Lilt Pt 02

I'm haunted by her, by my memories, by her whispering voice in the dark. Each night when I close my eyes I see her face, reassemble scenes from our time on the beach, my emotions all tangled up in the eroticism of it all. I wonder was I dreaming, was it just a figment of my imagination, too much time alone out here in the wilderness. My feelings are jumbled, for the woman I met, and for the animal sex we had that day. I haven't seen her since, a week or more now. I decide that I'll look for her.

I begin by following her path over the headland to the village two or three miles along. I stop for coffee in a bar on the high street and describe her to the owner; mousy hair, with highlights, pale skinned and skinny, green-grey eyes that sparkle, and he says, "sure but it sounds like she's cast a spell on you fella, so it does," but he shakes his head, he doesn't know of anybody that matches her description.

I sit out front and watch the villagers coming and going, go down to the harbour and watch the fishing boats unloading, then back up to the village, in and out of the couple of shops, but there's no sign of her. It's a small village, and pretty soon I'm conscious of the net curtains twitching and can imagine the comments. I don't know why I've not come this way before, except that the stunning views from up on the headland have always stopped me in my tracks.

I go back to one of the shops, Mcguigans, and ask if there's a b'n'b nearby. The woman behind the counter says aye, there's Carricks place out on the main road through, pointing the way out of town. I buy a toothbrush and toothpaste and set off.

Carricks is a small, viewless house sitting alone beside the main road. They're empty, so I book a room for the night. "Where's your car? And your luggage?" says Mrs Carrick, a stooped old lady who was born long before her house was built.

"I'm travelling light," I answer, and fish out the toothbrush and paste to show her.

"'s the only way," she says, her old eyes twinkling in among the many creases. "Will you be wanting feeding?"

"Yes please," I answer, and she tells me she'll have a little something for me around seven and shows me to my room.

The bedroom is sparse and clean, looking like it hasn't been used in a long time. I have a long hot soak in the bath and dry off watching the donkey in the small field at the back grazing the afternoon away. It's peaceful there, and after a while I fall asleep.

I wake up to the shadows of a tree in the yard, moving dappled over the magnolia wall. It's almost seven, so I brush up and head downstairs, where Mrs Carrick calls from the kitchen, "Are you hungry now?"

"I am Mrs Carrick," I say, and she brings me a plate of fish and chips and settles me at the dining table.

"Would you like tea?" she asks.

"Yes please."

She's gone for a couple of minutes and I wolf down the food. My appetite's been off since the day down on the beach and I'm ravenously hungry.

She brings a pot of tea and a mug while I'm mopping my plate with a slice of bread. "Oh," she says, "it's nice to see a man likes his food."

"It was lovely," I say, "thankyou very much."

"Sure," she says, "but aren't you the fella lives over by the O'donnells?"

I nod, my mouth full. "I am," I answer, "how did you know?"

She laughs at that, "Jeesus, doesn't everybody know everything about everybody else round here."

I push back my chair and turn to face her. "Do you know a woman?" I ask, and describe her, the woman I'm looking for.

"I know her," she says, "a wee small slip of a thing, all brown boots and no breakfast so I'd say, walks the coast path most days."

"That's her," I say, "have you seen her recently?"

"Not for a few days or so, she comes and gos."

"Do you know who she is?"

Mrs Carrick frowns, bemused. "D'you know," she says, "I don't, which is strange enough in itself, but now's I think on it, I'm not sure anybody in the village knows either. Sure but everybody here knows everybodys business, but I don't believe that I've ever heard anybody roundabouts even talk of her. Myself included." She looks at me silently for a while, and I look back.

"So there'd be no point in my asking if you'd know where she lives?"

"Well," says Mrs Carrick, "she comes from beyond the point," pointing East, and out towards where the coastline extends to a point out in the ocean, "and there's nothing out that way for a good ten, twelve miles." Mrs Carrick sits herself down and pours herself a cup of tea. "so, the only place that I know of that way is the old Fergus house, mebbes three four miles along the road here. There's a fork off to the right, no more than a farmtrack, runs maybe a mile or so down towards the water, that's where you'll find Fergus's. For the life of me I can't imagine why anybody'd live over there, the place has been a derelict wreck the last twenty years, but I can't think where else she'd be coming from."

