The Kind Folk (27 page)

His voice seems more enclosed than ever. It does appear to startle a bird somewhere nearby, though the piping notes sound at least as much like a shrill drip of water. Otherwise the only noise is a muffled creaking—a restless branch, he supposes, however motionless the trees and hedges look. "Get on with it," he almost shouts, tramping into the next obliterated room.

Will he really have to wander through the entire ruin? He hears the shrill notes again, a series of them even more reminiscent of moisture dripping in a stony place. They're behind him, but he can't see any birds in the distant hedge. He hasn't time to let this matter, and he strides around the outline of a vast room. "Come on," he shouts—his voice has to be louder than it sounds—as he stalks across another threshold formed by dead vegetation. This time he sees movement, the trees on the far side of the field nodding towards him before they appear to expel a breath that whispers through the grass. The wind emphasises the dank smell and revives the creaking somewhere high in the air; he could even imagine the wind has dislodged moisture from one of the vanished ceilings, since the stream of shrill notes is renewed—and then, as he trudges along the edge of another hidden wall, he realises that none of these developments is caused by the wind. The grass within the circle of the outer wall is absolutely still. Some barrier is keeping the wind out of Round Hall.

He feels the mansion rear up around and over him—the dank walls, the saturated ceilings, the creaking floorboards overhead. He has a sudden awful notion that the house and its occupant may have merged somehow before they collapsed, having been transmuted into a single primal substance. Perhaps the medium that feels like darkness, all the more oppressive for its invisibility, is a lingering trace of that substance. Luke has halted somewhere in the middle of the building, which no longer feels ruined enough, when he hears a voice.

He doesn't need to start quite so violently; it's in his pocket—it's the phone. He seems to have to remind his fingers how to function so as to fumble it out. When he sees Sophie's name, for a moment he wants to cut the call off unanswered; suppose it alerts the Folk to her whereabouts? He suspects they know already, and he blurts "Hello?"

"Luke."

It isn't Sophie. It isn't even a woman, and Luke feels as if the breathless dark has closed around him. He's nowhere close to expressing all his rage and fear by demanding "You can talk now, can you?"

"Of course." The answer sounds puzzled as well as defensive. "Using mobiles is only prohibited inside the hospital."

Luke's rage fades, making more space for fear. "Sorry, who am I speaking to?"

"Forgive me. My fault entirely. This is Ambrose, Sophie's father."

Luke has to resist an urge to shout, because his voice sounds even more thoroughly trapped by the unseen walls everywhere around him. "Why, what's happened?"

"Only the event we were all awaiting. A little precipitately, that's all."

Luke swings around to find the quickest way back to the gap in the hedge. "She's had the baby, do you mean?" he says like some kind of plea.

"Not quite yet, but she's in labour. It came upon her just after she started recording today. One more example of the power of music, perhaps."

Luke promises himself he isn't going blind, even if his perceptions are somehow falling short of the landscape outside the stone circle. He's so distracted that he says "Why, what was she singing?"

"Pardon my witticism. I really couldn't tell you." Still more briskly Ambrose says "Have you an idea how soon you'll be able to join her?"

Luke steps back from the path of dead grass and has to shut his eyes at once. "I'm in Somerset," he says as if this may return him to the ordinary human world.

"Not driving at this moment, I hope." When Luke keeps his wish unspoken Ambrose says "You'll be a few hours, then. I'll advise everyone."

"Say I'll be as soon as I possibly can," Luke says and risks opening his eyes.

"I'd expect no less. I should reassure you everything's in order here. Let me not delay you any further. Take good care on the road."

Luke is about to speak in case conversation—any kind—may help him back to the world when he hears the phone go dead. It feels as though the unseen building has cut him off even more decisively. He isn't quite blind, at least not in the conventional sense; it's more as though his other senses have overwhelmed his vision, blotting it out with the presence of Round Hall—the taste of the dank stale air, the smell of mildewed walls, the sound of dripping moisture that has acquired an echo where none ought to be, the chill that gathers like fog on his skin, the sensation that the surface underfoot isn't earth. He feels surrounded by a structure that doesn't require visibility to imprison him, having demonstrated how it can shut out every breath of wind. If it's able to do that, there can't be so much as a chink in the walls—and then he remembers the last thing he read about Round Hall. In preparation for his final experiment, which had to be conducted in absolute darkness, the alchemist had every outer door and every window bricked up.

