Stealing Sacred Fire (14 page)

He stood up and took off his
white coat. What was it that nagged at his mind? What morsel of
information had he mislaid? Before he left for the day, he was
driven to roll up the window blinds. Sunlight splashed into his
consulting room, an August invasion. When he turned away from the
window, the room seemed too bright, everything held in a caul of
radiance that weirdly immobilised it. Pieces of furniture had taken
on a sinister stillness, as if they might move of their own accord
once he’d left the room. He shivered in the warm air. Perhaps a
summer chill was presaged.

When he opened the door to
leave, his name on the door-plate seemed the name of a stranger.
Cameron Murchison. He felt it did not belong to him. He was not
usually prone to such fancies.

He drove in his car through the
city heat to the suburb where his lonely house was situated. Along
the sides of the roads, the tamed gardens were parched, and melting
hose-pipes lay useless upon sticky drive-ways; their use was
temporarily banned. His long, elderly car rolled quietly up the
short avenue where he lived, to the tall narrow house at the end,
hidden behind a screen of yews trained into a hedge.

He had a housekeeper, Mrs
Melrose, who came in every morning to attend to the slight disorder
his presence in the house created. The only times he saw this woman
was on the weekends, when she cooked his breakfast also, and sat
opposite him at the wide kitchen table to talk about the
newspapers, which came through the door in a roll.

This evening, Murchison would
have welcomed the company of the housekeeper. He felt odd. Driving
home, he thought he had seen a star high up in the bleached,
daytime sky. It must have been the sun reflecting off a plane.

The house was utterly silent.
Not even the tick of a clock broke through it. As he went into the
spacious, airy kitchen, the refrigerator began to hum, which made
him jump. Mrs Melrose had left him a note on the table. He picked
it up and stared at it, but was unable to decipher the words, as if
they’d been written in a language he did not know.

An evening meal of select cured
meats and crisp pale salad had been left for him in the fridge. He
found it by accident looking for the milk; presumably this was what
the housekeeper’s note had been about. She didn’t leave him a meal
habitually, only when she had something she wished to use up; then
she’d bring it with her from home.

Murchison sat in the silent
kitchen and ate the meal. It seemed delicate, the food of a
rarefied being, its subtle flavours exploding on his tongue. It
needed wine to complement it; a light, sand-dry vintage. He drank
some fresh orange juice instead.

Something was happening to him.
Would madness feel like this? His life was mostly without textures;
its greatest highs being the enjoyment of good food and wine. He
never went out socially, and listened to music only at home on his
hi-fi system, which had cost thousands of pounds. Films did not
interest him, particularly, and he liked only books on archaeology.
He had an arrangement with a local antique dealer who made polite
phone calls on the occasions when merchandise came into his hands
that he thought Murchison might appreciate. He owned many artefacts
dug up from far sands that were arranged in a glass-fronted cabinet
in his study. Sometimes, he would stare at them for hours,
searching for a memory that never came back to him.

His life comprised small,
precise pleasures. Most people liked him, for he was quiet and
gentle, but he did not yearn for their company. His ironic smile,
springing auburn hair and attenuated good looks pleased women, yet
he seemed not to notice the messages in their eyes. Several of his
patients had fallen in love with him over the years, but it had
escaped his attention. He liked and respected women, enjoyed his
work, and knew he had a healing touch that often smoothed the path
of a difficult pregnancy. Despite this, he never wanted lovers, and
felt, for the most part, asexual. Perhaps that was what his
patients liked in him. Yet sometimes, a woman might come to him who
gave off an invisible aura that felt to him like a fierce, open
wound. These women he knew he could not help, and usually they did
not take to him and even distrusted his opinions. It did not
necessarily mean they would have trouble with their pregnancies. He
did not know what it might mean.

