Thin Air (33 page)

‘Dex, shut up. We were
good
for each other. Whatever the consequences, you should
have confided in me. I’d have faced death for you. Didn’t you
realise that? My life without you was so empty. If you were trying
to spare me, you didn’t. I’d have been happier being with you,
whatever we had to face. I could have been your strength.’

‘You were,’ he said. ‘And I was
wrong to do what I did. But at the time, there seemed no other
way.’

‘So where do we go from
here?’

He might have misinterpreted the
question, or simply didn’t want to answer it. ‘All I can tell you
is that I feel a movement in the world. It’s as if big clouds are
gathering in the sky. Power resides in the songs I wrote, power
that Lorrance gave to me. They were worth more than anyone knew. I
might not have been able to release them, but I wrote them, Jay, I
sang
them. Something is going to change. I can sense it.
Three Swords have enemies. Not everyone with power in the world
uses it for selfish reasons.’

‘How do you know? Who are these
enemies?’

‘It sounds crazy, but I think
they’re a kind of force for balance. I’ve never met any of them,
but I’ve
felt
them.’ He frowned. ‘It all goes on above us,
Jay. Silent unseen wars and power struggles. It’s happening all the
time, and most people never know. I think it’s happening now.
Lorrance’s enemies want the tapes, because they’d give them access
to his power. Then, they would be able to pierce Three Swords’ weak
spots. The songs are like spells. It’s hard to accept, I know, but
it’s the truth.’

‘I can accept that people might
believe that,’ Jay said. She narrowed her eyes. ‘Someone must have
thought I’d lead them to you - and the tapes.’

Dex looked at her bleakly.
‘There are no tapes, Jay.’

‘What?’ She’d been through hell
for nothing.

‘I destroyed them,’ Dex said.
‘That’s why I left the empty box back home. I thought you’d
realise.’

Jay’s eyes were wide. . ‘You
must let Lorrance know this, Dex. Wouldn’t Sakrilege leave me
alone, then?’

Dex pulled a scornful face. ‘I
don’t think it would make much difference. Lorrance will be furious
I slipped away from his hold. He’s quite capable of punishing you
in my place and is probably already doing so. I think he enjoys
destroying people. He’s powerful and he’s amoral. His mind is
strong, and his life force, and his will. He despises people,
because he thinks they are beneath him in every way, and perhaps
most of them are. He’s not all bad, Jay, because if he was, he
wouldn’t be able to affect people the way he does. I’m sure he’s
convinced that what he does it right, perhaps even inevitable. You
don’t have to like him, but you can almost admire what he is. He,
and people like him, run the world.’ Dex put his finger into a pool
of liquid on the table top, stirred it round. ‘People who control
the media control the thoughts of the people, their desires and
aspirations, even their opinions.’

‘Don’t believe everything you
read in the press, right?’ Jay made a scornful sound. ‘Dex, I’m a
journalist. My work is about truth.’

‘Your
work
?’ Dex asked
archly.

There was a silence. ‘I still
have my work,’ Jay said. ‘Lorrance can’t stop me writing, or
influence my opinions. I could publish stuff myself, sell it on the
street, post it on the internet.’

‘You could try,’ said Dex. ‘But
now you’re here, in Lestholme, where the lost ones hide.’

‘OK, let’s talk about this
place, shall we?’ Jay said. She gestured widely with her arms. ‘I
still want a rational explanation.’

Dex glanced at Jem, who so far
had remained silent. ‘I want to know, too,’ she said.

‘Are you sure?’ Dex asked
her.

She nodded.

‘OK, there is no rational
explanation. Lestholme is a fantasy place, a land removed from
ordinary reality that perhaps has no boundaries.’ His gestures
became more emphatic. ‘Most of us exist on one level of reality,
but under the right circumstances, it’s possible for us to enter
another layer or level. The people who come here make a decision to
leave their lives, in whatever way. Dark light falls from the
monument on the hill. It attracts them, because despite its power,
it provides succour. People can be ghosts here.’

‘Dex,’ Jay said warningly. ‘I
can’t accept that. It sounds like the ramblings of an addled
mind.’

‘But that’s it! You can’t accept
it because you’ve lived all your life in the mundane world. People
like the higher echelons of Three Swords know there’s more to
existence than that. Their ability to accept the unbelievable is
what gives them their advantage. Charney is the real god here, Jay,
not Lorrance. He’s the one with the greater knowledge and
understanding.’

