Desolation

by Tim Lebbon

  His answer stared him in the face as he turned to leave. Above the door hung an old photograph of Vlad in all his glory, swinging from a trapeze with one hand and waving to the photographer with the other. He was young, fit, full of life, and his smile promised nothing of his grim, lonely demise.

  Across the picture were the words They’re going to kill me tonight.

  Cain closed the door behind him, and for some reason it felt like a betrayal.

  Pushing his fear aside, he ran downstairs and across the street to Heaven, vowing that there he would find answers.

  Once at the house, Cain felt slightly more relaxed. He was an hour early at least, but if Peter was in Cain would demand that they have their talk now. If the landlord was not there . . . then Cain would wait. It was a sunny day, he was out in the open, and he had plenty of time. He would sit on the low wall outside Peter’s run-down property and watch the world go by.

  Glancing over his shoulder back at Number 13, Cain saw a flicker of flesh pass by Magenta’s window. Below hers, Sister Josephine’s window was dark, curtains drawn, and he wondered whether she was in there magicking herself up even now.

  He could not wait out here, exposed and watched.

  Cain bashed on the corrugated iron door of Heaven. From inside there came a scampering sound, like dozens of small animals running for cover, and then a frantic hissing and squealing. He stepped back slightly from the door, still within Heaven’s shadow, and waited. He felt incredibly exposed with Number 13 at his back. He glanced around, but Magenta’s window was bare.

  Heaven fell quiet. The squealing had died down, leaving a loaded silence in its wake. Cain thought he heard footsteps, but they could just as easily have come from the next street as Heaven. What the hell had possessed Peter to give his house such a name? Irony obviously, but he did not really seem like the kind of person to court controversy.

  Cain knocked again, louder and longer. The noise shocked him and he drew back, remembering the siren and how it had hollowed him out with each assault. He looked around guiltily, but no one appeared to be watching. The street was quiet, considering the time of day. People should be returning home from work, kids should be out playing. No cars, no strollers. Maybe . . .

  “Fuck it!” he scolded himself. Paranoia was getting the better of him. The Face would smile and shake her head, and tell Cain that everyone’s lives revolved around one another. The only person fixated on Cain was Cain.

  He reached out to strike the door again as it was pulled open, squealing across bare concrete.

  “You’re early,” Peter said. “I’m not ready yet.”

  “I don’t care, we need to talk. I need to know what’s going on here. And you have to tell me about my father.”

  Peter looked angry, and that in turn angered Cain. What the hell did the landlord expect him to do? There was no explanation to the body in Whistler’s room other than murder.

  “Wait just a minute,” Peter said. “I have to get something, then I’ll be out. There’s a pub I know—we can go there, sit in the garden.”

  “I want to know everything,” Cain said.

  “I’ll tell you what I can.” Peter pushed the door shut, and Cain heard him muttering something as he receded inside the house.

  I’ll tell you what I can, he’d said, which was very different from saying, I’ll tell you what I know. Cain still did not trust the landlord, not one bit, even if he had come along and rescued him from being caught red-handed by Whistler. There was design in that, too. There was too much hidden, a dozen mysteries just breaking surface but keeping their bulks riding below the waves of understanding. Cain was confused, frightened, and alone. He knew he should call Afresh, but he was terrified that they would ask him to return. And besides, now that he could possibly discover more about his father, and why he had done what he did, the surrounding enigmas seemed like tributaries of the same river. For now he would go with the flow.

  He moved out of Heaven’s small front garden and stood on the pavement. As if pleased that he had no intention of fleeing, the street had come to life. Cars passed left and right, filled with squabbling children and tired parents. A woman walked along the opposite pavement, holding a little girl’s hand and talking into a mobile phone at the same time. Perhaps Whistler just grabbed her off the street, Cain thought, but there was much more to what he had seen. Peter had said that, and Cain believed him. Not because he thought the landlord was trustworthy, but because of the look in the stuffed woman’s eyes. She was not Magenta, he was sure of that now, but she had still seemed happy to be there.

