by Tanith Lee
"Just London, Dad."
"What's happened? Where in London?"
"It don't matter. I'm fine. I just… wanted to talk to you."
"You're daft, Tray, you are. You can always bloody talk to me. Why don't you come home and talk to me?"
She heard, more than his questions and sentences, the light that came on in his voice when he spoke to her. She could recall how he would grin when he came in at the door and she ran toward him, holding up some toy.
"Don't nag, Dad." The ice-cream van was closer.
"All right, all right. So long as you're okay. What you been doing?"
"Just the usual stuff."
"Bloody bikes and bloody bad rock groups."
"Bands, Dad."
"Bands. Ought to be banned."
His joke always irritated her. Suddenly she was far away from him again. She was twenty-two and he was old.
"Got to go now, Dad."
"What? Just wait a bloody minute, Tracy. Tell me where you are?"
"I said. London."
"Is it some bloke again?"
She thought of Cami, older than her dad, but Cami was different.
"He's famous."
"What?"
"Famous."
"Who is he then?"
"Can't say. Got to go now."
"Tray—"
"Got to go. Love you, Dad. Bye."
She put down the phone.
She felt relief, she felt bereft.
The ice-cream van, which had played its tune all through the conversation, had now left off.
She went out of the phone booth and bought herself a cornet with strawberry sauce and nuts and two sticks of chocolate.
CHAPTER 24
HE HAD GONE TO THE HOUSE WITH HER, when she had told him about the man. That was the first thing she remembered, as she opened her eyes. He had said, the woman was all right, let the woman go. He had said he would kill the man. And he had killed the man. And the house burned. And then they came away.
They traveled on a late bus.
A man threw up at the back, and his vomit smelled, quite purely, of spirits. Upstairs the air was thick and blue, but they traveled below. He said he was too tall to go up there. She believed this.
There was a kebab place, and he bought her a slab of spicy lamb in pita bread with pale red chili sauce, and salad. Then, when they arrived at their destination, he led her into a room, and there he gave her a glass of wine. When she had had the wine, she found her head had dropped with a jolt, almost as if decapitated. Next she slept.
She came to on the bed. It was comfortable, and he had pulled the coverlet up over her. The pillows had feathers and, when she put on the lamp by the bed, she saw they were of sky blue. The sheets were also blue, and the blankets and cover in tones of deep green.
There was one window, and it was round. It seemed to have a pattern not a picture. But it was of stained glass.
Everything in the room was green and blue, except the lamps, which were a dusty rosy pink. There was no fireplace, only a radiator.
There was a dressing table with two lights and a mirror that had frosted leaves coiling around it.
On a dark table were some books and other things which Ruth did not inspect.
The room had an aura of the Scarabae, and on the vanilla-green wall was fixed a black and white clock, which had stopped.
A bathroom adjoined the bedroom. It was green, with blue towels and a dark blue carpet. There was an extractor fan, but no window. The taps were gold dolphins.
This must be a Scarabae house.
The other one had burned, but as it did so, some portion of her had known there were other houses. Other Scarabae.
Malach was Scarabae.
He had trapped her.
She tried the door, which was locked, and then she waited for him to come back, for she sensed that he had gone away.
The day was in the window when he returned.
The window was not like the room. It was scarlet, amber, the blue of fire, the carnivorous rose of lions' mouths, hot and blind. Through it, dimly, she could see the lines of bars.
He opened the door and found her sitting on the bed, gazing at the window.
"Am I a prisoner?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Malach, I don't want to be a prisoner."
"Ruth, you have no choice."
"Why?" she said.
"You are a murderess."
"You killed that man."
"You killed Scarabae."
"I didn't mean to," she said slowly.
"You meant to."
"I was angry."
"You must learn," he said, "to use proper words. You do not kill your own from anger. It's fury, Ruth. It's pain."
"Then, from fury. From pain."
"Very well. Now you are punished."
"What will you do to me?" she said.
"We shall see."
"My dad," she said. She thought. She said, "My father, Adam. He hanged himself. Was it because—was it because I did those things?"
"What things?"
"You know."
"You must articulate. You must say what is true."
"Because I stabbed Anna and—the others."
"We can't ask him. He's dead."
"I killed ordinary people. I drank their blood," said Ruth. She yawned. "I burned their houses. That was Emma."
"You're a stupid little bitch," said Malach.
"No," said Ruth. "I'm evil."
Malach looked at her, and she at him.
"You're Scarabae," he said. "That is your name. Forget the rest. Forget epithets from horror films. Now, you shall meet my companions."
Ruth stirred. She looked frightened and then cold.
Malach called back beyond the door: "Enki. Oskar."
And they came, the two huge dogs with their coats of brindled snow, wolfhounds with the blood of mastiffs and perhaps even of wolves, stepping like princes, with amber eyes.
Ruth got up at once. She held out her hands and went toward them without hurry or hesitation. And they received her, sniffed at her fingers.
Their heads came to her breasts. She stroked the silky hair upon their hard stony skulls. She met their eyes and kissed their muzzles.
Lethargic scythes, the great tails wagged.
She stood between them, holding them against the two sides of her body.
