Nightspawn, page 8
‘What do you want?’ Erik asked.
Fang’s grin widened, and he sat down on the rock, pushing the cap to the back of his head.
‘Hot,’ he said. ‘Very hot.’
Immobility was becoming unbearable, but when I stirred my foot, the little blueblack snout of the pistol stared straight at my navel. Fang sucked his teeth. He said to Erik,
‘The Colonel sent me to follow you. I think he was worried that you might get into trouble. It’s beautiful, how he worries about you. A pity you don’t show a little loyalty in return.’
He took a quick glance at the arsenal in the bank, then shook his head at us, and clicked his tongue.
‘Very bad,’ he murmured. ‘Well now, here’s the position, friends. You see me following you, waited for me in hiding, then jumped out with guns blazing. Luckily, I managed to shoot the German in the stomach with the first shot, and the other one was very little trouble. The Colonel will be very upset, but what, I ask, could I do? It was me or them, as they say. So. Now tell me, friends, what do you think of my story. Does it ring of truth, eh?’
He looked from one of us to the other, inquiringly, humorously.
‘Erik,’ I said. ‘Erik, this is a joke, isn’t it?’
Fang waved the gun at me.
‘Keep your mouth shut, hawkeye.’
Erik began to laugh. I nearly swallowed my teeth at the sound.
‘Erik,’ I squeaked, terrified lest that gun should go off. ‘Erik, for god’s sake.’
Fang was staring at the German uncertainly. Of all the things he had expected, laughter was not one of them. Erik said,
‘Fang, you are a fool, and you see too many films. Now go away.’
Our bold seaman did not like that, not at all did he like it. He lifted the gun, two yellow teeth biting his lower lip. But Erik, like all of us, had also been a student of the cinema. A handful of dust, whoosh in the eyes, bop said the gun, and then Erik was on his feet and kicking Fang in the stomach. Poh, and the sailor’s breath and breakfast flew out of his mouth. Erik wrenched the gun away and fired one little bullet straight down into the top of Fang’s head, who breathed blood through his nose and rolled over slowly, very slowly, on to his side. The hills shook with noise as Erik sent five more bullets into the poor prone creature. Tok, said each blunt lump of lead as it landed. Silence, reverberations, wind, a bird, silence. Erik’s arm shook, and he dropped the gun, closed his eyes and gave a little squeal of grief and disgust. Fang’s jaws stopped snapping, and his fingers uncurled, and he surrendered quietly into dust and peace. I crawled across and touched the broken heap of flesh. Erik stumbled up out of the gully, and I followed him, pausing long enough to wipe my hands in the green leaves of the bushes. With mild surprise, I saw that the sun was still shining.
21
The wind was up. It came crying off the sea to blast the hillside, the bushes and the little stones. The waters of the bay crashed on the rocks, bursting in slow white blooms. A fury as of lost and destroyed small things was moving in the sea. We sat on the dunes behind the beach. Erik’s shoulders were bowed, his hands over his face. I spoke to him for a long time. I did not know what I was talking about, but my voice, as though it did not really belong to me, seemed to be insinuating things for which there were no words, delivering an inexpressible message to ears that could but barely hear, as in a withered garden of darkness, in autumn, a nightingale will sing to you of mysteries long since buried. I cannot understand these things, I am not god, I did not invent human beings, why is it expected that I should understand everything? Stop. Stop, and go on, it is the only way.
He spoke not a word. I went away and left him there to mourn the dead by whatever means he knew.
22
The land was alive, was emanating orders and advice. I had my finger on the nerve of the world. Down through the winding hills I sauntered, holding my arms captive at my sides for fear that if I lifted them they would turn to wings and take me soaring breathless into the limits of the sky. I think I was grinning. The wind cavorted about me, whispering, shouting, promising miracles. I could feel each hair of my head as though they were charged wires, could feel each eye seeing its separate view, each toe doing its little business of balancing. I jangled in every sinew, poised for flight, singing and capering, teeth bared, my heart tingling with the magic touch of murder. Do I make sense? How can I? But I was alive, exulting in my terror, and waiting eagerly for a message from the beasts.
