Requiem

by Clare Francis

  ‘John, I think you’d better stop – ’

  ‘The only reason I kept quiet about this, the only reason I tagged along’ – he paused for an instant, aware that his voice had risen unpleasantly, like a fractious child’s – ‘was because I thought we were going to get some independent data at the end of it. I mean, some data that meant something. And all the time – hell …’ His throat was tight, for a moment he couldn’t speak. ‘All the time … it meant nothing. I mean, if TroChem could make it come right once, they could make it come right again, couldn’t they? Wouldn’t you say? Christ, Don, don’t tell me you hadn’t thought about it. Don’t tell me it hadn’t occurred to you …’

  He trailed off. There was a silence. Dublensky squeezed his temples in an agony of anger and self-reproach: he’d gone much farther than he’d intended to. Now Reedy would be able to guess the rest; what Dublensky knew about the original trial data – or what he thought he knew. Until half an hour ago he might have been prepared to concede that his suspicions were wildly out of court, that he might possibly be mistaken, but this news had crushed what remained of his fragile faith.

  When Reedy finally replied his tone was placatory. ‘Now listen, John, you’re a fine person. You care, and that’s a valuable commodity nowadays. But you must keep a sense of proportion. I don’t know where you get these crazy ideas from, but there’s no truth in them, none at all. You’re building mountains out of molehills, and it isn’t going to do you any good. I’m saying this because I like you, John, and I don’t want to see you end up in trouble.’

  ‘Trouble? Is that where I’m headed, Don?’

  A sigh. ‘Frankly, yes.’

  ‘I see.’ Dublensky screwed up his face into a fierce grimace. ‘I see.’ He was overcome by moral outrage; his voice wavered, heat pricked at his eyes. ‘So what you’re saying, Don, is that I’m going to be in trouble for uncovering the truth. Is that right?’

  ‘The truth as you see it, John. As you see it. Though why you see it that way, I really don’t know.’

  Dublensky asked pointedly: ‘And what about the plant, Don? What’s happened there?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The Aurora plant, Don. You keep telling me safety has been improved, you keep telling me about all these wonderful changes, but what’s actually been done, Don? I mean really done?’

  ‘Plenty. Plenty’s been done.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Listen, I’m not on the safety executive at Aurora. I don’t know the details. But when the people there tell me that the procedures have been tightened up, I believe them because I trust them. Trust, John. Maybe you’ve heard of it? I have to say I think you’re running a bit low on that just now.’

  ‘Yeah. I think you’re right, Don,’ he said with elaborate irony. ‘I think you’re right. Very low. The thing is, Don, what really takes my breath away is how you can let this just happen. How you can let it all pass you by and not stand up and do something. I mean – I simply don’t know.’ Without waiting for an answer, Dublensky put the phone down with a bang and thrust his head into his hands. Disbelief, anger and sadness roared through him in quick succession.

  He looked up, his eyes turning instinctively towards the window and the light. The spring sunshine was illuminating the long roofs and tall chimneys of the works with brilliant radiance. Amazingly, it was the same wonderful day that it had been a few moments ago.

  He thought of Tad and Anne and their settled lives; he thought of his own simple requirements for happiness. One wouldn’t have thought it was too much to ask, a little simple happiness, but it seemed no sooner grasped than lost again.

  When he got home, he would go to his desk and take out the file he kept there and study it again. He clung to the idea that this might help him towards the right decision, that somehow the figures would take on a new light. But he knew that this was too much to hope for. The figures would be just the same as before.

  He would have to do something. But what? All the possibilities terrified him. He was no coward, but he was no hero either.

  Anne would know what to do. Well, he hoped so.

  Suddenly the end of the day seemed a long way away; all he could think about was getting home. Bracing himself to look his secretary in the eye while he told her an outright lie, he said he was feeling unwell, and, turning down the offer of a ride home, bicycled off into the sunshine.

