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  I took a drive to Galveston four hours later, lists in hand, and hunted down an ATM. After pulling out a couple hundred I nearly fainting at the figure in the account. My next port of call was a hardware store; buying the most essential items like paint and varnish. I also arranged for wood and new window shutters to be delivered within the week.

  Grocery shopping was a novel experience, I had never had to do it. I’d survived off take-out, army food or hostel kitchen fare for as long as I could remember after leaving home. I probably spent thirty minutes staring at milk, and trying to figure out which kind I should get. Nevertheless, I managed to get what I figured would feed me for a few days, and headed back to the car. I passed a ‘home décor’ shop and pulled into the parking lot, remembering the scratchy old linen on the bed. A few hundred dollars later (and lots of advice from the sales lady) I stuffed three big bags into the car, hoping to make my new home a bit more comfortable that night. God alone knows how she convinced me I needed scented candles too, but it’s not as if I had issues spending money.

  Back at the house I switched on music and actually had a good time unpacking the food, I placed the meat in the freezer, the apples and beers in the fridge, and dry stuff in the cupboards. It damn near seemed like a proper home. I then delved into the new sheets and pillows. I’d bought a new duvet too, and by the time I’d made the bed it looked so good all I wanted to do was fall straight into it.

  I managed to resist that urge and picked up a beer in the kitchen instead. Walking out onto the balcony, I stared in desperation at the broken stairs and peeling paint. I jumped up onto the rail and sat there with my legs dangling over the undergrowth that strangled the area around the house completely. The sea was rough today, and white foam topped the swells as they rushed toward the beach and crashed against the sand.

  I looked up and down the beach, and that’s when I saw the lone figure walking away from my house and toward Port Bolivar. It was a much more desolate part of the Peninsula, where the worst of the ruined houses stood and very little had been rebuilt, simply because it jutted even farther out into the water and was so much more exposed. A couple of the local stores were down there, but they only opened during season, along with the camp ground. Basically the college student’s seasonal party area.

  The person walking down the beach was a girl; I could see her hair blow out to the side of her in the strong wind. In the stray rays of early evening sun, auburn lights glinted in her long strands. She had stopped and was facing the sea, and even at this distance I sensed a deep sadness in that lone little person so far down the beach. I was making myself melancholy, and jumped down off the rail to go and make supper. I spent the better part of the evening cooking myself a proper meal for the first time in my life.

  As the weeks passed, I started working on that house with a passion I didn’t know I had in me. Tourist season was approaching and I had an idea of how to keep my trust fund from evaporating. I had the capital to get some high grade coke from old high-school contacts in Miami, and with students and holiday people around, I’d turn over a killing. I knew I was once again playing with fire, but I wasn’t planning on using, just selling… And I was planning on selling to Allen specifically. He could spread it from there.

  My handiwork made my uncle’s old place seem like a different house altogether, I’d painted the boards a shade of light blue, and hung brand new white storm shutters at all the windows. The wild vegetation was gone, though it hadn’t gone without a fight, and I had the scars to prove it. The thorns hadn’t been so visible from outside the bushes.

  Every evening at six I made my way to that balcony rail to watch for the girl, and every evening I saw her, walking down the beach. I hadn’t gone to talk to her, and I didn’t know where she lived. I was scared if I got close to her I’d just hurt another person, so I simply watched her every night from my balcony. This helped me keep her at a distance, merely a beautiful mythological figure. She was so petite from a distance, and I thought she was young. She had turned toward me one evening and I swear she didn’t have any lines on her face and, unless I was hallucinating, her eyes were blue.

  “You’re fucking crazy, and you don’t deserve anyone, you’re just a washed-up piece of shit Deverroux,” I muttered to myself, turning back into the house.

  A few days later I sat down and ordered new furniture online. I’d had enough of living in a house full of somebody else’s memories, and needed to make it my own inside now, more than just having the most comfortable bed in the world.

  Tourist season had begun and local stores were slowly opening their doors. As the tourists arrived I’d began to see life in a few more houses around. Even at the busiest time I guessed there would still be two houses on either side between me and the closest neighbors, which made me happy. I’d procured and sold a good stack of coke to Allen, letting him come to my place to pick it up. I’d told him to keep me out of how it spread or where it originated from.

  “Sure Mich, no worries, this is gonna be a hit, coke is the latest big come-back drug... And holiday season is here! College kids will lap it up.”

  I was stupid enough to not see how hungrily he glanced around the house, and after, slunk off with the bag under his arm. I wish I’d known at that stage how hard this stupidity was going to come back and bite me in the ass. I just never learned.

  I sat back with a beer after having a shower on the first night after un-boxing the new couch, coffee table and flat-screen TV. I had mounted the latter on the wall that I’d repainted a dark blue, giving a much manlier feel to the place lately. Overall life was good. Having my own house… I was even getting used to that idea and it was really starting to feel like mine. I was slowly getting over the need I had for calming goodies, and I was fucking proud I’d done it alone. No twelve-step program for me, no Sir.

