Personal Darkness (20 page)

Lorlo pictured Ruth driving through the night to Manchester.

While he was doing this, the lift arrived.

"Chas—"

The doors opened, faster it seemed than they had ever done before. Not Chas, but the burning Mercedes came crashing through. It bowled over the screeching Honey, bumped once, and then poured toward them up the plain of white, with fire leaping from its open sides.

Lorlo and Frankie wailed like children in the dark.

Down among the dereliction, Malach stood with Ruth, in the black night above the inky river.

Together they watched the windows of the third floor of the warehouse, behind which came a sudden constipated thunder, and then a blinding
whuff
of light and rage of sound. All the glass shot out, a rain of stars, and tiny pieces tinkled about them like hail, and small blobs of flame and scraps of burning furnishings and papers.

Then the fiery Mercedes burst from the far end of the warehouse and dived slowly down into the prolapse of the wasteland, into the black rubbish and the weeds. Redness rose from there to the canopy of tainted city sky. Reflected in the vitriol of the river.

As the glass and flaming fragments fell, Malach had lifted part of his long coat to cover Ruth's head, and shielded her face with his hand. The coat was like a black wing, under which he had taken her.

ALTHENE PUSHED BACK THE DOOR. "Come in." The storm had broken abruptly, and her room was lit and flickered by sheet lightning through the colored window. This was like another scene. And not like at all. Then, that time in the past, Rachaela had woken to find Adamus, and the window of the Temptation flaring upon him.

Althene's window was cunningly of a woman before a colored window, and this inner casement was a thing of irises and hyacinths.

The room was art nouveau. The dark turquoise curtains were figured in peacocks of pale greenish gold. A gilt shawl draped the midnight blue of the bed, and in tall brazen urns fanned brown and emerald feathers. On a polished table with storks' legs lay a platter of milk glass, with three apples on it, one of rose quartz, one of scratched ebony, and one of coal-blue crystal. The mirrors were of reflecting glass, rimmed by glass-paste fruits and leaves. A curtain like those of the window draped the bathroom door.

There were books strewn about. There should have been a mandoline with tassels, or some embroidery on a frame. But clearly Althene was a stylist rather than a liar.

"Isn't it charming," said Althene. "How thoughtful they are."

"Does the window open?"

"I haven't tried. In the bathroom it does. An enormous tree almost brushes the sill. Yesterday a dove came and watched me brush my teeth. It was very flattering."

Rachaela would not give in.

"About the dress. It's very kind of you, but I—"

"You have no long dresses, you said. This is a special dinner. You and I are almost alike. Cheta will come and see to the few alterations. To please them. You must."

"Why is the dinner special?"

"Kei will cook it."

"And is that the only reason?"

"Imagine, if you will," said Althene, "that they want to celebrate a possibility."

"Of what?"

"Renewal, hope, the washing away of sin."

"Whose sin?" asked Rachaela. "Mine?"

"How self-centered you are," said Althene. "If you weren't beautiful, one would want to slap you."

"I'll go." Rachaela turned to the door.

Somehow Althene was past her, blocking the exit. She flicked at a fringed rope, and another peacock curtain came down over the doorway. "I've imprisoned you. No chance to escape until you've seen the dress." She was playful, and oddly dangerous. The power behind her eyes glowed out on Rachaela, a challenge Rachaela did not care to meet.

"You're making everything very difficult," she said.

"No, Rachaela.
You
are making everything very difficult. But then. Opposition is sometimes stimulating."

The lightning fluttered, and the woman at the window in the window appeared. The tap of rain came from the glass, a million dainty fingers.

"Negative ions," said Althene. "After all, let's see if the window opens."

It did.

A vein of darkness stabbed by diamonds.

Rachaela drew in a breath.

Althene stalked on her effortless high heels to the carven wardrobe. Inside, some twenty or so garments hung in suave gradations of color and texture.

"Here is mine."

Althene swept out on her arm, like a swooning princess, a thing of wine-red satin. She shook it and held it up, a dress with a deep narrow V of neck, long sleeves, a crossover bodice, padded shoulders, and sleek-waisted mermaid body. It had no ornament.

"Let me demonstrate." Althene unzipped her Mocha clothes, which fell around her like fawning dogs.

Her arms were lightly muscled, without a trace even of down. She wore a short camisole in caramel silk, with a high breast and hem edged in smoky guipure lace. She was unselfconscious to the point of parody. To be so gorgeous and not to know, was a contradiction in terms.

She slid the wine dress on over her head, receiving it like a prayer. She smoothed it down, unzipped.

"Do me up."

Like her page, Rachaela came and performed the duty. She was resigned.

Althene said, "You see. The dress I have in mind for you is the same. But white."

And from the wardrobe came the white dress, like snow, or Malach's hair. Silk, this one. From the right shoulder to the point of the V of the neck, extended a line of black embroidery, the shapes of tiny roses.

"Try," said Althene.

Rachaela stared at her. She did not want to take off her blouse and skirt before this Medusa. But then, not to do so was to back down, and they were in a sort of game, the games the Scarabae played.

And I, too, am Scarabae.

"All right."

She pulled off her top and the skirt. Althene looked at her, without any nuance of interest or committal.

And I am wearing a Marks and Spencer's bra and matching briefs, and no tights or stockings. Satisfied?

Althene did not help her don the white dress.

It fitted untightly but rather well, except for being a fraction too close at the bust. Althene, although taller, must be more slender there. And it was, of course, a couple of inches too long. It met the floor.

"Cheta will be here in a moment. She'll see to that. It can be let out an inch or so, and taken up. Then the dress will be yours.. You must keep it."

"It's lovely, but it isn't my sort of dress."

"What nonsense," said Althene.

