Kitabı oku: «Imajica», sayfa 16

It would only be a matter of time before he chanced upon a cul-de-sac, he knew. When he did the game would be up. He felt an itch at the nape of his neck, as though the blades were already there. This wasn’t right! He’d barely been out of the Fifth an hour and he was seconds from death. He glanced back. The Nullianac had closed the distance between them. He picked up his pace, pitching himself around a corner, and into a tunnel of corrugated iron, with no way out at the other end.

‘Shite!’ he said, taking Tick Raw’s favourite word for his complaint. ‘Furie, you’ve killed yourself!’

The walls of the cul-de-sac were slick with filth, and high. Knowing he’d never scale them, he ran to the far end and threw himself against the wall there, hoping it might crack. But its builders (damn them!) had been better craftsmen than most in the vicinity. The wall rocked, and pieces of its foetid mortar fell about him, but all his efforts did was bring the Nullianac straight to him, drawn by the sound of his effort.

Seeing his executioner approaching, Gentle pitched his body against the wall afresh, hoping for some last-minute reprieve. But all he got was bruises. The itch at his nape was an ache now, but through its pain he formed the despairing thought that this was surely the most ignominious of deaths, to be sliced up amongst sewage. What had he done to deserve it, he asked aloud.

‘What have I done? What the fuck have I done?’

The question went unanswered; or did it? As his yells ceased he found himself raising his hand to his face, not knowing - even as he did so - why. There was simply an inner compulsion to open his palm and spit upon it. The spittle felt cold, or else his palm was hot. Now a yard away, the Nullianac raised its twin blades above its head. Gentle made a fist, lightly, and put it to his mouth. As the blades reached the top of their arc, he exhaled.

He felt his breath blaze against his palm, and in the instant before the blades reached his head the pneuma went from his fist like a bullet. It struck the Nullianac in the neck with such force it was thrown backwards, a livid spurt of energy breaking from the gap in its head, and rising like Earth-born lightning into the sky. The creature fell in the filth, its hands dropping the blades to reach for the wound. They never touched the place. Its life went out of it in a spasm, and its prayerful head was permanently silenced.

At least as shaken by the other’s death as the proximity of his own, Gentle got to his feet, his gaze going from the body in the dirt to his fist. He opened it. The spittle had gone; transformed into some lethal dart. There was a seam of discolouration that ran from the ball of his thumb to the other side of his hand. That was the only sign of the pneuma’s passing.

‘Holy shite,’ he said.

A small crowd had already gathered at the end of the cul-de-sac, and heads appeared over the wall behind him. From every side came an agitated buzz that wouldn’t, he guessed, take long to reach Hammeryock and Pontiff Farrow. It would be naïve to suppose they ruled Vanaeph with only one executioner in their squad. There’d be others; and here, soon. He stepped over the body, not caring to look too closely at the damage he’d done, but aware with only a passing glance that it was substantial.

The crowd, seeing the conquerer approach, parted. Some bowed, others fled. One said, bravo!, and tried to kiss his hand. He pressed his admirer away, and scanned the alleys in every direction, hoping for some sign of Pie’oh’pah. Finding none, he debated his options. Where would Pie go? Not to the top of the Mount. Though that was a visible rendezvous, their enemies would spot them there. Where else? The gates of Patashoqua, perhaps, that the mystif had pointed out when they’d first arrived? It was as good a place as any, he thought, and started off, down through teeming Vanaeph towards the glorious city.

His worst expectations - that news of his crime had reached the Pontiff and her league - were soon confirmed. He was almost at the edge of the township, and within sight of the open ground that lay between its borders and the walls of Patashoqua, when a hue and cry from the streets behind announced a pursuing party. In his Fifth Dominion garb, jeans and shirt, he would be easily recognized if he started towards the gates, but if he attempted to stay within the confines of Vanaeph it would be only a matter of time before he was hunted down. Better to take the chance of running now, he decided, while he still had a lead. Even if he didn’t make it to the gates before they came after him, they surely wouldn’t dispatch him within sight of Patashoqua’s gleaming walls.

