Halton Cray (Shadows of the World Book 1)

by N. B. Roberts

  Turning into the car park I saw Daniel heading out. I didn’t see him often, but I hadn’t time to stop and chat. He was practically laughing as I approached to pass him.

  ‘Hey! So, I heard you were a bit of a hero the other day,’ he said, while opening a can of fizzy drink. ‘Shame I missed it. Did you enjoy your swim?’

  ‘It was invigorating. You should really give it a go. Seriously, Thom was the hero.’ – I felt a quickening under my ribs at just pronouncing his name.

  ‘That’s not what I heard, Alex, and from the horse’s mouth. You know, I lost a mobile phone in that river once. You didn’t happen to see it down there? – Hey! Where’s the fire?’

  ‘Sorry, I’m just so late. I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Well I’m off to Richford. Maybe I’ll see you in the week!’

  I waved and ran to get inside the house. Mrs Evans stood outside the shop with hands on hips and disappointment scratched into her lined face.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ I panted.

  ‘No excuses, madam!’ she shot harshly, as if I’d committed a capital offence. She didn’t give me a chance to explain.

  The sound of footsteps descended the staircase behind me. I knew that tread; that scent on the air. My stomach twisted up as Mrs Evans continued to scold me in Thom’s earshot.

  ‘If you don’t want to be here then you know what to do!’ She snapped her handbag shut with such force I thought she’d broken the clasp. Clearly she was in a bad mood that I just happened to add to, and take the entire effect of. It looked like I’d made her late for something – probably a smoke.

  ‘You’re needed in the shop.’ She motioned with her eyes, before turning away. As she passed Thom in the entrance hall, she hollered to me –

  ‘I’ll be back round in a moment!’

  ‘Like a plague of locusts,’ he uttered acrimoniously.

  She walked on pretending not to have heard him. He gave me a look, which was hard to read, before disappearing round the corner towards his office. It shocked me to hear him mock her directly like that, though it wasn’t enough to lift my spirits. What bad luck to have him witness her telling me off like a child. I realised I’d left his shirt hanging on my bedroom door again.

  Mrs Evans returned an hour later, and with an icy tone told me to mind the front desk. On my way round, I noticed a certain woman down the corridor, lingering just inside the Colman Smith Gallery. It was Carla-Louise. I went to the De Morgan Gallery for cover. I couldn’t help needing a closer look. She was pacing impatiently back and forth outside Thom’s office, huffing and puffing on each turn, swinging her immaculate hair about her shoulders. – Frances approached her.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I’m looking for Thom.’ She raised her head to Frances, because the latter eye-levelled her. ‘He must be playing hide-and-seek lately, but I’m not having any fun.’

  ‘I’m sorry but he’s not here at the moment,’ she said in her delicate way. ‘I think he’s only been out for an hour or so.’

  ‘Oh, so you were joking?’ She blatantly looked Frances up and down.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘When you asked if you could help me,’ she scoffed. ‘It was clearly a joke.’

  ‘If you think talking to people like that will get you anywhere –!’ Frances began, revealing another side to her.

  Meanwhile, I noticed Thom standing just within the alley, slowly opening the door. He was listening – a scornful look vacating his face. It was seconds before he noticed me, and smiling, he strolled brightly towards his office.

  ‘Hello you,’ he greeted her in a husky voice. To this Carla-thing melted like a knob of lard in a hot pan. She opened his office door and waltzed inside. Thom mimed ‘Sorry’ to Frances, before following the brunette with the legs.

  It was hard to ignore her outward appearance – the well cut dark eyes, graceful neck and tall figure – these visible irritants to me. Others may see them as qualities, as beauty often is. The good fairy is always beautiful. The bad witch always ugly. People too often mistake good looks for good nature. Could they not see that her arrogance and incivility were hidden sludge’s beneath the surface of a pretty pond? Thom was not shallow. Her looks, if he found them attractive at all, were things immaterial to someone like him. At least I hoped they were. Only I couldn’t fully trust that owing to my own trepidations and jealousy.