She turned Rachaela about by a slight pressure on her arm and back, and there was a mirror framed in gilt grapes and ferns.

Two beautiful women looked out at them, one a little taller and of a slightly larger frame. Both with loosely curling, jet-black hair, eyes of night or dusk, faces from a dream. Royal. One the Red Queen, one the White Queen.

"Snow White and Rose Red," said Althene. "Never say to me again it isn't your sort of dress. And you shall have a pearl necklet with a clasp of gray gold."

"And do I keep that too?"

"If you wish. My shoes will be too large for you. My big feet fill me with annoyance. Go barefoot."

Rachaela turned in a type of fury, and Althene turned too and caught her face in two large slim hands. "My beauty," said Althene. "You must cease running away from yourself. One day you'll catch up. What will happen then?"

Rachaela stepped back, and Cheta knocked on the door behind the curtain.

There were two-foot candles of parchment white burning on the dining table in bronze sconces, and eight places laid.

The table had a cloth of dark crimson, with a border of old scarred gold.

From the table's center rose a confection of plants, and a palm tree with dates of polished wood.

Miranda and Sasha wore black, heavily sequined, and Eric his black tuxedo. Camillo wore his black leathers, and a T-shirt with Harley-Davidson written over it, under an eagle, in white. Lou wore a black dress with a low neck, a steel necklace, a bridal veil dyed black which touched the ground. In her ears were tiny silver gas masks she had once found at Camden Lock. Tray had on a basque and miniskirt, black, with a narrow hot-pink stripe running through them. On her arms were black lace gloves reaching to the elbows.

At the hollow of Althene's throat lay a large polished ruby on a platinum chain. Rachaela's white dress now fitted exactly. She had not worn the pearls. She did wear Anna's ring.

The dinner came, borne in by Cheta, Michael, and Kei, who had fashioned it.

There was steamed asparagus with butter and black pepper, served with a Riesling of the Napa Valley. Then came poached pike with a sauce of cumin, honey, oil, and white wine, served with a dark rose of Anjou. Lamb followed baked in pastry, having a filling of apple and dates, and matched to a red African wine from Mbanga. After this was bream flaked and baked with onions in sugar, and served with tall thimbles of vodka. Then strawberries in a brandy sauce, with champagne. Last arrived long plates of Camembert, white goat's cheese, and strong Cheddar, with slices of guava, raisins, and various nuts, and a French dessert wine.

They ate, the voracious Scarabae, and old memories seemed to rise. Of Russian Jewry, of Caesar's Rome, and of some land that was not named but was the country of the mind.

Lou and Tray did not eat. They pecked and pushed aside. Their lips, tongues, and intestinal tracts were locked into the here and now. Besides, their sutured waists gave them no room for expansion.

Rachaela ate a little of everything. Inside her, too, strange nostalgias, perhaps prompted by the wealth of blending drinks, curiously surfaced.

Sometimes she was happy. At others near to tears.

Everything seemed cast away by the glory of the meal. It spoke of other days that had never been.

"Kei is a genius," Althene said to her.

Rachaela thought of Althene at such banquets. She was decorous. Inside the V of her red gown was a plaque of wine-red lace. Yet surely somewhere, once, she had let out poison from a ring at such a feast. The body had convulsed and been carried out. Another dead enemy.

Camillo ate like a boy allowed to stay up. Before the next mouthful he might be sent away to bed.

Sasha and Miranda and Eric ate hungrily, yet with a delicate reserve. Their hearts were broken, like sections of clockwork in their breasts. They must live with this. Did so.

Sometimes Eric, or Sasha, would beckon Michael and Cheta to the table, and insist that they sample something on a little side plate.

Michael wore also the dinner clothes of the 1950s, and Cheta a matte black dress with a golden brooch like a snake.

There was hardly any conversation. And yet, the brain was full of unheard noises, sounds and sweet airs, elegies, faint cries. Beyond the house, the storm had long since died.

Rachaela was amazed she had eaten so much, and thought her stomach would rebel. But it did not. She felt soothed and sad, easy, distant.

The meal was like a symphony, with themes and developments.

It too had an end.

After the symphony of meal, came actual music. It was dance music. Tangos, a quick-step, a waltz.

Eric partnered Miranda on the space of polished floor beyond the table, and then Sasha. They danced well, even glamorously, young slim beings with ancient faces and hands. Then Eric came to Cheta, and she shook her head, but as with the food he insisted. Then Cheta too danced like a young slim girl.

Eventually Eric nodded to Michael, and he went out onto the floor alone. And there he danced alone, graceful as a ghost and with a ghost for a partner.

When this was done, seen through a kind of mist—it was two in the morning, the candles had shed their leaves of light—the Scarabae went from the room, almost all of them. Sasha and Miranda, and Camillo, shepherding the two tiddly little girls, and Althene in her wine and ruby. Eric was left. And Rachaela.

Have they drugged me? I can't move.

It was only the drink. The wonderful food.

She longed suddenly to sleep.

But Eric stood in the dimness of the candles' dying. He said, "I must tell you now, Rachaela. Malach has found Ruth."

Rachaela felt as if she had been brutally struck through layers of sponge.

"I—Ruth. You're saying Ruth—"

"Malach has her."

"What does that
mean
?"

Eric stood still. They all had this habit, this immobility. She too.

"I mean, Eric, what will happen now?"

"It will depend."

"On what?"

"The decision is Malach's."

"It shouldn't be. What is he? Some hired assassin?"

"Scarabae," said Eric.

"But you want her dead, don't you? She's a child—" Rachaela thought,
A child that kills
.

"She is ours."

"But she killed your kind."

My kind.

"She isn't given to us," said Eric. "Malach has her."

How did they know? Some messenger? Some telephone call while she was floundering in Althene's peacock room.
How
?