‘Supper,’ he snapped. ‘It’s time for supper.’
chapter 37
After supper I returned the camera to the boy. By this time darkness had got a grip on the place. The Rose Garden had become a pool of black. Beyond the wall, lights blazed from the house. A faint beat of music reached me. For me, the old mansion containing Eve, Ulric, Ruth, Paddy, Dianna, Dr Saffrey and her death squad could have been another world.
In the electric light of the stable cell the boy carefully examined the camera in case I’d hurt his much-loved instrument. ‘I never thought I’d see it again,’ he said. ‘Thanks, Mr Konrad.’ I watched him go through his ritual of being reunited with the camera. He ran his fingers over the once broken casing he’d glued together, then stroked a finger along the new strap as far as the heart-shaped buckle he’d used to replace the original.
‘It’s the only thing from my old life that means anything now,’ he told me. ‘Not even my name’s important. But this?’ He smiled. ‘I fixed this up. I saved up for the strap, that’s the only new bit of it I could afford. Then I taught myself to use it because the instructions were missing.’
‘Then your camera’s a lot like life.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Life. We find it thrust upon us without asking for it. And the instruction manual doesn’t come as standard.’
The kid grinned. ‘You mean we make it up as we go along?’
‘Something like that.’ I tutted. ‘You’ll have to watch out for that if you really are a younger version of me. Sometimes I find myself spouting wonky philosophy.’
‘Wonky philosophy? That sounds funny.’
‘Yeah, my philosophy about life is funnier than it is profound.’
‘No. I like what you said. We’re born. We grow up without being told how to make our lives work properly.’
‘I like what you said, too, Mason.’ Madeline’s voice came softly out of the shadows. ‘Thanks for giving the camera back to him.’ She stepped into the light falling through the open doorway.
Kirk beamed. ‘Can I take your photo? Both of you standing together?’
‘No film in there. Sorry. They took it away.’
Regretfully, he rolled the wheel that would have advanced the film to the next frame. ‘Mason, the thing you speak to frightens me. Sometimes it watches me through the wall. It’s like I don’t see it but I know it’s there. If it comes tonight can I shout for you to come and check that I’m all right?’
After I’d closed the stable door on the boy, I said to Madeline, ‘Anger blows all the garbage out of your head, doesn’t it? When I got angry with the thing that looks like my mother I wanted to kill her. Two hours later I’m returning the camera to the boy; now I’m going to apologize for knocking you down.’
‘There’s no need, Mason. I understand.’
‘That’s the truth, isn’t it? You’re not shooting me a cheesy line. You do understand because you’re basically me now.’ I regarded her face in the gloom. It had become a pale disk. The only features I could make out were her eyes. ‘Madeline? Are there times when you see what I do?’
‘Glimpses, but it’s more like remembering something I’ve seen. Though I know I wasn’t there at the time. You rode alongside a man in a truck. He tried to kill you.’
‘He started off as an Elvis look-alike, then … well, I’ve no need to explain, have I?’
‘He was trapped under the wheel …’ She paused. ‘You were warned that vehicles were approaching and you’d be caught.’
‘Do you know who warned me?’
As she tried to visualize what I’d seen a grunt escaped her lips. ‘No … I can’t figure it out. When I get close to seeing who it was … and it was the same one who came to you when we were inside the cell … well, it’s like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff that goes all the way down into … I don’t know how far … forever and ever.’ An edginess made her voice waver.
‘Think harder.’
‘I am. Only the closer I get to seeing them the more I feel vertigo, as if something’s pulling me over the edge of the cliff. Mason …’ At that moment she did topple as fear overwhelmed her. This time I felt a dizzying sense of vertigo as I held her firm, athletic body. Even the beat of her heart transmitted itself through her breast against my ribs. The scent of roses plunged through my nostrils into my stomach. It sickened me and sent a buzz of excitement through my veins all at the same time.
