The Evil Seed (13 page)

‘Look, there’s her bed,’
I cried, the crumpled coverlet in my hands. ‘The pillow she rested on. There’ll
be hair on it. Let me see. Look! The cup she drank from, her flowers!’

‘Come on, old man,’ said
Robert, gently. ‘Don’t take it so badly. Like as not she’s just stepped out for
a walk.’ He patted my shoulder, and I flinched away.

‘She was here a minute
ago, I swear—’

‘Have a drink, there’s a
good chap. Sit down.’ He pushed me gently into one of Mrs Brown’s soft leather
armchairs, pressed a glass of sherry into my hand. My arm jerked violently;
some of the sherry spilled. Patiently, he took the glass from me and refilled
it. I drank, shuddered, drained the glass and closed my eyes. I have no way of
explaining the power Rosemary had managed to gain over me, nor the despair
which played in me, like the monotonous whirring of a toy train in a child’s
spinning-top. She was gone, she was gone, she was gone, she was gone …
Fragments of poetry entered my brain like flying glass, images like pieces of a
torn canvas, tantalizing … the curve of a collar-bone here, the light on her
hair, the turn of her mouth … I tried to get up from my chair, slipped. The
world tilted.

‘Daniel!’ Robert’s voice
was sharp. ‘Are you all right? Hey, Danny! Danny!’

A tremor in the earth as
I fell.

Spangled darkness all
around.

A voice, light as an
aspen leaf, crystallizing in ether:

‘Is anything wrong?’

A brief glimpse of a
figure standing in the doorway, head and shoulders etched in copper.

‘Where’s Daniel? Who are
you?’ A voice made shrill by controlled hysteria.

Robert’s voice, ‘So you’re
Rosemary.’

Then, in the darkness, a
vision of wheels. Turning.

Two

JOE’S BAND WERE ON THE STAGE SETTING UP.
JOE WAVED and grinned at Alice as she came in, then returned to the business in
hand, oddly competent in his chosen element, positioning speakers and amps and
coiling cables with speed and economy of movement. Ginny was not yet there.

Alice made her way to
the bar and ordered a drink, seating herself at a table by the side of the stage,
where she would be able to see and hear everything. Little by little, the room
began to fill up with all the variegated night-lifers of Cambridge, rubbing
together in neon and shadow. Alice stood up and looked around; Ginny was still
not there.

The first band played,
and the crowd settled down to listen, some talking quite softly amongst
themselves as they stood at the bar, most of them drifting to the music.
Somebody near the back lit a couple of joints, and soon the room was permeated
by the scent. Alice ordered another drink as the group left and Joe’s band took
their place; she even took a stroll around the hall to see if she could find
Ginny, but without success. She had just returned to her place by the stage
when Ginny appeared — a slight, hesitant figure in a pale dress — and Alice
beckoned to her to come and sit with her. The girl acknowledged her gesture
with a nod, but made no movement to come across.

The lights dimmed, and
the band went into the introduction to a slow, traditional song Alice knew
well; it was a favourite of Joe’s, ‘The Dalesman’s Litany’. Joe had come to the
front to sing, his bass around his neck, a single spotlight on his face. His
voice was stronger than Alice remembered it, the northern accent still in
evidence, but more mellow. She liked the change.

It’s
hard when folks can’t find their work

Where they’ve
been bred and born
…

She reached the back of
the hall, where a few latecomers were standing, holding cans. She scanned the
darkness for Ginny. The spotlight was off now, the quiet mood of the music
highlighted by soft green and blue filters which lit the faces of the audience
with a drowned underwater glow.

When
I was young I always thought

I’d bide ‘midst
roots and corn
…

Ginny was waiting at the
other side of the crowd; Alice could see her drowned-girl’s face, the livid
dress, her hair black in the stage lights, eyes supernaturally huge.

But
I’ve been forced to work in town

And here’s my
litany
…

For an instant Ginny
looked at her; and perhaps it was the light, but it seemed to Alice that her
tragic mouth curled in a rictus of such complex malevolence that it
transfigured her entirely, illuminating her from within with a ghastly
radiance, like radioactivity.

