I gave up and went back. First thing I saw was the cat, finishing the saucer as if nothing had occurred. Ears laid back, really tucking in. I called her a few names under my breath, shot the bolts on the door and went upstairs. It was late but I didn"t want to sleep. I went into the sitting room instead, sat down at my desk. I watched the mist flow in after me under the door. For some reason I wasn"t really surprised.
There wasn"t much of a crack but it had found it. It swirled round my ankles, spread across the room. Once I put my hand down to it. I expected it to feel cold but it didn"t. Not much sensation from it at all.
More came, and more. There seemed no end to it. I thought for a while the room would fill right up. It didn"t though. It was as if it was congealing somewhere, out of my line of sight. I watched the pattern on the carpet become visible again, heard the soft footsteps pad across the room. My old dressing gown was slung across a chair.
I heard it rustle, then the steps came back. Finally I looked up. Kaeti was sitting on the settee with the dressing gown wrapped round her. It was too long by a foot or more. She said, "h.e.l.lo, Dad." Then she smiled. She said, "You always was a gent."
My cigarettes were lying on the desk top. I picked the packet up and opened it.
But I didn"t really want it. So I put it back. When I looked up again she hadn"t gone away. I said, "What"s happening?" I don"t know quite what I meant by that. Some sort of a time-slip idea I think.
She pushed her hair back. She said, "Don"t tell me you didn"t know." She got up, walked toward me. She said, "h.e.l.lo" again and held her hands out. I took them.
They were warm.
I said, "It is you, isn"t it?" and she said, "Yes." Then she scotched on my lap, put her arms round my neck. She hadn"t done that since she was about eight. She said,"I know it"s a bit of a shock. But I did try and warn you. You must have heard me the other night."
I said. "I couldn"t be sure." Then it got to me. "Kaeti," I said, "it was raining," and she said, "I know," and hugged me. "Don"t, Dad," she said, "it"s all right," and I said, "Kaeti, oh my G.o.d." We said a lot more then, the both of us, but I don"t remember any of it. Neither did I care. I"d got her back, you see, I"d got my kid back. And she was warm.
Afterwards I said, "Kaeti, what about your mother," and she put her head back and laughed. "She knows," she said, "she"s known for ages. We were only worried about breaking it to you." I did pull away a bit then because I"d seen the faint hypertrophy of the eyeteeth, the lovely little pearly fangs she"d grown. But she only laughed again. "Dad," she said, "you are a twit. I"m not going to chumph you, that"s only on the films." She sat up then and looked at me solemnly. She said, "You look as if you need a drink. And I"d like something too, it don"t half make you thirsty. Can I make some tea?"
I said, "Can you drink?" and she giggled. "What do you think I do," she said, "pour it in my ear?" She got up and I caught her hand. I said, "I"ll get it," but she shook her head. "It"s OK," she said. "You"ve been dashing about all day."
I still didn"t want her out of my sight though. I stood outside her bedroom and waited. She came out pulling a woolly over her head. "I"m sorry about Mum," she said, "I gave her a right turn that first time; you"ll have to make it up to her." I said, "I thought you"d killed her," and she turned back looking troubled. "I know," she said, "but there was nothing I could do. I had to stop her getting rid of all my things. I wouldn"t have had anything left to wear..."
She put the kettle on, fetched the bottle of Paddy I keep for special occasions.
Broke me up a bit that she"d remembered. She mashed the tea, stood the pot on a tray, then scooped Chota onto her shoulder. "Let"s go back upstairs," she said, "it"s warmer." And so we sat and talked, till there was grey light in the sky. And that was the first of Kaeti"s nights.
Those teeth were the only thing that worried me. But that always sent her into fits.
"Come on, Dad," she used to say, "they"re kinky. Don"t you think they suit me?"
They did too, in a funny sort of way. Made her look, I don"t know, like a healthy young animal. Which I suppose was what she"d always been. I think I was seeing things clearer. A lot of things. Hard to see straight, when you"re trying to earn a living. Deal with b.l.o.o.d.y VAT and all the rest.
That"s what I mean, about seeing straight. We had the VAT boys in a few days later. Played h.e.l.l because I"d been supplying d.i.c.k with spirits by the crate; it had knocked my profit margin back a bit. Part of their job is keeping inflation on course though. Or perhaps you knew. There was a time when I"d have blown my stack. But not any more. I don"t think I even listened very much; they were like radio static a long way off. All I could think of was Kaeti was coming back; it was going to beanother of her Nights. Horses in blinkers, that"s what we"d ail been. Anger is for mortals.
