The night was always beyond the sky, however bright the sun strove to appear. The infinite darkness was older than time, and the stars were simply playthings that its avatar had shaped and scattered in patterns to which the universe was in the process of reverting. Fairman understood this much; at least, he saw the meaning of the words, although the further he progressed the more he felt that the book was a kind of reverie, incomprehensible to a waking mind. By the time he reached the end he was little better than asleep, and the reflections of the trinity of volumes in the mirror made him feel as if the books were dreaming of companionship. He laid the books to rest in the safe and stumbled to the window.
The old folk in the shelter raised their heads as he dragged up the sash. The beach was still peopled as well. Most of the occupants were supine, but Fairman saw a woman stand up and waddle away from the edge of the sea, leaving a rubbery cushion on which she'd been seated. The roundish object glistened and stirred feebly, having been caught by a wave. As Fairman shut the window and turned away, unenlivened by the stagnant smell he'd let into the room, he saw a man carrying a large plastic bucket down a ramp to the beach.
Fairman went to bed expecting to be kept awake by thoughts of the books, but the vision that was waiting for him to lie down in the dark came from somewhere earlier. Once more he was beset by the image of the stone cocoon, but this time he imagined the end of its wanderings. He saw it blaze like an enormous coal as it plummeted into the depths of a forest, blasting a crater many times its size and setting fire to the surrounding trees. He had to watch as it cooled and split open, a spectacle too reminiscent of the hatching of an egg. Through the fissure he glimpsed a whitish spongy lump that must be some species of face, since eyes reared up from it to peer in all directions from the crack in the meteor—two eyes and then another. He managed to avoid imagining its size until the meteor tumbled apart in huge fragments to let its contents crawl forth. The ovoid body was as vast as a cathedral, a similarity that was brought to mind by the spines protruding all over the ponderous bulk. As it used the spines to scrabble deep into the earth Fairman could almost have been watching a cathedral bury itself, and he had an uneasy sense that the idea was how his mind coped with the vision, which surely derived from one of the books he'd read. He was relieved not to see more of the face as it sank into the earth; the other sight was bad enough—the eyes withdrawing like a snail's out of the glare of the forest fire. Then there was only the expanse of disturbed earth surrounded by great flames, but it was imbued with a dreadful sense of waiting. At last the notion of settling into the earth merged with the prospect of subsiding into sleep, and that was all he knew.
A thumping sound roused him. It seemed to gain definition, growing less large and loose, as he struggled awake. Somebody was at the door. "What is it?" Fairman demanded, trying to control his slack voice. "What's wrong?"
"It's only Janine, Mr Fairman. Just wondered if you wanted to miss breakfast."
Fairman fumbled at the bedside table for his watch. From the greyish light that seeped into the room he would have taken it to be not much later than dawn, and he had to blink his eyes clear before he could believe it was almost eleven o'clock. "Good God, I've slept in," he called. "I meant to be up hours ago."
"Don't you worry even the tiniest bit. It's ready when you are."
Did he have time for breakfast? As his panic faded he saw that he would almost certainly need to stay overnight to complete the set of books. It might very well have been necessary even if he'd wakened when he should have. The thought left him feeling almost lethargically calm, no doubt because he hadn't quite woken up.
Nobody was in the bathroom or the toilet, and the corridor was deserted, though he seemed to recall having heard quite a few people come upstairs last night while he was intent on the books. Of course they would have been up and about today long before him, unless he'd imagined hearing them, and could he really have seen anybody lying or otherwise occupied on the beach last night? The breakfast room was empty, and just one couple was checking out at the desk. "See you next year," the man told Fairman, and the equally rotund wife joined in.
Fairman mumbled ambiguously and made for his breakfast table by the window. A thick curtain of fog was trailing its hem in the sea about half a mile from the promenade, and he couldn't locate the sun. Just now the sea looked no wider than a lake. As he saw that the fog had sent the old folk away from the shelter, Mrs Berry arrived with a plateful very similar to yesterday's. "Here's your favourite," she said.
