Rip rap Snip snap by Vivienne McCulloch

Rip-rap Snip-snap

Vivienne McCulloch

We like this story because:
Secretly we know this is the way the
world works, and for that we are
grateful.

It was a cold night on the waters off Blue Point, but at least it was calm. Paul nosed his
fishing boat around the eastern arm of the horseshoe reef that embraced the offshore
lighthouse, picking his spot with care. He locked the wheel, went aft and threw a line over
one of the big revetment stones, let the current drift him just enough to keep him away from
the reef wall, and made fast.

The steady rhythm of the isophase beam from the lighthouse showed no other shipping
around the headland. Paul made no lights other than the glow of his cigarette. He leaned
against the boat rail smoking slowly, thinking about the many hours he had spent here line-
fishing for mackerel and, if he was lucky, sea bass. Sometimes, early in their marriage, Elise
had joined him, finding it fun and romantic to spend a day or a night in the lee of the blue-and-
white striped lighthouse. She had tired of it quickly enough. It had not taken her long to
plumb the shallows of Paul’s romanticism. Elise discovered that there was nothing behind
this strong, silent type other than more silence. Paul loved his job as a fireman; his hobby
was his boat. That was it.

Paul threw his cigarette butt into the water and stretched, ready for the night’s work. He saw
movement on the reef and paused to watch as a fin broke the surface, the water droplets
glittering like mica in the starlight. The next flash of the nine-second light revealed that it was
attached to a four-foot blue shark fishing for mackerel. He felt a deep affinity with marine life
and had no fear of the sharks of his home waters. He stayed to watch as the animal nosed
and thrashed among the rip-rap like a terrier flushing out rats.

Eventually the shark moved on. Paul finished another cigarette and went below. He brought
Elise up first. She was light enough, but the burlap encasing her was not and Paul strained as
he heaved her over the side. Elise slid into the water with hardly a ripple. He watched as the
current swept her around the arm of the horseshoe, the pulsing beam catching the white
cords that secured her wrappings. She would sink gradually; by the time the current carried
her over the sea cliff she would be sufficiently waterlogged to drift unseen to faraway ocean
depths. When he was sure of her course he turned and went back down the narrow gang for
Anya.

Paul had felt pretty dumb when, two days earlier, he had slipped on a patch of waste oil at the
station. His ankle was wrenched badly enough for the chief to send him home with orders to
rest it. He’d limped quietly upstairs thinking to lie down for an hour or two, assuming that
Elise was out shopping. When he opened the bedroom door he felt very dumb. He had
dragged Anya out of their bed by her long hair and crushed her fragile skull with one blow of
his heavy fist. The pain of his ankle forgotten, he turned his attention to Elise.

Later that night he used Anya’s keys to slip into her house and pack her belongings into two
suitcases. With cold efficiency and gloved hands he went through her papers. He packed up
all that were relevant along with her clothing, toiletries, make-up and perfume. He cleared
out the fridge-freezer and switched off the electricity. Then he went home and packed his
wife’s possessions. Now he stood and watched the sea take their belongings to them. Anya
had no car, so yesterday he had driven Elise’s to the nearest city with a big airport and
dumped it in the kind of place where it would be stolen, dismantled or torched within hours.
He bought a nondescript baseball cap and a scarf, spent a couple of hours drawing cash from
their accounts with the bank cards he’d kept, threw the cap and scarf in a skip and caught the
train home. Now he took the cards out of his pocket and skimmed them into the sea. Paul
was not so stupid as to think he had done enough, but it would be a while before doubt began
to set in, before CCTV was checked, bank accounts and airline lists were looked at. By then
the broken husband would have packed up and gone to start a new life, leaving a trail of red
herrings in his wake. He was reasonably certain that the bodies of his wife and her lover,
along with their grave goods, would never be found. That was something. He would take his
chances with the rest.

***

Tim cut the engine of the Marine Studies motorboat and brought it gently alongside the
lighthouse mooring. He swept back his shock of blonde fringe and looked up at the lantern
house. The sun was glinting off the diamond shapes of the astragals, making it hard for him
to see what he was looking for. He contained himself for long enough to unlock the door and
take long-legged bounds up the spiral stair. Stepping out onto the catwalk outside the lantern
house his anxiety was replaced by anticipation as he saw that the camera was still working.
Gently, he removed it from its casing, relieved to see that there was still a good four days of
battery life left. Tim smiled. Good timing, he thought. He checked the first few shots to make
sure that the timing mechanism had remained true. They showed the entire span of the
horseshoe reef lit beautifully and at least one of the shots he looked at had a feeding blue
shark in it. Tim held two weeks of time-lapse night shots in his hand and he could not wait to
get them back to the lab.

© Vivienne McCulloch

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