  Thom had left his office door open. Frances shook her head and seeing me, she came hurrying over.

  ‘Did you hear that awful woman, Alex?’

  I nodded.

  ‘I really don’t like her,’ she exhaled hotly. ‘I feel sorry for Thom having to deal with people like that.’

  ‘He seems to be okay with it.’

  ‘I think he has to put on a bit of a front with these people. I can’t imagine he could like her.’

  ‘Dan thinks he does like her,’ I muttered, my eyes falling to the floor. ‘So it’s a mystery.’

  ‘I disagree with him then. I think Thom’s just being nice.’

  A little too nice than is necessary, I thought.

  Silence ensued for an hour back at my desk. Nobody walked through the house. Outside I could see people ambling, coming and going, down paths, across the lawns. I watched them uninterestingly out the side window. I was bored – no, I was dispirited. Mrs Evans’s scolding earlier had thrown me into a mood of uselessness. Thom’s familiarity with his female friend added somewhat negatively to this.

  I must have drifted into daydreams. Memories of fun I’d had at the Cray years ago, when responsibility was something alien. – In my peripheral vision, I saw the smudge of a dark figure pass my desk and silently exit the house. Instinctively I leant towards the window and looked round to see who it was. I recognised a prominent belly and dull overcoat, which he was holding closed at the front, as if trying to conceal something. He turned down the path that ran round the house and walked awkwardly away. I didn’t like the idea that he’d been in the house without my knowledge. He truly gave me the creeps with his lurking in the gardens.

  I got up and leant out the door to see where he would go. He took his time, moving in that zombie fashion, turning the south side of the house, out of my view, in the direction of the Rose Garden. I remained in the doorway, watching people leaving the grounds. A family with small children. An old man with a walking stick. A cluster of teenage girls, five of them in all, staggering towards the gates. They were giggling and falling on to one another, clearly drunk. One of them swung a carrier bag around that appeared to hold a bottle of something. Probably whatever they couldn’t finish. I predicted what was going to happen just by the way she carelessly swerved the bag about. At that moment, it split and a glass bottle fell through, smashing on the concrete. What ever happened to drinking cheap cider from plastic bottles at that age? Clearly they were more sophisticated than I ever was. Faithful to my prediction the girls ran off laughing.

  Since small children were running all over the place, as if it was a playground and not a pathway to a busy car park, I went straight over to pick up the glass. In my own frustration, I made a grab for the carrier hastily, which concealed a fragment beneath. The devious shard pierced the palm of my left hand, deep enough to pin the bag to my skin. It hurt like hell and made me shriek. A few people looked up. The old man with walking cane came rushing over. Despite his limp, he got to me quickly. In this time I’d already yanked out the glass because it looked ridiculous. I immediately realised my mistake. It now oozed with blood and I had nothing to wrap it in.

  ‘Oh dear!’ he exclaimed on reaching me, pulling his white bushy eyebrows together. ‘That looks bad!’ He took a handkerchief from his pocket and kindly handed it to me. ‘It’s clean. Now let’s get you inside.’

  I gritted my teeth in agony as I wound the hankie round my palm. The metallic, full-bodied smell of blood entered my nasal passages and clung there.

  ‘The glass was better left in,’ he said, hobbling at my side. ‘It was corking the wound.
’

  I caught sight of Thom standing in the doorway ahead. He was looking straight at me disturbingly. Just the sight of his familiar face made me want to run into his arms. Tears had wet my cheek, but I was not embarrassed to wipe them away. Abruptly, Thom turned back inside the house without a word. Disappointment salted my wound at how he didn’t seem to care.

  ‘There’s a lady who works here who does first aid,’ said the old gentleman, who smelt of peppermint. ‘Let’s see if we can find her. Or maybe you need to go to hospital and have it stitched.’

  ‘No. I don’t like hospitals!’ I shook my head doggedly.

  We got inside and Frances came hurriedly round the corner.

  ‘This is the lady!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Oh, Alex! Are you alright?’ She came rushing over and took my hand in hers, keeping it wrapped in the blood-soaked hankie. ‘Better not let any more escape before we can have a better look. Come on. There’s a kit in the staffroom.’

