The First Cut

The park was a large square bordered on all sides by well-lit roads. Tree-lined avenues crisscrossed the cropped grass. In the daytime, students would lie out in the sun reading or playing makeshift games of cricket or football. Up near the main road were the public toilets-said to be a favorite haunt of local homosexuals-and colorful flower beds. At the center of the park, thick shrubbery grew around the bowling green and the children’s playground.

At night the place felt a little spookier, perhaps because there was no lighting in the park itself. But you could always see the tall, amber streetlights on the roads, and the sound of nearby traffic was comforting.

Kirsten’s trainers made no sound on the tarmac as she followed the path under the dark trees. There was very little traffic about. The only thing she could hear was the odd car revving up in the distance and the sound of her shoulder bag brushing against her hips. Somewhere, a dog barked. The sky was clear and the stars, magnified by the haze, looked fatter and softer than usual. How different from winter stars, Kirsten thought, all cold and sharp and merciless. These ones looked like they were melting. She looked up and turned her head in all directions but couldn’t find a moon. It had to be there somewhere-perhaps behind the trees.

Yes, she would miss it all. But Canada would be exciting, especially if Galen came, too, as he intended. Neither of them had ever crossed the Atlantic before. If they could save enough money, they would take a few months after completing their courses and travel the continent together: Montreal, New York, Boston, Washington, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Vancouver. Even the names sent shivers of excitement up Kirsten’s spine. Three years ago she could never have imagined doing such a thing. University hadn’t only given her a first-class education, it had given her freedom and independence, too.

Soon she got to the center of the park, near the bowling green. The whole tract of land was slightly convex, and this was the highest part. She could see lights in all directions, defining the valleys and hillsides upon which the city was built. Because of the warm, moist air, the far-off streetlights all had haloes.

Just off the path stood a statue of a lion with a serpent coiled around it. Kirsten had noticed the other day that some idiot-perhaps the skinheads-had spray-painted its head blue and scrawled filthy graffiti in red all over its body. That didn’t matter in the dark, though, and she decided to give in to an impulse she had often felt.

Swishing over the grass, she went up to the statue and ran her hand over the still warm stone. Then, with sudden resolve, she jumped astride it.

The lion was small enough that her feet easily touched the ground. Down the path, she could see through the trees to the lights on the main road and the turning into her own street, only a few hundred yards away. To think she had been here all this time and had always wanted to sit on the lion but hadn’t done so until now, her last night. She must have passed it at least a thousand times. She felt silly, but at the same time she was enjoying herself tremendously. At least nobody was watching.

She gripped the smooth mane and pretended she was riding through the jungle. In her mind, she could hear screeching cockatoos, chattering monkeys, humming and clicking insects, and snakes slithering through the undergrowth. She raised her head to look for the moon again, but before she could find it, she noticed a strange smell and, a split second later, felt a rough hand cover her mouth and nose.

5 Martha

The tide was in when Martha walked back under the whale’s jawbone to Pier Road, and the small fishing boats bobbed at their moorings in the harbor. The sun was going down behind West Cliff, and, at the top of the hill opposite, St. Mary’s Church shone warm gold in the last rays.

There was still nothing happening in the auction sheds, but some of the locals seemed to be pottering around on their own small boats.

Martha leaned against the railing on St. A

Something about the air made her crave a cigarette. She had never smoked before the past year, but now she didn’t care one way or another. Whatever she felt like, she would do, and damn the consequences.

She went into a small gift shop near the Dracula Museum and bought ten Rothmans; that would do for a while at least. Then she went back to the railing and lit a cigarette. One of the men down in the boat glanced up at her admiringly from time to time, but he didn’t call out or whistle. She was waiting for them to speak. Finally, one said something technical to the other, who replied in equally incomprehensible jargon, and Martha moved on.

She was hungry, she realized, dropping the cigarette and grinding it out with the ball of her foot on the stone quay. Down by the bridge she saw people ambling along, eating from cardboard cartons of fish and chips. She hadn’t noticed any other kind of food available so far; the place was hardly crammed with French, Italian or Indian restaurants, and she hadn’t even seen a McDonald’s or a Pizza Hut yet. Clearly, it was a fish-and-chips-or-nothing kind of town.

At the first fish bar she found, she bought haddock and chips and wandered around by the bus station as she ate. The fish was fried in batter, of course, and had a kind of oily taste because the skin had been left on. It was good, though, and Martha licked her fingers when she’d finished, then carefully dumped the carton in a litter bin.

It was almost dark now. She stood on the bridge for a while, smoking another cigarette to take away the greasy taste. In the lower harbor, the rusted hulk she had seen earlier was still at dock. On the north side of the bridge, where the estuary widened toward the sea, strings of red and yellow quayside lights reflected in the dark water, twisting and bending as it lapped, like people’s reflections in funfair mirrors. On its cliff top, St. Mary’s stood floodlit against the dark violet sky.

Martha walked over the bridge to Church Street, in the oldest section of town just below East Cliff, stopping to buy a newspaper on her way, just before the shop closed. It was that quiet time after di

The Black Horse pub across the street looked inviting enough. Martha went in. Antique brass fixtures attached to the walls shed real gaslight on the small, wainscoted room. The lounge was cozy, with narrow, pewlike wooden benches and scored oblong tables. It was also quiet.

Martha bought a half of bitter and found a free corner. A few years ago, she would never have thought of even entering a pub by herself, let alone sitting in one. But this place felt safe enough. The few people who were there seemed to know each other and were already involved in conversation. There were no lone wolves on the lookout for female flesh; it clearly wasn’t a pickup joint.

She glanced quickly through the copy of the Independent she’d bought. Finding nothing of interest, she folded the paper and put it aside. What she really had to do, she thought, was work out some kind of plan. Nothing too detailed or elaborate, because she had recently learned that serendipity and intuition played a greater part in events than anyone imagined. And she had to remember that she wasn’t alone in her task; she had spirits to guide her. Nonetheless, she couldn’t just wander the place aimlessly for days. Right now, it was all right; she was finding her way around, becoming familiar with the environment. There were certain spots she needed to know about: sheltered places, isolated paths, the shadows of the town. But she needed a plan of action.