Dead of Light (23 page)

o0o

My drawer: still stuck, still squealing when I dragged it open. My sister's bedroom had been remade every couple of years, to suit her changing tastes and quiet her demands; mine, not. I made no demands, and the room still had the units my father and I had put together from MFI when I was twelve. And nothing had fitted right even then, even before the years of teenage damage.

Drawer stuck, drawer squealed, and even that was barbed with my own particular, vicious variety of nostalgia; but inside the drawer was what I sought, another pile of photographs. Better pictures, these, but not for display, not for looking at. I'd inveigled Uncle Allan into buying me a good SLR and teaching me to use his darkroom — again the instruments of light: Allan approved of photography — and I'd spent a few months seemingly taking it and myself very seriously. Landscapes and portraits, mostly; and no one noticed, or no one appeared to notice how much licence this gave me to be on my own, either out tramping the moors or else locked in darkness with a prohibition on the door. If they did notice, they never commented. Not to me, at least. By then everyone was murmuring about me, I was well and truly cast in my role of family freak, and probably they were just as glad as I was to have me isolate myself so well.

Landscapes were landscapes,
oh look, here's another slab of countryside
and nothing more. Portraits, though, were something else. Portraits were people, and people mattered; specifically, my family mattered to me — even if that matter was dark, another kind of poison in the blood — and all the people I photographed were family. Back then, all the people I knew were family. The world divided, family and cattle; and how was it possible to form relationships with cattle? Not at all...

I'd left the camera behind, with so much else. It stood at a shelf's end, accumulating dust, even the lens not protected; and I didn't have a photograph of Laura, nor of any of my friends.

I twitched the curtains back to let some sun in, held my relatives in my hands in the light and leafed slowly through them. Black and white portraits of parents, uncles and aunts, cousins close and distant; three I took out and put separate. Sister Hazel, photographed astride her bike, in full gear: black boots, black leathers, black gauntlets and helmet, mirrored visor down to render her alien and utterly anonymous. Not, in truth, the way I saw her, only the way she wanted to be seen by the world. Possibly this was my most dishonest photograph ever, pandering to her self-image for my own protection; but it had served its purpose at the time, pleasing her in as much as anything I ever did could please her, and covering me against the inevitable penalties of truth. And it had been an interesting challenge technically, all that glossy black in harsh light. Uncle Allan was nice about that, I remembered: praised the skill, said nothing at all about the artistic choices. No fool, my uncle; or else dead give-away, the work.

Cousin Tommy: I had a photograph of him in hard close-up, trying to let his face speak for him, as I had little enough to say myself. I barely knew him, except from rare family gatherings. I couldn't remember ever having five consecutive minutes of conversation with the guy, doubted if we could have found enough common ground to talk for five minutes together. So here he was, right in my face, every pock-mark and every bristle that he'd missed shaving that morning; and his eyes looked oddly pale and I wished, I really wished that I'd made one exception and taken him in colour, just to capture their faded denim blue like a memorial, just to say that at least one thing about him was unique.

Too late now, those eyes were gone. I set Tommy aside with Hazel, and looked for Marty.

And found him, striking and dramatic, me in my Richard Avedon mood and for once producing a picture that had gratified subject and photographer both. I'd taken him with his shirt off and his back to the camera, scowling over his shoulder, all muscle and threat and that great tattoo bulging and rippling on his back. Oh, I'd been proud of this, and found that I still was: even in monochrome you could see the dragon's glory, the sheen of its scales and the strength of it, clinging tight and digging in.

I'd give a print to Jamie, I thought, maybe; though not yet. Not till things were settled, and he could see more clearly.

o0o

And not this print. This one I laid beside the others, three blood kin linked now by more than blood or my photography.

I laid them on the bed, and sat in the window looking at them; and felt the heat of the sun through glass on the back of my neck and felt the prickle of power under my skin, the window no barrier to magic.

Because I knew I could now, I wanted suddenly to lay a web across those dead faces, to draw them together in a net of fire and send their images to ash. My fingers were already working, weaving threads of light, feeling the heat of them but no threat, no possibility of burning me.

