‘Just rest now, Timothy, and in the morning everything will be fine.’ She sounded strangely happy and filled with relief. In the darkness, he could hear the smile in her voice.
‘...in the morning everything will be fine.’ The phrase resounded in his brain. It was what his mother used to tell him before he came to this place. She said it nearly every night after... what happened.
And then without warning, sleep, gentle untroubled sleep, snatched him away before he could dwell on that particular thought. Matron gazed down at the little boy. His features were calm and peaceful.
Thank God, she thought. He was going to be all right.
‘Thank God,’ she said out loud and then shivered as though someone had walked over her grave.
***
Rob Moore sat, his coffee still steaming and untouched in his hand, watching the dawn seep into the sky. The warmth of the mug was comforting. He knew he couldn't go back to bed: the nightmare had put paid to any more sleep that night. He couldn't understand it - he just didn't have nightmares. Living was bad enough! Even as a kid he never suffered from troubled dreams, but the vividness of this one had really frightened him. In an attempt to shrug off the experience, he attempted a cynical smile, but his face muscles seemed to reject the idea and he didn't quite make it. It was ridiculous that a man of his age and intelligence should succumb to the drink-inspired ramblings of his unconscious. Indeed, it was ridiculous.
But he did not want to fall asleep again now.
He daren’t.
So he watched and waited for the dawn. As he did so, subliminal images of the nightmare flashed inside his head, causing him to blink and to squeeze the coffee mug even harder. The thing that really frightened him was… the thing: that face, death-white, wrinkled and eyeless which had loomed close to him in the depths of his nightmare ocean. He freeze-framed that monstrous visage in his mind. There could be no doubt about it—that face belonged to Michael. Michael Barlow.
Michael.
Michael Barlow.
‘Michael Barlow,’ he said softly and strangely; as he did so, he felt his body relax as though by admitting the recognition and then speaking the name, the curse had been lifted from him. For the moment, at least.
At long last he took a sip of the coffee which by now was tepid and tasted awful. He felt the liquid splash down his throat and he began to feel more at ease. He stretched and yawned. The kitchen clock was clearly visible now as daylight pushed away the grey shreds of night. It might almost be worth trying to catch an hour's sleep before Fiona got up. Dare he?
Michael Barlow.
The name repeated itself in his mind and instead of going back to bed he began to think about Michael.
***
Rob Moore hadn’t known Michael Barlow for long. He had been married to Kate for quite a while before he'd loomed on Rob's horizon. His finger of memory flicked and sorted through the file until he came to the first occasion on which they had met.
It was a party.
A wild party.
In the Moore diary, they were the only kind. The curtain of mist lifted. Yes it was a party—or was it a wake—to celebrate Rob's twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Twenty five blissful years—and then he had married Fiona. The old joke had a dark reality for him. Fiona... how she had changed over the years. My God, how the bitch had changed. But then so had he. Who was it, he thought, that had changed the most? Was it just a mutual divergence? No. He knew that however much he had altered—physically, mentally, spiritually, he was still recognisable as his young self—maybe as a somewhat bloated caricature now, but still recognisable. The same could not be said of Fiona. She had frozen with the years: the ice-maiden cometh.
Michael Barlow.
The Party.
Kate had brought him along.
Rob's memory of that party was vague in some respects. Mainly due to the fact that even before the doorbell rang, announcing the first guest, he was well on his determined way to being smashed. He liked the world like that—with all the hard edges softened; inside his alcoholic shell he was immune to the slings and arrows of outrageous bloody fortune. While his legs had still functioned, he'd done his dutiful circulation, accepted the congratulatory slaps on the back, the wink-wink nudge-nudge salacious jokes and the badly disguised looks of sympathy; and then as he'd felt himself weaken, he had slumped down in a corner next to...
Next to Michael Barlow.
It was the first time he had met the man.
Of course he had heard things about Kate's husband.
Not nice things.
