Jago

by Kim Newman

  Susan found herself on her knees, head whirling, and put out hands to push away the carpeted floor. Her head, weighted like an anchor, dragged her down. The empty aspirin bottle rolled away. She fought heavy eyelids. Someone stood over her. She recalled Catriona’s eyes as she saw what couldn’t be there. And she imagined Jago staring, caught, as he was sometimes during her sermons, by a vision of the beyond which he misunderstood as proof of his own divinity. Her eyes popped open even as she sank, and Beloved was there. He raised a foot, and she saw the sole of his shoe. She flinched mentally, her body lagging way behind her mind, expecting the tread on her face, but he simply touched his toe to her chest, a hunter posing with a shot lioness. A thrill leaped from him and electrified her. She jolted, then slumped, shocked asleep.

  3

  ‘Hmmmm,’ Hazel said, ‘that was nice.’

  Cindy, a trainee hairdresser before coming to Beloved, fussed with Hazel’s hair and face, as if prettying a doll. They had all felt it. Jenny recalled the transport of her own Great Manifestation, and a deep warmth spread from her heart.

  ‘Just a taste, my Sister, my Love,’ she told Hazel.

  ‘It’s like hot ice cream, isn’t it?’ Cindy said.

  Hazel snorted a laugh, and her hair shook. ‘Not at all, it was…’

  She had no words. That was all right. Beloved was beyond words.

  ‘It was the Beloved Presence, Hazel. You’ll get used to it.’

  ‘I’m not sure about that.’

  Ever since her own Great Manifestation, Jenny had known the cycle was drawing to a close. When Beloved found perfection, He would end all things. Looking at Hazel’s face, with the slight Chinese turn to her eyes, Jenny wondered if she was perfection. Maybe it had to do with purity of intent, an ability to forget self, to become totally the empty vessel for Beloved’s benison. Certainly, Jenny’s own thoughts had been too much with herself. Beloved had forgiven, but she remembered the sharp edge of her own disappointment. That had been soothed away in the white-hot intensity of the Great Manifestation.

  ‘There now,’ Cindy cooed, arranging Hazel’s shining hair around her shoulders. ‘That’s comely.’

  * * *

  In her dream, Susan was a teenager again, struggling with a difficult lover. It might have been David, as he’d been when she first saw him. It might have been Roger, sucking back spit as he tried to get himself into her. It might have been one of the boys from Lancaster, the slightly younger-than-her feebs she attracted. It might even have been James, unfamiliarly young and uncontrolled. Her lover’s face was shadowed. Bedclothes tangled between them. He wasn’t hurting her, but, despite a great deal of effort, he wasn’t doing anything right either. She wished he’d slow down or stop. His lips were on her neck and face constantly. She took his head in her hands and eased it up so she could see his face. Instantly it faded to transparency and coalesced with the darkness. But the eyes had been unmistakable. Anthony William Jago.

  * * *

  They were ten feet from each other, doing different things. Syreeta was sorting through a box of cassettes looking for Dolar’s demo tape, and Jessica was pretending to ignore him while she watched him. Ferg was uncomfortable, but didn’t want to move for fear of exciting interest. He was sure Syreeta was really looking at him, too.

  Suddenly, as one, the pair of them looked up and gave an identical gasp, as if taken by surprise. They looked into the air at nothing, then at each other. Jessica was blushing and Syreeta shaking her head. Something had passed between them, a secret message. He knew it, and boiled inside. Then, together, they began giggling.

  * * *

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘Girl fainted.’

  Gary Chilcot was kneeling over a small body, fanning with a paper plate. Lytton’s neck prickled and he imagined the worst. It was Pam, the doll-like redhead.

  ‘Should I loosen her clothing?’ Gary said, tongue scraping the grass.

  Lytton got close. The girl was breathing, didn’t smell of drink, wasn’t obviously wounded and didn’t have a syringe stuck in her arm. He touched her eyelid with a thumb, planning to check her pupil for dilation. At his touch, her eyes flicked open.

