Book of Shadows (7 page)

Food was purchased from a village store. There were veal and ham pies, Cumberland sausage, jam, fresh butter, bread, scones; home-made spice cakes, roast chickens, fruits and vegetables newly torn from the earth, steak-and-kidney pies, cheese, smoked fish, coffee, tea, brandy. Whenever they docked and slept ashore in a hotel or tiny inn, the food was just as wholesome and plentiful. Jack Lyle knew the people in each hamlet and town. He knew the land and the water and if his manner was brusque, his tales were never dull.

Marisa heard the people along the canal address Lyle as “Number one.”

“Means I’m an independent skipper,” he said. “I captain me own craft. Ain’t but a few of us left. Born on a boat, I was. Me father and his father before ’im was born and raised on canal boats like
The Drake.
Sixty-five years afloat fer me and I wouldn’t live on land if the queen made me tea every day and tickled me feet into the bargain.”

He bent down and scooped up a handful of canal water and said to Marisa, “When I was a lad horses used to draw the boats. Took longer to get where you was goin’, but I prefer it. You might say this ’ere canal used to be a bleedin’ ’ighway. Boats carried coal to factories, carried iron, glass, cloth. Then came progress.”

Lyle stood up and spat on the ground. “Progress. Toilet paper is the equal of bloody progress. But I prefer toilet paper. It’s easier on me arse.”

Marisa laughed. Nat, returning to the boat with a spinning wheel in his arms, asked what was funny.

Larry was the only one to dive into the canal. It was a warm day and on a dare from Robert, Larry stripped naked, did a brief bump and grind to a Barry Manilow cassette blaring from a tape recorder he carried with him everywhere, then climbed onto the rail and with Robert and Nat applauding, clumsily dove into the water.

Jack Lyle ran to the rail. “You bleedin’ twit, get yer arse outta there!”

“It’s—it’s cold!”

“I know it’s fuckin’ cold, you stupid sod! Get outta there before somethin’ bites you!”

“Bite? Hey, what’s—what’s gonna bite me? Mr. Lyle? Mr. Lyle? What’s gonna bite me?”

Muttering under his breath Lyle turned from the rail in disgust. “Bloody poof. People throw old mattresses, broken glass, tires, prams, every bleedin’ bit of junk you can think of into that water and he goes and jumps overboard. Bloody poof.”

Marisa cupped her hands and yelled down at Larry. “It’s not safe, Larry. You’d better come out. Mr. Lyle says there’s a lot of junk down there.”

“And ’e’s part of it,” yelled Lyle. “I’m goin’ below. When Snow White comes aboard, tell ’im I said to take a fuckin’ shower.”

They sailed north, past Aynyo, and docked at Banbury, where they walked around the town eating the famed Banbury cakes made of flaky pastry stuffed with spiced dried fruit. They saw the Banbury Cross, which only dated from 1859. Jack Lyle told them that the original had been destroyed three hundred years ago by religious fanatics. They visited Broughton Castle, the moated fourteenth-century manor house, and saw herds of wild deer in a forest where Henry VIII once hunted. Nat Shields purchased Georgian silverware.

Jack Lyle and Robert avoided each other. It was obvious that Robert looked down on the little boatman, while also being afraid of him. Lyle treated Robert with cold contempt, speaking to him as little as possible. It was as if the two men had been born to dislike each other. Marisa wondered if it had anything to do with her, for she enjoyed Lyle’s company, his conversation, his tales of England and canal life. Robert would dig at Lyle, then back off as Lyle revealed a sharp tongue and a wicked temper he barely kept in check.

In the large, simple restaurant of a Banbury hotel, Marisa, Nat, Ellie, and Larry stood with a busload of Australian tourists around an upright battered piano and sang “Home on the Range.” Over her shoulder Marisa quickly glanced at the bar and saw Robert smiling and talking to a young blonde girl who couldn’t have been more than eighteen. Jack Lyle walked past the two of them, stopped for only a fraction of a second to stare coldly at Robert, then continued walking out of the restaurant.

You took the words right out of my mouth, Mr. Lyle,
thought Marisa, who turned around and sang, “And the skies are not cloudy all day.”

The next morning an annoyed Marisa left the breakfast table to walk out of the hotel and into the quiet streets of Banbury. Robert and Larry were carrying on like college sophomores. The two were having a food fight, throwing pieces of bread and fruit across the table at each other and disturbing the people around them. An embarrassed Ellie and Nat had left the table and sat nearby, their backs to the two men. Other patrons in the dining room looked at Robert and Larry and shook their heads. Americans. What else could you expect from people who insisted on ice in their drinks?