He put on a fair turn of speed, and was out of the township in less than a minute, the commotion behind him gathering volume. Though it was difficult to judge the distance to the gates in a light that lent such iridescence to the ground between, it was certainly no less than a mile; perhaps twice that. He’d not got far when the first of his pursuers appeared from the outskirts of Vanaeph, runners fresher and lither than he, who rapidly closed the distance between them. There were plenty of travellers coming and going along the straight road to the gates. Some pedestrians, most in groups, and dressed like pilgrims; other, finer figures, mounted on horses whose flanks and heads were painted with gaudy designs; still others riding on shaggy derivatives of the mule. Most envied, however, and most rare, were those in motor vehicles, which, though they basically resembled their equivalents in the Fifth - a chassis riding on wheels -were in every other regard fresh inventions. Some were as elaborate as baroque altarpieces, every inch of their bodywork chased and filigreed. Others, with spindly wheels twice the height of their roofs, had the preposterous delicacy of tropical insects. Still others, mounted on a dozen or more tiny wheels, their exhausts giving off a dense, bitter fume, looked like speeding wreckage, asymmetrical and inelegant farragoes of glass and metalwork. Risking death by hoof and wheel Gentle joined the traffic, and put on a new spurt as he dodged between the vehicles. The leaders of the pack behind him had also reached the road. They were armed, he saw, and had no compunction about displaying their weapons. His belief that they wouldn’t attempt to kill him amongst witnesses suddenly seemed frail. Perhaps the law of Vanaeph was good to the very gates of Patashoqua. If so, he was dead. They would overtake him long before he reached sanctuary.

But now, above the din of the highway, another sound reached him, and he dared a glance off to his left, to see a small, plain vehicle, its engine badly tuned, careering in his direction. It was open topped, its driver visible. Pie’oh’pah, God love him, driving like a man - or mystif - possessed. Gentle changed direction instantly, veering off the road, dividing a herd of pilgrims as he did so, and raced towards Pie’s noisy chariot.

A chorus of whoops at his back told him the pursuers had also changed direction, but the sight of Pie had given heat to Gentle’s heels. His turn of speed was wasted, however. Rather than slowing to let Gentle aboard Pie drove on past him, heading towards the hunters. The leaders scattered as the vehicle bore down upon them, but it was a figure Gentle had missed, being carried in a sedan chair, who was Pie’s true target. Hammeryock, sitting on high, ready to watch the execution, was suddenly a target in his turn. He yelled to his bearers to retreat, but in their panic they failed to agree on a direction. Two pulled left, two right. One of the chair’s arms splintered, and Hammeryock was pitched out, hitting the ground hard. He didn’t get up. The sedan-chair was discarded, and its bearers fled, leaving Pie to veer round and head back towards Gentle. With their leader felled, the scattered pursuers, most likely coerced into serving the Pontiff in the first place, had lost heart. They were not sufficiently inspired to risk Hammeryock’s fate, and so kept their distance, while Pie drove back and picked up his gasping passenger.

‘I thought maybe you’d gone back to Tick Raw,’ Gentle said once he was aboard.

‘He wouldn’t have wanted me,’ Pie said. ‘I’ve had congress with a murderer.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘You, my friend, you\We’re both assassins now.’ ‘I suppose we are.’

‘And not much welcome in this region, I think.’

‘Where did you find the vehicle?’

There’s a few of them parked on the outskirts. They’ll be in them soon enough, and after us.’

The sooner we’re in the city the better then.’

‘I don’t think we’d be safe there for long,’ the mystif replied.

It had manoeuvred the vehicle so that its snub nose faced the highway. The choice lay before them. Left, to the gates of Patashoqua. Right, off down a highway which ran on past the Mount of Lipper Bayak, to a horizon that rose, at the furthest limit of the eye, to a mountain range.

‘It’s your choice,’ Pie said.

Gentle looked longingly towards the city, tempted by its spires. But he knew there was wisdom in Pie’s advice.

‘We’ll come back some day, won’t we?’ he said.

‘Certainly, if that’s what you want.’

Then let’s head the other way.’

The mystif turned the vehicle on to the highway, against the predominant flow of traffic, and with the city behind them they soon picked up speed.

‘So much for Patashoqua,’ Gentle said as the walls became a mirage.

‘No great loss,’ Pie remarked.

‘But I wanted to see the Merrow Ti’ Ti’,’ Gentle said.

‘No chance,’ Pie returned.

‘Why?’

‘It was pure invention,’ Pie said. ‘Like all my favourite things, including myself! Pure invention!’

