Light Errant (35 page)

“Look,” I said, stooping to thump, meaning to show him how stiff and solid he was holding it; but the wall seemed to crack, seemed to break and spring a leak so that my hand came up running wet. “Shit,” I said. And then, hastily, “Spray,” I said, “just spray, I'm soaked all over already.”

Which was pretty much true, but irrelevant. What we walked on felt not so solid suddenly, and Jamie wasn't grinning any more. When I saw his head turn to look back, I knew he was right. He was losing it.

“Fuck,” he gasped, eyes front again, stiff and staring, measuring how far we had to go. “Think we'd better run for it, mate. I can't do this...”

“Yes, you can. Sure you can, and we're not running anywhere,” just walking very, very fast now. slipping and sliding like kids on an icy pavement. I could see the walls bowing, bending inward, and my feet were wet now as well as cold. More than spray was splashing over the edges, making puddles.

Twenty metres. Five long skidding strides, and it was only fifteen. Even with my eyes glued to the sunken path we walked, trying to add my useless to Jamie's faltering will, I was aware of figures stood in safety at the end there, waiting for us, pale faces above dark clothes and voices calling, encouraging, urging us on.

Three further strides, and there could only be a dozen left; and a surge of water came from behind us, lapping and tugging at my ankles, making me stagger. And then I did look back, we both did; and Jamie said, “Oh, fuck,” and I swear I could smell his fear, unless it was my own.

Never mind the protocol, sound advice and confidence-boosting wasn't going to help us now. Water can't crumble, but that was how it looked in the dark there as the nightfire faded, a long glowing line of light dying from sight as the walls crumbled and fell in atop it.

We grabbed at each other, and ran.

o0o

Ran through water that was ankle-deep and then calf-deep and getting deeper; ran on a surface that ran itself, that seemed to melt beneath us; ran, waded, plunged, floundered towards where the voices were, seeing nothing now but the water that swirled and surged and tried to claim us for its own as there was nothing left to run on, nothing to push against, only each other to cling to...

o0o

How we covered those last few metres, I honestly don't know. You couldn't say we swam, not with our arms tight around each other and our bodies bucking and twisting in the rampant sea. We just kicked, I guess: kicked against the world and its monstrous sense of irony, kicked against all the shit and all the glory and somehow just had momentum enough to carry us through, to where strong cousinly hands could haul us out.

o0o

We lay on sand-gritty tarmac, sodden and shaking, gasping and spitting up salt, colder than the water and God knew that had been cold enough. I had water in my eyes, in my ears, it felt like I had water in my skull; I could neither see nor hear nor think. I was only dimly aware of anxious female voices, being overriden by men; it was male hands certainly that came down hard on my back, squeezing what little air there was out of my lungs. Just checking, I supposed, making sure they didn't squeeze out water. Took a massive effort to push myself up against that pressure, to bend my head around and whisper, “Don't, I'm okay...”

Cousin Conor it was, kneeling astraddle me with his big hands ready to squeeze again. He didn't take my word for it, that there wasn't the need; he looked aside, presumably for someone else's nod. And presumably got it, because he gave me a grin and thrust himself upward, out of my line of sight. I sighed, breathed as deeply as I could manage, coughed and spat and dropped my head down again, onto the pillow of my folded arms.

With my head turned sideways I could see Jamie, prone beside me, his clothes oozing water and his face strikingly pale, his eyes just pits of shadow. Open pits, though: somehow he managed a smile. No words, but none were needed.
We made it
, his smile was saying,
we're home free.

Not true, I thought, certainly not the whole truth, but it was enough for now. I sighed one more time and let my eyes do what they most wanted, let them fall shut while I concentrated on breathing and listening to the pound and surge of my blood, of my heart, a counterpoint to the defeated sea.

o0o

They let us lie for a while, not for long enough. I heard a voice say, “Jamie? Your dad wants to go now, if you're ready,” and figured that for my own summons too.

So. hands flat to the road, and pushing cautiously upward; I made it onto all fours and thence awkwardly, wobblingly to my feet. Jamie was no better, beside me. Chill and exhaustion after panic and frantic effort had drained us both. We couldn't even cling to each other, had nothing left to share.

