‘Pretty flower girl?’
Ben blinked. ‘Have you seen her?’
Billy nodded and bent to carefully remove his slippers and put them on a shelf. ‘Don’t like marmite.’
Still crouched, Ben tentatively put a hand out and laid it on the little man’s shoulder. ‘No, I don’t either. Disgusting muck, isn’t it?’
Billy began to chortle with a wheezy laugh that shook his whole body.
* * *
Once he had his boots and coat and sou’wester hat on, Billy took them down to the lowest level by the door, then he ducked beneath the curving spiral stairway where there was a hatch in the floor. It was too dark to see it unless you’d known it was there. He heaved it up and carefully pinned it to the wall with a hook, took a torch out of his pocket, then descended below the level of the trapdoor and waited for them, shining the light through the webs of his fingers to make them glow red.
When Aleksey and Ben were through, Billy once more lowered the hatch and then picked up a huge padlock which had been lying on the top step. It was an unpleasant thing that spoke of medieval dungeons. The key was even bigger, a wrought iron monstrosity. Deftly, the little man got the padlock secure then turned and continued his descent.
They picked up their weapons and followed the wavering torch beam. They were inside the concrete base of the tower, which clearly wasn’t solid as they’d assumed, but was a windowless store of large freshwater tanks. The next level held barrels and some more coal bunkers. None of this had the elegant smooth stonework of the tower, but appeared to be either rough-poured concrete or even the natural hewn rock of the cliff. Below that final storage area, the steps just continued to descend without break until they came out onto a platform.
‘My God.’ They were standing on a ledge, a landing dock inside a natural, hollowed-out cave in the cliff. The sea was rising and falling in enormous inhales and exhales, but dampened by the tiny exit to the ocean, its power was entirely constrained, no furious lashing, no breaking against the walls, but the sloshing produced an eerie almost musical bass booming. Aleksey realised that he’d heard it before—as they’d sailed past the arch. But he’d not spotted the entrance to this cave. The cliff crumpled over as if a fold of fabric, as though a giant, using the cliff as a blanket, had turned in bed, pulling it over his shoulder with him as he’d rolled. The narrow gap which was left pointed sideward along the headland, and would therefore be entirely invisible to anyone unless directly under Cathedral Arch.
Tied up to a post in this natural anchorage was a little dinghy. Aleksey felt once again a strange ghosting of memory as his past, which forever haunted him, made its presence known once more. This little sailboat was identical to the one he’d been bought as a child: a Mark I wooden wayfarer. It was cobalt blue, as his had been. It was not flying the homemade madder redOrlogsflaghe’d made for his, but other than that it could have been the one he’d spent so many summer days in, exploring. Billy was staring out at the entrance. ‘Dark now.’
Ben put his hand back on the little man’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of your boat.’
Aleksey thought privately this was a bit of a stretch as they’d sunk four in less than a month by his reckoning.
Billy seemed to find this funny, and his face wrinkled as he chuckled to himself, fussing with preparations. ‘Dark’s best time. No one see Billynomates in the dark.’
Aleksey frowned. ‘No. You can’t come with us. It’s too dangerous.’
‘It’s Billy’s boat.’
‘Yes, but we need to borrow it.’
‘No, no, no.’ He glared crossly at Aleksey’s chest, seeming unable or unwilling to lift his gaze higher. Aleksey agreed he was probably a pretty unpleasant sight at the moment. ‘You sank your boat. Not sinking Billy’s. Billy needs ‘is boat.’
‘You saw that? You saw us being…hit? By the big boat?’
Billy nodded and climbed into the dinghy. He stowed his large key in a biscuit tin which was screwed under one seat.
They had little choice, so joined him. Aleksey murmured to Ben, ‘He can sail us around to Ben’s Bottom and—’
He got no further because Billy squealed and then began to rock and choke, and it was only when his eyes began to stream that they realised he was just laughing. ‘You said bottom. You said bottom.’
Aleksey leaned back, slightly defeated. ‘Shall we just swim?’
But Billy had already neatly slipped off the line holding them and was rowing them across the entrance. He timed the swell to perfection, and the little boat was sucked out under the arch.
It had stopped raining. The moon was out, and the delicate curving walls towered over them. Billy seemed to know the currents and confidently headed to the south.
Keeping his voice very low, Ben asked, ‘Do you know the beach where the rabbits are?’ He was staring up at the cliff, probably calculating whether they would be visible if anyone was keeping a lookout to sea.
Billy didn’t reply but only adjusted his oars slightly, and they turned to the east. When they could see the landing place, Aleksey could think of nothing to say but, ‘Thank you,’ which he had a suspicion was more apt than for just opening the door to them and ferrying them here. It seemed obvious to him now that the light that had guided him home on their long, awful swim had not been lit by the spirit of the island as he’d begun to believe (but obviously had not mentioned to anyone else), but by this odd little man. Or Billy’s mother?
Ben was climbing over the side, lowering himself into the water, but he stopped just before pushing off and, almost hesitantly, holding onto the side of the dinghy with one hand, held out his other. ‘Mates?’
Billy stared at the offering for a moment, seemed to want to connect with it, but drew back his own hand just before he could. But he gave one of his wheezy laughs and chuckled to himself, ‘Billygotmates, Billygotmates.’
Aleksey joined Ben in the water and watched the strange little man as he once more seized his oars and headed back south into the ocean and gradually away from their gaze. They were bobbing in the open sea and began a careful, silent swim into the shore, long breaststrokes to ensure no telltale splashing. When they got to the little beach, where they had once landed half-dead from exhaustion and dehydration, they kitten-crawled into the concealment of the scrubby covering.
