He knew those bloody reports by heart. All because of the good intentions of one ‘Biscuit’ Bobby Barrass, Christine’s and Joey’s father. He’d bought the land thirty years ago as an investment for his two children. Only for the first time in his life the shrewd old man had been duped. Sunnyfields had been a Victorian municipal dump. Beneath a skin of top soil and turf the place was a two-hundred-acre lagoon of Victorian potato peelings, apple cores and even human excrement rotting beneath their feet. You could no more build a house on this land than you could build a house on quicksand.
‘Dad?’ Mark called. ‘Can I launch it this time?’
He and Amy came bounding through the grass towards him, their faces still beaming excited smiles.
Oh sod it, thought Richard, the smile returning. At least Sunnyfields made a decent playground and a terrific site for launching rockets. Their nearest neighbours were half a mile down the road so it was unlikely they’d find Free Bird 2 crashing through greenhouse roofs.
‘Can I refuel, Dad?’ asked Mark.
‘And me,’ added Amy.
‘Let Mark do it, sweetie. These rockets can be dangerous if you’re not careful.’
‘Okay,’ she agreed, surprisingly. Often she’d kick up a fuss if she couldn’t do exactly as her brother.
‘Unclip the old motor first. That’s it.’ Richard handed Mark a fresh rocket motor.
Amy had been watching Mark poke the rocket motor up into the hollow tube of the rocket. When she spoke Richard assumed it’d be some comment about the rocket but it was one of the odd, off-the-wall ideas she’d sometimes trot out.
‘Dad. We’re not real, are we? I mean … we’re not real people. We’re like toys or statues, and someone else moves us around. Like we’re over here and someone says move there.’
Richard saw that the four-year-old was no longer watching Mark prodding the rocket motor; her eyes had slipped dreamily out of focus. Richard frowned. Of course it was just one of those peculiar ideas that children sometimes have. Didn’t he believe that God used to parachute babies to earth when they were born? But there was something almost eerily wise about what she had said. Wasn’t the question of determinism one of the philosophers’ evergreen questions? Weren’t they always asking whether human beings could plot their own futures or whether fate had decided it all already? And that we were just following Fate’s carefully prepared timetable?
‘What do you mean, we’re not real people, sweetheart? Of course we’re real. At least I feel real. And I can still tickle you.’
He tickled her neck; she hunched her shoulders and came out of the dreamy gaze with a grin.
‘We’re not real, though, are we?’ she insisted, reluctant to let the idea go. ‘Someone else moves us. Like we’re toys or statues, they move us about, and sometimes they make us do what we don’t want to do.’
Richard shook his head, puzzled but intrigued. ‘Who is it that makes us move, then?’
Amy looked up at him, then turned abruptly and ran towards a bush. ‘Boys!’ she shouted. ‘Boys! Boys! How many times have I told you, get out of that tree. Come here. Walk in a line. Eat those buttercups. Stand still. Not there! Stand under that big leaf.’
Richard smiled. The Boys had moved in with the Youngs about six months ago. Amy took great delight in ordering them around mercilessly like she was a sergeant major with a band of raw recruits. Richard had once asked what they looked like. She’d given him a look that said pretty clearly, ‘Are you blind or stupid?’ then, sighing as if taking the time to talk to a retard, she’d told him the Boys were blue with no eyes and no ears. Now Richard, hand shielding his eyes against the sun, watched her bully them into obeying her, as usual, precise set of commands. ‘Now sit there. Boys! Eat three pieces of grass. Hands on head. Sing “Ba Ba Black Sheep”. Louder! Boys! Now, jump in the pond. Now swim. Now come back here.’
‘Ready, Dad!’ Mark connected the crocodile clips to the rocket motor’s detonator then ran back to where the controller rested on the turf.
‘Amy. Come and watch the launch.’
‘Boys!’ she ordered. ‘Quick: climb into the rocket. You’re going to the moon.’
‘Are they on board?’ asked Mark.
‘Yep!’
