The Fetch

by Robert Holdstock

  ‘I can’t without Chalk—’

  ‘Bugger Chalk Boy. Just look and reach and fetch. You can do it, you little …! You can do it, Mikey. You know you can. If you don’t, then everything else will have to go. Everything.’

  ‘NO!’

  ‘Everything. The egg. Carol’s shell. Mummy’s cross—’

  Michael felt sick. He howled and screamed. He was aware that he was fighting his father and that his father’s fists were holding his own.

  ‘NO!’

  The door opened. Michael fell, sobbing. He crawled under the bed and let the screaming and shouting drift around him. He didn’t want to hear the words. He didn’t want to hear the fighting between his parents. He didn’t want to hear Carol’s hysterical screaming. He just wanted to go away, to be in the tunnels, to be by the sea with the swimming giants … anywhere …

  Anywhere but here!

  TWENTY-TWO

  Two hours later Susan returned from Jenny’s house, where she had fled to recuperate from the fierce and frightening argument with her husband, and walked quickly into Richard’s office. Richard was slumped at his desk, pictures of artefacts spread before him, the inscribed Minoan egg perched on its end and propped up with music cassettes.

  The man looked shattered. His thinning hair was awry and his eyes dark-hooded. The room had a sweet and sickly smell about it, and Susan realized that he had been sick in the waste-paper bin.

  He looked up as she entered the lamplit room, closing the door behind her.

  ‘Well, well. She’s back.’

  ‘Yes. I’m back. Don’t ever hit that child again, Richard. I mean it. Don’t ever hit that boy again!’

  Grimly, she leaned back against the door. She was shaking, partly with cold, partly with apprehension. Richard grinned awfully, his face like a mask splitting open at the lips. He shook his head.

  ‘I didn’t hit him – darling. He hit me. He went for me like a creature wild, all tooth and claw and voice of night.’

  ‘Very poetic. But the bruise on his face wasn’t self-inflicted.’

  ‘Self-defence, lover.’

  ‘You hit him.’

  ‘Accidentally.’

  She sneered and looked away, then took a deep, calming breath. ‘It was no accident. You were in a rage. You were drunk. I don’t care how angry you are, or frustrated…’ She turned and tried to fix him with a hard and powerful gaze, but she knew she was too frightened of the force in the man, of his self-interest, to make it effective. ‘I don’t care what trouble we’re in, you and I, or as a family, or with the bank. Just don’t you ever hit that boy again. I‘ll use that cross on you if you do! I swear it. I’ll use the Mocking Cross!’

  ‘How very moral: I hit him, you kill me. All square.’

  ‘Bastard,’ she murmured.

  Richard stood at the desk, then slowly sat again, sighing. She smelled the drink from across the room. The more she looked at him the more she loathed him. In the last few moments his pale skin seemed to have become stippled with stubble, an effect of the light. He looked shocking. He looked ill and haunted, a man not in control.

  ‘You have to stop drinking Scotch, Richard. It makes you violent.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘I’m telling you about it. You get out of control. We’re in trouble, I know. But you’ll not help matters by blanking your reason with malt whisky.’

  ‘You don’t know the half of it. You don’t know how much trouble.’ He slumped, then twisted in his chair, not meeting Susan’s gaze. ‘That little bastard! That little bastard! Why did it stop? Why the fuck did it stop? We had everything going – it would have been – shit!’

  After a moment, Susan said quietly, ‘It happens.’ She thought of mentioning Françoise Jeury’s visit a few weeks ago, but decided better of it. ‘What do you mean?’ she went on carefully. ‘What do you mean: I don’t know the half of it?’

  Richard seemed to sag further, then cradled his head in his hands. ‘We’re very broke, Susan. Very broke indeed.’

  ‘How can we be broke? We have thousands in savings. You have a good job, now. Thanks to the supernatural, we’ve set ourselves up for years, if not for life. I don’t understand how you can feel so upset by the passing of the gift.’

  ‘The passing of the gift,’ Richard echoed. ‘Is that what’s happened? The talent has gone? The boy has grown out of it?’

