by Matt Haig
“What is it?”
“We need you to kil Wil Radley.” Helen closes her eyes and in the red-tinged darkness she hears the rest of Alison’s hushed proposition. “So long as your daughter continues to abstain, she wil be safe. But we wil need absolute physical confirmation that your brother-in-law is dead.”
Helen tries to think straight. “Why me? I mean, can’t someone else? Can’t Peter help me?”
Alison shakes her head. “No. And you can’t get him involved. We don’t want you to tel anyone about this. It’s about numbers again, Mrs. Radley. One is safer than two. If you tel your husband, there wil be serious consequences. We can’t sanction brothers kil ing brothers.”
“You don’t understand. This is—”
Alison is nodding her head. “Oh, and one more detail. We know about your relationship with Wil Radley.”
“What?”
Alison nods. “We know you had a ‘thing’ with him. And so wil your husband, if you don’t accept this proposition.”
Helen is raw with shame. “No.”
“That’s the deal, Mrs. Radley. And we’l have people watching the whole time. Any attempt to bend the rules or to find some other way out of this wil fail, I assure you.”
“When? I mean, when do I . . .”
Helen hears a slow intake of breath. “You have until midnight.”
Midnight.
“Tonight?”
By the time Helen opens her eyes, Chief Superintendent Alison Glenny is walking away, in and out of the shadows, as she heads up Orchard Lane. Helen watches her get into a car, where an overweight man sits in the passenger seat.
The breeze carries untranslatable warnings. Helen looks at the camper van, where her life changed al those years ago. It is like staring at a grave, though she isn’t yet sure precisely who or what she is mourning.
Repression Is in Our Veins
When Eve tels her, on the bus home, that she has decided to go on a date with Rowan, Clara doesn’t know what to say. And her friend is obviously confused by the weird silence because Clara has been putting good words in for her brother ever since Eve got here.
“Come on, Raddles, I thought you wanted me to give him a chance,” says Eve, staring intently at her.
A chance. A chance for what?
“Yeah,” says Clara, staring out the window as they pass rol ing green fields, “I did. It’s just—”
“Just what?”
Clara catches the honeyed scent of her blood. She can resist her; maybe Rowan can too. “Just nothing. Forget it.”
“Okay,” says Eve, used to Clara’s increasingly erratic behavior. “It’s forgotten.”
Later, walking home from the bus stop, Clara tel s her brother she thinks it’s a mistake.
“I’l be okay. I’m going to ask Wil for some more blood before I go out. I’l take it with me. In my bag. If I get a craving, I’l just take a swig. It’l be fine. Trust me.”
Fantasy World.
“Here Comes the Sun.”
Featureless dummies in disco wigs.
The Hungry Gannet. Meats laid out in the refrigerator.
Clara’s stomach rumbles.
“What, so you finished that whole bottle he gave you?” she asks her brother.
“It wasn’t a ful bottle. Anyway, what’s your point?”
“The point is Wil is going today. Going. Like, forever. And taking his bottles of blood with him.
So, we’l stil be left with these cravings and no blood. What’l we do?”
“We’l control ourselves, like we always did.”
“It’s different now, though. We know what it’s like. We can’t undo it. It’s like trying to uninvent fire or something.”
Rowan considers this, as they walk past their dad’s clinic. “We could just go for vampire blood.
There must be a way of getting hold of it. And ethical y it’s probably better than eating pork. You know, no death is involved.”
“But what if that’s not enough. What if we crave someone and . . . I mean, what if tonight you’re with Eve and—”
Clara is annoying Rowan. “I can control myself. Look, for God’s sake. Look at everyone.
Everyone represses everything. Do you think any of these ‘normal’ human beings real y do exactly what they want to do al the time? ’Course not. It’s just the same. We’re middle-class and we’re British. Repression is in our veins.”
“Wel , I don’t know if I’m good at it,” says Clara, thinking about the other day in Topshop.
