In the Hollow of the Deep-Sea Wave

by Garry Kilworth

Genres: Horror; Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure

Synopsis

To escape his life in England, John Trencher volunteers to teach schoolchildren on a tropical island. But paradise has its darker, less innocent side, and a web of violence, taboo and sexuality soon begins to wind itself around him. In the Hollow of the Deep-Sea Wave contains the compelling and erotic title tale, and seven short stories on similar themes.

Release date: July 25, 2013

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 304

Sample

One

The girl lay motionless on the white coral dust. Beyond the rainforest, on the beaches, dancing was still in progress, the drums beating out a rhythm conceived in another age. Close by, the waves tore relentlessly at the fringing reef. There was a bright moon, above him.

The teacher wiped away the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and noticed that he clutched a rock in his fingers. It was stained with the girl’s blood. He let it fall from his grasp. He realised, now, that he was trembling violently, and he steadied himself against a palm tree.

Panic concerning his own safety was held at bay with great difficulty. He knew what he had done: he had raped and killed a young girl, a child of fifteen. If the islanders found him, they would cut him down where he stood. Normally a placid race, they had the Asiatic temperament and would act before their blood cooled. He knew he had to get away, but where could he run to? He was on a coral island, surrounded by thousands of square miles of ocean.

He gathered some dead palm leaves and threw them over the girl’s body in an untidy heap. If only she had not started screaming! It was the screaming that had made him panic. Then she had sunk her teeth into him, under his left armpit. The pain had been incredible. He had not been able to make her let go, even when his other hand had found the lump of coral and he had begun beating her with it. Only when he had struck her temple had she finally released him. The torn flap of skin beneath his arm was still excruciatingly painful.

The teacher turned and began running towards the reef. There was an idea in his head that he could take the reef path and cross to Short Island, where the priest lived. He was the only other European on the atoll.

Would Father Maurer help him? Did the Church provide sanctuary in this day and age? Why should it? He was a murderer. Father Maurer would be just as horrified, just as enraged, as the islanders themselves. The teacher slowed to a walk again as these doubts entered his mind.

On reaching a certain path, he changed his direction, and ran instead towards his house. He avoided going through the centre of the village and entered the dwelling from the rear, without being seen. He changed his clothes and strapped on his money belt. He had remembered the Arab boom, anchored just off the islands. The thing to do, he decided, was to swim out to it and ask them to take him with them on the tide. It was his only chance.

The dhow was anchored between Jorka and Tubb Islands. He waded out towards it, as far as he could, then began swimming. For the first time since he had landed on the islands, he did not consider the sharks as he splashed through the water. There were worse nightmares to consider back there in the rainforest.

Along the reef, the waves clawed to get at him. He allowed himself to be taken by the current, towards the heavy-looking wooden craft, with its big-bellied hull and patched sail. When he reached it, the teacher grabbed the anchor chain and yelled, ‘Hey? Anybody there?’

After a minute some of the crew appeared at the side.

‘Can I come on board?’ cried the teacher.

They stared at him blankly, their dark faces almost black with shadow.

‘The captain,’ he shouted. ‘Fetch me the captain.’ Still no movement amongst them, yet he knew some of them spoke the island pidgin he was using. A Somali grinned at him.

The teacher struggled with his money belt and eventually unclasped it, waving it over his head while still clinging to the chain with his other hand.

‘Money!’ he cried.

They threw him a rope and hauled him on board. A few minutes later the boom set sail for the coast of Africa.

Two

To coral islanders, the sea is a loving mother and a mass murderer in one. We love it, and we hate it. It provides for us, fills our tables and our pockets, yet it snatches victims from amongst us, sometimes by the handful. When I lived in England, I stayed in Brighton. I used to watch visitors go down to the shore and inevitably they would begin throwing stones at the water. At first, I sympathised with this activity. I had often felt like punishing the sea myself.

It was some time before I realised that I had endowed the stone-throwers with the wrong motives. The act was too subconscious to be a deliberate chastisement of the waters. There was a faraway look on the faces of the throwers. They hardly thought about what they were doing. The ocean was there, vast and awesome, and they were drawn to its edge, automatically stooping to find a pebble to toss into its waves.

Then I knew what it was!

They were trying to fill the waters with stones, to bury the sea beneath them. They had, even those who were used to living by it, a deep-rooted fear of the ocean. It was too big, too mighty, too un-contained.