From
Hull and Halifax and hell

Good Lord deliver
me
…

Then the expression was
gone, and there was only Ginny, with her air of blank and almost simpleminded
sweetness as she watched the stage. But whatever Alice had seen or imagined, it
was enough to kill any desire to be near her; she lingered at the fringes of
the audience, still holding her drink, and was it her imagination again, or had
the atmosphere suddenly changed? Had that group of people standing by the door
been there all the time? Had there been that subtle charge trembling at the
edges of the hall?

The band had gone into a
solo instrumental, the violin stretching, almost unbearably, through the registers,
groaning and shrieking. It was too much for Alice. She felt stifled, drowning,
spread-eagled in the cross-currents coming from the crowd and the stage.
Instinctively, she began to move towards the door, where there was some room to
breathe and to stand away from the audience. A few others must have had the
same idea, for there was a little group of people watching the stage from the
doorway: a girl with hair almost to her knees, outlined in neon from the EXIT
sign, a youth with dyed red hair and a bird tattoo on his face, a blonde girl,
her head laid confidingly on the red-haired lad’s shoulder, a man in a dark
greatcoat, face in shadow.

Alice felt the hairs on
her bare arms rise. The stance was familiar, arrogant and relaxed … so were
the lights reflected from the metal tip of a motorcycle boot.

So what? she thought,
half angrily, taking another step towards the door. There were dozens of men
who looked like that. There was no reason to be so sure that it was Ginny’s
friend of the night before. No reason to remember her dream, to suddenly feel
the sting of sweat under her arms, in her throat. Another step … and suddenly
their eyes were upon her, and the blonde lifted her head from the shoulder of
her red-haired companion. But it wasn’t a girl. It was a young boy, spectrally
fair, beautiful, disturbing. The redhead grinned at Alice, showing a gold
tooth, beckoned … and Alice suddenly knew without doubt that behind their
beauty was something corrupt. She pulled away, rejoined the crowd, and tried to
concentrate on the music. But the spell was broken. Only the watchers behind
her remained, thrilling the nape of her neck. The spectators around her seemed
restless too, like a herd which scents the predator.

She glanced to her left
and saw Ginny, closer now, almost by the door. As she watched, the group closed
around her, protectively. Ginny lit a cigarette; the sweet smell of cannabis
reached Alice across the hall over the hot reek of sweat and lager.

A voice behind her,
raised angrily. A ripple ran through the audience, a shiver, like anticipation.
She turned, saw an older man approach the little group of watchers at the door.
She could not hear what he was saying, but saw his face, briefly, swollen with
anger. He did not look strong, not beautiful with the beauty of these strange
savage ones; he was balding, hiding the fact beneath a leather hat, long wispy
hair trailing out from the back. To Alice he looked oddly vulnerable,
half-drowned in the lights and his desperate rage. She heard no words, but saw
the tall man smile, speak. Ginny stared, blankly. The man gestured wildly,
turned, was engulfed into the crowd. Alice did not see the fight break out, but
she saw the repercussions. First, a depression in the rising tide of people; a
dimple of bowed heads. It exploded outwards, ripples moving towards the
outside. Someone fell. The music faltered but did not stop; a woman screamed,
the sound a flight of birds in the dark. A voice from the stage, its message through
the PA lost in a squeal of feedback. She looked to the door; they were still
there, untouchable, blank, but she could feel the power coming from them, the
attraction and the amusement. She moved towards them, irresistibly, the crowd
already beginning to push at her back. She saw a man fall in the crowd, shockingly
close, saw another strike out, almost aimlessly, at a woman, who stumbled into
the wall. The music stopped. Some instrument began to feed back on a high,
unbearable frequency.

As if at a signal, the
voice of the crowd was raised, ululating in a toneless music of its own. As
Alice reached the door someone screamed. Someone threw a full glass at the
stage. The glass exploded under the lights like fireworks. Someone shoved her
hard in the small of the back and she was sent flying uncontrollably towards
the man at the door. She felt his arms around her, holding her upright against
the crowd’s undertow. He whispered something in her ear, something low and
intimate. He smelt sweet, almost sugary, like candy-floss. His hands were cold,
his breath cool against her face. For an interminable second, Alice was
absurdly convinced that he was going to kiss her, and that in that moment she
would die, but the knowledge was something abstract, someone else’s voice heard
from under water. She was aware that she was about to pass out and tried to
speak, but could not form words. She tilted helplessly into the rushing
silence.