Mark’s thumb hit the button. With a roar the rocket hurtled skyward again, leaving another thick trail of white smoke.
Mark asked, ‘Dad, why aren’t you watching the rocket?’
‘Your mother’s looking out of the bedroom window. I think she wants me.’
‘You’re nuts.’
‘Thank you, son, I love you, too.’
‘Well, you are nuts.’
‘I only said I can see your mother looking out of the bedroom window.’
‘You must be nuts because Mum’s over there by the pond.’
Startled, Richard looked in the direction of the pond. Christine was walking towards them, a chillbox in one hand. Richard looked back at the window. Strange. He was positive he’d seen Christine watching them from the window. Or at least someone watching from the bedroom window. He searched each window in turn, squinting against the glare of the sun. There was no face now.
He shook his head. Of course there never had been a face, he told himself. It was a good fifty yards back to the house. Reflected in the windows were the trees in the garden. He’d merely seen some rogue reflection that looked like a face. Just as he’d imagined seeing Amy lying drowned in the pond. Well, I am a writer, after all, he thought. I’m paid good money to have an imagination. He smiled to himself. Even if it was only to imagine how to make an industrial process that sticks labels on shampoo bottles look fascinating.
Christine had brought bottles of coke for the children and a can of ice-cold lager for him.
‘I know it’s only the middle of the morning,’ she told him with an easy smile, ‘but what the hell, you’re on holiday, you’ve earned it.’
He kissed her. ‘My God. A sunny day, a well-fuelled rocket, happy kids, a generous wife, ice cold tinnies. What more could any man ask for?’
‘Keep asking,’ she said with a more than slightly wicked smile, ‘you might get some more surprises before the day’s out.’
‘Wow,’ he raised his eyebrows. ‘Keep talking like that and you just might turn me on.’
‘Well, listen to this then.’ Huskily she whispered in his ear.
Enjoying the feel of her warm breath tickling his ear as much as the sensual words, he looked back in the direction of the house.
Again he found himself searching the windows for that white, staring face.
No, Richard, there never was a face there. Just your slippery imagination, always off and running at the drop of a hat. Nevertheless, he’d almost talked himself into checking that the house really was empty when Christine playfully grappled him to the ground, demanding that she be allowed to launch the rocket. He tickled her, sending her into a choking fit of giggles. Seconds later Amy was happily kicking him in the back. Grabbing his daughter he tickled her, too.
And he wished happy days like this would never end.
Chapter 10
Hotter
‘Joey phoned earlier,’ Christine said as she and Richard sat at the patio table drinking white wine. ‘He asked if you’d still be going to his garden party.’
‘I haven’t really decided yet. If the weather’s going to be like this on Saturday I thought of taking Amy to have a ride on the steam engine at Keighly.’
‘You could do that any time.’
‘Saturday’s a special Thomas the Tank Engine day. They’ll have staff dressed up as the story characters, sticking big faces on the locos, that kind of thing.’ He chatted lightly as he sipped his wine.
But there was no way on God’s Earth he’d go willingly to Joey’s garden party. In the main, the people there would be the sort that’d go anywhere for free booze and food. They liked to call themselves businessmen, but this bunch leeched along on the periphery of the town’s genuine businessmen. As far as Richard coul
d tell they lived off family trust funds, money that granny had left them, or simply sponged off hardworking wives. They were all full of grandiose business plans that they were always on the verge of launching, but somehow never quite did.
Joey fitted in well. He’d never done a day’s genuine work in his life. In theory, he headed Barrass & Son Properties, the company Christine’s father had created and run shrewdly and extremely profitably until his death ten years ago. Its only valuable asset was an average-looking office block in town. The rent paid by its tenants covered Joey’s salary and, sure, Richard was forced to admit there was an annual dividend that was split between Joey and Christine.
Christine’s share of the profits paid for the Young family’s day out at a local theme park every summer. And every time they returned from the theme park Richard would drop what remained of the dividend into the penny jar and wonder if Biscuit Bobby Barrass would turn furiously in his grave if he knew about the slipshod way son and heir Joey mishandled the family business. The only other asset, the so-called asset, was Sunnyfields which was worth zip all.