An explosive bang snapped through the air. It had to be a foot crashing against a door. From the third stable came an angry shout. ‘I know you’re out there, Mason Konrad!’ Naylor had been nurturing his fury behind closed doors. ‘You’re not untouchable! I want my face back! And I’m going to take it back from you!’ Another crash. ‘You just wait, Konrad. My name is Jacob Naylor. Army corporal. I know who I am. You’re a fucking vampire, Konrad. I’m not letting you take away my ID. Do you hear me? You, too, bitch. I’m going to deal with you as well. I’m taking back what’s mine – my name, my face …’ And so on as he pounded at the door to his cell.
I said, ‘He’s not giving in without a fight. Maybe you only have to want to hold on to your identity hard enough, perhaps you can reverse the process. It has to be a question of will-power.’
A female voice joined Naylor’s grizzly-bear roar, ‘Mason! This is your mom. Let me out of here, please. My arm hurts. Please, Mason, sweetheart. Let me out of here. I’m frightened….’
chapter 38
In the sheltered garden the sun worked its searing magic. With the shadows gone it blasted emotional gloom away, too. The people from the big house left us alone. After an unusual European breakfast that can only have been ordered by Eddie of hot drinking chocolate and pain au chocolat (a kind of soft, sweet bread roll with a strip of dark chocolate piercing its core) we hit the rose garden. There we helped Eddie rake up the never-ending fall of rose petals that littered the paths. Maybe the scent of roses really is intoxicating because I felt this incredible high. I’d enjoyed the chocolate-themed breakfast, I loved the sight of the rose garden enclosed by those brick walls that were blends of russet, orange and tangerine. The blue sky didn’t have a single cloud. For as long as I could remember I hadn’t been this cheerful; I whistled as I raked the petals.
Madeline smiled as she followed me with a barrow to scoop up my mounds of petals, which she added to her own pink heap. We were relaxed with one another, and nothing momentous about Echomen, or the deaths we’d witnessed needed to be uttered; in fact, we joked, or found minor things interesting like a hairy caterpillar enjoying an undulating stroll along a branch, or pointing out squirrels jumping in trees on the other side of the wall.
The woman, the man and the boy in their stable-cum-jail didn’t make a noise so I forgot they were there. Simple as that. At one of the CCTV cameras fixed to a wall Madeline stuck out her tongue. Then we undid all our labour by throwing handfuls of rose petals at the camera, treating anyone watching to the vision of a snowstorm in pink. Nice … too nice?
Madeline giggled. ‘How long do you think we’ll stay?’
‘Who knows?’
‘I hope it’s forever.’
‘Forever’s a long time.’ I kept my face straight – but only for a split second. ‘Certainly more than a week.’
‘Idiot.’ Giggling, she hurled petals at me. Then, nearly breathless with laughter she ran away into a tunnel made from a wooden frame on which more roses climbed. These were vine-like with tiny golden flowers. I found I laughed, too, as I chased her with a handful of petals.
‘Madeline, I’m going to stuff these down your top.’
She shrieked with laughter. Dr Saffrey had arranged a change of clothes for her. Now she wore a pair of gym shorts that revealed her muscular thighs. Once again she reminded me of a female marathon runner. Her body boasted a lean firmness that glowed with health. The sleeveless top in lemon cotton revealed her broad suntanned shoulders. When she moved her arms I could plainly see they revealed what many an athlete would rec
ognize as enviable muscle definition. At that moment I didn’t even notice the Y-shaped scar on the back of her hand, the copy of mine that proved her nature as an uncanny clone. Instead of brooding, we cavorted, laughing like children. Even Eddie stopped his endless sweeping to watch in bemusement.
Am I warming to Eddie? Am I ready to call him “chum”?
‘Watch out Eddie, boy,’ I shouted, as we tore past him so fast his over-large jacket fluttered in the slipstream. At last even his sulky expression melted into a smile.
A day of miracles …
Eddie happy. Madeline and me chasing about the rose garden. Whatever next?
