Personal Darkness (3 page)

They went on, Michael carrying Miriam, Cheta stolidly walking, Eric marching, Miranda and Sasha gliding haltingly as if detached, asleep. Rachaela stumbling behind.

Not a single car. Would a car have been helpful? More likely the driver would have put his foot down.

The hedges, in treacly summer leaf, barricaded off the fields.

They passed the spot where the farm had been pulled down. Two or three black crows picked at the ground.

Every moment Rachaela expected Eric, Sasha, and Miranda to collapse.

The sun had not, seemingly, burned their flesh, just as fire had not. But in some way, the sun made them transparent, like phantoms, although that, of course, was only a trick of the eyes. Fantasy. Rachaela was herself unwell, shocked. Obviously she must be.

In the end, they were on the hilltop and below was the village, the new village, as it had become over the twelve years.

Everything was shut, naturally. It was very early.

They went down past the estate of brown houses, like lepers past the doors of the feast.

Ignoring the dwellings and the shops, the Scarabae moved without consultation, or hesitation, to the newly built pub, The Carpenters.

It was bright and fresh in the early sun, geraniums in window boxes, bay trees by the door. Above, the rainbow sign of jolly men hammering.
Hammering
.

Michael put Miriam down, among the others.

They waited in the noiseless sunny street and Michael went to a side door. He rang the bell.

Rachaela recollected coming to this village long ago, early, knocking up the publican of the other, shabby pub. He had not been friendly.

Michael only rang once.

After an interval, someone opened the door. It was a young man, collected even brought from sleep, his hair combed, in a green and silver dressing gown and leather slippers.

"There has been an accident," said Michael.

The man stared. He saw the Scarabae. He winced.

"You'll need the police."

"No. We'll take rooms here. We shall need a telephone."

"Well, look," said the young man in green and silver, smiling, "it's just that it
is very
early—" He had a nice London accent. He kept smiling. He meant to do well. He was lovely to the customers and could limit himself to three G and T's a night. He did not stand for nonsense.

Did not expect nonsense, particularly at six in the morning.

"We must come in," said Michael. He sounded barbaric.
Sure
. He produced and held out a wad of notes, twenties, fifties. The nice young man gaped.

"For God's sake—"

"This," said Michael, "is an emergency."

Had Rachaela not said that, years ago? Would this work? Had the green and silver man seen Miriam, lying against Sasha on the road?

He only looked exasperated now.

"Oh—all right. Okay. Just hold on. I'll open up."

The Scarabae waited. Without tension. Without relief. They were not arrogant or insecure.

The pub door was opened a foot.

"Come in. Quickly. Okay."

They stood in the lofty interior now. A fake log fire which would burn in the vast hearth. Old china, perhaps made last week.

Eric said, "We will have champagne."

"Now look," said the young man. "I haven't—I mean, you can't."

Eric said nothing else.

Sasha said, standing by Miranda, whose dark eyes looked clear as forgotten ponds, "In a room."

The young man registered that Michael was now carrying a woman, scorched and hapless as the rest, but also prone and lifeless.

"You want a doctor."

"No," said Eric. "We want champagne."

The rooms were little and chintzy. The beams were not real. False flowers, dyed deep purple and cerise, poked from jugs.

Michael had laid Miriam on a bed, and in this room the others sat. They did not say anything, but Michael had paid the man, and he brought them, grudgingly, two bottles of a good champagne, on ice.

Michael had also apparently used a telephone, for no one approached the telephone in the room.

Who had been called?

Rachaela was given a glass of champagne.

She drank it, and tears flooded her eyes.

No one spoke to her, and she wiped the water from her face with toilet tissue from the bathroom.

They all drank. All but Miriam.

On the chinz coverlet Miriam lay, patiently dead.

In the afternoon, things started to happen.

They had been left alone, with the champagne, and Miriam. Rachaela had eventually got up and gone to the room Cheta said was hers. Here she lay on the bed and slept, the strange daylight sleep of alcohol and fear.

About four—the twiddly shepherdess clock in the room said it was four—she was woken by a sort of soft commotion in the corridor.

She got up and went out, and there in the doorway of the first room, where Miriam was and the other Scarabae, the nice young man who ran the pub was standing. He wore casual fawn slacks, Italian shoes, and a blue shirt and aesthetic tie. He was white as chalk, and, even from her doorway, Rachaela could see that he was shaking.

"It's just—you have to understand—I didn't know. I'm sorry. Please, you must believe me."

Rachaela walked out into the corridor, the carpet furry under her bare feet. Unlike the man, she must evidence wildness from sleep, her torrent of black hair un-brushed, her smoke-grimed face not yet washed.

But he turned to her and gazed at her in terror.

He said, appealing to her, "I'm trying to explain. I must have seemed—rude and unhelpful. It's only—it woke me up. Anything—anything I can do—will you have a meal now? Can I get you anything? Anything at all?"

He was terrified. He had not treated them properly. It would seem someone had put him right. But
who
?
Why
?

He was afraid he had offended the Scarabae.

Rachaela shrugged. Cruelly she watched him flounder. He was sweating. It was Miranda who came, soft, to the door, and said to him: "It's all right, young man. Please don't upset yourself. We have all we need."

Rachaela went in again. She took a bath and washed her face and her hair. The bathwater turned dark. The stink of smoke was now so ingrained in her nostrils it might never go. But the burns seemed to have healed.

As she was sitting in a towel, Cheta knocked and came in. She brought new clothes, which fitted exactly. Pants, bra and slip, tights, a cotton skirt and silk top, all in oatmeal colors. There were even shoes, perfect, they might have been made for her. Some powder came too, in a dainty compact, eye pencil and mascara, the things she used. In addition there was a discreet box of deodorant, toothpaste, tampons, a brush and comb, tissues, an expensive shampoo that made her sorry she had used the hotel soap, a manicure set, a toothbrush.

