Turquoiselle, Tanith Lee [100 best novels of all time .TXT] 📗

where he stood, justinside the door. “Shut the door, please, old fellow,” added Croft. “Perhaps youshould lock it – I have the keys here.”

“Incase someone comes by, you mean,” said Carver.

“Hidingin plain sight,” Croft repeated. He had poured a short thin glass full ofvodka, and knocked it back, picked up two anchovies in his fingers and set themin his mouth,  savorously rolling them about his tongue before biting down.

Carvershut and triple-locked the door. He retained the keys. “I thought,” Carver saidquietly, “we had to get out of here. Away.”

“Wedo,” said Croft, through the fish. He chewed further, then swallowed, pouredanother drink, and swallowed that, again in one mouthful. He poured a thirdglass, and now added the miniature ice-cubes. Put it down, only running theedge of his large and manicured hand lightly, kindly, against its frosty sides.Petting it before drinking it.

“Thenwhy,” said Carver, “are we in here?”

“Commonsense. They have gone mad. They will look for me. For us. Initially in thesections. Then outside. They will expect that we attempt a straight route forthe outer world. They will be massing at every exit.”

“Whatare the exits? Where are they?”

“I’llshow you the best ones. In a little while. You must be patient, Car, dear boy.Have some water – or canI tempt you to this tasty water-coloured beverage?”

“Wheredoes it come from?” Carver asked.

“Somewherein Russia, I assume. Legally imported. Perfectly valid, patriotic and safe. Notreason in sampling foreign drinks or food. These are good, these anchovies.Yes? No? Your loss, dear boy. Caviar would be delightful, of course.” He atemore of the fish, then raised and tipped the glass between his lips. This timehe emptied only half, crunched on an ice-cube. Turning in the chair he piercedCarver with a grimace of sudden and intense malevolence. “Sit down, boy. Whatdo you think you are doing? Sit. Drink your water.”

Carver glanced over his shoulder through windows, out of the shed.The slopes were sullen and shadowed yet still seemed vacant of people. But thetrees had not shown the security gang until the four men chose to emerge. Andif Carver left now, he had no notion of any safe way to get across the wildextensive grounds, at speed and in the right direction.

He walked to the table, positioned the second chair and sat;reached for the water and the second glass. (The keys were in his pocket andCroft might have forgotten them.)

“We must just be patient,” said Croft thoughtfully. “We cando that. It’s the fashion now, everything must rush so fast. It was better inthe past. The past went slowly. Perhaps even you remember how slow it went whenyou were young. Minutes that were hours, hours that were years.” He finished theglass, sucked in another of the ice-cubes. Deciding to speak again, he spat the cube out on the floor. He had devoured all theanchovies, and now wiped his oily fingers on the sleeve of his severe andcostly suit, whose jacket, even in the heat, he did not slough. “Let’s pretend,shall we?” said Croft, resuming a smile, almost drowsy with a goodwill assudden as the flash of malevolence. “Let’s pretend we’re in a Russian novel –Tolstoy, say. Or a Chekhov play, that might be better. Platonov... The Cherry Orchard.... The Seagull.Ah, that would be the life. All that elite glamour and passion and fuckinglyglorious angst, and then a conclusive and mindlessly magnificently fearlessdeath. Anna and Platonov with their trains, and so-and-so with his pistol –Drink up, Car. Nothing like good vodka.” His mind had mislaid, it seemed, thatCarver’s drink was water. Carver drank amenably. His heart thudded heavy aslead, like leaden bullets loaded in his chest, playing now Russian Roulette,slipping round, with the empty click of escape, but in the end the explosionwould come, more silent than any silence of the living earth.

Croft refilled his own glass.

The bottle was half empty, one more chamber of the gun. When allthe single-glass-deep chambers of the bottle were empty, the explosion wouldyet come.

Whatever was happening in this Place was plainly happening toCroft as well. Did he know? Did any of them? – the girl with her blood-dippedtoenails, Ball and Van Sedden fighting and weeping.Charlie Hemel. Anjeela–

And he, Carver, he must have it too, this madness. That, hismadness, was why he had seen her hand alter, and her hair. Did he now only imagine – pretend –Croft partly lay there in the wooden chair, his jacket smelling of vinegar andsalt-fish, and his real hair falling over his vast, mournful and bitter eyes.

Croft drank. “Car,” said Croft. “You know, dear boy, it’s beenhard on me. My son – it was – years ago. They killed him. It was duringconflict, the great battle, hearts, minds. It was then. He was so young. Aboutyour age once, Car. When you were young, like that. I wished so much he hadn’tdied. If it could have been me. If someone – if someone had said to me, we mustkill one of you, Peter. You, or him. I’d have – I – would have said, me. Let itbe me. But no – nobodyasked. He was my son. I never saw – Not enough left of him to bury. What’s that?”Croft had lurched about, almost falling, spinning up from the chair whichitself did fall, on its back. He rushed to the nearest window and gaped out,panting as if he had run for miles across a minefield. He put both his hands upon the glass, as a child might, staring out. And then he threw himself on thefloor, below the window level, not to be seen.

Carver rose cautiously, and approached the other closer window,keeping to one side of it. He could make out nothing in the view that had notalready been there. No intruders, other than trees, in between. But, as he hadalready decided, that might not prove a thing. He eased away from the window.Really, the shed being constructed as it was, with so many windows on bothsides, to hide in here was fairly nonviable. Croft, going crazy, glossed overthis. Or else it made for him a facet of some necessary pattern, inescapableafter all.