Dark Companions (32 page)

“Come on, Billy,” Wayne said. “That’s enough for today. Go home.”

“I won’t go home!” Dutton cried in panic.

“Do you mean to tell me you’re sending him home and that’s all?” a woman shouted above the yapping of her jacketed Pekinese. “What about my headlight?”

“I’ll deal with him,” Wayne said. “My colleague will take your statements. Don’t give me any trouble, Billy,” he said, taking a firmer hold on Dutton’s arm.

Dutton found himself being marched along the street towards his room. “I’m not going home,” he shouted.

“You are, and I’ll see that you do.” A fire engine was elbowing its way through the traffic, braying. In the middle of a side street, between walls that quaked with the light of a huge bonfire, children were stoning firemen.

“I won’t,” Dutton said, pleading. “If you make me I’ll get out again. I’ve drunk too much. I’ll do something bad, I’ll hurt someone.”

“You aren’t one of those. Go home now and sleep it off. You know we’ve no room for you on Saturday nights. And tonight of all nights we don’t want to be bothered with you.”

They had almost reached the house. Wayne gazed up at the dormant bonfire on the waste ground. “We’ll have to see about that,” he said. But Dutton hardly heard him. As the house swayed towards him, a rocket exploded low and snatched the house forward for a moment from the darkness. In the old woman’s room, at the bottom of the windowpane, he saw a metal bar: the handle of a pram.

Dutton began to struggle again. “I’m not going in there!” he shouted, searching his mind wildly for anything. “I killed that old woman! I knocked her head in, it was me!”

“That’s enough of that, now,” Wayne said, dragging him up the steps. “You’re lucky I can see you’re drunk.”

Dutton clutched the front door frame with both hands. “There’s something in there!” he screamed. “In her room!”

“There’s nothing at all,” Wayne said. “Come here and I’ll show you.” He propelled Dutton into the hall and, switching on his flashlight, pushed open the old woman’s door with his foot. “Now, what’s in here?” he demanded. “Nothing.”

Dutton looked in, ready to flinch. The flashlight beam swept impatiently about the room, revealing nothing but dust. The bed had been pushed beneath the window during the police search. Its head-rail was visible through the pane: a metal bar.

Dutton sagged with relief. Only Wayne’s grip kept him from falling. He turned as Wayne hurried him towards the stairs, and saw the mouth of darkness just below the landing. It was waiting for him, its lips working. He tried to pull back, but Wayne was becoming more impatient. “See me upstairs,” Dutton pleaded.

“Oh, it’s the horrors, is it? Come on now, quickly.” Wayne stayed where he was, but shone his flashlight into the mouth, which paled. Dutton stumbled upstairs as far as the lips, which flickered tentatively towards him. He heard the constable clatter up behind him, and the darkness fell back further. Before him, sharp and bright amid the darkness, was his door. “Switch on your light, be quick,” Wayne said.

The room was exactly as Dutton had left it. And why not? he thought, confident all at once. He never locked it, there was nothing to steal, but now the familiarity of everything seemed welcoming: the rumpled bed; the wardrobe, rusted open and plainly empty; the washbasin; the grimy coin-meter. “All right,” he called down to Wayne, and bolted the door.

He stood for a long time against the door while his head swam slowly back to him. The wind reached for him through the open window. He couldn’t remember having opened it so wide, but it didn’t matter. Once he was steady he would close it, then he’d go to bed. The blankets were raised like a cowl at the pillow, waiting for him. He heard Constable Wayne walk away. Eventually he heard the children light the bonfire.

When blackening tatters of fire began to flutter towards the house he limped to close the window. The bonfire was roaring; the heat collided with him. He remembered with a shock of pleasure that the iron bar was deep in the blaze. He sniffed and groped vainly for his handkerchief as the smoke stung his nostrils. Never mind. He squinted at the black object at the peak of the bonfire, which the flames had just reached. Then he fell back involuntarily. It was the pram.

He slammed the window. Bright orange faces glanced up at him, then turned away. There was no mistaking the pram, for he saw the photograph within the hood strain with the heat, and shatter. He tested his feelings gingerly and realised he could release the thoughts he’d held back, at last. The pursuit was over. It had given up. And suddenly he knew why.

