The Burning Altar

by Sarah Rayne

  She said, ‘This is the architect’s layout for the lift at Chance House.’

  ‘For the cripples and the wheelchair-bound?’

  ‘You won’t be wheelchair-bound.’

  ‘No, but I’ll be crippled. Two sticks – one after a time if I’m lucky.’

  ‘You don’t have to hate it quite so strongly,’ Elinor said with sudden vehemence.

  ‘I hate it very much.’

  She sat waiting for the thin whirr of the lift on the day of his return, hearing it a hundred times in her mind. But when finally it came it still caught her off balance.

  It was not, of course, possible to go racing across the small landing to his flat immediately, but it was probably all right to knock lightly on the door after about an hour, and ask if there was anything she could do. Elinor rehearsed it several times.

  ‘Just to see if you’re all right, and in case you’re short of milk, or bread—’

  It was the ridiculous over-romantic scenario she had visualised all those months ago, only then it had been Lewis coming into her flat for the time-honoured half-pint of milk or cup of sugar, and staying. Now she was going to him. It was odd how your daydreams worked out in an inverted fashion, except that it was not going to be anything like any of the daydreams.

  He called to her to come in as if he recognised her tap at the door – as if he had been waiting for it? No, of course not! – and he was seated in the deep armchair before the window, the portrait of Patrick behind him. The hated walking sticks were propped on each side and he had left the curtains undrawn so that the room was bathed in the fading light of the November afternoon.

  Elinor said, ‘I came to see if you needed anything.’ And stopped because it could only be her imagination that he was looking at her as he had done that astonishing night in Tashkara. It was a trick of the light, or a reflection from the portrait. Or wishful thinking, even.

  Lewis said, ‘I can stand up, Elinor, but I’m afraid I can’t walk across to you – at least I can, but it would be an awkward slow sort of half-trudge.’ He paused, and Elinor’s heart did one of its painful somersaults. ‘But I can’t talk to someone who stands scowling from the door. Come and sit down.’

  He indicated the low padded stool, and Elinor said, ‘At your feet?’ It was possible to say it lightly. I’m doing quite well, thought Elinor, sitting down. I’m not showing any emotion at all.

  Lewis said, ‘If I said, “To lie in my bed,” I suppose you’d run a mile.’

  ‘Well, I—’ It was ridiculous to be thrown so off balance. Elinor twisted round to look at him. He didn’t mean it, of course; it was a joke, although it was not the kind of joke he had ever made before. But wouldn’t a man crippled and maimed have to throw it out flippantly in case he was rejected? The idea of anyone rejecting him was unthinkable, of course.

  Elinor said carefully, ‘No one’s ever asked me that before – even as a joke.’

  ‘How undiscerning of them. But I’m not joking. I meant it in the tunnels before we got out – before I passed out – and I mean it now.’

  Elinor stared at him. I don’t believe. I can’t believe. Yes, but he’s looking at me as he did that other time, and I’m beginning to think it was worth waiting for, it was worth the danger and the fear— If he keeps looking at me like that I’ll die. ‘You mean it, don’t you?’ she said at last.

  ‘Yes. But I should warn you that you’ll have to help me to the bedroom.’

  Elinor stood up and held out her hands.

  It was probably coincidence or imagination, but as they crossed under the portrait, the last sliver of light from the dying afternoon caught the painted eyes and lit Patrick Chance’s enigmatic stare to luminous and amused life.

  Epilogue

  Patrick Chance’s Diary: Final Entries

  November 1913

  Just as a sense of tidiness prompted me to take up these very private diaries again, so now a sense of completeness forces me to set down the ending.

  It’s many years now since I went outside during the daylight hours. Occasionally, when the brooding silence of this house becomes oppressive, or when I crave the sounds of other human voices, I venture out after dark. But at such times I wait for the creeper fog to steal in from the Thames – we are old friends now, the fog and I – and I don the long dark overcoat and the deep-brimmed hat that so effectively hides my face, and I walk slowly along St Stephen’s Road down to the wharf, occasionally pausing between the gas lamps to watch a party of revellers pass by on the other side of the street.