Yesterday, seemed lost in a fog of misery: listening to the female apparently recollecting my dead mother’s memories of being a whore; Naylor’s homicidal rant; Kirk’s loneliness. All this on top of a bloody two weeks when I’d seen murder, committed murder myself, watched my mother drown. I’d lost my home in Tanshelf. Yesterday, Dr Saffrey insisted that in the eyes of the authorities I was officially dead. That’s right. Mason Konrad, aged twenty-eight, no longer existed. What a twist of fate, especially ironical because somehow total strangers were becoming me. But even I wasn’t me anymore. I would be forced to surrender my own identity. So who would Mason Konrad become? Go on, pick a name: Mattie Koenig? John Smith, John Doe, Levi Wrangler, Donald Starbuck, Fordster Kane, Melmoth P. Hellhole – good God, yes, there’s thousands of names to pick from. From dark depression yesterday to sunshine and larks in the garden today. Yes, we’re talking miracles.
Last night, after the yelling match with substitute Mom, Madeline coaxed me back into the cottage. Eddie served up cold beers from the fridge. The dark amber brew delivered a potent punch. By the time supper arrived from the big house, I’d begun to unwind. From being tense and silent, I began talking to Madeline as we sat at the kitchen table. There were roses on the curtains as well as a rose pattern on the wallpaper – the interior designer had created an impression of the rose garden flowing in through the windows to occupy the cottage. The furniture appeared to be antique – old pine dressers, velvet upholstered armchairs, blacked fire irons on the hearth.
Eddie ate his meal in a back room. Later he strolled into the kitchen, hoisted out a key that hung around his neck on bristly string that must have itched like hell against his skin, then unlocked a drawer in the dresser.
Sliding open the door, he declared, ‘This is where I keep my chocolate.’
Eddie didn’t strike me as the fastidious kind, granted he had a fondness for the over-large jacket he wore, but I didn’t think he bothered much about being tidy. How wrong I was. Chocolate bars had been set out on an immaculate square of red satin. Each bar lay facing upward; each positioned a precise distance from its neighbour. They were formidable slabs of confectionary. We’re talking Gideon Bible size; thick enough to crack a tooth if you took a reckless bite. To devour one of those beauties in one sitting would result in you either heading for the bathroom at speed or confessing to Chocoholics Anonymous, ‘I admit it, I’m an addict. Back on the cocoa bean and on the road to ruin.’
‘I work hard for this.’ Eddie lovingly touched one of the chocolate bars. ‘Sweeping, washing, gardening, do it all, you know.’
For some reason he’d wrapped each slab of chocolate in a strip of gold cellophane, something like you’d find forming the band around a cigar. Whether he thought it looked sophisticated, or whether it possessed some pseudo-religious significance I can’t even begin to know. Maybe that adornment really did, in his eyes, make the chocolate greater in stature than a sweet snack; that it became a source of sacred nourishment. Here it is: Eddie’s temple devoted to his milky holiness, the Chocolate God.
‘My chocolate,’ Eddie breathed as he respectfully slid the door shut. ‘I had to do all kinds of things for that.’ He turned the key, then stood there for a while, perspiring, clearly moved by the act of showing us the objects he loved most in the world. After a respectful interval he pushed the key inside his shirt along with the bristly string that secured it round his neck.
By midnight Madeline had gone to bed. Eddie hung around, no doubt making sure I didn’t jimmy my way into Chocolate Temple. After a few attempts at conversation with him I called it a day, then headed to my own room. Madeline called a friendly ‘goodnight’ as I closed my door.
More roses, I told myself. This time blue roses decorated the curtains across my bedroom window. Then I lay on the mattress for the best night’s sleep in weeks.
Back to the present, the sunlight, the garden with its roses. I could still taste the sweetness of the breakfast chocolate on my tongue as Madeline flung petals at me, while laughing breathlessly. The heat grew as the sun headed toward its zenith. Soon the temperature drove us into shade cast by the high wall. There we sat on a bench; on the far side of the garden Eddie still doggedly swept his paths, maybe he whispered prayers to a chocolate god as he worked that broom.
For a moment we rested in the cool then Madeline said, ‘I feel nice.’
‘Me, too. I’m relaxed. For the first time in days.’ A bee bothered Eddie. He crouched down with his hands over his head. ‘It’s crazy to admit this,’ I said, ‘but I’m actually happy.’
‘Enjoy it while you can.’ She luxuriated in stretching her suntanned limbs. Twenty yards away the bee stopped bugging Eddie; he resumed sweeping.
