Jago

by Kim Newman

  She poured her tea and added milk. She raised the steaming cup cautiously to her mouth. When she sucked in a mouthful, it was cold as ice. The heat had drained away somewhere.

  10

  It was the hour of the wolf, between sunset and night, dark enough indoors to have one or two lights on. They had not exchanged more than a few words since the afternoon, but Paul felt he should be here for the unpacking. It was important to Hazel, and he needed to understand her work better, to get back close to her. She didn’t complain about his being there, but she wasn’t welcoming either. The bricks were pleasantly warm to the touch, but there might still be dangerously hot spots. Hazel slipped on the large gauntlets. She made and unmade floppy fists and scrabbled at the top of the kiln, pulling the key brick out of the arch. She worked quickly and precisely, like a film of someone building a wall run backwards, pulling out the outer bricks and stacking them. Rapidly, she stripped away the bright orange outer layer, baring the core of white firebricks.

  The clay-stained portable radio was tuned in to a Top Twenty show. She hummed along with bland, repetitive pop. She was trying to be matter-of-fact, but he could read her well enough to know she was wound tight. There was tension between them from the afternoon argument and other as yet unspoken grievances, but mainly she was worried about this kiln. Paul had the idea this was crucial for her, the one that decided whether she stuck with pottery and made something of it, or wrote it off as a passing enthusiasm and decided to do something else. He hoped the kiln would turn out well, not just for Hazel but for himself. If she were jogged out of her mood, he might have a chance of smoothing over the fracture between them.

  Both were sweating. The double doors were wide open and the comparative cool of the evening had come, but the kiln shed was heavy with retained heat. He felt a headache coming. In her tatty jeans and clay-caked T-shirt, Hazel looked very gamine. She crouched on the box in front of the kiln door, easing out the first of the firebricks. As she went up on her toes, callused heels rose from flip-flops. Paul squashed the impulse to hug her from behind. The news was on now, and she wasn’t humming. Somerset was mentioned: the hippie convoy had been moved on again. Bricks piled up. The interior of the kiln was in shadow.

  ‘The torch,’ she said.

  He handed her the rubber-coated torch, and she shone a beam into the cavity. Pots glistened and, as he looked over her shoulder, he saw unusual colours. Blues and greens. Not, thank God, browns.

  ‘It looks okay,’ he said, wishing it so.

  She made a noncommittal noise, and passed back the torch.

  ‘Let me help.’

  ‘All right,’ she said, ‘but be careful to stack them in order. They’re numbered and lettered, see.’

  He took hot bricks from her with bare hands and put them on the pile. She had laid out boards earlier to receive pots as they came out of the kiln.

  Finally, the kiln was open. Hazel slid back off the box and stood away, staring in with an unreadable expression. Paul looked, too. A wave of invisible heat struck his face. It looked as good as anything she had ever done, and better than most of her output. He reached for a cup near the front, but she took his hand before he could touch it.

  ‘Fingers,’ she said. ‘Be careful. It’s hot.’

  With a gauntlet, she pulled the pot out and held it up. An intricate design ringed the rim, vaguely Greek, white on blue.

  ‘It’s a success, isn’t it?’

  She smiled tightly. ‘Yes, better than expected.’

  She was puzzled, though. She put the cup on the nearest board, and started taking out other pots.

  Paul knew she was better at throwing than glazing, that she always had problems with her gloss firings. Her usual complaint was that everything she did came out brown, no matter what it was when it went in. Now, as he saw from the cups, plates, jugs, bottles and bowls on the boards, she’d got it right. Her design was more imaginative, more richly coloured. It was as if she had finally discovered how to do the trick.

  Boards filled up, but Hazel stopped before the kiln was even half empty. She took off her gauntlets and ran her fingertips over a large plate, tracing the image of a girl’s face drawn there with a few simple strokes. Then she left the kiln shed, and was silhouetted in the doorway. Paul realized she was crying. He went to her and embraced her. She was hot and squirmed ineffectually in his arms. ‘What’s the matter, darling? These are terrific.’

  Hazel freed herself and turned. A tear cut through the dust on one cheek. She was having trouble speaking, but finally she managed. ‘I didn’t do anything different. This just happened… on its own. I don’t know if I can do it again.’

  ‘Of course you can, Haze. Don’t underestimate yourself.’

