The Count of Eleven (48 page)

“I beg yours?” the woman demanded in a shocked shrill voice, and her companion emitted a sound halfway between “What?” and a protracted splutter. It would be just like Jack Awkward to be foiled at the eleventh hour by a punch-up. The owner of the boats was shouting “Go out, go out’ and flapping his hands at the canoe, and Jack floundered off it in order to push it away from the shore. “Water,” he mumbled, ‘that’s what we need.”

“What are you asking for now?” the Birmingham man growled.

Jack straddled the canoe and lifted his feet onto it, and found that it floated. “Just needed pushing deeper,” he told the Laura, who looked as if she suspected him of innuendo. “Feets, don’t fail me now,” he said.

“What did you just ask my wife?”

“I was talking to my feet, not her. Not that I’m suggesting there’s any similarity.” Jack shoved at the pedals with the heels of his sandals, which skidded off the metal. “I was telling them not to let me down, like that tanned gentleman used to.”

“Eh?” the man said, a sound like the Birmingham accent reduced to its essence, and stared at the owner of the boats as if Jack was referring to him.

“The actor. The black. You should know, you’re fond of films.” Jack managed not to panic. He exerted a more gradual pressure on the pedals, and the canoe glided between the couple. “Feets, don’t faaaiiil me now,” Jack cried to demonstrate what he’d meant, and sailed out from the beach.

In a few strokes of the pedals he established a rhythm. He passed the caves to which Julia and Laura had swum, where the reflections of ripples lapped the shadowy ceiling, and then the hotel came into view. Suppose Julia were to step onto the balcony? Even at that distance she might recognise him, in which case she would try and call him back out of the sunlight which was beating on his skull. Suddenly he wanted her to appear wanted it so much that he forced himself to face away from the hotel and keep paddling until he thought it was safe to look back, until he’d thought so for minutes and hadn’t looked. When at last he couldn’t resist glancing over his shoulder he was hoping that he would see Julia waving at him to return or swimming after him. But there was no sign of her, or the hotel, or the beach: nothing but the sea.

He felt as though he’d been relieved of a burden or an obligation. He was experiencing a sadness so profound it was peaceful. All around him the sea glittered in the rhythm he was pedalling. He trailed his fingers through the water, which was cool, a refuge from the heat if that became unbearable. After a while he rested from pedalling, and found that the boat continued to drift away from the land. He would let it drift so long as nothing appeared anywhere on the enormous disc of water that surrounded him. He seemed to be attaining a state beyond action or thought. The sea whispered to him, the sun began to lower itself towards his baked cranium, and it was purely by chance that his gaze fell on his watch.

The time was almost five o’clock. Julia and Laura would be awake. By now one or both of them would have been down to the beach to see what was keeping him. Perhaps they had already questioned the receptionist, and eventually they would speak to the owner of the boat and no doubt to the Birmingham couple. At some point they would contact the police. He thought Julia would be the first to understand that he wasn’t coming back, but in time Laura would have to ask. Beyond that he couldn’t think.

The alternative was even less endurable that they would discover who he was. Even if he escaped the notice of the police, he was sure that Jack Awkward couldn’t fool his family for the rest of his life. There might be nothing other than himself to betray him, but that would be enough. The panic he’d experienced when the policeman had handled the briefcase was aching to be revived. During their first days in Crete it had nearly driven him out of hiding, and only knowing that he had to take the course he was taking now had assuaged it. Besides, more than panic was lying dormant in him. Despite his being almost certain that the Count’s adventures hadn’t affected their luck, if he went home the Count would feel compelled to make sure. The prospect sent a shiver through him, which he translated into a push at the pedals which sped him towards the receding horizon.

After a few minutes he let the canoe drift again. The sun was at his back, which meant he was continuing to leave Crete behind. His skull had begun to feel weightless. Soon he felt close to disembodiment, as though his body and the canoe no longer had anything to do with him. Perhaps he was already a ghost who was remembering the sea as he watched over Julia and Laura, because he could see them. They’d had to go home days later than they’d planned, the tour operator having taken pity on them, and the house was just the right size for the two of them. If they still wanted to move house the life insurance which was linked to the mortgage would have paid off the last of the debt, and if Mr. Hardy dared give Julia any trouble, he’d better keep looking behind him; the Count might be watching over the family too. They weren’t troubled now, they were reminiscing. “Remember all the happy times in Crete,” Julia was saying, and Laura said “I remember that day when we saw the fox with Dad.”

His gaze wavered to his wrist, and he managed to focus. His watch showed a quarter to six. Julia must be struggling not to panic. However vividly he might imagine that, the reality must be far worse. He yearned to go back to her, to ask how she could have thought for even a moment that he could ever leave her, and then he wondered how the police would search for him. Weren’t they likely to use a helicopter? The possibility, and his need to place himself beyond giving in to his longing for her, made him disengage his feet from the pedals and, lifting himself from the seat, inch backwards along the canoe until he sensed that it was about to tip up. Before panic at the prospect could get the better of him, he leaned backwards and kicked the boat away from him with all his strength.

The canoe shot away, bouncing out of the water, while he floated in the opposite direction. He was aware of the unseen depths below him, which for the moment were buoying him up. He was floating on his back, as Julia had often tried to teach him and as he’d succeeded in doing after burying the blow lamp but he didn’t think he could sustain the position for long. Soon the depths would reach for him. Foreseeing his last moments had been easy, but living through them mightn’t be. He made himself relax as if he was lying in bed, about to fall asleep, and closed his eyes, and began to count aloud slowly as the salt water lapped at his ears. When he reached eleven he would see if he had any luck left. Perhaps the Count could swim.

RRAMSEY CAMPBELL is the most respected lliving horror writer in Britain today. He has received the World Fantasy Award twice, and the British Fantasy Award five times more awards for horror fiction than any other writer.

He was born in Liverpool in 1946, and still lives on Merseyside with his wife Jenny and their children, Tammy and Matty. After working in the Civil Service and in public libraries, he became a full-time writer in 1973. He also reviews films for BBC Radio Merseyside, and is President of the British Fantasy Society. His pleasures include good food, Laurel and Hardy films, and walking; and he uses music from Hildegard von Bingen onwards as an aid to his writing. His books have been translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish, Finnish, Polish, Japanese, Swedish and Dutch. He is much in demand as a reader of his stories to audiences.