Quicksand (33 page)

 

 

He began to jig up and down on the spot, as though his tense muscles
wouldn't permit his limbs to remain still but insisted on contracting
randomly. His wide staring grin moved from Paul to Urchin, standing
silent and nervous in the background, and slipped for a moment into a
look of feral jealousy.

 

 

"Sit down," Paul suggested, terrified at the implications of that
fleeting expression.

 

 

-- Thought . . .? I don't know. Possibly: now's my chance to catch Paul
on his own without a woman around.

 

 

"I can stand," Maurice said. "I can stand it. I can stand practically
everything.
Practically
everything."

 

 

His eyes transfixed Urchin and the grin, after its brief return, collapsed
into a tight-lipped smile.

 

 

"About that drink," Paul said heartily. "I have some special strong ale
which I think you'll like. Urchin, come and help me bring the glasses."

 

 

She complied without demur. The moment they were inside the kitchen door,
she whispered, "Paul, is he sick?"

 

 

"I'm afraid so," Paul muttered. He reached for the little bottle of pure
alcohol and spilled three fingers into a glass before uncapping the beer.

 

 

"Why do you put that in?"

 

 

"I wouldn't be able to make him take the dose of tranquilliser he needs.
This will make him drunk -- he'll get sleepy and perhaps pass out, though
when somebody's in that state it takes an awfully long time and there's
a risk of him getting violent first."

 

 

The beer foamed up to the rim of the glass. He poured the rest of the
bottle into a glass for himself, for appearance's sake.

 

 

"Want some?" he murmured to Urchin. She dipped a finger, tasted, and
grimaced, shaking her head.

 

 

"Paul!" she said, just as he was about to leave the room again. "It was
true, what you said? You're not allowed to . . . to have anything to do
with me? It wasn't because you don't want to?"

 

 

"Oh, Christ," Paul muttered. "How can you think I wouldn't want to?"

 

 

She gave him a sad smile and reached up and touched his cheek so lightly
he could barely feel her fingers.

 

 

 

 

Maurice had been on a lightning tour of the living-room; half a dozen
books were out of their shelves and open, the fire-irons had been picked
up for inspection and replaced, and one of the cushions on the settle
had been turned over.

 

 

"Here you are," Paul called to him, and he danced over to accept the glass.

 

 

-- I've never seen him camp around so much before. Maybe he's got over
his guilt problem and is still stuck with the other one.

 

 

Maurice poured the adulterated beer down his throat in a single thirsty
gobble and put out his tongue to lick away the moustache of foam it
bequeathed to him.

 

 

"Ha-hah!" he exclaimed. "None of your London washing-up water, that! Got
a kick to it -- probably made of worn-out horses, hm? This country stuff!"

 

 

"Another?" Paul said.

 

 

-- If he puts three or four of those away on the trot . . .

 

 

"I'll get it," Urchin offered, holding out her hand for the empty glass.

 

 

"Another of the same," Paul emphasised, and she gave him a conspiratorial
nod.

 

 

"Poof!" Maurice perched on the arm of the settle, found it uncomfortable,
and leapt to his feet again. "Well, I have lots and lots of news for you,
Paul old pal -- Palpaul, Paulpal, marvellous place you've got here,
must be earning a bloody fortune unless it was Iris's old man who
facilitated the purchase. Dead now, I hear, is that right? Anyhow, it
would be absolutely ideal for what I have in mind that you simply must
do, it'll make you far more than you can possibly get from this horrible
job you're doing now, you've got to open a special adjustment clinic --
that's what it'll be called, SAC, strategic application of cunt, do you
like that? I thought of it myself, because you see the point is that
people like you and me, this must have been the reason for the breakdown
between you and Iris, never have the good fortune to establish the right
set of reflexes" -- a tear began to creep down his plump cheek, but the
flow of words went on unbroken, so that Paul could not tell where he
was pausing to draw breath.

