A Richer Dust Concealed

by R P Nathan

  I tried to escape today by leaving my room early and walking in the clear air. I wandered aimlessly for more than two hours visiting everything yet seeing nothing until I came to the Trevi Fountain and there, suddenly, was the raven-haired man again. Or perhaps he had been following me all along. But the moment I noticed him he disappeared and so many people were around that I could not be sure and as my head has not been clear I thought it likely that I had been mistaken. Yet it occurred to me then that if the journal were true and the cross existed, then surely I would not be the only person looking for it. Would not the forces of Venice also be on the hunt for it? Would not their agents be abroad and searching?

  I was unsettled by the thought and returned to my lodgings immediately but was brought up short in the doorway.

  Someone had been in my room.

  Looking around at the papers strewn all over the bed and the desk and the floor it would have been by no means clear to any other observer that a visitation had taken place. Even I could not properly explain how I was so sure, for the papers themselves did not appear disturbed and the mess was, as far as I could tell, the same mess I had left there before my walk. But something was altered in the room, whether it was a depression in the bedclothes or a change in position of the chair or even the faintest, most tantalising, scent left behind. Perhaps it was one of these things or all of them or none; for I could not put my finger on exactly what had changed.

  But I knew, Anna. I knew as I am writing to you now, that someone had been in my room.

  I went downstairs and spoke sternly with Signor Mocenigo who assured me in hurt and voluble tones that no one had access to the rooms of the hotel except himself; and that no one had been into my room on this or any other day except when I had specifically requested a maid to come and clean.

  I shook my head and went back to my bedroom and locked the door and, having moved all my papers to a pile on the desk, I lay down. I was wrong when I wrote I wished for more days before my posting. I want only for it to come through now so that I can leave this all behind.

  2 March 1915

  I awoke last night convinced I had heard the sound of footsteps in my room. I lit an oil lamp immediately yet there was no one to be seen. I lay down again on top of the covers, my breathing shallow, my eyes straining to see further into the shadows and the dark recesses of the room. After five minutes – which I counted by the beats of my heart – I got up again and became the boy I had once been, tiptoeing into each corner of the chamber and dispelling the demons which hid there. And, though it shamed me to do so, I knelt and peered under the bed. Then I walked to the wardrobe. It was nonsensical I thought to myself, that anyone could be hid there, yet it took me three aborted attempts before I pulled open the creaking doors and saw the truth inside: clothes and nothing. I laughed in relief and foolishness and lay back down once again.

  My mind slowly emptied and sleep came upon me.

  I fell into a dream immediately in which I was lying on sand, the dark ocean before me, rising and falling in time with my breathing. From the green sky, heavy with cloud and impending storm, I heard a beating of wings and there in front of me appeared a great winged lion, its fur and feathers lustrous gold. It opened its maw and I backed away but no sound came from it, no roar, just a silence that was all-engulfing.

  I woke with a start and sat bolt upright as I heard the rattle of the door handle, someone outside attempting to turn it. This time there could be no doubt and I jumped from my bed and leaped to the door yanking it wide open.

  There was an exclamation of surprise and Mocenigo, a lamp in his hand, tumbled into the room.

  “What were you doing?” I asked angrily as he hauled himself to his feet. “Snooping around here in the middle of the night?”

  “Middle of the night?” said Mocenigo recoiling at my fury. “Captain Shaeffer, it is only nine o’clock.”

  I was flabbergasted and consulted my watch. But he was correct.

  “I did not know whether you were even returned for the evening,” he continued. “So when I hear noises in your room I come up to investigate.”

  I had lost track of time, lost track of reason. Mocenigo looked at me strangely and said, “I can see that you are in, so there is no need for me to worry further.” And he walked off down the corridor shaking his head.

  I closed the door and sat down on the bed.

  My body was cloaked in sweat. My hands were trembling. Only nine o’clock and the whole night still to endure.

  There was no danger in the room, nothing to be frightened of, yet I felt scared in a way I had not since I was a child. I wished with all my soul that you were in bed with me to hold and comfort me. But you were not. You were far away. So my solace and protection had to come from a different source. And when I finally went back to sleep it was with my service revolver cocked and ready at my side.

  Chapter 30

  Summer 2002, London/Cyprus

  Sarah

  When I was small, Mum and I stayed with Aunty Jean and Uncle Malcolm and Patrick every time we came down from Leeds; always in the summer and Christmas, and often at Easter and in the half-terms as well.

  At first we’d come by train, long journeys with a packed lunch and Connect 4 and super-percussive games of snap. Morning would turn to afternoon as the endless scenery flashed past us, the weather often changing from sun to cloud to rain and back again as we hurtled south.

  Then Mum passed her test and we came by car, a Fiat 126, the smallest car I’d ever seen. But I loved it. I felt so proud that we had a car just like other families. We came down together, just the two of us, for years, me in the passenger seat, singing or joking or chatting till I was too tired or too old and then I sat in stony silence or snoozed against the cool glass letting the spots of rain fleck the window and my breath smoke it till its transparency was gone and all that was left was the interior of the car, Mum and me.