Coral islanders know there is only one way to treat the sea: as an old-fashioned, bountiful god with occasional irrational bouts of savage temper. Once in a while such gods need a sacrifice.

The school teacher was typical of most European and American visitors to the atoll. He came armed with the intention of penetrating our culture as quickly as possible, and of giving us the benefit of his experience and knowledge during the two years he intended staying amongst us. In a way these are quite laudable goals, except that they presuppose areas of ignorance on our part and a rather high opinion of outside values on his.

He arrived by ship from Sri Lanka. I had been waiting for him for several days and had passed the time line-fishing in the lagoon. When the rusty old cargo vessel had appeared over the horizon, I had asked Uncle Letushim if he would ferry the teacher to me in a dhoni canoe, before helping to offload the supplies with the other small craft.

I watched the teacher walk down the short quay made of driftwood: slow, unsteady steps after the rolling deck of the ship. He carried two canvas bags and was overdressed. He was a handsome man: tall, lean and athletic-looking. Although he had a blond moustache, he appeared younger than his twenty-six years.

He stopped when he reached the sand and looked at me a little uncertainly. Some of his confidence had no doubt been drained by the voyage in that unstable tub now moored in the lagoon. The fact that there was no welcoming committee had probably shattered another illusion.

I retrieved my line, laid it on the beach and then picked up my golfing umbrella. Under its shade, I went to meet the new man. ‘Can I help you with your things?’ I asked.

He gave me a sort of pallid, weary smile and said, ‘Thanks,’ handing one of the bags to me. I had spoken in my own language; a mixture of our own form of English and Divehi spoken in the Maldive Islands, Jonson’s Atoll being part of the same archipelago as the better-known Maldives. No language is pure these days, but ours is probably stranger than most. Spoken slowly, it sounds like the pidgin English of nineteenth-century boys’ adventure books, but the several Divehi words and phrases injected into it make it a difficult tongue to understand.

‘That’s very good of you … are you alone? I expect all the others are helping to unload the ship?’

His diction and accent were good. The language professor at Cambridge, Millicent Wilson, had obviously taught him well.

‘Welcome to Jonson’s Atoll. My name is Nathan.’

He stared at me curiously, and he nodded. They would have told him about me, in England, at his interview.

‘You’re the one they sent to be trained. Didn’t you want to take up the teaching post here?’

‘No,’ I said, then added, ‘you look as though you don’t approve.’

He frowned. ‘It seems a waste — all that time and expense for nothing. Still, I expect you have your reasons. I wouldn’t be here if you had decided to take over from Peter Goodwright, so I should be thankful you didn’t.’

‘I think you’ll enjoy it here,’ I told him. ‘Plenty of sun, sea and sand. It’s what most of us want, isn’t it? A place in the sun-paradise isle. This isn’t far short of it. I never used to think that way as a boy, but since I’ve been abroad …’

He held up his hand as if my chatter were painful to him. I was showing off, speaking in English, and it was this he wished to call a halt to. He remained with the pidgin as he said, ‘You speak English very well. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.’

‘I went to an English School in the Maldives — a school for the children of service families when the Royal Air Force had a base on Gan Island. Then my teacher training, of course. Anyway, most of us speak some English. We are the descendants of Englishmen, after all.’

A mutiny on a British ship, similar to that which took place on the Bounty, supplemented our meagre population in the early part of the nineteenth century. The mutineers were never caught and exist within us today. Recently, as this fact has become more widely known, we were given the nickname, ‘The Other Pitcairn’.

‘I’ll show you to your house,’ I said. ‘You’re on the leeward side of the island — a little place out of the wind. One of the privileges accorded to the school teacher.’

He stared at the coral-dust path that disappeared into the trees. Then he glanced down the deserted beaches, with their palms bowing to the lagoon. Finally, he turned to me again.

‘Isn’t anyone else coming to meet me?’

I smiled and said rather cruelly, ‘We don’t go in for things like that. No garlands or songs of welcome.’ He looked a little piqued.

‘But aren’t they just a little curious? I would have thought that a new teacher …’

‘They’ve already seen you in your predecessor, Peter Goodwright. Any curiosity they had has been satisfied by him. You may look on yourself as a unique individual — but to them you’re just the teacher. Not even the new teacher. Just the teacher.’