She told me early on, the legend"s wrong. c.o.c.ked up from start to finish. It"s not what"s taken from you, it"s what they give. And they don"t leave marks, any more than an acupuncture needle leaves a mark. "It"s a sort of Contact really," she said. "It changes the flow. It all goes on from there..." I asked her what flow she meant, but she only grinned. "Ask a Chinaman," she said. "They knew a bit as well. Everybody knew bits. Even the bloke who wrote the book. But n.o.body ever got it all together."
She pulled a face. "Then they found out about those grotty little bats in South America, the ones that bite the donkeys, and that was that. It"s just a different lifestyle, Dad, that"s all..."
It did take a little while to get used to. But that was OK too; she said I"d got a million years of prejudice to get rid of. Atavism, that was the word she used. Her vocabulary was going up by leaps and bounds; she"d left me standing. "Bashing saber-tooths over the head with hatchets," she said. "That"s why you"re scared of the night. It"s the days you ought to be frightened of though really. That"s when the bad things happen..."
Sometimes she"d come three or four nights together. Then we wouldn"t see her for a week or more. She said there were long resting periods, there had to be; but she was never too clear about that. I don"t think myself it was that at all. She was being considerate. After all, we"d still got the pub to run. It worried me a bit sometimes. Her not being there. I"d sit and stare out at the common and watch the rain and wonder what she was doing, where she was. But she put me right about that as well. "Look, Dad," she said, "if I"m not here with you I"m not anywhere. Well, nowhere you could understand just yet. What do you think I"m doing, running about getting soaked?" In any case, they don"t experience Time the way we do. "I"m always here," she said to me once. "I never went away. Think of it like that..." Also, she warned me about Desire. It seemed a queer word somehow for her to use, but she didn"t mean it quite the way I thought. "You mustn"t want me to come every night," she said. "You mustn"t want anything. Then I"ll be here." That"s what she meant, about going on from the Gotama. "He knew as well," she said. "They all knew really..." After that I"d go down to the kitchen afterwards and pick her clothes up where they"d fallen and bring them back upstairs and put them away and just not think of anything at all. I reckon I"d reached stage one of the Enlightenment.
She never let me see the transformation except for that first time. Not that there was anything horrible about it; she was very clear on that. It was just that there were certain things I wasn"t ready for. And watching her turn to protoplasmic mist was one of them. "It might give you the wrong idea," she said. "You might start thinking about those grotty films again..."
That was funny too, coming from her. She always used to be a sucker for them.
Even badgered us into getting a color telly so she could see the blood better.
Gruesome little devil. But now it just seemed sad. I mean, that anybody had bothered with rubbish like that. "Think of a chrysalis," she told me once. "You crawlout on a branch and hang yourself up and squidge down into a sort of porridge.
Then you wait a million seconds, and out you come a b.u.t.terfly. Those were the things we should have been looking at..." It was one of her metaphors; she"d developed quite a knack for them. She was the b.u.t.terfly now, riding high night.
I"ll tell you what it was like. It was like being in love. I don"t mean with her, that sort of thing. It was like the first time ever, waking up and seeing colors, the atoms of things vibrating. And knowing there are textures, your feet are pressing the ground, things are real. And you send up thanks. Not unto the Lord, that sort of stuff, just thanks. For being. That"s when you see the One. Only there"s gravity, it all falls away. And you can never get it back. I lived it every day though. Like a dream that didn"t stop. I told her that too once, and she grabbed my hand. "That"s right, Dad," she said "You"re coming on. Everything"s a dream, they all knew that. Jesus, the Gotama, everybody. They"re all One." I said, "The One?" and she nodded.
"That"s right," she said, "The One..."
They know so much more than us of course. They"re h.o.m.o superior, they have been all along. The next stage on. Only we got confused. Couldn"t see the wood for a few spooky trees. We hounded them, wherever we thought they were. That"s why there"s still so few of them. But mats going to change a bit. She made that very clear.
She raised the subject herself one night. Her birthday, it was. We hadn"t forgotten, we were hardly likely to. But she made sure anyway. Talk about nudge nudge, wink wink. Pete made her a cake, and didn"t she tuck into it. I"d seen some healthy appet.i.tes before, but that was a cla.s.sic demo. No weight-watching problems any more, you see. They trade oft excess molecules the same way they take in nutrients, usually while pa.s.sing through earth. The age enzymes go with them, which is why they"re immortal. They don"t really need to eat at all, not in the ordinary sense. She finished with a cuppa nonetheless, then asked if she could have a cigarette. She was looking thoughtful. "Dad," she said, "I want to talk to you. It"s a bit serious."
