Part 15 (2/2)
They walked hand in hand, enjoying the silence and privacy after a day spent with a thousand students at school. Here they could be alone, say anything, do anything, knowing they wouldn't be seen or overheard.
In the shadowed gullies Miranda moved with a dreamlike beauty, her Spanish eyes glinting provocatively, her hair black as a raven's feathers spilling over one bare shoulder. Paul Newton's heart beat hard. He glanced at Miranda. She smiled and as she walked she reached out, allowing her fingertips to brush the walls and the steel doors of the crypts.
Thousands and thousands of bodies interred in those tombs, Paul told himself. Did a single one of those dead people ever feel like me? Yes, they must have. Millions of men and women must have experienced the same emotions shooting through their bodies like firea like electricitya but how come it feels as if I've discovered something completely new? Here is Miranda Bloom. In a short skirt. In a sleeveless topa come to that, a shoulderless top. All I can see are acres of smooth olive skin. She's smiling at me. We're no longer talking. Because we don't have to talk. Everything's happening through smiles, eye contact, a raise of the eyebrow. G.o.da how come her teeth are so white? It doesn't seem possible that anyone has felt like this beforea Behind iron doors lay caskets stacked one on top of the other. Layer upon layer of dead men and women stretching back a hundred and fifty years or more. They were bones now. Fleshless skulls. Lipless, bloodless. Leering mouths full of rotted teeth. Skeletons housed cobwebs and rodents' nests. But once they had hearts that must have pounded like his. Bellies with fire inside of them that burnt like almighty furnaces.
The heat shot out from the center of his stomach to his fingertips.
Once those long-skirted Victorian ladies had slipped beneath the sheets and smiled at their men-folk, flashed those come-to-bed-eyes, then sighed with pleasure as flesh met flesh, as nipples rose hard, as mouths pressed against mouths in kisses of overwhelming, superheated pa.s.sion. Electric thrills surged up his spine.
Those people in their tombs were bone dust now. But once they'd ridden that surging wave of erotic excitement he felt now.
”Nearly there,” she murmured. Her hand squeezed his.
Yes, oh my G.o.d. Nearly there. To many this was a journey of just a few hundred yards from the village. For Paul Newton it was a journey of many years. Ever since he'd been twelve years old he wondered what it would be like to lie naked with a girl. Now in a few minutes timea His lips were dry. His heart thundered.
Now the pa.s.sageway broadened out. Ahead was the cliff face, through which a path ran on a rising rampway, pa.s.sing beneath a stone arch. Inscribed on that, the words: GONE TO GLORY.
Leaves sang as the breeze caught them.
Jesusa he was going to explodea he couldn't wait any longer.
”Yo!”
s.h.i.+t.
Sitting on top of a wall were three teenagers. One he recognized from the school football team. ”Paul Newton. My man. How's it going?”
d.a.m.n, why did they have to be here?
A weight sank through his chest into the pit of his stomach. ”Not bad, Al, how are you?”
”Fair to middling. Evening, Miranda.”
”Evening, Al.”
The heftily built Al looked down at them, legs dangling, and the muscles clearly bulging through his jeans. The three pa.s.sed a joint between them. The other two were hitting the giggling stage. Al seemed unaffected. But then there must be a h.e.l.l of a lot of flesh to saturate with the weed before it started to tickle his brain.
”So, you've come to the scene of the crime?”
Casually, Paul shrugged, making sure he didn't arouse the three's curiosity by openly resenting their presence (and signaling as clear as horse p.i.s.s that he'd had what promised to be an evening of electrifying s.e.x shattered to friggin' smithereensa h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation). ”What crime scene?”
”Murder.” Al pulled on the joint. Held it for a second, then spoke using the lung full of smoke; each word appearing as a ball of blue. ”There wasa a little kida murdered yesterday. Poor devil.”
”We heard,” Miranda said. ”But it happened down in the village, not up here.”
”That's true. But didn't you hear about the kid's mother?”
”No.”
”She came up herea Last night.” Al pulled on the joint again before pa.s.sing it on. ”She hanged herself from that tree across there. But she'd mutilated herself first.” He pointed. ”Hands. Feet. Face. She was hanging there like a rag doll, dripping blood all over the place.” Then he pointed to his face, his fingers open in a fork. ”Eyes staringa just staring like she'd seen something that had terrified her.”
Miranda gave a shake of her head. ”You know how to decorate a story, Al. I bet you'd do a really good job with our Christmas tree.”
He looked down, his lips forming a twitchy smile. ”I found her, Miranda,” his voice light as a whisper. ”I found her hanging there. Wearing nothing but a little nightdress. Blood all over her legs.” Taking the joint back in his fingers, he shook his head at it. ”They don't grow stuff like they used to, Paul. This isn't having any effect.” He looked across at the tree; its branch still projected out above the Vale of Tears. What was left of the rope, with a fresh cut mark at the bottom where they'd brought her down, swayed in the breeze. ”She won't go away, Paul. I can still see her there. I can see her eyes.” Al shook his head savagely, trying to dislodge the memory. Then, failing, he wedged the end of the joint into his mouth. He sucked so hard that the fiery tip glowed white.
4.
”I thought there'd have been some cops here,” Miranda said later as they cut across the cemetery, away from where Al sat, trying to fog the memory in clouds of marijuana smoke.
Paul shook his head. ”I suppose once they've removed the body and checked the area there's nothing to stay around for.”
”And why didn't they take the whole rope away, not just the end with the noose? It's ghoulish.”
He looked at her. Her eyes were bright in the dusk. She looked cold.
”Are you all right, Miranda?”
”Fine.”
”I could walk you home?”
”No. I'm OK, Paul.”
”Uh, here come the ghouls. It's show-time.” He nodded down the hillside where clumps of people were moving up the hillside to where the tree with the rope stood.
”I imagine this'll become something of a tourist destination. I only hope they washed the poor woman's blood away. Come on.” She took his hand. ”Let's find somewhere quiet.”
5.
In the thickening gloom, Stan Price looked out of the window. Hunger burned fiercely inside of him.
”Harrya Harry. Stan's a hungry boy, Harry. Bring me some of your Ma's cake. Harry?”
In the distance, the hillside cemetery swelled from the ground like a pregnant belly.
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