‘Stop it, Richard. Didn’t you hear me?’
‘Sorry?’
‘You were squeezing that glass so tightly I thought you were going to break it.’
‘Was I?’
‘Are you all right?’
He laughed it off. ‘It’s probably all this relaxation. I don’t know how to handle it.’
She smiled but he glimpsed concern still lingering in her brown eyes. ‘Well, we’ll have to work just that bit harder to make you relax that bit more. You’re not worried about the Egyptian trip?’
‘No,’ he lied and realized that Sunnyfields and Joey’s exploits were tending to preoccupy him more and more. ‘Want a refill?’
‘Go on, then, we’ll be devils.’
He refilled the glasses and stretched, feeling himself begin to unwind again. The sun had set and the last traces of blue were leaving the sky. Richard had to admit that pretty much all was well with the world. They’d sat for an hour or more around the patio table drinking wine, chatting about nothing much in particular, but feeling contented in one another’s company. A candle in a lantern cast a peachy glow over the clematis blooms, moths fluttered in and out of the light; above their heads, bats whispered to and fro, and above the bats the stars burned brilliantly.
Occasionally he’d glance in the direction of the house, standing in silhouette against the starry sky. The kids were sound asleep in bed and it was rare for them to wake once they were settled beneath their Bart Simpson quilts.
Christine moved her chair nearer to his so she could stroke his neck.
She was wearing a plain white T-shirt that seemed almost luminous in the candlelight, her eyes twinkled and her teeth were a vivid white between her full lips.
She smiled. ‘Is that relaxation starting to kick in yet?’
‘I’m getting there,’ he said, smiling back. Her soft fingers felt good, lightly working the muscles of his neck.
Her eyes looked larger and larger in the gloom.
‘Well. My objective for tonight is that you become totally relaxed. And totally happy.’
‘And how do you propose to do that?’
‘By doing this.’
Without any hesitation she went down on to her knees in front of him, pulled up his T-shirt and began kissing his bare stomach.
He closed his eyes and allowed the sensation to carry him away: the delicious feel of her cool lips, the light tickling sensation of her hair stroking him down from his chest to the top of his jeans.
‘Christine. I think we’d best continue this inside.’
‘Who’s going to see?’ She alternated each word with a kiss on his stomach. ‘Bats … moths … fox … rabbit … angels …’
She unbuttoned his jeans and he breathed out with pleasure. The erotic sensation of her lips stroking across his skin quickened his heart; he breathed faster. With barely a pause she slipped her T-shirt over her head. He stroked her smooth back, feeling her stretch and arch her spine; he sensed her own excitement. Somehow managing to pull his own jeans down over his legs, awkwardly kicking off his trainers, he let her lead him, not by the hand – Oh God, not by the hand – he allowed her to lead him to the lawn. His lips worked against hers as they tumbled onto the grass, feeling its springiness against their bare skins as they rolled over and over, each trying gently to be the one on top.
His tongue worked its way along her body from head to heel, licking, kissing, gently biting.
‘Oh, Richard,’ she moaned, hungry for his touch. The candle-light barely reached them there and it was by starlight alone that he saw her body beneath him: the jiggle of her breasts as she pushed herself up to him, rotating her hips to buff his stomach with her pubic hair.
It seemed as though a salvo of rockets was launched through his bloodstream, filling him with a burning power as he scooped her up into his arms and held her with a force that mated violence and tenderness.
‘I want to feel you inside of me,’ she panted over and over. ‘I want to feel you inside of me. I want to – ah! Yes … I like it like that. Yes. I like it like that. Don’t stop, don’t stop. Harder. Oh, harder … please.’
