‘Right as rain,’ said Ruth. ‘Take care.’
Anna put the phone down and stared at it thoughtfully. John Dawe’s voice came back to her from the night before. ‘Not one of them,’ she remembered him saying of the Herringe women, ‘had an ounce of compassion when it came to getting what they wanted.’
*
Alice Meynell returned a couple of hours later. She sat outside on the Kawasaki, blipping its throttle in an irritating fashion, every so often tilting her head to one side as if listening for something in the note of the engine. When Anna went out to talk to her she shut it down, dragged off her helmet, ran a hand through her blonde brush cut. She looked pleased with herself.
‘You’ve been gone a long time,’ said Anna.
‘Oh well,’ Alice said lightly. ‘You know, London’s not so far. I thought I’d take him all the way.’
Ashmore Dreams
Autumn
Dreams of dissolution and decay seem to come with the season, as the year turns towards its stagnant time, the leaves fall and rot, the berries wither on the brambles. But this year the dreams are persistent, with a nightmare edge to them.
Hilda Candelton stock-checks in her sleep, a task she will perform the next day in preparation for driving into Drychester to the cash and carry for winter supplies. Carefully, she lists the tins, the cans, the bottles, the packets, but there is a pungent smell amongst the vegetables: and one rotten potato can infect all the rest. With a sigh she reaches into the paper sack, feels only the earthy tubers, whole and hard. So what is making the terrible smell? She tumbles the contents of the sack out on to the floor.
Amid the rain of potatoes falls an animal, hitting the tiles with a dull and frigid thud. It is small and hairless, and its eyes are shut. Its limbs are curled around its torso. Its skin is covered in a fine, dusty mildew, but pale white shoots are already beginning to sprout from its chest. Hilda picks it up and cradles it and takes it back up the stairs to the bedroom to show Reggie.
*
In a big house on the other side of the village a sleeping woman touches her mouth. She parts her lips, investigates a tooth with one finger. It wobbles. She prods at it again, and it comes away in her hand. Her eyes fly open and she stares at it in disgust. As she does so, another tooth comes loose and slips down through her long black hair and into her lap. Her hands fly up, horrified, as if to hide the damage, but the unrooted teeth flow round her fingers.
They fall softly, like snow.
Mrs Anscombe, a big woman in a salmon-pink anorak, feeds the ducks at the pond, watching the birds fight over the bread she casts upon the weed-netted waters, and soon there is none left. With a sigh, she starts to pluck at the anorak until it disintegrates into tiny gobbets of material. The greedy ducks swallow the pieces down avidly until there is none left, and, beaks working furiously, demand more. Poor Mrs Anscombe, a martyr to all, tears at her flesh.
Soon there will be nothing left of her, either.
*
The orchard is enclosed by a high brick wall, the courses of which were cleverly inlaid with twined initials, all looping curlicues and flourishes, as if the designer’s intent was as much to obscure as to lay a signature. Marvelling at its artistry, she sets afoot into the curve of an ‘S’, takes hold of the top of the wall and hoists herself up and with an effortlessness that surprises her even as she sleeps, she slips down over the wall into the damp grass on the other side. The mist swirls up, disturbed, around her knees and shoulders and presses itself clammily against her skin. The fruit is all about her – its scent so powerful that she experiences it as a physical taste on the back of her tongue. Sweet, very sweet; then as musty as death. She reaches up and suddenly a single medlar lies in her hand, soft and brown, as small as a curled mouse. When she bites into it, it bursts upon her tongue, all juice and rotten flesh, and she hears a man’s voice cry out in agony.
19
A dawn mist had crept stealthily into the garden, under the now-leafless beech hedge and through the gaps in the hawthorn, before the sun was fully up. Vita, awake for an hour already and bored enough to contemplate a foray, stared uncertainly out through the transparent perspex of the cat-flap.
