The Society of Blood

by Mark Morris

  It was Clover who answered. ‘You fell, Alex. You just collapsed.’

  ‘Right on to my glass table,’ Benny growled. ‘Smashed it to fucking bits.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  HEALING

  I stood by the window, my left hand resting on one of the three horizontal bars that prevented suicidal residents from diving through the glass on to the gravel below. I could see beads of moisture, reflecting the autumn sunlight, glittering on the huge, wet expanse of lawn, creating a gentle green shimmer that soothed my busy mind and gave me a rare and welcome moment of calm. It was so peaceful here, but then I suppose it had to be to counteract the frantic chatter of agitated minds contained within these walls. I’d always thought that being crazy must be like living inside your own private hell – unless, of course, you were too crazy to realise that that’s where you were.

  Eventually I turned from the window and looked across the room at Lyn. She was sitting in the chair by the dressing table, cupping the obsidian heart in her hands. She was motionless, her eyes half closed, a blissful expression on her face.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked her.

  Without looking at me she murmured, ‘I’m more than all right. I can feel myself healing.’

  I didn’t know if that was true, though I couldn’t deny that the improvement in her since the last time I’d seen her was amazing. She still did everything slowly, cautiously, as if afraid of upsetting some delicate internal balance, but there was a brightness about her, a spark of understanding, of intelligence, that I hadn’t seen in… years.

  When I’d first walked into her room that morning, she’d not only smiled and said, ‘Hello, Alex,’ but had stood up from her chair and crossed the carpet to greet me, even reaching out to take both of my hands in hers. The genuine warmth she’d shown had made me so immediately choked up I’d been unable to speak. It had been a long time since Lyn had been so self-aware, since she’d truly been able to read and respond to the emotions of others. When she saw the way I was gaping at her she laughed.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said, ‘and I can’t believe it either. I’ve been drowning for such a long time, Alex. Drowning in the dark. I’ve been so scared. I didn’t know where I was. But since you sent the Dark Man away I’ve been much better.’

  I’d glanced at Dr Bruce, who was eyeing me watchfully, waiting for my reaction.

  ‘Could you give us some privacy?’ I asked her, smiling.

  She hadn’t liked it, but she’d nodded curtly and left. It was Dr Bruce who’d told me of Lyn’s dramatic and continuing improvement when I’d arrived, but hearing about it second-hand and actually witnessing it were two different things.

  As soon as Dr Bruce had gone, Lyn asked me, ‘Did you bring it?’

  I nodded.

  She gave a sort of shudder. ‘Can I hold it? I won’t damage it. I know how important it is. But just knowing it’s contained, that it’s trapped…’ she shuddered again ‘…you can’t know how happy, how free, that makes me feel.’

  So I gave the heart to her, and immediately she let out a deep sigh and sank back into her chair, half closing her eyes. I watched her for a moment, wondering whether I should talk to her, ask her the questions I’d come to ask, wondering how responsive she’d be. But after a few seconds I decided to leave it until she’d finished her meditations and had handed the heart back to me, and I went and stood by the window and looked out over the rolling lawns and gardens that surrounded Darby Hall.

  It was two days since I’d collapsed in Benny’s house and demolished his glass coffee table. Miraculously, apart from a couple of minor nicks and a bruise on my hip, I hadn’t been injured in the fall. Clover had driven me straight back to Oak Hill, where I’d been checked over by Dr Wheeler, who’d pronounced me fit and well but still very much in need of rest. If it had been up to me I’d have made the trip down to Brighton to see Lyn the next day, but Clover had insisted I put my feet up and take it easy for another twenty-four hours. So I’d sat in the house at Ranskill Gardens swaddled in blankets and watching an old Gary Cooper Western on TV. It had been weird sitting in the room where Hawkins had died, and still feeling raw over his death, even though, in linear terms, it had happened over a century before.

