The Boy Who Could See Death

by Salley Vickers

  ‘Peter Randall.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sorry. Peter Randall’s the name of your latest fan.’

  ‘Thanks, Austin. Does he have an email?’

  ‘Half a mo. Yep. prandall@shieldwolf.com.’

  ‘Shield Wolf?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Thanks, Austin.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ Austin knew that she loathed that phrase.

  ‘Back to the drawing board, I s’pose.’

  ‘Have a nice day.’

  ‘Austin, stop it!’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  Smiling as she returned to her canvas, for she was half in love with Austin for his ability to perceive what irked her (a knack that Matt had never troubled to acquire), she observed that the swathe of brown and grey in the right-hand corner had resolved into a distinct form. A creature. A creature with glaring eyes. Beyond question, a wolf was now skulking top right of November Night 7.

  Nan looked at her palette. White was there but there was no sign of any yellow. And yet there were the two tiny spots of cadmium yellow and white on the canvas to contradict her. The evidence of her own eyes. She put the brush back down and went to make a pot of coffee.

  While the kettle was boiling, she Googled Shield Wolf. No company came up, but a long way down the list of wolves and shields she found ‘Randall – Old English for Shield Wolf’. Could this possibly be just a coincidence?

  ‘Darling,’ Matt had said one day, ‘a universe without coincidence would be very abnormal. Statistically there has to be a fair percentage of coincidences. It’s nothing mystical, I’m afraid.’

  He wasn’t ‘afraid’ at all. But anyway this was surely more than coincidence. A wolf in Windsor Great Park, a man whose name meant wolf buying a painting which was part of a series in which a wolf had weirdly emerged – though, wait a bit, he hadn’t bought November Night 2 or 3, only admired them. Most likely, then, it was her unconscious creating the November Night 7 wolf, though how the yellow had got into the painting beggared belief. She used yellow sparingly.

  The kettle boiled and she tipped water into the cafetière and stirred the coffee. Waiting for it to brew, she returned to her laptop and wrote an email, went back to the coffee, poured herself a cup, heated milk in the microwave and returned to the laptop.

  Dear Mr Randall,

  We met briefly in the Windsor gallery, where you had kindly bought one of my paintings. Might you like to come to my studio to see some more of my work? I am just finishing one in the series part of which I showed you.

  Best Wishes

  Nan Maitland

  There couldn’t be much harm in sending it. She knew that Matt would advise her against an invitation to a stranger. But Matt was often needlessly cautious. She hesitated, looking across to November Night 7. The lupine eyes glinted back. She moved the cursor to ‘send’.

  Melvyn Sparks’s girlfriend Trudy didn’t become anxious until thirty-six hours after the train took off. She had rung and got Melvyn’s mobile’s answerphone but that meant no more than that, as usual, his phone wasn’t topped up. But when he didn’t pitch up at her flat as arranged she began to worry.

  Melvyn was occasionally unreliable, but not where football was concerned and tonight Chelsea were playing. They always watched together when Chelsea played. Trying his mobile again, she found the answerphone was off and a dead silence greeted her.

  Melvyn had a brother, Steve, whose number Trudy had, as he had texted her when Melvyn had had a nasty fall from his bike and was in A & E.

  ‘Steve?’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Trudy. Melvyn’s Trudy.’

  ‘Hi, how you doing?’

  ‘Have you heard from Melvyn – only he’s not here and it’s Chelsea playing.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘You haven’t heard from him?’

  ‘No, sorry.’

  ‘Who’s that, then?’ Steve’s girlfriend asked.

  ‘Melvyn’s girlfriend. Reckon he’s dumped her and hasn’t told her yet.’

  ‘You do that with me and I’ll cut your balls off.’

  Melvyn had got to work early, because he was planning to help himself to a few sandwiches and he needed to get there before anyone else in order to fix the fridge. If the fridge was off he could waste enough of the cold food for supper that evening with Trudy. He was short because he’d been on the betting machines the night before, trying to make up for what he’d lost the night before that. In fact, he was badly in debt and had already borrowed from lolly.com. To be met by Monika, therefore, was a set-back.

