Thirst for Adventure

Chapter 14

Mayon shrugged. ‘It’d be very convenient if everything was as simple as that. The world would be a simple place. But shallow and two-dimensional as well. I mean, when two people look at a pond, who has the richer view? The one who sees the pretty sheet of water, or the one who also sees the rich life teeming in the depths and around the edges? Is it better to be ignorant and happy, or wise and sad? Assuming those words go together, which of course they often don’t. I don’t know what the answer is to the question, and indeed the question is too “black and white” to be worth much, but I do know that as soon as you start to formulate rules and laws and codes of behaviour you’re in trouble. And that goes for something as simple as a system of manners. Because they don’t allow for the complexity of each situation, nor for the fact that each situation is so different. Your carrying of the chair, for example. If you’d carried it a day earlier or a day later, or if you’d carried it for someone else, or if someone else carried the chair for Tiresias — then a whole different set of factors would have come into play.’ Mayon paused for breath.

‘But you have to have rules and laws,’ Leo objected. ‘I mean, there are some situations that are just bad, and so one law can cover them.’

‘Such as?’ Mayon asked.

‘Well, killing,’ Leo said. ‘I mean, killing someone’s always wrong.’ He paused a moment and thought, trying to see his statement through the glasses that Mayon was providing. ‘No, I guess not,’ he concluded reluctantly.

‘Why not then?’ Mayon prompted.

‘Well,’ Leo said, ‘because every case is different. Sometimes the person gets provoked into doing it. Or the person who does it might be a bit mad in the head, so they don’t know what they’re doing. Or someone might have been brought up to be violent, or without any self-discipline; so even though the killing is wrong, the killer can’t be blamed much.’

‘Yes, good,’ Mayon agreed. ‘Also, there are so many different situations in which one person might end the life of another. There’s the soldier on the battlefield, for example. He is probably in a different category from a person who murders for money. And then there’s the man I knew once, who owned a fishing boat and worked from a port near here. He would fish a long way out, three or four days’ journey from his home. When his little son was old enough he would accompany his father and help as much as he could. But, one night the candle they were using started a fire. The little boy’s clothing caught alight, and he was frightfully burnt. The father knew a little medicine and realised that the boy could not survive the three day trip back to port. He knew the boy would die in appalling agony, and so he took a pillow and ended his son’s life.’

‘And if someone’s about to hurt you or kill you, or hurt someone in your family,’ Leo said, ‘you might kill them then, if there was no other way out of it.’

‘We’ve come a long way from you carrying a chair for Tiresias,’ Mayon laughed.

‘I still think he’s a weird person,’ Leo commented.

Mayon was exasperated. ‘Then you’ve learnt nothing from this conversation! When you say “weird”, you mean he doesn’t match up to your set of “rules” for human beings — rules that are impossible, inappropriate, and which ignore everything you’ve come to understand about people!’ He cuffed the boy lightly but affectionately on the head. ‘Go and check the performance area. I’m going to bed.’

Leo ambled away into the dark, his mind in a turmoil. He wondered if one day he would figure it all out, understand everything, but a quick glance up at the stars reminded him most emphatically that he wouldn’t. He tightened a few ropes on the main tent and picked up some rubbish that was blowing around, then he too went to bed. He dreamt that night that he was walking through a huge house of many storeys. The higher he went in the house, the steeper and more difficult the stairs became, and the more cluttered were the rooms. But each succeeding room was also full of richer and more fascinating treasures. When he woke in the morning and recalled the dream, Leo needed no help in understanding what it meant.

Chapter Thirteen

Leo and Jasper walked miles and miles along the sand. At times they had to scramble across rocks to get around the headlands, but usually they were able to enjoy the fine white powder that lay warm under their feet. Three weeks had passed since their passionate afternoon near Finauer; the fair was about to turn inland again, on a route that would take it a long way from the coast. On their only afternoon off in the area, the two young people had decided to enjoy a last sight of the sea.

In three weeks they had formed a close friendship that they both valued. The fair had been moving quite quickly through a number of small fishing towns, so the work had been hard and the hours long. The turnover of stringers had been so heavy that Leo was now Jud’s longest-serving employee. Often they had been short-staffed and everyone had to take on extra duties. Leo had grown to respect Jasper’s cheerful serenity, her ready grasp of detail, her willingness to work without complaint for lengthy stretches of time. When he was tired his spirits were often raised by her cobbled laughter.

