Ivoria, Tanith Lee [popular ebook readers .TXT] 📗

becoming afraid the old woman will have a stroke or heart-attack. Or even worried his sister may abruptly turn and kick her in the ribs or the head - Serena’s winter boots are smart but serviceable.

What had Serena done anyway? Grabbed Mrs Franks, slapped her and thrown her over? Conversely he is uncertain if Mrs Franks is entirely subdued. He recalls her bravado with Pond and himself. Bring it on, she had said. It comes to him maybe she is fearless with men, despising them, whereas she respects her own gender far more, and so has surrendered.

Serena does convey her own feral power. He can now recollect flashes of this, in childhood, even once or twice in roles he has seen her act when he was a teenager.

She reaches towards Nick suddenly and pulls him into the hall. She pushes the front door shut.

Outside the security light dies.

The light inside is incredibly harsh. It makes both women now look like cut-outs, with their pallid skins and black or black and grey hair. Both their mouths are brightly red, but the old woman’s, due to lipstick, is smeared. How sharp her teeth however, to have bitten Serena’s hand so impressively.

Serena says, “All right, you old bat. Now I want to know where your cunt grandchild is, your kitty-cat. That’s all.”

“Why I should know?” Mrs Franks has spoken. But her voice is quiet.

“You know. She will have told you.”

“She tells me nothing never. She got her own life.”

“She tells you. You tell me.”

Mrs Franks whimpers. “What you want me t’do? Don’t know, know nothing. I’m a poor old lady. Y’leave me be.”

Serena bends towards Mrs Franks and screams into her face, “You’re old and ugly, sure. But you’re not poor - she sees to that. And you’re fucking not a lady. Now fucking tell me!” And slaps her swift as a striking snake again across the face.

“Reenie…” Nick says, “don’t…”

“I call them policy men,” blurts Mrs Franks.

“So call them. Go on.”

Mrs Franks begins to weep. Huge drops break from her eyes. Otherwise even now she does not move.

Nick sees in the ancient savage face, quite abruptly, all the masks of an eldritch Greek drama. He thinks of a gorgon.

He walks carefully past Serena and crouches down by Mrs Franks. “Why did Kitty want us? Why did she come after us?” he says. “I think you do know, about Laurence, and me, and our sister. Why?”

“I don’t know nothing what she do. She do what she want.”

“Where is she?” Nick asks, softly, as if trying not to let Serena hear.

Mrs Franks says nothing.

Then Serena pushes Nick away and he springs up before he loses his balance. In utter horror he then watches as Serena drags Mrs Franks bodily to her feet - the thought of those, yellow old bones manhandled, splintering under their carapace… “Stop this now,” Serena hisses. “Or I will tear this dump apart until I find the answer.” Is she acting? Nick thinks she is not. Probably she never has ‘acted’: simply lets this creature from her inner self -

Mrs Franks says, “Where you think she go?”

“I’m asking you.”

Nick sees the glitter of cunning cross the weeping eyes. Before he can do anything, Mrs Franks’s splinterless bone-hard fist has punched Serena in the abdomen.

Serena retches, folds over and spills geneva and coffee on to the floor.

Nick tries to grab the old woman but she scuttles past him with another raw screech. She is gone into what he sees is a bathroom, just before the door slams and the bolt is shot.

Serena bends above the sink and spits. Then she runs water and drinks it from her cupped hand. Apparently she does not want to contaminate herself with any of the kitchen crockery, though it looks to him quite clean where it rests in the plastic drainer.

The kitchen is of medium size, its walls painted fierce blue (a hot Mediterranean sky?) with dark wood units and tiled surfaces. The stainless steel sink shone before water splashed on it. Most of the appliances look modern. There is no dishwasher, but there are a washing-machine, a tall fridge-freezer, a can-opener, even a coffee-maker to rival Serena’s own. On the windowsill some herbs rise from plastic pots, but they are not homegrown.

Serena seems recovered.

She looks at him and says contemptuously, “We can’t break in the door. I haven’t got the weight and you’re not strong enough. She’s probably blockaded it with something anyway.”

“Yes.”

Serena scans the kitchen. Then she pulls wide the oven door and hauls out a large baking tray.

“Nick - find some newspapers - or paper towels if there aren’t any.”

He does not question her, only opens cupboards. He finds inside them the debris most people seem to accumulate (he does not) including many frying pans and other utensils, old jars, plastic bowls. Then he locates a stack of magazines - Hello, Vogue, Grazia. “Will these do?”

“Fine. Tear out pages. Screw them up.” She has filled the baking tray with most of a bottle of olive oil. As the pages are prepared, she seizes and crams them into the oil. She looks like a child again, very absorbed in this eccentric task.

But he knows by now what she is doing. He is ready when she picks up a box of matches.

“Carry that into the hall,” she says, handing him the tray. “Put it down about two feet from the bathroom door.”

Nick does not argue. Once more it all reminds him of those games in their joint childhood - he about five, she eleven or so. They were dangerous games then, he supposes - climbing dodgy walls, high trees, leaping over things - he had deduced later, in his twenties, she had doubtless been attempting to get him killed.

He puts the tray in the hall, where she has told him to. Serena stands by the closed bathroom. She projects her trained voice. It rings round the hallway and will definitely pierce the door.

“Listen, bitchy. I’m setting fire to your fucking flat, OK? Just