Lazar (6 page)

Margaret stopped, but kept her back turned toward Jan.

“Don’t go,” Jan reassured her friend. “There’s so much I want
to talk to you about.” She heard herself laugh nervously. “It’s just that it’s
so amazing to meet someone whose taste in clothes is exactly the same as my
own. You’ve got to admit, it is one heck of a coincidence.”

“I’m not a believer in coincidence,” Margaret said without
turning. “I prefer to call it fate – like your finding the other half of
my ring.”

Jan found her feelings toward Margaret changing by the
second. At first she had found her unsettling. It was difficult to communicate
with someone who would not show her face. And then there was her habit of
fiddling with her hair. Jan was beginning to find this affectation of coyness
really, really annoying. But she could not remain annoyed for long. There was
something in the girl’s demeanour, the sadness in her eyes, that prompted
profound and heartfelt pity. The poor girl was so lonely, so desperate for
friendship. So desperate, in fact, that Jan could almost feel the sympathy
tangibly flowing from her fingertips as she touched the strange girl’s arm. It
was as though it was being sucked out of her and avariciously soaked up by a
dried-out, shrivelled … something. Jan felt an aching emptiness open up within
her.

As though sensing this haemorrhaging of Jan’s emotions,
Margaret straightened up and assumed an air of self-assurance.

“Have you been to the museum?” she asked, once again
unnerving Jan with a seemingly innocent question.

“Yes. How did you know?”

“I’ve been following you since you left,” Margaret answered
casually as she began to saunter up the lane. So she had been following me,
thought Jan. What is she playing at?

“I tried to attract you attention.”

“What?”

“I tried to attract your attention,” Margaret explained, “but
your mind was elsewhere.”

There was something interrogatory about the girl’s
explanation that appeared to demand an answer from Jan.

“Yes,” she stuttered, “Yes, I was miles away. I was studying
these picture of Old Wickwich.” She held up her smartphone to show Margaret.
She ignored it.

“Of course, you must have seen the model loads of times
– you living here. How much of it do you reckon is just guesswork?”

“Most of it.”

“Do you think so? That’s a shame. We – my cousin Hal
and I, that is – we were hoping to use it to recreate the old town on his
computer.”

“Recreate it?”

“Yes, sort of. Hal’s got this amazing bit of software –
though don’t tell him that I told you so – that can build things in three
dimensions…”

“Recreate it!”

Jan looked sideways at the girl, but could only see a mat of
dishevelled hair. She tried to explain again.

“You know, like in the films and computer games where they
have computer-generated graphics that make things look real, like they really
exist. We’re trying to do that with Old Wickwich – make it look real. Why
don’t you come back with me and have a look. I’m sure you’d be able to help us
rebuild it. You must know more about Old Wickwich than we do.”

Margaret’s head turned briefly toward Jan. The eye was
smiling.

“Come on then, it’s only a little way up the road.”

Margaret was already walking in the direction Jan was
pointing.

The house appeared to be empty when they arrived. Jan called
out, but no one answered, so she led the way upstairs to Hal’s bedroom. Margaret
followed.

Hal was nowhere to be seen. The only movement in the room was
his image of the chapel turning slowly round its axis on the screen.

“What is that?” Margaret asked, pointing straight at Hal’s
computer.

“What? Do you mean the computer?” Jan frowned and smiled
simultaneously. “You’re having me on. You must have seen one of those before. Even
Wickwich isn’t that cut off from civilisation.”

Margaret walked right up to the screen.

“Why does it have the Lazar?”

Jan looked perplexed.

“To print things, – what else? Though I think it’s an
inkjet, actually.”

Margaret began to shake. Her fingers wound themselves tight
around the knot of hair and pulled it even tighter across her face, as though
trying hard to disguise her agitation.

“The Lazar,” she persisted and began rocking gently to and
fro.

“Why on earth are you getting so excited about a printer?”
Jan asked, more than a little concerned.

Margaret turned immediately and fixed Jan with a stare.

“The Lazar.” she insisted.

Jan stepped backward, completely flustered by the indignant
tone in Margaret’s voice. She stuttered as she excused herself.

“Er … I’ll just pop upstairs to get some books I got from the
museum,” Jan said, desperately trying to change the subject. “They might help
explain what we’re doing.”

She retreated quickly through the door, turned immediately
and ran up to her room.

