Incarnate (31 page)

“But I don’t want her to stay,” Susan pleaded, and couldn’t raise her voice. “I don’t like her.”

“I’ll tell you something, miss. I’m no longer interested in what you like or don’t like. You’re a selfish and hysterical brat, and if you don’t watch out I’ll have you seen to.”

“But she can’t stay.” Susan had remembered Mummy’s frown over her accounts. “We can’t afford it, Mummy.”

Mummy looked so savage as she raised her hand that Susan almost lost her balance. “You’d better flinch, young lady. You’ll do more than flinch if you ever say anything like that to me again. Who do you think you are?” As she grabbed Susan’s shoulder and dragged her toward her, her hiss of a voice was lower than Susan’s had been. “Do you know who you remind me of? Your father. He behaved exactly like this when he knew I was going to have you.

Much more of this and I’ll feel toward you just as I feel toward him.”

She let go of Susan’s bruised shoulder as the streamers clattered. “I couldn’t find the carving knife,” Eve said.

“Come in, Eve, don’t be timid. We were just sorting out a disagreement. It’s sorted out now, isn’t it? Sorted out for good,” she said, glaring at Susan. “Thanks, Eve. I’m glad there’s someone here I can rely on. I’ll get the knife.”

Eve waited until they heard the kitchen streamers, and even then she didn’t speak at once. “She wants me to stay,” she said. There was nothing menacing in her tone or in her smile; Susan might almost have thought she was simply delighted to have a new home, if it hadn’t been for Eve’s eyes. She was looking at Susan exactly as she had when she had crushed the beetle in her fist.

29

D
ANNY
looked at himself in the bathroom mirror, at his new suit and his shaved face speckled with blood, and couldn’t remember ever having felt so pleased with himself. For the first time in his life he was taking a. woman out, and there was no way she could get the better of him. Maybe she thought she’d tricked him into asking her, maybe she even believed he would pay her for giving him the confidence, but he’d known all along that she was trying to regain her influence over him on Molly Wolfe’s behalf. He dabbed at the specks of drying blood and splashed his face with a handful of his father’s aftershave. The pain made him feel clean and strong and dauntless. He was heading for the front door at a quarter to eight, with plenty of time to stroll to Thane Villas before Dr. Kent got there, when his mother came out of the parlor. “Come in here a minute, Danny,” she said.

His father was polishing a cannon the size of his hand and didn’t look at him. A tropical fish gave a nervous flick as his mother picked up a magazine from her chair, and for an awful moment Danny thought it was one of his magazines. Of course they were safe in the projection box. The woman on the cover was laughing, not crying. “Sit down then,” his mother said. “You’re making me nervous.”

He sat as far from the gas fire as he could. He was already sweating inside his heavy overcoat they’d bought him in the market by the Hercules. His mother was staring at his father as if that would make him look up and speak. Eventually she said, “I don’t often ask you favors, Danny, do I?”

“No,” he said, wondering if his father had been saying that she did.

“But I’m asking you one now. Don’t go out tonight, Danny. Stay in with us and have a drink here. See the New Year in with us like you always do. It won’t be the same without you.”

“I’ve got to go.” He was shifting inside his overcoat as if he could shrug off the heat. “I’ve promised.”

“That kind of promise doesn’t count. I’m sure you didn’t actually say you promised.” She was leaning forward, too far away to grasp his hands. “You wouldn’t have said that when you knew we’d be expecting you to stay with us.”

“Well, I did.” The plea in her eyes was making him hotter. “I’ve got to go, I’ve got to now.”

“You haven’t got to. You mustn’t, Danny. You don’t know what it will be like.” Her posture looked agonizing, she was leaning forward so far. “The streets will be full of drunks and rough behavior, and you’ll probably be drunk yourself. Anything might happen.”

“Oh, let him be.” His father looked up at last, and shook the cannon at her. “It’s the first normal thing he’s done since I don’t know when. You can’t keep him cooped up forever, we won’t always be here to look after him. It’s about time he started growing up.”

“That isn’t growing up. Who are these girls anyway? What do they mean by taking you out and getting you drunk?”

“Just the girls from the Hercules.” Having to repeat the lie was robbing him of clarity and resolve; for a moment, as sweat stung his eyes, he couldn’t remember their names. “Mandy and Karen,” he said.