She emerged again at half-past five, and went to the other room. They were gone.
All of
them. Miriam too. She had heard nothing.

A wave of panic overcame her.

She stood in the room, boiling, a child bereft.

But Miranda—she thought it was Miranda—had left her a note on the hotel pad.

"We have gone with Miriam. We will return before dark."

They had moved out again in the sun. Perhaps it did not matter now. Perhaps it never had. Except to Miriam.

The curtains had been drawn over their windows, it was true.

Rachaela went back to her room, and presently a service trolly came courteously and deferentially to her door. It was the pub's best. Avocado with a lemon sauce, steak and a green salad, strawberries, wine. A rose, real, poised in the vase.

To her surprise Rachaela was ravenous. She ate fiercely, sometimes with her fingers. When she had ended the meal, she buried her face in her hands and wept. She did not know why. She was in her forties. She did not want Ruth. Adamus had been a devil, her enemy. The Scarabae were insane.

They came back after sunset. She heard them, as a child hears in an empty house.

They too wore new clothes, modern clothes that were ageless. They looked like ancient film stars, all in black.

Rachaela went down the corridor, and then she smelled their scent. The odorless inanition of age. Cologne and perfume. And, far stronger, ashes and fire.

They had been at another burning.

It was then, so curiously, that Miranda held out her arms, like a white crystal bird that attempts to fly. And Rachaela went into the arms of Miranda, and together they wept, in the corridor of the modern pub, like ancient sisters in a tragedy.

No one disturbed them. Not Sasha, not Eric. Not Michael, nor Cheta.

Below, the pub made sounds of festival as the village came in for food and drink to drive the dark away. But the Scarabae were the dark, and Rachaela clung to them. Just for a minute. There. That night.

AMANDA MILLS WENT QUICKLY INTO HER bedroom. To immediate scrutiny, it revealed nothing untoward. The teak fitted wardrobes, the plush carpet, the velvet bedroom chair and curtains were undisturbed. But it was the bed which concerned Amanda Mills.

She advanced on it. The duvet and toning pillows were pristine, as she had left them. Nevertheless, she prized them up. Not a ripple on the undersheet.

Amanda sniffed, cautiously, thoroughly. She detected the faint familiar aroma of fabric conditioner, nothing more.

Her sharp shoulders relaxed a little. Not very much. She would go to Timothy's room next.

At her dressing table she paused. A pair of earrings lay on the polished surface, before the jars of cold cream and night cream, the battalion of regimental bottles. Surely she had not left the earrings lying there. Had that ghastly girl—

In her late forties, Amanda Mills had had the gray tinted out and her hair shaped into wings and cemented by lacquer. She was thin from careful dieting. She wore the sleeveless dress in antique sand she had put on for dinner at the hotel, and smart costume jewelry, which, as she moved, clacked like a chain of bones.

There was a strong fragrance about the dressing table which harmonized with her own. The girl had been spraying Amanda Mills's perfume.

Amanda checked her jewel box. It was spread with the expected items. Not a thief then, or had not had the chance to be.

At Timothy's door Amanda did not hesitate. She went straight in.

Timothy's bed was as it always was, except on the days the cleaning woman made it, flung wide, disemboweled. Multiple rape might have taken place there always. But going close, Amanda Mills found no trace- of the giveaway perfume. There were no long black hairs. And the odor of the male, which in any case she recoiled from, was muted.

Probably nothing had happened. Coming back as they had, they had been in time to stop it.

Coming back of course had been bad enough, without finding
this
.

Clive had ruined the weekend. It had been spoiled swiftly by him. Friday night was pleasant, almost romantic; the stroll in the hotel gardens, the candlelit dinner. She had had a little too much wine and had felt rather good, rather young. But in the large hotel bed Clive had been his usual self. He was so selfish. She would not deign to protest, could not, had never been able to find words to explain… Irritable and nervy she had lain awake listening to him snore. The noise made her ears ring.

Saturday morning had been all right, though he had made the normal cracks about her shopping trip, as if he would not be the first to complain if she failed to appear groomed. She had warned him not to have the roast beef at lunch. Red meat was venomous and at his age he should watch what he ate.

He was grumpy all afternoon, reminiscing constantly about his days as a young man, before he met her, as if that was the golden part of his life, now over.

Amanda Mills had been looking forward to dinner. The hotel provided lots of health-conscious proteins and local salads made into patterns almost as attractive as those she herself constructed when at home—naturally, her gifts were not properly appreciated.

Clive Mills chose veal in batter. She did not say a word. She had brought an indigestion remedy with them.

When the veal came, Clive began on it, then laid down his knife and fork with a clatter. With an imperious wave he summoned the waiter. "This veal's rubbery." The waiter expressed surprise, which was a mistake. Other diners glanced about at them, amused, as Clive Mills raised his voice and trumpeted so that the candle flattened on its wick.

The veal was removed and Clive waited, rumbling.

Amanda Mills sat staring at her exquisite salad, no longer able to eat.

When the waiter returned, there was no improvement. It was the same rubbery veal, now cold.

As Clive Mills stormed, his wife stood up and vacated the restaurant.

Half an hour later, when he came up to their room, they argued. What had she thought he should do? Meekly eat the inedible veal? He should not have chosen veal in the first place. It would have disagreed with him. Just because she only fed him muck at home did not mean he could not eat decently when away. She was sure he ate "decently" every lunchtime then, at Masons, judging by his waistline.