December (35 page)

      
'Strange,' Meryl said. 'A little bit strange.'

      
'We should get a doctor. Which one's your doctor, Meryl,
Perkins or Lefevre?'

      
'No need for that, I'm not ill.'

      
'Have you had any kind of... I don't know how to describe it...
fit? Anything like that before?'

      
Shelley said, 'Martin, I've seen ... things like this before.
She'll be all right. She's right, no need for a doctor. Really.'

      
Martin got to his feet looking, for the first time in Meryl's
experience, entirely out of his depth. 'I think
I
need a drink.'

      
'Lord above,' Meryl said. 'What happened here? What did I
do?
Mrs Storey, would you tell me,
please?'

      
Shelley said gently, 'You ... We heard you screaming before
you came in. Do you remember that?'
      
Meryl said nothing. She remembered
too much.
      
'You came in, you were pushing the
trolley, and you just sort of froze. You kept staring at us - particularly at
Sir Wilfrid, that was when he started getting annoyed. He seemed to think he'd
been brought here to be made a fool of. You went a little ... hysterical. And
then you had your blackout. Fainted.'

      
Meryl became aware of Tom Storey standing behind his wife,
hands plunged into his pockets, where she knew they were trembling. His face
was still red and hot-looking. His bloodshot eyes came to rest on her.
      
'Tell 'em, darlin'.'

      
He didn't look dangerous any more, his eyes weren't bulging.
He just looked unwell.

      
'Go on ... Tell 'em. Tell 'em what you saw.'

      
The eyes sorrowful now, bruised like a bloodhound's. He knew
what she'd seen. How did he know? Only one way he
could
know: because he'd seen it too, including the grisly creature
with the hole in his face whose manifestation had started the whole terrible cycle.
Had Tom Storey killed them all in his imagination; was that what she'd seen?

      
It was clear that none of the others had seen anything, except
for her - and Storey, obviously - behaving very strangely. And whatever Tom had
done, nobody was commenting on it, perhaps because, for him, this kind of
behaviour wasn't so unusual.

      
And, oh Lord, it wouldn't go away. She only had to look at
Stephen Case to see him again with his mouth open and an eye hanging out. She
was never going to be able to sleep again. She'd keep waking up in the night
and feeling for Martin's blood on the pillow.

      
And the Lady Bluefoot, the dear, gentle, eternally grieving
Lady Bluefoot, her sanctum invaded by another presence which was dark and gross
and oppressive and ...

      
And brought in here by
him
.

      
Tom Storey was still looking at her, mute appeal in his eyes,
but no hope there. Whatever it was he had, it had clearly brought him nothing
but anguish.

      
'I really think,' said Martin, who knew about her and the Lady
Bluefoot, who would smile wryly but never quite patronisingly, 'that if you thought
you saw something, Meryl, you ought to enlighten us.'

      
Meryl panicked and fought to conceal it, staring at the
carpet, and then into the fire, not wanting to see any of them, especially Tom
Storey, whose gaze she could feel like steady heat.

      
I
can't.

      
'Please ... I didn't see anything. I just fainted. It was probably
the cold in the hall after the warmth of the kitchen. I'm sorry to have put you
all to any trouble or worry. I shall be fine now. Just fine. Really.'

      
There was an unsatisfied silence. What was she supposed to
say? I saw you all dead, butchered where you sat? Case's eye out? Lady Tulley's
head lying casually on the table like some sort of novelty cruet?

      
I can't. God help me, I
just can't.

      
The silence went on and on, Meryl slumped, staring into the
fire, Martin watching her baffled. The silence went on until Tom Storey broke
it.

      
Tom said, leaden fatigue in his voice, 'You stupid, selfish
bitch.'

      
'Tom!' Outrage from Shelley, but it wasn't awfully convincing.

      
'And you …' His wife was still kneeling by Meryl's chair, Tom
towering over her like some flaking tenement block. 'You betrayed me, darlin'.
You set me up. You brung me out here so this ...' jabbing a contemptuous thumb
towards Case. '… this streak of piss ...'

      
'Hang on ...' Case said.

      
'Stay outa this, dickface ...'

      
Tom turned slowly towards Meryl, looked her in the eyes, then
back to Case, saying very deliberately,

      
'... else I'll have your bleeding eyes out, won't I?'
      
Meryl gasped.

      
'Fought I could trust you,' Tom said to Shelley. 'You was the
only person I fought I could truly trust. And you set me up. All this ...'

      
He waved a hand towards the table. Meryl thought, nobody but
me understands what he means. They all just think he's mentally unbalanced.

      
'... is your fault. You said you understood. You never understood.'

      
Shelley reached up for him. 'Tom, believe me ...'
      
'Believe you,' Tom said, with
sadness and contempt, 'is what I ain't never gonna do again, darlin'.'

      
Martin said, 'Tom, listen to me for a moment. Shelley knew nothing
...'

      
'And you,' said Tom. 'I been observing you. I been finking,
what's this smarmy git after? He don't want more money. A seat on the board at
TMM, maybe? Nah, I couldn't fathom it. I'm looking at you, I'm finking, what ...
? And all I seen in your eyes ...'

      
Martin started to say something.

      
'... is a big pair of tits,' Tom said.

      
Martin stood there, mouth open. Probably, Meryl thought, the
first time since childhood he's looked ridiculous and known it.

