Читать книгу Trouble in the Glen - Maurice Walsh - Страница 14

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Meantime, Gawain had got down to the cove through the thinning trees and over a final ridge.

Cobh Echlan was the very head of Loch Easan. It was nearly circular in shape, and looked to be land-locked. Away on the right the crystal waters of the Aanglas came cascading down from the glen, and the soughing pulse of them reached Gawain’s ears. On his left, a low promontory, mostly solid rock where red valerian got a scanty hold, ran far out to narrows that he could not see, but he knew how the tides raced in and out through that throat not a hundred yards wide. Beyond a half-mile of water the flank of Stob Glas, golden in whin, rose to the bare uplift glinting greyly in the sun. A narrow band of pearly mist bridged a chorrie high up, and another, above the blunt stob, was fading out in the blue abyss.

Gawain knew this cove of old. He looked around him. More improvements! he thought. Like giving a child a cake and taking it from him in a pet!

A big, roomy bathing house had been built at the back of a concrete platform jutting out from the flank of the ridge. Wide, easy concrete steps led down to the shallows, and at one end a long diving-plank projected out over deep water.

He sidled down over a bank of shingle to the sickle of brown sand margining the shore. The sand was dry, and ran and crunched under his rope soles. The tide was barely moving. A small ripple lipped in, drew back, met another ripple, and made little wrinkles of commotion that cast shimmering reflections on the sunlit bottom. The ripple, the shimmer, the lovely translucent faint-green of the water were enticing.

A neap tide almost full, but how cold?

He kicked off his sandals, and dipped forward an inquisitive toe. The shock and tingle went up his leg, thudded within his breast, and made his breath flutter. But the water was not really cold here, over the sand that had absorbed a week’s sun.

Gawain drew his flannel pants up at the groin, slipped in ankle-deep, and moved shuffle-foot along the shore towards the steps leading up to the platform. The water, washing over his insteps, had a pleasant tingle now, and he wanted to go in deeper.

I could do worse, and, if I put my head under, the water will sizzle. We used to go in here without togs in the old days—and the prood lady is awa’ hame a flee in her lug. He hummed the old Scot’s ballad:

“Prood Maisie is in the wood,

Walking so early,

Sweet Robin sits on the bush

Singing so rarely,

‘Tell me, thou bonny bird,

When shall I marry me?’

‘When six braw gentlemen

Kirkward shall carry thee.’ ”

He mounted the steps to the platform, and his feet left wet marks on the cool concrete. The bathing house at the back had two windows closely blinded, and a green door with a Yale lock; the use of it would be confined to the privileged. A teak bench ran along the front below the windows, and there Gawain sat him down. The sun was warm on his outstretched feet, and he moved his toes like a pleased boy. After a time a hand moved up to the neck of his polo jersey.

April and May, keep away from the say! he murmured. But a’e plunge, and a fellow would be ready for his breakfast. The last words were muffled in wool.

Standing naked on the coir matting at the end of the diving-plank he was a fine, long, lathy, sinewy shape of a man; but his colour was startling, and showed how nearly naked he had gone in the Jungle. From mid-calf down his skin was delicately white; to high on his thighs it was brown as a nut; his lean buttocks were again white, his back brown, his long neck red-brown, and his hands were teak below walnut forearms. Skewbald is the word.

The air was cool on his naked back, and he had no desire now for the chill of the water. But hesitation would not help. He drew in a long breath, brought his arms forward, and fell in neatly.

His black helmet bobbed up within a second. He shook it furiously, and loosed a bellow with all his might. That was the bellow that Iosabel Mengues had heard—and he had fallen in, sure enough. A good yell does help after a cold plunge.

To counteract the numbing sting he went up the loch in a trudge, turned over on his back, kicked the water furiously aboil, went off in another sprint, and then slanted inshore in a leisurely breast stroke. His breath was coming fast now, and his coursing blood subdued the chill. He kept swimming easily till he saw the bottom under his eyes. The water here over the warmed sand was delicious, and he back-pedalled, thrust his legs forward, and sat on the bottom, the water just above his navel. He smoothed the water down off his arms, ran fingers back through his hair, and glanced casually down the shore towards the bathing platform. His mouth opened, but no sound came.

Jumpin’ Moses! She’s up for the second round!

He caught only one glimpse of the figure that dodged and disappeared round the end of the bathing house, but there was no mistaking that white pullover, the scarlet kerchief, the red hands and feet.

She has me at a disadvantage, said Gawain, or has she? I hope to Saint Bothan, my patron, she is not handy with a piece of rock!

He crab-crawled into deeper water, and breast-stroked back, head well up and eyes watchful. Opposite the spot where he had left his sandals he trod water, and lifted up his voice.

“Home, tinker! I’m coming out.”

The woods gave no sign or sound, and Gawain grinned smugly. She was evading the naked issue.

He came to land boldly then, brushed the sand off his feet, and slipped them in his sandals. He slapped some water off, sprinted fifty yards up the shore and back, and mounted to the platform by the flank where the path joined it. There he sat down on the bench near his clothes, and let the sun pour into him. His headache was gone, and there was a nice and well-known emptiness about his middle. Just one after-swim cigarette, and he would do justice to Kate Carnoch’s breakfast.

His cigarette case and matches were in the hip-pocket of his flannel pants. He reached a hand towards where he had tossed them, and paused. His eyes batted, his hand remained poised, and there was dismayed awe in his whisper:

Bothan, you ingrate! You never would?

He picked up his shirt hastily, and put it aside. He laid his brief trunks on top, and then his black polo jersey. And that was all. He blinked his eyes, but there was no blinking the fact. His flannel trousers were missing. They were not on the bench, or under it, or on the platform, or afloat on the loch. They were not there. They were gone.

Gawain sat down on what was left of his clothes, as if to make sure of them, and contemplated the obvious. A fine smug feeling he had a minute ago, contemplating a proud and proper lady beating a modest retreat! Proud and proper! But with an antic streak—an imp hidden away for a suitable occasion! And the occasion had arisen—and here he was! He lifted a humble hand.

I concede that second round, he said, and I ain’t ready for a third—not to-day—not in my shirt-tails.

He chuckled then, for he had an antic quirk too, and he could see his long, skewbald legs propelling him along the drive, shirt-tails fluttering. He could see himself vaulting over that cursed gate; and, sure as shootin’, the shirt-tails would catch on a spike, and he would dangle a shame in the face of the day.

He threw back his head and laughed at himself. But he stopped suddenly, and dismay crept into his face. Murder! how was he to transliterate this, yes, catastrophe, into a knightly adventure for that queen of his? Pants and shirt-tails and skewbald legs into the panoply of chivalry! It couldn’t be done—or could it? It might, if he took it as the dolour that always befell the knight at the beginning of the Task. As it was, this story had a beginning, but no end. Did he want an end?

His mouth shut like the proverbial trap, and his brows came down over intent black eyes. He put his hands between closed knees, and contemplated the concrete between his lean feet. He had been given an invitation as pressing as most, and had been thrown a challenge as direct as any; and it was a knight’s duty to answer both—to call the bluff of this antic imp in the shameless manner in which it had been made. After a time he rose to his feet and reached for his shirt.

Dam’ fool! he addressed himself bitterly. You’ll land on your ear this time.