  ‘She’s fine,’ Lytton said, not yet sure if she was.

  Pam sat up, and put her fingers through her short hair. She didn’t seem to have had anything apart from a nice sleep and pleasant dreams. The girl looked at him directly, and gave an unmistakable smile.

  ‘Fuck,’ she said with wonder, shaking her shoulders and head.

  ‘She’s all right.’

  Lytton stood. Pam propped herself up on her elbows and stretched her entire body, cream-pale midriff drum-tight.

  ‘I couldn’t half do with a cigarette,’ she said.

  * * *

  The family were together again, Maskell joined with Sue-Clare, Hannah and Jethro in the big bedroom, producing fruit. His flesh extended, joining with his wife and daughter, heavy with his seed. Sue-Clare whispered in his ear, occasionally nibbling the lobe, occasionally flicking the inside with her tongue. She was coaxing his seed free. Hannah, wrapped in her ball of moss, sang ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. Maskell’s hand was under his wife’s breast, fingers snug against the grooves of her ribs.

  ‘Ssssuki,’ he hissed, loving her.

  He pulled back to watch her face change. Bangs of tiny ivy shoots around her cheeks shook as she received his seed. Her eyes shut, she caught her breath, held it and, as the blush settled, slowly sighed air out of her lungs.

  * * *

  His vision blurry, Teddy groped his way, using the low walls as a guide. The burning in his head was worse than the worst hangover he’d ever had. Fighting, he stood up and got his eyes open. After a heroic effort, he managed to stand straight. He stared and his eyesight came back. He was not the only one staring. Sharon Coram and the black boy Teddy had seen her with earlier were on the grass verge, wound together like the strands of a rope. They were clothed, but their mouths were fastened as if Sharon were swallowing the boy’s tongue, a fakir taking a snake into her stomach. They wriggled against one another, buttons coming free as if the couple were so hot to get down to it they couldn’t even wait to take off their clothes. The crowd laughed and made comments, but the performers didn’t mind. Stan Budge, who worked and drank with Teddy’s father, opened his throat and began, in a boozy bass, to sing one of his annoying folk songs, ‘The Village Pump’. Sharon wrenched the boy’s head to one side, her hand gripping his dreads, and screamed. Not with pain.

  * * *

  Jeremy couldn’t understand it. Beth Yatman, who’d been standing at the gate checking customers’ badges, was laughing like a hyena, a deep, full and dangerous laugh that disturbed him. He wasn’t sure what to do. Beth was staggering, and the line of festival people were getting impatient.

  ‘Another loony woman,’ someone said.

  Beth found this hilarious and almost choked. She fell against the gate and slid to the ground. Her long dress caught on a nail and, as she slid down, was pulled up. Jeremy watched as inch after inch of Beth’s dress rucked up, showing more of her thin legs. Someone in the queue cheered. Beth covered her laughing face with both hands. Her dress tore and she plopped on to the dry earth, kicking like a baby. Her dress up around her waist, Jeremy saw she was wearing knickers covered with yellow flowers. Jeremy knew he shouldn’t be looking, but couldn’t pull his eyes away. He felt slightly sick inside, but also excited. Beth pulled her dress together over her knickers and legs.

  ‘Something in the water,’ someone said.

  * * *

  ‘Don’t be frightened,’ Jenny told her. ‘There’s no pain. You’ll see. It’s like a kiss.’

  ‘The best kiss,’ Cindy added.

  Hazel was in the centre of a swirl of warmth. The bath was wonderful, soothing all her aches and pains, all her doubts and disappointments. Now, she was embarking on a voyage. An exciting cruise.

  * * *

  ‘Miss?’

  It was
the girl Paul had seen earlier, Janet. She was in a dream, standing by the steps of the Agapemone, gently shaking her head.

  ‘Can I help?’

  ‘No,’ she said, smiling. ‘It was the Love.’

