The solitary barman, who seemed rather too sizeable for his shirt and tie and red-faced as a consequence, barely glanced at him. Sam peered about, for the moment hearing only the sounds of the bar, but saw no phone. As soon as the barman spared him another blink, having served several flowered men, Sam said "When you've a second . . ."
"Why, are you looking for a fight?"
The time Sam had to waste on understanding the joke made him even more nervous than the comment had. "No, I mean a moment."
"I've got one of those now." When Sam didn't instantly respond the barman demanded "What are you having to drink?"
"I'd better have something," Sam told him and himself. "Just a half. Beer, that is, bitter, and can -"
"Guest?"
"I'm not staying here, no."
The barman stared as if only he was allowed to indulge in jokes, though Sam hadn't been aware of cracking any. Once he'd finished staring, the barman said
"Guest pint. Are you having the guest pint?"
"Half of one. I was going to ask where the phone is."
The barman found a half-pint glass, apparently a substantial and unwelcome task, and set about wiping it with a dish-cloth. Having inspected it against the overhead light, he said "So are you?"
"Am I what?"
"Asking."
"Yes," Sam said in a voice that felt as though it had to fight its way out of his nerves. "Where do you keep it, please?"
"Other end."
Sam peered along the bar but saw only a huddle of women emitting hilarity and smoke. "Shall I go up there?"
"You won't get your drink if you do," the barman warned him, hauling on a pump that bore a temporary sign for an ale called Witch's Tit. "I'm serving this end now."
Sam watched the glass fill with a murky brownish liquid that put him in mind of a pond. All at once the delay seemed welcome, or would have done if it had helped him think. He paid for the ale and struggled through the crowd while more of a struggle continued in his skull. He sidled around the women at the end of the bar as another grey cloud of laughter sailed up, and planted his glass on a shelf above the phone on the panelled wall. Clamminess that felt mixed with grit was well on the way to covering the whole of him. He couldn't think of his father's number.
He fed himself a mouthful that tasted as murky as it looked, then rubbed his forehead with the lukewarm glass. Even if he couldn't recall the number he could obtain it from Directory Enquiries, the number of the firm his father worked for, which was . .. whose name was . .. He didn't realise he'd groaned with frustration close to panic until the nearest woman draped over his shoulders a bare arm as extravagantly perfumed as it was freckled. It felt as though all the heat in the bar had put on flesh. "Not to your taste, sweetheart?" she said.
Sam almost managed not to recoil. "What?" he blurted.
"Thinks you're offering, Amanda," one of her friends said, and the others adopted various expressions while trying not to laugh too much.
"Not me, lover. Your teeny glass."
"It's fine," Sam lied and made a gesture of grabbing the phone. "I'm just. . ."
"Then we'll let you have your privacy, won't we, girls," Amanda said, supporting herself on Sam until she'd wobbled with some dignity to face them. "Just let us know when you want to be sociable," she told him.
His mother knew where his father worked, he thought, and squeezed his eyes shut while he strove to recall her number at the library. He'd phoned her there more than once, on... phoned her on ... When he opened his eyes to focus his desperate glare he saw the barman ambling towards him. "Excuse me?" he called, and twice as loud "Excuse me?"
"Still not for you, Amanda," one of her friends said.
"Didn't sound too fond of his drink, Phil," another informed the barman.
Phil hadn't finished turning his unfriendly face towards him when Sam said "Have you got a directory?"
"They'll have one at Reception if they're there." With satisfaction no less total for its glumness the barman added "Which they weren't when somebody just went to look."
Sam imagined labouring through the crowd to no end and then back to the phone.
He dialled Directory Enquiries instead, even though calling from the hotel meant he had to pay. "Brichester University," he told a woman up in Scotland, "the library," and was answered by a computerised voice barely shrill enough to be heard above the hubbub of the bar. He fed more coins into the thin-lipped orifice and dialled. The receiver was beginning to feel flabby with sweat when someone announced "University Library"as though he was determined to render the capitals audible.
