Facing the Tank (21 page)

Dawn was slumped in her deck chair. Her black candle was burnt low. Its guttering light was reflected off the palm of her sheltering hand on to a face heavy with watching. Moths fluttered near this pink-glowing hand, trying to reach the flame. Five had died so far. Their singed corpses had landed on her thighs. She did not brush them off; her flesh was so chilled that she had not felt the tiny pressure of their landing. Occasionally her head would start to bow forwards and, her reflexes sluggish from the moonlit cold, she would summon the strength to jerk it upright once more. Soon she would have to put away deck chair and candle and return to her bed. She could not afford to risk falling asleep where she sat. Quite apart from the likelihood of catching her death, she did not relish the thought of waking to the interested gaze of her neighbours. Mrs Parry at number six was very helpful about passing on details of the various domestic services that Dawn offered – she was a district nurse and so an efficient percolator of local information – but was unlikely to be so diplomatic should she discover that her spinster neighbour was a witch. Unbeknownst to Mrs Parry, a neglected corner of the bottom of her garden, one that could easily be reached through a loose panel in her neighbour’s fence, played nutritious host to Dawn’s marijuana plants.

The candle had burnt so low that the wick had drifted and was flaming wide and high for the remaining seconds of its life. Dawn blew it out. Drops of hot wax splashed on to her knees as she stood. She swore and tossed the candle stump into the bush behind her. As she folded up the deck chair, uncertain on her numb legs, a twig snapped about four yards away. She froze, leaning on the folded chair. Another twig snapped and she heard the swish of parted branches.

‘Sasha?’ she whispered. The wooden fence to her left swayed suddenly and there was a sound of scrabbling followed by an unmistakably childish cough. Dawn’s heart was racing. She wanted to call out but was terrified of frightening whatever was approaching. The moon had long since vanished but there were stars and these, together with the glow of street lamps up on the hill above Bross Gardens, lent a faint glitter to the black surface of the river. Against this Dawn could just make out a silhouette. The figure seemed naked as herself and would have reached up to her breasts in height.

‘Sasha,’ she mouthed, clutching the canvas of the chair in her effort to keep perfectly still.

An upstairs window flew open in number six and Mrs Parry called out,

‘Hello? Hello? Is somebody down there?’ Her tone was imperious. An electric torch was turned on and on the edge of its wandering beam, Dawn barely glimpsed a bone-thin leg streaked with mud and a flash of flaming hair. Then there was a splash as though a small dog had just dived into the river. Dawn dropped her deck chair with a clatter and rushed back to flatten herself against her kitchen door. The beam of light played back and forth across the garden and Mrs Parry barked, ‘I shall call the police, you know.’ Dawn stared furiously towards where her lost daughter had vanished back into the night. ‘Dawn?’ queried Mrs Parry in a softer, more worried tone. ‘Dawn?’

Evan was crouching at the side of the Patron’s tomb. Its lid was raised on a winch by about seven inches and in the brilliant light which flooded the chapel he could make out with ease the body within. This was not Saint Boniface of Barrow however but a pitifully young girl, perhaps seven or eight years old. Dwarfed by her vast resting place, she was wrapped in a pink dressing gown with a blue swallow motif on its pocket, and her hair, whose flame tints were picked out by the light, was brushed in a fan around her sturdy, lifeless face. Deeply moved, he reached out to touch the small corpse’s cheek. No sooner did he register that the skin was still warm than the chains of the winch rattled into action and the great lid slammed down over his forearm. He felt no pain, although the bone was certainly shattered, but only faint, pleasurable tingling where the child within was now nibbling at his fingertips.