  As tourist season got into full swing Allen began stopping by and handing me wads of cash regularly. I’d stashed away most of it in a bag in a cupboard down the passage from my bedroom. Security was not something I was too concerned about, not since I’d been here anyway. I hadn’t noticed bars on any shop windows, or security of any sort. When I slept I still slept lightly. Consequently I woke up with every creak the old house made.

  At about midnight one night, not too much later, the house creaks were a bit too regular. They were coming from the balcony, and then a window shattered. I sat bolt-upright in bed and listened. There were two voices, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I stood and moved silently to my door, my hand-to-hand combat training and stealth movement tactics running through my mind.

  When I looked cautiously around the doorframe, there were two figures rummaging through my chest of drawers and display cabinets in the lounge and passage. I could now tell one was Allen, and heard him whispering.

  “I tell you man, I gave him all the money, and I ain’t seen him take it to no bank, and I been watchin’. It’s here somewhere.”

  His companion shone a flashlight around and answered nervously.

  “But what if he wakes up? The dude’s ex-army Al.”

  Allen’s laugh and his comment made me see red.

  “He’s a wash-out, and he takes some pretty strong shit I gave him to sleep, he won’t wake up even if you go and slap him.”

  I silently got behind them, slipped the catch on my door so they were locked in and flicked the light switch.

  “Wrong,” is all I said.

  The two men froze, brining a slight smirk to my lips.

  “Good evening Allen, and I don’t think I’ve met your friend.”

  They stopped, the other man dropped his flashlight, and I saw a wet patch bloom on the front of his jeans. Allen smiled, a smile of someone who was about to try and talk himself out of a problem.

  “Stop, before you begin,” I said as I started walking toward him, slowly.

  Allen tried to retreat but had nowhere to go. When his back was to the wall I stopped approaching.

  “I heard you, I heard
you insult me, and I want you both out of my house. As to me being a wash-out, please take this as a reminder that I’m everything but that.”

  I punched him so hard to the side of his head that I felt the bone in my hand crack, and something in his head gave way. His friend grabbed him and they staggered to the door.

  “I never want to see you two again,” I yelled after them.

  I locked the door and walked to the kitchen to put ice on my hand, after which I went back to sleep, calmer than I’d been in ages.

  Allen ended up in Galveston General Hospital with a cracked skull two days later though and I got called in for questioning. I told them about the break-in, got reprimanded for not reporting it, and that seemed to be that. But rumors spread around Crystal Beach that summer about the violent man that had taken over the Lechat house, and everywhere I went I got scared looks, or was avoided by the locals. My hand healed in a couple of weeks and I bought a boxing bag to hang on my porch as a stress reliever. I wouldn’t soon forget how good that punch had felt, and again my teenage years came back to haunt me.

  Through all of this (the redecorating, the robbery, learning that I was not cut out to be a drug dealer and working on the rust spots on the Jaguar) I still made sure I was there to watch my mermaid walk the beach every evening at six. I started to really wonder who she was, why she walked alone every night, and why she seemed to have such a sad aura about her, visible even from this distance.

  I was lost in thought about my sad mermaid when a soft, and virtually inaudible ‘meow’ pulled me from the fog. It stuck me as so pitiful and small. When I walked back to the rail I heard it again, a hoarse little cry. I went one by one down the stairs trying to find where the sound was coming from, and eventually sat on my haunches right next to an opening that led under my porch stairs. There was no undergrowth, but it was closed off with wood to keep rodents out.

  When I stopped to listen I’d obviously made a bit of noise, because one of the tiniest little creatures I’d ever seen up close poked its head through a small hole and staggered out into the chilly evening air. One blue and one green eye blinked up at me, and he walked right up to my outstretched hand, still crying out. When I picked the little thing up he was nothing but skin and bone, and shivered in my palm, ice cold and barely filling my hand. I had never had a particularly soft spot for cats, but some deep sense of compassion stirred in me at how helpless this little thing was. He was dirty and obviously starved, and I cradled him against my chest as I carried him inside the house.

  I could not guess the little thing’s age, but I figured I best try and get something in its belly before I tried to clean it, and warm milk seemed a good idea. He couldn’t yet drink by himself, so I hunted down a syringe from my first-aid kit. I had no idea a half hour of painstaking labor would follow. I was no easy task getting him to take bits of warmed milk from the syringe as I held it to his mouth. After that, with much sneezing and spluttering, we both needed a wash. So I started a bath for the little guy, filling the basin with warm water, and using shampoo to wash him clean. This process was all much to his horror, which he made loudly known. Once sufficiently clean, I toweled him and left him in a box I found in the kitchen with a blanket. Only then did I go and shower.