As I approached the villa, there was strange music in the wind. I stopped to listen, but it had ceased. Through the broken gateway I went, cut across the garden to the well, winked at the eyes down there, and spat on them. Then, hitching up my trousers, I went resolutely to the door. It stood open. That was to be expected. I found myself in the dimness of a hall, and paused a moment to give my sight time to adjust itself. I needed all my faculties about me, for that message had come through at last, and with devastating simplicity it said: fuck. Primitive tapestries hung on the walls on either side of me. Hunters pranced with uplifted spears, and priests were carrying sacrifices to an altar. I saluted the holy men and went on my way. The first door, to my left, was locked. A touch to its handle brought that music again, a small discordant phrase, slipping into silence. I tried another door, with success.
The room was long and narrow, with grey walls and a low white ceiling. A window at one end looked out across the hills to the misty sea, and the light that came through was gold touched with the faintest chill of blue. Two elderly armchairs sat crouched by the open fireplace, silently brooding over the situation of an unfinished chess game laid out between them on a table. A tall clock ticked away with a calm indifference to the terrors of time. A single red rose, strangest of all rarities here, drooped in languid elegance from a narrow vase atop the writing desk. On the gleaming parquet floor the designs of a rug turned slowly through their circular abstractions. I stepped inside and softly closed the door. By the window a grand piano stood, teeth bared and lid uplifted. The boy Yacinth sat on the low stool, one leg folded under him, his candid gaze turned toward me. A furry aureole of soft silver light trembled around his tousled head. I said,
‘So you’re the musician?’
By way of an answer, he put his fingers to the gleaming keys and set them jingling, vibrato, pianissimo. I crossed the floor; a stretch of silence on the rug, then slap and clap of sandals on the wood once more; I reached the window. Out there the sea, and a sleek liner slicing the horizon. I turned to the boy. He still watched me, without interest, without curiosity.
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘Are you real, or do I just imagine you?’
‘Why?’
‘You never say anything. Why don’t you ever say anything?’
That shrug again, a slight lift of the left shoulder, left corner of the mouth. I leaned on the edge of the piano, and said,
‘Play something for me.’
He bowed his head, and pursed his lips, and touched a fingertip to a fluttering eyelid. Then abruptly he turned on the seat, his leg coming out from under him with a tiny squeak of the leather; he frowned heavily, and brought his hands to the keys. A fiercely discordant plashing and clashing of chords followed. As he tore this hideous music from the instrument, he watched me from under his eyelashes, defiance and spite in the tight line of his mouth.
I wandered back down the long length of the room, my hands in my pockets. I went into the corridor. The music followed me. The door which had been locked was open now, perhaps it was a different door, perhaps it had not been locked the first time, good Christ what difference does it make? I opened it, and went where I was led. Led, led?
This room was a small room, containing a big bed. If there was other furniture there, I did not see it, for this bed was overpowering. Squat and low, it knelt on its tubby legs like a satiated frog. It was indecent. Upon its tangled sheets, Helena lay asleep. One arm rested by her side, the fingers flexed against her thigh, while the other lay twisted into an odd attitude of abandon above her head. Her face was inclined toward me on the pillow, eyes lightly closed, lips parted. She wore only a long blue shirt, open at the neck. There was a small window above her, and her yellow hair was strewn across the pillow like tendrils of flowers creeping toward the light. I closed the door. In her sleep, the shirt had ridden its way up to her navel. One leg was bent, and the foot rested against her other knee, clumsy description, try again, no time, I am panting. I found myself suddenly without my clothes. The cool starched sheets brushed against my knees and sent an intolerable shiver along my spine. I knelt down. She made a small sound of annoyance, and shifted her legs. I said,
‘Helena … Mrs Kyd.’
