Personal Darkness

by Tanith Lee

  It was not Linda who waited at the door.

  A tall old man in a black coat.

  No, a young man, with white hair…

  "Richard?" asked this man, smiling at him.

  "Yes, I'm Richard Reeves. Who are you?" And then the penny dropped. "Are you her bloke?"

  Richard felt a mix of ferocity and alarm. He was not prepared. He was tired. This was his home ground. He tried to come out at the man, but the man instead came gliding in, and after him, like a creature of the night, a black-haired girl smothered in makeup.

  "Where is your wife?" said the man.

  "My—Linda's with you. Or she was. What do you want?"

  "Then she isn't here," said Malach. "Oh, good. Ruth, shut the door." The girl he had called Ruth did so, and they were all inside Richard Reeves's house.

  "Look here," said Richard, "I didn't ask you in."

  "But here we are," said the man. "Go in there, and have another whisky."

  "Don't you—"

  The man pushed him, and Richard Reeves staggered crazily back into the main room. He thumped into a table and a large china cannister teetered. Richard held it down.

  The white-haired man had also entered the room, and the girl had followed. They put wet prints into the carpet. What Richard had taken for a cheap imitation leopardskin coat turned out to be some sort of robe. Who were these people? What were they after?

  "She described you well," said the man to Richard.

  "Linda described—"

  "Ruth. Ruth overheard your conversation with your wife."

  Still smiling, kind, the white-haired man moved close to Richard. The scent of night and rain was on the man, and an odd fragrance of burning.

  "I believe," said Malach, "you told her this." And then he struck Richard Reeves full in the belly. It was a soft belly and it did not resist.

  Richard curved over and brought up his whisky on his carpet.

  Malach stepped back.

  When Richard had stopped puking, Malach kicked him in the side and Richard rolled over. Malach rested his booted foot on Richard's throat, pressing lightly on the windpipe. Richard tried to fight. Malach pressed harder.

  "Don't," said Malach. "Just do as I want."

  "There's money," gasped Richard. "I'll tell you where."

  "Money," said Malach. He pulled a melodramatic disappointed face. "Only money?"

  "Some of these ornaments—worth something—"

  "Ruth," said Malach, "smash some of the ornaments."

  Richard began to argue, but his voice was cut off.

  Ruth took bulky china objects from the false mantelpiece and dropped them in the hearth, where they broke noisily.

  Malach raised his foot.

  "They're very unattractive. Better, like this."

  "You're insane."

  Malach leaned down and cracked Richard hard across the face. Richard's teeth cut his lip open and it began to bleed.

  "But you are a cunt," said Malach. "Oh, forgive me. You don't care for bad language."

  Richard coughed and was feebly sick again, his head turned painfully under Malach's boot.

  As his eyes cleared slightly, Richard saw the girl hefting the huntsman figurine.

  "No—no—don't—that's valuable. I swear it is."

  Malach held up his silvered hand.

  "Bring it to me, Ruth."

  Ruth brought the statuette, three burly men in russet coats raising guns at some unseen flying things.

  Malach weighed it in his palm, looking at it. He looked down again at Richard. "It's a fake." The piece whirled through the air and struck the wall. It smashed into a shower.

  Richard was hurt and ill, and now he was very scared, and he began to cry. Life had long ago taught him that the tears of a strong man will bring him sympathy, or aid.

  Not now.

  Malach had removed the booted foot and instead hauled Richard up, helped him to stand, and led him out to the foot of the stairs.

  "Yes, there's cash up there," said Richard. His nose ran and somehow Malach would not let him wipe it, or the blood oozing down his chin.

  Malach took Richard up the flight of stairs, and, on the landing, Richard tried to turn to the bedroom where he kept a thousand pounds in fifties, in a marvelous find, an old box from the slave trade, ebony, showing a black man in chains…

  "Tell me about Linda," said Malach.

  "My wife—"

  "Your wife," said Malach.

  Malach brought his fist up into Richard's jaw, just avoiding the nerve point that would have rendered him unconscious.

