John Banville - Nightspawn

Somehow that was not what I had meant to say. Helena made a gesture of distaste, and stepped away from me.

‘Oh no,’ I cried. ‘Listen.’

I caught her by the arm, but released her instantly. She stood with her back to me, her head bent, waiting.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Kyd. That story sounds differently, it should sound … I don’t know. I’m sorry.’

She smiled at me over her shoulder, and without a word went into the house. I moved toward the gate, and met the boy, Yacinth, coming in from the road. He moved slowly, with his hands plunged in the pockets of his shorts. He seemed bored. I watched him, searching for Helena’s face in his, but, strangely, could not find it.

‘Hello,’ I said brightly.

He looked at me from under his lashes, tossing the black curls away from his forehead with an angry turn of his head. He muttered a greeting of sorts, and went quickly past me, through the dim doorway. A short laugh sounded in the house, the wind blew, and then Helena appeared, carrying a bundled towel under her arm.

‘I don’t think your brother likes me,’ I said.

‘Yacinth? He’s a strange child.’

We walked down the hill to the village. Helena bought chocolate and grapes, while I stood in the doorway kicking my heels. Above the heads of the crowd, a familiar thatch of red hair approached. I slipped into the shop and stood behind Helena.

‘Hide me,’ I said.

‘What?’

She looked at me, at the street, at me again, and smiled.

‘Your German friend?’

‘Not so much a friend.’

‘Oh’

Already, it seemed, I had traded an old love for a new.

The road took us away from the village, and along the coast high above the peaceful sea, the rocks, the rubbish dump, the shambles. Lizards lay torpid in the dust, too drugged with heat to stir at our approach. My shirt was damp and dark with sweat, and Helena now and then drove her hands into the heat of her hair. We followed in the silence of our steps the winding road, and at last, the hill crest crossed, we found the little bay and the deserted beach, the taverna at the water’s edge, and the tall parched reeds behind it. A great gust of wind met us, and died away. The day was growing calm. I found Helena smiling at me.

‘Everything,’ she murmured, and shook her head in wonder and amusement.

‘What?’

‘Everything, you said that everything frightens you.’

We took a table in the shade of the olive tree before the taverna. The beach was at our feet. The old woman of the place approached us warily. I asked her for beer, and she smiled, and nodded, and backed away. Helena said,

‘Are you writing a book now?’

‘A wha—? Oh yes, indeed, yes, like a beaver I am.’

She searched in her bag, her small bright tongue touching her lip, and brought out a crumpled packet of fat sweet Turkish cigarettes. I shifted, sitting sideways on the chair, for god, it would not do to have it nudge her knee under the table.

‘We had difficulty in bringing you back last night,’ she said, and picked a piece of tobacco from her lip. ‘From Delos, you know? You were very drunk, and sick. Do you remember?’

‘Not very well.’

‘I am not surprised.’

I turned the matchbox end over end on the table. The old woman of the crazed smile returned and set the beer before us. While I counted my money, she slowly wiped her hands in her apron, watching me. I paid her, and then said sharply,

‘Wait.’

Her smile wavered. I retrieved one of the coins from her palm and replaced it with another.

‘This is for luck, you see.’

She said something, which I did not catch, and went away. I slipped the coin into the pocket of my shirt.

‘For luck,’ I told Helena.

‘Of course.’

We drank our beer, and watched the water, the comings and goings of the little waves, wrestling with the silence. I dared to eat a grape. A boat rounded the headland and turned toward the beach. The soft liquid sound of the oars came clearly to us. Helena put a hand against her cheek and looked down at her glass. Light through the leaves above her had cut a tiny jewel on the rim. She was very still, and suddenly, without provocation, all her hair came loose and fell about her. It was long, and of one colour with the sunlight, it fell over her arm, over the table. I bent and picked up the gold pin which had fallen to the dust. The point pricked my finger and suddenly I paused, wondering how I had come to be there. No force of my own had carried me down the hill, along the road, to this beach with this woman whom I did not know. I looked at her with a new curiosity. She was grinning at me through delicate blue wreaths of smoke. A woman whom I did not know. She dropped her cigarette into the sand, and lowered her eyes.

‘Have you ever been to France?’ she asked idly. ‘We went there last year. It was the end of winter, and very cold, we had not thought of that. On our last day there, the sun came out. We went to Versailles, and it was spring just in one moment, with a bird singing. In the gardens of the palace there were such trees and flowers. Perhaps you need to come from a barren country like this to appreciate such things.’

‘Greece is not barren,’ I said.

She did not look at me. One eyebrow twitched in annoyance, and then she was smiling again.

‘But the flowers, they were magnificent.’

She cupped her hands before her face, delineating a wondrous bloom. I watched her silently, with a fist against my teeth. She went on,

‘And I bought one of those little books, to read about the king. When he was dying, he said how everyone had told him it was difficult to die, but no, he knew it was easy. The women were crying, and he told them that he was nothing, that they should not cry. And then he was afraid that he might cry himself, but he didn’t.

With her fingertip she traced designs on the table, vainly trying to capture the patterns of leafshadow.

‘And so the king died,’ she murmured.

I lifted my glass.

‘Long live the king.’

We drank; or at least, I did. She looked at my ironic smile, and did not seem to like it very much. But she laughed anyway.

The dull sound of an explosion came to us. A little cloud of dust floated half-way up the hillside behind us, another rose, and a moment later came the sound, crump. The taverna keeper, a burly old man in a cummerbund and a sailor’s cap, was drawing his boat up the beach. He jerked his head toward the hill, and called,

‘Some day he will blow us all up.’

He left the boat and came to our table, smoothing his heavy white moustache with the backs of his hands.

‘My son,’ he said, and laughed. ‘A grown man and he stays all day up there, playing with his fireworks.’

‘What is he doing?’ Helena asked.

The old man shrugged histrionically.

‘He says if we blow all the rocks away the olives will grow. Blow all the rocks away, have you ever heard such a thing?’

He shook his head, and tramped away into the taverna. Helena looked at me and smiled. She began to say something, but stopped, and bit her lip. We laughed, and fingered our glasses, and looked out over the bay. A breath of wind crossed the water, wrinkling it like shaken green silk, came on and stirred the leaves above us, stirred the reeds, the wild dry reeds.

‘There’s going to be a storm,’ I said.

She nodded. I went on.

‘I hate storms. Lord, there’s always something, something always happens, just when you think that you’ve found it.’

‘Found what?’

I took one of her cigarettes and lit it, and watched the smoke disperse.

‘The little thing,’ I murmured. ‘The little thing which means so much.’

She looked at me warily, somewhat distrustfully, annoyed, I thought, that I should compel her to question me. One cannot put very much poetry into a question, and the one who has the answer has also any mystery which may be around.