by Alex Bell
‘At least you have a chance,’ I said. ‘I’d give anything for that.’
He glanced at me with red-rimmed eyes, sunken in his face, and said, ‘Would you?’
‘Of course I would! If there were even the tiniest possibility of getting Liam back, I’d fight for it until I was dead! It’s not over until it’s over, Ben.’
I put a comforting hand on his arm, more than half-expecting him to pull away from my touch, but instead - after the briefest pause - he put his arms around me, crushing me to his chest in a rather suffocating hug. I was surprised but returned the hug dutifully; patting his back in what I hoped was a vaguely soothing way.
I wished he wouldn’t hold me so tightly. I didn’t like being touched. Justifiably or not, I always felt that people must recoil a little at my white skin. But I couldn’t push him away and I tried not to express my discomfort by going tense in his arms.
His forehead rested on my shoulder so that when a single tear fell from his eye I felt it run slowly down my bare arm. He wasn’t really crying but he was shaking slightly and I couldn’t help but feel for him. Losing Liam had been horrific - but at least it had been quick. There had been no dreadful agonising over whether or not he was going to live.
I looked down at Ben’s dark head and marvelled at how similar in colour his hair was to Liam’s - almost black, but with a faint coppery tint if the light caught it just the right way . . . I could see us in the mirror opposite the bed and because Ben’s face was hidden, there was nothing to distinguish him from his younger brother. It was a flawless illusion and for some moments I gazed into the glass, captivated, seeing only my husband in Ben’s place. I couldn’t help giving in to the fairy tale, just for a moment - turning my head to rest my cheek against his hair and hold him tight . . .
Then, without moving, Ben spoke, and his voice shattered the illusion, ‘First . . . Heidi and then all this with Liam . . . I can’t remember what happiness feels like any more.’ He pulled back, looking at me with heavily lidded, bloodshot eyes and said, ‘Can you? Do you think you ever will again?’
‘Not right now,’ I admitted. ‘But . . . maybe one day . . .’ I trailed off, for it suddenly seemed laughably naïve to ever hope to experience true happiness again with this dark cloud hanging over me - this awful thing I could never erase. It seemed impossible that the pain would ever fade and I felt sure that whenever I got anywhere near happiness in the future, I would surely think of Liam and what I’d lost and thus plunge myself into deep despair again. An ongoing, nightmarish, downward spiral that just went on and on . . .
‘I’m sorry,’ Ben said quietly, trying to smile. ‘I didn’t mean to drag you down with me. I’ve depressed you, haven’t I?’
‘Only a little,’ I replied, with an equally pathetic attempt at a smile. ‘I wish we were looking for a magic wand rather than swansong. Then we could wave it and everything would go back to the way it was.’
‘Sometimes there is no going back,’ Ben said flatly. ‘No matter how hard you try.’ He glanced at his watch and said, ‘It’s really late and I’ve been keeping you up. We’d better go to sleep.’
When he leaned forwards to kiss me lightly on the cheek, my eyes were on the mirror and the false, bitter-sweet fantasy it portrayed of a woman being kissed by the man she loved more than anyone else in the world.
In another moment, Ben stood up and was walking back to the couch. He said briefly over his shoulder, ‘Goodnight, Jasmyn,’ before lying down and turning off the nearby lamp. I got into bed and did the same, plunging the room into darkness.
15
Swan Tattoo
That night, I dreamt about the little black horse. It came to life and leapt from the bedside table onto the bed where it picked its way across the sheets towards me. One cold hoof stepped up onto my hand, followed by the others until it stood there in my palm. Then it lay down - front legs first, followed by back ones, rolling over onto its side and pressing its head against my skin as if listening for something.
And then there was another image - a faery forest beneath a dark sky full of twinkling stars. Human skulls and black roses lay everywhere in the snow and the tiny horse was there, picking its way through it all before finding itself back on my hand and stamping its hooves down hard upon my skin . . .
I woke up in the bed with a start and the fingers of my left hand bunched into a fist, fully expecting to feel the cold horse in my palm. But there was nothing there and when I turned on the lamp, I saw that it was on the table by the knight, right where I had left it. I glanced around the room but everything seemed to be in order and the only sound came from Ben who was snoring on the couch. I turned off the lamp and lay back down, the strange dream still vivid in my mind.
