“Max, this is so…” I lifted my hands in resignation. I had stepped back in time to another age entirely. I caught sight of a figure passing by a doorway further inside. A light-blue shirt. Like a uniform? I couldn’t be sure.
“Striking, eh?” said Max.
I had to agree.
The light footsteps from above were now sounding on the staircase, the boards groaning every now and again, but not distracting enough to draw me away from viewing everything the place had to offer. “I had no idea, Max,” I said. “All this time you had this. I had no idea. Your mother would be so proud of you.”
“Hello, Philip,” a voice said quietly behind me.
My heart lurched. I turned, not believing what I heard. But it was true. Here she was. Still as beautiful as ever. Every inch as beautiful as I remembered her.
“Ruby!” I said.
* * * *
30
Friday
It all began with a fever.
It hit me on Monday night, following my evening meal. Up till then I must admit I had decided to take Wise’s words as a malicious joke on his part. Surely if I’d been earmarked to die then I’d be dead already. He was just a perverted, sick bastard, one of those who as a kid tore the legs off spiders. He was doing the same to me after a fashion, pulling off my legs of self-assurance and watching me squirm. That was until I had the dry, metallic taste in my mouth, followed by such a severe headache that I thought my head would explode with the pain. I remember dashing my plate of roast beef and potatoes from the table and screaming, “You’ve killed me! You’ve killed me!”
I staggered to the mirror and rattled it hard with my fist in protest, but the sound and the movement caused more pain. In the end I staggered to my bed and flung myself down onto it as my mind slipped further into delirium. I heard a voice, my voice, but detached and whispering from somewhere behind me. “The potent poison quite o’er-crows my spirit!” it said dramatically.
“For Christ’s sake, get the bloody thing right, Philip!”
“Those are the words, sir!”
“But you don’t have to say them like you’re going on a daytrip to Cleethorpes, lad! You’re dying!”
“It’s only a play, sir.”
“Only a play! This is Hamlet, young man!”
“It’s not real, is it? They know I’m not dying - not really dying. I’m just gonna look stupid. My mum and dad will be there.”
“That’s just the point. If you’re going to die you’ve got to do it good, like you really mean it, for them.”
“Who ever heard of dying good? Dying is not good.”
The teacher shook his head. “Sometimes, all we get in life is a good death, Philip. Sometimes life’s so ignoble that the end is all you’re left with. So get some practice in and make a bloody good job of it, or else you’ll be doing it for real.”
Well I’m doing it good now, sir, I thought.
There followed many protracted hours (days, months?) of mental and physical agony. Every now and then my thoughts became more lucid, and I attempted to raise my sweat-drenched body from the sodden bed, but the pain forced me back down and the fire swamped me all over again, only doubly so, as if in retribution for my feeble efforts to rouse myself. I writhed in mental anguish, screaming aloud – at least, I thought it was aloud – and in tears, my stomach and legs knotted with excruciating cramps, my head feeling as if a white-hot needle had been inserted through the bone of my temple and into the yielding, pulsing mass of my tortured brain. I died a hundred different deaths that night; strangulation, drowning, shooting, crushed by cars, and just when I thought I could endure no more the deaths were repeated. Indeed, I thought this was Purgatory itself.
Then, seemingly abruptly, the pain disappeared and I floated at ease in a lightless universe that might have been the womb or the coffin. I didn’t care. I was enjoying the peace.
Till the visitations.
They’ve been coming ever since.
I am certain now that my mind is going. I’d like to suspect drugs are the cause, my poison-laced roast potatoes perhaps, but it is not, I fear, the true cause. I have noticed my mind disassembling for some time.
It is only to be expected, I console myself. My writing has loosed all kinds of devils and forced me to face each and every one of them. Whether asleep or awake I have been plagued by them during the nights that followed my fever. Dead people filing past my bed – my Uncle Geoffrey, Bernard, Mr Walton and Ruby. Most painful of all is seeing Ruby. It’s as if every page I’ve written is in effect another shovel of earth that has eventually removed them all from their graves, bringing them to life.
I guess thinking back to how Ruby looked when I first met her after all those years has not been a good thing for me. Other restless souls have taken it as a trumpet call. Now they file past my bed every night in various stages of decay. I smell their corruption long before I see them. Only I shouldn’t be able to see them at all in my darkened room, for the dark is total. But see them I do.
Always it is my Uncle Geoffrey who comes up first, his skin a phosphorous greenish-yellow, and always he appears as a head bobbing around like some grinning full Moon in a starless night sky. “I’m not alone,” he says. “I have company now.” I should be glad, because he hated being all alone, which was sad really, because he died alone in his own hallway. “I’m a spokesman,” he chimes proudly, and if he had a chest it would probably be puffing out. He says this every time, and yet as spokesman he delivers nothing on the others’ behalf. He just bobs. Anyhow, he’d make a bad spokesman, I think, because his breath smells something terrible. At first I used to blink hard, nip myself to assure myself I wasn’t sleeping. But of course I wasn’t. I admit they have come so regularly now that I don’t much mind them. All except for seeing Ruby. That hurts. But I have even learned to endure Uncle Geoffrey’s stinking breath to some degree. He stands – or floats – at the foot of my bed, and the others gather round. It is a little like I’m back in that hospital bed, surrounded by friends and relatives who once loved me, except for Mr Walton, who never loved anyone.
