Kitabı oku: «Weaveworld», sayfa 12
2
‘What a damn fool thing to do.’
Nimrod was unrepentant. He stood in the hallway where he’d been set down and stared up at Cal defiantly.
‘Where are the others?’ Cal wanted to know.
‘Out,’ said Nimrod. ‘We’ll go too.’
He was gaining control of his tongue by the syllable. And of his limbs too. He tottered to the front door and reached up towards the handle. ‘Em sick of here,’ he said. ‘Too much bad news.’
His fingers fell inches short of the handle however, and after several failed attempts to snatch at it he beat his fists against the wood.
‘I want to see,’ he said.
‘All right,’ Cal agreed. ‘Just keep your voice down.’
‘Take me out.’
The cry was genuinely forlorn. There was little harm in giving the child a brief tour of the neighbourhood, Cal decided. There was something perversely satisfying about the thought of carrying this miraculous creature out into the open air, for all to see; and more satisfying still, the knowledge that the child, whom he’d left laughing at him, would be dependent upon him.
Any lingering anger towards Nimrod evaporated very quickly, however, as his powers of speech became more sophisticated. They were soon involved in a fluent and animated exchange, careless of the glances they were garnering.
‘They left me there!’ he protested. ‘Told me to fend for myself.’ He held up his miniscule hand. ‘How. I ask you? How?’
‘Why are you shaped like this in the first place?’ Cal asked.
‘It seemed like a good idea at the time,’ Nimrod replied, ‘I had an irate husband in pursuit of me; so I hid in the most unlikely form I could think of. I thought I’d keep my head down for a few hours, then lose myself again. Stupid, really. A rapture like this takes power. And of course once the final weave began, there was none to be had. I was obliged to go into the carpet like this.’
‘So how do you get back to normality?’
‘I can’t. Not until I’m back on Fugue soil. I’m helpless.’
He pushed the sunglasses up to take a look at a passing beauty.
‘Did you see the hips on her?’ he said.
‘Don’t slaver.’
‘Babies are supposed to slaver.’
‘Not the way you’re doing it.’
Nimrod ground his gums. ‘It’s noisy, this world of yours,’ he said. ‘And dirty.’
‘Dirtier than 1896?’
‘Much. I like it though. You must tell me about it.’
‘Oh Jesus,’ said Cal. ‘Where do I begin?’
‘Anywhere you like,’ Nimrod replied. ‘You’ll find me a fast learner.’
What he said was true. On their half-hour walk around the vicinity of Chariot Street he questioned Cal on a wild selection of topics, some stimulated by something they saw in the street, others more abstract. First they talked of Liverpool, then of cities in general, then of New York and Hollywood. Talk of America took them on to East-West relations, at which point Cal listed all the wars and assassinations he could remember since 1900. They touched briefly on the Irish Question, and the state of English politics, then on to Mexico, which they both had a yearning to visit, and thence to Mickey Mouse, the basic principle of aerodynamics, and back, via Nuclear War and the Immaculate Conception, to Nimrod’s favourite subject: women. Or rather, to two in particular, who’d caught his eye.
In return for this short introduction to the late twentieth century Nimrod gave Cal a beginner’s guide to the Fugue, telling him first of Capra’s House, which was the building in which the Council of the Families met to debate; then of the Mantle, the cloud that hid the Gyre, and the Narrow Bright, the passage that led into its folds; and from there to the Firmament, and the Requiem Steps. The very names filled Cal with yearning.
Much was learned on both sides, not least the fact that they might with time become friends.
‘No more talk,’ said Cal as they came full circle to the gate of the Mooney house. ‘You’re a baby, remember?’
‘How could I forget?’ said Nimrod with a pained look.
Cal let himself in and called out to his father. The house, however, was silent from attic to foundations.
‘He’s not here,’ said Nimrod. ‘For God’s sake put me down.’
Cal deposited the baby on the hallway floor. He immediately began towards the kitchen.
‘I need a drink,’ he said. ‘And I don’t mean milk.’
Cal laughed. ‘I’ll see what I can find,’ he said, and went through to the back room.
Cal’s first impression, seeing his father sitting in the armchair with his back to the garden, was that Brendan had died. His stomach turned over; he almost cried out. Then Brendan’s eyes flickered, and he looked up at his son.
‘Dad?’ said Cal. ‘What’s wrong?’
