Personal Darkness Read online

  Noise she had said. Not, as Julie had, Music. It was even now clearly to be heard.

  Mrs. Macdonald said, cautiously, "It's not your cup of tea, then."

  "Oh, no. I like Prokofiev, and Rachmaninov. Mozart."

  The cat was purring. Mrs. Macdonald reached over the low fence and stroked the cat's silken head. The cat, delighted, purred louder.

  "I asked her once," said Mrs. Macdonald, clandestinely, "if she'd turn the volume down. But she didn't want to."

  "I don't know them," said Ruth. "I was looking for the lady who was here before."

  Mrs. Macdonald's troubled heart skipped a beat. Before Julie and Terry, her friend Mrs. Weeks had lived in the house. But Mrs. Weeks had died one afternoon, sitting in her quiet summer garden.

  "Mrs. Weeks?" asked Mrs. Macdonald.

  But the girl disappointed her now. "No. Mrs. Watt."

  "Oh, dear. It sounds as if you've misremembered the address."

  "Yes," said Ruth.

  "I shouldn't," said Mrs. Macdonald. Her lined, papery face blushed hotly. "I should be a bit careful," she said. "I perhaps shouldn't say this. But if you don't know them, Miss Sawyer and Mr. Purvis, it might not be—what you'd like."

  And then she was mortally afraid, for the girl might be a liar, and a bit unbalanced, as Julie Sawyer seemed to be, and she might tell them all she, Mrs. Macdonald, had said, and then—

  "But it's not my business," blundered Mrs. Macdonald.

  "You feed the cat," Ruth said, once more.

  "Oh, the cat's lovely. They call her something funny. But I call her Victoria. She's so like my last one. My Victoria Plum, I used to say. So glossy and plump, she was. This one's rather thin. But you're still my Victoria, aren't you?"

  The cat, amused by its second name, swam like a snake from Ruth's shoulder, and alighted on the fence, where it raised its tail like a lamp for all the world.

  Suddenly the music fell down like a lift.

  Through the open windows, the voices of Terry and Julie were audible. "Where the fuck is she?"

  "In the bloody garden."

  "Oh—I'll just—" said Mrs. Macdonald. She turned and ran up her path and in the back door of her house.

  Mohawk-Victoria stared into the sky at a traveling sparrow.

  Terry had brought in fish and chips. He told Ruth how much her portion had cost, and said he expected she would like to help out with the wine, too.

  Ruth opened her big bag, and presently handed him without flinching a ten-pound note.

  "Oh, I'll find you some change," said Terry, but he did not. Ruth did not remonstrate, or later remind him.

  During the afternoon Terry, as Julie said, "made himself beautiful." When he had finished, the bathroom was soaking wet and a pile of soggy towels lay on the floor. Terry took a deck chair and the portable tape machine into the garden to dry his hair in the sun. He played the same music Julie did, and fell asleep.

  Julie got ready later. She was swift. She came down at six o'clock in a short green and orange dress and very high-heeled green shoes. She wore earrings like sunbursts. She seemed to have accepted Ruth's presence, and asked her if she would like a bath. Ruth agreed.

  The water was not very hot, but it was a warm afternoon. It was difficult to shut and lock the door, but Ruth succeeded. There was no curtain over the small bathroom window so Ruth hung her T-shirt there.

  Julie was trying to locate the cat, on her high heels, in the garden. She wanted to shut it in, because, later, when things got going, she did not want to have to worry about the cat being in with Mrs. Macdonald. Normally the cat would hide in the wardrobe when there was a party.

  A notion had come to Julie to comfort her. Lucy, she knew, had a thing about Terry. Lucy would not like Ruth's being there. And Blackie could hardly fancy Ruth, who was not good-looking and had too big a chest. Blackie did not like bigness there in girls, he had told Julie so.

  The cat was nowhere to be seen and Julie gave up, going back past the sleeping Terry. His hair had dried in waves, he would look handsome by evening. Perhaps it was all right. Maybe she should open some wine early? She wished one day he would cut the lawn.

  In the kitchen the cat had manifested and was eating the last scraps of cat food. She picked it up, without waiting for it to finish, and carried it to the bedroom, where it leapt onto the windowsill.