  ‘No, it’s not… some of those designs I don’t recognize. The face in the plate. I don’t know where it came from. I don’t think I put it there.’

  ‘You’re being silly.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘You’re just going to have to put up with being talented. Come on, I’ll help you finish.’

  She followed him back into the heat, and together they emptied the temple-like kiln of its treasures. Outside, it started to get dark.

  11

  He was supposed to call his mummy and daddy Sue-Clare and Maurice, but kept forgetting. Everyone told him he wasn’t a baby any more, then jumped on him when he tried to be grown up. Jeremy knew that wasn’t fair, but didn’t complain. His sister sometimes moaned that things weren’t fair, but it never got her anywhere. Earlier, when Daddy quirted her for ruining a tablecloth by poking her coloured pencils through it, she’d said it was not fair. But she had still got a quirt. It was a smack, really—not even a hard one—but Daddy called it a quirt.

  That was forgotten now, and Hannah was on the sofa with Mummy and Daddy, watching the video. He was in the chair by Jethro’s basket, attention split between the screen and the sleeping dog. He was worried about Jethro. He wasn’t awake much these days, and when he was he whined and drooled thin spit. Hannah told him, spitefully, the Evil Dwarf had given Jethro AIDS, knowing, even though she didn’t believe in Dopey herself, it would upset him.

  Hannah clapped as James Bond’s boat turned into a hang-glider and saved him from a waterfall. There was a tall man with steel teeth in the video. Jeremy knew the man was in with the Evil Dwarf. They had the same rotten-egg eyes. When he grinned, which he did often, his steel teeth shone, gnashing like rows of bullets.

  When the video was over, Mummy told the children to go up to bed. They’d been downstairs in their pyjamas, watching the video as a treat. Their teeth were brushed.

  ‘Come on now,’ Mummy said again, ‘off to bed.’

  Jeremy looked at his parents. Daddy was practically asleep himself, slumped eyes shut, shirt open to show his brown chest.

  Hannah looked at him, smiled nastily, and got up. ‘Goodnight, Sue-Clare; good-night, Maurice,’ she said, exaggerating like an angel, and scampered off towards the door, passing into the dark corridor, up the dark stairs, across the dark landing, and into her dark room. He heard the click of her light-cord and the thud of her shutting door, then imagined her mean giggle.

  Two and a half years younger, she was proud of her courage. The dark didn’t matter to her. She didn’t understand about the Evil Dwarf. Hannah was stupid and didn’t understand much. She was making a show of going to bed to get back in with Mummy and Daddy, to prove she was forgiven her pencil rampage. One of the kids always had to be out, and it was usually Jeremy. Hannah was only out when she did something like making holes or setting fires. And often the blame could be passed on to her best friend, Lisa, who was usually the one to propose the actual mischief. Lisa was mean enough to be the Evil Dwarf’s girlfriend. After her quirt, Hannah was always given a cuddle and brought back in again. Jeremy was out most of the time, without it actually being his fault.

  ‘What are you waiting for, Jeremy?’

  Mummy’s smile had gone hard, like a woman advertising toothpaste. She was pretending she didn’t k
now what the problem was. Grown-ups said they didn’t pretend like children, but they did. All the time.

  ‘Come up with me,’ he said, experimentally. ‘It’s dark.’

  The corridor wasn’t the problem, the stairs weren’t the problem, and the landing wasn’t the problem. He could reach the light switches easily, and banish the darkness. He could know the Evil Dwarf wasn’t there. Wherever was lit up, Dopey couldn’t go. Jeremy thought that if he caught the Evil Dwarf with a beam of light, then he’d shrivel up and melt to a pile of sizzling goo.

  ‘The dark,’ Jeremy said.

  But in the dark, the drooling idiot could come for him, tongue extended to puncture his head and scoop his brains, to make him a mindless moron.

  ‘Jeremy,’ his mummy said, V-lines between her eyebrows, ‘you know there’s nothing.’

  Daddy was sitting up straight now, paying attention.

  ‘Off you go, Jeremy,’ he said, pretending to be cheerful. ‘Suki and I need to be alone. We’ve grown-up things to do.’

  ‘It’s not actually dark yet,’ Mummy said, ‘just dusk.’

