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

Far away though now it was, the up-and-down building in fact endedthe vista from the shed. About a quarter mile off below this hill. The windowsof the corridor outside his room would be identifiable, if he searched for them– he did not.

Croft was getting up from the floor. He stood without unease andcrossed unguardedly in front of the windows as he returned to right his chairand sit on it. He looked a moment at the vodka bottle, but did not refill hisglass.

Croft’s face was strangely both very old and very young. Thefeatures, sockets and lids of the eyes, might have been carved. He seemed tiredbut restless, feverish.

“What were we talking about? Ah,” he said. “Chekhov. Have you readthe plays?”

“No.”

“That’s a pity. Nobody reads now. Nothing like that, like Chekhov.But you’ll have seen the plays acted–” Carver didnot reply, or need to. “You’ll know what I mean. There comes a junction, acrossroads. You have to choose. Jump under the train, blow your brains out.Ibsen has it too. Hedda Gabler. Youcan’t go on. The jackals are gathering, the starving black wolves that want torip your guts and gnaw your bones. Or you can avoid them. A crash, a flame,nuclear detonation of the brain and skull. All over. Oblivion. Peace.”

Croft lifted the vodka and poured himself another glass. He sippedit, laid it down with tender care.

“I think it was quick for him. My boy. They said it was. So young.So quick.”

Croft sat and did not say anything. Carver did as Croft did. IfCroft finished the bottle, he might lose consciousness, or at any rate becomeless intransigent,could be dealt with.

If there was time.

Odd the rest of them had not come here. Something more intriguingfor them to do, obviously. Searching the building. Massing at the exits–

Would Carver have to kill Croft?

And others, would he have to kill others, too?

He was untrained in that. Self-defence to a point, of course. Notmurder.

But he reckoned he could, if he had to, and got the chance. Mosthuman things were capable of that.

Was Croft starting to go to sleep? His long lids were almost shut.He slumped in the chair.

Outside, at the windows, a blink of transparent lightning.Downhill, through the intercessionary trees, a low flat boom resounded.Underfoot, faint yet not to be missed, vibration trembled the floor of theshed, and the adjacent sheds rattled at their couplings, softly, as if – for asecond – the train would be travelling on.

Something had been blown up. Going on the impact, probably not theentire building.

Carver went back to the window. The building was not visible.Instead another pillar of darkness was copiously gushing upward, tinged a muddyorange at its base. The smoke was already, blown not by any non-existent windbut by the charge of the blast, swirling uphill towards them.

As the smoke thickened round the sheds, the tremble below groundended.

Croft had revived. He sat upright. He drained his glass, pouredanother drink and tipped it down his throat.

“No time to lose now,”he announced very clearly. “Got to get out, you and I. OK, Car, OK, old man?”And from inside the jacket, from under his arm, he drew out a slender hand gun,and set it down by the nearly empty bottle and the empty plate.

Carver, not meaning to, half rose.

“Sit, my friend,” said Croft, his voice musical as any fine actor’s.“Even like this, I’d be too quick for you. You have to trust me on this.”

Something – something – yes, Carvertrusted him on this. Croft would be too quick.

One hope. His aim might not, under these circumstances, be so verysplendid. Not now. So hold quiet, and judge the moment. The moment to dodge,to dive – or to die.

“The thing of it is, Car,” said Croft, turned in the chair, andwatching him, black eyes wide open, burning and abnormally clear, “I do mean toescape. But how about you? Do you want to come with me – over the mountain andfar away? Oh Christ, Carver,” he said, and the bright clear eyes filled up withtears brighter than the vodka, or the eyes. “I see it now. I see it. My son. It’syou, Carver, you, my dear son. Poor boy, poor boy– Say, then, dearest boy, doyou want to escape with me?”

It was gibberish, but not all. Carver had seen at last what Croft’sescape plan must be. Either there was no other path left out ofthis Place, or else Croft could no longer access the path. And so the onlyroute was through the gun.

“No,” Carver said. “I don’t want to escape that way.”

He spoke calmly. Reasonably.

It might not, could not work. It did.

“Good luck then, my dear son. Take care. Get out now, please. Andclose the door.”

Carver got up and walked to the door and opened it and at everystep he felt the blazing bullet shear home through him into head or heart. Butno bullet came. Only the smudged greenness outside, the leaves, the patchedclearness and the smoke like fog, old fogs someone had once told him of as achild.

And peculiarly, through the patches in the fog, an irrelevantfact came to Carver now, that only this central shed had two steps up to it.The others, either side, stood on slightly higher ground, and were stepless.This was the first time he had noticed.

Carver did not look in at Croft as he closed the door.

Carver was down the two steps, just on to the turf and tree roots,the smoke catching in his throat, when the gun thundered behind him. Carverstalled, but the bullet had not been for him. Its noise was unconvincing evenso, the one bad special effect which, after all, had spoilt the play’s finalact.

Twenty-One

But another act was due to begin. After an interval.

In the interval, Carver walked off from the sheds, across and overthe rise, and down its further side. The acrid smoke became less here. Thewoods were thicker, the scent of leaves and grass persisted. No sun showed, butfrom the position of the glare that now and then seared through the overcast,he thought it must be noon.

He sat under a tree, as