  Ruth was standing in the door of Terry's lair. It almost seemed she might be searching for something with her eyes.

  "Have a nice bath?"

  "Yes, thank you."

  "Shame you haven't any other clothes."

  But Ruth did not seem to mind.

  CHAPTER 8

  THAT SUMMER, A DRAGON ROARED ON the common.

  It was the sound of a motorbike, but not on the road below. Rachaela got up and went to open her window, and behind her the Rachmaninov concerto was vanquished.

  Late afternoon had laid a bronzy sheen across the slopes. The sun, hard brilliant marigold, flashed low between the oaks and pines to the left of the window.

  Down among the deep bed of trees, the roaring moved and idled, then suddenly gunned.

  Across the shallow glade there rolled a blot of black, and lightnings happened as the sun sideswiped bright metal.

  Then out tore the mechanical thing, and flew up the hill, nearer and nearer, and ever more extraordinary.

  It was a huge black machine with extended fork and thundering wheel, in the stance, even running, of a black Egyptian dog, which stretched. Its rear end, however, was not a bike but a curved carriage, like Cinderella's, made from a crow-black pumpkin. Something burned in the back of it like a colored lantern. Two massive chariot wheels propelled it after the fore-wheel of the bike.

  The rider of this anomaly was black leather and sil-ver fireworks of light. On his head the sun lit short spears of white hair.

  Close to the house, the bike which became a carriage, reared up. It had the prow of a skeletal horse. It plunged in a circle and over the cannon of the engine came soft shrill cries like those of startled pet birds.

  Beneath the wall of the house, under Rachaela's window, the orbit stopped. The creature drew to a standstill and the roaring smoldered out.

  The rider straddled his mount. He was spiked and studded, ringed and buckled and chained with silver.

  The double seat of the carriage behind him was lined with damson velvet, and in it now, not one, but two Cinderellas were wriggling. They were almost identical dolls, dressed in little bands of black, tiny wrappings of leather skirts, broad ribbons that just covered their breasts. They too had been spangled with silver. But one had long golden coils of hair, and the other coils of hair of a gold which had rusted.

  The lantern in the carriage back was a stained-glass window, vitriol blue and poppy red and creme de menthe and purple.

  The rider of the bike poked his head suddenly up at Rachaela. He gave a soprano laugh.

  "Horsy!" he shouted. "Sugar for the horse!"

  In the past, she remembered, they had always quickly known, and came together like raindrops running down a window. Now, the same. Even as she started down the stairs toward the hallway, Michael and Cheta were there, and Sasha and Miranda, and Eric stood by one of the big pillars that ran around the wall. In the white drawing room the television twittered, forgotten.

  The engine of the black machine rumbled as it rode around to the front of the house.

  Michael went swiftly and opened the two doors.

  The light had darkened there, and up from the beer brownness of it, the leather rider walked, inky and glittering, and at his back the two beautiful Cinderellas in their little black stiletto boots and anklets of silver and steel.

  In the hall, the rider stood, and looked about him.

  None of them spoke.

  Then he said, drily, "Here I am, after all."

  His face was not young, like the thin shape and feral movements of his body. But it was the face, now, of an ancient boy, with black Scarabae eyes, and framed with sh
ort white dreadlocks in which beads were plaited, the colors of his carriage window.

  On his hands there were more than three rings, and they were silver skulls and swords and spikes and roses, like the decorations on his leathers.

  On his breast was silver chain mail, and across his ribs, decipherable gradually as he moved, in letters of flame, the words Bum Out.

  Miranda said, "Uncle Camillo."

  He nodded to her. "Miranda. Sasha. Eric. Michael and Cheta." He looked up the stairs. "And herself. The Rachaela."

  Dust, which had been gathered on all of their eyes like the powder of time, had been scorched away. His eyes too were vivid. Had he come back from the dead?

  Behind him, the golden Cinderella giggled lightly. The other one, of the gold which rusted, said, "Cami, I want the toilet."

  "There will be a choice," he said. He turned to Cheta. "Will you show Miss Lou and Miss Tray the easements, please."

  Miranda moved slowly out across the hall before Cheta or either of the Cinderellas—Lou, Tray—had taken a step. Miranda went to Camillo and quietly put her arms about him.

  "I'm so glad," said Miranda. "This is so wonderful."

