Ritual

by Graham Masterton

  He thought for a moment that he had screamed out loud, but the night seemed so silent and undisturbed, and Martin was still breathing steadily and peacefully, and he realized then that he must have screamed only in his dream. He checked his watch. A minute and a half had passed since the last time he had looked.

  He thought for a while about Martin’s face staring up at him out of the plate. Then he thought about the naked women in his dream restaurant. There was no question about it, his daytime problems were catching up with him while he slept. The problems of food, fatherhood, and sexual frustration. He lay there feeling very middle aged and inadequate and tired, for hour after hour. He didn’t know when he fell asleep; but shortly afterwards Martin opened his eyes and turned and looked at him, and then slid quietly out of bed and went to the window.

  Martin stood by the window for almost a half-hour, while the sky gradually grew paler over the treeline towards Black Rock and Thomaston. In the yard below him, the small hooded figure stood, equally silent, its cloak ruffled by the thin, early-morning wind, its eyes fixed steadily on Martin, waiting with a patience that had been shared by the diners in Charlie’s dream.

  5

  Walter Haxalt was smooth, patronizing, and impatient. He sat behind his leather-topped reproduction desk, his hands steepled, gently tapping his fingertips together as if he were counting the valuable seconds that Charlie was wasting, second by second, dollar by dollar.

  The morning sun struck through the window of his office and illuminated, as if it were a sign from God, a gold presentation clock that stood on the bookshelf just behind him. There was a motto engraved on the clock, ‘Time Driveth Onward Fast’. Strangely, Charlie could remember the verse from which that motto had been taken. It ended, ‘all things are taken from us, and become/Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past’.

  Walter Haxalt said, ‘I can’t help you, I’m afraid. My only contract with M. Musette is purely professional. He lives here and so he banks here, and that’s as far as it goes.’

  Charlie glanced towards the window. Martin was waiting for him outside, in the car. ‘I wasn’t asking for anything more than an introduction.’

  ‘Well, I wish I could help,’ said Walter Haxalt, making it quite plain by his disinterested tone of voice that he didn’t wish anything of the kind. ‘But I can’t abuse a customer’s personal relationship with the bank for any reason at all, even if that reason happened to be meaningful and advantageous.’

  ‘Have you ever eaten at Le Reposoir?’ asked Charlie.

  Walter Haxalt kept on tapping his fingers, but didn’t answer directly. ‘I guess you’ll be leaving us now,’ he said. ‘Travelling ever onward, in your search for culinary perfection.’

  Charlie stared at him. Walter Haxalt became suddenly self-conscious about the way that Charlie was looking at him, and shifted in his studded leather chair. ‘How did you find out what I do for a living?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘You told me,’ said Walter Haxalt, uncomfortably.

  ‘I never tell anybody.’

  ‘Well, to tell you the truth, I had Clive check it out for me. He ran your licence through the computer.’

  ‘Clive? That deputy who told me to move my car yesterday?’

  Walter Haxalt nodded. ‘This is a small town, it’s vulnerable. We always have to take certain elementary precautions when strangers come around.’

  ‘Did you take any elementary precautions when M. Musette set up shop?’

  Walter Haxalt said, ‘I can’t discuss M. Musette with you, Mr McLean. If you want to know anything at all about M. Musette, I suggest you ask him yourself.’

  Charlie eased himself out of his chair. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘What can I say but thanks for nothing?’

  Walter Haxalt focused on Charlie narrowly. ‘We do try to be friendly, here in Allen’s Corners. I want you to know that.’

  ‘I think I’ve been able to make my own assessment, thank you,’ Charlie replied.

  ‘In that case, I hope you won’t judge us too harshly.’

  Charlie opened the office door. ‘It’s not my job to judge you, Mr Haxalt. Only your hotel and refreshment facilities. Right now, I’d say that Allen’s Corners deserves the bent spoon award for service, the broken spring award for comfort, and the golden barbed wire award for hospitality.’

  Walter Haxalt stood up. ‘I hope you’re not going to try to publish anything like that. If you do, I’m going to have to speak to your employers.’

