The Dragon Charmer (33 page)

And then it happened. The room around her—the sloping planes of ceiling and skylight, the narrow rhomboids of wall, the many corners of cabinet and desk—seemed to shift very slightly, as if adjusting to another dimension. One moment she felt secure, unthinking, fretting only at her problem; the next she was being crowded, crushed, folded away between hard, flat surfaces, boxed into a tiny cube of existence where no one would ever find her. She tried to scream, but the constricted air squeezed the voice from her throat. She struggled to get up, and the chair tumbled, and the desk seemed to tilt, spilling its clutter on the floor. And from the crack between the dimensions—the splinter of nothing between time and Time, somewhere and elsewhere—eyes watched her, flickering and vanishing as the door opened and the room jolted abruptly back into place.

“Are you all right?” asked the curator. “What has happened here?”

“I I’m sorry,” stammered Gaynor. “I must have fallen asleep.”

The curator may have believed her, but she knew better now than to believe herself.

   “Well?” she said to Will, over a beer in a dim corner of a student pub. “What do we do next?”

“You know the answer to that one,” he retorted. “I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon. I don’t like it, but we’ve no alternative. It’s been obvious all along. You needn’t come if you don’t want to.”

“I’m coming,” Gaynor whispered.

“Fine,” said Will. “I’ll go and call a mate, fix up a sofa for the night—or a sofa and a floor, since I expect that’s what you’ll prefer. Then we’ll go out for a really good meal French, I think, with Italian undertones—and you can tell me the story of your life. Afterward—some time afterward I’ll kiss you. Things may even go further, though not too far. You’re not the sort of girl to be hurried, and this is the wrong moment for hurrying.”

Gaynor gaped at him. “You’re not serious,” she said, pulling herself together. “We’re supposed to be helping Fern—”

“And tomorrow,” Will persisted, “we’ll pay a call on Dr. Jerrold Laye.”

Gaynor’s indignation stopped in midflow. “I see,” she said.

“Do you?” he responded. Her face showed sudden doubt. “I remember the first time I saw you. I was sixteen, so you must have been about twenty. You’d come to the house with Fern on your way to a Christmas party. It was somewhere outside London, and you were driving. Fern looked immaculate the way she always does, sort of perfectly finished, red spangly dress, high-heeled shoes. You wore black, which doesn’t suit you, something with lots of tatty lace, and you’d tied your hair back but it had burst the elastic, and you had flat squashy boots for driving. You didn’t look pretty, or glamorous, but I thought you so bloody sexy.
A sweet disorder in the dress
… I said to myself: ‘One day, I’m going to have that girl.’ I don’t know that I meant it seriously, not then. But I could have picked your face out in a crowd any time after that night. Any time.”

“It wasn’t
tatty
lace,” Gaynor muttered. “It was antique.”

“Same difference.”

“And Fern’s dress was burgundy, not red. I’ve never seen her wear red. It’s a bit flamboyant for her.”

“Anything else you’d like to correct? I must point out it’s
my
memory. If I want to remember a red dress and tatty lace, I bloody well will. I suppose all you noticed of me was a grubby schoolboy who leered at you from the stairs?”

“Actually,” said Gaynor, carefully noncommittal, “I told Fern I thought you’d be causing a lot of trouble in a few years’ time.”

Will gave her an impish grin. “I already was.”

“That’s what Fern said.”

He went to telephone, and she sat finishing her drink. All my life, she thought, I’m going to remember this. Not just the horror and the magic—the phantom in the snow, the gray beckoning finger of Dr. Jerrold Laye—but this moment, this dark, crowded, beery interior, and waiting for Will to come back from the telephone. All my life … A wave of feeling washed over her, so violent that she shook from the impact of it, a mixture of shock and revelation, of wonder and happiness and terror. She thought of her previous encounters with that feeling, of the giddying highs and lows of her six-year relationship with a married man who had ultimately left his wife, but not for her. It would be so easy to tell herself, in hope, in fear:
This is different
. She mustn’t dare to think such thoughts, not of Will, who was her best friend’s brother, who had more than his fair share of charm, who took nothing seriously, not even the Dark. Fern’s spirit was lost, and a shadow lay beyond the next dawn, and all she had was this one evening, to live in it with all her senses, saving it for memory, expecting no more. But treacherous longing and inevitable doubt would not be so lightly thrust aside, and when Will returned he found her pale and quiet, her drink undrunk, her responses monosyllabic.

