by Tanith Lee
But the park was simple. Simple pleasure, without screams.
They would buy rolls and feed the ducks and the brown geese almost as tall as Faran with black velvet tongues. The two swans came like lords. Cimmie always told him swans mated for life. This was the ideal.
Faran recalled that unswan-like Wellington had once or twice strayed, for whenever Cimmie and Wellington had a quarrel, Cimmie would allude to Wellington’s ‘women’.
Now, cut off from Faran by the ferocious road, a tumult of cars, taxis, and buses, the park, like another world, dreamed in its auburn autumn foliage. Through the thinning leaves he caught the smoky glint of water. While below, in the ornate gateway, the man stood, looking up, as Faran had seen him do for several intermittent days.
He was a black man, rather fat, dressed in a quite fashionable but cheap raincoat. His head was bare, just as most men went bare-headed now.
Faran guessed he had five minutes left before tipsy Cimmie and Wellington erupted into the flat from their Savoy Grill lunch.
Faran lifted his arm and waved to the man.
And the man who, although he was not Mr Thorpe, so closely resembled him, lifted his own arm in the autumn gate, and waved in return.
Then Faran heard the lift.
He jumped off the chair and brushed its velvet seat. He put it back in alignment with the regimented other chairs. He strode to his bedroom, and the essay on European meat production Ms Baldwin had set him.
Chapter Eight
On Anna’s second birthday, they went into London again, and again by train, because Anna said she had liked that. Anna looked sixteen still, sophisticated and self-contained, but she smiled. Her parents, the two beautiful young women probably taken for youthful aunts or family friends, sat with her in the carriage.
Ormolu autumn weather, woods full of crows. The houses gathered in procession as the capital swung towards them.
Anna had expressed a want for a black dress, and among Althene’s presents, there the dress had been. Anna wore it now, and her black wool coat, and on her long legs black tights with golden suns. On her feet were ankle boots of silvery leather. She would need the boots for walking through the cemetery, the famous one which Anna had wished to see.
On Anna’s left middle finger was the ring Rachaela had given her. A tourmaline in silver, the Libran jewel.
The morning had been marred only by a fight between Juliet and Jacob, who often attacked each other now... mimicking the general situation? Otherwise the day was planned: the cemetery, then dinner at one of the restaurants they had frequented before Anna’s birth, a late film, something foreign with English and Dutch dialogue which Rachaela had never heard of, and would not, entirely, understand. But Anna was apparently now bilingual. Even more versed than that, maybe, for now and then Rachaela had heard her singing, in a pure high soprano, snatches in French, and even Elizabeth’s Gaelic lullabyes.
They left the train, walked through sunlight under the high hatched walls of the city.
They lunched in a wine bar—Anna’s choice. Anna drank a glass of red Burgundy with her salad. Rachaela on her own got through a bottle of Macon.
I’m drinking too much, Scarabae or not.
They moved along the pavements in a loose-knit trio. People looked at them, and builders on a scaffolding nearly plummeted to the pavement in their efforts to evince enthusiasm. Occasionally, Althene and Anna stepped slightly ahead, but never for too long.
Rachaela wished she were alone with Althene. They could have gone to an opulent hotel, had afternoon tea, made love in some cream-laid room. They had not made love for several months. Rachaela had not wanted to. She had not wanted to since Anna. Or, was it only that she would not? She was on the pill. There was no excuse there—
And now, now her libido had been roused by the mushroom quiche or the wine, now there was Anna.
Better be careful though. Could it be Anna she wanted instead?
Anna, wholly female. Anna physically old enough to consent. And mentally young enough to see no harm.
Well I am confused.
Since Althene’s return they had been such friends. We three.
Althene had said very little about her trip. Her mother, Sofie, had waxed contrasuggestive. There was not much one could do. The family were alerted and would take care of things. Malach was not referred to. To Althene, Rachaela had not said, But Anna is Ruth. Probably Althene knew everything there was to know.
And then again it could all be my own dear little insanity.