It had been the old woman’s familiar. He’d known that as soon as Betty had mentioned the idea, but he hadn’t dared think in case it heard him thinking; devils could do that. The old woman had taken it out in her pram, and it had stolen food for her. But it hadn’t lived in the pram. It had lived inside the old woman. That was what he’d seen in her room, only it had got out before the police had found the body.

He switched off the light. The room stayed almost as bright, from the blaze. He fumbled with his buttons and removed his outer clothes. The walls shook; his mouth was beginning to taste like dregs again. It didn’t matter. If he couldn’t sleep he could go out and buy a bottle. Tomorrow he could cash his book. He needn’t be afraid to go out now.

It must have thrown itself on the bonfire because devils lived in fire. It must have realised at last that he wasn’t like the old woman, that it couldn’t live inside him. He stumbled towards the bed. A shadow was moving on the pillow. He balked, then he saw it was the shadow of the blanket’s cowl. He pulled the blanket back.

He had just realised how like the hood of a pram the shape of the blanket had been when the long spidery arms unfolded from the bed, and the powerful claws reached eagerly to part him.

In the Bag

The boy’s face struggled within the plastic bag. The bag laboured like a dying heart as the boy panted frantically, as if suffocated by the thickening mist of his own breath. His eyes were grey blank holes, full of fog beneath the plastic. As his mouth gaped desperately the bag closed on his face, tight and moist, giving him the appearance of a wrapped fish, not quite dead.

It wasn’t his son’s face. Clarke shook his head violently to clear it of the notion as he hurried towards the assembly hall. It might have been, but Peter had had enough sense and strength to rip the bag with a stone before trying to pull it off. He’d had more strength than— Clarke shook his head hurriedly and strode into the hall. He didn’t propose to let himself be distracted. Peter had survived, but that was no thanks to the culprit.

The assembled school clattered to its feet and hushed. Clarke strode down the side aisle to the sound of belated clatters from the folding seats, like the last drops of rain after a downpour. Somewhere amid the muted chorus of nervous coughs, someone was rustling plastic. They wouldn’t dare breathe when he’d finished with them. Five strides took him onto the stage. He nodded curtly to the teaching staff and faced the school.

“Someone put a plastic bag over a boy’s head today,” he said. “I had thought all of you understood that you come here to learn to be men. I had thought that even those of you who do not shine academically had learned to distinguish right from wrong. Apparently I was mistaken. Very well. If you behave like children, you must expect to be treated like children.”

The school stirred; the sound included the crackling of plastic. Behind him Clarke heard some of the teachers sit forward, growing tense. Let them protest if they liked. So long as this was his school its discipline would be his.

“You will all stand in silence until the culprit owns up.”

Tiers of heads stretched before him, growing taller as they receded, on the ground of their green uniform. Towards the middle he could see Peter’s head. He’d forgotten to excuse the boy from assembly, but it was too late now. In any case, the boy looked less annoyed by the oversight than embarrassed by his father’s behaviour. Did he think Clarke was treating the school thus simply because Peter was his son? Not at all; three years ago Clarke had used the same method when someone had dropped a firework in a boy’s duffel hood. Though the culprit had not come forward, Clarke had had the satisfaction of knowing he had been punished among the rest.

The heads were billiard balls, arranged on baize. Here and there one swayed uneasily, then hurriedly steadied as Clarke’s gaze seized it. A whole row shifted restlessly, one after another. Plastic crackled softly, jarring Clarke from his thoughts.

“It seems that the culprit is not a man but a coward,” he said. “Very well. Someone must have seen what he did and who he is. No man will protect a coward from his just deserts. Don’t worry that your fellows may look down on you for betraying him. If they do not admire you for behaving like a man, they are not men.”

The ranks of heads swayed gently, hypnotically. One of them must have seen what had happened to Peter: someone running softly behind him as he crossed the playing field, dragging the bag over his head, twisting it tight about his neck and stretching it into a knot at the back… Plastic rustled secretly, deep in the hall, somewhere near Peter. Was the culprit taunting Clarke? He grew cold with fury. He scrutinised the faces, searching for the unease which those closest to the sound must feel; but all the faces were defiantly bland, including Peter’s. So they refused to help him even so meagrely. Very well.

“No doubt some of you think this is an easy way to avoid your lessons,” he said. “I think so too. Instead, from tomorrow you will all assemble here when school is over and stand in silence for an hour. This will continue until the culprit is found. Please be sure to tell your parents tonight. You are dismissed.”