“Usherettes.” She made the word sound like spitting. “Can’t you do better than them? I’m ashamed of you, Danny.”

He struggled to his feet. She was making him feel toward her as he’d felt toward Dr. Kent in her office. “I’ve got to go,” he mumbled.

“If you do, I’ll know you think more of those girls than you do of your own mother.”

He thought he would never reach the door. Her words had settled on him, heavier and more oppressive than the heat and his overcoat. “I’m telling you, Danny,” she cried, but he wrenched the door open and stumbled along the hall, onto the chill balcony, out into the glittering night.

He mustn’t resent her. She only wanted the best for him. But her anxiety had fastened on him and it was trying to drag him back to her as he hurried down the echoing concrete steps. He almost ran back to tell her the truth, tell her he was going out with Dr. Kent and why, except that he’d learned a long time ago not to admit to his parents anything that he was seeing, he’d learned from the way they had looked at him. He ran toward Seven Sisters Road, telling himself that he hadn’t heard eight o’clock strike, and then he skidded to a halt, his breath scraping his throat. Dr. Kent was waiting for him at the end of the path.

He couldn’t move for rage. His mother had let Dr. Kent see where he lived. He wanted to run home, whether to scream at his mother or hide from Dr. Kent he didn’t know. “I didn’t think it was you at first,” Dr. Kent said. “I thought you lived somewhere else.”

She was laughing at him. Her long face looked as sober as her ankle-length black coat and black trousers, but he knew when he was being jeered at. “So this is where you live,” she said. “No need to be ashamed of it, Danny. It isn’t as though you have the best job in the world. You work at the Hercules just up the road, am I right?”

He nodded and even smiled. He would have to finish with her all the sooner now that she knew where he lived and worked. Perhaps she always had, perhaps she had only pretended that her and Molly Wolfe’s spies hadn’t told her, to lull him into feeling safe. Now she was keeping him talking here so that his parents would see. “Come on then,” he muttered.

“By all means. Oh, you’re looking for my car. I’m sorry, it’s off the road. It’ll have to be public transport, I’m afraid.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Why, the West End on New Year’s Eve, and Trafalgar Square at midnight. Where else?”

“Better take a taxi, then. It’s a long way on the train.”

“Entirely up to you, Danny. You’ll be paying. I haven’t brought a sou. You invited me out, remember.”

She’d set another trap for him. No doubt she would be doing that all evening. Let her, it would make him hate her more, help him do what he had to do. “We’ll go on the train.” he said with a grin that gritted his teeth.

Two young Scotsmen Were doing their best to feed drinks to all the faces on the posters in the Underground; beer foam dribbled from a girl’s mouth as long as Danny’s arm. Singing echoed in the tiled corridors as the train pulled in. a conga line came kicking onto the platform and through the automatic doors as they tried to close, again and again. Dr. Kent seemed shy of all this, as if she were waiting for Danny to reassure her. Of course it must be another trick, and he was glad there was too much noise on the swaying train to make speaking worthwhile.

She took his hand at Oxford Circus, kept hold of it until they caught the train to Charing Cross, and all the time he was afraid she would be able to read his feelings by the way he held her hand. He thought of squeezing it until the’ bones splintered. On emerging at last into the open in sight of Trafalgar Square, he stuffed his hands into his pockets.

Crowds roamed chanting past the hotels on the Strand and under the plane trees of the Mall. They seemed almost capable of waking up the aloof buildings of Whitehall, of roping in the tenants of Downing Street. Cars flashed their lights and honked their horns at anything in sight, policemen chased a band of revelers out of the bandstand in St. James’s Park. Danny felt poised on the edge of a flood. All he could think of to shout was, “What do you want to do?”

“I’ll make that decision since I suppose all this is new to you, but that’s the last one I’ll make for you. Danny, understand?” She pointed to a noisy pub in a side street. “That looks as good as any.”

The pub was even hotter and more crowded than the train had been. Danny unbuttoned his coat and waited for Dr. Kent to go first until he realized she expected him to force their way through the crowd. If there were any tables and chairs, he couldn’t see where. He managed to locate the bar by the truncheons of the beer pumps, and was still struggling toward it five minutes later when he thought to ask, “Do you want anything to drink?”

“I believe that’s the done thing in these establishments. Did you have something else in mind?” His hatred must have touched his eyes, for she said, “Danny, you really must learn to laugh at yourself. I’ll have a large gin and tonic.”