Conor was there, though, sturdy and reliable and willing. Impressed, it seemed; proud of us both. That was rare—no, that was something totally new for me. I wondered how hard he was finding it, or how strange, given my reputation in the family.

Someone else, another cousin was looking after Jamie. It was too much trouble to squint through the darkness, to look past the classic Macallan features for whatever touch of individuality would tell me who. I just leaned on Conor's shoulder and let him steer my shaky legs along what was left of the causeway to the cars.

Jamie was following; I was more aware of him than anything else, tuned in to his faltering footsteps, the sound of his strained breathing, both only echoes of my own.

It was his voice called me back into an effortful focus on the world, on the night. I hadn't found my own yet, beyond that first croaked whisper; certainly hadn't thought to ask a question. If anything I'd been glad of the chance not to question, just to let things happen to me for a bit.

But Jamie said, “Where's Laura?”—and abruptly I was back, my weakness only a hindrance now as I stared around the car park. He was right. No Laura, and no Janice. Nor Serena, Christa, none of the girls we'd gone to rescue, who'd really rescued us.

“The women have gone ahead.” A cold, blunt, gravelly voice from a static figure standing in the shadow beyond the cars: Jamie's dad, my Uncle James. My least favourite person, probably, in the whole wide world, and the man who was making the decisions here. He'd likely done that deliberately, separating the girls from us. Not using them as hostages, exactly, only as security, a guarantee that this time we'd do as he wanted.

It worked. Jamie perhaps gave him a stare, across the car roofs. I didn't even do so much, I just slumped through the door that Conor opened and sat wetly shivering, waiting to be taken wherever Uncle James had decreed. I did my seatbelt up, only because Macallans as a class did not; my head dropped forward, I wrapped my arms around my chest and closed my eyes again, vaguely hoping that seawater would stain the fabric of the seat. Not that this was Uncle James' car, I didn't rate that highly. Not in my current state.

We didn't even get to travel in the same car, Jamie and I. His dad was taking no chances, it seemed, after our last rebellion. Needless precaution, belt and braces on shrink-fit jeans; I was going where Janice had gone and nowhere else, and Jamie I knew would be frantic to catch up with Laura, picturing her frantic at being taken away from him.

It was a brief drive, maybe ten minutes. When Conor killed the engine I lifted my head, wiped the condensation off the window—whoops, that was all my moisture,
sorry, Conor
—and saw that we'd come to a minor cousin's house on the waterside, just where the river met the sea. Convenient, I guessed. Equipped with warm towels, I was sure, and a gas fire, and a change of clothes that might come somewhere near fitting me. Equipped also with Janice, of course, who would sit behind me on the hearth and rub my hair dry, and comb it through with her fingers as the warmth seeped into my bones and hard-edged exhaustion mellowed towards a sleepy drift...

o0o

Cousin Diarmuid's house had been a working building once, a shipping warehouse on the ground floor—still with its heavy wooden gallows-beam jutting out over the water, which we used to dare each other to walk as teenagers, leaving and collecting trophies on the pulley at the end to be sure that no one cheated—and the pilots' offices above. There was a little wooden tower on the flat roof, where they used to watch for ships coming in; Diarmuid watched the stars from there on clear nights. He might have been watching tonight, I thought, it might even have been him who spotted Jamie's nightfire beacon and alerted the family.

Maybe I'd ask him later, if I remembered. If I didn't fall asleep on his floor, in front of his fire, soothed by gentle fingers. That was the new plan: get dry, get warm, get comfy, get to sleep. The last plan had worked out pretty well, no reason why this one shouldn't also.

Except that when Conor ushered me into the house, into the big living room, there were no women there. Not Janice, not Laura, none of the freed hostages. Uncle James was there, of course, and other men of the family, but no one else.

Diarmuid came in behind me, tutting when he saw me drip onto his polished oak floor.

“Upstairs with you, lad,” he said, a firm hand on my shoulder setting my skin to jumping even as it turned me back towards the door. “Jamie's there already, drying off and raiding my wardrobes. You're much of a size, I'm sure we can find something to fit you too...”

