by Tim Lebbon
“You’re a very lucky man,” Philip Howards said. He was sitting opposite Adam, staring over his shoulder at where Alison was perusing the menu board, Jamie wriggling in her arms.
Adam nodded. “I know.”
Howards look at him intently, staring until Adam had to avert his gaze. Shit, the old guy was a spook and a half! Fine clothes, gold weighing down his fingers, a healthy tan, the look of a traveled man about him. His manner also gave this impression, a sort of weary calmness that came with wide and long experience, and displayed a wealth of knowledge. He said he was seventy, but he looked fifty.
“You really are. The angels, they told you that didn’t they?”
Adam could not look at him.
“The angels. Maybe you thought they were fairies or demons. But with them, it’s all the same thing really. How did you get those scars on your cheek?”
Adam glanced up at him. “You know how or you wouldn’t have asked.”
Howards raised his head to look through the glasses balanced on the tip of his nose. He was inspecting Adam’s face. “You doubted them for a while.”
Adam did not nod, did not reply. To answer this man’s queries—however calmly they were being put to him—would be to admit to something unreal. They were dreams, that was all, he was sure. Two men could share the same dreams, couldn’t they?
“Well, I did the same. I got this for my troubles.” He pulled his collar aside to display a knotted lump of scar tissue below his left ear. “One of them bit me.”
Adam looked down at his hands in his lap. Alison came back with Jamie, put her hands on his shoulders and whispered into his ear. “Jamie would prefer a burger. We’re not used to jazzy places like this. I’ll take him to McDonald’s—”
“No, stay here with me.”
She kissed his ear. “No arguing. I think you want to be alone anyway, yes? I can tell. And later, you can tell. Tell me what all this is about.”
Adam stood and hugged his wife, ruffled Jamie’s hair. “I will,” he said. He squatted down and gave his son a bear hug. “You be a good boy for Mummy.”
“Gut boy.”
“That’s right. You look after her. Make sure she doesn’t spend too much money!”
“Goodbye, Mr. Howards,” Alison said.
Howards stood and shook her hand. “Charmed.” He looked sadly at Jamie and sat back down.
Alison and Jamie left. Adam ordered a glass of wine. Howards, he knew, was not taking his eyes from him for a second.
“You’ll lose them,” he said.
“What?”
Howards nodded at the door, where Alison and Jamie had just disappeared past the front window. “You’ll lose them. It’s part of the curse. You do well, everyone and everything else goes.”
“Don’t you talk about my family like that! I don’t even know you. Are you threatening me?” He shook his head when the old man did not answer. “I should have fucking known. You’re a crank. All this bullshit about angels, you’re trying to confuse me. I’m still not totally settled, I was in a disaster, you’re trying to confuse me, get money out of me—”
“I have eight million pounds in several bank accounts,” Howards said. “More than I can ever spend… and the angels call themselves Amaranth.”
Adam could only stare open-mouthed. Crank or no crank, there was no way Howards could know that. He had told no one, he had never mentioned it. He had not even hinted at the strange visions he experienced as he waited to die in the sea.
“I’ll make it brief,” Howards said, stirring his glass of red wine with a finely manicured finger. “And then, when you believe me, I want you to do something for me.”
“I don’t know—”
“I was on holiday in Cairo with my wife and two children. This was back in ‘59. Alex was seven. Sarah was nine. There was a fire in the hotel and our room was engulfed. Alex… Alex died. Sarah and my wife fled. I could not leave Alex’s body, not in the flames, not in all the heat. It just wasn’t right. So I stayed there with him, fully expecting rescue. It was only as I was blinded by heat and the smoke filled my lungs that I knew no rescue was going to come.”
“Then something fell across me—something clear and solid, heavy and warm—and protected me from the flames. It took the smoke from inside me… I can’t explain, I’ve never been able to, not even to myself. It just sucked it out, but without touching me.”
“Then I was somewhere else, and Amaranth was there, and they told me what a lucky man I was.”