"Oskar, Enki," he said, "enough."
And they slipped from her. Like sunlit smolders they were through the door and Ruth stood alone.
"What shall I do now?" Ruth said.
"You will be alone now."
"For how long?"
"Ah vous dis-je."
"I don't understand."
"You'll come to."
He went out and shut the door. The key turned.
After a moment Ruth ran to the door and banged on it violently.
One of the dogs barked, and then was silent.
Ruth retreated to the bed. She got up on it and sat by the pillows.
Gradually the sun moved, and left the window.
She was hungry.
CHAPTER 25
NORMAN OLIVER BAILEY IVES WATCHED the patio through the closed glass of the sliding doors. Out there Marilyn, his wife, was pedaling slowly and laboriously on her exercise bike.
She was five foot six, and weighed a little over eleven and a half stone. Her tanned body bulged from the small zebra-striped bikini. Her blond hair was tied up by a shocking-pink scarf. Despite the careful hairdressing attentions of Jason, there was a brassy tinge to Marilyn's hair that infinitesimally hardened between each weekly visit.
Marilyn stopped pedaling.
She reached out to the green ironwork table and took three or four chocolates from a dish. She crammed them quickly in her mouth.
Marilyn was always cutting out potatoes, but she could never go without chocolate. It gave her energy, she said. Besides, she said, a bit of extra flesh was all right, providing your muscles were firm. Anyway, c
hocolate was not fattening, it just burned off. Poor old Marilyn.
Tracy liked sweet things too. But she never put on any weight. She had been a slim, doelike child, and so she grew, in perfect proportion, into her glove-fitted golden skin.
It amazed him, that he and Marilyn could have produced between them something so lovely.
Marilyn was still quite attractive, of course, and when they went out she dolled herself up, made the best of herself. But he—well, he could never win any prizes. Stop a procession, he would. Ugly git.
He grinned, seeing a vague reflection of this ugliness in the glass. Short and squat, with big muscled arms from his days as a plasterer before he took to running the show —and he would still take a stint, liked to, if someone was off sick. His belly was large too, bulging out his white vest. He was brown, a tan that never faded, from his years of outdoor work, and his brown bullet head sat on his shoulders without the intermediary of a neck.
None of this had ever stopped him. His mother, the Old Girl (and that was how she had always been for him, an old girl), she had said, "You ain't pretty, but you're a good boy, Nobbi." It was she who had given him the nickname first, after his father, the rotten old sod, had landed him with that Norman Oliver mouthful.
Nobbi had liked his mother. He liked all women, and they tended to like him. When he first went with Marilyn, she had really been a stunner. The heads had turned.
Maybe that was where Tray got her looks from after all. Or from his own mother. The Old Girl had been quite a piece in her youth, he had seen the photos.
In the glass, over Marilyn's struggling reflection (she had started the bike again), the gold winked on his St. Christopher medallion, his sovereign ring, his Rolex.
Behind him was the huge room, which Marilyn had decorated, like all the house, but bought and paid for by Nobbi.
Red velvet curtains held back by satin cords, studded red velvet couch and chairs, red Axminster carpet. Two chandeliers. On the glass coffee table, a stack of Mari-lyn's Vogues and a big china doll in an Elizabethan dress and ruff of real silk and lace.
Over the gas log fireplace was The Haywain, reproduced to look like genuine paint. And on the other wall, which was papered in crimson damask, was Van Gogh's Sunflowers, a blot of yellow on all that red.
Nobbi did not bother with art, normally he did not notice. But the sunflowers always unsettled him a little, and Marilyn did not like them either, he knew, but only felt they should be there.
On the mantelpiece was Marilyn's collection of china figures, ladies from various historical eras. Nobbi quite liked those, because they were women.
Certainly they were expensive, like everything else.
Over by the large TV were Marilyn's fourteen exercise videos. Poor old Marilyn.
She was eating chocolate again, still pedaling.
Nobbi turned away. He would have to find something to do to take his mind off Tray.
It was no good worrying about her. When she got into a mess she would call him again, and he would go and rescue her. She knew he was always there.
He realized she was not innocent. She had slept with fellows. He wished it was not so, but that was the way it went nowadays. It would not matter in the long run. One day he would give her a white wedding, when she had calmed down, when there was a chap with money who could look after her, keep her happy. A son of one of the lads. Someone in the business.
He blamed that Lou. Lou had led Tray into all this nonsense, rock groups and running about. Lou came from scum, poor cow, she had never been any good. Had an abortion at twelve, he had subsequently found out. Too late now to get Tray away from her. Tray would find out for herself, and then he would be there, and then maybe he could get her to stay here, and she would be safe.
If only she would phone regularly. Even Marilyn had started to complain about it. If only he knew where she was—
Nobbi went out of the lounge, and up the thickly carpeted stairs.
He glanced into the bedroom he shared with Marilyn. It was curtained and bedspread with cotton sateen and matchingly papered in a pink migraine attack of small flowers. Ruched lace rucked up before the windows. On the bed were Marilyn's two bedroom dolls, a life-size little girl in a pink frock and a life-size little boy in blue.
