Eye of the Needle(62)
A minute or two later she heard the jeep start up and went to the window to watch David drive off into the rain. The rear wheels of the vehicle slithered about in the mud. He would have to take care.
She turned to Jo. He said, “This is a dog.” He was making a picture on the tablecloth with porridge and milk.
Lucy slapped his hand. “What a horrid mess!” The boy’s face took on a grim, sulky look, and Lucy thought how much he resembled his father. They had the same dark skin and nearly-black hair, and they both had a way of withdrawing when they were cross. But Jo laughed a lot—he had inherited something from Lucy’s side of the family, thank God.
Jo mistook her contemplative stare for anger, and said, “I’m sorry.”
She washed him at the kitchen sink, then cleared away the breakfast things, thinking about the stranger upstairs. Now that the immediate crisis was past, and it seemed the man was not going to die, she was eaten with curiosity about him. Who was he? Where was he from? What had he been doing in the storm? Did he have a family? Why did he have workman’s clothes, a clerk’s hands, and a Home Counties accent? It was rather exciting.
It occurred to her that, if she had lived anywhere else, she would not have accepted his sudden appearance so readily. He might, she supposed, be a deserter, or a criminal, or even an escaped prisoner of war. But one forgot, living on the island, that other human beings could be threatening instead of companionable. It was so nice to see a new face that to harbor suspicions seemed ungrateful. Maybe—unpleasant thought—she more than most people was ready to welcome an attractive man…. She pushed the thought out of her mind.
Silly, silly. He was so tired and ill that he could not possibly threaten anyone. Even on the mainland, who could have refused to take him in, bedraggled and unconscious? When he felt better they could question him, and if his story of how he got here was less than plausible, they could radio the mainland from Tom’s cottage.
When she had washed up she crept upstairs to look at him. He slept facing the door, and when she looked in, his eyes opened instantly. Again there was that initial, split-second flash of fear.
“It’s all right,” Lucy whispered. “Just making sure you’re okay.”
He closed his eyes without speaking.
She went downstairs again. She dressed herself and Jo in oilskins and Wellington boots and they went out. The rain was still coming down in torrents, and the wind was terrific. She glanced up at the roof: they had lost some slates. Leaning into the wind, she headed for the cliff top.
She held Jo’s hand tightly—he might quite easily be blown away. Two minutes later she was wishing she had stayed indoors. Rain came in under her raincoat collar and over the tops of her boots. Jo must be soaked too but now that they were wet they might as well stay wet for a few minutes more. Lucy wanted to go to the beach.
However, when they reached the top of the ramp she realized it was impossible. The narrow wooden walkway was slippery with rain, and in this wind she might lose her balance and fall off, to plunge sixty feet to the beach below. She had to content herself with looking.
It was quite a sight.
Vast waves, each the size of a small house, were rolling in rapidly, close on each other’s heels. Crossing the beach the wave would rise even higher, its crest curling in a question mark, then throw itself against the foot of the cliff in a rage. Spray rose over the cliff top in sheets, causing Lucy to step back hurriedly and Jo to squeal with delight. Lucy could hear her son’s laughter only because he had climbed into her arms, and his mouth was now close to her ear; the noise of the wind and the sea drowned more distant sounds.
There was something terribly thrilling in watching the elements spit and sway and roar in fury, in standing fractionally too close to the cliff edge, feeling threatened and safe at the same time, shivering with cold and perspiring in fear. It was thrilling, and there were few thrills in her life.
She was about to go back, mindful of Jo’s health, when she saw the boat.
It was not a boat any more, of course; that was what was so shocking about it. All that was left were the large timbers of the deck and the keel. They were scattered on the rocks below the cliffs like a dropped handful of matches. It had been a big boat, Lucy realized. One man might have piloted it alone, but not easily. And the damage the sea had wrought on it was awesome. It was hard to detect two bits of wood still joined together.
How, in heaven’s name, had their stranger come out of it alive?
She shuddered when she thought of what those waves and those rocks might have done to a human body. Jo caught her sudden change of mood and said into her ear, “Go home, now.” She turned quickly away from the sea and hurried along the muddy path to the cottage.
Back inside, they took off their wet coats, hats and boots, and hung them in the kitchen to dry. Lucy went upstairs and looked in on the stranger again. This time he did not open his eyes. He seemed to be sleeping very peacefully, yet she had a feeling that he had awakened and recognized her tread on the stairs, and closed his eyes again before she opened the door.
She ran a hot bath. She and the boy were soaked to the skin. She undressed Jo and put him in the tub, then—on impulse—took off her own clothes and got in with him. The heat was blissful. She closed her eyes and relaxed. This was good, too; to be in a house, feeling warm, while the storm beat impotently at the strong stone walls.
Life had turned interesting, all of a sudden. In one night there had been a storm, a shipwreck, and a mystery man; this after three years of…She hoped the stranger would wake up soon so that she could find out about him.