Bernard is next. He never says a word, which I guess is in keeping with his character; he merely stands (Bernard is lucky to have a full body and legs to stand on) and grins, his teeth looking like one of those reflective strips they sew onto children’s school bags or coats. Both his wrists appear to be smiling too. He shows them to me and I’m afraid I have to look away. It is no use closing my eyes, because I tried that early on and they were still there, so I figure they’ve got to be in my head and not standing in my room at all. Maybe it’s the after-effects of a drug after all. Who knows? And I ask Bernard what is it he wants, but he never answers. He grins. It’s nice to see him look so happy though, even if he is long dead.
Mr Walton then steps forward, his eyes blazing white from a blackened face with skin peeling off it like damp wallpaper, wisps of grey-blue smoke still rising from it, which smells a little of fried bacon. He always carries in his hand half a coconut dangling from a piece of string, and a hefty walking stick smeared with blood. His expression is one of blame, and he points the stick at me threateningly, though he never does any more than this so I take it all lightly.
Then it’s Ruby’s turn, and this always makes me burst into tears. Her face and chest are covered in thick, drying mud. “I’m sorry, Ruby. It’s all my fault,” I say. She says it doesn’t matter, but I can tell from her face she thinks it does. I mean, she’s dead; it’s got to matter, hasn’t it?
“Is it revenge, is that what you want?” I ask them all, but they fade away.
I could put up with this, if that’s all that happened, but last night it went further, because I was visited by the Devil himself. True, believe me, he sat on the end of my bed, so heavy his weight stopped the blood flowing in my legs and gave me pins and needles. He’s not bad looking for the Devil, quite dapper really. He dresses in a suit and splashes himself with aftershave. It’s not even expensive aftershave, but I don’t rig
htly know what that’s saying about his character. I can just make out his horns under his combed-back hair, but they’re not as pronounced as I thought they’d be. But he’s evil all the same. It comes off him like putrid fumes from a bloated, week-old cadaver in the Sun, and it makes me want to gag. He takes me by the hair and yanks it hard, causing me to cry in pain, and he’s jabbering on about something, but I have to stare him in the eyes and say, “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand demonic,” at which point he screams another series of expletives in no language I’ve ever heard of and then vanishes in a puff of smoke, like a stage devil. It leaves me feeling quite unsettled.
So what do you reckon? Poison? Or madness? Or both? I can’t even begin to work it out.
* * * *
“Ruby!” I said, equally confused and overjoyed.
I made a move towards her, but Max beat me to it and put his arm around her shoulder. He put his arm around her shoulder. I must have looked quite stupid then, grinning but without humour, my hand held out in mid air towards Ruby, my body looking awkward and unbalanced because I’d started to move towards her and was arrested in my steps by Max’s movement.
“My wife,” he said.
I blinked, glancing from him to her and back again. “It’s so nice to see you again, Philip,” Ruby said, breaking free of him and floating over to me. She touched my arm, bent forward and kissed me on the cheek. I swear it left a burning sensation there. Her smell was the same. Just the same. The memories came crashing back. The smell of goulash and damp wallpaper. She paused for a second to look into my eyes with her own troubled orbs. Yes, troubled. And then the image vanished and she was no longer troubled, but wore an expression of utter contentment. She gripped me tight and hugged me again, this time with more fervour, perhaps to try and allay some of my obvious bewilderment. “You look shattered,” she said, leading me out of the room and through double doors. “You ought to rest. Can we get you something to eat? Drink?”
She guided me towards a plush sofa and I sat down. The room was every bit as luxurious as the last, but perhaps not as ostentatious. “I’m fine,” I mumbled, trying to smile at her, finding it profoundly difficult.
Wife? What did he mean wife?
“You two are…” I began, but found the words choked me.
Max entered the room, closing the doors behind him. “We’ve been married five years,” he admitted.
“I…I didn’t…Well, I didn’t know,” I said.
Ruby cast a fiery glance at Max. “You didn’t tell him?” her voice was quiet, controlled, but I detected annoyance there.
“I guess I forgot,” he said, shrugging and walking to a drinks cabinet. He flung open the doors and removed a bottle. “Collie?” he said, raising a glass.
“No. No thank you.”
“He should have told you,” Ruby said apologetically, her body language signalling embarrassment.
“That’s OK,” I said, though it wasn’t. I wouldn’t be here if I’d known, I thought acidly. With great difficulty I avoided looking at Max, who had come round to sit opposite me in an armchair, a drink in one hand.
“I think I’ll show Philip his room,” Ruby declared stiffly.
“Give him chance, he’s only just sitting down.”
“All the same, he looks tired and would perhaps like to freshen up. Isn’t that right, Philip?”
“I wouldn’t mind.”
“That’s settled then. This way. Let’s leave Max to his drink.” She smiled at him, but it was a passing thing that barely made an impression on her lips.