They walk in silence for a bit. Turn down Orchard Lane. They duck under the flowers of a laburnum tree and Clara knows that her brother wants to say something else. He lowers his voice to a volume that can’t filter through the wal s of the houses around them.
“What happened with Harper . . . it wasn’t a normal situation. You can’t regret it. Any girl with fangs at her disposal would’ve done the same.”
“But I’ve been a complete tool al weekend,” says Clara.
“Look, you went from absolutely nothing to a hel of a lot of blood. There’s probably a middle ground. And now you’re only feeling like this because the effects are wearing off . . . And anyway, it was Harper’s blood. We should go for nice people. Charity workers. We could go for her. ’
He nods his head at the woman col ecting envelopes for Save the Children, who is standing outside the door to number nine. Clara doesn’t find this funny. Twenty-four hours ago, Rowan would never have said this. But then, twenty-four hours ago she probably wouldn’t have been offended.
“Joke,” says Rowan.
“You should real y work on your sense of humor,” she tel s him. But as she says it she remembers Harper’s hand over her mouth and the fear she felt in that moment before everything had changed and power had tilted her way.
No, Rowan is right. She can’t regret it, no matter how hard she tries.
Then She Smiles a Devilish Smile
Peter walks home, buoyant and happy, floating on the aftereffects of Lorna’s blood.
He is actual y so happy he is humming, although at first he isn’t conscious of the tune. Then he realizes he is humming along to the Hemo Goblins’ one and only song. He remembers the solitary gig they played, at a youth club in Crawley. They managed to extend the set to three songs, by adding a couple of covers in there—“Anarchy in the UK” and “Paint It Black,” which they retitled
“Paint It Red” for the purposes of the evening. That had been the night they’d first seen Chantal Feuil ade, pogoing along at the front of the twelve-strong crowd in her Joy Division T-shirt and her Alps-fresh, translucent skin.
Good times, he can’t help but think. Yes, good times.
Of course, he had been selfish back in those days, but maybe a little bit of selfishness is needed to make the world what it is. He once read a book by an unblood scientist which posited the theory that selfishness is an essential biological trait of every living creature and that every apparently philanthropic act on earth ultimately has a selfish root.
Beauty is selfish. Love is selfish. Blood is selfish.
And this is the thought he has with him as he passes through the yel ow laburnum flowers without ducking, like he usual y does. Then he sees the vivacious, selfish Lorna heading out to walk her annoying, selfish dog.
“Lorna!’ he says, loud and jubilant.
She stops, confused.
“Hel o.”
“Lorna, I’ve been thinking,” he says, with more manic confidence than he was hoping for. “I like jazz. I like it a great deal in fact. You know, Miles Davis. Charlie the Birdman. That sort of stuff. It’s just . . . wow. It’s total y free, isn’t it? It doesn’t stick to a tune just for the sake of it. It just breaks out, improvises, does what it wants . . . doesn’t it?”
The dog growls.
Charlie the Birdman?
“I suppose so,” says Lorna.
Peter nods and finds to his surprise that he is doing a little mime of someone playing the piano.
“Exactly! Yes! So . . . if you’re stil up for going to the Fox and Crown to see the jazz people, then I’d love to go with you. Real y, I would!’
Lorna hesitates. “Wel , I don’t know,” she says. “Things are . . . better now.”
“Right.”
“With me and Mark.”
“Yes.”
“And Toby’s going through a bit of a bad patch.”
“Real y?”
“I think he’s a bit worried about his friend.”
“Oh,” says Peter, disappointed.
But then comes a change to Lorna’s face. She is thinking about something. Then she smiles a devilish smile. “No, okay. You only live once. Let’s go.”
And almost as soon as she has said this, Peter’s happiness begins to ebb away, and he feels the true guilty terror of temptation.
Shoebox
Rowan is ready to go out.
