HS03 - A Visible Darkness Read Free

moment, then fell to work at her side, using his hands like outstretched pincers. The word-game was forgotten in an instant.
    I brushed the sand from my hands and clothes, then took a few steps towards Helena. She was sitting up straight—gown stretched out before her, her back resting against a little scarp of eroded sand where the dunes gave way to the beach. I sat myself down on thetop of the mound and swung one leg over her head, as if I might have been playfully sitting on her shoulders.
    ‘Almost time to be getting back,’ I whispered in her ear.
    As I spoke, I pressed my knees gently against her arms. Then, I laid my hands on either side of her head and rested it back against the pillow of my stomach. Her up-tilted eyes looked into mine. It was the first time she had shifted her gaze from the thin line of the horizon where the dark blue sea and the pale blue sky collided. She closed her eyes and smiled more softly for a moment.
    I rested the point of my chin against her forehead, and began to massage the muscles in her neck. Then, I slid my hands down the length of her arms. Her hands were poised upon her swollen belly, as if to protect the creature growing there from whatever the world might throw at it.
    Before I could place my hands on hers, they slid away beneath her armpits like frightened deer retreating to the safety of the forest.
    ‘Manni’s right,’ she murmured. ‘My hands
are
cold.’
    ‘What is wrong?’ I asked her, resting the palms of my hands on the bulge of her womb. A month or so, and it would all be over. Maybe everything would be gone by then. Filth, flies, the French, as well.
    Helena’s hands shot out, and caught hold of mine.
    In that moment, I felt the chill of cold sweat on her damp palms.
    Her head pulled away. She stiffened, gazing out to sea again. It was as if a dark cloud had suddenly appeared in the summer sky, threatening to pitch a thunderstorm upon our heads.
    Further along the beach, three French soldiers came tramping noisily out from the dunes. Laughing and cat-calling to one another, they made their shambling way down to the water’s edge.
    Manni and Süzi froze like frightened squirrels.
    The soldiers had not seen us. They were gesticulating, shouting, pointing towards the waves which gently lapped upon the shore, as if they had never seen the open sea before.
    I did not move.
    I did nothing that might attract their attention.
    I took Helena’s cold hands in mine, and I pressed them hard.
    Then, I turned to the children.
    ‘As soon as you have finished, we’ll be going home,’ I encouraged them.
    Their eyes flitted from the far-off soldiers to me, then back again.
    The sound of my voice must have reached the Frenchmen. Two of the soldiers turned and looked in our direction, while the third man never took his eyes off the sea. One of the two took a step our way, raising his hands to cover his eyes from the direct rays of the sun. He stared at us for some moments, then he turned back to his companions.
    ‘They had the same idea,’ I whispered to Helena. ‘A peaceful day at the seaside, that’s all.’
    ‘I heard their wagons passing by all night,’ she said, as if I had not spoken.
    Was that the source of her uneasiness? The fact that the French army was on the move?
    ‘What’s happening in Spain should make our own lives easier,’ I said, intending to reassure her. ‘They like us well enough at the moment.’
    Helena’s fingers tightened into fists.
    ‘Do you really believe that?’ she hissed.
    ‘They mean us no harm,’ I said.
    The soldiers were making more noise than my children had done. They laughed and shouted, passing a bottle of wine between them.
    ‘I am not speaking of the French,’ she said. She turned her head, her eyes looked up into mine. ‘Not those three. Nor the rest of them. You understand the real danger, don’t you?’
    A vein was pulsing rapidly in her temple. She was like a lamb who has caught a glimpse of the butcher’s knife.