“Come on,” he said, and they went. Afterward—long afterward—Gaynor realized she had never even noticed what that forever-to-be-remembered pub was called.

The restaurant, as Will had promised, offered a Mediterranean menu, a French wine list, Italian waiters. It was cramped,
busy, and noisy, but they did not notice, too absorbed in each other to be distracted by extraneous details. For an hour or two they set aside their current preoccupations to explore each other’s lives, exchange ideas and hopes, to luxuriate in the enchantment of mutual understanding. It’s just a game, Gaynor told herself, it’s always just a game, but she had never really grasped the rules, so she always staked too much, lost too much, and was left in the end impoverished and alone. But for this time—this little time she would pretend the game was for real, and abandon herself to the illusion of a perfect companionship. Will’s smile teased her but his eyes were serious, or so she fancied, and in their steady gaze she felt her heart shiver. “Fern once told me you’re the sort of exceptionally nice girl who always falls for a bad lot,” he said as she concluded the saga of her past affair.

“Did she?” Gaynor’s flicker of indignation died swiftly, giving way to a resigned weariness. “Anyway, I thought I was supposed to be falling for you. Isn’t that supposed to be the idea?”

“Touché,” said Will. “I’m not exactly a bad lot neither black sheep nor whiter than white. More sort of piebald. Or white with black spots.”

“Gray?” suggested Gaynor.

“Thanks. Maybe we could move into a wider color spectrum? For instance, how purple do you feel? Gaynor”

“Wait!” Her expression had changed to one of anguished concentration; she was clutching her temples in furious thought. “White black gray that reminds me that
connects
… I’ll have it in a second.” Her hands dropped: she looked at him with the clarity of dawning realization. “Listen. There was this story I found this afternoon I was sure it was important but I couldn’t think why. It was about this ancient family who had a special gift of being able to talk to dragons, and tame them. One of their ancestors had been burnt in dragonfire and had lived, and his skin was black ever after, and fireproof, and so was the skin of his descendants. Supposing … supposing the family heritage got so dissipated over the centuries that the black faded, and became
gray?
Didn’t Ragginbone say something about a certain family? I
wish
I could remember… Our Dr. Laye—”

“—could be a tamer of dragons,” Will agreed. “Hell. Hell and bugger.”

“This is another clue,” said Gaynor, “and it’s leading somewhere.”

“That’s what I don’t like,” Will said. “I don’t imagine I could assert my macho authority and make you stay behind tomorrow?”

“No,” said Gaynor. “You need me. I’m the expert on old books and manuscripts. He won’t talk to you unless I’m there. Anyhow, it’s become something I have to do. Fate. Also, I’m older than you. If you get assertive, I can claim seniority. And it isn’t as if there were dragons anymore. And—”

“Coffee?” said Will.

Gaynor shook her head. Their stolen interlude was over, aborted long before midnight. Fears for the morrow had invaded, destroying their brief indulgence in romance. When Will kissed her good night before settling on his friend’s sofa, the sudden flare of passion seemed less sexual than desperate, a commitment to each other not as lovers but as partners, setting out together on a dark road. His lips felt hard and his mouth tasted of wine and peppered steak. She found herself thinking she would never be able to eat it again without remembering that kiss. It was swift and hungry and soon over, but afterward, lying alone in the spare bed, she relived it and savored it, sensing it would be their first and last, knowing a chance had passed her by that she might regret and she might not, but it would not come again.

She fell asleep with the throb of that brief passion running in her blood and disturbing her dreams.

   The following morning did not dawn bright and fair. It just dawned, night paling slowly into the grayness of day. Will’s friends left early, one for part-time computer programming to supplement her student grant, the other for a full-time job as a garbage man that appeared to be the only thing for which his philosophy degree had fitted him. Gaynor heard the belch and gurgle of water in the pipes, indistinct voices from the kitchen downstairs. Eventually the front door banged, and there was silence. If Will had been woken, he must have gone straight back to sleep. Gaynor knew she should get up but a
huge reluctance seemed to be weighing her down, a feeling that once she left her bed the wheels of fate would start to turn, and she would be carried forward inexorably into the shadows of the immediate fixture. She tried to recapture the sweetness of last night’s intimacy, the pepper-and-wine aftertaste of that kiss, but only gray thoughts came with the gray daylight, deepening her premonition of an unspecified doom. In the end she forced herself to get up and, finding the shower little more than a trickle, ran herself a bath. Scrubbing at her limbs with a coarse loofah, she was visited by the fancy that her actions were those of a soldier purifying herself before the battle or a victim before sacrifice. It was not a pleasant thought.

