She looked at her feet, then out to sea. The wind caught her hair and blew it over her face, covering her eyes. She raised a hand and gently took the hair off her face, turned, and then looked directly in his eyes again.
“And you are?”
Her eyes were green. Fucking green fucking eyes. Fuck.
Her eyes bored into his and he felt like he had been punched in the stomach. He felt hypnotized and dizzy. What the fuck was this? He looked at her eyes and he thought of the child he had killed. He wanted to cry. He would not cry in front of this green-eyed-lizard-bitch, he thought.
She smiled then. Turned all soft. “Look, you can tell me all over a cup of tea, O.K?” Alex put his hands back in his pockets. Green eyes would not control him. He smiled,
“Do I have any other option?” he asked.
“I’m sure you think you do,” came the reply as she walked off. It was then that he noticed, again, she wasn’t wearing any shoes. And she did it. She just turned and walked away. Turned her back to him. Nobody did that. Nobody. What the fuck?
But he followed. A small distance behind her, watching her long, skinny toes sink into the wet sand, watching her feet kick up little wet clouds of sand behind her like a mouse digging a grave. Water seeped into her footprints as soon as she moved on leaving puddles of intention for him to follow. He felt strangely protective and cautious at the same time. He walked like a permanent question, his eyes half shut, half a frown on his face as if trying to figure something out. He kept his hands in his pockets.
He had thought they would go down to the old tea rooms, perhaps have a blather with old Mrs. Jimmy, as she was known after her husband died. But no, Lucy stopped and held on to the old rusty bus-stop as she bent to put on her socks, then her shoes. Flat leather shoes he noticed. Good soles. Shoes made for walking. Shoes made to last, he thought. Thick soles. Shoes and socks taken from the bag he had not noticed. The bag on her back. An old army bag. Alarm bells started ringing. He wondered vaguely if she had a soul.
She didn’t wipe the sand off her feet, he thought. He caught himself looking down her top as she bent over.
Her feet slipped into the shoes and then she stood up straight. “Like what you see?” Again that smile.
She turned and walked away. She walked past the village and up to the cottage on the hill. He followed like a spaniel.
So, this is where she lives, he thought. She lives in a cottage on top of a hill. Like me.
Safe in her perch. Bird on a hill.
She opened the door and walked straight in, obviously expecting him to follow. He smiled to himself, and with a slight shake of his head walked the remaining few steps and followed her inside. It felt like the most natural thing in the world. It felt like sticking his own head in the noose.
He took a second to look around. Noting every detail. Her place was not “what?” he thought. “As I expected,” he realized. It was not tidy or organized, but neither was it a mess. There was a certain logic to the chaos. A certain chaos to the logic.
“What do you do, if you don’t mind me asking? You got me. I’m curious.”
“I escape,”, she said, her back to him. She was filling the kettle with pure water from the tap, and lighting the gas at the same time, kettle in her right hand, gas lighter in her left. No bother for this green-eyed-lizard.
When the gas burst into flame she put down the lighter, put the lid on the kettle, put the kettle on the stove and then turned around, facing him. She took off her jacket, her eyes glued to his. The way she did that, he thought, took her jacket off, as if she was saying, you want to fuck me now, or later?
Alex felt himself smiling again. She was like a cat, the thought. Lioness. Puma. It was only her jacket, but he felt like he was watching a stripper.
“What are you smiling at?” she asked, a half smile on her face. Jesus H. She fucking KNEW!
“Nothing, “ he said. How could he tell her, this strange girl what was going on in his heart, his brain, his cock at this moment. It did not make sense. He felt drawn to this enigma of a girl, and yet wary. His instincts said there was danger here. He could only feel warmth but his training told him to be suspicious.
He looked around, trying to get a bearing on the place, and on her, on what he was feeling.
“What do you do?”, she asked suddenly. She had the strangest voice, he thought. Every question seemed like an order. Like there was no question of whether he would answer or not. He just would. As if she knew it already.
“Me?” I catch.
She smiled. “You catch? You catch what, exactly?” “I catch escapees” he said.
She snorted a little snort, then they both smiled and laughed out loud. It was not real laughter. It was the type of laughter strangers make to give other strangers cover their discomfort. It was not the laugher of friends. Still, he noticed, she even laughed in French.
“Tea,” she said, and turned around again to find some cups.
And then came that moment in his head. The moment where time slowed down. The moment where things became so clear that he felt as if he could see forever into the future. He caught a breath and looked at Lucy, as if looking at her for the first time. God, she was beautiful, he thought as he began to hallucinate .There was more. There was that strength that he recognized. Who was she, where had she come from. What had she been through to give her this strength? Was she for him? Stupid, stupid thought. Could she be for him? Fuck.
He closed his eyes. Again the sadness. Why was she making him feel sad, he thought. He did not understand. He could not understand, but later, he would wish he had understood. Then came the anger, again. Who was she, he thought? No. Not this time. Not again. I will lose her, too.
She was speaking again. He came back. So he looked at her again. He raised up his eyes and looked at her. Her red lips were moving but her green eyes were not. He heard the words she said, but this time he did not understand them. He could not understand their meaning. What was she doing? What were these words for? Who were they for? These words that said nothing and sounded so pretty.
Words killed.
He killed, but not like words. He was off again and knew it.
He killed only the body but he knew, words could kill your soul. He had eventually learned that.
That words meant nothing.
Killing was honest.
Killing made words obsolete. Kill the body, no mind left.
So he had lost the ability to listen, to want to listen. But since he had stopped killing he was trying again to learn to listen. To words. The words people said. But killing was easier. Much easier, he thought. Yes. People talked shit. They used many words to say nothing, to sell what they were selling, and he knew they were all selling something. So he asked himself what the fuck he was doing here. A moment of madness, a slip. He thought about killing her. A quick thought that passed quickly through his brain, quickly exiting on the other side of reason.
“I have to go,” he said. He walked to the door, turned and looked at Lucy, as if for the first time, as if for the very last time. She just stared at him, questions in her large green, lizard eyes, a slight frown on her forehead, teapot and a cup in her hands.
“I have to go,“ he said again.
Silence. And then she said ‘I’ll wait for you in the pub tonight, 8 pm.’
Words.
Before he closed the door.