The Last Revelation Of Gla'aki (9 page)

"I don't believe that's the problem. I'm sure they know how much the books mean."

"And what about the other people? Have you contacted them all?"

"I can't do that." Fairman braced himself for the reaction as he said "I have to collect the volumes in a certain order."

"Why on earth are you bothering to do that?"

"Because that's what everyone wants me to do."

"And you're letting yourself be dictated to in that fashion? It sounds to me as if somebody is amusing themselves at your expense."

Fairman felt defensive not just on his own behalf. "I honestly don't think that's the situation."

"Well, perhaps you know best." Brighouse's tone fell short of supporting the notion. "Is there any point in asking when you'll have completed the task?"

"I don't think I can say just now," Fairman said and heard himself echoing some of the townsfolk.

"I'd remind you what I mentioned yesterday about leave."

"If that's all the university thinks these books are worth—" For a breath Fairman was on the edge of threatening to resign. "They're the most significant acquisition we'll ever make," he said.

"No need to proselytise, Leonard. I'm just as aware of their rarity as you."

Fairman felt as if he'd meant more than this but couldn't put it into words. Either this or Brighouse's attitude infuriated him so much that he blurted "Would you mind not telling Sandra I'm further delayed?"

"I can't imagine why you'd think I would."

"You've been discussing me, haven't you? I'd prefer to let her know myself."

After quite a pause Brighouse said "I'd like to see you here as soon as practicable. There are issues that may need to be clarified."

Had Fairman jeopardised his position after all? "I'll be back as soon as the books let me," he said, and once he was rid of Brighouse the situation at the university seemed too remote to trouble him. Surely his acquisitions would protect him against dismissal, and he sat down with
Of Things Seen by the Moon.
"How many fools dismiss the moon as borrowing its illumination from the sun! In truth its light reveals more to the mage's eye than the sunlight of midsummer..."

The book went on to peer behind lunar myths. The transformation of the werewolf was "but the brutish display of the changes which are wrought on every aspect of the world by the illumination the night brings." Some old tales of the fairies named them as the Children of the Moon because their shapes mutated with its phases. At the time Percy Smallbeam compiled the edition, some women were apparently still afraid to conceive or give birth on nights of the full moon in case they produced a mooncalf, "a thing whose shape betrays how life was formed in the infancy of the universe." Other sections of the book suggested that "the mage shall learn to see as the moon does", but if the pages that followed were meant to instruct, Fairman seemed incapable of grasping so much as a word. The prose grew meditative and mystical, presenting the dark side of the moon as a symbol of concealment; surely the notion that it "swarms with monstrous and inhuman life, as does the underside of any stone" was metaphorical, despite the unappealing detail in which it was discussed at length. Then the book proposed that "what is closest is most hidden", but Fairman felt as if the paragraphs that followed were taking refuge in his mind without entering his consciousness. Whenever he glanced up he was met by his own gaze, so remote that it must be betraying the incomprehension that lay like a weight in his brain as he finally closed the book. He didn't need to understand; his mission was simply to keep the books safe. Wasn't there something else he ought to do? He let out a sigh like one of the waves at his back as he realised who he'd neglected to call.

She sounded wearily resigned. "I won't ask, Leonard."

"Nathan hasn't spoken to you, then."

"Not about you, no." When Fairman only gazed into the depths of his own eyes Sandra added "What would he have said?"

"I'm still where you've gathered I am, and he's talking about leave again."

"You don't seem very anxious about it."

"I'm anxious to be with you, if that's what you mean." With an inspiration that hardly felt like his Fairman said "Of course if you wanted I could be soon enough."

"How are you proposing to achieve that?"

"You've the weekend off, haven't you? If I haven't finished here by tomorrow you could join me."

"I'm sure you'd be surprised if I did."

"Pleasantly so, yes."

"It sounds to me as if you're having a pleasant enough time by yourself. You certainly don't seem to be in a hurry to leave."

"We can't hurry these books."

Fairman saw a hand besides his own come to rest on the black volume. No, it was his hand in the mirror, where he looked as if he were about to swear an oath or use the book in some other solemn ritual. "Then I won't try to hurry you any more," Sandra said with nothing like enthusiasm.