All self-control left him. Everything excited him; making love in the night air; the hot intimacy of this woman’s body pressed to him; her passionate need to give herself to him; to pant huskily into his ear. ‘I’m here, I’m yours, do what you want. I’m yours, I’m yours.’ She wanted him to take and to take; like a sweet sacrifice. As if she wanted him to devour her very life and fuse it with his own.
He had no sense of time, or even sense of himself: he was a natural force like thunder or a waterfall or a hurricane that roared forever without stopping or thinking why. Taking his weight on his fists like a buck gorilla he thrust his hips forward to stab deep. She gasped. With each thrust she dug her fingers into his buttocks, cried his name, rolled her head from side to side on the turf, mouth parted, teeth glinting white as her lips tightened. As he moved faster, as if trying to pile-drive her body into the earth beneath her, her eyes opened wider and wider, her brown eyes glinted up into his; her breathing came in hard, ragged gasps: the air from her lungs jetted into his sweating face.
‘Oh, oh,’ she panted gently at first, then louder and louder. ‘Oh. Oh. Oh.’
He couldn’t stop now, hammering his body down onto hers in a bruising collision.
She looked up into his face as if not believing what was happening.
‘Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.’
Her ecstasy overloaded her senses.
‘Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.’
She tore up handfuls of grass.
‘Oh. Oh!’
Ripped from its roots, it covered them.
‘Oh! Oh!’
She began to thrash from side to side like an animal being pinned alive to a board.
‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’
Now! Now! Now! He stabbed furiously into her. A million detonations exploded in every cell of his body.
‘Yes. YES!’
Her convulsions lifted him up with her like he was a doll.
Then she was crying and laughing at the same time; she kissed his face, her lips scorching hot, her cheeks hotter, bled sweat, grass stuck to their bodies like they’d grown a fuzz of beast hair.
They panted and giggled and lay on their backs. Caressing each other, they said whatever came into their heads that was tender, loving.
Richard’s heart still beat with the solid rhythm of an engine as he lay there looking at the stars.
They lay like that ten minutes or more, feeling their bodies cooling. Richard watched a meteor flash in a streak of light across the sky, fancying he heard a faint crackle as the piece of interplanetary stone burnt itself to into nothing but dust eighty miles above their naked bodies. For a time, probably no more than a second – but it felt so palpably real that he stopped breathing – he felt he was a component of the cosmos’s infinite engine. Some small but vital part of it. Like t
he meteor had been. For millions of years it had floated between the planets. For most of that time it would have drifted in a cold darkness. A moment ago it had met its destiny to become a fiery and vivid flash of heat and light and noise that might have been seen by millions of people.
Richard wondered if human life was like that. For the most part led in some dark, almost aimless obscurity. Then, just for a brief moment, you become the centre of attention. You become important because something beyond your control demands you to become important. Briefly, Fate’s spotlight falls on you. Perhaps whatever it is you say or do then, whatever words and actions, become suddenly so important that they affect the lives of others, maybe for ever.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Above him, Christine was a dark female shape cut from the night sky.
He smiled. ‘It’s you. You’ve turned me all mystical. All I can do is think cosmic thoughts.’
‘Mystical? You’re not thinking of taking a vow of celibacy, are you?’ She chuckled. ‘That would never do.’
He gave a low groan of pleasure as he felt her cool hand caress him.
He could only see her in outline as she knelt over him, then her breasts jiggling softly as she sat astride him. She straightened and a single erect nipple covered Venus.
Then she slid down on to him, impaling herself, taking him inside into the very core of her body. She gasped with pleasure; her fingers gripped his shoulders. Stretching her torso, her breasts obliterating whole constellations. She breathed in deeply, arched her back and the woman annihilated a whole universe.
This time, their love-making was slow and gentle. This time he was conscious of his own existence. This time he was aware of his surroundings.
And this time he had a powerful sense they were not alone. That someone was watching them.
Chapter 11
Burning Snow
Curled in some back alley of Rosemary Snow’s brain the conscious part of her felt the needle puncture the crook of her elbow. The voices of nurses seemed to come through a wall of cotton wool. A cold object slid through her lips into her mouth.