Desire Line (13 page)

Clive Upton subsided again, rubbing his hip. ‘'Scuse me, won't you? It's true what they say. It's not the falling off what does it, it's the hitting the ground.'

‘Yes. I rode as a child.' For some reason she added, ‘Elderly spinsters ran the Pony Club in those days…' but when Clive Upton countered with a comment about how very good a rider Eurwen was, she felt a fool. ‘Yes. Yes she is. Thank-you.'

‘She'll turn up.' This was completely disinterested in tone, though considered. ‘She's been round here a bit this summer. Got a good head on her shoulders. Kids these days, they know it all, huh, Meg?'

Emotionless, mantis-like: seated beside his own too-solid daughter yet he ignored her as he spoke her name.
These people
… Sara felt an inner pressure building, felt it tighten deep in her chest. Any moment her impatience could become too powerful and unruly. In the blink of an eye she seemed to stand outside the person trapped in a superheated room ranged against a trio of enemies, and wondered which one of them she would go for first. Josh because he deserved it, Meg because she desired to, the father because there was least to lose by it? Those unused wishes were about to come in handy. And then one was granted without her having to ask: Clive Upton struggling unexpectedly to his feet and limping over to an almost vacant set of shelves, pouring a generous measure from a decanter into four glasses. His small hands gathered them in like the reins of a double bridle, expertly, without looking. ‘This'll keep the cold away.' He passed them around.

‘Josh isn't coming with us,' Meg said.

‘They think I'll cramp their style.'

‘Well have one anyway,' Clive Upton said.

‘I'm driving.'

‘Your loss.' He put the extra drink onto one of the small tables coupled to each sofa end. Sara accepted hers and sat beside it chatting to Clive but watching Josh and Meg act a pair of acquaintances in a play by Rattigan, measured space between them. On the TV screen a woman's desperate features were captured in close-up.

‘It's an oldie,' Clive motioned. They all turned giving Sara opportunity for a mouthful of Scotch. ‘Have you seen it,
The Fly
, Sara? No? This scientist turns into a fly. Starts loving the smell of raw flesh. Stupid, eh? You think you're not going to bother, you know, load of balls? But when you lot're gone, I'll probably stick with.'

She drained her glass and placed it down softly as if made of eggshell. ‘I don't watch much television.'

‘But you wrote for the tele, didn't you?'

‘I wrote a book and the BBC dramatised it and then it became a film.'

‘Yeah, I thought Meg said you did.'

‘Someone else was responsible for the script. It's quite a specialised art, adapting a book. My book in this case but any book really—'

His expression was one of mock horror. ‘Can they do that? Take your story like that?'

Still holding his gaze, her hand reached back and found Josh's drink. ‘They don't take it. You sell them limited rights.'

‘That's OK then. It's like renting? I do a bit of that. That I can get. Or breeding? It's like you own the stallion and you make the other side pay to have the mare covered. Yeah, Josh? No foal, no bloody fee. Yeah?'

Meg Upton said, ‘I think we should get going if you're ready Sara. We'll be off now Dad.' And to Josh, ‘I'll bring Sara home.'

Josh said, ‘Sara?'

‘Mm… what?'

‘Am I coming with you?'

She shook her head. ‘Meg said not,' she added with a hypocrite's relish.

‘
Fine
. See you Clive.' Josh was through the door before even Meg could make a move. ‘Thanks for the drink.'

‘What bloody drink?' Clive Upton laughed at his retreating back and then must have noticed two empty glasses.

Chapter 9

‘I'm sorry about Dad,' Meg said. The screech of Josh's departure was dying on the crisp air as they walked along the rear of her father's property and away from the road. Ahead of them appeared to be featureless even under a risen moon. Only the smudged rim of the treeline gave Sara's brain something to focus on. It was
noticeably
cold after the Upton's hothouse and without the Scotch, she would have been at the teeth chattering stage already. She had no idea of direction but a noticeable breeze, straight off the sea in Avonside, was now chilling her left shoulder. Suddenly she smelled smoke.