  Richard's head slammed back into the wall, and before he could save himself he fell, twisting and thumping, the length of the stairs.

  Richard lay moaning on the carpet under the stairs.

  Ruth came out to see.

  Malach descended the stairs with a measured tread.

  "The grand old Duke of York," said Malach, "he had ten thousand men. He fucked them up on the top of the hill, then he fucked them up again. Ah, forgive me. You don't like these words." He lifted Richard like a length of used material. This time he had to drag him up the steps.

  At the top Malach brought his fist across Richard's face again and sent him down once more along the stairs.

  At the bottom, Malach knelt on Richard.

  He took Richard's head by the ears.

  Richard was just conscious. The bleary eyes wavered, but they saw.

  "Now Richard. Say Christ." Richard groaned. "Say Christ fucks, Richard."

  "Nnn—" said Richard.

  Malach banged Richard's head hard into the bannister.

  "Say Christ fucks, Richard. Christ was beautiful and flawless and wise, but you know nothing about him. In your mouth he won't be Christ at all. Say it, Richard. Christ fucks." And Malach, holding Richard's head by the ears, smashed it like the china on the bannister at the stairs' foot.

  "Chri—" said Richard.

  "Louder, Richard," Malach coaxed.

  "Chri—fuh—"

  "And now say cunt, Richard."

  Richard shut his eyes and snot rivered from his nose.

  Malach bashed Richard's head again against the wood.

  "Say cunt."

  "Cuh—"

  "Ruth," said Malach, "fetch some soap." He cradled Richard's head on his thigh, smiling down at him, until Ruth came with a bar of Camay from the bathroom. Then Malach gently put the soap into Richard's wet mouth. "Wash your mouth out now, Richard."

  In the bedroom, Malach found the ebony box. He touched the shoulder of the carved black man. Malach said, "I'm sorry."

  The money fell out and Ruth went to it.

  "No," said Malach. "You don't need money now."

  And so Ruth set fire to the fifty-pound notes, and let them flutter down around Richard at the stairs' foot.

  Richard was past shouting. He cried. His tears did not bring aid, or put out the fire.

  When Linda came back at nine-thirty, walking with her arm in Iain's, little was left of the fudge house, or Richard Reeves, but a heap of black stuff.

  CHAPTER 23

  HALF-LIGHT. THE GARDEN DARKLY glowed before the dawn. The rain had left its garment behind it, drops which hung and glistened, and which dripped from polished leaf to leaf down into the high grass that was not yet lit to green.

  The twisted fish shone and its basin was deeply filled. The straw hat had been removed.

  Rachaela stood in the grove, between the feral apple and the fountain. She wore Althene's white dress, the long hem of which was soaked.

  All around, the liquid shadow and the oaks like a forest. And silence, plectrumed now and then by the songs of birds. But they did not really sing. Surely there had been a dawn chorus, rehearsed and almost strident. What had subdued the birds? Did they know the earth grew old?

  Her mood was strange.

  Hormones, perhaps. After all, she was in her forties now, whatever her body looked like.

  The grove might be in a forest, and it might have be
en anywhere. Some other country. Some land of her genetic past.

  There were memories, always on the edge of mental sight and hearing. She could not grasp them, yet she partly saw from the corners of her eyes, and nearly heard their whispering. It seemed she must stand wholly still, and then the veil would melt, and she would know it all. All there was or could be. And she was not afraid.

  And I'm drunk, of course. Their dinner and their wine.

  Yet she stayed on in the timeless garden, floating in space.

  Scarabae. I, too, am Scarabae.

  An oval melted in the veil and the shadow, and through it came a man clad in black with long white hair.

  He walked toward her deftly, over the grass, and past the fountain.

  Malach said: "It's true, the Scarabae women are the most beautiful in the world."

  He lifted her hand quietly and kissed it, close beside the ruby ring that had been Anna's and Miriam's. Then he leaned and kissed her cheek. He smelled still of the dark, and of danger. But it was not for her, his dangerous dark.

  "Why are you here?" she said. "Have you brought Ruth here?"

