Illuminations. A clear glass, standing on a red-gold velvet tablecloth. At first he thought it was a remembered detail from an old picture, a Chardin? No, more modern. Eventually he realised the painter was himself. The glass was Ax, and the velvet was Fiorinda. But where am I? He was worried, he was afraid he had disappeared from the relationship, something he was always afraid of, because they are locked in process, I am just their catalyst, the medium; whatever. Then he knew: I am the picture, of course. The picture of the world that the mind makes is the I that sees the picture, it’s a paradox.
He began to code himself.
SEVEN
The Walls
On the first night they were alone something unprecedented happened. It was about an hour after they’d been escorted back from Rick’s Place. They were were in the wired, after-the-show mood, cruelly compounded by Sage’s absence, but no motormouth jabber tonight. Ax was building card houses, Fiorinda was pretending to read, but turning few pages. The bell that summoned them to the Moon and Stars receiving room rang. They stared at the row of antique chimes above the door of the red chamber… Ax moved first. He went to her, took her hands and kissed them.
‘I’ll get it. Stay here.’
He went through the suite preparing himself, a reflex long established. Allah Akbar, be ready to die, do it well, be glad it will be beside her.
God is good.
The Moon and Stars room was empty, likewise the antechamber with its doors to the outside world. Someone knocked, a discreet, respectful tap, and he felt a change, a shift deep in the murky entrails of this impossible situation. A manservant in black and white stood in the lamp lit corridor, pair of guards behind him with parade ground faces. He proffered a silver tray, in white gloved hands. On the tray lay a mobile phone of venerable design.
‘A call for you, Sir.’
‘Is that you, Ax?’
Ax stepped back into the antechamber and closed the door. ‘Who’s this?’ He knew he should know the voice, but he didn’t.
‘It’s Joss, Joss Pender. Listen, Sage has gone missing.’
‘What—?’
‘I can talk a little, not much. He was supposed to meet me at a restaurant, he didn’t turn up. He reached London. He was with Allie at the Insanitude, then we know he went to Battersea, probably on foot. He went out with Cack Stannen, George and Bill were at the Party in the Park. Then we lose him. They found Cack about ten, wandering around Clapham Junction. George and Bill are talking to him, but it’s difficult to question Peter. Sage didn’t have a phone, no chance of a trace. There may have been some ex-barmies at the Warehouse, earlier today. They may have been offering some kind of information.’
‘Have you? I mean, who else knows about this?’
‘Yes,’ said Joss, dryly. ‘We’ve informed the police. No news yet.’
‘Joss,’ said Ax, thunder in his head, a fury of helplessness. ‘Be careful.’
‘I’ll be careful. I’ll find him, Ax, don’t worry. I have my resources.’ The older man’s voice sounded calm, resolute, fatherly. ‘May I speak to Fiorinda?’
Ax sprinted to the red room, but before he got there the phone was dead.
Greg Mursal never stayed at Wallingham, so far as they were aware. He came down for meetings, and went away again. Lady Anne, the governor of this royal prison, was punctilious in her respects. They did not hear her comings or goings, buried alive as they were, but she would send messages to the Moon and Stars suite: announcing her movements. The next morning a handwritten note arrived, presented on a silver salver. It said she would be remaining at Wallingham, at their disposal, ‘during this distressing time’. A gracious turn of phrase. They wrote back, asking to be informed of any news at once: and prayed for another phonecall from Joss. It didn’t come.
They hoped for something from “Rick’s Place”, but Bill and George didn’t turn up, and the Scots were still in England, but not scheduled to return to Wallingham this week. The punters knew that Sage was out. He had ‘business in town’ (euphemism: everyone knew the real situation, of course). But they worked the crowd, brought up against the fact that they had no friends here, without detecting the slightest rumour that he’d vanished; or that he’d broken his parole. They told themselves that if the disappearence was being kept quiet, that meant it was all right. The enemy had decided that the lawyer-meetings couldn’t happen after all: but Sage was okay and coming back. He should have returned on Sunday morning. He didn’t, and Lady Anne regretted to inform them that there was no news.
