Alyzon Whitestarr (40 page)

“I needed some time out of the house,” I said, trying not to sound guilty. “My sister is acting so crazy these days, you wouldn’t believe it. You know her, don’t you? You gave me that CD for her?”

“I was just passing it on,” Harlen said lightly. But his thick rotting smell deepened and became momentarily more horrible. I swallowed hard, because the faint scent of violets and licorice had been mixed up in that dreadful stink. Which
meant he knew exactly who Serenity was. I wished I dared reach out and touch him, but even the thought of it made my danger sense go off.

“You want to go for a walk?” Harlen invited.

I didn’t need any warning from my danger sense to refuse. “I’ve just called Jesse to come and get me,” I lied.

“So,” Harlen said, leaning across the table. “Any news on who torched Gilly’s place?”

Fury clawed at me that he could mention it so casually, when the smell of smoke and gasoline wound so revealingly through his awful smell, but I held his gaze guilelessly and shrugged. “I think the police are putting it down to vandalism.”

“Useless bastards, the cops,” Harlen said pleasantly. “So what about the drive-in?”

“I still have to pin down Da,” I said.

“Your da,” Harlen mocked. “Well, OK, let’s go ask him now. I’d like to meet the famous Macoll Whitestarr.”

“How do you know his name?” I asked.

“Everyone knows his band outdid Urban Dingo,” Harlen said easily.

He had given me an opening and, without thinking, I took it. “It’s funny you should mention that gig, because ever since, Da has been getting a lot of work through this guy called Aaron Rayc.”

Harlen’s smell altered, but rather than becoming darker and stronger, I had the weird impression that it drew back and faded. Then my danger sense began to scream, and I had the utterly strange and dreadful impression that something dark and ancient was looking at me out of Harlen’s eyes.

I clamped on my senses to stop myself giving way to screaming hysterics and bent to suck childishly and loudly at the froth in the bottom of the tall glass. Harlen got jerkily to his feet and said he had to go. His eyes were like fogged green pebbles. He sketched a stiff, unnatural-looking wave and went out.

I stayed sitting there until my legs recovered, then I did call Jesse. It was only after I got home that I cursed myself for not having called Harrison from the mall when I had the chance, because I arrived right at dinnertime, when there was no possibility of making a private call. I ate veggie moussaka distractedly, sitting between Serenity, who sat dissecting her meal in stony silence, and Mirandah, who had clearly had another fight with Ricki and ate with tears trickling down her cheeks.

It was lucky that Da and Jesse were talking intensely about music or there would have been dead silence at the table. The only time my ears pricked up was when Da reminded Serenity that she had a dentist appointment straight after school the next day. He said he would collect her with Mum and Luke, and they would all visit the dentist on the way to look at Mum’s new gallery. His voice was light and friendly, but I saw how he watched her and I smelled the ammonia sharpness of his concern for her. Then Mum called down to Serenity, her voice croaky with weariness as it always was when she stopped being nocturnal for a while.

I escaped upstairs as soon as Serenity had gone up, taking Luke with me and playing with him on my bed until Da came and got him for a bath. Then I went down to the kitchen
to call Harrison, but Mirandah was sitting by the phone staring at it pitifully. I sighed and went back upstairs and did some homework.

I fell asleep without realizing. It was nearly midnight when Da came in to say Harrison was on the phone. I went to the kitchen, where Neil and Tich were eating doughnuts and drinking coffee.

“Alyzon!” Harrison almost shouted.

“Is something wrong?” I could feel Tich and Neil listening and struggled to keep my voice low and calm.

“Is something
wrong?”
Harrison growled, his accent strong. “Christ, Alyzon. Ye scared me half tae death. I called hours and hours ago, and yer brother tells me you’ve gone out tae meet Harlen Sanderson! And ye dinnae call back!”

“Oh, Harrison! I didn’t get the message. My brother can get … distracted. And I wasn’t meeting Harlen. I had gone to the mall, and he called here and found out where I was going. We only talked for about ten minutes in a coffee shop, and then he left.”

“What did he want?”

“Same thing as usual,” I said carefully.

“Someone’s there?” Harrison guessed.

“Of course. Maybe we could meet tomorrow after school?”

“What about your sister?”

“That’s fine,” I said guardedly.

“All right. I dinnae get it, but I get it. After school it is. You can come with me tae Raoul’s.”

I agreed, then hung up to find Tich and Neil looking at me sympathetically.

“Boyfriend problems?” Tich asked.

“Of course not,” I said, feeling myself blush annoyingly “He’s just a friend.”

“A pretty good friend if he called this late to ask about another man,” Neil said, grinning coyly at me. Despite everything, I couldn’t help smiling. “There, that didn’t hurt, did it?” he said. “Despite what the world says, love is a laughing matter.”

“I am not in love!” I laughed.

“Laughter is the best medicine,” Tich said wisely, which cracked Neil up. Tich regarded him with wounded amusement. “I read that in
Reader’s Digest!”

Neil nearly convulsed with laughter. His big belly wobbled like jelly. Da came in carrying some music and looked at us all in puzzlement, which made it even funnier.

On the way up the stairs a few minutes later, it struck me that it had been ages since I had laughed so hard; I noticed how light it had made me feel for a moment. But when I was back in bed, wakeful now, my smile faded at the memory of my conversation with Harlen and the queer certainty that for a second the sickness he carried had been fully awake and fully aware, because I had mentioned the name of Aaron Rayc.

Despite my increasing feeling that school was irrelevant, I was glad on Friday to be plunged into a day that turned out to be full and demanding, even if half of it was taken up with making notes for holiday homework. Gilly told me at recess that she and her gran were going house-hunting that night. She said they were both sick to death of living in a hotel and eating in the restaurant or ordering room service. I told her about Harlen finding me at the mall, and her eyes widened in alarm.

