Midnight is a Lonely Place

VII

It was bitterly cold and barely light. Well wrapped up in a Shetland sweater and thick jacket with two pairs of socks inside her boots and a pair of her younger brother’s gloves, Alison Lindsey stood staring at the cottage from the shelter of the trees. It was in darkness. Downstairs the curtains were drawn, but upstairs both the front windows which looked down across the garden appeared to be uncurtained. She frowned, then plucking up her courage she sprinted across the grass. Heading straight for the log shed she ducked inside and groped around in the darkness. After a second she gave an exclamation of annoyance. Her tools had been moved. She kicked crossly at the firewood and leaped back with a mixture of fright and malicious satisfaction as one of the piles began to slip. Dodging the cascading logs she watched until they had stopped moving, waiting for the noise to die away. The dust settled, but there was no sound from the cottage. ‘Lady Muck’s asleep,’ she whispered to herself and she gave a superior smile. She turned to the doorway again and then she saw her spade. It had been propped up in the corner.

Picking it up she peered out into the silent dawn. It was well before sunrise. The morning was damp and ice cold and there were still long dark shadows across the sea, stretching out into the black mist.

Running lightly she headed across the shingle and leaped down into the hollow on the seaward side of the dune. Her dune.

The tide in the night, she saw with satisfaction, had not been very high. The sea wrack on the shore, still wet with spume, was several feet short of her excavation and had come nowhere near the place where she was digging. Her tongue protruding slightly from between her teeth she set to, cutting the soft sand into sections and scooping it away from the side of the dune. From somewhere in the darkness along the shore she heard the scream of a gull.

Her hands were frozen after only a few moments in spite of the thick gloves and already her headache had come back. With an irritable sigh, she paused to rest, leaning on her spade as she blew on her wool-covered knuckles. The sand was crumbling where she had attacked it and as she watched, another section fell away by itself. With it it brought something large and curved and shiny. Throwing down the spade she bent over it and gently worked the object free of the sand. It was another section of pottery. Much larger this time. Large enough to hold the curve of the bowl or vase of which it had once formed a part. Through her gloves, as she dusted away the damp sand fragments, she could feel the engraved decoration. She stared at it for a long time, then carefully she put it to one side and attacked the sand with renewed vigour. Minutes later something else began to appear. It was thin and bent and a corroded green colour, like a rusty bit of old metal. Forgetting the pain in her temples she pulled at it in excitement. Thick as a man’s thumb it was several inches long, with a rough knob at one end. Turning it over in her hands she stared at it for a long time, then, scrambling out of the hollow of her sheltered digging place she ran over the shingle towards the sea. The shingle was wet and smelled of salt and weed, the night’s harvest of shells and dead crabs lying amongst the stones. Nearby she could see the gulls picking amongst them. Crouching down, her feet almost in the water, she swished the object back and forth in the edge of the tide and then she stared at it again. It was no cleaner. The greenness was a part of it. She took off her glove and ran a cautious finger over it, feeling a certain symmetrical roughness on the cold metal as though at some point in the distant past it had been carved, though now the incrustations of time and sea and sand had covered it forever.

Excited, she turned back towards the dune and stopped in her tracks. A freak gust of wind had risen. It had whipped the sand up and spun it into a vortex which danced for a moment across the beach and then dropped back to nothing. Behind her the first rim of the sun had appeared above the horizon. For a moment she hesitated, frowning. She was frightened, with the strange feeling that there was someone nearby, watching her. Shrugging, she huddled into her jacket, wedging her find into the pocket as she stared round. If there was someone there it would be a friend. Joe Farnborough from the farm, or Bill Norcross if he had decided to go for an early walk, or even Lady Muck herself or someone out walking their dog along the tide line.

Her spade was still lying where it had fallen in the sand and she took an uncertain step towards it. The skin was prickling on the back of her neck. It was a strange feeling, one she couldn’t remember experiencing before, but instinctively she knew what it was. She was being watched! The words of a poem flitted suddenly through her head. Her mother had read it to her once when she was very small. The blood of the small, impressionable Alison had curdled as she listened wide-eyed, and the words had stuck. It was the only poem she had ever learned.

When sunset lights are burning low,

While tents are pitched and camp-fires glow,

Steals o’er us, ere the stars appear,

The furtive sense of Jungle Fear…

Primitive fear. Fear of danger which you cannot see.

She licked her lips nervously. ‘Silly cow,’ she said out loud. It was herself she meant. ‘Stupid nerd. Move. Now. What’s the matter with you?’

The sun had risen further. A red stain began to spread into the sea and imperceptibly it grew lighter. She clenched her fists and took a step towards the spade. Her mouth had gone dry and she was shaking. With cold. Of course it was with cold. Gritting her teeth she jumped back into the hollow and grabbed the spade, holding it in front of her with two hands. The wind had begun to blow again and it lifted the skirt of her jacket, billowing it around her, whipping her hair into her eyes. The dust was spinning again, rising near her feet. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her wrist. The sand was lifting, condensing. Almost it was the shape of a human figure.

Slowly she backed away from the dune and, scrambling out of the hollow, she began to move towards the cottage. Seconds later she broke into a run. Hurtling across the lawn she dived down the side of the building, threw the spade into the shed and pelted down the track towards the trees.

In the dune the piece of red-glazed pottery lay forgotten, covered already by a new scattering of sand.