  At four that afternoon his secretary took an internal call from the office of the chief executive of the Allentown Chemical Company requiring Dublensky’s presence, and had to inform them that he was away, unwell. That didn’t stop the chief executive from calling Dublensky at home and asking him to come back in. The chief executive, a great one for doing things by the book, took pride in doing his firing humanely, face to face.

  Chapter 12

  AS ALWAYS, THERE was something to be salvaged, the essence of the theme, some of the harmony, the best of the words. Nick worked all morning, smoking incessantly, phoning through to Mrs Alton for periodic cups of coffee. When he took a break, it was only to walk around the studio, to leaf through a book or read yesterday’s paper. He didn’t go out. There was a gale raging. For a time he stood at the window watching the trees pulling and straining under the force of the wind. The wind was not southwesterly, as was usual, but easterly, the one direction to which Ashard’s park, even the glen itself, lay open, a wind that, if it continued for any length of time, was likely to bring down some of the more fragile and precious trees.

  By early afternoon he was finally getting somewhere. He’d abandoned whole sections of the words and replaced them with new stuff which was much simpler, less impossibly pretentious. Now the theme, such as it was, seemed to fit.

  At some point Alusha stole in, so ghostlike in her approach that he didn’t hear her until she touched his shoulder. She announced that she was going for a walk.

  ‘Very windy,’ he said, scribbling down a word before he forgot it.

  ‘But I like the wind,’ she said in a curiously flat voice that was devoid of enthusiasm.

  ‘It’s easterly. Absolutely freezing.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  There was no answer to that. Perhaps a short walk round the rose garden would after all do some good. Walking was the one activity that, against all the odds, she had managed to keep up through the long winter months and which, even on her worst days when the effort of walking almost killed her, seemed to cheer her up.

  He turned, intending to give her a brief kiss and return to his work, but there was something about the sight of her that made him pause. The skin of her thin face, already translucent, was tinged with grey, and her eyes, which were remote and unfocused, wore a dull absorbed expression, as if her mind was roaming over quite another planet.

  After a moment her attention came back from wherever it had been and she put on a vague smile.

  He stood up and put his arms around her. ‘Love you,’ he said. ‘Love you,’ she echoed. The smile was there, but he noticed she was smiling with her mouth, not her eyes.

  ‘Crazy to go out,’ he said. ‘You’ll get blown down the loch.’ And he wasn’t entirely joking; her balance was far from good.

  ‘I’ll be all right.’ There was a stubborn note in her voice which he recognized only too well.

  Releasing her, he said: ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No. I love the wind.’ Her voice was at once sharp and unsteady. ‘I love it. I want to go on my own.’ Two livid spots of colour appeared high on her cheeks, and her eyes were suddenly bright and luminous, gleaming with a strange excitement. This change was so abrupt and so untypical of her that he stared into her face, puzzled and curious, but also alarmed. Her eyes glistened so brilliantly that for an instant he thought he had misread her mood and that she was for some reason close to tears. Then he suddenly knew what it was, and knowing, couldn’t think why he hadn’t guessed before. She was spaced out. Dosed up. High. The realization, like so many in the
last few months, made him die a little inside.

  He knew then that the pain must be very bad.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ he repeated quietly.

  ‘No!’ She was getting cross.

  ‘But I want to.’

  ‘No! I’m going on my own!’

  Maybe it was the strange almost unrecognizable expression on her face, maybe it was simply that the winter had been far far too long, but something closed his emotions down tight as a drum. He knew he should argue, he knew he should prevent her from going out in this weather, but having finally broken through his creative block after so long he was loath to deflect his emotional energy from his work.

  She knew she had won. She stood staring up at him for a moment, looking fierce and implacable and oddly emotional all at the same time. Then, pushing herself up on her toes, she gave him a last kiss, a peremptory brush on the cheek, and, turning quickly away, was gone.

