‘What are you doing here?’
She jumped round. A figure glared from the adjoining room.
‘Alaric!’
His scowl deepened, as if she’d insulted him. ‘Ric!’ he snapped.
‘Ric…?’
There’d been no time during their previous encounter to study him, but a more leisurely perusal did him no favors: hair long, tangled, greasy, face and neck unwashed, fingernails rimmed with dirt, badly chewed. His blue cotton shirt, very grubby, was two buttons short, one of the pockets of his black denim jacket was torn, and there were gaping holes in the knees of his stained and muddied jeans. He also had a bruise on his right cheek and a cut over one eye, but she knew how he’d acquired these.
‘I don’t imagine you live here,’ she said to him.
His eyes did a scornful tour of the room. ‘Here? In this crapper?’
‘Why are you here then? The owner a friend of yours?’
‘Friend? I don’t think so.’
‘So you’re here because…?’
‘That’s what I asked you.’
‘And now I’m asking you,’ she said, ‘so how about an answer?’
Her confrontational manner had the desired effect.
‘I’m… visiting,’ he mumbled.
‘Visiting! There’s a padlock on the door.’
‘The window was open. What about you? I didn’t hear the door, don’t see a key.’
She hesitated before admitting that she’d come in the same way, adding: ‘But I was invited.’
He smirked. ‘Invited, and you came in the window?’
‘I’m funny that way.’
‘How do you know me?’ he asked.
‘If you need to ask that, then I don’t.’
‘You know my name.’
‘I don’t know anyone called Ric.’
‘Here I’m Ric. At home I…’ He stopped. Home: the forbidden subject.
‘Where’s home?’ Naia enquired.
‘Not here.’
She almost howled with frustration. ‘God, you Alarics, you’re all so bloody difficult!’
He frowned. ‘All?’
Which she sidestepped. ‘How long have you been in this reality?’
He screwed his eyes up, as though peering through fog. ‘Reality?’
‘This… place. Not all your life, I bet.’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Months.’
‘Describe how you got here, what you were doing just before.’
He thought back; something he tried not to do these days. ‘I was just sitting in the garden, and – ’
‘The north garden, under the willow?’
His eyes widened. ‘How do you know that?’
‘And next thing you knew you were here, right?’
‘Right, but – ’
‘It’s the way it seems to work,’ she said.
‘The way it works? The way what works?’
‘You really don’t know what’s going on, do you?’
‘I wish I did,’ Ric said, suddenly drained. ‘I don’t know you either, but… there’s something about your face.’
‘You probably have a better memory of the back of my head,’ she said.
He looked away. ‘I had to go along with that. I’m not proud of it.’
‘Oh, that’s good to know. I’d thank you for saving me, by the way, but I wouldn’t have needed saving if you hadn’t held my arms behin – ’
‘Sssh!’
‘What?’
Ric nodded toward the door, and she heard it: a key in the padlock. They froze, one with the dread of the cornered intruder, the other with a thrill of anticipation. The door opened. But it wasn’t Aldous U.
‘You?’ Naia said. ‘Here?’
In the half-open doorway, Alaric jumped. He peered into the room, but it was full of shadows. He pushed the door further back. The dull external light reached in, reluctantly.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.
‘Seems to be the question of the day,’ Naia said.
‘Eh?’
Only when she angled a thumb at the room’s other occupant did he see that she wasn’t alone. From that realization it was no stretch to equal the incredulity on the face of his gaunt and ragged mirror-image.
44: 36
Ivan rarely closed the shop early, but the town was dead today and he was fed up of hanging around for possible customers, so around mid-afternoon he flipped the notice on the door and locked up. In no great hurry to get back to the tense atmosphere at home he went the long way round, through the village rather than over the marina bridge and along the river path. Even dawdling, pausing at the occasional shop window, it took him little more than twenty minutes to reach the side gate. He strolled round the kitchen garden and was just approaching the front door when Mr. Knight came out and bid him good afternoon.
‘Bye, John – and thank you!’ Alex called from the kitchen, mistaking the greeting for a farewell.
Ivan nodded curtly at the gardener and went indoors. He had never taken the time to get to know Mr. Knight, but in recent months had found him in close conversation with Alex so often that he’d started to wonder about the man’s intentions. The one time he’d asked Alex what they talked about she’d replied, ‘Oh, you know… things,’ which spoke so many volumes, and so few, that he thought it best to leave it at that. Today, finding her arranging a vase of purple flowers on the kitchen table, he jumped to the first obvious conclusion.
‘Ooh, flowers now,’ he said.
She looked up, surprised to see him. ‘What’s this? Taken the afternoon off?’
‘No one about,’ he said curtly.
She returned to her task, smiling to herself. These days, a smiling Alex was almost as rare as flowers in the house. ‘Aren’t they exquisite?’ she said.
‘Yeah, lovely, what did he want?’
‘Who?’
‘Who? How many visitors have you had today?’
‘Ivan…’
He flicked the switch of the kettle, almost viciously. ‘What?’
