by Clive Barker
Thank God,’ he breathed. ‘Dad? It’s Cal.’ The sobbing softened. ‘Will you let me in. Dad?’
There was a short interval; then he heard his father’s footsteps as he crossed to the bedroom door. The key was turned; the door was opened a reluctant six inches.
The face on the other side was more shadow than man. Brendan looked neither to have washed nor shaved since the previous day.
‘Oh God … Dad.’
Brendan peered at his son with naked suspicion, ‘Is it really you?’
The comment reminded Cal of how he must look: his face bloodied and bruised.
‘I’m all right. Dad,’ he said, offering a smile. ‘What about you?’
‘Are all the doors closed?’ Brendan wanted to know.
‘The doors? Yes.’
‘And the windows?’
‘Yes.’
Brendan nodded. ‘You’re absolutely sure?’
‘I told you, yes. What’s wrong. Dad?’
‘The rats,’ said Brendan, his eyes scanning the landing behind Cal. ‘I heard them all night. They came up the stairs, they did. Sat at the top of the stairs. I heard them. Size of cats they were. They sat there waiting for me to come out.’
‘Well they’re not here any longer.’
‘Got in through the fence. Off the embankment. Dozens of them.’
‘Why don’t we go downstairs?’ Cal suggested, ‘I can make you some breakfast.’
‘No. I’m not coming down. Not today.’
Then I’ll make something and bring it up, shall I?’
‘If you like,’ said Brendan.
As Cal started down the stairs again, he heard his father lock and bolt the door once more.
2
In the middle of the morning, a knock on the door. It was Mrs Vallance, whose house was opposite the Mooneys’.
‘I was just passing,’ she said, this fact belied by the slippers on her feet. ‘I thought I’d see how your father was doing. He was very odd with the police, I heard. What did you do to your face?’
‘I’m all right.’
‘I had a very polite officer interview me,’ the woman said. ‘He asked me …’ she lowered her voice, ‘… if your father was unbalanced.’
Cal bit back a retort.
‘They wanted to talk to you too, of course,’ she said.
‘Well I’m here now,’ said Cal. ‘If they need me.’
‘My boy Raymond said he saw you on the railway. Running off, he said.’
‘Goodbye, Mrs Vallance.’
‘And he’s got good eyes has Raymond.’
‘I said goodbye,’ said Cal, and slammed the door in the woman’s self-satisfied face.
3
Her visit was not the last of the day; several people called to see that all was well. There was clearly much gossip in the street about the Mooney household. Perhaps some bright spark had realized that it had been the centre of the previous day’s drama.
Every time there was a knock on the door, Cal expected to see Shadwell on the step. But apparently the Salesman had more urgent concerns than finishing the job he’d begun in the ruins of Shearman’s house. Or perhaps he was simply waiting for more propitious stars.
Then, just after noon, while Cal was out at the loft feeding the birds, the telephone rang.
He raced inside and snatched it up. Even before she spoke Cal knew it was Suzanna.
‘Where are you?’
She was breathless, and agitated.
‘We have to get out of the city, Cal. They’re after us.’
‘Shadwell?’
‘Not just Shadwell. The police.’
‘Have you got the carpet?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well then tell me where you are. I’ll come and –’
‘I can’t. Not on the ‘phone.’
‘It’s not tapped, for God’s sake.’
‘Any bets?’
‘I have to see you,’ he said, somewhere between a request and a demand.
‘Yes …’ she replied, her voice softening. ‘Yes, of course …’
‘How?’
There was a long silence. Then she said: ‘Where you made your confession.’
‘What?’
‘You remember.’
He thought about it. What confession had he ever made to her? Oh yes: I love you. How could he have forgotten that?
‘Yes?’ she said.
‘Yes. When?’
‘An hour.’
‘I’ll be there.’
‘We don’t have much time, Cal.’
He was going to tell her he knew that, but the line was already dead.
The ache in his bruised bones improved miraculously after the conversation; his step was light as he went upstairs to check on Brendan.
‘I have to go out for a while, Dad.’
‘Have you locked all the doors?’ his father asked.
‘Yes, the house is locked and bolted. Nothing can get in. Is there anything else you need?’
Brendan took a moment to consider the question.
‘I’d like some whisky,’ he said finally.
‘Do we have any?’
‘In the book-case,’ said the old man. ‘Behind the Dickens.’
‘I’ll fetch it for you.’
He was sliding the bottle from its hiding place when the door-bell rang again. He was of half a mind not to answer it, but the visitor insisted.
‘I’ll be with you in a minute,’ he called upstairs; then opened the door.
The man in the dark glasses said:
‘Calhoun Mooney?’
‘Yes.’
‘My name’s Inspector Hobart; this is Officer Richardson. We’re here to ask you some questions.’
‘Right now?’ said Cal. ‘I’m just about to go out.’
‘Urgent business?’ said Hobart.
Wiser to say no, Cal reasoned.
‘Not exactly,’ he said.
‘Then you won’t mind us taking up some time,’ said Hobart, and the two of them were inside the house in seconds.
