‘Were you at the meeting?’ he asked.
‘Of course he was,’ Immacolata said, but she was silenced with a sharp look from Shadwell. He pulled at his foreskin, quite unselfconsciously.
‘Was I good?’ he said. ‘No, no, of course I was.’
He peered at his pudenda over his shiny gut. ‘Who the fuck are you?’ he said.
Jerichau kept his mouth shut.
‘I asked you a question,’ said Shadwell. He put the cigarette between his lips and spread his arms, so that his dressers could finish his toilet. They proceeded to towel the remaining ectoplasm from his face and body, then began to powder his bulk.
‘I know him,’ said Hobart.
‘Do you indeed?’
‘He’s the woman’s partner. He’s with Suzanna.’
‘Really?’ said Shadwell. ‘Did you come to make a sale, is that it? See what we’d pay you for her?’
‘I haven’t seen her …’ Jerichau said.
‘Oh yes you have,’ said Shadwell. ‘And you’re going to tell us where to find her.’
Jerichau closed his eyes. Oh Gods, make this end, he thought; don’t let me suffer. I’m not strong. I’m not strong.
‘It won’t take long,’ Shadwell murmured.
Tell him,’ said Hobart. Jerichau cried out as his bones creaked.
‘Stop that!’ Shadwell said. The grip relaxed a little. ‘Keep your brutalities out of my sight,’ said the Salesman. His voice rose. ‘Understand me?’ he said. ‘Do you? Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Shadwell grunted, then turned to Immacolata, his sudden fury just as suddenly dissipated.
‘I think your sisters might enjoy him,’ he said. ‘Get them here, will you?’
The Incantatrix uttered a summons, which came from her misshapen lips like breath on an icy morning. Shadwell returned his attention to Jerichau, speaking as he dressed.
There’s more than pain to be suffered,’ he said lightly, ‘if you don’t tell me where I may find the carpet.’
He hoisted up his trousers, and buttoned up the fly, throwing an occasional glance in Jerichau’s direction.
‘What are you waiting for?’ he said to the prisoner. ‘Some bargain or other?’
He put on his tie, while his attenders tied his shoe-laces.
‘You’ll wait a long time, my friend. I don’t barter these days. I don’t offer treats. My days as a Salesman are numbered.’
He took the jacket from his attendant, and slipped it on. The lining shimmered. Its powers were familiar to Jerichau from Suzanna’s stories; but it seemed Shadwell had no desire to win a confession from him by that means.
‘Tell me where the carpet can be found,’ he said, ‘or the sisters and their children will undo you nerve by nerve. Not a difficult choice, I would have thought.’
Jerichau made no reply.
There was a chill wind from the corridor.
‘Ah, the ladies,’ said Shadwell; and Death flew in at the door.
V
THE HOURS PASS
1
nd still he didn’t return.
It was three-thirty in the morning. She had stood by the window as the hour grew late; watched drunkards brawl, and two unlikely whores ply their desperate trade, until a police vehicle cruised by and they were either arrested or hired. Now the street was deserted, and all she had to watch were the lights changing at the crossroads – green, red, amber, green – without a vehicle passing in either direction. And still he didn’t return.
She turned over a variety of explanations. That the meeting was still going on, and he couldn’t slip away without arousing suspicion; that he’d found friends amongst the audience, and was talking over old times with them. That this; that that. But none of her excuses quite convinced her. Something was wrong. She and the menstruum both knew it.
They had made no contingency plans, which was stupid. How could they have been so stupid, she asked herself over and over. Now she was left pacing the narrow room not knowing what to do for the best; not wanting to leave in case he returned the minute after and discovered her gone, yet fearful of staying in case he’d been captured and was even now being beaten into telling them where she could be found.
Time was she would have believed the best. Contented herself that he would come back in a while, and waited patiently for him. But experience had changed her view of things. Life was not that kind.
At four-fifteen she started to pack. The very fact that she’d accepted that something was amiss, that she and the Weave were in jeopardy, made the adrenalin flow. At four-thirty she began to take the carpet downstairs. It was a lengthy and cumbersome business, but in recent months she’d shed every ounce of fat, and in the process discovered muscles she’d never known she had. And again the menstruum was with her, a body of will and light that made possible in minutes what should have taken hours.
Even so there was a hint of dawn in the sky by the time she threw their bags (she had packed for him too) into the back of the car. He would not come back now, she told herself. Something had detained him, and if she wasn’t quick it would detain her too.
Fighting tears, she drove away, leaving another unpaid bill behind her.
2
It might have given Suzanna some small satisfaction if she could have seen the look on Hobart’s face when, less than twenty minutes after her departure, he arrived at the hotel the prisoner had named.
He’d spilled a good deal while the beasts had their way with him: blood and words in equal measure. But the words were incoherent; a babble from which Hobart wrestled to extract any sense. There was talk of the Fugue, of course, amongst the sobs and the bleatings; and of Suzanna too. Oh my lady, he kept saying, oh my lady; then fresh sobbing. Hobart let him weep, and bleed, and weep some more, until the man was near to death. Then he asked the simple question: where is your lady? And the fool answered, his mind past knowing who asked the question, or indeed if he’d answered it.