  We drove down together till I was eighteen and then we stopped. I went to University and we never made the journey together again. There was no argument which precipitated this break, no sea change in attitude or affection, it just happened that way and after Uni I was living in London anyway so I carried on seeing my uncle and aunt for a while, but for some reason now always in a cafe or a restaurant or even back at Mum’s. But I didn’t see them that often and the visits became no more than annual and then, six years ago, they stopped being even that.

  They lived in Highgate and, on the evening I was to visit Patrick, I walked from the Tube taking the short cut through Queen’s Wood. In winter the Wood was open to the sky, the trees branching up to twiggy nothing; but now in summer it was overgrown and dark green and dusty. Patrick and I had played there a lot when we were young; yet it was only walking through again that I remembered how much.

  The path from the Wood emerged onto a street of large Tudorbethan semis and I followed it to their house nestled into the corner where the road curved round. It looked just the same: the windows still diagonal leaded, the front door still shiny white, the whole well looked after. I’d loved that when I was little, a marked contrast to our place in Leeds where every bit of external paint that could peel did. Uncle Malcolm took care of all that here, he’d always been good at DIY. I’d envied Patrick that. I’d envied him his house, the Wood, and most of all his father, near-silent Uncle Malcolm. Memories of envy. They took me by surprise.

  The windows were dark and there was a delay after I rang the bell during which my heart surged with relief. I did my best, Mum – I rehearsed the conversation in my head – I went round there but no one was home...

  Then I saw the downstairs net curtain twitch and a couple of seconds later the front door opened and there was Aunty Jean and she threw her arms around me, shouting, “Sarah, Sarah.” Uncle Malcolm was there as well and he gave me a kiss. They led me into the living room, and Aunty Jean wouldn’t leave my side and she kept on saying how lovely it was to see me, and how good it was of me to come over, but she’d been sur
e I would. All the while she was crying her eyes out.

  I just sort of smiled back, but all I could think of was that Aunty Jean was tiny and how had I never noticed it before. And Uncle Malcolm’s moustache, which he still had against all the odds, had turned grey, and the room we sat in, the living room, was the room they had always reserved for visitors, for grown-ups, so Patrick and I had played elsewhere. It was cream and bright yet I could see a cobweb on one of the lamps, and for some reason it made me want to burst into tears.

  “John found him. Patrick’s friend John from Cambridge? I don’t think you know him dear.” Aunty Jean had sat me down next to her on the sofa and was stroking my arm, dabbing freely at her eyes with a tissue. “Patrick had been behaving strangely at work so John went round to his flat and…” Her voice faltered and she looked at Malcolm.

  “He wasn’t himself. Let’s just put it that way.”

  Jean nodded. “And the police were called by his neighbours because he was making such a din. And by the time we got there he was babbling away nineteen to the dozen about all sorts: codes and intruders and everyone being in danger. And now he just lies there upstairs, hardly saying a word, like he’s terrified. But what can he be scared of?” She stared at me, her eyes wide in appeal but she continued before I could even think to answer. “And the doctors say there’s nothing they can do.”

  “What’s the point of them, if they can’t help,” growled Uncle Malcolm.

  “And John’s been round again and they talked for ages and we thought maybe things would be better but afterwards he was just the same. We’re at our wits’ end. We just want to know what caused it and whether it was anything like the last time—”

  “It’s completely different to last time,” said Uncle Malcolm.

  “But how can you know that?” she said shrilly.

  “Because,” he said in a weary voice, his part in a conversation they had clearly had many times. “Then it was a reaction to his Finals and starting a PhD. He’s not been under that kind of pressure this time.”

  “But he has been under pressure,” said Aunty Jean shaking her head at him and turning back to me. “He’s been working far too hard. I’ve been telling him that for months. And now he just lies there all day long and we’re really worried…” Her voice accelerated into it, “that he might try and... you know...” She started crying once more.

  “Kill himself,” said Uncle Malcolm gravely.

  “And he doesn’t want to go out,” she sobbed. “Just refuses point blank. Even for a walk. I don’t know what to do but I thought if he saw you then everything would be OK because he’s always been so fond of you.”

  Oh God. “Look, Aunty Jean, I’m not sure I can do anything. I really don’t. I mean we haven’t been that close in the last few years—”

  “But he was always so fond of you, darling. We all are. Please just go up there and talk to him. We’d really appreciate it.”

  I knew I had no choice and in any case just looking at my Aunty Jean and seeing her stare wide-eyed back at me with hope and trust and love almost broke my heart.

  ◆◆◆

  The stairs I remembered, though predictably they were smaller, less steep, less Everest-like. I had memories of the house from when I was a teenager but the dominant ones were from earlier, when we were properly little: memories of running down the stairs with Patrick; of trying to jump the bottom few steps with Patrick; of squeezing through the gaps in the banisters to escape from Patrick. A host of Patrick related memories, and it wasn’t that I’d forgotten them; it was just that they weren’t memories I carried around with me. They’d been archived, here, in this house. Remote storage to be accessed when I returned.

  We walked together up the two flights to the attic conversion. Aunty Jean tapped on the door. “I’ll go in first,” she whispered to me and went through. I felt Uncle Malcolm give my arm a squeeze. For courage? I wondered.