"Is, is Heather Price there?" Sam said, covering his other ear.
"Not at present. Can I be of assistance?"
"Where is she?"
"May I ask who wants to know?"
"Sam. Her son. Where is she?"
"Hello, Sam. It's Randall. We've met across the counter," Randall said and was silent long enough to suggest he meant to add more than "She's gone for an early lunch."
"Can you get her?"
"She's out of the building, I'm afraid."
"When's she back?"
"Try calling in about an hour."
That sounded longer than a sleepless night would feel to Sam. He was straining to think of some response when Randall said "I've a feeling we got off on the wrong, I was going to say foot except I wouldn't want you to think I was making light of your injury, which I know you've borne with a good deal of fortitude.
Your mother and I are friends, so by all means regard me as one if that appeals."
"Right," Sam said without knowing if it was, and let the receiver clatter onto its stand. He couldn't wait for his mother to return, but mightn't his father's number or the number of his firm be somewhere at home? Mightn't Sylvia be able to locate one or the other? Sam took hold of the receiver, then gave it up so shakily it rattled like a snake. He couldn't think of his own number. He couldn't even remember the address.
The heat and noise seemed to mass within him as his panic did. He felt like a child, very lost and very small. The one notion to which he was able to cling was that he knew his way home. As he stumbled away from the phone one of Amanda's party told the barman "He didn't care much for your special."
Amanda took a would-be steady step into Sam's path. "Want a bit of advice?" she said, and before he could limp out of her way "Next time you come out you want to wash first."
He didn't know if she was referring to the incomprehensible blur on his wrist or to how much he was sweating, not that the two could be separated. "Right," he said again, feeling as if all the words he'd learned as he grew up were deserting him, and limped and sidled and was scarcely able to restrain himself from fighting his way out of the room stuffed with hot flesh.
The car started at once, but that was no immediate relief. He accelerated dangerously along the rewinding road to the motorway, which was even more fraught with traffic. He had a moment of dry-mouthed panic at the thought of heading the wrong way on it—of being as incapable of reading the signboard at the intersection as he was of deciphering the sweaty mess on his wrist. He hadn't lost his homing instinct, however. When a gap large enough for him to brave let him join the race, he found the sun was behind him.
Its glare filled most of the mirror, back-lighting his wildly tousled hair above a forehead etched with apprehension. He felt as if his skull was being goaded onward by the lowering sun, aided by the protracted shadow that was dragging the car. He was disconcerted to be reassured by the sight of the forest ahead. It was close to home, he told himself. All it meant was that he could stop straining to remember.
In a very few miles the motorway abandoned him to the bypass.
He might have been shocked to realise how meagre a distance he'd ventured, but he was wondering what explanation he could give his family for having missed the interview. The woods were lying in wait for the sun, which had swung to his left, to fall into their upheld claws. As soon as the first trees blotted out the glare he fel
t less harassed, almost ready to think. He imagined how still the depths of the forest must be, and it felt like an offer of help. When he reached the first lay-by he steered the car into it and switched the engine off.
A lorry thundered by, its rear end veering back and forth. It was only far enough ahead to start to quiver with the heat when it was followed by a vehicle big enough to swallow it. Not only their noise distracted Sam: when they and others like them passed the Volkswagen it shook as though the heat was on the point of transforming its substance. He climbed out of the car and loitered by it until the dull din of traffic sent him into the woods.