Tears were spilling down Brendan’s cheeks. He made no attempt to brush them away, nor to stifle the sobs that shook him.
‘Oh Dad …’
Cal crossed to his father and went down on his haunches beside the chair.
‘It’s all right …’ he said, putting his hand on his father’s arm. ‘Been thinking about Mum?’
Brendan shook his head. The tears tumbled. Words would not come. Cal didn’t ask any further questions, but held onto his father’s arm. He’d thought Brendan’s melancholy had been lifting; that the grief was blunted now. Apparently not.
At last Brendan said:
‘I … I had a letter.’
‘A letter?’
‘From your mother,’ Brendan’s liquid gaze fell on his son. ‘Am I mad, Cal?’ he said.
‘Of course not, Dad. Of course not.’
‘Well, I swear …’ he put his hand down the side of the chair and plucked out a sodden handkerchief. He wiped his nose, ‘It’s over there,’ he said nodding towards the table. ‘Look for yourself.’
Cal went to the table.
‘It was in her handwriting,’ Brendan said.
There was indeed a piece of paper lying on the table. It had been much folded and unfolded. And, more recently, wept upon.
‘It was a lovely letter,’ he said, ‘telling me she was happy, and I wasn’t to go on grieving. She said …’
He stopped as a new bout of sobs overtook him. Cal picked the sheet up. It was thinner than any paper he’d ever set eyes on, and it was blank on both sides.
‘She said she was waiting for me, but that I shouldn’t fret about that, because waiting was a joy up there, and … and I should just get on with enjoying life for a while, ’til I was called.’
It wasn’t just that the paper was thin, Cal now realized; it seemed to be growing more insubstantial as he watched. He put it back on the table, the small hairs at the nape of his neck prickling.
‘I was so happy, Cal,’ Brendan was saying. ‘It was all I wanted, knowing that she was happy, and I’d be with her again one day.’
‘There’s nothing on the paper. Dad,’ Cal said softly. ‘It’s blank.’
‘There was. Cal. I swear it. There was. It was in her handwriting. I’d know it anywhere. Then – God in Heaven – it just faded away.’
Cal turned from the table to see his father practically folded up double in the chair, sobbing as though his grief was beyond bearing. He put his hand on his father’s hand, which was gripping the thread-bare arm of the chair.
‘Hold on. Dad,’ he murmured.
‘It’s a nightmare, son,’ Brendan said. ‘It’s like I lost her twice.’
‘You haven’t lost her. Dad.’
‘Why did her writing disappear like that?’
‘I don’t know. Dad.’ He glanced back at the letter. The sheet of paper had practically faded altogether.
‘Where did the letter come from?’
The old man frowned.
‘Do you remember?’
‘No … no, not really. It’s hazy. I remember … somebody came to the door. Yes. That was it. Somebody came to the door. He told me he had something for me … it was in his coat.’
Tell me what you see and it’s yours.
Shadwell’s words echoed in Cal’s skull.
Have what you like. Free, gratis and without charge.
That was a lie of course. One of many. There was always a charge.
‘What did he want. Dad? In exchange? Can you remember?’
Brendan shook his head, then, frowning as he tried to recollect:
‘Something … about you. He said … I think he said … he knew you.’
He looked up at Cal.
‘Yes he did. I remember now. He said he knew you.’
‘It was a trick, Dad. A disgusting trick.’
Brendan narrowed his eyes, as if trying to comprehend this. And then, suddenly, the solution seemed to come dear.
‘I want to die, Cal.’
‘No. Dad.’
‘Yes I do. Really I do. I don’t want to bother any longer.’
‘You’re just sad,’ Cal said softly. ‘It’ll pass.’
‘I don’t want it to,’ Brendan replied. ‘Not now. I just want to fall asleep and forget I ever lived.’
Cal reached and put his arms around his father’s neck. At first Brendan resisted the embrace; he’d never been a demonstrative man. But then the sobs mounted again, and Cal felt his father’s thin arms stretch around him, and they hugged each other tight.
‘Forgive me, Cal,’ Brendan said through his tears. ‘Can you do that?’
‘Shush, Dad. Don’t be daft.’
‘I let you down. I never said the things … all the things I felt. Not to her either. Never told her… how much … never could tell her how much I loved her.’
