Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination Read online

  * * *

  The Bucket of Blood was quite a place. It was a wooden shack with a stone floor, a rough wooden bar and a barman with no teeth. There were three locals sitting at the bar. The tables and benches were filled with backpackers.

  The sexual politics of the backpacker scene was something Olivia found relaxing. Obvious displays of sexuality or financial solvency were frowned upon. You would no more turn up to a backpacker party wearing a halter-neck top and a miniskirt than you would in a Marks & Spencer’s business suit or fisherman’s waders. The standard dress was faded, threadbare clothes which might have fitted when they left Stockholm or Helsinki but which, after six months of diving, rice and peas and dysentery, were now two sizes too big.

  Drew gave her a wave as she walked in, beckoning her to sit beside him. A loud guffaw emanated from the three locals at the bar. She looked over and saw that one of them was telling an anecdote and was bent over with his arse in the air.

  The gang from Rod’s made room for her on the wooden bench. One of them was telling a jargon-filled dive story, which seemed to involve Feramo’s people.

  “So he catches one of them in Devil’s Jaw without leaving a buoy, and the guy just turns off his air.”

  Olivia lost her composure as Morton C. walked into the bar.

  “Jesus. What did he do?”

  “He cut through the other guy’s AS . . .”

  She watched as he joined a group at the back of the bar, greeting the other guys in a manly fashion, like they were gang members from south LA.

  “. . . and breathed from his BCD . . .”

  Morton C. caught her watching him and raised his beer bottle. There was a slight change in his expression which might or might not have been a smile.

  “. . . then did an ESA until he managed to get his deck off and reopen the valve.”

  A man approached their table; he had a seventies hippie look—a big handlebar mustache, long hair, bald on top. “Hey, Rod. You wanna take a party out on the boat to Bell Key?”

  “Any particular reason?”

  The man gave a slow, delicious smile. “We got the share.”

  “Yay! Let’s go. You coming, Rachel-from-England?”

  * * *

  It turned out that a large bag of cocaine had been washed up on the shores of Popayan the night before and was being shared democratically between the inhabitants of West End. Olivia wondered if it might be the bag that she had chucked out of the hotel window: highly unlikely, but there would be a pleasing circularity to that.

  Most of the clientele of the Bucket of Blood headed out to the key in a small flotilla of dive boats, one of which conked out on the way. Olivia was aroused to observe that it was Morton C. who came to the rescue. He pulled at the starter cord, messed around with the throttle, then hauled the outboard motor out of the water. After tinkering for a few minutes, he put it back, pulled at the starter cord a few times and the engine started perfectly.

  There had been a whip-round for a plastic gallon container of rum and a couple of gallons of orange juice. Once on the island, which was a hundred yards across and uninhabited, they lit a fire and mixed the drinks in coconut shells. Initially she was reminded of parties at school, everyone working out who they were going to snog later under a veneer of cool punctuated by bursts of nervous laughter. There was a bit of singing and guitar strumming while lines of coke were cut and joints passed around. People started to sit down around the fire and Olivia joined them.

  She found herself acutely conscious of Morton C., watching him out of the corner of her eye and panicking slightly if she saw him talking to another girl. It was all deliciously teenage. He didn’t acknowledge her at all, but their eyes met a couple of times, and she knew. He settled himself on the opposite side of the fire and she sipped her drink, declining the cocaine, but taking the occasional drag on a joint as it was passed round and watching his serious face in the firelight. Drew leaned over into her line of sight, his lank hair flopping over his face. “Rachel,” he whispered solemnly, “you see over there, those trees? There’s a helicopter in there. You see it? They’ve covered it in cotton wool.” He glanced around furtively, then loped off towards the trees in an apelike manner.

  It appeared that the cocaine was taking hold. An excited discussion started up to her right which consisted entirely of people agreeing with each other.

  “That’s it, that’s it, man! That’s it, that’s it.”

  “Yeah, I mean, like, that’s, like, so, like . . .”

  “That’s what I’m saying! That’s exactly what I’m saying! That is exactly what I’m saying!”

