Desolation (19 page)

“I'm not dull. My father may have kept me locked away from the world, but I read, and I've read so much more since. And Afresh wasn't a prison. I have little experience in life, but I know a lot about it. Peter, please, don't fuck with me. Everyone else is fucking with me, and they're laughing at me, and I can't stand it anymore.”

“So go back to Afresh,” Peter said, and that sardonic look shifted back across his face.

“Don't . . . fuck . . . with me.” Even Cain was surprised at the menace he managed to project into his voice.
No more!
he thought, and he thought it hard, and he knew by Peter's expression that the landlord had heard those words in his own mind.

“You do have it,” Peter gasped. “The Way.” He finished his wine and leaned across the bench to look into Cain's eyes. “You know something of it,
but you're unwilling to accept, or not able to. Do you see behind the veil of reality? You know things you shouldn't? You can tell things about people, sense their thoughts, know what they're thinking or what they're going to do next?” Peter's surprise had given way to excitement.

“Sometimes,” Cain said, admitting it for the first time to anyone. All those years at Afresh, all the love and effort the Voice and the Face had given him, and he had never offered them a clue.

“It's a trace of the Way,” Peter said. “Just a hint of what the others in the house all have, a splinter of their talent. They can do that, and so much more. They don't only hear what you're thinking, they can influence it. Had any bad dreams, Cain?”

Cain nodded. “Some. And some that maybe weren't dreams.”

Peter lifted his hands as if demonstrating a point.

“What's this ‘Way' you talk of?”

“I think you know.”

“Pure Sight,” Cain said.

“That's what your father called it. Different people call it different things, but mostly when someone finds it, it's simply the Way. It's a route to all things, a way to knowledge, a path to clear thinking and honest understanding.”

“They all have it in the house?”

“Yes.”

“And you?”

Peter glanced away, and the sadness that swept across his face was shocking in its intensity. “I'm just someone to serve them,” he said quietly. “Everyone with talents has hangers-on. I'm a
hanger-on. I know of the Way, always have, but I've never been able to achieve it. I have dregs of it, as you've already seen. Here.” He picked up the wine bottle and flipped it into the air, uncorked. His hand darted out and the bottle landed upside down on his little finger, spinning there, no wine dribbling out at all. And then Peter's hand began to turn a deep, dark purple as it absorbed the wine.

“Shit.” Cain leaned back, but Peter shook his head, brought the bottle down to the table.

“A trick, that's all,” he said, holding out his hands in a reassuring gesture. They were both pale, untouched by wine, and the bottle itself was still virtually full. “I have just a fraction of what you have, the ability to influence. Did the bottle move, or did you only think of it? It doesn't matter.”

Cain shook his head, stood from the table, and walked to the rosebushes. The flowers were red and fat, the aromas beguiling, but a few of the blooms had leaves spotted black with blight, and blackflies smothered unopened buds. Perhaps everything that was beautiful on the surface had faults waiting to appear. He had barely lived anything of life; he had yet to find this out.

“So, Whistler,” Cain said. He kept his back turned to Peter, looking at the flowers, seeing past the surface beauty to the raw nature beneath.

“Whistler plays his pipes, and people hear truth in his music.”

“I hear only music.”

“Everyone's different,” Peter said.

“What do you hear?”

Peter was silent, and Cain turned around to see
why. Tears streaked the landlord's face, dripping from his chin and spotting the wooden table with dark rosettes. Cain was shocked. Not by the tears, but by the look of abject misery on Peter's face. He stared off into the distance, mouth slightly open, and his right hand stroked his throat as if trying to knead the sadness away.

“I was one of his Followers, years ago,” Peter whispered. “Whistler is the oldest resident of Number 13. He's so old . . . nobody really knows. He's been around; Dubai, Mexico City, Tripoli, Hamelin. And he's the reason I bought the place, the reason I do what I do.” He shook his head and wiped his eyes, snorting, turning away as if he could still hide the tears.