Apparently, he was a bit of bastard. Or even a whole one; a fully rounded arsehole. But here he was apparently inoffensive, sitting quietly nursing a glass of scotch in subdued seclusion. Surely, thought Rob, this fellow is a kindred spirit. After all, what did they say about him behind his back? Well, he could guess. And, he reckoned, most of it would be true.
‘Hello there. I'm Rob—mine host. We met at the door, remember?’ Michael nodded with the ghost of a polite smile.
‘Yeah,’ continued Rob, ‘This my party, my shindig. To celebrate twenty five years of penal servitude.’ He rolled the words around in his mouth before letting them go. ‘You enjoying yourself?’
Michael looked down into his drink as though searching for an autocue to frame his reply.
‘It's very pleasant,’ he said at length, the words carrying no conviction.
‘You married? Oh, of course you are. Kate. A lovely lady.’
‘Indeed.’
‘You're a lucky man.’
Michael shot him a curious look. To this day, Rob could not fathom the import behind that look. He only knew it chilled him.
‘How long have you been married?’ he found himself asking. The words tumbled out without involvement of the thought process. He desperately wanted to change the subject, but it seemed his mouth and brain wouldn't let him.
‘Kate and I have been married for eight years,’ Michael Barlow replied, simply.
‘Oh, early days,’ the mouth said.
‘Early days for what?’
‘Ah’ Rob grinned a most unconvincing grin. He would have to bluster now. Damn the man. Can't he see I'm drunk? Anyway, any civilised fellow would know what I was talking about, what I was suggesting, and even if they didn't, they would pretend they did. ‘Oh... for all sorts,’ he said, lightly, one hand spinning in a vague windmill gesture. ‘How are you fixed for a drink?’ he added quickly.
Michael swilled the remainder of his whisky down and handed the empty glass to Rob.
‘I would like another. Thank you.’
So would I, thought Rob. ‘So would I.’ he said brightly, as he took the glass and attempted to stand up, but remained where he was. He giggled. ‘I think the legs have gone. Still, that'll please Fiona.’ he laughed loudly, but it was a sad, empty laugh. ‘Would you do the honours, old man? Help a paraplegic drunk.’
Michael took the glasses, returning with them replenished some minutes later.
‘What are you working on at the moment?’ he asked, much to Rob's surprise.
‘Ah, I've been commandeered to write for a new bloody soap—soap opera—about a firm of solicitors. It's not Hemingway, not even Jeffrey Archer, but it'll pay the rent and the drinks bill. Once, y'know, once I believed I was a writer... a proper writer. I thought television was just a stepping stone to greater things. Hah! For stepping stone read millstone. What the hell, the monster pays well for pap—so pap is what I write. How about you?’
Michael Barlow raised a quizzical eyebrow.
‘What do you do? What line of work are you in?’
As soon as the words fell out of Rob's drunken mouth, that small sober corner of the mind that all inebriated men keep—the one which acts as a conscience, letting them realise the mistakes they are making in their drunkenness, without stopping them doing so, that corner which hangs on to reality while the rest of the brain happily succumbs to alcohol—spoke to Rob. It told him what a prize idiot
he was. Talk about tactless. He knew that Michael Barlow had not worked since his accident. He couldn't work. Mentally and physically, his talent had been damaged.
In the icy pause that followed his stupid question, Rob Moore felt himself sober up. The pain of reality began to seep back.
Michael Barlow glanced at him with cool disdain. There was no harshness or cruelty in the glance, but there was behind the words he spoke.
‘What do I do?’ He repeated Rob's question, speaking quietly and slowly. ‘I'm a parasite. I live off my wife. She is my bread and butter and my smoked salmon and champagne.’ He grinned the coldest grin Rob had ever seen. It made him flinch.
‘Rob, come and see what Rex and Marilyn have brought us.’ It was rare that Rob was pleased to see Fiona, but her interruption at this point was a Godsend.
