Mr. Peters cleared his throat. It often occurred to him that if it wasn’t one thing it was another; if a radiator wasn’t leaking, for example, the wisteria was dying. A little sigh escaped from Mrs. Peters. Hector whimpered and fell to the floor again, rolling over on his back so that Lucinda could scratch his flabby belly, but her attention had returned to the painting.
“It’s very—creative,” Mrs. Peters said haltingly. “Very creative. It must be wonderful to be able to come up with these ideas.”
“It’s intended to keep the mind alive,” said Larry. “Say you walk into the living room, full of the cares of the workaday world, and you glance out the window.” He demonstrated. “Before, you would have seen a familiar view that offered you no escape from your own tedious life because there was nothing interesting in it.”
“You’re telling me,” muttered Lucy.
Mr. Peters shook his head and stared at his shoes. He wondered why young people were so easily bored with life and what he might do to stir up some new excitement.
“Before,” said Larry, “you would have seen nothing but the gray waters of Murky Bay. But now you see something interesting, and you have a whole flock of things to wonder about.” He began suggesting questions, indicating details in the painting as he did so. “What island is that? How did it get there? Who built the hotel? Why would anyone build a hotel on a little island like that? Why was it abandoned? Is anyone living there now? If so, who? And what about that rowboat, that sunken rowboat at the end of the dilapidated dock?”
I read this passage for the first time with a pleasure that only Larry Peters initiates could share, for my familiarity with the conventions of the series led me at once to the conclusion that this painting would in some way offer a clue to the mystery that was going to unfold as the novel progressed, that this was one of the conventional problems in a Larry Peters story, one of the formal elements that shaped a Larry Peters story, and this knowledge made me feel that I was a participant in the unfolding of that story. A hundred pages or so later, my anticipation was rewarded.
Rocky rolled onto the grass and let out a long sigh. “All right, all right,” he said. “Have it your way.”
“Oh, Rocky,” said Lucinda, “it’s not that I don’t want to—it’s just that I’m afraid I’ll get pregnant.”
“I told you Lucy,” said Rocky. “You don’t have to worry about that if the moon is full. Jeez, you’ve got me all frustrated now.”
Lucinda sat up and rested her head on Rocky’s shoulder. Her heart pounded with fear and desire. “Oh, heck,” she thought. “Why don’t I just let him? The moon sure is full. Whenever it peeks through the clouds it lights up that oval island out there as if it were daytime.”
She ran her tongue into Rocky’s ear, and she rubbed her hand across his chest. He held her head with one strong hand and kissed her, thrusting his tongue deeply, violently, into her mouth. With his other hand he tore her shorts open and reached inside, his fingers probing roughly, poking and prying. Lucinda’s eyes opened wide with surprise, with the shock of an unexpected pleasure, and in the moonlight the oval island seemed to flash like the silver underbelly of a gigantic flatfish. All at once Lucinda was struck by the realization that something was very wrong.
“Rocky!” she shouted, pushing herself away from him and wriggling from his grasp.
“Oh, God, what is it now?” moaned Rocky.
“That island!” she cried.
“What about it?” wailed Rocky, striking the grass repeatedly with his fists.
“It’s coming closer!”
Rocky leaped to his feet and peered out over the bay. There was no doubt about it. In the moonlight, he could see a wake behind the island. The entire island was moving toward them, and it was moving fast.
“Come on,” he said. “We’ve got to get help!”
In Topical Guide 193, Mark Dorset considers Art: As Spur to Imagination and Reality: Fictional from this episode.
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