by Prey (lit)
I opened the pedal-bin. Two eggshells, no more.
I looked in the sink. Two eggcups, one plate, one spoon. In the cupboard, the eggcups that I had given to Charity were tucked right at the backclean, shiny, cold and dry. Liz sat watching me with her hands in her lap. I stared back at her fiercely, but I saw nothing in her expression to suggest that she was deceiving me. She looked calm, sympathetic and patient. I closed the cupboard door with exaggerated care. Click.
"Something's going on here," I said.
"David . . . nothing's going on here. It's all inside your head."
"It can't be. I went there . . . I went to 1886, only this morning. I talked to young Mr Billings for nearly ten minutes. He was as close to me as you are. And look what Kezia Mason did to my face."
"You've scratched it, that's all."
I went to the small pine-framed mirror that was hanging up close to the kitchen door, and stared at myself in it. "Either I'm going mad, or else I'm being bamboozled."
"David, you're not going mad. You're suffering from stress, that's all. You've heard all about Brown Jenkin and Mr Billings and you've made up a kind of a story about them. It's like an escape. It's quite a common symptom of stress."
At that moment, the doorbell rang. "That must be Sergeant Miller," I said. "Now we'll see what kind of a story this is."
I went to the front door and opened it. But it wasn't D-s Miller. Standing in the sunlight, smiling benignly, was Dennis Pickering. Alive, unmarked, as real as I was. The sun shone in the fluffy hairs in his ears, and there were porridge-stains on his Thames-green cardigan.
"Oh, good morning, David?" he said, brightly. "I just came around to apologize for last night!"
I opened my mouth and closed it again. I felt as if I were running a high temperature, and I shuddered.
"The thing was, my ladies were making such a fuss about the church decorations that I couldn't get away. Thenby the time I'd finished my supperI was really too tired to go ghost-hunting. But I could come this evening, if you like."
I half-expected him to vanish in front of my eyes. But he kept on talking and smiling and he was real. I had seen him blinded. I had seen his belly opened up. I had seen it, for God's sake. I had waded into the sea, and pushed his floating body into the darkness. I had heard his ripped-open stomach cavity filling up with gurgling seawater. Yet here he was, smiling and chattering on the doorstep.
"I think you'll find that practically everything you've been experiencing here has been a natural phenomenon," he said. "Humans are such superstitious creatures, don't you think? We always prefer to believe the supernatural explanation, rather than the scientific. Yet, in their own way, scientific phenomena are equally wonderful. They are all God's works, aren't they?"
"Yes," I said. "I suppose they are."
"Well, then," he beamed, chafing his hands together. "I shan't keep you any longer. I'm sure you have an awful lot to do. Painting, decorating! Fortyfoot House could do with a facelift!"
He walked across to his Renault and climbed in. I saw him lean sideways as he searched in his pockets for his keys. Then, after a short while, he opened the door and climbed out again.
"Something wrong?" I asked him.
"Yes . . . I seem to have lost my car-keys."
I looked around the shingle driveway. "I can't see them anywhere. They can't be far, though. Perhaps you dropped them in the car."
He glanced quickly inside the car. "No . . . they don't seem to be there. Perhaps I'd better walk back to the vicarage and get my spare set."
I joined him beside the car. "They could have gone under the seat," I suggested. I opened the driver's door and peered under both of the front seats, but there was no sign of his keys anywhere.
"Well, not to worry," he said. "It won't take me long to walk back."
"I'd offer you a lift, but" I nodded my head toward my sledgehammered Audi, and he gave me a sympathetic shrug. I watched him walk up the driveway to the road, where he turned by the laurel hedge and waved goodbye.
It could have been a trick of the light: a mirage, caused by the warm summer air rising from the shingle. But I thought for the briefest fraction of a second that Dennis Pickering looked like somebody else altogethera smaller, darker, more hunched-up figure. But he vanished out of sight behind the hedge before I could be certain.
I jogged up the driveway to the road and looked up the road. He was still Dennis Pickeringthinning hair, gray flannel trousers, Thames-green cardigan. Yet he seemed to have walked an extraordinarily long way up the road in a very short timealmost as far as the shop.
Something was wrong. Something didn't fit. I couldn't believe that I was suffering from so much stress that our venture into the attic hadn't happened at allthat I had simply imagined it. Somebody was deceiving mewhether it was Liz or the thing that was supposed to be living inside Lizwhether it was young Mr Billings or Kezia Masonwhether it was Dennis Pickering or Brown Jenkin. Perhaps they were all deceiving me.
I went back to Dennis Pickering's car and had another look all around it and under the seats. If he had driven here this morning, parked his car in front of the house and walked straight to the front door, how could he possibly have lost his keys? I put my hand on the bonnet of the car to steady myself as I leaned over to look underneath itand although the metal was hot from standing out in the sun, there was no smell of hot engine.
I opened the bonnet and touched the cylinder head. It was completely cold. This car hadn't moved this morningit had been standing here ever since Dennis Pickering had brought it here last night.