‘You have nothing to apologise for.'

‘Since we lost Mum he can be a bit sharp. And the hips don't help. He needs ‘least one replacing but he won't—'

‘Where exactly are we going?'

‘It's after you get through the windbreak. Straight ahead of us now. I'll get my torch out. You're all right. It's good underfoot.'

‘I'm fine.'

‘It's a field, that's all it is. There's a back entrance into the lane Dad let's them use. He won't have people he doesn't know in the yard. He's racing, see. They're security-mad in racing.'

With her night sight returned Sara saw before them an open grassy area crossed by a built-up causeway the width of a vehicle and standing a foot above the level of the turf. The spice-scent of horse was stronger than ever and she was aware of kicking nuggets of dung over the side or squashing them flat as though walking on ripe fruit. Easy progress… but she found a reluctance to get any closer to the trees ahead and her flesh inside Josh's padded jacket began to prickle. She wanted desperately to be on the other side of the copse and to learn whatever she could from whoever was there, yet going on was another matter. Was it in the trees… or beyond, the thing she feared? She stopped. After a moment Meg noticed and came back.

‘Is there a better way?'

‘To find out Eurwen, you mean?'

‘No… no. Is there a way that maybe doesn't go through
there
.'

‘Well—'

‘I've always disliked woods at night.' This was untrue. She had grown up in a house surrounded by woodland and never had a problem until this moment and here. So not the dark and not trees— so why did her throat threaten seizure and dampness start in her clothes… her hair?

‘Um-m—' if exasperated, Meg did a good job of hiding it, ‘It'll be OK really. It's not a proper wood. It's just a shelter belt for the grazing. The path goes straight in and out again. No need to be scared.'

‘I understand.' She was faced with blankness solid as a wall and as they had closed with it, a terrible void beckoned. Her mind labelled it
deeper than black.
Which was impossible. Blinking rapidly introduced a shower of brilliant speckles, hallucinatory, of course, yet this
nothing
suddenly housed wraiths, throwing off bright droplets as a fur pelt throws off water.

‘Sara?'

She feared she was about to turn and run. Then as quickly as the panic had arrived, the sense of things emerged. ‘It's a fire,' she told Meg. ‘I can see sparks from a fire… and people.'

‘Well, yeah.'

Her fingers caressed the bottle nestled in a pocket. ‘Do you want a…' of course Meg didn't want a drink. No one could ever be relied on to want a drink. Only she wanted a drink every waking hour of every day. ‘Just give me a moment.' She drank deep and, ‘Freezing,' she explained. ‘And I'm nervous. I need to find out everything I can. But I don't like having to ask strangers about her. D'you understand?'

‘Bit awkward, I suppose.'

‘Usually it's… my research, I mean, it's documentary in the main. From archives and libraries. That's how I do my work. Not from people. We should have brought Josh.'

‘No, we shouldn't. You'll see.'

She attempted restraint before allowing herself one extra swallow.

‘Come on,' Meg said.

An arm thrust itself through hers.
The wife and the mistress walked arm in arm
, ran through her mind though not who nor where. From absolute shadow the backbeat of the music reached out or maybe it was her blood drumming… she couldn't do this… she could not… and then they were across the divide into a world of sound and smell and movement and illumination as flames leapt and smoke and sparks headed for the treetops above an encampment of tents and vehicles scattered in a rough crescent with the horns stretching into the field. At the centre of the open area a massive bonfire of logs crackled while straw bales were being disentangled, sliced and fed in by a couple of genderless figures who prodded the red heart of it with sticks, as though the inferno needed any encouragement. They approached them. Meg scanned faces before discounting the duo… while Sara narrowly avoided stepping on the outstretched paws of a dog and felt the full force of what it was basking in. ‘Will you know everybody here?'

‘Prob'ly not,' Meg said cheerfully.