That Rachaela had taken Anna to an unknown doctor, Althene did not mention. Rachaela had not told her of this treat, and presumably neither had Anna. (Keeping my shameful secrets safe?) The call on the Scarabae was openly discussed. Althene had accepted it, without much comment, saying she was glad Anna had met Eric and Sasha, and going to gaze on the antique shawl, and asking after the cats. To Althene, Rachaela had said, when they were alone, ‘I don’t know if I took her there as a test or a penance.’
‘It seems to have turned out to be neither.’
‘Sasha fainted.’
‘Sasha is old.’
‘For now.’
Althene had said presently, ‘But Anna liked her visit to them. She’ll want to go back.’
‘The grannies and granddads,’ Rachaela said, remembering Ruth’s words all those years and aeons ago. Rachaela had been jealous of Ruth too. Not wanting Adamus to have her, not wanting Ruth to have Adamus.
Rachaela had given Anna a CD of Benjamin Britten’s piano concerto. Anna listened, as always, as if the spirit went out of her. ‘Planets dancing,’ she said at the end. It was what Rachaela had always thought:
They reached the imposing gateway of the cemetery about three. There were no guided tours that day, but after a moment of incomprehension, someone came apologizing, and let them go in alone, and unguarded, among the green and gold wilderness.
The child on the tomb...
Why was it so ominous?
Looking in through the closed and padlocked doors of the mausoleum, to the upright carving over the tomb-case. The young girl of marble, perhaps thirteen years old, turning her head almost modestly away from the wide-winged angel that had taken hold of her.
Did she not want to go wherever the flying thing meant to take her? Up, or down, into the hall of Death.
And the angel’s face, by a fluke of the dim light coming in at the stone lattices of the doors, had been eclipsed like a moon in shadow. The angel was faceless, and terrible.
The cemetery was magical. Allowed to run to seed, rare, almost prehistoric plants had come up in it, and great oaks twined with ivy. Up from the massed grasses dog-roses sprang.
And from the wild garden pushed the stones of the dead, obelisks and pyramids, winged women, a lion who smiled on one side, frowned on the other, lying sleeping with folded paws and carven whiskers like those of the goddess Sekhmet. There were pillars too resembling the Egyptian sets of some mystical epic, and curving downsweeps of stone houses, on every porch a vanquished name, the lintels clad in briars and marked with the lambs’ blood of berries.
Foxes ranged here by night, voles and hedgehogs. Now squirrels played along the paths, and dragonflies glinted over matted water green as frogs.
In places gardeners were at work on the upkeep of the cemetery. Only one had challenged them, politely. But Althene mentioned some name, and the man waved them on.
Rachaela turned from the mausoleum of the child, and there her own child was, up on a tomb of grey stone above the path.
The sun fragmented through the trees and lit her hair to a blizzard of gilded snow. Althene was beside her, saying something, pointing.
And then, out of the undergrowth, like a rough, rolled-up carpet somehow made to move, a badger came.
Its white head poked from its dark body like a snake, and it trundled to the spot where Anna stood, poised in amazement, and there it hesitated, blinded maybe by the sunshine, sensing proximity above it.
Now it
will lay its head in her lap, Rachaela thought brutally. The prototype timid woodland creature, as in myth and story, charmed by my uncanny daughter.
But the badger only snuffed the air and bundled on, liquid and ungainly at once, back into the living wall of the garden.
‘Oh,’ said Anna.
Althene said, ‘We were lucky to see him.’
One of the gardeners, a middle-aged man in a shabby overall, was coming up the avenue with his spade.
He nodded at Althene and Anna on the grave, climbing up to where they were.
‘You don’t often see those fellows out by day.’
Anna said, childish with ecstasy, ‘It was a badger.’
‘Yes it was,’ agreed the man.
And he swung his shovel hilt foremost, with all the bulk of his weight behind it, into Althene’s belly.
Like some strange preview of the weird film they had been due to attend, Rachaela saw Althene go unbelievably white and her body dip bonelessly forward and collapse, soundless, on to the couch of grass and stones. She was completely unconscious.
And then Anna stood alone, with the sun upon her like golden frost.
Another man had come from somewhere.
