Divided Kingdom (22 page)

Perhaps I should hold the lighter, I suggested. When she wanted a cigarette, I would light it for her. She thoroughly approved of this idea.

Once she had turned the car around and we were under way, she asked me how I came to be walking along that stretch of road. She'd never seen anyone out there before. I felt an almost overpowering need to tell her that I'd been staying in the hotel that was bombed, but I knew it would be unwise. I had to try and keep my mouth shut, not give anything away.

‘Cars,' she said. ‘They always go wrong at the most inconvenient times.'

She had jumped to her own conclusions about me: my car had broken down and I'd had no choice but to abandon it. She glanced across at me. I nodded. It would be a miracle if it was still there when I got back, she said. The vandalism these days. Incredible. She shook her head. The diamonds she was wearing in her ears seemed to fence with the air, each glint of light as fine as the blade of a rapier. With crime so prevalent, I found it surprising she had offered me a lift, but perhaps I was part of a bargain she had made with fate that night. I was a risk she'd been required to take.

After a while she asked if I had the lighter handy. I held the flame up to her cigarette, and she inhaled. Smoke moved across the windscreen like ink in water. My eyes smarted, and I began to cough, but the woman next to me paid no attention. The city seemed endless, spreading out on all sides, in all directions. There was something careless about it. Something profligate. Her expensive car hurtled on into the dark, largely ignoring the white lines that divided one lane from another.

By seven in the morning I was standing outside a transport café on a country road. I had been lucky: I had covered a lot of ground and I hadn't got into any trouble. The aristocratic woman – Annette – had dropped me at a suburban petrol station. From there, I had hitched a ride in a lorry going north. The driver swore constantly at other motorists, and sometimes I thought I could see the violence rising off him like steam off a horse at the end of a long race, but he only spoke to me once, after about an hour, and that was to announce that he was stopping in a lay-by for a nap. I continued on foot. Cars and trucks slammed by, not even slowing down, and I had almost given up hope of another lift when a transit van came to a halt ahead of me, WE OF THE NIGHT painted on the back in silver and framed by a sprinkling of stars. The words unnerved me at first, but the man behind the wheel, Tony Spillman, turned out to be the sales director of a firm that manufactured
beds. ‘And I don't mind telling you,' he said before I'd even finished fastening my seat-belt, ‘in a business like mine, I get into some
pretty interesting situations.'
With no encouragement from me at all, he embarked on a detailed account of his sexual exploits. I must have dozed off at some point, though, because the next time I looked at the clock on the dashboard it said a quarter to six and Spillman was telling me he'd have to let me out. ‘Got a little detour to make – a breakfast meeting, so to speak …' and his head moved backwards on his neck, which gave him a temporary double chin, and his lower lip curved into a small plump shape, like a segment of tangerine.

I watched him drive away, the stars on the back of his van fading in the grainy light of dawn, then I turned and walked into the café. There were only two people in the place, both men. One huddled over a plate of bacon and sausage, the other was studying the sports pages of a tabloid newspaper. Not knowing when I'd have another chance to eat, I ordered a full breakfast. Neither of the men so much as looked at me. It was too early in the day for suspicion, or even curiosity.

Later, when I was paying my bill, I noticed a map of the region on the wall behind the cash-till and asked the waitress to show me where we were. She gave me a sharp look – maybe she thought I was trying to make a fool of her – then she put her finger on an area of pale-yellow. I murmured in disbelief. Despite the hours I had spent on the road, I was still no more than a hundred miles from Congreve. The lorry-driver had taken me north, I knew that much, but Spillman must have turned east while I was sleeping, and I'd ended up in a rural backwater, close to the border with the Green Quarter, which was no use to me whatsoever – though as I stood there staring at the map I began to see how it might work as a decoy. After all, who would suspect me of making for the Green Quarter? In short, my erratic route might actually throw people off the scent. From here, I could either continue north or double back. First, though, I would have to find a place to stay.

