Clever boy, thought Barbara. Clever, sensitive boy.
‘Damn tire blew,’ said the woman, ‘and the jack doesn’t seem to be worth shit. Do you have one I can use?’
‘No,’ Barbara lied. ‘Mine gave out a couple of months back, and I never got around to replacing it. I tend to wait for a helpful cop when I get into trouble, or I just call Triple A.’
‘I don’t have Triple A, and I haven’t seen any cops, helpful or otherwise.’
‘Haven’t you heard? They melt in the rain.’
The woman tried to smile. She was already soaked through. ‘They may not be the only ones.’
‘Well, this is down for a while, and it’s not such a good idea for you to wait with your car,’ said Barbara. ‘There have been a lot of accidents at the bend in the road just ahead. People take it too fast, especially in bad weather. If someone hits you, you’ll have bigger worries than a flat tire.’
The woman’s shoulders sagged.
‘What do you suggest I do?’
‘I live just up the road from here. You can almost see my house from that big pine back there. Come up, get dry, and I’ll call Roy, my neighbor, when the rain stops.’ Once she had told the lie about her own jack, she could hardly offer to change the tire herself. ‘He lives to help out damsels in distress. He’ll have that tire changed in no time. In the meantime, you and your son can have a warm drink and wait in comfort. He is your son, isn’t he?’
There was an odd pause before the woman answered. ‘Oh yes, of course. That’s William. Billy to me, and to his friends.’
That pause was interesting, thought Barbara.
‘I’m Barbara,’ she said. ‘Barbara Kelly.’
‘I’m Caroline. Hi, pleased to meet you.’
The two women shook hands slightly awkwardly through the open window. Caroline gestured to the boy. ‘Come here, Billy, and say hello to the nice lady.’
Reluctantly, or so it seemed to Barbara, the boy came forward. He was not a good-looking child. His skin was very pale, and Barbara wondered if he was ailing. If this woman was really his mother, and there was already some doubt about that, then there was little of her in him. The boy seemed destined to grow into an ugly man, and something told her that he was not a child with many friends.
‘This is Barbara,’ Caroline told him. ‘She’s going to help us.’
The boy didn’t speak. He simply stared at Barbara with those dark eyes, like raisins set in the dough of his face.
‘So,’ she said, ‘hop in.’
‘You’re sure we’re not imposing?’
‘No, not at all. I’d just be worrying if you insisted on staying out here, so I’ll be happier if I know that you’re safe. You need anything from the car?’
‘Just my purse,’ said Caroline. She turned away, and left Barbara and the boy alone. With his hood up, and his windbreaker zipped, he looked older than his years. He reminded her uncomfortably of a doll come to life, or a homunculus. He regarded her balefully. Barbara did not let her smile waver. She had all kinds of medicines in her house, and she could easily put a child to sleep.
His mother too, if it came to that, for she could almost taste Caroline, and the warmth had begun a slow, insistent throbbing.
Repentance could wait.
The two women chatted as they drove to the house. It seemed that Caroline and William had been on their way to visit friends in Providence, Rhode Island, when the tire blew. Barbara tried to figure out where they might have been coming from to have found themselves in her neck of the woods. When she asked, Caroline said that she had taken a wrong turn somewhere, and Barbara did not pursue the matter further.
‘You been to Providence before?’ asked Barbara.
‘Couple of times when I was a student. I was a Lovecraft fan.’
‘Yeah? I never really got Lovecraft. He was too hysterical for my liking, too overblown.’
‘That’s not an unfair criticism, I guess,’ said Caroline. ‘But perhaps he was that way because he understood the true nature of the universe, or thought he did.’
‘You mean ancient green demons with weird stuff covering their mouths?’
‘Hah! Not like that, although who knows? No, I mean the bleakness of it, its coldness, its absence of mercy.’
The word ‘mercy’ struck at Barbara like a blade. She could almost feel the infected lymph nodes responding to the stimulus of the word, a painful counterpoint to the demands of her lower body. I’m like a walking metaphor, she thought.
