Chrissie put down her glass and shrank back into the little chair. Caught in a window, there on the street, They. They idled by the bar, past the hotel, framed in sun and geraniums. Her Beings from the fountain.
She named them abruptly, she did not know why, Arrigo and Gina. Arrigo and Gina moved over the windows, one window after another, making each window wonderful a moment. Then they were beyond the last window. Where were they going?
It was the vodka of course which made Chrissie get up. She walked hurriedly from the bar now, back across the hotel lobby, out into the street - as if to an appointment. Not with an unmarried husband in a loveless bedroom, but to something - strange, inexplicable, crazy, terrible.
What was she doing? This was stupid. She stood in the street, looking along it, the way they must have gone. The sun scorched now directly down on her - and yet, shadows were beginning to come back, yes, creeping like spilled darkness from the edges of things.
Chrissie started to walk rather fast along the street. A merry dog ran by. Some children were laughing in a doorway. In a yard a fair young man perched on a stationary Lambretta, and a fair girl, hand on hip, hair streaming. But these were not They.
When she reached the street’s end, a huddle of buildings stood around a space with a tall tree, perhaps a plane, and the shadows were coming - but nothing else. She had lost them, lost Arrigo and Gina. And that was just as well. What would they have said to her, done to her, with those slimly muscled bronze arms, those cruel serpentine-fruited tongues - some torrent of abuse and a calling of polizia? What was she, some stalker?
She braced herself to retreat. Precisely then she became aware of them once more.
It was almost as if they had not been there until she made the (mental) move to give up, which was absurd.
And they waited - were they waiting? - at the mouth of an alleyway, where a bunting of gaudy washing hung, doubtless deceptive to the eyes. But they - once more they were staring back at her. Chrissie felt a wave of fright and dismay, and next second - they were sliding away from her, as if they stood on a platform with wheels - how could that be? And the washing and the alley were all she could see.
Astonished, she found she bolted forward, she also on wheels attached to their wheels … And running across the space, under the deep metallic flags of the plane tree, right up to the alley mouth, and there, only there, she stopped, as if - ended. For they were not to be seen any more. Finally they had eluded her and slipped away.
Lovers, she thought. Let them alone.
I must be mad, she thought.
She felt sick, but it went off. Then she only felt ludicrous and shaken, as if she had fallen over on the cobbled street and made a fool of herself. By that time it was just after two o’clock, and in the square the church bell was ringing.
II
By the evening Craig was very hungry and needed, he said, a stiff drink. So they went out, but only back to the small restaurant in the street the other side of the square, which they had visited every night so far. Craig ate voluminously, but without enjoyment. It was Chrissie who complimented the waiter on the very good food. They - Craig - drank a lot of alcohol. Chrissie watched the bottles and the brandies mount up. She was unable herself to eat or drink much.
When they came out, the evening had arrived and filled the street and square with soft blue ashes, lit by the gentle globes of old-fashioned wrought-iron lamp-standards. People were there who strolled arm in arm, gladly together - plump matrons with young dark eyes, benevolent men in shirtsleeves, and many Romeos with their Juliets.
‘Isn’t it a lovely evening - shall we—’
‘You do what you want. I have to see to some work.’
‘Work.’ Her voice sounded flat and childishly silly.
‘You don’t think I can just laze about like you, do you? Where do you think the money came from for this jaunt? Not your pathetic little rich-cunt-pleasing rubbish. No way.’ Craig explained/told her that now he would go up to their room and make some international calls on the firm’s mobile. He would also, she knew, order a bottle of brandy or whisky to go with this, and smoke a pack of Marlborough. If she stayed with him then, in the cramped bedroom, that was it: a desert storm of smoke and fumes and his important voice talking loud across continents. She knew, because this was how it went at home.
‘Okay,’ she said. Neutral. ‘I’ll just—’
‘Get on with it then. Do something on your own for a change.’ And he left her, standing there.
