Necroscope

'There isn't now,' he agreed. 'You just had it all!' That was better. He was away from his morbid turn. That was how Brenda thought of it when Harry was vague and strange in that way of his: 'a morbid turn'. She went along with it, wrinkled her nose playfully, was glad for his humour.

'Eight hundred and eleven times' she repeated, 'in just three years! That's a lot. Do you know how long we've been going out?'

'Since we were kids,' he answered. His eyes were on the sky again and she could see he was only half interested in what she was saying. There was something on his mind, hovering on the periphery of his awareness. Knowing him, she knew it was there. Maybe one day she'd know what it was. All she knew now was that it came and went, and that this time it seemed to be taking its time going.

'But how long?' she insisted. She caught his chin in a delicate hand, turned his face towards hers.

He stared at her blankly, let his eyes focus of their own accord. 'How long? Four or five years, I suppose.'

'Six,' she said. 'Since you were twelve and I was eleven. At twelve you took me to the pictures and held my hand.'

'There you go,' he said, making an effort and coming back to earth. 'And you just accused me of being unromantic!'

'Oh?' she said. 'But I bet you can't remember the film we saw. It was Psycho. I don't know which of us was the most frightened!'

'I was,' he grinned.

'Then,' she continued, 'when you were thirteen, we made a picnic in the field on Ellison's Bank. After we had eaten we fooled about a bit and you put your hand on my leg under my dress. I shouted at you and you pretended it was an accident. But the next week you did it again and I wouldn't speak to you for a fortnight.'

'I should be so unlucky now!' Harry sighed. 'Anyway, you soon enough came back for more.'

'Then you started going to school in Hartlepool and I didn't see so much of you. The winter was a long one. But the next summer was a good one — for us, anyway. One day we got a changing tent on the beach at Crimdon and went swimming. Afterwards, in the tent, when you were supposed to be drying my back, you touched me.'

'And you touched me,' he reminded her.

'And you wanted me to lie down with you.'

'But you wouldn't.'

'Not until the next year. Harry, I wasn't even fifteen! That was terrible!'

'Oh, it wasn't so bad,' he grinned. 'Not the way I remember it. But do you remember that first time?'

'Of course I do.'

'What a mess!' he chuckled ruefully. 'Like trying to pick a lock with a piece of wet blotting paper.'

She had to smile. 'You got good at it very quickly, though,' she said. 'I always wondered where you learned it all. I suppose I really wondered if someone else had shown you how.'

He had been smiling but now the smile fell from his face in a moment. 'What do you mean by that?' he said sharply.

'Why, another girl, of course!' She was startled by his abrupt change of mood. 'What did you think I meant?'

'Another girl?' he was frowning still. But slowly his look turned first to a sour smile, then an amused grin, and at the last a shaky laugh. 'Another girl!' he said again, laughing outright now. 'What, when I was eleven?'

Relieved, Brenda laughed with him. 'You're funny,' she said.

'You know,' he answered, 'it seems that all my life people have been telling me the same thing: that I'm funny. I'm not really, you know. God, sometimes I wish I knew how to be: how to have a good laugh! It's as if I don't have time, as if I've never had time. Did you ever get the feeling that if you don't laugh soon you'll scream? It's a feeling I get, I promise you.'

She shook her head. 'Sometimes I think I'll never understand you. And sometimes I think you don't want me to.' She sighed. 'It would be nice if you wanted me as much as I want you.'

He stood up, drew her to her feet and kissed her on the forehead, his way of changing the subject. 'Come on, let's walk all the way along the beach into Hartlepool. You can catch a bus back to Harden from there.'

'Walk into Hartlepool? That'll take all day!'

'We'll stop for a coffee on the beach at Crimdon,' he said. 'And we can have a swim from the sands a bit farther along. Then we'll go to my place. You can stay until this evening if you like — unless you've other plans?'

'No, I haven't — you know I haven't — but…'

'But?'

Suddenly she was upset, a touch of anxiety. 'Harry, what's going to happen to us?'

'How do you mean?'

'Do you love me?'

'I think so.'

'But don't you know? I mean, I know I love you.'

They began to walk along the dunes, gradually making for the damp sands where the sea was retreating. There were people swimming in the sea down there but not many; the beach was dirty with all the debris of the coalmines to the north, a problem which had been growing for a quarter of a century. Black lorries trundled at the waterline like great amphibious beetles, where their crews shovelled up rounded nuggets of washed sea-coal like black gold. A few miles south of here it was a little cleaner, but as far as Seaton Carew coal and slag deposits marred the clean white sands. Farther south still the damage was much less, but since the mines were almost exhausted Nature would soon begin to put things right again. Still, it would take a long time for the beaches to return to their former beauty. Perhaps they never would.

'Yes,' Harry finally answered, 'I think I do love you. I mean, I know I do. It's just that I've a lot on my mind. Is that what you mean? That I don't show it enough? See, I don't know what you want me to say. Or I haven't the time to think of the right things to say.'

She clung to his arm, snuggled closer as they walked. 'Oh, you don't have to say anything. It's just that I'd hate it to end…'

'Why should it end?'

'I don't know, but I worry about it. We don't seem to be getting anywhere. My parents worry, too…'

'Oh,' he said, glumly nodding. 'Marriage, you mean?'

'No, not really,' she sighed again. 'I know how you feel about that: not yet, you keep saying. And: we're too young. I agree with you. I think my mother and father do, too. I know you like to be on your own a lot; and you're right: we are too young!'

'You keep saying that,' he said, 'but still we end up going round in circles.'

She looked downcast. 'It's just that… well, the way you are, I never know what's what. If only you'd tell me what it is that preoccupies you so. I know there's something, but you won't say.'

He looked about to say something, changed his mind. Brenda held her breath, let it go when it became apparent he'd backed off. She tried elimination.

'I know it's not your writing, because you were like this long before you started to write. In fact, as long as I've known you. If only — '

'Brenda!' he stopped, grabbed her in his arms, dragged

her to a halt. He seemed breathless, unable to speak, to say what he wanted to say. It frightened her.

'Yes, Harry? What is it?'

He gulped, drew breath, started to walk again. She caught up with him, grabbed his hand. 'Harry?'

He wouldn't look at her, but he said:

'Brenda, I… I want to talk to you.'

'But I want you to!' she said.

Again he stopped walking, drew her into an embrace, stared out to sea over her shoulder. 'It's a queer subject, that's all…'

She took the initiative, broke away, led him by the hand along the beach. 'Right. We walk, you talk, I listen. Queer subject? I don't mind. There, I've done my bit. Your turn.'

He nodded, glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, coughed to clear his throat and said: 'Brenda, have you ever wondered what people think about when they're dead? I mean, what their thoughts are when they lie there in their graves.'

She felt goose-flesh come up on her neck and at the top of her spine. Even with the sun hot on her, the utterly emotionless tone of his voice coupled with what he had said chilled her to the marrow. 'Have I ever wondered — ?'