Medusa's Children

CHAPTER SIX

The damage to Tarrant’s boat was not as bad as he had feared.

None of the bullets had passed through ribs or intercostals, and—although the exit holes were large and ragged—they were close enough together to be cut out on one rectangular section of skin. Tarrant reckoned he would be able to shape, key in and weld a new piece of plastic in a couple of hours, provided there were no unforeseen snags. He enlisted the help of two beachboys to unship the batteries, drag the boat high on to the sand and put it on its side.

One of the first things he noticed was that the paint had been lifted here and there in a series of small circular patches—evidence of the sucking power of the big squid which had tried to overturn him. He measured the diameter of the patches and their distance apart, and noted the figures down to give the experts something to work on later, on the assumption that he would be able to win their serious attention.

It was a warm, pleasant morning with a feathering of lacy cirrus across the blue dome of the sky to remind Tarrant, who still had a pilot’s three-dimensional view of the weather, that eight or ten kilometres above him ice crystals were blowing in the high winds. Appreciative of the comforts of life at sea level, he took off his shirt and got down to working on the skin of his boat with a keyhole saw. He had completed two sides of the rectangular cut when he saw the portly, piratical figure of Will Somerville approaching from the direction of the jetty.

“Morning, young Hal.” Somerville sat down on the palm tree stump and used his red bandana to wipe perspiration from his forehead and neck. “Hot, isn’t it?”

“It’s not too bad.”

“It’s all right for you skinny people.” Somerville ran an aggrieved eye over Tarrant’s frame. “Tell me, how do you manage to stay so skinny?”

“Lean is a better word,” Tarrant told him. “Lean, or hard, or fit.”

“Skinny—how do you do it?”

“I work a lot and I don’t eat much.” Tarrant put his saw down and reached for a bottle of drinking water.

Somerville snorted loudly. “Don’t give me that old story. I’ve seen the way you skinny guys eat and…. Say, what happened to your boat?” He stood up and came closer to inspect the damage. “It looks like somebody went to work on it with a pickaxe.”

Tarrant slaked his thirst before replying. “I doubt if you’d believe me.”

“Try me.” Somerville’s intelligent brown eyes registered concern. “Hal, is this more of the sabotage you were talking about? Because if it is….”

“No—I did this myself.” Tarrant went on to describe the events at the northern rim of the farm on the previous night, presenting his story in the least sensational manner possible. He felt an indefinable relief when he saw that Somerville was listening with no sign of incredulity, even though—in the bright, commonplace surroundings of the waterfront—the words sounded strange to his own ears.

“Christ, Hal! This is serious.” Somerville ran his fingers over one of the circular paintless areas on the hull. “It sounds as though you were lucky to get out of it alive.”

“I was.”

“Look, can I have that section of skin when you’ve finished cutting it out? There might be blood or some kind of residue on the inside and I’d like to get it under my microscope.”

“Consider it yours.” Tarrant was gratified by the other man’s reaction. “I’d be interested to hear what you find.”

“I’ll bet you would. I’ve been going around telling everybody the sea is changing, but I didn’t expect anything like this.”

“Not your nitrates again!” Tarrant shook his head in amused disbelief. “Don’t tell me an extra dose of salt turns an ordinary squid into a supersquid.”

“No—but I’m sure there’s a connection,” Somerville said. He looked as though he was about to add something, but lapsed into a broody silence instead. A gull flew low overhead, disturbing the air with its wingbeats, and swung out to sea across the park-like expanses of the farm. Tarrant picked up his saw and began cutting again, using the narrowest part of the blade to effect a change in direction. He concentrated on the job for a minute, then his curiosity about what was going on in Somerville’s mind became too great.

“Have you any theories about what’s happening around here?” he prompted.

Somerville brightened perceptibly. “There is a theory which might explain most of the facts, but it’s so far out and fantastic that I wouldn’t bet my beer money on it.”

“I promise not to laugh.”

“Well….” Somerville paused for a moment, looking embarrassed. “Have you ever heard of the Bergmann Hypothesis?”

“Bergmann?” There was a stirring in the depths of Tarrant’s mind. “Yes, but can you refresh my memory?”