She offers me tea, but I'm already getting out of my seat, I smile and shake my head.

"You'll be going for a walk then." she says.

***

There's no footpath by the road so I walk along the tarmac. There's no traffic anyway. Mrs Carricks three or four miles feels more like ten, but it's a lovely evening, the mountains away in land, a sunset forming out over the ocean, and by the time I come to the fork off I'm breathless and exhilirated. The track is well rutted and looks like it hasn't been used for a century or more. The further I go the more overgrown it gets until it's little more than a narrow gap between the gorse. I'm considering turning back, convinced that I must have missed the house, when I hear a voice, softly singing, sounding gaelic. My heart beats hard in my chest.

I peer in the direction it's coming from and see the Fergus house, old and grey, hidden from view by the encroaching greenery. There's the fading remnants of a path and I have to push through branches and leaves, and there she is, looking at me without any expression, her mouth forming the words to the song.

"You found me then," she says. She's wearing a white dress, seeming to shine on the little porch with the drab grey stone behind.

I nod, mute. Her face seems cold, and her eyes hard. She stares at me. "You'll be wanting water then?"

I realise that I'm utterly parched. I nod again, "Yes please."

Inside the house is old and tired but immaculately clean. She leads me through the hall and into her kitchen, small and sparse, reaches into a cupboard and runs water into a glass. She hands it to me wordless and watches me drink.

"Why'd you come?" she says.

I put the glass down on the kitchen table. "For you," I answer, and look into her eyes.

She looks back. "For me," she says, to herself as much as to me. After a pause she says, "For me, or for more of the same?"

I answer without hesitation, "for you," and I hold her stare.

She snorts, turns to look out of the little window.

I want to hold her, to move over to her and to wrap my arms around her, fit our two bodies together so that we can rest our heads together awhile and look out at the distant ocean, rekindle some of the essence of what had been growing between us before the beach. But her manner is ice cold. I don't know if she feels violated, has come to hate me in some way, or if she perhaps feels ashamed. Our behaviour had been elemental to say the least. So I stand and wait for her, and after a while she turns to me and says, "Well, you found me didn't you. Never thought to check did I want to be found though. So maybe it's time now for you to be on your way."

I wait. I'm hurt. I haven't got the words to explain what I feel, what I want, not without causing her some offence, and her eyes refuse to soften or yield, so I turn to go. As I'm closing the front door behind me I hear her whisper somehow, from all the way to the kitchen at the back of the house, "Stay."

***

It's a strange sort of a house. There's no electric. No TV, no mobile, washing machine, fridge etc. She lives sparsely, a few essentials in a larder off the kitchen, no luxuries. The garden is run wild, the building needs some attention here and there, but the place is very neat and tidy, and she feels like she belongs there. I ask her her name, I ask her all kinds of questions, and all of her answers are vague, non-committal, her manner suggesting that she'd rather I didn't talk at all. So as the evening darkens, the rooms inside the house illuminated deepest red by the sunset, we sit quietly, together.

We sit and we look at one another. There's no discomfort there, it's simply what we do on this evening. The windows in the house are all wide open, as is the kitchen door, and as the sky begins to blacken she stretches herself and says, "Well, the birds are all in their nests, and so it is time for us to sleep." She whistles, shrill and sharp, making me jump a little, and from the silence outside the house I hear something approaching fast. A dog enters the room. A big dog, part German Shepherd from the look of it. It flashes an eye in the darkness at me and goes to stand beside her.

She leads me up the narrow stairs, shows me where the bathroom is, and shows me into a bedroom. "Here's your room," she says, "goodnight," and she's gone, the dog at her heels. I wonder is there no kiss? No anything? But I don't mind. The evening has a surreal feel to it, and any expectations I may have had were long since dispersed. The room has a single bed, and a chest of drawers with a candlestick and a box of matches on top, and a crucifix on the wall, no more, no less.

Through the open window I can hear the ocean, and out on the horizon a big moon is beginning to rise, colouring the darkness with a faint silver. I undress and settle myself into the bed, lie tingling, excited somehow, there's a magic here. In the silence I can hear her bed creak as she cozies herself down, and the dog padding and curling to make its bed on the floor. I can see out of the window from my pillow, and I watch as the moon rises in the night sky, and my dreams gradually seep through.