  As soon as I was clean I looked in to find him sitting next to the wall of the box, once again crying. I took the whole lot to the lounge to watch TV for a while. I put the little guy on my chest while Queen of the Damned played, and that’s how I fell asleep on my couch, with him curled purring on top of me. I woke up the next morning with a tiny paw on my nose and two mismatched eyes staring into mine. I smiled, and named him Armand after a character in the movie I had fallen asleep to. Somehow the little grey kitten with the odd eyes had stolen a place in my heart.

  “Well little guy, seems like it’s you and me now,” I said… and it struck me that it felt good to not be completely alone for the first time in months.

  I sat there with a smile as Armand fell asleep purring on my chest.

  Later that week I was on a usual outing to stock up on basic groceries and buy cat food for Armand when I walked into a local store that hadn’t been open in the weeks before. The bell on the door rang as I entered and I looked up at the counter, as I always did, feeling like an intruder. It was at that moment that I looked straight into her face; it was my mermaid from the beach.

  She looked up at me and smiled the smile of a shop proprietor when she heard the bell.

  “Good morning, you’re new around here, aren’t you?”

  Her voice was the sound of wind chimes, and I had already lost my heart along with my powers of speech. I stared at her as though I was looking at a real mermaid, a fictional creature.

  “Um, hi, yeah, I… I’ve been here a while now, but. Sorry, I just… You.”

  I must have sounded like a total idiot, so I shook my head, walked off into the shelves and gathered everything I wanted. When I approached the check-out counter, where she stood quietly paging through a magazine, she looked up and that gaze stopped me in my tracks. Her eyes were turquoise, a deep cerulean blue unlike any color I’d ever seen.

  “Ready to try that talking thing again?” She said, brushing a strand of her long hair behind her ear.

  A little giggle escaping her throat as I placed my basket on the counter, I cannot imagine what my face looked like, but I felt like a blithering idiot.

  “About that, I’m sorry. It’s just that I see you walking along the beach every evening from my house, and I never expected I’d see you face-to-face. Your walks have almost become as much my ritual as yours…”

  “Which house is yours?” She asked, ignoring the fact that I’d practically stalked her.

  I paused a moment, spending the time gather my thoughts watching her ringing up my purchases, smiling at the pouches of kitten food and bag of kibble. I swallowed down the lump in my throat.

  “The light-blue one along Crystal Beach, it’s pretty much the only intact house in a stretch of about seven.”

  When she was done ringing up my goods and I’d paid, she said goodbye, and as I turned away.

  I was nearly out the door when she said, “I’ll keep an eye out for you enjoying my evening walk Mr.”

  I turned back to her.

  “My name is Michel, Michel Deverroux.”

  Our eyes met, and I swear it was a joining of souls. With no other woman had I experienced this sensation in my life ever at the first meeting.

  “I am Annabelle, it’s nice to meet you Michel.”

  4

  Annabelle stood at her kitchen sink with her hands submerged in the warm soapy water washing dishes. It was one of her favorite activities when things got to be a little too much and she needed to do some de-stressing. For her it wasn’t just the activity, it was the fact that her window looked out onto the ocean that helped too. The beach was her thinking place and the sound of the waves brought her peace. It was also one of her favorite scenes to paint. The beach was still empty, tourist season still being a few months away, allowing Annabelle to savor the pristine landscape.

  The sun set slowly over the horizon as the glasses clinked against each other under the bubbles, leaving an unmistakable pink glow to spread across the sky. Annabelle stopped moving her hands as she heard a knock at the door. She picked up a dish towel and rubbed her hands together on it, walking through to her front door as she did so. She saw the outline of her father’s familiar silhouette, and she saw him lift his hand to tap on the glass again.

  “Hold on Daddy, I’m coming!” She called slipping the catch and opening the door.

  He gave her a hug, “Good evening sweet-pea.”

  Annabelle stepped into his embrace, breathing in the scent of his aftershave that immediately transported her back to being a little girl, safe and unaware of all the bad in the world.

  “Hi daddy, are you okay?”

  He nodded with a concerned look crossing his features, “I just thought I’d pop by, I know this isn’t an easy
week for you baby girl.”

  No matter what went on, his use of sweet pet names could always lift her spirits.

  “Yeah, I was trying not to think too hard about it, but it’s tough for you too you know. Can I get you something to drink?”

  He followed her into the kitchen and sat down at the old oak wooden table.

  “Coffee?” He asked.

  Annabelle nodded pulled her mugs down from the cabinet above the kettle, listening to him talk about his garden, going fishing, and things at the shop.

  “Is everything still in order to open for season in a few of months time dad?” She asked, filling the percolator with coffee grinds and fetching cream and sugar to put on the table along with the mugs.

  “It’s all ready, now we just need the time to pass so that holiday makers can pitch up and spend their money. Oh, did you hear that someone new is apparently moving into Andy Lechat’s old house in a few weeks? A nephew or such? Poor bastard’d got a big job ahead of him, that house is a wreck.”