A cool part of Savernake’s mind understood that he was suffering from some kind of hallucination. He looked at the head which appeared to him at once vast and extremely far away. The curved metal tendrils of the chandelier vomited from the Gorgon’s mouth had elongated themselves into tentacles, at the end of which bristled tiny and insignificant light bulbs like buds. He should get out of bed and turn on the light but now he found he could not move.
The head appeared to quiver although he knew it could not, like the head of his wife after she had died. The spaces above him remained grey but stretched further into the distance and the little buds at the ends of the chandelier fittings seemed to shiver for a moment before they formed themselves into hands. The hands stretched down towards him and he felt them smoothing their cold hard fingers against his thighs and torso. Once more he jerked himself convulsively awake and lay there staring at an infinitely high grey ceiling.
In the dining room the following morning, Savernake was the only breakfaster. Mr Milson was not only absent, but no place had been laid for him. Savernake made enquiries about this when Alice came in with his eggs and bacon.
“I’m afraid Mr Milson was taken poorly in the night,” Said Alice.
“What happened? I didn’t hear anything. Where is he?”
“He was taken away in an ambulance, for treatment.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that. Perhaps I should visit him in hospital.”
“There’s no need for that, Mr Savernake. Mum’s calling in on him.”
“I have yet to meet your mother.”
“Oh, she’s out at the moment, seeing Mr Milson. Tea or coffee, Mr Savernake?”
Further questions when Alice brought Savernake’s tea yielded no more information. Alice was unsure of what had ailed Milson, how he was doing, or even quite where he was at the moment. Savernake lost interest in Milson, but was intrigued by Alice’s obscurantism. He decided to put it from his mind and go for what Milson would have called a “constitutional”: it was a fine day.
Norgate was livelier than it had been the previous afternoon. A few cloudlets were high in the sun’s blue dungeon. Savernake thought he would walk as far as the North Head and see what had become of his old school. Research on the Internet told him it had been sold and transformed into an exclusive housing estate. Curling avenues of carefully individualised dwellings now covered the former playing fields, while the old school building—a Regency house of white stucco—had been divided into luxury apartments. Savernake had vague thoughts of moving down here into one of them, perhaps to make something neat and circular out of his existence.
Savernake was striding along the promenade with the North Head in sight when he saw the man with the distinctive walk again. Could it be Hoppy? Since his encounter with Milson the night before, it had become a possibility, even a probability. He was coming towards Savernake.
The features were undoubtedly those of Hoppy but ancient and in ruins. White stubble frosted his cheeks and the pendulous jowls that fell from his face and made it gaunt. The eyes were rheumy but alive with anger and, despite his impediment, he moved rapidly with the aid of a stick. He wore a heavy dark overcoat over the back of which curled locks of yellowish white hair; a grimy black and white check scarf was knotted around his neck. Savernake was quite sure that the man would not recognise him, but he felt somehow obliged to make the encounter.
“It’s Hoppy, isn’t it?”
Hoppy halted and struck a pose, as an actor might have done in similar circumstances.
“Good God! I haven’t been called that in many a long year. And who might you be? A former alumnus of Stone Court, perchance?” The flowery mode of address was familiar to Savernake: it brought back memories. In Stone Court days it had been much imitated, and sometimes admired.
“Savernake,” he said.
Hoppy came up and peered at him, so close that Savernake could smell the Guinness and old age on his breath. “Ah, yes. Savernake minor, unless I am much mistaken. Savernake major was the good looking one.” It gave Savernake a shock to have his older brother mentioned. “How do you do?” Hoppy held out his hand and Savernake reluctantly shook it. It felt remarkably like the hand he had known long ago only too well, smooth and hard and cold, a polished marble hand.
“And what brings you to this well-nightingaled vicinity?” said Hoppy.
Savernake muttered something vague about needing a break. There was a pause, awkward and full of stifled recollections, then Savernake on impulse said: “would you care for a coffee or something?”
“Thank you, Savernake. I know of an establishment on the pier which serves a very passable cup of coffee and a not entirely contemptible toasted teacake. Let us repair thither.”
They walked to the pier without exchanging many words. Savernake noticed that Hoppy was breathing hard and devoting all his attention to movement. The burst of florid language, he guessed, had been something of an act and had, temporarily, exhausted his mental faculties.
When they were settled in the pier café, Hoppy ordered from the young waitress not only coffee and teacake but, as he put it, “a slice of your very excellent chocolate gateau.” If he was attempting to charm the girl in question he signally failed. When she was gone Hoppy turned his attention to Savernake.
“And now, Savernake Minor, tell me all about your beautiful and extraordinary life.”
Savernake gave him the curtest possible résumé of his career that was consistent with politeness. As he had expected, Hoppy was not particularly interested. When the coffee and cake came his attention became almost exclusively devoted to the victuals. Once he had devoured a slice of teacake, he said.
“And what of your brother, Savernake ma?”
Savernake told him that he had died four years ago. He did not inform him that his brother had, for no known reason, committed suicide. That would have been to open an old wound, and with Hoppy of all people. He did not even know what he was doing here, feeding cake to this dreadful old man.
