John Banville - Nightspawn

Like salt-sea-washed grapes on the tongue, her first kisses, fierce through their unwillingness, stayed with me for days, a memory, a tiny desolation, tangible as the pain of a hot tear in a wound. I could not rid myself of her taste, her smell, the sound of her voice. She clung to me, a phantom of the earth and air. I crawled about the village, the island, yearning for a sight of her, and I think that had I seen her, in a distance of miles even, I would have fainted. And why, why such frenzy? She was, after all, a banal, tiresome little woman. The reasons were too devious for me to recognize then, and too devious for me to admit them yet. I must creep toward them by circuitous routes. Watch me closely.

So much happened before I was to see her again.

I climbed the steps and went down the dim corridor. The door stood open an inch. I knocked. There was no reply. Small, strange sounds came from the room. I put my toe to the door and pushed it open. Chairs were overturned, and the table on three legs leaned drunkenly against the wall. The fourth leg had been ripped off and used to smash small breakables. A tape recorder lay with its guts uncoiled all over the floor. The sheets were torn from the bed, and the mattress slashed. Papers were scattered everywhere, like a flock of slaughtered white birds. Erik stood in the midst of the carnage, gazing thoughtfully around him, while he in turn was scrutinized by the doubtful eyes of the Virgin on the wall, one of the few survivors, which was only fitting. I stepped into the room and closed the door. He glanced at me vaguely. I opened my mouth to ask a question, but thought better of it.

He set the chairs upright, and stuffed his clothes back into the disembowelled wardrobe. From its top shelf he took down a battered briefcase, and, sitting with it in the middle of the floor, he began to sort his papers into it. Silence lay around him, and, beyond the window, the day was filled with little sighs and shouts. He worked steadily, smoothing out the sheets and lining up the edges, pinning them together, weeping silently, unconsciously, lugubrious great tears falling in torrents around him. When the last papers were retrieved, and the last cutting gathered, he slipped his passport into a side pocket of the case. There was also a cheque book from a Swiss bank, an official form of some kind, and a packet of musty fruit sweets. Satisfied, he took the lot under his arm and went past me into the corridor. I followed him. He carefully closed and locked the door, and then, as an afterthought, drew back his foot and kicked a gaping hole in the flimsy panels. He limped out into the street, wiping his eyes.

‘Erik.’

He would not listen. We raced through the streets, Erik bounding along on his long legs with me trotting in his wake. People turned to stare at us. A yacht lay at anchor by the end of the pier. We made toward it. For one fearful moment, I thought that it was Julian’s, but it was smaller and grubbier than that magnificent craft. In the stern, a sailor with a peaked cap was sprawled on the deck, a bottle of beer in his paw. Erik halted at the top of the landing stage, and the sailor gave us both a look. My mouth was open. The sailor was quite calm.

‘Erik,’ I whispered frantically. ‘That’s the one, that …’

He was not listening to me. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and called,

‘Where is he?’

The sailor squinted at him, at the teeth and the grey eyes burning behind the spectacles. He transferred a cigarette stub from behind his ear to his mean mouth, and with leisurely contempt he asked,

‘Who?’

Erik sighed. The sailor’s gaze wavered, and he shouted,

‘Boss.’

The cabin door opened, and an elderly man in a loose white shirt and fisherman’s blue trousers came out on deck.

‘Erik,’ he cried, opening his arms. ‘My dear Erik.’

Thin grey hair, dark in streaks from too much oil, plastered down on a rapidly balding skull, a fine face with features sharp as a hawk’s, and a tall, once well-made frame now going to seed, with an incongruous paunch bulging from the middle of it.

‘Aristotle,’ said Erik, and smiled bleakly.

He went down the steps to the deck, and Aristotle took his hands and pressed them warmly.

‘It’s good to see you, Erik, truly it is.’

In the stern, the sailor began to pick his teeth with a broken matchstick. I could feel his eyes on me, lazily curious. He seemed to take no interest in the sentimental reunion. Aristotle turned to him.

‘Fang, we won’t be disturbed.’

Fang, that fearful sailor, spat out a sliver of matchwood. His wedge-shaped face formed the faintest grin.

‘Aye aye,’ he said softly.

Erik caught sight of me where I hovered on the steps.

‘Aristotle, this is my friend Mr White,’ he said. ‘Colonel Aristotle Sesosteris, of the Royal Greek Army.’

The Colonel gave Erik a look, of reproach, it seemed, and turned to me with his cold smile.

‘I am always delighted, Mr …’

‘White.’

‘… Mr White, to meet any friend of Erik’s. Erik and I have known each other for a long time. But come now and have a drink, both of you.’

We went down into the cabin, a rich little room washed by the soft sea light. Erik sat on a low couch, and I shuffled my feet near the hatchway, while Aristotle unfolded a card table and placed upon it three glasses and a bottle. A miniature refrigerator on the wall supplied him with a tray of crackling ice. He asked over his shoulder,

‘How did you know I was here?’

Erik was looking dreamily at his hands.

‘Oh, there were signs,’ he murmured.

‘I meant to come a week ago, but that storm took most of my rigging, and I had to return to Piraeus for repairs. It has been quite a journey.’

‘And all to find me.’

Aristotle lowered his eyelids modestly and smiled. His hands were shaking. He gave a glass to both of us. Neither of us drank. I thought that very soon now I would scream. Erik seemed to notice nothing. Aristotle moved to sit on the couch beside his friend, but abruptly changed his mind, and went back to lean against the table. I saw his hand, behind him, flutter in panic. His fingers found the reassuring edge of the wood, and he relaxed a little, and tried to smile. I cleared my throat, a compromise for that scream, and he glanced at me quickly. Erik cradled the glass in his large hands and looked through a porthole at the village and the burnt hills behind it. Aristotle watched him avidly, devouring each tiny movement, and asked,

‘Are you enjoying your holiday?’

His voice was too loud. Fingers flew to his lips. Erik started, as though he had forgotten that he was not alone.

‘What?’

‘Your, your holiday, are you enjoying it?’

‘Holi— yes yes, of course.’

Aristotle’s eyes swivelled round and fixed appealingly on me.

‘And you, Mr Black?’

‘White.’

‘Eh?’

‘My name is White.’

‘I know that. Are you on holiday here?’

‘Yes, I’m on holiday too.’

‘Ah. English, are you?’

‘Yes, no, Irish.’

‘Irish? Ah.’

Some gay exchanges there. Erik broke harshly in upon our little duet.

‘There are some very curious people here, Colonel.’

Aristotle’s eyes dragged themselves away from mine, slithered across the floor, clambered up the couch and came finally to rest on Erik’s breastbone. Erik laid his head back on the cushion, and went on,

‘Yes, very curious, very … inquisitive, I should say. They come to your room and smash your possessions. They are … uncouth.’

He smiled, delighted with the word, and whispered it once again under his breath. Aristotle turned to the table and refilled his glass, drank it off, and filled it yet again. A wisp of sour breath laced with whiskey wafted past me. He asked,