She poised in the square, pretending they had planned all this beforehand. She watched the couples going round and round her, talking to other couples or groups seated at outside tables, all under the great wild-eyed stars that were swarming in the sky and the coloured lightbulbs that were coming on. Music sounded, a horn, a mandolin, then an accordion, perhaps from a radio, or from some unseen orchestra. And the carousel of loving couples were dancing, some of them, though not the younger ones, who strutted to and fro like warriors who will always win their war. Or some swayed into the shadows, and two became one.
Chrissie thought abruptly of Arrigo and Gina. But that was not true. She had been thinking of them all the time.
She walked to the lunch cafe and found a little table going spare, just inside. She ordered an espresso to bring her round.
Of course, she had been looking out for them, even if she had not admitted as much. At the restaurant, out of the restaurant windows, in the square and streets both going and coming back.
Other men and girls were by the fountain now, splashing each other with its spray, amused, and drinking cola.
Had she ever done that? Ever, ever? On frigid English nights?
There had been summers, so perhaps. But always it was done in disappointment, sadness, alone, then as now.
Stop it. Have some coffee. Forget all that.
Chrissie drank her coffee.
Outside, the darkness grew darker. There was absolutely no sign of Arrigo or Gina. Obviously they had only been passing through and were now gone, in a slim white car, back to some extraordinary other place, some sparkling city, some villa on the navy blue hills, strung with lights, a vivacious party, or a deep bed.
Not until it was ten o’clock did Chrissie return to the hotel. She idled even then, and in the street, not at all dark now with its ornamental streetlamps, wondered if she might be mugged, an unattractive woman loitering by herself in the night. But the night was not dangerous, not here.
When she got back to their room, Craig had annexed the bath. She took the opportunity to open windows. Moths would fly in and he would shout at her, but that was better than the stench he had created.
She thought about throwing his mobile phone from the window and down on the cobbled courtyard below, between the pots of roses and lavender. But she did not.
All she did was undress and get into the twin bed which he had told her, on the first night, was hers.
She thought she would take a long while to get to sleep, especially after the espresso, but her encoffeed heart drummed her excitedly fast from wakefulness.
She regained consciousness, surprised, in the centre of the night, and saw Craig’s bulk, like some mountain she could never get over.
The windows were once more shut. Yet when she went to clean her teeth, some silvery thing sang. Was it a nightingale?
She had been dreaming - of what? She wanted to recall. Then she remembered a man in the dream, an old man, who had emerged from the carousel of dance in the square, and said to her, ‘Why do you think we take luncheon, and make siesta, at those hours? To keep us safe off the streets and the squares.’
How puzzling. What a peculiar dream - but dreams were dreams.
Craig rumbled in his slumber like a train, or an approaching earthquake, and then was silent again, as if even to snore would be to offer her too much companionship.
The next day she asked if they might go to the city. She had always wanted to see the cathedral. Also, could they not browse in th
e shops, visit the museum - the Roman ruins of a circus? ‘Well, go,’ he said. ‘Why do I have to hold your hand?’
‘But I thought you wanted—’
‘This jaunt was your idea. I’m just the one paying for it.’
I am paying for it too, she thought.
And then, is it my fault? Have I dragged him here against everything he wanted? He can, after all, drink brandy and whisky and make calls at home. I’m inadequate. Should I have come on my own? But then he would have complained because the flat was dirty and no one did the shopping … And he’s told me I can’t cope, not on my own. Yes, I’m a fool. I do see that. I make a mess of things.
She recollected how Craig had criticised her choice in music. He only liked classical music - ‘What else is there? That? That’s not music.’ But then too, only certain classics were all right. Bach, and Mozart. Rachmaninov, apparently, was a load of ‘soapy crap’, and Bartok and Prokofiev ‘certifiably insane’. Sometimes Craig played Wagner at top volume, and the flat shook, and twice a neighbour had come to remonstrate, and Chrissie, trembling, had had to deal with this, before the neighbour gave up on reason, and began instead to retaliate with the most appallingly bad loud pop music at all hours of the day and night.