  Jeremy looked at his parents, tears creeping behind his eyes. Daddy put a hand on Mummy’s shoulder, and his fingers dug in, kneading around her neck. She angled her head like a cat’s and rubbed his hand with her cheek.

  It was his room that was the problem. It was a funny shape, and in the oldest part of the farmhouse. Built before the electric light was put in properly, that part of the house didn’t have light switches by the doors, where they should be. There was a lamp by his bed, for reading. But he’d never cross the room in the dark and find the switch by fumbling. Not before the Evil Dwarf’s tongue displaced one of his eyes and bored into his brain. There was a light-cord, also by his bed, and he’d have to try for that. If he couldn’t get Mummy or Daddy to come with him and go into the room to turn on the light, then he’d have to run across the room, zigzagging to avoid Dopey, and make a grasp for the cord. He’d done it before, but he didn’t want to try again. This time, his fingers might miss, and the Evil Dwarf would have him, tongue snaking into his mind.

  ‘Mummy, can you come with me?’ Jeremy said, hating his whiny voice. He was determined not to cry. ‘Mummy?’

  He wasn’t simply scared. He was sensible. His teachers told him it wasn’t stupid to be scared of dangerous things.

  Everyone should be scared of big lorries travelling too fast, or electric cables that could turn you to a skeleton. Being frightened of those things wasn’t being scared, it was being sensible. And the Evil Dwarf was as actual and dangerous as a two-ton truck or a megavolt current.

  He knew.

  ‘Jeremy, you know what we’ve said. You’ve got to learn to do it on your own.’

  ‘Oh, Muuum,’ he said, tears beginning.

  Mummy would give in first. If she were on her own, she always gave in. The only times he lost this game were when Daddy was with Mummy, and in a grim mood.

  Like tonight.

  ‘Please…’

  Mummy bit her lip and chewed, slipping a glance at Daddy. He sat stone-faced, not giving anything away, hand still on Mummy’s shoulder.

  He’d tried leaving his lamp on all day, so the light would be waiting for him when it got dark outside. But it was always turned off by someone. Daddy warned him about wasting electricity, and Hannah liked to tease him, but Jeremy suspected the Evil Dwarf was behind it more often than not. It was an Evil Dwarf sort of thing to do.

  Mummy sighed and looked annoyed. ‘Maurice,’ she said, pleading a little.

  ‘No,’ Daddy said, ‘he has to learn.’

  Daddy looked at him.

  ‘Jerm,’ he said, the name like a stab, ‘up to bed. Now. No nonsense.’

  ‘But Daddy, Dopey…’

  Daddy clapped his hands and nodded towards the sitting-room door. ‘Jerm, you’re close to a quirt.’

  Jeremy didn’t want to be made stupid, like a sheep or a vegetable. He knew it was only being clever that made him what he was. If he were stupid, if the Evil Dwarf ate his brains, he wouldn’t be himself. He’d be dead, like the cows. Worse, he’d be pretending to be alive, like Jethro, but nothing like his old, actual self. Daddy ought to be able to understand. He admitted the thing that scared him was stupidity. Dopey was stupidity, infected with it like the measles, mindlessly bent on spreading the plague wherever he went, wherever his tongue probed.

  Jeremy’s chin wobbled, tears dripping from his eyes. ‘Muuum,’ he said, ‘please…’

  ‘I’ll come,’ said Mummy, giving in. Daddy was quiet.

  Mummy turned on the lights in the corridor, on the stairs and on the landing.

  ‘See,’ she said, ‘nothing.’

  She opened Jeremy’s door, dipping her hand into the darkness. Daddy was at the bottom of the stairs, disapproving. Mummy disappeared into the dark. She was safe, Jeremy hoped. The Evil Dwarf was only after him. The moment extended, and Jeremy felt himself building up to a panic. Inside, he was trembling. He imagined the Evil Dwarf pinning Mummy down on his child-sized bed, gripping her with his bony knees, quieting her cries by filling her throat with his bulging rope of tongue, so he could puncture the roof of her mouth, thrusting into her brain from below.

  There was a click, and the light came on. Jeremy, quiet, crept into the room. It was undisturbed. His posters and models were where they should be. His Narnia books were on the shelf in proper order, The Magician’s Nephew first, The Last Battle last. Mummy was all right. She drew his curtains, shutting out a faint red somewhere in the night.

  ‘Happy?’ Mummy said, still annoyed.

