His eyes might have been telling me that he hadn’t done so or that I had no business questioning him. “I’m quite certain she is seeking closure,” he said and leaned towards me, lowering his voice. “If one thought oneself liable to cause conflict in one’s workplace, one might profitably consider moving on.”
He left me at once, but the suggestion lingered in my head throughout the afternoon ceremony and as I drove to my old house. I wasn’t about to consider moving away from Toby, but was there an alternative I oughtn’t to dream of? The undefined thought dogged me as I parked on the grass verge outside the house, and then I heard a phone ringing. It was mine, and I almost snapped the key in the lock as I hastened to open the front door. Dashing into the hall, I snatched up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Dom, are you free?”
While I was delighted and relieved to hear Bobby’s voice, her words were too open to interpretation. “Free how?”
“To meet, of course.”
“That’s what I hoped you meant. When?”
“As soon as you like. Can we now?” She sounded eager and excited, as I hadn’t heard her since our childhood. “I’ve got plenty to tell you,” she said.
19 - The Result Of An Investigation
By the time I found the Harvest Moon I was afraid of being visible from Safe To Sleep. The pub backed onto a field that stretched to the trees alongside which I’d left the car while I spied on the house. Once I’d parked in front of the pub, a broad building as black and white as the moon and capped with shaggy thatch, I could still see the copse. Perhaps the trees were catching a wind and stopping it short of the field behind the pub, because although the long grass didn’t stir, the trees looked restless. I could have thought the contorted trunks were squirming—certainly swaying across one another to form patterns too intricate to grasp, which gave me fitful distant glimpses of red brick. As I peered at the trees, a man who was drinking at a table outside the pub said “Are you lost?”
“Just wondering what that place in the trees might be.”
He tapped ash from his cigarette into an ashtray embedded in the middle of the table and yanked at the lead of the golden retriever tying beside him, though the dog had barely raised its head. “Wouldn’t get lost round here if I was you,” he said.
“I wasn’t planning to, but why in particular?”
“Don’t be fooled by how open it looks. Could be you can’t see as far as you think,” he said and devoted himself to a mouthful of beer.
As I made for the pub the dog gave a muted growl, which earned it another tug at its neck. Beyond the small thatched porch I found a large room full of tables, with booths along three of the walls. A few booths were occupied by couples, but there were no solitary drinkers, and Bobby wasn’t to be seen. A man who I guessed was the landlord stood twirling a towel in a pint glass behind the bar opposite the door. His long greying hair was trammelled by a rubber band, and a piebald moustache drooped at the sides of his wide loose mouth. The handles in front of him displayed names of real ales: Parson’s Fart, Witches Secret, Beater’s Reward, Poacher’s Bag… “Which do you recommend for a beginner?” I thought it best to ask.
He put down the glass and flapped the towel, and a shape like a bird’s wing imitated it in a mirror behind a rank of bottles hanging their heads. “Depends how real you want to get,” he said.
“Nothing too strong when I’m driving.”
He gave me a look that might have been rebuking me for cautiousness if not for being in charge of a car. “Try a pint of Hunt’s End.”
He hauled on a pump and handed me a foaming pint, in which I tried not to see too much of a resemblance to cloudy urine. The first mouthful assailed me with yeast that eventually made way for bitter hops. “How’s that for your taste?” the landlord said.
I swallowed the mouthful and a grimace. “I should say it’s authentic.”
“It’s that and no mistake. Folk come from miles around.”
“They’d have to, wouldn’t they? There’s nowhere very near except the big place across the field.”
The landlord fixed his gaze on the glass he was wiping. “I don’t fancy we get any trade from there.”
“Why’s that? What is it, a hotel?”
“Some kind of institution where they send kids.”
“How do you know that? What have you seen?”
When he met my eyes I thought the questions had betrayed my concern until he said “I was driving by the other morning to the farm we get our produce from. Saw somebody delivering a crowd of youngsters in a bus.”
I felt my face blaze with guilt but couldn’t see that in the mirror. I was grateful no lights were on, despite the lowness of the sun. “Have you any idea why they’re there?” I said.
“Getting treatment is my guess, but don’t ask me for what. Someone’s using a deal of electricity over there, though.”
I was unsure how much I wanted to learn “Why do you think that?”
“You can feel it in the air when you go past. And sometimes you can see it on that field across there, like the haze you get on roads in the summer. So long as they keep it over there we’ll let it be their business.”
Since I’d experienced nothing of the sort on my visits to Safe To Sleep, I could only think that the situation had grown worse—that the Nobles had caused more to happen than I knew. Since the landlord seemed to have no further information or opinions, I sat down to face the door across a table near the bar. Now I noticed that each of the five massive beams above the room was carved with a phase of the moon, crescents and semicircles flanking a full moon on the central rafter. Some of the yeast in the beer had subsided, and I took the occasional token sip as I watched the door. It opened often enough, but never to admit Bobby, and each time the twilight had given up more of its glow. Well after I should have I thought to ask the landlord “Was there a lady in here before I came? Could she have been looking for someone?”