‘She knew. Dad.’ said Cal, his own tears blinding him now. ‘Believe me, she knew.’
They held each other a little while longer. It was small comfort, but there was a heat of anger in Cal that he knew would dry his tears soon enough. Shadwell had been here; Shadwell and his suit of deceptions. In its folds, Brendan had imagined the letter from Heaven, and the illusion had lasted for as long as the Salesman had needed him. Now Brendan was redundant; the carpet had been found. So the magic no longer held. The words had faded, and finally the paper too, returned to that no-man’s land between desire and consummation.
‘I’ll make some tea, Dad,’ Cal said.
It was what his mother would have done in the circumstances. Boiled some fresh water, warmed the pot and counted out the spoonfuls of tea. Setting domestic order against the chaos, in the hope of winning some temporary reprieve from the vale of tears.
VI
EVENTS IN A HIGH WIND
1
s he stepped back into the hall, Cal remembered Nimrod.
The back door was ajar, and the child had tottered out into the wilderness of the garden, dwarfed by the bushes. Cal went to the door and called after him, but Nimrod was busy pissing into a bed of rampant Sweet William. Cal left him to it. In his present condition the most gratification Nimrod could hope for was a good piss.
As he set the kettle on the stove, the Bournemouth train (via Runcorn, Oxford, Reading and Southampton) thundered past. A moment later Nimrod was at the door.
‘Good God,’ he said. ‘How did you ever sleep here?’
‘You get used to it,’ said Cal. ‘And keep your voice down. My Dad’ll hear you.’
‘What happened to my drink?’
‘It’ll have to wait.’
‘I’ll bawl,’ Nimrod warned.
‘So bawl.’
His bluff called, Nimrod shrugged and turned back to survey the garden.
‘I could get to love this world,’ he announced, and stepped out again into the sunlight.
Cal picked up a soiled cup from the sink, and rinsed it clean for his father. Then he crossed to the refrigerator in search of milk. As he did so he heard Nimrod make a small sound. He turned, and went to the window. Nimrod was staring up at the sky, his face wide with wonder. He was watching a plane go over, no doubt. Cal retraced his steps. As he took the milk, which was practically the sole occupant of the refrigerator, off the shelf, there was a rapping on the front door. He looked up again, and two or three impressions hit him at the same time.
One, that a breeze had suddenly got up from somewhere. Two, that Nimrod was stepping back into the thicket of raspberry bushes, in search of a hiding place. And three, that it was not wonder on his face, but fear –
Then the rapping became a beating. Fists on the door.
As he made his way through the hall he heard his father say:
‘Cal? There’s a child in the garden.’
And from the garden, a shout.
‘Cal? A child –’
From the corner of his eye he saw Brendan walk through the kitchen, heading for the garden.
‘Wait, Dad –’ he said, as he opened the front door.
Freddy was on the step. But it was Lilia – standing a little way behind him – who said:
‘Where’s my brother?’
‘Out in the –’
Garden, he was going to say, but the street scene outside left him mute.
The wind had picked up every item not nailed down – litter, dustbin lids, pieces of garden furniture – and flung them into an aerial tarantella. It had uprooted flower beds, and was picking up the soil from the borders, staining the sun with a veil of earth.
A few pedestrians, caught in this hurricane, were clinging to lamp-posts and fences; some were flat on the ground, hands over their heads.
Lilia and Freddy stepped into the house; the wind followed, eager for fresh conquest, roaring through the house and out again into the back garden, its sudden gusts so strong Cal was almost flung off his feet.
‘Shut the door!’ Freddy yelled.
Cal pushed the door closed, and bolted it. It rattled as the wind beat on the other side.
‘Jesus,’ said Cal. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Something’s come after us,’ said Freddy.
‘What?’
‘I don’t know.’
Lilia was already half way to the kitchen. Through the open door at the back it was almost night, the air was so full of dirt, and Cal saw his father stepping over the threshold, shouting something against the banshee howl of the wind. Beyond him, only visible because of his toga, Nimrod was clinging to a bush as the wind tried to pick him up.
Cal followed Lilia at a run and overtook her at the kitchen door. There was a commotion on the roof, as a pack of slates were ripped away.
Brendan was in the garden now, all but eclipsed by the wind.
‘Wait, Dad!’ Cal yelled.
As he crossed the kitchen his eyes grazed the tea-pot and the cup beside it, and the utter absurdity of all this hit him like a hammer blow.