He glanced at Rachaela. ‘Don’t you move.’
The two men took Anna each by one of her arms. She was intensely shocked, like a being without mind or soul. They revolved her easily about, and then all three went down the slope behind the grave and the wild trees ate them up.
Rachaela started forward; her heart pounded like cannon or bombs detonating in her body. But she only reached Althene’s fallen shape, only reached the grave. And here Rachaela stumbled, and it was as if time had ended, or never begun.
Chapter Nine
That summer had been uncomfortable.
Connor had been prepared for it to be, just like the preceding summer.
With Camillo.
The first spring they had kept mostly on an even keel, Camillo riding his new bike, an ‘89 limited Electraglide Classic, a black blaze straight from the oven of might, and Red up behind, helmed and matchless. Never a cross word.
As they drove north and west, Connor’s legion picked up numbers, and finally they were twenty strong. Camillo’s mercenary army. Sworn by unspoken oaths to stick to him, to bear him where he wanted to go.
As the land had greened, they had ridden the blossom route and over into castled Wales. Then, with the months, they veered to and from the coast, and in the heart of the season, rode east again and up into the dark hills of Derbyshire, riven with grey stone villages and old Roman footprints.
By then he was restive, Camillo. He would turn viciously on Red. Only words, always clever and cutting, that would have had another woman sick or angry or in tears. Tina sometimes cried, just to hear him. Christ, he had a tongue, Camillo, like the knife. Old sod. But then. He did not look so old any more. As the year aged he spasmodically youthened. Connor accepted it, but some of the others pulled away (that and Camillo’s tongue), grasped other loyalties. The army diminished.
But Connor remembered that house where they had collected Camillo, and the woman, fifty-five if she was a day, but like a girl. And how these people at the house had a video on the TV months before that particular film was on video. Connor kept his cool.
Even the new bike had not bemused him. For Camillo had killed the earlier trike, scorched it out, and when they caught up with him, he removed the stuffed horse’s head from the prow, and then cremated the trike at the roadside. Only, of course, it did not entirely burn or melt. They left it there like a nasty accident. And a few hours later, in some back room of a mechanic’s, the new bike, the Electraglide Classic, had been served to Camillo from an unmarked van.
By the first summer, only Rose and Pig, and Pig’s Tina, remained of the former battalion. Cardiff, having smashed his leg on the Ml, had gone back to his grandmother’s house in Birmingham. The bimbo, Lou, who had run off with them from the house, had absconded with another biker she met in a field where they had gone to listen to some music. Of the new battalion, the fourteen who stayed, Shiva was the best. Half Indian, he was the colour of a thunder cloud. He rode his machine like a demon on the wings of the storm, tied-back black hair three times longer than Connor’s.
It was Shiva who had, perhaps, one night in a country pub, prompted Camillo’s departure of the first summer.
Shiva had been talking to Rose about a Hindu god. Rose was very interested, asking questions. Shiva explained how families would shelter in the shrines and cook food there, making an offering, and then eating it to partake of the blessing. The heat of the offering flames was also inhaled for this reason.
Camillo, who had been sitting silent for fifty-nine minutes, said, ‘And you breathe in the flame and blow it out again as hot air.’
Shiva shrugged. He was used, Connor thought, to the reactions of morons. And Camillo, their king, had just spoken like one.
Viv, Connor’s black, white and yellow dog, pricked her one upstanding ear. The bikers, spread round four tables, did likewise. Only Viv did not look resigned. Camillo said to Red, ‘Tell me something stunning about fire rituals.’ He was always, insultingly, challenging her, her knowledge of history. In Derbyshire it had been, ‘And which Roman commander was it that urinated here?’
Red, who was over with Tina and Josie, and Viv, said, ‘Carthaginians burned children alive to the glory of Baal Melkart. Celtic women jumped through the bonfires to ensure the life in their wombs.’
‘And Jehane d’Arc,’ said Camillo, ‘was roasted at the stake. And while you’ve a Lucifer to light your fag, smile boys that’s the style.’
Shiva said, ‘I like the Hindu gods.’
