Able through the long cocoon of their relationship to forgo unnecessary false courtesy, Sarah said, ‘Why? Why sign it all over to him?’
He looked at her as though he hadn’t seen her before; it was a look that frightened her. There was an element of David in it. ‘You know how persuasive he can be. He’s been a great help since the accident. I don’t know what I would have done without him to help Mary…’
Sarah knew, she didn’t know how, but she knew that David had taken what he wanted from the Moretons, as surely as he had taken Frankie’s face, Kim’s talent, and God knew what else and from whom over the years. How he did it she didn’t know; some kind of hypnosis? It was useless to try to speculate, but she knew she would find out.
Bill was slipping into a half-sleep as she left his room. With the day’s light faded and the opportunity to paint gone, David, she reasoned, would perhaps go for a walk or pursue some other activity. Maybe he would be trying out his newly acquired skill with the horses. Wherever he was she would find him and once and for all find out what he was up to.
As she left the Manor by one of the side doors, she remembered something she had left in her car the previous night. She went round to the outbuilding where she had left her car and was surprised to see another car parked there next to hers. She felt the bonnet, still warm. A few minutes of searching brought her round to David’s barn, how quickly she had begun to think of it all as his; and there they were, David and Amanda, sitting at a bench under an oak tree sipping long drinks as the sun slowly set over the woods on the horizon.
‘Amanda,’ Sarah said brightly. ‘You should have let me know you were coming.’
‘That’s not the impression you gave yesterday, Sarah.’
David appeared an amused bystander, but Sarah was prepared to gamble he had added his spark to Amanda's flame.
‘How did you know I would … no okay, it’s obvious I’d be here. Start again.’
Amanda laughed without joy. ‘Now that would be attractive if we hadn’t already tried that route.’
Sarah looked her full in the face. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’
‘Oh please.’ Amanda looked at David with a half smile. ‘Sorry you have to be a witness to this.’
Sarah sneered. ‘Don’t apologise to him. He’ll find something in this he can take.’
Amanda seemed uncertain what she meant but David sat up straight on the bench. It seemed to Sarah that for the first time since she had known him David was viewing her with something like respect. She didn’t know why, but it was something she had said, something she suspected about him taking things from people.‘Don’t get too interested, David, unlike me Amanda is strictly ladies only, so there’s nothing of hers you would want.’
David smiled. ‘Everybody has a talent, a skill, or a possession of some kind Sarah, even you.’
Amanda said too loudly and too brightly, out of an onlooker’s embarrassment, ‘There’s no talent I possess, dear. Apart from loving the wrong person.’
It was the first time Amanda had admitted a love for Sarah and for a second it drowned all other thought.
David stood. ‘It seems you two have some catching up to do. I’ve finished for the day. Why not join me for dinner, in say an hour? I can use the open stove in the barn.’
‘Of course you can David. Like everything else it belongs to you’
‘It all will Sarah, eventually.’
Amanda, typical of her, hadn’t brought many things. She took one small bag from her car, and no more. Sarah let her wash in her room and then shared her clothes with her. They talked and cried, hugging each other, but the closeness was absent, possibly permanently. They both felt it and tried to disguise it.
‘He’s quite handsome, I can see why you’ve stayed in touch all these years.’ Amanda said, as she pulled a black dress over her head.
‘He’s handsome enough, and talented, and rich as well now. But it’s all false, none of it real.’
‘What do you mean? Here zip me up, will you?’
Sarah fumbled with the zip, bending to hold the hem of the dress for leverage. ‘I can’t explain. We had a mutual friend, years ago when I was at college. Kim, a painter; but she had an accident, she couldn’t paint anymore, but David could, and can. The poor Moretons; another accident, and suddenly David owns all this…’ She spread her arms to encompass the Moreton estate. ‘Even his face…oh I can’t explain it, but even his face is partly someone else’s.’
Speaking through lips to which she was applying lipstick, Amanda asked, ‘So what is he, some kind of thief?’