Outside in the chilly morning Marisa shivered, stuck her hands up the sleeves of her sweater, and began walking toward the boat. They’d spent the night in Banbury, with Lyle staying on
The Drake
to guard it and watch their luggage.

Alone in their hotel room, Marisa had mentioned the blonde girl to Robert.

He said, “If you spent less time talking to that old fart Lyle I wouldn’t have to go looking.”

“You’ll always go looking.”

“Ah, but window shopping isn’t the same as buying.”

“Listen to me, hot breath. If you ever window shop in front of me again, you’ll wish you hadn’t”

“Threat or promise?”

“Both, sweet thing. Both. I don’t like it.”

He shrugged and drew her to him, the palm of one hand gently rubbing her nipple. “Picky, picky.”

She felt herself getting sexually aroused and wished she weren’t. That was Robert’s little trick. Sex was his wonder drug, the cure-all for his lapses, lacks, and various and sundry slips.

“Robert …”

“Been a long time between drinks. Can’t do much in a bunk bed, especially with four people watching. Hmmmmm?”

“Why don’t you like Jack Lyle?”

“Ask him why he doesn’t like me. Take off your clothes and let me play with your private parts.”

His body was tight against hers, pressing her into the wall, and she felt his erection. She also felt herself responding and tried to stop it.

“Robert, Jack Lyle’s a nice old man. He’s very interesting, I—”

Robert’s hand was down into the front of her pants and his fingers into her vagina. She pushed forward to meet his fingers. “Robert, Lyle is …”

Her arms went around Robert’s neck and she whispered, “Don’t stop, don’t stop.”

“Fuck Lyle where he breathes,” said Robert fumbling with his fly.

They made love standing up against the wall, with Marisa’s legs wrapped around Robert’s waist and Robert cupping her bare buttocks.

This morning she turned the corner and saw Jack Lyle just leaving a tobacco shop, his black briar clutched between his teeth. He waved to her. “Out for an early morning stroll, missy?”

She waited until two girls on bicycles passed in front of her, then crossed the narrow cobbled street. She barely made it. Marisa was wearing platform shoes; on the rough cobbles her ankles wobbled, and she pawed the air for balance.

Jack Lyle chuckled, “Them’s not the shoes for strollin’.”

“Tell me about it. My God!” She reached the other side of the street and Lyle offered her a steadying hand.

She sighed. “Thank you, thank you. I was about to go down for the third time. My whole life was flashing before my eyes.”

“I’m headin’ back to the boat.”

“Good. I’ll walk along with you.”

“The others know what time we’re shovin’ off?”

Marisa nodded. “They know.”

They passed a church and Marisa stopped and looked up at it. “Beautiful, just beautiful. I think I have this one on a postcard I bought yesterday.” She patted her handbag.

“Aye, it’s lovely,” said Jack Lyle. “It’s one of the few old buildin’s left. The people ’ere tore down most of em and put up stores, factories, and the like. They even tore down the large castle and used the stone to rebuild their houses after the civil wars.”

Marisa pointed to the church. “Those heads carved in stone. What are they, some kind of saints?”

Lyle nodded. “A few are. A few ain’t. It was a Celtic custom to cut off the heads of their enemies and use them to defend their holy places. Churches all over England have these heads inside and out, and nobody knows it started with the bloody pagans.”

Marisa said, “Is that where the use of gargoyles came from? There are cathedrals here and in France where you find the ugliest gargoyles perched on top—”

Lyle laughed. “You’re right about that, missy. It’s the same thing as the severed ’eads. Them gargoyles were made ’orrible lookin’ so as to scare the evil spirits away from a house of worship. There’s worse than that, I might add. The Druids, them what used to be priests to the old Celts, they worshiped the oak tree and if they ever caught a man peelin’ the bark off an oak or breakin’ off its limb, they pulled out his guts and wrapped them around the tree. You know, an eye for an eye, a skin to replace the skin that was taken. A limb from the person what cut a limb from the tree.”

Marisa shuddered. “It’s hard to believe people once actually did that sort of thing to each other, Mr. Lyle. I’m glad I’m living in the twentieth century where the Druids are something you read about and can put out of your mind.”

