Jago (28 page)

His lungs working now, he climbed over the stile at the top of the Bleach property and found himself in the woods. He tried to remember how he had run, the war machine behind and above him, and where the kids’ camp was.

Stiff, dry bushes crowded in on the path, scratching. After a few minutes’ struggle, he emerged into the clearing. It was empty. He was sure this was the place. There was a beaten-flat area of long, yellow grass, with wheel ruts. A van had been parked there. And there was a fireplace, surrounded by a wall of stones. Like a Western scout, he shoved his hand into the ashes. They weren’t very warm. He supposed that meant the kids had cleared out last night. Or early this morning, before breakfast. Or had not been very good firekeepers. Or ash cooled quickly.

‘G’ mornin’, Paul.’

He was not alone in the clearing. It was the wild girl, Allison. He had not heard her coming.

‘Bit of a to-do last night, eh?’

He nodded. Allison was even wilder this morning. Her neck was stained with something congealing, like old tomato soup. Fringed jacket tied by the arms around her waist like a Red Indian breechclout, she looked leaner, sharper. She had a lad with her; not the face-ache from yesterday, one of the local yokels.

‘This is Terry.’

The lad growled and scratched himself. Paul felt hostility coming off him in rank waves. Terry didn’t like outsiders. Or he conceived dislikes easily, and let them fester.

‘Wasn’t there a camp here?’

Allison smiled, eyes shining. Paul still felt uncomfortable around her. She ping-ponged between seeming young and retarded and old and wise.

‘Arr,’ she said, agreeing, ‘they kids from up London. They was frightened off. By Burning Man.’

‘What?’

‘Burning Man. Nothing but lights in the woods at night, but folks round here are daft. There’s an old story ’bout a bonfire and a ha’ant.’

‘A ha’ant?’

‘Ghosties.’ She smirked. ‘Ask some of the old ’uns. Fools they be, but they got stories if youm buy ’em a pint.’

Terry looked as if he was about to drop down on all fours and go for the throat like a rottweiler.

‘Where did the kids go?’

‘Don’t rightly know. Camp site, most like. Not fit for the wild woods, up London kids an’t. Take they away from their video recorders and tube trains and them an’t got a clue.’

‘Was there a boy with a mohican haircut?’

‘Arr, daft bugger. Wouldn’t catch me makin’ a fool of myself like that.’

Allison was prowling around, making him shift to keep eye contact. And Terry was skulking. Paul kept shooting glances at him, just in case he was about to turn.

‘Burning Man’s seen whenever they’s trouble. Comes in a cloud of fire. Terry here’s great-great-auntie met ’en once.’

Terry grunted and spat.

‘Course, they’s trouble now, in’t there? And last night, they was fire.’

Allison stepped into the kids’ fireplace as if it were a paddling pool, her boots sinking into ash.

‘Mysterious fire,’ she said.

She stood up straight, on tiptoes, and stretched out her arms, hanging her head to one side. In a high, off-key voice, she began to sing.

‘Jesus loves me, this I know…’

She was nowhere near the, or any, tune.

‘… ’cause the Bible tells me so…’

Terry had a knife out, a grubby penknife with a six-inch blade. He was digging under his nails with the point, flicking free crescent crusts.

Allison could not remember any more words, and hummed, excruciatingly, further into the child’s hymn. She kept her cruciform pose, stretching her shirt over her wiry shoulders and chest. She had an athlete’s muscles, a runner’s or a tennis player’s, thin and strong.

Terry came near him, and Paul caught a whiff of animal smell. Trained from infancy to be polite, he tried not to let disgust show.

‘Nice knife,’ Terry said. ‘Sha’ap. Shave with it, if you liked.’

He held it up. The blade was oily, its edge honed. Terry took him by the back of the neck and laid the knife against his throat. The metal was shockingly cold, like ice. Paul thought he’d been sliced open.

‘Didn’t shave this mornin’, did you?’

Terry scraped up over Paul’s adam’s apple and wiped under his chin, tickling his stubble. Terry had pressed the
blunt
edge of the blade to his throat. The lad folded his knife and put it away. Paul’s head was reeling, his heart racing. Allison came alive and stopped keening. She took Terry’s hand.

‘Le’ss go,’ she said, pulling.

Terry went with her.

‘Toodle-oo,’ Allison said, as they slipped into the woods.

Paul felt his heartbeat slip back to normal. Whatever had just happened, he felt he’d missed the point.

