“Say the truth, whatever it is. That’s what I’ve been doing. Can’t you believe that?”
“What have you really told me, Dominic? You saw Chris Bloan with the newborn and someone who I think you must agree would have been objective said she was praying. You thought you heard the man from your past saying the sort of thing you’ve written in your book, but could you really be sure at that distance? And since you were so far away I wonder if you could have mistaken someone else for him.”
“You’d rather think all that than make sure Toby’s safe.”
“No, that’s exactly what I’m doing for him.” Lesley took a breath so deep I heard it shake. “And I’ll warn you now,” she said, “if you undermine his treatment I’ll be taking him away.”
No doubt she took my silence for defeat, although it was simply frustration so painful that I clenched my fists. I opened them when she stared at them, because I was dismayed to think they resembled a threat of violence.
There seemed to be no further point in speaking, since I couldn’t own up to my thoughts. It looked as if I needed to protect Toby on my own, which left me feeling worse than isolated. However misunderstood and solitary I’d sometimes felt as a child, I would never have expected growing up to bring that back.
12 - The Three
That night I hardly slept, even when I thought Lesley was asleep. Too often I wondered if she was pretending in case I tried to sneak Toby away to protect him, besides which I was afraid of sleeping past the time I needed to be up. All this felt worse than staying alert for the sound that heralded one of Toby’s seizures. That the only noise the monitor picked up was his even breathing didn’t reassure me, since I knew why he was so thoroughly asleep. Every so often I drifted into unawareness, which felt fruitlessly brief and infested with thoughts. As soon as I saw a hint of the dawn I crept out of bed and shut myself in the bathroom for a muted shower. I was dressing in the bedroom for fear of waking Toby when Lesley stirred and groped in search of me. I hoped she would revert to sleep, but she blinked until she located me. “Whatime sit?” she mumbled.
“It’s early yet. You go back to sleep for a while.”
She struggled across the bed to fumble for the alarm clock. “Where are you going at this hour?”
“Don’t worry, just to work.”
Depending on interpretation, this wasn’t quite a lie, but it fell short of satisfying her. “You can’t need to do anything this early.”
“I’ll be being prepared. I may as well get to it since I’m awake.”
I sensed that she was only gradually recollecting last night’s argument. “Don’t let me drive you out, Dominic.”
“It isn’t that at all. I know you wouldn’t,” I said and hoped that notwithstanding her threat last night it was the truth. “Tell Toby I’ll see him when we’re home.”
“Aren’t you having some breakfast at least? Give me five minutes and I’ll come down.”
“It’s all right, I’ll grab something. You stay in bed.”
I stooped to leave her a kiss, and her lips shifted a little on mine while her hands clasped the back of my neck. It felt as if she wanted to delay me, but I’d misled her long enough. Perhaps I did need sustenance—I was somewhat unsteady with lack of sleep—and I found a muesli bar in the kitchen. At least I had it to show Lesley when I saw her watching from the top of the stairs. I couldn’t think of anything to say, and only waved the item before making for my car.
Milk floats were droning through the suburbs, and early postmen were at large with their bags, prompting the occasional dog on a lead to bark. There weren’t too many vehicles on the roads for traffic lights or delivery lorries to hinder. By the time a reddened sun rose, swollen like a leech by mist that lay above the fields, I was in the open country beyond Ormskirk. The only vehicle in sight was mine. I drove to the entrance to Safe To Sleep, and was wondering how to reach the house if the gates didn’t let me in when they swung wide. If I’d had my window open I might have been able to hear them, but just then they seemed stealthy as fog.
Through the trees on both sides of the avenue I glimpsed mounds of earth in the grass. Condensation lent them an unappealingly gelatinous look. I could have thought I saw more than one of them grow restless, but took it for an effect of the mist that lingered on the grass, unless moles were peering out and retreating underground before I was remotely sure I’d seen them. The gravel in front of the house grated under my wheels, and I was parking next to a solitary Viva when I saw movement in the porch.
The front door had opened, but the low sunlight from behind the house only darkened the interior. I could barely see the figure in the doorway until it moved forward, gaining definition so gradually that I might have fancied it was regaining its shape. Then it bowed towards me, and I recognised Christian Noble even before I made out his face. The long smooth oval seemed hardly to have aged, and together with that purposeful darting movement it reminded me more than ever of a snake—a cobra without a hood. It put on a noncommittal smile as I climbed out of the car. “Aren’t you a parent of one of our children?” Noble said from the top of the steps. “I’m afraid you’re here before the lady who takes care of them.”
His smile wasn’t admitting whether he’d recognised me. If this was a game I could play it as well, and I said “What would you like me to do?”
“Let me offer you the hospitality of my house.”
“That’s very thoughtful.” In case this betrayed my wariness I said “Thank you” as well.
Noble didn’t turn his back until I was on the steps, and he shut the door as soon as I ventured into the house. Although light had started to creep down the stairs from the windows that overlooked them, the corridors stayed dim. “So this is all yours,” I said, not entirely conversationally.