After recalling all that, Chrissie shook herself and went out into the street and meandered towards the square. She had tried to talk herself into hiring a cab to take her to the city, but her Italian was so poor - he spoke it quite fluently, though his accent was not good, so sometimes people would seem bemused: ‘Fucking cretins,’ deduced Craig. Even so, he could usually make them understand, could understand them. He had told her on her own she would be a laughing-stock, monetarily cheated, perhaps physically attacked, in the city. Told her all that before he told her to go alone.
Chrissie sat at the table under the dark pink umbrella.
She had drunk two glasses of rough white wine and was thinking, if the city cathedral was out of bounds, she might try to see the church across the square.
But she kept glancing at her watch. As if she were waiting for someone. Who?
She knew who exactly.
And now the watch said 12:00 am.
No one much was in the square. Like yesterday, and the days before.
A stooped man scurried over it, darting from one side to the other, as if evading enemy surveillance. A woman went by with baskets, walking fast, disappearing into a doorway.
Those that were here seemed to cling to the square’s edges, the outdoor tables closest to the three cafes, the steps of the church. It was completely relaxed, reasonable. Sensible to avoid the midday sun, the blare of trumpets in heaven that continued from noon until two—
Chrissie finished the last of her wine. As she put down her glass, she saw, through the base, the stem, the globe of it—
They were there. Her Beings. Arrigo, Gina.
By the fountain, as before.
She had not seen them enter the square, missed it, as she had the going-away of the boys who had been sitting smoking on the church steps, and the people from nearby tables.
How very odd. It had not been this way yesterday, had it? She - and They - were alone in the square.
Alone in the light, the glistening, glistering gold.
Golden Arrigo, with his crow-wing of hair, golden Gina, with her lemon, Botticelli Venus hair, and herself, Chrissie, a small nothingness taking up (and wasting) a tiny bit of space.
Don’t stare. For God’s sake.
She lowered her eyes.
In the side of the wine glass, however, she saw them still. They were moving now, out of the square. She felt a pang of loss. Where were they going? The same destination as yesterday? Stay put. Don’t get up.
Chrissie found she had got to her feet, and tried to discover an excuse for this. While she was doing that, again she glimpsed them, how they paused. And then - it was irresistible - she looked at them again.
Made of spun crystal, coloured like Murano glass.
Perfect.
They were gazing back at her through their sunglasses. At Chrissie.
And then, infinitesimal, perhaps imagined, the slight motion of their two heads, the flicker of light on hair. Come on then, the movement seemed to say. Come with us.
Chrissie, rooted in earth. Heart in mouth, palms wet—
While they stood. Waiting.
A kind of sound that had no sound—
She too moved, quickly. She ran, forgetting she had not paid for her drinks, towards them. And now they ebbed away, so she must really run—
She did not think what this must look like, as normally she would have done. Her thoughts seemed absent now, as under great pleasure, horror or agony, sometimes they are.
Which was this, anyway? What were they doing, calling her, summoning her, yet never letting her catch up? Ah, she was thinking again now.
She saw she had reached that open area between buildings, the spot with the curious, metal-leafed tree, and she had not seen the street she ran through before that, or anything.
They were under the tree.
Under the tree, and in front of her. And
she had reached them.
Chrissie stopped running. She was panting. It did not matter, not really.
They were only three or four feet away.
Oh God, how splendid they were. Not like anything as human as a film star or a statue - they were like fabulous insects made of ivory, gold leaf and gems. And somehow, through the black shades, she could make out - the blue of his eyes, aquamarine, and hers, like platinum over pearl - but it was guesswork, maybe. She could not truly see.
‘I’m sorry, I thought—’
Chrissie heard herself blurt that, but this was all.
And then he, Arrigo, beckoned with his hand.