‘Cheerful,’ said Barbara, and the woman beside her laughed.
‘A puncture in the rain will do that to a girl,’ she said.
Barbara signaled right, and they turned into the short drive that led to her house. The lights were on inside. It looked warm and welcoming.
‘I never asked,’ said Caroline, ‘but where were you going when you found us? We haven’t taken you away from anything urgent, I hope.’
A church, Barbara almost replied. I was going to a church.
‘No,’ said Barbara, ‘it was nothing important. It’ll wait.’
She showed them into the living room. She brought them towels with which to dry themselves, and invited them to remove their shoes. They both did so, although the boy seemed reluctant. Nevertheless, he insisted on keeping his windbreaker zipped, and the hood raised. It made him look even more like a malevolent dwarf. Barbara could see that he was overweight. Perhaps he was embarrassed by his appearance. The woman smiled at him indulgently, then followed Barbara into the hallway as she hung up her coat to dry.
‘He’s very much his own man,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I wonder who is really in charge in our home.’
Barbara glanced at the woman’s ring finger. She wore no wedding band. Caroline knew where she was looking, and waved her left hand.
‘Still free and single,’ she said.
‘The father?’
‘He’s not around anymore,’ said Caroline, and although she spoke lightly an undertone made it clear that any further questions on the subject would not be welcomed. ‘What about you? You married?’
‘Only to my job.’
‘What do you do?’
‘I’m a consultant.’ It was her standard reply to the question.
‘That sounds very vague.’
‘I advise on contracts and negotiations.’
‘You’re a lawyer?’
‘I have legal training.’
Caroline laughed. ‘I’ll let it drop,’ she said.
‘Sorry,’ said Barbara, and laughed in turn. ‘My work isn’t very interesting.’
‘Oh, I’m sure that’s not true. You seem too smart a person to end up doing a job that’s dull.’
‘Another one deceived,’ said Barbara.
‘Such modesty. So, you may be married to your job, but do you fool around on the side?’
Barbara caught a glimpse of herself in the hallway mirror, and turned away. She did not consider herself attractive. Her hair was lank and dull, her face unremarkable. She could count her sexual partners on one hand, with fingers to spare.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t fool around much at all.’
Caroline looked at her quizzically.
‘Do you prefer women to men?’
The bluntness of the question surprised Barbara.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Just a vibe. It’s not a judgment or anything.’
Barbara let a couple of seconds go by.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I prefer women to men. In fact, I’ve only ever dated one man. I was young. It didn’t take. I’ve always been sexually attracted to women.’
Caroline shrugged. ‘Hey, I’ve been with women. I prefer men, but I was wild in my youth.’
She winked at Barbara. Jesus, thought Barbara, this one is really something. She’s perfect. It was almost as if she were—
An offering. The word was both unexpected, and apt. Could they have known the direction of her thoughts? Could they have sensed the doubts that
assailed her? Was this their way of keeping her with them: a gift, like a fly cocooned in silk presented to the spider who stalked the web? It was not beyond the realms of possibility. After all, that was how they worked. That was how she worked. Still, the idea troubled her. She wanted a minute or two alone to consider it. The woman’s presence was somehow overpowering, and the boy was an enigma. He watched them both with a knowingness, his eyes unblinking in that desolate, bleached face.
‘Would you like something to warm you up?’ asked Barbara. ‘Coffee, or tea?’
‘Coffee would be fine.’
‘What about William, or Billy?’
‘Oh, he’ll be okay just as he is. He has a sensitive stomach. It’s been acting up this trip. Better to just leave him be.’
Barbara went to the kitchen. After a minute, during which Barbara could hear her speaking softly to the boy, Caroline followed. She leaned against the counter while Barbara poured water into the coffee machine, and the slow trickle began. Her presence was starting to make Barbara uneasy. Perhaps it had been a mistake to invite her in, but then, if she had been sent by them, why had she not come directly to the house?
Unless she had been on the way to the house when her tire was punctured.