He thanked her before saying "I'm afraid I'll need the room tonight as well."
"No need at all to be afraid."
She closed her mouth and then rounded her lips, suggesting that she'd realised she had more to say. If she meant to bring up dreams again, Fairman wasn't anxious to discuss them. "Would you excuse me?" he said and took out his phone. "I should make some calls."
"You do what you have to, Leonard."
The bell shrilled in his ear and continued shrilling. At last a reluctant voice said "Yes, Mr Fairman."
"Good morning, Ms Bickerstaff. Have things improved for you today?"
"Some have and some haven't. It's always like that for us here."
"Well, I'm glad to hear some have. When should I pay you a visit?"
"I still can't say."
"I thought you said the situation—"
"Nothing's changed there."
"I'm sorry to hear it. I'm obviously sorry, but I really do need—"
"Don't attempt to bully me, Mr Fairman. Some of our residents have tried that on, but it doesn't work."
"I give you my word I don't mean to, Ms Bickerstaff, but I would ask you to appreciate that I've come quite a long way on the understanding that these books will be made available to me."
"That isn't what Frank said, is it? He just wrote to you about his one."
"It's what I've been led to believe by everybody else." Fairman felt as if the argument had grown as slow as trying to run in a dream. "The sooner I take charge of the book," he said, "the sooner it'll be one less responsibility for you."
"I don't shirk any of my responsibilities, Mr Fairman."
"I'm sure I didn't say otherwise. I'm simply trying—"
"I haven't got time for this. As you say, I have responsibilities," Rhoda Bickerstaff said and immediately rang off.
As Fairman listened to the hiss of static, which he could have mistaken for the long breaths of the sea, Janine Berry came into the room. "Have you gone past your appetite?" she said like a reproving mother, and when he frowned at her "Don't keep it to yourself. We don't do that in Gulshaw."
"I'm finding someone isn't as forthcoming as everybody else has been."
"That won't do at all. We mustn't have anyone giving you trouble."
"It's Rhoda Bickerstaff. She's in charge of your Leafy Shade Home."
"I know that." With a look so distant it made her face resemble a mask, Mrs Berry said "Don't let her use that as an excuse. You go up there and don't take no for an answer."
"She does have plenty to deal with as it is, I suppose."
"Then like you said, she'll have less when you take what's yours." Before Fairman could object to having been overheard, Mrs Berry turned maternal again. "Just you eat up," she said, "and then I'll show you where to go."
Fairman gazed out at the fog while he ate, and had the fanciful notion that he was tasting it. A watery hint seemed to underlie every mouthful, though the textures were firm enough. The taste grew more indefinite as he fetched his coat and took the town map to the reception counter. "You go straight there now," Mrs Berry urged, but called him back as he headed for the car park. "You'll be thinking we don't trust you," she said and twisted the key off the ring on the metal club, so vigorously that her fingernails became indistinguishable from the flesh around them. "Now you can come and go like all of us."
Fairman pocketed the key on his way to the car. He was glad to leave the promenade where the stagnant greyish light appeared to
seep into every face, not that the pavements were anything like crowded. He drove up a lane between the Kumbak and the Seesea, across the shopping streets to Edgewood Row, where several large houses had apparently lost their boundaries to form the Leafy Shade. While the single garden wall they shared beside the pavement had been cared for, the wall that backed onto the hazy colonnades of the woods was in some disrepair; more than one gap was wide enough for residents to wander through. As Fairman parked on the road, he saw that one of the vehicles in the grounds was a police car.
Presumably the crisis was at least as serious as Rhoda Bickerstaff had made it sound. He couldn't justify adding to her problems, however frustrated he might feel; surely even Nathan Brighouse wouldn't expect it of him. He was restarting the engine when a woman hurried out of the central building of the Leafy Shade complex. "Mr Fairman," she shouted. "Leonard Fairman."
