To Indigo, Tanith Lee [best ereader for comics .TXT] 📗

rituals and observances. You’ll fast and receive chastisement. When we’ve purified your flesh – your mind, heart and soul, of course, are beyond any redemption – you will be permitted certain pleasures. You will even be allowed to kill once more. The tally must comprise thirteen victims. After this you will serve, as you swore to do, the Mystery. Remember, Vilmos, Gold may be made from Filth. The Fount of Eternal Youth, the Enlightening of the Gem of the Third Eye, may be discovered, unlocked. The colours of the body pass up towards the Infinite. And, in the stage before Infinity, they cross into the physical threshold of Truest Power. Be happy, Vilmos. For you will work an essential magic.”

“But what of me?” he asked the toad, drearily.

It turned from him and waddled away into the shadow behind the Master’s chair. Its refusal to answer seemed now significant.

Risen sun burst through a window, and in Vilmos’s skull the white string and the black raw coal of the migraine woke without preamble, hungry, sinking in their fangs. He barely noticed as the servants came and hauled him up the stairs.

FIFTEEN

On the 2nd May at 8.30 a.m., Duran arrived at the house.

He isn’t young, though some years younger than I am, yet he retains the air of his mature youth, which I suppose was in the Eighties.

We went round the house. He made notes on a pad from Sainsbury’s in green biro.

The chat had been desultory. Suddenly, in the study by the computer, having asked me about virus-combatants, firewalls and so on – computer fraud and its prevention had also become an interest of his – he said, “So why this conversion, Roy?”

“What? The security?”

“Yes, mate. You seemed happy enough. You getting like a bit of bother round here?”

“It’s a quiet road,” I said. “But. Well, you hear things.”

“Yeah. But you can always hear things. What’s new?”

Of course I had had the idea before that I might confide in Duran, ask him for advice, even help. He might know – someone. But now obviously, someone had approached me, the unsettling Cart or whatever the hell his name was. And I’d put Cart off because frankly, in those moments, I had felt more scared of him and of the consequences of using his services, than of the eccentric Sej. Now however, I still felt I couldn’t confide in Duran. Was it that I really and definitely had begun again to credit Joseph was my son?

“Like, Roy, mate, you don’t have to tell me. Only if you felt you should. P’raps I could make you a better defence plan. For the house, I mean.”

I looked at him. The words stuck. I said, “I do appreciate that, Duran. Thanks. But I’m just thinking of taking a break, going up north to visit an old friend. And the house will be empty, you see.”

He chuckled. “What’ve I told you, Roy? Don’t tell no one, ever, you are leaving your property unoccupied.”

“Right.”

“I mean, you don’t know you can trust me. I mean, you can. But you can’t know for sure.”

“Almost every lock and bolt in here was your suggestion. Wouldn’t you have broken in by now if I couldn’t?”

“Well, you got me there, Roy. Maybe I’m just biding my time.”

The other matter of Why had been satisfactorily shelved, probably let go. He was a good man, but his moral duty, even as he saw it, could only extend so far.

When Duran and I had made the ‘defence plan’, which would be quite costly, and included sorting out a new burglar alarm that worked – “Police don’t take that much notice, unless you got one of these” – we fixed another date for Thursday, he had another coffee and then left. His girlfriend was eight and a half months into expecting their second baby. He didn’t like having to go back to Bristol on Saturday and leaving her. He said if anything got ‘stressy’ his cousin would have to lump it.

After he’d gone I did the chores in the house. The contents of the fridge and freezer were low, but if I was planning to leave this coming Saturday, I only had a few days to cover. The thought of shopping, never a favourite task and always kept to necessities, exasperated me. I’d known for years that one day I’d be old and on my own and then I wouldn’t manage it at all. It would be some form of modern meals-on-wheels, or deliveries from some supermarket, with half the items doubtless wrong.

But the way the world was, why assume I’d even live, or any of us would, into our ‘twilight’ years?

In the afternoon I sat down at the machine and put in the disc for the latest due-to-be-written novel. It had the working title of Kill Me Tomorrow, which I’d lifted of course from Othello, but the publisher had pointed out it sounded too much like something concerning James Bond. I couldn’t settle to it.

I am fairly disciplined. One needs to be in this job. But the whole rigmarole, although they’d liked and bought it, looked like twaddle to me now.

Finally I sat, staring at the words on the screen, not seeing them, and Joseph walked forward in my mind and stood there, watching me.

I hadn’t seen him for days. How long? Eight, nine. But he had left an indelible impression. The four circumstances of our meeting – the pub in the Strand, under the fir tree, at my door, in my hotel – had me strung up in the certain belief he might now suddenly appear – virtually anywhere, looking in at an upper window, maybe, balanced ably on a ladder.

Or would I simply go downstairs and he’d be sitting there, in the kitchen, drinking tea?

Why had he installed a piano, if he hadn’t meant to return into my life and house? Or was it a present, like the dustbin and the bottle of beer which, incidentally, I’d never touched.

He’d become bored.