The Possession of Mr Cave (18 page)

I was in the shop the next morning when I received the call.
'Ah've changed me mind,' he said. 'Ah'll take the money. Ah'll
leave her alone.'

I stared at the receiver, then pressed it harder into my ear.
An old lady left the shop, with the Worcester teapot she had
bought. 'Do you mean it?' I asked him.

'Yeah,' he said. 'Three thousand pounds. But now. Ah want
it today. Ah'll meet you. At eleven.'

I felt no happiness at that moment. You must know
that. It gave me no satisfaction to discover that this boy
who ruled your heart would walk away from you for the
price of a longcase clock. It did, however, confirm my
suspicions.

That my reading of Denny had been more accurate than
your own was now beyond doubt. You had been won over
by the incident at the stables, and the framed photograph
of your brother, and whatever else he had used to get close
to you. You may well have seen him as rather exotic, this
semi-literate street-fighter from the wrong part of town, who
so obviously met with your father's disapproval. I knew,
through even my darkest fears, that your yearning for this
boy wasn't a physical one. I knew you weren't a Jezebel or a
Lilith or a Herodias, whatever your wardrobe suddenly
insisted. I knew that. Your love, built on the foundations of
your vulnerable mind, was a confusion of pity and mild
admiration, an unfortunate result of all that was good and
charitable within your nature. Yet his love? What was that
but an animal craving, an exchangeable thing, easily sold?
The proof was finally there.

We set a place. I emptied the till and went to the bank
to suck my accounts dry. We met on a bench by the river,
like the double-crossing spies we were, and I gave him an
envelope full of fifty-pound notes. He was in his school
uniform, or a loose interpretation of it, and I began to worry
how this might look to a passing stranger. There was no one,
though. It was just us.

'If you see her again I'll tell her about this, you do understand,
don't you? You must end it now. No more contact.
Nothing. Like I said.'

I remember him looking at me. Oh yes, I see his face. Those
eyes sporting the same incomprehensible pride as the lion
beside his slaughter. I'm sure I saw the fleeting trace of a smile
as he felt the envelope.

'Yeah,' he said.

'So, that's it, then? That's the end?'

He nodded, and looked out at the brown water of the
Ouse, a mere metre below flood level. 'The end. Yeah. The
end.'

An hour after I had handed Denny that swollen envelope I
again closed the shop and drove to your school. A rather foolish
thing to do, given that Friday lunch hour was one of the
busiest times of the week in terms of customers, but Cynthia
was still in the hospital wasn't she, so there was no one to man
the fort. And I wanted to know if you were going to leave
the premises. I needed to know if you were going to meet
Denny, and to see if Denny would stand by his lucrative
promise.

I parked and waited, in view of both main entrances. It
reached five past, ten past, quarter past, but you didn't leave.
I had watched the brief rush of pupils and teachers depart
within those first few minutes, but not you. Maybe I had got
it wrong. Maybe I had missed you. Maybe there was another
exit you could have gone through.

I left the car and circuited the perimeter of the school on
foot, to see if this could have been the case. There were no
other obvious exits. Perhaps you had climbed over the fence.
After all, you weren't allowed to leave the school premises. Yes.
The fence was certainly low enough.

The dull green grass of the hockey fields stretched out beyond
the iron railing. Some boys from St John's walked by, on the
other side of the road, and threw insults at me, as many as
they could think of. I ignored them, raised my Second World
War light infantry binoculars, and saw you sitting in the yard
beyond the fields. You were on a bench, on your own. Where
were your friends? I scanned across and saw Imogen, amid a
menagerie of exotic-haired girls. You looked over at them, once
or twice, but they refused to register your presence.

I felt relief. You hadn't escaped school to meet Denny, and
you were safe.

Yet you looked so pathetic, as you sat there, pulling your
hair forward and analysing its ends. I imagine I must have
felt a certain pity as I watched you, alone. An island amid
continents, amid the schoolyard empires of belonging. Yes,
I must have felt sorry for you, but I have to confess the
relief is much easier to recall. Maybe it had already happened.
Perhaps he had told you it was all over. You weren't with
him, that was the main thing. No, that was
everything
.

I lowered the binoculars, and found you again. A delicate
grey-green speck sinking, through my unfocused gaze, into
the solid orange mass of the Victorian brickwork behind you.

*

and we were inside in the red blood warmth together you and me
curled up inside the space you and me before we had names you
and me before we knew there were any others in the world
you and me before we knew there were an outside or an inside
before we knew there was anything but you and me and the beat
of our hearts we did not know were hearts and we were there for
ever you and me the only life in the only world you and me so
close we did not know there was any difference between you and
me and we did not know it would ever change and that there
would be the day the light would scream into our faces and we
would be held apart sucking separate milk and see our separate
makers and compete for their separate love in the light white
world full of empty space where people have to fight and smile
and scream to feel connected and I loved you and you loved me
and we were still happy because the love had no name and we
had no names that we knew we just knew sounds and the faces
of me and you and the faces of the makers and one face out like
a light it was just him with enough love inside just for one just
for you and your unstained face and he gave us words this maker
and the words were other things to separate us and the words kept
growing like the distance between planet earth and all its people
and the distance between you and me and the love and the hate
he gave us and I wanted to be back in the time I couldn't remember
in the blood red warmth or the shining dark of the life before
when we were the same sweet nothing you and me you and me
.

