by Simon Clark
Tom said, ‘I grew up in parts of Africa where children die because they don’t have clean water. There are still millions of parents today who struggle to keep their children from starving.’
Mrs Bekk nodded. ‘I believe you have a good heart, Tom.’
‘So you’ll appreciate I want to make Nicola happy?’
‘Yes, but you’re also headstrong.’
‘How come?’
‘You don’t realize that as you try to give Nicola a good life you’ll be destroying her.’
He turned a bend in the road to see Danby-Mask in the valley below. Or, rather, what remained of it. The scene was strangely beautiful. There was a sense of peace – even if it was the deathly peace after the life had gone out of something, whether it be a human body, or in this case a community. Sunlight transformed the floodwaters into a smooth sheet of gold that glowed so brightly that Tom was dazzled. Set in that vast, shining lake were roofs covered with dark red tiles. The effect was of rubies studding a gigantic slab of gold.
The sight was so amazing that it nearly cost Tom and his passenger their lives. A line of tractors straddled the narrow road. With no room to pass, he had to crush down on the brake pedal. Then hope for the best. With a piercing shriek of rubber grazing the tarmac, the car slid to a stop. Even when it seemed likely he’d slam into the back end of the slow-moving convoy, Mrs Bekk remained uncannily calm.
Tom had to make a real physical effort to uncurl his fingers from the steering wheel after the car had stopped. ‘Where the hell is that convoy going?’
‘When there’s a flood the local farmers help the people in the village. Families load their possessions – and then themselves – on to the back of the trailers. After that, the tractors take them out of the flood to high ground.’
‘Which means we’re now stuck.’
‘That means I have a proper chance to talk to you.’
‘But I need to get to the village! I must find Nicola.’
‘We’ll still get there,’ she said. ‘Believe me, Tom, we really do need to talk. This is important.’
Tom eased the car forwards at ten miles an hour. Tractors, hauling flatbed trailers, snaked along the highway. He couldn’t overtake them, and he knew he couldn’t honk the farmers to the side. If he did so, as they executed their mission of mercy, they’d simply give what they took to be an impatient idiot a cold, pitying glance, then ignore his frenzied honking. So he’d have to muster his patience, then follow the dignified procession.
‘OK, Mrs Bekk. Tell me what you’ve got to say.’
Mrs Bekk talked in that calm way of hers. The gentle rhythm of her words eased the clamour in his chest. He desperately wanted to find Nicola, but these were important words he was hearing. His instinct for survival hinted that they warned him of the danger to come. Forewarned is forearmed.
Firstly, she explained how Nicola had grown up in the remote cottage. ‘My parents died before Nicola was born. I had her late, so by then there was just the two of us. I did my very best to protect her from the outside world.’
‘Did she need protecting from the outside world?’
‘She was a normal child. But I knew if she lived life in a normal way she’d suffer the same fate as her brothers and sisters. They became “blood takers” – that’s what people so cursed are called in the Viking legends.’
‘Vampires?’
‘People today would describe them as such. They avoid daylight. They feed on the blood of sheep up on the moor.’
Tom remembered his nightmare – the one where Mrs Bekk had guided him through the forest to the hilltop. It was there – in the dream – that he’d seen the strange white figures that Mrs Bekk described as vampires . . . those benighted children of hers . . . and then there was Helsvir: the creature that consisted of corpses and dozens of heads. According to myth, Helsvir was the supernatural guardian created by Thor to protect the Bekk clan.
But how can she talk about my dreams as if they were real? Come to that, how does she know what I’ve been dreaming about? Then came the dazzling revelation.
‘Mrs Bekk, I thought I’d dreamt about what happened the other night when you came to the house and I followed you up the hill. You were really there, weren’t you?’
‘Of course. I knew you’d try and convince yourself it was all a nightmare. But you actually went with me into the forest. You saw my children that had been transformed by the curse. And you saw Nicola riding Helsvir.’
‘OK, you came to the house, and, yes, I followed you. You have to remember that I was still suffering from concussion.’
‘You were well enough, Tom. You saw what you saw.’
