The Blood of Angels

by Stephen Gregory

  And the noise, the roaring and drumming noise? It was the running of hot water from the boiler.

  Rummaging in the bed for the spotted red neckerchief, he knotted it round his throat. Then he tiptoed halfway downstairs, holding the toad to his groin like a bizarre fig leaf. Peering over the banister, he saw that the living room was empty. The rug and eider­down and pillow were rumpled on the sofa. The dressing gown was gone. He continued down the stairs, squeezing the natter­jack to him, and leaned across the sofa to touch the warm place where the girl had been lying. He crossed the room. Again, he listened at the bathroom door, leaning his forehead on it, his eyes tightly closed.

  Sarah was in the bath. He heard the drumming of water from the taps, the thunder of bubbles and foam as the bath filled up. A fine haze of steam came under the door, warm on his bare feet. For a minute, the sound of the water obliterated all other sounds. But then he imagined her leaning forward and turning off the taps, because the noise stopped and there were gentle splashes and ripples as the girl relaxed in the bath. Harry clenched his eyes shut. He pictured her in the water. The image of her soap-slithery limbs, her golden skin glistening with bubbles, her shining, smooth body, her hair slick in the fog of steam . . . the image was so vivid to him that he mouthed her name and felt his tongue go heavy and dry. Unthinking, he let the toad swarm on his belly.

  Oh Sarah, oh Sarah . . . His lips framed the words. She was sleek with water, scented with soap, lying in the bath on the other side of that door, while the toad swelled and throbbed on him. He must have spoken her name aloud, because the girl called out with a tremor of alarm in her voice, ‘Is that you, Harry? Are you up?’

  Yes, Harry was up. He blinked his eyes open. The natterjack squirmed, and the power was in him. It pulsed in his head and every muscle of his body. It made his mind go blank. There was nothing else for Harry Clewe: nothing but the toad, his throbbing nakedness, and the girl just a few feet away. He pushed open the door and stepped into the bathroom.

  There was a terrible scene. Harry trod into the steam-filled room, naked, erect, with the toad clenched in his fist. His face was bruised and swollen from the punching he’d had. His hair was a tous­led, gingery mop. His eyes were the dead-cold eyes of a shark . . . no spark, but the gleam of an uncontrollable lust. He banged the door shut behind him, and towered over the bath. Seeing the girl’s silvery white breasts and her slippery brown thighs as she squirmed away from him, he was powerless to control himself. Dropping the toad into the water, he reached down for her.

  They fought in the bath. She stood up and tried to beat him off with her fists. She jabbed at his eyes, she tore at his ears, she screamed as hard as she could scream. He trod into the water with her and used his height and sinewy strength to force her down­wards again . . . until, for a few ecstatic moments, he was stretched on top of her, deep in the hot foam with every inch of his nakedness on hers . . . ‘in amplexus’ like the toads in the photographs he’d seen. He could feel her breasts on his breast, her belly on his, her long, silken thighs sliding against him. Ignoring her squeals and yells and furious spitting, he muffled her mouth with his own mouth and weighted her down in the water.

  Suddenly the girl stopped struggling. She went limp underneath him, heaving for breath. Slowly the waves subsided. She smiled at him, running her tongue deliciously around her lips.

  ‘Harry Clewe . . .’ she whispered. ‘Oh Harry . . . Shall I give you what you want, after all? Come on, then . . .’

  He felt her legs easing apart. She lifted her belly to his. She wriggled her hips, as though to let him inside her. One of her hands went down there, expertly aligned him and nubbed his swollen tip towards her.

  ‘There . . .’ she whispered. ‘Nearly there . . . Jesus, you’re a big boy, Harry! Just one little squeeze, and you’re there. One little squeeze, like this . . . Like this!’

  Her hand reached back to his balls and clenched. She clenched as hard as she could. With an animal grunt, using every ounce of her strength, she closed her fist, ground her nails together and arched her body with the effort of clenching.

  Harry wrenched himself from her, bellowing like a camel. He staggered to his feet astride her and stumbled from the bath in a blur of agony that brought a cascade of water onto the bathroom floor with him. The pain filled his head, where the lust had been. And when he saw that the girl was laughing at him, that she was lying in the deep water and flaunting her inaccessible nakedness by squirming the toad on her breasts and belly and the coppery curls between her legs, he went roaring out of the bathroom, grinding his teeth, clutching the place where the pain was worst.