  Although the decor and contents of the room had altered drastically since the 1890s, one thing that had survived was the fireplace from which the shape-shifter had emerged, complete with its original tiled surround – though the tiles were now crazed and faded. Even though the house now had central heating I’d insisted on building a real fire, which I’d spent a good portion of the rest of the day alternately gazing in to and dozing in front of. At one point I’d seen Kate’s face in the flames, only to jerk forward so violently I’d woken myself up. I’d wondered what would happen if I simply dropped the heart into the fire and had done with it. I’d wondered too, watching the smoke spiral up the flue, whether the shape-shifter, or a piece of it, was still up there somewhere, embedded in the fabric of the house, biding its time.

  Although what had happened to me at Benny’s house had disturbed me I kept it to myself. I don’t know why. Perhaps because I didn’t want to risk Clover using it as proof that I wasn’t yet well enough to press on with our strategy. Or perhaps because I was worried about what it might signify and didn’t want to hear her put it into words – not yet anyway.

  Strategy. It was a highfalutin word for what we were really doing, which was simply clearing the decks and setting out our stall. Visiting Lyn had been my idea, but Clover had been wary about it. It wasn’t the fact that I wanted to see Lyn and gauge her progress that bothered her; it was that by ‘interrogating’ Lyn (her word, not mine), Clover thought I might be on a hiding to nothing.

  ‘I can’t see anything coming of it, Alex,’ she’d said. ‘Added to which you might only end up upsetting her even more.’

  ‘How do you know nothing will come of it?’ I retorted.

  ‘Because if something does, then it already would have, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I just don’t think it’s possible to change the past to such an extent. I think it might be dangerous to even try.’

  I was silent for a moment, then I said, ‘You think, but you don’t know. Neither of us knows.’

  ‘No, I don’t know. But that’s my theory all the same. Since Hawkins died, I’ve started to think that…’ she paused, trying to order her thoughts ‘…well, that small changes might be possible, but not big ones. I think big ones might disrupt the… the time stream, or whatever you want to call it, too much.’

  ‘But what about the multiverse?’ I said. ‘All those alternate pasts and futures?’

  At which point she’d thrown up her hands in exasperation.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know! I just… don’t know!’

  That had settled it. We’d agreed – or at least, sort of agreed – that if something couldn’t be changed then maybe it wouldn’t be; that Time or Fate or whatever would simply intervene and disallow it. But we’d also agreed that there was no harm in trying – or rather, we hadn’t agreed, but I’d argued the toss until Clover had become ground down enough to accept that I was going to try regardless. Secretly I knew as well as she did that we didn’t know enough about the possible consequences of our actions, and that there might, therefore, actually be a great deal of harm in trying. But from where I was standing, I felt it was worth the risk.

  When Lyn said she could feel herself healing I crossed the room and perched myself on the edge of the bed, facing her.

  ‘That’s the best news I’ve heard all year.’ Without thinking I added, ‘I’d give anything in the world to get the old you back.’

  She cast her eyes downwards, and there followed a moment not only of awkwardness between us, but of sadness, of regret, for the years we’d lost.

  ‘Don’t raise your hopes too much, Alex,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m not sure that’s going to happen.’

  I tried to be encouraging, but it ended up sounding like
empty bluster – to my ears anyway. ‘You never know. I mean, I know a lot’s changed, and that we’re both different people now. And I know there’s still a long way to go before we could even think of—’

  ‘Stop. Just… stop.’

  I did. She was frowning, breathing hard, her eyes still staring down at the heart in her hand. For a moment I thought I’d pushed it too hard, that because of me the dark clouds were going to move in again and blot out the light of what was still a very fragile sun.

  When she next spoke, though, I was relieved to hear that her voice was calm. A little trembly, but calm.

  ‘I can’t even begin to think of anything beyond getting better just now. It’s just… it’s too much. Sorry, Alex.’

  ‘Hey,’ I said gently. ‘No need to apologise. I’m the one who should be saying sorry. I’m an idiot.’

  ‘Let’s neither of us say it,’ she said. ‘Let’s just… relish what we’ve got right now.’

  ‘Suits me.’