Didn't do it, though. Opened my fingers instead, and let the threads fray. Too much of my sister: she was still making rules for me, it seemed, telling me what I could or couldn't do. Or put it another way, say that I was still making assumptions and taking my cues from her.

So no. No webs, no nets. And no hectic gestures, this time. I put both hands firmly in my pockets to be sure, looked at Tommy's photograph and maybe narrowed my eyes just a little.

A spot of discoloration, of blackness spreading out; a wisp of smoke, white and frail; and then a sudden flare of light, flame as pale as water, and the photograph curled and crisped and blackened and fell to crumbled ash and nothing.

And Marty followed Tommy, and Hazel Marty; and by then, by Hazel there was no effort and I was sure no visible sign of effort. I simply looked, and my will needed no more than my eyes' natural focus. I was ruining the coverlet on the bed — the same that I'd slept under for years, candlewick of a colour utterly nondescript — but no matter for that, this was still my room and I'd done worse here with less excuse.

Hazel burned and crumpled, in a way that had no touch of Hazel to it; and I felt liberated at last, I felt limitless. I wanted to run, to soar, to play with fire while I learned just what I could do, how far I could go.

Didn't do that. I'd been too far already, back when something in me still looked to Hazel for its instruction.

Something else I wanted. I wanted to make a grand gesture to Hazel, a sign of final release. I hated the thought of her cramped in a wooden box and stuck in the earth, or else mechanically rolled into an oven and grilled. I wanted to see to her myself. I wanted to walk into her bedroom right now, draw back her curtains and take the sunlight in my hands, make a globe of fire and roll it all the length of her, set her ablaze from end to end and let her go from here, from home, from her own bed among her family...

Didn't do that, either. I couldn't burn my parents' house down, for God's sake. Not without asking.

So I didn't do anything much. Didn't so much as look in on my sister to say goodbye. Just walked down the stairs and out of the house: no fuss, no drama, no farewells. Onto the bike and away, with my eyes dry and my mind clear and none of my family on my back, though that state surely wouldn't last.

One thing I did do, though: I lifted Hazel's helmet from the table as I passed, as a
memento mori.
The bike had become my own now; the helmet remained hers, and I wanted it for that and that alone.

Alcohol or exhaustion or shock catching up with me, most likely all three: whatever the cause, my head had started pounding out of time with my footsteps as I walked down the stairs, and there was the first wire-thin, wire-sharp suggestion of a hot-needle exploratory op behind my right eye.

I drove back to the flat, still in no condition to be driving but I went slow and careful with the helmet on and there wasn't in any case that far to go. The student quarter was only just over the hill from where I'd grown up, very much same side of the city. I could have walked, except that I didn't want to have to come back later and the bike was fast becoming an icon: this was what I did now, this was who I had become. I was the Man Who Rode.

I was the man who rode into my flat on a rising tide of pain, head turned blistering bad; I was the man who found his flatmate's boyfriend busy in the kitchen for the second morning in a row.

This time Jonathan was wearing the scarlet silk boxers I'd given Jacko for Christmas last year. Otherwise, he was all gilded skin and promise. Another day, what with this long aching lag in my sex-life and him looking young and pretty and recently availed of, I could have fancied him myself, maybe; but not this morning. Not with my feet clumsy with weariness and my head skewered like a kebab and the dry sick feeling in my throat; nor with the way he skittered when he saw me, spilling coffee from the mugs he carried. I'd come in quiet, I guess, and he had the radio loud; but surprise wasn't enough to explain his suddenly-paling face and his nervous eyes.

Spot the difference, number thirty-seven: I didn't get off on frightening people. Still didn't, despite finding other family attributes in my blood after all. Whatever it was, that particular erotic charge so prevalent among my cousins, it had to be training rather than genes; and on me, clearly, the training hadn't taken. Too much used to victim status, I supposed, I just wasn't comfortable on the other side.

