Tim Lebbon - Fears Unnamed (20 page)

The conversation dried for a moment, and Adam stood there breathing into the mouthpiece, not knowing what to say, hearing Philip Howards doing the same. They were like two duelling lovers who had lost the words to fight, but who were unwilling to relinquish the argument.

“What do you know about them?” Adam said at last. Alison sat up straight in her chair and stared at him. He averted his eyes. He could not talk to this man and face her accusing gaze, not at the same time.
What haven’t you told me
, her stare said.

The man held his breath. Then, very quietly: “I was right.”

“What do you know?”

“Can we meet? Somewhere close to where you live, soon?”

Adam turned to Alison and smiled, trying to reassure her that everything was all right. “Tomorrow,” he said.

Howards agreed, they arranged where and when, and the strangest phone call of Adam’s life ended.

“What was that?” Alison asked.

He did not know what to say. What could he say? Could he honestly try to explain? Tell Alison that her mother had been right in what she’d told Jamie, that angels really had caught and saved him?

Angels, demons, fairies… gods.

“Someone who wants to talk to me,” he said.

“About angels?”

Adam nodded.

Alison stared at him. He could see that she was brimming with questions, but her lips pressed together and she narrowed her eyes. She was desperately trying not to ask any more, because she could tell Adam had nothing to say. He loved her for that. He felt a lump in his throat as he stooped down, put his arms around her shoulders and nuzzled her neck.

“It’s all right,” he said. Whether she agreed or not, she loved him enough to stay silent. “And besides,” he continued, “you and Jamie are coming too.”

He never could keep a secret from Alison.

Later that night, after they had made love and his wife drifted into a comfortable slumber with her head resting on his shoulder, Adam had the sudden urge to paint. This had happened to him before but many years ago, an undeniable compulsion to get up in the middle of the night and apply brush to canvas. Then, it had resulted in his best work. Now, it just felt right. He eased his arm out from beneath Alison, dressed quickly and quietly and left the room. On the way along the landing he looked in on Jamie for inspiration, and then he carried on downstairs and set up his equipment. They had a small house—certainly no room for a dedicated studio, even if he was as serious about his art now as he had been years ago—so the dining room doubled as his work room when the urge took him.

He began to paint without even knowing what he was going to do.

By morning, he knew that they had lost their dining room for a long, long time.

“You’re a very lucky man,” Philip Howards said. He was sitting opposite Adam, staring over his shoulder at where Alison was perusing the menu board, Jamie wriggling in her arms.

Adam nodded. “I know.”

Howards look at him intently, staring until Adam had to avert his gaze. Shit, the old guy was a spook and a half! Fine clothes, gold weighing down his fingers, a healthy tan, the look of a traveled man about him. His manner also gave this impression, a sort of weary calmness that came with wide and long experience, and displayed a wealth of knowledge. He said he was seventy, but he looked fifty.

“You really are. The angels, they told you that didn’t they?”

Adam could not look at him.

“The angels. Maybe you thought they were fairies or demons. But with them, it’s all the same thing really. How did you get those scars on your cheek?”

Adam glanced up at him. “You know how or you wouldn’t have asked.”

Howards raised his head to look through the glasses balanced on the tip of his nose. He was inspecting Adam’s face. “You doubted them for a while.”

Adam did not nod, did not reply. To answer this man’s queries—however calmly they were being put to him—would be to admit to something unreal. They were dreams, that was all, he was sure. Two men could share the same dreams, couldn’t they?

“Well, I did the same. I got this for my troubles.” He pulled his collar aside to display a knotted lump of scar tissue below his left ear. “One of them bit me.”

Adam looked down at his hands in his lap. Alison came back with Jamie, put her hands on his shoulders and whispered into his ear. “Jamie would prefer a burger. We’re not used to jazzy places like this. I’ll take him to McDonald’s—”

“No, stay here with me.”

She kissed his ear. “No arguing. I think you want to be alone anyway, yes? I can tell. And later,
you
can tell. Tell me what all this is about.”

Adam stood and hugged his wife, ruffled Jamie’s hair. “I will,” he said. He squatted down and gave his son a bear hug. “You be a good boy for Mummy.”