I didn"t have much doubt what it was about. I"d been reading the papers, watching the whole world getting ready to tear itself to bits. We hadn"t got very long.
I thought when she did finally raise the matter, I"d at least need time to think. I didn"t though. Funny. Or maybe it"s not really so odd. I didn"t want to be parted from her again, you see. But now it was me that was at risk. The only thing that worried me was having to go through what she"d had to first. And that was honestly more for her mother"s sake than mine. But she shook her head. "It"s nothing, Dad,"
she said. "It looks worse than it is; you really don"t feel a thing. I was a bit scared right at the start, but you"ll know what"s happening. Anyway, it takes different people different ways. You won"t have the time I had." They remember the future too of course, in bits and pieces; so I knew she wasn"t talking without a book.
There was still one other thing though. I didn"t know quite how to put it. She waited, grinning, and finally I said, "Kaeti, will it... be you?" The grin got broader then, and she shook her head. "No, Dad," she said, "it won"t be me. Be a bit intimate, wouldn"t it? Don"t worry about it though, somebody"ll come."
Nice young kid she was too. A few years older than Kaeti. And really pretty,jet-black hair all done in sort of ringlets. Looked up-to-date enough apart from that, jeans and a sweater. But they were Kaeti"s things of course, picked up from just next door. She knew a lot about the Thirty Years" War, said they tied one of her brothers across a cannon mouth. She wasn"t bitter about it though; she wasn"t bitter about anything. Of course she was looking at things from a different point of view.
I didn"t really know what was expected of me. Not till she suddenly popped a finger into my mouth. It went through me then like an electric shock. She needn"t have done it that way, I"m pretty sure. It was just to make things easier. Maybe she kissed me sometime, I can"t remember. I think she must have, because suddenly I wasn"t on the earth at all. I was out in s.p.a.ce, and there were stars and suns, and mountains and a rubber-tired trolley going by, and a bank of flowers bigger than a planet. Everything was expanding, but it was shrinking too, all at the same time, reducing to a tiny shining dot. That was the One as well.
She talked a lot afterwards about love. Said what we know can only be a shadow.
When two clouds merge, that"s Joining. I said they must be G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses then, but that was muddle-headed. She said there was still something outside, they were still looking. So nothing really changes. Afterwards I laughed so loud I woke Pete up. Because I"d never left my bed, that was for sure. So it was still the dream.
There was a disco running. Somewhere in the village. Been thumping and crashing nearly all the night. I ask you, when Folk nave to be up by six.
But that"s the human race all over for you. I sometimes think it deserves what it"s going to get.
We had a letter in the post next morning. First time I"d actually seen copperplate handwriting, it was just a phrase before. Done on some sort of parchment too, though the English was modern enough. It begged an interview on a most urgent matter, said that the writer would call that afternoon at three.
I know what I"d have said about that in the good old days. Afternoons are sacred for a publican; it"s the only chance the poor blighter has to get some kip. But the way we were living that sort of thing had ceased to matter, and Pete was curious as well.
Mainly because of the writing. She asked who it was from, but we could neither of us make it out. Address was a good cla.s.s London hotel, but the signature was the only indecipherable part. It was just a florid scrawl, it could have been anything.
He was punctual to the minute. I heard the taxi pull up and went to the door. Tall, bony-looking bloke he was, wearing one of those funny old-fashioned Inverness capes. His suit looked dated too; good tweed, but with a queer-looking cut to it.
And he was wearing a cravat and one of those high stiff collars, the sort you only see now on the films. "Good afternoon," he said, "it is kind of you to see me. My name is van Helsing. You may perhaps have heard of my great-grandfather. He was a man of some renown, in his own highly specialized field."
It didn"t ring a bell with me at all. Not to start with anyway. I sized him up instead.
His hair was pale, so pale I took it to be white at first. Then I decided it was the color of bleached-out straw. His eyes were indeterminate too, pale-lashed and with an odd sort of sunken gleam. I started to wonder just what sort of a nut case we"dlumbered ourselves with. His voice was pleasant enough though, deep and well modulated, and his manners were impeccable. As old-world as his style of dress.
Pete looked at me. She said, "Van who?" and he said "Helsing" again and gave a little bow. She glanced back to me, then shrugged and turned away, got busy with the teapot. I said, "So what can we do for you?"
