I decided to capture it.
I used only women. I waited out the war, and then I arranged, with the help of the Greek and the English governments, for my treasure to be transported to a place where I could keep it powerless, unable to affect the male sex.
I don’t suppose anybody will understand my decision to bring the monster to Skein Island. I’ve never really cared for what people thought of me. But I do wish that I could tell the women who make their earnest declarations that I did not set up this retreat for them. I set it up so I could be alone with the monster who murdered my love, and so I would always have new stories to tell her.
I keep her trapped in my words. I hold her prisoner, and that is what she deserves.
I switch off the torch and the darkness reaches out to me, wraps me up. Outside, the wind blows, loud and lonely, over the emptiness of the island: the bungalows, in which a few of us, strangers to each other, sleep; the still, blue depths of the swimming pool, untouched by the wind and rain; the rough grasses that cover the cliffs, giving way to a long gravel path that leads up to a blue front door of a silent white house.
I creep into the bedroom and undress. I slide under the duvet, and lie there, listening to my breathing, trying to make my body relax into sleep, unable to cast the images of Amelia’s story from my mind.
A thought occurs to me.
Someone pointed a camera at the door in front of the cupboard at the back of the library. My heart tells me it is not to stop people from getting in. It is to stop something from getting out.
CHAPTER SIX
David didn’t change clothes after work.
He Googled ‘Skein Island’, read the Wikipedia entry and found a few old photos from the sixties of women holding hands in a circle, and of the outside of the chalets where they stayed. As the evening drew in, he made an omelette, then watched a documentary about the Arctic Circle. He sat very still, on the sofa, listening for sounds outside the front door such as the scrape of a key in the lock, the drag of a suitcase up the path. Eventually, he picked up his wallet and left the house.
At The Cornerhouse, Arnie was in his usual seat, sipping a pint. David raised an arm at him, then dropped it. He walked across the room, weaving around the tables and the other men in their small, huddling groups, and was greeted with an expression of surprised dislike.
‘I thought this place wasn’t good enough for you.’
‘I wanted to ask you something,’ David said.
‘It’ll have to wait. Game’s about to start.’ Arnie pulled out a seat and nodded towards it. David sat down and looked back at the bar; Mags was there, her hands on her hips, and the four cubes were already lined up on the counter.
‘I’m not serving,’ warned Mags.
‘He knows,’ said Arnie.
‘Is he playing, then?’
David opened his mouth, and Arnie laid a hand on his arm. ‘Course he is. Why else would he be here?’
‘Right.’ She fixed David with her gaze. ‘You’re after Geoff, then. Come on, Geoff, get yourself up here.’
One of the men sitting by the bar stood up and fiddled with his striped tie. He wore thick bifocals that magnified his gaze. Even without them, it would have been impossible to miss that his attention was fixed on the cubes. He crossed to them, and stood in front of them, blinking. His hair was sleek and black; combined with the glasses, he reminded David of a mole.
‘Go on, Geoff, make a choice, there’s a dear.’
‘I, um, don’t know.’
The tension in the room was growing. There were perhaps ten men sitting at tables, fanning out in a semi-circle from the bar, nursing their pints, leaning forward.
Geoff moved his hand towards the cubes, then withdrew it. David heard the men’s exhalation of breath, and realised he’d been holding his own breath too. He whispered to Arnie, ‘What’s the game about?’ but Arnie flapped his hand until he was quiet again.
‘What did you choose last time, love?’ said Mags, crossing her arms under her breasts, displaying her cleavage in her sheer blouse like a bird fluffing out its feathers.
‘Blue,’ said Geoff. He had a gruff voice, but the tremor within it was easily audible.
‘And was that lucky for you?’
He flinched, and said, ‘No.’
‘Well then, probably best to keep away from such an unlucky colour,’ she told him, with a conspiratorial raise of her eyebrows.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Right. Green.’
Mags picked up the green cube and turned it over and over between her long, painted fingernails. ‘You sure?’
Geoff pushed the bridge of his glasses back up his nose with one finger. Nobody else moved. ‘Yeah,’ he said, eventually. ‘Yeah.’
She handed him the cube. He held it in the palm of his left hand and touched the top surface with his right index finger, then squeezed it between finger and thumb.
The lid of the cube popped open.
Geoff reached in, very carefully, and pulled out a small white square of paper.
The room sighed, a slow release of excitement. David glanced at Arnie, and saw a strange mixture of sympathy and relief on his face as he sat back in his chair, his shoulders slumped.
‘Another IOU, is it?’ said Mags. She plucked the white square from Geoff’s hand, along with the green cube. Then she popped the paper under one bra strap, and gave Geoff a big smile, her teeth bared to the room. ‘I’ll have to think of something else you can do for me. Right, who did I say was next?’ David watched her head turn toward him, and she fixed him with a calm, superior gaze. Some sort of power emanated from her; the power of a High Priestess at an ancient ceremony, he thought, or maybe the power of an aging diva, on stage, certain of the undivided attention of her audience.
He broke the gaze, and appealed to Arnie. ‘Listen, all I want to know is what happened on Skein Island. Did your wife’s letters ever mention what took place there? Why she decided not to come home?’
‘Why do you want to know? Marianne will tell you all about it when she gets back, won’t she? Or are you not so sure of that any more?’ He chuckled, a sound like a dry cough. ‘We’ll talk about it after.’
Mags tapped each cube with a long fingernail, three times each, like a summoning ritual.
‘I don’t have time for this,’ said David.
‘Then get out.’ Arnie stared him down.
Mags called, ‘Come on, handsome, get up here and pick a colour before closing time. You can’t do any worse than Geoff, can you?’ She pointed to Geoff, who had retreated to a far table, slumped over, his chin in his hand. Still he watched Mags and the cubes. David got the feeling that if Geoff had been given the opportunity to guess again, he would have taken it, no matter what it cost him.
‘How much time do you think we have?’ said Mags.
David stood up. He walked over to Mags and the cubes. He had the strongest suspicion, from the way she held her chin high and grinned at him, that it wouldn’t matter what colour he picked. She already had the result planned, and, whatever it was, she was looking forward to it.
But the cubes were close now, and they exerted a pull that he hadn’t experienced before. He wanted to touch them. And he wanted to win. It was an exciting sensation, this desire to play. For the first time since Marianne had left he felt in control once more.