*

We were at Cynthia's, the following evening. You were sitting
in her rosewood elbow chair, that beautiful antique outcast in
that twig-filled bungalow. You were reading your grandmother's
old copy of
The Return of the Native
directly under one of
Cynthia's charcoal sketches of nude flesh.

'I love that story,' she told you, a hand on her stomach.
'And your mother did too. I believe she read that same copy.'

She was right. Your mother adored Hardy. Nature as
symbol. Landscape as the rough divinity that shapes our
ends. She was quite a Romantic in that sense, which possibly
explains why she wanted to name our daughter after a wild
hedgerow plant.

'Have you read any of his others?' Cynthia asked you.

'We're doing
Tess
,' you said, in your restored voice. 'At school.'

'Ah,
Tess
,' Cynthia said, wistfully, as if talking of a friend
she had known personally but who had passed away. 'Not
one for a happy ending though, that was Hardy's trouble. A
typical man. Wallowing in his own misery like a hippo in
mud.' She gave me a sharp look at this point, which I chose
to ignore.

'Listen, Cynthia,' I said, holding up the carrier bag from
the health-food store and placing it on that horrendous table.
'I've brought the supplements you asked for. Shall I show you?
In the kitchen?' I bounced my eyebrows in such a fashion that
she gathered I wanted a quiet word. We left you to Egdon
Heath and went into the kitchen.

'It's over,' I whispered, placing a jar of hawthorn tablets
down on the unit. 'With her and that boy. It's all over.'

She eyed my glee with suspicion. 'What did you do, Terence?'

'Do?' I said, mock-insulted. 'I didn't
do
anything. I think
she's finally seen sense that's all. Anyway, does it matter what's
happened? It's over. It's over.'

She closed her eyes. 'Poor girl. Is she upset? Has she said
anything?'

I felt as though Cynthia was missing the point. 'No. She
hasn't. And I don't think she's upset, really. She seems quite
her old self. You know what youngsters are like, it was probably
just a phase.'

'But, Terence, I don't understand. How do you knowit's over?'

'Because it is,' I said.

She winced in pain and held her stomach. 'So, what are
you going to do now? What are you going to do when the
next boy comes along? Are you going to lock her in a
cupboard? Put her in a glass case and interview prospective
suitors, like an old king?'

'Oh, Cynthia, stop it!' I told her. 'If you knew what I knew
about that boy you would be as relieved as I am.'

The pain seemed to leave her. She inspected the dietary
information on one of the jars I had bought. 'So, why don't
you enlighten me? What was he like? Terence? Terence?'

I was looking past her, to the magnets on the door of her
fridge-freezer. You know the ones. The miscellaneous collection
of words that you and Reuben always used to rearrange.
Four of the magnets were together, an even line amid the
chaotic jumble all around them.

petal wants a horse

'It doesn't matter,' I said. 'I'll tell you another time.'

Again I was in your room. Again I had no idea of how I got
there. Again you were lost in oblivious sleep. Again that withdrawing
Keatsian urge.

One difference, though: a pillow – my own – held in my
hands.

'Oh, Reuben,' I whispered, once I was back in my bed.
'What were you doing?'

Stillness, broken only by the tick of the clock. I clenched
my eyes closed and bit into the sheets, fighting back the unborn
heat of your brother's guilty tears.

It was the following Monday, wasn't it, when I was meant
to go down to Horncastle? I had been reluctant to close the
shop, but as Cynthia was still bent double from her operation,
and as it seemed too much to ask George, I decided it
was worth the gamble. After all, I hadn't made a significant
Monday sale since the drop-leaf table I had parted with the
day Reuben had died, and now I knew Denny was out of
your life I had decided to try and restore a degree of normality.
I didn't have a stand, this year, but it was still worth going
to catch up with the competition, and bargain-hunt among
the collectors' stalls.

The plan was thwarted, though, due to the blackout I
experienced on the motorway. I had only been on the road
for ten minutes when, without the usual warning, time
stuttered forward. One moment I was in the fast lane,
trying to shorten the journey as much as possible (I was
trusting you with lunch hours now, but still wanted to be
back at those school gates for four o'clock). The next
moment I was sliding diagonally across the road. Cars
honked long and thudding elephant notes behind me, as
I cut them up. A lorry driver leaned out of his window,
waving an obscene gesture.