He was staring round, chin raised in a searching sort of way. And snuffing, for all the world like a dog looking for a scent. Finally he nodded. "Yes," he said, "this is indeed the place. I sense it..."
I toyed with the idea that he might be from the Council after all, that somebody had made a complaint about the drains. I dismissed it straight away. He just hadn"t got the right air of petty officialdom. There was something about him though. Sort of an authority. He turned to me gravely. "First," he said, "let me commiserate with you in your time of loss."
Pete froze in the act of pouring a cuppa. She said, "We don"t want to talk about it. It"s over and done with."
He leaned forward earnestly. "But, Mrs. Fredericks, it is not over," he said. "You know, and I know, that it is far from over..."
"Bill," she said, "have we got to listen to this?" But I shushed her. "All right," I said, "let him have his little say." I turned to the van Whatsit bloke. "And you"d better make it good, my friend," I said. "Wishing yourself on us like this, upsetting my wife. Who the h.e.l.l do you think you are anyway?"
He said, "I have told you who I am." He shook his head, and I swear his voice was vibrating with sympathy. "Believe me," he said, "I do understand. Nothing would normally induce me to intrude on such a time of sorrow..."
"Look," I said, "get to the point, or get out." The name was still going round in the back of my mind. I was beginning to have a nasty feeling I had heard it before.
He got to the point. His way. It took a bit of time. He used a fair few high-flown words, but phrases like "the undead" were never far away. "To bring peace to that poor tormented soul," he said finally, "that is truly my only aim. It will be unpleasant, I realize that. Repugnant perhaps to any thinking being. But mercifully it is soon ended, and your child will be at rest. My apparatus is in the village, but I must have your consent..."
I think it was the word apparatus that did it. I remembered all the films I"d seen then. The mallets and pointed stakes. I didn"t think I was hearing right at first. I couldn"t speak for a minute; then I was on my feet. "Let"s get this straight," I said.
"You want to open our kid"s grave. ..."
Pete was ahead of me though. She was always quicker on the uptake. A knife lay on the draining board; she s.n.a.t.c.hed it up. "I"ll give you graves," she said. "Get out that door, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d-"
He"d jumped up himself. "Mrs. Fredericks," he said, "you are making a terrible mistake-" That was as far as he got though. I yelled at her, but she"d alreadylunged.
How it missed him I shall never know. He eeled back somehow; then he was making for the door. "Deluded souls," he said. "You poor deluded souls..."
I grappled with Pete but she wrenched away. He didn"t wait for anything else; he was through the door like a long dog. Next minute he was legging it down the lane.
He didn"t look back either, not till he turned the corner out of sight.
I went back. "It"s all right, love," I said. "We shan"t be seeing any more of him."
Pete threw the knife down, sat back at the table. She put her face in her hands, then and started to cry. Later she said, "Bill call the police."
"The police," I said. "What do you think they could do?"
"Stop him," she said. "There must be something they can get him on. Whoever he is."
"They wouldn"t believe us to start with," I said. "Just think we"d been watching too much late-night telly. Anyway, think what he could do us for if they did catch up with him."
She stared at me. She said, "What do you mean?"
"Well," I said, "a.s.sault with a deadly weapon for a start."
"But it wasn"t like that," she said, "It wasn"t..."
"So you got upset," I said. "That"s no reason to start waving knives about though. Leastways, that"s how they"d see it."
She sat and looked at me miserably. "It"s Kaeti," she said. "I was only thinking of Kaeti." Then the tears welled up again. "Bill," she said, "I"m afraid. I"ve never been so afraid..."
Kaeti laughed about it when I told her. "Oh, him," she said. "We know all about him; he"s been mooning round for days. He"s out of his tiny Chinese; there isn"t a van Helsing. There never was. His real name"s McMorrow or something. He"s cleared off now though; we don"t know where he went. I reckon Mum put the frighteners on him for good."
I hesitated. "Kaeti," I said, "you know what you told me once. About everybody knowing little bits. Would it... is it a sort of formula? The stakes and that?"
She looked me straight in the eye. "Well," she said brightly, "look at it like this. If somebody rammed a dirty great spike through you, then cut your head off, you wouldn"t be feeling too chipper, would you? Not to mention the garlic..."
I must admit I"d never looked at it like that.
After she"d gone I watched the dawn come up. I knew if I went to bed I wouldn"t sleep. She"d been airy enough, dismissed the whole affair; but there was something at the backs of her eyes that I just didn"t like. She was scared as well.
