The Great and Secret Show. Clive Barker

she said.

      Carolyn had seen it too. Its brightness made her squint.

      ‘Lots of it,’ she said.

      ‘I didn’t know there was a lake down here,’ Joyce remarked, turning to Trudi.

      ‘There wasn’t,’ came the reply. ‘Not that I remember.’

      ‘Well there is now,’ said Carolyn.

      She was already forging ahead through the foliage, not caring to take the less thronged route. Her blundering passage cleared a way for the others.

      ‘Looks like we’re going to get cool after all,’ Trudi said, and went after her at a run.

      It was indeed a lake, maybe fifty feet wide, its placid surface broken by half-submerged trees, and islands of shrubbery.

      ‘Flood water,’ Carolyn said. ‘We’re right at the bottom of the hill here. It must have gathered after the storm.’

      ‘That’s a lot of water,’ Joyce said. ‘Did this all fall last night?’

      ‘If it didn’t where did it come from?’ Carolyn said.

      ‘Who cares?’ said Trudi. ‘It looks cool.’

      She moved past Carolyn to the very edge of the water. The ground became more swampy underfoot with every step, mud rising up over her sandals. But the water, when she reached it, was as good as its promise: refreshingly cold. She crouched down, and put her hand in the lake, bringing a palmful of it up to splash her face.

      ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ Carolyn cautioned. ‘It’s probably full of chemicals.’

      ‘It’s only rain-water,’ Trudi replied. ‘What’s cleaner than that?’

      Carolyn shrugged. ‘Please yourself,’ she said.

      ‘I wonder how deep it is?’ Joyce mused. ‘Deep enough to swim, do you think?’

      ‘Shouldn’t have thought so,’ Carolyn commented.

      ‘Don’t know ’til we try,’ Trudi said, and began to wade out into the lake. She could see grass and flowers beneath her feet; drowned now. The earth itself was soft, and her steps stirred up clouds of mud, but she advanced until she was in deep enough for the hem of her shorts to be soaked.

      The water was cold. It brought gooseflesh. But that was preferable to the sweat that had stuck her blouse to her breasts and spine. She looked back towards the shore.

      ‘Feels great,’ she said. ‘I’m going in.’

      ‘Like that?’ Arleen said.

      ‘Of course not.’ Trudi waded back towards the trio, pulling her blouse out of her shorts as she went. The air rising from the water tingled against her skin, its frisson welcome. She wore nothing beneath, and would normally have been more modest, even in front of her friends, but the lake’s invitation was not to be postponed.

      ‘Anybody going to join me?’ she asked as she stepped back amongst the others.

      ‘I am,’ Joyce said, already unknotting her trainers.

      ‘I think we should keep our shoes on,’ Trudi said. ‘We don’t know what’s underfoot.’

      ‘It’s only grass,’ said Joyce. She sat down and worked on the knots, grinning. ‘This is great,’ she said.

      Arleen was watching her whooping enthusiasm with disdain.

      ‘You two not joining us?’ Trudi said.

      ‘No,’ Arleen said.

      ‘Afraid your mascara’ll run?’ Joyce replied, her grin widening.

      ‘Nobody’s going to see,’ said Trudi, before a rift developed. ‘Carolyn? What about you?’

      The girl shrugged. ‘Can’t swim,’ she said.

      ‘It’s not deep enough to swim in.’

      ‘You don’t know that,’ Carolyn observed. ‘You only waded out a few yards.’

      ‘So stay close to the shore. You’ll be safe there.’

      ‘Maybe,’ Carolyn said, far from convinced.

      ‘Trudi’s right,’ Joyce said, sensing Carolyn’s reluctance was as much to do with uncovering her fat as with swimming. ‘Who’s going to see us?’

      As she stripped off her shorts it occurred to her that any number of peepers might be hidden amongst the trees, but what the heck? Wasn’t the Reverend forever saying life was short? Best not to waste it then. She stepped out of her underwear and started into the water.

      William Witt knew each one of the bathers’ names. In fact he knew the names of every woman in the Grove under forty, and where they lived, and which was their bedroom window; a feat of memory which he declined to boast of to any of his schoolmates for fear they spread it around. Though he could see nothing wrong with looking through windows he knew enough to know it was frowned upon. And yet he’d been born with eyes, hadn’t he? Why shouldn’t he use them? Where was the harm in watching? It wasn’t like stealing, or lying, or killing people. It was just doing what God had created eyes to do, and he couldn’t see what was criminal in that.

      He crouched, hidden by trees, half a dozen yards from the edge of the water, and twice that distance from the girls, watching them undress. Arleen Farrell was hanging back, he saw, which frustrated him. To see her naked would be an achievement even he’d not be able to keep to himself. She was the most beautiful girl in Palomo Grove: sleek and blonde and snooty, the way movie stars were supposed to be. The other two, Trudi Katz and Joyce McGuire, were already in the water, so he turned his attentions to Carolyn Hotchkiss, who was even now taking off her bra. Her breasts were heavy, and pink, and the sight of them made him hard in his trousers. Though she stripped off her shorts and briefs he kept staring at her breasts. He couldn’t understand the fascination some of the other boys – he was ten – had with that lower part; it seemed so much less exciting than the bosom, which was as different from girl to girl as her nose or hips. The other, the part he didn’t like any of the words for, seemed to him quite uninteresting: a patch of hair with a slit buried in the middle. What was the big deal about that?

      He watched as Carolyn stepped into the water, only just suppressing a giggle of pleasure when she responded to the cold water with a half step backwards which set her flesh jiggling like jello.

      ‘Come on! It’s wonderful!’ the Katz girl was coaxing her.

      Plucking up her courage, Carolyn advanced a few more steps.

      And now – William could scarcely believe his luck – Arleen was taking off her hat and unbuttoning her halter top. She was joining them after all. He forgot the others and fixed his gaze on Miss Sleek. As soon as he’d realized what the girls – whom he’d been following for an hour, unsuspected – were planning to do, his heart had started thumping so hard he thought he’d be ill. Now that thump redoubled, as the prospect of Arleen’s breasts came before him. Nothing – not even fear of death – would have made him look away. He set himself the challenge of memorizing every tiny motion, so as to add veracity to his account when he told it to disbelievers.

      She went slowly about it. If he’d not known better he’d have suspected she knew she had an audience, the way she teased and paraded. Her bosom was a disappointment. Not as large as Carolyn’s, nor boasting large, dark nipples like Joyce’s. But the overall impression, when she stepped from her cut-off jeans and slid down her briefs, was wonderful. It made him feel almost panicky to see her. His teeth chattered like he had the flu. His face got hot, his innards seemed to rattle. Later in life William would tell his analyst that this was the first moment he realized that he was going to die. In fact that was hindsight speaking. Death was very far from his mind now. And yet the sight of Arleen’s nakedness, and his invisibility as he