  Someone started walking towards the fire, murmuring, “. . . the senses might give us an experience of reality that seems to be that reality and is actually related to that reality but is not literally that reality,” then stuck his toe in the fire, cursed and fell over.

  Olivia lay back and closed her eyes. Someone had brought a boom box and put on French ambient music. The grass was great—very light, very giggly, very sexy.

  “You changed your hair.”

  She opened her eyes. Morton C. was sitting beside her, staring into the fire.

  “It was the sun.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  He slid back and leaned on one elbow, looking down at her, eyes moving over her face. He could have leaned forward just a couple of inches more and kissed her.

  “You want to take a walk?” he whispered.

  He helped her up and led her by the hand to the beach. She liked the feel of his hand: it was rough and capable. The path led round a rock, out of sight of the fire, and he stopped, brushing the hair away from her face, looking at her with those intense, gray eyes, the fine line of his cheekbone and jaw outlined in the moonlight. He looked adult and tough, as though he’d seen a lot. He took her face in his hand and kissed her, bold, insolent, leaning into her against the rock. He was a great kisser.

  He moved his hands confidently down her body. She slipped her arms round his neck, drinking in the kiss, exploring the muscles of his back. There was a strap under his shirt. She followed it down towards his hip with her fingers and felt him push her hand away.

  “Are you carrying a gun?”

  “No, baby,” he whispered. “Just pleased to see you.”

  “It’s in rather an odd place.”

  “We aim to surprise,” he said, slipping his hand expertly into her jeans. God, it really was like being sixteen again.

  There were shouts. Drew appeared round the side of the rock. He stared at them, chewing violently on a stick of gum. He looked really sad for a second then turned away. “Hey, man, the boat’s going back,” he said huffily.

  They pulled themselves together, adjusting their clothing. Morton C. put his arm round her and they walked back to join the others. He gave a short laugh. “Jesus, how are we going to get this lot into the boats?”

  Rod was halfway up a coconut palm, perhaps searching for a helicopter, cotton-wool bound or otherwise. Drew was darting skittishly along the beach, still chewing. A splinter group had taken to the lagoon, where they were dancing in the water, arms waving above their heads. By the dying embers of the fire, more people had joined in the excited agreement-discussion and were yelling over each other.

  “That’s exactly how I see it, that’s exactly how I see it!”

  “Exactly! That’s it exactly!”

  Morton C. sighed and started to round everyone up.

  * * *

  The wind had dropped and the sea was inky black and calm. The talk turned to Feramo. Drew was agitated, staring off towards the lights at the end of the island, chewing frantically.

  “You have to watch every fucking word you say on Popayan now because you never know who’s working for them and who isn’t. I’m going to go there tomorrow, man. I’m going to go down there and give them something to think about.”

  “Hey,” said Morton C. “You’re loaded, man. Take it easy.”

  “We should take them on,” sai
d Drew. “It’s crazy, man. We know these caves better than they do. We should take them on.” He stared straight ahead, still chewing, one leg jiggling maniacally up and down.

  Olivia shivered. Morton C. pulled her close to him, wrapping his sweater round her shoulders. “You okay?” he whispered. She nodded happily. “You know anything about these people?”

  She shook her head, not meeting his eyes. She was really embarrassed, suddenly, about the Feramo connection. “Only what everyone says. Do you?”

  Someone passed him a joint and, taking a heavy drag, he shook his head. Olivia noticed that he blew the smoke out straight away, without inhaling.

  “Like to see the place, though. Would you?”

  “I was going to go. I thought it would be good for my article. Sounds scary now, though.”

  “You’re a journalist?” Their fingers touched as he handed her the joint.

  Drew was still going on about Feramo and Pumpkin Hill: “We should set something up and really scare them. Like surprise them. Like do something really creepy in the caves so they won’t go back.”

  “Who do you work for?”

  “Freelance. I’m doing a diving story for Elan magazine. What are you doing here . . . ?”