Sarah hopped into a pair of cotton trousers, pulling them up over her hips. ‘A thief of people’s lives. Not simple theft, that I could understand, especially in Kim’s case. Everyone he comes into contact with gets hurt, really hurt, and David always gets something out of it.’
She buttoned her shirt over a vest top and glanced out of the window. The night was drawn in now, a few wisps of cloud shrouding the stars, making a natural frame for the moon.
The smell of cooking was tempting as the two women walked, side by side if not yet hand in hand, to the barn. The courtyard in front of it was floodlit, a wrought iron table and chairs laid out with plates, cutlery and glasses.
‘You’ve been busy, ‘Amanda called into David admiringly.
‘Help yourself to some wine, it’s in the cooler’.
Sarah poured three glasses and sat at the table. Amanda wandered down to the edge of the field, peering through the darkness at the moving mass of wheat. ‘It’s glorious here, isn’t it?’ She said wistfully.
David emerged from the barn, dressed all in black. ‘Yes, we’re very lucky.’
Sarah felt herself prickle immediately. ‘More than luck David, wouldn’t you say?’
David laughed. ‘You really have developed a perception since we first met haven’t you Sarah?’
‘I have to take something in return, you know.’
The smile dropped away from his face, and the look that replaced it was ancient and entirely evil. ‘Oh no, that isn’t in the plan at all. Nothing in return.’
Amanda walked back to the table. It was clear there was a hardening of the atmosphere and she didn’t like it. ‘What’s going on? Sarah?’
Sarah drank some wine, and fingered the label of the bottle. ‘It’s taken me too long to work it out David, but I think I have now. You take from people whatever it is they hold dear. You can’t experience emotion for yourself so you steal other people’s. The farm wasn’t a possession for you; it was what it meant to Mary and Bill. Frankie’s face was more than an occupational tool to him, it was his whole life, and you wanted that feeling.’
David began clapping. ‘For a quick fumble a decade ago you’ve made mighty progress little Sarah.’
Sarah shook her head. ‘But that’s where I run out of ideas.’
David took his glass and drained the wine in one swallow. He poured another. ‘You can’t decide what I wanted from you.’
She nodded her head. ‘I gave you sex, but you could have got that anywhere. What else have I given you?’
Before he spoke David turned his head upwards as if listening. On the soft breeze they all heard the faint echo of an owl, far away it seemed, but getting closer. While he listened his body seemed to swell slightly, from within, as though he was puffing out his chest. ‘What did I want from you?’ Even as he spoke he still seemed distracted, his attention partly elsewhere. ‘I wanted then the same thing I want now.’
Amanda gripped Sarah’s hand. ‘And what do you want?’ Sarah asked.
‘Your life, Sarah. I don’t have one of my own you see, not in this world. Don’t you remember I only seemed to exist when you saw me with your friend Kim at University? I wanted your friendship, the one you enjoyed with her. Then I needed to learn how to love a woman, and we learned well together, didn’t we? I don’t have a family here so yours sufficed; boating accidents are as easy to arrange as horse riding mishaps, or car crashes. You a
lways spoke so fondly of the Moretons, what more natural evolution for me to want that emotion you felt, but which I didn’t have? The farm as a possession doesn’t interest me at all, you’re right, but the love, the feeling, that’s different.’
Amanda couldn’t keep the scorn out of her words. ‘My God, what kind of monster are you?’
Without moving his body David turned his head to look at her. He turned it in a complete circle, around on his shoulders. Amanda screamed.
Sarah stood from the table, still gripping Amanda’s hand, and pulled her away. ‘Why now David, after all these years?’
His body began to bunch up, the shoulders lifting into the head, the chest filling out, and the legs drawing up from the knees. His voice when it came was beginning to sound shrill. ‘Ten years, since we met. In that time I’ve taken small things; your knowledge of the countryside, your friends, a feeling here an emotion there. But now there’s something quite tangible I can have, isn’t there?’
