The Boy Who Could See Demons (28 page)

‘Whoa!’ I say to Ruen. ‘That’s just like
The Terminator!’

He looks at me, very confused.

‘Wait … did you fight Satan as well?’ I say, standing up. ‘Was he riding a dragon and did giant hailstones of hot coal come falling out of the sky?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Saving my dad!’ I shout.

I hear footsteps walking quickly down the hall so I lower my voice. ‘Was he really grateful? Did you tell him about me?’

Ruen looks down as if he’s thinking about it. Eventually he stands and smiles. ‘Your father was released from Hell yesterday, on my command, of course. He was extremely grateful to me and told me he would remain indebted to me for the rest of eternity. In fact, he said he hoped his son – you, Alex – would attempt to pay some of that debt in his stead by remaining faithful to me and assisting in my research.’

I stare at him. I haven’t a clue what he’s just said. I’m still buzzed that he’s done what he said he would do. And I think about Katie then, of what her mum did. That Ruen was right all along.

‘Will you, Alex?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Will you remain faithful to me and assist in my research, just as your father requested?’

‘Yes. Yes, of course. So did my dad seem happy, then? Did he like Heaven and did he ask about Mum and were there angels in Heaven?’

Ruen grunts.

Then something occurs to me. Something I should have told Ruen to tell my dad.

‘Did you tell my dad that I love him?’

Ruen’s face looks like a knot. ‘Did you wish me to?’

I nod and suddenly my buzz wilts a little, like a goal I almost scored but didn’t. ‘Maybe he already knows. Do you think so?’

He shrugs. ‘How would I know?’

‘Did you … just get a sense that he knew that I loved him? You know, because I sent you to get him out of Hell? Did it show in his face?’

Ruen’s expression tightens even more. You could probably hide stuff in between the folds of skin. When I think of this I remember the time I hid a fiver behind the radiator in my room and I wonder if it’s still there.

Ruen snorts and flares his nostrils. ‘My dear boy, love is a very
human
thing. I know nothing of love,’ he says. ‘And, if I did, I should be very, very angry.’

I sweep my hand over my head to show that everything he’s just said is a bit psycho. He looks at the door. For a minute I think he’s going to leave and I suddenly feel like pleading with him not to. But he just sniffs and sits back down.

‘You know, Ruen,’ I tell him. ‘In a way, you’re like my dad, too. I don’t mean that I don’t love my dad, it’s just …’ Suddenly I don’t even know what I mean. ‘I’m just glad you’re here.’

Ruen raises one of his fuzzy white eyebrows and snorts. I climb into my bed and pull the covers around me. Just as I do this all the lights shut off and it is pitch-black. They do this every night, even though I hate the dark.

It makes me even more glad that Ruen is here.

22

THE COMPOSER

Anya

Yesterday I went to the adult psych unit to talk to Cindy about Alex’s piece of music. She was incredibly reluctant to see me. I had presented myself to the nurse doing the medicine rounds and overheard their conversation through Cindy’s open bedroom door.

There’s a lady here to see you, Cindy. Dr Anya …

A sigh.
Tell her I’m not well
.

She says it’s about your little boy, Alex
?

Why does she keep coming here
?

After a few moments the nurse emerged from Cindy’s room and told me I could go in.

Cindy was seated beside the window, glancing out at the rain, tapping both feet in a kind of sitting jump. Her hair was unwashed, her nails bitten to stumps. I hovered at the threshold, waiting for her permission to enter.

‘Hello, Cindy,’ I said warmly. ‘May I come in?’

‘Please yourself,’ she mumbled.

I lifted a chair by the bed and set it down close to her, though not too close. ‘I know you have an art session,’ I said. I went to take off my jacket, then thought better of it. ‘I won’t keep you late.’

She flicked her eyes at me. ‘I’m not going to no daft art session.’

I paused. ‘No?’

She bit her nails in response and fixed her gaze out the window, drawing one bony knee up to her chest. ‘What you here for, then?’

I kept my voice light. ‘I wanted to ask if Alex ever had piano lessons?’

‘That’s
why you’re here?’

I nodded.

She sighed. ‘Not to my knowledge. Couldn’t afford stuff like that, ya know?’

‘You have a piano at home, don’t you? Did either of you play it?’