“Do you think Harlen will tell Aaron Rayc you mentioned him?” Gilly asked.

“Maybe, but it came up naturally enough. And it was worth the risk to see how Harlen reacted.”

* * *

At the end of the day I hung around after class, helping to tidy up because I had the feeling Harlen would be waiting to find out if I had asked Da about the drive-in. When I judged that enough time had passed for it to be safe, I slipped out the side door and made my way through the backstreets to meet Harrison at the same cafe we had sat in when I had told him the
truth about myself. We had planned to meet inside in case of rain, but the sun was shining and he was waiting outside, leaning against the wall. He had a complicated expression of sadness mingled with resignation on his face before he noticed me, and I wondered if he was thinking of his father. Then I called his name and he swung round and smiled.

“I’m sorry about worrying you last night,” I said.

“What happened with Harlen, anyway?” he asked, setting out for the bus stop.

I asked if he’d mind if I waited until we were with Raoul, because I had already told it once to Gilly that day.

“OK,” he said. “So who was listening last night?”

Some reckless daring prompted me to say lightly, “A couple of Da’s musician friends. They thought you must be in love with me because you were calling so late.”

Harrison gave a strangled laugh that sounded both alarmed and embarrassed. All at once, desperate to shift the subject before he said something that would cut me to the quick, I asked if there was something wrong with his father.

Harrison lifted his eyes to the sky and gave a sort of muted Tarzan cry.

I gaped at him in astonishment, and he looked down at me and burst into laughter. “I’m not going mad,” he said when he had got control of himself. “It’s just that … ah hell. I might as well tell you. My father is an alcoholic. That’s what I meant when I told you before that he tries tae hide from things. He’s a binger. That means a lot of the time he’s fine and he doesnae drink at all. But about once a fortnight he goes
on a bender and drinks until he falls down wherever he is, then he wakes and drinks again. When the binge is over, he somehow gets himself home. Last night was the first night he’d been home for three days, and he was a mess. I had tae clean him up, and at the same time I was worrying about what had happened tae you.”

“Oh, Harrison,” I said, full of pity. “Can’t he get help?”

“There’s not really anything anyone can do,” Harrison said. “He’s a pretty good father when he’s OK, but we try to keep the binges tae ourselves because otherwise welfare would be ontae us and there would go all of my freedom.”

“I didn’t know,” I said softly.

He shrugged. “How could you? You can do a lot but you cannae read minds, thank God.” He said this so harshly it jarred me. He gave me a quick look. “I dinnae mean that how it sounded. It’s just that I wouldnae want anyone reading my thoughts.”

When we got on the bus, we were both silent. I was thinking about how it must feel to have to take care of your father instead of the other way round. I looked at Harrison out of the corner of my eye, but his expression was intensely private and gave away nothing of his thoughts.

* * *

“Hello,” Raoul greeted us, looking pleased. “You’re just in time to try some of this hot chocolate I’ve made. They serve it like this in Italy; it’s made with melted chocolate instead of powder. I’ve got some croissants from the bakery in honor of it.”

So there we were half an hour later, eating croissants and
drinking hot chocolate that was the most delicious thing I had ever drunk in my life. But then Raoul asked what had been happening and Harrison turned to me expectantly, so I set the cup aside and told them about Harlen. I expected them to reproach me for the risks I had taken, but Raoul said he thought my extended senses would keep me from doing anything that would endanger me.

“You say you felt this virus was looking at you out of Harlen’s eyes? Like it was alive?”

“Maybe not alive exactly,” I said. “Just … roused.”

“It could be,” Raoul said thoughtfully. “In a way, every cell in our body is a separate life-form with its own motivations, responding to different stimuli.” Raoul absently poured us all some more chocolate as I told them about Cole. They both looked interested when I told them of the brief vision I had experienced.

“It sounds a lot like he was thinking about where he was when things went wrong between him and Harlen, and if you are right about their falling-out, then there is a good chance you saw the place where the infections happen,” Raoul said. “It’s a great pity the vision wasn’t clearer.”

Harrison drew in a deep breath. “It’s a long shot, but when you talked about what you saw, Alyzon, it made me think of those warehouses on the industrial park in Shale-town. Remember the ones owned by Rayc’s wife? There was long grass by the side of the road, and if it wasnae raining, that sandy surface could look white. And a warehouse would cast a blocky shadow.”

“It’s worth taking a look,” Raoul said. Then he got a
strange look on his face and he said in a halting voice, “You know what? It’s an odd thing, but my car is acting up.”

“We could take a train there this weekend and have a look around,” Harrison offered.

“You don’t understand,” Raoul said. “That young guy we drove to the industrial park? He said that something in my car would break, and it would give me a reason to come back.”

Harrison nodded. “I remember. But it could just be that he’s a good mechanic.”

The hair was rising on the back of my neck as I told them what Davey had said to me.

“He mun be able tae see or sense people who are infected, too,” Harrison said, his accent growing stronger with his excitement. “That has tae be what he means by ‘them’ and ‘they.’ And I’ve just thought of something else. Ye ken how he said he’d got tae show us the way, and it sounded like he’d got his tenses muddled. Well, what if he meant exactly what he said? That he was showing us the way tae them. Tae the place where the gang meets and where the infections happen. The warehouses! And he directed us there! Ye ken what this means?”

“I do,” Raoul said softly. “But I wonder if you do.”

“What do ye mean?” Harrison asked, frowning at him.

“I mean we are talking about rather more than extended senses if Davey really was directing us to Them. Because how did he know he was supposed to direct us? Who told him? And if no one told him, then how does he know? And how
did he know my car would need repairing? He couldn’t … unless he can see into the future.”

Now it was my turn to gape.