Turquoiselle

Turquoiselle

Tanith Lee

Turquoiselle

By Tanith Lee

© 2014

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and
events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real
people, or events, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved, including the right to
reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

The right of Tanith Lee to be identified as the
author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright,
Design and Patents Act, 1988.

Cover by John Kaiine from artwork by Tanith Lee

New (future) Author Web Site, as the original has
been stolen: http://www.tanith-lee.com

Immanion Press Edition 2014

Kindle Edition 2014

http://www.immanion–press.com

info@immanion–press.com

Whisky, wine and shiny pins –

Pour
them out and stick them in;

All
the graces, all the sins,

All
the games that you can win:

And
so the Fighters’ Feast begins.

One

The shed looked
like a railway carriage, especially through the trees that grew up beyond the
property. Some were silver birches, which gave a Russian effect, something
Chekovian, Tolstoyan...

The
shed itself had once been the colour of marmalade, but had faded through the
several wet English seasons it had had to endure. Now it was a pale rusty
brown. Only by night, however, did the shed seem truly a little strange, for
this was when an unusual muted glow began to be visible through the glazed
windows. The colour was soft and faded. Some sort of Christmas lights might
seem to have caused it, old ones that still, unusually, worked, and all in this
one shade, this vague eerie greenish–blue,.

Johnston,
who lived farther along the lane, had concluded it was something like that. The
few people who otherwise went that way after dark, drinkers from the local pub
mostly, and assuming even they paid it any attention, took it for various
illuminatory devices. Even, now and then, a bit of plastic over an ordinary
household bulb. Or maybe an old–fashioned oil–lamp with that colour glass.

It
was none of those things, of course. Just as the shed was a shed and not a
railway carriage. And the area was not late nineteenth century Russia. Not much
is what it seems. Some things are not even – what they are.

“Oh
shit,” said Donna, “oh shit.” And getting up quickly she ran out of the
kitchen.

She
was going to the downstairs cloakroom, he supposed, in order to vomit.

Yes,
he could hear her.

Carver
turned up the sound of the TV she always liked to have going above the
breakfast bar. Not that he enjoyed or valued the early morning news show that
was on, but he needed a sound to block out the noises from Donna. (The TV
flickered, settled; weather interference – it was prone to that.)

At
first he had judged she had bulimia, but then she had said she believed she was
pregnant. She said too she was pleased, and would go to the health centre in a
week or so to get the idea confirmed. “Won’t it be wonderful,” she said to him,
“a
child
.” She spoke as
if a “
child
” was another
must–have thing, like the mile–long TV in the front room, and all the other
appliances, and her clothes and cosmetics, and the exercise club and the
pedicure place and so on. One more lovely yet essential addition to her
existence. Although she seemed not to like being sick. Nor had she been, so far
as he knew, to the doctor, though her first fertility announcement was
currently two months old.

He
had never grasped she wanted a child.

He
had simply thought she liked having sex.

Or
really, he had simply never thought about that aspect of her needs and wants,
even though, or perhaps because, the rest of them generally seemed omnipresent.
Donna had never said to him, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I had a baby – would
you
like
that? Shall we
try
?” Or, she had
never said, “I want a baby so
much
. Is that all
right
?
Could
we?
Can
we?
Yes
?”

It
had only been her throwing up suddenly, and then: “I think I’m pregnant. I’ll
go to the doctor soon and then we’ll know.” Or words to that effect.

When
she returned from the lavatory, he quietened the
TV down a little
and poured himself another coffee. He said did she want some water.

“No,
can’t – just – not yet.”

“I’m
sorry.”

“No
– it’s – OK.
God
.” She scowled,
then relaxed, and abruptly, looking blissfully up at him, she said, “But it’s
worth it, isn’t it?”

“Is
it?” A genuine question.

Donna
laughed in a patient and archly knowing way.

“Yes,
darling. It
is
. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. I am already. It never lasts.”

“I’m
glad.”

She
had golden hair, slightly enhanced, cut to a luxuriant shoulder-length, and
this morning caught by a window-full of the early autumnal sun. It was like an
aureole, the hair, a halo round her, beaming. Such beauty nature and false
contrivance between them could erect.

“You
are
happy, aren’t
you?” she asked.

“If
you are. But,” he hesitated, trying not to push beyond their ordinary limits of
lack-of-communication, “you still have to see Chenin–”

“The
doctor. Yes, I know. But well, it’s a formality really. I
know
, don’t I?”

She
was just thirty-one, and had no fears. No one could insist she must undergo
over-intrusive checks to be sure whatever cargo she carried was unharmed by
excessive extra years. And she was slim, not over or under weight, healthy,
mentally active, and in a five-year-old relationship with a solvent male
partner, apparently committed.

He
smiled at her.

Donna
smiled back from her golden nimbus.

He
thought, she isn’t pregnant. She’s just so certain she is she’s got the symptoms.
Bleakly he glanced out of the window into the joyous brightness of the morning.
In twenty more minutes he would need to leave for work.

Carver’s
journey into central London routinely took an hour and a half. But today,
leaving at about eight, the traffic was far more heavy and obdurate. He did not
have to reach the Mantik building before ten-fifteen, which was just as well:
he reached it at
ten-ten.

Throughout the drive the sun had blazed
on the roads and highways. In London, even the city’s polluted ceiling scarcely
marred its brightness. The terrace of dull white buildings that stretched along
Trench Street behind Whitehall had a veneer of blurred shine, all save the last
three, which were encased in scaffolding and tarpaulins. Carver parked in the little
side street where normally he left his car – someone would garage it later –
walked around the corner and went past the scaffolded facade of the last
building, to the side door. Here he used his three security keys to let himself
in.