  And that chuckle, Cain thought. It must have been something tumbling from a shelf, or his ear popping, or maybe it was his unconscious utterance of fear as he heard the house’s front door slam shut. But there was also the niggling idea that if he had stayed just a few moments longer, the woman would have broken down and started laughing at him. Surprise! she would have said. Had you fooled! Oh, Cain, we’re having such fun with you . . .

  Peter opened the front door behind him, slammed it shut, and joined him on the pavement. He was carrying a battered, oversized leather book, holding it to his side as if ashamed of whatever it contained.

  “What’s that?” Cain asked.

  “It’s a photo album,” Peter said. “Now, come on, I don’t want to do this in sight of the house.”

  That was the first time Cain had heard any hint of fear in Peter’s voice. And he realized that Peter may be as much a pawn in whatever game was being played as he.

  Intrigued, afraid, and yet filled with a vibrancy and excitement he had never felt before, Cain followed Peter along the road.

  For a long time after he first arrived at Afresh, Cain believed that he was the only reality. He was real, the here and now, and everything else around him was the product of his mind. There was no proof that a chair could exist, because Cain could be imagining its solidity. There was no evidence that the Face was real, because Cain could have dreamed her up himself. Would you be so cruel to yourself? the Voice asked, referring to the terrible things Cain had been through. But Cain only shrugged, and said that with nothing to relate his life to, cruelty was an empty concept.

  Chapter Seven

  History

  It was a suburban pub, given over mainly to average pub food and big-screen sports viewings. Its facade was mock-Tudor, smothered with ivy and pocked here and there with bay windows and several entrance doors. A specials menu stood by the main door, proclaiming the quality of their lasagna, beef curry, and scampi. Guest ale this week was Dog’s Dinner. Inside was all dark wood and chrome, sports prints on the walls, sticky carpet by the bar. A few couples sat eating a postwork meal, mostly silent and pale. A family occupied one corner, the parents hassled and the children happily picking up chips from the floor, flicking peas at each other, and generally reveling in the adventure.

  Peter ordered a bottle of red wine and some chips, and he nodded toward the back of the pub where a stained glass door led out into the garden. The beer garden was an impressive size, and surprisingly well maintained. Tables were dotted here and there at random, and one or two were nicely secluded, hidden from general view by large potted plants and well-cropped hedges. Peter headed for one of these, farthest from the pub and nestled between a high hedge and a wild rose garden. He placed the photograph album gently on the end of the table, as if keen to keep his distance, and poured some wine.

  “It’s not often I get out,” Peter said.

  “Likewise.”

  Peter smiled, and Cain thought it was the first genuine smile he had ever seen from the landlord. Perhaps being away from Endless Crescent made him more himself.

  “So you were at Afresh from the time your father died, right up to now?”

  Cain nodded. “It was all I knew as home. People cared for me there.” He said no more; his use of the word care spoke volumes.

  “Still, that’s a long time ago. He’s been dead, what, five years?”

  “Six.”
/>   Peter nodded, sipped his wine, and looked around the garden. Cain followed his gaze and actually found himself enjoying the moment, pressured as it was by the potential of revelation. The wine was good, the weather was pleasant, the garden gave over a relaxed feel. Bees buzzed the bushes around them, and birds squabbled and squealed in the trees, arguing over dropped food. He glanced at the photograph album, leaned back on the seat and stretched his arms, looked at the album again.

  “Let’s talk about Whistler first,” Peter said quietly.

  “You know so much and I know nothing!” Cain said. “You have me at a disadvantage. I thought you were just the landlord, but now you tell me you knew my father, what he was doing, doing to me! And what I saw in Whistler’s flat, everything that’s been happening to me there, you seem to know it all. You’re not just the landlord, are you? You’re involved.”

  Peter nodded, sipped his wine, and sat back in his seat. “So tell me what’s happened,” he said. “Tell me what you think has happened.”