‘C
ome in,’ Jenny invited. ‘Perhaps Beloved will see you…’

The girl took Hazel’s hand and pulled gently. Her grip was dry and warm, informal. Wendy was behind now, bulk easing her towards the big door Jenny was pushing open.

‘Come inside,’ Jenny said, smiling.

Hazel smelled the other girl’s clean hair, felt her warmth. The hall of the Manor House was dark but not gloomy. Yesterday, she’d seen it as a set from an Agatha Christie film. Elegantly preserved in the Twenties, elephant’s-foot umbrella stands stocked with blunt instruments, portraits of disreputable family ancestors liable to have sired the missing heir, an old-fashioned telephone receiver with a knit cord suitable for surreptitious snipping or stealthy strangling. Actually, the place was tatty, with mismatched, frayed furniture and too much ground-in dirt. The phone on the hall table was old, an unstreamlined black dial model rather than a slim white oval with push-buttons.

She hesitated, and Jenny’s pull became stronger. A suspicion flared, and she remembered Paul and—strangely—Susan Ames. In cartoons, characters often had little figures perched on their shoulders, tiny replicas of themselves, one with a halo, wings, a harp and a blue robe, the other with horns, a tail, a trident and a red face. Paul and Susan were angels, holding her back; Jenny and Wendy imps, pulling her on. On the threshold of the Agapemone, she felt a swoon brewing in her forehead. Her vision went in and out of focus.

Weird.

Jenny came close and slipped an arm around her waist, cooing persuasively, trying to get her into the hall. Wendy laid a heavy arm around her shoulders. The Sisters formed a single body, hugging, protecting, cajoling.

‘Love,’ Jenny said, disconnectedly.

She took a step and paused again, half in and half out of the house. She could feel the cool of the interior, and it was tempting.

Jenny kissed her cheek and said, ‘Come on, Hazel.’

She looked the girl in the face. In a shimmer, Jenny’s skin was beet red, pointed horns pushing out from locks of flame. Her smile was heavily fanged, and she had a comical goatee. As an imp, she was a pantomime character, appealing and endearing. She licked scarlet lips with a black, forked tongue, and laughed like music.

‘It’s nothing, Hazel, just a step…’

‘One foot in front of the other, Hazel,’ said Wendy, gently prodding her back with three arrow-tipped fingers.

The brimstone smelled sweet, and she sucked it into her mouth through her nostrils. She picked up a thick-socked foot and put it down on the bristly doormat. Wendy and Jenny pushed gently, and she was inside the Agapemone. The Sisters let go, and she took a few steps on her own.

In the cool, she turned to look at Wendy and Jenny. The imps, fiery hair flickering, stood in the doorway, shoulder to shoulder, arms folded, red eyes sparkling mischievously. Behind was blue sky and bright sun. It gave them a backlit aura. As she watched, the Sisters changed. Their horns pulled in, their skins faded, their tails curled up under their skirts. Their hair began to shine, floating in circles around their foreheads. From somewhere, Hazel heard the delicate plunking of tiny harps and a choir singing ‘We Plough the Fields and Scatter’.

Hazel saw the Light. It was around the Sisters as they stepped into the hallway, spreading into the shadowed corner. The Light was warm and welcoming, embracing like clean sheets, supporting like sea water. Hazel felt herself almost float, surrounded by Light. She turned away from the door. A gallery ran around the hallway, gathering in a landing from which descended a wide stairway, banistered with dark wood. The Light was up on the landing, spreading like ground mist.

She had the sweet smoke on her palate and felt it filling her lungs. Light sparks scattered across her vision. There was someone on the landing, in the centre of the Light. Jenny was on the first step, kneeling, her head bowed.

‘Beloved,’ she said.

Hazel’s knees felt weak, and she sank to them. The touch from her dream returned and began to massage her neck and shoulders, slipping inside her T-shirt to ease her aches. The Light swirled, coming to a focus in the man shape at the top of the stairs.

She tried to stand, but could not. Her knees were gone, the muscles in her legs were limp. She saw His face in the Light. She had never even seen a photograph of Him. A picture couldn’t have captured the Light. This was Anthony William Jago. Beloved. His face was vast, yards across, and the eyes in it were holes. Through the holes, Hazel saw Heaven. The rest of the face didn’t matter. She didn’t know what He was wearing. It could be a golden robe edged with fire. It could be a priestly black suit with a dog collar. Or He could be naked, body sweating Light. His was the touch she had felt.