  ‘That’s what’s happened, Richard, and you’d damn well better get used to the idea.’

  ‘And you’d better get used to the idea that if the talent has gone, then we’re bankrupt.’

  Susan folded her arms. She knew she’d gone pale. She felt icy cold as she watched the shambling wreck of the man she loved. He thumped a fist against the leather-bound books on his shelf, turned and flicked through the photographs of Michael’s ‘fetchings’. He smiled ruefully.

  Susan said, ‘I’m waiting, Richard. What have you done?’

  His answer was quiet. He didn’t meet her eyes. He was defensive. ‘Invested. Made promises. Made guarantees …’

  Her heart began to drum out her growing fear. Everything in the room became oddly clear, starkly outlined. ‘Invested in what?’ she asked.

  ‘A company. They’re building a tourist complex in Essex. A sort of historical experience centre, plus all the fun of the fruit machines, and the roulette wheel. It’s a huge project. The chance to be a partner was too good to miss.’

  She was silent for a moment, letting the full force of the statement, and the betrayal it represented, sink into her clear and terrified consciousness. ‘A partner. A project. Historical experiences … Tell me, Rick: when did this happen?’

  That I signed on? About a year ago.’

  ‘A year ago!’ she said, her voice a strangled, painful gasp, her eyes briefly closed. Then she smiled and shook her head.

  Richard went on, ‘The profits will be phenomenal. They’re even planning to have chariot racing. In the Roman style, of course. You can indulge in any period of history. You can wager on gladiators, chariots, games of bowls played by Francis Drake lookalikes… it’s a big project, Susan. I was very taken by their enthusiasm and ideas.’

  ‘Thank you for letting me in on your little secret,’ she said dully. ‘If I can be of any help, please don’t hesitate et cetera, et cetera. And what were you to be, Rick? Consultant?’

  ‘That was the idea. Consultant and partner. And when Jack Goodman—’

  Susan laughed sourly. ‘I thought his name would start cropping up.’

  ‘Jack’s involved too. He knew the company. He knew they were looking for finance. He suggested me, and we did the deal, and Jack has made promises on my behalf.’

  ‘Promises? Money promises?’

  Richard nodded. ‘As I said, they invited me to be a partner. I accepted. We’re talking big money.’

  ‘You’re talking big bullshit, Richard. I never trusted Goodman, and you were a fool to trust him yourself.’

  ‘What was to trust? I could see the plans for the complex. I met the company.’

  The company!’ she sneered. ‘The company. You keep saying the company. I don’t suppose they wore black suits, black glasses and drove black Mercedes, did they? No chance that their names might have rhymed with Kray? You idiot!’

  ‘Why idiot? This is a major tourist complex. It’s a guarantee of finance for life. All I do is act as consultant in the building and design, and then take my quarter-share of the profits as a partner. Why idiot? This is an investment, Susan. This is for life!’

  ‘But your little investment source has dried up. And you’ve sunk all our money into it, so we’ve nil in the bank, and we start over. You fool, Richard.’

  Something in his glance, a shudder in his body, and Susan felt the blood in her face drain away again. She had been heated with anger, now she was chilled with fear.

  ‘How much do you owe them? she asked quietly. ‘How much have you promised?’

  ‘Quite a lot,’ he said, sitting down on
the edge of the desk and again not meeting her eyes. ‘They knew it wouldn’t come in one lump, but they expect it within the year. Goodman made a guarantee to them. I made a guarantee to Goodman. I really thought …’ He shook his head suddenly, sinking into himself. ‘Oh, Dear God …’

  ‘How much, Richard?

  ‘I really thought the “fetchings” would continue. Why not? Eight pieces of ancient gold last year, not to mention the glass, the silver, the carved bone. A small fortune, a real gift. A true gift from the gods.’

  ‘How much?’

  He looked up. After a moment he laughed and shook his head, ‘I’ve guaranteed them half a million.’

  Susan screamed, slapped hands to her mouth and felt her knees buckle. ‘Half a million! Oh, my God. Oh, dear God!’