He couldn't think yet, but he would once he reached stillness. Limping away from the road felt like repeating a step in a dance. The leaning trees uprooted by last year's gale helped ward off the murmur of Goodmanswood. The branches around him were tipped with growth, some of it hinting at the shapes it had in store, which looked less than familiar. Some looked capable of moving without the aid of a wind, but their immobility seemed to guarantee a greater peace deep in the forest, so that he hardly glanced at them or at the overgrown spiky constructions in the treetops. The trees stayed motionless as stalagmites holding up the pallid sky, and yet he felt as though they were about to shift in some indefinable way. He was limping so fast he couldn't judge whether he was hurrying towards the ability to remember or desperate to outrun a threat of remembering too much. He had no sense of how far he'd progressed—he might have been performing his ritual step for a few minutes or an unimaginable length of time—when he glimpsed more than brightness ahead.
It wasn't just sunlight in an open space. It was more solid, and performing a glittering dance. A few fast but reluctant unbalanced paces took him close enough to identify a swarm of insects. As he saw they were above the mound within the ring of bricks, he became aware of the forest all around him. It felt vaster and darker than the distance he must have walked or the time of day could explain. The insects were darting and swooping around one another, such a multitude of them that they were able to sketch a form as tall as a man before it fell into a crouch on top of the mound. Memories of his last visit to the clearing overwhelmed him, darkening his mind as if they were heaving up earth.
He'd cleared the steps under the mound. He and his aunt had ventured down past things he thought should never have lived, and he'd glimpsed one that was somehow still alive. He'd done his best to restore the mound to its state prior to their intrusion, but now that suggested an attempt to bury his memories of their descent and of finding Selcouth's journal. The memories felt poised to let another reach him, and not just of having encountered the insects before. As if they had scented his thought and were drawn by it, all the insects rose from the mound and flew at him.
They were across the clearing before he could retreat a pace. He was stumbling backwards when they streamed between the trees at the height of his head. As they passed through the network of shadows they continued to shine with colours he couldn't begin to name, colours he might have been dreaming rather than seeing. He'd backed less than a yard when his spine collided with a tree-trunk.
The impact pinned him there as the swarm reached him.
He flailed at the oncoming mass with both hands. For a moment he thought he'd managed to ward it off as it swerved and danced back creating pattern after intricate rapid pattern, towards the mound. He was on the point of grasping the impossible geometry the patterns implied when a single insect darted into his face. Though its wings which were flickering almost too fast to be visible, were insect-like enough, the claws it stretched out to him might have been microscopic bunches of twigs, while its body and limbs appeared all human, despite their scaly covering that resembled iridescent moss. How could he distinguish all this when it was scarcely as long as his thumbnail? Yet he did, unless his mind was frantically inventing details to blind him to some reality. He was feeling pitifully grateful that he'd had no time to recognise its face, despite an impression of shimmering eyes and a mouth that opened to help them greet him, when the creature swelled up in his vision and vanished.
His hands jerked up to claw it out of his hair, though his fingertips tingled with unwillingness, but it was beyond their reach. For the briefest instant—as long as he would have been able to bear the sensation—he felt it crawling within him, and then it seemed to expand, filling his skull with a darkness as cold and as immeasurable as space. Perhaps that was a memory of its origin; without question it unlocked memories—Sam's own. Now his hands were desperate to stop him seeing, but covering his eyes or even destroying them couldn't achieve that.
He could only clutch at the air as if it contained forgetfulness.
He remembered straying into the glade months ago. He remembered the figure that had come to meet him—remembered her taking his hand to lead him to the mound.
They'd undressed so slowly and wordlessly they might have been enacting some ritual. It had felt like a dream he was having while awake, but now it seemed more like a nightmare that wasn't about to finish. He hadn't recognised her then, and surely she couldn't have recognised him. As her long bare legs had closed around his waist, hauling him deeper into her, she had uttered just one word. At least, a voice had sounded in his ears or in his head, but perhaps it hadn't been Sylvia's.
"Selcouth," the muffled voice had kept repeating. "Selcouth."
26: Parental Problems
As Heather turned along Woodland Close she saw a man lurching to close her gate from within. He was swaying so much that she took him for a drunk. Another second's driving brought her close enough to recognise Sam. Of course only his limp was required to unbalance him when he was moving at such speed. She sounded her horn, and he glanced towards the sound. He had to be preoccupied, because he shut the gate hastily and blundered towards the house.