“Right. You know, of course, that the temperature of the Earth as a whole doesn’t remain constant.” Somerville had launched into his exposition with a lack of hesitation which suggested he had been rehearsing his lines for a long time. “Every now and then we get an ice age, and sometimes the pendulum swings the other way and we get a freakish warm period. The Earth is coming out of a hot spot right now. It began over three hundred years ago—around the middle of the 20th century, in fact—and ever since then the polar caps have been….” Somerville stopped speaking at the sound of footsteps nearby.

Tarrant looked up and saw Kenneth Kircher approaching. His face was more solemn than usual, and Tarrant’s heart sank as he guessed there was going to be trouble. After a brief exchange of greetings all round, Kircher turned his back on Somerville and stood impassively gazing out to sea, hands on hips. Somerville looked at Tarrant, wide-eyed, his jaw sagging theatrically, then made an obscene gesture in the direction of Kircher’s backside.

Tarrant cleared his throat. “Did you want to talk to me, Mr Kircher?”

“Yes, Hal.” Kircher did not turn around. “As a matter of fact, I did.”

“What about?”

“It’s quite personal. Hal.”

“I have to go now,” Somerville said hastily, giving Tarrant a sympathetic wink. “Don’t forget to drop that section of skin off at my boat.” He strode away along the beach, the ends of his crimson bandana flapping jauntily behind his neck. Tarrant indulged in a futile regret that Will Somerville, a man he could talk to, was not Beth’s father.

He resisted the urge to clear his throat again. “I hope there’s nothing wrong, Mr Kircher.”

“What makes you think there’s something wrong?” Kircher turned to face him. “Conscience, is it?”

“No.” Tarrant got to his feet, still holding the pointed saw. “My conscience is clear.”

Kircher sniffed. “Are you sure you know the meaning of the word?”

“Which word?” Tarrant was gripped by a heady impatience. “I think it would be better if you just told me what’s on your mind.”

“Very well, Hal,” Kircher said. “What’s on my mind is your behaviour of last night.”

“I’ve already apologised for that.”

“I’m talking about your behaviour towards my wife.”

“Your wife?” Tarrant gave an incredulous laugh. “I’ve never shown Mrs Kircher anything but the utmost respect.”

“Is it respect to keep staring at a woman, and leering at her, and deliberately showing signs of … animal arousal?”

“Is that what she told you I did?”

“How else could I have found out? You made sure you only got up to your antics when my back was turned. Otherwise I’d have….”

“Otherwise you’d have what?” Tarrant came to an important decision about his future with or without Beth, and an irksome load was lifted from his soul. The first petty privilege associated with his new freedom was that when talking to Kircher he no longer could be blackmailed into using the formal mode of address, and he decided to take advantage of it right away. “What would you have done to me, Kenneth?”

Kircher looked slightly taken aback. “You still haven’t explained yourself.”

“I don’t need explaining, because I’m normal.” Tarrant looked into the older man’s round, red-brown face, which was also illuminated from below by the glow from his orange shirt. He decided that Kircher was now as unimportant to him as the brightly coloured balloon he resembled, but his anger was far from being appeased.

“Your wife needs explaining,” he continued, “because she’s sick. And you need explaining, because you probably made her that way.”

“Cissy was right about you,” Kircher whispered. “You’re a degenerate.”

Tarrant put on a fixed, angelic smile and moved closer to Kircher, running his fingers along the blade of the saw. Kircher backed off, then turned and hurried away towards the jetty and the line of farm boats. Tarrant returned to his work immediately, determined to remain cool and outwardly unmoved.

He finished excising the rectangle of skin and used it as a template for cutting a replacement from a larger sheet of plastic. It took him another forty minutes to do the precise shaping, coat the exposed ribs with adhesive and spring the new section into place. The most difficult part of the job completed, he connected a welding pistol to his batteries and began fusing the edges of the patch into those of the surrounding skin. As the work progressed Tarrant found his attention wandering. He had decided to remain aloof from Beth’s parents, giving them no indication that he had been hurt by what they had said, and to visit her at the Export Bureau where she worked.

His hastily formed plan had been to present Beth with a straightforward choice—marry him right away regardless of her parents’ views, or agree that they were to forget each other—but as the minutes went by his anger at Cissy Kircher began to dominate his thinking. It was his practice to take people as he found them, and not to fret too much when they fell short of the ideal, but there had to be a limit to tolerance at one stage or another. He reached the conclusion that Cissy had gone beyond that limit, so far beyond it that there would have to be a confrontation.