 

 

"Got to expose the poor devils to lots of female influence from the
very earliest possible age, you see there's nowhere a kid can go with
his sister for example and because to the layman it'll look like a sort
of respectable brothel you're bound to get lots of wealthy customers
who will pay for the privilege of being a voluntary patient and this
will help to undermine the social stigma of being in a mental home and
also it'll set up these reflexes I'm talking about with all kinds of
reinforcements, pin-ups of girls with big wobbling titties all over
the walls and a trained staff recruited from this place in Mysore that
my friend was telling me about and anywhere else you can hire them and
then maybe there won't be this sort of problem for you and me, you'll
really want and be happy with an uddery cow like Iris instead of having
to hunt for the little boyish types like the virgin sturgeon Urchin here!"

 

 

He thrust out his arm in a dramatic gesture and Urchin stepped back,
her face taut with suspicion.

 

 

"It'll be the millennium I don't know why they haven't done this in Sweden
already or maybe they have but you see someone will have to introduce the
idea to this country and maybe you could have some boys here too sent by
their parents who are getting worried and want them to grow up the way
society thinks is right and hetero and the rest of it and nobody would
know if you sort of borrowed them for the really recalcitrant cases and
is that my beer
thank
you -- "

 

 

It went down his throat exactly as the first had done, non-stop.

 

 

"Paul you've got to do it you've got to help me to be normal it's driving
me crazy can't you help me start teaching me with this one here it's so
like a lovely slim boy I -- "

 

 

He made a lurching grab for Urchin, the glass crashed to the floor in
fragments, and in the next second, after what seemed to Paul's dazed
understanding no more than a gesture from the girl, he had measured his
length on the floor.

 

 

"Oh my God," Paul said emptily.

 

 

"Paul!" She sounded frightened. "I -- "

 

 

"Shut up," he forced out, and went down on one knee beside Maurice.
"What did you do?"

 

 

"I -- I . . ." An enormous, struggling swallow. "To stop him, that's all."

 

 

-- For good?

 

 

The thought chilled him against the beat of the evening air. His hands
sought a pulse and found it, but whatever blow she had used had rendered
Maurice completely unconscious -- not temporarily, like a boxing knock-out,
but for heaven alone could tell how long.

 

 

He rose, his eyes on her child-small face, frightened despite himself of
the power that she concealed. Hardly taking his attention from her except
to check nothing was in his path, he crossed the room to the telephone,
dialed the number of Chent.

 

 

In a moment, Ferdie Silva answered.

 

 

"Ferdie, Paul Fidler here. I'm at home. Send me an ambulance. Emergency
admission. A former patient of mine in London called Maurice Dawkins,
who turned up here this evening in an extreme manic phase . . . No, he's
-- he's passed out. I had to give him some spiked beer, and it's worked
a treat . . . Yes, I have Urchin here. I'll be bringing her back shortly."

 

 

He cradled the phone, face a mask of despair.

 

 

-- But after this, there's nothing else I can do. Maybe the lie about the
spiked beer knocking him out won't hold up; I'll solve that problem when
it hits me in the eye. We can probably get him sent to London tomorrow,
back to his own psychiatrist, before he has a chance to talk to anyone
too freely. I'll make sure Ferdie doesn't overlook his homosexuality,
plant the idea that anything he says about Urchin is probably a fantasy
bred from sexual jealousy, deny everything . . .

 

 

He visualised a confrontation with Holinshed and beyond the mere image
of the medical superintendent's face could not imagine the results.

 

 

"Paul!"

 

 

Almost weeping, Urchin had stumbled over to where he stood by the phone.

 

 

"Paul, I'm sorry, but I was so afraid of him! I have spent all these
months among crazy people, and it has made me frightened of everything
they do!"

 

 

"It's all right," he said in a dull voice. "Not your fault. Maybe it'll
even turn out for the best."