‘What do you mean?’ As she spoke the words she knew what he meant.
‘It’s the cycle Sarah, I need to take or I don’t exist; it’s not personal, don’t be too upset. Amanda doesn’t know about the baby yet does she? But then it’s only early days isn’t it Sarah? Only just had the test. You can remember whose it is though, the unborn baby I can enjoy? It’s why I brought you here, now. The birth.’
Sarah picked up the wine bottle and swung it at his head. It caught him a savage blow to the temple. He fell to the ground, blood beginning to seep from the wound.
‘Come on,’ Sarah said to Amanda. ‘Help me tie him up.’
Amanda pulled away. ‘No, I …’
Sarah turned to David but he was on his feet. His body was contorted now into paroxysms of pain, the limbs drawing into the body, the head sinking into the torso. His clothing was tearing at its seams, and the flesh beneath was revealed as pale and shining, like soft feathers.
He pushed Sarah out of the way and ran, stumbling, away from the light. He ran into the field of wheat. Sarah ran after him, but stopped when she got a little way into the field. She had always been afraid of this field, where the wheat would grow and then be cut down. She had always thought it to mean more than it did, to her it was real, and when the wheat was cut down she expected someone she loved to die.
In the middle of the field David stopped, his body crouched down, barely visible in the dark, above the swaying stalks. His body seemed to enfold upon itself, like a rose bud about to burst open. It swayed in rhythm with the wheat, growing tighter as the skin impacted on itself, the clothes now torn and discarded, the pale flesh now shown as the fur and feathers it was becoming. The body folded into a small ball, hugging itself. Then it opened in a violent cascade of movement, with a flapping of gigantic wings, and the wrenching of bones into new shape. With a wild screech it soared into the night sky and was lost in the darkness.
Sarah turned to Amanda but she was already walking towards her car. In the morning Sarah and Mary searched the wheat field, and found David’s body, which they buried there, after the crop had been harvested.
ROCK
The thing that struck me first about Gibraltar in the March of that year was the numbers of dogs in the streets. My hotel was out of the main town, about a mile up a hill and overlooking the sea. I knew it would be quiet but that suited me. I needed a break, some solitude, because in confirmation of my parents’ fears, and despite their best efforts, I did grow up alone, and eventually that was the way I liked it.
There were people in my office at work. There were crowds of people in the underground and the London streets on the journey to get there; there were hundreds of people in the lunch hour queues. Even in my isolated country cottage lane in rural Kent there must have been another, what, two hundred people? Everywhere I went there were people, whether I wanted them or not and I didn’t know or want to know any of them.
It was pleasantly warm that spring, shirtsleeve weather. Not hot enough for me to linger too long in the blue tiled pool, but sitting on the plastic loungers sipping drinks was fine. My double room had a good view of the sea, with the tankers lined up on the horizon, waiting to slip off out of sight when my back was turned. There were arrogant black-billed gulls that sat on the balcony all day waiting for scraps of food that never came.
When I was in primary school my parents would spend hours driving me to friends’ houses so I could play with someone for a few hours. Except they weren’t really friends, just other kids I could spend time with, until I could be on my own again.
My parents were forever having other children round to our house, never actually enjoying the experience but worrying nonetheless that their only child might grow up lonely and friendless if they didn’t manufacture company for him.
That was the prime focus of their lives at that point. The other parents must have sighed with embarrassment when the phone call came from my mother, ‘Hi, Pam here. Are you doing anything, only I wondered if Ronson could come over and play…’ or ‘If you like Danny can play here for the afternoon. I’ll give him something to eat.’
If only they had known that their efforts were in vain. The other kids could see through the façade, even though they were still too young to understand the word, and I was more than happy within my own company. In fact I preferred it. I never learned what the other parents thought.
How I wish I could get some of that privacy back now.