Perhaps he thought she was already home. Perhaps he was as anxious to tell her why he'd phoned her at work as she was eager to know. She left the car in the middle of the roadway and the door ajar as she ran to the gate. When her footsteps didn't make him turn from unlocking the front door, her voice outdid them for sharpness. "Sam."
She saw his shadow on the wooden panels shrink into itself, then bloom larger and paler as he floundered around to face her. "What?" he just about said.
"I don't know. You wanted me."
Was that gentle to the point of inaudibility? He looked as if he either hadn't heard or didn't understand. As she unlatched the gate and swung it wide she said
"It was such a good day I went out for a lunchtime walk. I'm sorry I missed you."
"Doesn't matter."
"You sorted it out, then, whatever it was."
She would have thought he could take that as a question, but he was turning towards the house. "You aren't cold, are you?" Heather wondered, and went on as he shook his head "You can't be. Wait while I bring in the car."
She hoped he might at least close the gate behind her without being asked, and he did. She was out of the car before he could retreat into the house. "What was the matter, then?" she said, and when his face tightened "Is it still?"
"Just something dad wanted me to do."
"What kind of something?"
"Get a job."
"I think we'd all like that for you. Are we talking about a specific job?"
"Interview."
"Where?"
"Publishing."
"Well, don't overwork the suspense. How did it go?"
"Didn't."
"Oh dear, Sam, never mind. Did they tell you that or could you be underrating yourself as usual, do you think?"
"I mean I didn't."
"I'm sorry, Sam, you're saying you didn't. . ."
"Go."
A passing pair of neighbours she knew barely well enough to recognise as such glanced sharply at her when she raised her voice. "Why not?"
Sam jerked his left hand at her. She thought he was trying to ward off the question until she realised that the darkness on his wrist wasn't a shadow cast by nothing sh
e could see, it was the remnant of a message. "I lost the address," he mumbled.
"Where did you get it from?"
"I told you, dad."
He hadn't quite, and his response suggested how confused he was "Couldn't you get it from him again?" Heather more than wanted to know.
"That's why I called you." Sam's voice was growing raw with resentment of her questions or of the admissions he was being forced to make. "I forgot where he works."
"Hartley, Tracy and -"
"Harvey. The three adverbs, like you used to say. I know now. I forgot before."
The strolling neighbours glanced back as though in search of evidence that the surviving Prices were no more stable than Lennox had ended up. Nothing like that was wrong with Sam, Heather assured herself, but she'd had enough and a second helping of their scrutiny. "Let's continue inside," she murmured. "Why were you so worried about an interview?"
She assumed it was her interrogation that made him suddenly reluctant to move towards the house. "Who says I was?" he muttered.
"Mustn't that be why you couldn't remember where you were supposed to go?" When he frowned so unhappily his entire face seemed in danger of pinching inward she said "Of course it must. You'd be amazed what I've forgotten when I've too much on my mind. Go ahead, open the door while I unload the car."
She wondered if his limp was troubling him; certainly he took his time over reaching the house. When she followed with her handbag and a carrier of groceries he was edging the door open. He stepped into the hall and switched on the light, only to falter. Wasn't he used to the faint ancient smell that had taken up residence? She didn't want to grow used to it either, but she was about to urge him to move when she saw what he'd seen. Propped against the phone on the hall table was a note in Sylvia's handwriting.
All it said was Gone to mum's, though to begin with Sylvia had written mom's, so that the altered letter resembled an egg almost filling an upturned tube. If Sam's reaction didn't mean he'd wanted his aunt's presence to bring an end to Heather's questions, presumably he was glad she wouldn't hear them, if indeed he was sure which. ""had you better ring your father?" Heather said. "He may still be at work."
The Darkest Part Of The Woods Page 22