‘You have a lovely home,’ said Caroline.
‘Thank you.’ Barbara realized that she sounded abrupt. ‘I mean, it’s nice of you to say. I decorated it myself.’
‘You have very good taste. By the way, I didn’t mean to be insensitive back there. You know, about your sexuality. I just think that it’s better to be clear on these things, before we go any further.’
‘Are we going further?’ asked Barbara.
‘Would you like to?’
Barbara looked out of the kitchen window. The falling rain resembled static on a TV screen, obscuring the picture so that she could not follow the unfolding narrative. Only the woman named Caroline was clear to her, her reflection apparent in the glass like a waning moon.
I’m right about her, thought Barbara. I feel that I’m right. All traces of desire, of lust, were gone now. It was the disease, Barbara realized. It had debilitated her more than she thought. In the past, she would have been alert to a trap like this, having set so many of them for others. They’d been watching for her, waiting for her. They knew. They knew.
‘What is your name?’ Barbara asked.
‘I told you: my name is Caroline.’
‘No,’ said Barbara. ‘What is your real name?’
The reflection of the woman’s face flickered in the glass, like an image projected from a faulty instrument. For a few moments, she even seemed to disappear, and there was only darkness where once she had been.
‘I have many names,’ she said, as her face was slowly illumined back into existence, lit from within, except that it was different now. Even in the rain-slicked glass, Barbara could tell that she had changed. She was more beautiful, yet also more terrifying.
‘But which is the true name? Which is closest to what you truly are?’
‘Darina,’ said the woman. ‘You can call me Darina.’
Barbara shuddered. Her legs felt weak, and she was grateful that she had the kitchen sink to support her. She suddenly wanted to feel cool water on her face. At worst, it would hide her tears if she began to cry.
‘I’ve heard of you,’ she said. ‘They send you after those who renege. You’re the shadow in the corner, the blood on the glass.’
Another, smaller face joined the woman’s. The child had come.
‘Why are you here?’ asked Barbara. ‘Were you sent as a temptation? As a reward?’
‘No, I am neither of those.’
‘Then why?’
‘Because you have already been tempted, and we fear that you may have succumbed.’
‘Tempted? By what?’
‘By the promise of salvation.’
‘I don’t know what you mean. Who is the boy? Is he really your son?’
In the stories Barbara had heard of this woman, there had been no mention of a child. Sometimes, when it suited her ends, she had worked with others, but they were similar in nature to herself. Barbara had encountered one of them many years before, a bloated imp of a man, his neck swollen by a filthy goiter, an outward manifestation of his spiritual pollution. The sight of him, the stench of him, had provided her with the first true insight into the nature of those whom she served, and of the price that would ultimately have to be paid. Perhaps, she now thought, that was the moment when the seed of doubt had been sown, and the lymphoma had been the final stimulus she had required to act, a reminder of the greater torment to come.
But that man was dead now, or so they said, the ones like Barbara who whispered behind their masters’ backs but had never gone as far as she had, had never resorted to betraying them.
‘Yes, he is my son,’ said Darina, approaching Barbara from behind. ‘My son, and so much more.’
She reached out and laid her hand on Barbara’s shoulder, forcing her to turn, to look her in the face. Her eyes had gone completely black, no distinction between pupil and iris, twin eclipsed suns suspended against pristine whiteness. Beside her, the boy stared unblinkingly at Barbara. There was something familiar about him, she thought, but then the woman’s hand moved from Barbara’s shoulder to her armpit, languidly brushing against her left breast along the way. Her fingertips found the swollen lymphs, and Barbara felt a coldness seeping through her system.
‘How did you think you could keep this hidden from us?’ she asked.
‘I’ve kept it hidden from everyone. Why should you be any different?’ Barbara replied, and she was briefly astonished at her own bravado. Even Darina appeared surprised, and the boy scowled in disapproval. Darina’s fingers pressed harder into Barbara’s flesh, and a pain shot through her that was unlike any she had experienced before. It was as though the woman had reached out to each individual cancer cell, and they had responded to her touch. The strength went out of Barbara’s legs at last, and she sank to the floor, the woman and child standing over her now as tears sprang from her eyes, the pain that had flared throughout her system slowly reducing to a dull, awful glow.