  And then Sasha came, and Eric last of all. They touched Camillo, his shining carapace and knotted hair, little weightless touches.

  Camillo suffered it. He was a prodigal. But then, he had always been.

  "Come out," he said, "come and see my trike. Can't keep it waiting. My fine horse."

  "We'd like the toilet, please," said the rusty golden Cinderella to Cheta.

  Cheta led the Cinderellas both away, into the passage where the downstairs bathroom was.

  Camillo went back out into amber shadow, and Eric, Sasha, and Miranda followed him. Rachaela went as far as the house porch.

  She watched as Camillo showed the trike to the Scarabae. Between the handlebars the burned frame of the horse head, set with two eyes of Sauterne crystal, stared fiercely, not incongruous but perfect. The bodywork was shot with silver rosettes, streaks of fire in vermilion paint. It was a beast.

  Camillo activated a CD player raised like an altar over the velvet seat. Deep pouring Gothic rock swelled up like an organ, and in the trees the birds fell silent.

  "Daisy, Daisy," said Camillo. There were spurs on his boots. "Give me your answer do."

  There was a celebration dinner, roast chickens stuffed with oranges and basted with honey, Duchess potatoes, boiled chestnuts, asparagus. They ate at midnight.

  Camillo was, as the Scarabae would once have said, "naughty." He ate the potatoes and asparagus only. Lou, the darker and more coppery girl, Tray, the golden, ate nothing, toyed with the food. They were exquisite children, perhaps twenty-one or twenty-two. Their bodies were tanned seamlessly like the honey chicken. Lou wore sequins and Tray tassels, on their black. Their limbs were garnished by silver beads and blossoms of bone. They sat either side of Camillo.

  Rachaela thought of the story, the legend of Camillo. How he had killed his bride, the broken vase of neck and all the blood. But that had been a century at least ago, and now the necks of Lou and Tray were marked only with beads or, in the case of Lou, a tattoo of a rose.

  The joy was muted, but it was present.

  He had come back to them.

  How?

  He did not say.

  "Oh, Cami, can I have another pink squirrel?"

  And Camillo got up and mixed it for them, the two little flawless girls. While the Scarabae sat about the table like open flowers. And the Scarabae ate. They ate heart-fly-

  "Aren't the bones pretty?" said Tray, when the chicken had been demolished.

  Camillo had an earring in his right earlobe, a silver snake holding a moon in its mouth that was also a skull.

  There were no questions. No answers.

  Camillo and the girls went up into one of the outposts of the architecture, on the third floor.

  The trike was stabled somewhere in the lower house.

  It was four in the morning.

  Eric sat playing chess against an invisible opponent.

  Rachaela said, "How did he survive?"

  "We do," said Eric. "We do survive."

  "No, not always."

  "Yes. I concede."

  "How then?"

  "One day, he will tell us."

  "Why didn't you ask him?"

  "Or you, Rachaela, you could have asked."

  "He'd talk nonsense."

  "Yes," said Eric.

  Miranda and Sasha had gone away, perhaps to their rooms or only to another part of the house.

  Rachaela contacted with one finger the elegant telephone, which never rang.

  "Can you survive death?" she demanded futilely.

  "You've seen us die."

  She was tired, her body not accustomed yet to the altered hours, wanting to sleep both day and night, and to be awake then, too.

  "I said I should go away, and perhaps now I should. Now you've got Camillo back." She waited, and then she said, "Does he sleep with those two girls? If so—if he can —is he fertile?"

  Eric did not reply. Rachaela recalled the sexual reticence of the Scarabae. The Scarabae who lay son with mother, daughter with sire.

  "Will that continue the line?" she said.

  But Lou and Tray would be on the pill. And Camillo —Camillo was old.

  Rachaela felt old. She felt desiccated, and yet curiously immature, a child again among the family.

  "Anyway," she said, "he's found a horse to ride."

  Camillo, the outcast. He had given Rachaela the key to the attic when Ruth had been shut up. He had wanted Ruth taken away. And with the key Rachaela had let Ruth out.

  Rachaela had known Camillo was burned to cinders.

  She imagined him lying on a bed with the two girls like limpets, showering him with hair.

  She felt far older than Camillo.