‘No. It was a family heirloom. Hadn’t rung a note in years.’

‘What about at school? Does Alex take music classes?’

‘He’s much more into building models of castles, stuff like that.
Boy
stuff.’

‘So he couldn’t have written this, then?’ Tentatively, I produced the piece of music. Cindy took it from me and glanced at it.

‘No,’ she said after a pause. ‘He’s never written music.’ She tapped the writing at the top of the page with her finger. ‘It does
look
like Alex’s writing, though. Can I have a closer look?’

‘Take your time,’ I said. She pulled the page nearer to the light from the window and leaned in to the page.

‘Actually I’d say this
is
Alex’s writing.’ She looked up at me, puzzled and happy at once. ‘Fancy that, eh? My boy, a composer. Not that I’m surprised.’

‘Why doesn’t it surprise you?’

She shrugged and changed legs, drawing the left knee up to her chin, visibly excited by what she was seeing. ‘Alex has always done things beyond his age. Stuff I never taught him, he just picked up somehow. You’d never think he was my son.’

I nodded. ‘Alex says someone else wrote this.’

‘No, it’s definitely his writing …’

‘I know. Alex said he wrote the music down, but someone else composed the music and told him to write it.’

She looked confused, then gave a shrug. ‘Well, if that’s what Alex says, I’d believe him.’

I bit my lip. ‘Even if Alex says that person was a demon?’

She must have misheard me. ‘What’s wrong with him copying some music out? Just because he didn’t actually compose it doesn’t mean he isn’t clever …’

‘I didn’t say that …’

She thrust the music back at me, her face angry and scared. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Stop asking about our piano, all right? It’s none of your business.’

I took the music and put it back into my briefcase. She watched me intently, her hands still restless.

‘They don’t let you smoke in here, do they?’ I said.

Her face softened. ‘No, they don’t,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I’d give you a kidney for one right now.’

I smiled and pushed at the diversion of her frustration from me to ‘they’. ‘If I had one, you’d be glad to it.’

‘Thanks,’ she said, smiling weakly. She let both knees drop down on the chair. Whatever emotion had been wound tight by my questions was visibly lessening its grip. I leaned down to pick up my briefcase.

‘Still, you’ll be out of here soon enough.’

She glanced at me. Something in her gaze made me stop mid-rise.

‘Won’t you?’ I pressed.

She was back to chewing her nails. I sat back down in my chair, sensing she had something left to say. After a few moments, she leaned forward, her eyes furtive.

‘You have kids, don’t you?’ she said.

‘What makes you ask?’

She scratched her head. ‘Trudy doesn’t have any kids, so I don’t think she understands. But you know what I mean, don’t you?’

‘About what?’

She pulled her chair closer. ‘That sometimes it feels like
they’re
the parent and
you’re
the child. You know? Like they have more answers than we do.’

‘You mean Alex seems older than his years?’

‘He’s always been so independent. Like he didn’t even need me.’ At last, her hands settled on her stomach, at rest. She turned her head towards the window, glancing up at the clouds that had begun to darken and gather. ‘I never wanted to be a mother. Not a nice thing to say, is it? Then when Alex was born I fell totally in love with him. I was his number one fan. He’s so amazing I can hardly believe he came out of
me.’

I listened carefully as the weight of her words settled into the silence. It was beginning to rain when I spoke. ‘Cindy, I think you and Alex should take a little holiday when you get out of here.’

She looked puzzled for a moment. ‘When I get out of here?’

I nodded. ‘It doesn’t need to be anywhere expensive. But I think it would be a good idea for the two of you to have some fun together. Have you ever had a day at the beach?’

She shook her head, then laughed. ‘How crazy is that? Three miles from the beach and we’ve never been. Then again, it’s never sunny, is it?’

‘Even if it’s
snowing,’
I said lightly, returning her grin. ‘When you get out of here I think you should make spending time together a priority.’

She lowered her gaze. ‘Yeah. When I get out of here.’

*

This morning I woke, having finally fallen asleep at five a.m. on the floor of my bedroom, with the sound of Alex’s piece of music in my head. I had to play it. I had to hear Poppy in the notes, to feel her close again. No, not just to feel close – to find answers. The echo of her composition in Alex’s piece had rung out a series of echoes that filled my small flat. When she was born, she didn’t breathe for two minutes. The doctors were frantic, flapping between my legs with a suction machine, counting –
one, two, three, come on, sweetheart –
until finally a midwife plucked her up by the ankles, held her upside down and gave her back a firm pat. She screamed, and I felt as if a flood of relief had poured across me.