“What made you follow him? What did you hear?” Cain felt sorry for the man, but there was too much happening here to call a halt now. Besides, he felt that Peter
wanted
to talk about this. He spoke quietly—as if trying to ensure what he said remained a secret—but there was no sign of him clamming up.

“I heard . . . such wonderful promise. It's as clear to me today as when it happened thirty years ago. I was sitting outside a café by the side of the river in York. I'd been wandering through the city all morning, wallowing in its history, exploring as many side streets and alleys as I could, seeking the honesty of the place. Back then, everywhere I went I sought the Way, as if it was an inscribed stone I'd find in a building's foundations, or a secret whisper that traveled the atmosphere, just waiting to be heard. Your father and I were still speaking then,
but we were no help for each other, none at all. We wanted the same thing; we just went about it in vastly different ways. He searched inside, I looked everywhere else. We were both so wrong.”

“My father . . .”

“Let me finish, Cain. It's all part of the same story. Understanding me will help you understand your father, and there's so little I can tell you about him. I hadn't spoken to him for years before you were born. I hardly know the man he became. Hear me out, and then I'll show you some pictures.” Peter put his hand on the album and removed it instantly, as if the book were hot.

“Go on,” Cain said, fascinated. He poured them both another glass of wine, and the singing of fluid on glass sounded like distant pan pipes.

“I'd been inside York Minster for two hours, walking its length and breadth, going up into the tower and out onto the roof, looking everywhere. I passed the same people several times. The look on their faces was a uniform blankness; they were impressed, but the emotion barely left their eyes. It was as if they had a magic-sink, something in their eyes that stole away wonders as soon as they saw them. I saw my own wonder and craving reflected in their sunglasses. They seemed not to notice.

“I read tomb inscriptions, searching between words and letters for hidden script, reading them upside down in case the letters were skewed. I closed my eyes and ran my fingers over the engravings, in case they said something altogether different that way. I so wanted to prize up a tombstone, open a mausoleum, because where better to hide
secrets? Every stone tomb I walked over in that great place held the promise of revelation. I could almost feel and hear the darkness inside vibrating with potential. I would get in and crush open the powdery skulls of long-dead bishops, and in the dust of their brains would be the knowledge of the Way. It would be mine, simply by discovering it.

“But I could find nothing, and breaking into tombs was not my sort of thing. I was a passive searcher; looking behind shop facades, listening to illicit conversations, following a smell back to its source. I did a lot of that back then, looking for the Way as if it was a
secret
. It took me decades to realize that it's as obvious as we want it to be.

“So that lunchtime in York I sat outside a café by the river and watched the tourist boats drifting by. They were like floating rainbows, everyone wearing bright shirts and hats as if to display their extravagance to the world. I can't remember what I was wearing. Never been a follower of fashion. Being a follower means you're not thinking for yourself . . .” He trailed off, staring down at his hands where they were clasped together on the table.

“But you followed Whistler.”

Peter nodded and went on. “I was there for an hour or more. I'd eaten lunch and was almost through a bottle of wine. And then everything seemed to go quiet. In such a place that's rare; there were hundreds of tourists milling around, swans and ducks and geese chattering on the river, cars and tour buses passing back and forth over the river bridge, people chatting in the café behind me, planes passing by high overhead. It was a noisy day,
and that didn't bother me, because in such noise there's always the possibility of a single sound that might mean something. But as I was sitting there looking out over the river, there was a moment of silence. All conversationalists must have been taking a breath; the traffic was paused, waiting for lights to change; there were no planes above us; the birds were all eating, or taking off, or roosting somewhere different. Just for the briefest instant the world took pause. And that was when I heard him.”

“The pipes?”

“Whistler's pan pipes. They were the most natural thing in the world, audible to anyone who cared to listen, and yet I knew instantly that the tune would lead me closer to the Way than anything I had ever known. They were subtle, quiet, and I knew they came from close by. Their sound was pure, unsullied by echoes, untainted from passing through the fume-laden air.