Just then, Liz came to the front door. "Telephone," she called.
I took the call in the living-room. Outside, I could see Danny still dodging and weaving as he kicked the beach-ball around.
"It's Detective-sergeant Miller," said Detective-sergeant Miller. "I've just had a call from Mrs Pickering, the vicar's good lady."
"Don't tell me, he's turned up."
"That's right, how did you know?"
"He's been here, too. At least somebody that looked like him."
There was short pause. "I'm not quite sure that I catch your drift."
"Don't worry about it. The consensus of opinion around here seems to be that I'm going mad."
"Oh, I see."
"No, I don't really think that you do. I saw Dennis Pickering a few moments ago but I'm not convinced that it was Dennis Pickering."
"Why shouldn't it have been Dennis Pickering?"
"Because Dennis Pickering's missing."
"No, he's not. His wife's just called to say that he's home."
"Is she sure it's him?"
"Well, if his own wife can't identify him, I don't know who can."
"I'm worried about her," I said.
"Why's that, then?" asked D-s Miller.
"If he isn't Dennis Pickeringwhich I don't think he isthen he's something else."
Another short pause. A machine-gun clearing of the throat. "I suppose that does have a certain twisted logic, yes. But if he's something else, what is he?"
"I think he could be Brown Jenkin."
"You think he could be Brown Jenkin," D-s Miller repeated, in a flat voice. "You mean he's actually a giant rat, dressed up in a dog-collar?"
"You don't believe me."
"I didn't say I didn't believe you. I'd just like to know how Mrs Pickering could possibly mistake a rat for her husband. There are plenty of women who might mistake rats for their husbands, but not Mrs Pickering."
"You saw his car this morning, didn't you, outside Fortyfoot House?"
"Yes, I did."
"So he must have come here last night?"
"That would be the inference, yes. Unless somebody else had taken his car without his knowledge and parked it there."
"He didn't say anything about that. I mean, he didn't say 'oh, look, my car's here, I've been looking for it everywhere.' But he did say that he hadn't come last night."
"Why do you think he said that?"
"To make me believe that I'm suffering from delusions, that's why. But I'm not suffering from delusions because his engine was cold. That car hadn't moved since last night. So he must have come. What's more, he didn't even have the keys with him. He pretended he'd lost them. But how can you totally lose a set of keys across six yards of gravel?"
"This is all jolly interesting, Mr Williams, but it's not exactly cast-iron proof that the Reverend Pickering is a giant rat. Besideswhy should he make you want to believe that you're suffering from delusions?"
"It's not him who's doing it."
"Then who is?"
I suddenly realized how absurd and hysterical I sounded. I very much wanted D-s Miller to support and believe me. After all, now that Dennis Pickering was gone, he was the only authority-figure who gave any credence to the reality of Brown Jenkin. But I could hear by the tone of his voice that I was stretching his credulity miles too far. He was obviously beginning to think that I was suffering from delusionsand the trouble was, I was almost beginning to believe it myself.
Everything that had happened to me since I had first arrived at Fortyfoot House seemed no more real than a horror film that I might have watched on video.
D-s Miller said, "All right. Now that the Reverend Pickering has returned homeor, at least, now something that looks like the Reverend Pickering has returned homethere's no need for me to take up your floorboards any more. So we'll just call it a day, shall we?"
"I'm sorry," I said. I didn't really know if I was sorry or not. I put down the receiver and let out a long breath and stared at the crayon drawing that Danny had pinned up on the wall. Sweet Emmeline, with red ragged meat-worms in her hair, and the man in the chimney-hat. I felt as if I were very close to going mad.
I went through to the kitchen. Liz was peeling onions, and her eyes were wet with tears. I stood in the doorway and said, "What are you doing?"
She wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist, and smeared her mascara. "Making a chicken casserole. Why?"
"There's no point, not unless you're going to eat it all yourself. We're leaving. At least Danny and I are leaving."
"David . . ." she said. "The worst things that you can do is run away. If you run away, you'll never be able to face up to what it is that's causing you so much stress. You need to rest; and to talk it out. You need to think it through."
"Listen to the great amateur psychiatrist."
She put down her knife. "David, please . . . you've turned Fortyfoot House into a kind of allegory of your relationship with Janie. Can't you understand that? And when you saw Harry Martin die, and then you found Doris Kemble's body, you took that as evidence that all of your nightmares about Fortyfoot House were true.
"DavidI've been watching you. You've been acting so peculiar, and saying such peculiar things. I thought you'd get over it, but it just seems to be getting worse. If you leave here now, because of what's going on in your head, you'll only be making those nightmares all the more believable."
"Hm," I said, walking around the kitchen table. "Good theory. Nice try. But supposing I go and take a look in the attic, what then?"
She shrugged. "How should I know? You're the one who keeps going up in the attic."
I looked at my watch. "It should be nearly dawn now, in 1886."