And here, in the place the man had spoken of, Hobart now stood. But where was the woman of his dreams? Where was Suzanna? Gone again: flitted away, leaving the door-handle warm and the threshold still mourning her shadow.
It had been very close this time, though. He’d almost taken her. How long before he had her mystery netted, once and for all, her silver light between his fingers? Hours. Days at the most.
‘Nearly mine,’ he said to himself. He clutched the book of faery-tales close to his chest, so that none of its words could slip away, then left his lady’s chamber to go whip up the hunt.
VI
HELLO, STRANGER
1
he hated leaving the city, knowing she was also leaving Jerichau behind somewhere, but whatever she felt for him – and that was a difficulty in itself – she knew better than to linger. She had to go, and go quickly.
But alone? How long would she, could she, survive like this? A car, a carpet and woman who sometimes was not even certain she was human…
She had friends around the country, and relatives too, but none she knew well enough to really trust. Besides, they’d ask questions, inevitably, and there was no part of this story she’d dare begin to explain. She thought about going back to London; to the flat in Battersea, where her old life – Finnegan and his out of season Valentines, the pots, the damp in the bathroom – would be waiting for her. But again there would be questions, and more questions. She needed the company of someone who would simply accept her, silence and all.
It had to be Cal.
Thinking of him, her spirits lightened. His eager grin came to mind, his soft eyes, his softer words. There was probably more danger in seeking him out than in returning to London, but she was tired of calculating risks.
She would do what her instincts told her to do; and her instincts said:
2
‘Cal?’
There was a long silence at the other end of the telephone line, when she thought contact had been broken.
‘Cal, are you
there?’ Then he said: ‘Suzanna?’
‘Yes. It’s me.’
‘Suzanna …’
She felt tears close, hearing him speak her name.
‘I have to see you, Cal.’
‘Where are you?’
‘In the middle of the city. Near some monument of Queen Victoria.’
‘The end of Castle Street.’
‘If you say so. Can I see you? It’s very urgent.’
‘Yes, of course. I’m not far from there. I’ll slip away now. Meet you on the steps in ten minutes.’
He was there in seven, dressed in a charcoal-grey work suit, collar turned up against the drizzle, one of a hundred similar young men – accountant’s clerks and junior managers – she’d seen pass by as she waited under Victoria’s imperious gaze.
He did not embrace her, nor even touch her. He simply came to a halt two yards from where she stood, and looked at her with a mixture of pleasure and puzzlement, and said:
‘Hello.’
‘Hello.’
The rain was coming on more heavily by the moment.
‘Shall we talk in the car?’ she said. ‘I don’t like to leave the carpet on its own.’
At the mention of the carpet, the puzzled look on his face intensified, but he said nothing.
In his head Cal had a vague image of himself rummaging through a dirty warehouse for a carpet, this carpet presumably – but his grasp on the whole story was slippery.
The car was parked in Water Street, a stone’s throw from the monument. The rain beat a tattoo on the roof of the vehicle as they sat side by side.
Her precious cargo, which she’d been so loath to leave, was stored in the back of the car, doubled up and roughly covered with a sheet. Try as he might, he still couldn’t get a fix on why the carpet was so important to her; or indeed why this woman – with whom he could only remember spending a few hours – was so important to him. Why had the sound of her voice on the telephone brought him running? Why had his stomach begun churning at the sight of her? It was absurd and frustrating, to feel so much and know so little.
Things would become clear, he reassured himself, once they began to talk.
But he was wrong in that assumption. The more they talked, the more bewildered he became.
‘I need your help,’ she said to him. ‘I can’t explain everything – we haven’t got time now – but apparently there’s some kind of Prophet appeared, promising a returning to the Fugue.
Jerichau went to one of the meetings, and he didn’t come back –’
‘Wait,’ said Cal, hands up to stem the rush of information. ‘Hold on a moment. I’m not following this. Jerichau?’
‘You remember Jerichau,’ she said.
It was an unusual name, not easily forgotten. But he could put no face to it.
‘Should I know him?’ he said.
‘Good God, Cal –’
‘To be honest … a lot of things … are blurred.’
‘You remember me well enough.’
‘Yes. Of course. Of course I do.’
‘And Nimrod. And Apolline. The night in the Fugue.’
She could see even before he murmured ‘No’ that he remembered nothing.
Perhaps there was a natural process at work here; a means by which the mind dealt with experiences that contradicted a lifetime’s prejudices about the nature of reality. People simply forgot.
‘I have strange dreams.’ Cal said, his face full of confusion. ‘What sort of dreams?’
He shook his head. He knew his vocabulary would prove woefully inadequate.
‘It’s hard to describe.’ he said. ‘Like I’m a child, you know? Except that I’m not. Walking somewhere I’ve never been. Not lost, though. Oh shit –’ He gave up, angered by his fumblings.
‘I can’t describe it.’
