The Evil Seed (7 page)

The girl was pretty
enough, she thought. Slight, without being too small, supple as a birch wand,
light as a dancer, in a wide-skirted dress which reached almost to her ankles.
Her red hair was rather short, artlessly pushed back from her face and her eyes
were an unusual shade of lavender filled with lights and reflections. But her
beauty was more than an accumulation of features. It was somehow abstract,
ethereal.

There had been a picture
on Alice’s bedroom wall in her student days, an indifferent reproduction of a
Rossetti watercolour entitled
The First Madness of Ophelia.
It showed
the doomed girl, wreathed in flowers, crowned in flowers, long hair loose, pale
features a blur of dark eyes and open mouth as she sang, heedless of her
friends’ concern, sang her sorrow and her madness, childlike in her
self-possession. What had Joe said? That she had had a breakdown? That she had
spent time in a mental ward? Alice could believe it. Ginny had that same look,
reproduced in black-and-white on that half-forgotten poster. Her beauty was an
abyss, an insanity all of its own.

For a moment Alice
seemed to see herself through Ginny’s eyes, as that cool, appraising stare
flicked over her; she saw herself as she knew she must seem before that little
island of teenage self-possession. Over-tall, her eyes too small behind those
wire frames, features too heavy, inelegant. She saw her own graceless
movements, as she watched herself making coffee for them. She saw Joe watching
her, making no comment, but noticing the weight she had put on in three years,
the fine tracery of new lines around her eyes. And the worst of it was that Joe
hadn’t changed at all; if he had, if she had been able to detect a hint of grey
in his hair, new wrinkles around his mouth, extra flab on his thin arms, she
might have felt more reconciled to her own imperfections, but she detected
nothing. The same smile, the same endearing squint through the glasses, the
same thin-as-a-rake body and slightly stooped shoulders. A half-expected jolt as
she realized that even now she felt the same attraction.

Alice spent the rest of
the evening in a haze of jumbled emotions. Places and faces passed without
really registering: a pizza restaurant somewhere in the upper Backs, eating,
for once without appetite, with the same dogged concentration she had seen in
her mother; a path by the river, a bridge. A crescent moon throwing frosty
shadows on to the grass and the river. A weir, looking down into the black
night water, watching neon reflections in the scum.

She ate, drank, made
conversation, without effort, without thinking. Joe sparkled; Ginny turning
towards him smiling shyly, watching him. A late-night film at the cinema which
Alice did not really see. Waiters. Usherettes. A student giving out leaflets. Ginny’s
eyes reflecting light from the screens. Joe buying chocolate, his eyes bright …
Joe happy, unsuspecting, his arm around Ginny’s shoulders, looking down at her
with that intent look that Alice knew to be short-sightedness. Ginny smiling
passively, her voice the barest whisper, like a child’s, glancing at Joe before
she spoke, as if he somehow held the key to her words. Soundless pictures,
their lips moving without meaning, their colours as random and exciting as a
magic-lantern show. Themselves a part of the play, coloured shadows on a flat
screen.

And only Ginny’s face
through it all, watching her as if through glass, slightly distorted, the bones
of her face seeming to change shape; here like the face of a woman looking into
a fishbowl, there one eye magnifying suddenly, mouth twisting into curling,
sneering shapes. Ginny’s face, and the beginnings of obsession.

For a moment, Alice had
been so absorbed that she could not remember where she was. Colours rushed in
upon her, jumbled sounds filled the soundless world. A face rushed towards her
through fathoms of water …
then normality, as if nothing had ever been
different, as if the dark carousel she had ridden through all that evening had
finally tired of her, thrown her back in disgust, while the fair continued, on
some other dimension, maybe just across the water.

The face was Joe’s.

‘Thank you,’ he said,
his hand brushing hers, raising the hairs on her wrist.

‘It’s really good to see
you again. We should have done this a long time ago, but I expect I was too immature,
or too bloody arrogant to suggest it.’

‘That’s fine,’ answered
Alice mechanically. ‘I had a great time.’

‘I knew you would.’ His
voice was warm. ‘I’m so glad you and Ginny got to know each other. I knew she’d
like you, and I really hoped you’d like her.’ He lowered his voice slightly,
glancing back at Ginny to make sure she did not hear him. ‘She needs someone
like you, you know. This evening has really done her a world of good; maybe you
don’t realize it, because you don’t know her very well yet, but I can tell how
much she likes you.’