When he had finished welding Tarrant righted the shallow-draught boat, replaced the batteries and deployed the solar panels. Two hours remained until high tide. He left the craft where it was, crossed the shimmering white concrete of Front Street and walked up the hill in the direction of the Kircher residence. Kenneth Kircher was on his boat and Beth would be at work, which meant he would be able to talk to Cissy alone. As the house came into view behind its ramparts of flowering shrubs he felt a pang of anticipation coupled with a kind of nerviness which sprang from a private suspicion that, in a way, Cissy had been right about him. He hesitated at the front door for a moment, then knocked loudly. A few seconds later it was opened by Beth.

“Hal!” Her pink-flushed face showed surprise and concern. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to….” Tarrant paused, deciding against saying he had not anticipated seeing her. “What are you doing here?”

“Having a day off work. To help Mum get ready for her anniversary party.”

“I see.” Tarrant tried not to look at Beth’s bosom, well-defined within a blouse of glistening nylon. “I’d like to speak to your mother.”

“She isn’t here.”

“Oh.” Tarrant rearranged his plans. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

Beth gave him a roguish smile. “Do you promise not to try anything?”

“No.”

“In that case—come in.”

Tarrant closed the front door behind him and his heart began to pound in a slow, powerful rhythm as he saw that Beth was not retreating to one of the inner rooms. They were alone together—for the first time in their lives—in the shady privacy of the hall. He had half-expected that Cissy Kircher would by this time have succeeded in poisoning her daughter’s mind against him, instead of which Beth gave the impression of being more approachable and interested than ever before. The hammering in his chest grew fiercer as it crossed his mind that hearing he was an unprincipled lecher might have served to kindle some previously dormant fire within Beth. He opened his arms to her, and she smiled her very white smile and moved closer to him. His head swimming with gratification, Tarrant savoured the moist pressure of her lips against his own.

“I love you, Beth,” he whispered.

“I … I love you, Hal.” She spoke without breaking the kiss.

Tarrant strove to contain himself, to consolidate the ground he had gained before venturing any further. He was swamped by the warmth of her breasts against his chest, the movement of her thighs on his, and in between these zones of sensation a coy nuzzling which was shooting fountains of pleasure into him. He slid his hands down the firm, fluted flesh of her back, drew her more tightly against him and made one gentle, yearning thrust against her belly. Beth seemed to respond for an instant, then her body went rigid.

“What are you doing, Hal?” she said in a small, cold voice. “What do you think I am?”

“I think you’re a woman,” he replied automatically, his mind still submerged.

“What sort of woman?”

“How many sorts are there?” Tarrant tried to slide his hands up to her breasts, but suddenly Beth and he were apart and she was staring at him in anger.

“In spite of what you think, there are different kinds of girls,” she said. “And I’m not the sort you’re obviously used to.”

Tarrant was jolted back into reality. “I’m not used to any sort of girl, for God’s sake! I’ve been hanging around here for six months and this is the first time I’ve even got touching you.”

“Is that the only thing you wanted?”

“No! It’s not the only thing, but it’s important.” Tarrant exhaled loudly in frustration. “I want to go to bed with you, Beth. It’s perfectly natural, you know—even your mother and father must have done it at least once.”

“Don’t talk about them like that.”

“Sorry! Sorry! I shouldn’t have implied that they’re normal.”

“You’d better go, Hal.” Beth was growing pale.

“Will you marry me?”

“I said you’d better go.”

“And I asked you to marry me,” Tarrant shouted. “I’m not going until you say yes or no.”

“I have no intention of marrying you or anybody like you,” Beth said in her mother’s voice.

Tarrant swore at her in desperation, incoherently, stringing together every shock word he knew, causing her to shrink back like a woman being beaten. When he had finished, knowing he had closed one door for ever, he turned and strode out of the house, jarring his heels on the ground with every step. He paused at the end of the short avenue, trying to think of some physical outlet for the fury which was surging through him. In the end he realised there was only one activity which was compatible with his mood, and he went further up the hill to fetch his rifle.

As he walked, he prayed that the big squid would come to the surface in daylight.