She was looking at Jack Lyle as she spoke and noticed him blink and look away. It was as though a shadow had passed over his small brown face. For a few seconds Lyle looked at the severed heads over the huge wooden church doors. Then abruptly he began walking away from Marisa.

“Mr. Lyle? Mr. Lyle?”

She ran to catch up with him and when she did something told her to say nothing. Together they returned to the boat in silence. At the boat Lyle looked at her then said, “Sorry, missy. I was thinkin’ about a few things. You get to be my age and you got a lot of things runnin’ round in yer ’ead. Most of yer life’s in the past and you live as much in yer imagination as out. I’m goin’ to work on the engine some.”

Marisa nodded. When he’d disappeared below she stared at the open door he’d gone through and wondered what was really on his mind. As an actress she was too sensitive not to suspect that something was bothering Jack Lyle.

She quickly dismissed the idea that it had anything to do with the severed stone heads that he’d been staring at.

Robert, red faced from drinking, leaned back in his chair and said to Jack Lyle, “You’re a liar.”

The little boatman narrowed his eyes.

“Jack Liar,” smirked Robert. “There’s really not much difference between Lyle and Liar, is there?”

“Robert!” Marisa wanted to slap his face. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

“Never mind, missy,” said Lyle. “This one’s the talkin’ kind. Let’s ’ear ’im out.”

The Drake
was moored for the night in a quiet cove on the canal. Marisa and Lyle had been topside talking while below Robert, Larry, Nat and Ellie played bridge to the music of Larry’s cassette. Robert, filled with brandy, was becoming a nasty drunk. When he heard the rattling noise in the boat’s hull behind him it was all the excuse he’d needed to again go after Jack Lyle.

Robert had yelled for Lyle to come down and kill the rat creeping about inside the ship’s walls. A calm Lyle faced him and denied the presence of rats on
The Drake.
The noise, he said, was being made by a gold sovereign hidden in the framework. It was good luck to place a gold coin inside a ship. This one apparently had come loose and was rattling around.

“It’s a rat,” said Robert. “I know it’s a rat.”

“Friend of yours, maybe?” said Lyle.

Robert snorted. “A wit. We have at the wheel a genuine wit. Tell me, wit, is there some little story about this rat? You have so many little stories.”

“Jesus,” murmured Marisa glaring at Robert. “Open mouth, insert foot.”

He grinned at her. “My character’s flawed, what can I do?”

Nat put an arm around Robert. “If Mr. Lyle says it’s a gold coin, then that’s what it is. Come on, let’s get back to the game.”

Robert pushed Nat’s arm away and pointed a finger at Lyle. “I’d like to beat your dumb little face in, you know that?”

Lyle nodded. “Aye, Mr. Seldes Robert, I know that.” The little boatman patted the sheathed knife worn on his left hip. “But you think on it before you do, because the minute you come fer me, I intend to kill you.”

Robert licked his lips and blinked.

“Where you live,” said Jack Lyle, “men talk much before they do anythin’. Where I live, we do; then we talk on it. I’ve used this knife before and I’ve used it on men. You don’t pose much of a problem to me, Mr. Seldes Robert. And now I bid you all good night.”

Marisa watched him walk calmly up the stairs and when she turned towards Robert, Nat was handing him another glass of brandy. Marisa was about to knock the glass out of Robert’s hand when Ellie touched her arm and shook her head.

Before Marisa could ask why, Ellie whispered, “Nat said one more and he’ll be out like a light.”

Marisa relaxed and clutched Ellie’s hand. “Have Nat pour one for me, will you?”

Seconds later Marisa stood looking down at an unconscious Robert, watching his chest rise and fall with his deep breathing. His hair was uncombed, he was unshaven, and his mouth was open. The front of his shirt was stained with spilled brandy. Not too good looking at the moment, Mr. Seldes Robert. She wondered if Jack Lyle would have killed Robert. She wondered if she would have cared.

The next afternoon the boat docked at Napton-on-the-Hill, where they planned to go ashore and picnic near Warwick Castle. Marisa was the last to come on deck and when she did she saw Robert and Jack Lyle talking quietly with each other. She hung back, not wanting to interrupt. After the two finished and Robert went ashore to join the others, Marisa walked over to Lyle, who, as usual, planned to spend most of his time alone on
The Drake.

She said, “I told him to apologize.”

“’E didn’t.” Lyle looked at his compass, then into the sun and back again at the compass.

“I—I saw you two talking. I thought he—”