Struck by the sound of women’s voices, Evan craned his neck and peered over the top of the tomb. At the far end of the quire, his mother was advancing, clutching a guidebook and accompanied by her bridge partners, the Commander, the fourth-generation rag-trade widow and young Mr Trudeau. Miriam was coming too, and so was Huby Stokes, who clutched a vase of her dried flowers. Their shoes sounded on the flagstones like a large stable on the move and from the fevered pitch of their voices, he knew that he was their quarry. He scrabbled at the chains in vain; the one he needed to pull had swung out of immediate reach and to lunge any harder towards it would have made the fracture of his arm far worse that it must already be. As the voices grew nearer, he huddled against the side of the tomb, trying to hide some of his length. He shut his eyes tight to await the worst.

There was a kind of warmth on the back of his neck. He looked up and saw a seven-foot man, naked save for a linen suit, whose eyes burned Nordic blue and whose radiant mop of hair was purest Barrowcester blond. Smiling, the man stooped, slipped his great hands under the lid’s rim and lifted it like so much sponge. Evan’s arm was still whole and the child was wide awake. She jumped free and ran away, bare feet slapping. The man took Evan under the arms. There was a sound of rending linen, then a kind of rhythmic thunder and their feet left the ground. His rescuer had only to flap his broad brownish wings seven or eight times and they were rising with dizzying speed towards the cathedral ceiling. Only instead of the ceiling, they arrived at a kind of mirror image of the floor they had just left.

‘Must fix the vertical hold,’ Evan murmured.

He was alone again with the Patron’s tomb. Its lid was raised on a winch by about seven inches and in the brilliant light which flooded the chapel he could make out with ease the body within. The tall rescuer lay there. His eyes were closed. The wings had vanished. His chest had been torn open from top to bottom however and his rib cage splayed out to either side. Something like an eagle.

Madeleine had faced the pressmen and sent them away happy. Free again, Mercy Merluza was parked on Deirdre’s sofa in the Palace. They had just drunk coffee and she had eaten a home-made biscuit with a curiously smoky taste that Mercy did not relish. After two days of being under siege, her walk unpursued through sunlit streets had been all too brief. She was in here, with curtains drawn and the candles lit, too soon. The rich perfume of Deirdre’s morning bath still hung in the atmosphere, supported by the sweet scent behind Deirdre’s ears which clashed with that behind Mercy’s own, while both mingled with the sickly vapours of a bunch of freesia on an occasional table to her left. She felt faint at this sensuous assault and, as she listened to Deirdre’s slowing breaths, she let herself sink back on the sofa and felt her eyelids grow as heavy as the chesty sighs across the room. Before she could hear her friend’s breathing stop, the moment which was normally so thrilling, Mercy perceived that the sofa was executing a slow, stomach-churning somersault beneath her.

‘I’m having a stroke,’ she thought. ‘They’ll carry me back to bed and I won’t be able to say anything but “water” or “biscuit” in different tones of voice. And the Professor,’ she thought, as the rolling stopped and she found herself settling on her back, ‘the Professor will have his wicked way with my poor, disgraced Madeleine and I won’t be able to lift a finger. I’ll simply stare at them and say “Water water water”.’

‘I’m coming. Sssh,’ said a woman’s voice somewhere. ‘Jesus Maria you do go on so.’

As a candle came close with a glass of water beside it, Mercy realized that her eyes were open and that she was on a bed in a dark room. A young woman was carrying the candle and the glass. She stooped, raised Mercy’s head and let her drink.

‘Water water water,’ echoed the woman, more kindly. ‘Soon you’ll have to start getting it yourself. I can’t always jump up as if you were still a baby.’ It was her when young. No. The teeth were wrong. It was a likeness of her when young.

‘
Gracias
, Mama,’ murmured Mercy and pulled gently back to show that she had drunk enough now. The woman laid her back on the pillow and stroked her forehead.

‘Little fool,’ she whispered. ‘Little Trouble.’ There was a tremendous thudding on the stairs outside. The woman cursed and rushed out. Mercy heard a man’s voice that she recognized. At first she could not make out their words then she heard him quite distinctly.

‘I’ve come to take her home with me,’ he said.

‘She’s mine,’ hissed the woman. ‘You left us.’