‘Yes, all right, darling. Let me just get another drink.’ He was now too sober to cope. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, as he rose to go, but Michael Barlow was staring straight ahead in a fixed stare, his fists clenched tight.
***
David Cole could not sleep either.
But his wakefulness had nothing to do with nightmares. At least not dreaming ones. He was worried about Kate and his future with her; or, to be more accurate, whether he had a future with her.
At first she had accepted the death of her husband calmly, stoically. Or so it seemed to him. It was, he believed, in many ways a blessed release and the sadness she felt at Michael’s passing was more to do with the failure of their relationship rather than with his loss. She mourned the death of her love for him and how fear and then hatred had replaced it in a seamless descent of her passions. The wound left by Michael's death had been caused by his living not by his passing.
And then slowly, imperceptibly at first, Kate began to feel different. David could sense the new force settling inside her.
Guilt.
Guilt with insidious fingers was twisting her mind, darkening her perceptions.
My God, thought David, what has she got to be guilty about? Michael had been a demon and had made her life intolerable. But Kate was like that. Her sensitive vulnerability was the good earth in which the guilt flourished. She should have been with him when he died. She should have helped him more after the accident, tried to understand him more, loved him more...
And, David was aware that part of this remorse concerned him also. She should not have started an affair with him. Even from the start of their passionate liaison, she had shown signs of uncertainty—wanting him and disliking herself for wanting him. She had never been fully at ease with their relationship.
David gritted his teeth. But now that Michael was dead all that should be over with. It's supposed to be me that she cares for and yet since Michael died, she has spent more time thinking about him. His memory was eating into her, as though it wished to possess her.
There were certain times of late when she had been unable to make love. She had lain in the midnight gloom, shivering slightly, a fine sheen of perspiration on her brow. ‘I'm sorry, David,’ she'd said, not looking at him. He had caught that distant gleam in her eye as he'd bent near to comfort her. She was somewhere else. Once when they had been making love, her fingers had clawed his back, drawing blood as she called Michael's name out in a strangled gasp.
David stared down at her now. She was at peace in a dreamless sleep, her hands up to her chin holding the covers in a childlike posture. He had vowed he would leave her, he would search for a less complicated lover... But every time he looked at her, especially when she was like this, her beautiful face in quiet repose, he knew he couldn't. He just wanted to, but couldn’t.
He lit a cigarette, although he'd vowed that he'd smoked his last a month ago. Stress. More like frustration, he thought, taking a long satisfying drag. The sensation after a month seemed so new to him. He felt like a novice behind the bike sheds. He coughed a little. The cough gave way to a wry chuckle. Smoking to relieve tension—it was a cliché. One he’s used many times in his scripts. Now he was acting out his own clichés.
His mind moved back to Kate. Perhaps one answer would be to get rid of the cottage. He knew she loved it so, but it had been theirs: Kate and Michael's. And it still had the feel of him. He’s left a dark stain on the air in each of the rooms.
Without conscious thought, David found himself moving about the cottage, prowling almost. It too was now still and peaceful and somehow oblivious to his presence. Without realising it, he had made his way to Michael's studio. He stood before the door, uncertain... uneasy. Gently, almost sensuously, he touched the door with the flat of his hand. This room... yes, it was from here that the sense of Michael radiated. If it was cleared out, redecorated, perhaps it would exorcise his crippling influence.
The door felt cool to the touch. He pushed it open. The studio beyond was bathed in moonlight, which fell through the large skylight. The moonlight hit the glass and seemed to splinter into fine cream-coloured beams. It gave the room itself the texture of a tired old canvas: a medieval painting that with the years was fading like the ruby lips of the Mona Lisa.
Scattered around the room lay several of Michael's paintings, most of which had been torn and mutilated by the artist's own hand. However, on the easel there stood a self-portrait, still intact and startling in its accuracy. The oils glistened in the moonlight, almost animating those strong angular features. David felt himself drawn to it, captivated by its strength.
This was Michael.