The royal prisoners sat at either end of the dining table, a manservant behind Mr Preston’s chair, a womanservant behind Miss Slater’s. Mr Pender’s place was not laid. Courses were presented, in elaborate sequence: an entrée of cold cuts, as it was a Sunday. An asparagus soup, a superb round of beef, with several dishes of plainly cooked vegetables. Traditional English cooking was the rule… They were living dolls in a doll’s house, the Wallingham servants callous children, who insisted on keeping up the dreadful game. Fiorinda barely ate at these meals, she had lost too much weight in two months, it scared Ax. But she did not look weak on it. She looked electric, her pale skin burning from the inside: she was live wire.
‘I found out something about the ghost,’ she announced, signalling for her beef to be removed untouched. ‘The ghost in our red room? It was in a memoir in our library.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘There was a young woman who lived here in the nineteen fifties. She was playing with an ouija board, although she’d been warned not to, and she conjured up something that evil that withered her soul. So then she died and she’s been trapped in that room ever since, getting more and more crazy.’
‘Rough.’
The staff who worked inside the Moon and Stars suite were carefully chosen. Their loyalty was to Lady Anne, Wallingham, and possibly the Prime Minister. If they’d been given their choice of dolls they’d have preferred Jordan and Milly Preston: such a handsome, docile couple. They considered Ax tainted, and Fiorinda ungrateful, cold, and too intelligent: which isn’t what people want in their royals. But they believed in the ghost, and they didn’t like it. They’d been overheard telling each other that the red chamber had always been haunted, by the legendary Black Shape, and you mustn’t let it touch you… Ax saw the eyes shifting, felt the frisson passing him, and grinned malignly. Stick it to them, Fio.
‘D’you think we should change bedrooms?’
Fiorinda shrugged.
‘You don’t think it will harm us?’
She raised her hollow grey eyes, and smiled like ice at the girl presenting another dish. ‘No, thank you… Not us, we’re untouchable. Think who we are. Other people, yes. It might well.’
A card game, on Monday night. Ax and Fiorinda crosslegged on the floor of the red chamber, two lonely royal children locked up and forgotten in the haunted room.
‘D’you remember the Armada Concert?’
‘What about it?’
‘The end of the Rock the Boat tour. We were doing the gig in a derelict kiddies’ theme park in Cleethorpes… Are sevens transparent?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Then you’re picking up again, sorry.’
‘Fuck.’ Ax arranged a massive influx of pasteboard. ‘These cards are getting old… Pleasure Island, yeah, I remember. Horrible dangerous dump.’
‘Oh? I liked it. It was so odd, colourful and dreamlike, and the rides the hippies got working were insane. Tom had just been killed, but that’s not what I’m remembering. I’m remembering a moment when I met you, on a falling-apart theme-park “Mediaeval” street. I had armed guards round me, for the first time. Just like a big celebrity eh? But it wasn’t like that.’
‘No,’ said Ax, ‘Your turn, babe… It was more serious.’
Fiorinda picked up. ‘You had the armed guards too, but you, you fucking looked armed yourself, although you weren’t. Hahaha, but I can put them all straight down again, sorry. Anyone could see you had killed people, well, of co
urse, everyone knew you had, up in Yorkshire.’
‘Thanks. I love it when people look at me and see a killer. I looked at you, you looked at me, an’ the backstage crowd looked at us. Yeah, I know the moment you mean.’
‘That’s when we saw that this would happen,’ said Fiorinda.
A hush of awe, that closes like a fist over the young man of twenty-eight and the eighteen year old girl, in the nervous hour before they face a dangerous crowd. Any one of those big, violent concerts in Boat People summer could have been the same. When a nation was tearing itself apart, they had chosen not to be celebrity-cattle. They had chosen to make a stand, to hold things together, to protect the poor. They had known, as early as Boat People Summer, that in the end their choice would bring them somewhere like here. To this dank room, the smell of dust, the deathly silence. You can’t call those moments of realisation ‘seeing the future’, it’s not the future.
When we were there, we were here.