Alice nodded, feeling
helpless. Already the violence of her previous emotions seemed to hold the
logic of certain dreams, which appear to make sense at the time of dreaming,
but afterwards dissolve back into the incomprehensible code of the subconscious
from which they are born. She looked back at Ginny, who was sitting in a chair
by the fire, and tried to recapture that certainty, that awareness of something
malicious, something morally tainted … She rubbed her eyes with the back of
her hand.

‘Do you want a drink?’
she said, her feelings under control again.

Ginny shrugged, with a
vague, sweet smile.

‘Why not?’ said Joe. ‘What
have you got?’

‘Tea and coffee.’

‘Tea? Coffee?’

‘Cold beers in the
fridge. It’s the best I can do.’ Alice smiled.

‘That’s better,’ Joe
said, and went into the kitchen.

‘One for you?’ he called
to Ginny, but she only shook her head, nervously twisting the flimsy fabric of
her dress with long, pale fingers.

Alice was irritated.
Perhaps it was the utterly passive, dependent persona Ginny adopted which
grated on her nerves. It was the way she looked to Joe for every little thing;
it was the modest lowering of her eyelids when she was not looking at him.
Somehow Ginny, despite her shyness, made her very uneasy. She tried to overcome
it, speaking to the girl directly for the first time that evening.

‘Are you new to
Cambridge?’ she said, determined to elicit some response.

Ginny looked up, her
strange eyes like cracked mirrors. Alice saw herself trapped there in
reflection.

‘I used to know it, a
long time ago.’

‘It never changes much,
does it? ‘Silently, Ginny shook her head.

‘What do you like best?
The Backs? The colleges? ‘Ginny smiled.

‘The graveyards. And the
river of course,’ she said.

Alice muttered some
reply, already feeling exhausted. Joe, however, did not seem to see anything
amiss; but he had been drinking cheerfully for most of the evening already, and
Alice had not expected him to notice the tension. He came back from the kitchen
carrying a six-pack of beer and some glasses, but ended up drinking out of the
cans, as usual.

‘Hey, Al,’ he said,
between gulps, ‘I see you still have old Cat. I’m sure she remembers me. When I
went to the fridge she came right up to me and started rubbing my leg with her
nose. How’s that for memory? I always liked that cat. Even when she shat in my
shoes.’

‘I think she just knows
there’s food in the fridge.’

‘Oh.’ For a minute he
was crestfallen, then, as a new idea came to him, he brightened again.

‘Tomorrow we’re playing
the Corn Exchange. Big-time stuff. Benefit gig with three more bands. You’ll
enjoy it. Ginny wants to hear us, too. Perhaps you two could come together; Gin’s
a bit nervous of being there on her own.

Ginny gave a little nod,
Alice gave a strained smile.

‘I’d love to come. What
sort of thing did you tell me you were playing?’

Alice knew that any
reference to his precious band was enough to keep Joe talking for the whole
evening. She knew that he would be satisfied as long as she smiled and nodded
and looked interested; and for the moment, she was too drained to attempt any
other conversation. Besides, there was Ginny; and her very presence inhibited
Alice in some inexplicable way. This feeling was so intense that she answered
Joe almost at random as he spoke, which earned her, despite his self-absorption,
a speculative glance.

‘You’re very quiet,’ he
said, laughing. ‘Has age mellowed you at last, or am I just boring you witless?
You always used to have plenty to say for yourself in the old days.’

Alice flicked a glance
at Ginny.

‘And you always used to
say that women talked far too much.’

He grinned. ‘They do.’

‘Do you stand for this
sort of thing, Ginny?’ said Alice, forcing herself to include the quiet girl in
their conversation.

‘She doesn’t have to,’
said Joe, opening another can one-handed, ‘she’s the most restful female I
know.’

‘Don’t be taken in,’
said Alice. ‘Beneath that charming exterior there’s a first-class chauvinist
pig.’

Ginny gave a little,
secret smile, raising her eyes to Alice’s, then dropped them again. She
murmured something in a feathery voice, which Alice did not hear; but Joe gave
a low laugh. Alice assumed that she had managed to counterfeit enthusiasm well
enough to deceive him, anyway.