“Gut boy.”

“That’s right. You look after her. Make sure she doesn’t spend too much money!”

“Goodbye, Mr. Howards,” Alison said.

Howards stood and shook her hand. “Charmed.” He looked sadly at Jamie and sat back down.

Alison and Jamie left. Adam ordered a glass of wine. Howards, he knew, was not taking his eyes from him for a second.

“You’ll lose them,” he said.

“What?”

Howards nodded at the door, where Alison and Jamie had just disappeared past the front window. “You’ll lose them. It’s part of the curse. You do well, everyone and everything else goes.”

“Don’t you talk about my family like that! I don’t even know you. Are you threatening me?” He shook his head when the old man did not answer. “I should have fucking known. You’re a crank. All this bullshit about angels, you’re trying to confuse me. I’m still not totally settled, I was in a disaster, you’re trying to confuse me, get money out of me—”

“I have eight million pounds in several bank accounts,” Howards said. “More than I can ever spend… and the angels call themselves Amaranth.”

Adam could only stare open-mouthed. Crank or no crank, there was no way Howards could know that. He had told no one, he had never mentioned it. He had not even hinted at the strange visions he experienced as he waited to die in the sea.

“I’ll make it brief,” Howards said, stirring his glass of red wine with a finely manicured finger. “And then, when you believe me, I want you to do something for me.”

“I don’t know—”

“I was on holiday in Cairo with my wife and two children. This was back in ‘59. Alex was seven. Sarah was nine. There was a fire in the hotel and our room was engulfed. Alex… Alex died. Sarah and my wife fled. I could not leave Alex’s body, not in the flames, not in all the heat. It just wasn’t right. So I stayed there with him, fully expecting rescue. It was only as I was blinded by heat and the smoke filled my lungs that I knew no rescue was going to come.”

“Then something fell across me—something clear and solid, heavy and warm—and protected me from the flames. It took the smoke from inside me… I can’t explain, I’ve never been able to, not even to myself. It just sucked it out, but without touching me.”

“Then I was somewhere else, and Amaranth was there, and they told me what a lucky man I was.”

Adam shook his head. “No, I’m not hearing this. You know about me, I’ve talked in my sleep or… or…”

“Believe me, I’ve never been to bed with you.” There was no humor in Howards’s comment.

How could he know? He could not. Unless…

“Amaranth saved you?”

Howards nodded.

“From the fire?”

“Yes.”

“And they took you… they took you to their place?”

“The streets of Paris and then a small Cornish fishing village. Both filled with people of good fortune.”

Adam shook his head again, glad at last that there was something he could deny in this old man’s story. “No, no, it was London and Italy and then America somewhere, New York I’ve always thought.”

Howards nodded. “Different places for different people. Never knew why, but I suppose that’s just logical really. So where were the damned when you were there?”

“The damned…” Adam said quietly. He knew exactly what Howards meant, but he did not even want to think about it. If the old man had seen the same thing as he, then it was real, and people truly did suffer like that.

“The unlucky, the place… You know what I mean. Please, Adam, be honest with me. You really must if you ever want to understand any of this or help yourself through it. Remember, I’ve been like this for over forty years.”

Adam swirled his wine and stared into its depths, wondering what he could see in there if he concentrated hard. “It was an island,” he said, “in a big lake. Or a sea, I’m not sure, it all seemed to change without moving.”

Howards nodded.

“And they were crucified. And they were burning them.” Adam swallowed his wine in one gulp. “It was horrible.”

“For me it was an old prison,” Howards said, “on the cliffs above the village. They were throwing them from the high walls. There were hundreds of bodies broken on the rocks, and seagulls and seals and crabs were tearing them apart. Some of them were still alive.”

“What does this mean?” Adam said. “I don’t know what to do with this. I don’t know what to tell Alison.”

Howards looked down at his hands where they rested on the table. He twirled his wedding band as he spoke. “I’ve had no family or friends for thirty years,” he said. “I’m unused to dealing with such… intimacies.”

“But you’re one of the lucky ones, like me? Amaranth said so. What happened to your family? What happened to your wife and your daughter Sarah?”