I was beginning to have a sense of general foolishness. She turned her head, and her eyelids fluttered. It was at that moment that I wounded her. Now, here is a point. For that wound alone I ask forgiveness; all the other sins can be bound together and hung upon my balls for all eternity, but for that one, that plunge into the world of all nocturnal adolescent dreams made living flesh, I plead tolerance and mercy, for that was one time when the freedom of my will was denied me. Strangely enough, I feel that I shall be forgiven, providing god is not a woman. This woman whom I had skewered now sprang awake. Her eyes clicked open, and she gave a great squawk of astonishment and fright, and made an effort to rear up off the pillow. I held her down, and laid soothing hands upon her face. I grinned and said,
‘Hello there.’
She began to speak. That is to say, her mouth opened and closed, but no words came out, only garbled quacking sounds. I kissed her, and took a few experimental leaps. She lay rigid and unyielding. I took my mouth away from hers, and she snarled,
‘God damn you.’
‘Yes yes, no doubt, but not yet,’ I panted.
And I laughed. She closed her eyes tightly, and bit her lips, but she could no longer resist. Her legs twined with mine, and she relaxed. I put my hands on her backside, and we were away. At the end I was overcome by a little fit of rage, and casting about in my mind for some likely victim, I could think only of Julian, so I gave her one last stab for him, cried out a foul word, and then felt profoundly ashamed. I slipped away from her, and lay with my face buried in the pillow, listening to her laboured breath beside me. In a while, it grew calm, and I fell asleep with the distant sound of music in my head.
23
Aye, and in the darkness of that sleep I saw the fanged black creatures creep into the room and surround the bed, their tiny red eyes flashing. They snapped at me, and snarled, and tried to tear my face, until at length they trapped one of their own in a corner and devoured it alive.
24
My shabby room, the dry flat smell of heat, the air empty, useless, sucked dry by the countless creatures who had haunted it before me. I moved with a torpid slowness from wall to wall, from the chair to the window, smoking, eating crumbs of biscuits, trying not to think. At last I lay down on the bed. Through the long hours of the afternoon I watched the window, the curtains stirring. The sun travelled its journey, a finger of light which moved across the floor to climb the shutters and retreat. The sounds of the village faded. Strange twilight came and trembled on the glass. I covered my eyes. I could bear no more, of the silence, the screams which made no sounds, of the endless days with their wild lights and moods, no more of this island, its timeless savage sadness.
Get out, that was all she had said, lying with her face turned away from me in disgust. When I bent to kiss the pink flower of a nipple, she had not even bothered to push me away. A scene of satyrs and woodland nymphs by a river was painted on the bed-head. I put on my clothes and left her. The music, that intolerable music, followed me from the house and down the hill.
There was a knock upon the door. I sprang off the bed, leaving the springs of the mattress jangling like violated nerves. She stood outside, with her arms folded, leaning against the wall. Her face seemed expressionless. Without a word, she pushed past me, stood a moment surveying my kingdom, then walked across and sat down on the bed. The little room was instantly changed, was diminished for me. Her entrance alone was enough to rob it of the tenuous links I had worked so hard to create there. I saw her shadow fall across the floor, and her critical gaze fall on my books, the sad view through the window of roof and hill, a patch of sky absurdly blue, and I no longer belonged there. Soon each part would have its separate memory of her. The room would be truly hers then, and I would be usurped. It would be she who lived there, even when she was gone.
‘“These fragments I have shored against my ruins”,’ I murmured, and sat down in my armchair.
‘What shall we talk about?’ she asked coldly.
‘Your mother, perhaps?’
‘Ha.’
‘What then?’
She shrugged, and joined her hands together in her lap, saying,
‘I wonder if there is anything to talk about.’
‘But of course not. Still, we will talk, and when we stop, then we shall make a journey, perhaps. Now, ask me about my book.’