Fiorinda uncovered her three concealed cards for the end game. Ax sighed, he was losing badly. ‘Sage wasn’t with us, was he?’
‘No, he came and found us later, in the storm shelter.’
‘Oh yeah, I remember.’ He looked up from his sorry hand, and smiled at her. ‘You know, I know there was a time when we were together and he wasn’t our lover. He was your big brother, best friend, and—’
‘Your best mate, who used to be your big NME feud enemy.’
‘Not enemy, Fiorinda—’
‘Hohoho. You just hated his-a steenking crowd-pulling guts.’
‘Anyway, I was saying… I can’t remember it. Literally. I think of us, Sage is there. If I think of us in the past, he must have been there. In bed, whatever, and if he wasn’t, he must have just popped out for—’
Fiorinda put down her cards, face up. ‘I’ve won, let’s stop. Please.’
They held each other’s hands: desolate and terrified, crouched on the dusty golden briars, in a slew of worn, greasy playing cards.
Suffering in public is a hell only for pride. Celebrity cattle are humble creatures, who will scream and flail for the cameras, and feel no pain. Ax watched Fiorinda’s contained agony for as long as he could bear it; which wasn’t long. On Tuesday he requested an interview with Lady Anne, a request which was granted immediately. A startling change. He was escorted (it was strange to see new parts of the house, to have glimpses of the outdoors through unshuttered windows), to a fine set of rooms, though not one of the great showcase suites; with leaded windows over the south lawns.
The old lady had favoured alpha female business suits whenever he’d met her before. In her private study she wore a floor-length gown in pillar box red, with blue slashed sleeves, her meagre hair covered by a close fitting red cap. She was standing when Ax walked in, gnarled hands clasped over a big chatelaine of decorative keys. He thought of Rox, grown old and shrunken: but Lady Anne was not beyond gender. Somehow made sure you knew she was female. She curtsied, and then remained standing when Ax sat down.
‘Please.’ He released her with a gesture, thinking of the Mediaevalists in Paris, the fatal conviction you get that these people are so far out they’re laughable. Oh no, they’re crazy as bedbugs, but they’re sharp enough.
She was a parched little mummy inside the lobster carapace: he could have broken her in half. But that’s the werewolf talking.
Lady Anne took a chair. There were no attendants in sight, he’d asked for a private interview and this seemed to have been respected. She embarked on a speech of greeting, before he could forestall her. He sat it out politely and asked if she had any news. A wary look flickered over her face and was gone: no, there was no news. As soon as there was anything to report she would relay it without delay.
‘Bill Trevor and George Merrick didn’t turn up at the Drawing Room for the show,’ said Ax. ‘It was from Battersea Reach that he disappeared. I’d like to speak to them. Could you get hold of them for me?’
Lady Anne looked as vague as was possible for the tough old bitch. ‘I believe it’s been decided that Mr Trevor and Mr Merrick should not visit or communicate with Wallingham, for the moment. For security reasons.’
‘I see.’
Oh, fuck. What’s happened to the Heads?
‘We don’t know why Mr Pender disappeared, and that makes, well—’
The vague smile and the wary eyes. He realised that she was afraid he knew the truth, by telepathy. Wolfman here could be playing games with her, knowing all along just what was happening to his boyfriend. I did not know for sure, thought Ax. Not absolutely sure. But I do now. I know enough, God help me. He stood up, went to the windows and looked out over the drowsy gardens, the tank trap; the tree-dotted park.
Allah Akbar.
‘These “expiatory rites”, that were mentioned at the beginning of our stay here? I’d like to know more about that.’
He knew the painless lethal injection wouldn’t be enough. If the king’s going to die you want some TA-DA!, about it. Some wicked fancywork. But he could taste the fanaticism in this woman., and she wasn’t alone. If he offered his royal self, in trade for a dirty lab-science superweapon (who was refusing to co-operate, obviously), he knew where Lady Anne’s vote would be. He could divide the bastards, at least. What will they do to me?
Late summer sunshine on the lime trees by the croquet lawn, and a shocked silence behind him.
‘Your Majesty.’