“Have you been living here all the time?” Savernake asked.
“More or less. Shortly after you left Stone Court I was—what is the euphemism?—‘asked to leave.’ Some nonsense over one of the boys. He wrote to his parents about me. Such rubbish. Sorry. One has to be very politically correct these days and take all that cant about ‘abuse’ seriously, doesn’t one?”
He looked at Savernake, searching for some kind of approval. None was given.
“It was a difficult time for me. The worst of it was I became so short of cash I had to sell the old Alvis. Do you remember the Alvis? A thing of beauty, but not, as it turned out, a joy forever?”
Savernake remembered the Alvis, the raffish second-hand sports coupé in which Hoppy would take out groups of boys for a drive round the North Head. There was fierce competition over who would not get to sit in the front seat beside him. Savernake had once lost out. He shivered at the memory.
“Somehow I stayed on in Norgate. It caused great irksomeness to that worthy old hypocrite Beresford, the head master. Perhaps that’s why I did it. Got a job clettering dishes at a greasy spoon down by the beach. Then I started pulling pints at the Captain Digby: you remember, the pub where all the Stone Court masters used to drink. That caused much alarm and despondency, I’m happy to say. And so I have lived on. Now I am a venerable burden on the State, and I still get my little war pension for the old foot. All I asked for was occasionally to put my hand inside your little short trousers, or to get you to put your soft hand inside my not so short ones. Perhaps a little more than that on occasion. The Greeks would have thought nothing of it, you know. After all, it was part of their education. Am I shocking you? I do hope so.”
Savernake looked into those ancient rheumy eyes and saw a glimmer of malice. He himself felt nothing; he was frozen.
“Nowadays, I and a few like-minded companions have to make do with the technical wizardry of what they call ‘The Inter Net’. It’s wax fruit after the real thing, you know.
”
Hoppy leaned forward, once more hoping for a reaction. Savernake found himself paralysed, unable to move either physically or emotionally. He was remembering something his brother had said to him shortly before he died.
“And so I have gone on. I thought I would be dead long before this, and so, no doubt would you, had you given it any thought, but, as you see, I didn’t die. Somehow I have failed in that endeavour. It must be this bracing Norgate air. Or perhaps simply the thing I am has made me live. Now I am an ancient, a struldbrugg; I sometimes wonder if I shall ever die. I often long for it, but I am consoled by the thought that at least I have outlived all my persecutors. It is my revenge.”
“Or your punishment.”
Hoppy stared at him through narrowed eyes. “Fuck off, Savernake Minor,” he said quietly. “And now, I must be on my wicked way. Thank you for the sustenance. You won’t try a little of this gateau? I can’t finish it, I’m afraid, but it really is ‘to die for’, as the modern argot has it. Where are you staying incidentally?”
“Happydene.”
“Ah, Happydene! Spent a night there with a rent boy once in earlier, more carefree days. Latvian, if I remember rightly. The rent boy, that is. Couldn’t understand a word he said, but pneumatic bliss. Happydene: I remember it well. The rooms are high.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Mean? If you don’t know now, you’ll never understand. Farewell, Savernake Minor. You wouldn’t like to lend me a tenner, would you?”
“No, Hoppy.”
“I thought not. Adieu. Parting is such sweet sorrow.” He lurched up from his seat and hobbled off.
That evening Savernake felt somehow obliged to dine in at Happydene. He would be dining alone anyway and might as well be doing it here. When Alice entered with the greyish soup Savernake asked after Milson.
“He’ll be right as rain soon,” said Alice. “They’re treating him at the moment.”
“Will he be coming back here?”
“Oh, I expect so.”
“Is your mother here at the moment?”
“She’s just gone out.”
As Alice bent over to put the soup before him, almost involuntarily Savernake stroked her behind. She was once more wearing the tight black skirt, but Alice did not recognise the action by so much as a flicker. When she had left the room he was amazed at himself and guilty. It had been a moment’s aberration, but he could not explain it. The malign influence of his meeting with Hoppy was a poor excuse. Alice’s next entrance (with steak and kidney pudding) found him rather rigidly holding a book in both hands and pretending to read.
After supper he sat in the lounge watching the news on television, but the events of the outside world meant nothing to him. Bombs had exploded; aircraft had been torn from the skies; yet another popular television personality had been found guilty of sexual molestation: not even the last item aroused him. Very soon he tired of it all and made his way up to his bedroom. On the landing, in the same place as the night before, he met Alice.
“I’ve just been turning down your bed, Mr Savernake,” she said. “Is it the Full English you wanted in the morning?”
“That’s right, Alice. Good night.”
“Good night, Mr Savernake. I hope you sleep well.”
As she passed him to go down stairs she once again brushed her body against his. Savernake watched her ample retreating form with increasing bewilderment. For a moment he was almost overwhelmed with desire; he wanted to rush down the stairs after her and seize her, but the madness abated. He went to his room.