It took me a while to get back to sleep because of Ben’s snoring but it seemed a bit unreasonable to go over there and prod him when he had generously let me take the bed. Finally I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until the sunlight was streaming through the windows. The couch was empty but I could hear the sound of the shower in the bathroom. I turned my head to look at the bedside table. The knight was there and so was the framed photograph. But the black horse was gone.
I flung back the covers to get out and check the floor in case it had fallen off. Then I looked under the bed - and in it - but I couldn’t see the black horse anywhere. In my panic I was sure someone must have stolen it in the night and I practically ran to the other side of the room to hammer on the bathroom door, shouting for Ben.
In a matter of seconds I heard the water being turned off and Ben opened the door with a towel around his waist, dripping wet, looking alarmed.
‘The horse is gone!’ I said before he could speak. ‘Do you have it in there?’ I stood on tiptoe and craned my neck to look over his shoulder, hoping to see it lying on the sink next to our toothbrushes.
‘Of course it isn’t in here!’ Ben said with all of his old impatience - as if his opening up to me the night before had never happened. ‘It’s on the coffee table,’ he said. ‘I had another look at it when I woke up this morning.’
I spun around and saw at once that Ben was right - there the black horse was on the coffee table, quite safe.
‘Sorry,’ I said, turning back. ‘I thought . . . someone must have taken it.’
‘No one even knows we have it,’ Ben replied.
He made to turn back into the bathroom but I grabbed the door handle to stop him from closing it.
‘Wait!’ I said sharply. ‘What’s that on your shoulder?’
As he’d turned I’d caught a glimpse of a dark shape there, suspiciously familiar . . .
‘That? Oh, that’s just a tattoo,’ Ben said dismissively.
He was still trying to pull the door shut but I wedged my foot into the gap to stop him.
‘Let me see it,’ I insisted.
He turned reluctantly so that I could see the tattoo properly. It was a black swan - right there on his shoulder.
‘Where did you get that?’ I said quietly, prickles of horror creeping over my skin at the sight of it.
‘I just . . . woke up with it,’ Ben replied, after a brief hesitation. ‘About six months ago. I don’t know how it got there.’
‘You mean it . . . just appeared?’
‘Yes. It just appeared.’
‘It hurts, doesn’t it?’ I said, remembering how I had noticed him massaging that shoulder on occasion.
‘Sometimes,’ Ben replied briefly.
‘What does it mean?’
‘I have absolutely no idea,’ he said.
‘Surely you can think of some reason? What were you doing the day you got it?’
‘Nothing. Nothing special happened. I just woke up with it.’
‘But, Ben—’
‘Look, I’ve had the tattoo for months now and apart from making my shoulder ache every now and then it doesn’t seem to have done me any harm, so can we just drop it?’
‘All right,’ I said, raising my hands at his aggressive to
ne. ‘Fine.’
At the end of the day I had more important things to worry about than Ben’s tattoo anyway. But, still, the fact that it had just appeared there all on its own like that made me feel distinctly . . . uneasy.
‘I’m going to get dressed,’ Ben said - then he closed the door and was gone.
I walked over to the couch and sat down, automatically picking up the little marble horse from the coffee table.
And that was when it came alive in my hand.
The marble cracked and split - like an eggshell breaking apart - to reveal a tiny black horse inside, real in every sense but for the fact that it was a mere three inches tall. I yelled, my hands jerked and I dropped it without meaning to. It landed on the carpet with a thud and for a moment I was terrified that I might have hurt the tiny thing by dropping it so carelessly. But in another second it got back onto its feet and shook itself, quite unharmed, before trotting across the floor, past the couch.
It moved like a real horse, it felt like a real horse . . . its coat had been soft to the touch and its glossy mane and tail swished about it as it pranced along the floor to my violin case, where it jumped up onto the lid and began walking up and down, its hooves clattering on the hard surface.
Ben, who’d heard me yell, opened the bathroom door only half dressed and said, ‘What’s wrong now?’