“I’ve benefited from the generosity of admirers.”
I could tell this was a boast rather than a confession of dependence. “Have you always lived like that?” I couldn’t resist enquiring.
“Dear me, some people might think that was quite a personal question. It’s up to individuals to decide what they think is worth supporting.”
I might have retorted that he hadn’t left Mrs Norris to decide for herself, or many like her at his church or even here. Instead I asked “Do you live here all by yourself?”
“Not remotely. I’ve companions to spare. Some of them come and go,” he said, turning away before I could read his face.
When he opened a door, light that looked drained of energy sprawled into the left-hand corridor. I followed him into the room, which had a view between the trees all the way to the gates. The panelled walls were unadorned, and the room contained very little besides several thickset armchairs even darker than the panels. A black dresser displayed indistinct figurines in the dimmest corner, but I saw nothing more human, not even a book. As Noble sat facing the avenue, his chair uttered a leathery breath. “Please do find yourself a place,” he said.
I sat diagonally opposite him, where I could watch his face and have a peripheral sight of the drive. “So what brings you to us at this hour?” Noble said.
“I wanted to speak to someone before the children get here.”
“Ah, then your child will still be coming on the bus.”
I almost couldn’t speak for loathing and dismay. “That’s the plan.”
“Dr Sweet will be here by then, but may I help you in some way?”
I fought down emotions in order to ask “Are you involved in the operations here?”
“Why, of course.” As I did my best to brace myself for his admission Noble said “One of the children is ours. I don’t know how we could be more involved.”
My words were growing harder to control. “You don’t participate yourself?”
Noble stretched out his hands in a crucified pose before lifting them to gesture backwards. “Would you not class this as participation?”
For a nervous moment I thought he was sketching if not commencing a ritual. I d
idn’t realise that he meant to signify the building until he said “I would hardly house something I didn’t believe in.”
I had to swallow as an aid to saying “So what do you believe?”
“In the future, if you want to use that term. It’s all you can see if you’ve learned how to look.”
“I thought we were talking about the children.”
“What are they except our future? Surely you’ll agree they ought to be prepared for it in every way that’s open to us.”
“Is that—” I struggled not to clench my fists while I tried again. “Is that what you’re doing here?”
Noble turned his head to present me with a smile that looked almost regretful. “What do you think we’re doing, Mr Sheldrake?”
It wasn’t just my name that took me off guard. He sounded too much as he used to in the classroom; he might have been catching out a pupil who thought himself clever. All my years only just let me regain calm as I said “So you knew who I was.”
“I make a point of knowing who visits my house. You were about to tell me what you think of Phoebe Sweet’s methods.”
So he hadn’t abandoned the game he was playing. Perhaps he was finding out how far he could deceive me, in which case joining in might gain me information despite his guile. “You’re saying she’s responsible,” I said.
“She’s the doctor in charge, yes.”
“I know that, but did she come up with the treatment?”
“How much do you know about alternative medicine, Mr Sheldrake?”
“Perhaps not as much as I should. What would you like me to know?”
“Most of it has been rediscovered, not invented. It’s stood what you might call the test of time. It’s been waiting for the world to find it, or catch up with it if you like.”
“It’s generally Oriental, isn’t it? Is that where Phoebe Sweet’s technique comes from?”
“No indeed, an older source.” With an unreadable variation on his smile Noble added “If you want to think in historical terms.”
“How else would you like me to think about it?” I nearly asked him when he’d abandoned the historical view he’d taught at school. “What other way is there?” I said.
“The way of the worm, Mr Sheldrake.”
I felt dangerously close to learning too much, and wondered why he would take the risk. “I don’t think I know what that is.”
“Everybody will in time,” Noble said and laughed as though he’d made a joke. “Count yourself among the first to know. I expect you’ve heard of Ouroboros.”
“The legend of the snake eating its own tail.”
“All legends are symbols, like most of the universe.”
This provoked me to retort “Including us?”
“Very much so, but we’re speaking of the worm.” With a look he might have turned upon an excessively talkative schoolboy Noble said “It’s the oldest legend insofar as those words have any meaning. It appears in many cultures, and it’s older than the world.”
“You’d wonder who thought it up, then.
“Perhaps you may learn.” While his pause wasn’t long, it felt ominous. “Time is the worm,” he said. “The future has the past between its teeth, and at the same time the opposite is true. They eternally consume each other and are constantly reborn. That’s the first of the many truths the Bible was designed to conceal.”
“You’re saying that’s all the tempter in the garden really was.”
“Not even fractionally.” I wondered if he might repeat the name I’d first heard him pronounce at the Trinity Church of the Spirit, but he said “Time is a symbol too. It’s a way of reducing the universe to a level the unenlightened mind can cope with.”
“We’ve moved a long way from Phoebe Sweet and her methods.”
His silence let me dread that I was wrong before he said “Have you found anything to say about them?”
“I still don’t know what principles they’re based on.”
“Principles,” he said in a voice like a stifled laugh, and was plainly about to continue when he peered towards the corridor.