  She felt her legs give way. Richard went over to her quickly and supported her, but she turned on him, sobbing, a hand raking out to slap at his face. She walked to the door to her studio and flung it open, collapsing heavily into her leather chair, crying with full voice. After a minute or so she leaned forward on to her work-bench and tried to stop herself being sick.

  ‘My God, my God,’ she wailed, and around her everything dissolved into blackness.

  Michael sat with Carol on the stairs. They both wore their pyjamas and dressing-gowns against the cold. The central heating had turned itself off about an hour ago and the temperature in the house was dropping. Carol held her horseman shell and a doll dressed in Hungarian national costume. She was shaking badly, and Michael had his arm around her shoulder.

  ‘Katherine’s Mummy and Daddy don’t live together any more,’ Carol said. ‘She cries a lot. She says it’s like living nowhere. She has to go and see her Daddy every fortnight for one day. And the rest of the time her Mummy just talks to people on the phone and not to her. I don’t want Mummy and Daddy to live in different houses.’

  ‘I do,’ Michael said grimly.

  Carol started to cry and Michael clenched his jaw, then stood and tugged his sister to her feet. He felt confused and sad for the girl. He knew (although it was a drifting thought) that he shouldn’t be so hard with her. ‘You’d better go back to bed. I think the shouting’s finished.’

  Carol sniffed violently, and used her shirt-tail to blow her nose. She walked upstairs, a forlorn shape, mousy hair hanging lankly around her shoulders. Michael listened until he heard her run along the landing to her small room, then he stepped down to the hall, pushed open the study door and peered at the distant light, where his mother sat alone at the work-bench, her whole body limp, like a tailor’s dummy. Occasionally a dark shape passed back and forth across the light framed by the door: his father, pacing restlessly.

  Richard was saying, ‘I don’t know what the house will fetch. But not less than a hundred thousand.’

  ‘That’s right. Take my home. Take the children’s home away from them …’

  ‘We have no choice, Susan. These people mean business. I’ve got a year. I told you. They knew the money would come in dribs and drabs …’

  ‘Each drib and drab being fifty thousand pounds. That’s some dribbing and drabbing.’

  ‘We sell the house. The Minoan egg is worth forty thousand for its gold alone. Goodman will get us twice that …’

  ‘And take his 25 per cent—’

  ‘He’ll have to take less, damn him! This is a crisis. Then there’s the Mocking Cross—’

  Michael’s heart stammered and his face flushed with fury. He almost ran into the room, but his mother’s voice sounded sharp, angry:

  ‘That was Michael’s special gift to me. That cross stays. I’d never sell it.’

  ‘It’s worth forty thousand, Goodman says.’

  ‘Goodman can take a flying fuck.’

  ‘I don’t like that sort of language from you, Susan. It demeans you.’

  ‘Dear God, listen to the fool. Who the fuck do you think you are, Rick? You’re an alcoholic! You’re a wasted, gambling, selfish, child-hitting monster. I live with you because – because I don’t know where else to go. Don’t tell me about my language. The temptation to laugh is too strong. The fact that I don’t laugh is mainly because I want to cry: at my own stupidity for not watching you. At not realizing what a sod you are.’

  Ignoring the abuse, his father went on: ‘Carol’s shell is valuable. It’s priceless in archaeological terms, but valuable enough on the art market. We can sell the cars. We’ll have a shortfall of no more than two hundred and fifty thousand.’

  ‘Is that all? Well, what are we worried about? We can have a boot sale. Soon make up the difference.’

  ‘We’ll re-mortgage the house. Get a bank loan. I’ll do some private work… Things will be fine. Things will be fine.’

  There was a long, terrible silence.

  Then Michael heard his mother crying softly.

  Every time the telephone rang now, a sudden chill flooded through the house. Voices murmured, sometimes shouted. Michael came to dread the sound of the bell. He couldn’t look at his mother’s face when the telephone sounded. She looked so frightened. Sometimes when the caller turned out to be a friend, she cried with relief.

  Christmas was a miserable affair. Susan’s mother came to stay with them, and after a few hours of false jollity she too settled into the routine of gloomy, chilling silence. It snowed on Boxing Day, but there was no walk, no play in the garden with the adults. Michael’s father sat and read a paper, magazines, then a book. The TV was grazed constantly. Susan worked on a doll in her studio, and the children played Scrabble and Monopoly.