  CHAPTER 9

  WARM SUNSHINE STILL HOVERED HIGH up over the street; it would be light for another hour. No one was about. In the five-foot front garden of the empty house adjoining Julie and Terry's, dusky opium poppies had sprung wild between the old concrete paving. The nettles around Julie's dustbin were gilt-edged. It was a peaceful scene spoiled only by sound effects: the music center was playing loud enough to be heard fifteen doors away.

  Joseph Black and Jennifer Devonshire walked up the road. He was dressed very casually, but Jennifer wore a short pink flowery dress and twenty bracelets. She carried a carrier bag with a bottle of wine in it.

  "Here we go," said Blackie, swinging through the gate in front of her. He rammed the knocker against the front door and shouted through the letter box: "It's a raid!"

  It was Terry who came to the door in an orange shirt and very blue jeans.

  "You're late."

  "No car."

  "Where's Lucy?"

  "She's got a cold," said Jenny.

  "She says," said Blackie. "It's a cold sore" He smiled at Terry and punched him lightly in the chest. "Worried?"

  "Nah," said Terry, grinning. He looked worried.

  They went in, and the great noise enveloped them. They seemed to like it, loosening and expanding like plants in refreshing rain.

  "Someone to meet," said Terry.

  Ruth was sitting on the settee in her black T-shirt and jeans. She had had a glass of wine but she had drunk it, now she only had the empty glass.

  Blackie looked at her. "Who's she?"

  "That's Ruth. This is Blackie."

  "Everything they've told you about me is true," said Blackie.

  "Hallo," said Ruth, but they did not hear her. Unlike the others she did not shout effortlessly above the music. She had taken some cottonwool from her bag and put it in her ears.

  "Where's the frigging booze?" asked Blackie.

  Julie appeared out of the kitchen with a wine bottle and a glass for Jenny, and one for Lucy who had not come.

  "Where's Lucy?"

  "She's got herpes," said Blackie.

  "Don't tell lies," s
aid Jenny.

  Terry took cans of beer out of the fridge, and he and Blackie opened them, in a spray of fizz.

  Julie filled Jenny's glass and her own. Then, reluctantly, Ruth's.

  "Who's Ruth, then?" inquired Jenny. Ruth watched her, perhaps reading her lips.

  "Better ask Terry."

  "Oh."

  There was a crash from the music center and then a silence louder and more painful than the noise. The tape had ended.

  "Put on some reggae," said Blackie. He gyrated his hips and waved his arms in unsuccessful imitation. "Cool, mon."

  Julie hurriedly selected a tape and put it on.

  "Look, a bird that can drink," said Blackie. Ruth had drained her glass again. "Like a beer, darling?"

  "All right," said Ruth, soundlessly under the music.

  "Eh?" said Blackie.

  Ruth held out her hand, and he playfully put his can of Carlsberg into it. Ruth handed him the can back.

  "She doesn't want to drink yours," said Terry. "Very sensible. God knows what she might catch." He went into the narrow kitchen and got another beer from the fridge, replacing it with four others.

  When he came back, Blackie was sitting beside Ruth on the settee.

  Julie and Jenny were dancing to the music, ignoring Blackie and Ruth. Julie's high heels kept catching in the carpet, but it was too soon to take them off.

  "Guess what line I'm in," Blackie was saying to Ruth. Ruth looked at him. God, what eyes she had, Terry thought, like bloody Greta Garbo. And black as tar.

  Ruth did not guess.

  Terry said, "He fixes cars."

  "Yeah," said Blackie. "Nothing I can't see to. That's how I met our Julie. Fixed her up. 'Course, they ain't got a car now. Old Terry splattered it, didn't you?"

  Terry drank down his beer. "It was a fucking drag. Always going wrong. You never fixed it. It got worse after you had your paws on it."

  "Secret of my success," said Blackie.

  "You've buggered yours up too. Now my Morris," said Terry. "Did the whole of Cornwall in that car."

  "Yeah, place called Mousehole," said Blackie to Ruth.

  "It's pronounced Mowsel," said Terry.

  "Oooh," said Blackie. "Well, fark me. Moosil."

  He looked up at Julie and Jenny disco dancing awk-wardly on the catchy carpet. "Come on, show a bit of whoopsie."