  "Oh, no. Ruth is safe. I've come to fetch my sons, the dogs."

  "Your sons," she said.

  "My other sons are lost to me," he said.

  Rachaela felt a rill of excitement flow through her, but it died because she made it die.

  "Are you going to kill Ruth?" Rachaela said. "Or won't you answer?"

  "What is death?" said Malach.

  He widened his eyes and now there was enough light to see their hard sheer color. So bleak, so far, the distance inside the eyes.

  "Death is what happened to Anna," said Rachaela. "And to the others. Death is what Ruth caused."

  But she thought, / believe in his age. A hundred. More. There, and there. How can something so old ever kill?

  "I must be going now," he said. She could find no further words to say to him. She watched him move away through the spell of the garden, and the veil mended, and a blackbird sang.

  Under the electric lights of the utility room, Camillo was burnishing the Cinderella carriage of the trike.

  He had brushed the damson velvet, and rubbed the stained-glass window, and now attended on the sharklike bodywork with rags.

  A man was in the doorway.

  Camillo's face set into a kind of doughy flatness. He stood up and rubbed his cleaner hand between the ears of the burned horse head.

  "Come to see my horse?"

  Malach walked into the room. But for the trike, there was little there. A few boxes, bottles, cans of fuel and cleaning agents, and the block of raw light. Malach stayed still, and looked at everything. Finally at Camillo.

  "Let me tell you," said Camillo. He tapped the vermilion-streaked gut of the machine. "Harley-Davidson fifteen hundred super-charged engine converted for a trike. And here," he indicated the silvery spirals between the forward forks, "twelve-inch over-springer forks, nickel plated in twist-candy style. Yum."

  Malach looked at the trike, where Camillo pointed.

  "And the front wheel—the original twin-disc hub is laced into a nineteen-inch rim."

  Camillo pivoted. He giggled. "The swan-neck frame has been stove enameled."

  The fearful light burned on Malach's hair like white-hot flame.

  Camillo said, "Cruise control is fitted. But I prefer to sit up when I ride. Methane injection built into the fuel system. That means my trike could go to one hundred and twenty miles an hour in two seconds. It would kill the engine but I'd be miles away."

  He waved his hand in its skulls and rose masks at the black half-pumpkin. "A souped-up Volkswagen rear." He paused. "Do you like my horse?"

  - "I remember four," said Malach, "one a black geld-ing which threw you."

  "I don't remember that," said Camillo sharply. "Only the dogs. I remember all the dogs."

  "Perhaps it will come back to you."

  "Too old," said Camillo. He grinned and dived behind the trike as if for cover. "Well, we've met again," said Camillo, hiding around the pumpkin shell. "You can go away now."

  Malach still stood there, under the light. Cold fire.

  He seemed to be examining the trike.

  Camillo stole out again. He said, "You've killed someone. Is it horrible Ruth?"

  "Just men," said Malach.

  "I remember that," said Camillo. "I remember in the sleigh—"

  "No," said Malach.

  "Here you are," said Camillo. "What do you expect?"

  Malach turned and was gone.

  Camillo's face slowly sank inward. He looked old now, ancient, a poor old man with a shiny trike that could not be his.

  "We drove from the outskirts of the town. There were men running with torches but the horse bolted past them." Camillo sighed. "Out into the white woods we ran… I sobered, thinking of sagas I had heard of wolves, but my father said, 'Men are to be feared, not wolves.' "

  Camillo patted the horse head. "Good horse. We'll get away. Light the fire, we can outrun it."

  But no one was there to listen.

  Tray had been sick. It was the mixture of drinks and no food. Lou was affected another way. She lay on the large bed, mildly snoring on a mat of Pre-Raphaelite hair. Her head was turned, so the tattooed rose showed on her neck like a vampire's kiss.

  Lou and Tray both took the pill right through the month, so they need never have a period, but sometimes Tray felt funny, as if her physical clock were trying to come on.

  When her stomach was better, she had a shower and put on her little navy leather sailor suit with the corset waist and white collar. Two of her nails had broken and this depressed her, for her nails were one of her forms of artistic procreation, the tones and pictures she painted on them, and now the canvas was spoiled.