I thought he would question me on the strangeness of my reply, but he must have been weary and probably the whole thing was becoming too much for him to absorb in one day. He shrugged and looked back at the ship, which was now moving away towards the horizon. Ringed by a constantly changing wall of white surf foaming over the reef, he was trapped in our circle of islands. I felt sorry for him. I knew how he felt: a stranger in a strange land. I had once experienced the same feeling, in an exotic place called Brighton — a place which had terrified me at first. At least the islands were not frightening to someone like him: not on the surface. If he ever cared to look a little deeper he might have cause for some concern, but it seemed he was not going to do that.

‘The breakers,’ he said, ‘they look higher than the island.’

‘I know. It bothers me, too.’

‘Really?’ He regarded me thoughtfully for a few moments. Then he said, ‘I suppose I’d better see where I’m going to live, and started along the coral path, wisely removing his jacket as he walked.

We passed beneath the frangipani trees, some of them over thirty feet high, with their multi-coloured blossoms. He studied them as if he approved of their presence. They were, no doubt, the kind of exotic touch he had been hoping for. When we reached the village the tall, coarse alang grass on either side of the path gave way to hard-packed earth.

We crossed the village, the teacher looking curiously into wood-and-thatch houses, presumably for signs of people. Most were down at the shore, helping unload supplies from the small craft.

There was another short path on the far side of the village which led to the teacher’s house.

Of course, he was delighted with it, small as it is. It is the only stone-built establishment on the atoll. We had the bricks imported. The design is simple — square and squat-but it has a veranda and a small garden in the front. Waste shower water is channelled through small irrigation ditches between the shrubs, and the white, ancient residue of soap still clings to the banks. The plants do not seem to mind detergents.

I left his bag on the veranda and opened the screen door for him. It was cooler inside, though the ceiling fan was not working. He noticed the switches on the wall and tried one.

‘Electricity?’

I explained that while we had a large generator for the island, it was only used during the evening hours, to conserve fuel.

‘The supply ship only comes once every six months,’ I said. ‘What about cooking?’

‘Charcoal. We make it ourselves. I’ll see you get a good supply of that.’

He nodded, without thanking me, and strolled around the house peering into corners and cupboards. I saw him stare hard at the British Army surplus bedstead, standing like an iron beast with its legs in four cans of water.

‘Why the boots?’ he asked, pointing at the bedlegs.

‘Bugs. The cans stop them crawling up the legs — so the teacher said. I told him that they drop from the ceiling anyway, but he took no notice. Best to drag the mattress out into the sun once a week. They hate the sunlight.’

His face was blank of expression.

‘What do they look like?’

I went to the bed and peeled back the mattress seam. They were there, in a neat red-black row, like flat beads. Taking one, I put it on the floor and stamped on it with my bare heel. It staggered away into a crack in the floorboards.

‘Can’t do anything to them, while they’re empty,’ I said, ‘but once they’re full of blood you can burst them with your nails.’

‘Blood?’ He stared at the mattress in revulsion. ‘Maybe I’ll sleep on the veranda until I get rid of those. Anything else?’

‘No. One or two snakes, but harmless. All the really dangerous things are in the sea-coral snakes, stone fish, sharks…’

‘Yes, yes, sting rays, lion fish — I did some homework. I was just making sure.’

‘Big spiders.’ I spread my fingers and scuttled them over a chair arm. ‘Hairy too.’

Suddenly he grinned at me. There was a boyish slant to his mouth.

‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? Where did you do your training? In England, I mean?’

‘Brighton by the sea. They thought it would make me feel less homesick.’

‘Others students give you a hard time?’

‘No.’

‘Oh — I thought maybe you were paying me back for something.’ I realised what he was talking about and said, ‘We don’t work like that here. At least, not in such a crude fashion. We’ve refined the art.’ ‘What art?’ It was his turn to look puzzled.

‘The art of revenge. What you’re saying is that because your countrymen treated me badly, I might be using you as a scapegoat.’ ‘It’s been known.’

I did not reply. I had already said too much. I left him then, to get on with his unpacking, and went back to my fishing. Looking back over my shoulder, just before I left the village on the far side, I saw that he was dragging the mattress out on to the veranda.

The red snappers were biting well and I found the solitude of the beach good for my soul after talking with the Englishman. I made a small bet with myself, as I sat on the hot sands, watching the land crabs build their cones, their stalk eyes forever twitching. I made a bet with myself that the Englishman would be by very soon.

Just before noon he came trotting along, under the palms that formed a half-arch over the beach, wearing running shorts and T-shirt. He had been for a jog, a circuit around the island. They were so predictable, these Europeans. An Arab or an Indian would take weeks to embark upon such a tour, and then it would be a stately walk.