It captured not only the features, but also the essence of the man, with the sad cruelty reflected in those fierce blue eyes. The face, even in repose, David recollected, never seemed at ease. The jaw muscles were tight and the skin by the ears rippled gently as though the teeth were being constantly clenched. Michael Barlow stared out from the canvas at David unflinchingly.
A cloud drifted across the moon, catching it in its grey folds and the face darkened.
David flinched with unease as the room closed in around him and the darkness pressed against his body. In the pin-dropping stillness he could hear breathing. It was his own uneasy exhalation.
Suddenly, there came a sharp click behind him. He turned quickly. The door had swung shut. Odd. There was no wind.
He moved to go, although strangely part of him wanted to stay, to stay here in this moonlit half-world amid these mutilated images of reality.
And so for a moment he was held, like a painting himself. Still and indecisive. And then he began to feel cold. A fierce chill entered his body and shook him into movement. He reached the door and shivered involuntarily as he turned the handle. It was icy cold to his touch—the sort of cold that burns. He pulled his hand away, his body shaking uncontrollably. All at once, he felt a strange disquiet—irrationally unnerved in this silent room where a dead man seemed to keep watch. He grasped the handle again and, ignoring the rasping chill to his fingers, began to turn it. Somehow, instinctively he knew it wouldn't turn. He knew it would stick. He gripped it harder, the cold burning his hand.
It would not budge.
He was too rational a man to be frightened, but his sense of unease was growing. There was no reason for the handle to stick. There was no reason for the door to have closed. There was no reason...
Almost like a searchlight being switched on, the moonlight fell into the room once more, dusting it with its frosty light. David turned back instinctively to look at the portrait. This time the pale beams missed the face and it glowered at him there in the shadow.
Or did it?
Was he seeing things?
He took a step nearer to the painting, his eyes concentrating in the gloom, beads of cold sweat dappling his forehead. He must be mistaken—it was a trick of the light. If not... the alternative explanation... well there wasn't an alternative explanation, there was only insanity.
He was rooted to the spot by what he saw or by what he thought he saw in that shadowed room with the stiletto of fear slowly piercing his flesh. It was the face of Michael Barlow staring
out from the canvas, the face which now seemed to have the smooth texture of skin. The features had changed. Now they were relaxed and playing about those thin cruel lips was a mocking grin.
David gave a gasp of revulsion and thrust out his hand to push the easel away. It fell with an echoing crash which thundered in his ears. In panic, with a desperate need to escape from the room, he turned back to the door and saw with a mixture of relief and fear that it was now slightly ajar.
***
The Headmaster sipped his coffee and glanced over at Anderton.
‘It's fate, Doctor. Unknown forces seem to have taken this business out of our hands.’
‘I don't believe in fate,’ came the terse reply.
The Head allowed himself an indulgent smile. ‘Neither do I. But I do believe in common sense. According to you the boy is fine and can move back to his dormitory by Monday. That is correct?’
Anderton nodded.
‘Good. Now we tried to raise the mother last night to no avail. She's an actress, you know.’ There was disdain in his voice and the sentence reverberated with implications. ‘What is the point of alarming her now that it's all over?’
If it is all over, thought Anderton.
‘She's much better left in the dark,’ affirmed the Head.
He spoke with such amiable reasonableness and yet Anderton knew that all his considered justifications had nothing to do with the real reason he didn't want Timothy Barlow’s mother informed about the ‘unusual incident’ as he referred to it. He was thinking of the school's reputation. If any hint that there was a pupil with a mystery illness at St Austell's was breathed abroad, it would not be long before the rich parents began to think twice about dumping their offspring at the school. When it all came down to it, it was a matter of money.
So it was with Anderton, he had to admit. If he felt so strongly about the matter, he should tell the Head to get lost and inform the mother himself and to Hell with his contract with the school. But there were financial considerations to be taken into account. There was the new conservatory his wife had set her heart on. He was slightly disgusted with himself, nonetheless.
The Darkness Rising Page 3