  Charlie said, ‘My employers take a very dim view of bribes and threats, Mr Haxalt. Come to mention it, so do I.’

  He walked out of the bank into the sharp fall sunshine. Martin was lounging back in the front seat of the car reading Power Man and Iron Fist. Charlie climbed in beside him and started the engine. ‘Glad to see you’re reading something improving.’

  Martin said, ‘Did he fix it up for you?’

  ‘No. It seems to me that Allen’s Corners is low on helpfulness, apart from being a poor place to get a good steak. I’m going to try the direct approach.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  Charlie steered away from the green and out toward the Quassapaug Road. ‘That means a direct frontal assault on Le Reposoir, with all guns blazing.’

  They drove for four or five minutes in silence. Then Martin said, ‘Dad?’

  ‘Uh-huh?’

  ‘We don’t have to do this, Dad. I mean, it isn’t totally necessary, is it?’

  Charlie glanced at him. ‘What do you mean, it isn’t totally necessary?’

  ‘I mean, if it’s private, nobody who reads MARIA is going to be able to eat there anyway.’

  Charlie nodded. ‘You’re right. You’re absolutely right. But the argument against that is that I want to eat there.’

  Martin said nothing more to dissuade him; but all the same Charlie began to feel that he was distinctly worried about their driving up to Le Reposoir and forcing their way into La Société Gastronomique without being invited. But the more reluctant Martin showed himself to be, the more determined Charlie became. Perhaps he was punishing Martin in a way, for lying to him last night. Perhaps he was just being stubborn and bloody-minded, like he always was.

  They drew up outside the entrance to Le Reposoir and, to Charlie’s surprise, the wrought iron gates were open. He hesitated for a moment, craning his head around to see if there were any security guards or parking valets around, but there was nobody there at all, neither to greet them nor to prevent them from driving inside. Charlie looked down the wide, shingled driveway, which curved in between two dense banks of maculata bushes. The house itself was out of sight, although Charlie thought he could glimpse rows of black chimneys through the bright yellow maculata leaves.

  ‘Well,’ he remarked. ‘Not so reclusive after all.’

  ‘We’re not going in?’ asked Martin.

  ‘The gates are open, why not?’

  ‘But it’s private!’

  ‘Since when have you been concerned about private?’

  ‘Dad, we can’t just drive straight in. You heard what that deputy said about trespassers.’

  ‘We’re not trespassers. We’re potential customers.’

  Charlie didn’t really feel quite so confident about venturing into the grounds of Le Reposoir, but he. was determined to show Martin that he was in complete control of everything he did, and that he was scared of nobody and nothing. If he backed out now, Martin would regard him for the rest of their vacation together as a flake and a wimp; and if that happened their relationship would be ruined for ever. He didn’t mind if Martin thought he was a flake; but he had to be a brave flake; like Murdoch in The A-Team.

  Charlie eased his foot off the brake and the Oldsmobile rolled forward between the gates and down the curving drive. The car windows were open, so that they could hear the heavy crunching of shingle beneath the tyres. The morning which had started sunny was now dull. The eastern sky behind them was as black as Bibles. They could hear ovenbirds and prothonotary warble
rs singing in the woods, but apart from that the air was curiously still, as if their intrusion into the grounds of Le Reposoir had been noticed by nature at large, and a general breath was being held until they were discovered.

  They turned a bend in the driveway and Martin unexpectedly covered his face with his hands.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Charlie asked him. ‘Martin? What’s wrong?’

  Martin turned his head away, and pushed at Charlie with his left hand, like a linebacker warding off a tackle. At the same time, the house in which Le Reposoir had been established rose up in front of them, sudden and dark and almost wickedly elaborate. It was built in the high Gothic style, the kind of house that Edward Gorey drew for The Dwindling Party or The West Wing, with spires and turrets and twisted columns, and a veil of long-dead wisteria over the porch. Charlie slowed the car as he passed between two old and stooping cedar trees, and drew up at last on a circular shingled turning space, with weeds growing up through the stones. He pushed on the parking brake and killed the engine, and then almost immediately he stepped out of the car and stood leaning on the open door, his eyes narrowed against the light wind, looking around like a man who has discovered an uncharted valley, or a garden which has been secretly neglected for fifty years.