***

The room is blue, and into the blueness an orange light approaches. I blink and stare and my ears reach out to hear the padding of her feet, the dog at the door. She comes onto the bed with her lighted candle held in front of her, and with her knees either side she shuffles her body up over mine. Her hair hangs down over her face masking her expression, but I can see the concealed sparkling of her eyes. She settles on my chest, places the candles onto the chest of drawers, and raises up her nightdress so that her tummy and all that's below are revealed to my staring eyes.

Wordlessly she pushes forward so that her womanliness is right in my face. Am I dreaming? I can smell her. I look at what she's showing to me.

In the half light I see her most intimate valleys and curves. Through her dangling mane she watches my eyes, her hands reach down and she holds her layers apart, seperating the hairs there with her fingertips so that I am looking at her ridge. She uses her fingers on either side to draw back the taut flesh and I see her little pearl, almost translucent in the candle light, glowing pink and shining. I crane my neck to kiss her there and she sighs.

I want to touch her but she has my arms pinned. She reads me, and pushes herself closer still, presses her hardened little mound against the ridge of my nose and begins to massage herself against my face. Her bush and her opening are so tantalisingly close and I want to tongue at her while she rubs but I wait. Instead I inhale her scent, the deepening womanly must of her, my penis hard like a rock, throbbing.

My mouth is dry, I lick my lips. I nuzzle at her, either side of her fleshy little shaft, push gently at the pink tip of her with my nose and she begins to sigh. When I can feel that she's ready I curl the flat of my tongue and press it up against her opening, the tip of it up by her anus, and gently part her hairs and begin to lap at her, long flowing strokes, still nuzzling at her with my nose. Her sighs become soft moans. I taste her urine, clinging to the innermost hairs, followed by her intense salt, and that indescribably rich flavour that women have down there.

Little squirts erupt from her onto my nose and cheeks and I try to pull away so that I can lick at them, but she grasps my head and draws me tighter against her clitoris, her rythm more intense, her little squirts more frequent, flowing down me and into my opened mouth. Her taste consumes me. I try to free my arms so that I can touch her but she tightens her grip on me with her knees. She pulls herself away a little and reaches back down to herself, shows me with her fingers how she likes to be stroked and rubbed, and I watch in aroused fascination as her fingers circle around her rigid bump, her clitoris winking in and out of the dim light as she works at it.

The moon casts her shadow onto the far wall. My penis is burning hot under the covers, and I push involuntary upwards from my abdomen, desperate to push onto her, push into her. She laughs quietly from inside her dangling hair, her eyes fixed on mine. Her rythms adjust and her flow changes as she masturbates, and I can see her labia creaming with slick juice. She dips into it with a finger and uses it to lubricate herself, continues her rubbing, and a small flood gushes out of her, drenching my chin and my neck and chest.

She gasps, pushes herself back up against me, pushes her wetness onto my mouth. Her breathing comes in spurts. My heart hammers inside of me, my penis boils with need. I run my tongue the length of her, delving in with the tip at her arse end, then pushing at her as it travels towards her engorged little rod. With each stroke I push harder and further in, and she opens up gradually, until my tongue is exploring inside her, deeper and deeper, licking at her tunnels walls, sliding over and caressing her bumps and ridges in there.

She lowers herself onto me, spreading her thighs out, still working on herself with her fingertips, and I lap at her like a thirsty dog drinking down water. Periodically her pussy spasms and her wetness pours onto my tongue and down inside me. I wrench my arms free from her grip and she immediately draws herself away, turns her body on top of the covers and disappears out of the door with the dog at her heels. I gasp and blink, suddenly alone in the bed. I wait.

After a while she returns, comes padding into the room, and sits in the chair opposite the window. She lights a cigarette and glowers at me. The dog sits beside her. When she's finished her smokes she rises and goes to the window to flick away the butt, and without a word she's gone, back to her room. I get up, go to follow her. The door to her room is open and I can see her shadow, but the dog is at the entrance, and as I approach it growls, long and low. She makes no sound to discourage it. I go to the toilet and return to my bed.