  She held out the heart. ‘Here, take it. Keep it safe. Keep it contained.’

  ‘I will. I promise.’

  She raised her eyes and looked at me. ‘How’s our daughter, Alex? How’s Kate?’

  To say the question was like a punch in the face was an understatement, though perhaps I should have expected it. In fact, I definitely should have. I should have realised that once Lyn’s mind started to clear, Kate’s welfare would be one of the first things she’d think about. She was the child’s mother, after all. It was only natural. Yet for a second or two after she asked me the question, I felt she already knew everything, and was accusing me, or trying to catch me out. I felt an urge to throw myself on her mercy, apologise for letting her down, for not looking after our daughter well enough.

  Then she frowned, and I realised she knew nothing at all.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, alarm creeping into her voice. ‘Kate is all right, isn’t she?’

  I laughed. Probably too brashly, but it seemed to undo the knot of concern forming between her eyes.

  ‘Course she is,’ I said. ‘She’s fine. She’s flourishing.’ It killed me to keep smiling. ‘I was just surprised, that’s all. To hear you ask about her, I mean.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about her a lot. Since I last saw you, I’ve been thinking about a lot of things I haven’t thought about in…’ She wafted a hand.

  Terrified she might suggest I could bring Kate along with me next time I came for a visit, I asked quickly, ‘Do you know how long you’ve been in here, Lyn?’

  She looked at me even more searchingly, a trace of fearful wonder in her eyes.

  ‘They tell me… they tell me it’s been five years.’ I could see she wanted me to laugh, to poo-poo the idea. Her voice dropped to a murmur. ‘It hasn’t been that long, has it, Alex? It can’t have been that long.’

  Her hands, empty of the heart, were now resting limply in her lap. After a moment’s hesitation I reached out and took them. They were cold.

  ‘How long do you feel it’s been?’

  She shook her head. ‘A day? Forever? I honestly don’t know.’ She looked out of the window, as if she could gauge time by the clouds, the sky. ‘How old is Kate now, Alex? Is she all grown up?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘She’s five.’

  ‘Five,’ she repeated, a whispering echo. ‘So it’s true.’

  I squeezed her hands tighter, as if to keep her with me.

  ‘What would you say if I told you I’d found a way of turning back time? What if I said I could change all of this, everything that’s happened since you met the Dark Man, by going back and stopping him from ever meeting you? What if I said I could get our future, the future we were meant to have together, back for us?’

  She was looking at me as if I was some strange and wonderful creature she had never seen before. When she smiled I saw the old Lyn appear behind her ravaged features – just for an instant. A fleeting glimpse, and then gone.

  ‘I’d say you were as mad as me,’ she replied, her voice warm with affection and humour. ‘I’d say you needed to book yourself a room here.’

  I smiled along with her. ‘Ordinarily you’d be right. But I vanquished the Dark Man, didn’t I? I took his darkness.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  I gave her hands another squeeze. ‘I’m saying you should never give up hope. I’m saying that miracles happen. There’s something I need you to do for me, Lyn. It may be the most important thing you’ve ever done.’

  ‘What is it?’ she whispered.

  ‘I need you to think back to when you first met the Dark Man. I need you to remember the exact date.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  WHAT MIGHT HAVE HAPPENED

  Over the next couple of days I had three more visions. That’s to say, I had three more episodes like the one I’d had in Benny’s house. Given that I found myself revisiting specific events in my past rather than having premonitions of the future, I’m not sure ‘visions’ is the right word to describe the experiences – but that’s what they felt like all the same. I’d be going about my business when all of a sudden that weird sensation of shifting would wash over me, and the next moment I’d find myself in another place, another time.

  Although the vision I’d had in Benny’s house had started off by tallying with the exact memory of the conversation I’d had with Clover in the conservatory, only one of the subsequent visions (the second of the three) followed the same pattern. In the first I did find myself in familiar surroundings, though my memory of what had happened there deviated pretty much from the get-go. In the most recent – which was also the most disorientating, and in some ways the most horrible – I found myself in a place and a situation I’d never been in before, and never wanted to be in again. I emerged from this one not just shocked and horrified, but shaking and crying.