‘You haven’t accepted the Featherings’ offer, have you?’
‘Going to, soon as I’ve had a cuppa.’
‘Well you don’t need to.’
‘I think I do. They’re willing to pay the asking price. Might not get another top offer for months, if ever.’
‘We’ve had another offer. A better one.’
‘A better one? Better than the asking price?’
‘Considerably.’
He sat down at the table; asked for details. When she gave them he said: ‘You’re kidding me. You’re sure you heard right?’
‘Yes. I asked him to repeat it.’
‘Jesus. But… why?’
‘He says it’s worth it to him. And he’s a cash buyer, no chain, no house to sell, exchange contracts as soon as we’re ready but to take as long as we need. It couldn’t be more perfect.’
‘It’s too perfect.’
‘How can it be too perfect?’ Alex said.
‘How do you know he’s good for it?’
‘Because he told me.’
‘And you believed him.’
‘He said he’s been investing successfully all his life and has never had much use for his profits till now. Why would I question that? He really wants this place. As it is. He won’t be sinking a swimming pool, paving over flower beds, uprooting trees – or building houses on the land.’
‘He might have some other kind of agenda,’ Ivan said.
Alex bridled. ‘Agenda! It might be news to you, but some people are actually what they appear to be. I’m telling you, Ivan, don’t you dare – I mean don’t you dare – accept that other offer.’
She picked up the vase of glorious flowers and swept out of the kitchen.
Ivan remained seated, staring at nothing, tea unmade. It was an exceptional offer, way above the estate agent’s target figure, yet he was unable to welcome it, or even quite believe it, largely because of the cozy conversa
tion he imagined Alex and Mr. Knight had had at this very table just before he came in; a conversation in which the pros and cons of the offer had almost certainly been discussed in detail, and approved, before he himself had even learned of it. He felt conspired against. Withern was his home, his family home, built by his ancestor, not Alex’s, certainly not Mr. Knight’s. How dare they discuss the disposal of it as if it were nothing to do with him?
It would take Ivan a while to get over the apparent collusion of his wife and the garden help, but the sale of Withern Rise would go ahead, and fourteen weeks from the day of the offer removal vans would load up in the drive and head for their new home, a fine three-storey town house in a good part of Brighton. Five months after that, Ivan would begin an affair with Lili Tulloch, an independent television features producer who bore more than a passing resemblance to Kate Faraday. This reality’s Alexandra and Ivan Underwood separated on the fifth of October 2006, which would have been, or so they believed, their late son’s eighteenth birthday. They were wrong about this, of course. It was actually the eighteenth birthday of the daughter neither of them could remember, alive and well in another reality entirely.
45: 43
Once she had confirmed that he was the one she’d met under the willow in his north garden, and not another, Naia said: ‘Alaric, meet Ric.’
‘Ric?’
‘He seems to prefer it.’
Ric was still gawping at him with astonishment. ‘I saw you before,’ he said in a flat voice. ‘You disappeared.’
‘So did you.’
Ill at ease in the presence of this grungy version of himself, Alaric crossed the room and perched on the arm of the fireside chair.
Ric turned to Naia. ‘Why does he look so much like me?’
‘He is you,’ she told him.
‘What?’
‘So am I, in a way.’
‘What!’
‘That’s why I seem so familiar to you.’
‘I don’t understand!’ he wailed.
Naia pulled one of the chairs out from the table and sat down on it; reached round the typewriter for the patterned pouch.
‘Imagine alternative versions of everything you know,’ she said with the world-weariness of one who’s gone over this too many times. ‘That there’s another you somewhere, another house exactly like yours, another… well, you name it. Can you do that?’
‘Don’t talk down to me,’ Ric snapped.
‘Sorry.’ She dropped the pouch. ‘I’m assuming in your case, but if I’m right, the three of us are from slightly different versions of the same reality. We all have, or had, the same parents, were born at the same instant, share many of the same memories, and came here via the willow in the north garden – our individual willows. Does that…’ – she hesitated, not wanting to risk further condescension – ‘…make sense?’
Ric did not reply, but went to the door; leant there with his back to the room, trying to apply all that he’d just heard to his own experience. While he attempted this, Naia again asked Alaric what he was doing there.
‘I was asked to come.’
‘By?’
‘The man who lives here.’
‘I thought you didn’t know him.’
‘I didn’t. Do now.’
‘Why did he want you to come here?’
‘To tell you he’s running late. But you’re early. And you’re supposed to be at the crossing point.’
‘The what?’
‘Never mind that now. How did you get in?’
‘Through the window. It was open, the door wasn’t.’
‘Him too?’
‘Yes. He was already here. Why’s Aldous U going to be late?’
‘He’s busy.’
‘Oh, busy, that’s nice. I needn’t have bothered then.’
‘He’s putting in an offer for a Withern Rise.’
‘There’s a Withern for sale?’ Her heart skipped a beat. ‘Who’s selling?’
‘All I know is it’s an Alex and an Ivan.’
‘My parents…’ she said softly.