He believed that the powers he sought to acquire would mean he had no need for doors, but presumably this proved to be no truer of him than it is of Luke. Too late Luke grasps that Terence's reminder to follow the path may have been not just advice but a warning. This time he hasn't even been tricked by the Folk; he has trapped himself, leaving Sophie at their mercy. "Stay away from her," he shouts and hears his voice echo through the enormous empty rooms of Round Hall.

The echo is the final confirmation of the presence of the alchemist's domain, the element that closes the trap on Luke for good—and then rage overwhelms him. Is he really going to behave as if he can't reach Sophie and their child? He's afraid that any movement he makes will simply add more substance to the unseen building, but how can he assume that? He shoves the phone into his pocket and lurches at the path, thrusting out his hands. He doesn't know whether he means to fend the wall off or to challenge it to be tangible. He lets out a cry—it's hardly a word—as his hands cross the boundary of the exposed stones and find nothing but air. It doesn't matter that his cry sounds blocked, shut in. Stepping off the dead path, he plants both feet on the remnant of wall.

It's all he can do not to recoil and stagger backwards into the invisible room. The surface on which he's standing feels less like stone than flesh. It yields a little and shifts like a restless dreamer. He wasn't mistaken, then; the alchemist and the site of his experiment did indeed become one. "Stay still," Luke says with a grin not far away from crazed, "stay down," and sets off around the walls towards the way back to the car.

The remains squirm beneath his feet like segments of an enormous scaly worm. They're doing their utmost to dislodge him—to fling him into one vanished room or another—which convinces him that he has found the right course. He's preventing Round Hall from manifesting itself, and he feels it growing frantic. Spasms pass through the transformed stones as he treads on them; they feel capable of rearing up from the earth. Just as he reaches the wall closest to the gap in the hedge his foothold swells up beneath him, sloughing off clods of earth. He totters backwards into the stone circle, and then he lurches out of it, almost sprawling headlong on the grass. He stumbles away from Round Hall and looks back.

It might never have moved. Except for a scattering of earth among the weeds around the section of buried wall where he last stood, the ruin is just as he found it—a broken arc of exposed stone and a hint of more remains beyond. The field is placid with sunlight, and there's no sign of any watchers. He can't linger in the hope of seeing that he lured them to Round Hall. "Keep away now," he mutters as he dashes to the hedge. "Keep away from me and everyone to do with me."

THEY WAIT

The post at the entrance to the hospital car park sticks out a mocking tongue and then retracts it before extending it more fully to Luke. When he snatches the ticket the barrier hesitates over raising its metal bar to admit him, and the engine roars as his foot jerks nervously on the accelerator. He can't bear any more delays; he has already been held up on more than one motorway—outside Birmingham it took him almost an hour to drive a mile—without ever seeing a reason for the hindrance. Where's a parking space? Both sides of the car park are occupied by unbroken lines of vehicles. Why did the barrier let him in if there's no room? He's thinking of parking where no space is marked, even if cars have to struggle past, when headlamps light up behind him. As soon as the car pulls out and past him Luke reverses so hastily that the engine snarls again. He backs fast into the space and then has to line the Lexus up to give himself room to climb out. Though this takes just a few seconds, it's enough to turn his hands clammy and parch his mouth. He slams the door and almost doesn't lock it before dashing to the hospital.

The evening isn't far from dark. He can't tell how black the statue of a giantess outside the entrance is supposed to be. Her eyes are as inky as the rest of her, and they gaze down at a baby cradled in her left arm. She might be ignoring the women in pyjamas seated at opposite ends of a metal bench, chattering on mobile phones while they brandish cigarettes.

Each of them gives Luke a stare bordering on hostile as he sprints past them.