  He couldn’t work after that, of course. Five minutes later he gave up trying and went out into the gale, intending to catch up with her. But though he walked quickly through the rose garden and round the edge of the lawns, there was no sign of her. Completing the circle, he made his way back through the kitchen garden, but she wasn’t there either, and he went into the house again, wavering between the urge to search for her and the knowledge that she would bitterly resent any such intrusion on her space.

  Leaving the studio door open, making a pretence of working, he kept an ear open for her return. Finally, just when he was getting prepared to risk her wrath by organizing some of the estate workers into a surreptitious search party, he heard the banging of a distant door and the murmur of female voices, and felt the tension drain out of him in a rush. He called, and echoing down the long passage came a distant response. By the time he got to the kitchen it was empty, but he saw Alusha’s distinctive red scarf thrown across a chair. He thought of going to find her, but knowing she’d probably gone upstairs for her afternoon nap, he decided not to disturb her and, caught up by his work, he went back to the studio, anxious to make up for lost time.

  It was two hours later and getting dark before he realized that the voices in the kitchen had been those of Helen and Mrs Alton, and that Alusha had never returned.

  He stopped and, gasping for breath, shouted her name, but his call, like all of the calls before it, was sucked away and lost by the wind. He shouted again, straining to be heard over the thrumming and thrashing of the trees, but it was useless, like shouting under water. He shone the torch full circle, then upwards. The forest was alive with movement, the topmost branches contorting wildly, the pines creaking and groaning in loud complaint.

  He pushed on fast, climbing steadily up the glen, his feet stumbling and jarring against the compacted earth and rock of the riverside path. He cast the torch-beam rhythmically from side to side, lighting the dead bracken and grasses and boulders on either side, and below, the fast rushing water. There was nothing to see. Just empty forest, and a ringing silence in his brain, and a deadness in his stomach.

  He imagined her lying off the path somewhere, cold and barely conscious. Would he hear her if she was calling? Would he spot her? The answer was no, and no again. He’d probably missed her already, probably passed just inches away from her. Despair pulled at him out of the darkness.

  With a conscious effort he tried to think logically and dispassionately, to imagine where she might have been making for, the route she would have taken. He realized that he wasn’t absolutely certain where she went on her more adventurous afternoon outings. On their morning stroll, which they always took together, they rarely went further than the garden because that was usually enough to tire her out until lunch time. It had never occurred to him that she might go further in the afternoons, although in the past few weeks she had mentioned the glen several times in a nostalgic, thoughtful way, as if something had happened to remind her of it. He had assumed it was the drive they’d taken up the track to the moorlands one brilliant day in early March, but maybe he was entirely wrong, maybe she’d come this way on her own. Maybe.

  And today – what had happened today? Had she meant to take a long walk? Or had she simply gone further than she intended, felt tired and stopped for a rest? Or suddenly felt too ill to drag herself home?

  He pressed on, the uncertainty and fear clutching at his heart.

  Above the low roar of the wind came the sound of thundering water. The fall below Macinley’s Rock.

  This was crazy – what was he doing here? She couldn’t have made it this far, even at her most determined. It was a long climb, even for a fit person: he was panting hard and, despite the cold, the sweat was damp on his back.

  He stopped, torn between the need to carry on and be certain of having covered all the ground, and the overpowering suspicion that he was wasting his time. He left the path, fought his way up the bank past rock and scrub and scrambled onto the main track. He forced himself to listen and heard nothing but the awful melancholy of the wind. Closing his ears, he turned quickly away, and realized that, for no reason that bore thinking about, he had decided to turn back.

  The realization brought a new gust of despair. It was so very cold. Even if she was wearing a thick jacket, she’d be almost frozen by now. The thought was like something driven against his heart, almost unendurable, and to suppress the agony, he began to shout her name again, forcing his voice over the rushing and roaring of the wind. His throat grew hoarse, his voice descended to a gasp. Momentarily defeated, he paused, shoulders hunched, and reached for his breath.

  Down the track in the distance, through the trees, a light glimmered and flickered, and intensified steadily, growing into the long yellow beams of headlights. Behind it came another car, and another. Duncan’s search party.