‘Your parents? You don’t think they’d have told you if they were putting the house on the market?’
‘They couldn’t. Can’t. I don’t live there any more.’
This surprised him. ‘You’ve left home?’
Before she could answer there was a strangulated cry from Ric, who bounded back into the room, cast about him, and snatched a large glass paperweight from the table. He returned to the door, this time positioning himself behind it – seconds before the angular form of Gus O’Brien appeared on the threshold. In one hand Gus held the rusty sickle Alaric had trodden on down by the river during his first visit.
‘Well, you here too?’ he said to Naia, still seated at the table. ‘How cozy. Where’s the old boy?’
Naia stood up. ‘He’s about. Back any time.’
‘Riiiight.’
Gus came in, began sauntering round the room, swinging the sickle right and left without even glancing at what it struck. Stacked books toppled, furniture splintered, ornaments went spinning and crashing.
‘Stop that!’ Naia shouted.
He did stop, and went to her, stood before her, dark eyes unreadable, the blade tapping rhythmically against his leg. Determined not to show fear, Naia stood stock still, even when he raised the sickle slowly to his shoulder: that point could take an eye out with a single peck. They remained like this for some moments, until Gus, without a blink of warning, brought the blade down on the typewriter beside her on the table. Dull ring of metal on metal.
‘Not his typewriter!’ Naia cried.
‘Oh, dear,’ Gus said. ‘Precious, is it?’
He placed a hand behind the machine and shoved. It resisted, but when he applied more effort it slid over the side and crashed to the floor. In the appalled silence that followed, Naia glared loathing at Gus, to which he responded with a grin before his eye drifted to the evidence of cottage industry on the table.
‘What’s this?’ He picked up the recently-made pouch.
‘Whatever it is, it’s not yours.’
His grin broadened. He raised the pouch before her eyes, squeezed it provocatively, then inserted it, with a suggestive wiggle, deep into a hip pocket of his jeans. He then swung around to face Alaric, who’d not moved from the arm of the chair by the fireplace.
‘And don’t we look smart then?’ Gus said. ‘Which of ’em was it gave you the makeover? The tart or the old fart? I’m guessing him, shirt-lifter.’
‘What?’ Alaric said.
‘I never failed to spot one yet. And when I do…’
As Gus advanced, slowly, swaggering for effect, Alaric stood up, eyeing the sickle nervously. ‘I think you’re mixing me up with someone else,’ he said.
‘You’re the one that’s mixed up,’ Gus said. ‘But don’t worry. Relax. Uncky Gus gonna sort it for you.’
Alaric took an involuntary step backward. His heel touched the rack of fire tools in the hearth. He looked down. The handle of an iron poker was within reach. Gus read his mind, gave a peculiarly light laugh, almost a giggle.
‘Oh, yes, come on! Let’s make a fight of it. That’ll be fun.’
A small movement by the door caused Alaric to glance in that direction – a glance misinterpreted by Gus.
‘Or maybe you want to leave us. Go on then, Nancy. Go for it.’
Behind him, unseen by him, Ric covered the space between them in three swift strides. The paperweight fell. The sickle clattered from Gus’s hand as he dropped first to his knees, eyes fluttering in surprise rather than pain, then over onto his side, where they closed. Once down he remained perfectly still, one skinny leg twisted over the other.
‘This is becoming a habit,’ Ric said. ‘One I could get to enjoy,’
Naia dropped to her knees beside Gus and felt for a pulse. Relieved to find one, she stood up. ‘What is his problem?’
‘He’s a psycho,’ Ric said.
‘Well, he won’t be uncon
scious forever.’
‘That could change. Give me a minute.’
‘That would make you no better than him.’
‘Oh, please!’
He went outside; stood on the path breathing shallowly. It had taken all his nerve to attack Gus a second time: the worry that it would go wrong; that he’d be the one to get hammered again.
Alaric and Naia, too, moved away from Gus. Even unconscious there was something rather frightening about him. ‘I saw him outside the other day,’ Alaric said, meaning Gus.
‘Outside where?’
‘Here. First time I came here. Who is he?’
‘You’ll have to ask Ric,’ Naia said. ‘He knows him.’
Alaric sneered. ‘Ric! What is it with this place? Something in the air that makes people shorten their names?’
‘You never know. The air’s none too sweet.’
‘What do we do with him?’
‘Who?’
‘The psycho.’
‘Don’t know. I wonder if there’s any rope about?’
‘Why, you want to hang him?’
‘Tie him up. He’s dangerous. Did Aldous U say how long he’d be?’
‘No, just to wait till he arrives.’
‘How did you get into this reality anyway?’ Naia asked.
‘Magic,’ he said.
‘Magic?’
He took the gray pouch from his pocket. She in turn produced the pale blue one that had brought her here.
‘Any idea what the numbers mean?’
‘Yours is the number Aldous Whatever gave to this reality,’ Alaric said. ‘Mine belongs to another, but it brought me here because of what’s inside.’
The Realities of Aldous U Page 42