He has washed, changed out of his school clothes, and put his poem for Eve in his bag. The only thing he is lacking is a fresh bottle of blood. So he takes his bag, puts his wal et in his pocket, checks his hair in the mirror, and heads out onto the landing. He hears someone in the upstairs shower, which is strange for this early on a Monday evening. As he passes the bathroom door he catches his father’s voice above the sound of the spray of the shower. He is singing, in his embarrassingly inadequate voice, a song Rowan doesn’t recognize. “You look so good in your scarlet dress . . .” That’s about as much as Rowan catches before he eyes his sister out on the landing. She nods at him, concerned but a little proud, and then he heads downstairs. He is aware of his mother in the kitchen but doesn’t think to question why she is standing motionless, staring down into the knife drawer.
He has other things on his mind.
Rowan knocks on Wil ’s van but he’s not there. Knowing he’s not in the house, he tries the door.
He climbs into the van, starts hunting for a bottle of vampire blood, but he can’t find any. There is one but it is empty. He lifts up Wil ’s mattress. There is nothing except a few leather-bound journals, which aren’t going to satisfy any thirst. He spots a rol ed-up sleeping bag with an unopened bottle inside and grabs it, but as he picks up the sleeping bag, he slides the lid off a shoebox. The lid fal s back to reveal a phone number. Their phone number.
Inside the box is a bundle of photos wrapped in an elastic band. The first photo is quite an old one of a baby boy, sleeping contentedly on a sheepskin rug.
He knows this baby.
It’s him.
He takes the elastic band off and flicks through the images. His first few years stutter by. He becomes a toddler, then school age.
Why? The pictures end when he is about five or six.
It’s his birthday.
His face is covered in a rash his mother told him was German measles. Suddenly, he wants to know what these pictures are doing here. The letters might hold more of a clue. He starts to read the one at the top of the pile and recognizes, with a start, his mother’s handwriting.
17 September 1998
Dear Will,
I have no idea how to start this, except to say this will have to be my final letter.
I don’t know if you’ll be upset by this, or if you’ll miss the photos of Rowan, but I truly think that now he is starting school, it’s time we got on with our lives for his sake, if not our own.
You see, I almost feel normal again. An “unblood,” as we used to say like cynics. Some mornings when I am actively looking after the children—getting them dressed, changing Clara’s nappy, rubbing teething gel onto a sore gum, or giving Rowan another dose of medicine—I can almost forget myself, and forget you, completely.
The truth is, this shouldn’t be too hard for you. You never wanted me, if having me meant you had to live like a faithful partner and give up the thrill of new blood. And I still remember the look on your face when I told you I was pregnant. You were horrified. I had scared someone I never knew could be scared. So in a funny way I might be doing you a favor.
You hate responsibility just as much as I need it. And from now on you won’t even have to have the responsibility of reading these letters or of looking at his photos. Maybe you haven’t been getting them at all. Maybe you’ve moved jobs again and these letters are just sitting in some mailbox at the university.
I hope one day you’ll be able to stop what you are doing and settle down. It would be nice to think that my son’s father will eventually manage to find some kind of moral center within himself.
It’s a stupid wish, probably. Rowan is looking more like you day by day, and it scares me.
His temperament is different, though. “Apples don’t fall too far from trees.” I suppose they do if they land on sloping ground. As his mum I know it’s my job to try and steepen that slope.
So, good-bye, Will. And make sure you don’t lose that last piece of respect I have for you by trying to see me, or him. We made a promise and we must stick to it for everyone’s sakes.
This is like hacking off an arm, but it’s got to be done.
Stay safe. I’ll miss you.
Helen
It is too much to take in. Rowan knows only that he wants to obliterate what he’s just found out, to make it go away, so he lets the letter fal , not caring where it lands, and pul s the bottle of blood out of the sleeping bag and into his rucksack. He staggers out of the van, and heads up Orchard Lane.