The real action was further off; a flimsy domed structure had been erected and beside it a generator to power coloured lights and a sound stage with a drab-clad, dreadlocked giantess presiding. In this semi-open amplified music, though mind-numbing, was just bearable and Sara appreciated Clive Upton's arrangement. Overspill from the scene might filter away across the land to any neighbours in the vicinity but fail to reach Green Fields itself and disturb the equine occupants.

Maybe fifty figures were up and dancing. Despite membership of a host that was rhythmically in sync, most moved in a solitary, self-absorbed way: no looking, no touching. A boy, a stripling, naked to the waist, baggy jeans clinging on precariously, circled the dancers. He was juggling with fire, ignoring both dancers and music with his gestures, and was ignored in his turn. But the bright passage of the fire-sticks was compelling, as was the thought of the flame sweeping across childlike arms, that pathetic concave chest, the seared flesh left in its wake… Between the main event and the blaze proper, small huddled groups of non-dancers sat on blankets or in entrances to tents, drinking and smoking. What she had thought the scent of burning straw was in fact a fug of skunk.

As if reading her thoughts, ‘D'you… you know, like a smoke?' Meg said.

‘Not for a long time, not since undergraduate days. You?'

‘No… well. But you see what I meant about Josh? It wouldn't work would it?'

‘I'm amazed your father allows this.'

‘He's been known to come down… if he's in the mood. If the hips let him. It's a great painkiller.'

Sara tried to scrutinise her more closely, tried to see beyond the benign simplicity of responses: this woman was intimate with Josh, with Eurwen. But for a second time Meg as if aware moved off. ‘Come on then.'

‘Who do we speak to?'

‘That's the thing, nobody just now. Come and warm up and we'll see what happens, huh?'

There were intact bales spread in twos and threes around the fire. Someone had constructed a sofa with a back and arms but that was already occupied by a pair of skinny, intertwined bodies, fully clothed, booted but linked at the groin and moving in slow tempo. They were near enough to bathe in the glow; occasional shooting sparks fell on them, unacknowledged. Meg chose a spot as far as possible from the coupling and sighed at the heat. Fire-juggler apart, everyone else seemed to be sliding down into a slower form of being, in time to the music whose rhythm was a faltering pulse and whose words were so languorous they melted into each other without boundaries or meaning. Perversely Sara came alert, the vodka and whisky and adrenalin an unholy alliance. ‘We just sit here all night do we?'

‘It's cold. Don't worry, they'll come to us.'

‘I see.' Behind her back one of the lovers gave a sustained rasping moan. ‘You and Josh… are you seeing each other?' Almost she gestured behind her but thought better of it. ‘If people still do that, do they? Date?'

‘I'm into him, of course. Why not? But mainly it's been with Eurwen when I've seen him. We had a gymkhana here and a bit of a party afterwards he came to.'

‘Lovely. It's not my business. We
are
separated. Who here might Eurwen have—?'

‘You're sorry you let him go aren't you?'

For the dozenth time she found herself challenged by Meg Upton's candour.
I didn't drop his lead on a country walk!
came to the tip of her tongue but fate intervened by means of a slim, female figure's wandering over. The trailed fragments of what had been several skirts, tattered and worn one on top of the other dragged heavily in the dampness…
an inconvenience of skirts?
In a swirl, she sat down next to Sara and Meg grabbed at the chance: ‘If you stay I'll do a quick once round. See who I can see.'

When she had gone the woman said very softly as though it was a secret to be kept from the lovers, ‘I've seen you in town.'

Sara almost leapt. Fire was the kindest illumination, especially as the woman was in profile, seeming to address the foundry-like heat. Nevertheless Sara recognised the owner of the ruined face as the one she'd almost knocked down that first day… and since followed. Kind had she said? Kinder than kind: when she turned to Sara now she seemed to reference beauty. And she had been near Eurwen, perhaps on this very spot and not long ago. The desire just to touch the woman was intense.