  One factor that each vision did share was that I was never part of the action, but merely an observer. In the first I found myself back in my cell in Pentonville with my twenty-year-old self. The past me was sitting cross-legged on his (my) bunk, head bowed over a book, which was open in his (my) lap, forefingers pressed into his (my) ears to muffle the ever-present prison din. The current me had a strong feeling that the book, a thick and hefty tome, was Psychology of Behaviour, which I’d been reading when Benny had first paid me a visit.

  So was this the same day? Was I about to witness a reenactment of that meeting? I stared at my past self in the familiar grey prison sweatshirt and marvelled at how skinny and callow I looked, even whilst feeling a sense of deep apprehension at what might be about to happen. The past me was engrossed in the book, and the present me was engrossed in the sight of my past self, narcissistic though that might sound. Both our heads snapped up when the cell door closed with a bang.

  The present me, standing with my back to the wall opposite the door, saw that three men had entered the cell. In my split-second assessment of them I registered that they were big, meaty, mean looking. One had slick black hair and dark stubble and one was a squat, round-shouldered skinhead with blue tattoos on the backs of his hands and up the sides of his neck. The third man didn’t make much of an impression except as a threatening presence, the reason being that what happened next happened so quickly, without any words being exchanged, that it seemed hardly more than a blur.

  As I might have said before, violence in prison is swift, shocking and brutal. There’s rarely any preamble, rarely any name-calling or squaring up. It’s almost a functional thing, a way of subduing and incapacitating your opponent as quickly and efficiently as possible. Before the past me could move, except to look up from his book, the three men had crossed the cell.

  The past me was still sitting cross-legged when the first man – the skinhead – swung a haymaker into the side of his (my) face. The blow connected with such a sickening crunch I felt sure my cheekbone must have shattered. I watched my past self fall back, the book sliding from his lap and hitting the floor. One of the othe
r assailants – the one whose appearance had barely registered – swept the book up and started battering him about the head and body with it. I saw his (my) hands flapping ineffectually in an attempt to fight the men off. The guy with the slick black hair grabbed my past self’s feet and ran backwards a few steps, yanking him off his bunk. The present me winced as the past me landed with a thump, cracking his skull on the stone floor. Immediately the men started to kick and punch and stamp on him (me). There was the meaty crack of flesh impacting on flesh. There was the sound of crunching bone. There was a lot of blood.

  Throughout the attack, which lasted maybe a minute but seemed much longer, my past self – barely conscious now – just lay there. Now and again, through the melee, I saw his (my) head and feet jerk up, in the way the opposite ends of a cushion will jerk up if you hit it in the middle. My past self looked less like a person than a thing, a punch bag that was being pummelled even though it had snapped from its supports and was now prone on the floor.

  Finally one of the men – the skinhead, I think – spoke the only three words I heard any of them use during the attack: ‘Roll him over.’

  Mercifully I jerked from the scene just as they were yanking down my trousers and underpants.

  In the second vision I shifted from sitting at the kitchen table in Ranskill Gardens, where I was eating a tuna salad sandwich and talking to Clover, to standing beneath an arch looking out on what appeared to be a candlelit stone cavern. At first my mind reeled as I tried to work out how Clover had gone from emptying a dishwasher to being chained inside a large cage in the blink of an eye.

  Then I realised. These were the stone tunnels beneath Commer House in the Isle of Dogs. The ones to which I’d been lured to rescue what turned out to be a splinter of the shape-shifter in the form of Clover – who, you’ll no doubt remember, had later been taken by surprise and despatched by Hulse whilst in her vulnerable human form, very likely on the orders of my future self.

  The past me, who was currently pressed up against the bars of the cage, obsidian heart in hand, urging it in vain to do its stuff, knew none of that, of course. I wished I could tell him (me), but I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything. As before, I was little more than a ghost.