‘She’s mine too, remember. I was there. She’d only starve with you. You’ll be better off without her. You can work again. Mother and I can give her food and, in time, she can earn her keep and learn a trade off Mother.’

‘No!’ The woman was almost screaming. ‘You’ll pervert her. I’d rather hand her over to the nuns. Please no. She’s so little. Jésus, please.’

Then there was a clatter and a cry and Mercy knew that her mother had been shoved aside. The man ran up the rest of the stairs and strode into the circle of candlelight. She hid her face and tried to cling to the mattress as he slipped strong hands around her and slung her like a mail bag over one shoulder. The candlelight receded as did the woman’s sobbing on the stairs. Mercy had not seen his face but the hands, the pommade on his hair and the faint scent of cloves told her it was Jésus. He slung her down and she was somersaulting slowly with the sofa again. Someone was patting her cheeks.

‘Mercy? Mercy, Petal, wake up. Oh heck.
Mercy!
’ scolded Deirdre. There was the sound of a striking match, a puff of breath then the acrid smell of smoke just under her nose. Mercy opened her eyes.

‘Madeleine is my sister,’ she announced flatly. ‘I was seduced by my father.’

‘What? Nonsense. Don’t be a fool, Flower. Now can you stand?’

‘No.’

‘Yes you can. Come on. Let’s get you to the window. You’ve gone all lardy coloured.’ Deirdre slid a surprisingly strong arm round Mercy’s back and, wheezing, helped her to a window. A curtain was thrust aside and the window flung open. The shock of fresh air in her face brought to Mercy’s notice the fact that she was feeling seriously sick. She raised a hand towards her mouth.

‘Deirdre, I think, perhaps …’

‘Quick, Petal. Through here.’

Deirdre pushed her to the bathroom in the nick of time and shut her in. Mercy vomited the remains of the peculiar smoky biscuit, flushed it away and felt much better. Steady on her legs once more, she rinsed out her mouth and borrowed some of Deirdre’s eau de cologne to cool her cheeks which had been slapped so vigorously. She came to her senses. The faintness having passed, she saw that it was just a stupid dream and that they were two foolish old women playing dangerous games.

‘No more,’ thought Mercy. ‘Meditation is good for my posture, Dr Morton said so, but no more curtained rooms and candles.’

She returned to the sitting room. Deirdre had snuffed the candles, drawn the curtains and left the window open. It was as if nothing had happened. She looked up expectantly from her chair.

‘Are you better, Flower?’

‘Much, thanks. So sorry. Terribly silly of me to faint like that. I’m normally so strong.’

‘You didn’t faint,’ said Deirdre seriously. ‘Something happened. You never told me you were sensitive.’

‘I’m not. I just fainted.’

‘Nonsense. I was just “going under” when it all went blank, as if someone had pulled out a plug on my switchboard. I was back to normal over here and there you were over there muttering in some funny language. I didn’t dare move until you keeled over after about three minutes and started breathing properly again.’

‘Well, honestly, Deirdre, nothing happened. I just felt a bit faint then sort of passed out. I often talk in my sleep. Madeleine said so when we went on holiday once and had to share a room.’ Deirdre was a dear friend and a good friend but there were certain things even she must never know. ‘You’ve changed the biscuits,’ Mercy continued, resuming her seat on the sofa and changing the subject. The odd ones had vanished and been replaced by the usual mixture of ginger nuts and
langues de chats
.

‘Oh yes,’ said Deirdre airily. ‘I can’t think what those other ones were. They were quite stale. I must have got the tins muddled up. Have another coffee. You’re still a bit grey, you know.’

‘Yes. Thank you,’ Mercy said. ‘Then I must go and start work.’

Their eyes met very briefly at the handing over of cups and each smelled duplicity like cordite on the air.

‘Emma. You’re on your way out. I’ll come back later.’

‘Hello. No honestly, I’m just going to water that tub of fuchsias. Come and talk to me then you can stay for coffee.’