“I leaped up and looked around. The cacophony had kicked in again, but that didn't matter, I had heard it, heard the hint of what I had spent a lifetime searching for. And I knew that once I'd heard it, it would never lose itself to me again. I was not worried anymore.” Peter took a long swig of wine, held his head back, and closed his eyes, as if relishing the sun on his face.

“So you found Whistler?”

“Eventually. It took some time. It took another year.”

“How? Why? I don't understand.”

Peter sighed and shook his head. “Neither do I.
Understanding isn't what's required; all he wants is acceptance. From that moment on, I was Whistler's follower. I listened for him wherever I went, always convinced that I would hear him again. I thought he was my route to the Way. I really, truly believed that, because it all felt so right.” He paused, stood from the table, and strolled to the bushes Cain had been inspecting a few minutes earlier. “You see these roses? Beautiful. Each of them utterly flawless in its individuality.”

“They've got blight,” Cain said. “It'll kill them in the end.”

“So negative,” Peter said, smiling back at Cain. “But until they die, they're perfect in their simplicity. More perfect than anything Man has ever made.”

“What happened when you found Whistler?”

“I knew instantly that I'd never know the Way.” Cain thought that Peter may be crying again, but when he came back to the table his eyes were dry.

“So what is Whistler? What are his followers? What does he do to them?” He thought of that woman in the flat, completely still, stuffed or maybe not.

Peter smiled, and it was filled with real good humor. “This,” he said, “is where it all gets a bit difficult. I think we need more wine. I'll get some, and when I come back I'll tell you more.”

“Why?” Cain said. “Why are you telling me all this now?”

“Because I think you deserve to know. The Way is not a secret, and—”

“I don't give a
shit
about the Way, or Pure fucking
Sight!” Cain said, raising his voice more than he had intended. A few people turned, eyes wide, and then just as quickly looked away again. “All it's done for me is to destroy my childhood and steal away my father. It's left me fucked, so fucked that I can't handle life. I have the chance to make things right for myself, and I spend my time running around frightened of my neighbors!”

“I don't care whether you give a shit or not,” Peter said. “Because you have it, and one day it'll reveal itself fully for sure. I'll be back. Don't run off.” He stood and walked back through the garden toward the pub.

Cain was left sitting at the table, staring at Peter's back. He was angry and frightened at the same time, and he even felt some measure of sorrow for Peter, this man who had been bound to Whistler for years. Whether that binding was intentional or not, it had grasped Peter fully. Maybe it was the promise of what he could not have that kept him following the piper. Or perhaps it was something deeper and darker. Cain would do his best to find out as soon as the landlord returned.

So for now Cain sat in the pub garden with a glass of wine, a bee buzzing his head, and several other patrons doing their best to not stare his way.

And the album. It perched on the end of the table like a present waiting to be opened. It could contain anything. Such potential sat between its worn covers that Cain thought it almost a shame to open it, defining that potential and thereby destroying all other possibilities. In Cain's reading of science books—both with his father and afterward—the theory of
multiple universes had fascinated him. The idea that at any moment in time there were infinite variations to what he would or could do next was humbling. He hoped those other Cains made good choices, but really they were all him,
exactly
him, and that made him feel more alone than ever.

In each universe, the photograph album could contain anything. He reached out, opening the album and not opening it, throwing it away, burning it, rejecting it, and welcoming its contents into his heart. Right here and now, he drew his hand back and simply stared, trying to see through the covers to the heart of what it contained. He concentrated, but knew nothing. In another universe, he knew everything. He hummed the nameless tune—the music the shadow had hummed—and somewhere he recognized it and knew exactly what it meant. He wished he were in that universe.

But he could wish forever, and his own life and existence was here. Somewhere else he was much, much worse off than he was now. Somewhere else again, perhaps Vlad's fate had already befallen him.