As the sun sank, Murchison went
into his music room and slid a Mozart CD into the hi-fi. The music
did not please him; in fact, he felt quite irritated by it.
Silencing the equipment, he pulled a book from one of his tall
book-cases. It fell open in his hands and the long face of the
pharaoh Akhenaten, captured in stone, stared back at him. A strange
coldness filled his belly; it seemed as if his heart had slowed.
What significance was there in this? He had seen the picture a
hundred times before, yet now he felt that if he only gave himself
up to the sensation squirming in his body, he would be transported
back in time and the statue would be rough stone beneath his
fingers. It might even speak. A thick, pungent aroma as of church
incense tantalised his nose. He heard the distant ringing of bells.
It was all coming up to him, out of the book.

Murchison slammed the pages
shut and pushed the book hastily back onto the shelf. There was no
temple scent in the house, no haunting chime.

He went to the drinks trolley
and poured himself a large Scotch. Normally, he drank only in
moderation as all his liquors were obscenely expensive and wanted
only to be enjoyed in small sips. Murchison drained the glass,
blinking water from his eyes conjured by the fiery trail in his
throat. Then he poured another. He was shaking. He felt ill.

Upstairs, things were no
better. He felt watched in his bedroom and closed and opened the
curtains several times, unsure of whether he felt safer with the
world let in or shut out.

He knew there were dreams
waiting for him, and could even feel their shadowy presences
rustling in the corners of the room, among his clothes in the
wardrobe, beneath the bed. He was afraid, yet also resigned.
Something was going to be shown to him, something which had been
approaching him all day, from a great distance. He could feel it
drawing nearer. It might be terrible.

But how could he sleep? His
mind raced, juggling myriad random thoughts. He closed his eyes and
listened to the drumming in his breast. It was tribal, a
summoning.

In his dream, he owned a great
house that spread out around him like a great, sleeping monster. It
was full of secrets and darkness, and unexpected splashes of
colour. This was his real life. He sat in a study far larger than
the one to which he was accustomed, though in many respects they
were similar; antique curios littered every surface and he knew
that books on ancient lands were crammed onto the floor to ceiling
shelves that lined the room. This house was filled with his family,
who spanned many generations. He had a gracious aloof wife, who
ruled the domain. He had sons and daughters; aristocratic creatures
who obeyed his word and the will of their mother. Below the house,
was a vast labyrinth of work-rooms. He knew that in this place, he
performed medical procedures; it was a link with the life that he
knew. But who was he at the moment?

In the dream, he rose from his
desk and turned round, gazed up into a massive stained glass window
depicting a giant peacock. Was he awake now?

A voice spoke to him. ‘Go back
to the ancient domain. It is time.’

When he turned round, the room
was empty. Really empty. The furnishings had vanished, leaving only
an echoing shell.

Cameron Murchison woke up
abruptly, a short gasp expelled from his lungs. He stared into the
blue darkness, blinking. The dream had been so vivid. He had felt
more comfortable in it than he did in waking life. In the dream, he
had a full history and each detail was available to his memory. He
felt that if he could only go back there, he’d learn a lot about
Cameron Murchison.

I am always waiting for
something, he thought, kept on hold: but for what? What is it that
I have forgotten?

Memories of his past were hazy.
Only dimly could he recall the training he had undertaken at
university, and the faces of his parents, long dead, were simply
blurs. He did not know if this was the same for other people,
because he had never discussed it with anybody. His life, for the
past twenty-five years or so had been filled only with work. He had
lived here in this house all that time, but could not remember
moving into it, or where he had lived before.

For the first time in
twenty-five years, Cameron Murchison considered the possibility
that something had happened to him in the past, something that his
mind had blotted out completely. A strange feeling of anger filled
his heart. Someone should be blamed for this, but who?

He lay awake until morning
light filled the room, then got up. Something was very wrong. He
had never felt this way before, as if the foundations of his life
were moving beneath his feet, about to open up and reveal a
startling abyss of buried truth. He was afraid and nervous, but
also weirdly excited.

When he looked in the mirror in
the bathroom, it seemed to him as if another face was hiding
beneath his own: not different in feature, but in expression. It
was the face he should have. Lines scored his face, but he no
longer felt they belonged there. They had been imposed on him. He
straightened up, a toothbrush in his hand.