Nobbi sometimes jokingly objected to the boy doll. Another man in his bedroom. He did not mind the little girl.
Marilyn had done the bathroom in piercing primrose yellow, to be cheerful. Tray's bathroom, around the turn of the corridor, was done in salmon. Marilyn had insisted. "You can spoil your bedroom if you want, but I want you to have a proper bathroom."
On the washbasin, next to the oyster-colored bar of unused soap, stood the half-empty abandoned bottle of Tray's nail varnish, black with gold specks. The cleaning woman always carefully replaced it when she had mopped the basin. The nail varnish was dried up. It had been there three months.
Nobbi tried not to, but he could not help it. He went into Tray's bedroom.
It was done in black crushed satin, with bands of gold-scrolled black dado. Black lace hung over the lamp. Before the windows were suspended sheets of smoked glass with skulls on them, and on the walls were posters of long-haired, bare-chested young males, and one of a decomposing skeleton creature with white hair and a sword. Tray had told him this was called Eddie.
The bed had four black posts, and here sat another doll. It had once been quite sweet, but Tray had awarded it spiked orange hair and black lipstick, chains and a nose stud.
There was also the stuffed lion.
He had given her that when she was six.
"Lovely animals," he said, "lions."
"It'll frighten her," said Marilyn.
But the lion did not frighten Tray because Nobbi told her about lions, how noble they were, and how the lion would look after her when he was not there.
He picked up the lion now, and gave it a gentle shake. "Bloody useless, ain't you, mate."
On the dressing table were other things she had left behind. Some beads, a string of real pearls he had bought her on her fifteenth birthday. A little bone ring. Her fingers were so slender.
Christ, she was tiny, and the world out there was full of shit.
Nobbi squeezed the lion.
On the surface of the built-in wardrobe hung a miniature dress in coral and black, and a big black velvet hat. The cleaner always carefully replaced them.
It was like one of those bedrooms you kept for someone dead. A shrine.
Nobbi went out quickly and shut the door. He had the lion under his arm.
He walked down through the large house, and went out of the side door and over the garden, behind the grape pergola to the built-on annexe, his office.
A kind of relief laved over him when he came here. It was furnished with stuff from the Old Girl's house at Clapham, the big creaky chairs, the ancient sideboard.
Above the clutter of his office desk hung his grandfather's brass telescope and a sea chart Nobbi could not read. His father had been a bugger, but his granddad was a winner. An ugly old bastard, like Nobbi, with about three teeth in his head, mouth like a sewer—his mother had screamed at the language—and a mind full of trea-sure. He took snuff, and Nobbi had kept the battered tin. He could recall taking those gifts of snuff and fags, the bottles of rum. The muddly house. The lovely elderly dog with one blind eye, like Nelson.
Nobbi would have liked a dog, but Marilyn had been upset by the idea of the hairs. Tray was frightened of dogs.
Bugger this.
Nobbi put the lion on the desk and gave it a pat.
Then he picked up the phone and dialed Sandy.
They were doing a job over at Richmond. It was something for the Corporation. Had to be spot on. Should have been finished by now.
When Sandy came on the phone, Nobbi gave him a bollocking.
Things had to be special for Mr. Glass. Christ help you if they were not.
But Nobbi had always kept on the good side of the Corporation, and he d
id all right.
Then again, his firm was raking it in. He charged top prices for his work, and something over. Some people were so bloody stupid, they had more dosh than sense.
Except now and then, he would do a job himself, like for that old bird in Kentish town. Two hundred that had cost him, but she lived like a sparrow. "Call it ten quid, love. And give us a cuppa. Or give us a kiss and we'll call it five."
Sandy took the bollocking in his stride. He promised the job would be complete by Monday morning, they would go on over Sunday.
After the call, Nobbi tried to relax. He lit one of his cigars, which Marilyn said smelled, using the matches on his desk and ignoring the gold lighter. The cigar triggered his cough.
The lion looked happier in the office.
It had been fine when she was little. She used to follow him about. He had been able to look after her.
Nobbi put out the cigar and got up. He took his jacket off a chair, and went out of the office, locking the door.
Marilyn was sitting out on the lawn now, by the saccharine-blue swimming pool.
"Sorry, love," he said. "Something's come up. I've got to go over to Richmond."
"Oh, Nobbi."
"Sorry, love. It's a special job."
Marilyn knew it would be useless to protest. She understood, although they were maintained as a secret from her, that Nobbi sometimes did favors for and always had contacts in shadier areas than plastering and decorating. She preferred not to think of this.
She said, "Will you be back tonight?"
"I'll stay over with Sandy. Get an early start in the morning." Poor old Marilyn. "We'll go up The Fantail tomorrow night," said Nobbi.
Marilyn always liked to go out, although they did so two or three times every week. She brightened.
He left her looking at the blue pool, and went to liberate his Jag from the double garage.
Nobbi drove over the river.
As he went through the winding streets, he found himself looking here and there, and once he saw a slim little girl with long curling sunny hair. But it was not his Tray.
The sun was low, slanting sherry-colored through the parched green of the trees in tiny gardens, and sheeting the dim walls with apricot. Indian summer. Why did they call it that?