The Wall

THE WALL

Amanda Carpenter

They both had something to hide

Sara Bertelli, famous pop singer, had been on the verge of emotional

collapse. So, as Sara Carmichael, she retreated to an isolated cabin o

the shores of Lake Michigan to rethink her life.

When she first met Greg Pierson, Sara was afraid that he would

recognize her. But Greg was ever more wary than Sara was of the

outside world She empathized with his strange mixture of politeness

and bitterness, of cynicism and real concern

Right from the start Sara Ignored Greg's "no trespassing" signals in

fact, she found them enticing.

SARA was tired of the house, having spent so much time inside lately

to arrange the furniture and various other things to her liking, and so

she took one look at the fine sunny morning outside on the early

October Monday, and decided to take a walk.

She had just spent a long moment in .the bathroom, looking at herself

in the mirror, and she hadn't liked what she had seen. She hadn't

noticed the glossy black hair that swirled off of her fine forehead to

tumble down her shoulders in a cloudy darkness, nor had she

particularly paid much attention to the clear quality of her smooth

white complexion. She spared only the most cursory of glances for

her large hazel eyes that seemed a different colour with every

different colour of clothing that she wore. At the moment, her eyes

were a deep blue flecked with just a hint of green around the pupil,

reflecting the shade of her pullover sweater. They were fringed with

long brown lashes that curled slightly on the ends.

She had been busy looking at the tiny wrinkles that radiated from the

corner of her eyes to spread like a nearly invisible fan out to the

temples. She had taken great care in inspecting the small creases that

accompanied her rather generous mouth, one line to each side. To be

entirely truthful, one could not see those lines on her face unless one

were to peer at the skin from the distance of about three inches (a

distance that made her feel like going cross-eyed in the bathroom

mirror), but she knew they were there, and suddenly on that quiet

Monday morning the knowledge made her feel every one of her

twenty-eight years. She didn't like the feeling. Her energy flow was

at low tide at the moment, and this combined with the fear of getting

old was a bit much to handle on a Monday.

And so, with a hunted look at the wonderful bright day that had just

recently begun, she decided to take that walk. This freedom to take

off outside whenever she wanted to was just the sort of thing that she

had dreamed about for months. It was for this freedom that she had

spent months in a veritable whirlwind of activity, rearranging her

work schedule and setting a bruising pace for the final effort on the

cutting of her latest music album. She had pushed too hard, perhaps,

and it showed in little ways: the slight shake to her hands, the

thinness of her figure, the increase of her cigarette smoking to almost

two packs a day. Whether the extra strain had been worth it or not,

she couldn't yet say. She was conscious only of a very great

tiredness, and an immense relief that the album was at last behind her

and the contract completed. Now she had nothing to look forward to

except for the empty autumn days that stretched ahead of her,

tantalising and free.

No one knew where she was, and that was probably the factor that

made everything so enjoyable. Barry, her agent, hadn't a clue, and in

spite of all his protestations and expostulations, she had kept it that

way. As she let herself out of her small rented cabin, she hugged the

coffee thermos and knapsack to her side with glee. Who in their right

mind would guess that Sara Bertelli, one of the brightest and most

popular modern singers to hit the top of nationwide music charts,

would be tramping about on the shores of Lake Michigan and living

just north of an obscure little one-stop-light town named Three Oaks?

She flattered herself to think that no one would, and took a great deal

of effort to congratulate herself on just that. It had been a good idea,

staying not twenty miles away from her home town. It symbolised a

trip back to the roots of her personality, which was what she was

doing, searching herself and going back to the basics. Her real name

was Sara Carmichael, and some deeply rooted instinct, only half

conscious, kept her from revealing her true name and birthplace to

anyone outside of Barry and his wife Elise. It was something she had

considered too private; perhaps something inside her had foreseen the

need to get away for a while. She didn't know.

It had been years since she had been to Michigan, and she had lost

contact with the few friends that she had once had as everyone

gradually moved away to different cities. For all practical purposes,

she was a virtual stranger to the area.

She had rented the cabin under her real name, and had taken care that

few people should see her well- known face. Not, she told herself,

that anyone would be likely to recognise her. Without the heavy and

dramatic make-up that she affected for album covers, photographs

and public appearances, she looked almost ordinary. One might look

twice and then again one might not, whereas in her professional guise

one always looked again. The press went wild over her face, for with

the dramatic make-up she looked like a temptress, with a sultry,

brooding dark beauty that stared into the camera's eye with a half

sullen, half seductive look. The one part of her that didn't change

when she was not in the public eye was the lustrous, shining quality

to her heavy black hair. It was wholly natural, a throwback to several

generations earlier in her genealogy when an immigrant Italian

beauty had married into the Carmichael family. It was her true claim

to beauty.