  Although there had been presents, generosity was conspicuous by its absence. The year before, the house had rocked and whined with models, trains, robots and gadgets. This year there had been books, paints and a family game.

  They ate goose for Christmas Day, and Michael hated the greasy taste. Carol spat hers back on to the plate and was told off, as much as her mother ever told her off.

  Now, again, Michael spent most of his time in his room. When he tentatively asked for a story he was ignored. His father was too busy. Too busy to play, too busy to read to him, too busy to go for walks. But in the evenings, as the new term began, he would sit with Carol on his knee and watch her work out her homework, encouraging here, correcting there, testing, talking, laughing with the girl.

  Michael did his homework in his room. The winter was mild, after the snow flurry of Christmas, but still the chalk quarry was a cold, dead place. He went there often, but the walls of the castle were gone, the sense of a structure there, of tunnels and passages, of the route down to the ancient sea, all this had dissipated.

  Then the winter began to turn.

  On a Saturday in early March, Michael left the house after breakfast, depressed and lonely, and trudged across the ploughed, frozen field towards the winter woods. Behind him, Carol called to him. She was wrapped up against the chill, and was wearing her new glasses. She didn’t like wearing them, and had been teased at school, but Michael had been staunch in his defence of his sister, and had received a bloody lip from Tony Hanson in a fight on the last day of the week.

  Carol had stayed very close to her brother all the way home, and that night insisted on Michael sharing her story before she went to sleep. When he refused to come from his room, she and Susan came to his chamber of wall treasures, and Carol climbed into bed next to him. Susan, reading from a book of Grimm’s fairy tales, was probably aware of her son’s irritation, but Michael soon relaxed.

  It was only with the greatest reluctance that Carol returned to her own room. But in the morning, when Michael wandered off, silent and surly, she chased after him.

  ‘I want to see your castle,’ she said. Her spectacles slipped on her nose and she grumbled, ‘They’re too loose.’

  Michael took the frames and looked at them.

  ‘Don’t break them!’ Carol said anxiously as Michael twisted the ends of the arms slightly.

  When she placed the glasses back on her face they held more firmly. Sh
e looked like an owl, he told her, and Carol was amused.

  So he took her to the castle. They dropped down the tree rope, Michael getting rope burn as he tried to show off to his sister. At the bottom he led the way to the storage tunnel. He had a pen-light and turned this on as he stooped to crawl into the deep, gloomy tunnel.

  ‘I’m scared,’ Carol said, hovering at the entrance. ‘There’s nothing here,’ Michael murmured, adding, ‘Except dead things from the past …’

  As far as he knew, Carol had no idea what he had been hiding in this passage, and she hesitated then grinned, not believing her brother. She crawled forward into the thin ray of light. ‘It smells.’

  ‘Dead things always do.’

  ‘There aren’t any dead things …’

  His hand reached for the mummified body of a cat, still wrapped in shreds of cloth. The wooden container was around somewhere, broken during its transition through his mind. He felt the stiff, animal body, and the way it started to crumble beneath his touch. He flung it away, deciding not to shock his sister.

  ‘Do you want to go deeper?’

  Carol said that she didn’t.

  ‘Coward.’

  ‘I’m not a coward. It’s cold. And smelly.’

  ‘Then why did you come? You said you wanted to see my castle.’

  ‘I had a funny dream,’ she whispered.

  ‘What dream?’

  ‘You were all covered with chalk and running with a big dog over some hills. You were frightened. You hid in a cave in the chalk, but the men found you and dragged you away.’

  Michael shuddered and crawled back further into the passage. His sister’s eyes gleamed with tears in the thin beam of light. ‘What did they do to me?’ he asked in a whisper.

  ‘They put a spear into you. Then they put you in a hut. They locked the door with a tree branch. They stood around and watched the hut and it rained hard, and everything was muddy.’

  He had had that dream too! It had been vivid and frightening, only it hadn’t been him in the hut, it had been Chalk Boy.