  “The others are casting me out,” Cain said, remembering the lonely, unrelated messages in Vlad’s attic. He could mention that he had been in there . . . but for now he decided to keep that to himself. Having a secret or two may be to his advantage.

  “They’ve lived there together for a long time,” Peter said. “You’re a stranger, you’ve just moved in. It’s bound to take them time to accept you.”

  “There’s more to it, and you know it! They’re playing with me. Magenta, the nun, George, Whistler, all of them have toyed with me to some degree. Sometimes it seems almost harmless, other times not.”

  “You sure you haven’t imagined it all? Dreamed it?”

  It’s all a dream, Cain, Peter had shouted from the basement.

  “You told me I had it,” Cain said. “What did you mean by that? Don’t avoid the issues here, Peter. You brought me here for a reason, you brought that album with you, so there’s going to be more to this conversation than you trying to persuade me I’m mad.”

  “Oh, I know you’re not mad,” Peter said quietly. “I know that.”

  “So talk. Please.”

  Peter’s eyes darkened and his manner seemed to change, from casual to defensive. He glanced around the garden, into the bushes and up at the sky, and Cain remembered the sensation of being flown up the stairs by the naked nun. A dream, he thought, but that smear on his leg had not been his own spunk, he had always known that. It was Sister Josephine’s magic cream, left there when she had put him to bed.

  That had been no dream.

  “It’s very difficult,” Peter said.

  “I’m not dull. My father may have kept me locked away from the world, but I read, and I’ve read so much more since. And Afresh wasn’t a prison. I have little experience in life, but I know a lot about it. Peter, please, don’t fuck with me. Everyone else is fucking with me, and they’re laughing at me, and I can’t stand it anymore.”

  “So go back to Afresh,” Peter said, and that sardonic look shifted back across his face.

  “Don’t . . . fuck . . . with me.” Even Cain was surprised at the menace he managed to project into his voice. No more! he thought, and he thought it hard, and he knew by Peter’s expression that the landlord had heard those words in his own mind.

  “You do have it,” Peter gasped. “The Way.” He finished his wine and leaned across the bench to look into Cain’s eyes. “You know something of it, but you’re unwilling to accept, or not able to. Do you see behind the veil of reality? You know things you shouldn’t? You can tell things about people, sense their thoughts, know what they’re thinking or what they’re going to do next?” Peter’s surprise had given way to excitement.

  “Sometimes,” Cain said, admitting it for the first time to anyone. All those years at Afresh, all the love and effort the Voice and the Face had given him, and he had never offered them a clue.

  “It’s a trace of the Way,” Peter said. “Just a hint of what the others in the house all have, a splinter of their talent. They can do that, and so much more. They don’t only hear what you’re thinking, they can influence it. Had any bad dreams, Cain?”

  Cain nodded. “Some. And some that maybe weren’t dreams.”

  Peter lifted his hands as if demonstrating a point.

  “What’s this ‘Way’ you talk of?”

  “I think you know.”

  “Pure Sight,” Cain said.

  “That’s what your father called it. Different people call it different things, but mostly when someone finds it, it’s simply the Way. It’s a route to all things, a way to knowledge, a path to clear thinking and honest understanding.”

  “They all have it in the house?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you?”

  Peter glanced away, and the sadness that swept across his face was shocking in its intensity. “I’m just someone to serve them,” he said quietly. “Everyone with talents has hangers-on. I’m a hanger-on. I know of the Way, always have, but I’ve never been able to achieve it. I have dregs of it, as you’ve already seen. Here.” He picked up the wine bottle and flipped it into the air, uncorked. His hand darted out and the bottle landed upside down on his little finger, spinning there, no wine dribbling out at all. And then Peter’s hand began to turn a deep, dark purple as it absorbed the wine.

  “Shit.” Cain leaned back, but Peter shook his head, brought the bottle down to the table.

  “A trick, that’s all,” he said, holding out his hands in a reassuring gesture. They were both pale, untouched by wine, and the bottle itself was still virtually full. “I have just a fraction of what you have, the ability to influence. Did the bottle move, or did you only think of it? It doesn’t matter.”