Hal had thought he heard Jan’s voice as he came up the stairs
from the kitchen, so was not surprised to see her sitting at his computer as he
entered his bedroom. He was surprised to find her on her own, though. Who had
she been talking to?

He walked toward her. She did not turn. She appeared to be
absorbed in the image on the screen. As he reached her, he noticed that her
fingertips were poised above the keyboard.

“Hey, careful,” he admonished. “Don’t touch anything. I
haven’t done a backup yet.”

He looked down at his cousin – only, it wasn’t her.

“Oh, sorry, I thought you were Jan,” he blurted out, blushing
slightly. “You must be Margaret – what do you reckon?” He nodded toward
the screen.

Margaret did not seem to hear him. She just stared straight
ahead as her fingers began to tap down on the keys.

“Er – I’d rather you didn’t do that.” Hal tried to
inject some menace into his voice, but failed. He resorted to reason. “That’s a
very sophisticated piece of software. If you don’t know what you’re doing you
could…”

Margaret turned toward him.

For once she did not raise her hand to pull her hair across
her face.

Hal started backward, then tried to recover his composure
– although he was aware that he could not completely disguise the
expression of repulsion he could feel upon his face.

“Oh, my … er … I’ll be back in a minute – I’m just
going to try and find out where Jan’s got to,” he blustered awkwardly as he withdrew
from his room. As soon as he had retreated through the doorway he turned and broke
into a run toward the stairs.

There was somebody behind him. They were calling out his
name.

“Hal! Hal! Are you alright?”

He paused and looked back over his shoulder. It was Jan. She
was bounding down the narrow staircase from the guest room. He turned to face
her.

“You could have warned me,” he hissed.

Jan stopped dead in her tracks outside Hal’s bedroom.

“Warned you of what?”

“That she hasn’t got a nose.”

“Who hasn’t got a nose?”

“Your friend Margaret – half her nose and lips are
missing.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,
half her nose and
lips are missing
!”

“If this is another one of your stupid jokes…” Jan turned on
her heel and marched straight into Hal’s bedroom.

It was empty.

“Where’s she gone?” Hal looked accusingly at Jan.

“I don’t know. I left her here and went looking for you.”

Hal went over to the chair where Margaret had been sitting at
his computer. He looked carefully at the screen for a moment, then turned toward
Jan, his frown of accusation turning to one of interrogation.

“This is a wind-up, isn’t it? You’ve planned this with her to
get your own back on me for the fright I gave you with the skeletons. I bet
she’s in one of the wardrobes wiping joke-shop make-up off her face.”

Hal rushed over to the wardrobes and began throwing open the
doors.

“I haven’t plotted anything with anyone – I wouldn’t be
so childish,” Jan retorted. “And in any case, it wasn’t make-up. I think she
really
has
got a birthmark or
something – she was always looking away from me or playing with her hair
and pulling it across her face. I thought she was just painfully shy. That’s
probably why she hasn’t got any friends, why she’s so lonely … why she’s run
away. She’s upset because you’ve seen her whole face.”

“
She’s
upset. How
do you think I feel?” Hal slammed the wardrobe doors shut. “It was a bit of a
shock when she turned and stared at me like that.” He peered around his room,
trying to identify any other possible hiding places. His bed caught his eye; he
fell to his knees and pushed his head and shoulders underneath it. His muffled
voice came up through the mattress. “Where on earth has she gone?”

Jan sat down in the chair and gazed at the rotating chapel on
the screen.

“Perhaps she
was
a
ghost,” she said, half to herself.

“Rubbish.” Hal emerged from underneath the bed, brushing dust
off the front of his T-shirt. “There aren’t such things – though she was
certainly scary enough to be one.”

Jan snapped out of her reverie, but still looked deep in
thought.

“What did she look like?”

“Eh?”

“I know it sounds odd, but I don’t think I ever
really
saw her face – she was
always standing in the shadows or with the sun behind her, or else playing with
her hair.”

“Think yourself lucky,” Hal commented as he got up and sat on
the edge of his bed. “She was … ugh!” He shuddered at the recollection of her
face, then remembered something else. He let out a short laugh and shook his
head in disbelief. “What an idiot,” he said, chastising himself. “It was
you
all along, wasn’t it?”

He stared hard at Jan, scrutinising every feature of her
face.

“It
was
you.
You
were wearing make-up – and I
fell for it. You
really
had me going
there for a…”