Black Rock
Page 44
Snowy nodded. She was more concerned with what was going on inside her own head. As he spoke, all her memories were coming back. She was now more Sarah-Jane than Snowy and trying to keep up with the fresh changes.
Philip smiled. ‘Do you remember having a dream in which there was a door behind this computer which opened out into our bedroom?’
‘Yes,’ Snowy said. Her voice sounded different, a little less bemused and a little more frightened. Inside her a little girl had suddenly woken up and the little girl was dangerous because she thought the idea of being able to open a window on to God or on to the power source that made reality, or whatever it was, was an amazingly good one. This little girl marvelled at what you could do with such power and badly wanted to hold it in her hands.
In pretty much the same way as Philip Winter does, Snowy thought bitterly. Apparently it’s true about power corrupting.
Philip was talking again. ‘You should remember that dream, because I wrote the entire sequence for you. It was a playful little hint. And it’s true. It’s one of the effects of the placement of the house, you see. This wall, against which my table and word-processor stand, is the rear wall of the house, isn’t it? So what should be directly behind the computer?’
Snowy suddenly knew what he meant. There should have been a window there. The one behind her - from which blasts of brilliant light sometimes shone - was there, but the other was missing.
Philip nodded. ‘You’ve got it. This window exists only on the outside. It’s one of the countless things that gives the house its charm. If you were to climb a ladder up to it you’d be able to see into this room through it. I think that’s rather sweet.’
Snowy gazed at Philip in awe, distantly telling herself that it must have been like this watching Jesus speak. It was difficult not to become enchanted. It wasn’t the sum of his features that made him beautiful; it was his charisma. He seemed to shine with a golden inner light. The power in him drew her like a magnet and his voice was like the song of the Sirens: if she didn’t give in and go to him, she was going to end up with a brain like scrambled eggs.
Philip smiled again, as if he knew exactly what effect his presence was having on her. ‘The reason there is no window on the inside of the house is the same reason that there are no back or side doors at the far end of either of the corridors. All these places meet the power source. If there were doors there and a window here, and you opened them, you’d be consumed in what would seem like hell-fire. Your dream that you could open a door in this wall and walk through it to our bedroom doesn’t make sense because beyond this wall is the back garden. The delightful thing is this… watch!’
Philip swung his seat round until he was facing the computer screen. He leaned to the side of it and placed his fingertips on the wall behind it. ‘Don’t do this at home, boys and girls,’ he said, glancing at her over his shoulder. ‘Uncle Phil knows what he’s doing, but you little folk will get your fingers singed if you try it.’
He turned back and walked his fingertips closer to the back of the computer screen. Then he nodded. The window’s open a crack just here,’ he said. This is where I access it with. the computer. Here goes!’
He pressed against the wall. Snowy could see little circular indentations around his fingertips as the wall gave beneath them. His fingers penetrated it and his hand slid in up to his wrist. The plaster puckered around his skin, reminding Snowy of those veterinary programmes where they were always putting their arms into cows. But the wide-eyed little girl inside her was delighted.
Snowy suddenly understood why Sarah-Jane’s mother had always tried to kill off that part of her personality. It wasn’t because the little girl wanted magic more than anything else in the world, it was because she would be prepared to accept any amount of chaos in order to achieve it. The little girl didn’t care about the consequences. The little girl was bad.
The little girl was also in the ascendancy.
Philip knew this. This was what it was all about. He knew his graft of Snowy on to Sarah-Jane hadn’t taken, so now he was trying to seduce Sarah-Jane herself.
And Sarah-Jane wanted to be seduced.
‘If you were to go into the bedroom, you’d find that my hand is waving at you from the wall,’ Philip said.
In that moment, the remnants of Snowy curled up like burning cellophane and fell away in ashes.
And Sarah-Jane found herself with a big grin on her face, her rolling-pin tucked under her arm, and her hands poised ready to provide the applause that was surely necessary.
She glared at her hands and put them down to her sides, where they refused to feel comfortable. She crossed her arms and trapped her twitching hands beneath her armpits.
It’s wrong! she admonished herself. He wants you to want to stay with him. Don’t let it happen! Remember what he’s doing to Janie to achieve this, and what he did to Ellen.
Philip drew his hand back, twisted round in his chair and held out his arm for her inspection.
S’n’J knew that it wasn’t possible for a man’s fingers, hand and wrist to glow red-hot like metal, but this was exactly what she saw. Philip’s hand was almost molten and tendrils of stinking smoke were curling away from it. She could feel the radiant heat even from ten feet away. There was a thick gold ring around his middle finger and it was melting.