At first they had been teased often about their friendship, especially by Ruth, and by the twins, Lavolta and Parara. Condemned to a life in which normal relationships were impossible, the twins, Parara in particular, were fascinated by other people’s affairs. After a few days, however, the teasing stopped, as new matters came along to claim the general interest. In fact Leo and Jasper had not had many opportunities to be alone together. When they were alone, the conversation was sometimes faltering and sti

lted, sometimes flowing and easy. The same was true of their physical relationship. There were days when neither of them wanted to touch each other. There were days when one was in an erotic mood but the other wasn’t. On a couple of memorable occasions both had delighted in the pleasure they could give each other. Sometimes when they had been talking late into the night in Jasper’s tent Leo would end up sleeping there but, despite Jud’s sly innuendos, on most of these occasions they just enjoyed the comfort of having a warm body to hug and hold.

Now, on the beach, they were roaming far and wide, racing across long expanses of sand to throw shells at seagulls or to examine unusual clumps of seaweed. And then they would walk side by side, talking about anything and everything. ‘You know,’ said Leo on one of these occasions, ‘the whitest things in the world are seagulls, milk and fresh snow. They’re the three whitest things.’

On one headland the rocks were piled up in huge jumbles and the waves beat furiously against them. The air was full of spray and an invisible vapour danced on the faces of Leo and Jasper, as they watched from a distance. ‘All that power and noise,’ Jasper said. ‘It looks like the water’s not doing anything, but it always wins in the end. It might take centuries, but it wears those rocks away, sooner or later.’

‘Imagine if you could harness the power,’ Leo said. ‘That’d be something. You could do a lot with that.’

It was difficult to get around the headland, and they were nearly inclined to give up and go back, feeling they had come far enough already. But Leo’ suggestion that they should do just that was turned down by Jasper. ‘No, come on’ she said, laughing, ‘there could be something magical on the other side.’ So they inched their way up a c***k in a rock, and crawled over a long, dangerously smooth and slippery section, then squeezed through some narrow gaps, until Jasper, who was leading, gave a triumphant shout and cascaded down a sandhill onto the new beach.

This was a beach different from any other they had come across. It was quite small, and very beautiful: a stream of fresh water coming down a fern-lined gully had enabled the dark-green vegetation to grow right to the edge of the sand. It was rockier than the other beaches too, and its surrounds were riddled with dark holes that indicated caves. The outstanding feature though, compared to any other part of the coastline they had been on, was the evidence of a human presence. In the fringe of palms and grass and bushes along the treeline was a hut built of roughly hewn timber and driftwood, with two glassless windows that gazed at the unknowing ocean. A hessian curtain flapped idly in the sea breeze, unchecked by any human hand. A homemade chair sat empty by the front door, also facing the waves. Seagulls stalked the beach, pecking angrily at the heavy wet sand. Nothing else moved.

‘Let’s go,’ said Jasper. ‘I don’t like the look of this.’ But there was nothing in her voice to suggest that she really wanted to go, and she made no movement back towards the headland. When Leo began walking towards the hut, she followed readily enough.

They came to the door of the hut and stood about two body-lengths from it, trying to see in to the black interior. ‘Is anyone there?’ Leo called out nervously. There was no answer. He took a few more steps forward and peered through the doorway. ‘I think there is someone there, asleep,’ he said to Jasper, who was looking over his shoulder. He knocked loudly on the wooden frame, hurting his knuckles a little in doing so. As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness he could see there was indeed someone stretched out on a camp bed against a side wall. Leo knocked again, and called, ‘Hello! Anyone home?’

‘Maybe he’s dead,’ Jasper said, and giggled.

‘Don’t laugh,’ Leo said grimly. ‘I think he might be.’

Jasper gasped, and Leo stepped gingerly into the hut and over to the bed. One look at the open mouth and staring eyes of the figure on the bed told him all that he needed to know. Jasper, now framed darkly in the doorway, asked, ‘Is he?’

‘Yes,’ said Leo, ‘only it’s not a he, it’s a she.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Jasper, ‘I’ve never seen a dead body.’

‘Well, now’s your chance,’ said Leo, aware that he was hardly acting appropriately, but not sure what he should be feeling. Jasper came forward and stood beside him, gazing in fascination, her hand over her mouth.

‘What do you think she died of?’ Jasper asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Leo answered, ‘but she looks pretty old.’

He picked up the cold white hand that hung lifeless beside the bed and placed it across the woman’s chest, linking it with the other hand that was already there. Then, not without some revulsion, he closed the tired eyes and tried to close the slack mouth, but without success. Jasper took a cloth from a washstand and soaked it in a nearby bucket of water, then gently wiped the dried white saliva from around the mouth. They looked helplessly at each other.

‘What do we do now?’ Leo asked.

‘I don’t know. Take the blanket off and see if she had any bad injuries or anything.’

Leo lifted the hands while Jasper peeled off the blanket. Leo was praying that she would not be n***d but she was dressed in a rough shift made of brightly coloured material. Though there were no signs of obvious trauma her legs were covered with many old scars and burns, that showed up pale against the dark tanned skin. Her feet were bare.