CHAPTER NINETEEN
1

Though Jude had made an oath, in all sobriety, to follow Gentle wherever she’d seen him go, her plans for pursuit were stymied by a number of claims upon her energies, the most pressing of which was Clem’s. He needed her advice, comfort and organizational skills in the dreary, rainy days that followed New Year, and despite the urgency of her agenda she could scarcely turn her back on him. Taylor’s funeral took place on the ninth of January, with a Memorial Service which Clem took great pains to perfect. It was a melancholy triumph: a time for Taylor’s friends and relations to mingle and express their affections for the departed man. Jude met people she’d not seen in many years, and few, if any, failed to comment on the one conspicuous absentee: Gentle. She told everybody what she’d told Clem. That Gentle had been going through a bad time, and the last she’d heard he was planning to leave on holiday. Clem, of course, would not be fobbed off with such vague excuses. Gentle had left knowing that Taylor was dead, and Clem viewed his departure as a kind of cowardice. Jude didn’t attempt to defend the wanderer. She simply tried to make as little mention of Gentle in Clem’s presence as she could.

But the subject would keep coming up, one way or another. Sorting through Taylor’s belongings after the funeral, Clem came upon three watercolours, painted by Gentle in the style of Samuel Palmer, but signed with his own name, and dedicated to Taylor. Pictures of idealized landscapes, they couldn’t help but turn Clem’s thoughts back to Taylor’s unrequited love for the vanished man, and Jude’s to the place he had vanished for. They were among the few items that Clem, perhaps vengefully, wanted to destroy, but Jude persuaded him otherwise. He kept one in memory of Taylor, gave one to Klein, and the third to Jude.

Her duty to Clem took its toll not only upon her time but upon her focus. When, in the middle of the month, he suddenly announced that he was going to leave the next day for Tenerife, there to tan his troubles away for a fortnight, she was glad to be released from the daily duties of friend and comforter, but found herself unable to rekindle the heat of ambition that had flared in her at the month’s first hour. She had one unlikely touchstone, however: the dog. She only had to look at the mutt and she remembered - as though it were an hour ago - standing at the door of Gentle’s flat, and seeing the pair dissolving in front of her astonished eyes. And on the heels of that memory came thoughts of the news she had been carrying to Gentle that night: the dream-journey induced by the stone that was now wrapped up and hidden from sight and seeing in her wardrobe. She was not a great lover of dogs, but she’d taken the mongrel home that night, knowing it would perish if she didn’t. It quickly ingratiated itself, wagging a furious welcome when she returned home each night after being with Clem; sneaking into her bedroom in the early hours and making a nest for itself in her soiled clothes. She called it Skin, because it had so little fur, and while she didn’t dote on it the way it doted upon her she was still glad of its company. More than once she found herself talking to it at great length, while it licked its paws or its balls, these monologues a means to refocus her thoughts without worrying that she was losing her mind. Three days after Clem’s departure for sunnier climes, discussing with Skin how she should best proceed, Estabrook’s name came up.

‘You haven’t met Estabrook,’ she told Skin. ‘But I’ll guarantee you won’t like him. He tried to have me killed, you know?’

The dog looked up from its toilet.

‘Yeah, I was amazed, too,’ she said. ‘I mean, that’s worse than an animal, right? No disrespect, but it is. I was his wife. I am his wife. And he tried to have me killed. What would you do, if you were me? Yeah, I know, I should see him. He had the blue eye in his safe. And that book! Remind me to tell you about the book some time. No, maybe I shouldn’t. It’ll give you ideas.’

Skin settled his head on his crossed paws, gave a small sigh of contentment, and started to doze.

‘You’re a big help,’ she said, I need some advice here. What do you say to a man who tried to have you murdered?’

Skin’s eyes were closed, so she was obliged to furnish her own reply.

‘I say: Hello, Charlie, why don’t you tell me the story of your life?’

2

She called Lewis Leader the next day to find out whether Estabrook was still hospitalized. She was told he was, but that he’d been moved to a private clinic in Hampstead. Leader supplied details of his whereabouts, and Jude called to enquire both about Estabrook’s condition and visiting hours. She was told he was still under close scrutiny, but seemed to be in better spirits than he’d been, and she was welcome to come and see him at any time. There seemed little purpose in delaying the meeting. She drove up to Hampstead that very evening, through another tumultuous rainstorm, arriving to a welcome from the psychiatric nurse in charge of Estabrook’s case, a chatty young man called Maurice who lost his top lip when he smiled, which was often, and talked with an almost indiscreet enthusiasm about the state of his patient’s mind.

