Free Silent Noon by Trilby Kent Page B

her?”
    “She made a dash for it when she heard the car.”
    They marched on in silence for several moments, and Barney began to wonder what Ivor had meant about needing an extra pair of hands.
    “I thought you said she’d bring a torch,” he said, trying not to sound petulant.
    “She did. She won’t need it now, though.”
    “I can’t see a bloody thing.”
    Ivor grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to the ground. “Look.”
    Just a few feet from where they crouched, the forest floor fell away to reveal an inlet needling into the shore. Black water stretched before them and, high overhead, a crescent moon obscured by
gauzy clouds shone in a sky the colour of dark-blue ink. The beach was bare of any foliage; the trees hung behind them at the top of the precipice.
    A figure was working its way down one side of the inlet towards the rock pools. It looked as if she was wearing a robe, but it soon became clear that this was actually an unfastened gym tunic.
Her sandals clattered on the rocks, and twice she had to steady herself as she slipped on the slick. When she paused, there was a grey noise: the crackle of the tide dragging at the pebble
beach.
    “There’s just the one route down to the water, and that’s the one she’s taking.” Ivor shimmied forward on his stomach. “Let’s see what our little
Melusine does next.”
    The girl had removed her sandals and was pulling the tunic over her head. Underneath she wore a bathing costume of knitted wool. In water it would grow heavy and coarse. As she stepped into one
of the rock pools her arms and legs seemed almost too long for her body, bony and vulnerable as a bird’s, and in the sea glow they gleamed whiter than the moon. Her shoulder blades spiked and
flattened as she rinsed herself with cupped hands. When she had finished, she stood waist-deep in the water with palms flattened on the surface, as if feeling the sea for something lost.
    “If she was going to top herself she’d have done it by now,” said Ivor.
    Sure enough, the girl had begun her retreat from the water. She shivered as she wrapped her gym tunic around her shoulders and slipped her feet back into her sandals. A coil of black hair stuck
to her cheek as she bent to fasten the buckles.
    “Hurry up – before she sees us,” whispered Ivor, jabbing Barney in the ribs. Pressing themselves onto all fours, the boys scuttled towards the forest. They waited for the sound
of the girl’s sandals on the rocks; when it came, they slipped back towards the footpath.
    Weaving past the slender trunks of trees connecting sky and earth, Barney felt a rush of elation, as if he and Ivor and the girl were the only people on the entire island. The ground was soft
beneath his feet, and as he ran he remembered the picture in the book on St Just depicting the underwater streams: invisible, unmappable Lethes forging tunnels through the limestone. It was only
when he caught up with Ivor behind the bin hutch, as the other boy grabbed him by the shoulders and pressed him against the wall, that he remembered to be afraid.
    “Breathe one word to anyone about this and I’ll tell them you wanted to jump her,” said Ivor.
    Barney was so surprised he bit his tongue. A metallic taste filled his mouth as he nodded his agreement with watering eyes.
    Ivor pushed him to his knees, ducking at the sound of footsteps drawing near. They waited in silence until the sound of a door closing on a latch prompted him to release his grip on
Barney’s jumper.
    “You have one minute to get back to your dormitory without anyone noticing. If I see your name on the Head’s List in the morning you’ll be sorry.”
    As Barney made to leave, he was overcome by the sensation that he had been implicated in something not only secret, but shameful. The car that had stopped outside the old kitchens was no longer
there, but the rutted tracks survived as confirmation that he had not dreamt it.
They’re not here for us
, Ivor had said