I went down to Camberley in the afternoon, had a look at the grave. I"m ashamed to admit I"d never been near before. At first I couldn"t face it; then later there neverseemed a need. Everything was neat, the marble curbs in place and the new lead lettering, KAETI LINDA Fredericks, it read. 1962-1979. And on the other side something Pete had dreamed up later, a line from a Roman poet, lie lightly on her earth, she never lay heavy on thee. It brought it all a bit too close again. Even-well, knowing what I did. I walked back into town, bought a bunch of flowers, arranged them for her in the little zinc pot. The sun was shining, there were birds all over. Bit different from last time. I wondered if she-no, I didn"t wonder anything. Anything at all.
It all seemed ridiculous, going back to the car. People with spades and dark lanterns. I mean, not in the twentieth century. I had a word with the old boy in the gatehouse nonetheless. He said the gates were padlocked seven sharp, he saw to it himself. There were nigh stout railings, and, anyway, the main road ran outside; there were streetlamps every few yards. n.o.body would break in there.
All the same, the unease didn"t go away. It stayed with me right through the day.
By the time we got the bars shut I felt flaked out. Pete was looking tired as well; we decided we"d have an early night. Well, early for us. I was asleep as soon as my head nit the pillow.
I had the most appalling dream. About van Helsing. He was stooping down, doing something near the ground. I couldn"t see what. I shouted at him, but he didn"t take any notice. So I shouted again. It seemed my voice went rushing out over a huge empty s.p.a.ce. He turned at that and held something up. I still couldn"t see. So he clicked a torch on for me. It was Kaeti"s head. She was grinning, but her eyes were terrified. Her mouth was stuffed full of what looked like leaves, and a dreadful vivid beard ran down her chin. I grappled with the b.a.s.t.a.r.d then, tried to choke the life out of him. He fought back. He was stronger than he looked. I threshed about; then Pete was yelling at me. She said, "Wake up, for Christ"s sake. Bill, wake up!"
I sat up. I felt groggy. I said, "I had this G.o.dawful dream," and she yelled again.
"It wasn"t a dream, don"t you know anything yet? Bill, for Christ"s sake. ..."
She was dressing already. I said, "What is it love, what"s wrong?" and she glared at me. She said, "She"s in trouble. He"s already there. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d"s there. ..."
That sort of fear is infectious. I grabbed for my trousers and a shirt, flew downstairs and rammed a pair of shoes on. I still didn"t believe it was happening to me. I ran the car back and she dived onto the front seat before I"d finished braking.
She"d got the big old shotgun I bought once from d.i.c.k Stanton when I fancied trying my hand at a bit of rough-shooting. I said, "Jesus, what do you want that for?
We can"t take that..." But she just shouted at me. "Bill, get going. . . !"
The main gates of the cemetery were standing open. Padlock hanging from one of them, and a length of chain. I slewed the car through thinking I"d woken the street.
The headlights j.i.z.zed on obelisks, stone angels. I hauled the wheel again, slashed beneath an overhanging tree. Then I was running two wheels up on gra.s.s, along a tarmac path. She yelled, "Right, go right. ..." A wire basket flew up in the air, a watering can went bowling across the path. Then I saw him. Just a glimpse, his head and shoulders as he straightened. Behind him the headlamps lit the mound offresh-turned earth. He took one look and ducked out of sight again. I knew what he was doing somehow without seeing. He was wrestling with the fid.
Pete was out again before I"d stopped, and running. Her shadow went jumping ahead across the gra.s.s. I followed, leaping over graves. A curbstone caught my foot and I measured my length. It knocked the breath out of me for a minute. I could only watch.
It was as if it was all happening in slow motion. She yelled at him, just like I"d done in the dream. He showed his teeth but he didn"t stop what he was doing. He raised the mallet; then the gun exploded. Both barrels. Among the echoes there seemed to be a tinkling. He was flung backwards, and the lamp that stood at the grave rim went out abruptly. Which was just as well. I"d never seen anybody hit at close range with a charge of shot before. I don"t want to again.
I jumped down. G.o.d, but she was looking pretty. Like a rose, complete with scent and thorns. I lifted her. She was limp and warm. I looked at Pete and we didn"t have to speak. No way was she going back down there again. Not ever.
One thing you can say for graves. They"re great for getting rid of bodies in.
Neither did I feel too much remorse. I reckoned he"d got about what he deserved.
Even to the second-hand coffin.