He shook his head. ‘You told me what to see. My mind was all screwed up from the beating. Somehow you tricked me into believing I saw vampires and the dragon and Nicola. That wasn’t real, Mrs Bekk, that was hypnosis.’
‘You’re saying I hypnotized you?’ She gave a sad smile. ‘No, you really did see Helsvir. And you really did see my poor sons and daughters. They were transformed into those vampire creatures because they turned their backs on their old way of life. The same will happen to Nicola if she rejects her heritage and leaves to go to live with you in the outside world.’
‘I only saw those things because you put those ideas into my head.’
‘Did I? I thought you were brave, Tom, but you aren’t brave enough to accept the evidence of your own eyes.’
‘So you really are serious about some old Viking curse turning Nicola into a vampire if we get married?’
‘Yes.’
‘This is the modern world, Mrs Bekk. We don’t hide under the blankets from ghosts any more. We don’t believe in gods that punish us, if we don’t worship them.’
‘You don’t, Tom – millions, on the other hand, do.’
At that moment it crossed his mind to stop the car, open the door, and simply push the crazy woman out, but could he do that? She’s Nicola’s mother. She still might be useful in helping me find Nicola. His hands tightened around the steering wheel as a gateway opened in his head – it was being forced open by those vivid images of white-faced vampires on the hill. He remembered the black veins under the skin, the fierce pupils in their strange white eyes. Then came Helsvir. Monstrous Helsvir. Bristling with hissing human heads. And Nicola in a trance, riding the thing . . .
‘No, it’s not real,’ he hissed. ‘There’s no such thing as vampires or dragons.’ He hated the tone of his voice. For he’d lost his sense of conviction. No longer was it so easy to disbelieve. You must stay being the Doubting Thomas, he told himself. Don’t start believing in curses and monsters, otherwise you’ll end up like Mrs Bekk – a crazy loner. A number-one nut-job.
‘I’ve told you the truth,’ she said gently. ‘I know it’s going to take some time for you to accept it fully. You will believe eventually. You’ll have to for Nicola’s sake.’
‘Hypnotism. Hallucinations. Nightmares.’ He tried to inject some force into the words, as if they would become a mantra that would dispel even the remotest possibility that he had witnessed Helsvir tearing those three men apart, or that he actually witnessed the vampires standing there on the hill as they watched their youngest sister ride the beast.
Mrs Bekk continued in that matter-of-fact way of hers (perhaps trying to wear down his resistance by chatting about extraordinary things as if they were profoundly commonplace): ‘When Nicola was twelve I could tell that the books she read and the lessons she’d been taught made her doubt what I told her was true: that she must never marry a man from the outside world. So I took her away from school.’
‘Didn’t you think that was cruel?’ Play the woman at her own game. Keep the conversation going, then she might not succeed in pulling that hypnosis trick again, or whatever it was. So stay focused. Stay alert. Don’t let her do all the talking. ‘Imagine the harm you might have caused by taking her out of school.’
‘What else could I do? I love Nicola. I’d do anything to keep her as the sweet h
uman being she is now.’
‘Parents want to protect their children; they’re afraid of them being bullied at school, or being hurt by a car, but it’s impossible to keep them at home forever.’ That’s it, keep the conversation flowing.
‘It’s true. Mothers and fathers want to see smiles on their children’s faces, not tears. Nicola’s situation is different. If I didn’t keep her away from the outside world, the consequences would be terrible.’
‘Yet the more you try to protect Nicola by keeping her a hermit, the more you’ll damage her.’
‘I don’t claim that isolating my daughter is the ideal solution. I’m just doing the best I can to protect her.’
‘And you really believe that this vendetta between your family and the village is continuing after all this time?’
‘I know what you’re suggesting.’ She still spoke calmly, although her words became more precise, and her eyes became even more focused as she watched him. She was reading his expression. ‘You think that the Bekk war with Danby-Mask is a paranoid fantasy?’
‘Perhaps they see your family as being different. But do you really believe that the villagers would deliberately hurt you and Nicola?’
‘The Bolter youth set fire to my house.’
‘He’s acting alone.’
‘I want to show you something.’ She undid the top three buttons of her blouse.
‘Mrs Bekk! What are you doing?’
