Dead of Light (32 page)

“So?” Uncle James demanded impatiently. “Is this leading anywhere?”

“Yes,” from Uncle Allan. He was way ahead of me, I could see; but he was a gentleman above all, he left it to me to finish.

“It means they — or he, or whatever — work the same way, the same way you do,” and God help me, I'd almost said ‘we'. “Which means with the same limitations, pretty much. This guy seems to have two talents at once, he can blast things like Jamie as well as doing that blood trick, whatever it is; but apart from that, it means we know what we're up against, at least. Nobody knows about talent, better than us. And it means the playing-field is pretty much level; or else it tilts our way, because there are more of us.”
Even if he is picking us off one by one, while we still don't have a clue who he is...

Uncle Allan was nodding approvingly. Uncle James simply snorted. “If you're right. Seems to me you're making assumptions yourself, all down the line...”

He was right, of course, I couldn't dispute that; only that it made better sense to assume that whoever we were facing obeyed the same laws that we did, until it was proved otherwise.
Another close shave for Occam
, I thought, and shut up.

o0o

Eventually they let us alone and talked among themselves. Didn't dismiss us, though, kept us around for supplementary questions; and didn't offer us a chair or anything so civil as that. In the end the girls just sat down on the carpet there, looking totally beat. Jamie squatted behind Laura, wrapped his arms and legs around her, drew her head back against his chest; I blinked, looked the other way, couldn't do likewise for Carol however much she might have appreciated it. Whatever she was or might be to me, I couldn't just use her as a Laura-substitute. Not fair, not honest; and if I wasn't honest, I wasn't anything.

So I compromised, I stood with my legs together for Carol to use as a back-rest if she chose, which she did. Which anchored me, upright and alone; I couldn't whisper to her as the other two were whispering to each other, so instead I listened in to what our elders and — certainly in their own opinion — betters were saying.

Turned out that Father Hamish was there as a consultant. As a parish priest, he was far more in touch with the town, with the mood of the community, than any Macallan could be. Apart from myself, perhaps, because I at least tried to live in the community. A student's life is always fairly artificial, though, too much insulated to be true; and doubly so in this town, where the university was pretty much the only institution my family left alone.

“No,” Hamish said in response to the obvious, the only real question. “There's no sign of any opposition to you, that I've seen. No rival, I should say. Opposition in the other sense, of course, you're pretty much detested,” and he was the only non-relative who could get away with such straight talking, and that only because he had God very much on his side, he had my family charmed, “but you know that. Nothing new there. There's no sense of things shifting, or the balance of power being disturbed. Rumours about the deaths, that's inevitable; but they think it's internal, if anything, some kind of power-struggle between you. There'll be no revolution.”

Uncle James snorted. “Of course there'll be no revolution. It's not the cattle I'm concerned with, unless they prove to be harbouring this mob, in which case there will be retribution.”

“Mob?” Uncle Allan queried.

“Mob, gang — family, if you like. Does it matter?”

“The kids only saw one man.”

“Even so. There must be others,” stated with absolute assurance, absolute pomposity. Uncle James couldn't possibly admit that a single man could throw the Macallans into such turmoil. Me, I thought he was absolutely wrong; and I also thought that such certainty was dangerous. And, of course, I said not a word.

o0o

It was Jamie's mother who rescued us at the last, my long-suffering Aunt Lucy. Some species of distant cousin she was, totally cowed by her bully of a husband and not of course invited to join the men's debate, though she'd lost a son to the enemy; but for once, for the first time I could remember, she asserted herself now. Her territory, I guess, looking after the kids. Never mind that we were all of us adult by now, and more adult than we'd been a couple of weeks before. She knocked lightly on the door, came in just a few hovering, nervous steps, and said,

“If you don't need the children any more, James, I've made beds up for them. It's too late to send them home now...”

Uncle James grunted, and waved a dismissive hand. Carol reached an arm up to me, came lightly to her feet as I lifted; Jamie and Laura took a second longer to disentangle themselves but still weren't far behind us, equally glad I guess to be allowed to leave.