‘He has good days,’ Maurice said brightly. Then, just as brightly: ‘But not many. He’s severely depressed. He made one attempt to kill himself before he came to us, but he’s settled down a lot.’

‘Is he sedated?’

‘We help keep the anxiety controllable, but he’s not drugged senseless. We can’t help him get to the root of the problem if he is.’

‘Has he told you what that is?’ she said, expecting accusations to be tossed in her direction.

‘It’s pretty obscure,’ Maurice said. ‘He talks about you very fondly, and I’m sure your coming will do him a great deal of good. But the problem’s obviously with his blood relatives. I’ve got him to talk a little about his father and his brother but he’s very cagey. The father’s dead of course, but maybe you can shed some light on the brother.’

‘I never met him.’

‘That’s a pity. Charles clearly feels a great deal of anger towards his brother, but I haven’t got to the root of why. I will. It’ll just take time. He’s very good at keeping his secrets to himself, isn’t he? But then you probably know that. Shall I take you along to see him? I did tell him you’d telephoned, so I think he’s expecting you.’

Jude was irritated that the element of surprise had been removed; that Estabrook would have had time to prepare his feints and fabrications. But what was done was done, and rather than snap at the gleeful Maurice for his indiscretion she kept her displeasure to herself. She might need the man’s smiling assistance in the fullness of time.

Estabrook’s room was pleasant enough. Spacious and comfortable, its walls adorned with reproductions of Monet and Renoir, it was a soothing space. Even the piano concerto that played softly in the background seemed designed to placate a troubled mind. Estabrook was not in bed but sitting by the window, one of the curtains drawn aside so that he could watch the rain. He was dressed in pyjamas and his best dressing-gown, and smoking. As Maurice had said, he was clearly awaiting his visitor. There was no flicker of surprise when she appeared at the door. And, as she’d anticipated, he had his welcome ready.

‘At last, a familiar face.’

He didn’t open his arms to embrace her, but she went to him and kissed him lightly on both cheeks.

‘One of the nurses will get you something to drink if you’d like,’ he said.

‘Yes, I’d like some coffee. It’s bitter out there.’

‘Maybe Maurice’ll get it, if I promise to unburden my soul tomorrow.’

‘Do you?’ said Maurice.

‘I do. I promise. You’ll know the secrets of my potty-training by this time tomorrow.’

‘Milk and sugar?’ Maurice asked.

‘Just milk,’ Charlie said. ‘Unless her tastes have changed.’

‘No,’ she told him.

‘Of course not. Judith doesn’t change. Judith’s eternal.’

Maurice withdrew, leaving them to talk. There was no embarrassed silence. He had his spiel ready, and while he delivered it - a speech about how glad he was that she’d come, and how much he hoped it meant she would begin to forgive him - she studied his changed face. He’d lost weight, and was without his toupée, which revealed in his physiognomy qualities she’d never seen before. His large nose and tugged-down mouth, with jutting over-large lower lip, lent him the look of an aristocrat fallen on hard times. She doubted that she’d ever find it in her heart to love him again, but she could certainly manage a twinge of pity, seeing him so reduced.

‘I suppose you want a divorce,’ he said.

‘We can talk about that another time.’

‘Do you need money?’

‘Not at the moment.’

‘If you do-’

‘I’ll ask.’

A male nurse appeared with coffee for Jude, hot chocolate for Estabrook, and biscuits. When he’d gone, she plunged into a confession. One from her, she reasoned, might elicit one from him.

‘I went to the house,’ she said. ‘To collect my jewellery.’

‘And you couldn’t get into the safe.’

‘Oh no, I got in.’ He didn’t look at her, but sipped his chocolate noisily. ‘And I found some very strange things, Charlie. I’d like to talk about them.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Some souvenirs. A piece of a statue. A book.’

‘No,’ he said, still not looking her way. ‘Those aren’t mine. I don’t know what they are. Oscar gave them to me to look after.’

Here was an intriguing connection. ‘Where did Oscar get them from?’ she asked him.

‘I didn’t enquire,’ Estabrook said with a detached air. ‘He travels a lot, you know.’

‘I’d like to meet him.’