  Aunty Jean came out again, her eyes lowered, tear filled. “Go in dear. We’ll be downstairs if you need us,” and with a sidestep she was past me and I was at the door and the next moment I was inside.

  It took me a moment to see where he was. The room was done out chalet style, the joists and sloping walls all in pine. To the left as I looked in was a little dining table, straight in front of me was a two-seater sofa and TV, and in the corner on the right was a low bed. And it was on this that Patrick was lying.

  He was on top of the covers, curled up in the centre of the bed, his head propped up on a pillow and he stared out through one of the large Velux windows set into the roof.

  “Your mum asked me to pop up and see you,” I explained after a few seconds during which he’d done nothing to acknowledge my presence. “To see how you were.” I smiled at him, praying for some kind of reaction. But there was nothing.

  “So...” So what? “So it’s been a nice August, right? Warm... It gets pretty hot up here though doesn’t it? Being at the top of the house and with all the windows, I guess…” I pointed over at the patio style doors leading onto a small balcony. “Do you mind if I just open the doors for a bit of air.”

  Silence.

  OK. I didn’t actually have anything to say to him. I sighed heavily, caught myself doing it, then stared down into my lap wondering just how long before I could go down again.

  “You shouldn’t have come.”

  I jumped at the suddenness of his voice. Patrick was staring right at me. His face was gaunt, his eyes in deep shadow.

  “Your mum asked me to,” I said after a moment.

  “She shouldn’t have.” His voice was no more than a whisper. It made my own throat feel dry to hear it.

  “She thought it would help.”

  He looked away from me back to the wall. “Well it hasn’t.”

  I blinked at him feeling like I’d been slapped. “Fine,” I said. “Fine. But there’s no need to be rude about it. I’ve come after work to visit you. If you want me to go just tell me.”

  “It’s too late now.”

  “What is?”

  He shrugged again and I felt a wave of tiredness and irritation pass over me. I was definitely not the right person for this kind of thing. I didn’t have the patience. I took a breath. “Look Patrick—”

  He sat bolt upright in bed so quickly that I jumped again. “It’s too late,” he said looking straight at me. “Because they’ll have seen you.”

  “Who’ll have seen me?” I said my nerves jangling.

  “The people who tried to break into my flat. Who tried to get the code from me.”

  Ah yes: Aunty Jean had mentioned a code. I blinked at him. “Are they in the room now?”

  Patrick looked at me like I was mad. “Of course not.”

  “So where are they?”

  “Outside. You must have passed them on your way up here.”

  “And what do they want?” My stomach felt like I was in free fall. I so did not want to be having this conversation.

  “They want to break the code too.”

  “What code?”

  “The one that Julius gave me. Julius!” He clapped a hand against his forehead. “Julius is in danger. They’ll come after him as well. Maybe they’ve got him already—”

  “I’m sure Julius is fine.”

  “You don’t understand.” He started rocking backwards and forwards, his hands clamped firmly round his knees. “They’ve linked me to the code.” Rock forwards. Rock back. “So they’ll know about Julius as well. It stands to reason. You’ve got to warn him. I’ve tried. But he wouldn’t listen to me. He thinks I’m mad.” He looked at me directly, full in the face, so that I had to look away.

  “Julius isn’t in danger,” I said as gently as I could. “No one’s in any danger.”

  “Of course we’re in danger. We’re all in danger. But no one’ll listen to me. Why won’t anyone listen to me?” He sighed and shook his head and subsided into sulky silence.

  I didn’t want to go on with this. I couldn’t help. I stood an
d walked to the patio door. It was stiflingly hot in the room and all I wanted was to be outside. I pulled open the door and a gust of cool air swept over me. I breathed it in and then I stepped out onto the balcony. Behind me there was a crash of a knocked-over lamp and a shout and then Patrick was suddenly standing just inside the door and waving at me furiously.

  “Sarah, come inside! Come inside! They’ll see you!”

  I stared at him in shock.

  “Come inside,” he hissed. He started banging on the glass with the flat of his hand. “They’ll know you’ve been talking to me.”

  Tears started to roll down my face. Tears of pity for him and Aunty Jean and me and tears of anger that I was so unable to make any difference to him. To help him in any way. “There’s no one there,” I said my voice choking. “There’s no one in the street.” I walked forward to the parapet.

  “Come back Sarah!”

  I looked out into the road below and it was empty, all the way back up to the Wood.

  “Sarah, please.”

  I turned to look at him, at my cousin, a grown man, his face contorted like a child’s, his hands shaking with fury and suddenly I knew what I had to do and I didn’t know whether it was right or wrong but I just had to do it.

  I walked back to the patio door. Patrick seemed to calm himself a little. “Will you come back in now?” he beseeched me.

  “Yes,” I said and I put out my hand so he could help me. He reached to take it and then my hand closed on his, tight, and I yanked him outside. “Yes,” I said dragging him to the balcony. “But not till you see for yourself that there’s no one there—”

  “Help me!” he squealed but I held him tight and pushed him right up to the parapet.

  “Look!” I yelled at him. “See for yourself—”