“I've put you in your old room, Benedict,” Lucy said as she led us upstairs, her voice as pale as ever, pale as her face and her sad life. “Your friend — I'm sorry, but I don't know your name?”

“Carol.”

“Carol. How do you do? You're in the guest room, along here,” turning left on the first landing. I went along with her, of course, to see her comfortable; and smiled privately, thinking that even if Carol had been a well-known and long-established girlfriend my decorous aunt would still have done this, still have given her a room to herself on another floor from me. Propriety was all Lucy had to keep a grip on, all she'd ever had in all the time I'd known her. Nice manners and tea at four o'clock, dinner at eight and the house always pristine, her wild and rowdy sons always a problem and a grief to her. She'd have preferred daughters, most likely, except that she was Macallan stock and married to a Macallan, and the male line was the only one that counted.

Thinking that, I thought that she hadn't said anything about a bed for Laura; and I glanced back, just in time to see the other two heading on up the next flight of stairs, hand in hand and heads together. My problem, my grief; his mother wouldn't challenge Jamie. And my room was right next door to his...

Keep it quiet, guys.
Though it wouldn't matter, actually. They could romp all night or be as silent as cats curled together in a basket, I still wouldn't be sleeping this night.

One door stood open, waiting; and Carol at least could sleep tonight. I'd never tell her that the last time I'd been in this room, so had Marty. And on the same bed, yet. Queen-sized and comfortable, the bed, as I remembered it; though it had been pushed back to the wall now, it wasn't so much the focus of the room, a dais for a death.

Lucy left us alone to say goodnight, as she would have thought proper; but I thought she'd still be hanging around outside, waiting to see me out of there.

“Are you going to be okay?” I murmured.

Carol nodded uncertainly, looking around her at the blandness of the room, seeing towels and a toothbrush laid out on the dressing-table and seeing nothing of what I saw in my mind's eye, cold body and thick black scabs. “Sure. Why not? It's a bit like a b & b, but I'll be fine.”

“All right, then. But listen, if you need me, I'm just upstairs in the attics. First door on the right, that'll be me.”

She nodded again. Then, practically, “Where's the bathroom?”

I had to stop and think, for that one; this had been the grown-ups' floor, no part of my territory. But I worked it out on my fingers. “Other side of the corridor, two doors down. Come on, I'll show you.”

“No need, I'll find it. How about you, Ben, will you be all right?”

“No problem,” I said, finding myself dishonest after all. “This place is a second home to me.”

She grunted, and I didn't know what that meant; but then she hugged me, kissed my cheek and said, “Goodnight, then,” so I simply said goodnight and left.

Came out, pulling the door to behind me; and said goodnight to the hovering aunt, and climbed uncarpeted stairs into what had been lads' land, absolutely my territory for all that I'd really only ever been a guest, the attics of the house.

o0o

Up there the walls were only wooden partitions, and my bed — the same old bed where I'd slept or sweated out so many teenage nights and mornings, with the same squeaky springs and the same dip in the mattress, renewing old aches in my spine and heart both — was right up against the wall that divided me from Jamie; but bless them, they didn't make a sound to disturb me. Jamie, I reasoned, must have held out for a new bed.

But whether they slept or were tactful, silent lovers, it made no difference. I Tiresias had foresuffered all, enacted on this same divan or bed; and no, I didn't sleep.

In the false light before dawn I broke, finally and irrevocably. I padded softly down the stairs again, barefoot and barechested, camp as they come in just my jeans; and I made my way along the dim corridor to the guest room, edged the door open and slipped inside.

Carol was a hunched ball under the covers, and the room smelled heavy with sleep. She stirred as I watched her, turned over and opened her eyes, tousled and frowning.

“It's only me,” I whispered. “Sorry...”

“Ben.” Her voice was only a croak, but she managed a smile regardless. “Hi.”

“Can I come in? Just for a bit?”

“Sure. Welcome. Long as you like, fool.”