  St Stephen’s Road is becoming more of a haunt for street women; last night I was even accosted by one. What an irony.

  Provisions are delivered to the house three times a week: bread and milk and fish and vegetables. And I hear news of the world, still. After Theodore moved out – after I virtually threw him out – he insisted on visiting me every day and has never been turned from it. I sit on the farthest side of the room from him, always with the light behind me, and I never touch him, of course, or offer him a glass of wine or a cup of tea.

  He brings me the newspapers each day, and I think only a fool or a blind man would fail to see that there is war ahead. The foreign news seems to me a powder keg: I can’t believe this business in Serbia won’t break out again. Soon these squabbles are going to erupt into a full-blown conflict, and England will certainly become involved.

  I don’t think I can bear that. I don’t think I can bear the turmoil and the disruption and above all, the possibility of being forced into the world so that the world will know the truth. There are no longer mirrors in this house – I smashed them all a long time ago: five years to be exact – but even without mirrors I have a very good idea of how I must look now. The disease of Fenris and Sridevi is progressing slowly, but there is no mistaking it. I have made a bolt hole for myself in one of the small cellar rooms and furnished it. Just in case I ever need to really hide from the world.

  But I don’t think I shall ever use it, because I have made my decision now. I am going back. I am going back to where it all began: to the stone palace on the outskirts of Tashkara. To Fenris and his people.

  And to Sridevi. She may be dead, but somehow I think she will still be there, and I think when I go through those immense gates in the heart of that remote tranquil valley she will hold out her hands and I shall take them.

  It’s a thought to cling to in the morass of despair and fear.

  Theodore has fought me every inch of the way, but he has today given in and agreed to make the necessary arrangements. I shall travel in absolute seclusion – a private railcar, a cabin on the ship from which I shall not emerge.

  I have given Theo a power of attorney and he will deal with selling the house, so that even my name need not appear in the transactions. I wonder what the house’s fate will be?

  But I can’t really think of anything except that I’m going back – and it’s a thought that’s buoying me up. As I move slowly and awkwardly about the house, deciding what to pack, discarding what’s unnecessary, the words of Sridevi’s philosopher are with me. Like a soft thrumming on the air, filled with life and hope and the joyous expectancy of something marvellous and light-filled beckoning to me:

  ‘Throw me your nightmares, beloved, and watch me spin them like a juggler and one by one exorcise them of their devils, and return them to you with their fangs drawn and their red poison sucked out . . . And then you will see how the nightmares will depart; they will slide back across the silent black waters of the oceans, and usher in the light.’

  I can’t see the light yet, but I know now that it’s there. It’s waiting for me in Tashkara. I think Sridevi is waiting as well. I think she knew, even all those years ago, that I should return. And these last few days I’ve had the astonishing feeling that at last I’m going home . . .

  People in London will scarcely notice I’ve gone and if I have an epitaph at all, it will probably be ‘Death of a Recluse’.

  But it would be nice to think
it might equally be ‘Death of a Philanderer’.

  Extract from The Times, 20 March 199–

  Excavations began this week in a remote part of Tibet, after a small group of workers from Amnesty International spotted what they believed could be the entrance to a ruined city on the western edge of the little-known Tashkara valley.

  Professor Leon Undershaw of Oxford flew out to Tibet last month with a team of archeologists, and says there are already indications that an ancient Egyptian tribe from around 1500 BC may have found their way to Tashkara and built a city there.

  ‘Several steles in some of the tomb-chambers near to the Valley of the Kings refer to the banishing of a renegade group around that time,’ he said. ‘And although it’s too early to draw any conclusions this is certainly a site of immense antiquity and great archeological importance. Several of the sandstone and granite columns already uncovered bear striking similarities to the form and construction used by the Egyptians in the Twelfth Dynasty.’

  A stele is an upright slab or pillar, frequently found in Egyptian tombs, often bearing inscriptions.

  ‘We are expecting that the excavations will reveal a number of interesting artefacts,’ said Professor Undershaw.