For a spell I contented myself sitting there in the shade. Even so, this wasn’t holiday time. We were in quarantine. The thought worked its way deep enough under my skin to prevent me from dozing in the rose-scented air. ‘Let’s recap.’ I closed my eyes so I could order my thoughts. ‘A matter of days ago I walked home. A stranger attacked me. He was identical to me. Paddy’s gang rescued me. After that, we were on the road, a squad of men and women who hunted down creatures that they called Echomen. Though I didn’t know it at the time, they’d chosen me because I harboured some kind of special trait, and they were delivering me to Dr Saffrey here, who’s running a covert operation against the Echomen. It spoilt Paddy’s plan when I left them one night to return home. A mistake as big and as bad as you can get.’
‘You weren’t to blame, Mason.’
I opened my eyes. ‘Wasn’t I? Anyhow, I learnt about Echomen the hard way. At first, when I travelled with Paddy’s gang, Echomen appeared to be ineffectual creatures. We trapped them easily, they didn’t put up much of a fight when we killed them. What’s more, it wasn’t at all obvious that they resembled us. Ruth explained to me that the muscle structure under the face changed first. So they’d cut away the skin to find out who the Echoman resembled. To me, it was one of these “eye of faith” situations. You had to believe you saw a resemblance, rather than there being an obvious similarity of features.’
‘That changed.’
‘Indeed. First time I noticed it … when the trucker gave me a lift who looked like Elvis. Within a couple of hours he’d developed this scar on the back of his hand.’ I touched the Y-shaped one on the back of mine. ‘Not long after that he talked like me, looked like me, must have been thinking like me and I guess we started to pool ideas without realizing it at first. They say identical twins do likewise. They might be ten miles apart but both decide to buy an iced coffee at the same time or simultaneously impulse buy a – I don’t know – a yellow shirt.’
She nodded. It’s that thing again she does, agreeing with everything I say, so I build up a momentum of ideas. Every idea I express she nods, the momentum continues. So it happened then.
I watched a butterfly land on my knee. Its red wings made little trial flaps. ‘Now, that’s a transformation,’ I said. ‘From caterpillar, to pupa, to winged insect. It makes our own metamorphosis look just that little bit crap, doesn’t it?’
‘Maybe we should try harder.’ She smiled. ‘We might grow wings.’
‘Or have the magical power to make Egyptian mummies climb out of their coffins and come call on us.’
Madeline tilted her head. ‘Why did you say that?’
‘Ab
out Egyptian mummies? Nothing. Surely you know I have a bizarre sense of humour by now.’ The butterfly flew from my leg, up over the wall, to whatever lay in the outside world. ‘Now, back to the recap. After we met in the cell at my old school we learnt that Echomen had become more resourceful.’
‘They also underwent the transformation faster. Look at me,’ she added.
‘Absolutely. Remember what we found at the school later? All those copies of Eve and me. The other Echomen experimented on those poor wretches without mercy.’
‘And remember the one you’ve called Konrad? You hurt his face with the belt buckle.’
‘Now he seems to be the leader.’
‘He’s probably still alive.’
‘Although we can’t be certain. We know that there’s something in my blood, or mind, or body odour, I don’t know exactly, but something that makes strangers turn into clones of us faster than the others. Then they become hell-bent on killing ordinary human beings.’
‘Not all,’ Madeline said. ‘I’m not dangerous.’
‘No, you’re the exception,’ I said in a light tone. ‘Do you know why?’
She shrugged. ‘There might not be a way of stopping people turning into Echomen but my case may be a cause for hope.’
‘You mean in the sense that when you underwent the transformation you weren’t driven to kill me … or other human beings?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then that is cause for hope.’
‘We discussed the possibility that this Echo syndrome might be a weapon created by beings from another planet.’
‘Who fear that other alien species might invade them.’
She nodded. ‘Or contaminate them without malice on their part.’
‘I find the idea plausible; Eve didn’t.’
‘Dr Saffrey’s people will find evidence of it.’
‘They will, I’m positive.’
‘No intelligent beings could risk the possibility that a rival species will develop on a world where there is even the slightest chance of contact.’