  Unexpectedly, without warning, she kissed him. He tensed as her lips brushed his, then felt suspended over an abyss. Janet’s kiss became moist, skilled, warm. She withdrew, and laughed pleasantly.

  ‘We share Love,’ she explained. It was something he’d been hearing a lot lately, although not from Hazel.

  He thought of Hazel, up the stairs and beyond the door. Janet stroked his face, clucking a little.

  ‘There’s Love all around, Paul.’

  He didn’t remember whether he’d told her his name. His tooth spurted pain into his mouth.

  The Sister of the Agapemone mimed plucking a grape from a vine and popping it into her mouth.

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to drink champagne from the hollow of my throat?’

  Again, Paul thought he’d just been out-weirded by a professional.

  * * *

  Allison went first, venturing on to the landing, then down the stairs, then into the hall. The others followed, Terry bringing up the rear, constantly turning to look behind them. They were an army unit. Her body prepared to lash out, she walked down the last flight of stairs and turned towards the front door. It was a long hallway, running the length of the Manor House. It wasn’t yet dark enough to have the lights on, but gloom had descended.

  She saw the figure standing in the doorway, half in and half out of one of the big rooms off the hall, half his face visible. She made fists and brought them up, ready. The man didn’t move. Badmouth Ben was at her side, the others a little behind him. Her arm muscles went tight, and she calculated where to strike first. Throat, then balls, then eyes.

  Ben held her upper arm and shook his head. They walked, slowly, down the hall. As they progressed, Allison saw more of the face. It was Jago. He was standing over a woman who lay in a faint at his feet. Ben eased past Allison and stood across the hall from Jago, looking him in the eyes. Jago was in his vicar outfit, reverse collar and black suit, eyes wide and hard. Allison looked from Ben to Jago, and saw similarities in stance and feature. Their eyes were alike, alive in deathmasks.

  ‘What…?’ Mike Toad began. Allison put two fingers over his mouth, shutting him up.

  Jazz was momentarily unsteady on her feet, hips shaking, hands pushing against the fabric over her thighs. She had a belt of silver metal letters tight around her narrow waist, reading SEX DEATH SEX. Allison knew how the London girl felt.

  Jago turned from Ben and looked directly at her. The memory of her climax flooded her, and her knees went again. Ben had the front door open and light was pouring in, hurting her eyes. She held herself up and stepped past Jago, feeling his gaze on her back. He was powerful, and his aura filled the whole house, shimmering in and out of sight, a quicksilver halo as delicate and complicated as a butterfly wing.

  She got to Ben and he held her up again, supporting arm around her waist. Outside, the sun was setting, staining everything.

  4

  Teddy was near the end of the village again. This time, he’d given up hope and was trudging mechanically. He wouldn’t get past the sign. He’d lost count of how many times he’d approached this point. The day had gone, the last of the sun fading from the sky. Traffic had quieted. Evening dragged on. He was near the garage and the Pottery. Soon, the pull would come. At first just a gentle tugging, it would become irresistible, drag him back up the road. After this, he might give up.

  Alder was like the jam jar he’d seen on a wall at the Pottery last night, a wasp trap. It was easy to crawl in, all but impossible to get out again. Wasps buzzed around, waiting for death. He’d been walking all day and was tired to the bone, legs limp lengths of ache, head too heavy for his neck.

  The main road was a street carnival. A clown in an oversized dinner jacket, with a stiff collar the size of a bucket, was doing magic tricks by the garage, entrancing a crowd that included Steve Scovelle and Mr Steyning. A little girl—Jenny’s little sister Lisa—clapped her hands and laughed. Jenny had looked exactly like Lisa when she’d been that age. Jenny had something to do with the pull. If Teddy could forget her he might break free. He remembered her face as she’d been the other night, and tried mentally to rub out her picture, feature by feature. But memory kept coming back, like the tide filling marks in the sand.

  He looked back up the road, towards the tree. By the Valiant Soldier, there was a thick crowd.

  ‘’Lo, Teddy,’ said a woman’s voice, startling him.