In the middle of the patch of grass and moss that Anna called the lawn, a large bird was strutting up and down in a vague but muscular fashion, its head snapping backwards and forwards in that way that particularly dim-witted avians have, as if they own no more self-will than a clockwork toy. Its plumage glowed artificially vivid against the winter grass: a fabulous tapestry of gold and amber, crimson and an oily, iridescent green. Long barred and tawny feathers curved out from its golden rear, like the tail of a comet curving away from a sun. Around the neck it wore a collar of close white feathers as if some human being had declared ownership of it; but for all this the bird stalked the lawn as if it were staking a claim. Watching it, Vita felt a chatter of fury rise up in the back of her throat, and before she knew it, the chatter had escaped out into the still of the morning. Suddenly, as if it had heard her – through the deadening blanket of mist, through the shrubs and the pots and thick perspex of the Cat-O-Matic – the bird fixed her with an unblinking black eye.
Vita stared back defiantly. Her haunches tensed. In her vivid imagination she saw herself with surreal clarity – all vim and muscle – springing out through the cat-door to cut through the veil of fog like a fiery meteor and—
Just as her heroic daydream faltered, there was a flurry of activity from the beech hedge: an urgent rustle of fallen leaves; a blur of colour and electric speed, and in that instant a long-legged tabby-and-white cat sailed across the lawn, to land in a bounce of paws upon the trespasser.
An ear-splitting rattle filled the air. It echoed off the neighbouring houses. It echoed off the branches and off every twig in the beech hedge. It reverberated in Vita’s skull. Her eyes went round with amazement. How could such a din come out of a mere bird?
The cat had stretched its jaws around the golden bird’s throat. Unsurprisingly, the captive looked deeply upset. Its beady eyes swivelled desperately and its beak kept opening and shutting, and still the terrible, mechanical sound came racketing out. The tabby-and-white, obviously as unsettled as Vita by the noise, shifted its grip on the thing and after a few failed coughing sounds, the rattle ground to a rusty halt.
Small dark neck-feathers drifted to the ground like the antithesis of snow.
With the trespasser safely occupied. Vita stepped smartly through the cat-flap and trotted across the lawn to get a better view. After its initial horror, the bird was now putting up quite a fight, writhing and flapping with a kind of grim, demonic energy.
The hunter, meanwhile, stared blankly and determinedly into the bird’s neck as if calculating its next strategy. Its breath misted up into the winter air. Vita watched as the tabby-and-white blinked once, twice, a third time. Then, as if its meditations had yielded a plan, it started to perform a manoeuvre that seemed to owe its existence to some balletic but arcane form of martial art. With an exquisite shift of balance, the cat reached a long hind leg up and over the bird’s back, reached forward and pressed down hard with a spread-clawed foot. All at once, the bird’s contortions subsided. A gleam of pure panic switched back and forth across its beady eyes, as if it believed for the first time in this ungainly debacle, that it might in fact be in mortal danger.
Vita watched this manoeuvre with considerable interest, noting it for future use. Then she corkscrewed her head in and under the sagging bird to stare at the visiting cat.
‘Hello.’
With effort, the tabby-and-white rolled its eyes to regard her. White cornea glared all round burning topaz irises. It mumbled something indistinct but not entirely friendly in tone, and returned its attention to the bird, for they were obviously now at a deadly and difficult impasse. As the strange cat bent its head again, Vita noticed something small and silver shining in its ear. Any interest she had had in the fracas was immediately forgotten.
‘Oh!’ she exc
laimed with desperate envy. ‘That’s pretty!’
Puzzlement knit the tabby’s brows. The bird, sensing a momentary distraction that might signal its last chance of escape, went from limp subservience to frantic dynamism. With a sudden wrenching thrust it tore itself free of the cat’s choke-hold and stumbled backwards, its scaly brown toes scrabbling for purchase on the damp ground like a pair of vast spiders. Free at last, it ran awkwardly across the scorched grass, feet lifted high in the hysteria of unexpected freedom, until at last it gained sufficient momentum to take off. It flew with lopsided and overstated effort over the hedge and fell into the safety of next door’s apple tree, where it propped itself up against the trunk and stared back down at the cats. Its great golden chest rose and fell with shock and relief.
The tabby-and-white watched the bird go, its narrowed eyes full of species loathing. Then it turned to Vita. ‘You have lost me my breakfast, you idiot! Whenever will I have such a chance again? My father once told me, “a pheasant makes beautiful eating”. Now I shall never know. Damn!’ It paused, then glared at Vita. ‘What is your name, moron?’