Beyond
the door, the wide windowless hall was sunlit by uplighters. Reception today
was the young guy known as MY or, in the parlance of the office, ‘Mum’s
Youngest.’

He
checked Carver’s ID carefully. Carver was still novel to him.

“Morning,
Mr Carver. Nice weather.” He did not speak like a young man particularly, or
had been told not to.

“Sure,”
said Carver, and took the lift to the fourth floor.

His
room, free outside, as some of the upper storeys were, of tarpaulin, and in
aspect looking away from the river towards Holland Row, had the window-blind
down. He glanced out through the tiny hole. Everything seemed as expected, the
backs of tall houses, high walls, the small pub generally known as Long’s
squashed in between the parked cars, the occasional pedestrian. The sun here
described, he thought, a kind of barrenness. A cityscape of blank stone, with
toy people wandering about until their batteries ran down.

He
had been in the room less than five minutes when the intercom buzzed him to go
up. His appointment with Jack Stuart was for a quarter to eleven, but he would
have to wait, he knew; one always had to wait for Stuart, five minutes or
twenty-five.

It
might have been a ploy. If it was, today Stuart did not resort to it. Instead
his door stood half open.

“Come
in, Carver.”

Stuart’s
room, unlike Carver’s, was quite large, with brown leather chairs and a brown
polished side table. Paper files and boxed discs were neatly stacked on
shelves. The coffee-making machine gave off its eternally cheerful aroma, a
scent that was more alluring than the subsequent taste.

“Have
a seat,” said Stuart.

Carver
sat.

The
windows here too had the blinds down. The blinds were always down. There had
been net curtains in the old days.

“How’s
life?” Stuart asked. He was a slim man, warmly dark skinned and haired, with
cooled grey eyes.

“Fine,
thanks.”

“And
Donna?” Stuart always remembered their names, the current wife or partner, any
offspring, or other remaining relatives.

“She’s
fine, thanks.”

“Good,
good.” And playfully: “Will she let you off this evening?”

“Yes,
of course.”

“That’s
good. It’s just a five to eight-nine-ish. Avondale. OK?”

“Sure.”

“Good.
Your piece on the switch was good, by the way. You received my memo?”

“Yes,
Mr Stuart.”

“We’re
all up to level then, Carver. Well, have a good day.”

“Thanks.
You too, sir.”

When
Carver got back to his room, the relevant brief and tab for the evening had
already arrived. The table was booked and office credit card awaiting
collection. He would not bother to let Donna know, he had warned her of the
possibility he might be late. Even though getting out of London just after ten,
which is what it would amount to, could be worse than later, since the post-theatre
traffic would be starting to crawl in all directions. And Avondale was a bore.

In
the lower corridor Silvia Dusa had passed Carver and flashed her black eyes at
him in apparent hatred. She looked in a controlled yet flaming temper, as ever.
Perhaps her problem was hormonal; a beautiful woman, yet she must be in her
forties, a “dangerous time”, as Maggie put it, for “all women”. Maggie should
know. Donna’s mother was well past her forties by now, “over the hump but not
over the hill”, as Maggie also would declare.

Carver
shut the door of his room, and began to search for various necessary impedimenta.
Not finding what he wanted, he went out again and taking the side stair now went
to the half-floor for supplies. The rest of the morning would pass in its
expected dull and formulaic manner, then lunch in the canteen. He had to call
in on Latham at 2.30, get the next piece of the latest office puzzle. And then
off to Rattles with unlimited expenses to jolly up Avondale, before piling him
into a Mantik chauffeured car for the airport.

The
day ticked and trickled down its sun-gold drains. Autumn came much later
recently. Twenty years ago, when Carver was a kid, already the leaves on the
trees would have been mostly orange,
and
yellow, or rich
brown, as the table in Stuart’s office, the foliage thinned out, falling.
Almost every leaf now was still thick green, only tarnished a little here and
there as if lightly scorched.

Carver
reflected on this
sparely.
Thinking of his
childhood reminded him of things seldom pleasant, such as his father, a
drunken bully. If Donna finally produced the child she said she was going to
have – if it really were a fact – what sort of father would Carver make? Would
he be any good at it? (‘Good’ seemed to have been Jack Stuart’s Word for the
Day. Sometimes Stuart did that, used one particular word, on and on, over and over.
And then that word was dispensed with and another used: perhaps ‘
solid
’
, like last Friday, when so-and-so
was a
solid
guy and someone
had
solid
grounds for a
premise of some sort. Was this an affectation of Stuart’s, did he choose that
day’s word before he set up shop in his room? Or was it some nervous or Asperger-type
peculiarity, a kind of vernacular stammer? Stuart however did seem to play
tricks, did he not? For example, during the past five or six months, when
called up to see him for either the most trifling or urgent matter, everybody
had to wait in the reception area, which even had magazines littered about like
a dentist’s. Then today, Stuart’s door was already open.)

Yes,
it was better to consider the games or aberrations of Stuart. Not to go back
too much to the autumns of childhood, the violence and silence, or the secret
adventures, and their sequels, if they had ever been found out.

“You know,” said
Alex Avondale, after his second V and T, and once they were shown through to
their table at Rattles, “I miss it. Down here.”

His
said this with the lugubrious nostalgia of a demon redeemed into Heaven, but
pining for the ‘old place’ below.

He
had, apparently, a vast estate in Scotland, Highland country, where snow
sculpted the spring and autumn peaks of mountains, and turned them to
Antarctica in winter. But London was his homeland. With Avondale Scotland was
not only a separate kingdom but another continent.