Jay wrinkled her nose, rubbed
her face. ‘Supposing, just supposing, I can suspend disbelief and
take in what you’re saying. I still don’t understand why Lorrance
should be seen as a god at all. Surely, he should be the devil for
the people here?’

Dex considered this. ‘He’s not
really a god, just a symbol. To be a god, wouldn’t he have to be
aware of Lestholme? Lorrance runs ‘The Eye’ tabloid for Three
Swords. If you like, the villagers are the sacrificial victims of
‘The Eye’, the eye of god. Charney is the dark light behind all
gods.’ Dex made an earnest gesture. ‘People need symbols. It’s how
they understand the things they cannot see or even perceive. In
your reality, Charney and Lorrance are simply powerful men, perhaps
evil, but here, and maybe in other levels, they become their
aspirations.’

Jay stared at him, her mind
reeling. She did not doubt his sincerity. If she believed him, she
had her explanation, rational or not, but she still found it hard
to accept. ‘Whatever this place is, however it exists, I don’t want
to stay here forever. How do I get out, Dex? How do I get back what
was mine? Do you know?’

He paused, then nodded
uncertainly. ‘I think all you need to get out is the true desire to
return. You can go back when you’re ready. Are you ready?’

Jay took a deep breath. ‘Yes. I
am. I couldn’t leave before, because I hadn’t found you, and I
think some part of me knew instinctively I’d find you here. Now, I
want to face what’s out there, not hide away.’ She paused. ‘Will
you come with me?’

He stared at her steadily. ‘I’ll
take you out, yes. There’s something I’d like to demonstrate to
you.’

Jay sensed the reticence in his
words. He would not stay out there with her, and she would not beg.
She sighed through her nose. ‘OK, so how are we going to do it?
I’ve tried to leave before, and I thought I really wanted to, but
it didn’t work.’

He smiled. ‘We’ll catch the
bus.’

Jay was unsure of how to say
goodbye to Jem, because she didn’t know whether she’d ever see the
girl again, but Jem did not appear to be upset. She held Jay’s hand
as they walked with Dex through the dark lanes beyond Lestholme’s
heart. ‘What do you think about what you’ve heard?’ Jay asked
her.

Jem shrugged. ‘It makes a kind
of sense, doesn’t it?’

‘Of a kind.’ Jay paused. ‘Jem,
do you want to come with me?’

Jem shook her head emphatically.
‘No.’

Jay felt slightly offended. ‘But
I might not come back.’

Jem glanced up at her. ‘You
will.’

‘You don’t know me that
well.’

Dex had halted ahead of them,
and was gazing up the lane into darkness.

‘I’ll have to go home now,’ Jem
said.

Jay thought she was afraid of
seeing the bus, perhaps anxious that she might be compelled to
climb aboard. ‘OK.’ She leaned down and hugged Jem. ‘We’re
friends,’ she said.

Jem kissed her cheek. ‘I know.
Take care.’ She began to skip back down the lane into Lestholme,
pausing only once to turn back and wave.

Jay’s heart felt heavy. Was she
doing the right thing? She had many friends here, and now she was
walking away from them, without so much as a farewell. Back to
what? The selfishness and betrayal of people who cared only for
themselves; a mountain of debt; all the problems she’d left
behind.

‘Ready, Jay?’ Dex asked.

Jay turned back to him. She saw
a wavering radiance, as of headlights, approaching them. ‘Yes.’

The single-decker bus looked
ordinary in the extreme, as it squeezed between the high hedges of
the lane. It pulled to a halt alongside Jay and Dex, and the doors
slid open. Jay looked up into the face of the driver; a man in a
smart uniform. He smiled a greeting, and beckoned them up. What
kind of creature could he be? Was this just a job to him? Did he
get paid, have a wife and family somewhere to whom he returned when
his work was done? Or was he like the people who lived in
Lestholme, living a shadow life.

There was no fee to pay. Jay and
Dex climbed aboard, into the yellow green light within.

‘You’ll be going to London,
then,’ said the driver. The doors hissed shut behind them.

There was only one other person
on the bus, huddled up against the window near the back, muffled to
the ears in a dark great-coat. ‘He never gets off,’ Dex
murmured.

Jay sat down, gripping the shiny
rail of the seat in front of her. ‘This is too weird,’ she
muttered.

The bus did not go into the
centre of the village, where it would have been able to turn around
with comparative ease. Instead, the driver executed some
complicated manoeuvring involving a farm track. Jay felt
light-headed. She was leaving, going back to what she’d left
behind. Was she mad?