  Olivia caught her lower lip in her teeth as Morton slipped his hand onto her knee, pressing with his thumb as he slid his hand slowly up her thigh.

  * * *

  Outside Miss Ruthie’s they made out in the shadows under a tree. For a second, looking over his shoulder, she thought she saw a curtain pulled aside inside the guest house, a head silhouetted against the glow of a lamp. She ducked back into the shadows.

  “Can I come in?” he whispered into her neck.

  With a tremendous effort of will she pulled away slightly and shook her head.

  He looked down, composing himself, breathing unsteadily, then looked back at her.

  “No overnight visitors, huh?”

  “Not without a chaperone.”

  “You diving tomorrow?”

  She nodded.

  “What time?”

  “Around eleven.”

  “I’ll come and find you after.”

  * * *

  Back in the room she paced around, frantic. The nunlike self-denial was torture. She didn’t know how much longer she would be able to keep it up.

  29

  As Olivia walked along the main street early the next morning, a rooster was crowing and the smell of breakfast cooking drifted out from the small wooden houses. Children were playing on the balconies, old people nodding on the porch swings. A lugubrious man with pale skin and an undertaker’s suit raised his hat to her. At his side was a young, red-haired black girl and a fair-skinned child with a flat nose, broad lips and tightly curled hair. The blond, pale lady she had seen when she arrived was walking elegantly along, still protected by her parasol and her handsome companion. Olivia started to imagine she was in a weird land of incest and interbreeding, where fathers would sleep with their nephews and great-aunts have secret affairs with donkeys.

  She headed for a hardware shop and chandler’s she had spotted the previous night, full of tin buckets, coils of rope and washing-up bowls. She loved the feeling that in hardware shops everything was useful and sensibly priced. Even if you spent really quite a large amount of money, it wouldn’t be wasteful or extravagant. The sign above the window looked like something out of a funeral home in nineteenth-century Chicago: curly, intricate black writing which read HENRY MORGAN & SONS was peeling off now, showing the weathered wood beneath.

  Inside, a tall man in a black suit was measuring rice out of a big wooden vat with a metal scoop—no Uncle Ben’s boil-in-the-bag in Popayan. The man was muttering away to his customer in an Irish accent as thick as Miss Ruthie’s. Olivia bent over the counter, fascinated by the array of things on sale: fishhooks, torches, string, small triangular flags, cleats, shoe polish. There was the jangling of a bell as the door opened; the conversation stopped abruptly and a heavily accented voice asked for cigarettes.

  “We’re all out of smokes. I’m sorry.”

  “You do not have cigarettes?” It was a guttural, heavily accented voice, the r rolled, the t so emphasized it almost incorporated a spit.

  Quick as a flash, Olivia flipped up the mirror on her spy ring, wild with excitement at a first chance to use it. The man, who had his back to her, was short and thick-waisted, clad in jeans and a polo shirt. She moved her hand slightly to get a better view and gasped as she saw the tightly curled black hair: it was Alfonso. She looked down quickly and peered into a cabinet, feigning an intent interest in a barometer. Alfonso was expressing some threatening-sounding skepticism about the alleged absence of cigarettes.

  “Oh, but to be sure we’ll have some Thursday when the boat comes in,” said the tall man. “Try Paddy at the Bucket of Blood.”

  Alfonso cursed, then swung out of the shop, slamming the door behind him and making the bell jingle hysterically.

  There was silence for a moment, then the storekeeper and customer started talking in lowered voices. At one point she picked out “in the caves” and “O’Reilly’s goats are dead,” but she thought that might be a line from an Irish ditty she had learnt at school and reminded herself sternly not to romanticize the situation.

  Eventually she turned and asked for a ball of string, a map of the island, a bag of carrots and a large knife, adding casually, “Oh, and a packet of cigarettes.”

  “To be sure. What type will you be wanting?” said the shopkeeper.

  “What have you got?”

  “Marlboro, Marlboro Lights and Camels,” he said, casting a merry look out into the street.