‘I’ll have to go now, I’m
afraid,’ he said, with a quick glance at his watch. ‘I’ll be here in the
morning as soon as I can. I have a practice at ten, and we’ve got another at
about three, but I’m sure I’ll be able to find time to take you both out to
lunch.’

Alice smiled automatically,
grasping at the moment, understanding at last what this was leading to: soon he
would be gone, and she would be alone with Ginny.

‘Coffee before you go?’ she
asked, half in despair, because he was draining the last can of beer, because
he had his coat on, because he was half-way to the door …

‘I’d really better be
going, Al. It’s getting late. But thanks, goodbye.’

‘Goodbye,’ said Alice
forlornly to the door as he stepped out into the night. ‘Oh, Joe …’

But Joe had already
gone, the orange of the street-light making a strange, garish figure of him as
he moved rapidly down the street.

‘Goodnight,’ said Alice
lamely; she couldn’t remember what she had wanted to say to him anyway. She
turned, and there was Ginny, waiting politely beside the stairs, that little,
knowing smile on her face, her eyes in a band of shadow so dark that it might
have been a mask. Alice tried to smile back, shook her heavy head, took two
steps towards the kitchen.

‘Ginny, would you like a
drink?’ she offered, with an effort.

‘That’s very kind,’
Ginny said. Her voice was soft but clear, with an undertone of mockery, her
accent light and untraceable. ‘But do you mind if I go upstairs and change? I’ll
feel much more comfortable.’

‘Of course!’ Alice’s
smile felt better now, more sincere. Maybe it was Joe’s absence which did it. ‘I’m
afraid it’s a bit makeshift upstairs, but it was the best I could do at short
notice. You can put your clothes in the wardrobe, if you like, and if there’s
anything you need, just give me a shout.’

‘Thank you. I’ll be
fine.’

‘OK. Take your time.’

Ginny did not reply, but
Alice heard her going upstairs.

It occurred to her then,
with a sudden jolt, that the girl was shy and a long way from home, and she
felt ashamed of the extent of her antipathy. It was probably
her
fault
that Ginny had been unresponsive; she supposed she had been rude. She should
have tried to include the girl and make her talk.

Mentally berating
herself for the failure of her good intentions, she determined to give Ginny a
chance, to be friends with her, and felt better at once, having made the
decision. She put the kettle on, set out two cups, smiled, and brought out a
tin of biscuits as well. As she began to set the biscuits out on a dish, she
even began to hum.

One

I DREAMED OF HER AGAIN TONIGHT; WHY MENTION
IT, I wonder, when it happens every night, every night without failing, each
time in some new and monstrous clothing, my dreams bloated like poison fruit?
Why write it, when her face looks out from the page at me, when her delicate
hands close on mine as I hold the pen? Oh, Rosemary.

Her presence is like a
perfume in the air, her voice, a whistle to the winds. Last night I dreamed of
her. All in grey, she was, with flowers in her hands and her long red hair
loose to the winds, singing to herself as she walked along the riverside where
the hemlock was growing tall, and I thought to myself: here is a lady lost, in
danger. So I stood up and walked through the graveyard towards her; I stumbled
over a stone in my haste and she turned and saw me. I don’t think she spoke,
but, as she turned, I saw that she was holding something in one hand, a little
round glass something, like a marble, and she held it out towards me, and
smiled. The wind whistled through the little round thing as she held it, a
strange, mournful sound, and as I stretched out my hand to receive it, I saw my
own face staring out at me, long and distorted in the glass surface, mouth open
in an impossibly wide, moaning scream. As I looked, the marble seemed to grow
bigger and bigger, until I could see trees and houses through its convex
surface, houses and bushes and a road, and a railway line winding its way
through a wood … Suddenly, I was afraid. I looked around. Nothing.

Nothing but the rails,
the trees, the whistle of the engine far away. I looked up at the sky. And then
I understood. She was there, had been there all the time, looking down, her
hair drifting out, her eyes great tunnels of death, bigger than the world. And
outside the world, in the strange fisheye she inhabited, there was nothing but
darkness. No sky but the blue painted inside of the spinning-top, no sun but
her eyes, no moon but the round pink imprints of her thumbs against the glass.
And I knew that sometime or other, she would remember the handle, the red
wooden handle which turns the world … and where would I be then? Spinning,
spinning, there in the dark for ever, at her pleasure, beneath her watchful
eyes? My blessed Damozel.