Max lifted his drink in a salute, as if to sanction her decision. “Behave yourself, Collie,” I heard him say to my back.
I followed Ruby dumbly to the staircase. She turned. “Are your bags in the car?” My bewilderment had slowly crept towards anger. But I nodded and held it back. “I’ll have someone bring them in for you.” Here she offered a genuinely warm smile. “I think you’ll like your room.” She set off at a pace, nimbly climbing the stairs with me in tow behind.
“How could you, Ruby?” I said, the words spilling out in spite of my better judgement.
She paused, a hand on the stair rail, turning her head slowly. “How could I what?”
I looked away. “Nothing.”
“We’re divorced, remember?”
My head nodded sheepishly. “Yeah, forgive me. It’s just that I didn’t expect any of this. With Max. It came as a shock, that’s all.”
“I can imagine. If it’s any consolation I didn’t know you were coming until yesterday.” She turned and ascended the stairs.
I was about to say something as we reached the wide landing when the sight of a uniformed man held my words in check.
Standing rigidly by a wall, flanked by oil paintings of naked Victorian women posing as voluptuous Greek goddesses, he regarded me suspiciously, his arms folded across his broad chest. I hadn’t expected a store detective. As we passed he nodded once to Ruby, who avoided looking at him and didn’t reciprocate. He gave the same greeting to me, which I, infected with politeness as I was, returned. The light flashed off his cap badge. I was aware of him watching us as we passed down the landing, doors on either side of us like an upmarket hotel, I thought.
“Who’s the guy?” I asked quietly when I was certain he was out of earshot.
“Security,” she returned shortly. “We have all kinds of valuables here.”
It wasn’t, I imagined, the kind of place you’d ordinarily think of as vulnerable to break-ins. But I was in no mood to argue the point. I’d forgotten the guard as soon as we reached the door that Ruby opened. She stepped into the room beyond and I followed. To say it was huge was an understatement. However, it was significantly different to the rooms downstairs, being largely Art Deco in style. I walked in and sat on the edge of the large bed, but my interest in the room’s contents had vanished with my good humour. I stared at a bronze Art Deco figurine with ivory head and hands, but for the present it was the only thing I even half noticed. I spent more time studying my feet. Ruby wandered over to the curtains and pulled them wider.
“You’ll find the bed’s aired off. It should all be very comfortable for you. This is a terrific view, you know. You can see right to the ocean from here.”
I rose and went over to stand a couple of feet behind her. I had this urge to put my hand on her neck, her beautiful neck, to run a finger into her hair. All manner of thoughts, of things I wanted to say, built up like fizz in a soda bottle, trapped at the stopper, the desire to release the pressure immense. “Yes. I can see. It’s very nice,” I said.
“I picked this room for you.”
“Thank you.”
“You do like it, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. Why shouldn’t I? It’s perfect.”
Perfect, like you.
“The weather’s getting worse, though,” she said. “It might last a few days. So I suppose you might not get to see the ocean, not until it passes over. See? It’s all grey. You can only just see the hills in the distance.”
I could not bear to think of Ruby and Max together. The image clouded my vision despite all attempts to wipe them clear. “I never guessed that…” I began.
“Why did you come?” she asked suddenly, turning to face me. Either her face was reflecting the dull light from the window or she was dreadfully pale.
“Because he invited me.”
“You shouldn’t have come here.”
“I’m beginning to realise that,” I returned. “It’s not easy, you know.”
Her features softened and something of the Ruby from my past swam in her eyes. “It’s not easy for me too, believe me. He never told me you were coming. Imagine how I felt. How I feel.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. How did you feel?”
Then her expression iced over. “You shouldn’t have come here. It was a mistake. I’ll try and arrange for you to leave as soon as possible.”
“Are you OK?” I ventured, faintly alarmed at her anxi
ety.
She might have been about to say something. I’ll never know. She looked to the doorway and my eyes followed hers. The security guard met my gaze, and then put a finger to the brim of his cap in salute. He smiled and then sauntered out of view.
“I’ll see you in a while,” said Ruby, passing me by and leaving me alone in my room. Sighing, I turned to study the view out of my window. The sky was almost black, and the distance had indeed been scrubbed away leaving behind a greasy, grey residue, and from somewhere deep inside this dreary cloud I could make out the booming of the waves beating the ancient rocks. The wind threw rain at the windows with the same sound as if someone had tossed rice at them. I decided to open them. Why, I don’t know. To clear my fogged brain, I suppose. I tugged at the latches for a few moments before I realized the windows had been locked in some way.
To protect valuables, I surmised.
* * * *
Quite understandably my mood had not lightened by the evening as we sat down to our meal.
On entering this strange building I had experienced an unaccountable thrill, and up till my meeting Ruby again I had actually begun to look forward to my stay. Now my spirits had taken a plunge into the icy depths of depression. My poor emotions were as much in turmoil as the sea outside, and I didn’t know whether to feel anger, embarrassment or self-pity, any one of these feelings taking hold without warning until one of the others knocked it from its perch, as if a brawl was going on in my head for total control.
Blood Bonds: A psychological thriller Page 27