      
'That it, mister?' Tom grinned savagely. 'That really it?
Everyfink? My missus's tits?' He turned away. 'Pathetic, innit? Jeez.'

      
He held out a hand to Shelley. 'Bag. Where's your bag?'

      
'Tom, no ...'

      
Tom said, 'I'm outa here.'

      
'Please …'

      
'You can stay. Don't let this spoil your glittering evening, darlin'.
Stay as long as you want. This geezer'll put you up for the night, won'tcher,
mate? Show him your jugs or summink. See, he's drooling already, the poor sod.'

      
'Tom,' Shelley said, still on her knees. 'We have to talk about
this.'

      
She's actually a good woman, Meryl thought. She's been through
a lot of grief. But he's right. She doesn't understand and she never will.

      
Tom held out a hand to Shelley as if to help her up.

      
Shelley didn't move.

      
'Car keys,' Tom said, palm open, fingers stiff.

Simon stood panting at the
top of the spiral, where it came out on to a square stone platform, no more
than fifteen feet in diameter, a wall around it, broken down in places, missing
altogether in others, stepping off points into the shaft of the night.

      
A waning moon silvered the cold, wet land and the arcades of
archways and the clumps of fallen masonry on the ground, fifty feet below. It
was very still.
      
Simon.

      
He looked up. Two black-robed monks were there. One spoke in a
guttural whisper, in a language he felt he ought to understand but didn't.
French? Latin? It didn't matter, the message was clear.
      
Welcome back.

      
Simon felt a crown of cold air around his head. Knew it had
been shaven. Knew he, too, was wearing a monk's habit, rough and hairy.

      
The other monks were looking down at the woman in the wheelchair.
'I brought her,' Simon said.

      
Isabel said, 'No, you didn't. Helped me up the steps was all
you did. I came because I wanted to. I came to be healed.'

      
She had on a white towelling bathrobe, large silver earrings
and a silver necklace with a locket. 'Don't worry,' she said to Simon. 'You
won't need to help me down. I'll be able to walk, won't I?'

      
Or fly
. One of the
monks giggled.

      
Simon stepped away from the wheelchair. Isabel sat alone in
the centre of the platform. 'When you're ready.'
      
Do
it.

      
Simon said, 'Please, no.'

      
The monk smiled. Simon didn't know how he knew this, because
the monk had no face. But the monk smiled and pulled on the loose cord of hemp
around his waist.
      
Simon drew breath.

      
The cord fell to the stone around the monk's leather boots.
      
The robe parted, and the monk's
dark penis reared glistening into the cold moonlight.
      
Simon shivered.

      
Isabel turned her head and looked into his face. He felt his
eyes glaze and harden. He took hold of the handles of the wheelchair.

      
Isabel said, 'Simon?'

      
Her voice was distant, a little croaky, a voice on the end of
a telephone. He had heard voices like this before, the lonely voices of other
women in other parishes.

      
Her eyes widened. She gave a little sob.
      
'I'm sorry,' he said coldly.

      
He pushed the wheelchair easily to the gap at the edge of the
tower, where the perimeter wall had been. Glancing back at the naked, grinning
monk, he gave it a final little prod and watched it vanish. Stood on the edge
and waited until he heard it smashing into the rubble fifty feet below with a
noise like a cutlery drawer being emptied.

      
And then he took off his robe, went down on his knees and began
to crawl across the stone towards the monk.

Shelley
couldn't
move. Her bag was on a Queen
Anne sort of' coffee table under the window where she'd put it down to bring a
chair close to the fire for Meryl.

      
She didn't dare look at it, so she carried on looking at Tom,
right into his creased-up eyes, heavy with a sense of betrayal.

      
Please, honey, please.

      
Sometimes he would hear her silent appeals clearer than if
she'd spoken. Sometimes, like tonight, he could transmit his unease to her, and
her perception of atmosphere would be heightened and change and she would know
something was happening ... and believe that she was somehow sharing his burden.

      
'Keys,' Tom said.

      
He looked old. Stricken and ravaged. His moustache was almost
white now. He was only forty-seven, barely middle-aged these days.

      
Shelley said, 'Let me drive you home, Tom."

      
'Keys. I'll spell it out. I ain't going nowhere wiv you. And I
ain't walking.'

      
She remembered him saying, on the way here,
I hate these little country lanes.
All country
lanes, for Tom, were haunted by the clash of metal and the roar of flames.
Shelley knew exactly what it had been like; she'd made Dave Reilly tell her
about it, every horrifying detail.

      
Including the bit about Tom demanding car keys from Russell
Hornby, the producer, before driving off in the old Land Rover which would
destroy Deborah.

      
What time was it now? A long time after midnight, that was certain.
Nearly that time. They should have been home by now, safe in bed.

      
Shelley rallied. 'You're not having the keys, Tom.'
      
Don t make me angry,' Tom said.
      
Shelley didn't move.
      
But someone else did.

      
'Look.' The awful Stephen Case had wandered over. 'Perhaps I
can resolve this. Tom and I need to do some talking about one thing and
another. Tom, why don't you come over to my hotel in Stroud? Be very quiet. We
can talk, and I can book you a room for the night, what's left of it. No
problem. I've got a bottle of Chivas Regal in the car ...'