I asked the waitress if she knew of anywhere. There was a pub, she said. They might have rooms. She pointed to a small
black box on a road that was even narrower than the one we were on. The junction looked about a mile away. I thanked her, then I buttoned my coat and left.

Outside, the sun had risen, but its rays were as colourless as panes of glass and I had to walk fast just to keep warm. I'd forgotten to give Annette her lighter back. I could feel its smooth shape at the bottom of my pocket.

As I approached the turning I saw a phone-box, and I had the sudden urge to call someone, so I could set a seal on what I'd done, so I didn't feel quite so alone. I stepped inside and put the receiver to my ear. The line was dead. I stared out across the road, the tops of the trees in sunlight, their trunks still plunged in shade. Who would I have talked to anyway? Marie? It was early. She would be asleep. When she heard the ringing she would pick up the phone that sat on her bedside table, next to the photo taken on a yacht when she was twenty-three – Marie in a pink bikini, laughing.
That's me, happy
, she had told me during my last visit.

Hello?

Marie? It's Tom. Did I wake you?

It doesn't matter.
The sound of her turning in the bed, like surf.
Where are you?

I can't say exactly. It's like you and Victor, though – what you did. It's like that.
A pause.
I love you, Marie.

She would be facing the ceiling, one forearm draped over her eyes. A smile at the corner of her mouth.

I always loved you, right from the beginning.
Another pause, my mind drifting back.
I hated those people for making you feel bad.

That was a long time ago.

I know. But you were so much better than they were.

A car rushed past, steel-blue, into the future.

I'll probably think I dreamt all this. I often have dreams about you, Tom.

I dream about you too.

Do you?

I couldn't have spoken to Marie, of course, not even if the phone had been working. Communication between the four
countries wasn't possible unless you went through official channels. But then I remembered the time I found Victor weeping over the death of his wife, and I wondered if there was a chance Marie had felt something while I was talking to her in my head. She might have woken suddenly and sat upright in her bed. Thinking of me, not knowing why.

I followed the narrow road for what seemed like hours as it climbed between rough pastures and drystone walls. Behind me, I could just make out the red roof of the café where I had eaten breakfast, the main road running through the middle of the valley like the spine in a leaf. Since I had started my ascent, there hadn't been a hint of any traffic, not unless you counted the wreck I'd seen, burned-out, windowless, abandoned in a ditch. The only signs of life were the fragile spires of smoke rising from chimneys in the valley's western reaches and, once or twice, from somewhere high above, the drowsy humming of a plane.

It was after midday when I came out at the top of the pass. A wide, shallow basin lay in front of me, a kind of plateau ringed by hills. In the foreground were a number of grey-and-white houses, one larger than the rest. Could that be the pub the waitress had spoken of? I hoped so. Cloud was moving across the sky from the north, a solid shelf or ledge of it. Whatever meagre heat the sun had brought would soon be gone. My limbs were heavy, my eyelids too. I could almost have slept standing up.

I forced myself onwards, each footstep sending a jolt through my whole body. Though I longed to reach the pub, the distance between us seemed to remain the same. Then, when I had almost despaired of arriving, I rounded a bend and there it was, only yards away. The chipped gold letters above the entrance said THE AXE EDGE INN.

I mounted the steps and pushed the door open. I'd walked into the public bar – a floor of stained wood, with chairs and tables to match. The air smelled of beer and green logs, and the horse-brasses pinned to the walls in vertical rows gave off a
sullen gleam. A woman stood behind the bar, reading a note. Her hair was drawn back in a tight bun, which only served to accentuate the strong bones in her cheeks and jaw. When I asked if she had a room, she folded the note and put it in her pocket, then she came out from behind the bar and stood staring at me, hands on hips. She wore a white ribbed sweater, brown jodhpurs and a pair of tall, scuffed riding boots. Her face, which was lightly tanned, looked hard as a mask.

‘I didn't hear a car,' she said.

‘I don't have a car,' I said. ‘I walked.'

Her gaze dropped from my face to my coat, then further, to my shoes. ‘You don't look like much of a walker to me.'