Emma rarely called Clive Hart anything. She knew that he wanted her to call him Clive – she called his wife Lydia, after all – but her impulse was always to call him Mr Hart. She liked Lydia who, with her success and outside contacts, brought a draught of the world beyond to provincial prisoners, and she tried to like Clive as well. The inkling that he was as much a prisoner as she, however, and something hungry and over-eager in his manner towards her repelled her. She knew that other women, Madeleine Merluza for instance, would have no hesitation, if placed in her position, in reaching out and taking what he was so clearly trying to offer. Until faced with the event, Emma could never be sure of escaping Barrowcester and, even had she the stuff of adultery, she lacked the mettle to live brazenly on the scene of such adventure. None of this could negate the fact that Clive’s distinctly animal presence attracted and unsettled her. Mr Hart, therefore, or no name at all.

‘You do look well,’ he said as she showered her pot plants from a watering can filled at the rain butt.

‘Thank you,’ she replied. Coming from anyone else, this indirect compliment on the resuscitation of her mother’s dress might have pleased her but she saw his eyes travelling on her arms and legs and wished she were in gardening slacks and a camel-coloured cardigan. ‘How’s Lydia?’

‘Fairly mad getting ready for Saturday. She’s decided to make her own dress, you see.’

‘Heavens! What’s the special occasion?’

‘You haven’t heard?’ She shook her head. ‘Tobit’s wedding.’

‘How wonderful!’

‘It’s startled us rather, too.’

‘Well it’s not that I’m startled. Not really …’

‘I thought he’d unburdened himself to you once.’

‘Yes he did, but I didn’t take it very seriously. Come and have some coffee.’

It had been acutely embarrassing. Tobit Hart had volunteered to help her lay a new garden path several summers ago. Emma had assumed he was getting under his parents’ feet, it being the end of the long holiday, so she had suggested to Lydia that, should she feel like off-loading her son one day, Emma could always find him something to do. Tobit had rung up and offered his services and Emma had suggested he help her lay a new path. In the event no path was laid; the old one was perfectly serviceable. He had watched her wax the hall floor, watched her buy and cook them lunch then, because she sensed that there was something he wanted to tell her, they had taken a long walk along the banks of the Bross. He had told her he was in love with one of his teachers. Why he had selected her as a confidante remained a mystery – possibly it was because this was the sort of thing brothers confided in older sisters, and she was roughly the right age. He had not seemed to want anything more than a sounding board. He was not worried or unhappy; Tobit had never needed assurance about anything. Emma had listened and said,

‘Well, of course I wouldn’t know,’ a good deal and, though embarrassed, had been none the less touched that he had picked her out. He had told his parents about this confessional much later and Lydia had never stopped apologizing for it, as though it represented some dereliction in her motherly duty.

‘Who’s the lucky girl?’ Emma asked.

‘She’s a young doctor he’s met in London. She’s called Gloire DelMonica.’

‘Wonderful name. Is she Italian?’

‘No. American. Sort of American. But actually, that’s why I’m here.’

‘Yes please,’ thought Emma. ‘I’d love to come and I’ll buy a new dress especially.’

‘What?’ she asked, handing him his coffee and sitting at the kitchen table.

‘Well, all this has happened terribly quickly and Lydia didn’t know about Saturday when she asked you to dinner on Friday. God! Friday’s tomorrow. I am sorry.’

‘Oh, but of course. She can’t possibly cope with a dinner party the night before. She’ll be far too busy.’ Emma hoped that her tone was reasonable.

‘We feel awful. Lydia says maybe the Friday after.’

‘I’ve got an old schoolfriend coming round,’ Emma lied, quick as a flash.

‘What fun for you. Well, another time, perhaps. I’m sure Lydia’ll ring you up for a chat about Saturday anyway, and you can fix up something between you.’

‘Who else was coming?’

‘Just you and Fergus Gibson. Poor old Fergus. Do you know him?’