It was only a minute later,
when she was safely outside, stretched out on the damp grass, looking up into
the concerned face of a medic, that she remembered what the man had whispered
in her ear.

The word was
chosen.

One

I WAS ILL WITH FEVER FOR A LONG TIME; LONG
ENOUGH for Rosemary to do her work, and more. For near to a fortnight I was
ravaged by fever and by dreams of such potency that they left me gasping for a
breath of reality, and while I raved and sweated out my fever I betrayed my
friend Robert for the first time, leaving him alone with Rosemary. When I
recovered it was too late.

My first inkling of it
was when Mrs Brown came to give me my broth. I remembered her doing so at
intervals during my illness, but in my mind she became confused with many
people, and I had not yet been able to speak lucidly to her. But that day, I
was feeling weak but clear-headed, and my first thought was of Rosemary.

‘Where is she?’ I asked
Mrs Brown, between two mouthfuls of broth. ‘Is she all right? She hasn’t been
ill?’

‘Now, now,’ scolded Mrs
Brown. ‘Plenty of time for that later, my lad.’

‘Please!’ I begged. ‘Is
she still here? You didn’t send her away?’

‘Mr Robert’s found her
somewhere to live, so don’t you fret,’ answered Mrs Brown.

That was the moment when
I began to suspect what had gone on in those two weeks. But she would tell me
nothing; all she cared about was to see me well again; as for the rest, that
could wait until I was better prepared for it.

Robert did not come to
see me; I assumed that Mrs Brown had told him that I must not be disturbed, and
did not worry, but I missed Rosemary desperately, and I was anxious that she
might attract criticism from Robert for her unwitting part in my illness. And
so I continued to fret until the day the doctor told me I could leave my bed,
and then I dressed, ignoring all protests from Mrs Brown that
it
was
raining, that I was still not well; with my battered hat on my head and a
crumpled woollen cravat around my sore throat I went off in search of my
friend. He was not in his usual place; not in any of his usual places, and his
lodging was shut. I tried all the coffee-shops, all the bars; I tried his
tutors, who told me that they had not seen him for nearly a fortnight, and at
last, I began to suspect that there was something wrong. Not that my suspicions
were anywhere near the truth, but as I dragged my weariness and my anxiety
through the drizzle and the greyness of the unchanging Cambridge streets I
began to feel a sense of foreboding.

The mirage of Rosemary
followed me everywhere; it was she I saw when a girl in a yellow scarf pushed
past me through a gateway, she I saw sheltering under a bridge, she the face
looking through a streaming window. And then, I really saw her. Walking with
Robert down King’s Parade. Robert had his arm on hers, and was holding his
umbrella over her, looking down at her so that I could see his profile; a smile
on his aquiline countenance. She was wearing a raincoat several sizes too big,
the large cuffs turned over her small hands, her hair tucked into the side of
the collar so that I could see the white nape of her neck. I called, but the
rain snatched away my words. I ran towards the two of them, splashing clumsily
through the puddles, then I stopped. Rosemary turned towards Robert, her hands
on the lapels of his coat. Then he kissed her, lightly, with the intimacy of
long acquaintance. I froze, then he kissed her again, his arms tight around
her, the umbrella slipping from his hand.

The world slipped with
it.

I was close enough now
to see the drops fall on to Rosemary’s raincoat. I stood there, speechless. Oh,
Rosemary.

And then she turned, and
looked right at me. I’m sure she did; she looked at me, and for a moment her
eyes held me, the colour of rain
…
and I read humour there, and a cold
contempt, and something like triumph. Oh, she knew, she knew all right; she
knew I was watching, and all my thoughts and jealousies, all my life, she saw
without pity and dismissed. She had Robert, and she had me, and knowing that,
she turned away with him into the Cambridge rain, taking my innocence with her.