‘Vita,’ said Vita, watching the silver ring jounce and spark.
‘La Dolce Vita. La Stupida Vita, more like.’
Vita was unperturbed. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re on about, but what I do know is that you wouldn’t have wanted to eat a great dusty feathery thing like that old bird anyway,’ she said dismissively. ‘Delly says they’re full of parasites, birds. Besides, what’s the point of having to catch your breakfast when you can eat lovely fresh wet things out of a tin?’ Her eyes went sly. ‘I know: if you tell me where I can get a pretty thing like the one you have in your ear, you can come and eat with me.’
The other cat stared at her. ‘You want my earring?’
Vita nodded.
‘You’re mad. Quite mad. A cruel man did this to me because he thought it marked me as his property. It hurt a lot, and then it festered. And now you want me to do the same to you?’
Vita’s eyes were fixed on the ring. ‘I’m not afraid of pain.’
The tall cat sighed. With an articulate back foot the strange cat reached up to its left ear, flicked out a gleaming claw and hooked it beneath the metal. It felt around there for a moment, as if searching for a weakness in the link, then gave a sharp pull. The earring came away cleanly, leaving behind it a single drop of crimson. She dropped the ring at Vita’s feet.
Vita sniffed at it with fascination. Then she stared at the other cat. ‘But how do I put it on?’ she wailed.
The tabby-and-white smiled. It was not an altogether friendly expression. ‘That’s your problem. I can make the hole—’ she pushed her face close to Vita’s ‘by biting you, and you will bleed and bleed and spoil my appetite. So first I claim my breakfast.’
So saying, she stalked over to the cat-flap. A proper house. It had been a while, on her long and arduous quest, since she’d been in a proper house, she thought. She looked back over her shoulder to see if Vita was following. ‘Come on, little mouse,’ she said encouragingly.
Vita gave the earring a last hard stare. Then she picked it up carefully with the side of her mouth and trotted up the lawn.
*
As soon as Millie entered the kitchen she knew whose house this was. His smell was everywhere like a signature upon the air. There – on the edge of the cupboards where he would rub his cheek while waiting to be fed. There: by the food bowls and up against the door-frame! And subtly permeating the entire scent-map, cutting a swift synaptic pathway through the harsh artificial-lemon of Anna’s cleaning fluid (which she had used a dozen times on the same patch of dining-room carpet), through the plug-in air freshener (‘Bouquet of Spring Flowers’) and vanilla-scented candles, and straight into her cerebral cortex, was the unmistakably rank musk of a mature tomcat.
Orlando.
She breathed his name silently and a frisson of sexual tension trembled up her spine.
Vita turned around. ‘Did you say something?’
Millie blinked. Had she made a sound? She didn’t think so. ‘I – no.’
‘Oh.’ Unconcerned, Vita sashayed over to the food bowls. Wedging the earring carefully beneath the mat on which they stood, she stuck her face in the blue one. Between mouthfuls, Millie could make out the following: ‘Here... tuna... salty... my brother’s... help yourself... never miss it...’
Millie crossed the grey and white linoleum cautiously, checking for escape routes. The brine in which the fish swam called to her enticingly. The green bowl – Orlando’s – was full of his scent. Millie felt her breath catch painfully in her throat. Warring emotions spun through her head: fear of discovery and attack; excitement; hunger; and a sort of confused resentment at Orlando’s rejection. The resentment hardened to a small dim fury, fuelled by the tang of salty fish. Stealing Orlando’s food seemed, suddenly, a rather attractive form of revenge.
Without further thought, she buried her face in his tuna.
*
Fog had cleared to reveal a swathe of hoar frost across the short broad-bladed grass of the common, leaving it crisp and brittle underfoot. Savouring the quietude of being the only creature out and about at this early hour, I stood motionless beneath the spread bare arms of a gnarled oak, my coat fluorescing in the raw light, and watched my breath cloud off into the air. Behind me, stretching away to the perimeter of brambles and hawthorn, my footprints showed damply green where the warmth of my pads had melted the frost.