  There he stood by the dead fire, naked, quivering, dazzled by rage and humiliation. He cursed and spat and squeezed his eyes shut. He cupped himself where the girl had clenched her hand, and the pain seemed to drum inside his head. The noise grew louder. It welled from inside him and drummed in the little room. Until, when he opened his eyes and looked around him, he realised that someone was hammering on the front door.

  He froze. The hammering on the front door continued, staccato and hard. He knew who it would be.

  He moved quickly to the sofa, picked up the rug that Sarah had used and wrapped it around him. He shook some of the water from his hair, rubbing it out of his eyes with his fingers. Miraculously, the pain had gone. He’d forgotten it, in anticipation of confronting the rock-climber. He took a deep breath and opened the front door.

  Patrick stood there, glowering, jutting his bristly chin before any­thing had been said. He’d parked the blue van behind the Mercedes-Benz.

  ‘Where’s Sarah?’ he said, peering at the bruises on Harry’s face. He frowned to see Harry dripping wet, wrapped in a rug. He snarled, seeing that Harry was wearing the spotted red neckerchief. ‘Where’s Sarah?’ he said again. ‘Did she spend the night here?’

  ‘Yes, she did,’ Harry replied. ‘Come in.’

  Patrick stepped into the living room, lean and threatening in T-shirt and climbing slacks, ridiculously barefoot. He glanced around at the pictures and books, at the pillow and eiderdown on the sofa.

  ‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ Harry said, closing the front door. ‘She slept on the sofa, nice and warm in front of the fire, and I was upstairs, of course. We just talked, that’s all. You didn’t think I’d try and take advantage of her, did you?’

  ‘So where is she?’ the man asked.

  Harry took a step towards the stairs. He paused and took another step. ‘She’s in the bath,’ he said. ‘She won’t be long getting out. Have a seat and wait for her, if you like. I’ll go and get some clothes on . . .’

  Harry trod up the first two stairs. He was shuddering with fear. His heart leaped when Patrick said sharply, ‘Hang on a minute! What have you been doing? Why are you so wet, and prancing around with no fucking clothes on? Eh? What the fuck have you been up to? Where is the fucking bathroom anyway? Where is it?’

  ‘I’ve been in the bath, of course,’ Harry answered, hardly con­trol­ling the yelp in his voice. ‘That’s why I’m wet. It’s through there, just through the living room. Go in and see her, if you like. There’s no lock on the door.’

  Then he was upstairs and into the bedroom in three enormous panic-stricken strides. In less than ten seconds he’d stepped into trousers and boots and wriggled into a shirt. He could hear the rock-climber tapping on the bathroom door. Reassured by the rattle of car keys in his trouser pocket, Harry glanced from the window to check that Patrick’s van wasn’t obstructing a rapid getaway in the Mercedes-Benz. His heart was pounding, his breath was short. He moved onto the landing, ready to fling himself down­stairs and out into the street, to jump into the car and go hurtling along the valley as fast as the remains of the Wabenzi power would let him. He heard the rock-climber tapping on the door, calling, ‘Are you OK, Sarah? Are you there? It’s me, it’s Patrick! Can I come in?’

  Harry waited until the man had gone into the bathroom. Then he leaped down the stairs and tore open the front doo
r.

  But he didn’t go outside.

  He heard a thrashing commotion, as though someone was throwing buckets of water all over the bathroom.

  He heard screams, not full-throated screams, but muted cries through tightly clenched teeth . . . a man’s gurgling and gagging, a woman’s bubbling squeal. As though the man and the woman were retching, spewing so hard that their chests would burst, inhal­ing water, drowning in an agony of tortured cramps . . . As though they were grappling and drowning, locked together in deep, hot, soapy water.

  As though they were dying.

  Harry listened, too stunned to move. It lasted for a long, long minute. Gradually the commotion subsided. The thrashing stopped and there were no more cries. There was a slowly lapping silence.

  Harry tiptoed to the bathroom. He listened to the silence for another minute, pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  The light was on. There was water all over the floor, so that he could feel the buzz of electricity even through his boots. Patrick and Sarah were in the bath. Neither of them was moving. She was completely submerged, held down by his paralysed body. Her face was framed by golden hair. Her mouth was wide open, with a splendid silver bubble the size of a cauliflower somehow attached to her lips. As Harry leaned down to see, the bubble broke away and bobbed to the surface, bursting with a sigh. She stared through the grey water, frowning, as though she was going to ask Harry a very important question and had just forgotten what the question was.