He strode to his office without a backward glance; his demeanour commanded his staff to carry on his discipline. But he had not reached his office when he began to feel dissatisfied. He was grasping the door handle when he realised what was wrong. Peter must still feel himself doubly a victim.

A class came trooping along the corridor, protesting loudly, hastily silent. “Henry Clegg,” he said. “Go to IIIA and tell Peter Clarke to come to my office immediately.”

He searched the faces of the passing boys for furtiveness. Then he noticed that although he’d turned the handle and was pushing, the door refused to move. Within, he heard a flurried crackling rustle. He threw his weight against the door, and it fell open. Paper rose from his desk and sank back limply. He closed the window, which he’d left ajar; mist was inching towards it across the playing field. He must have heard a draught fumbling with his papers.

A few minutes later Peter knocked and entered. He stood before Clarke’s desk, clearly unsure how to address his father. Really, Clarke thought, the boy should call him sir at school; there was no reason why Peter should show him less respect than any other pupil.

“You understand I didn’t mean that you should stay after school, Peter,” he said. “I hope that won’t cause embarrassment between you and your friends. But you must realise that I cannot make an exception of them too.”

For an unguarded moment he felt as though he were justifying himself to his son. “Very well,” Peter said. “Father.”

Clarke nodded for him to return to his lesson, but the boy stood struggling to speak. “What is it?” Clarke said. “You can speak freely to me.”

“One of the other boys…asked Mr Elland if you were…right to give the detention and Mr Elland said he didn’t think you were.”

“Thank you, Peter. I shall speak to Mr Elland later. But for now, you had better return to his class.”

He gazed at the boy, and then at the closed door. He would have liked to see Peter proud of his action, but the boy looked self-conscious and rather disturbed. Perhaps he would discuss the matter with him at home, though that broke his own rule that school affairs should be raised with Peter only in school. He had enough self-discipline not to break his own rules without excellent reason.

Self-discipline must be discussed with Elland later. Clarke sat at his desk to draft a letter to the parents. Laxity in the wearing of school uniform. A fitting sense of pride. The school as a community. Loyalty, a virtue we must foster at all costs. The present decline in standards.

But the rustle of the paper distracted him. He’d righted the wrong he had done Peter, he would deal with Elland later; yet he was dissatisfied. With what? The paper prompted him, rustling. There was no use pretending. He must remember what the sound reminded him of.

It reminded him of the sound the plastic bag had made once he’d put it over Derek’s head.

His mind writhed aside, distracting him with memories that were more worthy of his attention. They were difficult enough to remember—painful indeed. Sometimes it had seemed that his whole life had been contrived to force him to remember.

Whenever he had sat an examination someone had constantly rustled paper behind him. Nobody else had heard it; after one examination, when he’d tackled the boy who had been sitting behind him, the others had defended the accused. Realising that the sound was in himself, in the effect of stress on his senses, Clarke had gone to examinations prepared to hear it; he’d battled to ignore it, and had passed. He’d known he must; that was only justice.

Then there had been the school play: that had been the worst incident, the most embarrassing. He had produced the play from his own pared-down script, determined to make an impression in his first teaching post. But Macbeth had stalked onto the heath to a sound from the wings as of someone straining to blow up a balloon, wheezing and panting faintly: Clarke had pursued the sound through the wings, finding only a timidly bewildered boy with a thunder sheet. Nevertheless, the headmaster had applauded rapidly and lengthily at the curtain. Eventually, since he himself hadn’t been blamed, Clarke ceased cross-examining his pupils.

Since then his career had done him more than justice. Sitting at his desk now, he relaxed; he couldn’t remember when he’d felt so much at ease with his memories. Of course there had been later disturbing incidents. One spring evening he had been sitting on a park bench with Edna, courting her, and had glanced away from the calm green sunset to see an inflated plastic bag caught among branches. The bag had seemed to pant violently in its struggles with the breeze; then it had begun to nod sluggishly. He’d run across the lawn in panic, but before he reached the bag it had been snatched away, to retreat nodding into the darkness between the trees. For a moment, vaguely amid his panic, it had made him think of the unidentified boy who had appeared beside him in a class photograph, face blurred into a grey blob. Edna had asked him no questions, and he’d been grateful to forget the incident. But the panic still lay in his memory, now he looked.