Adam shook his head. “No, I’m not hearing this. You know about me, I’ve talked in my sleep or… or…”
“Believe me, I’ve never been to bed with you.” There was no humor in Howards’s comment.
How could he know? He could not. Unless…
“Amaranth saved you?”
Howards nodded.
“From the fire?”
“Yes.”
“And they took you… they took you to their place?”
“The streets of Paris and then a small Cornish fishing village. Both filled with people of good fortune.”
Adam shook his head again, glad at last that there was something he could deny in this old man’s story. “No, no, it was London and Italy and then America somewhere, New York I’ve always thought.”
Howards nodded. “Different places for different people. Never knew why, but I suppose that’s just logical really. So where were the damned when you were there?”
“The damned…” Adam said quietly. He knew exactly what Howards meant, but he did not even want to think about it. If the old man had seen the same thing as he, then it was real, and people truly did suffer like that.
“The unlucky, the place… You know what I mean. Please, Adam, be honest with me. You really must if you ever want to understand any of this or help yourself through it. Remember, I’ve been like this for over forty years.”
Adam swirled his wine and stared into its depths, wondering what he could see in there if he concentrated hard. “It was an island,” he said, “in a big lake. Or a sea, I’m not sure, it all seemed to change without moving.”
Howards nodded.
“And they were crucified. And they were burning them.” Adam swallowed his wine in one gulp. “It was horrible.”
“For me it was an old prison,” Howards said, “on the cliffs above the village. They were throwing them from the high walls. There were hundreds of bodies broken on the rocks, and seagulls and seals and crabs were tearing them apart. Some of them were still alive.”
“What does this mean?” Adam said. “I don’t know what to do with this. I don’t know what to tell Alison.”
Howards looked down at his hands where they rested on the table. He twirled his wedding band as he spoke. “I’ve had no family or friends for thirty years,” he said. “I’m unused to dealing with such… intimacies.”
“But you’re one of the lucky ones, like me? Amaranth said so. What happened to your family? What happened to your wife and your daughter Sarah?”
Howards looked up, and for an instant he appeared much older than he had claimed, ancient. It was his eyes, Adam thought. His eyes had seen everything.
“They’re all dead,” Howards said. “And still those things follow me everywhere.”
Adam was stunned into silence. There was chatter around them, the sound of Howards’s rings tapping against his glass as he stirred his wine, the sizzle of hot plates bearing steaks and chicken. He looked at Howards’s down-turned face, trying to see if he was crying. “They follow you?” he gasped.
Howards nodded and took a deep breath, steeling himself. “Always. I see them from time to time, but I’ve known they’re always there for years now. I can feel them… watching me. From the shadows. From hidden corners. From places just out of sight.” His demeanor had changed suddenly, from calm and self-assured to nervous and frightened. His eyes darted left and right like a bird’s, his hands closed around his wine glass and his fingers twisted against each other. Someone o
pened the kitchen door quickly and he sat up, a dreadful look already on his face.
“Are they here now?” Adam asked. He could not help himself.
Howards shrugged. “I can’t see them. But they’re always somewhere.”
“I’ve not seen them. Not since I dreamed them.”
The old man looked up sharply when Adam said dreamed. “We’re their sport. Their game. I can’t think why else they would continue to spy…”
“And your family? Sport?”
Howards smiled slightly, calming down. It was as if casting his mind back decades helped him escape the curse he said he lived under in the present. “You ever heard Newton’s third law of motion? To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
Adam thought of Alison and Jamie, and without any warning he began to cry. He sobbed out loud and buried his face in his napkin, screwing his fingers into it, pressing it hard against his eyes and nose and mouth. He could sense a lessening in the restaurant’s commotion as people turned to look and, soon after, a gradual increase in embarrassed conversation.
“And that’s why I have to ask you something,” Howards said. “I’ve been asking people this for many years now, those few I meet by chance or happen to track down. Amaranth doesn’t disturb me; they must know that no one will agree to what I ask. My asking increases their sport, I suppose. But I continue to try.”