  Patrick lay twisted on top of her. He was looking at Harry as well, grinning his cocksure grin. Barefoot on the flooded floor, poleaxed by the current he’d switched on before stepping into the bathroom, he must have tried to pull the girl out of the bath and then collapsed on top of her. She’d pulled his head into the water, winding her arms around his neck. His hands were clenched to the edge of the bath. His feet floated to the surface.

  Something was moving in the bath. The natterjack toad, thrust­ing its legs in powerful spasm, sculled through the water. It dived to the bottom, trailing a string of pearly bubbles.

  Harry, numb at the sight of the man and the girl in his bath, reacted at once when he saw the toad. Resisting the urge to reach into the water and pluck the toad out, he felt for the switch outside the bathroom door and turned the power off. Then, in another moment, he’d rescued the toad from drowning . . . it was too late to save the man and the girl, even if he’d thought of trying to do so. He sat on the rumpled sofa in front of the cold fire, and, welling with love and tenderness, he kissed the toad until it writhed and wriggled in his hands.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Patrick was dead for ever. So was Sarah. But Harry, befuddled by shock, hoped for a miracle. After all, the toad had been cold and limp and dead, and then it had come alive again. He wouldn’t believe that the girl was dead for ever. She couldn’t be. She would come alive again, as the toad had. She was his, thanks to the power and the magic of the toadstone.

  And there was something he’d wanted to do for some time, an idea he’d had weeks ago, almost as soon as he’d first met the girl. Now he could do it. He got busy, quite calm and unhurried and methodical.

  He took off the red neckerchief and wrapped the toad in it. Leaving it on the mantelpiece, he returned to the bathroom. He prised the rock-climber’s fingers from the edges of the bath, unwound the girl’s arms from his neck, rolled him to one side and freed the girl from underneath him. The man carried on grinning, as if the whole business was a huge joke he was looking forward to sharing with his friends in the climbing fraternity . . . how he’d given the girl a shock by surprising her in the bath. A soapy grey wave splashed onto the floor as Harry bent down and grasped the girl under the armpits. She was very slippery and much heavier than he’d thought she would be. With great difficulty, he pulled her upright, so that her face burst through the surface with a spec­tacular cascade of water. Her hair was slick on her head, like a neat, smooth, golden helmet. She lolled against him. He wrestled her to her feet, all her warm, wet, naked body leaning on him, and manhandled her out of the bathroom and into the living room, where he let her fall softly onto the sofa.

  He went back to the bathroom for her dressing gown and a big soft towel, and, returning to the living room, he dried the girl, working very slowly and deliberately from her feet upwards. He dried her tiny white toes, her dimpled knees, her coppery pubic curls, her pale pink nipples, her pale pink lips. He closed her gull’s eyes. His lust was gone. He handled her with all the love and ten­der­ness and respect he’d bestowed on the toad. When he’d rubbed her hair dry and carefully combed it, he fitted her into the pink dressing gown, tying the belt at her waist. She was ready.

  His turn now. It didn’t take long. He dried and combed his thick, red hair. He made sure he had money, glasses, car keys. He went outside and peered up and down the village street. It was deserted: no people, and no vehicles apart from the Mercedes-Benz and the blue van. It was a glorious autumn morning, high in the mountains of Snowdonia, and the only sounds in the crisp cold air were the croak of raven and the mewing of buzzard. Harry turned inside again, picked up the girl from the sofa and carried her to the door. He felt strong; the girl was light and manageable in his arms; the work in the hotel garden had hardened his muscles; the power of the toad was in him. With a deep breath, he stepped into the street and swung the girl over the jammed passenger door of his car, lowering her onto the passenger seat. In another ten seconds, he’d gone inside for the most precious thing of all, the bundled toad on the mantelpiece, come out again, pulled the cottage door shut and flung himself behind the steering wheel.

  Keeping his breathing calm, he unfolded the spotted necker­chief and put the natterjack toad on top of the dashboard. He leaned over to the girl and strapped her firmly in place; she lolled, as though she were sleepy or drunk, so he slid her deeper in the seat and tightened the safety belt on her. Then he slotted the key in the ignition, groped at the toad with the other hand for all the magic it could muster, and turned over the engine.