She laughed. It was a humourless kind of sound. A rage, well caged, seethed in her eyes.
‘Tell me about your book,’ she said.
‘I’ve given it up.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I wanted to do it.’
‘Why did you want to —’
‘No no, you misunderstand. I wanted to write it.’
‘Then why did you stop?’
‘I’ve told you.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Of course not. We’re doing very nicely here.’
‘What are you talking about?’ she cried, and her hair shook with the vehemence of her cry. I considered her through half-closed eyes.
‘Mrs Kyd, I’ll make a bargain. First, what have we? You want to know why I stopped writing while wanting to continue, and I want to know why you came here when you said you never wanted to see me again. Are you with me?’
She stood up suddenly from the bed and started to the door.
‘I’m going now.’
‘Listen, wait,’ I cried, bouncing after her.
She halted, and whirled about to meet me. Her eyes really could flash.
‘I came here,’ she said quietly, ‘I came here with the intention of … I don’t know, tearing out your eyes. You raped me, and now you play word games. Before, I thought you were very evil. Now, I think you are just a fool. So I shall waste no more of my time. But I shall say one thing. Some day you will suffer for what you have —’
‘Ah god,’ said I wearily. ‘Will you go away and leave me alone. I’m tired. I’ve had enough for one day.’
Then I turned my back to her. Had I planned it like that, I could not have found a better way to hold her there. The door closed again, but when I looked, I found that she was still on my side of it, standing with her back pressed against the panels, her eyes lowered. I took a book and sank down into the armchair, my shoulders hunched. She did not move. Her presence was unsettling, if that is the word. At length I said,
‘If you’re preparing another speech, I don’t want to hear it.’
She shook her head, still not looking at me. She returned to the bed, sat down, and began to pick at the blanket with her fingernails. I laid down the book with a weary sigh.
‘Mrs Kyd,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. You don’t know all the circumstances of what happened today. I —’
She held up a hand to silence me, and then began to speak softly herself, her head still hanging.
‘I lied to you, Mr White. I came here because … well, you have met my husband. He’s a good man, I would not deny that, and I love him. But today you touched something in me, something which I did not know was there. It was as if …’
Oh Jesus, I can reproduce no more of this twaddle. Did she really say all that, and expect me to take her seriously? It seems incredible. And yet, what am I saying? I took her seriously, indeed I did. I was looking through the window, laughing to myself and wondering how in the world I could imagine that I loved such a melodramatic, boring, hysterical, stupid, utterly humourless woman as this one, and all the while, with both big ears, I was agog to catch even the most banal of the clichés spilling from her mouth, and was enraptured with it, every syllable. At last she came to an end of sorts, and heaved a great sigh. I cleared my throat, and shifted my feet, and said,
‘Yes. I see. Well.’
She looked at me then.
‘Now I must go,’ she murmured, a deep throb of grief in her voice, Anna K. preparing to dive under that train. Oh, she was magnificent, I cannot deny it, she had me teetering on the edge of tears. She pinned up her hair (an encore) and the light through the window set a fire in the down on her uplifted arms.
‘What do you want me to do?’ I asked, and had she said, drop dead, I would have commanded my heart to be still. But she said nothing, and shook her head hopelessly. She stood up. On the table something which gleamed among the litter of books and papers caught her eye. She picked it up and examined it curiously. It was a small oblong silver box, perfectly smooth, without a catch or clasp on the closely-fitting lid. I sat sprawled deep in the armchair, my chin on my breast, watching her. I wonder if my tongue was hanging out.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
I held out my hand.
‘Here, let me show you.’
I took the box and pressed a thumb and middle finger against both sides. With a tiny click, the lid sprang open. I closed it again and gave it back to her. She pressed it with the heels of her hands, but it would not open for her.
‘It’s just a small thing,’ I said. ‘There’s a knack to it.’
‘Teach me.’