  ‘Hey, Melvyn!’

  ‘Monika, oh hi.’

  ‘You are an early bird.’ Monika’s preternaturally swift grasp of idiomatic English suggested an IQ well above that required for a buffet trolley. In fact, her vocabulary often stumped Melvyn. Today he noted she had a book sticking out of her shoulder bag.

  ‘What you reading?’

  ‘It is a very nice book called Nineteen Eighty-Four. I got it from the Oxfam shop. You know it?’

  Melvyn, who was reading Guardians of the Galaxy, feigned interest. ‘Good, yeah?’

  ‘It is about Big Brother.’

  ‘Oh, right.’

  ‘Not the TV programme, of course. They, I think, have stolen the name from this book.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘In my country it was banned.’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘So it must be good. They only banned books that were good, you know?’

  ‘Right. I got to, er, see to the …’

  ‘Of course.’

  Monika’s clear grey eyes had a knowing expression, but then they habitually had and, Melvyn told himself, perhaps he felt it more because he was feeling guilty. He was not a naturally dishonest man. Just one of many trying to make a living while life seemingly soared past him, sweeping up Russian criminals and property developers in its rich train.

  He was making his way towards the buffet kitchen when the carriage jolted violently.

  ‘Whoa. Driver must’ve got here.’

  ‘I do not think so.’ Monika was smiling now; her eyes, whose grey irises were encircled with a darker tinge, seemed alight with something like amusement.

  November Night 7 was progressing but Nan hadn’t yet decided what to do about the wolf. It lurked in the upper-right-hand corner, and it seemed to her that its expression took on varying aspects, sometimes menacing, sometimes wary, sometimes almost pleading even.

  She was strangely unbothered by a manifestation so apparently independent of her artistic intent. Whatever it was it had arrived in her painting, and it seemed to belong there. So, she reflected, let it be.

  Her laptop pinged and she walked over to it in some excitement, guessing the sender.

  ‘I should be delighted to see more of your work,’ the email ran. ‘If you would kindly suggest some dates I shall hope we find one mutually convenient.’

  He was certainly polite.

  There was nothing at all in her diary. She never made engagements and even when she did generally she forgot to put them in her diary – or forgot to look if she had noted them there.

  The phone rang and it was Matt.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Nothing. Why?’ The question was so unlike Matt that she failed to notice that it was unlike her to fudge.

  ‘I was thinking of coming home.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You don’t sound pleased.’ Not for the first time Nan noticed how those who are regular in their habits become irrationally annoyed when a departure from them causes upset.

  ‘Not not pleased. Just surprised. I’ve never known you take a day off work without planning weeks in advance.’

  ‘I suppose I’m allowed to come back to my own home once in a while,’ Matt said and rang off.

  He appeared to have recovered his temper by the time she opened the door to him, looking abject.

  ‘Darling, how lovely,’ she said, kissing
him with an enthusiasm assumed to hide annoyance at having had her day interrupted.

  ‘Sorry to snap. I’ve got an awful head.’

  That really wasn’t like Matt. ‘Poor love. Would you like tea and paracetamol?’

  ‘Have we got any aspirin? I’ve got a fever. I think I might lie down.’

  The presence of her husband uncharacteristically prone in bed in the house contributed to Nan’s hesitation over the reply to Peter Randall. Quite why this was she could not have explained. Perhaps no more than the certainty that Matt would disapprove of the communication.

  None the less, after further dithering, she sent an email offering Peter Randall some possible dates when he might choose to visit her studio.

  The train had rattled along its usual route and then, so far as Melvyn could tell, it veered off on to a branch line. The line had once been the one that ran westwards across England, calling at the many small local stations that had got the chop in the bad old days of Dr Beeching. Naturally, Melvyn was too young to know, or care, who Beeching was. But Morris Foot, one of the train guards, an old union man, who claimed a family connection with Michael Foot, had rehearsed the evils of the Beeching cuts so regularly that Melvyn found he knew them.