He struggled furiously to the bar, ready to claw at anyone who wouldn’t let him pass. Laugh at himself! That was exactly what she and her crony wanted, to destroy his faith in himself. They hadn’t succeeded in Oxford, and they wouldn’t succeed now. He caught the barman’s attention at last, though not before spilled beer had soaked through the elbow of his coat, and turned with her drink and his pint of beer. She was nowhere to be seen.

His fist was tightening on her glass when he saw her waving at him from a distant corner, where she had managed to find space for two on a bench. He wormed his way over, his arms held high, his shirt glued to his armpits. She gave his suit a wry nod as he laid his coat on his lap. She sipped her drink and at last she said, “Well, are we going to sit here and stare at each other all night or are you going to tell me about yourself?”

She had taken off her coat but was still dressed in black, a jacket and a low-cut blouse. He looked away from her large breasts, which made him feel suffocated, and tried to outstare her. “Why not you?” he shouted.

“You know all you need to know about me.”

That was truer than she knew. He gulped his beer so that he wouldn’t be tempted to say so. The heat must be making him thirsty, for all at once he was holding an empty glass. “If you’re having another I will too,” Dr. Kent said.

When he reached the bar he couldn’t see her now that she was sitting down. Faces moved like chunks of a glacier, like the hovering smoke of all the cigars and cigarettes; no wonder the pub was growing darker. Was the barman leaving Danny until last to give Dr. Kent time to search his coat? Let her, the letter about her was safe in his room. When at last he got back to the corner, she had folded his coat just as he’d left it, and both she and the people nearby were pretending she had never touched it, which proved they were in it with her. She finished her drink and raised her full glass until he lifted his. “Here’s to the New Year,” she said, “and now back to this one. Same question. Danny.”

He’d thought of an answer. “I told you everything once.”

“You did indeed. More than I think you realized.” She was leaning so close to him that he could feel her breath on his cheek. “But that was eleven years ago. You must have changed since then.”

Of course he had. She’d changed him, she had almost destroyed him, but he wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of knowing. “No must about it,” he said.

“I’m sorry, Danny, I don’t believe it. Or if I do, it makes me very sad. Don’t you want anything more for yourself?” She was so close now he thought he could feel her lips moving. “Or is it that you don’t know what it is? Knowing what you want is the first step to getting it, Danny.”

He knew that wasn’t true, but he couldn’t think why; he could only tell himself she didn’t believe it either. “Try and tell me,” she whispered. “I may be able to help. Try and think what your hopes are for yourself, your dreams.”

He jerked away from her so. violently that he almost upset the tankard the man next to him was holding. “Sorry,” he muttered at the man, who was staring blearily at him as if he were trying to remember how to look aggressive. “Sorry,” Danny shouted, and turned on Dr. Kent. “I never have dreams.”

“I didn’t mean that kind. Sorry to stir up unpleasant memories, if that’s what they are. By dreams I meant whatever you most want for yourself.”

“I don’t have either kind.”

“Everyone does. Danny. Some people are afraid to admit it, that’s all. so afraid that maybe they don’t even realize they have them. But you never used to be, Danny. I do hope that business all that time ago hasn’t made you that way.” She actually looked hopeful, almost pleading. “I would feel responsible,” she said.

He couldn’t speak. Now he saw how deftly she had tricked him: she’d maneuvered him into asking her out when she knew he couldn’t chat to her in the way you were supposed to talk to girls you took out, the way men did in films. She must have thought he would have to answer her questions; she couldn’t have anticipated that he would simply refuse to speak. He drained his pint glass to block his mouth. ”Wananother?” he said, and hardly recognized his voice.

“Thanks. You’re learning.” she said with a wide smile that made him wonder all the way to the bar what lurked beneath her words. The pub was growing hotter yet, everyone seemed to be swaying. Everything was shifting. Her mention of dreams must have done that, undermined his hold on his surroundings. He’d have it out with her. he’d shout so everyone could hear; surely there must be someone in the crowd who wasn’t under her control. He gulped his beer as he struggled back, another mouthful as he sat down, for his throat felt clogged with the heat. She must have got ready for him. because at once she said. “If you won’t talk about your hopes, perhaps you’ll talk about the other kind of dream. What do you remember from Oxford?”