The sweat was pouring from his face and the back of his shirt was soaked. The temperature was in the thirties.

‘Two miles long and a mile wide,’ I called to him. ‘You’ll know every inch of it after three weeks.’

‘I intend to,’ he grunted, walking on. Then he turned. ‘When do I get to meet the others?’

‘You could meet some of them now — or this evening, after you’ve rested.’

‘I’ll wait until this evening.’

I thought he was going to continue his run, but he came back to me then, and waved his arm at the circle of islands.

‘Can you give me a quick rundown,’ he asked, ‘on the atoll? I know this is Tubb Island — and that’s Long Island to our left. What’s the one on the right?’

He pointed to Jorka Island, where stood the giant coral heads of my ancestors. The white monoliths glinted in the sunlight. My own father was amongst them — and my grandparents — and their grandparents. It was where we were buried after death, the heavy coral heads protecting our souls from midnight walkers.

‘You would call that Ghost Island. Then comes Pork, and over on the far side of the lagoon is Short Island — that’s where the church is … and the priest lives there too.’

‘Father Maurer, isn’t it? Does he come over here, to Tubb?’

‘Of course, when he feels it’s necessary. He visits all five islands.’

‘How does he travel? By canoe?’

‘Sometimes, but it’s possible to walk around the reef at low tide. It forms a circle, joining all the islands. Just remember to wear something on your feet and to make sure you know the state of the tide, that’s all. Otherwise, it’s not a dangerous route.’

Jonson’s Atoll is on the lip of an extinct, submerged volcano, overgrown with coral. The ring of coral around the wide mouth of the cone pokes above the surface of the sea in five places and these exposed pieces are the islands. They stand about four feet above sea level, although the rainforest makes them seem higher than this. We are like five fragments of a single town, separated by narrow stretches of water.

The teacher left me to my fishing and further contemplation.

I am proud of the islands — more so since I have been away to foreign lands. This is a beautiful part of the earth. At sunset, a sudden event in equatorial regions, the fruit bats glide between the palms and the only sound is that of the waves breaking on the fringing reef. Then, as darkness descends, the chorus of rainforest creatures, the frogs and crickets, fills the night air. They sing until the dawn’s rays fall on the frangipanis, which cover the coral paths with blossoms.

There are insects like flowers here, and birds like blown blooms. Nature merges its living things, until it is difficult to tell them apart. The lagoon and waters outside the fringing reef abound with fish that were created by some mad artist with a flair for the grotesque. Colour is everywhere. We eat and drink colour every day of our lives.

The Indian Ocean, a forever of blue water, ensures our isolation from the outside world. I have a circular horizon, beyond which are hundreds of miles of deep ocean. Sri Lanka, to the north, is the nearest country.

We lie at nought degrees latitude. We are the people of the zero. Our only strong fear is that a great wave will someday sweep across the island, drowning us all. At four feet above the level of the sea, we are at the mercy of the ocean. On my living-room wall hangs Hokusai’s print of a monstrous deep-sea wave. I purchased it from a shop in England. The Japanese picture-one of several views of Mount Fuji-shows a rigid wave, a wave cast from iron, with a wicked-looking crest bearing claws.

I keep it there to remind me how vulnerable these islands are, even to smaller waves than Hokusai’s. We have a fragile homeland, and we must ensure its defences remain adequate, intact. Unfortunately, we are destroying those defences, and consequently are ourselves heading towards destruction.

Shortly before noon, I decided to visit my father’s grave on Jorka Island. I waded across the shallows which separate Tubb from Jorka and made my way through the forest of giant coral heads which stare over the lagoon. Their faces are roughly hewn representations of the people buried beneath them. I found my father’s face with its high, narrow brow and sensual mouth, and the small hooked nose which was a legacy from his English ancestors. In life my father had always had a kind of urgent expression, as though there were something he had to do immediately, or the world would erupt in chaos. I had asked the fandita man to try to capture that look, on carving the head, but the result had been a wistful air of expectancy rather than urgency; almost the opposite of that which should have appeared.

‘Pappy,’ I told him, ‘the English school teacher is here. The poor man has no idea of the situation he has inherited.’