He could speak to her again tomorrow. Perhaps sleep would bring some kind of change. Once they'd said their goodbyes he saw that he had nearly an hour to spare, though he wouldn't have guessed that from the muffled light outside the window. He had the irrational notion that it might be hard to judge when the moon replaced the sun behind the fog. He had time to walk to the Shaw and for a quick dinner as well. He returned the book to the safe and took an empty carton with him.

Joggers were trotting doggedly along the promenade. They looked as if they were struggling to forge their way through the befogged twilight, and Fairman could have imagined that he felt the medium weighing him down. Certainly the joggers needed exercise; some were so obese that every step sent a flabby wobble upwards through the whole of them, even quivering their faces. Each of them raised a hand to greet Fairman, and more than one used theirs to mop their foreheads with such vigour that he could have thought the flesh was quaking like tripe. He was surprised that any of them could find breath to hum snatches of an old tune, whatever it might be.

The Shaw appeared not to be open. The lobby was as dim as any of the glass cases he'd seen at the zoo. As he crossed the junction with the promenade he had to dodge a pushchair wheeled by a young but pudgy mother. The plastic cover that protected the chair from the elements blurred the occupant's wide flat face so much that it looked featureless apart from the eyes, which the plastic distorted until the left one seemed twice the size of the other. Fairman could have thought the toddler was naked as well; presumably the plastic and the clogged twilight were lending its skin and its one-piece suit the same greyish pallor. He'd seen people complimenting parents on their offspring when they met them in the street, but he couldn't think of anything appropriate to say. In any case the woman's distant stare didn't strike him as inviting a remark.

The machines in the arcades were jingling and prattling, while video games carried on shouting in unnatural voices meant to pass for human. Fairman could have fancied that the show was being put on just for him, to persuade him that Gulshaw was lively even so late in the season. The plastic eyes of a horse outside an arcade glistened with moisture, and as its innards burst into electronic song he might have been reminded of the kind of life that swarmed in corpses or on the hidden side of the moon, according to the
Revelations.
Was that still the sun behind the fog? He was growing unduly fanciful—he didn't need to think that the murk was capable of hiding a vast presence—though as he tramped past the arcades their mindless clamour crowded all thoughts out of his head.

The proprietor of Fishing For You was in her hospital uniform, or at least the outfit that made her resemble a nurse. "Decided in our favour?" she said.

"I've had no better since I've come to town."

"You won't, either." Presumably this was a boast, even if her eyes held back from admitting to it "The usual?" she said.

He supposed this meant everybody's preference, since she could hardly know his. "That's fine with me."

As he sat at a picnic table on the tiled floor she said "Eating in? You've not got used, then."

"To this weather? I don't think I'd want to be."

"Don't be too quick to think."

No doubt that kind of advice went with her blunt accent. He'd found no more to say by the time she brought him fish and chips in a squeaky polystyrene container. As she planted it in front of him, leaving moist marks on the table, the lid shuddered upwards as if some of the contents were making an ineffectual bid to escape. Fairman was disconcerted to observe that her thinness ended well above the waist, suggesting that much of her flesh had sunk to be held up by her extensive hips. Once she returned to the far side of the counter he fed himself a mouthful with the plastic fork. The increasingly familiar taste made him ask "Is this actually cod?"

"It says fish, doesn't it?" Having poked a long finger at the menu on the wall, she said "It's our kind."

"Don't think I'm complaining, but what kind is that?"

"The kind we have here. The kind that brings everyone back."

Fairman gave up and reverted to eating while the proprietor hummed under her breath. It sounded like a folk song, especially once she added a few words about someone coming home from the sea. When he heard shuffling he glanced up to see that the woman was performing a kind of dance on the spot. He found it disconcerting, not least because her eyes were shut, revealing how flat the lids were, hardly distinguishable from the skin around them. He left quite an amount of his dinner and was easing himself off the bench when her eyes sprang open, bulging at him. "We'll be seeing you," she said.