Wordlessly, I pointed at the tiny black horse walking around on my violin case. Ben gazed in the direction of my pointing finger and I saw him jump in alarm when his eyes found the horse. The two of us stared at it in silence. At first I thought it was just walking about randomly, tossing its head and snorting through its tiny nostrils as it went. But then I noticed the marks it was making in the thin layer of dust covering my violin case, left over from the bones the evening before. Incredible as it seemed, there were actually words forming beneath the horse’s hooves - a name, in fact, that, once it was complete, read: Henri Rol-Tanguy.
Then the horse leapt off the case, trotted back to where I sat and nuzzled insistently at my ankle until I reached down and carefully picked it up to place it in the palm of my other hand, doing my best to keep it flat and steady.
Despite the circumstances, I couldn’t help feeling a flutter of delight at the sight of the tiny horse walking about in my palm, stopping at the ends of my fingers to gaze over the edge before turning back around to look at me. In every way except its size it looked identical to Kini. Its beautiful lines, glossy coat and deep brown eyes were all the same - like a tiny, perfect faery horse. I was utterly captivated by it.
Ben, on the other hand, seemed more preoccupied with the writing on my violin case.
‘Henri Rol-Tanguy,’ I heard him mutter excitedly before turning his head to look at me. ‘Do you know who that is?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Do you?’
He didn’t reply for a moment but turned back to the violin case, repeating the name under his breath as if willing himself to recognise it. But, finally, he shook his head and said, ‘I don’t remember ever hearing it before.’
His head snapped up, he looked around at the horse and said, ‘Come on, let’s take it outside.’
‘Why?’
‘Because there’s snow out there,’ he said, pulling on his shirt and fumbling hastily with the buttons. ‘Perhaps it will spell out something else.’
I glanced at the violin case and saw that the name written in the dust did take up almost the entire surface so that if there was more the horse could spell out, it would not have had room.
‘Give it to me,’ Ben ordered, getting to his feet and holding out his hand.
‘We can’t just walk through the guest house with it like this,’ I replied. ‘Someone might see.’
Ben glanced around the room until his eye fell on the box containing the travel chess set. He picked it up, emptied out the chessmen and then held it out to me. ‘Put him in here,’ he said.
I carefully did so and then carried the box through the guest house and outside. There was no one else around, so we crouched down on the other side of the car, out of sight of the restaurant windows, and opened the box. The little horse did not seem particularly distressed by the journey and when Ben reached in, scooped it out and put it down on the snow, we both gazed down at it expectantly, almost holding our breath. It lifted its head and looked around, sniffing the air for a moment and flaring its nostrils, before kicking up the snow with its hooves and prancing about in what seemed to be pure delight. Soon it was rolling about on its back, hooves in the air, covering itself in a fine dusting of snowflakes. I couldn’t help but smile at the sight of it enjoying itself so much, but it obviously wasn’t going to be of any further help to us right now.
‘I don’t think it’s going to write any more words,’ Ben said resignedly, scooping it up and putting it back in the box. ‘So let’s concentrate on the ones we’ve already got.’
We skipped breakfast and went straight back to Ben’s room to Google the name but without much success. There was a famous French communist called Henri Rol-Tanguy who kept cropping up but, although we spent some time reading about the man, he didn’t appear to be connected to us or Liam or Neuschwanstein and, indeed, he had died several years ago anyway. It was most vexing and, as we waded through website after website, I began to notice Ben flashing distinctly disgruntled looks at the horse, which was happily trotting about the room, oblivious to any displeasure it had caused.
‘Maybe we’re wasting our time,’ Ben said at last. ‘For all we know that horse was just spelling out its own bloody name.’
The thought was so silly that I couldn’t help laughing - although I quickly turned it into a cough at the look on Ben’s face.
‘I can’t believe that’s it,’ I said, trying to sound grave.
‘I’m going to go down and clean up your room,’ Ben said. ‘We don’t want all that dust lying around when the maid goes in. Keep searching while I’m gone. The name has to be relevant somehow. Perhaps it refers to another man - one who’s still alive - one who knows something about where Liam hid the swansong.’