‘No, you wouldn’t,’ he said hurriedly. ‘You wouldn’t like him at all.’

‘Globe-trotters are always interesting,’ she said, attempting to preserve a lightness in her tone.

‘I told you,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t like him.’

‘Has he been to see you?’

‘No. And I wouldn’t see him if he did. Why are you asking me these questions? You’ve never cared about Oscar before.’

‘He is your brother,’ she said. ‘He has some filial responsibility.’

‘Oscar? He doesn’t care for anybody but himself. He only gave me those presents as a sop.’

‘So they were gifts. I thought you were just looking after them.’

‘Does it matter?’ he said, raising his voice a little. ‘Just don’t touch them, they’re dangerous. You put them back, yes?’

She lied and told him she had, realizing any further discussion on the matter would only infuriate him further.

‘Is there a view out of the window?’ she asked him.

‘Of the Heath,’ he said. ‘It’s very pretty on sunny days, apparently. They found a body there on Monday. A woman, strangled. I watched them combing the bushes all day yesterday and all day today, looking for clues I suppose. In this weather. Horrible, to be out in this weather, digging around looking for soiled underwear or some such. Can you imagine? I thought: I’m damn lucky I’m in here, warm and cosy.’

If there was any indication of a change in his mental processes it was here, in this strange digression. An earlier Estabrook would have had no patience with any conversation that was not serving a clear purpose. Gossip and its purveyors had drawn his contempt like little else, especially when he knew he was the subject of the tittle-tattle. As to gazing out of a window and wondering how others were faring in the cold, that would have been literally unthinkable two months before. She liked the change, just as she liked the new-found nobility in his profile. Seeing the hidden man revealed gave her faith in her own judgement. Perhaps it was this Estabrook she’d loved all along.

They spoke for a while more, without returning to any of the personal matters between them, and parted on friendly terms, with an embrace that was genuinely warm.

‘When will you come again?’ he asked her.

‘In the next couple of days,’ she told him.

‘I’ll be waiting.’

So, the gifts she’d found in the safe had come from Oscar Godolphin. Oscar the mysterious, who’d kept the family name while brother Charles had disowned it; Oscar the enigmatic; Oscar the globe-trotter. How far afield had he gone, she wondered, to have returned with such outré trophies? Somewhere out of this world, perhaps, into the same remoteness to which she’d seen Gentle and Pie’oh’pah dispatch themselves? She began to suspect that there was some conspiracy aboard. If two men who had no knowledge of each other, Oscar Godolphin and John Zacharias, knew about this other world and how to remove themselves there, how many others in her circle also knew? Was it information only available to men? Did it come with the penis and a mother fixation, as part of the male apparatus? Had Taylor known? Did Clem? Or was this some kind of family secret, and the part of the puzzle she was missing was the link between a Godolphin and a Zacharias?

Whatever the explanation, it was certain she would not get answers from Gentle, which meant she had to seek out brother Oscar. She tried by the most direct route first: the telephone directory. He wasn’t listed. She then tried via Lewis Leader, but he claimed to have no knowledge of the man’s whereabouts or fortunes, telling her that the affairs of the two brothers were quite separate, and he had never been called to deal with any matter involving Oscar Godolphin.

‘For all I know,’ he said, ‘the man could be dead.’

Having drawn a blank with the direct routes, she was thrown back upon the indirect. She returned to Estabrook’s house and scoured it thoroughly, looking for Oscar’s address or telephone number. She found neither, but she did turn up a photograph album Charlie had never shown to her, in which pictures of what she took to be the two brothers appeared. It wasn’t difficult to distinguish one from the other. Even in those early pictures Charlie had the troubled look the camera always found in him, whereas Oscar, younger by half a dozen years, was nevertheless the more confident of the pair; a little overweight, but carrying it easily, smiling an easy smile as he hooked his arm around his brother’s shoulders. She removed the most recent of the photographs, which pictured Charles at puberty, or thereabouts, from the album, and kept it. Repetition, she found, made theft easier. But it was the only information about Oscar she took away with her. If she was to get to the traveller, and find out in what world he’d bought his souvenirs, she’d have to work on Estabrook to do so. It would take time, and her impatience grew with every short and rainy day. Even though she had the freedom to buy a ticket anywhere on the planet, a kind of claustrophobia was upon her. There was another world to which she wanted access. Until she got it, the Earth itself would be a prison.