Fairman nearly asked who else she thought she was speaking for. The streetlamps had come on, appearing to draw the fog inland. He felt as if it was shutting him in with the arcades, where the shrill piping of the fruit machines and the challenging roars of the games had begun to put him in mind of a zoo. As he turned uphill towards the theatre the lights were switched on in the lobby, and Frank Lunt emerged onto the marble steps to wait for him. "Here's our audience," the manager announced.

"Not all of it, I hope."

"Enough for us." Lunt's black moustache and clipped hair glistened as if they shared the moistness of his unavoidable handshake. "So long as we don't disappoint," he said.

"To be truthful, I'm mostly here for Eric Headon."

At once Fairman felt tactless and ungrateful for the complimentary admission, but Lunt's face remained enthusiastic. "They're all the stuff stars are made of," he said releasing Fairman's hand at last. "You'll see."

He made for the auditorium with a wallowing gait that reminded Fairman of a sailor just home from the sea. Beyond the double doors a wide aisle divided at least thirty rows of seats, every one of them unoccupied. "Have I got the time wrong?" Fairman blurted.

"Nothing's wrong that shouldn't be." Lunt bowed towards the curtained stage like a priest making obeisance to an altar. "Sit wherever you like," he said. "The closer the better. You won't be on your own long."

Despite if not because of having slept so late, Fairman felt less than entirely awake. He would prefer not to be singled out from the stage, and so he chose an aisle seat halfway down the auditorium, which he hoped was close enough to placate Lunt without being too conspicuous. "Now we'll let you see some of our gifts," the manager said. "We aren't just a sleepy town."

"I've never said you were," Fairman protested, but Lunt was already making for the foyer. The doors shut with a muffled plushy thud, and then Fairman heard a noise somewhere ahead of him. It sounded oddly reminiscent of the murmur of an audience before a show, but it was beyond the curtains. Or was it more like a chant—some formula to inspire the performers? He was straining to identify any words—he could have thought they were too unfamiliar to grasp—when the lights went out, flooding the auditorium with blackness dense as earth.

Fairman sucked in a breath that felt like inhaling the dark. As his eyes began to ache with his bid to see even a hint of light, he heard a sluggish movement ahead of him. Something of considerable size was being dragged across the floor, and the idea that it was advancing towards him robbed him of breath. It had split in two, dividing like some primitive form of life, and the halves were crawling to either side of him. They hadn't halted when lights blazed up to reveal that he'd been hearing the curtains, between which Frank Lunt stepped forward, holding out his hands as though to present the struggle of the buttons of his dress suit to restrain his midriff. "Welcome to the last show of the season," he said. "I give you the Gulshaw Players. A century and half another one of artfulness."

Fairman assumed this meant the skills had been passed down the generations, though the observation wasn't addressed just to him. As the curtains stumbled to a standstill, light from the foyer had spilled into the auditorium, and he heard people taking their seats at the back. The movements subsided as Lunt wallowed backwards and a performer sprang onstage to either side of him.

They were acrobats in white leotards, and they brought a merry march with them. Presumably the band was recorded, because a technical problem was warping it out of tune, if so slightly that Fairman couldn't quite grasp where the music had gone wrong. Another pair of acrobats joined their fellows as Lunt swayed into the wings. No doubt all the pale faces were meant to resemble pierrots, though their costumes failed to sustain the notion. Despite the tightness of the leotards, Fairman couldn't identify their gender, and the identical caps of cropped black hair didn't help. The acrobats leapt and tumbled and stacked themselves on top of one another while their small brightly smiling faces remained as changeless as four masks from the same mould. He was unsettled by their sinuousness, which along with their pallor reminded him rather too much of the squirming of grubs, and he had to fend off the idea that whenever they stood on one another's shoulders, their toes grasped like fingers, extending to sink into the flesh. His need for sleep must be forcing fancies that resembled dreams into his waking mind. Now the topmost of the tower of acrobats was bending backwards in an arc, and one by one the others did until the performer who'd stood highest was able to flatten his cranium against the stage. Each of them regained their feet with a somersault, and as Fairman applauded he heard moist puffy handclaps break out behind him. "So much more to see," the acrobats chorused as they ran in pairs into the wings, and he thought they were echoed from the back of the auditorium.