  It churned and churned. It coughed. There was a bang like a gunshot and a cloud of filthy black smoke blew out of the exhaust pipe. But the car wouldn’t fire. Harry turned the key again. He squeezed the toad harder and harder. The engine cranked and wheezed. Another explosion, more smoke; a woman opened a window in a cottage down the street to peer out and see what was happening. Harry smiled and waved and the woman withdrew. He squeezed the toad so hard he thought it might burst in his hand, like an overripe orange. The engine turned over, slower and slower and slower, and still there was no spark in it.

  He struggled to stay calm. He let go of the toad and leaned back in his seat with his eyes closed. When he heard a vehicle come into the village and stop nearby, he opened his eyes and saw the postman get out of his van and go into the village shop, come out again and start striding along the terrace with a sheaf of mail. The postman flipped the letters here and there, through this letter box and that, shuffling them in his hands to read the addresses. Closer and closer he came. As he crossed the road, glancing down at the last letter in his hand and up along the street towards Harry’s cottage, he held up the letter and waved it, seeing Harry at the wheel of the big, red car.

  For a few moments, Harry lost control. Gibbering like a baboon, he turned the ignition key again, churning and churning the engine. It banged more loudly than ever, an explosion that clattered a flock of pigeons from the fir plantation on the hillside. Ducking his head in the feeble hope that the postman might walk straight past without seeing him there, he turned the key and pumped the accelerator at the same time. The postman stopped at the driver’s door and thrust a white envelope in front of Harry’s face.

  ‘Clewe? Harry Clewe?’ he said. ‘There’s a letter for you, from Shrewsbury.’ With a mischievous grin all over his face, he added, ‘Sounds as though the car’s had it. I’d give up and wait for the village bus, if I were you. There’s one due the day after tomorrow . . .’

  Harry took the le
tter from him. One glance at the childish handwriting on the envelope, and the magic was in him again. It was another miracle! He looked up with a dazzling smile. The post­man was squinting at the girl slumped in the passenger seat, blinking at the pimply brown creature on the dashboard. Harry gestured at the girl with his thumb.

  ‘She’s the one who’s had it!’ he said with a forced laugh. ‘She’s dead this morning! The car’s OK, it’ll start next time. Thanks for the letter. It’s from Lizzie, my little sister. Funnily enough, we’re on the way to see her right now. That was a bit of luck, her letter coming just as we’re about to set off.’

  He leaned to the motionless girl and slipped the letter inside her dressing gown. With a grin and a wink at the postman, who was still peering at the bundled toad, Harry tried the ignition again. The Mercedes-Benz shuddered into life. The engine fired with a rasping bellow, filling the air with sweet, blue smoke. Winking again at the postman, Harry eased the car forward and then turned it round at the further end of the village. He waited for a minute while the engine warmed up, until it stopped shuddering and spluttering, until it idled a burbling, even note. He adjusted the girl beside him. He settled the natterjack toad. He strapped himself in and straightened his glasses on the bridge of his nose. He floored the accelerator.

  What a day! Harry Clewe was going home, to show his girl to little Lizzie! Beloved little Lizzie, whose letter had just arrived!

  The world was a sparkling, gleaming, glittering place. The car seemed to fly. In the whirling wind, Harry’s hair and Sarah’s hair burned red and gold with all the red-gold fire of a blazing autumn. The sky was cold and blue, quite cloudless. The mountains were raw and clear. The air was so crisp, it nipped at Harry’s nostrils and brought tingling tears to his eyes. He held the accelerator down. The road was dry and clean and the car reeled it in, drawing the horizon closer. He slowed down in Beddgelert, hindered by dawdling traffic and ambling pedestrians, and the engine sang in the narrow village street. People turned to watch the long, red convertible go throttling by, with the red-headed man and the blonde woman inside it. The hotel manager, strutting along the pavement, smiled and waved; Harry waved triumphantly back, his chest aching with joy. Sarah’s uncle was standing at the door of the restaurant; he opened and closed his mouth, gaping like a fish, and flapped a tea towel to try and catch the girl’s attention. She didn’t see him. Harry accelerated out of the village, and the man shrank in his mirror.