Someone is walking toward him. At first he can’t see his face, as it is hidden by the leaves of the drooping laburnum that pour out from number three’s front garden. For a moment he is just a raincoat, jeans, and boots. Rowan knows exactly who it is now, but then he sees his face, his father’s face, and his heart doesn’t so much beat as wildly flap, as if someone inside him were trying to knock the dust off a rug.
“Wel , Lord B,” says Wil , his lips curled into a lopsided smile. “How the devil are you?”
Rowan doesn’t respond.
“Real y? That good,” says Wil , but Rowan doesn’t turn back.
Rowan wouldn’t be able to speak even if he wanted to. He clenches the hatred inside him like a coin in a fist and walks on toward the bus stop.
Toward Eve, and the hope of forgetting.
Lazy Garlic
Eve plans to tel her dad she is going out tonight.
What can he do? Drag her into her bedroom and nail planks across the door?
No, she is going to pretend she has her old, prepsychotic father back and act like she’s a seventeen-year-old human being living in a free society. She goes to announce the news in the kitchen, where he is found shoveling spoonfuls of something into his mouth. Only when she gets closer and reads the label on the jar does she realize it is Lazy Garlic and that he is already three-quarters of his way to finishing the whole lot. Maybe he needs to go back to the hospital.
“Dad, that real y is disgusting.”
He retches but takes another mouthful. “I’m going out,” he says, before she has a chance to say the same thing.
“Where are you going? I mean, if you’ve got a date, then I’d probably recommend some mouthwash.”
He doesn’t even seem to realize this is a joke. “Eve, I have to tel you something.”
She doesn’t like the sound of this and wonders what he is about to confess. “What?”
He takes a deep breath. “Your mum isn’t missing.”
At first the words don’t compute. She is so used to tuning out her father’s ramblings. A second later, though, she realizes what he’s said.
“Dad, what are you talking about?”
“She’s not missing, Eve.” He takes hold of her hands. “She’s dead.”
Eve closes her eyes, trying to shut him out. The garlic smel is overwhelming. She pul s her hands away, as she has heard al this before. “Dad, please.”
“I have to tel you the truth, Eve. I saw her. I was there.”
She engages, despite herself. “Saw her?”
He puts the spoon
down, and in the voice of a rational adult he speaks. “Look, what I tried to tel you in hospital . . . it wasn’t a rant. She was murdered on the university campus. She was kil ed on the lawn outside the English Department. She was murdered. I saw everything. I was running and screaming but no one was there. I’d gone to pick her up. She’d been working late, you see, in the library. Wel , that’s what she’d told me, so anyway I’d gone to the library to pick her up only she wasn’t there so I looked everywhere until I saw them, across this big ugly piece of water. And I ran through it and I saw him bite her and kil her and take her and—”
“Bite her? ”
“He wasn’t normal, Eve. He was something else.”
She shakes her head. It’s the same old nightmare. “Dad, this isn’t fair. Please. You shouldn’t be on those tablets.”
He’d told her the vampire story before, but only when he was in hospital. After that it had only slipped out if he had been very drunk. And he’d always undermined himself by denying it al later, thinking he was protecting her.
“She was murdered by her tutor,” he says, carrying on. “And her tutor was a monster. A vampire.
He bit her and took her blood and flew away with her. And he’s here, Eve. He’s come here. To Bishopthorpe. And he might be dead already, but I’ve got to make sure.”
There had been a moment, a few seconds ago, when she half believed him. Now, though, she is deeply hurt that he is actual y trying to mess with her head like this.
He puts his hand on her arm. “You must stay here until I get back. Do you understand me? Stay in the house.”
Eve stares at him, and the fury in her eyes seems to work because he tel s her. “The police.
They’re going to get him now. I spoke to the woman who gave me the sack for speaking the truth.
Alison Glenny. She’s here. I’ve told her everything. You see, I saw him today in the pub. The man who—”
“The pub? You went to the pub today? I thought we were broke, Dad.”