Howards looked up, and for an instant he appeared much older than he had claimed, ancient. It was his eyes, Adam thought. His eyes had seen everything.

“They’re all dead,” Howards said. “And still those things follow me everywhere.”

Adam was stunned into silence. There was chatter around them, the sound of Howards’s rings tapping against his glass as he stirred his wine, the sizzle of hot plates bearing steaks and chicken. He looked at Howards’s down-turned face, trying to see if he was crying. “They follow you?” he gasped.

Howards nodded and took a deep breath, steeling himself. “Always. I see them from time to time, but I’ve known they’re always there for years now. I can feel them… watching me. From the shadows. From hidden corners. From places just out of sight.” His demeanor had changed suddenly, from calm and self-assured to nervous and frightened. His eyes darted left and right like a bird’s, his hands closed around his wine glass and his fingers twisted against each other. Someone opened the kitchen door quickly and he sat up, a dreadful look already on his face.

“Are they here now?” Adam asked. He could not help himself.

Howards shrugged. “I can’t see them. But they’re always somewhere.”

“I’ve not seen them. Not since I dreamed them.”

The old man looked up sharply when Adam said
dreamed
. “We’re their sport. Their game. I can’t think why else they would continue to spy…”

“And your family? Sport?”

Howards smiled slightly, calming down. It was as if casting his mind back decades helped him escape the curse he said he lived under in the present. “You ever heard Newton’s third law of motion? To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

Adam thought of Alison and Jamie, and without any warning he began to cry. He sobbed out loud and buried his face in his napkin, screwing his fingers into it, pressing it hard against his eyes and nose and mouth. He could sense a lessening in the restaurant’s commotion as people turned to look and, soon after, a gradual increase in embarrassed conversation.

“And that’s why I have to ask you something,” Howards said. “I’ve been asking people this for many years now, those few I meet by chance or happen to track down. Amaranth doesn’t disturb me; they must know that no one will agree to what I ask. My asking increases their sport, I suppose. But I continue to try.”

“What?” Adam asked. He remembered the certainty, as he floated in the sea, that Alison was dead. It brought a fresh flow of tears, but these were silent, more heartfelt and considered. He could truly imagine nothing worse—except for Jamie.

“Deny them. Take away their sport. They’ve made you a lucky man, but you can reject that. If you don’t… your family will be gone.”

“Don’t you fucking threaten me!” Adam shouted, standing and throwing down his napkin, confused, terrified. The restaurant fell completely silent this time, and people stared. Some had a look in their eyes—a hungry look—as if they knew they were about to witness violence. Adam looked straight at Howards, never losing eye contact, trying to see the madness in his face. But there was none. There was sorrow mixed with contentment, a deep and weary sadness underlying healthy good fortune. “Why don’t you do it yourself! Why, if it’s such a good idea, don’t
you
deny them!”

“It’s too late for me,” Howards said quietly, glancing around at the other patrons watching him. “They were dead before I knew.”

“Fuck you!” Adam shouted. “You freak!” He turned and stormed out of the restaurant, a hundred sets of eyes scoring his skin. He wondered if any of the diners recognized him from his fifteen minutes of fame.

As the restaurant door slammed behind him and he stepped out into the street, the sun struck his tearful eyes, blinding him for a moment. Across the pedestrian area, sandwiched between a travel agent’s and a baker’s shop, a green door liquefied for a second and then reformed. Its color changed to deep-sea blue.

Before his sight adjusted, Adam saw something clear and solid pass through the door.

“So?” Alison asked.

“Fruitcake.” He slid across the plastic seat and hugged his son to him. Then he leaned over the food-strewn table and planted a kiss squarely on his wife’s mouth. She was unresponsive.

“The angels, then?” She was injecting good cheer into her voice, but she was angry. She wanted answers, and he knew that. He had never been able to lie to his wife. Even white lies turned his face bloodred.

Adam shook his head and sighed, stealing a chip from Jamie’s tray and fending off his son’s tomato-sauce retribution. He looked up, scanned the burger bar, searching for strange faces that he could not explain.