“A lady.” Just in time to suggest he mightn’t mean this as an insult the landlord said “Is that the one that’s outside?”
“If she was she’s gone.”
“Out at the back,” he said, pointing to an unmarked door beside the bar. “Most folk don’t sit out there any more.”
I didn’t like to ask why. I nearly left my drink, and not only out of haste. As I hauled the door open the elbow of its metal arm emitted an arthritic squeak. Bobby had her back to me at a bench attached to a table, one of several in a small beer garden that was otherwise deserted. Her table was the closest to the view of the copse across the field and the house that the trees virtually hid. Despite the noise the door had made she didn’t look at me, and I wondered if she was entranced by the stealthy twilit antics of the trees. “Bobby,” I said, and when she didn’t respond “Bob.”
“Dom.” She left her hands upturned on either side of a tankard on the table and turned just her head. “I told you,” she said, “from you Bobby is fine.”
“Why are you out here? I nearly missed you.”
Before I’d finished speaking she turned to the field. “Watching,” she said.
I peered in that direction, but even the trees appeared to have been stilled by the gathering dusk. “What can you see?”
“Plenty when you know how to look.”
I sat at the next table, on the end of the bench beside hers, not least because I didn’t care to have my back to the Noble house. I was about to ask whether she wanted to point anything out to me when she said “I thought you’d let me down again, Dom.”
I felt my face grow hot once more, because I’d been ambushed by the memory of catching her in the cinema with Jim when we were children. Altogether too defensively I said “When did I ever do that?”
“I really wanted you to be at my book launch as well as Jim,” she said and swallowed a mouthful of pale yellow liquid from her tankard. “Never mind, don’t worry about it or anything else.”
Rather than ask how she could expect me to have no worries
at the moment I said “How’s your drink?”
“Not as pissy as it looks.”
At least we could laugh, and did, which immediately felt like delaying the discussion we needed to have. As if my thought had triggered them, lamps in antique lanterns lit up at all four corners of the beer garden. “Do you think we’d better go inside?” I said.
“You aren’t cold, are you? I think it’s quite close.”
I could have found her turn of phrase ominous, but I only said “In case anyone sees you with me.”
“I’m happy out here. Going in wouldn’t make any difference.”
She was gazing towards the surreptitiously restless trees, and I told myself I was being too cautious. The fields were deserted so far as I could see, and even with binoculars anybody at the house would find it hard to make us out through the trees. “So tell me what you’ve found out,” I said.
“Let me ask you a question first, Dom.” She turned eyes full of twilight to me as she said “What do you want most in the world?”
“To have my family back.”
“I was sure you’d say that. I believe I can help.”
I’d had too many of my hopes collapse to seize this one. “You’re the friend you’ve always been, Bobby, but how do you think you can?”
“If I bring you and your son back together, don’t you think the rest should follow?”
“It might.” Though I disliked sounding ungrateful, especially given Bobby’s eagerness, I said “I’m still not sure how—”
“Let me tell you everything I have to tell you and you’ll see.”
Perhaps after all it was best to stay outside where nobody else could hear. For a moment Bobby seemed uncertain how to start, and then she said “I think we can forget what it was like to be a child.”
“I suppose that’s part of growing up. What do you have in mind?”
“We forget how much we could cope with. You especially, Dom. Coping, I mean, though maybe forgetting as well. You had to deal with a lot more than Jim and I did. There was that night in the fog, and then you went under the church.”
“You mean you believe me now.”
“I always should have.” Before I could ask, however nervously, what had changed her mind she said “I can imagine how you may worry when you’ve a child of your own, but that’s another reason to remember what children are actually like deep down.”
“Are you trying to tell me I shouldn’t be concerned for my son?”
“Don’t let me trespass if you think it’s inappropriate.”
“Bobby, I don’t understand what you want me to think, that’s all.”
“I just don’t want you feeling bad when there’s no need, so let me try again.” She turned her whole body towards me, straddling the bench. “Believe me, Tina Noble’s doing everything she can for the children,” she said. “After all, that’s her job.”
I felt as if the gloom had lurched towards us out of the trees near Safe To Sleep. “Have you met her?”
“I’ve met the whole family, and I’ll tell you one thing, Dominic. She’s not the sort to be swayed by anyone.”
“None of them are.” While I had no idea why we were discussing this, I said “You mean you tried.”
“No, I mean she’s committed to doing whatever’s best. I could see she knew her own mind the first time I met her.”
“Bobby, the first time was in the playground at the park.”
“That was when. Don’t laugh at me, Dom, but I felt close to her then, and now I’ve found I still do.”
“I’m not laughing.” I managed to relax my hand, which had clutched at my glass in an instinctive bid to find the drink. “I couldn’t tell you what I’m doing,” I said.
“I hope you’re not thinking I’ve been taken in, because you must know I’m not like that any more than she is.”
“Bobby, whatever she’s told you, she isn’t looking after the children at Safe To Sleep. She’s causing them to be the way they are.”
“That’s one way she’s looking after them.” As my mouth opened, feeling emptied of all sense, Bobby said “I trust her, Dom. I should think you’d agree that bonds you make when you’re a child can last.”