The moon casts its silvery light onto the surface of the ocean beyond, and as I drift away I hear her voice, softly singing.

***

The following morning I wake up and my mood is thoughtful. Something that I don't understand is happening here, and I'm confused. I find her at the kitchen table, she's wearing an adidas tracksuit, her hair tied back in a flowing ponytail, smoking. Her appearance surprises me, in my mind I somehow feel that we're somewhere in the early twentieth century, so her sporty look takes me aback. She studies me as I enter. The dog must be outside someplace.

"You've a great many questions on your face," she says, "will you be asking them?" Then, "No, I'll begin, how was your sleep?"

"I slept well thankyou," I answer, "how was yours?"

"I don't know that I slept at all," she says, "I sometimes wonder have I slept for years."

I don't know what she means, so I begin to make myself a cup of tea. I put out two cups and make us each one, and as I move about the kitchen she watches me. With the tea made I settle in the chair opposite her and she offers me a cigarette.

I haven't smoked for a few weeks now, I only ever smoked the odd one here and there, but I accept, and despite her coolness I note that she lights me with a shaking hand. After a while she leans on her elbows on the tabletop. "You're very sweet," she says, "will I tell you a story?"

I smoke and nod. She slurps her tea. "Once upon a time," she begins, "there was a girl and a boy. They were very in love, and they bought a little house with great plans to do it up and make themselves a nice little life by the sea. Every morning they'd go for a swim, and every evening they'd make passionate love in their little bed." I smile at this, and she smiles back, but her eyes are very sad, and I see tears beginning to well.

"One day," she continues, "they make their passionate love, and they go for a swim in the ocean, and he pushes out too far, and a great tide takes a hold of him and carries him away," the tears begin to flow, "with her there a watching," she sobs, "it carries him away," and she sings the last bit, "away to his grave."

I want to reach out to her, to hold her. My heart is frozen still, and I want her, anybody, to hold me too. Tears form in my eyes.

She sniffs, "so... they conceived that day, making their sweet love that morning, but with him in his grave, she takes to the drink, this sweet wee slip of a girl. She spends every last penny of the little they'd saved and she drinks it all, and needless to say, she miscarries the child. Their child."

Her tears have stemmed, and the coldness is back on her. I offer her my hand. She drinks her tea and lights another cigarette, but my hand remains outstretched on the table. She strokes it, one time, as light as a feather - enough. I feel ripples of melancholy happiness in my soul.

"So," she says, "there's my little tale for you, and I hope that you liked it. I'm going for a walk, down to the water, will you come?" and she smiles, a little bit of warmth there.

"Of course I will," I say, "I'll just visit the loo. Can I borrow your toothbrush?"

She nods. "In the bathroom," she says, taking a white shawl from the cupboard and wrapping it around her shoulders. "I'll head down, the path's at the back. If you look hard you'll find it."

***

Freshened up I follow her down to the shore, searching the garden for a while until I've found a hint of a track which leads me down through an overgrown tangle of coastal bushes and grass. Where the pathway opens up onto the expanse of beach and wide blue ocean I see her shawl, discarded close to the water, and I crouch down to look out over the water. I can't see her out there and I feel a little panic tingling deep down inside me. Her laughter reaches out for me from somewhere behind.

She's in the shade of a small, gnarled tree, dappled by the shifting sunlight that filters through the swaying of the leaves.

"Did you think I'd gone out to join him?" she says, mischief in her voice, "down there in Davy Jones's locker, with the mermaids? And the sirens?"

The dog sits beside her, watches as I tread through the soft sand and make my way over. I sit beside her, looking out over the ocean scene, and I feel her studying me. After a while she says, "I've a liking for you you know."

I turn to face her and she kisses me, a light kiss that brushes gently over my lips. We look into one anothers eyes.

Seagulls squawk and whirl in the blue sky high above us. She kisses me again, more slowly this time, pressing her lips to mine. I taste cherry lip gloss, cigarettes and coffee, a hint of her breath plays on my face, our lips melt into one another and the tips of our tongues caress, continue to delve and explore, brushing and feeling until we are one. Her eyes are closed, her face upturned, and I slide an arm around her and draw her close.