  Unless he had taken leave of his senses – and of course he might have done – that was Corsham they were passing. He knew Corsham because his mother’s second husband had come from there. But the line that Corsham had been on had been closed for many years.

  Monika, who had been busy in the kitchenette by the bar, now reappeared with a packet of Cheddars and two cans of Red Bull.

  ‘I do not take fizzy drinks as a rule because of the sugar content but Red Bull is not so harmful. I read this in the Daily Mail.’

  Melvyn was frankly grateful for any succour. His financial position had for some days necessitated a breakfast of dry cornflakes and even these were running to mere crushed crumbs. ‘Oh, cheers.’

  ‘Would you like to have sex with me?’ Monika asked.

  Matt’s ‘head’ had become a raging fever, so Nan had called the GP.

  ‘The surgery is closed from 6 a.m. to 8.30 a.m. Please dial this number after hours.’

  She dialled the number, which advised her that there would be a wait of up to twenty minutes, and suggested that in any emergency she go to the nearest Accident & Emergency Department.

  ‘Darling, they suggest going to an A & E.’

  ‘Over my dead body. There are four-hour waits there. I could die in the corridor. Just give me some more aspirin.’

  ‘I think you’re over the limit, aren’t you?’

  ‘For Christ’s sake. That’s there to protect them from law suits. You can mainline the stuff before it does any real harm.’

  With Matt asleep, snoring unhealthily and his face disconcertingly askew, Nan went back to her studio to inspect November Night 7. The wolf had definitely grown in substance. It now stood, balanced on high narrow legs, staring out of the canvas.

  ‘What do you want?’ Nan asked. ‘What are you doing in my painting?’

  ‘But we can’t have simply lost an entire train?’

  The Minister for Roads and Rail was close to tears. This was his first cabinet appointment. He had crept upwards in the party ranks by a combination of rapid coat-turning, lickspittle flattery and, finally the most effective, ditching his wife of twenty-four years for a young PA said to have the Prime Minister’s ear. The ear had been cautiously receptive, but he was aware that in being given this undeniably testing post his mettle was being tried. The country’s communications were in confusion. A spate of serious flooding had wrecked several main lines. The calculated cost of the proposed new high-speed train had rocketed, so that the treasury had privately shaken its collective head and urged that it be permanently ‘postponed’. Unseasonal ice following the floods had made mincemeat of many major roads, including the older motorways. And, most mysterious of all, across the countryside massive molehills had appeared, breaking up the surfaces of minor roads and by-ways.

  A tentative proposal to reopen some of the existing canals as a means of shifting heavy goods had been thwarted by the appearance of a strange strain of pondweed which had engulfed all the waterways, making transport there problematic. And all the airports had in turn been closed due to high winds. Unquestionably, the communication system of Great Britain was foundering.

  ‘It can’t have vanished into thin air?’ the Minister added.

  ‘There’s no trace of it, Minister. Just disappeared off the map.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, that’s impossible. It’s Ted, by the way. Surely some bloody environmentalist group must have collared it.’

  The civil servant, hardened by years of ministerial tantrums, was not inclined to be soothing. He rather enjoyed watching the new Minister flap.

  ‘There’s no sign of one, sir. And environmentalists are mostly keen on trains.’

  ‘What about the buffet staff? Have they turned up?’

  ‘Not as yet, Minister.’

  ‘Do stop calling me that. Well, can’t they be part of some, I don’t know, terrorist gang?’

  ‘The Home Office says they’re looking into it.’

  His ex-wife’s best friend was the wife of the Home Secretary, who, he had heard on the grapevine, had counselled against his appointment.

  ‘Let’s hope they turn something up.’

  ‘Nothing has been reported so far.’

  ‘Trains don’t vanish into thin air, man.’ The Minister fell back on repetition.

  ‘You’d think not, Minister. But it seems this one has.’

