by Mark Morris
‘You’re right,’ said Kate. She fell silent for a minute, and I sensed her struggling to find something to say to fill what she evidently perceived as an awkward moment. I felt a bit sad about that. Kate and I had always felt perfectly relaxed in each other’s company, had never had to indulge in contrived conversation to mask the fact that we really had nothing to say to each other.
‘It’s OK,’ I told her. ‘I’m OK. You don’t have to make allowances for me. I’m not going to have a relapse every time someone mentions Matt – or Alex either, come to that.’
Kate gave me a rueful look. ‘I’m not handling this very well, am I?’
‘You’re doing OK,’ I told her. ‘I’m sure I’d be the same if the roles were reversed.’
We sat in a brief silence that was companionable this time. This was how I’d always measured the depth and genuineness of my friendships. With true friends you can sit quietly and not feel uncomfortable. Hand in hand, Kate and I listened to the somnolent drone of the bees, the occasional murmur of distant traffic, the sharp clack of garden shears which carried to us clearly on the still air as one of the Greenwell Clinic’s many gardeners shuffled along on all fours several hundred yards away, trimming the already immaculate borders.
‘So what are your plans now?’ Kate said eventually. ‘When are you coming home?’
‘When Dr Sykes says I’m better, I suppose. I’m in no hurry.’
‘Have your mum and dad been to see you yet?’
I nodded. ‘They came as soon as they could. Dad’s been fantastic, actually. The second time he came on his own and he poured his heart out to me. He’s devastated about Alex, but he was so, so happy – I mean, genuinely happy – to see me up and about. He cried his eyes out, and he hugged me like he didn’t ever want to let me go, and he called me his little girl. We talked more in a single afternoon than we’ve talked in the last fifteen years. You know he’s even been paying the rent on my place in London?’
‘I know. I think it was his way of making himself believe that one day you’d be well enough to go back there.’
‘Well, I’m glad I can make at least that wish come true for him,’ I said.
Kate and I chatted for a little while longer and then she said she had to go. She hugged me and told me that she’d see me again at the weekend, told me that if I wanted to stay with her and Graham for a bit once I got out of this place then I was more than welcome. I stayed sitting on the bench, watching her over my shoulder as she crossed the sun-drenched lawn towards the elegant mansion that had once been Greenwell Hall and was now the Greenwell Clinic. She paused on the steps to wave to me. I waved back.
Alone again, I stared out across the lawn towards the line of trees that marked the boundary of the woods a quarter of a mile away. Dr Sykes had told me that once I was stronger, perhaps even as early as next week, I could walk in those woods. It was something to aim for, I suppose, if I needed such targets, though in truth I was content to bide my time. Nevertheless, the anticipation of strolling among the bluebells and wild garlic that Dr Sykes had told me grew there in profusion was delicious.
I remembered walking through such places with Alex, remembered his enthusiasm as he pointed out details of flora and fauna that would otherwise have escaped my untrained eye. I allowed my memories free reign, allowed Alex’s life to play in my mind like a series of movie clips. His life may have been short, but it had been happy and fulfilled and packed full of the best kind of incident. When I pictured him now, I pictured his ebullience and his childlike wonder; in my mind, he was never still and he was always grinning.
I looked to the trees and I saw him standing there, clear as day, the sun on his face, waiting for me to join him. And at his shoulder, almost concealed by the leaves, and with his face turned towards me, stood the grey man.
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Also by Mark Morris
Toady (aka The Horror Club) (1989)
Stitch (1991)
The Immaculate (1992)
The Secret of Anatomy (1994)
Mr Bad Face (1996)
Longbarrow (1997)
Genesis (1999)
The Dogs (2001)
Fiddleback (2002)
The Lonely Places (2002)
The Uglimen (2002)
Nowhere Near an Angel (2004)
The Deluge (2007)
Dead Island (2011)
Vampire Circus (2012)
Dedication
From J. M. to H. K. For ever.
Mark Morris (1963–)
Mark Morris became a full-time writer in 1988 on the Enterprise Allowance Scheme. A year later saw the release of his first novel, Toady. His short stories, novellas, articles and reviews have appeared in a wide variety of anthologies and magazines, and he is editor of the highly-acclaimed Cinema Macabre, a book of fifty horror movie essays by genre luminaries, for which he won the 2007 British Fantasy Award. He currently lives which his wife in Tadcaster, North Yorkshire.
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Mark Morris 2002
All rights reserved.
The right of Mark Morris to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2013 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 1 473 20102 6
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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