Her gangling run emphasised how tall she was. Her head was disproportionately large, though with a small mouth and miniature chin. She wore a padded coat over a billowing black dress that exposed ankles thicker than he would have thought to see and black shoes too big for the elegance they aimed for. As Fairman left the car she unlocked the tall iron gate. "Mrs Bickerstaff," he said. "I'm sorry, I didn't realise—"
"No call for an apology. I'm not Rhoda Bickerstaff."
"Even so, I'm sorry if I'm adding to your difficulties."
"You're doing nothing of the kind." This sounded closer to an accusation than a reassurance, and her tone didn't change as she said "I'm Eunice Spriggs."
Her gaze went with the tone, but in a moment it relented—receded, at any rate. "I'm the mayoress," she said.
Did a wig come with the title? The hairline above the chubby brows that overshadowed her sizeable eyes seemed unusually regular, while the black hair that hung straight down beside her cheeks looked as inert as the grey light through the ceiling of fog. As she offered Fairman her disconcertingly small hand she said "Thank you for everything you're doing for us."
"I'm just doing what's expected of me."
"I wish some others of us would. Please accept my apologies on behalf of the town for the hindrance." Before he could tell her they weren't necessary the mayoress said "Do come and take over."
Fairman refrained from wiping his hand until she turned along the gravel drive. "Are you visiting someone?"
"Regrettably I had to," she said and stalked loosely although purposefully towards the central building. "Rhoda Bickerstaff."
Beyond a wide hall a pair of broad staircases not unlike pincers framed the entrance to a room full of old folk in armchairs. French windows let in the murky daylight, which seemed to tint all the ageing flesh. One old man was opening his mouth wide and circular to expose his greyish gums, and several of his companions joined in, as thought they were competing to produce the roundest mouth. An old woman was dangling her arms on either side of her chair to touch the carpet, and Fairman might have thought her hands were too long for the arms. Outside the windows a number of apparently unsupervised residents were shuffling and wobbling about the grounds; several had gathered to stare through a gap in the wall into the ill-defined depths of the woods. Fairman didn't want to distract anyone from keeping an eye on the residents, but Eunice Spriggs was gesturing him towards a room to the left of the stairs. She didn't bother knocking on the door.
A dumpy woman stuffed into a suit not much greyer than her face and hair sat behind a desk on the far side of the office. If she wasn't grimacing, a good deal was wrong with the left side of her face. Her lips were drawn towards it, and that eye was half shut, while the cheek harboured a purplish tinge. She was flanked at a distance by a policeman and a woman in the identical uniform. Fairman could almost have taken them for twins, not least because their rounded faces bore the same blank determined look. "Here he is at last," Eunice Spriggs said. "I believe someone owes you something, Leonard."
She gazed at the woman behind the desk, and then the police did. Since none of this broke the silence, Fairman felt he should. "Thank you for making time for me, Mrs Bickerstaff."
The woman sat forward and folded her arms with a thump on the desk. The sound seemed to echo, but the repetitions grew louder as they continued to reverberate. Fairman felt as if the floor were growing unstable, even when he realised that she was drumming a heel beneath the desk. "Rhoda," the mayoress said.
Rhoda Bickerstaff dug her fingers into her upper arms as she raised her head. "I've got to say I'm sorry, Mr Fairman."
"I'm sure I understand." When her eyes denied it Fairman said "Why should you?"
"For not scurrying to let you have your book like everybody else."
"I don't think anybody's quite done that."
"Then you don't know much about our town."
Fairman almost retorted that he knew there was so much more to see; it was like hearing a chorus in his head of all the voices that had told him. This time the mayoress brought a silence to an end. "Safe, Rhoda," she said. "Safe." Though it could have been a reassurance, Fairman thought it was an order. Rhoda Bickerstaff's eyes remained defiant while the drumming of her heel seemed to dissipate through the floorboards, and her gaze seemed to retreat without leaving him. She lurched to her feet so abruptly that her suit bunched up around her midriff, and Fairman could have thought her flesh had. The floor shook again as she paced to the safe behind the desk. She spun the combination wheel and hauled the door wide, leaving the interior in darkness, so that Fairman couldn't see the book until she clutched it to her breast. As she swung around her face twisted further to the left, and she seemed to find it hard to work her mouth. "I hope you're ready, Leonard," she said indistinctly. "There's your next step."
