The Great and Secret Show. Clive Barker

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ going to see,’ said Trudi, before a rift developed. ‘Carolyn? What about you?’

      The girl shrugged. ‘Can’t swim,’ she said.

      ‘It’s not deep enough to swim in.’

      ‘You don’t know that,’ Carolyn observed. ‘You only waded out a few yards.’

      ‘So stay close to the shore. You’ll be safe there.’

      ‘Maybe,’ Carolyn said, far from convinced.

      ‘Trudi’s right,’ Joyce said, sensing Carolyn’s reluctance was as much to do with uncovering her fat as with swimming. ‘Who’s going to see us?’

      As she stripped off her shorts it occurred to her that any number of peepers might be hidden amongst the trees, but what the heck? Wasn’t the Reverend forever saying life was short? Best not to waste it then. She stepped out of her underwear and started into the water.

      William Witt knew each one of the bathers’ names. In fact he knew the names of every woman in the Grove under forty, and where they lived, and which was their bedroom window; a feat of memory which he declined to boast of to any of his schoolmates for fear they spread it around. Though he could see nothing wrong with looking through windows he knew enough to know it was frowned upon. And yet he’d been born with eyes, hadn’t he? Why shouldn’t he use them? Where was the harm in watching? It wasn’t like stealing, or lying, or killing people. It was just doing what God had created eyes to do, and he couldn’t see what was criminal in that.

      He crouched, hidden by trees, half a dozen yards from the edge of the water, and twice that distance from the girls, watching them undress. Arleen Farrell was hanging back, he saw, which frustrated him. To see her naked would be an achievement even he’d not be able to keep to himself. She was the most beautiful girl in Palomo Grove: sleek and blonde and snooty, the way movie stars were supposed to be. The other two, Trudi Katz and Joyce McGuire, were already in the water, so he turned his attentions to Carolyn Hotchkiss, who was even now taking off her bra. Her breasts were heavy, and pink, and the sight of them made him hard in his trousers. Though she stripped off her shorts and briefs he kept staring at her breasts. He couldn’t understand the fascination some of the other boys – he was ten – had with that lower part; it seemed so much less exciting than the bosom, which was as different from girl to girl as her nose or hips. The other, the part he didn’t like any of the words for, seemed to him quite uninteresting: a patch of hair with a slit buried in the middle. What was the big deal about that?

      He watched as Carolyn stepped into the water, only just suppressing a giggle of pleasure when she responded to the cold water with a half step backwards which set her flesh jiggling like jello.

      ‘Come on! It’s wonderful!’ the Katz girl was coaxing her.

      Plucking up her courage, Carolyn advanced a few more steps.

      And now – William could scarcely believe his luck – Arleen was taking off her hat and unbuttoning her halter top. She was joining them after all. He forgot the others and fixed his gaze on Miss Sleek. As soon as he’d realized what the girls – whom he’d been following for an hour, unsuspected – were planning to do, his heart had started thumping so hard he thought he’d be ill. Now that thump redoubled, as the prospect of Arleen’s breasts came before him. Nothing – not even fear of death – would have made him look away. He set himself the challenge of memorizing every tiny motion, so as to add veracity to his account when he told it to disbelievers.

      She went slowly about it. If he’d not known better he’d have suspected she knew she had an audience, the way she teased and paraded. Her bosom was a disappointment. Not as large as Carolyn’s, nor boasting large, dark nipples like Joyce’s. But the overall impression, when she stepped from her cut-off jeans and slid down her briefs, was wonderful. It made him feel almost panicky to see her. His teeth chattered like he had the flu. His face got hot, his innards seemed to rattle. Later in life William would tell his analyst that this was the first moment he realized that he was going to die. In fact that was hindsight speaking. Death was very far from his mind now. And yet the sight of Arleen’s nakedness, and his invisibility as he witnessed it, did mark this moment as one which he would never quite outgrow. Events were about to occur that would temporarily make him wish he’d never come peeping (he’d live in fear of the memory, in fact), but when, after several years, the terror mellowed, he returned to the image of Arleen Farrell stepping into the waters of this sudden lake, as to an icon.

      It was not the moment that he first knew he was going to die; but it was perhaps the first time he understood that ceasing would not be so bad, if beauty was there to escort him on his way.

      The lake was seductive, its embrace cool but reassuring. There was no undertow, as at the beach. No surf beating against your back nor salt stinging your eyes. It was like a swimming pool created for the four of them only; an idyll that no one else in the Grove had access to.

      Trudi was the strongest swimmer of the quartet, and it was she who headed from the shore with the greatest vigour, discovering as she went that contrary to expectation the water was getting deeper all the time. It must have gathered where the ground dipped naturally, she reasoned, perhaps even in a place where there’d once been a small lake, though she could remember no such spot from her ramblings with Sam. The grass had now gone from beneath her toes, which brushed instead bare rock.

      ‘Don’t go too far,’ Joyce called to her.

      She turned. The shore was further than she’d estimated, the glaze of water in her eyes reducing her friends to three pink blurs, one blonde, two brunettes, half submerged in the same sweet-tasting element as she. It would be impossible to keep this fragment of Eden to themselves unfortunately. Arleen would be bound to talk about it. By evening the secret would be out. By tomorrow, thronged. They’d better make the most of their privacy. So thinking, she struck out for the middle of the lake.

      Ten yards closer to shore, sculling along on her back in water no more than navel-deep, Joyce watched Arleen at the lake’s edge, stooping to splash her belly and breasts. A spasm of envy for her friend’s beauty went through her. No wonder the Randy Krentzmans of the world went gaga at the sight of her. She found herself wondering what it would be like to stroke Arleen’s hair, the way a boy would, or kiss her breasts, or her lips. The idea possessed her so suddenly and so forcibly she lost her balance in the water, and swallowed a mouthful as she tried to right herself. Once she had, she turned her back on Arleen, and with a splashing stroke headed into deeper waters.

      Up ahead Trudi was shouting something to her.

      ‘What did you say?’ Joyce yelled back, subduing her stroke so as to hear better.

      Trudi was laughing. ‘Warm!’ she said, splashing around, ‘it’s warm out here!’

      ‘Are you kidding?’

      ‘Come and feel!’ Trudi replied.

      Joyce began to swim out to where Trudi was treading water, but her friend was already turning from her to follow the call of the warmth. Joyce could not resist glancing back at Arleen. She had finally deigned to join the swimming party, immersing herself ’til her long hair spread around her neck like a golden collar, then starting an even-paced stroke towards the centre of the lake. Joyce felt something close to fear at the thought of Arleen’s proximity. She wanted some leavening company.

      ‘Carolyn!’ she called. ‘Are you coming?’

      Carolyn СКАЧАТЬ