get free of Doone. If she hung out with the other kids and smoked weed and giggled like Gail and Ivy and the others, then everything would be ordinary again. There would be no island woman and no grave overgrown with wild herbs and nothing to be afraid of.
The ball boomed over her head to the opposite side of the net and Lucas swung his crossed wrists to connect sweetly with it. The ball soared again as a star-shaped image of brown limbs and torso and a face blurred with hair printed itself behind May’s eyes. She planted her feet apart and bent from the hips, waiting for the ball as she had seen Ivy do, but she was too late and her eyes were still dazzled as it came out of nowhere and hit her on the shoulder.
‘Hey, Maysy, that’s some cool play. We want you on our team for Pittsharbor Day.’
She knew that Kevin and Joel were smirking behind her back. She twirled round to face them and forced another smile. ‘Sure. You can count on me.’
‘Thanks, man.’
‘May!’ Lucas was calling her. He punched the ball in her direction and as if she were pulled towards him on a thread May’s head lifted in response and her back straightened. She jumped and her arms stretched out to meet the swelling black dot.
The blue air seemed to shimmer around her and gravity lost its hold as her feet left the ground. She knew she couldn’t fail and sure enough her shoulder drove her fist through an immaculate arc and her knuckles connected with a jolt of pain that was also a stab of pleasure. The ball skimmed back over the net and Ivy missed it altogether.
‘Yeah!’ Lucas smiled and swept the hair back from his forehead. Ivy and Gail applauded, even though it was a half-ironic slow handclap.
In the unaccustomed perfection of the instant May was thin and strong, and confident of her powers. She leapt once more in pure exultation and Marty Stiegel caught her in his camera lens. ‘Good one,’ he told her casually and lowered the camera again. He adjusted the sling tied to his chest and cupped his free hand protectively around the baby Justine’s sun-bonneted head before he strolled on again.
‘Five two,’ Lucas called. He jerked a thumbs-up at May and she felt such a pinch of love for him that it crimped her chest and threatened to stop her breath. She bent double, pretending that it was the play that had winded her. After the game the players streamed down to the water’s edge. Lucas and the other boys dived like seals under the glittering swell, while Ivy and Gail and Richard’s daughters shrieked and danced in the shallows. Droplets of water starred their arms and shoulders with diamonds. May was sweaty and still scarlet from her moment of glory, but she was too self-conscious to wear her swimsuit. She hovered in her shorts and T-shirt until Joel sneaked behind her, planted his hands at the small of her back and propelled her into the water. She stumbled forward and lost her balance. A wave broke and she fell, hearing the shouts and laughter.
The water was icy. She gasped and a flood filled her mouth and nose. She came up coughing and blinded, humiliated by water that was not much more than knee-deep.
The next wave washed another body up beside her. Lucas jumped out of the surf and grabbed her wrists, then dipped and rolled his shoulders to hoist her on to his back. Only staggering a little under the burden he stood upright and lunged for the deeper water.
His back was slick and cold. May’s mouth collided with his neck and she tasted salt and – with a shock of amazement – the unique flavour of his skin. He was gasping with laughter and still wading, drunkenly now because she was slipping from his grasp, and before it was too late she pressed a blind and desperate kiss against his shoulder.
Lucas tottered and they fell together. Even under the weight of water May thought she could hear his laughter, but when she surfaced again he was watching out for her. ‘Swim,’ he ordered, and obediently she rolled on her back and kicked towards the island. Immediately the world receded and there was nothing but the sun on her closed eyelids, and the fingers of the tide combing her hair, and the turbulence of Lucas swimming alongside her. Happiness made her buoyant. She forgot that she had been afraid of the rolling currents and the island with its dark spine of trees, even the omnipresent dark shadow of Doone.
They swam for fifty yards, then Lucas stopped and trod water. ‘You okay?’
She nodded, speechless, wishing she could offer him something other than her awkwardness in return for the gift of his attention. In the end she just smiled at him. Lucas looked at her for perhaps half a second longer than he had ever done before.
Ivy was waiting on the beach. The double band of her silvery bikini gleamed as she half turned, hands resting on her hips and all her weight balanced on one leg.
‘Time to head back,’ Lucas said. He ducked under the water and when he surfaced he struck out with a powerful crawl. May paddled after him towards the beach. When she waded out he was already standing with Ivy, their heads close together as she rubbed his hair with her towel. ‘Don’t get cold, May,’ Lucas called. ‘Go put some dry clothes on.’
May’s ears filled up with extraneous sound again. She heard the surf and the complaints of gulls, as well as Ivy’s laughter. But she did exactly as Lucas told her. She picked up a dark-blue towel and swathed herself in it, before plodding up the shingle towards the beach steps and the Captain’s House.
The light in the room had dimmed as the sun travelled westwards. It was the colour of dust now and the shadows in the corners were touched with violet. Leonie and John had talked for a long time, exchanging their histories in a conversation that seemed to her to have been more intimate than sex. They touched each other’s hands and explored the contours of one another’s faces, but it wasn’t until the day receded and left them in the dusk that they stopped talking.
The whiskey bottle was half empty, but Leonie had never felt more clear-headed. ‘It’s getting dark,’ she whispered.
‘Not quite yet.’
The cushions of the chesterfield smelled of mildew and smoke. The timbers of the house seemed to shiver as Leonie and John wrapped themselves together. There was a long, blind interval while they kissed again.
Then Leonie opened her eyes.
There was a face at the window, muffled to the throat in a dark wrap, looking in at them. The eyes were staring with horror in the white mask and the wet hair lay in ropes plastered to the skull.
May had no idea how long she stood frozen to the porch boards. In truth it was probably no more than two or three seconds. But she knew that the tableau of her father and Leonie Beam with their arms and legs entwined and their mouths greedily fastened together was already indelible. She would never be able to make it go away.
It bred another image out of itself.
Once again the other picture came swimming up out of a dark place. The pairs of legs and arms seemed to writhe and multiply, clothed and naked, and the intent unseeing faces fed on one another until they blurred and became one, and turned into everyone she knew and everything she feared.
May drew back her fist, just as she had prepared herself to punch the volleyball, with the same ecstasy of determination. But now she drove her arm straight through the window glass. There was a smash and a scream – she never knew whether it was hers or not – and a white-hot wire of pain ran up her arm and straight down to her heart.
The floor, the rugs and the mildewed cushions were splashed with blood. Leonie knelt in front of her with an armful of towels and over her shoulder May glimpsed the shocked crescent of her father’s face.
‘It’s