‘See what I mean about hell-fire?’ Philip asked, inspecting his hand. He took the melting metal of the ring between the forefinger and thumb of his other hand, seemingly oblivious of the sudden pall of grey smoke and the smell of charring flesh that arose, and picked the gold away. He dropped the soft blob of hot metal into the palm of his good hand and closed his fingers around it. His hand sizzled and steam shot out from the sides of his fist.
‘I know you think I’m a ghost, Snowy, but I’m real flesh and blood. It’s simply that my flesh and blood is no longer ordinary. I’m an incarnation. A new god. I found the house, I found out how to use it and now I’ve bumped myself up the scale from man to superman to mortal god. The next step is immortal god. That’s where we’re going, you and me. We’re going to be up there playing with the big boys. Come on! Look! Magic!’
He suddenly threw the melted blob of gold at her.
S’n’J reflexively put out her hand and caught it. The ring was whole again. It was still hot - almost hot enough to burn - but it was as perfect as a new one.
‘If that’s a proposal, I’m afraid I’ll have to turn it down,’ she said, and threw the ring back.
Philip waved his hand like the queen might have done from the royal carriage, in a short semi-circular motion.
Half-way across the room the ring turned to gold dust which glittered to the floor.
‘You don’t understand, do you, Snowy?’
‘There is no Snowy,’ S’n’J said, glancing behind her. The door was still open.
‘Snowy, I know what you’re thinking. I wrote all this, remember? You’re wonde
ring if you could get out of the room before I have time to close the door. You’re forgetting that I already know the outcome.’
S’n’J shook her head. ‘This part isn’t written yet.’
‘You look so confused and sweet, standing there in my shirt with your little rolling-pin tucked under your arm. Just like a sexy little toy soldier/ Philip said. ‘You aren’t sure if this part is written or not, are you? You think you’ve escaped Snowy and that you’re Sarah-Jane again, but you don’t know if it’s only temporary. You’re wondering what’s in that file you didn’t have time to look at, aren’t you? The one that contains the outline notes for Black Rock. Well, my pretty little Snowdrop, I’ll tell you what’s in that file. It’s our history. I haven’t included it in the main text yet because it isn’t finished. But it goes further than you think. Backwards and forwards from this point.’
‘Liar!’
Philip looked pleased. ‘Lying is what I’m best at,’ he said. ‘Lying is what writers live for. To be gods and to tell lies. The difference between me and all the others is that when I tell a lie it becomes reality.’
S’n’J deliberately shifted her weight to her bad leg. His honey-sweet voice ceased to have its magnetic effect. He was talking again now, but she ignored the words and cut in over them. ‘What did you do to Zara?’ she asked through teeth that were clenched with the pain. ‘She was your wife, wasn’t she? The original Mrs Winter.’
Philip fell silent and stayed that way for a long time.
‘Well?’ she prompted, feeling there was a chance for her after all. She’d hit a raw nerve.
‘This is something else I knew would happen,’ he said. ‘Like I said, the ghosts are a side-effect of the house. The house is a bit of a maze. Some of the windows open on to themselves. Some of the tracks between here and there are convoluted and lead to other places. Copplethwaite built in a few traps he didn’t know about. There are ghosts in this house. Not only ghosts of humans, but ghosts of the past. But you know this already. You’ve spoken to some of those ghosts on the telephone. And from what they’ve told you, you’ve drawn conclusions, just as I anticipated.’
‘You knew I’d work out that you were once Fred King?’
Philip nodded. ‘Guilty as charged,’ he said. ‘After my wife died, I took her surname so that every time I wrote my name I would commemorate her. I dropped the Fred when it became unfashionable and became Philip instead. Philip Winter is the result.
‘I used the pen name Peter Perfect because I knew that it would appeal to the little girl inside you, Snowy. The children inside us all want things back as they used to be, long ago. They remember a young world greener than green and bluer than blue, a sea that was colder than dry ice and a sun that really could shrivel your skin. They remember how good it was to live in a big friendly world where dew glistened like jewels on early morning cobwebs and the days lasted forever. But most of all, they remember the potential for magic. They yearn for the days when anything seemed possible; when the very air seemed to shimmer with power.
‘And inside Sarah-Jane there is a little girl who truly believed in magic. This little girl believed - and still does believe - because she saw real magic happening. Saw it with her own eyes. Saw it dancing in the palm of a man’s hand. And that little girl wants real magic back again.’