'Stay back,' I pleaded, with your brother. 'Leave me alone.'

I made it to the lay-by, parked and composed myself. I
switched on the radio and Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata'
slowly restored my mind. A few steady breaths and a decision
was made. It was too dangerous to try and carry on
with the journey. What if Reuben tried to take over the wheel
again?

No.

I would drive the shorter distance home, and be attentive
to any darkening of vision or strange cerebral sensations.

Of course, nothing happened. I made it safely back, with
the help of Beethoven and a quieter road. Now, having the
full knowledge of time, I realise he had no further reason to
interfere. I was heading home, as he wanted. Yes, as he wanted.

I entered from the shop side but locked the door again. The
truth is I was still feeling rather worried about what had
happened on the motorway, and didn't want to weaken myself
further by facing customers.

Instead, I decided to reupholster the George IV mahogany
dining chair I had been intending to repair for weeks. So I
went into the back to fetch my scissors and ripping chisel
and, having found them, suddenly heard something from
upstairs. Music. Faint, faint music. I stood still, for a while,
because I was sure my ears were deceiving me. It was
Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata', coming from upstairs. It
was on your London Philharmonic album, I was sure, yet
the truly peculiar thing was it was the precise same part I
had heard on the car radio. The beautiful lament that comes
towards the end of the first movement, that 'tender poetry
beyond all language' as Berlioz put it.

Maybe the radio had been left on upstairs, but if it was the
radio why was it playing exactly the same refrain it had already
played minutes before. With the chisel in my hand I trod my
way carefully upstairs. Halfway up I wondered about returning
to the shop and fetching the pistol, but I dismissed the idea.
After all, why would an intruder be playing Beethoven?

Outside your door, I waited. I heard something above the
soft piano – a slow and rhythmic thudding. Most curious,
given that I knew the piece was devoid of a percussion section.

'Bryony? Bryony? Is that you? Petal?' You didn't answer, so
I called you again, 'Bryony? Are you there?'

Maybe this was just another delusion. Another aural hallucination.
After what had happened in the car, it couldn't be
ruled out. I leaned my ear against the door and heard nothing
now but the dying moments of the first movement.

Adagio sostenuto.

Of course, you know what happened next. With the chisel
in my left hand I opened the door with my right. I saw you
there, just you, on the bed. Your tender body clothed in only
the sheets.

A second later I scanned left and he came into view,
already in his jeans, pulling a white T-shirt over the rest of
him.

Denny.

I kept blinking him away, but he was still there: this sweating
animal, this predator inside my own home. He looked at the
chisel in my hand and wondered what I was capable of. I
stepped closer.

'What have you done to her?' I asked, but I could see the
answer all around me. Hear it, smell it.

'Nothing,' he lied, addressing the chisel. 'We were doing
nothing.'

I stepped closer towards him and kept my eyes fixed on his
face. 'You made a promise,' I said. 'I gave you –'

I couldn't say it. I couldn't let you know what I had done,
not then.

'Dad, stop it,' you said. 'It's my fault. It wasn't Denny, it
was me. Please, Dad, you're scaring me. Please.'

The second movement began. Those strange, unsettling,
opening bars intensifying the mood.

'Nothing,' I said, picking up on Denny's word. 'That's all
she is to you, isn't it?'

'No,' he said. 'No, she's not, she's –'

'Shut up. Jesus Christ, shut up!'

'Dad, please.'

What was I going to do? I had no idea. In truth, I wasn't
thinking. I just kept conjuring pictures of him, on top of you,
a scene that should have been beyond my worst imagining.

'Do you think, Petal, that you can heal a boy like this
with music? Do you think, Petal, that you can take this lump
of stone and turn it into something more dignified? More
worthy of your own nature? Well, you can't. Look at him.
There's nothing there.'

I wasn't looking at you. It was impossible to look at you.
Instead, I was looking at the quiet fury in his eyes, as my
own anger began to dissolve. An image flashed in my mind.
Not of him and you in bed but of something else. I saw him
fighting another boy, with a face I couldn't see. There were
toys strewn on a carpet. It was a flash, nothing more, but it
triggered a sudden weakening of my will. My body stood
there, a hollow object, and the chisel dropped by my feet.

*

The room crept slowly out of the darkness, like an old layer
of paint under a blowtorch, and both of you were gone.

I telephoned your school. You were there. You had arrived
late, at half past ten. Apparently you had told them your
grandmother had just been taken into hospital.

The lies were so easy for you now. So natural. You could
shed the truth at any given moment, as easy as slipping
unwanted clothes.

A day of empty, monotonous horror and then the return
journey from school.

We said nothing of what had happened. Indeed, we said
nothing at all. I felt you looking at me from the back seat.
You were clearly suspicious of the silence, but didn't question
it. We were both lost in our own plans, formulating the secret
and opposing schemes we thought would set us free.