At first I wasn’t sure what he could hear, even once I started hearing it myself. The sound was soft and rapid, though not entirely regular, and as it grew louder I realised that it was approaching. I’d just grasped that it was descending the stairs when it left them to enter the corridor. It was faster now, and seemed to have spread into a determined shuffling. When it arrived at the door I heard the newcomer start to fumble at the panels, reaching upwards for the heavy doorknob. The knob twisted a slow inch and subsided, and I heard Tina Noble say “You can’t quite do it yet. Your body’s not as ready as your mind.”
The doorknob turned so gradually that I might have been watching a demonstration of how it worked or else an assisted bid to use it. The door swung open to reveal Tina Noble and in front of her the youngest member of the family. He was dressed in a pale blue one-piece suit that left his hands free but covered his feet, which gave his legs an oddly uncompleted look. He trotted with increasing confidence to an empty armchair and hoisted himself onto the seat by digging his fingers into the leather, where he immediately squirmed around to face me. As the infant pushed himself back so that his spine was supported, Christian Noble said “And this is only his first year.”
A doting grandparent might have made the remark, but here it sounded threatening at best. I was trying to decide how to respond when Tina Noble said “Christian, that’s—”
“A face from the past, as they say. We know exactly who he is and where he comes from. Don’t we, Dominic?”
I did my best not to feel menaced, though being watched by three versions of the same long smooth oval face didn’t help, especially when the smallest gaze seemed just as searching as the others. “We’ve stopped pretending, have we?” I said.
“So long as you have.” As his daughter took the seat between him and the child, who was nearest to the window, Noble said “It can be useful to observe how men behave.”
“Why are you here?” Tina Noble said to me.
“I’m sure you know that as well. I want to hear what you think you’re doing with the children.”
“You’ve already been told that,” Noble said as if he had done so himself. “They’re being prepared for the world to come.”
“The world you’d like to create, you mean.” When three unblinking gazes greeted this I demanded “Weren’t the dead enough for you? Have you got to destroy children’s lives as well?”
“Mr Sheldrake, I would have expected better of you.” He might have been correcting a pupil again. “Destruction is creation,” he said. “That’s another lesson you might learn from the Ouroboros.”
“Just what do you imagine you’re creating?”
“What the future calls for.” His daughter was answering now. “Try not to worry so much,” she said, reviving her intolerably sympathetic look. “The newborn are much stronger than you might think. They can accept more than the dead because they’re only starting to be formed.”
“More than you dare to, you mean.” I could hardly speak for abhorrence. “You’re using them because you’re afraid to go where you send them,” I managed to add. “You’re worse than cowards, both of you. I can’t think of a word.”
“Mr Sheldrake, you disappoint me more and more.” Noble clasped his hands on his chest, a gesture that might have been parodying prayer or even the stance of a corpse. “Let me urge you to enlarge your thinking,” he said. “Here’s a text for you to ponder: a little child shall lead them. I expect you know it from your book.”
“That’s not my book.” However true, this struck me as woefully feeble, provoking me to add “But I’ve got yours.”
I couldn’t help flinching, if only internally, as the listeners sat forward in that same swift reptilian movement—all three of them. “Got what?” came the response.
I found this more daunting still, because little Toph had asked it, in a voice distinctly clearer than
I’d ever heard from anyone so young. I almost spoke directly to him, but by the time I turned to Christian Noble I’d quelled the answer I had been about to give. “It’s all here in my head.”
I was afraid he might sense I was being protective—I didn’t want to put my family at risk—but he was preoccupied with telling Toph “Mr Sheldrake found a journal of mine that somebody had taken into his school, Christopher.”
I remembered the screech of the wheels of a tram, and the aftermath. “Not just somebody,” I said. “Your father.”
“Only in name,” Noble said and sent me a look that hardly even bothered to express weariness. “I might as well have been left by the kind folk. He was never involved in our lineage.”
“Was that why he hated what you did and what you were?”
“He had a mind as small as most. We enlarged it for him a little, didn’t we, Tina?”
By now my detestation tasted like bile. “Was that your revenge on him?”
“Mr Sheldrake, why should I have been as petty as you’re trying to suggest?”
“I thought you might have been punishing him for trying to save his granddaughter.”
“No, we simply wanted him to be of use.” Before I could react, Noble said “Mr Sheldrake means your mother, Christopher. We know none of us need saving, don’t we? We could say we’re the ones who are saved.”
“Tina’s mother didn’t think so, did she?” I retorted. “I wonder what happened to her.”
“Hospital, Mr Sheldrake, and death.”
Although I might have predicted his indifference, it left me without words. “Have you any further questions,” he said, “or shall we deal with why you’re actually here?”
“You think you know.”
“Think?”
Whatever this meant, it unnerved me, because it came from the baby seated upright in the armchair. In any case my rejoinder had been weak, and Tina Noble said “We more than think.”
“You’re still determined to prevent what has to happen, are you, Mr Sheldrake?” her father said. “Your energy would be better spent in trying to understand.”
Born To The Dark Page 12