  This is karma for dumping Moira, the Minister thought to himself.

  Although Melvyn adopted a traditional bullish attitude to women when among his male peers, he was at heart, as is more often the way than not, scared of women. The reason he was with Trudy was simply that she had decided that he should be, and decisions, even unpalatable ones, come as a relief to the faint-hearted. The invitation to have sex with a curvaceous foreigner in a train that had apparently gone off the rails was profoundly disturbing to Melvyn. But it followed that he didn’t want to seem rude.

  ‘Erm, sure,’ he said.

  If his reply lacked enthusiasm, Monika didn’t seem to register it. Or maybe it was simply that she didn’t care. ‘Good. The first-class carriages are best for this, I think.’

  Lying across two passenger seats with Monika astride him, Melvyn could vaguely see countryside whizzing past through the opposite window. There appeared to be pine trees. Perhaps they were in one of the wooded regions of Wales.

  Monika bent down and bit his ear so hard that he jerked in pain. ‘You are coming?’ she inquired.

  ‘Oh, not yet. Sorry.’

  ‘I will wait for you,’ Monika said, leaning back on her heels.

  By the time he was in a position to observe the passing scenery again, there seemed to be mountains. ‘Where are we?’ Melvyn adjusted his trousers.

  Monika was mopping herself. ‘You like one?’ She offered a packet of baby wipes.

  ‘Oh, thanks.’

  ‘Sex with me was satisfactory?’ Monika asked.

  ‘Oh, yeah. Very nice, thank you.’

  ‘I am good at sex,’ Monika averred. ‘My boyfriend would like me to be a porn star. But I am going to train at the Regency College to be an accountant. One of my gentlemen friends gave me money for the fees. When I have completed my training he would like me to work for his haulage business.’

  Melvyn was staring out of the window. ‘Isn’t that snow?’

  ‘Yes. I think maybe we are in Bavaria.’

  ‘Bavaria?’

  ‘I went to Bavaria with my boyfriend from Łódz´. It was like this. Would you like maybe some more Red Bull?’

  Nan felt obliged to keep an eye on Matt, who was looking most unwell, but she found it hard to keep away from the studio. She hurried back to her canvas after giving him lemon barley water. Nothing had changed but the wolf looked more alive than ever.
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  ‘What do you want?’ she asked again.

  The creature looked back at her. Slowly the yellow eyes blinked.

  ‘Are you going to stay there?’ Nan asked.

  The wolf shook itself. Then it turned and padded into the painted darkness.

  The phone rang.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Mrs Maitland?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Peter Randall.’

  ‘Oh, hello.’

  ‘Would this evening be convenient at all?’

  Walking back to the house again, Nan thought, But I didn’t give him my number. Maybe Austin gave it to him. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said he could come, with Matt so ill. She turned back to the studio and dialled 1471 to get Peter Randall’s number. ‘You were called today at 3.47,’ the voice intoned. ‘The caller withheld their number.’

  Oh, well, Nan thought. What will be will be.

  ‘The Home Office rang finally, Minister.’

  ‘Why the hell didn’t you put them through to me?’

  ‘Nothing to report, Minister. They’ve drawn a complete blank on the buffet staff. He’s a harmless chap, no record of anything except some shoplifting as a juvenile, and she’s a Polish immigrant with nothing dodgy to her name.’

  ‘And what about the train?’

  ‘Not a dicky bird, Minister.’

  ‘God knows what’s going on.’

  ‘Let’s hope someone does, Minister.’

  ‘But how did we get here?’ Melvyn asked, with little expectation of an answer. Distracted as he’d been by Monika’s sexual athleticism, he was certain they had not gone under any sea.

  Monika had seemingly lost all interest in him once the sex was over. If Melvyn had been able to make his inchoate thoughts conscious, he might have complained that he had always supposed that it was men who became indifferent to their partners after sex. But maybe this wasn’t so for Poles. However, these unexpressed reactions were wholly submerged beneath a mounting panic. ‘What’s going on?’ he pleaded.