Although like jewels, they wore no jewellery. Not even the expensive watches she would have expected. And their clothes, so seamless, elegant and simple, were of a material that reminded her of Egyptian linen. Not only their flesh then, translucent and shining.
Now they were walking on. The three of them. Not too far. Just to this corner, where this rose-brown masonry craned into a half-shade, and there, between the plaster and the cobbles underfoot, Gina bending, brushing with her fingers, a sort of green frond which grew from the stone.
Is it a weed? Chrissie did not ask. Not necessary. She was meant to pick it, that was all. Why? Oh, but she knew. She knew everything.
She knew who they were.
All in that moment.
And an internal singing, like the nightingale’s, rushed through her, music gold not silver, sharp not sweet.
She bent also to the frond, and watched her thin hand with no nail varnish or rings, and the hand snapped off the frond.
Chrissie raised the weed to her face and sniffed at it. It smelled pungent, like a herb. Neither appetising nor un.
It would be a little bitter, she thought, like paracetamol. And tingle on the tongue, like aspirin.
At that instant too, suddenly, essentially, she could smell them. They had a scent like honey, and the clean fur of cats. But also they smelled of dry heat, like sand.
She twirled the frond of weed-herb between her fingers, admiring the green suppleness of it, which had forced its way, spinelessly, through the hard plaster and adamant cobbles. She was happy. Then, all she could smell was the afternoon.
She flung round - there was no one else there. That is, They were not.
Children were playing under the plane tree. Women called across from upper windows in a mellifluous Italian Chrissie could not fathom. Gusts of a rich spaghetti sauce hovered through the air. The town was awake. It was noisy, and five past two.
III
She did nothing. Nothing at all. Days passed - how many? - two, three - probably only one - and she did nothing.
The frond-weed-herb, whatever it was, wilted in the glass of water in the bathroom.
He never mentioned it. Never noticed?
Was that bizarre?
Yes, it was bizarre.
Chrissie, however, looked at the frond as it shrivelled. And at lunchtime, when they went down to the cafe with pink sunshades, she looked - she looked—
For them.
But they were not there.
No, they were there, but she could not see them.
Campari with ice. Red wine. Antipasto. Fresh peaches in a basket. The brandy bottle (his).
A green lizard (not gold) spangling across the baked earth. Cyclamen in pots on a wall.
Today I’ll walk out and see the vineyards.
She did not.
She sat, long after Craig had gone back to the hotel. She sat looking, looking. Not seeing them. Seeing their absence.
Those nights, or that night, Craig and she ate their dinner in the usual restaurant.
The priest who emerged from a little side door by the church, at a quarter past twelve, listened to Chrissie’s stammering request. He spoke enough English, and did not seem to mind her lack of anything but die most basic Italian, which mostly consisted of exclaiming Bella! and endlessly apologising to or thanking him.
She had thought the church was locked, but it was not.
He let her go in, and in a panic of courtesy, Chrissie pulled off her sleeveless cardigan, and draped it over her head.
When she did this, he glanced at her, and she thought his face was sorry, sorry for her. She noted he had seen she was not a Catholic. So then she stood there, ashamed to have let him down.
And how graceful it was, when he genuflected before the altar and the Idea of God. Yes, she wished she had been a Catholic, and able to do it, not just for his sake, but her own, to offer this, and receive the undoubted blessing of an inner response.
It was a powerful church, dark amber out of the sun, the windows hanging in space, brass gleams cast at random, as in some cunning ancient painting. The stone floor and pillars induced a sense of heavy depth, as if under water. There was a triptych above the altar, birth, ministry, death and resurrection.
Chrissie went round and gazed at the few ornaments, the windows and paintings. Then she sat on a wooden seat for half an hour. She felt she was an impostor and should not be there. Part of her wanted to throw itself howling at the naked, nail-pierced feet of the Christ. But why? What could she ask for?
Dark Terrors 6 - The Gollancz Book of Horror - [Anthology] Page 56