I’m dreaming, he thought; I fell from the wall and I’ve been dreaming ever since. The world isn’t like this. The world is the tea-pot and the cup, it isn’t raptures and tornadoes.
In that instant of hesitation, the dream became a nightmare. Through the gusting dirt he saw the Rake.
It hung on the wind for a moment, its form caught in a sliver of sun.
‘Done for,’ said Freddy.
The words stung Cal into moving. He was through the back door and out into the garden before the Rake could fall upon the pitiful figures below.
The beast drew Cal’s astonished eyes. He saw the morbid fashioning of its skin, which made it billow and swell, and heard again the howl that he’d thought was simply the wind. It was nothing so natural; the sound came out of this phantasm from a dozen places, either the din or the breath it rose on drawing most of the garden’s contents out of the ground and throwing them into the air.
A rain of plants and stones came down on the occupants of the garden. Cal covered his head with his hands, and ran blindly towards the spot where he’d last seen his father. Brendan was flat on the ground, shielding himself. Nimrod was not with him.
Cal knew the route the garden path took like the back of his hand. Spitting out mud as he went, he headed away from the house.
Somewhere above, now mercifully hidden, the Rake howled again, and Cal heard Lilia cry out. He did not look behind him, for ahead he now saw Nimrod, who had reached the back fence and was attempting to tear at the rotted timbers. He was having some success too, despite his size. Cal ducked his head down as another rain of earth fell, and ran past the pigeon loft towards the fence.
The howls had stopped, but the wind was far from spent. To judge by the din from the other side of the house it was tearing Chariot Street apart. As he reached the fence, Cal turned round. The sun stabbed the veil of dirt, and he saw blue sky for an instant – then a form blocked the sight, and Cal threw himself at the fence and started to scramble over, as the creature moved towards him. At the top, his belt snagged on a nail. He reached to release it, certain that the Rake was at his neck, but Mad Mooney must have been pushing from behind, for as he pulled his belt from its mooring he fell over the far side of the fence, life and limb intact.
He stood up, and saw why. The boneless beast was hovering beside the loft, its head weaving back and forth as it listened to the pigeons within. Silently blessing the birds, Cal ducked down and tore another plank of the fence away, sufficient to pull Nimrod through.
As a child he’d had the dangers of this no-man’s land between fence and railway track beaten into him. Now such dangers seemed negligible beside whatever it was that loitered at the loft. Picking Nimrod up in his arms, Cal climbed the gravel embankment towards the rails.
‘Run,’ said Nimrod. ‘It’s just behind us. Run!’
Cal looked North and South. The wind had reduced visibility to ten or fifteen yards in both directions. Heart in mouth he stepped over the first rail and onto the oil-slicked space between the sleepers. There were four tracks altogether, two in each direction. He was stepping towards the second when he heard Nimrod say:
‘Shit.’
Cal turned, heels grinding in the gravel, to see that their pursuer had forsaken bird-fancying and was rising over the fence.
Behind the beast, he saw Lilia Pellicia. She was standing in the ruins of the Mooney garden, her mouth open as if to shout. But no sound emerged. Or at least none that Cal could hear. The beast was not so insensitive however. It halted in its advance, turning back towards the garden and the woman in it.
What happened next was confused both by the wind and Nimrod, who, forseeing his sister’s slaughter, began to struggle in Cal’s arms. All Cal saw was the billowing form of their pursuer suddenly flicker, and the next moment he heard Lilia’s voice swoop into an audible register. It was a cry of anguish she let loose, echoed by Nimrod. Then the wind blew up again, shrouding the garden, just as Cal glimpsed Lilia’s form swathed in white fire. The cry stopped abruptly.
As it did so, a tingling in the soles of his feet announced the approach of a train. Which direction was it coming from, and on which track? The murder of Lilia had further excited the wind. He could now see less than ten yards down the line in either direction.
Knowing there was no safety the way they’d come, he turned from the garden as the beast let out another scalp-crawling commotion.
Think, he told himself. In moments it would be after them again.
He wrenched his arm around Nimrod, and looked at his watch. It read twelve thirty-eight.
Where would the train be heading at twelve thirty-eight? To Lime Street Station, or from it?
Think.
Nimrod had begun to cry. Not an infantile bawling, but a deep, heart-felt sob of loss.