Now, the trauma of that moment had a new echo – was that what caused it? Had the lack of oxygen caused something in her brain to go wrong? Did schizophrenia lurk in my gene pool, hitting my mother then skipping over me to reach Poppy? Was it something I had done?

And what else could I have done to save her?

I checked my phone. Missed calls from Fi and Michael, and a number I didn’t recognise. I tried calling it back, but to no avail. Then, with a moment’s hesitation, I called Melinda.

‘Hey!’ she said after I’d greeted her. ‘The maestro! How you doing?’

I asked if it would be all right if I used one of the practice rooms for an hour or so.

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ she gushed. ‘Absolutely. Come on over and I’ll get you booked in. We’ve a Steinway in the main practice room, how’d that be?’

‘That’s perfect,’ I said, and hung up. My fingers were already restless. I was aching to play that music. I was searching for an answer, a missing piece of the puzzle, and I didn’t even know the question.

I arrived at Melinda’s office clutching a Coke and a chocolate muffin that was the size of a ball of Aran wool. I had decided that my period was due, that my hormones were raging, hence the reason I was slightly off-kilter. That, and a temporary fling with insomnia. Melinda made drooling motions at the sight of the muffin in the clear plastic bag and took me to the practice room.

It was empty, except for a piano stool and a shiny black Steinway grand piano. At the sight of the ‘no food or drink’ sign, I shoved my Coke and muffin into a bin nearby.

Melinda frowned. ‘I wouldn’t have said anything,’ she said, but I shook my head. I had no appetite, I told her. I just wanted to play.

When she shut the door behind me I began with a few arpeggios to warm up my fingers. In the last four years I had stroked the keys no more than a dozen times. What intrigued me was that despite such neglect my hands retained the ghostly fingerings of the pieces I used to play over and over again. I could no longer remember the key of Rachmaninov’s second piano concerto, nor could I see in my mind’s eye the notes for Ravel’s
‘Pavane Pour Une Infante
Défunte’
, but my fingers found their way to the right chords without hesitation. I felt like a puppet in reverse, my whole body tugged and jerked by the strings of the piano.

Finally, I unfolded Alex’s piece of music from my pocket. Though the melody was echoing in my head, my fingers were unfamiliar with it. I scanned the piece again, the image of Poppy’s head bent over our piano rising up in my mind.

I love you, Mummy
.

I creased back the page until it leaned against the music stand, and slid my fingers on top of the notes. I began to play, an emphasis on the B of the right hand, a waltz in the left. I hadn’t made it past the first bar when I stopped, lifting my touch an inch off the keys, my heart clanging in my chest at the echo of the music in the cold empty room.

Whatever memory had been stirred by those opening notes had not simply flashed a picture in my mind. This time, memory filled my veins, my skin alive with the softness of her skin when I held her for the first time, cheek to chest, her whole head fitting neatly in my palm. The sensation of it was so real that it shocked me. But it was tantalising, too. I laid my hands back on the keys and continued. This time, I felt the L-shape of her shoulder blades pressed into my palms as I held her after a fall from her bike, as if the music was a conduit between me and that moment, no distance of time, no dulling of feeling.

I played on.

Rising up in my wrists, into my arms and through my whole body now was the warmth of her, moulded against me in my bed after a nightmare, her feet clasping mine, her smooth hair against my chin.

By the time I had finished the first section of the piece, my heart was running and yelling through the streets of my body.

I was a few bars from the end when there was a loud knock on the door. I stopped. ‘Come in?’

Very slowly, the door opened.

I expected it to be Melinda, or a music student who had overlooked my name written on the booking sheet stuck to the front of the door. Instead, it was a small and very old man, bald, hunched, dressed in a tatty tweed suit with a yellowing shirt and brown bow tie. I went to explain that I had permission to use this room until the hour was up, but I stopped short, realising that something about him was intensely familiar. I struggled to place him. A deeply creased, grey face, his mouth jutting forward, bald, save for a thick, snow-white bunch of hair at the base of his head. He inched over the threshold, dragging his feet.