggled with his free hand to wipe his face.

The next level down was packed with equipment. A wall of noise moved through him like a wave. His internal organs shook. Overhead were layer after layer of pipes, cables, gears, gauges, valves. The corridor shrank until it was no more than a catwalk—on either side he could see more machinery and more shirtless men far below, so distant they appeared to be miniatures, or was it possible the cramped working space required dwarves?