  ‘Now this is what I call a restaurant,’ he said, although he was quite aware that Martin was making a determined effort not to listen to him. He stepped away from the car and walked a few yards out across the shingle, the soles of his brogues crunching in the fall silence. ‘What a locale! It merits one star for locale alone. Did you ever see a locale like this?’

  The house was enormous, yet for all its blackness and all of its size, it seemed to float suspended in the dark air, like a mirage, or a grotesquely over-decorated man of war. There was a central entrance, reached by wide stone steps, and flanked on either side by eight gothic pillars, each of them different in design with spirals and diamonds and hand-carved ropes. Between the pillars stood an arched mahogany door, with brass handles and engraved glass panels, all highly polished. On either side of the central entrance, the house stretched over 300 feet to the east and 300 feet to the west, with tier upon tier of glittering windows. A weather vane in the shape of a medieval dragon creaked and whirred to itself on the highest spire.

  There was an odd smell on the wind, like burning fennel.

  ‘You know something?’ said Charlie, leaning back into the open automobile, ‘I never even knew this place existed. Can you believe it? I’m supposed to be one of the top restaurant inspectors in the continental United States. I got an award, did I ever tell you that? So how did I get to miss a place like this?’

  ‘Dad,’ Martin begged him. His voice was odd and edgy. ‘I don’t want to stay here. I want to go on to Hartford.’

  Charlie had heard the tone in Martin’s voice but he feigned a brash, tourist enthusiasm.

  ‘You don’t want to see what goes on here? Look at this place? It’s probably unique. Some of the really old colonial houses were built on designs the Pilgrims brought over from England. I’ll bet you anything the place is haunted by Nathan Hale’s great-grandmother.’

  Martin begged, ‘Dad, please.’

  ‘What’s it to you?’ Charlie demanded. He felt a little cruel now; but he felt that Martin had been equally uncaring about him, refusing to talk about the small figure he had met in Mrs Kemp’s back yard, and refusing to tell the truth about the visiting card he claimed he had found.

  ‘Dad, I just don’t like it here. I want to go.’

  ‘Come on, Martin, there’s nothing to get worked up about. It’s a restaurant. And let me tell you something about people who run restaurants – even the worst of them have some sensitivity. You have to have some sensitivity, whether you’re running an à la carte or a greasy spoon. You’re dealing with people’s stomachs, and there isn’t anything more sensitive than that.’

  At that moment, quite unexpectedly, a deep, cultured voice said, ‘You’re right, my friend. The alimentary canal is the river of human life.’

  Charlie involuntarily jerked in surprise. He turned around to find a tall man standing only five or six feet away from him. The surprise was that the man could have approached so close without making any noise at all, especially over a shingled driveway. And the man wasn’t just tall; he was unnervingly tall, at least six feet three, and he had the predatory appearance of a well-groomed raven. His black hair was slashed straight back from his hairline. His forehead was narrow and white. Beneath two thinly curved eyebrows his eyes looked like two shining silver ball bearings, and were equally expressionless. His nose was thin and hooked, although there was an angular flare to his nostrils. He sported a thin, black, clipped moustache. By his clothes, Charlie could tell that he was a man of taste, and a European. He wore a dark blue pinstripe suit in the Armani style, although obviously more expensive than Armani, a pure silk paisley-patterned necktie, and gleaming handmade shoes.

  His most arresting characteristic, however, was not what he wore, but his bearing. Like the elaborate house behind him, he seemed almost to float a fraction of an inch above the ground. It was something that Charlie found impossible to analyse, and it was highly disturbing, as if the man were not quite real.

  The man held out his hand and Charlie shook it. The fingers were very cool and limp, like wilted celery.

  ‘That’s your son?’ he asked, nodding towards Martin.

  ‘Martin,’ said Charlie. ‘And you must be M. Musette.’

  ‘Well, well,’ the man smiled. ‘My reputation has reached even the ears of MARIA.’