  He turned and saw Allison and Kev’s mother, standing on her front doorstep. Mrs Conway had an apple-round face with a permanent smile like Kev’s. She didn’t look anything like her daughter. Allison hardly seemed from the same planet as her mother, let alone the same family.

  ‘You seen the children today?’

  Teddy shook his head.

  Mrs Conway tutted. ‘Up to mischief, I ’spect. Kevin’s a prop’r handful these days. I don’t know what gets into ’en.’

  Though Mrs Conway expected Kev to be a bit of a tearaway, she refused to believe anything she heard about her daughter. The village monster was still her baby. Although, having known Allison all his life, Teddy couldn’t remember her ever being any better. The girl had been born strange, and taken a turn for the worse. He imagined Allison in her crib, glowing eyes in a fat frown, making tiny fists, teething in silence, waiting for the body she needed to grow around her.

  Mrs Conway must have been busy all day, because she hadn’t yet taken her milk in. Three bottles stood by her front door, and a fourth was on its side, cracked and leaking.

  ‘Cats,’ she said. ‘I thought we’d seen the last of the blessed creatures, but they’m come back.’

  Teddy helped her with the milk, picking up the three unbroken bottles while Mrs Conway cradled the other delicately. She led him down a short hall into the kitchen. She opened the fridge and he popped the milk in. She set the damaged bottle on a saucer, and left it.

  ‘Thank you, Teddy,’ she said. ‘Can I get you anythin’? Tea?’

  Teddy shook his head.

  He couldn’t remember being in the Conway kitchen before, although he’d been to the house to see Kev.

  There were framed pictures of the children on the wall, Kev ashamed in a jacket and tie that would get him ribbed mercilessly if the photo became public knowledge, Allison in a black dress looking grown-up and sophisticated, eyes half-closed like a cunning cat’s.

  ‘Must be goin’,’ he said.

  Mrs Conway kept smiling. ‘You should wait for the children. Maybe you’d all like to go out together, listen to the music.’

  At the thought of a night out with Allison, a sliver of ice slipped between his shoulderblades.

  ‘When I were a girl, I used to love they pop bands,’ Mrs Conway kept on. ‘Bee Gees, Monkees, Blue Mink. Dad said it were all noise, daft old bugger.’

  ‘No,’ Teddy said, ‘I’d best be off. Be late for tea otherwise.’

  ‘All right then,’ she said, ‘mind how you go.’

  Teddy escaped from the house, half-afraid Allison might be hiding ready to pounce in one of the dark rooms off the hall. When he got back outside he realized he’d been wrong to worry. Allison was about a hundred yards up the road, coming this way with a group of people. Terry was one of them.

  Teddy didn’t want another beating. They hadn’t seen him yet. Allison and Terry had quite a gang now, enough to do him serious damage. Terry loped behind the others like an old dog. People stayed away from Allison’s gang, feeling threat boil off them like sweat smell. It was Allison’s gang. No matter how awful Ben looked, the girl gave the orders, kept them together.

  Teddy considered ducking back into the Conway house and taking refuge. He didn’t think Allison would do anything if her mother were around. But he also had a bad feeling Allison could stab him to death in the kitchen, and Mrs Conway woul
d just tut and refuse to see what was going on in front of her, offering Terry and Ben the Mutant tea and sandwiches, while they watched Allison hack chunks out of him with a carving knife.

  By Mr Keough’s cottage was a half-built house the Starkeys were supposed to be working on. The builders hadn’t been in for weeks, so Tina’s dad must have run out of money. It was perfect. Before Allison and Terry saw him, Teddy stepped on to the building site and scraped along a side wall, pressing himself out of sight between Mr Keough’s cottage and the house shell.

  He heard his heart, and thought it must be sounding out like a drum, alerting Terry’s wolf-sharp ears. Something furry and stiff writhed between his ankles, hissing. He jolted back against the wall, slamming shoulders against hard brick. Only a cat; it had given him a scare.

  ‘Kitty kitty kitty,’ he said, not looking down.