"David," Liz appealed, "have you listened to what you're saying? It sounds so loony. Next thing you'll be telling me that you're Napoleon."
"I need proof, that's all," I told her. God, I hoped that I wasn't beginning to tremble. Danny's ball went flup-slap-flup against the kitchen wall, and a seagull let out a long succession of babylike cries as it sloped against the warm morning air.
"What about a cup of coffee?" Liz asked me, worriedly. Would a soulless entity from the dawn of time ask me if I wanted a cup of coffee? Perhaps it would. Perhaps it was capable of all kinds of subtle and detailed deceptions. It had made a mistake with Dennis Pickering's car, for instance. It might have used Liz's impression of Dennis Pickering to create an illusion of Dennis Pickering himself; but a girl like Liz (who didn't drive) wouldn't have thought about creating an illusion of heat for the engine of his car.
And what about his keys? She had forgotten about his keys, hadn't she? Yetif Dennis Pickering's reappearance really had been an illusionsurely she would have thought of giving him keys. Perhaps illusions couldn't drive. Would a soulless entity from the dawn of time know how to drive?
I looked up at her. She looked so pretty and innocent and concerned that I felt madder than ever. I literally felt as if my brain was all smashed up, like a jar of marmalade that somebody had dropped onto a tiled floor.
"No thanks, I don't want a c-c-c" I stammered.
She laid her hand on my shoulder and kissed my forehead. "David, you look awful. Why don't you lie down for a while?"
I took a deep breath. Steady, David. Steady. You're not mad at all. You know you're not. So where's Charity? And why can't Danny even remember her?
"I want to take a look in the attic first," I said.
"Do you think that's a good idea?"
"I don't know. It might be a very bad idea. It might be extremely dangerous. But I don't suppose you can remember why. I don't suppose you can remember hauling Charity out of that trapdoor to stop Brown Jenkin tearing her to pieces?"
Liz said nothing, but squeezed my shoulder comfortingly, and stayed very close, so that I could feel her breath on my face.
"It'sahsomething I have to do, that's all," I told her. I stood up, and pushed my chair up to the table.
"Do you want me to come up with you?" she asked.
"No, nojustcarry on cooking. Who knows, perhaps there'll be nothing there, and then we can stay for supper."
18 - Illusion
I opened the attic door. Again, that stale-breath wind. I looked back at Liz who was standing halfway up the stairs, and she nodded and said, "Go on. Go ahead. You have to find out for certain."
I switched on the torch and angled it up the stairs. It was dark up theretotally darkno hint of dawn. But in 1886 it was November, rather than July, and it was very early in the morningso it was quite possible that Fortyfoot House was still immersed in darkness.
"David," said Liz. "Pleaseshout if you want me."
"Did I ever say I didn't want you?" I retorted.
"I just want you to be well," she said.
I didn't know what to say to that, so I climbed up the stairs to the attic, and looked around. The torch illuminated the same old junkthe rocking-horse, the school trunk, the furniture draped in age-softened sheets. I stood very still by the banister-rail and listened for a long time, but there was no scratching, no scuffling, only the hollow-bottle sound of the wind blowing, and the keening of hungry seagulls.
"little dwarfs creep out" I thought "and little dwarfs creep in."
It's your imagination, you see. You were brought up on dwarfs and long red-legged scissormen and Harriet and the matches and Augustus who wouldn't eat his soup. O take the nasty soup away! I won't have any soup today!
I remembered my mother sitting by the coal-fire in my bedroom, on wintry nights in Sussex, reading aloud. I could hear the words as clearly as if she were saying them now. I could see my green-patterned quilt, my green-striped pajamas. I could see my plastic model aeroplanes on the mantelpiece, blobby with glue and badly-made.
I could see Kezia Mason, bundled in blood-stained sheets. I could see young Mr Billings, crossing the lawn like the scissor-man, swift and angry; and Brown Jenkin running behind him like a shadow full of claws and teeth.
I found that I was gripping the banister-rail as if I were trying to wrench it loose, and that my heart was pounding wildly against my ribs. Stress, I thought, stress. Too much adrenaline. I'm going mad. I can't tell the difference between real and imaginary any more. This is what it's like when you go over the edge, when you go totally crazy. This is full-blown, out of control, wide-screen, Technicolor paranoia.
I took one step forward, then another, flicking the torch-beam left, the
n right, then up, then down. I reached the skylight and looked up. No sky, no stars. It was all closed off, just as it had been before, when Harry Martin had stuck his head up there, God help him. I walked over to the place where the trap-door had been, and lifted the carpet. No trap-door. I ran my hands over the bare boards and there was no doubt about it. Young Mr Billings' so-called ''Sumerian doorway" to 1886 just didn't exist. I had imagined it alleverything. I had mixed up cautionary tales from my childhood and local gossip about Fortyfoot House and the National Geographic's article about Sumerian ziggurats, and I had created an imaginary world of mysterious strangers and witches and time-travel.