‘All right,’ I said.
The tiny horse was no longer exploring the room but was standing by the couch at my feet. It didn’t look likely to run away but I picked it up anyway as Ben walked towards the door. The last thing we needed was a three-inch-tall horse bolting out into the corridor where anyone might see it and start screaming.
As I stood up, my eyes were automatically drawn towards the window and the car park outside and I froze in alarm.
‘Ben!’ I said sharply.
‘What?’ he asked, glancing back.
‘There’s blood on the snow out there! It leads up to our car and then stops.’
We went quickly down to the parking lot, leaving the little horse upstairs behind us. There didn’t seem to be anyone around but we were both painfully aware that anybody could appear at any moment. The trail of blood stretched from the entrance to the car park and - for all we knew - began some way down the road. The dark splatters were in disturbing, ugly contrast to the white snow they stained and sent cold shivers of fear running through me.
I suppose the most natural assumption was that an injured animal had created the blood trail but, somehow, that idea didn’t really occur to me. I was therefore surprised when I got down on my knees beside Ben, icy dampness soaking through my jeans, to see a black swan underneath our car.
At first I thought it must be dead. Frost sparkled across its red beak; the blood on its wing had frozen, gluing its feathers together, and it seemed stiff and motionless in the snow. We were not far from the road; perhaps the bird had been hit by a car - just an ordinary, unfortunate, mundane accident . . . But still I couldn’t help a shudder of unease, for the last time I had seen black swans had been when they’d fallen dead from the sky at Liam’s funeral. Now, just seeing one - especially a dead one - elicited an almost Pavlovian response in me of sadness and a kind of squeamish horror. I couldn’t help feeling that its appearance must mean
something - and probably nothing good either. I tried to tell myself it was just a dead bird and nothing more . . .
But the next moment Ben was cursing under his breath and reaching under the car for the swan. As he lifted it up off the ground, some of its feathers were pulled out where they’d been frozen to the snow by blood. It seemed an incredibly big bird in Ben’s arms, with its long neck dangling lifelessly over his elbow.
‘Er . . . what are you doing?’ I asked as Ben stood up.
‘Give me your jacket,’ he said urgently.
‘Why?’
‘To hide him. I can’t risk someone seeing me carry him into the guest house like this.’
‘The guest house?’ I repeated. ‘Ben, you can’t take that dead bird into the guest house!’
‘He isn’t dead!’ Ben said impatiently.
I looked at him sharply, startled by his tone as well as his use of the word ‘he’. As if - ridiculous though it sounded - the swan was a personal acquaintance of his . . .
Ben met my eyes, realising that he had given himself away. ‘And he isn’t just a swan,’ he admitted reluctantly. ‘Now give me your jacket.’
Still unsure whether Ben was telling the truth or not, I quickly stripped off my denim jacket. It was nowhere near big enough to cover the swan but I threw it on top of the bird anyway and then Ben and I rushed back into the guest house and up to my bedroom. Ben walked straight through to the bathroom and told me to turn on the taps over the bathtub.
‘What are you going to do?’ I asked as I did what he’d said.
‘He’s freezing, I’ve got to warm him up.’
‘But it’s a black swan!’ I protested.
‘A black swan near Neuschwanstein,’ Ben grunted.
When the bath was half-full of hot water, Ben knelt down at the side, still holding the swan. Then he looked round at me. ‘Stand back,’ he ordered. ‘Just in case. In fact, maybe you’d better leave the bathroom altogether.’
I took a step back so that I was standing in the narrow doorway, but I had no intention of leaving the room. I watched as Ben lifted his arms and dumped the bird into the water with a splash. It was hard to judge exactly what happened next for I did not have a particularly good view, standing well back as I was and with Ben in the way. But there was a lot of splashing and then I distinctly saw a human hand reach up to grip the edge of the bath, accompanied by a most un-swan-like sound of choking. In another second I was at Ben’s shoulder where I could get a perfect view. The black swan had gone - the only sign that it had ever been there a few stray feathers floating on the surface of the water - and a man I recognised had appeared in its place. Tall, naked, dirty, bruised and bloody - it was Lukas.