“What?” Adam asked. He remembered the certainty, as he floated in the sea, that Alison was dead. It brought a fresh flow of tears, but these were silent, more heartfelt and considered. He could truly imagine nothing worse—except for Jamie.
“Deny them. Take away their sport. They’ve made you a lucky man, but you can reject that. If you don’t… your family will be gone.”
“Don’t you fucking threaten me!” Adam shouted, standing and throwing down his napkin, confused, terrified. The restaurant fell completely silent this time, and people stared. Some had a look in their eyes—a hungry look—as if they knew they were about to witness violence. Adam looked straight at Howards, never losing eye contact, trying to see the madness in his face. But there was none. There was sorrow mixed with contentment, a deep and weary sadness underlying healthy good fortune. “Why don’t you do it yourself! Why, if it’s such a good idea, don’t you deny them!”
“It’s too late for me,” Howards said quietly, glancing around at the other patrons watching him. “They were dead before I knew.”
“Fuck you!” Adam shouted. “You freak!” He turned and stormed out of the restaurant, a hundred sets of eyes scoring his skin. He wondered if any of the diners recognized him from his fifteen minutes of fame.
As the restaurant door slammed behind him and he stepped out into the street, the sun struck his tearful eyes, blinding him for a moment. Across the pedestrian area, sandwiched between a travel agent’s and a baker’s shop, a green door liquefied for a second and then reformed. Its color changed to deep-sea blue.
Before his sight adjusted, Adam saw something clear and solid pass through the door.
“So?” Alison asked.
“Fruitcake.” He slid across the plastic seat and hugged his son to him. Then he leaned over the food-strewn table and planted a kiss squarely on his wife’s mouth. She was unresponsive.
“The angels, then?” She was injecting good cheer into her voice, but she was angry. She wanted answers, and he knew that. He had never been able to lie to his wife. Even white lies turned his face bloodred.
Adam shook his head and sighed, stealing a chip from Jamie’s tray and fending off his son’s tomato-sauce retribution. He looked up, scanned the burger bar, searching for strange faces that he could not explain.
“Adam,” Alison said, voice wavering, “I want to know what’s going on. I saw the look on your face when you were on the phone with him yesterday. It’s like you were suddenly somewhere else, seeing something different, feeling something horrible. You turned white. Remember that time you tried some pot and couldn’t move for two hours and felt sick? You looked worse than you did then.”
“Honey, it’s just that what he said reminded me of the crash.”
Alison nodded and her face softened. She wanted to keep on quizzing, he could tell, but she was also a wonderful wife. She did not want to hurt him, or to inspire thoughts or memories that might hurt him.
“And what your mum said to Jamie about the angels saving me. When Howards mentioned angels, it brought it all back. I was sinking, you know? Sinking into the sea. Bodies around me. Then I floated back up, I saw the sunlight getting closer. And… he just reminded me of when I broke the surface.” He was lying! He was creating untruths, but he was doing it well. Even so he felt wretched, almost as if he were betraying Alison, using her supportive nature against her. He looked outside and wondered whether those things were enjoying his lies. He felt sick.
“Park!” Jamie shouted suddenly. “Go to park! Swing, swing!”
“All right tiger, here we go!” Adam said, pleased to be able to change the subject. Tears threatened once more as he wrestled with Jamie and stole his chips and heard his son squeal with delight as he tickled him.
Deny them, Howards had said. If you don’t… your family will be gone.
He thought of the watch, and the interview money, and his painting, and the new-found closeness that surrounded him and Alison and Jamie like a sphere of solid crystal, fending off negative influences from outside, reflecting all the badness that bubbled in the world around them.
How could he give any of this up? Even if it were possible—even if Howards was not the madman Adam knew him to be—how could he possibly turn his back on this?