‘Because we are different,’ said Darina. ‘We could have helped you.’
‘How? How could you have helped me? I am dying. Can you cure cancer?’ She laughed. ‘That would be the kind of joke you’d appreciate: the capacity to prevent pain and misery held back from those who need it.’
‘No,’ said Darina, ‘but we could have brought your pain to an end. It would have been as if you had fallen asleep, and when you woke all pain would be gone. A new world would be waiting for you, your reward for all that you had done for us.’
And in the blackness of her eyes, Barbara saw the furnace flames, and smelled the smoke on the woman’s breath, and tasted burned flesh. Lies, all lies: any rewards were received in this life, not the next, and they were dearly bought. The price of them was the loss of peace of mind. The price of them was endless guilt. The price of them was the betrayal of strangers and friends, of lovers and children. Barbara knew: after all, she had looked for those who might be exploited, and formulated the agreements to which they appended their names and signed away their futures, in this world and the next.
‘But instead,’ the woman continued, ‘you began to doubt. You were frightened, and you looked for a way out. That I understand. I cannot condone it, but I can understand it. You felt fear and distress, and you sought a means to assuage them. But to confess? To repent? To betray?’ She grasped Barbara’s face in her hands, her fingers digging into the skin below her cheeks. ‘And all for what? For the promise of salvation? Here: let me whisper to you. Listen to my truth. There is no salvation. There is no God. God is a lie. God is the name given to false hope. The entity that brought this world into being is long gone. We are all that remain, here and elsewhere.’
‘No,’ said Barbara. ‘I do not believe you.’
She kept a gun by her nightstand, but she had never had cause
to use it. She tried to figure out a way that she might get to it, then realized there was no way the woman would fall for any trick. Whatever she planned to do, she had to do it here, in the kitchen. Her eyes began to cast about for potential weapons: the knives on their magnetic rack, the saucepans hanging from their ornate hooks above the kitchen island . . .
Behind her, the coffee pot was bubbling. The plate had started to overheat a week ago. She’d meant to have it fixed or replaced when it began to act up, but she hadn’t managed to get around to it. Instead, she’d simply started using instant for herself, afraid that the glass on the pot might crack if she didn’t keep an eye on it.
‘We are the only hope of immortality,’ said Darina. ‘Watch, and I’ll prove it to you.’
But Barbara had no intention of watching anything. The car keys were on the table in the hall. If she could make it to her car, she’d find her way to safety. She had already reached out to those who might be in a position to help her. They could hide her, shelter her. They might even be able to find a place for her to rest, a bed in which to die in peace as the disease had its way with her.
Sanctuary: that was the word. She would seek sanctuary.
Darina sensed the threat as Barbara rose, although she could not pinpoint its source. She simply knew that the cornered prey was about to strike back. She moved quickly, but not as fast as her intended victim.
Barbara grabbed the coffee pot and threw its contents into the woman’s face.
8
A chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’ rang out from the direction of the Fulcis’ table. I went over to join in with it, and we sang around a candlelit heap of cupcakes while the Fulcis smiled proudly at their mother, and Mrs Fulci beamed with love for all, and Dave Evans somehow found the strength to sing a couple of words while praying that no stray almonds had found their way into the cupcake mix. The candles were blown out, cupcakes were passsed around, and Mrs Fulci didn’t die. Jackie Garner prepared to leave, and took two cupcakes with him, one for his girlfriend and one for his mother. I made a mental note to ask him more about his mother’s health when the opportunity presented itself, then returned to the booth at the back where Marielle Vetters and Ernie Scollay were exchanging words. It looked like Marielle was trying to convince Ernie that they’d done the right thing by talking to me, and Ernie was reluctantly agreeing.