‘Close the door,’ Hobart instructed his colleague. ‘You look flustered, Mooney. Have you got something to hide?’
‘Why should …? No.’
‘We’re in possession of information to the contrary.’
From above, Brendan called for his whisky.
‘Who’s that?’
‘It’s my father,’ said Cal. ‘He wanted a drink.’
Richardson plucked the bottle from Cal’s hand and crossed to the bottom of the stairs.
‘Don’t go up,’ said Cal. ‘You’ll frighten him.’
‘Nervous family,’ Richardson remarked.
‘He’s not been well,’ said Cal.
‘My men are like lambs,’ said Hobart. ‘As long as you’re within the law.’
Again, Brendan’s voice drifted down:
‘Cal? Who is it?’
‘Just someone who wants a word with me, Dad,’ Cal said.
There was another answer in his throat, though. One which he swallowed unsaid. A truer answer.
It’s the rats. Dad. They got in after all.
4
The minutes ticked by. The question came around and around, as if on a carousel. It was apparent from Hobart’s probing that he’d spoken at length with Shadwell, so outright denials from Cal were fruitless. He was obliged to tell what little part of the truth he could. Yes, he did know a woman called Suzanna Parrish. No, he knew nothing of her personal history, nor had she spoken of her political affiliations. Yes, he had seen her in the last twenty-four hours. No, he did not know where she was now.
As he answered the questions he tried not to think of her waiting for him at the river; waiting and not finding him and going away. But the more he tried to put the thought from his head, the more it returned.
‘Restless, Mooney?’
‘I’m a little hot, that’s all.’
‘Got an appointment to keep, have you?’
‘No.’
> ‘Where is she, Mooney?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘There’s no sense in protecting her. She’s the worst filth, Mooney. Believe me. I’ve seen what she can do. Things you wouldn’t believe. Makes my stomach turn over to think of it.’
He spoke with complete conviction. Cal didn’t doubt that he meant all he said.
‘What are you, Mooney?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Are you my friend or my enemy? There’s no middle way, you see. No maybe. Friend or enemy. Which?’
‘I’ve done nothing against the law.’
‘I’ll be the one to decide that,’ said Hobart. ‘I know the Law. I know it and love it. And I won’t have it spat on, Mooney. Not by you or anybody.’ He took a breath. Then stated: ‘You’re a liar. Mooney. I don’t know how deep you’re in this, or why, but I do know you’re a liar.’ A pause. Then: ‘So we’ll start over again, shall we?’
‘I’ve told you everything I know.’
‘We’ll start from the beginning. How did you meet the terrorist Suzanna Parrish?’
5
After two and three quarter hours on the carousel, Hobart finally bored of the ride, and pronounced that he was finished with Cal for now. No charges would be pressed, at least not immediately, but Cal should consider himself under suspicion.
‘You made yourself two enemies today, Mooney,’ Hobart said. ‘Me and the Law. You’ll live to regret that.’
Then the rats left.
Cal sat in the back room for five minutes, trying to gather his thoughts, then went up to see how Brendan was faring. The old man was asleep. Leaving his father to his dreams, Cal went in search of his own.
6
She’d gone, of course; long ago.
He wandered around in the vicinity, searching amongst the warehouses, hoping she’d left some message for him, but there was none to be found.
Exhausted by all the day had brought, he headed home. As he stepped through the gate back onto the Dock Road he caught sight of someone watching him from a parked car. One of Hobart’s clan, perhaps; one of the Law-lovers. Maybe Suzanna had been nearby after all, but unable to make her presence known for fear of being spotted. The thought of her being so close, frustrating as it was, cushioned the blow of not seeing her, at least a little. When things were safe, she’d call him and arrange another rendezvous.
In the evening, the wind got up, and it gusted through the night and the following day, bringing the first chill of autumn with it. But it brought no news.
II
DESPAIR
nd so it went on for a week and a half: no news, no news.
He returned to work, claiming his father’s illness as reason for his absence, and took up where he’d left off amid the claim forms. At lunchtimes he came back to the house to heat up some food for Brendan – who, though he could be coaxed from his room, was painfully anxious to return to it – and to feed the birds. In the evenings he made some attempt to tidy the garden; he even patched the fence. But these tasks received only a fraction of his attention. However many diversions he put between himself and his impatience, nine out of every ten thoughts were of Suzanna and her precious burden.
But the more days that went by without word from her, the more he began to think the unthinkable: that she wasn’t going to ring. Either she feared the consequences of trying to make contact or, worse, she no longer could. Towards the end of the second week, he decided to try and find the carpet by the only means available to him. He set the pigeons free.
They rose up into the air in an aerial ovation, and circled the house. The sight reminded him of that first day in Rue Street, and his spirits lifted.
‘Go on,’ he willed them. ‘Go on.’
Round and round they flew, as if orienting themselves. His heart beat a little faster each time it seemed one of them was detaching itself from the flock to head off. Running shoes on, he was ready to follow.
But after all too short a time they began to tire of their liberation. One by one they fluttered down again – even 33 – some landing in the garden, others on the gutters of the house. A few even flew straight back into the loft. Their perches were cramped, and doubtless the night trains disturbed their sleep, but for most of them it was the only habitat they’d ever known.