‘All gods,’ said Camillo, ‘are crap. Shit. Ca-ca.’
Shiva said, ‘For you, then.’
‘Now you’ll tell me,’ said Camillo, ‘they answer your prayers.’
‘Yes,’ said Shiva. ‘Though I’m undeserving.’
‘Except,’ said Camillo, ‘your prayer that I should fuck off.’
Shiva looked at Connor. Connor nodded. Shiva was behaving impeccably, it was the king who was at fault.
Connor said, ‘There’s a festival tomorrow, Camillo, Ludlow way. Do you want to go?’
‘More of the music that roars?’ said Camillo. ‘I’m too old for all that.’
The stereo on the Electraglide poured out, all along the country tarmac and the shale, Iron Maiden, so the immature corn rocked on its stalks.
Red had not finished her chicken and chips. She was feeding Viv with most of it, and Viv beamed. Viv ignored Camillo. In the last month she had taken to being unresponsive to him. Camillo remained courteous to Viv. Perhaps he gauged, accurately, Connor’s last straw.
Camillo reiterated, ‘Poor doddery old man. Too old for all this.’
He looked, Connor thought now, in the smoky pub murk, about thirty. Some days he looked forty. Not much older, ever.
Basher had gone over to the juke, put in a couple of fifties, and out came The Eagles ‘Hotel California’, at full volume.
Camillo grinned. His eyes were old black murder.
He said, ‘Does Red want to go to Ludlow?’
‘I’d be willing.’
‘Tell me about Ludlow.’
Red looked tired. There were little silver lines around her eyes. ‘No. You’re too old.’
‘Oh,’ said Camillo. ‘Please.’
‘Sixteen thirties,’ said Red, ‘Milton’s masque Comus was performed there.’
‘Then you can go,’ said Camillo, ‘but I won’t. I’m off somewhere.’
Red looked at her plate, and Viv licked Red’s fingers unnecessarily hard, trying to comfort. In Connor’s muscular body the heart thumped, and in his big belly the digesting meat-pie moved too. Camillo was disturbing him.
Red remarked, casually, ‘You know, Camillo, I used to go to bed with a man of sixty. He was half crippled by arthritis, I couldn’t even put my weight on him. But he was a beautiful lover, and he
was a lovely man.’
‘He died,’ Camillo said, ‘you told me.’
‘But you won’t die,’ Red answered.
‘Oh, I might. Poor decrepit old man.’
‘You won’t die and you are a selfish bloody cunt.’ Red spoke levelly.
She stood up and went to the Ladies, and Tina and Josie marched after her.
Viv pattered over the table, licked Basher, Shiva and Rose, and sat down on Connor’s knee.
Camillo said, ‘We must part.’
Connor said nothing.
Camillo went to the bar and bought two rounds, so many drinks Basher and Rats had to go up and help bring them back.
When Red returned, she was yet dry-eyed and still. Connor looked at her with regret and hope, the sapphire irises and fresh rosy skin, the rust-copper hair.
But then Camillo said to her, ‘You and I, fair lady.’
‘Why?’ said Red.
‘Because you will fight.’
‘Oh, I’ll fight. Why should I?’
‘Because I’d like it. Where shall we go?’
Red looked at Connor. Connor nodded.
That night, while they made their bivouac under the stars, Red rode away with Camillo on the Electraglide, a river of Iron Maiden vanishing into the dark. When it faded they heard, from the pub juke, Killing Joke: ‘Love Like Blood’.
Early in the second summer, over a year later, one night drinking Carlsberg and blackcurrant with Josie, Basher, Connor and Viv, Red told them something about that time alone with Camillo.
They had biked through Scotland, and then down again, and crossed the Channel in the heaving infant winter. Neither Red nor Camillo had been ill, but all about them people vomited. The sound of the ship’s engines, the thrust of the sea, the noises of tortured human throats erupting were the insignia of that crossing.
They wintered in Paris, in a luxury hotel, from whose windows Notre Dame was visible like a sphynx upon the River Womb. They had champagne with every meal, champagne fit for decapitated kings, till Red hated it.