—You call that news?-said pappy. — I’m more interested in what’s going to happen to me. When are you going to bring me my grandchild? And what about your mother? Does she miss her husband weaving his limbs through hers? Or has she found a lover? Whose warm body nestles close to hers at night, now that I’m gone?—

Unfortunately, the dead are always preoccupied with the more basic aspects of life and it is difficult to engage their attention when it comes to politics or the fate of an unsuspecting teacher of school children. Pappy will listen for hours on the subject of eating freshly cooked sea turtle, stuffed with sorghum. Pappy will talk for hours about procreation. Getting him away from those two areas takes a great deal of effort on my part.

—Well?—he said.—How many babies have you brought into the world? Ten? Five? One? None. That’s how many. Not one. Go away from me — he said in a miserable tone-until you have a little replica of myself to gaze upon —

I left him there, grumbling: a sad, old spirit passing on the gloomy news to the long line of my ancestors. No doubt they were as condemning of me as he was, and spent many an eternal hour discussing the weakness of my loins. The dead can be very unreasonable.

However, I did have a plan which I hoped would satisfy all concerned. It wasn’t the perfect solution, but it was the only answer I could come up with.

The school teacher.

The day turned sultry. This is the doldrums, the region which crews of sailing ships fear and hate. This is the nothing zone, so often empty of winds, where sailors have drifted in their wooden prisons and died of thirst. The Ancient Mariner was here, along our circle, and experienced its madness, its lethargy, its heavy days. We live within the zero, the number that is not a number, the O, the magic ring. I feel this makes us special, though I could not say why. Towards evening, the fishing boats began drifting across the lagoon. Islanders were crossing from Long and Jorka, our two immediate neighbours, using the reef as a path. I wound my line around the empty beer can that I use as a reel and made tracks back to my house. On the way I stopped at my mother’s home and left her one of the three red snappers I had caught. She was in an irritable mood, so I did not stay long. Since my father had been attacked by a shark and left to bleed to death, she had often slipped into depressions which bore the outward signs of bad temper. It is hard for a woman who waits all day long for someone who will never come home.

When I reached my own home, in the main clearing which holds the cluster of wooden houses raised on short stilts, my wife Ruth greeted me, touching my cheeks with her soft fingertips. I handed her the fish and sat on one of the woven palm mats by the door, so that I could watch the swift descent of darkness.

‘The school teacher is here,’ I said. ‘I met him at the quay.’

‘How shall I cook the fish?’ she asked.

‘On the charcoal.’ I hate boiled food.

She began grinding nuts to sprinkle on the white flesh and I took a knife and gutted the fish. The intestinal smell was sharp in my nostrils. I liked the feel of the blade though, slicing keenly through the white underside. It is a satisfying task, cleaning something destined for the plate and the palate. There is a sense of anticipation which one knows will be fulfilled.

I watched my wife at work, preparing the food. She is a delicate woman, with a small face and narrow nose. I like being with her. When we were much younger I used to tease her mercilessly. Then, at about the age of sixteen, on my return from Male, I found myself leaving small presents—a coconut, or fruit on a broad leaf—on the path where she would walk. I would hide in the undergrowth and watch her pick it up, looking around her with a shy expression on her face. She knew someone was courting her and it pleased her. But I did not dare show myself, because I thought she hated me. I thought if she knew it was me leaving the gifts she would have thrown them away in disgust.

I was in a fever over her, in those days. Everything I did, everywhere I went, I had no thought for anyone but Ruth. I still teased her because I did not know what else to do. I used to push her into the sea when we all went swimming. I would try to duck her, or splash water in her face. She used to get very angry and tell me there was someone who would punish me — someone who thought highly of her.

‘Who could think highly of you? I would scorn, my heart in agony over the words. I wanted to blurt out my feelings for her; tell her that it was me who admired her so much; ask her to forgive me.

But I was afraid. I knew she would reject me. I hurt inside, every time I looked at her, but could not stop looking. It was a terrible time. I hope I am never that way again. I was so miserable.

Two years passed, and then one day I came across her alone, as she walked along the sands. She said nothing as we confronted one another and I wanted to run and hide from her. I felt afraid, and guilty.

Then she held out her hand and I saw that she had some spines of a sea anemone in her fingertips. I took the hand and sucked at the spines so that I could pull them out with my teeth. When that was done, she stroked my cheeks, the way she does now.

‘I knew all the time,’ she said. ‘All the time’

‘Knew what?’ I demanded, belligerently.

She just smiled and I collapsed inside.

‘But you thought I hated you,’ I cried.

‘If you had start. . .