‘Not really. Lydia said he was a wonderful designer and I’d thought I might get him to come round here and see if he had any ideas for doing the place up. Why do you say “poor”?’

‘Well, there’s his mother, who I gather is hell on earth at the moment and of course he’s still terribly cut up about Roger.’

‘That was his partner, wasn’t it?’

She wanted to know all she could. The poor man had suffered so much. If she knew more, she could help him through.

‘Well yes, but not many people seemed to realize that it wasn’t just a business partnership.’

Emma glanced sharply up and saw that Clive was playing studiously with the remainder of his coffee.

‘Ohh, of course,’ she almost groaned. ‘It must have been so hard for him coping with that sort of ignorance.’ She wondered how many people Lydia had told about the awkwardness of cancelling the tryst she had arranged between poor Miss Dyce-Hamilton and poor, dear Fergus Gibson. Clive looked up.

‘So you did know?’ he queried.

‘Oh Clive!’ She managed both the Christian name and a laugh. ‘Of
course
I did. I mean to say, he
is
an interior designer.’

‘Thank God for that!’ he exclaimed, relief flooding his face in place of the usual blend of pathos and lust it wore for her benefit.

‘Why?’ she asked, taking a sip of her unwanted coffee.

‘Well, you know old Lydia; all very get-up-and-go but she does have her crises of innocence and it turns out that the latest one was over Fergus. She literally had to wring it out of the man’s cleaning lady before she’d believe it. And so I’m afraid this dinner party was … well … Oh dear.’ He laughed. Loudly.

‘She was pairing me off with
Fergus?
Oh really!’ Emma tried to join in his laughter but found herself incapable of anything sufficiently convincing. She contented herself with a less than heartfelt simper.

‘Ah well.’ Clive subsided, glanced at the kitchen clock and rose. ‘At least you weren’t in the dark too, otherwise it might have been sad as well as funny. Can’t wait to see her face when I let her know that you couldn’t think what she was up to.’

‘Well I wouldn’t say that, exactly.’

‘Emma, you’re sweet to understand about tomorrow.’ He patted her shoulder. ‘And thanks very much for the coffee. Now I must get my skates on – I’ve got a class in ten minutes.’

‘You’ve got my godson in one of your classes.’

‘Which is he?’

‘Crispin Clay.’

‘Ah yes. Little chap.’

‘That’s right.’

‘He’s very preoccupied. Has he got problems at home or something?’

‘No. Just a bit homesick I think.’

‘Ah.’

‘You must rush,’ she reminded him, opening the front door.

‘Yes, I must.’

‘Goodbye.’

She shut the door before he had reached the gate. Her chequebook lay on her father’s desk in the study. She made out a cheque to Drinkwater and Gibson Design Consultants for their initial consultation fee then slipped it into an envelope addressed to Fergus. Then she dialled his number which was already slipping from her memory. As she hoped, she was connected to his answering machine.

‘Fergus, hello. It’s Emma here. Emma Hamilton. Thanks so much for all your ideas yesterday. I think they’re perfect. The trouble is I’ve just had a word with my bank manager and he doesn’t seem to think that things will run that far. I’m furious but there’s not much I can do. Anyway, do please hang on to your plans in case I can rustle up some more funds from somewhere, and I’ll drop your cheque in after school this morning. We’re not meeting tomorrow after all because Lydia’s got a wedding on her hands on Saturday, but I’m sure we’ll … Damn!’ The bleeping of an electronic tone announced that she had recorded her fair share. She fairly slammed back the receiver.

Walking to the kitchen, she picked up Clive Hart’s empty coffee cup. She opened the door to the basement, walked down a few steps then hurled first cup then saucer hard against the wall before her. Feeling a little better, she returned to the study and lay down on the sofa. She could hear the twittering of Dr Feltram’s harpsichord from next door. She would have to leave the house in half an hour to teach. As she spent a few minutes lying on the sofa to trace the nicotine clouds on the ceiling, she decided to postpone St Paul yet again, and tell the little boys about the fury of King Saul.