It was unbearably stuffy there. Had Alice deliberately turned up the heating? He opened the window, but it was raining heavily outside and the rain blew in at him venemously. He shut the window and stared at it. A thousand evanescent droplets dashed themselves against the window pane, obscuring all vision of Norgate beyond. Savernake propped his door open to cool the room a little, then turned off the light and lay on his bed fully clothed.
He closed his eyes, trying to organise his thoughts around the day’s proceedings but he could not concentrate. Even straightforward moral censure seemed meaningless. He heard a roll of thunder. It was coming from directly above his head. He did not open his eyes; he wanted only to sleep, but the thunder persisted. It sounded almost as if someone was clambering about on the roof above him, and the sound of the rain was no longer a rattle, but more like stertorous breathing. He opened his eyes and was sickened to find himself in the world of the night before.
Above him a great grey expanse stretched up into infinity from which little silver droplets fell occasionally, stinging his face. There was the white Gorgon’s head from which came the budded metal tendrils which became hands as they stretched downwards. Now the hands, cold, smooth and hard, were touching him and he knew them from memory. He closed his eyes to shut it out, to struggle from nightmare into the light, but a huge weight was holding him down.
He managed to open his eyes, heavy though they were, and saw the white face again, but it was not the Gorgon in the ceiling rose but the face of Alice towering above him. Her mouth was open and her face full of madness. She was straddling Savernake, her black skirt tucked up around her bulbous waist, great expanses of soft white thigh on either side of him. Her white blouse was torn open and his hands were grasping at her pendulous breasts. He heard her breath come and go in frenzied gasps, and her spittle stung his cheeks, as she rode him. Above all he felt her weight bearing down on his loins, his stomach, his chest. Beyond her the infinitely high room went black.
###
As they wheeled him out of Happydene and into the waiting ambulance Savernake opened his eyes again. It was morning. The sky was a cloudless icy blue, faultless and infinite, washed clean after the rain. He feared it might fall on him; he would be glad of another death.
Tim Lebbon
STRANGE CURRENTS
Stephan didn’t think he could sleep, not when to close his eyes might mean death. But he was startled awake when two sea birds dropped into the boat, landing heavily, slumping to the fibreglass deck, displaying all the signs of exhaustion and on the verge of death themselves. He thought back to the dreams he’d had during the sleep he should have never let claim him. Dark dreams, where the sea rose up in vast towering shadows, and the hidden depths were crowded. His eyes hurt. His skin was rough and sore, as if burnt beneath alien eyes. Perhaps he hadn’t slept at all.
The two seagulls hobbled around the bow of the lifeboat. But their exhaustion was feigned, and when Stephan moved to catch them, they took flight. One of them flapped away across the waves and was soon lost to sight. The other circled a few times, caw-cawing laughter or a warning. Then it followed its cousin, and Stephan thought, They must have come from land.
The realisation should have galvanised him. But he found it hard to move, to summon enthusiasm, even hope. Seven days ago the lifeboat’s entire encasing structure—support posts and rods, tarpaulin, fixing ropes—had been torn away when the craft capsized. It had been pure luck that Stephan’s foot had caught in a trailing cord, the twine twisting around his ankle while he’d been buffeted and spun in the raging water. When the boat righted itself again he had gone with it, tearing the muscles in his calf and injuring his knee, but saving his life. He’d been left draped over the boat’s side, staring down into the water at the dark, massive shape that seemed to fade away beneath him.
There had been no storm. Something had capsized the boat and caused the maelstrom, and he still thanked whatever luck had saved him that he had not been cast into the sea. The boat was tiny compared to what he had seen—
—A whale, that’s what it was, surfacing to breathe and finding him in the way, or perhaps simply curious—
—but he was smaller. Baling water with a plastic container he’d managed to save, he had kept the cord wrapped around his lower leg for another day before finally freeing himself.
Fifteen days exposed to the whims of the North Atlantic weather. Luckily it was summ
er, otherwise he would have frozen to death long before the impending starvation, dehydration and sunburn would take him. Yet though the winds in the daytime scorched his skin, night breezes blew in cutting and cold. Stephan’s will to survive was strong, but the reality of survival had been growing weaker.
Those birds came from somewhere.
Carefully, painfully, he knelt up and crawled the length of the boat. It was small, designed for a dozen people, and six inches of water swilled in the bottom. He’d stopped baling days ago. Most of the fixtures and fitting had been ripped away during the capsize, including his supply of drinking water, flares, and the small bag containing food he’d been clinging to his side. He often wondered where that bag was now. He thought it would probably float, as the knot he’d tied in the neck had been strong, the drawstring tight. The food was all in packets, not tins, and there was little in there to give enough weight to counteract the air caught in the bag.
Maybe it would float forever. Caught on the tides, nudged by the violent winds, his food bag would likely survive him, drifting across the North Atlantic past Greenland, Iceland, back towards Europe where most of its contents had originated. A ship might run it down and thrash it to pieces beneath its propellor. A sea creature might take it, swallowed whole and unnoticed by a whale or chewed apart by a shark.
Year's Best Weird Fiction, Volume Three Page 31