  I thanked the old man, and apologised for his handkerchief.

  ‘Oh, I’ve plenty more of those!’ he said graciously, turning away with a smile. The sound of his cane striking the stone floor echoed until we reached the staffroom.

  Frances took me over to the sink and unravelled the reddened hankie.

  ‘Let me see,’ she said, while turning on the mixer tap. ‘I might have to tweeze out any debris. No – it looks worse than it is.’

  She held my hand under the water for a minute. Even though my blood was running down the plughole, it felt soothing under the water – until she took my hand away, then it stung. From the cupboard above our heads she took out a first aid kit.

  ‘Apply this pressure, Alex, and keep your hand up to stop the flow.’

  My blood finally began to coagulate. The cut actually measured about half an inch across at the centre of my palm.

  ‘It looks clean,’ she said, examining it, ‘and not as deep as I thought, but it would be better to have it stitched. It reduces the risk of infection.’

  I shook my head. ‘I’ll take my chances. I’m not having my skin sewn up. The idea of someone darning flesh with a needle makes me feel sick. It will heal by itself under a bandage.’

  From the kit she took a bottle of ethanol and sterile wipe, warning me that this would sting ‘a little’ before dabbing my cut with the brutal stuff. I ground my teeth.

  ‘Just to be safe, have you had a tetanus shot in the past three years?’

  ‘Yes,’ I lied.

  ‘I can butterfly-stitch this, bandage it, and give you some painkillers.’

  I tried to think of something else while she pulled the flesh closed and began stretching the adhesive stitches across my cut.

  ‘I can’t believe Thom!’ I exclaimed, before I realised I’d said it aloud.

  She looked up at me puzzled.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I hesitated. ‘I just saw him walk off, that’s all. He didn’t even ask if I was okay.’

  ‘Well, he probably didn’t want to waste any time. He came rushing into the De Morgan Gallery saying you’d “Impaled yourself on some sharp object” and needed me that moment!’

  ‘Oh.’ Oops.

  ‘He was rather insistent in hurrying me,’ she went on, while bandaging my hand. ‘If he hadn’t then answered my questions, which revealed it to be more like a cut, I would have thought you’d severed your arm or something very serious. There – all done!’

  ‘Thank you.’

  I assumed Frances was exaggerating his insistence a little, since he still hadn’t come into the staffroom to see how I was. She then explained that he was not in the best of moods at present.

  ‘He’s just this minute discovered an artefact missing from one of the displays,’ she exhaled. ‘A scythe from a farming collection. It must have gone missing today, because I saw it in the West Gallery just yesterday fixed to the wall. I can’t believe that someone was able to get it down from up there and walk out with it! Thom said it could be classed as a dangerous weapon, which I think bothered him more than anything. He has to report it missing to the police, notify the owner of the collection whom he loaned it from, speak to insurance people, and goodness knows what else. He’s not happy.’

  This put me in my place, well, at first. I knew that Thom’s world didn’t revolve around me, but affirmation of my initial feelings took shape when I didn’t see him for the rest of the day. Nor did I see him on my next shift. It almost felt like he was avoiding me, though I never saw him to confirm it. It was just the feeling I had.

  Fourteen

  STIGMATA

  ‘For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls.’

  – Leviticus 17:11

  I brought Thom’s shirt back almost a week later. For the time being, I left it with my things in the staffroom until I knew he was around. I’d made a concerted effort to be early, to avoid another telling off. Since I had ten minutes before my afternoon shift, I went wandering through the Great Hall and into the old Tudor kitchen beyond. New exhibitions were open in there, including a Lepidoptera Collection, which caught my attention first. The display case rested against the west wall, housing fewer butterflies under the glass than I expected. I would have preferred to see these creatures alive and in the gardens.

  ‘Have you been skipping your medication again?’ Thom startled me from the back of the room. I hadn’t seen him in here. He approached wearing a blue and grey casual shirt; the light cotton fabric flattered his muscular torso. It allowed me a glimpse of chest hair where his top button was open. His eyes were soft, rueful and matched his tone. ‘How’s the hand?’