‘The young man who burnt my home had an uncle by the name of Jack Bolter. Forty years ago he did this to me.’ She rested her fingertip on soft flesh just above her cleavage.
The shock of what he saw made him flinch. There, on the pale skin, was a pink scar.
‘Jack Bolter stabbed me. You see, my mother forced me to break off our engagement. When I told him, he lost his mind. He grabbed a knife from the kitchen table and stabbed me.’
‘So you were going to marry into the Bolter family?’
‘He loved me very much. He couldn’t understand why I broke off the engagement for no apparent reason. Maybe it was a mistake on my part, but I decided I couldn’t tell him that if I got married in a Christian church I’d invoke the curse. That would mean he’d lose his bride anyway.’ She fastened up her blouse. ‘So you see . . . whatever my family do we are always drawn back to our ancient faith. We are the last of the believers; the Viking gods will never let us join the modern world.’
Those words made Tom’s head spin. He now felt his sympathy growing for Mrs Bekk, because here was a woman living in a state of desperation. OK, she had an entire heap of peculiar beliefs, yet she’d once attempted to escape that strange and lonely life in the forest. She’d fallen in love with a man from the village. That had ended in near-tragedy when he’d stabbed her. Love is wonderful when it goes right, he thought. When love goes wrong, though, it’s a calamity. Lives are easily lost.
Even though his feelings softened somewhat towards her, he realized he must still humour the woman. That would mean humouring her in a calculating way. After all, there was a chance he’d need her help to find Nicola when they reached the village. With this in mind he casually asked, ‘Why don’t you fight against this curse? You can’t be held prisoner by your own heritage.’
‘Don’t you think I tried? I wanted to marry Jack Bolter. But they wouldn’t let me.’ She pointed into the sky.
‘Can’t you say “enough is enough”, and then lead the kind of life you want?’
‘The same thing’s happened to you, Tom, hasn’t it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Nicola told me that your father’s done such wonderful work in Africa that he’s even been described as a saint, hasn’t he?’
‘What’s that got to do with you breaking away from what happened in the past?’
‘Because you need to break away, too.’
‘I don’t see what you’re driving at.’
‘People praise your father as a saint. You feel as if you’ve got to match the good things he does.’
‘You’re telling me that I only want to marry Nicola as some kind of good deed? That it’s my special project to show my father how saintly I can be?’
‘Tom, you only met Nicola a few days ago.’
‘I love her. I know she’s the woman I want to marry.’
Mrs Bekk eyed him shrewdly. ‘So what happened when you were young that still troubles you?’
‘Nothing happened.’
‘I can see it written on your face.’ Her eyes became even keener. ‘Everyone tells you that your father is a living saint. But he’s done something that shocked you. You’ve seen another side of him, haven’t you? What did he do, Tom?’
Tom gently braked to stop the car. The question amazed him. He’d never told anyone about what happened in Africa when he was ten years old. Somehow she’s looked at my face and read that I have a secret. Right then, he decided to tell this woman, the mother of the girl he loved, everything. True, he wanted to find Nicola, but this was an opportunity to get Nicola’s mother on his side.
‘My father’s mission was to provide safe drinking water for people who’d otherwise die, because they didn’t have access to clean wells. His personal quest was, and still is, to save lives.’
‘It’s easy to see why people regard him as a saint.’
Tom’s heart pounded; he realized he was about to reveal the truth behind an incident that he’d promised to keep secret. This was a terrifying moment. ‘I was ten years old. We were living in this remote African village where my parents were working. The new well had been dug, and I went with my father to collect the diesel generator that would power the pump. That, in turn, would deliver fresh water to the village. The families really did need it. The old well was alive with parasites and dangerous bugs. One in three of their children died before their fifth birthday.’ Tom watched the tractors rumble forward on their own mission of mercy. Down in the village, the floodwater possessed the houses like an evil spirit. ‘Anyway. We were returning with the generator. Dad had bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate his and my mother’s wedding anniversary. The dirt track we were following went through a really thick wooded area. Dad and I were by ourselves. We’d done this journey before, which took no more than a couple of hours. There seemed nothing unusual about it.’ His scalp began to prickle, as if insects with cold, pointed feet marched through his hair. ‘Then some men burst out of the trees to flag us down. My father, true to form, stopped to help. He thought they were in some kind of trouble. As I started to open the passenger door he said, “Stay in the cab, Tom. I don’t know what’s happening here.” He’d climbed halfway out of the truck when all hell broke loose. The men started yelling . . . They took out machetes, and they were waving them at my father. As they pulled him down from the cab he turned and gave me this look. You know the kind; it’s so full on . . . so full of emotion that you feel as if you’ll freeze up inside.’