Jonathan swallowed visibly, steadied himself against the table and made a big effort to sound like yesterday, easy and untroubled. Didn't manage, quite, he'd given himself away too far; but I wanted to applaud him for trying.

“You're back. That's, that's good,” when it patently wasn't, not for him. “You all right, then?”

I just shrugged, the only alternative to being a true drama queen and saying no, saying,
No, my sister's dead and my talent isn't, but a policeman is and I killed him...

“What happened, do you want to talk about it?” The offer was kind, if standard practice for the people I lived among; but his voice went against his words, urging me to do the decent thing and decline. “We were worried, Jacko and me...”

“Thanks, Jon. I'm okay,” doing the decent thing indeed, lying in my teeth. “I'm going to bed anyway, my head's murder. Catch you later, yeah?”

“Yeah. Sure. Good...” And he was out of there, still mumbling and slopping coffee as he sidled through the door.

I dug around for pills and found a tub of Co-Codamol, some good heavy-duty numbing power there; swallowed three with a pint of water and went stumblingly straight to bed, with my teeth foul and my skin feeling greasy even on the inside after a day and a night and half a day of wrack, filth under my fingernails and who gave a fuck? Not I.

o0o

Woke mid-afternoon, and didn't want to. I managed one moment of denial,
only a dream, that's all, only another bloody dream, Bobby's been in the shower all this time
, before the traitor sun found a way to finger through my curtains, strike off the wardrobe mirror and down onto my cheek,
hi there, remember me?
And my body reacted without my wanting it to, I felt my blood surging, soaking up strength and eagerness; and no, no dream then, and no denial permitted.

So then I wanted to sleep again. Too hot for a duvet, I slept under an empty cover in the summer; but I pulled that over my head to bar the sun, burrowed into pillows and went hunting after oblivion. And failed there too, couldn't find it anywhere I looked.

Besides, I needed a piss as a matter of extreme urgency. And my mouth was dry again and rough as bark, although my head was better. I rolled reluctantly out of bed and sought the bathroom, naked as I was; if the boys were in and in my way, they'd get a treat, that's all. Do Jonathan a power of good by reminding Jacko that we weren't all golden lads, some of us gotta be pale and frail to provide a necessary contrast...

o0o

The flat was empty, the dimple-glazed window into the back yard was open, the way Jacko always left it after he'd had a shit: “better to be burgled than stink,” he used to say, shrugging at my protests. Steam in sunlight, then, the hissing of summer bathrooms; and I started the bath filling, yearning for the shower we didn't have. I wanted to batter the stiffness I felt in back and shoulders, I wanted to numb mind and body both with heat and pressure. Really I wanted a massage, someone with hard fingers to take me apart muscle by muscle, fibre by tense fibre; but lacking that, I wanted a long shower with the temperature cranked right up to scalding-point.

Lacking both, I was going to have to settle for a bath: a splash in six inches of hot water, or a wallow in a bathful of lukewarm. Luckily it was another hot day, and I could make a case for cool.

Hot or cold, it takes twenty minutes to fill that bath, so I looked for post — none — and wandered through to the kitchen still tempting fate, still naked. Made a cup of coffee, strong and milky; flicked on the radio we kept in the hall, where we could hear it anywhere if the volume was up. Turned the volume right up, and went back into the bathroom.

Big surprise, the immersion tank had drained itself already, and the hot tap was running cold. I got in anyway, just to sluice myself down while the water was still warm enough to cut through two days' sweat and terror; then I lay back, draped my feet over the rim not to have them in the full force of that cold flood, sipped coffee and felt chaotic currents swirl around me as the bath filled and the temperature dropped.

With the radio so loud, I could hear it even above the tap's guttering. I could hear when they went from music to news; and I could hear when, third item after the G7 summit — G8, I supposed they'd have to call it, now they'd let that toad Yeltsin join the gang — and the latest Bosnian breakdown, they reported on the policeman found burning with his burning bike. Passers-by had stopped, they said —
not while I was there, they didn't
— and done their best with fire extinguishers and car phones, but all of it too little and too late. Suspicious circumstances, they said, and the Borders police were investigating.