Sara shook the mass of darkness away from her face now without a

single thought for its thick vitality, and stepped down the beckoning

footpath that led practically up to her back door. She surmised that it

should lead her straight to the lake, judging by the direction it was

heading, and as this was her goal she decided to see where the path

went.

The beach was very easy to find. The path was rather straight to the

point, and after about five minutes Sara caught a whiff of something

cool and fresh on the carrying breeze, and her head raised like that of

a scenting hound's, her fine nostrils widening and her eyes searching.

Then as she rounded a bend in the path, she saw a patch of blue.

Soon the hard-packed earth underneath her feet became loose and

shifty and the treeline broke open to harsh grasses rising from

rippling dunes. She rounded yet another bend in the path and found

herself out on an open beach with a deep blue expanse that travelled

as far as the eye could see.

The sound of the waves hitting the shore, the overhead cry of birds,

and the incredible fresh quality to the breeze that hit her so gently

made her close her eyes for a moment and sigh deeply in appreciation

and contentment. She walked out of the protection of the trees and

towards the water. Away from the obstruction of the treeline, she

took stock of the shoreline from both the northern direction and the

southern, resting her knapsack and camera bag at her feet as she

surveyed the area with a hand shading her eyes from the noon sun.

To the south, which was left of her, off in the misty blue distance she

saw the Cook's nuclear power plant at the edge of the water, and

farther from that several small bright patches of colour that

proclaimed late season swimmers taking advantage of the unusually

warm weather. To the right she saw some distance to a rather high

jutting shoreline that dropped some thirty feet into the water and

effectively cut the other side off from her sight. It was sufficiently

intriguing for her to set off in that direction, her small knapsack and

camera bag bumping her knee as she trod along.

Photography had been an interest of hers for years, and now she fully

intended to take the time to indulge her hobby. She wanted to get

some pictures of the shoreline, and to possibly come back that

evening to shoot the sunset on the waters of Lake Michigan. Sara

climbed the rise in the shoreline and stood at the top of the small

cliff. She stared down at the other side, disappointed. Just at the

bottom of the rise, 'No Trespassing' signs were posted. After staring

at the sign for some minutes and thinking of the people sure to be

populating the beach in the other direction, she made up her mind.

Chances were that the person who owned the property wouldn't catch

her just this once on the land, and the barren sight of the empty

expanse that stretched ahead was just too much to resist. She climbed

down the other side of the cliff and continued the way she had

originally headed. After a time, revelling in the seclusion of the

sandy beach—and knowing full well that a large measure of her

enjoyment was derived from the forbidden nature of her jaunt— Sara

had an attractive idea. She slid her burden down to the ground and

after rolling up her jeans, dropped to her knees in the sand and started

to scoop up handfuls in a decisive way. Soon she was engrossed in

the makings of a fine sand castle, so reminiscent of the ones from her

childhood. She stopped once to look around for a few pieces of wood

and a couple of sticks to dig with, and she soon had a deep hole with

high, even sides all around. As she worked, the golden sun and fresh

air, the interminable sound of lapping waves and incessant cry of

wild birds, the pervading quiet under all of the surface sounds, all

made her gradually relax. The tension in her neck and shoulder

muscles melted away. Her lips began to smile slightly as the wind

whipped her dark hair around her neck and into her eyes. She

earnestly started on taking out regular block chunks from the top of

the wall to make a credible rampart, when a shadow fell across her

handiwork.

To the man watching, Sara seemed to be no bigger than a child

crouching at play. Her slender legs shone white in the afternoon

sunlight and delicate blue veins wove a tapestry in her small feet. Her

long thin fingers moved rapidly and gracefully, the blue veins

apparent also on the back of her hands. The dark hair was tangled on

her neck.

She stared at the square shadow in front of her with some amusement

before addressing it. 'You're probably the owner, aren't you, or

someone vastly important like the sole caretaker in complete charge

and authority?' she asked calmly. 'Now you've spoiled the fun. You

were supposed to find my mysterious footprints and a splendid sand

castle erected to guard the empty expanse of land from the

mischievous and malicious water nymphs who steal babies and pick

all the wild flowers . ..' Just at that moment, a section of her castle

wall began to cave in towards the hole, and she scrabbled over

frantically. 'Yipe! Oh—shoot, it took me forever to get it right, and I

haven't a picture of it yet ... oh, thanks!' This last was said as, after an

apparent hesitation, the large shadow dropped beside her and two

large and deeply tanned hands came alongside hers to firmly press