  Charlie looked at him suspiciously. ‘You know who I am?’

  ‘I am in the gastronomic business, Mr McLean. It is my business to know who you are. Similarly, I know the inspectors from Michelin and Relais & Chateaux. Forewarned, you see, is forearmed.’

  ‘Haxalt told you,’ said Charlie.

  ‘You are being unfair on Mr Haxalt,’ M. Musette replied. ‘Mr Haxalt would never betray anybody’s trust. Even yours.’

  Charlie put his hands on his hips and surveyed the black Gothic building. ‘The main reason I came was to see whether your restaurant was worth putting into the guide.’

  ‘Le Reposoir?’ asked M. Musette, with obvious amusement. ‘I fear not, Mr McLean. This is hardly a roadside hamburger stand. It is a private dining association, open only to subscribing members. It would be very unfair to your readers if you were to suggest that they could obtain a casual meal here as they wandered through Connecticut looking at the autumn leaves. Or, selling their patent cleansers.’ That last remark was an undisguised dig at MARIA’s strong associations with travelling salesmen.

  ‘Men who sell patent cleansers provide an honest service,’ Charlie replied, more sharply than he had meant to. ‘Just like most restaurateurs.’

  ‘I’m afraid that does not include me,’ said M. Musette. ‘I am hardly what you could call a restaurateur. I am more of a social arbiter than a chef.’

  At that moment, the mahogany doors opened, their windows reflecting the dull silvery sky, and a young woman appeared, pale-faced, in a black ankle-length cape. M. Musette turned, and gave her a wave which meant that he wouldn’t be long, and that he would be with her in just a moment.

  ‘Madame Musette?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘It is probably time for you to leave,’ said M. Musette, affably but adamantly.

  ‘There isn’t any chance of eating here, then?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘I regret not. We are a very exclusive society, and I am afraid that the presence of a restaurant inspector would not be regarded by our membership with any particular warmth.’

  The young woman who had been standing on the steps came closer, stepping on to the shingle driveway and watching Charlie with solemnity. She was almost alarmingly beautiful, with a fine oval face coloured by only the slightest tinge of blusher, soulful blue eyes, and very short gamine-style hair, a blonde bleached even blonder. She remained completely covered by her cape, and Charlie
had the unsettling fantasy that, underneath it, she was naked, except for black silk stockings and stiletto shoes.

  ‘Aren’t you going to introduce us?’ asked Charlie.

  M. Musette looked at Charlie in a way which Charlie had never been looked at before. His eyes betrayed not malice but a total lack of interest in Charlie as a human being; as if he were nothing more than one of twenty thousand blurred faces in a baseball stadium crowd. ‘You should not come here again without a prior appointment,’ he said, and this time his tone was completely dismissive. ‘Although it might appear that you can drive into the grounds unobserved, we have very attentive security services.’

  Charlie looked around the grounds of Le Reposoir one last time, and then shrugged. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Have it your way. I must tell you, though, I could have done with a top quality French meal. This leg of the trip is always a desert, gastronomically speaking.’

  ‘I am sure you will be able to find somewhere to satisfy your appetite,’ said M. Musette. There was lightning flickering on the horizon, and a few heavy drops of rain fell on to the shingle and the roof of Charlie’s car. He waited for one moment more, and then climbed back into the driver’s seat, stretching over to fasten his seatbelt. M. Musette came up and closed the door for him.

  ‘I’m sorry for intruding,’ said Charlie, although he didn’t sound sorry and he didn’t particularly mean to.

  M. Musette said nothing, but took two or three theatrical steps back. Charlie slowly swung the car around in a wide circle, and headed back the way he had come. As he did so, he glanced in his rear-view mirror at the young woman who might have been Mme Musette. Now that the rain was falling more heavily, she reached with one hand out of the darkness of her cloak to tug a large hood over her head.

  The car was moving; the rear-view mirror was joggling; the morning was dark with thunder. All the same, Charlie was convinced that what he had seen was not an illusion, and he stared at Martin in amazement and perplexity, and slowed the car down for a moment. Then he turned around in his seat to stare at Mme Musette even harder.