I would even resort to the imaginary friend I used to play with rather than have these echoes and shadows around me all the time. When I’m sleeping, or in the shower, wherever I am, the constant feeling that there is someone there with me.
If I am honest I know who it is. I just need to understand why they are here.
The flight from England is a short one and I had barely read a couple of chapters of my novel as the plane began its descent onto the short runway, which divides Gibraltar from Spain. During the day you can walk across the runway, over the border crossing either side and visit for the day. Gibraltar is really a lonely outpost of better days.
‘Heh, Ronnie, got any more beer?’ A belch from the living room of my cottage reminded me that my friends were round, or at least Pete and Tom, who were the only people I still saw from university.
‘Yeah, couple of IPA coming up.’ I was already in the kitchen so I leaned over and opened the refrigerator. Stacked with meals for one, and beer, with cartons of milk, and yoghurt perched precariously at the edge of one shelf.
We were assembled to view my holiday photographs and DVD. Beer and junk food was obligatory. There was a kind of revered hush about the proceedings, a few less farts than usual, a little less banal sexual innuendo. The girl was going to be revealed, the holiday romance. At least that was the idea, the intention behind the evening.
I would walk from the holiday hotel into town each day and never fail to be appalled at the mess on the street. For a small place, and it was just a rock at the tip of Spain after all, there were a hell of a lot of dogs. It was a military outpost for the British of course, and they still had a large presence there, though I never saw any military dogs. These must have been locals, and they may have had some Spanish blood in them. That was my theory, arrived at around my third day, and with my routine set.
I would breakfast on melon and fruit, swim a few laps of the heated pool and then walk into town. On the third day it struck me that the Spanish might have trained the dogs to mess in the most inconvenient places as a kind of protest. The politicians had failed to win back the rock; so let the damned dogs ruin it for the British. A canine protest against British sovereignty.
The walk into town was unassuming. A terrace of attractive Spanish style houses merged into a concrete and glass office block. The streets were lined with trees, and everywhere was dwarfed by the huge expanse of the rock. There was a cable car riding up to it, and organised trips would take you round and into it. There were caves and views to amuse a traveller for a few hours.
By the
time I got to university my personality was well and truly set. My parents had divorced by then so their interference, which is what it was, no matter how well intentioned, had subsided. I was left to my own devices and I settled in far better because of it. Sure there were certain cliques that would make fun of ‘Ron’ or ‘Ronnie’ and I grew accustomed to being excluded from trips or from joining clubs. There were societies that guys like me were expected to gravitate towards; the ones that the misfits, jerks and nerds were supposed to join so that they could feel the camaraderie that everyone is supposed to need.
The truth was I didn’t feel I belonged there either. I was comfortable with my own company. I didn’t feel the need to belong with other people; to pretend I wanted or needed the social life. I wanted to be friends, real friends with someone, and I certainly wanted to get a girlfriend, although I made no real effort to do anything about it. But I thought that would come in time, and there was no need to alter my perception of my life to accommodate the expectations of others.
‘Where are the photos, Ron?’ Tom demanded as he opened a can and sprayed the carpet.
‘I’ve gone digital, they’re on the computer but I got them printed off at Boots. There’s three packs of photos on the table.’
Pete crammed a handful of crisps into his bearded mouth. ‘Les tek loo,’ he seemed to say as he made a grab for the yellow folders.
Tom shook his head in mock despair. ‘I can’t believe you E-mailed us from your hotel for Chrissakes. And about the Poletti deal of all things.’
I smiled. Corporate ladder climbing was hardly suited to my character but I knew enough to keep one pace ahead of the game. ‘I needed to know you two wouldn’t screw it up for me while I was away.’
‘While you were screwing, you mean,’ Pete mumbled, without taking his eyes away from the glossy photographs he was thumbing his way through.
I felt a tensing of my defences. I was well aware neither of them believed I had ever had a proper girlfriend, and the reason they had willingly come round tonight was to disprove my claims of having met a girl on holiday.
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