‘Hazel,’ he said, taking her name into his mouth, rolling it around and breathing it out again, renewed.

She felt herself standing, knees straightening, feet pressing against the floor. Her arms were reaching out involuntarily, drawn to Him. His smile fell upon her like a warm rain.

‘Hazel,’ He said, ‘Hazel…’

He touched one hand to His breast, then held it out, palm bright and bloody. She was on the bottom stair, between the Sisters, drawn up towards Beloved. Jenny looked up at her with Love, Wendy with tolerance. Jenny pushed her upwards. Beloved’s eyes were closed now. The Light was inside Him. Dressed casually—white shirt open at the neck, black cardigan running thin at the elbows, trainers—Beloved was human enough to be blotchy around the throat, a little hollow in the cheeks, hairline a touch high. The vessel didn’t matter. He contained the Light.

She looked away from His face to His outstretched hand. Shining blood pooled in His palm, glittering. Hazel stepped upwards, towards Beloved’s hand. The smoke was in her nostrils, mouth and lungs, filling her. She felt the touch again, soothing, teasing, slipping between her legs. A drop of blood fell from Beloved’s hand, tumbling slowly towards the carpeted stairs, turning end over end, making shapes. It fell for ever, Hazel’s eyes following the plunge. It struck, spattered in a spider shape, pulsed like a hot coal and faded.

Her mouth was dry, and the touch was around her neck, thumbs in the hollows of her throat, working the hinges of her jaw. Beloved stepped down to her, His hand level, the blood rippling. Hazel’s knees were still not working. She felt as if she were held by hooks under her arms, body sagging but upright. Her hair was extending in an electric frizz. Her scalp tickled, excited. Beloved brought His bleeding hand near her face, and she looked into the red depths of the M-shaped lake in the palm.

‘Beloved,’ Jenny said, ‘this is Hazel.’

‘Sister,’ He said, ‘welcome.’

The blood in His hand was wine, giving off a rich bouquet. Beloved held His other hand over the wound and dipped a thumb into the pool. Blood lapped up around the thumb, filming it from knuckle to nail. Knowing what was expected, Hazel fingertip-brushed her hair away from her forehead, relishing the tingle. Her eyes fluttered shut, and she let her chin fall to her sternum. She felt the touch.

Beloved’s damp thumb was pressed to her forehead, twice. He had drawn the sign of the cross slightly askew above her eyebrows. The blood was cool and pleasant, like cream.

‘Hazel,’ He said, baptizing her, confirming her.

The touch took her chin, lifted her head. She opened her eyes and looked at Him. His eyes were blue and clear.

‘This is my blood,’ He said.

His wound swelled, and the blood lapped at her lips.

‘Drink freely of it.’

Without thinking, she let her tongue slip out and probe the blood. Beloved angled His hand, letting the blood flow towards her lips. There was a definite tang, not unpleasant, and her mouth filled. He let her go, and she wavered, unsteady on her feet, letting the blood creep past her tongue. Inside her mind, there were explosions.

‘J
ames,’ he said, thumping the Gate House door. ‘S’me, Teddy.’

James pulled the door open, and Teddy squeezed in. The curtains were still drawn and there was only a table lamp on. Eyes used to the outside glare, he found himself blinking. With the sun behind them, the curtains looked like rough sacking, pinpoints of light stabbing through the weave.

‘James, Terry didn’t come home. Mum ’n’ Dad’s gone spare.’

James wasn’t alone. A woman was at his side table, drinking tea.

Teddy felt awkward. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘if I’m interruptin’, sorry.’

James was standing up at the sink, rinsing breakfast things. He still looked tired.

‘It’s all right,’ James said. ‘Come in, have tea. You know Susan?’

Teddy shook his head, and the woman nodded at him.

‘Hello, Teddy,’ she said.

He wondered why he hadn’t noticed her before. She was pretty in a young-mothery, teachery sort of way. Chinese cotton trousers that ended high on the calves, loose shirt with flappy breast pockets. Dark hair, fed-up look, bright eyes. Just the sort who would fit with James.

James, hands still wet, was pouring tea for him.

‘James…’

He didn’t know what to say, how to say it.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘If you think about it too long, you’ll make your head hurt. Just try not to think.’

‘James,’ he said, struggling with so many things. ‘Youm got a gun.’

James laughed. ‘Yes, Teddy.’

‘A prop’r gun?’

James nodded his head.

‘Like a p’liceman. You a p’liceman?’

‘No.’

‘What’s up with Terry? And Allison?’