She twitched the duvet back and slid over, to make room. I shucked off my jeans and slid into the warmth and softness, the comfort that she offered; and there I could sleep after all, nestled in against her and if not Laura, she surely was a substitute for something.

It wasn't till I woke, to bright sunlight and an empty bed, that I thought again of Marty in this room, or of Steve and the night just gone.

o0o

Carol had left the curtains open, so that the sun fell directly onto my face, tingling sharp and fresh like aftershave. I stretched into it, like a cat stretching into its skin again after sleep; the duvet fell away, and oh, this was my time and no question who was in possession of my body now. Before I knew it I'd walked all the way forward into light and was standing naked by the high window, wrapped in radiance brighter than any body was ever lit by sun.

Caught myself at it and frowned, shook it out of my head and turned away; felt the tingle still on my back and stepped deliberately out of the fall of light. I'd get used to it, sure; but at the moment magic was nothing but distraction, and I really wanted to think.

So I scuttled upstairs in my jeans again, meeting no one on the way, hoping everyone but Carol would assume I was simply sleeping in. Desperately hoping no one had looking in on me already, or tried to...

When we were teenagers, the attics had been made over almost into a private flat for us, our own distinct domain. Privilege without responsibility, this was, we didn't even have to keep it clean. There was Marty's room, and Jamie's, and my own; there was a phone on the landing, on a separate line; there was a wee little kitchen corner with a fridge and a Baby Belling cooker and a sink, a cupboard for tins and a couple of shelves stacked with old saucepans and cracked plates; and there was a bathroom with a shower and a deep old Victorian tub, where I'd first discovered the pleasures of long immersion and slow contemplation.

No one around up here either — or no one in Jamie's room, at least; I didn't try Marty's — so I could take all the time I wanted, run the bath hot and deep, relearn the habit of luxury...

But I'd long outgrown my life here, and dressing myself in old and ill-fitting clothes wouldn't make me young again. I had a shower instead, scalding water hammering on my neck and shoulders, beating out residual tensions from the long night. Then I raided my cousin's room for clean clothes — ignoring what was scattered across the carpet, Jamie's rig from last night and Laura's also, both of them cruelly intermixed — and went downstairs.

o0o

The big kitchen at least showed signs of recent occupation, though it was empty now. There were wisps of steam coming from the kettle, smells of bacon and burnt toast, plates heaped in the sink, a bottle of milk left out and wet mug-rings on the long deal table. Aunt Lucy's maid must be busy somewhere else in the house, and Lucy herself gone off to a coffee-morning or whatever. She would never have tolerated such a mess being left unsorted.

I went in search of company, and was drawn again by the open door to the big room, and the sounds of talking inside. I was just a step or two away when I heard my own name mentioned, in Laura's clear warm voice; and shame on me, I stood still and breathed quiet, and listened in.

“The trouble with Ben,” she was saying, “is he builds these dreams, and then makes out that they're real. Makes out to himself, as much as to the rest of us. That's the problem, really, is that he believes them absolutely; and they give him such a bent picture of the world.”

“Like how?” Jamie, of course. He sounded dead interested, like this was a whole new perspective on someone he'd grown up with. “What sort of dreams?”

“Well, there's this group of us at college, for a start. We're friends, and sometimes we do things together. Three, four times a term we'll all go out. But talk to Ben and you'd think we were inseparable, blood brothers or whatever. And that's just not true. I've got a theory about it, mind.”

“Sure you've got a theory,” Jamie said, chuckling. “You've always got theories, you.” And then he yelped, and there were a couple of seconds of scuffle-noises before they settled down again. “So what's your big theory on this one, then?”

“It's just, what it is, I reckon after he walked out on you lot, he needed to find himself a new family. Some sort of emotional security, yeah? And he met us, we were all freshers and we had some fun together, and we got appointed. So he's created this whole thing in his head about how close we are, and how important to each other; and it worries me. It's not safe, him building so much on an assumption that's fundamentally false.”