  ‘It couldn’t be better,’ I rapped out, instinctively touching my bandage. It still upset me that he hadn’t asked before. Really, I should have been thanking him for finding Frances. But it was too late. I’d started him off.

  He glowered at me. ‘You should take more care–’

  ‘You’re absolutely right!’ I smiled in tone with my sarcasm. ‘It was very silly of me to go wrestling glass with my naked hands.’

  ‘Right, that’s it! Where’re your pills?’ he jeered, still moving towards me. ‘Come on, Alex, don’t start!’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

  ‘Honestly.’

  ‘I’m just surprised.’

  ‘At?’

  ‘You.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You seem to enjoy being some kind of rescuer.’ – He rolled his eyes to this. – ‘But I guess since the damage was done you couldn’t attempt a rescue, so why stick around to see if I was okay?’

  ‘What a walking contradiction you are! I interfere and you scold me. I don’t interfere and you scold me. Is there any way in which I can win? But I’ll admit, I made a small blunder at fishing you out of the river, for even thinking you needed any help’ – he cocked an eyebrow – ‘and what’s more I’ll apologise for it –.’

  As he talked, I automatically checked my bandage. I pulled it back slightly, revealing a faint bloodstain on the underside, and my healing cut at the centre of my palm. He groaned an odd sound. I looked up to find his eyes had widened in watching me: the pupils shrank to points! For the first time I saw them move! They revealed a black and grey marble-like mixture, swirling in the irises.

  ‘Don’t do that!’ He grimaced, edging back.

  ‘What’s the matter? It’s only a bit of dried blood! Perhaps I’ve smelled out a weakness in you after all. You haven’t the stomach for a little blood?’

  ‘No, believe me, it’s not that. You’ll catch an infection if you keep interrupting its repair.’

  ‘Sure!’ I humoured him.

  ‘In any case it makes no difference whether I’m sensitive to the sight of ghastly wounds or not.’ He brightened up. ‘I’ll wager you’re not mad enough – though clearly non compos mentis to some extent – or intent enough on aggravating me, that you’ll go about impaling yourself just to get on my nerves. Or perhaps you
are! You’re determined to make me suffer.’

  A handful of comebacks tickled my throat but I couldn’t allow myself the pleasure. I merely grinned having triumphed already at discovering such a weakness in him.

  ‘Hmm.’ He folded his arms; his searching eyes having now returned to their usual immovable size. ‘Now, are you or are you not going to respond to my question in a serious manner?’

  ‘What question was that?’

  ‘Have mercy! You’re enough to conquer the patience of the Devil. – The question before you turned every answer into another question. I asked in all sincerity, how is your hand? Your replies have been nothing but sarcastic,’ said the king of sarcasm.

  ‘It stings. But it’s not bleeding any longer, so you can relax. I don’t know how long I can go without picking at it though, just to get on your nerves.’

  ‘Well mind you don’t. You’ll leave a scar.’

  At that point my breath caught in my throat, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. He’d taken my wounded hand suddenly and very gently in both of his. Notwithstanding half-drowning me in the river, it was the first time he really touched me. His skin was soft and cool.

  ‘What slender fingers you have, Alex.’

  I exhaled stiffly and found my eyes growing heavy as he examined my hand intimately. His black eyes flicked up to meet mine and he released my hand as quickly, and as gently, as he had engaged it.

  ‘I think,’ I began, forgetting then what I was going to say for a second – it had taken me by surprise. ‘I think it’ll scar anyway.’

  ‘Scar? No! Having seen it I can assure you that this type of wound will never close, but continue to bleed occasionally and unavoidably.’ He nodded towards my hand. ‘The location of your little injury is very telling and too apt,’ he said with some enjoyment. ‘You’re a stigmatic.’

  ‘Stigmatic?’ I laughed. ‘As in the wounds of Jesus? Wasn’t Christ nailed to the cross by the wrists? Not through the palms, because that wouldn’t support the weight of a body.’