 

 

She pressed close to him, head buried against his chest. By reflex he
raised his left arm and patted her hair, mind elsewhere. She moved to
bring her cheek under the mechanical rhythm of his fingers.

 

 

Abruptly, without warning, she dragged up the skimpy skirt of her new
yellow dress around her waist, seized his right hand and clamped it with
the full force of her convulsing muscles between her thighs. Bewildered,
he stared at her without being able to decide he must pull free, saw
how her eyes were closed, her mouth open and trembling to the pulse-like
gasps of her breathing.

 

 

The solitary impression that dominated his thoughts was the sandpaper
roughness of her pubic tuft as she rode astride his hand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*38*

 

 

Paul sat in the staff sitting-room, drawing ragged puffs from the latest
of several cigarettes. Ferdie Silva hadn't even invited him to assist
with the examination of Maurice; for once, moreover, he had displayed
tact worthy of Mirza and refrained from commenting on Paul's agitated
condition.

 

 

After her sudden outburst of uncontrolled sexual frenzy, Urchin had
kissed him on his cold closed lips and gone meekly upstairs, to remain
out of sight until the ambulance had collected Maurice. Thereupon she had
rematerialised, fully clad, carrying the bundle of hospital clothing she
had for some reason brought in with her from the car on their arrival.
Now she was securely back in the female ward.

 

 

-- Where they are doubtless gossiping about the fiddler taking his bitch
out. To hell with them.

 

 

More elaborate thoughts than these fits of resentment were beyond him
at the moment. His entire body was absorbed in a sense of diffused lust,
more violent than any he had experienced since adolescence. As though his
skin had acquired an independent capacity for memory, his hand reported
over and over the rasping touch of Urchin's body-hair.

 

 

Through the screen of imagined tactile sensation, only one other coherent
image could gain access to his consciousness: a pattern like a chain
of nerves forking and forking until it climaxed at one of its terminal
branches in the beautiful impossible country of Llanraw.

 

 

The door opened. Startled, he almost dropped the butt of his cigarette.
Ferdie Silva nodded to him and plumped into a chair opposite.

 

 

"Everything all right?" Paul croaked.

 

 

"He has a bruise on his chest," Ferdie said. "Directly over his heart.
Are you sure it was the drink you gave him which knocked him out?"

 

 

"I thought it was," Paul parried. "I had some absolute alcohol in the
medicine cabinet at home, and he had about half the bottle."

 

 

"You didn't hit him," Ferdie persisted, the words flat, not even
constituting a question.

 

 

-- The damaged car!

 

 

"I know how that must have happened," Paul exclaimed. "He turned up in
a hired car and said something about having crashed into a Mini on the
way from London. He might have banged himself in the collision."

 

 

"Funny." Ferdie's eyes were focused just past Paul's head, on the wall
at his back. "He said he didn't even feel the bang when the other car
hit his."

 

 

"Is he talking? Didn't you sedate him?" Paul almost jumped out of
his chair.

 

 

"He came to while I was examining him," Ferdie said. "I didn't want to
give him anything before I was sure he was okay physically. But I've
given him a jab now and he's gone to sleep like a baby."

 

 

Paul subsided. "Did he . . . uh . . . talk a lot when he came around?"
he ventured.

 

 

"Not much. But he did say one thing which rather worries me."

 

 

"What?"

 

 

-- The make or break question.

 

 

"To be frank, he claims he walked in on you and Urchin making love.
I'm sorry, Paul, but I think you ought to be warned."

 

 

"Warned!" Paul gave the most convincing laugh be could manage. "Thanks
very much, but it's no great surprise. The poor guy is as queer as a coot,
and he's had this fixation on me for years. You can't take him seriously,
for goodness' sake."

 

 

"I wouldn't think of doing so. It's unfortunate, though, that it had to be
now rather than any other time he chose to come and pester you."
Ferdie paused. "Was Urchin any trouble, by the way?"

 

 

"No, she responded very well to being taken out. I haven't seen her so
relaxed since her arrival."