They have aged me, he thought,
and through that have sentenced me to an early death. He didn’t
know why he should think that. The thought was unreasonable,
crazed.

Mrs Melrose arrived at half
past nine, letting herself in the front door and calling,
‘Hello-ee!’

Murchison was waiting for her
in the kitchen, unfamiliar in his posture, pacing around the table,
tapping it with his fingers. The housekeeper paused in the doorway,
surprise on her face.

‘Is something wrong, Mr
Murchison?’ An understatement. Something was clearly wrong.

He paused in his table circuit.
‘Tell me, Mrs Melrose, how much do you remember of your
childhood?’

She raised her eyebrows.
‘Excuse me?’

‘Can you remember details;
times, dates, faces? This is a serious question. Please answer
me.’

She folded her arms, thought
about it. ‘Well, some things, yes. Why, Mr Murchison?’

‘Would you consider it strange
if a person had barely any recollection of their formative
years?’

She laughed uneasily. ‘You’re
the doctor. Surely you’re more qualified to answer that!’

He turned away from her to gaze
out of the window. He could not open up to this woman; their
relationship was not that kind. She would think him mad, and he was
sure any hysterical confidences from him would be unwelcome. He
should not have spoken at all, but Mrs Melrose was the nearest he
had to a friend.

‘It’s clear,’ she said.

‘What is?’ He still did not
face her.

‘You must go back to the
ancient domain. It is time.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ He turned
round quickly. Her face was blank.

‘I didn’t say anything.’

‘You did... you said...’

She frowned, shook her head.
‘Look, are you sure you’re all right, Mr Murchison. You don’t seem
yourself today.’

He pressed fingers against his
brow. ‘No, perhaps it’s a touch of summer flu.’

‘Then go back to bed,’ Mrs
Melrose said, coming forward. This was safe territory.

‘Well... I...’

‘Go on. I’ll bring you a tray.’
She put her hands on his arm and pushed him towards the door. ‘My,
you feel hot! I’ll get you some aspirin, too.’

He could not rest. He did not
want to get back into his bed. Sleep? Impossible. Mrs Melrose
appraised him as he meekly took the aspirins she had brought for
him. He did not like the intensity of her stare.

‘Mr Murchison...’ A pause.
‘Have you any family I could call, perhaps?’

He laughed bleakly, handed back
to her a glass of water. ‘I look that bad, then?’

She looked uncomfortable.
‘Well... It’s more than just a chill, isn’t it?’

He frowned up at her. There was
something in her tone — a covered nervousness. ‘What do you mean
exactly?’

She went to his bedside table,
put down the glass and tidied the already-neat pile of medical
journals that constituted his rare bed-time reading. ‘It’s just
that I couldn’t help noticing...’

‘What?’ Was she afraid of
him?

‘Your study. As I walked past.
The strange mess it’s in.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’
He stood up. ‘What mess?’

Mrs Melrose cowered away, her
hand reaching behind her for the door handle. ‘I know it’s none of
my business....’

Murchison jumped up from the
bed and strode towards the door, his house-keeper flinching away.
He heard her voice calling after him as he ran down the stairs. His
feet seemed hardly to touch the carpet. It was like flying.

In the doorway to the study, he
came to a staggering halt. Someone had been in there. Desecration.
Vandalism.

All the furniture had been
pushed to the sides of the room. The cases that held his precious
artefacts gaped wide, as if they’d been flung open from within. The
shelves were bare. Everything stolen. No.

Murchison’s panicked eyes
swivelled downwards. There, on the carpet, in the middle of the
room, the ancient relics were arranged in a perfect circle: small,
stone heads, fragments of pottery, funerary figures.

Their owner stood trembling in
the doorway. Mrs Melrose crept up behind him, perhaps intent on
sneaking to the front door.

‘I didn’t do this,’ Murchison
said. ‘No matter what you think.’

His voice, now, was calm. Mrs
Melrose stopped behind him. ‘Then who did? Surely, you’d have heard
intruders?’