S’n’J squeezed her eyes shut again. She knew he was referring to her first ever visit to Tintagel Castle and now the submerged memory was sweeping towards the surface, huge and dark… but she fought to keep it down. She had to keep her head clear and get things back on track. She lifted her foot from the floor and let it fall.
‘How did Zara die?’ she persisted.
‘Ahh, those telephone ghosts of the past!’ he replied. ‘I didn’t think they would tell you enough for you to work out that I was once Fred King, but I should have known you would find out. You’re bright, Snowy. I’m proud of you.’
‘Don’t patronize me, just tell me about Zara!’ S’n’J said from behind her closed eyelids.
‘She was the love of a poor factory hand’s life. A greater love no man has ever known. I love you as I loved her, Snowy because you and she are identical. Two peas from the same pod.’
S’n’J opened her eyes and shook her head. ‘Nope!’ she said. ‘If we were identical you wouldn’t want to turn me into Snowy, and then from Snowy into Zara. If we resemble one another in any way it must be purely physical.’
‘Wrong. Your personalities are identical. All you need is her history. I can do that in easy stages. She was called Snowy, too. A silly nickname because of her surname: Snowy Winter. I knew she would come back. I always knew that, right from the start. I waited for her. I lived in this house and learned how to use it, and I stayed young and waited for her.’
‘But she never came,’ S’n’J said.
‘She’s here now. Standing in front of me. A reincarnation. You are Snowy, Sarah-Jane.’
S’n’J shook her head. ‘You don’t get two chances at it, Philip. You ought to know that. Think of your bloody computer. Once and once only, that’s the size of it.’
Philip’s expression had hardened. ‘Don’t get me mad, Snowy! You won’t like it!’
‘Is that what she did? Got you mad? So mad you killed her?’
‘I sacrificed her,’ he said.
‘Murdered her, you mean. She upset you and you murdered her.’
Philip’s face cleared. S’n’J watched the transformation and was stunned. One moment he’d looked like the psychopath he was, the next every trace of that expression had been wiped from his face.
He smiled. ‘Just hear me out. We married, Zara and I. We were blissfully happy, working all day and loving all night. Then one of her relatives died. Left her a great deal of money. We came to Cornwall and found this house standing empty. We made enquiries and bought it. It had a reputation, but we didn’t care. We moved in and marvelled at the strange front door and the way you always felt as if you were walking up or downhill - sometimes across the same piece of floor - until you got your Black Rock legs. We lived and loved here, too. You know how it went. You’ve read about it and you’ve lived it out. We were blissfully happy.
‘And then I made a discovery. It was the dog, you see. Diamond Ambrose Anstey. He was alive then, not just a dead dog who won’t go away. I noticed that he could get into the house even though all the doors and windows were shut. He would just turn up as he chose. I began to research. And I discovered that we were living in a very special place. A dormant place that could be put into action, if I could somehow power it up.
‘You see, Zara and I used to hold one another and say, “What more could we ask for?” the answer to which is obvious. It’s the answer which any happy person would give: “I wish it could go on forever.” And I began to believe it could.
‘From Copplethwaite’s copious notes left in the library, I discovered how to make the house work. I was going to have
to make blood music. Perform a sacrifice. Of course, I didn’t do it. But there are some ideas which, when they’ve occurred to you, just won’t go away. I became obsessed. Eventually I began to experiment. I took small animals to the basement and slaughtered them. Nothing happened. I captured larger animals - cats and dogs - and tortured and killed those too. Then, one day when Zara was away visiting her parents, and my mother was here, I took her downstairs and killed her. It’s in the blood you see, killing. My father murdered an Italian girl. He was hung for it.
‘But still nothing happened. It wasn’t until I realized the true nature of sacrifice that I discovered where I was going wrong. It’s no good sacrificing something you don’t care about, and that’s what I’d been doing all along. Just killing. A true sacrifice means giving up something you care deeply about. Something that it will hurt you to lose. Something you love. And the only thing I had that I loved was Zara. My Snowy Winter.’
Philip’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I’m sorry my love,’ he said to S’n’J. ‘I’m so sorry for what I did to you. But I kept my promise. I brought you back and now we can be together for ever. We’ll never die. We will be immortal.’
S’n’J’s head was spinning. She was ahead of him now, way ahead. ‘I’m not your Snowy,’ she said. ‘I’m not her reincarnation. She didn’t come back. They don’t. It’s one time only.’
Philip nodded. ‘I know,’ he said.
‘But you waited for her. You checked out all the little girls who came by in case one of them was Snowy. Born to different parents but the same little girl. You waited and watched and she didn’t come. And in the early seventies you decided to do something constructive. Am I right?’