The morning was well advanced before they got on the road, armed with their maps and Dr. Laye’s West Riding address, courtesy of the museum curator. It was a long drive from York to the Dales and the house proved elusive, or maybe they were unwilling to find it too easily, so they halted at a pub for lunch. The conversation steered clear of emotional entanglement and the potential for passion; instead Will related more details of his and Fern’s previous connection with Ragginbone and Lougarry, Alison Redmond, the Old Spirit, and the otherworld they represented. Gaynor asked so many questions that it was late when they returned to their search, later still when they finally saw the place they sought, a silhouette of steepled roofs and knobbled chimneys against a sky dark with cloud. It had been built on a ridge just below the crest, so that its ragged gables topped the hillside; the millstone grit façade was cloven with tall windows that seemed to be narrowed against the wind. “Wuthering Heights,” said Gaynor. She thought it looked like the kind of house where there always
would
be a wind, moaning in the chimneys, creeling under the eaves, making doors rattle and fires smoke. The somber afternoon seemed to provide its natural background.

The road swooped below it, and they pulled up beside the single entrance in the high stone wall. Their way was barred by a black ironwork gate crowned with spikes; the gateposts on either side were surmounted by statuary that might once have been heraldic, but endless cycles of wind and rain had
eroded them into shapelessness. However, there was a modern intercom inset on the right, complete with microphone and overlooked by a video camera. “If his collection is so valuable,” said Gaynor, “he must be afraid of burglars.”

“Maybe,” said Will.

The name of the house was on a panel in the gate: Drakemyre Hall. “No sign of a mire,” Will remarked, “and no ducks either.”

“Myre may be a corruption of moor,” Gaynor explained. “And drake usually means dragon.”

After a short argument, she was the one who rang the bell. Her recollection of the television program was imperfect but she was almost sure the voice that responded was not that of Dr. Laye. She gave her name and professional status and enquired for him, feeling gauche and uncomfortable, thinking: He knows already. He knows who I am. He’s expecting me. The gate opened automatically and they got into the car and drove up to the house. In the backseat Gaynor saw Lougarry’s hackles lifting; her eyes shone yellow in the dingy afternoon. “Stay out of sight,” Will told her. “We’ll leave the window open. Come if we call.” He parked in the lee of a wall where a silver Mercedes lurked incongruously, gleaming like a giant pike in the shadows of a murky pond. In front of the house, someone had attempted to create a formal garden, their efforts long defeated by bleak climate and poor soil. The wind had twisted the topiary into strange, unshapely forms; a few predatory shrubs and spiny weeds sprawled over the flower-less beds; moss encroached on the pathways. Two or three holly trees huddled close to the building, weather-warped into an arthritic crookedness, seeking shelter under the man-made walls. The Hall itself loomed over its unpromising surroundings, grimly solid, a bulwark against long winters and bitter springs, sprouting into irregular wings on either side, capped with many roofs. The front door stood open, showing an arch of light that looked unexpectedly warm and welcoming. Will took Gaynor’s arm and they stepped across the threshold.

The door swung shut to reveal a man standing behind it—a short, gnomelike man, with a lumpy face that appeared to have been made of dough, a tight mouth, jutting ears, and
eyes so deeply shadowed he might have been wearing a mask. But his dark suit was immaculate, his manner that of the perfect butler. “I have reported your arrival to Dr. Laye,” he said. “I am afraid he cannot be with you just yet: he is on the telephone to Kuala Lumpur. A manuscript has come on the market that he has been seeking for some time. However, if you will follow me …” He led them down a corridor that branched left and through another door into a large drawing room. In contrast to its exterior, inside the house everything was warmth and luxury. The room was partly paneled in some mellow wood; the flicker of a fire real or fake, it was impossible to tell picked out glints of gold in its graining. Central heating engulfed them, Oriental carpets deadened their footsteps. They sank into the depths of a sumptuous modern sofa as into a soft clinging bog. Most of the furniture looked antique: heavy oak sideboards, unvarnished and ostentatiously venerable, elegant little tables poised on twiglet legs, a baby grand piano, another instrument that Gaynor thought might be a spinet. Will, scanning the pictures, noted something that could have been a Paul Klee and a pseudo-mythical scene of rural frolics that might have been painted by Poussin on LSD. “Dragons are good business,” he murmured for Gaynor’s private ear.