I had been looking for my grandfather, but had ascertained that Hawkweed had not passed this way today. I had been spending a troubled time on the wild roads recently. From out of nowhere, it seemed, had come a rush of bad dreams: little night terrors and phantasms that had chased each other down the highways, swirling and spiralling to avoid my furious pursuit. I would go after them in a mechanical, dogged fashion, pinning them down, biting them up and swallowing them with merciless efficiency. Today, it had left me tired and listless, and with an unpleasant aftertaste. I found myself nurturing a small flame of anger at having to deal with the nightmares of Ashmore all on my own. I was, after all, only an apprentice dreamcatcher and my grandfather was surely falling down on his duties that I should find myself so overworked. Where could he be?
It had been some time since I had seen hide or hair of the old cat; and then he had avoided my eye, dropping his mangled head into a slouch as he slunk past the gate and stalked, swaybacked, up the road past the church, before turning into the junction of Allbright Lane. It was as if he didn’t want to involve me in whatever it was that he was up to; but more likely, I thought with a sudden flare of annoyance, he was off on one of his mysterious journeys, safe in the knowledge that his student would protect the village’s wild roads. He suspected, I am sure, that I could now no more turn my back on a dangerous dream than he could stand in the path of a speeding car.
I stared down at my stained paws in disgust.
I have to admit that I felt trapped. Trapped by the circumstances of my birth; by the trickery of my own grandfather; by the peculiar powers of the hawkweed; and now, worst of all, by my own conscience.
No wonder Liddy had been so contemptuous.
I felt the unfairness of the matter like a stab of indigestion, sharp, between the ribs. A few moments later I realised that there was, in fact, an acute pain between my ribs; and just as I realised this, I vomited.
Something – something hard and uncomfortable, something awkwardly shaped and horrifyingly familiar – came rattling up out of my stomach, caught for a second in my mouth, then spattered out on to the ground, to fall with an audible sound at my feet.
As the steam cleared, I regarded the ejecta with alarm. In the middle of a patch of liquid bile, gleaming against the melted, glistening grass, was a human tooth.
*
‘By the eyes of the Great Cat, Vita!’
Dellifer, who had slipped quietly into the kitchen while Vita was deeply preoccupied with what she thought might be a mouse ru
nning along the top of the butcher’s table, stared at her charge in complete horror.
Vita, having spent the best part of two days avoiding just this sort of situation, ducked her head and tried to run for the cat-flap; but Dellifer, despite her age and her bulk, was just too quick for her. In a flash, she had blocked Vita’s escape route and had grabbed her by the collar.
‘Whatever have you done?’ she said. ‘Just look at your ear.’
This command is a difficult one for anyone to carry out without the benefit of a reflective surface, and so Vita stared at the ground without a word.
Dellifer thrust her thin white face closer to Vita’s head, sniffed, screwed her face up in consternation.
‘Mutilation, that is,’ she growled. ‘The work of the devil.’
Vita twisted her head in the older cat’s grip and grinned. ‘Not the devil. Only Millie.’
Dellifer’s eyes narrowed. ‘That little harlot. I might have known. You thought I hadn’t noticed you’d sneaked her into the house, stolen food and played in the mistress’s bedroom, didn’t you? There’s nothing happens here I don’t know about, missy. I may be getting on, but I’ve got two eyes and a good nose: and I could smell her as soon as she set foot in here, that little queen, with her strange ways. Whatever will the mistress say?’
Dellifer blinked sadly. She set a lot of store by the cleanliness and good behaviour of her youngsters: such was her job after all, the trade that defined her to the rest of the feline world; the reason old Hawkweed had chosen her above others to raise his two grandchildren.
‘It’s pretty,’ Vita said defiantly.
‘Pretty? Since when was making a hole in yourself and coating your ear with dried blood considered pretty? If that’s pretty, you must think your granfer a splendid sight indeed.’
Vita wrinkled her nose. ‘Eh?’
‘Hay is for horses, child. Say “pardon”,’ Dellifer corrected reflexively. She tutted. ‘Look at the state of your poor ear.’ She rose up on her hind legs and gripped Vita’s head firmly between both front paws. Then she licked the area gently until the blackened flakes were all gone. The earring, resting neatly inside the single hole Millie had made at Vita’s teeth-gritted demand, sparkled all the more provocatively for her attentions.