‘We were there once,’ she told him calmly. ‘You and I. We were there. What you’re dreaming about exists. Cal.’
He stared at her for long moments. The confusion didn’t leave his face, but it was mellowed now by the smallest of smiles.
‘Exists?’ he said.
‘Oh yes. Truly.’
‘Tell me,’ he said softly. ‘Please tell me.’
‘I don’t know where to begin either.’
‘Try,’ he said. ‘Please.’ There was such a yearning in his eyes; such a need to know.
‘The carpet –’ she began.
He glanced back at it. ‘Is it yours?’ he asked.
She couldn’t help but laugh.
‘No,’ she said. ‘The place you dream of … it’s here. It’s in this carpet.’
She could see incredulity sparring with his faith in her.
‘Here?’ he said.
Sometimes she almost found it difficult to comprehend that fact herself, and she had an advantage over Cal, or even poor Jerichau: she had the menstruum as a touchstone of the miraculous. She didn’t blame him for his doubt.
‘You have to trust me,’ she said. ‘However impossible it sounds.’
‘I know this,’ he said, his voice tight. ‘Somewhere in me, I know this.’
‘Of course you do. And you’ll remember. I’ll help you remember. But for now I need help from you.’
‘Yes. Whatever you want.’
‘There are people chasing me.’
‘Why? Who?’
‘I’ll tell you about them, when we get the chance. The point is, they want to destroy the land you dream about, Cal. The world hidden in that carpet. The Fugue.’
‘You want to hide back at my place?’
She shook her head, ‘I risked a call there to get your work number. They could be waiting there already.’
‘Geraldine wouldn’t tell them anything.’
‘I can’t risk that.’
‘We could go to Deke’s place, out in Kirkby. Nobody’ll find us there.’
‘You trust him?’
‘Sure.’
She switched on the engine. ‘I’ll drive,’ she said. ‘You direct.’
3
They turned into James Street, the fury of the rain monsoonal now. They didn’t get far. A few yards down the road the traffic had come to a halt.
Cal wound down his window, and ducked his head out to see what the problem was. It was difficult to be certain of anything through the curtain of rain, but there seemed to have been a collision, and the traffic was backing up behind it. A few of the more impatient drivers in the queue were attempting to nose their way out into the city-bound lane, and failing, thus adding to the confusion. Horns began to blare; one or two drivers got out of their cars, their coats as makeshift umbrellas, to see what was up.
Cal laughed quietly.
‘What’s funny?’ she asked him.
‘An hour ago I was sitting in the Claims Department up to my elbows in paperwork –’
‘Now you’ve got a fugitive for company.’
‘The deal’s fine by me,’ he grinned.
‘Why the hell aren’t we moving?’
‘I’ll go look,’ he said, and before she could prevent him he was out of the car and threading his way through the maze of vehicles, pulling his jacket up in a vain attempt to keep the rain off his head.
She watched him go, her fingers drumming on the wheel. She didn’t like this situation. She was too visible: and visible was vulnerable.
As Cal reached the opposite side of the street, her attention was claimed by a flash of blue lights in the wing mirror. She glanced round to see several police motor-cycles cruising along the queue towards the accident. Her heart jumped a beat.
She looked towards Cal, hoping he was on his way back, but he was still studying the traffic. Come on out of the rain, damn you, she willed him; I need you here.
There were more officers, these on foot, making their way up the street, and they were speaking to the occupants of each car. Diversionary advice, no doubt; innocent enough. All she had to do was keep smiling.
Up ahead, cars were beginning to move off. The
riders were directing the traffic around an accident site, bringing a halt to the contrary flow to do so. She looked over towards Cal, who was staring off down the street. Should she get out of the car; call him back? As she weighed the options, an officer appeared at her side, rapping on the window. She wound it down.
‘Wait for the signal,’ he told her. ‘And take it slowly.’
He stared at her, rain dripping off his helmet and his nose.
She offered a smile.
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘I’ll be careful.’
Though he’d delivered his instructions, he didn’t move from the window, but stared at her.
‘I know your face,’ he said.
‘Really?’ she said, trying for light flirtatiousness, and missing by a mile.
‘What’s your name?’
Before she had time to lie, one of the officers up ahead called to her interrogator. He stood up, giving her an opportunity to glance back in Cal’s direction. He was standing on the edge of the pavement, staring across at the car. She made a small shake of her head, hoping he’d read her signal through the rain-blurred window. The officer caught her warning.
‘Something wrong?’ he said.
‘No,’ she told him. ‘Not at all.’
Another of the officers was approaching the car, shouting something over the din of rain and idling engines. The longer I stay here, she thought, the worse this is going to get; and she wrenched the wheel round. The officer at the window yelled for her to stop, but the die was cast. As the car bolted forward she chanced the briefest of glances in Cal’s direction. She saw to her distress that he was engaged in trying to wind his way between the cars. Though she shouted his name, he was oblivious to her. She shouted again. Too late, he looked up; the officer in the front was running towards the car. He’d reached it before Cal was half way across the road. She had no choice but to make her escape, while she still had a prayer.