  She went down through the house, looking for Cami, and in the pillared hall she saw Malach.

  Malach was amazing. He was like a singer, but he did not sing.

  He sat on a straight carved chair and by him were the two frightening large dogs in the spiked collars. He was caressing their heads, staring into their bluish honeyed eyes.

  Tray went closer.

  "Hi," said Tray. "Come here often?"

  Malach looked up and saw her. He said nothing.

  Tray giggled. It was a dulcet soft sound, unlike the noise Camillo made, like a horse whinnying. "I like your hair."

  "Thank you."

  "Do you know Cami, then?" asked Tray.

  "Little girl," said Malach, gently, "please leave me alone."

  Tray started. "I only asked."

  "Don't ask. Don't ask me anything."

  "Oh," said Tray. She did not believe he was dismissing her. Men turned their shoulders, but they did not ultimately resist. Tray was Desire.

  She moved carefully closer, trying to avoid the big hairy shapes of the dogs.

  "Cami gave me this necklace. It's polished chicken bones with silver. Aren't they lovely?"

  Malach looked at her, past her eyes, into her brain. He said something in a language she did not understand. He said, "Tires-toi." But she knew at once, as if he had thrown her right across the hall.

  She backed from him in terror.

  At the stairs she stumbled, then turned and climbed swiftly up, away from him. On the landing she looked back. He was engrossed again with the dogs.

  She ran along the corridor, and up the other flight of stairs, into Camillo's apartment. She wanted to shake Lou awake and tell her. He swore at me. He said something really filthy.

  But it was not the words, it was the rejection.

  She bit her broken nails, but only those, down to the quick.

  Sitting up in the chair, she fell asleep.

  When she woke, Lou was still snoring and Cami had not come up. The window, which was opaque white glass, was blazing with summer morning. The golden clock said it was nine-thirty.

  Tray got up and went to the mirror. She looked at herself. She was the same. She turned about to admire her slende
r, incredible body, its seventeen-inch corset waist, her necklet of bones and silver wheels.

  Lou had a thing about Althene. Lou had dug out her gas mask earrings and put them on because of Althene's gas mask with the poppies.

  Lou was useless.

  Tray went out again and downstairs.

  She was afraid he might be in the hall still, but of course he was gone by now.

  She had taken some money from the bag where

  Cami left it for them. She would go to the shops and have her hair done. She would have it done black, like Rach's.

  The cake shop was open, and Tray bought a doughnut. It had thick jam. Her dad had brought her doughnuts, and a plate of sugar, and let her roll them in the sugar until they were white. Her mom would say, "You'll get fat." But naturally Tray did not get fat, for she seldom ate anything at all.

  In Lucrece, where—unknown to Tray—presumably they made you so beautiful you would be raped by a Roman, the manager came and led her to a chair. He said it did not matter there was no appointment, he would always make a place for her, she had such excellent hair it was a treat to style it. But he liked Cami's money, she knew that too. And anyway, they were empty.

  Tray sat through the hairdresser's torture, which she did not mind, for two hours. And then she sat under the dryer.

  She drank the Fanta they brought her.

  When she looked up into the mirror, she saw with surprise what they had missed. Crystal tears fell from her eyes. They did not ruin her face, for her eye makeup did not run, and her blusher was waterproof, and she was like a doll that wept.

  In the phone box, Tray inserted Cami's phonecard. She had taken it out with her, so she must have known she would need it, but not consciously.

  The phone rang, and she hoped her father would answer.

  If her mother answered, she would put down the receiver.

  It rang a long time.

  While she waited, an ice-cream van entered the street. It played its tune loudly, and Tray was afraid she would not hear properly who was on the line if the phone was answered.

  Then there was her father's voice.

  "Hi, Dad. It's me."

  "Tray!"

  "Hi, Dad."

  "For Christ's sake where are you? I've been worried."

  "I'm okay, Dad."

  "I've been worried, Tray. You go off and get yourself in bloody bother. Where are you?"