“Chas doesn’t have my number.”
“Then you could just give it to me yourself.”
“I-I don’t know it off by heart.”
It was a pathetic excuse. One day she’d learn to say: “No. I don’t want you to call me.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” said Harry, pulling himself back onto the sofa so that he no longer seemed to be genuflecting before her, “what a silly girl you are.”
Something like a riposte welled up inside her, but she could not say it aloud.
“I’m sorry. I have to go. Excuse me,” said Nina.
There was no point in trying to enjoy the party now. She went to the kitchen. Emmanuel was there, washing wine glasses. “Is it alright if I go out the back way?” she asked.
He followed her outside to make sure the back gate was unlocked.
“You can’t go without saying goodbye!”
It was Chas. Nina waited while he caught up with her.
“Mother sent me looking for you,” he said. “She wanted to know where that ‘nice-looking, well-brought-up young woman who was here earlier’ was. Didn’t you have a good time? I hope Harry didn’t start pawing you. He’s a bit of an old roué.”
“I couldn’t quite work him out,” she fudged. “But I think I said something wrong and now I feel bad because he’s your boss.”
Chas laughed. “Nothing you said could possibly make things worse than they are between me and Harry Purchase. He keeps calling me in for performance assessments and rating me two out of ten for punctuality and all that kind of nonsense. But I’m not going to be his doily carrier.”
“You invited him to your party,” she observed.
“This party isn’t really my ‘A-list’,” said Chas.
“I suppose that explains why I got an invitation.”
Chas laughed again. “Tell me what you really think of Harry.”
“What I really think?” Nina looked into Chas’s merry eyes and took a deep breath. “I hope Harry dies soon. I have a list of people who have to die so that I can return to a state of zero embarrassment.”
It was wonderful to laugh in the dark about a common enemy, but even more wonderful to be discovered by Chas, to be seen by him. They were at the gate of Cockle Place and she thought they might exchange some polite words of farewell, but instead Chas swooped down and kissed her. There was no build-up beforehand, and no lingering afterwards – Chas was already on his way back to his party. When he was quite sure that Nina was watching his retreating figure, he gave a slight shimmy to his hips, as if he were dancing to some irresistible tune.
Chas was about to re-enter his back gate when his eye was caught by a flickering light. Someone with a torch was making their way down the sandy path that led past the long hedge of Midden House to the tidal pool. He followed, intrigued.
“Who goes there?”
The figure turned around.
“It’s me, William.” He was carrying an old paraffin lamp.
“Hello, William! Come inside, join the party.” Chas gestured towards the side gate. “I would have invited you, but we all know what a hermit you are.”
“No thanks,” said William. “I was just checking if Nina was here. I didn’t think she would feel safe walking up this path alone in the dark. I reckon I’ll wait next to the pool and when I spot her about to leave I’ll walk beside her with my lantern.”
“Lucky I found you then, William,” said Chas, “because it would’ve been a fruitless vigil. Nina’s already gone home through the back gate. It’s about five metres from where she lives, so she really wasn’t in any danger.”
William took in the news with his head bowed. “Well, you should join your guests,” he said and turned to walk back up the hill. It was rare for him to converse so much. Whole days went by when he spoke fewer than ten words, and often those ten were received by Dib or the worms.
“No, stay,” said Chas. “I need a few moments before I go back in. I like the idea of being a fugitive from my own party, having adventures outside and then returning to yet another hero’s welcome. In fact, I’m addicted to the first moment of everything. The moment of entrance, especially. The frisson that runs around the room when one enters, everyone wanting to greet one at once, everyone wanting a part of one.”
“I don’t have that problem,” said William.
They had reached the public access to the tidal pool. The private staircase leading down to the water from Midden House was empty now: Chas’s guests had retreated to the stoep. The two men sat on the steps, looking out at the blues and blacks of the night-time sea. There was something mesmerising about the crash of wave upon wave on the back wall.
“So, what’re you busy on now, William?” asked Chas.
“I’m making an anemometer.” Seeing Chas’s incomprehension he added: “A little device that measures wind speed.”
“Sounds difficult. But then you like that kind of thing.”
“No, it’s easy. I just need some plastic cups.”
They sat in silence for a while, watching the water in the dark.
“It’s all about the wind,” said William, “the wind is almost everything. That’s why the waves here on the Atlantic side are so much bigger; it’s wind speed, but also the distance the wind travels across the water before coming up against an impediment.”
“Like the coast.”
“Yeah,” said William. “They call it ‘fetch’. The distance a wind has travelled.”
Now that they were watching the sea with this information in mind, the waves seemed well-travelled. Desolate expanses of landless ocean came with them. Each wave, it seemed, aimed to clear the rocks and run up along the lawn of Midden House, but each was thwarted by the wall.
“Makes me think of death,” said Chas. “Life and death, I suppose. There’s a distance we travel before we meet our final impediment.”
William didn’t seem to find it necessary to reply, so Chas continued: “Have you ever thought what you’ll say if it turns out you’re wrong? I mean, what if we die and there is something there, after all? Some angels. We’ll have to say something. What’ll you say, William?”
William gave this problem some thought before he answered with another question: “What’ll I call them, these angels of yours?”
“I think you should address them as ‘gentlemen’, ” said Chas.
“Right, then I’ll say: ‘Gentlemen, I was wrong!’ ”
Chas threw back his head and laughed. His laugh was charismatic, as though he were handing out free tickets to a popular concert. But his mood soon turned reflective again. “Sometimes I find myself wanting to pray. In the city, at night, when I’ve been out somewhere … Churches used to be open at all hours. You could just go inside and pray. But they’ve all got security gates now. The sacristans lock them up.”
“Maybe they’re scared that people will break in and start turning water into wine,” said William.
Chas laughed again. Then he asked: “Do you have any dope? I feel this conversation will only reach its true potential if I’m stoned.”
“I’m growing my own now,” said William. “Come see.”
They stood up, shook the sand hoppers from their sleeves and found the sandy path once more. On the one side was the hedge of Midden House and on the other