Though there were surely winds up there to tempt them, winds that smelt of places lusher than their loft beside the railway line, they had no wish to chance their wings on such currents.
He cursed them for their lack of enterprise; and fed them; and watered them; and finally returned despondently to the house, where Brendan was talking of rats again.
III
FORGETFULNESS
1
he third week of September brought rain. Not the torrents of August, which had poured from operatic skies, but drizzles and piddlings. The days grew greyer; and so, it seemed, did Brendan. Though Cal made daily attempts to persuade his father downstairs, he would no longer come. Cal also made two or three valiant efforts to talk about what had happened a month before, but the old man was simply not interested. His eyes became glazed as soon as he sensed the drift of the conversation, and if Cal persisted he grew irritable.
The professionals judged that Brendan was suffering from senile dementia, an irreversible process which would finally make him impossible for Cal to nurse. It might be best for all concerned, they advised, if a place were found in a Nursing Home, where Brendan could be cared for twenty-four hours a day.
Cal rejected the suggestion. He was certain that Brendan’s cleaving to a room he knew – one he’d shared with Eileen for so many years – was all that was keeping him from total breakdown.
He was not alone in his attempts to nurse his father. Two days after he’d failed to set the pigeons flying. Geraldine had appeared at the house. There was ten minutes of hesitant apologies and explanations, then Brendan’s condition entered the exchange and Geraldine’s good sense came triumphantly to the fore. Forget our differences, she said, I want to help. Cal was not about to refuse the offer. Brendan responded to Geraldine’s presence as a child to a long-lost teat. He was cosseted and indulged, and with Geraldine in the house in Eileen’s place, Cal found himself falling back into the old domestic routines. The affection he felt for Geraldine was painless, which was surely the most certain sign of how slight it was. When she was there he was happy to be with her. But he seldom, if ever, missed her.
As to the Fugue, he did his best to keep his memories of it sharp, but it was by no means easy. The Kingdom had ways to induce forgetfulness so subtle and so numerous he was scarcely aware of how they dulled him.
It was only when, in the middle of a dreary day, something reminded him – a scent, a shout – that he had once been in another place, and breathed its air and met its creatures, it was only then that he realized how tentative his recall was. And the more he went in pursuit of what he was forgetting the more it eluded him.
The glories of the Fugue were becoming mere words, the reality of which he could no longer conjure. When he thought of an orchard it was less and less that extraordinary place he’d slept in (slept, and dreamt that this life he was now living was the dream) and more a commonplace stand of apple trees.
The miracles were drifting from him, and he seemed to be unable to hold onto them.
Surely dying was like this, he thought; losing things dear and unable to prevent their passing.
Yes; this was a kind of dying.
2
Brendan, for his part, continued to continue. As the weeks passed, Geraldine managed to talk him into joining them downstairs, but he was interested in little but tea and television, and his conversation was now scarcely more than grunts. Sometimes Cal would watch Brendan’s face as he sat slumped in front of the television – his expression unchanging whether the screen offered pundits or comedians – and wondered what had happened to the man he’d known. Was the old Brendan still in hiding somewhere, behind those addled eyes?, or had he been an illus
ion all along, a son’s dream of his father’s permanence which, like the letter from Eileen, had simply evaporated? Perhaps it was for the best, he thought, that Brendan was shielded from his pain, then drew himself up short at such a thought. Wasn’t that what they said as the coffin was marched past: it was all for the best? Brendan wasn’t dead yet.
As time went by, Geraldine’s presence began to prove as comforting to Cal as to the old man. Her smiles were the brightest thing those dismal months could boast. She came and went, more indispensable by the day, until, in the first week of December, she suggested it might be more convenient all round if she slept at the house. It was a perfectly natural progression.
‘I don’t want to marry you,’ she told him quite plainly. The sorry spectacle of Theresa’s marriage – five months old and already rocky – had confirmed her worst suspicions of matrimony. ‘I did want to marry you once,’ she said. ‘But now I’m happy just to be with you.’
She proved easy company; down-to-earth, unsentimental: as much companion as lover. She it was who made certain the bills were paid on time, and saw that there was tea in the caddy. She it was too who suggested that Cal sell the pigeons.
‘Your father doesn’t show any interest in them any longer,’ she said on more than one occasion. ‘He wouldn’t even notice if they were gone.’
That was certainly true. But Cal refused to contemplate the sale. Come spring and the fine weather his father might well show fresh interest in the birds.
‘You know that’s not true,’ she’d tell him when he put this point. ‘Why do you want to keep them so much? They’re just a burden.’ Then she’d let the subject drop for a few days, only to raise it again when a cue was presented.
History was repeating itself. Often in the course of these exchanges, which gradually became more heated. Cal could hear echoes of his mother and father: the same routes were being trodden afresh. And, like his father, Cal – though malleable on almost every other issue – was immovable on this. He would not sell the birds.
The real reason for his bullishness was not, of course, hope of Brendan’s rehabilitation, but the fact that the birds were his last concrete link with the events of the previous summer.