Mrs Bekk spoke with gentle sympathy: ‘You must have been terrified.’
‘And me? A ten-year-old? What could I do? What upset me most . . . what nearly breaks my heart today . . . was that expression on Dad’s face. He was picturing what the gang might do to me – there’d be nothing he could do to stop them.’
‘Your father must have been well known. Would people attack someone that was helping the community?’
‘I guess those guys were drifters from outside the area. This was probably an opportunist robbery. You know, they see a new truck, and there’s a packing case on the back that might be full of all kinds of good stuff.’ Tom shrugged. ‘We didn’t have a gun, so we were in deep, deep trouble. One guy just kept yanking at Dad’s arm to pull him further away from me. The other men climbed on to the back of the truck and began hacking at the crate. My dad starts yelling, “Stop that! You’ll damage it! We need the generator!” What happened next caught everyone by surprise. Dad pulled free of the robber that was pulling him away. He ran back to the cab and grabbed the bottle of champagne that was in a compartment i
n the door. Dad then charged at the guy that had been pulling him. The man lost his balance and fell flat on his back. I remember that he fell so hard it splashed up this big cloud of dust. Dad called back at me, “Tom! Stay in the cab! Keep down! Don’t look out. Whatever happens, don’t look out, OK?”’
‘You saw something that’s haunted you?’
Tom nodded. ‘Like any kid of ten, when they’re told not to look, that’s exactly what they do.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Dad ignored the guy on the ground. Instead, he shouted at the guys on the back of the truck that were hacking away at the packing case. My father knew that if the generator was damaged or stolen, then there wouldn’t be a replacement for weeks. Without the generator there’d be no way of pumping clean water out of the new borehole. Lots more children would die, because they’d have to use the old well, which was contaminated. So when my father confronted the robbers he knew this was a matter of life and death. The generator would save lives. “Get down from there,” he was yelling. “Stop that, you’ll damage it.” One of the robbers jumped down from the truck. I can picture him right now. He had yellow shorts that came down to his knees. He was wearing a white T-shirt with a picture of a tennis racquet on the front, and it was frayed and wispy at the collar. You could tell the guy was getting fired up. His eyes seemed to bulge right out of his head; he was pointing the machete into Dad’s face.
‘Then I saw the champagne bottle in Dad’s hand. Of course, I was a kid back then. I thought he’d planned to give the bottle to the men as gift. You know, to make them realize he was a nice person and didn’t want any trouble. Anyway, the robber in the tennis T-shirt carried on shouting. He jabbed the machete at my father’s face. Then he turned to the other guys on the truck and made a pushing gesture with his hands. He was telling them to push the generator off the back. That’s when my father killed him.’
‘He killed him? How?’
‘He . . .’ Tom’s words caught in his throat. Emotion made his larynx tighten so much he thought his voice might wither away completely. He swallowed, then said hoarsely, ‘He struck him here with the bottle.’ He touched the side of his head. ‘This teenager just slowly sank down to his knees, like he was going to say a prayer or something. The machete fell out of his hand. Then my dad looked at the robber’s head. I realize now he was carefully deciding where to hit him next. I remember how cold and calculating he was about it. Then he gave him a full-blooded swipe right in the back of the skull. The guy just flopped into the dust.’ Tom turned to Mrs Bekk. He tried to smile but he felt more like crying. ‘You know, Mrs Bekk, it’s not like in films. If you hit someone with a bottle, it doesn’t always smash into little bits. That bottle must have been as hard as iron, because it didn’t shatter. So . . . I watched the man lying there. We all did. Nobody moved.’