  The first vehicle ground to a halt in front of him, and several people got out.

  Duncan’s voice said: ‘We’ve a group searching the pastures, Mr Mackenzie. And another going east and south of the house. And a third starting up this way.’ He stepped in front of the lights, masking Nick from the glare. ‘What d’you think – shall we send a couple of men up the glen? Or just sweep down from here towards the house?’

  Nick leant against a tree, his legs unaccountably weak. ‘I don’t think she could have got this far.’

  ‘Right-ho.’ There was forced optimism in his voice. ‘We’ll get set then. The police should be here soon enough.’

  ‘The police? Why?’

  ‘No avoiding it. The village …’ Duncan indicated the men grouped around the cars. ‘Everyone’s here.’

  Of course. No secrets in the village. Nevertheless the thought of the whole thing becoming public, of all the attention made Nick squirm inwardly. Once the police came thundering up the glen, the press wouldn’t be far behind. Alusha would be furious.

  Duncan drew closer and said in an undertone: ‘The police were asking about kidnap. I said I didn’t think it was likely. Was that right?’

  Kidnap. Nick hadn’t even considered it. Christ. He wasn’t ready to make room for those sort of possibilities. ‘You did right,’ he said.

  The cars were being backed round, ready to head down the hill again; their lights cut an arc through the trees. Someone came out of darkness offering Nick a cup. A hot drink. Nick put it to his lips, scented coffee, and took a sip. It took him a moment to realize it was laced with whisky. He was gripped by an instantaneous and overwhelming urge to swallow it, along with the rest of the cup, a flask or two, and the contents of an entire distillery. Postponing the decision to swallow, he held the liquid in his mouth, moving it slowly over his tongue. It tasted fantastic. Memories flashed onto the screen of his mind, memories of liquid nights and technicolour days and wondrous oblivion.

  He let the liquid fall to the back of his throat. Just one taste would do him good.

  The next moment he gagged and spat the stuff onto the ground. It was several moments before he straightened up. A vast heat rushed over him, making the sweat run again
.

  A close thing. There’d been nothing that close since he’d left New York. What frightened him more than anything was how bloody marvellous it had tasted, and how deep his craving was, even after so many years.

  He chucked the rest of the coffee onto the ground and realized he’d spattered someone’s feet. He muttered an apology.

  ‘No matter,’ returned a voice. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt the man had been watching him for some time.

  People were moving about, sorting themselves into groups. There were twenty men, maybe more. Nick felt a sudden and savage impatience at the terrible slowness with which they moved. Finally, when Duncan had given a few last instructions, the groups began to start off.

  Duncan called Nick towards the nearest car. Duncan plucked something off the back seat and waved it in the air. ‘This should help!’ It was the image-intensifier which Nick had given him for poacher-catching.

  They drove slowly down the track, following the flickering pinpricks of torchlight that had fanned out through the forest.

  The next hours were both vivid and dreamlike. Sometimes Nick felt alive and sick with fear, at other times he felt oddly apathetic and detached, as if someone had put the whole thing on film and slowed the projector. For the most part he simply felt ill, his mouth dry, his stomach light and jittery.

  Halfway down the glen, they were met by a couple of police vehicles which disgorged men and dogs.

  At the edge of the woods where the track looped towards the house, people grouped together again, smoking and whispering quietly, waiting for fresh instructions. Messages from the house brought reports from the other search parties: nothing had been found. The police took the opportunity to put questions to Nick. Gathering around him, their voices deferential but firm, they asked if Alusha always went for walks and how long she generally stayed out and if there was any reason why she should have gone for a longer walk than usual. It occurred to Nick that they were looking for a motive for her to have kept walking – a marital row, an unhappy marriage, a lover waiting at the end of the drive. It was all so ridiculous he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He answered in monosyllables, if only to prevent himself from letting his rage show, and more than once they had to prompt him for a reply.