Ax turned, feeling that his face was a mask and he was looking through the eyeholes. Lady Anne was on her feet, totally disconcerted. Were those tears, brimming in her sunken old eyes?
‘Your Majesty. In…in advance of the formal announcement, which Lord Mursal plans to make very soon… I must tell you that by many signs, we are now blessedly sure that there was not the slightest hint of lycanthropy. I am preparing new arrangements for Your Majesty’s accommodation, very gladly. Whatever happened—we may never know—no blame attaches to Your Majesty! The blow, if there was a blow, was a king’s perquisite, your outrage was just, Lord Vries will beg your forgiveness for the—’
Ax was bathed in a craven wash of relief: this animal does not want to die in extended agony. But now he had nothing to trade. All he could do was stare her down, trying to figure out the new position.
‘Lord Vries is alive! I’m glad to hear it. Where is he?’
‘Lord Vries has recovered sufficiently to return to his duties. He is hesitant, perhaps unduly hesitant, to seek an audience with Your Majesty.’
Lady Anne drew a breath, having revealed this whacking faultline. Her old face glowed. ‘But soon all will be well. The Lord and Lady will rule, from Wallingham, under my watch and ward. Mr Pender will serve his country in his own way. All will be well in England, all manner of thing will be well.’
She went down again, foundering in her heavy skirts like a ship hitting rock, into a deep reverence, her old back ramrod straight, her eyes filled with misty exaltation. Yep: tears. Tears of actual joy, he thought. His skin crept.
‘Well, this is a great day,’ he said, coolly, when he thought the pause was long enough (fucking hope that stunt murders her sciatica). ‘I hope the salving of my reputation is a good omen, and that we’ll be hearing from Mr Pender soon. I’d like to call Joss, and give him the good news, could you arrange that? You know, our lack of private telecoms is a problem.’
Lady Anne rose up, unembarrassed. ‘Any news will be relayed to Your Majesty at once.’ She didn’t seem to have heard the part about private telecoms.
In the red room Fiorinda was working at her embroidery. She’d requested the materials some time ago, to make a change from reading. It frightened him to see her like that. He was responsible, he had thrown her back into a world of chattel gentlewomen, stitching pretty flowers because they weren’t allowed to do anything else. But she was a long way from using handicrafts as satire now. You have to do something: preferably something painstaking, that helps you to give nothing away.
‘What did Lady Anne s
ay?’
He had been on the brink of horrors, and felt immeasurably shaken. ‘I’m not sure… I mean, I know what she said, but I don’t know how much I’m reading into it. But I think Sage is okay. I feel as if I have reason to hope.’
Fiorinda paid attention to her satin stitch, frowning a little.
‘In words?’
‘As soon as she has news, we will have it. Bill and George won’t be coming to the club for the moment, for security reasons… And I’m not a werewolf any more. Not suspected of being a werewolf, I mean. I’ve been cleared, don’t ask me how. Lady Anne was about to inform us, my request for an interview forestalled her.’
It was a turning point in their affairs. Lady Anne came to visit them, with ceremony. She repeated the joyful tidings, and when asked about Sage spoke in veiled terms about matters, which would soon be resolved. They were presented (another of those silver trays, offered by Lady Anne’s favourite senior womanservant) with the internal keys of the fortress.
The keys were meaningless. They unlocked the outer door to the Moon and Stars suite, which was always guarded, and bolted and barred on the outside every night—and some public rooms that were never locked anyway. The freedom to roam was genuine. They were escorted into the gardens: by guards who saluted them with reverence. They felt the sun, they saw daylight and growing things, they breathed fresh air. When they returned indoors, they were taken to a drawing room, on the same floor as the Moon and Stars but in a different world—where tea was served by servants who were nothing like the screws in their prison. Later, they were escorted back to rooms that had been scrubbed and burnished, worn bedlinen and towels replaced by far superior articles; the rich colours of the hangings and carpets glowing, the air scented with bergamot and vanilla. Around midnight the antique mobile phone was brought for Ax, same routine as before.
Ax thought it would be Joss, and it still might be bad news.
‘Hi, Ax.’
‘Sage!’
Band of Gypsys Page 23