  Olivia followed his gaze. Alfonso was deep in a conversation, but Olivia couldn’t see who he was talking to. He moved slightly to the left and she caught a glimpse of cropped peroxide hair and baggy hip-hop clothes. She gripped the edge of the counter, her cheeks reddening, feeling a lurch of pain. It was Morton C. Morton C. was in cahoots with Alfonso. The sneaky bastard. How could she have been such an idiot? She couldn’t visit Feramo now. Feramo wouldn’t want a girl in his harem who had casually snogged one of his minions. She had managed to ruin the whole objective of her surveillance mission with one pathetic lapse of self-control.

  * * *

  She watched till the two men finished talking and went their separate ways. Then, carrying her map, carrots and cigarettes, slipped down the path at the side of the shop to sit by the sea, hidden from view in the tall grass. Her hand was shaking as she lit a cigarette, coughed and put it out immediately. She didn’t know if she was more hurt or more angry or just both. You can’t trust anybody, she told herself, brushing a tear from her cheek with her fist. Not anybody.

  After a while she straightened up, jutting her chin defiantly, and walked back along the path.

  The secret of success lies in how you emerge from failure, she told herself. She had two hours before her dive. That should be enough time to get to the top of Pumpkin Hill and see what was going on. At least she would get something out of this debacle: photos, at least, and maybe clues.

  Following the map, she headed out of the village along a path with numerous forks and turnoffs. At every point of potential confusion she left a carrot pointing the way back. Ahead of her, Pumpkin Hill rose up from the undergrowth like a grassy hillock on the South Downs, a sandy path zigzagging up it, exposed and unprotected. On the right, the undergrowth continued up a narrow valley on the side of the hill. As she grew closer, she crouched down and trained her spyglass on the summit. She caught movement behind a tree and peered through the glass, trying to focus. A figure stepped out in camouflage gear, carrying what looked like an automatic weapon, and surveyed the area. She whipped out her miniature camera and snapped. This is outrageous! she thought. Pumpkin Hill is common land. People should have the right to roam and certainly should be able to do so without men pointing machine guns at them. Olivia did not agree with weapons of destruction, mass, individual or otherwise.

>   Dropping a carrot to mark the spot, she left the main path and went into the narrow wooded valley to the right of the hill. She marched ahead angrily, brushing branches aside, her agitation unleashing her imagination. Her mind started racing with notions as to what Feramo was cooking up in his fraudulent soi-disant eco-lodge. She became certain it was acetylene-based and headed for LA. Maybe he was training commercial diver/welders to take jobs in the sewers. Maybe they were going to release gigantic acetylene and oxygen bubbles, mix them and set them alight underwater. Maybe they were going to get into the cooling systems of nuclear power stations and set the bubbles off there. It was brilliant. A commercial diver could go into the plant with nothing more than the normal tools of his trade and blow the place sky high.

  The trees and undergrowth reached almost to the summit. In places, the ground beneath was almost sheer. The climb left her covered in small cuts and scratches. As she neared the top, her spirits lifted, until she saw that her way was barred by a ten-foot fence with spikes on top. If she veered to the left, she would emerge onto the hill in plain view of the guard. She went to the right instead and came to a deep ravine. There was a ledge on the other side with a tree growing out of it, above which was a fairly easy climb. Olivia weighed things up. If it wasn’t for the fifty-foot drop below, she told herself, she wouldn’t think twice about jumping across. For God’s sake, she had seen it done a thousand times by blond-haired princes in tights in Disney cartoons.

  Before she had really thought it through, she jumped and found herself on the other side, slithering on some incredibly slimy substance which smelled revolting. She only just stopped herself from falling into the ravine by grabbing the bottom of the tree, which was also covered in the disgusting slime. As she turned her head to look, she knew there was something bad about the slime. Her nostrils weren’t having any of it. Calling on the training afforded by innumerable smelly Third World toilets during her hippie traveling years, she expelled her breath sharply and didn’t take in any more air until she was out of stink range. Then, lungs bursting, she turned her head heavenwards, took a tentative sniff, then took a deep breath of delicious pure Popayan air and started peeling off her clothes.