‘How did the driver know where
we wanted to go?’ she asked in a whisper.

Dex shrugged. ‘He knows, that’s
all. It’s his function to know.’

Jay narrowed her eyes at him.
‘This is all too Lovecraft for me. Is the driver an ordinary
man?’

‘I expect he was. Once.’

Jay sighed, shook her head. She
knew she’d get no clear answers, perhaps because there were none.
She’d been used to gathering facts, putting them into an order that
made sense, revealed the story. ‘So what happens when we get back
to town?’ she asked. ‘Will I be able to go straight to the flat?’
It seemed the obvious course of action.

Dex shook his head. ‘Well, you
could, but there’s a party I’d like to take you to first.’

‘A party?’ Jay laughed
scornfully. ‘Great! Just what I need.’

‘It’s an information gathering
foray,’ Dex said.

‘How do you know there’s a
party?’

He shrugged, and Jay growled in
exasperation. ‘‘Look, just forget all the secretive stuff now,’ she
answered. ‘Why a party?’

‘Primarily, I want to show you
why I can never return to reality completely, but I also think you
might find out some interesting things. I can’t tell you what,
because I don’t know. It’s just a hunch.’

‘How intuitive of you.’ He was
not the person she’d known. It was as if she was talking to a
relative of Dex’s, whom she’d heard all about, and had perhaps
talked to on the phone, but had never actually met before. Glancing
at him sidelong, it seemed inconceivable to her that once they’d
shared a bed and a domestic life. But, despite this, she felt easy
in his company.

Jay dozed for a while. When she
opened her eyes again, they were on the motorway, and a glorious
sunset stained the sky. Had she slept for so long? It couldn’t take
a whole day to drive from Lestholme to London. She experienced a
slight shock at finding Dex beside her. It was still strange to her
that he’d reappeared in her life. Her head had lolled onto his
shoulder as she slept, and his arm lay loosely along the seat back,
not quite touching her.

They drove into the West End,
and here the bus came to a stop. Traffic blared, people scurried,
lights blazed from every shop. Even in the bus, Jay could smell the
air; the indescribable aroma of London. She felt stiff as she stood
up. ‘Are we really going to a party?’ she asked.

Dex nodded.

‘But we’re hardly dressed for
it.’ She indicated her jeans and jumper, her leather jacket.

‘That won’t matter. Trust
me.’

Jay stepped down onto the
pavement. It was raining hard. ‘I’m not sure about this,’ she
said.

People hurried around them,
staring straight ahead, armed with umbrellas, their collars up
around their faces. Jay felt absurdly vulnerable; she had become
used to the calm and tranquillity of Lestholme. Dex took her arm
and she did not protest. They wandered into the narrow streets of
Soho that smelled sweetly of cooking meat. Here, Dex led the way to
a narrow doorway. Music spilled down a stairway towards them, and a
bored-looking cashier sat behind a metal grille just inside the
door. She was talking to a huge bouncer. Both conversed in soft but
aggressive tones.

‘Here we are,’ said Dex.

Jay rubbed moisture from her
face. ‘Do you think we’ll get in?’ Her jacket and jeans were
soaked, her hair plastered against her forehead and neck.

‘Oh yes,’ Dex replied, flicking
his own wet hair from his face. He pulled her across the threshold,
and they walked straight past the cashier and the door man, up the
red-lit stairs.

Jay knew at
once it was a record company party, because a pyramid of CD covers
was arranged on a table near the door. Whose release did it
celebrate? Was it just a glorified press conference? Whatever the
reason, rent-a-mob were there in their hundreds; rilling and
trilling and flashing. Some things never change. Outside the night
air had been chill, but in the dim-lit club, it was humid and hot.
Jay’s clothes were steaming; she felt very uncomfortable. She saw
faces she recognised: their bright grins and eyes. Her nostrils
contracted against the melange of perfumes, while her ears felt
over-sensitive to the shrill squawks of laughter and gleeful bitchy
asides. Here was her world again. It was as if she’d never been
away, and yet at the same time she felt removed from it all, as if
she’d never been a part of it. She stood at the threshold with Dex,
and for perhaps the first time in fifteen years felt nervous about
joining a social gathering. What else had Sakrilege done to her
reputation while she’d been away? She still did not know how long
she’d been in Lestholme. It could be days or weeks. Not yet
Christmas, she noted. The trees outside had still been coated with
a stubble of last leaves. November, perhaps, but which year?