I let out a sigh. ‘Do you have a room or don't you?'

‘All right, all right,' the woman said. ‘Jesus.'

She led me through an archway and on into a second bar. On the wall hung a stag's head, a dented hunting horn and several framed black-and-white photos of men squinting on the tops of mountains.

‘I don't usually have people staying,' she said, ‘not this time of year.'

Winter, I thought. Business would be slow.

The woman reached over the counter and plucked a key from a metal hook. As I took the key from her, I had the distinct feeling that it was accompanied by a warning, unspoken, but quite palpable.

My room was small, with a low ceiling. The walls were stained with the bodies of insects that had been swatted during the summer months, their blood no longer red but dark-brown or dull-pink. I put my bag down at the foot of the bed and moved to the window. The land fell away in front of me, the coarse grass studded with boulders. Rain smudged the horizon to the east. I faced back into the room. There was a washbasin in one corner, and opposite the bed was a fireplace that had been boarded up. A tall wardrobe stood behind the door, as if intent on ambushing the next person who walked in. I placed my watch on the bedside table, then took off all my clothes and climbed between the sheets. The pillowcase smelled of mildew, but I
laid my head against it anyway, and I remembered nothing after that.

I woke to raucous applause, people clapping and whistling. I couldn't see anything, though, nor, for a few moments, did I have any idea where I was. I reached out for my watch, which lay coiled on the table. The luminous green hands said ten to seven. Clutching the watch, I sank back among the blankets, my mind still stunned with sleep. Darkness had fallen outside. I let my eyes close, then forced them open again and swung my legs out of the bed. The cold air took hold of me, stippling my bare skin with goose-bumps.

As I rose to my feet, trying to remember where the light-switch was, a movement in the window caught my eye. Still naked, I went and looked through the glass. In the distance, perhaps a mile away, a monstrous creature glowed and flickered. A dappled brownish-golden colour, it had a long thick body and a tapering tail, and it was staggering, almost drunkenly, in the direction of the pub.

I found a light-switch by the door and turned it on, then walked over to the washbasin. I ran the hot tap. It coughed once, then shuddered, but nothing came out. I washed under the cold tap instead, bringing handful after handful of icy water to my face until I felt properly awake. I glanced at myself in the mirror. My eyelids were swollen, puffy, my forehead creased. How long had I been asleep? Five hours? Six? A towel in my hands, I returned to the window. The creature had edged closer. Its stubby head ended in a forked tongue which seemed to be licking at the night. I quickly threw on my clothes and went downstairs.

Both bars had filled with people, some dressed in army surplus, some in anoraks and wellingtons. Others wore fur hats with flaps over the ears. Several of the men had beards. Through the window I caught a glimpse of the woman I'd spoken to earlier. She was standing on the asphalt at the front of the pub, her legs astride, smoking a cigarette. I went outside and joined her. She continued to smoke, without acknowledging my presence.

‘I saw something from my room,' I said. ‘I thought I should tell you.'

‘Did you?' Holding her cigarette at thigh-level, she stared out into the dark.

‘It looked like a salamander.'

She said nothing. A thin spiral of smoke coiled upwards, past her sleeve.

‘Is something going to happen?' I said.

‘You tell me.'

‘How could I tell you? I've never been here before.'

She looked at me sideways, steadily. She seemed to be debating something inside herself. Then she said, ‘It's the burning of the animals.'

‘I don't understand.'

‘Every year, around this time,' she said, ‘we burn the animals. We always do it in a different place, or the authorities would interfere. It's our little gesture of rebellion against the way things are.'

‘I know about rebellion,' I said.

‘You do?' Still watching me, the woman drew on her cigarette, then blew the smoke out of one corner of her mouth.

I found myself telling the woman who I was and what I had done. Perhaps I wanted to repay her for having been straightforward with me, but there was also something about the harsh planes of her face and the toughness around her mouth that invited confidences. I was sure that her initial hostility was only caution blown up large. And so I told her everything.