The automatic doors muse about admitting him. He's on the edge of clawing them apart by the time they separate, and he runs to the reception counter. A solitary girl is consulting a computer, and doesn't immediately look up. "Maternity," Luke gasps with all the breath left in him.

"Take the first lifts." She points with her right hand, displaying glossy manicured nails. "First floor," she adds and belatedly glances at him. "Only—"

He can't wait to hear. He dashes along the corridor, which is composed mostly of raw red brick. The pounding bass of a car radio distracts him; is anyone allowed to make so much noise so close to the hospital? In fact it's inside the building, and surely it can't be a radio; it must be some item of equipment that's gone wrong, given the din. He's wondering what this may suggest about the standards of the hospital when he identifies the sound at last—his own heart thumping in his ears. That can't delay him either, and he runs faster along the corridor.

Where are the lifts? They aren't around the corner. Perhaps he should ask the women he just passed, all of whom are pregnant—and then he sees a pair of lifts ahead. His heart redoubles its thudding as he pokes the button between them. The button starts to glow with an upturned arrow like a brand, but the number above the left-hand set of doors seems stuck on 2, while the symbol above the other lift is nothing like a number. Luke's heartbeat recedes from his ears, and he becomes aware of a muffled voice. "Can someone let me out?" it's calling. "Someone come."

Luke has the unappealing fancy that it's like an appeal from the womb—the cry of an unnatural child demanding to be born. "What's happened?" he calls.

"Just testing. Making sure."

The answer comes not from the lift but behind him. When he glances around, the corridor is empty all the way to the corner. Was it a passing member of staff? "They say they're testing," he's prompted to call.

"Testing what?" When Luke finds no reply the voice pleads "You'll help me out, won't you? Be there for me."

How can Luke do that when he needs to be with Sophie? He twists around, hoping to accost someone, but he's alone except for his heartbeat, which sounds capable of blotting out every other sense. Where are the stairs? While he uses them he can contact the hospital on his mobile, though surely they must know that someone is trapped in the lift. "I'll get help," he calls, only to see there's no need—no reason to do anything but wait, however anxiously. The display that resembled an obscure sign has recombined its fragments into a number. That lift is ascending, and the other one is coming down.

Luke is clenching his fists and opening them wide by the time the doors part in front of him. As he darts into the large grey metal box he's imitated by a duplicate in the mirror on the back wall. When he jabs the button the doors gape at him as though he hasn't touched the control, and he's about to jab it once more when they crawl shut. In a moment the lift sets about lumbering upwards, but Luke finds he can't breathe until it reaches the first floor.

He's greeted by an ominous inhuman mumble—the ruminations of a glass-fronted cabinet full of soft drinks. A sign opposite the lifts represents the maternity unit with an image of a bird. Luke sprints along a corridor, past windows that show him night has fallen, and lurches into a vestibule that leads to a neonatal facility as well as the maternity ward. Everyone in the vestibule is waiting for him. "Oh, Luke," Freda cries, "you're here at last."

"He'll have come as quick as he could," says Maurice.

"Without question," Ambrose says and glances at the Arnolds. "One of you should be the speaker."

"To offer what one does on such occasions," Delia adds.

Both the Arnolds look bemused. Luke is about to demand what Ambrose meant when Freda's face grows knowing but, Luke thinks, guarded too. In a moment Maurice catches up and steps forward awkwardly, thrusting out a hand. "Congratulations, son."

"It's a little boy," Freda says. "Well, you knew he would be."

"Sophie did her level best to wait for you," says Delia, "but you'll have to take my word and Freda's that there's a limit to how much anyone's able to dictate."

"Well, let's bring an end to the waiting and unite you with your family. Excuse me while I vouch for you," Ambrose adds with an apologetic laugh.

Maurice gives Luke's hand a last vigorous shake and manly squeeze before clapping him on the shoulder to send him after Sophie's father. Luke tries not to let the sight of Ambrose making for the neonatal unit dismay him. Ambrose presses a button next to an intercom and turns to him. "We should reassure you that it isn't as bad as it looks."

Luke wishes he could see at once instead of having to ask "How does it look?"