He had to extend both hands—he might almost have been reaching to take charge of an infant—before she relinquished the volume. As he took it she let out a breath that sounded capable of leaving her entire self hollow, and he saw the mayoress relax. It was the sixth volume, Of Things Seen by the Moon, with a colophon depicting a full moon where a lunar sea resembled the pupil of an eye. "Thank you," Fairman said, which seemed inadequate. "I hope your crisis will be resolved soon."
Rhoda Bickerstaff's face twisted leftward so convulsively that it seemed to drag the hairline of her greying curls askew. "Don't you really know what's going on here, Leonard?"
"The book was the only crisis," Eunice Spriggs told him. "Rhoda got a bit too used to looking after it, that's all."
"Is all this necessary?" Fairman said and stared at the police. "You mustn't think I'm being unprofessional, but when it comes right down to it, it's just a book."
"You're the last one I'd hope to hear saying that, Leonard."
He was disconcerted not just because it was Rhoda Bickerstaff who told him so but by a sense that at least one other person in the room might have. "I assure you I'll take care of it," he said, not without resentment. "Who's next on my list?"
"Eric Headon. He's our local historian."
This time it was the mayoress who spoke, but Fairman kept his eyes on Rhoda Bickerstaff. "You couldn't have told me that yesterday."
"That's not how things are done here, Leonard," Eunice Spriggs said.
"Why not?" Fairman demanded and turned on her. "How much do you know about all this?"
"All I need to," she said with an odd faraway look. "You will when it's time."
He oughtn't to be loitering, not least since the police had brought blank looks to bear on him. "Can someone give me Mr Headon's number?"
He had no idea who might respond until Rhoda Bickerstaff scrawled the information on the back of a Leafy Shade card that bore the slogan REST IS BEST. He was hurrying along the drive, and acutely relieved to have left the episode behind, when he glimpsed movement out of the corner of his eye. Had one of the residents fallen out of bed? Beyond a ground-floor window to his left a quilt was sprawling towards the floor. The pale shapeless object floundered out of sight beneath the low sill before he could distinguish it more clearly, but he couldn't
have seen arms and legs protruding from it; nobody's limbs could be so unequal, in length as well as thickness. All the same, the bed was empty, and an occupant might have been entangled in the quilt. As Fairman thought of alerting someone, a uniformed nurse came into the room. His face grew blank as he saw what was there, and Fairman headed for his car.
He boxed up his prize and locked the boot, and then he hesitated. However uncomfortable the intervention of the mayoress and the police had made him, they'd helped him secure the book. Suppose the historian was as unforthcoming as Rhoda Bickerstaff had tried to be? Fairman might appreciate some official help, and so he phoned from outside the Leafy Shade. A somnolent hiss gave way to the simulation of a bell before a man mumbled "Yes."
There were fewer consonants to it than there might have been—perhaps none. "Mr Headon," Fairman said.
"Miss a fair un."
Was Headon drunk? He seemed to find it hard to shape his words. "That's who I am," Fairman nevertheless said.
"Goo to he fum you. Reach me alas."
"Good to speak to you. I'm sorry that I couldn't reach you sooner. Is it convenient to see you now?"
"Seem eel layer. Attach oh."
"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that."
"Lair. Lair." With a distinctly peevish effort Headon succeeded in pronouncing "Later. You'll be at the show."
"I may be, but couldn't you possibly—"
"I have Tourette's." As Fairman wondered how much this might explain, Headon added a resentful translation. "Have to rest before the show."
"You're involved in it, you mean."
"I'm image all wry." Headon's words were growing worse than blurred again. "Arrest him," he muttered, "when you caw."
"Forgive me, I didn't catch that either."
"I said," Headon complained, "I was resting when you called."
"I'm sorry, I didn't realise." Fairman had a distinct impression that Headon thought he should have. "I don't suppose," he said, "before I go you could tell me who else—"
The Last Revelation Of Gla'aki Page 6