“And some never should.”
Bobby gazed at me as if she wondered whether I had ours in mind, and I felt almost too betrayed to reassure her. Before I would have had time she said “You need to realise she isn’t trying to make them worse. What she’s doing is meant to prepare them.”
“I’ve heard that line already,” I said and was overtaken by rage. “What she’s doing where?”
“At the hospital.”
“She told you about that and you believe her version.”
“Dom, do remember I’m a journalist. Just because I trust someone doesn’t mean I don’t investigate their claims, and that goes for you as well.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to, Bobby. That’s why I thought you were there, investigating what I said.”
“I was. I still am, in the best possible way,” she said and raised her face as though inviting me to look deep into her eyes, where the light of the lamps didn’t reach. “I’ve joined in.”
At first I couldn’t speak. I made to reach for her hand without knowing which of us I intended to comfort, and then I found I didn’t dare to touch her. I’d remembered how the last time I touched my son it seemed to bring me closer to a void. I could only say “Joined in how?”
“I’ve experienced the treatment. I’ve been in the sleep.”
I felt as though the darkness beyond the lamps had closed around us. “What have you seen?”
“There’s no point in trying to describe it to anybody, Dom. You need to see it for yourself.” As I searched for words in the dark place my mind had become, Bobby said “It isn’t new, you know. Lots of people have survived it in the past. It just had a different name.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Nocturnal absences, they used to be called astral projection. That’s the rudiments of it, at any rate. As Christian says, nothing’s really new. There are truths behind everything if you know how to look.”
“Whatever you call it, the children are being forced to participate.”
“Dom, they aren’t. I give you my word they look forward to it. It helps them grow as people, honestly.”
“That’s why the Nobles have to keep it quiet, is it?” I said in a rage that felt like despair.
“The world isn’t ready for the truth yet, but the children will be. Anybody who’s involved will. We can’t stop what’s coming, we can only prepare, and they’ll be more prepared than most.” An emotion that I couldn’t place glimmered in her eyes as she told me “Tina says they will be even if they’re dead.”
I was appalled to realise that Bobby wouldn’t believe any of this if I hadn’t sent her to Safe To Sleep. I was close to apologising, because I had no idea what else to say, when she said “You shouldn’t take my word for it. You ought to see for yourself.”
“How are you proposing I should do that?”
“Come and take part in a sleep.”
I was afraid that her experiences had undermined her reason. “Bobby, they know me. I couldn’t do that without being recognised.”
“Don’t worry, Dom. I found out they knew me as well, but they don’t care. Tina’s known all along, from that time in the playground. She knew you and I are friends, I mean.”
I couldn’t help glancing across the held, having seemed to glimpse a spidery movement, as if the trees had sneaked forward or some presence they’d concealed had. Perhaps that was only the dark, but I felt spied upon, and had to force myself to speak. “What did she say about it?”
“That you should come and experience the sleep yourself, and her father agreed with her.”
“Bobby, why do you think they would invite me after everything I’ve tried to do to them and the things they stand for.”
“I expect that now they’ve seen how I responded they’re pre
pared to take a chance with you. And obviously they’d rather have you on their side, since you know something about their beliefs.” Bobby leaned towards me, and I had the awful thought that she’d become so much a puppet of the Nobles that she was borrowing their trait, if not manipulated into imitation. “Will you give it a try?” she said.
“What in Christ’s name do you think that could achieve?”
“I told you, Dom. Bonding with your son more than you ever have. And if your wife sees all the conflict is over, she ought to have you back. I would.” Bobby straightened up to scrutinise my face, and I felt as if the night were gazing at me. “Aren’t you still game for an adventure?” she said. “Remember how we used to be, us and Jim.”
Dismayed by her eagerness, I looked away to be confronted by the trees on the far side of the field. The landscape was so drained of light that I could have fancied the trees had drawn some of the void beyond the stars down to the earth. Behind the trees I sensed the Noble house. No lights showed, and I couldn’t help feeling that the dark was concentrated there, lying in wait for the children, impatient to invade them. The notion made me speak before I knew I would. “All right,” I said. “Tell them I’m in.”
20 - Welcomes
As I switched on the hall light, the phone rang. My mind was so overloaded with thoughts that for an instant I imagined I’d somehow triggered the bell. Slamming the front door, I lunged at the rickety table beside the stairs to grab the receiver. Reasons why I might be called so late were crowding into my head. “Yes,” I urged and thought it best to add “Dominic Sheldrake.”
“Dom, I’m sorry. Had you gone to bed?”
“I’ve only just got home, Bobby.” I squeezed my eyes shut as a preamble to asking “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing whatsoever. They wanted me to let you know they’re ready for you here whenever you want to participate.”
I could tell she meant this to sound encouraging, and I did my best to feel it was. “Would tomorrow be too soon? I’m free then.”
“It can be as soon as you like.”
“I’ll see you then, shall I?” When she confirmed it I wondered what else I could risk saying. “In the meantime,” I said, “look after yourself.”
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