I was also sure of that, though Diarmuid was shorter and considerably fatter than either of us. But I twisted free of his hold, just for a moment, to glance back and ask, “Uncle James, where are the girls?”

“I sent them back to my house,” he said dismissively. “Lucy will look after them. We don't need them here.”

He was wrong. I needed them, or one of them; so would Jamie. But that was a need Uncle James would only see as weakness, and he'd allowed us no chance to argue. I trudged wearily up the stairs in Diarmuid's wake, wondering how soon he'd decide he didn't need us either, how quickly we could follow. If we were lucky, we could persuade Conor or another cousin to drive us; I didn't want to wait for a lift from my uncle.

As we walked across the landing, it occurred to me to wonder just why Uncle James thought he needed us at all.

Debriefing
, I thought, more perhaps in hope than expectation,
that's all, he just wants a report on what happened, and then he'll let us go...

Diarmuid opened the door of his dressing-room and we caught Jamie debriefing early, standing amid a pile of discarded clothing and just wriggling out of his wet underpants. He threw me a thin-lipped look when really he ought to have been winking, we should have been sharing a grin at his giving Diarmuid such a visual treat. I gathered that he too had already inquired after the girls.

He hooked a towel up off the floor, and knotted it around his waist; Diarmuid fussed around his feet, picking up all his saturated gear.

“You could have left these in the bathroom, Jamie, and spared my carpets.”

“Sorry. I didn't fancy the dash, butt-naked.” Not much trace of apology in his voice; Jamie, I thought, was steaming angry. Me, I didn't have the energy to steam.

“There are bathrobes, you know. That's what they're for. Benedict, come with me...”

o0o

I undressed dutifully in the plush bathroom, dumped my clothes where Diarmuid told me to with a pang of regret for my sodden, spoiled jacket, and took the chance of a quick hot shower while I was there. Towelled off quickly, wrapped myself in a floor-length hooded robe that I'd have stolen without a qualm if there'd only been a way to smuggle it out of the house unseen, decided against any of the startling array of slippers lined up against one wall and went barefoot back to the dressing-room.

Where I found Jamie little further on in his dressing, wearing only a pair of Calvin Klein short johns, with the towel around his neck now. As I came in he gave his hair a desultory rub with one corner and I thought
Janice
with a pang I thought he was sharing, only with a different name attached.

It was a surprise to find him still there; I'd have expected his father to send for him sharpish if he lingered. Maybe Uncle James wanted us both together, and was allowing him the leeway to let me catch up...

“You all right?” I asked him.

“Yeah. Knackered, mostly. Still shaking, look,” and he held up a hand to show me.

I laid my palm against his to match him, tremble for tremble. Adrenalin, I guessed; kicks in fast, takes a while to get absorbed through the system. “Well, we made it,” I said, for what comfort that supplied. “You were brilliant. And the girls are okay.”

“Not here, though.”

“No.” Again we matched, grimace for resentful grimace. Nothing more to be said, except, “We'll chase them, right? Soon as he lets us.”

“Right.” Then Jamie did grin, at last, though it looked a little forced; he indicated the room with a jerk of his head and said, “Been in here before?”

“No, never.” We'd had the run of the house on our occasional visits as kids, but a dressing-room had held no attractions, once we'd established that the name did explain its entire function. A dressing-up room it was not, or not for children.

“It's amazing, have a browse. Kex are in those drawers there...”

o0o

Not hard to see why Jamie had got bogged down in his selection, knickers and nothing more. The room was crammed with wardrobes, chests and tallboys, barely enough floorspace free to change in; and there were clothes enough in there to keep a trendy menswear shop supplied through the Christmas rush and after. Cousin Diarmuid might dress his boyfriends up to the nines of fickle fashion, but he must strip them bare when they left him.

I rummaged through the plentiful supply of underwear, where Jamie had directed me, and fiinally settled on a pair of black Brass Monkey briefs. We both added plain top-quality T-shirts, black for me and white for him; then we burned up a sudden rush of nervous energy in a giggling, stupid half-hour of chucking suits at each other, “Here, try that, you'll look stunning...”