  Cain shook his head, stood from the table, and walked to the rosebushes. The flowers were red and fat, the aromas beguiling, but a few of the blooms had leaves spotted black with blight, and blackflies smothered unopened buds. Perhaps everything that was beautiful on the surface had faults waiting to appear. He had barely lived anything of life; he had yet to find this out.

  “So, Whistler,” Cain said. He kept his back turned to Peter, looking at the flowers, seeing past the surface beauty to the raw nature beneath.

  “Whistler plays his pipes, and people hear truth in his music.”

  “I hear only music.”

  “Everyone’s different,” Peter said.

  “What do you hear?”

  Peter was silent, and Cain turned around to see why. Tears streaked the landlord’s face, dripping from his chin and spotting the wooden table with dark rosettes. Cain was shocked. Not by the tears, but by the look of abject misery on Peter’s face. He stared off into the distance, mouth slightly open, and his right hand stroked his throat as if trying to knead the sadness away.

  “I was one of his Followers, years ago,” Peter whispered. “Whistler is the oldest resident of Number 13. He’s so old . . . nobody really knows. He’s been around; Dubai, Mexico City, Tripoli, Hamelin. And he’s the reason I bought the place, the reason I do what I do.” He shook his head and wiped his eyes, snorting, turning away as if he could still hide the tears.

  “What made you follow him? What did you hear?” Cain felt sorry for the man, but there was too much happening here to call a halt now. Besides, he felt that Peter wanted to talk about this. He spoke quietly—as if trying to ensure what he said remained a secret—but there was no sign of him clamming up.

  “I heard . . . such wonderful promise. It’s as clear to me today as when it happened thirty years ago. I was sitting outside a café by the side of the river in York. I’d been wandering through the city all morning, wallowing in its history, exploring as many side streets and alleys as I could, seeking the honesty of the place. Back then, everywhere I went I sought the Way, as if it was an inscribed stone I’d find in a building’s foundations, or a secret whisper that traveled the atmosphere, just waiting to be heard. Your father and I were still speaking then, but we were no help for each other, none at all. We
wanted the same thing; we just went about it in vastly different ways. He searched inside, I looked everywhere else. We were both so wrong.”

  “My father . . .”

  “Let me finish, Cain. It’s all part of the same story. Understanding me will help you understand your father, and there’s so little I can tell you about him. I hadn’t spoken to him for years before you were born. I hardly know the man he became. Hear me out, and then I’ll show you some pictures.” Peter put his hand on the album and removed it instantly, as if the book were hot.

  “Go on,” Cain said, fascinated. He poured them both another glass of wine, and the singing of fluid on glass sounded like distant pan pipes.

  “I’d been inside York Minster for two hours, walking its length and breadth, going up into the tower and out onto the roof, looking everywhere. I passed the same people several times. The look on their faces was a uniform blankness; they were impressed, but the emotion barely left their eyes. It was as if they had a magic-sink, something in their eyes that stole away wonders as soon as they saw them. I saw my own wonder and craving reflected in their sunglasses. They seemed not to notice.

  “I read tomb inscriptions, searching between words and letters for hidden script, reading them upside down in case the letters were skewed. I closed my eyes and ran my fingers over the engravings, in case they said something altogether different that way. I so wanted to prize up a tombstone, open a mausoleum, because where better to hide secrets? Every stone tomb I walked over in that great place held the promise of revelation. I could almost feel and hear the darkness inside vibrating with potential. I would get in and crush open the powdery skulls of long-dead bishops, and in the dust of their brains would be the knowledge of the Way. It would be mine, simply by discovering it.

  “But I could find nothing, and breaking into tombs was not my sort of thing. I was a passive searcher; looking behind shop facades, listening to illicit conversations, following a smell back to its source. I did a lot of that back then, looking for the Way as if it was a secret. It took me decades to realize that it’s as obvious as we want it to be.