  Jeremy nodded.

  ‘Get into bed, nuisance,’ she said, smiling a little.

  Jeremy leaped under the covers and pulled them tight up around him. The covers were protection. Even if it was dark, the Evil Dwarf couldn’t get through the covers.

  Mummy sat on the bed, and Daddy loomed in the doorway.

  ‘It was only a film, you know,’ she said.

  ‘The man with steel teeth?’

  ‘An actor. He takes out his teeth and goes home. He’s not actual.’

  Jeremy nodded, agreeing. He knew better, but agreed.

  ‘Mummy,’ he said, ‘can I have the landing light on?’

  A thin line of light under his bedroom door was more protection.

  ‘You know you won’t be able to sleep.’

  ‘I will.’

  Mummy looked at Daddy, and Daddy shrugged. He was past complaining.

  ‘All right, but it’s the last time…’

  Safety!

  ‘Good-night, Sue-Clare; good-night, Maurice,’ he said, trying very hard.

  His parents left, shutting the door behind them. He heard them going downstairs. The landing light was still on.

  Jeremy reached out for the light-cord. This was the trickiest part. He had to wrap the covers around his arm, so nothing would be left uncovered in the dark the moment the light went off, and keep his head under the blankets, eyes tight shut. He couldn’t see the light under the door but knew it was there. That made a difference. He pulled the cord and whipped his hand in, too fast for the Evil Dwarf.

  Curled up into a tight ball under the covers, he waited. Nothing happened, so he relaxed, stretched out, and slept.

  12

  Paul changed into his robe and slippers. He had let her have the bathroom first and, by the time he was ready to come downstairs. Hazel had laid out supper in the sitting room. Biscuits, cheese, salad, white wine and newly washed fruit. Some of the plums from the Agapemone were fine. She had put music on, apparently at random since it was something he liked, Louis Armstrong. ‘What did I do to be so,’ Satchmo sang, ‘black and blue?’

  Hazel wasn’t quite out of her afternoon mood yet, but was changing. At least she was talking, mainly about the kiln. She was getting over her puzzlement, starting to be pleased. Paul was too relaxed to pay complete attention to her when she got technical, but was warmed by the recurrence of her old enthusiasm.


  The large plate with the girl’s face, still warm, was on the coffee table. Hazel was especially pleased with it, and now thought she could remember tracing the design in hot wax during the glazing session. It had a simplicity which reminded him of a Saul Bass poster. The girl’s lips were a cupid’s-bow smile, but the one exposed eye—the other was covered by a wing of hair—seemed pregnant with a soon-to-be-shed tear. The face didn’t look like anyone they knew.

  ‘I think I’ll keep her,’ Hazel said, ‘as a showpiece. I might try to slip her into my coursework next year.’

  She couldn’t stop running her fingers over the design. Nine lines, two dots. She wasn’t usually so pleasingly simple. Most of her patterned pots, he thought, were scruffy because they were too cluttered.

  ‘It’s the best thing you’ve ever done.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, raising her wine, ‘I think so too.’

  ‘And the rest of the kiln is good, too, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Almost all of it. Some of the saucers are speckled. They’ll be seconds.’

  ‘I love you.’

  ‘Mmm.’ That was an agreement, he gathered, not a reciprocation. Still, she bent sideways on the sofa to kiss him, brushing her lips to his.

  He wore his bathrobe and slippers; she had on a thin shift that hiked up when she sat down. He put his hand on her knee and responded to the kiss, gently poking with his tongue. He stroked her side, smoothing cotton over her ribs. Her hand came up and cupped his chin, prolonging the kiss. He fumbled with her buttons and held her breast, thumb teasing a nipple. She took his wrist between thumb and forefinger, and unstuck his hand from her body. The kiss broke.

  ‘Let’s go upstairs,’ one of them said.

  ‘Okay.’

  They left the supper things and the girl plate in the sitting room, and clung to each other on the stairs. His robe had fallen open, cord dragging behind him like a mummy’s loose bandage. They paused halfway up the stairs to lean on the banisters and kiss again. He felt warmth as his erection started. The sooner they got to the double bed, the better. Hazel sucked hungrily at his tongue, playfully biting. Then she drew away and went up ahead of him, tugging his hand. Downstairs, Louis was playing ‘All of Me’.