Cal glanced over his shoulder as the trembling in the gravel grew more insistent. Again, a tear in the veil of dust gave him a glimpse of the garden. Lilia’s body had disappeared, but Cal could see his father standing in the devastation, as Lilia’s killer rose above him. Brendan’s face was slack. Either he failed to comprehend his danger, or didn’t care. He moved not a muscle.
‘The shout!’ said Cal to Nimrod, lifting the child up so that they were face to snotty face. ‘The shout she made –’
Nimrod just sobbed.
‘Can you make that shout?’
The beast was almost upon Brendan.
Make it!’ Cal yelled at Nimrod, shaking him ’til his gums rattled. ‘Make it or I’ll fucking kill you!’
Nimrod believed him.
‘Go on!’ Cal said, and Nimrod opened his mouth.
The beast heard the sound. It swung its ballooning head around, and began to come at them again.
All this had taken seconds only, but seconds in which the reverberations had deepened. How far away was the train now? A mile? A quarter of a mile?
Nimrod had ceased the shout, and was fighting to be free of Cal.
‘Christ, man!’ he was yelling, eyes on the terror approaching through the smoke, ‘it’s going to kill us!’
Cal tried to ignore Nimrod’s cries, and dug for access to that cool region of memory where the dates and destinations of the trains lay.
Which line was it on, and from which direction? His mind flipped through the numbers like a station announcement board, looking for a train six or seven minutes from departure or arrival at Liverpool Lime Street.
The beast was climbing the gravel embankment. The wind gave it skirts of dust, and danced in and out of its lacerated frame, moaning as it went.
The percussion of the train’s approach was enough to make Cal’s belly tremble. And still the numbers flipped over.
Where to? Where from? Fast train or slow?
Think, damn you.
The beast was almost upon them
Think.
He took a step backwards. Behind him the furthest track began to whine.
And with the whine came the answer. It was the Stafford train, via Runcorn. Its rhythm rose through his feet as it thundered to its destination.
‘Twelve forty-six from Stafford,’ he said, and stepped onto the humming line.
‘What are you doing?’ Nimrod demanded.
‘Twelve forty-six,’ he murmured; it was a prayer by numbers.
The slaughterer was crossing the first of the Northbound lines. It had nothing but death to give. No curse, no sentence-only death.
‘Come and get us,’ Cal yelled at it.
‘Are you insane?’ Nimrod said.
By way of reply Cal lifted the bait a little higher. Nimrod bawled. The pursuer’s head grew vast with hunger.
‘Come on!’
It had crossed both the Northbound lines; now it stepped onto the first of those headed South.
Cal took another stumbling step backwards, his heel hitting the furthest rail, the voice of the beast and the roar in the ground shaking the fillings loose in his teeth.
The last thing he heard as the creature came to fetch him was Nimrod running through a celestial checklist in search of a Redeemer.
And suddenly, as if in answer to his call, the veil of dirty air divided, and the train was upon them. Cal felt his foot catch on the rail, and raised it an inch higher to step back, then fell away from the track.
What followed was over in seconds. One moment the creature was on the line, its maw vast, its appetite for death vaster still. The next, the train hit it.
There was no cry. No moment of triumph, seeing the monster undone. Just a foul stench, as if every dead man in the vicinity had sat up and expelled a breath, then the train was rushing by, smeared faces peering from the windows.
And just as suddenly as it had appeared, it was away through the curtain on its way South. The whine in the rails receded to a sibilant whisper. Then even that was gone.
Cal shook Nimrod from his roll-call of deities.
‘it’s over …’ he said.
It took Nimrod a little while to accept the fact. He peered through the smoke, expecting the Rake to come at them again.
‘It’s gone,’ said Cal. ‘I killed it.’
‘The train killed it,’ said Nimrod. ‘Put me down.’
Cal did so, and without looking right or left Nimrod started back across the tracks towards the garden where his sister had perished. Cal followed.
The wind that had come with the boneless creature, or borne it, had dropped completely. As there was not even a light breeze to keep the dirt it had swept up aloft, a deluge now descended. Small stones, fragments of garden furniture and fencing, even the remains of several household pets who’d been snatched away. A rain of blood and earth the like of which the good people of Chariot Street had not expected to see this side of Judgment Day.
Ücretsiz ön izlemeyi tamamladınız.