In the park, he and Alison sat on a bench and hugged each other. Jamie played on a toddler’s climbing frame, occasional tumbles making him giggle, not cry. He was an adventurous lad and he wore his grazed knees and bruised elbows as proud testaments to this. Adam kissed Alison. It turned from a peck on the lips to a long, lingering kiss, tongues meeting, warmth flooding through him as love made itself so beautifully known.
Then the inevitable shout from Jamie as he saw his parents involved in each other for a moment, instead of him.
“I could have lost you both,” Adam said, realizing as he spoke how strange it sounded.
“We could have lost you.”
He nodded. “That’s what I meant.” He looked across to the trees bordering the park, but there were no flitting shadows beneath them. Nobody was spying on them from the gate. The hairs on the back of his neck stayed down.
They watched Jamie for a while, taking simple but heartfelt enjoyment in every step he climbed, each little victory he won for himself.
“I started a painting this morning,” Adam said.
“I know. I saw you leave the room and heard you setting up.”
“It’s… incredible. It’s already painted in here,” he said, tapping his head, “and it’s coming out exactly how I envisoned it. No imperfections. You know the quote from that Welsh writer, ‘I dream in fire—’”
”’—and work in clay.’ Of course I know it. You’ve spat it out every month since I’ve known you.”
Adam smiled. “Well, this morning I was working in fire. Dreaming and working in fire. I’m alight… my fingers and hands are doing the exact work I want of them. I can’t explain it, but… maybe the crash has given me new insight. New vigor.”
“Made you realize how precious life is,” Alison mused, watching Jamie slip giggling down the slide.
Adam looked at her and nodded. He kissed her temple. He worshipped her, he realized. She was his bedrock.
He could smell the rich scent of flowers, hear birds chirping in the trees bordering the park, feel the warmth of the wooden bench beneath him, taste the sweetness of summer in the air. He truly was alight.
He finished the painting the following morning. That afternoon he called Maggie, his former art agent, and asked her to come up from London, take a look. Two days later he had placed it in a major exhibition in a L
ondon gallery.
The painting was entitled “Dreaming in Fire and Ice.” Only Alison saw it for what it really was: an affirmation of his love, and a determination that nothing— nothing—would ever rip their family apart. He was a good man. He would never let that happen.
On the first day of the exhibition he sold the painting for seven thousand pounds. That same evening, Alison’s elderly mother, Molly, slipped and fell downstairs, breaking her leg in five places
.
“How is she?”
Alison looked up from the magazine she was not reading and Adam’s heart sank. Her eyes were dark, her skin pale, nose red from crying. “Not too good. There’s a compound fracture, and they’re sure her hip’s gone as well. She’s unconscious. Shock. In someone so old, they said… well, I told them she was strong.”
He went to his wife and hugged her, wondering whether he was being watched by Amaranth even now. He had seen one of them on the way to the hospital, he was certain, hunkered down on the back of a flatbed truck, raising its liquid head as he motored the other way. He had glanced in the rearview mirror and seen something, but he could not be sure. The car was vibrating, the road surface uneven. It could have been anything. Maybe it was light dancing in his eyes from the panic he felt.
“Oh, honey,” he said, “I’m so sorry. I’m sure she’ll be all right. She’ll pull through. Stubborn old duck wouldn’t dream of doing anything otherwise, you know that.”
“I just don’t want her to meet her god that quickly,” Alison said, and she cried into his neck. He felt her warm tears growing cold against his skin, the shuddering as she tried to stop but failed, and he started to cry as well.
“The angels will save her,” Adam said without thinking, for something to say more than anything, and because it was what Molly would have said. He didn’t mean it. He felt Alison stiffen and held his breath.
They won’t, he thought. They won ‘t save her. They’ve got their sport in me.
Something ran a finger down his spine, and he knew that there were eyes fixed upon him. He turned as best he could to look around, but the corridor was empty in both directions. There were two doors half open, a hose reel coiled behind a glass panel, a junction two dozen steps away, a tile missing from the suspended ceiling grid. Plenty of places to hide.
